Time to take out superior enemies, WW1 style?

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk


What do you mean? It held. It was the strategic decisions that went along with it that led to the French defeat.

What defeat? I thought Germany lost WW1? But the French took a heavy spanking, allright. The strategic mistake was to not have a Maginot line all the way to the English Channel.

On topic, I have found myself playing WW1 style in many games. And it works, if you have patience.

[bongo]

The maginot line was built after WW1.

WW1-style trench warfare can be very effective in civ-games. The point is of course to make the enemy waste lots of troops trying to break through your lines.

[Master Zen]

Personally I hate artillery, I find it rather worthless unless I bring a stack of like 20 to a city and that is very boooring, so I take my windows of opportunity with fast, mobile units.

My periods of warmongering are:

Ancient era:
Archer rush
only if I have a neighbour too close

Horseman rush
better than archer if you have horses, stack em with a Spearman or use them for more mobile hit and run. Works wonders with the Iroqouis, IMO the deadliest ancient era civ given horses.

Swordman
doesn't go well with most civs but with Carthage/Greece/Rome (make them Legions)/Persians (Immortals) is actually usefull and economical since you'll get a GA by using their UU in combo.

Early Medieval:
Knights
my favorite powerful on defense and offense, knights escorted by Musketmen (or better yet, Musketeers) are devastating. Their ability to retreat in combat is a huge plus, their high defense make it easy to move them aside a city (fortify one or two) and attack, you'll suffer heavy casualties but will lose hardly any units because of the retreat ability.

Late Medieval:
Cavalry
In theory they are just as effective as Knights but many AI cities will be over size 6 by now and artillery might be necessary to soften up these large ones. Since Nationalism is just around the corner, taking a shot with Cavalry is much more risky. The Ottomans have it slightly easier in this regards.

Industrial:
Tanks
Pretty much your last shot a quick mobile victory (i.e. with as little artillery as possible) especially soon after getting the tech since many civs have not yet converted all their riflemen to infantry.

WHAT I AVOID (these are my personal PoV of course )

WW1 style warfare. Too much artillery needed for my taste.

Notice that I have so far not mentioned modern warfare. MA's are not as powerful for taking cities without artillery support if only because the MI is so powerful on defense and many cities will be size 12+. The good thing about late industrial/modern warfare is aircraft, which IMO is more effective than ground artillery (and much more so than naval artillery).

Also, my gripes with artillery are only against cities. They are very effective against ground units in open terrain.

[Master Zen]

I think its obvious from the last posts that my "windows of opportunity" are the moment I get Chivalry until the enemy gets many Musketman principally. The worst period for warfare (well, offensive warfare) IMO is precisely the WW1 era.

But of course, this is not to say it isn't any fun...warmongering is fun no matter what!!

[Frank Johnson]

Well that's not the point. The point is that it is the worst time for fighting a war, thus its the best time to fight a superior super AI. Add in the AIs lack of artillery skills and you can turn around stuff easily.

[bongo]

I tried to do some WW1-style fighting in my current game. I filled 8 transport with infantry and artillery(33+31) and landed them in enemy territory. The AI left my SOD alone as long as I kept it united. This left me free to wander around and bombard and raze his cities at will. He tried to counter this by sending all availably units(cav+inf) overseas to my territory where they cause only minor damage...If the AI had consentrated his force on my SOD and were able to use artillery in an intelligent manner he could actually forced me out of his land.

[Hopdevil007]

ww1 style

i was recently playing a game where i took out the iroqous and at the far end of there land was an isthamus. it was a peice of land three tiles wide. i was ahead in railroading so i pulled some workers to make a kind of maginot line. i built forts and stacked three infantry and three artillery per tile. on the other side of my line the egyptians were gearing up to make war with me. when it finally did break out they threw everything they had at me and my boys didnt budge. it was great. i landed marines and tanks on there other side and devastated them. so in my opinion, the infantry/artillery combo for defense is very effective. no so much for attacking.

[badams52]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Personally I hate artillery, I find it rather worthless unless I bring a stack of like 20 to a city and that is very boooring, so I take my windows of opportunity with fast, mobile units.

Good list for those who don't use artillery

Notice that I have so far not mentioned modern warfare. MA's are not as powerful for taking cities without artillery support if only because the MI is so powerful on defense and many cities will be size 12+. The good thing about late industrial/modern warfare is aircraft, which IMO is more effective than ground artillery (and much more so than naval artillery).

Have to say I don't like bombers unless the AI doesn't have flight yet. Those fighters he builds wastes too many bombers!

Artillery and bombers are good to scare off the AIs naval ships from your coast and bring in the battleships to finish them off.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by badams52


Have to say I don't like bombers unless the AI doesn't have flight yet. Those fighters he builds wastes too many bombers!

Artillery and bombers are good to scare off the AIs naval ships from your coast and bring in the battleships to finish them off.

Not to mention that the AI actually has some skill in using bombers as opposed to using artillery. And that you could sink some ships if you play by AU rules.

[Master Zen]

The AI has a nasty habit of bombing your resource squares. Of course it also works if you do it yourself Doolittle-style. There was a thread a while back about this.

[badams52]

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre
Not to mention that the AI actually has some skill in using bombers as opposed to using artillery. And that you could sink some ships if you play by AU rules.

But again, just create some fighters, make them control the skies and watch the bombers be swatted like flies.

[RGBVideo]

Bah, you only need to use artillery on big maps.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Tuomerehu
Bah, you only need to use artillery on big maps.

And A LOT of them, well, only after Replaceable Parts