SP Tanks > Planes (Honor Deity domination guide on pangea map) VidLP

[peddroelm]

"Air Combat

New stacking limits on air units in cities. Starts at 6; increased to 10 when you add an Airport. Game Concept text updated to match this change."

Civilization-V-Brave-New-World-Fall-Patch

And thus the balance of power in the modern era shifted from air units to mechanized ones ... (AI lost its air unit stack of doom capability leaving it incapable of stopping landship/tank spam ..) It is now possible to switch off tech after Combined Arms(tank) (sometimes even after Combustion (landship)) - sell the science buildings and recycle the science specialists into production/gold output and drown the map into a sea of armored units ..

Here is a link to the Stories & Lets Plays section of the forum to my proof of concept LP illustrating how this could be achieved with practically any civ (some are much better at this than others obviously) ( VidLP Civilization V BNW - Dutch Deity Domination - Honor - Commerce - Tanks )

In not too many words the recipe :

2 city Honor Opening Machinery "Rush" (with NC & caravan science leech) - Industrialization - Scientific Theory - Dynamite - Combustion - Combined Arms beelines

Policy wise (Full honor / Full Commerce / Ideology) (a few drops of rationalism are a luxury that is probably going to skipped unless extra sources of culture (Ex Siam/Polynesia, 2+ culture CS allies )) ... A few more points about culture importance in a domination game - it opens so many bonuses (science//happy//combat) that you can never have enough allied cultured city state allies .. Scout for them - ally them - try to keep them alive when the entire world DOWs you ...

Why Honor instead of the better perceived Tradition/Liberty openers ? Fun ! A more serious answer comes again from "Civilization-V-Brave-New-World-Fall-Patch" changes .. Warmonger hate ... Honor economy is fueled by war ... At war with every surviving civilization on the map ? (next to no trade potential) .. Cool ! can trasmute gold from all their and their CS allies military units ... Honor economy thrives when you are at war killing enemy units (the more the merrier) and starves to military upkeep costs during peace time ... Honor (by design if maybe not by effectivity) is the policy best suited for foreverwar state competent warmongers will find themselves in ...

In the proposed proof of concept video my lack of military competency [slow to conquer - not so much by will but by lack of tactical ability] caused the world not to turn against me completely until very late - allowing me to keep an ally virtually till the end of the game (uncharacteristic for the current setting of warmonger settings). Don't mistake for diplomatic ability what was in fact lack of tactical competency ... The really good tactical players get punished for conquering too fast .. The latest design changes try to force a bit slower conquest and adding a serious dose of diplomacy in the mix for success ... Which is fine by me but like I said it punishes the really good aggresive players and forces them to alter their play style ...

Why war from medieval and not turtle science overload to Combined arms ? Would get there much faster that way ... No doubt you can reach tank tech much faster by peacefull turtling - but (unless you play a desert civ) you will (probably) lack the oil quantity required in your (relatively) limited borders and will lack the multiple great generals that can be used to connect oil that is outside your borders (even as Nr1 land owner oil might be 2-10 tiles out of range - not a problem when you have 6-7 honor generated great generals) ...

Why commerce ?
- Mercantilism + BigBen (+ ideology rushbuy discount policy) = win .. The money you make by killing units/ pillaging , save on upgrades via proffesional army get "stronger" .. Again - less dependency on city hammer output - tactical competency brings ability to buy new units regardless of owned city hammer output ..
- Tons of happiness potential as long as you secure mutiple luxuries from conquest (hint you should .. also use spare GGs to steal new luxuries without the attached extra city/puppet cost)
- Helps gold generation (finisher) and scales very well with wide (puppet empire) ... Great Merchant extra gold - with rush buy discount almost makes Great Merchants worth building (they will definitely be worth it as faith dumps)
- Railroads - I tend railroad most cities - in the final stages of the game most cities get annexed (don't care about social policies anymore) .. Railroads add estra production for tank production and ability to quickly deploy new tanks to the fronline from any corner of your "empire" .. Also helps responding to remote threats .. The maintainance discount on railroad maintance is a nice bonus ...


Might expand this later if there is interest ..

 

[Ravellion]

Interesting, but how does this compare to bomber spamming yourself? I find that having 8 or so bombers in one city is usually enough to beat every opponent into submission.

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

Bombers work great so long as you are ahead of the tech curve.
Once the AI start building Mobile SAM units all over, you need to have stealth. Usualy, you should be able to win before stealth comes into the picture.

the limits of how many air units you can park in one city hampers this strategy slightly.

also, if the AI has stealth as well, things can go south pretty fast...Nobody like nukes. so messy.

if your air units are getting blown up by iether AA guns or fighters, then its better to rely on artilery and other conventional land / sea units.

 

[peddroelm]

Interesting, but how does this compare to bomber spamming yourself? I find that having 8 or so bombers in one city is usually enough to beat every opponent into submission.

