Why not modern era warring?

[walkern]

I've read quite a few comments on this thread that state something along the lines of "you don't want war dragging into the modern era."

Why do so many people say this? Is it just because they want to have the game won by then? Is it too dangerous because the tides can turn so fast?

Like Vel, I enjoy mostly the non-combat aspects of the game, and using a civ's advantages to put them ahead of everyone else but maintaing a fairly strong, medium sized army that can fend off any attackers and take an important border city or two. I'm trying something for fun this time: I'm playing Mongolia on a standard Lakes map on Normal speed/Noble diff., and I used Vel's warmongering strategy for most of the game: just beat the tar out of people but don't finish them off and keep extorting money out of them. It's been quite educational in terms of all of the combat units, especially the modern ones, which I haven't played with much until now.

There's only about 75 turns left and I don't think anyone is going to finish the space race, but I could if I wanted to. I'm more interested in exploring what happens if I continue thrashing everyone. I'll definitely win on points if nothing else, but I have noticed that using a warring civ, I haven't maintained the very strong point lead I have with other games.

I have an absolutely unmatched army; enormous force of bombers and tanks and extremely mobile with railroads, and I'm at least a few techs ahead of England, the only other civ that can compete. I've dispatched Germany and Spain and I'm rolling over Persia. Elizabeth has been my rival in size and population most of the game but we have had friendly relations, which will last until I'm done with Persia and nuke every city they have in one turn, roll through and finish most of them off. I need to check but I may be the only civ with uranium at all.

I'm playing normal speed and India is still around too, with a large pop and lots of cities but way behind in tech. I'm considering the "nuclear diplomacy" option someone once suggested: nuke the population of the rest of the world and get yourself elected world leader. No one has the UN and I could build it in a few turns with buy rush.

Anyways, it's a lot of fun to play and if you've got a lot of money and the right civ, very doable, at least with my setup (Noble/Normal speed/Lakes). I'm just curious as to why people don't like modern age wars. Any insight?

NW

[wehrmacht]

I actually prefer wars in the modern age - as long as I have built the UN and have disabled nukes.

Without the temptation to "just nuke 'em" I am forced to engage in very entertaining conventional land wars. In fact, I prefer to take on the toughest enemy just so I have a good fight. There's nothing like the rush of stealth bombing the bejesus out of an unsuspecting enemy, then rolling him with modern armor. A strong AI's counter attack, with or without allies is fun because it makes the final turns of the game, with or without a space race, even more exciting.

On Noble/Archipelago/Epic/Chinese this is usually a rather challenging method of end-game strategy, since all the AI's that don't like you will join forces with a stonger enemy and attack you all at once. I usually play with lots of ocean squares, so transporting armies across large bodies of enemy-infested waters (especially with enemy subs around) is FUN!

-War, it's fantastic.

[Badtz Maru]

I like modern warfare if I'm in the mood for it, but it's much more complicated and intense than in earlier eras, at least if you play to get the most out of your units - you can use more basic war tactics and win if you can throw enough strong units at the enemy, but it's a lot harder out-maneuvering the AI when they have access to rails and airdrops, and if you want to do well you'll have to make full use of those capabilities and air power as well. If you 'let a war drag into the modern era' then you're probably going to be spending about 5 times as much real time per game turn managing your armies.

There are many factors that make modern warfare different than earlier warfare in Civ4.

1. Greater mobility - the ships move faster, there's fast defensive units (Mech. Infantry), there's terrain-ignoring attack choppers, and on top of all that you have rails and airdrops. In modern times it's harder to find weak points in the enemies defenses because any weak point can have most of his army there in one turn.

2. Air power. I was guilty of ignoring this in my earlier games that made it to modern times, and until I learned to exploit it I found warfare intensely frustrating. I'd lose my strategic resources and find myself only able to build SAM infantry as the modern armor approached. My invading armies were whittled down to uselessness by the time they reached their targets. I lost all my sea battles because the AI is good about softening up your ships before attacking with their equal units. You have to build fighters, and it really helps to have plenty of bombers too. There's no excuse to not have every aircraft at full or near-full health run a mission each turn, unless it's one of the cloud of fighters you should have on intercept duty near your front lines in every war. Remember that you don't have to wait until a city has finished it's revolt to rebase planes there - that should be the first thing you do when you take your first enemy city, fill it with fighters and bombers and go to work with them softening up the enemy. If you start using your planes effectively, you'll find it as easy to tear apart a larger, stronger enemy as it is in earlier ages. It just takes more time per turn.

