Destruction of the Core

[Jumping Choya]

Hey, the new guy has a strategy!

Anyway, this is sort of like the Capitol Isolation Strategy and the strategy where you take an oppenent's best cities (don't think it has an official name) and combine them. This is yet untested in actual gameplay, but it should theoretically work.

Based on observations, the AI will not relocate their capitol unless it's taken from them. That's good for you.

Now, the Capitol Isolation strat says that you destroy all roads/railroads leading to the capitol, which means that trade with other empires is disrupted, and luxeries won't be distributed through the empire. You do not actually take the capitol, though. Just leave it to wallow in lonesomness until some workers come out to fix the damage (and you might just want to capture those).


The other plan is to destroy all the important, industrial cities the enemy has, crippling their production.

I don't know if this will be a big "Yeah, duh" to people, but I've always taken the capitol soon off the start. But I've been thinking that you could screw the AI over so much more if you:

1. Destroy all cities near the capitol.
2. Leave the capitol untouched.

Because of corruption, the AI will have no cities to produce significant numbers with. The cities on the outer ring won't be able to do anything, and since the AI won't relocate the capitol, they will remain doing nothing. Their formerly productive cities are no longer in their control - you could raze them or keep them (if you keep them and they don't revert, the AI is REALLY screwed since they can't replace them!). It cripples their empire for the rest of the war, and probably a good time afterwards (producing settlers, rebuilding improvements and city structures).

And the same goes for wherever the AI builds their forbidden palace.

I'm not sure of this last part, but this would be perhaps more crippling to large, sprawling empires - the outer cities may cost more to support than what they make, thus plunging the civ into debt.

So that's my meager contribution. Comments?

[MarshalN]

Well, what I'm thinking is.... if you can pull this off, you might as well just kill them off anyway. I mean, if you can actually take all the core cities of the enemy civ, there's not much that you can't do to them, and leave their capital or not probably makes jack difference to you since you can crush them anyway

Whereas the capital isolation strategy is a little different since you can just jump in with a few units, destroy all the roads, and pull out without the need to conquer and hold....

Not that your idea is bad... its just that if you're so far ahead... I'd just kill them all off

[Matthevv]

It seems to me that if you are in a position to capture the other Civs major cities, it must already be so weak that you can probably finish it off in any way that you prefer, so your strategy, although effective, is probably not necessary.

[Velociryx]

I like the ideas behind it....a novel approach to the whole conquest theme, however, if you mean to *capture* cities in and around the enemy capitol, then care must be taken to ensure that the enemy's culture is significantly inferior to yours (else risk a much higher reversion risk).

Actually, a strategy like this could easily be adapted to Guerilla Warfare in the Mod we're making. (One of the things it will feature is a broader array of "neutral" units you can build....as it stands now, the Privateer is it, but our Mod proposes some land units as well). With these "barbarian" land units, you should be able to launch a right nasty raid against your rivals' infrastructure without worrying about a DoW in response....of course, you'll need to be on your guard against the same, but....

(ahhh, and I think Master Sev came up with a way for us to introduce LandMines too....we're still hashing that out)....

So yes....definitely keep this strategy in your mind....I think it'll probe to be QUITE effective in light of some soon to be available new units!

-=Vel=-

[Jumping Choya]

I should probably clarify something.

This strategy is supposed to be used early in the war to cripple an enemy at the start. It assumes that you have ample defense units, since you'll be in the middle of their road-laden territory. The idea is that you cripple them at the start and work your way out from there. Just ignore the outer cities.

Or, in the strategy of making them a vassal to you, this pretty much ensures that they'll be unable to fight your dominance over them in the future. The cities they are left with will have very little in the way of production.

Vel - glad to know that this seems like an appealing idea for your upcoming mod!

[darthx86]

Actually, with bombarment, this is quite a viable strategy without taking a single city. If the AI leaves his capital on the coast, or at least within bomber range, a few turns of bombardment will cut it off completely with zero bloodshed.

[Skanky Burns]

This double post ruthlessly captured and razed by my super stack.

[Skanky Burns]

Actually, this could be doable against a large enemy in the late game. Take out there capitals road connections and harbour/airport as per standard capital isolating doctrin. Then have a super-stack move in and crush their large cities one by one.

It would need many defensive units (an army containing 3 or 4 infantry / mech-inf would be handy), some radar artillery and of course enough modern armour to take the enemy cities.

While the enemy is still powerful, he will most likely just strike at your own cities, ignoring your super-stack as it would be too hard to kill. If the AI does attack it, he will find it very hard indeed to destroy.

Simply move up to the closest core city, soften it with artillery and then finish it off with modern armour. Raze. If possible, move all the captured workers and the armour that captured the city back into the protection of the super-stack. Next turn, move your super-stack on to the next core city.

An attack like this could break any empire. Maybe