Stealth Bomber Strategy

Do you guys agree Autocracy is best to take after Scientific Revolution?

If you're looking for Domination and get Stealth that early, then autocracy is the only way to go.

Doubling up on Aluminum to get twice the air force is good. Having slightly hurt bombers that still hit as if at full health is good. extra happiness on courthouses means you won't generally have happiness issues as you steamroll.

If you get them as early as in the OP then they are monsters, pretty much one-time any unit out there which you can do twice in a turn and take less than 3 hp to be fully healed next turn. The siege promoted SB reduce city hp faster than anything else I've seen in the game.

for SP, they're monsters no matter when you get them. Better than a Nuke if you get enough of them. (since they keep on rolling)
 
I think there should be some extra techs that you need to pick up between Radar and Stealth, and also I think the upgrade to stealth bombers should cost a lot more.

And as I said in another thread I think some changes should be made to great people because of the power of hanging on to scientists to bulb late game techs. Perhaps unit upkeep cost for great people could be made significantly larger than for other unit types so that you had a period in the early game where it was better to settle or consider bulbing early techs and then there came a point where you judged it acceptable to hang on to them and pay the costs. It would add a bit more dynamism and skill to the game compared to how it is now where it's always better to hang on to them to plow through late game techs.

Remember how in civ 4 cultural games you'd be settling early artists but hanging on to late game artists for bombs and assessing when it came to the point that it was better to hold on to the artist than settle it was a key skill which required quite a bit of forecasting and understanding of the position you were in and how many turns you expected the game to last. I'd prefer it if you were in a similar position re great scientists in civ 5.
 
I think there should be some extra techs that you need to pick up between Radar and Stealth, and also I think the upgrade to stealth bombers should cost a lot more.

yeah, that'd be good.

It's similar for mech infantry. if you can spam them early, you win. Not quite as convincingly as with Stealth Bombers, but you get there so much earlier.
 
I agree about increasing the consequences of hanging onto an army of GS. Not only upkeep cost but perhaps partial bulbing? In a Babylon, it's ridiculous to go from Telegraph to Globalization in one turn.
 
Another innovative ploy by Snarz. I want to give this a shot. Would it be possible for you to give a more detailed recipe, like your warmonger strategy and/or the Bab/Korean rifle rush? (both of which I really enjoyed and put to good use, BTW)

How many GSs did you have? That kind of stuff.
 
How did you go 200 turns without any wars on deity? The AI always DoWs me before turn 100.
 
I might emulate your strategy in my current game.

I played Rome hoping for an early domination. It is on a tiny pangaea map with four civs. Isabella DOW early just as I got access to iron. I upgraded some early warriors to legion units and rolled her in the classical era.

Next I tried to go after Darius. Like Isabella, he DOW me just before I was ready. Unfortunately, the wheels came off my early legion army rather quickly and I had to accept peace to lick my wounds and rebuild.

Just when I thought I was ready to DOW Darius again, Arabia DOW me and Darius joined on my side. Darius was rather worthless, but the shared war allowed me to get open borders to move my now upgraded lownswordsmen through his territory with crossbows and trebs for support. I took Mecca and Medina and accepted his peace terms since I didn't need his other crap cities to win.

The flaw in my strategy was that I underestimated the importance of some key wonders. Sure, I was able to chop the pyramids and stonehenge in one of my cities for early GE points which allowed me to rush a couple of other wonders. What I underestimated is the power of having the great wall and the castle which improves defensive buildings (both of which Darius built in his capital).

Now I am in a sort of stalemate. I have taken two of Darius core cities, but his capital is almost impossible to take. I am sporting a military of riflemen, cavalry, and cannons at the moment. The problem is that he can decimate my guys as they move at one space per turn approaching his capital. Even when I manage to get four riflemen around the city with three cannons to support, they do so little damage that they are basically waiting to be shot.

Since I have such a dominant position, switching to a tech strategy shouldn't be too difficult. If I beeline for stealth, I should be able to take him out and get get my deity domination victory...all be is not as quick as I was hooping for.
 
I might emulate your strategy in my current game.

I played Rome hoping for an early domination. It is on a tiny pangaea map with four civs. Isabella DOW early just as I got access to iron. I upgraded some early warriors to legion units and rolled her in the classical era.

