Endgame garrison

[Vampgelus]

Assuming you have to select 4 units with 4 promotions each for city garrison, with all but the ultimate techs ( laser, robotics, advanced flight, composite materials) available, expecting artillery-backupped SoDs. What would theese units and promotions be ? (machine gun's may get CG promotions through upgraded grenadiers).

i'm asking because i noticed that my machine gun's don't get much benefit from their colateral damage immunity, because they are the ones fighting off the artillery, so that the infantry, supposed to get rid of marines, is already weakened close to death when those are coming.

I was thinking about infantry with Drill II, Charge (+25% against siege weapons) and CG1 for that duty, giving the MGs drill IV so that they stay low on base power and show up late. Another option would be to give them +25% against gunpowder units by upgrading gren's, but i don't know what's better, because that would mean that you loose Drill IV.

4 MGs obviously would not work if there are too much marines.

My selection would be :

Infantry : Drill II, Charge, CG I
MG : Drill IV
SAM: CI, Inf I, Intercept II
Tank : C II, CD II

The tank would obviously serve active defense purposes.

Thoughts ?

[Diadem]

If you have all techs, why not use the real end-game units? Mech. Infs and Modern Armors?

Also, use a more flexible defence! Don't put 4 units in every city, put 1 unit in every city and keep the rest mobile in your empire.

There are basicly two routes of defence. Active and passive. Active is usually preferable. It means you try to kill his stack before it even gets a good shot at your cities. This involves lots of siege weapons to wittle it down, and modern armors to finish the job.

For a passive defence, ie sitting in your city and taking the beating, you should mainly use CGIII mech. infs. Their base strength is so much more than MGs or SAMs that even unit-specific bonusses aren't gonna bridge the cap. You should add a few modern armors and artillery though, for flexibility and to stop anti-gunpowder-units-units.

In both cases use lots of aircraft. Air superiority wins the day.

[TriMiro]

I recently realized how First Strikes works and have a couple of Thoughts.

If the defender already has bigger strength than the attacker, you are better off increasing FS chances (Drill). If the FS are likely to be successful, then the attacker would be weakened even further and your unit would effectively fight weaker unit. In that case one unit can survive more battles in a row before healing.

If the defender has lower strength than the attacker, go for promotions that would increase the strength CG/+ gunpowder units/ combat and so on.

Depending on how effective the tank is in doing colateral damage to the SoD, I would go for more machine guns with Drill. Also you may want to use bombers to further lower the attackers strength. If all the units in the stack have close to full health, go for CG or something related.

I would go for:
Tank x2: Combat I, Pitch (was that +25% vs gunpowder units?), CD II
MG x2: drill IV or Infantry x2: Drill IV

If the stack is big, bring more tanks and more Infantry and MG. Also it is a good idea to have some Explorer Medics along side.

Now that I think of it, so late in the game, you should look at armies much bigger then the above mentioned. I would have single units in each city, but also couple of SoDefence to counter the AI SoDoom. Use railroads to move units around fast.

[Vampgelus]

Originally posted by Diadem
If you have all techs, why not use the real end-game units?

Read my post again.

Originally posted by TriMiro
I would have single units in each city, but also couple of SoDefence to counter the AI SoDoom. Use railroads to move units around fast.

I basically agree, but there are situations where you just lack the number and have to rely on garrisoned units. (AP caused multiple civ war declaration for instance, or anything having the same effect).

Originally posted by TriMiro Depending on how effective the tank is in doing colateral damage to the SoD

VERY effective From the moment i tried that, i never could do without that strat. CD on tanks is great !

Originally posted by Diadem
In both cases use lots of aircraft. Air superiority wins the day.

Agreed.

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This was a theoratical question anyway. I just want to get the perfect promotions/units mix to take the best advantage of the MGs immunity.

[TriMiro]

For CD and CD immunity, the first unit in the stack gets regular damage (MG are not immune to it), other units get CD (that is units other than the MG).

To get max effect from CD immunity one should consider how CD works. I don't know all the details, but here are couple of questions.

When determining the best defender, is that the unit with highest strength or the one with highest odds of winning (FS can make the difference here). For CD immunity, we want regular units like infantry to take the artillery attack so that the MG stay behind and take the CD (or not take the CD).

When determining CD, if we have 6 infantry units and 6 MG's and CD is done to 5 units, which 5 would take that. Would it be spread to 3 Inf and 2 MG and only the Ifs would suffer damage. That way only 3 units would get CD. Would it simply hit the 5 Inf since MG's are immune.

Also, when the AI attacks, does it send regular units or artillery first? Should be artillery (within reason), i.e. some artillery but save some for the next battle.

[Vampgelus]

Best odds fights first. So an MG with pitch together with an Infantry with charge should get the desired CD reducing effect.

For your exemple of the 5 Inf 5 MG stack, i really don't know how CD is spread. Would help to know, because if MGs get priority, a city defended by 10 MG would be completely immune to CD. However, i would guess it's spread considering the strengh, so INF would have to get drill, and MG would have to get CG for compensating the base strengh difference. So Inf with charge & drill would be the best ?

[snoopy369]

Probably 2 SAMs with INT2+CI+CG1 or something, and 2 Gunships with C2+(anti tank promotion) + (anti gunpowder promotion). At that stage in the game bombers and tanks are your main concern

That said, I'd never have only 4 units in a city at that point if there were a question of fighting an equivalent enemy

[snoopy369]

CD is spread randomly among all units (6 units other than the fighting unit are chosen at random). So, 10 units, 5 are immune, 5 are not, plus the defender, would mean on average 3 not-immune units would suffer CD.

This is why obsolete units can be useful (soaking up CD)

[Supr49er]

[SIZE=1] ... Also, use a more flexible defence! Don't put 4 units in every city, put 1 unit in every city and keep the rest mobile in your empire...

... use lots of aircraft. Air superiority wins the day.

Yes. In your inner cities, use only one defender - for me Mech Inf with CG promotions. In your coastal cities, keep MG, SAM, and MI for the AI naval sneak attack.

And planes anywhere in bomber range are vital.

[Vampgelus]

Air superiority is not the point, i usually have 4 fighters and 4 bombers in all citys (exept maybe if the city is definitively out of range).

I don't talk about the air force or the navy, but about the army!

[snoopy369]

4 fighters and 4 bombers per city is very wasteful. A handful of SAM infantry handle air fine...

[Diadem]

Originally posted by Vampgelus


Read my post again.

Oops

I can't believe I misread that line 3 times. I actually checked your post again when I was writing my reply, because it seemed to strange you would explicitely mention having all the techs, and then not use all the units. Guess it's easy to miss such a short word as 'but' even when rereading...

Anyway, my advice is still pretty much valid I guess. Just change the unit names

[Vampgelus]

Originally posted by snoopy369
4 fighters and 4 bombers per city is very wasteful. A handful of SAM infantry handle air fine...

You can never get enough backup from above...

A super-heavy airforce is great for both offense and defense, and both land and sea, actually the 8 unit per city limmit bothers me a little...

[snoopy369]

Any resources you put into that would be resources you can't put into something else (ie, taking over the world). That's why it's a strategy game

[Vampgelus]

I meant that this won't be wasted production. Air support is ALWAYS usefull. I agree that you can do with less air support, but then you will lack mobility.