Stealth Bomber Strategy

[The Pilgrim]

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.

If I weren't so lazy, I'd change my ini just to watch this once. But meh... I am. Combat notifications suck, I agree. They should be accessible on next turn. I can understand players' frustration. Maybe this will be fixed in next patches.

 

[timtofly]

If I weren't so lazy, I'd change my ini just to watch this once. But meh... I am. Combat notifications suck, I agree. They should be accessible on next turn. I can understand players' frustration. Maybe this will be fixed in next patches.

I am surprised no one has posted a u-tube video of it yet. I am too lazy to look for one. That, and I have it burned into my brain from watching it happen toooo many times.

 

[YetiHunter84]

I stumbled into a similar strategy in my last game (Persia-Continents-Large-King-Standard). Was going for a few-great-cities cultural victory, but was forced into destroying my expansionist neighbors. Oda got to flight a few turns before me, spammed a couple dozen aircraft, and DoW'd me during a DoF. He'd DoW'd me twice already, so I had expected this and beelined fission. He had ten Zeros in Shimonseki, which I duly nuked. I let Shimonseki recover, he filled it with another ten Zeros, I nuked it again, then took it with tanks and never looked back. Had my own air force by now, which I used to bomb his land forces and defend from his remaining fighters, while my artillery (which almost all had logistics and range from wiping out Siam) rained death on his cities. Japan settles so densely that I could often attack a city with a garrisoned 4-range artillery. Got Stealth via scientific revolution about halfway through the invasion, upgraded all my bombers, and from then on was taking up to three cities per turn with modern armour. Could probably have won the game via domination given another 20 turns but Caesar, safe on his own continent, launched his spaceship in 1937 soon after Japan had fallen. In hindsight I should have ignored Japan's lesser outposts and pushed on to Krakorum, Tenochtitlan and Rome. Probably not the most brilliant game (not a single RA until late game due to being landlocked and having only aggressive neighbors to trade with) but boy it was fun to steamroll like that!

I think nukes complement the SB strategy beautifully by being the quickest way to counter a fighter-spamming AI. I might well have fallen to Oda's initial push if I hadn't been able to take out 10,800g worth of fighters in one hit.

 

[JDR]

Had a lot of fun messing with this over the weekend with Washington on Immortal. Upgraded B-17s and Minutemen worked really well.

The biggest problem for me was having the infrastructure up in my 3-4 main cities in time to churn out enough planes by turn 200. 210 has been more like it for me. Just amazing how quickly you can plow through the AIs armies, though.

 

[Dactyl]

There's one big flaw in this strategy. In my most recent game with the strategy at King level, I was playing on a Fractal map. I ended up on a continent with three other civs. I built four cities early on, fought off a few attacks, then turtled down as I beelined for Stealth, with the help of many RA's. I got there at somewhere around turn 220, only to discover that there was no aluminum to be found on the continent. That sort of threw a monkey wrench into the whole Stealth bomber strategy.

 

[cmorganuk]

I've used Stealth bombers alot recently, not really by plan, I just sort of stumble into them late game.

In a current game I'm on a small continent of my own with Egypt so have sort of beelined stealth, not 100% but made a conserted effort to get there. However I'm at turn 260 and am only just about to get bombers, stealth is probably another 20-25 turns away. So my question is, how on earth do people get there in 180 turns?

 

[snarzberry]

There's one big flaw in this strategy. In my most recent game with the strategy at King level, I was playing on a Fractal map. I ended up on a continent with three other civs. I built four cities early on, fought off a few attacks, then turtled down as I beelined for Stealth, with the help of many RA's. I got there at somewhere around turn 220, only to discover that there was no aluminum to be found on the continent. That sort of threw a monkey wrench into the whole Stealth bomber strategy.

well I hear you, but access to resources affects every style of play. It's just something you have to work around and deal with. It's part of playing the game to react to the particulars of your situation and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you have to improvise. This is a common theme in pretty much any game of civ, whatever your main strategy.

Maybe in your spot you had access to some oil at least to start the campaign with bombers? If you really have no possible way to source oil or aluminium then you've been unlucky and you'll just have to go and conquer some or work out a different plan. You're way ahead in tech by this stage so there should be some viable alternatives available.

I've used Stealth bombers alot recently, not really by plan, I just sort of stumble into them late game.

