Originally posted by Dreadnought:
Oh yeah what's up wtih the settler howitzer combo..? That doesn't make any sense to me? how does that work? there both sooo vulnerable to air attack?
Explain Explian Explain!!!!!1
Ha ha! Air attack is never a problem. That's because you use the howitzer
in conjunction with the engineer, not as a 'combo'. And note engineer, not settler. An example with illustrate.
Scenario: You've got a nice large base civ, say 70 cities mostly on one land mass all interconnected by rail. And you've got a big neighbour on the same straggly land mass, powerful and advanced, and you're about to declare war on them on them.
You checked out the land before you go this. You set your cities to build howitzers and engineers so that in two or three turns you have a large army of each. And you've still got some veteran artillery hanging around anyway... Then you declare war.
Send in the engineers! Starting from the end of your railroad infrastructure, send 'em out in threes. The first chooses acceptable terrain (grass, plains, desert, tundra) moves onto it and builds a raod in the same turn. The next two engineers move onto the now roaded square and between them build a railroad in the same turn. Then the next three engineers go forward and railroad another square, and the next three etc. (Of course you've planned the route for terrain beforehand.)
If you reach a fortress, bring up the big guns on the railroad, and then continue. When you reach a city with roads around, it only takes two engineers of course. If they already have rail there're no effort. If you meet enemy troops you can either kill them or shepherd them past the zones of control with a spy. You only have to do this once as there'll be a trail of engineers along the road!
This will take you to the doors of your first enemy city in one turn. Bring in the veteran howies along the railroad and they'll get two shots each. (No howies? Send the spies in first to take out the city walls.) This will give you your first city ALL IN THE SAME TURN. Then move on using the same technique, again in the same turn, and take the next city. Stop only when either you run out of cities, or you've run out of howies and engineers, or you reach a zone excluded by air units, or there is no way round terrain that you can't railroad in a single turn.
Why is air attack never a problem? Because you hit the enemy so fast and so deep that you only get minor retaliation casualties.
This is such a mindboggling simple, effective and low risk tactic, that I wish someone had told me about it when I first started playing Civ.
Howitzers and Engineers together rock!
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"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage" - Anais Nin
[This message has been edited by stormerne (edited February 23, 2001).]
