Some unconventional thoughts

[starrider]

#1 -- Building guerillas is not a waste of time and resources.

After fighting the AI governors who kept trying to build guerillas in my cities,I gave in and let it. I found something quite surprising. That little defensive bombardment of a guerilla kept my infantry in the stack alive a lot longer. When I kept a 3:1 infantry to gureilla ratio in my stack (or 2:1 if the stack is smaller), I suffered significantly less casualties. The infantry would be damaged, but that defensive bombardment from the guerillas would be enough to keep the infantry from death. This also led to more battlefield promotions to elite units. The same goes for keeping one or two guerillas in your border cities. Before someone argues artillery does the same thing, keep in mind artillery cannot be airlifted.

#2 -- Why expose a landing force to enemy counterattack in the first place?

In conquests, once you are in the late industrial era, there is no reason why you should land an assault force in the open only to wait a turn for a counter attack by the AI. Marines have an attack value of 12, and with some sea bombardment and some air bombardment, sufficient numbers of marines can take any city. (Hopefully after you destroy the civil defense...) This works even against MechInf. My rule of thumb is a transport full of marines per MechInf in a city. This is usually more than enough, but it never hurts Ideally you can capture a city with an airport, and can airlift the reserves in. If not, you have transports standing by with your heavy defenders and artillery. Defending a city (size 7-12) means you get that city defensive bonus, plus you can dig in. If you have enough troops in your transports, you can even launch an attack from the captured city on the same turn!

#3 -- Destroyers are great lookouts, but the key to sinking an invasion fleet is the submarine
The AI has this uncanny habit of leaving your lookout ships alone and keeping all its escort ships with the transport. Now this makes no sense to me, and here's why: Escorts in the same stack as the transports only protect the transport from surface ships, leaving the transport vunerable to submarine attack! If the AI knew how to deal with submarines, it would send out destroyers ahead of the stack containing the transports, and would seek out and destroy any submarines it may find. To defend against an invasion fleet, all the human player has to do is place destroyers at strategic locations to spot the incoming ships. Once spotted, submarines stationed at strategic ports in the homeland can swoop in and sink the transports. If you aren't playing a seafaring civ, the alternative is to leave a submarine underneath your lookout destroyer.

Veteran submarine vs veteran or regular submarine results in the submarine almost always winning (anectodally, I think I have lost 1 or 2 submarines total in all the games I have played). What's even more interesting is that once the transport is sunk, the escorts all go home! Instead of using its ships to meanace your coast, the escort ships simply turn tail and run!
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Anyone else have some unconventional ideas? Mine might just be run of the mill stuff...but it's late and stuff heh

 

[tomart109]

Good stuff! Unconventional is good, especially when thoughtful and well-reasoned like these.

 

[starrider]

errr i meant in #3 veteran subs vs veteran transports or regular subs vs vet transports

 

[Roland Johansen]

Defending a city (size 7-12) means you get that city defensive bonus, plus you can dig in.

This is not true if there are still resistors present in the just captured city. Cities with resistors don't give a defensive bonus.

If you land a lot of artillery in the just captured city, you can destroy the roads so that the AI units can't reach you. The turn after that you can use the artillery to bomb the AI stacks of doom that just didn't reach your city. The turn after that you can use the defensive bombard against the remaining AI attackers that attack your city. If the enemy owns 3-move units, you need bombers from carriers or radar artillery (move, bombard, move back into city) to bomb a 3-tile radius around your city. This strategy is of course only usefull if the AI owns an overwhelming number of units.

If combined with nukes it can be devastating. You can nuke the hell out of the stack of doom just outside your city. I once killed 250 mech inf with 2 tactical nukes. Just ridiculous.

You can also use nukes to clear out patches of (rail)roadnetwork before or after landing. If the railroadnetwork is destroyed before landing, you could also land with your own settler and build a city before the AI can attack you.

Many strategies lead to victory.

 

[Micky Onimusha]

I like that idea of yours. 1 tactic I've been meaning to try out was landing in enemy territory along with my invasion force, a worker. Build myself an airbase and then airlift a ton of units to it, trouble is clearing the culture borders so that I can build it.

 

[t3h_m013]

landing a transport of native workers along with your defensive units before the main assult means you can build fortifications, and then land the offensive units. i destroyed the best city uin the world using this tactic

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Let's not forget using marine armies for coastal invasion. I always build a couple just incase i need to invade another continent.