In a current game I'm on a small continent of my own with Egypt so have sort of beelined stealth, not 100% but made a conserted effort to get there. However I'm at turn 260 and am only just about to get bombers, stealth is probably another 20-25 turns away. So my question is, how on earth do people get there in 180 turns?

You do it by maxing out research agreements and saving up scientists. The beginning of the game is very similar to going for a science victory but you just pull the trigger on the bulbs earlier to get to stealth (or some other deep military tech). The game I did it in 181 turns was with babylon so that may not be possible with the other civs, but before turn 200 is gettable for anyone.

Like you alluded, it's about complete focus from early on. Defensive wars early, get the massive tech lead and then go stomping.

 

[cmorganuk]

I did use quite a few RA's but I wasn't using them to optimum. I probably bulb my scientists too early too.

In this game I was completely war free too, on my own island and no one came to attack me.

 

[Mazer Rackham]

There's one big flaw in this strategy. In my most recent game with the strategy at King level, I was playing on a Fractal map. I ended up on a continent with three other civs. I built four cities early on, fought off a few attacks, then turtled down as I beelined for Stealth, with the help of many RA's. I got there at somewhere around turn 220, only to discover that there was no aluminum to be found on the continent. That sort of threw a monkey wrench into the whole Stealth bomber strategy.

What Snarz said. It's like when you gear up for a sword rush and there is no available iron. You should have Electricity and find out where it is at well in advance of your bomber blitz. Plan accordingly.

This has happened to me several times when going for a science victory. You really want spaceship factories to speed things up, so you need the aluminum. Sometimes there is a lonely island out there with it and you can plop a settler down and claim the resource. Another option is conquering a CS - you should be in your last round of RAs at the time, so the diplo hit isn't going to matter. You are gearing up for a lot of diplo hits at that point in time, anyway!

 

[Tabarnak]

To reach a tech very fast like Stealth, just gather from early trades to chain RAs around turn 80-90. Prioritize luxuries/ressources selling in the first place then keep . That gives you 3 chains that propulse you through the tech tree. Don't ally CS until turn 150 or so unless you are very lucky with barb quests. You will reach Stealth under 170 turns because 3 chains can gives you between 15 and 21 techs. Add some GS, Oxford and possibly Sci. Rev. to finish the job.

Bulbing 1 to 3 scientists for electricity is a good thing(you will probably be in the middle of your 2nd chain).

 

[Buccaneer]

To reach a tech very fast like Stealth, just gather from early trades to chain RAs around turn 80-90. Prioritize luxuries/ressources selling in the first place then keep . That gives you 3 chains that propulse you through the tech tree. Don't ally CS until turn 150 or so unless you are very lucky with barb quests. You will reach Stealth under 170 turns because 3 chains can gives you between 15 and 21 techs. Add some GS, Oxford and possibly Sci. Rev. to finish the job.

Bulbing 1 to 3 scientists for electricity is a good thing(you will probably be in the middle of your 2nd chain).

How many RAs in a chain? In a lot of my games (Immortal/Emperor) with +7 civs, I rarely am able to find more than 2 AI civs with the gold for an RA within a short time frame. Usually I can get 3 RAs in 20 turns while the other 4 civs are too small or unknown.

 

[Tabarnak]

How many RAs in a chain? In a lot of my games (Immortal/Emperor) with +7 civs, I rarely am able to find more than 2 AI civs with the gold for an RA within a short time frame. Usually I can get 3 RAs in 20 turns while the other 4 civs are too small or unknown.

The trick is to be under a golden age to borrow maximum for gpt from other civs. You will enter negative income for a couple of turns, but RAs are strong enough to delete this handicap.

For continents maps with only 1 or 2 neighbors, it's impossible to get Stealth before turn 180.

 

[Bandobras Took]

For continents maps with only 1 or 2 neighbors, it's impossible to get Stealth before turn 180.

That would explain some of my difficulties.

 

[the_Ticktockman]

This was quite a lot of fun, just completed with America on Emperor. It was definitely worth building B17s and upgrading from there. I had a pretty optimal run, with only Germany as a threatening neighbor (who I had to waste time and resources conquering) and plenty of strategic resources and luxs throughout. By the time I reached stealth, Hiawatha had conquered about 60% of the map and was allied to most of the CS. I destroyed him completely, and everyone else followed. Good times,

-TTm

 

[avdale]

Tried this out on Emperor. How have Stealth Bombers been left this strong for so long? Hit Stealth on turn 210 with Babylon. Was a really low tech game though, Paccy tried to run away with the game while Augustus, Askia, Cathy and Bismarck all just declared on each other constantly. Paccy fell pretty quickly as despite having like 20 cities he was still in renaissance when my bombers were coming out. Nobody can kill me anymore and it's just 40-50 more turns of flying over the map wiping out peoples capitals.

