Tactics: invading AI continent in Modern Age

[eMarkM]

I'm wondering how people are dealing with this issue. Should I just be razing all my conquered cities and replacing them?

ALWAYS pay attention to how they feel about your culture when considering this. This is a huge factor in revolts. If they are "in awe" of you, you never have to raze as they will almost never go back. If they are "impressed" they go back occasionally, but I find not enough to raze them. Only the ones real close to their capital would revolt anyway. But if they are "disdainful" or "dismissive" raze em down cause you won't be able to hold them long.

I've played quite a few games as Persia and the Babs are usually near me. Babs are culture monsters w/ all the cheap cultural improvements they can build. They were always disdainful/dismissive of my culture. I learned the hard way to just burn their cities--except ones w/ wonders where I'd just deal w/ the problem. I'd conquer 4-5 cities and within 5-15 turns they'd all revert back like I didn't even invade. Ooooooh, nothing ticks me off more than seeing the damn advisor telling me we've been overthrown! Over and over. Now I just mow them down and replace w/ my own.

OTOH the Zulus, which are also usually near Persia, I've never had the problem. I was usually equal to them or better in culture. A city or two would revert, but never more than once. I usually will keep Zulu cities, garrison, build a temple and that would do it.

So always consult your advisors and see how they feel about your culture before deciding on capture vs raze.

e

[rah]

I was fooling around in a game to try to figure this out. I was the Japs. with good culture. The french with almost an equal culture were on another continent. Paris was in the middle surrounded by the rest of their culture. I took the city and experimented with it reverting back. I would wait for it to revert and then go back a turn and see if i could make it not. The new capital was only 5 squares away, and every border of Paris touched another French culture center. Totally surrounded.

First time.
Went back and changed the seed number a couple of times to see if it was random. Did it twice and it reverted both times. So it's not likely that random.
Went back and airlifted in two more defenders. I already had more garrisoned then resisters. It didn't revert. So I waited for it to revert again.

A few turns later
Second time.
Tried changing the seed, no change.
It was like 2 content 5 resisters and 6 entertainers.
I switched the two content to entertainers leaving me with all resisters or entertainers. IT DIDN"T REVERT. Making sure every turn that everyone is a resister or entertainer always worked, (with a decent garrison of course)

I rushed a temple before resist was over. (using captured workers and artillary) I let the city starve till resist was done. Rushed a cathedral, kept the city starving all entertainers until the first culture bump to expand city influence. Kept garrison of decent size.

By the time the city expanded the city was down to a manageable size and I added a few of my workers or barb workers that the city created and reduced the garrison to see if the city would revert. It never did. I like keeping only 50% or less of original residents. (but I hear they fixed that creating barb worker thing in the patch)

Now I use this routine for enemy capitals, and have never had one revert since. While it's sometimes easier to raze, I used their capital as a base to destroy the rest of their cities later.
It was nice having a city in enemy territory that already had an airport. Made bringing in shock troops real easy. And I got two leaders defending the city to the massive counter attacks. (once they stop, moping up the rest of their cities is easier)

RAH
In one other experiment i would build a city in the middle of my culture center, trade it to the ai, and it would revert back for me to do it again and again. It kept doing this until the city influence expanded. It never reverted after that. So this supports some of my tests with Paris.

[MadWombat]

Hmmm. My technique is generally to go in with a transport loaded up with lots of inf/mech inf, and one settler. Get yourself a nice place as far as possible from their capital, and drop a city there. Wait one turn and rush build an airport. If you have a lot of cash, you can do this on the first turn. =]

It is interesting that airports can only perform one airlift per turn, but can have an unlimited number use tem as a destination. Now, with ~10 airports in your home continent, and mobilization going, you should be able to pump out a LOT of armour, artillery and Mech Inf, and just land them in the city.

Raze every enemy city you come to unless it has a useful wonder. Even then, it's often easier to raze it than try to keep it. If you DO keep a city, as soon as it is done resisting, rush build settlers and drop them in convenient places on the new continent; preferably where they have resources. This has the double benefit of giving you your own cities, and of reducing the population of potentially resisting cities.

With workers you get, feel free to pump up the population of small cities in order to rush build useful things like temples, courthouses and cathedrals.

I have found that a concerted assault against AI cities inevitably goes your way, because the AI insists on defending all of its cities, even if they're not in a position to be attacked. With 5-10 new armour coming in every turn, you really shouldn't have that much difficulty destroying an enemy quickly.

[musofire]

I have to say, positioning all your troops around the enemy's cities during an RoP is a pure exploit. No real nation is going to let you do that.

I'm surprised people advocate razing cities. This leaves the railroads free for any civ to use, including your enemy. If you take the city, he can't use your railroads. Taking a city gives you a two square deep buffer when he tries to take the city back.

[vmxa1]

TRue it is an exploit.
Razing works as you say, but if you are blitzing, you do not want to garrison troops. Often, when I am razing cities, they are in no position to do much about it. I have whacked their armies and the road system is now no ones, so no one can really use it effectively. They may run a settler in, but so what. The production is gone. I am not even concerned about resource denial. I intend to deny them an existence.

[Theseus]

LOL

Gotta remember that one... existence denial.

[vmxa1]

Glad you liked it, since you have given me (all) many posts to enjoy.

[Catt]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I am not even concerned about resource denial. I intend to deny them an existence.

That is a strategy I will definitely remember.

Catt

[Keeper of Hell]

The RoP backstab thing works really well, but usually you'll only want to use it late in the game when you're on the home strech anyway and a decisive victory over the target civ is worth more than your reputation. The AI *really* gets mad over RoP violations (even imagined ones, like having units in enemy territory before war is officially declared w/o a RoP). They'll remember it for thousands of years, and it makes them incredibly reluctant to sign a RoP with you for anything less than ridiculously exorbitant rates. That said, there is *no* act of war/sneakiness (excluding MPP situations, of course) that will make AI civs spontaneously declare war except the use of nuclear weapons, even if they're absolutely furious with you. So break the treaty with a light heart: the enemy will have no easier a time securing allies than he normally would. The only way that the RoP exploitation changes the AI's perception of you is in terms of signing such a treaty.