 

[starrider]

This is not true if there are still resistors present in the just captured city. Cities with resistors don't give a defensive bonus.

If you land a lot of artillery in the just captured city, you can destroy the roads so that the AI units can't reach you. The turn after that you can use the artillery to bomb the AI stacks of doom that just didn't reach your city. The turn after that you can use the defensive bombard against the remaining AI attackers that attack your city. If the enemy owns 3-move units, you need bombers from carriers or radar artillery (move, bombard, move back into city) to bomb a 3-tile radius around your city. This strategy is of course only usefull if the AI owns an overwhelming number of units.

If combined with nukes it can be devastating. You can nuke the hell out of the stack of doom just outside your city. I once killed 250 mech inf with 2 tactical nukes. Just ridiculous.

You can also use nukes to clear out patches of (rail)roadnetwork before or after landing. If the railroadnetwork is destroyed before landing, you could also land with your own settler and build a city before the AI can attack you.

Many strategies lead to victory.

Thanks for the info! I had been wondering about that. Do you have a source for this information? (I believe you, that isn't the problem. One day I want to take all my wacky ideas and write an article or something, and it is good to be able to point out to readers where the info is.)

The thing about this strategy is the resistance is over the next turn, because you put so many troops in the city after you capture it with marines. If you use artillery or bombers (or my fav use for stealth fighters) to destroy all rail two spaces out from yoru city (not the adjacent squares, but two out), not even Modern Armor can strike your newly captured city. The result is you do get the defensive city bonus on the next turn, which is when the attack will start. Ideally you can expose the enemy armor and bomb it with artys and bombers before it can hit you.

I like your idea of nukes, but nukes have their own issues. Sometimes you only want to cut the rails and roads in a precise manner. If you plan on using the area for future building, you have to deal with pollution. I also have this thing about wanting to capture as many intact city improvements as possible, which deters against overly using bombers and nukes on citiies. The difference between a useless corruption infested city and a moderately productive one can be as simple as a courthouse+factory combination. Also, my play style is to research space flight and satellites last. Depending on the game, I shoot for Computers, then Miniturization (probably more important for seafaring civs than for non-seafaring with all the coastal cities.) If I really need MA's, I'll research rocketry to find the Al on the map (and for SAMs, TOWs, and Jet fighters), then genetics, then research all the way to stealth. I then switch to work into robotics. Only then do I research spaceflight and satellites.

Back to your comments: Anectodally, I have seen units survive better from bombardment inside a city. I don't know if this is only after resistance is over or not, because I never knew about resistance affecting your defensive bonus. (I have been fortunate enough to capture a city this way with both an airport AND a SAM battery. The SAM battery helped shoot down AI air counterstrikes.) Even if you don't get the defensive bonus on the first turn, having it on the second turn is beter than having it on the third. (by landing, then capturing.) Capturing the city on the first turn means you can have a productive city (or one you can rush improvements) on the second turn rather than landing and waiting to attack later.

One last thing: I forgot to mention in my earlier posts: having a spy is important, but at the very least use your embassy to scope out coastal cities to find which one suits you best. It isn't always the weakest city either. My priorities are 1) Airport 2) Harbor 3) SAM battery 4) Barracks. If you are curious as to why barracks are #4, it's because in my experience, the barracks are one of the first city improvements to be "randomly" destroyed by aerial bombardment.

Thanks for your information and input! I would appreciate anything else you have to say.

 

[al_thor]

While #3 is a good point, it can be a hassle keeping all of those naval vessels all over the place. I prefer letting them land, hit them with arty/bombers and then give my Elite's a chance for Leader (more Armies). I won't even sink the ships afterwards - let them bring more Leader Generators over to my friendly shores.

 

[starrider]

Let's not forget using marine armies for coastal invasion. I always build a couple just incase i need to invade another continent.

I have never tried this, and I will eventually. The things that kept me from doing this were:

1) I have awful luck getting my first Military Leader (or for that matter, any!) It happens so late for me (even when im warmongering early) that I'm late getting the Military Academy built. Armies are therefore a luxury until I can get enough built.

2) Armies take up an extra spot on the transport. So an army with 3 marines in it takes up 4 spots on the transport. You also lose an attack. The army has a better chance of survival, but when facing MechInf, you really lose 2 attacks because you don't want to lose your army attacking a second time with it. This translates into a net loss of 3 attacks. In my particular usage, marines are expendable.

