What strategy does everyone use?

[Sethyboy0]

I'm wondering what strategies everyone uses and on what difficulties they use it on. Personally, I'm wondering what everyone builds in their cities and how they manage the reinforcement of their armies.

I usually try to get a bank in every city, and also try to get a barracks and factory up in every city to allow me to have enough money and supplies to support a decent army. If my smaller cities ever finish building those buildings, I either set them on unit production or gold production if they're so small they won't build anything anytime soon. My largest/most productive cities are used to build units, and my single most productive city is used to research projects and purchase units (since it has resource buildings).

At the beginning of every game, I take my most powerful city (the project one) and give it all of the most productive tiles around until the projects are done, regardless of how it screws up the nearby cities. After that, I go to each individual city in my empire and manually set the workers to the most productive tiles while looking to see if I can get anymore gold without sacrificing hammers (like switching a forest tile to a river forest).

My armies are usually not too large, with a preference on a few well promoted units over many weaker ones. I tend to build little more in land units than what I start with, and instead build many bombers and attack planes to bombard the enemy until my land units can clean up. I usually put very little if any production into my navies, as ships don't help against cities much (although this might change when I start playing civs who get supplies more often).

That's enough of my stuff though, what does everyone else on here do?

Oh I forgot; I usually play on a sort of modified difficulty, where both the AI and I are on diety (I guess like prince in balance but resulting in larger armies).

 

[T_KCommanderbly]

I always play on diety,

Depending on the map, I usually try to build a bank in every city because money can be a problem especially since I like to spam a large navy, air force and army. I also do this so I can store as much gold as I can in order to purchase units if I run into trouble. In my productive cities I build a factory and barracks, I split them into the large, light and land factories, I usually have one maybe two cities with a shipyard. All other cities are set to gold production with a few exceptions like in strategic areas where i build a barracks so I can purchase Infantry in a city.

I don't really micromanage like you do, I keep the workers to where they are at.

Military wise it depends, as the Germans I'll build a lot of tanks and bombers for a strong quick offense. Bomb the city to the lowest health possible, then attack with a tank which has the blitz promotion. As Britian I'll focus more on fighters to keep the Luftwaffe from overwhelming my troops.

Typically though I will just spam Infantry and Armor, I'll have units advancing one tile at a time so there are no gaps between the advance. It is kind of slow but it works really well against the AI since they typically outnumber your forces but if you move them as a group they cannot be overwhelmed because of the lack of tiles. And ya naval units aren't very important especially since the AI isn't very good with them.

 

[Skibbi]

Stalingrad:
After I have captured most of Russia, I build a defensive line.
England:
In France, attack Germany at first and try to delay, build a defensive line at Brest.
Greece:
Make an amphibious force near sicily, Italy and Libya.
France:
F*KING RUN!
Germany: cut to Paris and then moscow, build sea lion

 

[kelestra]

Haven't played much in the last months, last game was Nazis 2 times in different scenarios.

