The Invasion Fleet (help!?)

[Theseus]

I am currently playing:

Japan
Standard mapsize, large continents
Emporer

Otherwise standard everything.

I am playing my most dominant game yet; I'm about to hit the limit.

It's 1780 AD, I have taken all but 3 cities on the primary continent, giving me about 65 cities. The game is pretty much over, so I decided to have some invasion fun.

I am about to invade France's continent. This is actually the first time I am committing to a major intercontinental war. My fleet is as follows:

5 Battleships
4 Carriers
12 Bombers
4 Fighters
10 Transports
24 Artillery
8 Marines
12 Mechanized Infantry
22 Tanks
3 Armies
- 4X Tank
- 2X Tank, 2 X MI
- 1X Tank, 2X MI

I couldn't see a reason to include Subs. I will have two Transports full of Workers following shortly.

I don;t really need France's territory, so I think I am going to just pillage and burn.

Any suggestions??

[Dominae]

Sorry if this post seems uninspired; are you looking for something that works, or something that's fun?

Simple solution: go straight for their strategic resources and hold the fort until their forces dwindle. Then you'll have free reign to burn and pillage as you see fit. Enjoy!

Oh, and one question: How does the warmonger like the Japanese?


Dominae

[Tuberski]

Why don't you just keep chasing their capital? Take it over or raze it. And then do the same to whatever town they make the capital. Rinse. repeat.

[Inverse Icarus]

dont dotn need the ships for anythign but defending transports/carriers. bombers take out resources / trading roads (8 squares around capital). 4 or 5 stacks of 4 or 5 tanks / mech infs and u win.

[Harovan]

Sounds like fun indeed. If you are only out for fun, pillage the roads around their capital, but don't take/raze it. Massive unhappiness will result.

Another remark: If you are out for pillaging fun, better take only mechinf. If you want to take/raze cities too, your attack force sounds good, but I would not take marines (what for?) but more bombers and more tanks. Also, what do you need the workers for if only pillaging? If you raze some cities, they will produce you workers without need to be shipped. Better ship reinforcements on the second run.

[notyoueither]

Use the Jar heads to take one coastal city. Starve it down to 1 pop and keep it there. Then you have a base on the continent. Rush buy an Air Port. Then have at 'er.

Invasions are some of the better fun of the military aspect of the game.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Use the Jar heads to take one coastal city. Starve it down to 1 pop and keep it there. Then you have a base on the continent. Rush buy an Air Port. Then have at 'er.

Or use the "combat settler", as described in a thread here long ago. Ship a settler on their territory with a separate (otherwise empty) transport, while still at peace. They will demand you to leave, but can't force you out, as it ain't a combat unit. Next turn, declare war and build a city. Land your force in it and attack in the same turn the adjacent cities. Raze them (important!). No need to starve the city and no bother with flipping.

[notyoueither]

Yes. If you want to skulk around like a sneak.

[Theseus]

Dominae, sorry for not being "inspired."

This was sort of an idle rhetorical question... I just wanted to see what thoughts people have on intercontinental invasions.

The somewhat interesting observation from the responses so far regards how to establish your foothold:
- Capture a city
- Create your own city with a settler
- Build a fortress (btw, Sir Ralph, that's why I was sending the workers)

I guess part of the reason that I posted this is that, subconsciously, I knew that I had not made up my mind... thus the lack of clarity in unit selection.

On the other hand, I like the idea of combined arms to deal with any contingencies. I landed last night before sleep... all on a mountain next to one of the French cities (jesus, one hell of a stack!).

I'll experiment with "French abrades" tonight.

And, Dominae, the Japanese are un-frigging-believable for warmongering.

[Thrawn05]

Another thing you would want to do Theseus, is to find a "gulf" that goes deep into french's continent. I would take your carriers (escorted of course), and use the gulf to send you bombers in to do some serious damage within their land.

This is somthing I find that works a lot, and it helps keep the AI busy, and it starts to think (i think it does anyway), that there are two fronts, and spends time trying to build planes and ships to destroy your ships in the gulf. This limites the amount of cities the AI can use to make land units.

Of course, keep a transport in that stack of ships in the gulf. They make good relief forces once your main attack force (that may be running low on healthy units) from the other part of the continent makes it to where the gulf is.

Happy razing!

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Theseus
Dominae, sorry for not being "inspired."

I was talking about my reply not being inspired, not your post! Your posts are always thought-provoking and thus interesting.

I'll just reiterate the strategy that works well for me. Place all your units on a mountain or hill. Use your Workers to create a Fortress. Then, don't make a move until the AI slows down its attack on your uber-stack. At that point, all they have left is defensive units within their cities, so you can just go conquering without having to worry (much) about the AI's offensive capabilities.

In short, the AI will send everything at you to protect its empire (with railroads this usually means everything in one turn); it's very easy to exploit this fact. This is what I meant by an uninspired strategy/reply!.

Originally posted by Theseus
And, Dominae, the Japanese are un-frigging-believable for warmongering.

Yup.


