Ra Mesh Strategy Guide: The Impenetrable Defense

[RaMesh]

Ra Mesh Strategy Guide: The Impenetrable Defense

INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone! I wanted to share my ideas on another interesting topic, which is Defense. I thought it would be a good idea to start some discussion on our most wicked and effective defensive strategies. After all, PTW is almost here! Playing against humans stands to be even more thrilling than playing against the AI, because of our different styles.

In my last thread, we discussed how we would penetrate another nation's continent with the intent of military conquest, but how would you defend against a determined AI or human assault? I'd like to start off the discussion by posing the question, "How would you describe the most Impenetrable Defense? This question and thread have a few built-in assumptions:

First, I will focus my ideas on the Modern Era again, since the military units are much more powerful and complex to defend than in any other era (Air, Navy, Ground).

Second, I will assume that you own your entire continent(s). Personally, i've always mentioned that I am not one who plays to share my own continent and never have (even in previous versions of Civ). Defensive strategies for earlier eras, when you're more likely to still coexist with others, may require its own separate thread.

Third, I focus on non-nuclear warfare, with the exception of Tactical Nukes, which must be delivered in proximity to their target using Nuclear Subs. The only real defense for ICBMs and the like are building the Sam Missile Batteries and building the Integrated Defense small wonder. Even then, you're talking probability and statistics.
And without further ado....

DEFENSIVE MINDEST: Begin at the Beginning

First of all, defense is about pride. Personally, I play this game because I am teleported into a simulation of life. The game is the closest that I know of in testing nation building skills and I enjoy being at the helm of growing a huge, productive civilization that will stand the test of time. But my pride just will not allow me to spend thousands of years nursing my people into the modern era only to have some bully want to use me as their backally girlfriend. No offense to anyone, but Hawks bends over for noone! (Calming down again. Sorry about that).

The key to defense, is the same as the key to offense—infrastructure. I don't care how inteligent your strategem, you have to have cards to play to begin with. Therefore, everyting starts with properly building your civilization. Some key points are:

1. RailRoad Network. Even more critical than your road network in the beginning, your biggest geographic keys are your road network. Consider these the veins and capillaries in your body. They deliver blood, nutrients, resources, to practically every single crevice of your system. It is the same here. It is a means of instantly delivering key military, supplies, etc. to anywhere in your continent. I strongly recommend that you build railroads over EVERY tile in your continent, even non-city tiles. Even those desert, tundra tiles that are the homes of pesky barbarians. Find a tile that does not have a railroad and you will find a potential weakness to exploit.

2. City Production. There are different schools of thoughts on how to position cities and space them. I am from the school of perfectly spacing cities to maximize production and growth, with some exceptions. If you build your cities in the desert, or in the wintery tundra, you will have a harder time defending the common cold than you would have concerning yourself with attacks from other nations. So, it is critical to develop productive cities.

3. Teamwork. My tagline is "Working together to share the burden, share the wealth and conquer all challenges." Begin to think of your nation as a team. Every city plays a role towards your defense and contributes a purpose. You should reflect on the attributes of each city, their strength and assign them a role that works best for them.

With all these things in place we can now truly begin to talk strategy. Without the proper infrastructure, You can quickly go nowhere fast (More later...)

"TO UNDERSTAND THE WINTER, YOU MUST STUDY ITS OPPOSITE—SUMMER..."

In order to begin to understand an impenetrable approach to defense, we must first begin by sumarizing what makes for a good offense. Some key principals of offense are:

1. Force. Strength in numbers. Concentration of forces at the point of attack. Big muscles in a bar brawl. These are things that you try to position for. A key objective is to plan to have more people at the dance than your opponent, on having bigger muscle friends at the bar fight. Force is a key weapon to subdueing your enemy.

2. Element of Surprise. In offense, the element of surprise is an effective tool during offensive campaigns as it impacts your enemy's ability to respond and prepare. You always try to find an angle to surprise the enemy and catch them off guard.