What felt like the most difficult part in this game was surviving 200ish turns with very little military. 3 people declared on me at different times, I was able to survive as I had two CS allies as a buffer and the A.I's messed around trying to cap them. You won't always have such lucky terrain though. When you want to tech so quickly and you are so weak people declaring seems inevitable. Any tips on how to survive?

 

[Bandobras Took]

Tried this out on Emperor. How have Stealth Bombers been left this strong for so long?

Wrong question; the actual question is: how have great scientists and research agreements been left this strong for so long?

 

[MadDjinn]

Wrong question; the actual question is: how have great scientists and research agreements been left this strong for so long?

both questions are the right questions.

Even when you 'slow' tech to SBs, with the AIs having nukes or other similar late-industrial/modern units, SBs still own everything.

You can even safely use them against AA units without doing air sweeps (with Jets) first.

So, realistically, there's two problems. 1) too easy to get (GS/RAs) and then 2) no hard counters.

SAMs are the closest thing to a hard counter, but the AI rarely builds them. Even then, it's usually an even fight, due to the SBs getting promotions and the SAMS not.

Jets can't really hard counter SBs, as their base value is too low and they don't get the +100% vs. air that AA does. Of course, only human players realize that Intercept mode is useful, which is yet another issue.

 

[snarzberry]

One thing I've noticed in a few recent games is that it really is easy to complete the tech beeline to stealth with any civ in under 200 turns, especially easy with the babs. Actually it's easy to produce too much science, it's happened to me in a number of games and in wainy's let's play he also ends up with a lot of superfluous science around turn 200.

So I've come to realise that you don't actually need to turtle so much in the build up, you can actually use some of those scientists to help you war during the first 200 turns and still be fine to reach stealth on schedule. For example, with babylon, the extreme case, I played a game yesterday where I used 3 GSs to open rifling around turn 120 and conquered my immediate neighbours, who had both DoW'd me, and still had the stealth attack ready to go pre 200 to clean up the rest. Even then I had one useless bulb.


So having a close aggressive neighbour doesn't cancel this strategy out necessarily, you don't have bunker down and withstand the constant invasions. You can put that additional science to good use during the development phase.

 

[Monthar]

I've been thinking of prioritizing getting temples, opera houses and Hermitage built as soon as I hit Renaissance in order to fill out those Rationalism policies faster. I figure if done right, I could hold off on the 2 free techs policy until the right time, but be able to grab either the right side of the tree or get key policies in Commerce, Honor, Patronage or possibly even Autocracy. My idea here is if I can get the Commerce and Autocracy policies that reduce the cost of buying units I could buy several units as soon as I unlock Stealth. With the Honor policies get them promoted up a lot faster and be able to deal with happiness issues much easier.

The bonus of getting those policies faster is of course more beakers per scientists and increasing the multiplier from universities sooner. If completing the Rationalism tree, there's also the bonus happiness from all the science buildings, except research labs and the 15% bonus from the empire being happy. This, of course means, being able to grow our cities more, which means even more beakers per city.

With all the GS's getting produced, I could even use the 2 free techs from Rationalism for the earlier war efforts and still be able to bulb the techs to get to Stealth in a timely manner. In either case, getting some of those military techs earlier, if done in the right order would raise the median for the RA's. In fact I think if we were to bulb earlier techs, as well as using Oxford and the 2 free techs from Rationalism to get those military techs and raise the median, we could still have the RA's carry us through to Stealth in a similar time frame.

 

[snarzberry]

Speeding up culture and using scientific rev earlier is an interesting idea. It would be nice to get some more policies, I might tinker around with that. It would also be good to have gold on hand to purchase bombers straight away too. At the moment I've been timing scientific rev to coincide with the last wave of RAs around 190 and after that I open either autocracy or order, but I don't get too many additional policies. Completing autocracy is something that I've never done but would like to try out. Arabia could work well with a good resource spot, you're almost guaranteed plenty of oil.