Nazi/Worldmap/Diety:
-in general the biggest problem is the reinforcements of troops. I tried to pimp industrie asap to not get overwhelmed in the east. Therefore i stick to simple math: every city that has so much hammers that it can build a Factory/Barracks in less than 10 turns will produce Barracks/Landfactory/Shipyard. Some of the cities might produce "Buy Warbonds" to get the missing material, if it takes to long to build a usefull unit. I like to turn on productive occupied cities to producing ones by buying Radiotower asap (takes to long to be build, examples are Warsaw, Stalingrad, Leningrad, Moscow, Paris and Marseille). Also when i am in terrible need i try to save some money for popping unit that becomes available (like popping a Heinkel 177 for siege).
-With my Navy i trie to break the blockade of UK by moving everything to Island. There i always manage to sink some huge vessels without big losses (battleships on destroyers, destroyers on subs, subs on battleships). When this is done every low Unit is retreated to a city in Norway/Denmark. The rest hunts down some destroyers/battleships left. This enables me to control the canal between France and UK with my subs, which are excellent sinking or decimating landing troops of UK trying to get to France. Some fighters here will stop the bombardment. When i can effort it i move some infantrie out of a city and fortify it. UK-Bombers will attack it while being intercepted by my fighters and take serious damage while my unit gathers XP. Promote these units to strike hard on landing troops. This enables me to send nearly all troops to the east.
-On russian front i try to be carefull. I fortify Infantrie on riversides to block the mass of russian troops most effectively. With bombers and tanks i try to swarm the enemie and decimate him in the north and south. Moscow has a strength of 110+ in my setting which is unbelievably strong. So i just swarm it with infantriy and tanks to block it. My Artillerie helps in the North to conquer Leningrad and the smaller cities asap. Therefor i move some inf. units trough Finland and swarm the units east of leningrad with tanks that broke through the front. Watchout not to be cut of supplyline. In the south of Moscow i try to push back russian troops behind the River in the west of Stalingrad. There are lots of plain tiles where russian infantrie can be destroyed very fast. Then i take the city in the southwest of Stalingrad (Rostov?!) asap while tanks are swarming tiles of Stalingrad. When the left russian troops are retreating and neraly every city around Moscow has fallen i trie to take down russian capital in a few turns with all siegetroops that are now free. 3 Artilleries and all the bombers. When brouth to minimum HP than all infantries around moscow attack. Shouldn't take more than 2-3 rounds to take it down.
-I do all this on following purpose: controlling manufactury tiles to cut production. Fight as effective as possible (just major victories, units with right promotions on their preferred terrain, use rivers for additional defense, save reinforcements while controlling enemies ressources etc.).
-In Africa for me there is now way to conquer anything with the troops given to me. There's one triple promoted Infatrie with low HP which i want to get rid of asap, then i try to be very defensive to save reinforcements and protect italy. Once the eastern front releases some Units i move half of my Airforce down to Athen and perhaps 2-3 Units via france/spain to africa (can't embark them in greece because of the aircrafts in Egypt). Then i take control of Egypt and Irak etc fast. Try to kill aircrafts (~10 units) in the city, high prio. When this is done i have 3 small conquering armies (2 Tanks, 2 Bombers, 2 Infantries each) that are now progressing: one in Africa, one heading to India, and one taking on the Russian Capitals. A third Armie, consisting of fast moving troops (bombers, tanks) is helping out Japanese in China/Russia, while most parts of my large vessels and some subs are heading to the indian ocean via Suez to take on the American/Australian Navies.
-All the rest of the troops (some fighters, 1-2 Bombers and 1-2 Tanks, lots of infantrie is taking on UK now. Trie to time it with a new invasion of UK to counter them. The island will be full of units. It's around turn 40 when i invade in the city left to London in the southeast of UK. Bomb it down to lowest HP and take it with an embarked infantrie promoted for this. Land troops at the coast which should be free to set up a frontline. When you are luzcky London hasn't more than 60 strength, than take it fast. Else you can swarm it and take down the north of UK before.

Wow what a wall of text, but this is my strategie in detail ^^

 

[Gedemon]

Good thread idea, I think that's really interesting for mod/scenario makers to read other players strategy

I usually start with banks, and some factories if the beginning of the war is really close, else I focus on banks only, with small cities on wealth.

Once the war is started, I switch the small cities to war bonds / recruitment process depending of the need, and some of the bigger too if the reinforcement levels are down. I also switch city focus on hammer (or gold) for materiel and food for personnel.

I try to keep only the minimum number of units relative to the front size, better a few well trained and healthy troops than a large army of wounded recruits.

When attacking, I doesn't look only at the combat result itself, but I take into account the reinforcement needed to heal both units, for example getting 8hp damage on my infantry unit while dealing 2hp damage on an enemy heavy tank could be a good result for an attrition war, the materiel to heal the heavy tank is more difficult to get than the personnel to heal the infantry...

Edit : playing Deity. Again, I recommend to play at 2-3 levels above your normal civ5 level for the mod to be challenging.

 

[kelestra]

When attacking, I doesn't look only at the combat result itself, but I take into account the reinforcement needed to heal both units, for example getting 8hp damage on my infantry unit while dealing 2hp damage on an enemy heavy tank could be a good result for an attrition war, the materiel to heal the heavy tank is more difficult to get than the personnel to heal the infantry...

Wow... Interesting point, never thought about it this way.

Additional to my wall of text above i can say that i use all the occupied cities to gold most of the time. When i comes to shortage of material i often consider the more productive ones to built barracks and buy a factory/landfactory. At least as Nazi-Germany the reinforcementsituation is terrible in the earth-scenario. I utilize one or two major cities for aircrafts (one for fighters, one for bombers), one for Navy and all the rest for ground units (with a huge focus on tanks).