3. Speed of Execution. The quicker you can blitz through an enemy's territory, the weaker the counter-offensives become. It also becomes a less expensive campaign for you, both in the campaign and in the homefront. OTOH, the longer the campaign, the more it becomes a lose/lose situation. Ever had a long war end up netting only a few cities that were lost anyway due to culture flop? My point exactly. This goes hand in hand with point 2 as the Element of Surprise helps to successfully have point 3.

4. Attack Infrastructure & Resources. You can't run a business, military, athletic enterprise without resources and infrastructure. Attacking these things are key to any offensive campaign. Attack the enemy's production, his resources, his ties & friends (allies).

5. Lines of Least Resistance. This could have been talked about in #3, but I separated it because of its weight as a tactical maneuver. You want to attack along the lines of least resistance. This is so you can minimize your own casualties and facilitate speed of execution. Don't travel over mountains if you don't have to. Logically, the enemy might have built roads/railroads to ease his own movement over these terrains. Try to go a faster route, or, plan to conquer a city that owns the roads over that terrain and then make them your own! But mountains can be an example of a geographic place that has the most potential for offering the most resistance and therefore give advantage to the defense. We all know of discussions of people parking in the mountains with defense units and artillary and the blood bath that spilled over the poor soles that tried to climb them hills.

Among others, these are key, essential elements to offensive campaigns. We will discuss these as we now dive deeper into our defensive philosophy. Let's first expound on the philosophical principals, then dive into its implementation...

TOUGH OUTER SHELL

Look at nature. Many animals, who's survival depends on a good defense are either gifted with some tough outer shell, or blinding speed to run like crazy. While the latter may not apply to much to this scenario (and our mentality of not running from a good fight), we find several examples of the former. You see turtles, armadillas, etc. have a tought outer shell so that predators cannot get to all of the tasty, soft meat on the inside. You find porcupines carry all of these razor sharp thorns on its outside. A predator can spend his time and energy trying to get past the spikes, but many would think, why waste the time when there are plenty of other places to hunt for food.... like McDonalds! (sorry I had to sneak that one in)

Even humans have good, tough skin as a first line of defense (I know, I know. Its not that tough, but imagine fighting all those microscopic.... thingamajigs without it. You thought WWII was bad....).

So, when talking about an impenetrable defense, we must start with a pretty impenetrable outer shell. We should craft one that combines the elements of the turtle (tough outer shell) and the porcupine (spiky things that hurt).

SUPERB IMMUNE SYSTEM

Look at the human species. Its defense system is the immune system. Take a close look and you'll see military units—white blood cells— that agressively respond to any foreign substance that gets past the skin. I call it the official welcoming party. As soon as the foreign item introduces itself, the white blood cells swarm around it and eliminate it post haste! So, another key element to a defense system is a fast-responding immune system. This is why, as we talked about earlier, the railroad network is so key. They are the veins that will deliver those white blood cell units quickly to the area that has gotten past your outer shell.

BRING THE HAMMER

Ever seen someone try to rob someone with a knife and the defender pulls a hammer out of their pocketbook? Well, um, neither have I... but I can imagine that the attacker will be thinking long and hard about that counter-swing. OUCH!!! So must it be with your defense. Once the enemy has set foot on shore, make sure you've got a hammer waiting for him. Make him think twice about trying it again. Make him have nightmares as he sits in the emergency room holding the cold compress on his head muttering about, why didn't I just pick on the other guy....

Now, enough philosophy, let's see this stuff in action....

IMPLEMENTING YOUR TOUGH OUTER SHELL

Mitigating The Element of Surprise

The outer shell starts with your defensive position at your borders. The most important factor is to eliminate as much as possible the element of surprise. First of all, understand the line of sight and visibility ratings of your units. Where there is not a city, you MUST have lookouts. If you space your cities properly, you should not have too many holes on your borders. However, we've all had land where there is all of that tundra forest, or desert and we've chosen to not build cities there and leave well enough alone. this becomes a hole in your shell to all that soft meat on the inside. place lookouts there and some naval units to make sure that no one is sneaking in the back door. Consider these your nerves, your alarm. They don't have to necessary be powerful units, just something that can detect a dropoff of military units. Space them accordingly so that there are NO holes.

