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Operation Overkill
"Operation Overkill" was a smashing success: twenty-five cities spanning four rival nations and crossing the entire continent the first turn, twenty-four the second (including one I had to retake because I didn't bother to analyze England's counterattack potential adequately), and six hard-to-get-to cities the third (after the game was officially over due to a domination victory) to complete my conquest of the world. It's amazing what a hundred plus modern armor and a hundred twenty plus mechanized infantry can do to opponents who don't even have tanks yet! See why I wasn't concerned about happiness problems fighting as a Democracy?
(Note: I won't absolutely guarantee the counts above; I counted while watching the replay, but I didn't doublecheck.)
There were several keys to doing the job so quickly:
(1) Since I knew the mech infs couldn't keep up on a blitz, I landed a large percentage of them in the mountainous area on the southwest of the enemy continent the same turn my modern armor initiated their attack. (That included four four-unit mech inf armies, since MIs could use the extra punch if they ran across defending infantry while MAs could take care of themselves.) Then the second turn, I took most of the southwest out using MIs, and the third, I finished the job. (I did have a tense moment when a couple shiploads of troops missed their landing date and had to stay at sea for an extra turn to get where they were needed, but they landed without incident.)
(2) I hit cities first and then cleaned up any troops in the area (unless the troops happened to be in the way). That way, MAs could get better use out of their multiple attacks (hitting one straggler, then railroading it to another) and MIs could get to more distant targets. On a similar note, there were some troops I ignored altogether at least for a while; it cost me a little when I found that I hadn't looked carefully enough at what some of them could do, but it stretched my forces farther.
(3) I'd brought over two transport-loads of slaves from my home continent to supplement my American captives and whatever I picked up along the way. That was only barely enough to keep me from stalling due to inadequate rails, but it was enough. (It probably wouldn't have been if I weren't a Democracy, by the way, although if I weren't a Democracy, I probably would have brought more workers.)
(4) Wounded MAs with at least three hit points left didn't stop fighting (and sometimes ones with only two kept fighting). There always seemed to be plenty of pikemen, spearmen, and other assorted obsolete units participating in city defense, and any unit a wounded MA could take out meant one more healthy MA I could use elsewhere.
(5) Because I had the forces to tackle all four opponents at once, I had more flexibility in planning my invasion routes. For example, I had to take St. Petersburg to get to Berlin quickly, and the best path to Leipzig went through Oxford.
By the way, the operation was launched as early as it could be: get the tech, upgrade all my tanks except for three elites (I already had the gold saved up), and go. Actually, the attack force could even have been stronger if I hadn't made research centers and recycling plants high-priority items once I got the necessary techs.
The file I'm enclosing in this message is a save after my landings but before I started my offensive.
Nathan
"Operation Overkill" was a smashing success: twenty-five cities spanning four rival nations and crossing the entire continent the first turn, twenty-four the second (including one I had to retake because I didn't bother to analyze England's counterattack potential adequately), and six hard-to-get-to cities the third (after the game was officially over due to a domination victory) to complete my conquest of the world. It's amazing what a hundred plus modern armor and a hundred twenty plus mechanized infantry can do to opponents who don't even have tanks yet! See why I wasn't concerned about happiness problems fighting as a Democracy?
(Note: I won't absolutely guarantee the counts above; I counted while watching the replay, but I didn't doublecheck.)There were several keys to doing the job so quickly:
(1) Since I knew the mech infs couldn't keep up on a blitz, I landed a large percentage of them in the mountainous area on the southwest of the enemy continent the same turn my modern armor initiated their attack. (That included four four-unit mech inf armies, since MIs could use the extra punch if they ran across defending infantry while MAs could take care of themselves.) Then the second turn, I took most of the southwest out using MIs, and the third, I finished the job. (I did have a tense moment when a couple shiploads of troops missed their landing date and had to stay at sea for an extra turn to get where they were needed, but they landed without incident.)
(2) I hit cities first and then cleaned up any troops in the area (unless the troops happened to be in the way). That way, MAs could get better use out of their multiple attacks (hitting one straggler, then railroading it to another) and MIs could get to more distant targets. On a similar note, there were some troops I ignored altogether at least for a while; it cost me a little when I found that I hadn't looked carefully enough at what some of them could do, but it stretched my forces farther.
(3) I'd brought over two transport-loads of slaves from my home continent to supplement my American captives and whatever I picked up along the way. That was only barely enough to keep me from stalling due to inadequate rails, but it was enough. (It probably wouldn't have been if I weren't a Democracy, by the way, although if I weren't a Democracy, I probably would have brought more workers.)
(4) Wounded MAs with at least three hit points left didn't stop fighting (and sometimes ones with only two kept fighting). There always seemed to be plenty of pikemen, spearmen, and other assorted obsolete units participating in city defense, and any unit a wounded MA could take out meant one more healthy MA I could use elsewhere.
(5) Because I had the forces to tackle all four opponents at once, I had more flexibility in planning my invasion routes. For example, I had to take St. Petersburg to get to Berlin quickly, and the best path to Leipzig went through Oxford.
By the way, the operation was launched as early as it could be: get the tech, upgrade all my tanks except for three elites (I already had the gold saved up), and go. Actually, the attack force could even have been stronger if I hadn't made research centers and recycling plants high-priority items once I got the necessary techs.
The file I'm enclosing in this message is a save after my landings but before I started my offensive.
Nathan
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- thanks FrustratedPoet)
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