Is this war practicable?

[PrinceBimz]

I use cannons and artillery for offense alot too. I like putting cannons and artillery pieces on mountain or hill terrain near an enemy city. It gives good defense. Also I make sure I am in range of some enemy improvements. Then I stack some defensive units with them. Next turn I open fire with the big guns and bust up all improvements. Then I move in, and start bombarding the city until the garrisons are weakened enough to move my troops in and capture the city.

Problem with this is sometimes you will destroy valuable city improvements such as harbors are libraries. You just have to take a chance though and hope you don't damage the city too much. Most of the time I don't care though and want to damage the city to make sure I can capture it.

On defense, cannons and artillery can come handy with that free shot. It hurts and will make a difference. Especially if you have a few of them in the city or a terrain.

[Master Zen]

You can also take advantage of the fact that most cities do not flip in the first turn or two. Take the city, heal units for one turn, then move em out to finish their healing. If the city flips you take it back easily. Happened to me in the AU SG, city flipped an I had like 8 legions outside! This was about 4 turns after I had taken it so I pretty much expected it sooner or later.

[JPGray]

Thanks for the advice

I've defeated England, and am now moving on to attack China. India lost its tech advantage over the other civs as predicted when England's support was destroyed. Now China has the most territory, goods and science output barring myself. I have about 35% of the map, and a four tech lead. I'm pulling down about 500+ a turn. Completed my FP and now only a few fringe cities experience debilitating corruption. The nearly doubled income easily compensates for this concerning improvements.

I've established a few spies, and noticed that China has 74 Infantry units, to my about 34 Tanks. I plan to build four or five tank armies (four units each), and about sixty other tanks besides before invading. Since the tanks are so slow, I will hopefully have an opportunity to use Artillery in large numbers. Thanks to the peculiarities of the map, the only direct land route from China is a one-square isthmus. With a Japan ROP, another three city border to the north is open to China. Incidentally, I may just wait for Synthetic Fibers, since it is only two-three advances away.

In the war however, I don't want to keep the territory myself. The corruption would be too high to make it worthwhile. I plan to give these captured cities to other nations. Does this damage reputation? What is the result of giving away captured cities to other civilizations? If I return to China a half-dozen cities, will Mao's attitude improve from the inevitable Furious? I don't want to eliminate China, I just want to balance it out.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Artillery are my best friends...

You have to use them in numbers. Two or three artilerry of any sort are of severely limited use, yet 10+ and you can bombard anything to bits. I currently am playing with 24 Cannons, 5 Cavalry and 6 Musketeers/Med Inf in my main army. This is a very slow stack moving through enemy territory, but the Cavalry are there to scout ahead. I just trundle up to a city, weathering any attacks, and bombard the hell out of it. I usually manage to wipe the 3-5 Musketeer defenders all down to 1 or 2hp, then it's almost child's play for the Cavalry (and even the Med Inf.) to take them apart.

I can't wait for the mass upgrade to Artillery. That's the other great thinga bout Catapults/Cannons/Artillery. Cats and Cans are super cheap (20 shields for Catapults!), and require few if any resources, so any city not linked to Iron can build Catapults. Once they are obsolete they require merely a trifling to upgrade them to the next, deadly, weapon. Twenty-four Catapults are nasty, but 24 Artillery are phenomenal. And if you have done well to protect your stack with Musketeers, you have a big upgrade at once, with the defenders going to Infantry (def 4 to def 10), and the attackers a similarly massive upgrade in power. These upgrades appear in the middle of the expensive Industrial era, where you have to wait until the end to get any more land units to catch up in effectiveness.

[TheArsenal]

In my mind there is no question balanced stacks with artillery are better. But I almost never use them. My greatest concern with bringing slow moving bombard and defensive units along with fast attackers in offense is it gives the AI the chance to build more units, reinforce cities, and cause me more causalities. That is why I divide my stacks into fast movers for attack and defensive/bombard for later garrison when they get there.

But reading this started me thinking:

Since fast movers (as relative to comparable era's units) are generally lacking in defense and do take a beating when attacked/countered - I am now wondering if softening targets, and protection against counter attacks, may balance out potential losses due to the factors I described above.

I was also using the fast movers tactic to reduce WW, since I will fight short but overwhelming wars ... get in, gobble as much territory as possible before WW sets in, garrison and sue for peace (when the AI finally calms down and will come to the table, in 5-10 turns or so). But since units KIA also seems to factor into WW, I am also now wondering if defensive/bombard protection of my units buys me some extra turns to use them in offensive battle by reducing casualties.

