Fun and Games with Modern Armor

[dawidge]

Originally posted by jshelr
Also, it's a good idea to find out you don't have aluminum before you choose to wait before attacking in order to get MA.

Been there, done that. standard, regent, small continents. I played the Greeks sharing a continent with Rome. My half of the island had no rubber, no oil, and no aluminum (Caesar had all three). I should have been much, much more aggressive in the early game, but between the legions and the hoplites, the front line didn't budge through 3000 years of near-continuous warfare.

While Arrian is undoubtedly right that this is a good way to get even after being pounded at higher difficulty levels, the real fun will come when we get to engage in MA wars with multiple AI civs at one time. You may not like your railroads as much after you watch them sequentially used to capture all your cities before you have any chance to respond.

That's what fortresses are all about. Stops 'em cold. I cussed up a blue streak the first time Soren's pathfinding algorithm ran a stack of 60 MA onto a (formerly) enemy (now neutral) fortress. I knew it was there and would have gone around it (but move 60 MA by hand!?!), so I reloaded the autosave.

[Theseus]

RAs... what a waste of time.

I kinda expected the equivalent of the Lockheed Martin MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System).

Get this: Each MLRS launcher can deliver almost 8,000 munitions in less than 60 seconds at ranges exceeding 32 km. I think there's some kind of insane spread, like 20 acres.

In Iraq, they called it "steel rain."

[Barchan]

Originally posted by Nakar Gabab

...lemme tell ya. Barracks + 2 MI armies (I got a leader but couldn't move him anywhere... might as well
), and all the MA you can load up, and any city is UNTOUCHABLE. Period. They'll never take it. They'll throw EVERYTHING at it, and it will never, ever fall.

What about an ICBM?

[Nakar Gabab]

Originally posted by Barchan


What about an ICBM?

Only a human being would be that smart. The AI dumps troops all around the city... I doubt it'd nuke its own men.

Of course, yes, a human would calmly pull back and nuke the place to oblivion...

[jshelr]

Travel Alone in Enemy Territory

dawidge said, "I cussed up a blue streak the first time Soren's pathfinding algorithm ran a stack of 60 MA onto a (formerly) enemy (now neutral) fortress."

He likely knows this already and is just being colorful, but I can't help remarking that you should practically never use stacked movement with MA during an invasion. If you move MA one at a time, then as soon as the first enemy city falls, you can begin to move the next MA in the stack all the way through the city and out the other side before you spend any movement points. For example, in the size 60 stack mentioned, if you plan ahead and have a little luck, you might be able to deliver 5 or 6 MA to each of 10 to twelve enemy cities on one turn. But you can't if you use stack movement and all 60 MA spend two moves just to get to city number one. I always install a new governor at first after a city falls, even if I'm going to abandon the city, just so I own the maximum number of railroad squares during my turn.

[dawidge]

I'm not that stupid. I was shifting the entire stack to the new border to continue pressing the attack.

Move the stack as far as you can on 0 mobility cost
Attack piecemeal until the city falls
Repeat until you're all out of tanks or cities to take
Fortify the towns with the injured tanks, infantry and mechs.
Prevent culture flip with all those damned swordsmen and cavalry you haven't bothered to convert into shields, yet

[Catt]

It's been a while since I used modern armor (since about the time I stopped turing off SS, diplo, and cultural victories). In my current game, I reached the modern age with the game firmly in hand -- an easy diplo / ss victory / domination if I played it out. But, given the upcoming mini-tourney III (which I haven't started yet but will!) I decided to brush up on my modern era warfare -- I challenged myself to win by conquest, and not to win via diplo / cultural / spaceship / domination -- and also to do so utilizing MA just to reaquaint myself with its power.

I had truly forgotten the power of MA. Playing as Persia, one smaller continent to myself, about 3/8ths of the larger continent now mine, with Rome and Greece remaining. Rome has 10 or 11 cities. I have just researched Synthetic Fibers, and upgraded +/- 100 tanks to MA. Wanted to see if I could take Rome down in one turn and so I ready for the invasion -- Rome thoughfully sneak attacks me (very ineffectively I might add). At this point, Rome has approxiamtely 15 tanks and 40 infantry -- no MI yet.

Three-move, 24 attack MA takes all of Rome in one turn. I was of course careful to conquer and hold cities, utilizing Rome's own rail network to advance to the next town. I then abandoned all cities (except one with a wonder) before the end of the turn. Wonderful (though long) one-turn war. The threat of war weariness in my non-religious civ simply disappears.