3. Strong offensive units. Modern units are stronger compared to the equivalent defenders than in most ages, except maybe the early bronze era when axemen dominate. They have a number of abilities that make modern units distinctively powerful on the offense. First, there's the Barrage promotion available as a first promotion on all the tanks. Suddenly, big stacks are not so scary. Secondly, there's the blitz ability, which makes Modern Armor with multiple Barrage promotions much more useful for softening up cities than artillery (which I tend to use defensively more as I leave the late industrial/early mdoern times). There is also a commonly available unit that starts with Amphibious attack - I hardly ever built Marines until about the fifth time I had my "Unstoppable" invasion stack of doom shredded the turn I landed by every unit in the defending country attacking at once. The old "Rush in and land your troops, take the city next turn" tactic doesn't work unless your invasion force is larger than the defender's entire army. City Raider promoted Marines can get you the city on the first turn if you throw enough of them at it.

4. Lots of promotions. In modern times, you tend to have a larger percentage of units with promotions. This is because of the greater prevalence of buildings that provide experience (Barracks, West Point, Pentagon, Dry Dock, Red Cross) and because of old units that have seen action and kept around. The latter can be especially powerful if you fought a lot of wars in the past, because you can get promotions that are overpowered on modern units that are intended for eras where defenders are stronger - I'm thinking specifically of City Raider. I use a variation of this earlier in the game - when I get Chemistry I often fight an offensive war with Grenadiers with multiple City Raider promotions that I made out of my Macemen/Samurai/Axemen/Praetorians from my last war, and the war usually ends with a lot of them getting more promotions. I've ended up with several Mechanized Infantry with 5 promotions, and dozens with 3 or more. Mech. Infantry with City Raider 3, Combat 1, and Pinch are a damn fine replacement for Modern Armor. This makes modern warfare more complicated because you have more promotions to deal with - which is better to attack with, the Mech. Infantry with City Raider 3 or the Modern Armor with Barrage? Should you promote all your units at once, or keep some unpromoted in case the enemy promotes their defenders halfway through the war and City Raider is better than Barrage on your tanks?

Essentially, combat in Civ4 gets progressively more complex and detailed as the game progresses, and by the time you reach Modern Era fighting a war is a totally different experience from earlier in the game, and takes a lot more of your game time. Some people like the combat model in the game until the later changes, and then don't like it so much, and so they try to avoid fighting wars later in the game.

[SandMonkey]

I love modern warfare in Civ IV. I'm actually playing a game with a modern start and epic speed just so that I can fight a modern war for a very long time. I think that modern warfare gives you the widest range of options for dealing with a variety of situations.

Bombardment: artillery, bombers, or ships?
Collateral damage: artillery, bombers or tanks (w/ promotion)?
Destroying enemy resources: bombers, fighters, tanks, gunships?

And those are just a few examples of how multiple unit types can perform the same task. With all of these options, how can a modern war not be fun?

[johnmcd]

I avoid it as it takes so long to move and arrange units. Pre flight infantry are the last units are go to war with.

I do wish there was an 'auto garrison' button, where the city governers would evenly distribute your forces with the loose change going to border towns. It would save me deciding around tanks (industrialisation) whether or not I was going to win and starting again. I've played about a dozen games past there but stopped enjoying it.

[axisworks]

I also love warring in the Modern Era. The only drawbacks I've found revolve around the fact that there are usually a couple AIs that have amassed gigantic militaries by then, and warring with them can take dozens of turns (in some cases up to a hundred) depending on how you have things set up. This can get a bit tedious after a while.

[JackRudd]

Modern-era warfare is fun. So much so that I like turning off all victory conditions except conquest.

[Warmaker]

Against a competent opponent, modern warfare can be tough and very messy.

If you think those stealth bombers, jet fighters, artillery (sort of), mechanized infantry, modern armor, etc., are awesome when you declare war on someone, think of how those things can perform with a competent defender, especially with the proper terrain.

