On Amphibious Warfare in BTS

[Belisar]

First, the Privateer, which is a step up from the Caravel because not only can it explore enemy territory; but it can act there to pillage improvements and sink ships without declaring war or even telling the enemy whose ship it is! These should be used ahead of the main fleet to scout out and dismantle enemy sea defences, as they give no warning that you are coming. Give them the Sentry promotions to make them even better scouts

Privateers already start with sentry.

To mobilise men best, if you have no standing army, you need a ‘draft city’ within ten tiles (or twenty if all of your units have more than one move) of a number of cities equal to the number of units you wish to deploy, and a direct rail link to them all.

Railroads give all units a movement of 10 tiles, regardeless if it's an infantry, cavalry or tank.
Units with more than 3 movement (gunships) keep their original road movement (in this case 12, 4x3).

 

[oyzar]

Amphibious warfare is so incredibly strong in mp. Humans doesn't defend their cities like AI and as such you can often catch them off guard by attacking from the sea.

 

[Flying Pig]

Railroads give all units a movement of 10 tiles, regardeless if it's an infantry, cavalry or tank.
Units with more than 3 movement (gunships) keep their original road movement (in this case 12, 4x3).

It's ten tiles per movement point - thus 10*2 = 20 for a tank

 

[Ghpstage]

It's ten tiles per movement point - thus 10*2 = 20 for a tank

No, it is ten for any unit except helis that go 12.

 

[Flying Pig]

Civiliopedia says: costr 1/10 mp to enter from another railroad tile.

 

[Ghpstage]

Civiliopedia says: costr 1/10 mp to enter from another railroad tile.

The civilopedia isn't all correct, try it using WB yourself!

 

[UncleJJ]

I don't see much advantage to conducting amphibious attacks in the ancient, medieval or renaissance periods. The ships are slow moving and low capacity and the enemy is slow to respond. Before frigates there is no way to reduce city defences without landing and this makes the attack expensive as well as unnecessary. So for my amphibious invasions I usually land a stack on a hill or wood next to the city and then bombard its defences before attacking with normal troops. The amphibious promotion is a waste (unless it comes for free) and another promotion is more useful. My reasoning is; if I can't afford to land and take the city due to fear of counter attack then I can't hold that city anyway, so why take it? I don't usually want to raze cities at this stage of the game. The speed advantage of not disembarking / embarking is marginal at this stage of the game since the ships are so slow.

In the industrial and modern age things change, with railways the AI defender can muster a powerful counter attack from a wide area. A massive stack of cannons and artillery can make a mess of many landing forces. Plus frigates or destroyers can now reduce the defences of the city without landing making an amphibious attack more plausible. Once aircraft carriers and destroyers are available then it is possible to use good troops on transports to take cities amphibiously with only the last attacker landing. However, the power of massed fighters on aircraft carriers (and maybe a few guided missiles) reduce the health of the defenders so much that any good attacker can take the city and CR3 rifles, infantry or even tanks are as good as troops with the amphibious promotion So I find only upgraded berserkers or marines have the amphibious promotion in my armies.

 

[oyzar]

@ UncleJJ, the element of surprise make it all worth it, that is against humans who doesn't defend everywhere with way too many units all the time...

 

[Ghpstage]

I had a recent Emperor game where an AGG amphibious axe and sword assault was the only viable way to win a war.
The AI (Julius) had a 5 tile island for Rome, which was also built on a hill and all surrounding tiles were flatland. After war was declared all 7 of his Preats in Rome left and wandered around his island leaving just 1 Archer defending Rome against my 3 swords and 7 axemen....
Swords took the city, axes held off the Praets after it worked perfectly. The next few cities I took had similar issues, units wandering around outside and hardly any defense.

 

[UncleJJ]

oyzar, I don't play MP, never have and never will. My comments only apply to a SP game. However, I take the point about surprise and it is possible in some circumstances to seize a city that is undermanned. An amphibious assault could do that even using galleys.

Ghpstage ... I've never seen anything like that. That might be the exception that proves the rule. Surely you're not arguing that what occured in your game is a common occurence, are you? Which if any of your troops needed amphibious promotions? One or two swordsman at most and how much better would that be than CR2? The rest of your troops would be better taking other promotions.

 

[Flying Pig]

If you play an earth map, ten some of the most profitable (for its area) areas is Japan and attacking that from the air (see my Special Forces article) is difficult and can't be done till late in the game.

 

[Ghpstage]

Ghpstage ... I've never seen anything like that. That might be the exception that proves the rule. Surely you're not arguing that what occured in your game is a common occurence, are you?

I'm not sure how common it is to be honest, in that particular game all the leaders who built mostly offensive units (Shaka, Monty and Julius) all had units wandering on the islands. Also the newer islands that were built rarely had the production to build a defense capable of stopping any attacks. It was a tiny island map so this may be an AI bug, or an entirely random occurence. I've neveer been looking for things like this before so its also possible it happens often.

Which if any of your troops needed amphibious promotions? One or two swordsman at most and how much better would that be than CR2? The rest of your troops would be better taking other promotions.

The city attack troops, in the case of Rome the first 2 swords later cities later needed a fair bit more.

I just did a WB test to compare amphibious to CR2 attacking off a galley, aganst a fully fortified CG1 archer in 40% culture defenses on flat ground.
When attacking from ships the C1 CR2 sword had 29% while the C2 Amphibious one had 60.5% .
To compare further a C1 CR2 sword from the ground had 68.6% victory odds and C2 Amphibious had again 60.5%