Am currently trying the same thing against Greece -- but Greece's greater cultural strength has prevented me from taking everything in one or two turns. The Greeks seem to be presenting a stauncher defense as well (sorry NYE) due to more fortuitous city terrain-- I am losing a large number of (non-retreating) MA to veteran infantry fortified in metropoli (minimum defense of 23.5, more if on a hill / across a river).

Lots of fun (but not a lot of challenge against a significantly inferior foe ).

Catt

[Velociryx]

I'll soon be delighting in the glories of Modern Armor in MiniTourneyiii....two techs away from Modern Armor, whilst the rest of the world still sits in the Industrial Age....should be fun, and I've got what I hope is a cunning plan to eliminate all the competition in what should amount to record time....we shall see....

-=Vel=-

[Catt]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I'll soon be delighting in the glories of Modern Armor in MiniTourneyiii....two techs away from Modern Armor, whilst the rest of the world still sits in the Industrial Age....should be fun, and I've got what I hope is a cunning plan to eliminate all the competition in what should amount to record time....we shall see....

-=Vel=-

Did you finish MiniTourney II (Germany)? I didn't see the conclusion of your summary. And I see (or at least assume) from the MT III spoiler thread post count that several folks have already reached the industrial age in MiniTourney III -- I need to start tonight I guess.

Catt

[Arrian]

Catt,

I haven't started yet either, so we two will be bringing up the rear.

I have another game I want to finish before starting TourneyIII.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Nope.....have not finished it yet, OMG that's a grind of a game at this point! My turns are taking something like twenty minutes a pop....I'm in a pretty dominant position, but decided to do it at a more leisurely pace, getting a few turns in when I can, since they're taking so long....this one's going a good deal more quickly since there are fewer civs left alive, and my rivals are a good deal smaller....my OWN micromanagement is still taking a long time, but that's cos I hate to turn my workers over to the AI.....



-=Vel=-

[phunny_pharmer]

What's the best part about MA? The enemy has RAILROADS.

This means that provided that one can cross the border and still attack (less than 1000 culture for the city if attacking from the weak point), the whole rail network will fall.

I've only done this on emp, but I wiped a civ off a huge map in four turns. Their cities were packed so close together so that my 40 MA could steamroll through their territory. Once the first city was captured, their rail lines allowed me to move close to their next city and attack. Their capital, which was orrigionally 20 squares from the front, was razed in the first turn.

Even if the enemy only has roads, razing cities will provide the necessary workers to create a rail line. In the modern era, it takes only 6 workers to make a non-industrious civ build a railroad where a road already exists. Just have a few "combat settlers" available to found the new cities/airbases/repair points.

Perhaps the AI needs to learn to blow its own roads/railroads to stop this attack, because the only defender that might slow the MA down a mountain with its movement toll.

[Theseus]

In mini-III, I intend to capture the entire world in the one turn after upgrading to MA.

BWAHAHAHA!!!!!

[Velociryx]

I hear you! I wasn't quite that fast, but I ripped through England in all of five turns (including the time spent capturing the first city, waiting for resistance to end, rushing the airport, and air lifting MA's. Now that they're on scene, I suspect that my NEXT conquest will be significantly faster....

-=Vel=-

[Theseus]

This is from MZOBC4.

I haven't done this in a while; Carthage was hands-down the KAI of the game... if I remember Carthage itself had 6 GWs and various SWs at this point.

I did a fairly major Tank upgrade preparatory to the attack... the stack shown is 70 strong. The two aggressor Armies shown are a 4xMA and a Tank+3xCav.

I think I had it figured that I could take down 7-8 cities at this point, MIs be damned.

And then two things happened:

1) AUSG101 came along, which has been totally engaging.

2) Carthage had settled the crap island to the SE of my beloved Scandinavia... I had set up a force of Marines and my remaining elite Berserks to take it... I had two combined Marines+Berserks Armies as part of attack...

AND THEY DON'T FRIGGIN' WORK!!! !%^!^%#$#^%!$^#%!^%()*%_(#)(#@&#&$%&@#($&@

Marine+Berserk Armies are not capable of amphibious attacks. I've been planning on this for months, across several games. This makes me VERY angry. I am purposefully not flaming ( /me takes a deep breathe).

Firaxis, please make sure to address this in C3C.

[sidenote: See the SW tip of the French continent? SPICES. I grabbed it, with fortresses and everything, and in a surprise attack Joanie came within a coupla hps of taking it from me... good gameplay]

FIX MARINE+BERSERK ARMIES!!

[and THAT goes in my sig!!]

I'm not gonna play it out, I'm so mad. But this was the first time in a while that I was so ready with an MA onslaught, especially one STARTING in the enemy's heart, I thought it was worth posting.