Contested seaborne invasion

[Alexander's Horse]

This was quite interesting. I loaded up ships to invade another country and when my army hit the beach there was an ai army there waiting in ambush. They attacked whilst my troops were still unloading. In some confusion, I had to reload my army onto the ships and make for home and then relaunch the invasion at another landfall.

Half the army had got out and the other half were still in boats and in danger of being lost at sea when I aborted the landing. It was quite hairy.

[Swissy]

That is why I no longer do sea-landings until modern when I can soften up the invasion zone with bombers after some overfights with fighters to scope out the defenses.

[Alexander's Horse]

I think you could do it earlier in stages, like send the horse or a scout over first, then the inf, then the heavy weapons like cats or cannon.

[Signa]

Phib landings are very hard to do unless...

*You have obliderated all resistence in the area with BB's/Fighter/Carriers/Bombers/Helos/Nuke.

*You pick a spot where they are not (open plain) and have time to land and get organized.

*You simply have such overwhelming force in your army that you crush them.

[ggerrietts]

I usually wait until Gunpowder. There's almost always a city on the coast within range of my bomb ships, so I'll send one flotilla (accompanied by a fleet of fire ships, some lights and a heavy or two) to take out enemy docks, and set another to pounding on the city. If the game's too close for that, and I can't get a temporary advantage, I'll stick with just one big fleet pounding on the city.

I gather my army, and as soon as the town is significantly reduced, I start my army across. Capture the city and immediately start repairing it so it's harder to take back.

I have tried to do earlier landings but if I do I need to be landing outside their territory, and those operations are nowhere near as successful. The "hard part" is keeping a sea passage open long enough that I can continue to send reinforcements while trying to advance on an enemy city: usually the AI will muster enough fire ships & regular fleet to take down my defenders while I'm trying to manage the land war: with enough fire ships it doesn't take long to sink a whole fleet.