Dominae

[Warmax]

I'm playing the Japanese on a Regent level game and have found that if your goal is conquest this civ fills the role nicely (as has been previously mentioned here.) I don't know how many times I've switched back and forth between communism - democracy/republic to gain the benefit of each with only one turn of downtime on production orders. Throw in there the military advantage and its a pretty lethal combination. I too have been island/continent hopping and find that large numbers of BB's proves very effective in eliminating coastal city garrisons. I just wish there was a multiple bombardment key that would prevent me from hitting B click space over and over again. That wouldnt happen to be included in the 1.21 patch would it? I don't want to load until I finish this game.

[Arrian]

Theseus,

Your invasion fleet seems designed for fun and versatility... not sheer firepower (my approach). If I go to war with that tech across an ocean, all I have are:

A few destroyers
A bunch of battleships
As many transports loaded with tanks as I can muster before my patience runs out and/or some other factor says "time up."
A few of my best defender unit
Any non-obselete armies I have around

If the enemy is at all strong (culture plays a major role here), I will bring a settler too. I just land the entire force, with settler, on a hill near the enemy core and declare war. The AI will be too scared of your megastack to attack it. Next turn, build city. Next turn, relocate entire air force. No need for artillery, carriers, subs or marines. Then, bomb the hell out of 'em and send in the tanks.

I like to keep things simple.

By the way, how many leaders have you gotten in that game. I'm having really bad luck with leader generation since installing 1.21. I'm curious...

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
The AI will be too scared of your megastack to attack it.

In my experience, the AI is only afraid of a megastack when it is along your borders; if you place a megastack well within their territory, the AI will attempt to destroy it all costs. Has anyone else noticed this behaviour, or are all your megastacks always left alone?


Dominae

[Arrian]

Hmm, different experiences, I guess. I suppose it depends on how strong the enemy is, but I cannot recall ever having problems invading. A friend of mine did describe what you're talking about recently... he dropped off something like 175 tanks, the AI hit the stack with enough infantry to kill 30 tanks. Of course, they took staggering losses. I, however, have yet to experience that. Then again, I generally try to set things up such that I do not need to invade a healthy AI civ. I much prefer picking off weak civs, gaining footholds on other continents, grabbing luxuries, etc.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
Has anyone else noticed this behaviour, or are all your megastacks always left alone?

Different behavior here. Sometimes they don't even try to attack. But there are exceptions. I once landed 2 transports full of mechinfs with the goal to pillage and deny uranium. That's not what I would call a megastack, but the best units my enemy had were cavalries and riflemen (no rubber, no oil). They were fully railroaded, and on the next turn threw all cavalries and knights they had at my stack. I stopped counting somewhere around the 50th unit. They had badly beaten up my force, succeeding to kill 4 mechinfs and leaving others with only 1 hp. With the remaining force I could forget the razing goal. On the following turns I lost more of the 1 hp mechinfs to longbowmen and the remaining cavalries. Three of my units made it to the uranium, pillaged the road and fortified there. Overall it was a disaster for me.

IIRC this was with 1.17 or even 1.16. I don't know whether the AI behavior has changed, as I had no invasion with 1.21 yet.

[Arrian]

Ralph,

Impressive response by the AI there. I wouldn't call it a disaster, though, since you did pillage the uranium and kill a TON of units. For the cost of what, 13 mech infs?

-Arrian

[Kc7mxo]

I just played a nice invasion out today. Initial force was 65 tanks, 15 infantry, and 8 artillery. Reinforcements of 8 more units landing every three turns for quite a while. Naval escort was 8 bships and 2 destroyers. I'd been preparing the invasion for thirty turns or so, (building tanks to upgarde to modern armor) andthen Iroquois declared war cause i wouldn't give em espionage.

Needless to say, the Iroqouis felt my wrath. And then the Germans felt my irratition at their coloninization efforts. And then I sacked the Japanese upside the head for refusing to sell me ivory for anything short of 5 luxuries, 3 resources, and 700 gold. Greedy buggers.

I like your invasion force, its got character.

[spy14]

I just wiped out the zulus with 24 modern armor with air support, Shaka decided he could do without a navy though which made my life a lot easier when it came to sending reinforcements. And it all happened because he asked if I wanted his eldest son with my other demands... The navy thing though, anyone else noticed the computer not bothering to build one?

[Txurce]

In my relatively few invasions, the AI tends to throw everyhting at me, although sometimes it waits one disastrous turn. The "combat settler" tactic verges on an exploit, but I guess it could be rationalized as a seabee operation. Arrian, your instant transfer of your entire air force does indeed make things simple. I love it. All of these threads lead me to think that an invading force could well be better off with a really powerful defensive base against which the AI will destroy its offensive units, after which a relatively small offensive force could have its way with what's left, pausing periodically to heal.

[Theseus]

Thanks for all the thoughts. I put up a lengthy post that includes the conclusion to the invasion in General.

Couple of responses here:

I highly recommend a lot of Artillery for the invading uber-stack. Both the free shot on defense, and softening up units before attack, are invaluable at preserving the invading force.

I also kept a small contingent of Arty at home, as well as one or two Bomber wings at key locations... got watch that sneaky AI.

Overall, the invasion was a lot of fun... but next time I am going to do it earlier, for the metagame.