What is best DDay Strategy for distant Continent?

[planetfall]

When it comes down to you and an AI continent 3-5 transport turns away, what strategy do you use for invasion?

Please explain why you choose the strategy you did.

Assume you are just beginning the modern era, about same size military, about same scores, and about the same techs.

[Theseus]

I've only done this 4-5 times, but here are some thoughts:

* Obviously, the approach will vary by game. Objectives are key... in general, I am attacking for 3 reasons:
- Resources
- Damage
- Expansion (this might also mean a foothold for an attack on another, larger civ)

In general, I try to have two attacks going... one for whatever city I want to take, and the second for damage. I like to land the city attack first, so enemy units aggregate at the front, and then drop raiders into pillaging position near the target resources or at a strategic location (e.g., chokepoint, single road connections, etc.)

* Think about the defensive challenges, assuming a healthy or killer AI civ: Artillery (maybe), Bombers, Tanks, and a loooot of Infantry. The city attack force should have a combined arms approach, including naval / air power and a bunch of Workers. The pillaging force can usually be much simpler... a bunch of Infantry, preferably including a 4X Army, and leftover Cavs.

[Radiation Zero]

Usually, my main goal is to take the nearest enemy city so, just to be sure, I'll also take the two nearest port cities, then work inland from there. Most of my reinforcements go to my objective city, however.

The reason for this is preference, more than anything.

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Theseus
I've only done this 4-5 times, but here are some thoughts:

* Obviously, the approach will vary by game. Objectives are key... in general, I am attacking for 3 reasons:
- Resources
- Damage
- Expansion (this might also mean a foothold for an attack on another, larger civ)

In general, I try to have two attacks going... one for whatever city I want to take, and the second for damage.
The pillaging force can usually be much simpler... a bunch of Infantry, preferably including a 4X Army, and leftover Cavs.

Low traffic on civ site today. Thank you for your response. I was hoping Arrian would also be on forum. I am guessing no one really knows so now thinking of using current state of game as scenario and playing a couple of ways and seeing which works out better.

In invasions of about equal sized continent, object is empire expansion, resource control and reducing AI to one 2 tile island. There actually is one in this game and the AI build a city there. Juicy.

I don't like the tactical approach of conquering a foreign city as the negatives of 1) flipping, 2) defensive bonus, and 3) exposed troops are hard to overcome.

Target sites are 4 hill tiles. Tactic is to time approach to landing zone and disembark on DDay. Plant city on DDay+1, and rush airport. If I survive to DDay+2, I can airlift reinforcements. Offshore is a carrier with bombers to remove roads leading to hilltop, thus only fast movers could attack on DDay.

I have learned the AI is best against a one front attack. Thus minimum needed is a 2 front assault. I don't have the time to wait until later when AI is more advanced. There are two MPP civs on this very slightly smaller continent and I can't pull ahead of their combined score totals at all. Both civs military make mine "average". Thus this looks like a real battle. So strategy is to have 4 invasions, 2 in each civ. If one succeeds, I will have won. I can then start exporting panzers for production removal and bombers for strategic resource removal/constrainment.

I have not faced this even of an opponent before and so don't have any game experience. Options seem to be:

Standard DDay
-- all 4 landings on the same turn

Sequential DDay
2 Turn Option
--DDay land in 2 zones to pull AI in
--DDay+1, land in next 2 zones to split AI

4 Turn Option
--Open a new zone each turn.


The real advantage of staged is if RR are not everywhere yet. I won't know until DDay-1 current land improvements when I send over reconnaissance patrols.

I was not thinking of exporting any workers until secure beachhead cities were established. The last time I had a someone similar contest, the AI threw a ton of cruise missles at me. I am planning for the same, but worst.

Tactics-- one of three transports will have cavs for supply chain disruption missions.

Any additional advice?

[Arrian]

It totally depends on your relative power versus the enemy. If I'm strong enough, I will make multiple landings. If I'm at all concerned about my ability to crush the AI counterattack, I will go for the uber concentration of force. Since your example supposes equal troop strength, I'd go with 1 massive landing.