Another key factor to eliminating element of surprise is the use of Jet Fighters. I would suggest building them and placing about 2 in each border city. If resources don't allow, try to build them and place them in every other city. You will use these first for their Recon capability, second for their Air Superiority capability. The idea is to make visible as many ocean squares around your entire continent as possible. With proper placement you can clear a visibility stretch of as many as 12+ tiles into the ocean. If you have an enemy continent that's close enough to sail and land a transport in one turn, then you must own the waters in that area. They should not be able to get away with having any boat leave their docks in that area. He who controls that stretch of coast/sea, owns that part of the defensive shell.

Your Porcupine Spikes

You know how an enemy captures your cities? By getting close enough to one of them to do so! The predator can't eat ya if it never gets close enough to your skin to bite ya, and your enemy can't beat ya if they never make it to your beaches in the first place. So have those Porcupine spikes at the ready. This translates to your Naval forces and secondarily to your Air forces. You MUST make it your priority to own the seas if you can. As soon as I have the capability, I devote EVERY single border city to building Battleships and my choice of Submarines. If a key improvement comes along, like research labs, they stop just long enough to build them, then go right back to it. That's their special role in my team. Some people specialize in rebounding. That's their role. My border cities' role is owning the seas! I place a battleship every 3-4 costal squares distance from each other around my ENTIRE continent. They are placed at the edge of my cultural border. The farther the distance of my cultural border the better. Do not place them too far PAST your border however. Then, if you meet with an enemy convoy in the open seas, its difficult to tell weather they're sailing for your shores or someone else's. It leaves you with a turn or two of incertaintly which may potentially scatter some of your forces opening the door to tactical isolations (remember force? More on this later) You also don't want the Battleships too far out of the reach of your Bomber planes, which are your spikes. These Battleships function as your tough outer shell, your choice of Bomber plane function as your spikes, or long-range artillery. You also want to intermix your choice of Submarine (I like Nuke Subs because of the extra movement) in between your Battleships. This is to prevent subs from sneaking up and attacking your battleships. Place your Bombers ideally in every border city. You want to work up to 2 per border city if you have the resources. If not, place one per city and use the teamwork principle. You can always lift planes to the area of attack if necessary.

So, this is your first line of defense, your tough outer shell. Use your Jet Fighters to spot the approaching enemy. Spike him with your Bomber planes and finish them off and chase them with your Battleships. Your Subs might even catch a few stragglers unexpected which is always a treat.

 

[RaMesh]

Next Layer of Your Outer Shell

What if they make it past this first wave? This may happen from time to time as Battleships go off to chase those limping ships ("never leave an enemy behind to limp home and heal. He will only return rejuvenated to strika again!" , Shaka Zulu). When they go chasing, it leaves a temporary hold that may take you a turn or 2 to fill. If they make it through that, hit them with your second layer of artillery, your 2 tile units. These could be Artillery, Cruise Missiles, or ideally, Radar Artillery (love those things!) Now, Cruise Missiles are interesting, because they have a short range and zero mobility. They basically stay in the city you build them. However, if anything comes close enough to the city that has them... LOOKOUT! They wreck serious havoc. Then, cleaning up the mess belongs again to your Naval forces, which is why they are so key to your Outer Shell.

Now, personally, the ideal short-range artillery is Radar Artillery. They are almost guaranteed to knock a HP off of a Battleship or Destroyer. You should strive to build about 1 per city, ideally 2. However, don't place these units in every city. No, no! Stack them somewhere save and under the guard of a MI or 2. Remember the white blood cells? Positioning them this way allows you to quickly move them to any site where needed en masse. You can then use as many, or as few as you need.

The key is to have them stacked somewhere where you can mobilize them en masse. You can use the J command to move 3, 5, 12, whatever, to the site of the attack. Then, clean up with your navy.

IMPLEMENTING YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM

Where Are Those @#$!!! White Blood Cells?

What if you're playing a persistent opponent who sends his forces in waves. Every now and then, something gets through and may land on your continent, thereby penetrating your tough outer shell. Now, its the immune system's time to attack. First, swarm to the site. Remember that the enemy does not yet have use of your railroad network to use against you until he defeats his first territory.

Bring The Hammer!