Is it correct that you can't build banks in earth scenario btw?!

 

[thecivinator58]

Have 2 or 3 cities that spam infantry. Split up the others into making ships, tanks, fighters and bombers.

 

[Gwynin]

When playing Germany on deity your material reinforcement will kinda suck for the majority of the game, I tend to turn the reinforcement into a positive once Greece is done and I have captured upto Leningrad and the bigger city in the center (cannot remember the name atm).

But other than that I do as the germans did in the real war, with 3 army groups including reserve troops + tanks which I switch out once the front units are in the low yellow hp area.

 

[ilshur]

Last game i played as nazi's alt history in 1939 with scripted events off, my goal was to see how fast i could conquer the entire map.

Build two cities with military base/academy/land factory - one in berlin, and churn out top notch armor and paratroopers. 2 other cities go heavy air with just academies, get siege promotions quick, and just blitz around. takening all of central and western europe is relatively easy. africa is more difficult because its just so far to go for non-paratroopers. russia is last.


december 1944, everything was taken.


the cpu just isnt all that fun to play tho, i wish there was a better way to multiplayer, because the cpu uses its units stupidly. also, airpower is incredibly broken, its an inexorable offensive asset that cannot be checked unless you actually take the cities the bombers are in. the ai doesnt use it properly, it bombs to a city well behind the line of battle and doesnt attempt to ever take it.

 

[Gedemon]

level ?

 

[ilshur]

diety.

 

[Gedemon]

okay, timing seems good for a complete conquest, no ?

about air AI, I'm more and more inclined to take it over completely, but that may take a bit of time to code...

 

[Skibbi]

As Greece, I use the Fairey Battle to bomb the crap out of German tanks!
Against Italy, I only use Artillery and Infantry when invading, Tanks would be useless.

 

[kelestra]

Would like to hear some other strategies especially from GB/France/Russia. Preferrably on diety.


I heard it a lot that many players, especially as Nazi, are spamming bombers/tanks and just rush the cities. Can one of those players tell me how exactly this works? When i play Nazi, for example 'europe 36/diety/scripted events off/ai neurones on/original history', France will have like 30-50 Landunits and ~20 planes, GB fleet is a pain in the ass and their bombers hurt my Bismarck-Battelship for example with 15-20 HP each round. In my actual game (where i must admit that i added 5 more manufactories to my cities and some others) there is no chance to use this tactic because i have to block the mass of land units even in a war with just one front. Otherwise AI will take conquered cities back each turn with 20 bombers and a land unit rushing forward. France eg launched a heavy counterattack through belgium/netherlands which forces me to block them from strasbourg and metz with infantrie line and move all tanks and bombers for their counter. And even now they still hurt me with their airforce (1 infantrie lost per turn if not fortified) and rush through switzerland. Also my early bombers (Henkel 111 with 2 times citypromotion) does not enough dmg to a city. Eg Strasbourg had a strength of 70+ and paris of 80+ which results in my bombers doing 1-3 dmg on each attack while getting punished with more most of the time. Only way seems to be to swarm city with infantrie and bring it down with artillerie and infantrie afap.

What i want to say: to compete with the AI on my settings there are not many options. Spamming units to compete in numbers will result in not enough reinforcements to heal and upgrade.
Even with a little bit pimped industrie for nazi (like adding 3 more manufactories via world builder to cologne, munich and bremen and some population to cologne) there is no way to compete with ai.
So i tried to heavily expand production/gold/personal in the next try and started to build autopromoted units in turn 40-60, which results in better units with permanent reinforcements but lesser numbers.
In this case i heavily struggled with my gpt because i spammed so many buildings for a better reinforcement and reserve. I had a beautiful timing though, i had to switch a few cities to capitalize their production for a few rounds, but with the first annexions and the complete conquering of poland my gold issue was over. Started war with finished design of Panzer IV G and upgrading units and both over 5k personell and material in stock.

 

[Gwynin]

France is quite overwhelming with their airforce and amount of landunits in the 1936 scenario, coupled with the brittish navy and airforce it seems so pointless to use air units yourself.

 

[kelestra]

That's what i said. ^^ So how do you deal with it?

I was lucky that when moving through Belgium/Netherlands France AI placed Airforce in Metz/Strasbourgh, so when i conquered these both fast i was able to destroy like 15 aircrafts on ground. Nevertheless enemies airforce is MUCH stronger than mine... Dunnow how to do it more effectively...

