intercontinental attack

[Mariola]

Hello everybody, I am quite a newbie, I usually play at king level, standard map, everything else random.
In a recent game (the one I posted some saves just to learn that 1.00 saves are not compatible with 1.22! ) I had the need to make an intercontinental attack without neither tech lead nor unit number superiority, nor culture lead.
I would like to tell you how I could make a succesful D-day, also because I searched a bit in the forum and could not find discussion about the strategy for such situation.
The invasion happened by the end of industrial age, and IMHO without transport any serious sea attack, against strong enemies is impossible.
I hope to contribute a little to the discussion, so here is my strategy, I called it "the killing fields".

FIRST STEP
I carefully choosed the place for the first strike (my "omaha beach"), a coastal city on a hill and surrounded by hills, I know that an attack against a hill is harder, but I was interested in the defensive bonus after my conquest.

SECOND STEP
Building the invasion force:
-2 armies of marines and 2 more transports full of marines to take the city (size 12, 4 inf inside)
-3 armies of infantry for the defense after the first turn
-5 more transports of infantry for further defense
-2 transports of cavalry for counterattacks (I had not yet the tanks)
about 15 naval units to defend the transports
about 70 bombers
1 worker! (essential)
I took me from 1900 to 1950 to build the force
It should have been better to have also artillery, but I did not want to delay the attack.

THIRD STEP
D-day
first I caught the city (a very nice target, with forbidden palace and Magellan) without bombing it (I needed bombardment for later), the armies were enough
Then I landed all the forces in the city
Then with the worker I built an airbase on the coast beside the city, the reason was that I feared a flip, and I did not want to lose my invasion force.
I let all the marines, including armies, and an army of infantry in the city, and moved all the other units in the airbase, moved also all the bombers in the airbase.
With the ship bombardment I broke the communications between the captured city and the enemy, making a "killing field" of one tile of hills without roads all around my beach head (artillery should have done this easier, with a 2-tiles belt)

FOURTH STEP
Counterattack
The enemy counterattacked me with all his forces, but all his 1 or 2 mov units stopped in the killing fields, only cavalry could reach my units (the AI bombed the airbase, but attacked the city with ground units, how dumb!)
The AI had just about 20 bombers, that did not make heavy damages, and his cavalry had a very bad time against the armies fortified in a hill city.

FIFTH STEP
the killing fields
My turn.
All my bombers attack the stacks lying in the killing fields, making a great havoc!!!
Most of his best units (inf, tanks) were badly damaged, and also some of the obsolete ones that were also sent to attack.
so in the next turn the best AI units retired to heal, while the obsolete ones attacked...
In my next turn I get rid of AI older units with bombers, and later the waves of healed modern units were weaker in number and easier to bomb to the death...
in 5-6 turns the once proud forces of Inca empire were just history, and the destruction of the empire only a problem of time.

[Solomwi]

If I understand correctly, you destroyed the roads in your new territory around the city? Why?

[Mariola]

Originally posted by Solomwi
If I understand correctly, you destroyed the roads in your new territory around the city? Why?

1) I had an airbase beside the city, and so some of the roads weren't in my territory

2) I was behind in culture (only 1 wonder built, plus 4-5 conquered, all the others of my enemy), and I feared a very quick flip, for this reason I put most ofmy forces in the airbase, and my strategy could work even in case of flip.

3) at the beginning I had planned to land all the troops and then abandon the city (always for flip danger), during the game I decided to try to keep it, and it did not flip

[vmxa1]

I would surely expect a force of that size and power to take down and hold a city in most games.

The only times I see cities that it may be to hard are on archipelago maps.

In this type of a map you can run into a city with 60-80 defenders and you do not want to pick a city on a hill then.

I would then land on a hill next to a city with more than 20 defenders. Now I can start to trim it down.

If you have a few armies, the AI will tend to not attack your stack, until it captures the city or you raze it and found your own.

The AI will attck cites with armies, bit not armies out in the open.

Anyway most of the talks about invasions of late are geared to the island maps on Sid. Some older threads dealt with it in PTW and involve lots of artillery.

A modern age invasion on C3C should be harder as the lethal bombardment can be rough on ships.

[Mariola]

Originally posted by vmxa1

A modern age invasion on C3C should be harder as the lethal bombardment can be rough on ships.

Yes, in my case the trick has been to begin the war with a surprise attack to the city, I think that everything should have been harder if I had to land during a war.

My Ideas:
1) more ships, as bomber fodder, to take the damage instead of transports (once you have landed and built airbase you can send in units by air, you can even lose the whole fleet)

2) at least 3 or 4 aircraft carriers full of jet always in patrol

[Solomwi]

I was hoping your answer was flip purposes, but like vmxa, I would expect the force you had on hand to hold a size 12 city.

[GeorgeWang]

if their capital is within reach of bombers, I like to send a carrier full of bombers and cut off all roads to it. The A.I. relies on sweatheard luxury deals with one another so much it usually sends them into anarchy. If its along a coast, I might chance isolating the capital anyways, with bombers also trying to destroy their harbor.

[vmxa1]

I don't recall ever having 4 carriers in a game, in fact I rarely build them. But if you have all of that stuff, it should be steam rolling time.

[Vince278]

Sounds like you had more than enough going in. I was wondering why you believed 1 worker was essential. Once I invade someone I'm up to my ears in captured workers.

[lmtoops]

The worker is for an airstrip. More than likely, you'll have plenty of caputured workers, but I suppose you do not want to leave that to chance.

[Mariola]

Originally posted by lmtoops
The worker is for an airstrip. More than likely, you'll have plenty of caputured workers, but I suppose you do not want to leave that to chance.

yes, exactly!

[lmtoops]

I read somewhere (?) that after 3 units, more units have no effect on flipping. If I'm concerned about flipping, then I keep just enough units (with some safety margin) to defend the city. The remaining units can be stacked outside the city, with an army. The AI will not attack the army, so all is safe.

[vmxa1]

If you use the flip calculator you can see that there some value to having more than 3 units in a captured city.

In fact you may need quite a few for quite a number of turns.

[Dr. A. Cula]

I haven't had many cities flip on me, but from the few I had, it seems that you also lose the units in a radius of 1 square around the city, besides the ones inside.

Also, I have achieved successful landings before getting marines, using only riflemen, cannons and sipahis. It took a huge fleet of galleons to transport that, but in the end this move got me a size 13 (after bombing!) city, with Piramids, Leo's Workshop and 3 other expired ancient wonders.
Of course, there was the little matter of getting my target's 4 neighbours to go to war on my side, but that only cost me some techs and resources/luxuries, plus it meant getting rid of any serious counter-attacks.
This little war propelled me to the position of tech leader from the 3rd or 4th place, while my target went from tech leader (and culture giant, thanks to the city I took!) to being last in everything.
I guess my point is you can avoid a vicious counter-attack (or any kind of counter-attack) with a bit of diplomacy. But make sure you are in a position to achieve your goals, because your allies will not wait for you.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Dr. A. Cula
I haven't had many cities flip on me, but from the few I had, it seems that you also lose the units in a radius of 1 square around the city, besides the ones inside.

Not true. You only lose the units inside the city.