In terms of effectivity IMO it is pretty close between tanks and bombers .. (think bomber tech has more prequesites)

The 6/10 limit per city hurts the player AIR unit effectivity aswell ...Only 10 bombers in range might not do the job quick enough in some situations .. Tanks get discipline & Flanking bonuses vs units - they can pillage (for great profit when a lot of tnaks are involved) and decresead downtime healing ...

But only the level 2 Autocracy tenet ( extra move and ignores zone of control) makes tanks superior to bombers .. You get the opportunity to bypass enemy cities and capture objectives (capitals) {this is illustrated in the proof of concept video LP} making lots of gold trough pillaging (and killing enemy ground units towards their objective {more gold from honor finisher but bombers can do this aswell} ) ... A pack of disciplined up tanks moving trough enemy territory (un-pillaged) is pretty hard to put down (by the AI) ..

Also the upgrade line into armor units starts in ancient era (chariot archer/horseman) unlike for airplanes in modern (GWB) ..

 

[Erneiz Hyde]

Newly captured cities will need an airport intact for it to be able to hold more than 6 planes. And given how AI spam anti-air (anti air actually is deadly to planes now), all bombers would die very fast without fighter support (I even got my full health bomber instantly died once trying to attack a city without sweeping first). Getting them up to air repair would also require healing in between, which will make city capturing a painfully long process with bombers.

After the patch, unless I can make planes that have air repair as they come out, I also have mostly given up on planes and fill my late army with tanks and rocket arties, with a couple of my own anti airs lying around somewhere in formation.

 

[Laurwin]

In terms of effectivity IMO it is pretty close between tanks and bombers .. (think bomber tech has more prequesites)

The 6/10 limit per city hurts the player AIR unit effectivity aswell ...Only 10 bombers in range might not do the job quick enough in some situations .. Tanks get discipline & Flanking bonuses vs units - they can pillage (for great profit when a lot of tnaks are involved) and decresead downtime healing ...

But only the level 2 Autocracy tenet ( extra move and ignores zone of control) makes tanks superior to bombers .. You get the opportunity to bypass enemy cities and capture objectives (capitals) {this is illustrated in the proof of concept video LP} making lots of gold trough pillaging (and killing enemy ground units towards their objective {more gold from honor finisher but bombers can do this aswell} ) ... A pack of disciplined up tanks moving trough enemy territory (un-pillaged) is pretty hard to put down (by the AI) ..

Also the upgrade line into armor units starts in ancient era (chariot archer/horseman) unlike for airplanes in modern (GWB) ..

I agree that the "tank/panzer carpet of doom" is quite powerful sometimes.

Think about it from the defender's point of view, how can the carpet be countered?

All the defenders tile improvements will be pillaged, UNLESS the defender has tons of line units (infantry, machine guns etc...)to act as meatshield.

defender cannot work tiles occupied by tanks, and all free tiles will be pillaged for extra health.

blitz tanks (logistic) can attack city, and move away from city into fresh tile improvement and pillage for extra health.

The defender would have to posess either a HUGE airforce with airports, or HUGE infantry army, in order to focus fire effectively into the tanks. (high level city defense helps though spam those military bases)

Keeping in mind that unit upkeep costs are the same for tanks, infantry (same era units cost the same to maintain, it's not very realistic but it's how the game works?)

This is IMO also why the blitzkrieg policy from autocracy is underrated. Ignoring ZOC is very effective, either against AI, or human player.

How can you defend against those autocracy tanks then? well you cannot rely on the ZOC and you must have more meatshield as line units. Otherwise, prepare to have your positions outflanked all the time. (and your backlines artillery killed by flanking tanks)

 

[Vitruvius]

This looks fun for the defenders I am wondering how this could be defended on MP. Maybe AT guns + forts + bombers. The ignore ZOC will be a . The only way is to surround first ring of city with AT guns and pack city with bombers. You are gonna have to give up two outer rings. But with so much pillaging, dont think you will even have oil for bombers.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Laurwin]

Yea, does bazooka or AT gun actually get bonus vs tank unit class? Again, it would make sense from real life point of view, but not necessarily any ingame bonuses?

 

[Laurwin]

This looks fun for the defenders I am wondering how this could be defended on MP. Maybe AT guns + forts + bombers. The ignore ZOC will be a . The only way is to surround first ring of city with AT guns and pack city with bombers. You are gonna have to give up two outer rings. But with so much pillaging, dont think you will even have oil for bombers.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

maybe wall of AT guns or infantry (meatshields mainly to be honest)
with backline of artillery?

I think the AT gun approach would be better, you would be able to range attack, from the same tile that you occupy with the AT gun. (so you always protect artillery line, with AT gun line in front of it)

 

[GhostSalsa]

Yea, does bazooka or AT gun actually get bonus vs tank unit class? Again, it would make sense from real life point of view, but not necessarily any ingame bonuses?

AT has 100 against armored.

The obvious defense against a human tank rush is helicopters, at least that's what they were designed for. You'd want a nice slog of AA/Sams with ambush promo wherever your helicopters go.

But then you are vulnerable to aluminum pillaging, so maybe the best defense is to go to the opponent's territory and destroy all their resources first.