Your goal is to contain his forces and diminish, if not eliminate the force of his attack. Now, let me explain. In martial arts, some styles call for you to meet the force of the blow with an equal or greater force (block). Other styles call for you to REDIRECT the force of your opponents blow and attempt to throw the opponent off balance and counter-strike. Both apply here. You meet the opponent first, head on. First wave, weaken his forces using your stacks of artillery. (Remember, however, not to exhaust your forces on this initial attack. As in my strategy, the enemy may also implement a head/tail attack, or even multiple points of attack.). The idea is to REDUCE the force of his blow. Don't be afraid if a few units are left, the point is to weaken his stacks till as many of them have weak HPs as to not statistically have as much of a chance to defeat your first city, which will be EXTREMELY well guarded with artillery and defensemen. Again, the idea is to also direct the force of his blow to a position that is more advantageous for you. It may cause some minimal damage, but is should throw your enemy off balance and away from what you anticipate is his primary targets. But the key is containment. Let's say you have a stack. You want to bring the stack at his stack head on. However, you also want to attack him from different tiles! The key is to minimize his angles of movement, or direct his stack towards defensively advantageous geography (Mountains, etc.) Your cities will always be holes to a wall of containment around a stack of his units, but any nearby cities to this stack should have the priority of being the most highly guarded. THE IDEA IS TO NOT LOSE A SINGLE CITY, IF POSSIBLE! Therefore eliminating him using your own network against you (like a virus).

CONCLUSION

You keep doing the above until the force of his blow is dwindled. If he has brought enough forces to withstand the first waves of your immune system, then don't try to meet the force head on. Instead, apply tactical maneuvers to DIRECT the force of his blows into a position that is most advantageous for you. do not be afraid to fall back while redirecting his forces, lose a city or 2 in order to dwindle his forces and make a formidable counterstrike. If you've built your nation right, he may only be temporarily a victor as your once-happy citizens pot their escape. Don't forget, culture value and time are your allies, not his. Use them to your advantage.

Lastly, don't forget that your soft meat is not your bordering cities, but the cities at the heart of your continent. The priority is to send all defensive and offensive forces to the front, even if it means only leaving 1 or 2 defensive units behind. You may even want to mobilize your nation, if the priority is there. Drafting citizens is also a last resort. Obviously, if it comes to that, then your "Impenetrable" defense has summarily been.... well.... penetrated. The error may just have been in the number of units you produced, of the wisdom in your execution. If that's the case, they're's always next incarnation....

In conclusion, I, as the Egyptians, come from a long line of proud Egyptian Kings. We built dynasties. While we were Religious, God-Fearing/Loving, Benevolent beings, we had so much time to meditate and build Pyramids and stuff BECAUSE of our impenetrable defense. These techniques i've shared with you today, for thousands of years laid hidden from the world, locked behind encoded Hieroglyphs. I've unlocked them so that all nations, looking to play a peaceful, diplomatic, graceful game may do so and resurrect new Wonders for the World in the land of Civ. PEACE

All comments are welcome. I hope that this is only the start of defensive ideas in the Modern Era. I look forward to reading your challenges, ideas, debates, etc.

 

[kilarb]

Well... first post, and I'm stuck disagreeing....

-

He who tries to be strong everyplace is in fact strong noplace.

-

Your plan will work assuming two things are true. 1) All of your opponents are weaker than you, either in tech, or in unit count, or most likely in both, or 2) all of your opponents that are of similar strength to you, or that are even (.gasp.) stronger than you are A.I. players (computers). I'm sure you'll disagree, so I'd like to present an illustration.

You've said that you plan to place one BB (battleship) every three tiles along your border, and a SS (sub) or SSN (nuke sub) between these, "intermixed". Let's assume that you need 50 BBs to completely surround your continent in this way (could be more, 70 to 80 may be closer to it). You have the same number of SSNs of course. Having ships in this quantity in addition to your ground army may prove to be a problem, both due to maintenance and construction costs, but we aren't going to worry about that here... Anyway, that's ~ 100 powerful warships in addition to your air force and formidable ground army. Agreed?

Now, let's assume that your opponent is about the same strength as you and has similar tech. Fair?