A combined arms force is optimal for your offensive operations, but it is even better for a defender. With a large reliance it seems by players to airpower and stealth bomber attacks, what if the defender has heavily invested in jet fighters and SAM units?

A decently set up modern defense is practically impregnable. A competent defender will set his best defenses away from a city if he can, since cities actually can have worse defenses than other forms / combinations of terrain, i.e. forested / jungle hilltops.

A proper modern defense can hold off far more attackers than any other era.

[uberfish]

Modern war is fine. What I find irritating is invading other continents - I can't stand micromanaging shipping all the troops and reinforcements around.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

I think the disparaging comments about modern warfare applied to emperor level or above. On these levels if you dont dominate early, the massive production bonuses and tech advantages will probably overwhelm all but the best of players. The AI will probably have better units and more of them which will make things extremely difficult even with sound military strategy.

On lower levels its easy to beat the tar out of everyone by ignoring space race and beelining to modern armor. On Prince level I can often fight 3 opponents at the same time and rocket myself to domination in the modern age. Monarch gives a pretty good challenge in the modern age and the wars can be very long and strategic as the AI will have units on par with you. On emperor I usually get ground into dust particles well before the modern age or just give up in frustration.

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by uberfish
Modern war is fine. What I find irritating is invading other continents - I can't stand micromanaging shipping all the troops and reinforcements around.

Yeah, transports should be for thirty units and have huge movements, destroyers and the like should intercept them like planes, not have to sail up and attack.

[greenday_234]

Ahhh modern wars, where I really shine. Of course people will disagree with me but I love to launch massive invasions of continents in the late game. My basic strategy boils down to this in the late game,

1. if you don't already own the conintent you wish to invade and there are two countries on it, usually there are for me in the Conitents map I play. Invade the weakest one first as to setup a base of operations.

2. MASS BUILD stealth bombers, about 75 percent of my invading army is stealth bombers and jets. With the stealth on the front lines, of the poor civ I just invaded, with strong defenses, really strong defenses. Otherwise, in my current game, I could fatally lose 100 stealth, not going to happen I then place the jets on carriers surrounding the country I'm preparing to invade. At this point I have TOTAL air coverage.

3. Prepare boots on the ground. I usually go with 3 seperate decent sized armies comprised of mech for defense of captured lands and modern armor for attacking. (I usually have a great deal of permotions on these units because of the Pentagon)

4. Shock and Awe. This is the first turn of war. Given my massive air superority usually the AI won't have an airforce of much conciquence. My first move is to take out his commerce, every town,village etc. must be destroyed and I can usually accomplish that in one turn. Commerce is key because this (against a sizable foe) can cause units to be destroyed without firing a shot. The AI with disband them because it can no longer afford them Next I take out resources, then farms to starve there cities.

5. turn 2 bomb down there military defenses and move my 3 army groupings in, and take 3 cities in one turn more shock and awe. This worked out great in my current game because the first 3 happened to be the best 3.

Now this kind of army of scale comes with some drawbacks. You have to reduce science funding to support such a large military and you have to have a decent number of cities to give some support to said army. I personally haven't had to reduce science (much) because my permanent ally supports the cost in exchange for pretection. This has worked wonderfully so far for me on noble difficulty.

[greenday_234]

Ahhh modern wars, where I really shine. Of course people will disagree with me but I love to launch massive invasions of continents in the late game. My basic strategy boils down to this in the late game,

1. if you don't already own the conintent you wish to invade and there are two countries on it, usually there are for me in the Conitents map I play. Invade the weakest one first as to setup a base of operations.

2. MASS BUILD stealth bombers, about 75 percent of my invading army is stealth bombers and jets. With the stealth on the front lines, of the poor civ I just invaded, with strong defenses, really strong defenses. Otherwise, in my current game, I could fatally lose 100 stealth, not going to happen I then place the jets on carriers surrounding the country I'm preparing to invade. At this point I have TOTAL air coverage.

3. Prepare boots on the ground. I usually go with 3 seperate decent sized armies comprised of mech for defense of captured lands and modern armor for attacking. (I usually have a great deal of permotions on these units because of the Pentagon)

4. Shock and Awe. This is the first turn of war. Given my massive air superority usually the AI won't have an airforce of much conciquence. My first move is to take out his commerce, every town,village etc. must be destroyed and I can usually accomplish that in one turn. Commerce is key because this (against a sizable foe) can cause units to be destroyed without firing a shot. The AI with disband them because it can no longer afford them Next I take out resources, then farms to starve there cities.