On the very few occasions where I've done a modern invasion, here is what I did:

1) Assembled my attack force, which I think consisted of purely Modern Armor (as much as I could build during the timeframe I set for myself). If no MA yet, then I'd say a 2 to 1 ratio of Tanks to Mech Infantry.... maybe more Mech if you're concerned about the AI's hitting power.

2) Assembled auxiliary forces: roughly 1 transport full of artillery (this is actually for defense), and as many Battleships and Bombers as I could build.

3) Built a settler or two.

4) Load force into transports, stack with Battleships, sail to enemy shore.

5) Pick my landing spot:

5a) Find a hill with a luxury I don't have within the projected 7-square radius, and as close to enemy capitol as possible.

6) Land entire force on that spot.

7) Use Battleships to blaze away at the roads leading to that spot to slow AI counterattack.

7a) Use small task forces (usually consisting of a couple of Battleships or Destroyers) to try and break the AI's resource connections throughout their empire.

8) Weather the storm.

9) Build city, rush barracks.

10) Relocate entire airforce to that city.

11) Rush walls.

12) Use bombers to soften surrounding AI troops and cities.

13) Rush harbor.

14) Destroy enemy capitol.

15) Rush airport, maybe (if it's relatively easy to resupply using transports, I don't build airports all over the place... playing on standard maps, it's not that big a deal).

16) Keep breaking things until they're done.

Clearly, there are specific things that can occur in a particular game that would change this plan. The example which pops to mind is a chokepoint on the AI's continent. If there is, I would devote some naval assets to break the roads through it, and drop off some Mech Infantry to cut them in two.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by planetfall
Low traffic on civ site today. Thank you for your response. I was hoping Arrian would also be on forum. I am guessing no one really knows so now thinking of using current state of game as scenario and playing a couple of ways and seeing which works out better.

Ask, and yea shall receive. Crossposted with ya, isn't that a riot?

-Arrian

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Arrian




Ask, and yea shall receive. Crossposted with ya, isn't that a riot?

-Arrian

Cool! Thought you either came in late today, were lurking, or took a day off. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Unregistered]

In the situation u describe I would go for one large landing. Maybe even try to take an enemy city via Marines to help weather the initial counterattack. Depends on map & what my long term goals are.

Have fun!

[dexters]

Interesting that you brought up this issue. I was mulling over making a similar post of my own asking for preferred strategies.

Since I tend to prefer playing large continents, amphibious invasions are something I haven't done often. In my current game (on regent) I'm playing 60% water, continents, which means several large island continents as opposed to a pangea map. I also noted most of the responses focused on late game attacks. Let me chime in with my mid game invasion, without the benefit of strong naval bombardment, airpower or armor on the beaches.

Attached is an image of the invasion site. This is actually the aftermath, as you'll note the city of Satsuma has fallen into my hands. But my invasion formation remains:

You will note a wall of soldiers on the hills leading right to the beaches. This is to protect my supply lines. Transports disembark re-inforcements and auxillary forces onto the hill tile protected by the Musketman. I have landed workers earlier to create a fortress, as well as cannons to bombard anything within their one square range (limited to be sure, but better than nothing) In the picture, there is a lone unit protecting my beachead, because Japan has signed a peace treaty and I'm getting reading to break formation. During battle however, in the pre-RR stage, you can expect 2 to 3 defenders sitting there.

In this particular situation, another musketman to the left of my main supply line surrounded by enemy units. The unit is occupying an iron resource. He's also sitting on a fortress, built courtesy of the workers I snuck in through the protected supplylines, and thus my left flank is pretty much secure.

A couple of key points here. The invading force on the mainland was sent with the intent of denying the Japanese iron as well as to divert any invasion by the Japanese on my homeland. But I found to my dismay they had a second source of iron AFTER I hand landed my troops. Forced to improvise, I set up the current formation you see, and moved in workers and re-inforcements to bolster my epeditionary force. I moved in cannon concentrations that are stacked next to Satsuma (note the big stack of units) to pound on the roadways and on the city itself. As peace drew near, I decided to make a run for it and took Satsuma, giving me a clear shot at their capital, Kyoto, when war returns, and I'm sure we'll be going to war sooner than later.

