Cheat or Tactic?

[Rook]

Recently I was in a game where Cyrus had a huge lead on me in military power, but not tech. We were separated by water, so when he eventually declared war on me, our navies were the first to see action. I had destroyers and his best ships were frigates and ironclads, so I quickly took control of the seas.

So now I faced the problem of invading his homeland where he had umpteen cavalry, riflemen and cannons. My best units were infantry. I made several attempts to get a beach head, but he would nail me with cannons and collateral damage. Then his cavalry would clean up. Can't blame him, I'd do the same. By this time, I developed marines and decided to try amphibious assault. With a force of about 12 marines I was able to grab one of his cities, but he threw so many units at me, he had it back in 2 turns. I checked the power graph and he still had a lot on me, so I wasn't hurting him much. I was kinda pissed because he wiped out all my marines with xp. Then it dawned on me to just bleed him to death rather than invade. I built another 12 marines and just stayed offshore. I would attack and kill a defender, then let that marine heal to full. If his city got down to one defender, I would wait a turn. Sure enough he'd send in a stack. In the meantime, my marines were raking in the XP. If he had cavalry defending, I'd give my marines bonuses vs mounted units. Eventually he got some tanks and I had to bring in a carrier to beat them down so my marines could wipe 'em up. In all I lost maybe 2 units. Eventually, I took the city and razed the others close by.

The down side is it took a lot of time.

So is this an exploit or just good tactics? If he was smart, he could have built some BB's really quick and took out my fleet, but he never even tried. He had about 4 destroyers and 4 transports waiting in one city, but my marines sunk 'em in the harbor.

I eventually won a time victory, but it wasn't one of my better games.

[madmaxxam]

The AI can be pretty stupid about warfare when there's an ocean involved, but I wouldn't call it an exploit. It does take a lot of time to execute, and hopefully they'll improve the AI when it comes to stuff like this in the next patch. If not you can use the SDK to do it yourself.

[Urban Ranger]

What you could have done is head straight for fighter/carrier, build a big navy to keep him contained, then go beat up on everybody else.

Attrition is not fun.

[Tattila the Hun]

Or beeline to fission+rocketry.

[DrSpike]

Re: Cheat or Tactic?

Originally posted by Rook

So is this an exploit or just good tactics? If he was smart, he could have built some BB's really quick and took out my fleet, but he never even tried. He had about 4 destroyers and 4 transports waiting in one city, but my marines sunk 'em in the harbor.

I eventually won a time victory, but it wasn't one of my better games.

Not really a cheat..............if you can take the slowness it seems a fair way to launch a naval based invasion on the higher levels where you face tonnes of units.

[GeoModder]

It's only a naval extension of what the AI does to you in a land war if he has the chance: ruining your economy and improvements.

[marvinkosh]

Perfectly valid tactics. You're already at a strategic disadvantage in having to fight a war away from your own continent, so by softening up defences in the coast you're drawing his military might to places where you can actually fight it. What's missing is an imperative for the AI to develop modern naval units so that in fact, it can make life difficult for you.

[Rook]

So with the SDK we will be able to tweak the AI? That sounds cool.

[joncnunn]

Sounds like a fair tactic to me.

Myself, I'd have sugested cuting the road network to the target city and then if you capture it , don't put units there but instead raize it to the ground.

Raizing a city to the ground is a powerful tool when you have enough units to capture a city but can't really hold it and he won't talk.

(If he will talk, you can keep the city and sign a ceasefire and massively reinforce it with apporative units during that ceasation of hostilities.)

[kittenOFchaos]

Valid tactic, you've said yourself that it has a clear negative - that it took ages. Personnally going in, taking and burning his nicer coastal cities would have been my modus operandi.

[Son of David]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
Valid tactic, you've said yourself that it has a clear negative - that it took ages. Personnally going in, taking and burning his nicer coastal cities would have been my modus operandi.

I agree and this is often what I do when AIs are threatening me by developing technologies too quickly.

The plus of it is that it not only reduces the enemy forces in the way described originally (since the AI will shift its units to wherever you are moving your transports and marines) but it also reduces his output of beakers, production of new units etc too.

[nbarclay]

Was the AI able to eliminate your infantry invasion forces in a single turn, or did it need multiple turns to do it? If the latter, it would be possible to bleed the AI by landing an invasion force on the best defensive terrain available, having it take the attack of whatever AI units are in the area, and then loading the survivors back on the transports so the AI doesn't get another shot at the units while they are wounded. Units built specifically for the purpose of mounting such an invasion could even be given promotions specifically geared to the terrain they'll be landing on. (A Woodsman II infantry on a hill forest would be a tough nut to crack for a technologically inferior enemy.) Note that the same kind of raid could be conducted multiple places at once, or in a cycle of replacing injured troops with fresh ones in the same place turn after turn, if enough transportation can be made available.

[Yosho]

Yeah...it's a perfectly fair tactic; if you've got better units then the AI does on an individual bases, trying to engage his units one on one is a good idea, whenever you can manage it.

I do agree, though, that I'd rather raze his cities to the ground. If you had burned several of his costal cities, he might have never gotten to tanks.

[Addled Platypus]

I go for mountains if all possible, for a beach head.

Go for several stacks of Marines. The AI usually only picks on 1

Do you have fighters? - great tile pillagers

[gdijedi7]

To avoid the collateral, spread out over a couple or three spaces. Keep medics, and before you invade, build up your military. If you go in with less than six transports, you don't have enough firepower. Also, try for beacheads on opposite sides of their country to make them divide their efforts. Of course, this will divide your efforts, but if you have enough carriers, it should be ok.

Aside from that, great tactic for getting some monster XP.