5. turn 2 bomb down there military defenses and move my 3 army groupings in, and take 3 cities in one turn more shock and awe. This worked out great in my current game because the first 3 happened to be the best 3.

Now this kind of army of scale comes with some drawbacks. You have to reduce science funding to support such a large military and you have to have a decent number of cities to give some support to said army. I personally haven't had to reduce science (much) because my permanent ally supports the cost in exchange for pretection. This has worked wonderfully so far for me on noble difficulty.

[greenday_234]

Ahhh modern wars, where I really shine. Of course people will disagree with me but I love to launch massive invasions of continents in the late game. My basic strategy boils down to this in the late game,

1. if you don't already own the conintent you wish to invade and there are two countries on it, usually there are for me in the Conitents map I play. Invade the weakest one first as to setup a base of operations.

2. MASS BUILD stealth bombers, about 75 percent of my invading army is stealth bombers and jets. With the stealth on the front lines, of the poor civ I just invaded, with strong defenses, really strong defenses. Otherwise, in my current game, I could fatally lose 100 stealth, not going to happen I then place the jets on carriers surrounding the country I'm preparing to invade. At this point I have TOTAL air coverage.

3. Prepare boots on the ground. I usually go with 3 seperate decent sized armies comprised of mech for defense of captured lands and modern armor for attacking. (I usually have a great deal of permotions on these units because of the Pentagon)

4. Shock and Awe. This is the first turn of war. Given my massive air superority usually the AI won't have an airforce of much conciquence. My first move is to take out his commerce, every town,village etc. must be destroyed and I can usually accomplish that in one turn. Commerce is key because this (against a sizable foe) can cause units to be destroyed without firing a shot. The AI with disband them because it can no longer afford them Next I take out resources, then farms to starve there cities.

5. turn 2 bomb down there military defenses and move my 3 army groupings in, and take 3 cities in one turn more shock and awe. This worked out great in my current game because the first 3 happened to be the best 3.

Now this kind of army of scale comes with some drawbacks. You have to reduce science funding to support such a large military and you have to have a decent number of cities to give some support to said army. I personally haven't had to reduce science (much) because my permanent ally supports the cost in exchange for pretection. This has worked wonderfully so far for me on noble difficulty.

[greenday_234]

Ahhh modern wars, where I really shine. Of course people will disagree with me but I love to launch massive invasions of continents in the late game. My basic strategy boils down to this in the late game,

1. if you don't already own the conintent you wish to invade and there are two countries on it, usually there are for me in the Conitents map I play. Invade the weakest one first as to setup a base of operations.

2. MASS BUILD stealth bombers, about 75 percent of my invading army is stealth bombers and jets. With the stealth on the front lines, of the poor civ I just invaded, with strong defenses, really strong defenses. Otherwise, in my current game, I could fatally lose 100 stealth, not going to happen I then place the jets on carriers surrounding the country I'm preparing to invade. At this point I have TOTAL air coverage.

3. Prepare boots on the ground. I usually go with 3 seperate decent sized armies comprised of mech for defense of captured lands and modern armor for attacking. (I usually have a great deal of permotions on these units because of the Pentagon)

4. Shock and Awe. This is the first turn of war. Given my massive air superority usually the AI won't have an airforce of much conciquence. My first move is to take out his commerce, every town,village etc. must be destroyed and I can usually accomplish that in one turn. Commerce is key because this (against a sizable foe) can cause units to be destroyed without firing a shot. The AI with disband them because it can no longer afford them Next I take out resources, then farms to starve there cities.

5. turn 2 bomb down there military defenses and move my 3 army groupings in, and take 3 cities in one turn more shock and awe. This worked out great in my current game because the first 3 happened to be the best 3.

Now this kind of army of scale comes with some drawbacks. You have to reduce science funding to support such a large military and you have to have a decent number of cities to give some support to said army. I personally haven't had to reduce science (much) because my permanent ally supports the cost in exchange for pretection. This has worked wonderfully so far for me on noble difficulty.