Mid Game Battles

[Snowflake]

When everybody has got airpower and MMI, what is the best strategy to win the war? What would your offensive army consist of? I suppose lots of choppers, quite a few drop police units, some intercepters and some Locusts? Oh and if your opponents have sea bases, I guess you also need cruisers and/or IODs?

What is the most effective units to attack air defense? Should I build lots of interceptors or lots of ECM rovers or locust or something else?

[Barinthus]

Also if someone don't mind, I recall that there were air units that only can attack ground units and air that only can go after other air units, etc.

Could someone post some information on that?

[SativaX]

I think the air vs ground vs air situation is related to the special ability named air superiority

but im not a definite reference in here so ill just "suggest"

[Enigma_Nova]

I've never been in an air war like this with a human player, but I play a lot of war games.

The basic idea of the MMI era is rapid first strike.
There are effectively 2 stages of the MMI era
MMI before busters & fusion
MMI after busters & fusion

In the early stages, your attack force consists of Attack Choppers, drop-in defence and Interceptors.
You'll also have the ever-so-useful probe teams.
Later on you'll want busters, lots of them, and many interceptors with which to fight them.

Whoever hits hardest wins. That's your main tactic.
You'll want bases with Perimeter defences and Aerospace complexes if you want to win the war. These are places you can effectively defend.
You defend them with AAA-drop-defenders.
You also want some standard defenders, probably drop police defenders, to deal with rovers.

AAA-best in Perim + Aerospace can hold off an attack.
Your enemy will most likely try to attack with drop infantry, but this will take a turn.
The idea is to roll with the punches.
The best defence is a good offense, so you'll want to attack your enemy before he can attack you.

Interceptors will kill the enemy air, and perhaps cover ground units.
Choppers will kill the enemy ground.
Drop-AAA will defend against enemy air
Drop police can defend against enemy ground

This changes a bit with planet busters.
Pre-busters, you could park ALL your attack force in a newly conquered base and attack from it.
If I have nukes I'll show you what 1 nuke does to an entire localised army

In this era, you'll want MOST IMPORTANTLY to attack where the planet busters are. Preferably with planet busters or probe teams (I believe they can do nasty things to missile silos).

The focus is Offense in MMI pre-busters, then to defence for a short period of time with busters, but once your industrial might allows you to build busters like crazy then it's back to offence once the first strike is the last strike.

[Hercules]

I have to say I just love getting to Locusts. They're great for occupying emptied bases, especially if the base has aircomplex cover which makes it difficult for drop units, well to drop in.

Also Locusts don't have to return to a home base. However the are not really much use for direct attack against units, unless maybe they've reached demon boil status.

[Snowflake]

I thought Pbs are built simply for strategic warning purpose. Are you guys really use PBs a lot? I mean is that something similar to atrocity? I have PBs but I'd rather not use it.

Thanks for the nice summary Enigma. You mentioned fusion but hasn't got into it. What does fusion bring to you that would make your war change?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by HongHu

Thanks for the nice summary Enigma. You mentioned fusion but hasn't got into it. What does fusion bring to you that would make your war change?

The fusion reactor simply doubles the hitpoints of a unit, effectively doubling its strength-- If a war was pretty even ( numbers and types of units) and one side could get fusion power even 5 turns before their opponent, the tide could turn in a big way after the units get upgraded



Oh and PBs do get used sometimes-- I have heard of large nuke-fests. personally I only recently used a nuke for the first time ( to take out something like 6 secret projects)-- IT is an atrocity and there are repercussions but there are times when it is such an effective weapon if a player builds a super base or puts all their military in some staging area.

[Mead]

Re: Mid Game Battles

Originally posted by HongHu
When everybody has got airpower and MMI, what is the best strategy to win the war? What would your offensive army consist of? I suppose lots of choppers, quite a few drop police units, some intercepters and some Locusts? Oh and if your opponents have sea bases, I guess you also need cruisers and/or IODs?

What is the most effective units to attack air defense? Should I build lots of interceptors or lots of ECM rovers or locust or something else?

If I have l Locusts I will very seldom need IOD's or cruisers to take out the sea bases.

Instead of Chop n' Drop, I'll Chop and occuppy with the Locusts. They move a lot quicker than the IODs and cruisers, plus, if they are still in the base after they occupy it they can far better defend it (even better if you have Neural Amp).

In fact, if I am going to attack an empire that has sea bases I will endevor to make Locusts so I can occupy those bases, plus be useful for land base occupation, quickly.

The only other things that work out better than Locusts at occupying sea bases quickly are grav ships, but they do not usually come along until after the game is decides, or over).



Mead