In my case, I have the an Island city, "Rhode Island", itself a captured Japanese city, serving as the city damaged units are sent to heal. It made my life much easier and hence, there was no need to send settlers to create my own homebase.

[Capt Dizle]

Here is something I am thinking of, but not yet played through. I was fooling around trying to save Caesar in a game by getting a ROP with him and using my troops to generally impede the six other civs out to get him. It occured to me that this would be a great way to backdoor a civ. Drop a large force in a neighboring civ, and then send in your standard invasion task force as a diversion. Wait until the AI concentrates and then backdoor him.

The problem that I would anticipate is that the AI would know my troops were there lurking even in a different civs territory. Have you guys tried something like this to see if the AI is all knowing?

[Theseus]

jt,

Niiiice. You are now Dr. Evil.

I'm not sure about whether the AI is all-knowing, but consider this strat in MP!!! The target punches out the monitor!!

[Harovan]

What concerns troop location, the AI is all-knowing. You can prove this, when you are in the late game (railroads everywhere) and a neighbor sneak attacks you. Save the game, sign a MPP/RoP with him (before the attack, in most cases he will attack you anyway) and move the garrison out of a distant city (out of his view). The odds, that he moves the first unit over your RRs to capture that city, are pretty high.

[planetfall]

Sav available

Opps. I was not getting good feedback on general forum yesterday, so switched to strategy forum. I posted save file and comments on other thread.

Please review my sav file and strategy.

Thank you. Hopefully with your help I can get out of the warlord level.

Other thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53249

[planetfall]

Very interesting game. Good news was in 5 turns both Aztecs and Persia asked for peace. Persia lost 3 cities and Aztecs 2. Bad news is my strategy still needs improvement.

New AI behavior, Persia had more than 30 infantry but none were visible from coast line. Only when landed did infantry appear. Opps, big opps. Only because I was able to airlift in 6 mechs was I able to stay alive in SW landing zone. What happened is I lost position and units were not where expected. I thought I would land all five groups at once. Four for settling and one for trouble making.
Well, number four was out of position because it was in a big navy stack and went to the wrong zone. Two turn landing delay, but not worth replaying.

Expectation #1-- land in two locations in one empire, AI will split forces between two.
Results-- yes, AI acted as expected and pulled in a couple of infantry from Persia for support.

Expectation #2-- 2 armies would be able to land and destroy at least one city.
Results--SURPRISE, AI anticipates landing. Had two transports in south with one army each. Anticipated easy landing. Wrong. Recon showed dispersed force of infantry/riflemen about 5 tiles deep from potential landing zones. Never tried to land with armies before and so this action was totally new. Too much power for landing. Thought it would take forever, well 5-10 turns to be able to land.

Expectation #3-- land in one location and AI will mass forces around that location.
Results-- as expected, but size of stacks, 20+, 15+, 10+ attacking were surprising. Interestingly, by landing all the troops blocking landing of 2 armies to south were pulled to counterattack landing to west.


Potential strategy implications:

To divide AI-
o- have at least 2 landing zones

To misdirect AI
o- land sacrifice force in one landing zone
For this to work, all roads/RR have to be removed around landing force. Idea is to lead AI into unimproved tiles where they can't move away quickly but must suffer losses.
o- after AI has committed, next turn, commit real landing forces in 2 new zones.
Alternative would be to land on one side next turn and in another location on third turn. This worked so well. Persia was strong. But AI committed almost all to attacking via unimproved to get to landing group one. Two armies to south only had 6 attackers. Two turns after the armies landed, opened a third front to North. One pathetic attacker. Wow, success.

Again to summarize, the biggest surprises:
1. AI will anticipate armies landing and will set up a good defensive posture.
2. Just because you don't see infantry in coastal cities, don't make the mistake of assuming AI has no infantry.


Oh, another potential strategy, move armies close to shore. After AI sets up defensive posture, find a check point to keep main force on wrong side of empire.