The woes of bombard and damage based combat.

[bahoo]

After having won via a spaceship and cultural victory, I decided to have a go at a domination win. By the time I had reached the modern era, I had just managed to take over my own continent and began plans for the rest of the world beginning with the french continent, the story and silliness that is Civ4 combat follows,

I trained up 6 transports full of modern armor, mechanized infantry, and marines. Most of the troops were trained in my westpoint + pentagon city, so they began with a number of the combat promotions, including mainly level 3 city defense for the mechanized infantry and assorted for the rest.

After some bombards I easily assaulted their first coastal city with the loss of a single marine and unloaded my troops. My opponents best units were regular tanks and sam infantry and they had very few of these. Over the next 2 turns I airlifted additional units into to prepare the rest of my assault, and that is when the silliness began.

The computer launched a rail assisted counterstrike, and sent in 10 or so standard tanks and artillery which were easily dispatched by my technologically superior units (not to mention mass numbers). However the "bombard" effect highly damaged all my defenders. After this, i watched a slow stream of cavalry systematically destroy my entire army. It wasn't even as if it took a lot of them, the battles were about 1 to 1 if not in the AIs favor due to all the bombard damage.

I followed up with another counterattack of 4 transports of strictly modern armor and mechanized infantry, retaking the city. The same thing proceeded to happen again.

At the end of the day, I would estimate at best the final trade off to be about 2 of my technologically superior units killed for every 3 of the AIs mismatched assortment of cavalry, artillery and old tanks.

It seems to me Civ4 combat is more about numbers than anything. With this "damage" based system a mechanized infantry essentially equals 4 cavalry. Open up with a few bombarding units for your attack and that huge stack of mechanized infantry essentially becomes no tougher than a cavalry.

All in all the whole unfolding seem totally ridiculous to me and I can't see an effective way to launch an overseas attack. If you take a city and group all your units their to move on, you become a victim of the bombard and crap unit rush, or you spread out and have no hope of holding your foothold city.

I never had much of a problem with an inferior unit occasionally winning a battle, but to watch a whole stack get wiped out my inferior units simply because a couple of inferior bombard units opened the attack, was just plain ridiculous.

[Axxaer]

This is intentional. They wanted to make the game more strategic and less "put-20-of-your-best-unit-in-a-stack-of-doom" style gaming. This is why you should have one or two stacks of your units fortified in a forest (pref. forested hill) somewhere within the cities cultural boundaries. That way the bombard either damages/destroys the units outside and they can be replaced or the stronger stack in the city is damaged and you send some of those outside to reinforce whilst creating more to go outside. This is my strategy against bombard-heavy-AI and it has worked very well so far.

[xxFlukexx]

You can't put everything into large stacks, especially late game. Also late in the game, you need a much larger force just to handle the sheer numbers that the AI possesses.

Rail-assisted counter attacks are nasty but if you don't leave your entire army in one square you can easily take back the city the next turn and smack his stacks around like he did to you.

You need a lot of troops vs a strong AI with lots of land in the late game, a *lot* of troops. If most of your troops came from one city (even if it has Pentagon + westpoint) you don't have enough troops.

I have had this happen before, being technologically superior on low difficulties and beating a few civs with a small army, and then thinking I was strong and getting worked over by just huge enemy numbers. All I needed was more troops. That and attacking multiple positions at once, that helps a LOT. After a few learning games I've mastered overseas combat and you will too.

Hope this helps.

[Urban Ranger]

Are you playing with the 1.52 patch?

Technical issues aside, it is always a wise idea to invade on two fronts. Pick two cities and hit them both at the same time. Also don't forget to stage your own carriers and bomb the cities of your enemy.

[Blake]

What you need to do is get a foothold for bombers - the best option is a 3rd part city (open borders), the next best is an offshore island, the final option is to (carrier fighter) bomb away the road/rail connections from a mainland city and take it.

Once you have a giantass stack of bombers you can just bomb down every city and incoming stack within rail range.

[OssomTossom]

Why does it matter if the unit is built in the city with the Pentagon and West Point? Being a peaceful player, I've never gotten a level 5 unit (I tend to build v. large armies, and have protection pacts with the 2nd and 3rd strongest of the AI so I'm usually left alone) and so no WP. I have built the Pentagon, and that affects all my units nationwide, not just in the Pentagon city (building a unit in a city with barracks gives me a unit with 6 xp, and I'm running Free speech and Free religion).

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by OssomTossom
Why does it matter if the unit is built in the city with the Pentagon and West Point?

This could be read to mea two things, so I'll answer both.

First, if you mean why in general rather build units in a city with Pentagon and West Point, then the answer is that while where Pentagon is doesn't matter, West Point gives it's bonus to units built in that city only.

If, on the other hand, you were referring to the earlier comment in this thread to the effect that "if most of your units came from the city with Pentagon/West Point..." then the point was that in such a war, if you have only one city (even a city with West Point) providing the bulk of your forces, then you can't have enough units for the war; you need many more units than one city can produce alone; at wartime you need to have the great majority, or preferably all of your cities producing units or something related to the war effort.

A conquest war should be fought with overwhealming force.

[samspock]

Try sending a bunch of crap units of your own along with the good stuff. Make a lot of transports and send all the excess cavalry and Artillery. Make some of the mech infantry with the anti-siege weapon promotion (should be able to build those in your WP city.) One thing that worked well for me once was when I dropped a Great Artist in a newly captured city and used the culture bomb to calm it down and give me an imediate defense bonus. That was on a land war though, not a over seas one.

