Stealth Bomber Strategy

[Buccaneer]

Dear gord people play without quick combat?

Why not? I'm not in a hurry to play/complete a game. It's a lot of fun watching the combat graphics.

 

[snarzberry]

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


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

On a side note, I also highly recommend this for a LP! Wainy, MadDjinn?

Nice one, the more you think about it the more synergy America has with this style. Extra sight for targeting, fast moving minutemen upgraded to rifles/mechs to quickly move to cities, cheap purchasing of production tiles in the third ring to help maximize hammers for unit building and B17 stealth bombers with the key promotions faster... wcbarney is probably well pleased! I know he has been championing the seppos for a long time on this forum so he's probably happy seeing a deity strat that gels well with their traits.

Wainy if you haven't done an American LP yet maybe it'd be a good idea to consider using them in your video.

EDIT:

re quick combat

Dear gord people play without quick combat?

Why not? I'm not in a hurry to play/complete a game. It's a lot of fun watching the combat graphics.

I always play with quick combat so I have actually never even seen the stealth bomber animation, I've heard people say it's the longest animation in the game. Seeing as you might do 30 stealth bomber attacks in one turn during your war push I bet that would drive even the staunchest combat animation supporter over to the quick combat side lol!

 

[flairin]

There was a person who posted a strategy to get Stealth early several months ago, around turn 200:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=437779

 

[Buccaneer]

I always play with quick combat so I have actually never even seen the stealth bomber animation, I've heard people say it's the longest animation in the game. Seeing as you might do 30 stealth bomber attacks in one turn during your war push I bet that would drive even the staunchest combat animation supporter over to the quick combat side lol!

Well, since I had never even seen one of these, I can imagine that would be true. However, I do recall playing one of those huge Civ4 WW2 scenarios where I was making 20-40 bombing runs per turn and enjoyed that. Still haven't done or seen much aerial combats in Civ5 yet.

 

[snarzberry]

There was a person who posted a strategy to get Stealth early several months ago, around turn 200:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=437779

Thanks for that, hadn't seen that one. His method is different with only one city, taking tradition and going for hanging gardens (?) but also shows the same idea of using stealth bombers from an isolated start.

I noticed his game was on a small map not a standard, I think on standard size a multi-city approach will come out ahead because you've a lot more units/civs to get through to reach your goal so you want increased production capacity.

 

[Dactyl]

How in the heck do you get Stealth before turn 190? I decided to try this strategy at King difficulty. By turn 200, I had built GL, HS, PT, ND, had built the university in each of my four cities as soon as I got it, had built Oxford U., finished Liberty and had two policies in Rationalism. I had eight great scientists but I was still 16 techs away from Stealth.

 

[snarzberry]

you may have neglected research agreements, were you able to sign many?

 

[Scarpa]

Well, since I had never even seen one of these, I can imagine that would be true. However, I do recall playing one of those huge Civ4 WW2 scenarios where I was making 20-40 bombing runs per turn and enjoyed that. Still haven't done or seen much aerial combats in Civ5 yet.

This was my first time using air combat units, and the animations were quite a bit longer than normal melee combat. I generally like the animations as I play peaceful builder type games and rarely have massive fronts.

I did end up using strategic view to finish out the game, which worked well for two reasons - cutting out animations completely and clarifying the map. Since it was a large map at the end of the game things were quite busy and with bombers you can cover so much map it was making my computer cry just scrolling around.

 

[Dactyl]

Snarzberry, yeah I signed research agreements, as many as money and good sense would allow. The Germans and Romans kept declaring war on me so I wouldn't agree to RA's with them because I didn't think they would let them come to maturity. I didn't agree to any RA's until I was certain that they would mature after I had the PT.

 

[w a i n y]

Wainy if you haven't done an American LP yet maybe it'd be a good idea to consider using them in your video.

Will do.

 

[snarzberry]

Snarzberry, yeah I signed research agreements, as many as money and good sense would allow. The Germans and Romans kept declaring war on me so I wouldn't agree to RA's with them because I didn't think they would let them come to maturity. I didn't agree to any RA's until I was certain that they would mature after I had the PT.

Hmmm, there are a number of things that may have slowed you down. Could be optimization of RA's or just the quantity, but if you're in a lot of wars then you may be slowed down on that front without much of a way to change that fact. Your problem might come down to empire building/management like generating enough gpt. You may have gotten unlucky with a crappy starting location which contributed to your lack of funds, if you were in fact restricted by money from entering into RAs.

This is one of the reasons that this works best for an isolated start so you usually have only one or two enemies and can maintain happy relations with the other civs.

It also might be in fine tuning the opening phase to get everything up and running as quickly as you can, things like universities and the NC.

 

[w a i n y]

You know, on second thought, I like Babylon better. We've just been considering the better teching of Babylon vs. the better aircraft of America, but bowmen enter into this too. I can see quickly taking out one or two civs with bowmen (3 or sometimes 4 on immortal or below is quite feasible) then turtling for the rest of the game until stealth. If the other AIs have settled close to you, this is the only way to get room to expand, and since you don't need the quick settlers you can take tradition -> oligarchy and put a bowman inside every city. Poof! Instant defense from the city bombards alone, especially with the 6 (?!) city combat strength and defense boost of Walls of Babylon. I like how this strategy uses every one of their unique traits.

By the way, are upgrade and purchase costs covered in the XML files? I'm not sure whether it's worth it to buy bombers and upgrade versus buy stealth bombers with and without military tradition. Upgrading is almost always cheaper, but I'd rather make sure.