 

[Gwynin]

Without the 'Fall of' events I took the entire of Poland with ease, and then moved my forces to France.

I went thru at the German/French border fighting towards Reims since the French has placed 15 air units there which had retreated from Metz, and was lucky enough to destroy them all when I took Reims (I was so happy to see them die rather than retreat, long live the retreat bug in this case ).

But before that I lost atleast 2 panzer3 units and 2 or 3 infantry units due to nothing else than bombardment, and maybe 2 infantry units in the back and forth capturing of Metz and Reims.
My main force is now mostly infantry (6+) with 3 artillery as backup, along with 3 panzer3s and 1 panzer4. My panzer units get pounded since I use them as spearheads, so I often have to withdraw them to heal up a bit (french still have 10+ air units + the brittish are closer), but I've managed to push my way to Paris (which Im trying to encircle in order to avoid recapture due to AI bombing the city to zero hp and retaking it with a quick tank move) and Im on the east border of Dijon aswell as blocking units from Dunkirk.

Sadly due to France's immense power I've had to ignore Denmark/Norway for a bit due to all my forces being needed in France, but with Holland and Belgium being gone now (only took 1 panzer3, 2 infantry and 1 arty) it seems as the tide has turned to my side now aslong as I get rid of those pesky french airplanes.

Had intercepting given xp has intended my 4 ME109s and 3 110s would have been super skilled, considering I get about 20+ airattacks per turn.

ps, when the AI doesnt have interceptors I find that Stukas are really great vs their tanks (I have build 5 so far), havent had time to build the other attack plane (cant remember its name atm) but I guess it would have the same success against infantry

 

[Skibbi]

With scripted events, I tried to get as much of poland as possible, then I went through neutral Belgium and took Paris.
I captured Northern Ireland then built sealion and attacked liverpool and scottland (London was too strong). I caught london last.
I sent the left-overs to my massive line at the German-Russian border, waiting for war. Then I attacked.

 

[ZeroZeroSix]

Scenario 1936-1945
Civilisation Britain
Level Deity

Damn its hard but I have some experience of the scenario and the AI cant learn.

Its 1 sept 1941 and the German still havent took Paris. I divide tje war in 2 fronts for the Brit, Mediterane and Britain/France. In Britain, I have 12 spitfires, 3 bristols, 6 vikers. In France I have 5 matildas, 2 A10, 7 infantries. In the north sea, I have 2 BB, 2 destoyers and 2 cruisers.

In Mediterane, I have 2 subs, 8 cruisers, 3 BB, 4 destroyers, 2 matildas, 2 A10, 3 infantries, 3 spitfires, 4 westlands and 2 avros.

Things goes well in France at first, the german took Strasbourg, Metz and Reims with ease but I stoped them in front of Paris with heavy bombing and ground forces. Later on I or the french (I dont recall) retook Reims and the defence are now 70+ so its kinda safe. Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland next fall to germany and up to this time the line goes east and west at Belgium/Metz line. Why I was able to acheive this is that I exaushted Germany material supply with my bombing his tanks and intercepting is bombers (All interceptors in England are lvl 2 intercept).

Things goes well until Italy entered the war. My interceptors doesnt go that far in south France so he can freely bomb at will and the French lost almost all their planes at the fall of Reims. Keeping them at bay is costly and since they are at war my presonal/material stock is a real problem. The sea battle in mediterane goes well tough, I sunk hi BB and cruiser at first then deal with his destroyers. Since then he build tons of destroyers to hinders my convoys. Repairing all those ships lower the stocks more. Right now I dont have air superiority in mediterane and working to have it. I took all north Africa but Sicily is realy far from taken since almost all Italian city are 70-80 defence now.

Globaly I am wining the war but it will be inch by inch and my gold revenue in negative since some years. The price for the better ennemy goes to Italy and the better ally to Greece. (I helped France too much to be considered).

About Canada, I saw a city named Sept-Lles, the same is Sept-Iles. (seven-island) in literal traduction.

 

[kelestra]

Is there a way to raise difficulty lvl for AI? So that it will have a little bit less units due to maintenance or suffer in reinforcements to heal the full amount? Gedemon mentioned something like Prince or even lower as default lvl for AI, which in fact is very low...