Fish Man
Emperor
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2010
- Messages
- 1,553
I've been here for a while now, and most people on the forums seem to think cuirs are the best unit. Still others believe cannons are better because they can take cities with less losses and have much more staying power. But what if I told you...there was a unit that combines the best of both these breakout masters? This is not a shitpost, I promise. Meet...the mobile artillery - a unit that I've never seen before mentioned but is surprisingly powerful, especially on deity.
At 26 strength, the mobile artillery is by far the strongest siege unit in the game. That alone is already an impressively high base strength, but what makes it truly great are the +50% against other siege and 2 moves. These are lifesavers, especially against an industrialized deity AI.
Let me explain. When a deity AI on another continent gets AL, railroad, and artillery, it becomes nigh unbeatable with similar era units. It can hit you with its SoD and more on the first turn of combat, because of the railroad. Their artillery will do crushing damage. At that point, literally any unit they have will easily mop up your own stack, even if you have 70+ units together on a single tile. I'm not kidding. I've seen deity AIs throw 100 units at me on the first turn and another 50-100 on the second. And then they pop a unit a turn per city afterwards because of their factories. Nothing can stand against that...
Until, of course, the mobile artillery! Its high base strength and ludicrous advantage against enemy siege allows it to shrug off any artillery counterattack, shred machine guns, and weather up to infantry too with nary a scratch. Tanks are the first thing to have a chance against it, but if you pillage their oil or even have a single gunship, that isn't a problem. After sacking just one into even the strongest infantry defender you'll usually have 75%+ odds for the rest of them. So they're like cannons in the sense that if you use them against an era-behind troops they can absolutely smash cities and also act as their own stack defense. But wait...they have two moves as well! If you have a couple tanks of their own (or mobile SAMs as they come with the same tech) you can conduct warfare in the same way you would with cuirs...except now, you have the power of siege behind you as well, can hard-counter everything thrown at you, and can even do "cheesy" things like forking cities or move - bombard - strike all in one turn.
"But that's an endgame unit and endgame units are useless because the game's already decided by then!" Well, first of all, not true. Case in point: nukes. Also those pesky continents maps. But also, what if I told you...you could tech to a far more versatile unit before the deity AI gets their hands on stuff like mech inf and modern armor? It's true! With two vassals (probably from earlier conquests) you could get to laser real quick. Have one AI research the combustion route and then radio; another artillery, rocketry, and satellites, while you nab AL, industrialism, and plastics. The techs you research yourself should be able to trade for the other techs the AI gets. At this point, you research laser yourself (or bulb with GS, not sure how feasible that is), and get your ultimate reward. If you've done it right and there's no crazy runaway Mansa/Willem or anything in your game, you could end up with as early as 1700s mobile artillery. Laugh in the face of your only recently industrialized enemies as you crush them with your newly-upgraded OP siege engines!
Example game: an NC deity playthrough I did as Victoria. Mehmed proved problematic, until I shhredded both his attack stack (while defending!) and any defenders left with mobile artillery. See attachments for final win save and an image of just one of the armies I had assembled at that point.
So you see, there's more to endgame warfare than just tanks, even on deity.
At 26 strength, the mobile artillery is by far the strongest siege unit in the game. That alone is already an impressively high base strength, but what makes it truly great are the +50% against other siege and 2 moves. These are lifesavers, especially against an industrialized deity AI.
Let me explain. When a deity AI on another continent gets AL, railroad, and artillery, it becomes nigh unbeatable with similar era units. It can hit you with its SoD and more on the first turn of combat, because of the railroad. Their artillery will do crushing damage. At that point, literally any unit they have will easily mop up your own stack, even if you have 70+ units together on a single tile. I'm not kidding. I've seen deity AIs throw 100 units at me on the first turn and another 50-100 on the second. And then they pop a unit a turn per city afterwards because of their factories. Nothing can stand against that...
Until, of course, the mobile artillery! Its high base strength and ludicrous advantage against enemy siege allows it to shrug off any artillery counterattack, shred machine guns, and weather up to infantry too with nary a scratch. Tanks are the first thing to have a chance against it, but if you pillage their oil or even have a single gunship, that isn't a problem. After sacking just one into even the strongest infantry defender you'll usually have 75%+ odds for the rest of them. So they're like cannons in the sense that if you use them against an era-behind troops they can absolutely smash cities and also act as their own stack defense. But wait...they have two moves as well! If you have a couple tanks of their own (or mobile SAMs as they come with the same tech) you can conduct warfare in the same way you would with cuirs...except now, you have the power of siege behind you as well, can hard-counter everything thrown at you, and can even do "cheesy" things like forking cities or move - bombard - strike all in one turn.
"But that's an endgame unit and endgame units are useless because the game's already decided by then!" Well, first of all, not true. Case in point: nukes. Also those pesky continents maps. But also, what if I told you...you could tech to a far more versatile unit before the deity AI gets their hands on stuff like mech inf and modern armor? It's true! With two vassals (probably from earlier conquests) you could get to laser real quick. Have one AI research the combustion route and then radio; another artillery, rocketry, and satellites, while you nab AL, industrialism, and plastics. The techs you research yourself should be able to trade for the other techs the AI gets. At this point, you research laser yourself (or bulb with GS, not sure how feasible that is), and get your ultimate reward. If you've done it right and there's no crazy runaway Mansa/Willem or anything in your game, you could end up with as early as 1700s mobile artillery. Laugh in the face of your only recently industrialized enemies as you crush them with your newly-upgraded OP siege engines!
Example game: an NC deity playthrough I did as Victoria. Mehmed proved problematic, until I shhredded both his attack stack (while defending!) and any defenders left with mobile artillery. See attachments for final win save and an image of just one of the armies I had assembled at that point.
So you see, there's more to endgame warfare than just tanks, even on deity.