Multiple forces attacking multiple costal cities at the same time is your best bet. Take ships along to take out the defensive bonus and save your bombers for reducing the units inside and getting rid of the roads/railroads around the city. Make them come to you and sit a turn before they can do anything and hit them with your big units. Make sure there are some healer units there as well.

I made this mistake before with a stack of 20 heavily promoted tanks heading for a city. They got right outside and they threw everything they had at it (riflemen, grenadiers and catapults.) The stack did not make it out of there.

[Silbeg]

While I haven't tried this yet, maybe a decent stategy for this would be to cut off the rail lines. Use aircraft carriers (or bombers if in range of your continent) to destroy the rail lines surrounding the city you are going to attack.

Interdiction was one of the keys to the Allies invasion of Normandy in 1944, it could certainly be a valid option in Civ.

Another option would be to bring a large number of cheap attrition units to place as a screening force (around the beachhead city), so that the waves will get slowed down by them (and, these units could also be cutting rail lines where they are sitting).

Just some ideas... untested, though.

Generally speaking, though, with any invasion (by land or sea) you will need to be able to withstand a large counterattack by probably inferior units. I have noticed the AIs tend to stockpile units, which they will use to attack (and defend uncaptured cities).

This leads to a potential second possibility. Don't take the city right away. If you attack a city, but don't take it, the AI will tend to throw a dramatically large number of units into the city as a defense. This should do one of two things...

1) They might reduce the garrison of a different city, enabling you to attack there.

2) You will be able to bombard their garrisoning units, giving you the edge! Remember your naval units, air units, etc...

Timing an attack is critical... you can never go in with too many units!

[MasterDave]

After years of playing Civ3 I am glad to see that the "stacks of doom" are not so invulnerable and mandatory as they used to be.

Something else that can work well in some invasion situations is bombing the railroads leading to your target city, perhaps with carrier-bone fighters. This will buy you a couple of turns and will spread out the AI counterattack, which is not nearly as effective when their lo tech units cannot hit you all at once. It gives your units breathing room to deploy in forests, cover up the wounded, etc.

Offensive operations in general are more difficult in Civ4 relative to civ3 because their opportunity cost is higher since you generally have less cities, because the rock/paper/scissors nature of the combat favors the defender when both sides have lots of units available, and the collateral damage in civ4 negates the infallible stacks of doom from civ3.

[Rook]

I have to agree with most of the replies to this thread. You attacked, but made no preparation. Taking out his rails/roads would have gone a long way towards winning that battle.

[Hauptman]

In his defense, You CANNOT bomb roads away (unless they added this in 1.52, as i dont even try now).

Like everyone has aid other than that though, you need to be prepared, If you are inavding their home, you better be ready. They WILL have huge quanties of units to throw at you, and they have the homefield advantage (rail transport).

So what should you do?

1) declare war YEARS in advance of your invasion, this gives you two advantages. 1 they board ships and head towards you, where your fleet (you do have one right?) then sinks ALL his best units. You must find his fleet first obviosly. Secondly, once you capture the city you wanted (or cities) you can then get peace before he can counter attack (as long as you make sure he is open to peace before you take them)

B) do ONLY amphibios assaults, never leave the boats. Attack his city, capture it, but dont leave more than a couple defense units in it, this, over time lets you kill off his surplus attack units, without beeing able to hurt your main force.

As in civ3, attacking onto, then holding a beach head on someone elses continent is a very hard thing to do. even if you do outclass them tech wise. If you can get bombers in range, use them like a crazy man. If you see a ...stack of artillery sitting in his capital, bomb those bastards, they will just sit there and heal as long as you keep bombing them.

[funat]

Hello.

It is mentioned here that you cannot bomb out roads. Maybe (i did not try), but you can pillage them with your gunships which are ready to use directly from transports with all their 4 movement points.

So, you bomb the rails, and finish it with choppers. Uppon taking the city with marines, unload the rest of the crew in it, and if there are any choppers left on open with movent points, take them to the city for protection. Have in the city a few SAMs, because counter attack with bombers can be nasty. Out side(or inside the city) park a carrier with some Jets on sky patrol.

So, now you have a taken and cut off city, with SAMs and fighters and at least 3 artillery in it. They try to bomb it, they may succeed once. They come with their stacks - great. If they attack right away with their armor, they hit yours, so it's 50:50. If they move in a bunch of Riflemen, Infatry and artillery, you have 3 of your own to soften them, and then finnish them of with your armor and gunships.

After resistance is over - build an airport, and start building up an army for drilling into mainland along with your healed units and a bunch of bombers. Of course, maybe a better option is taking a few more coast cities, because it's easier and you will criple their naval power by taking it's bases.

[ingolfson2]

I just thought about how that would go in real life (the scenario initially described).

You take over that enemy city. You CRAM in troops. Then you add more troops. To top it off, you ram some more inside. Finally, you have soldiers everywhere in the city. They are sitting in the streets. The infantry is biouvacing on the rooftops because the godamn marines took the ground floor. The machine gunners are sitting in a diner, instead of dug-in, because there's no place left to be dug in. The tanks are parked in garages, because the streets are full of supply trucks and tents. Artillery is stuck in the city parks, can't even move.

And then suddenly, from far off... you hear the sound of incoming artillery. And you can't even move because your command ****ed off (i.e. its not your turn).

Sounds like a recipe for a massacre for me. A deserved one.

[funat]

In real life most of these troops would be dugging in around the city, while battleships would be firing their 400mm pieces over the rooftops towards the strategic depth of the enemy.