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Recently I've been playing a conquest-only game. Without the pressure of time, I managed to build up a considerable size of army and a whole pile of nukes as I waited for just the right opportunity to launch a first strike.
As it turns out, I needed the numbers. Across a small channel, a couple of spaces inside Hannibal's territory, was the city of Kerkouane, which was fortified with ninety assorted units, mostly armour gunships and artillery. Most of his army was here presumably so that in the event of war, he could put the bulk of his forces on my border. Taking the land route and moving slowly inside his borders my forces would be cut to pieces by artillery before even putting a dent in this fortress. So I built about fifteen transports and loaded on a mixed force, readied a whole bunch of stealth bombers, and did what I usually do at the start of a war - send in gunships to cut all his rails along the border.
My air strikes on the target city were enough to reduce the defences and soften up some of the forces in the city, but not quite enough for the troops arriving in the transports to make an assault - I'd tried it this way once already and took heavy losses. So I dipped into my considerable nuclear arsenal and after watching lots of missiles got eaten by his SDI, was rewarded with a satisfying shrinkage of the enemy units' health bar. It probably wasn't enough to destroy any of his units outright, but it did make it much easier for my amphibious assault to succeed. I made good use of Mechanised Infantry with the Amphibious promotion, but I also had some Marines to help with taking down particular types of unit and some Artillery and Tanks to supply a healthy amount of collateral damage.
Now, four times fifteen transports is sixty units, which isn't quite the same as ninety. I had taken some losses but I'd done far more damage than in my first attempt, and now I had an enemy city filled with half-dead enemy units cowering in their bomb shelters. If I didn't finish the job those units would heal up in no time though, so once again I sat through a brilliant fireworks display as my nukes fought to pentrate Hannibal's missile shield.
It turns out that when Civ units are quite low on health from having been bombarded with conventional weaponry, they're liable to die swiftly even if the city they're in does have bomb shelters. Sure, you can argue that I chucked a lot of good shields into this battle that could have made tanks or bombers (that don't have to do battle with SDI) but tanks first have to get close to a city, and bombers inflict a pitiful amount of damage against such large concentrations of forces, especially when almost every city has a bunker.
Screenie
Having now vaporised all the units capable of defending the city, I rolled in some troops to start a new regime. There were no buildings still standing on the surface, but the bomb shelters and bunker were serviceable enough. The newly-installed governor had little to oversee in this radioactive wasteland, but it was just the first step toward crushing Hannibal utterly once and for all.
As it turns out, I needed the numbers. Across a small channel, a couple of spaces inside Hannibal's territory, was the city of Kerkouane, which was fortified with ninety assorted units, mostly armour gunships and artillery. Most of his army was here presumably so that in the event of war, he could put the bulk of his forces on my border. Taking the land route and moving slowly inside his borders my forces would be cut to pieces by artillery before even putting a dent in this fortress. So I built about fifteen transports and loaded on a mixed force, readied a whole bunch of stealth bombers, and did what I usually do at the start of a war - send in gunships to cut all his rails along the border.
My air strikes on the target city were enough to reduce the defences and soften up some of the forces in the city, but not quite enough for the troops arriving in the transports to make an assault - I'd tried it this way once already and took heavy losses. So I dipped into my considerable nuclear arsenal and after watching lots of missiles got eaten by his SDI, was rewarded with a satisfying shrinkage of the enemy units' health bar. It probably wasn't enough to destroy any of his units outright, but it did make it much easier for my amphibious assault to succeed. I made good use of Mechanised Infantry with the Amphibious promotion, but I also had some Marines to help with taking down particular types of unit and some Artillery and Tanks to supply a healthy amount of collateral damage.
Now, four times fifteen transports is sixty units, which isn't quite the same as ninety. I had taken some losses but I'd done far more damage than in my first attempt, and now I had an enemy city filled with half-dead enemy units cowering in their bomb shelters. If I didn't finish the job those units would heal up in no time though, so once again I sat through a brilliant fireworks display as my nukes fought to pentrate Hannibal's missile shield.
It turns out that when Civ units are quite low on health from having been bombarded with conventional weaponry, they're liable to die swiftly even if the city they're in does have bomb shelters. Sure, you can argue that I chucked a lot of good shields into this battle that could have made tanks or bombers (that don't have to do battle with SDI) but tanks first have to get close to a city, and bombers inflict a pitiful amount of damage against such large concentrations of forces, especially when almost every city has a bunker.
Screenie
Having now vaporised all the units capable of defending the city, I rolled in some troops to start a new regime. There were no buildings still standing on the surface, but the bomb shelters and bunker were serviceable enough. The newly-installed governor had little to oversee in this radioactive wasteland, but it was just the first step toward crushing Hannibal utterly once and for all.