3) I prefer using armies of MechInf in this particular "seize and hold" strategy. Two armies of four MechInf will hold against a very large counterstrike. Marines have a weak defensive value (6), and are therefore best used IMO for amphibous assault and perhaps dropping from helos. This weak defense makes them ineffective at holding a newly captured city. This defensive weakness will spell doom for your marine army.

 

[al_thor]

"Two armies of four MechInf will hold against a very large counterstrike"
I'LL SAY!
In one game, in order to secure a luxury, I had taken advantage of an opening caused by war and planted a lone city on a medium-sized continent that was now soley-owned by the Arabs. We eventually went to war against each other (he started it!), but I was prepared. I had 2 armies of 4 Mech's. He would send anywhere from 28 to 36 Modern Armor against that city PER TURN, and he never broke through and never managed to kill either Army. It was incredible to watch. The city was on a hill, had a barracks (CRITICAL for Healing), Airport, Sam, and Civil Defense - all rush built while in Monarchy. Also protected with 8 mobile sams and 7 or 8 Jets flying superiority missions.

I kept thinking that he would nuke me out of frustration (I did not have nukes yet). He was certainly free with his nukes against his other enemies.

 

[starrider]

While #3 is a good point, it can be a hassle keeping all of those naval vessels all over the place.

I agree with you...it can certainly be a hassle! #3 depends greatly on what type of map you are playing. It is completely irrelevant for pangea maps, and would be difficult on some contienent maps.

You can however adapt this for a continent map as follows. Transports can move troops deeper behind your lines than merely walking across the border. After you capture a city on a new continent, keep a destroyer lookout with a submarine or two off the coast of its major ports. The AI will try and send transports with troops if it has to cross hills or mountains to try and recapture cities. If the AI isn't a seafaring race, you have a good chance at sinking the transport before it gets to you.

The main benefit to this strategy is economy of force. One sub can turn back an entire fleet. Destroyers are pretty cheap to build, and you can sprinkle them over the map as lookouts. (I often use old frigates for this purpose...after they explore the map they are all over the place. Just fortify them in an interesting location as a lookout. I also end up with fortified destroyers all over the place. They come in handy sometimes later in the game.)

Because submarines have such short range, especially if you don't have magellean's or are non-seafaring civ, this strategy is not perfect. The positioning of the submarines becomes more of an issue when you only have 3 movement (or 4 for a nuclear sub.) The goal is to keep a small number of subs in strategic ports to exert a sphere of wolfpack influence

I prefer letting them land, hit them with arty/bombers and then give my Elite's a chance for Leader (more Armies). I won't even sink the ships afterwards - let them bring more Leader Generators over to my friendly shores.

Late in the game, my home continent / island is full of obsolete units (which can be upgraded) or conscripts. By turning back invasion fleets, I am able to send all veteran and more advanced units to fight across the seas I don't keep much artillery on my home continent / island after major hostilities break out. After flight, I have an airport in every city on my home contienent. Since artillery cannot be airlifted, I would have to transport artys by sea, something dangerous in wartime. I do see your point, as I have used bombers to this end. Draft units on my home continent, use bombers to weaken invaders to 1 HP, then let the conscripts promote

Thanks for responding!

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

As with all things civ, using marine armies is dependant on the situation. Since i play huge maps, i plan big

However, if i am going to use a late game coastal invasion, i will send over 4 or 5 transports for the 1st city. This is plenty of room for a 4 marine army to take out the first and strongest defender and include a mech infantry army to hold against counter attacks. Heck... the AI won't even counter attack if a mech infantry army is in the city since they don't build armies and therefore won't have a modern armor army. (I really really hope this gets fixed)

Rush an airport and no more troops concerns. Any more armies required on the new landmass can be built using leaders.

As for the use of nukes... i never use them anymore. I'd rather have the infrastructure as intact as possible for my own use. If the enemy nukes me first, i am content in the knowlege that my allies will expend ALL thier nukes in retailiation.

 

[starrider]

As with all things civ, using marine armies is dependant on the situation. Since i play huge maps, i plan big

So very true I think the difference in what I am doing and what you are doing might be as simple as me using more bombardment prior to sending in marines. I try and use battleships, cruisers, and destroyers to damage defenders as much as possible. I use aerial bombardment (carefully though..don't want to destroy that airport) as well. Destroying that civil defense makes a huge difference in survival in the way I have been playing. I try and get as many defenders to half strength, then send in wave after wave of marines. Could you elaborate on if you are using bombardment prior to amphibious assault or not? If so, how much? (Btw, I also play on huge maps.)

