Offensive settlers-

[Enigma]

I tend to be an opportunist, I look at every part of a game as how it can help *me*, with little regard to realism. I have recently boiled down my military strategy to 1 concept: keep your forces constantly in use. A military force that spends 1/2 of its time running from city to city in enemy territory is only 2/3 as effective as a military that spends every turn attacking or healing.

Late game modern armor is really good at this, it can move through 2 squares and still attack an enemy city. Using this in combination with bombers you can take cities rapidly.

But what about enemy cities that have 3 squares of their territory between you and them. What do you do then?

I use offensive settlers. I will establish a base for the sole purpose of moving my empire forward 1 square. This means that my tanks can entire the square directly in front of the city without losing any movement points. Movement points are the what I value above all else. By using this strategy your units spend 1 turn attacking and then 1 turn healing, rather than 1 moving, 1 attacking, then 1 moving. Perhaps cheap- but speedy!

[Monoriu]

Awesome strategy. It will speed up the conquest of enemy terriroty a lot. I'll have to try this one out.

But one problem though. It will increase the city count and it may increase corruption in the home cities, slowing down troop production.

[Out4Blood]

I don't get it - maybe I am dumb. You wasted a settler making a new town so you could save a couple movement points?

[Ray K]

Re: Offensive settlers-

Originally posted by Enigma
I use offensive settlers. I will establish a base for the sole purpose of moving my empire forward 1 square. This means that my tanks can entire the square directly in front of the city without losing any movement points. Movement points are the what I value above all else. By using this strategy your units spend 1 turn attacking and then 1 turn healing, rather than 1 moving, 1 attacking, then 1 moving. Perhaps cheap- but speedy!

Interesting strategy. But instead of using a settler to establish a base for advancing my empire, I use a group of 4-5 offensive units.

They take a city, advance the empire, and heal in the newly-captured city. Rinse and repeat.

Seriously, by the time I have established a "front line" with an offensive settler, my attacking units would have moved the front line forward about 3-4 cities. My motto is "Conquer first and ask questions later". You won't believe how much an AI will give you for peace when you have troops amassed at his last city.