Anyway, our illustration begins when he parks ~ 50 BBs and ~50 SSNs into a 3 tile patch of your border waters... Not a pretty picture eh? Especially when you notice that he has a dozen transports (or so) and as many carriers along for the ride....

This isn't to say that you might not eventually defeat this force, but you can’t even TOUCH it until the ground troops land, and if the invaders hold out for even a few turns, suddenly it's airlift city.

I'm not really interested in doing the punch/counterpunch breakdown of why this would either work or not, but rather I think it important that we look to counter HUMAN offensive tactics... like those we see posted on this message board even.

HUMANS, as opposed to A.I.s, prefer the use of Overwhelming Military Force (that’s OMF, or Oooooommf! if you prefer). I see posts on this board about how to make 50 to 100 artillery work for you, or about how a stack of 30 panzers could be useful, or about how 20 Knights can be powerful, but I rarely if ever hear about the usefulness of one marine, or a pair of BBs.

With this in mind, we come to one of the classic problems of defensive warfare. If a defender spreads out his forces too much they are either (mostly) useless if a fight erupts, or they take forever to be concentrated to fight, which amounts to the same thing. If they are slightly more concentrated, they are subject to easy defeat in detail. And if they are too concentrated, they can be too easily avoided or too completely distracted by a feint.

Your navy is too thinly spread to be useful. An offensive naval force of similar size, but using the tactic of OMF could break through with minimal loss. In fact, a force ½ the size would still be all but invincible against your naval picket. Furthermore, it would take you several turns to mass a force capable of countering the naval escort to such an invasion. This would subject your ground forces to the indignity of continued naval bombardment and the risk of additional landings. This is unacceptable.

Conclusion then… the ground defense looks fine, or at least workable at first glance. The outer layers need a serious rework.

Regards,

-bmk

 

[akinkhoo]

i say drop the patrol and have "fleets" position in key region.
much like how the russian have different fleet for each sea. the fleet is tightly packed. there is a reason why warship move in fleets!

the defensive power tactic of railroad is proven in real history. germany was able to redepoly almost 50% of it armed forces from 1 front to the other!

i believe coastal city should be well defended with artillery and defenders, i EXPECT them to be attacked! so my choice of "shell" would be the border cities and not the fleet. there are however a few weakness that should be addressed. if possible, build airport in all coastal city! the enemy is lightly to try and bomb the railroad to cut down the resupply! position a sizable defense in there cities but keep reserved battlion to prevent the enemy from trying to cut off. (think about the french "line of defence" in WW2, don't keep all your troop in the coast/borders or your forces might be cut off, in stead keep them near enough so even if the railroad is cut, at least some support can arrive ASAP!)

i believe the fleet is more effective at counterattacking an exposed expedition fleet. (this was what the japanese did, the US landing fleet freaked when they saw yamato and other battleships crusing towards them at the philippines, armed with nothing more than 5inch gun! fighters were out supporting the landing troop and the iowa class battleships were already engaged elsewhere! it was pure luck that the japanese fleet decided to end pursuit only after 1 light carrier was destroyed; they "mistaken" another group and thought the US battle fleet had returned in time, which they didn't! )

 

[HiroHito]

just wanted to thank you for the effort !! Keep it up !

 

[.:KNAS:.]

The way i understood it, his ring of BBs, SSs and SSNs was primarily there to spot the invasion fleet. Allthough Destroyers and SSs can scout aswell as BBs and SSNs, BBs and SSNs can defend themselves better.

 

[Wakboth]

Originally posted by .:KNAS:.
The way i understood it, his ring of BBs, SSs and SSNs was primarily there to spot the invasion fleet. Allthough Destroyers and SSs can scout aswell as BBs and SSNs, BBs and SSNs can defend themselves better.

The problem is that you're still paying mainainence costs for each of those units. Why spend 80-100 gpt keeping a naval picket in place that doesn't really serve any purpose other then to give you one turns advance that the enemy is going to attack? Cut that number down to like 10 naval vessels sitting only off key short points between you and the enemy. Use the rest to build a huge number of artillery and MA/MI forces.