 

[Monthar]

I was thinking of giving this a try with Korea and settling all my great people to take full advantage of the +2 science from specialists and the great people buildings. I figured coupling this with Freedom's completion bonus and the bonus science from specialists in Rationalization I should tons of science in every city. Plus there's the research boost every time you complete a science building/wonder.

 

[JeanBaptiste]

You know, on second thought, I like Babylon better. We've just been considering the better teching of Babylon vs. the better aircraft of America, but bowmen enter into this too. I can see quickly taking out one or two civs with bowmen (3 or sometimes 4 on immortal or below is quite feasible) then turtling for the rest of the game until stealth. If the other AIs have settled close to you, this is the only way to get room to expand, and since you don't need the quick settlers you can take tradition -> oligarchy and put a bowman inside every city. Poof! Instant defense from the city bombards alone, especially with the 6 (?!) city combat strength and defense boost of Walls of Babylon. I like how this strategy uses every one of their unique traits.

Yeah, Babylon is probably the safer choice if you don't get the optimal starting position and have several bordering neighbors. It would be fun though to see the American UA & UUs get fully utilized in a LP some time though and you've already done Babylon with a bowman rush twice ! However the tradition start would be something different to see and with their UA you can quickly get to Education and hard build ND or the PT without using the Liberty finisher GP.

If you would go for America though, Four corner or Ring maps may be good choices. Pangaea and Continents could be too risky (multiple early AI rushes) if you don't want to reload....

 

[w a i n y]

If you would go for America though, Four corner or Ring maps may be good choices. Pangaea and Continents could be too risky (multiple early AI rushes) if you don't want to reload....

I don't think most starts require reloading if played well. I still maintain that for my first Ottomans attempt, there wasn't too much I could do, but something like the second attempt, where Polynesia declared on me much later on, is quite preventable. Still, I like the Babylon strategy too much.

 

[JeanBaptiste]

I don't think most starts require reloading if played well.

Of course, I'm just talking about this specific case where you start as America and where multiple bordering neighbors would make it a lot more difficult to do a peaceful rush towards Stealth.

 

[timtofly]

FYI:

One does not have to watch the whole animation. It will stop if you cycle to the next unit. Of course even doing that may be too much effort for some. Give the command, and then cycle to the next unit. You can always cycle back or wait until the unit comes back around if you have multiple strike ability.

 

[The Pilgrim]

By the way, are upgrade and purchase costs covered in the XML files? I'm not sure whether it's worth it to buy bombers and upgrade versus buy stealth bombers with and without military tradition. Upgrading is almost always cheaper, but I'd rather make sure.

Since nobody considered this option seriously, I wanted to double check myself.

Assuming you meant Militarism:

Unit / Production cost / Base purchase cost / with Big Ben / with Militarism / with both

Bomber / 375 / 1090 / 920 / 730 / 620
Stealth bomber / 425 / 1190 / 1010 / 800 / 680

Upgrade without Professional Army costs 110 (75 with it, I guess). Not cheaper.


I always rush buy stealth bombers using similar strategy. Switch to gold focus aiming for let's say 3400g for 5 of them after the last wave of RA's is signed. Usually it's not a problem. If you don't have Big Ben (which is kind of a key wonder for any late conquest, IMO) and did pick Professional army, it's a different story. But the chance you've gone Honor in this case is slim to non-existent.

I always play with quick combat so I have actually never even seen the stealth bomber animation, I've heard people say it's the longest animation in the game. Seeing as you might do 30 stealth bomber attacks in one turn during your war push I bet that would drive even the staunchest combat animation supporter over to the quick combat side lol!

Me too. Actually, after hearing so many complaints, I'm quite curious what's all this fuss about.

 

[timtofly]

Since nobody considered this option seriously, I wanted to double check myself.

Assuming you meant Militarism:

Unit / Production cost / Base purchase cost / with Big Ben / with Militarism / with both

Bomber / 375 / 1090 / 920 / 730 / 620
Stealth bomber / 425 / 1190 / 1010 / 800 / 680

Upgrade without Professional Army costs 110 (75 with it, I guess). Not cheaper.


I always rush buy stealth bombers using similar strategy. Switch to gold focus aiming for let's say 3400g for 5 of them after the last wave of RA's is signed. Usually it's not a problem. If you don't have Big Ben (which is kind of a key wonder for any late conquest, IMO) and did pick Professional army, it's a different story. But the chance you've gone Honor in this case is slim to non-existent.



Me too. Actually, after hearing so many complaints, I'm quite curious what's all this fuss about.

You have to be zoomed out, but the creators thought it would be cool to watch the SB travel about 15 tiles, drop 1-2 bombs, circle, drop two more, and then dissappear. Sometimes you can watch it drop bombs a third time.

If it gets shot down, they did not show an animation for that, so one can be surprised that after watching this "great" animation to learn that their SB was destroyed.

If you are zoomed in, you wait about 8 seconds, then you can see the SB do it's thing.

There is another thread that someone complained that if the SB were carrier based, the animation would be different (shorter). I highly doubt that.

 

[Dactyl]

I had another go at this strategy on King level. I spammed RA's like mad and got Stealth on turn 219. I probably could have had it earlier, but for two things. I was on a small continent by myself, so it took a while to meet the other civs. Also, I didn't have a very good starting location, so it took me longer to get cranked up than usual.