Next I tried to go after Darius. Like Isabella, he DOW me just before I was ready. Unfortunately, the wheels came off my early legion army rather quickly and I had to accept peace to lick my wounds and rebuild.

Just when I thought I was ready to DOW Darius again, Arabia DOW me and Darius joined on my side. Darius was rather worthless, but the shared war allowed me to get open borders to move my now upgraded lownswordsmen through his territory with crossbows and trebs for support. I took Mecca and Medina and accepted his peace terms since I didn't need his other crap cities to win.

The flaw in my strategy was that I underestimated the importance of some key wonders. Sure, I was able to chop the pyramids and stonehenge in one of my cities for early GE points which allowed me to rush a couple of other wonders. What I underestimated is the power of having the great wall and the castle which improves defensive buildings (both of which Darius built in his capital).

Now I am in a sort of stalemate. I have taken two of Darius core cities, but his capital is almost impossible to take. I am sporting a military of riflemen, cavalry, and cannons at the moment. The problem is that he can decimate my guys as they move at one space per turn approaching his capital. Even when I manage to get four riflemen around the city with three cannons to support, they do so little damage that they are basically waiting to be shot.

Since I have such a dominant position, switching to a tech strategy shouldn't be too difficult. If I beeline for stealth, I should be able to take him out and get get my deity domination victory...all be is not as quick as I was hooping for.

Just get Artillery, that should be enough really.
 
In such a situation Stealth Bombers would seem slightly redundant to wait for, when Bombers will do the trick too.
 
Another innovative ploy by Snarz. I want to give this a shot. Would it be possible for you to give a more detailed recipe, like your warmonger strategy and/or the Bab/Korean rifle rush? (both of which I really enjoyed and put to good use, BTW)

How many GSs did you have? That kind of stuff.

Sure, though there's not a one size fits all build order for this one as much of it is map dependent like how many cities you'll want in total and what exact order you do things at the beginning of the game regarding building the NC. The amount of luxuries you have access to, the proximity of your nearest neighbour and what the terrain around you is like all might influence the specific way that it's best to go about the early developing phase, or if it's best to even attempt this at all in favour of an earlier war strategy. But I'll try and be more detailed about the overall plan so you have a better understanding of what you're trying to make happen and then you just have to play the map as you see fit.

For instance, the plan from the outset is to have a few very quickly settled cities that will grow from very early on into high production hubs, barracks, armories and factories, which you use to build the bomber fleet once stealth is unlocked. On the map I played that number of cities was 3. But on another map it might be 4, or maybe even 2 would work.

Also because you'll not be partaking in any conquest until quite late in the game and want to build a lot of infrastructure, while financing as many RAs as possible, that it is clear that your economy will be in danger of tanking. So you want a small number of secondary cities that, while having libraries and universities, serve mainly by working trading posts and other high gold yield tiles to keep the economy afloat. That number of cities on my map was also 3 but could probably vary between 2 and 5 depending on the situation.

The way that I went about it was to get universities in the 3 core cites as quickly as I could, so all were finished around the turn 100 mark. After that I spammed three settlers to claim some riverside tiles and a luxury, pearls, that I didn't have in my borders yet. This happens right around the time that ND is rushed in the capital so there is a bit of a happiness buffer.

The universities run scientists from the turn they are built till the turn you execute the bulb sequence, in the end I produced 6 GS (not counting the Writing one) by turn 181 to combine with Sci Rev and Oxford to give me 9 instant techs. After the bulbing is completed all of the citizens should be put to work in the tiles to maximize production for bomber building.

It is best to attempt this strategy if you start in an at least a semi-isolated map location, with decent defensible terrain so you do not need to invest too much in your defence to stay alive.

As for your city takers go for mix of tanks (5 moves) and paratroopers (can hop over rivers) and they should get terrain promotions, not siege, as they'll only be attacking 1hp cities and you just need to ensure their survival from city attacks.

good luck, let me know if there's anything else that requires clarification...

How did you go 200 turns without any wars on deity? The AI always DoWs me before turn 100.