However, if i am going to use a late game coastal invasion, i will send over 4 or 5 transports for the 1st city. This is plenty of room for a 4 marine army to take out the first and strongest defender and include a mech infantry army to hold against counter attacks. Heck... the AI won't even counter attack if a mech infantry army is in the city since they don't build armies and therefore won't have a modern armor army. (I really really hope this gets fixed)

Hmmm, the AI attacked me under that very scenerio. It sent wave after wave of MAs followed by MechInf. A single mechinf army is _not_ enough late game by what happened to me (ouch, had to reload and try again), because 40-50 MA + massive MechInf will eventually punch through. Your invasion fleet is much smaller than mine as well. I use 1 full transport of marines per MechInf inside the enemy city. Ideally, I also have 2 transports full of Mobile Sams, 2 transports full of MechInf (including the 2 armies) and at least 2 transports full of artilery / radar artillery. I try to mix in some Modern Armor just to finish off any weakened defender that happens to end its turn next to my newly conquered city.

If you fail to capture an intact airport, you must wait at least 2 turns before you can airlift troops in. (One for resistance to end, one to rush the airport.) Because you are using less troops, you can't disband as many to rush an airport that way. All those redlined marines now have a secondary use: rushing that airport. I would find myself a lot less willing to disband a marine army than a redlined marine unit.

I will try a marine army in my current game and see what it is like. You have piqued my interest.

 

[al_thor]

I purposely keep a stack of like 10 arty's on my home continent, along with maybe 8 or 10 Modern Armor. This is kinda overkill, as we all know that it is rare for the AI to land a force of any real size. Myself, my invasion force is much like yours - loaded - and with every type from Mechs, Moderns, TOW's, Sams, and maybe a couple workers and a settler - these are nice to Add to Pop when you want to quickly expand city size or to trigger the Cultural expansion when you are in Fascism.

Since you can't airlift Arty, I love airlifting TOW's to my newly conquered cities, just for the Defensive Bombardment when attacked. I will usually use them to rush improvements as well.

 

[starrider]

I purposely keep a stack of like 10 arty's on my home continent, along with maybe 8 or 10 Modern Armor. This is kinda overkill, as we all know that it is rare for the AI to land a force of any real size. Myself, my invasion force is much like yours - loaded - and with every type from Mechs, Moderns, TOW's, Sams, and maybe a couple workers and a settler - these are nice to Add to Pop when you want to quickly expand city size or to trigger the Cultural expansion when you are in Fascism.

Since you can't airlift Arty, I love airlifting TOW's to my newly conquered cities, just for the Defensive Bombardment when attacked. I will usually use them to rush improvements as well.

TOWs are one of my all time favorite units. From #1, I have a lot of gurellias left around. If I'm playing the warmonger, I usually try very hard to get Leo's Workshop. Not only can you airlift TOWs, you can drop them from helos. With a 12 attack and 16 defense, these baddies can be dropped next to a city that has nasty terrain around it. (Jungles, forests, mountains....anything that will slow your fast moving units.) Use some bombers to weaken the defenders and then capture the city on the turn after the airdrop.

Before conquests, helocopters were completely useless. The most powerful unit they could airdrop was regular infantry. By the modern era, you usually have these upgraded to Mechs. Marines only had 8 attack in vanilla, so why would you use a helocopter anyway? Now we can airdrop TOW infantry 3 at a time. Get them on a hill or mountain, and the AI will have a very difficult time digging them out. TOWs are a great compliment to paratroopers/modern paratroopers as well.

Speaking of facism, I have never played in it except once. I found that it was no better than communism, as it had more corruption and I'm a culture hound. Facism doesn't get a Secret Police HQ either. I practice "cultural aggression" constantly, even while at war. (Some other poster someplace used that phrase...if someone spots it please point out where so I can give credit to them.) When I'm at war by choice, I'm usually in a republic or in communism. I have seen the holes in the AI's culture when it starts warmongering on facism...makes it so easy for me to found cities there and wage more cultural warfare.

What am I missing that is so great about facism? The worker bonus doesn't seem to offset its negatives.