That said, I am wary of trying this out on the Huge/Large maps I play on, which slow movement penalties are compounded. But it is worth experimenting with.

[Cookie Monster]

TheArsenal:

You raise some interesting points regarding slow/fast stacks. I'm not sure how to answer your question since your style of battle is different from mine. Let me share with you what I do.

Before the advent of tanks I stick to slow moving infantry stacks with adequate artillery support. My government type of choice is usually republic so that gives you little more time to fight before WW sets in. The idea is that the highest attack power unit is either a cavalry (Attack of 6) or infantry (aslo attack of 6) and the typical defender is defense of 10 (infantry). Keep in mind this is all taking place in the industrial age before tanks are invented. The artillery softens up the defending infantry and then my attacking infantry can then have a chance to win against a defending infantry. I've noticed that the AI loves going after cavalry stacks and I only use cavalry to perform lightning fast improvement plundering. Artillery bombarding improvements takes too long IMO. Once the tank is invented then I send out stacks of tanks to quickly capture as many cities as possible before war weariness sets in.

[JPGray]

Interesting

I imagined losing cities contributed to WW, but I didn't know that losing any battle did the same. Is there a corresponding bonus for winning battles, or do they have only a neutral/negative effect?

Artillery may be so effective as to be unbalanced. A stack of twenty, as above mentioned, will reduce a city to tatters. Perhaps a reputation hit should occur for destroying citizens or cultural buildings?

[stonewall]

Re: Interesting

Originally posted by JPGray

Artillery may be so effective as to be unbalanced. A stack of twenty, as above mentioned, will reduce a city to tatters. Perhaps a reputation hit should occur for destroying citizens or cultural buildings?

A couple of thoughts:
1) from an historic perpesctive, a reputation hit certainly depends on the era and what is considered "normal". For example, look at the city desctruction that occurred in WWII. I don't think that it caused an international outcry during that time. Of course, today that kind of warfare would not be tolerated because we have the technology to avoid it.

2) Adding a rep hit from destroying citizens or cultural buildings should only be implemented if you can control the target of your artillery, otherwise you would really be gambling your reputation if you used artillery against a city.

[JPGray]

I would still be in favor of that

As it stands, a large group of artillery combined with a few offensive units and one or two solid defensive units is a match for any city in the game. Even a Chinese city with seven Mech Inf was easily ruined down to three defenders with one hit point each by a stack of artillery and a series of cruise missiles. Up to seven Modern Armors could die taking the city normally (that Militaristic trait can be nasty), whereas if handled patiently, none will.

I agree that in earlier ages, bombardment was just routine, but perhaps after the United Nations, it would be frowned upon? I also think the bombardment system could stay the same--a penalty for wrecking a cultural building or killing civilians might give precision strikes a better function than they currently have. We don't just shoot an MLRS into a big city these days. But I think the penalty would have to be fairly light--similar to razing a city?

[bongo]

The AI has some problems coping with large powerful stacks. If the stacks are strong enough they just leave them alone, not very good strategy.

Can you target units and buildings with stealth bombers?(I have never used them) If yes, maybe additional WW could be added each time a pop were killed? Giving an incentive to attack with precision weapons, saving some lives. Cultural buildings are destroyed when conquered anyway so a penalty for bombarding them to pieces wouldn't be very logical.

[stonewall]

Re: I would still be in favor of that

Originally posted by JPGray

I agree that in earlier ages, bombardment was just routine, but perhaps after the United Nations, it would be frowned upon? I also think the bombardment system could stay the same--a penalty for wrecking a cultural building or killing civilians might give precision strikes a better function than they currently have. We don't just shoot an MLRS into a big city these days. But I think the penalty would have to be fairly light--similar to razing a city?

The penalty would be ok if, like you said, it took effect after UN. However, I think you should also get a new unit, say Modern Artillery, that has the same specs as Artillery but adds a Precision ability that lets you choose between targeting units or improvements.

In the current rules, I don't use artillery too much because I like to try and save as many city improvements as possible when I take over the city. However, I do use artillery if the city doesn't have any improvements, I need that city NOW, or I am low on units. This all changes when I get cruise missiles, then I just blast units in heavily fortified cities with them.

bongo:

the Precision Strike ability for air units lets them choose to target a specific city improvement. I rarely use this because I like to save the city improvements, not destroy them. I would really like this ability if it gave me the choice to target only units. I wish there was an option for this in the editor.