I didn't avoid war totally, I was in defensive wars during the first 200 turns but just didn't attempt to push out beyond my borders until I had bombers. It helped that I was in a good defensive location and there was only one civ, Suleiman, that I had direct borders with. He played a fairly passive game and was eventually eaten up by runaway Pachacuti along with 2 other civs.

If you spawned in the center of a map with civs on either side then I wouldn't hold out much hope of making this work, 200 turns is a long time to stay alive on deity, so it's probably best to leave this to attempt when you find yourself in a suitable starting spot.
 
I just finished a Deity dom game with this strategy and it was the most enjoyable game in a long while. Thanks Snarzberry!

So following this thread I chose to go with America on pangea, standard everything. Managed to get to Stealth around turn 190 and had a couple of B17s ready to be upgraded a few turns later. Won the game on turn 247 with 14-15 SBs (crazy promoted) operating and a bunch of super minutemen>MI swarming the planet.

Some observations:

First, it's not getting to Stealth which is the hard part (the GL to kick off things early with is nice but not necessary). Having the infrastructure ready in time is much more difficult. I had a "permament" war (until SBs finished the job) with Bismarck, my closest neighbor, which made me invest in to a lot of defense early and sacrifice happiness, growth and gold.

Secondly, since Bismarck on the other hand was my only bordering neighbor I had my own landmass to the east where I could set up those extra cities for GS farming, getting unique luxes and such. This was the most important aspect of the game since I could avoid other wars and have good trading and RA signing. As Snarzberry mentioned this strategy relies quite heavily on your starting position.

Thirdly, if you want to go for a puppet sprawl for max. points (instead of a strategic capital sniping, selling off all unnecessary cities) then plan your SP acquisition very carefully. You're really going to need the happiness! In my case I allied a cultural CS and befriended another too early forcing me to pick a non-renaissance policy after I finished the Liberty tree (a complete waste). After Scientific revolution you need to get to Police State ASAP to be able to continue your steamrolling in pace. This was in the end the only obstacle for me not finishing the game earlier. (The SOH helped out with this though)

Finally, if you're going for America don't purchase SB's straight off. Forgetting the B17 upgrade line leaves you with "crappy" SB's :lol:


What I really liked about this game was that, compared to other deity dom games, it really forced you to focus on empire building for a long time (like a CIV game should be). Normally you just get that medieval UU and rush the place. Playing with America was also obviously very nice. The extra sight is a great UA for targeting (Bismarcks first city was made visible with a 2Xsight scout :)) and scouting your territory. The minutemen and B17 upgrade lines are just ridiculous. Purchasing 3rd ring tiles cheaply is also good when you want to get to resources quickly = money for RA's. On the win turn, for all that insane gold I got from peace treaties, I purchased every tile possible. Useless mountains, deserts and such :lol:

On a side note, I also highly recommend this for a LP! Wainy, MadDjinn?
 
If a SB has all three city promos, they can have an attack of 140 against a 54 city that is almost 300%. I have seen damage up to 18 (12-14 is average). I am not sure where the AI would be in a diety game at the point you are talking about. If they are still in the 40's then one attack will do it. SB take about 3 damage on average against a city. More if hit by anti-air fire. I would go 2 city, double attack, heal, 50% less damage, 3rd city, + range, and etc. (land units, naval, armoured) depending on the situation. With double attack, you get 12 points every turn for the next promo.

The bomber gets to 120, but also takes more damage. I would not waste time on bombers unless you base them on carriers offshore.
 
Just wanted to add in here that I tried this out in a failed Diplo game on King and it was a blast.

Was going for 4-city peaceful diplo with China but couldn't out spend Greece. Was sitting with 6 or 7 GS about to go Globalization and saw this thread and thought it would be fun, given I had +25 happiness.

Sure is a blast rolling a fleet of SBs and MI across the map, but really really made me wish I was playing with quick combat on. :lol:

Anyway not that impressive of a story just wanted to throw it out there so y'all know even us lowly King player enjoy the Diety threads/ideas. ;)
 
you build bombers and upgrade to SBs. It's a faster production time, plus is cheap to upgrade. For the Americans, it means starting with Siege I vs. no Siege I.

I was pointing out how to use them, not build them. Some think that bombers do the same thing a stealth bomber can. The only thing they are good for "usage" wise is attack from a carrier.
 
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