 

[planetfall]

Facism is great in C3C up to about 1.15, and then it just can't keep up with communism. Currently never use it anymore. Peace && religious then Demo. War && religious, then Commie. Nonreligious could still be in republic until it is a good time to switch to commie.

PF

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

So very true I think the difference in what I am doing and what you are doing might be as simple as me using more bombardment prior to sending in marines. I try and use battleships, cruisers, and destroyers to damage defenders as much as possible. I use aerial bombardment (carefully though..don't want to destroy that airport) as well. Destroying that civil defense makes a huge difference in survival in the way I have been playing. I try and get as many defenders to half strength, then send in wave after wave of marines. Could you elaborate on if you are using bombardment prior to amphibious assault or not? If so, how much? (Btw, I also play on huge maps.).

I don't like using bombardment if i want the city. This is a holdover from PTW because i think units take the first bombardment in C3C. Correct me if i'm wrong. I haven't had any good late game wars in c3c yet so it's time to move up a level. Most of my experience is with Civ3 & PTW. If units take the bombardment before improvements, i will use it, otherwise i depend on my troops and take the losses.

Hmmm, the AI attacked me under that very scenerio. It sent wave after wave of MAs followed by MechInf. A single mechinf army is _not_ enough late game by what happened to me (ouch, had to reload and try again), because 40-50 MA + massive MechInf will eventually punch through. Your invasion fleet is much smaller than mine as well. I use 1 full transport of marines per MechInf inside the enemy city. Ideally, I also have 2 transports full of Mobile Sams, 2 transports full of MechInf (including the 2 armies) and at least 2 transports full of artilery / radar artillery. I try to mix in some Modern Armor just to finish off any weakened defender that happens to end its turn next to my newly conquered city.

If you fail to capture an intact airport, you must wait at least 2 turns before you can airlift troops in. (One for resistance to end, one to rush the airport.) Because you are using less troops, you can't disband as many to rush an airport that way. All those redlined marines now have a secondary use: rushing that airport. I would find myself a lot less willing to disband a marine army than a redlined marine unit.

I will try a marine army in my current game and see what it is like. You have piqued my interest.

As i said, it's time for me to move up a level and perhaps i will run into a good counter attack When i go to war, i bring the rest of the world with me and the target civ is being attacked on all sides. This may be why i don't see unlimited MA coming at me. If there is an overwhelming force, the AI will forget you and counterattack where the resistance is the least.

In any event, if you are using large invasion forces, i see no reason not to have a 4 marine army to take down that first defender.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Thanks for the info! I had been wondering about that. Do you have a source for this information? (I believe you, that isn't the problem. One day I want to take all my wacky ideas and write an article or something, and it is good to be able to point out to readers where the info is.)

Civ3 Conquests Civilopedia under Defender Combat Bonus. Maybe it's on this site somewhere too but the search option is offline and I couldn't find it in the infocenter part of this site.

About using nukes in warfare. It's not something that I do often because it destroys the land you want to capture and ruins your reputation. But in this case it was worth it. My enemy had about 1000 units and to destroy those with conventional means would have taken too long and I would have needed far more units than I owned at that point in the game. I used 2 tactical nukes to destroy the main body of his attacking army (and also conventional troops for smaller pockets of his attacking army) and 4 ICBM's to destroy the links to his 4 uranium sites. I got nuked back 9 times by my enemy, but only 2 got trough thanks to my just build SDI.
I had 2 large allies in this war and over the course of the war they nuked my enemy some 50 times and made my conquest very easy (because he had nuked me).

Over the course of the war I lost a dozen units. So it was a very cheap war if you consider I had to defeat about 1000 units.

Not all wars require the same strategy. Sometimes artillery will do the trick, sometimes a cavalry rush can give you a considerable gain. Sometimes nukes will win your war.

 

[starrider]

Naval and artillery bombardment in C3C always targets units first, al beit in different orders. Ground artys will hit strongest land unit, naval will hit any aircraft based there, then naval, then ground. Aerial bombardment is more dicey, as it will still randomly hit population and improvements. There seems to be a pattern in what order improvements are destroyed. (For example, I have noticed that the civil defense is usally destroyed before the airport...so that woudl be a good time to stop bombing via aircraft.)

It *seems* elite bombers are more likely to hit units and not improvements, but I don't have any evidence to that efect.