The point is that if you've railed your entire civ, then any ground unit can get to any defensive position in your territory in 0 turns. Any artillery can bombard any attacker no matter where they land. Your enemy isn't going to attack by sending a dozen small forces in from a dozen different diretions. He's going to send one really big force in at one point. By putting all your defense into ground units, you can put all of your defense to that one point to counter him. If we're adopting a totally defensive position, this will serve us far more then trying to have a "thick skin".

Your biggest advantage (your only advantage) when defending is road/rail benefits within your own cultural boundaries. Um... The obvious conclusion is that if you want to get a better kill ratio then the other guy, you need to be fighting inside your cultural boundary and utilizing your rail system. Trying to defend the ocean squares around your civ is silly. You'll lose that battle everytime, and lose all the resources you expended trying to do so. Let him come. Let him land. Then hit him with every single unit you've got. He's got to transport them across the ocean. There's a hard limit to how many units he can send at a time (8 per transport, probably an escort or three per transport, gotta leave some units for home defense, it adds up). Assuming somewhat similar strengthed civs, you have a huge advantage *only* because you can utilize all your forces in every battle and he can only utilize a small number. That's the defensive strategy you should be using in the modern era.

Let him land his huge stacks. Use your artillery and tanks to destroy one stack right off the bat. Pile defensive units into your closest city (that's where he's going, right?). Use more defensive units to create a "pocket" around his forces, hemming him in. Once trapped, just annihlate his forces a stack at a time.

Against a player, or a computer who's building marines, things are a bit trickier. He can launch amphibious assaults, which can defeat your whole strategy. In that case, you can up your ships a bit. You don't need nearly that many though. Just enough to watch the likely routes the enemy will take. The computer is pretty dumb and will always send ships along the same route towards you (and generally endlessly attack the same exact point(s) on your coastline). A human can go around though (and will). There isn't a whole lot you can do about this though. My best suggestion is to place your defensive untis in coastal cities, just to make it a bit more expensive for him to take them. Plan on immediately taking them back a turn after he attacks (via massive return attack). A combo of watching likely sea lanes and placing defensive units on coastal spots should make it costly and risky for someone to attack you.


Um... do *not* build airports on your coastal zones. Airports are needed only for building veteran air units and for sending and recieving airlift troops. You can desploy airpower to any city whether there's an airport there or not. With a rail system in your core area, you can move any unit from any city to any other for airlift purposes. Airports, since they are a trade improvement, don't get destroyed when a city is taken. Putting airports in your coastal cities just gives the enemy a nearly invincible foothold on your continent if he takes a single coastal city. That's an absolultely horrible idea. Build airports in safe core cities well inside your cultural boundaries and in cities on other continents where you are trying to project force to (attacking). If you want, you can deploy air units in your coastal units for scouting purposes, but build them elsewhere. Honestly though, you'll spend a lot of resources scaning every stretch of ocean looking for enemies every turn. Depending on the government form I'm using, I'd almost rather just let the enemy take a city via amphibious assault and then take it back the next turn. Done right, I'll cost him far more production by destroying his assault force then I've lost by losing the city for a turn and having to rebuild the cultural improvements.


I just feel that warfare in Civ is always about attrition. Make it cost the other guy more then it cost you. While it seems attractive to sink ships full of combat units at sea, if it "costs" you 100 units to do that, then it's too high. Another way to look at it is that every single turn that you *aren't* being attacked by the enemy you are still paying to keep that picket going. He's winning the war of attrition without having to fire a single shot...

 

[ltcoljt]

I always think about the line by Napoleon where he observed a defensive plan by a subordinate that had forces evenly spread along a border. "What are we guarding against here-smuggling?".

I can't really comment on human to human combat in the modern age having never experienced it. We had some really advanced combat in SMAC PBEM and the thing is that even with the unlimited response capability of railroads (magtubes in SMAC), it is still a turn based game and the ability to mass and launch a first strike is so great that defense never seems to work unless the defender has either a clear advantage in quality or quanity of units.

I advocate offensive-defensive doctrine. Strong defensive positions as a fallback but extended recon to make it impossible for the enemy to come into range without bearing the brunt of your preemptive strike. If you do not have the room or assets to do this then defense is static and a static defense always fails.