12-12-2004 11:28									#1
	Follow the Conqueror - The Tank Blitzkrieg Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

The only frustrating part about late Industrial war is the two move limitation of tanks. This typically means that they have to spend a turn in enemy territory, exposed to counterattack, before reaching their target. While the tank, assuming you're in good shape in the tech race, is a formidable unit defensively, it's obviously best on offense, and that's how you want to use it, rather than absorbing attacks from cavs or even other tanks. The problem is that those attacks, even from cavalry, can whittle down your column to unacceptable levels. The effects of this are that, to avoid either a near-run, gut-tightening victory, failure at the city gates ($1 to Baghdad Bob) or out and out retreat before you even reach your target, you wind up sending in way more units than you have to, to ensure that enough do make it to carry the day. Also, when you get there, if you're maxing out the speed of the tanks, you don't have any artillery support, and are therefore battling full-strength units, unless you've got enough of an air force to pound the city defenders down. Even then, bombers are at best a 50/50 proposition against fortified infantry, so you're still taking a soaking on the unit count when you factor in the artillery that you can't use without slowing down your attack.

The way to avoid those problems lies not in any tactic, but in recognizing the right situation that will allow a tank blitz. Simply follow a civ that has just annexed another AI civ, or at least a large part of it. While the original territory of Civ A will still have the normal pitfalls, the newly conquered cities will still have one-tile culture borders. Most of them will also be connected by railroad.

Use any 4xCav or 4xTank armies you might have on the cultured cities with an eye toward punching a hole, if necessary, through Civ A's original territory to get to former Civ B territory. As soon as the proverbial waters are parted, use the railroads and concentrate your tanks on the former Civ B cities, while your 3 and 4 movers go to work on Civ A's organic cities. With one tile culture, not only can your tanks move in and attack on the same turn, but you can move your artillery close enough to pound the defenders down first (even better if you have radar artillery, obviously, since you can then tuck them back under a defender, rather than having to assign a defender to each firing position). Once you enter Civ B territory, the AI's loose city spacing isn't holding you up anymore. Effectively, you've let Civ A do your dirty work, and you've won two wars at once, a lot quicker, and with more unit efficiency, than you could have takeing on both civs individually.

An additional bonus is that you've effectively conquered Civ B without them ever even realizing it or getting mad about it. They'll even stay gracious, if they were already, while you paint their cities with your colors.

	15-12-2004 15:35									#2
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I haven't so much troubles with tanks.
If a city I want to take is 2 squares away from my border, I build a temporary city on my side of the border. The culture of this very temporary city is enough for my immediate blitz attack.
If the ennemy city is 3 squares away, I send my settler with enough defense in ennemy territory the turn before, build the city inside his territory and voila.
I disband the city later for a worker or a settler.

	15-12-2004 16:05									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Assuming the enemy city is 2 tiles away from my border, and everything is railroaded (battle engineers included ):


Turn one:
- enter a tile from which the city is in Artillery range, and Tanks can attack the city on the next turn, with a stack of Infantry, Tanks and Artillery; preferably choose rough terrain for better defense; add Wrokers to the stack, if you are entering a tile without roads,
- the AI might attack, but they seldom do against these SODs; account for Infantry losses.

Turn two:
- bomb the city,
- kill weakened defenders with Tanks,
- put roads and railroads in,
- put defenders into the city,
- move the second wave toward the next target.

Rinse, repeat.


Yes, you need a couple turns to completely eradicate an AI, but not many, trust me. Most stacks can be small - 5 Arties, 5 Tanks, 5 Infantry. Get biggers stacks (10 to 20 Arties and Tanks) against enemy metros, and their capital. Warning: Defenders of your stack are expendable - don't count on all of them surviving.

Additional things that help: Make sure you have Fighters to intercept any Bombers the AI might send after you. If attacking along a coast, combine Tanks with Marines, and get bombardment from ships. You can do this with other units as well - the main thing is to have the 2-tile bombardment of Artillery.

If a city is 3 tiles away, try to take surrounding cities - this might allow you to make the city 2 tiles away. If you can't, just move the offensive stack for 2 turns. This means you need more defenders for it, especially on flat terrain.

	15-12-2004 22:10									#4
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My main thing with this, Modo, is I hate leaving my units in enemy territory and the corresponding hit to war weariness, not to mention the exposure to attack, which admittedly is minimal once you have computers.

The way the AI spaces its cities, the determining factor tends to be the target city's culture. Taking surrounding cities is good, and every once in a while can pop open an invasion route, but usually the target's culture still provides enough of a barrier to need three-movers to attack this turn.

	15-12-2004 22:28									#5
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I see what you mean, but it's only important in very basic strategies (i.e. Tanks only...). For people like me, who like combined arms for it's efficiency (very, very small losses), it's not an option anyway, so it never becomes a real problem either.

And the AI seems to be going around the stacks I talked about, often completely ignoring them. Most of the time, AI units try attacking my cities, instead of the advancing forces. So, while it looks like they are exposed, they get by with few or no losses on defense.

I guess the Germans would be a good choice for your late-game wars. A government switch might help the WW problem as well.

	15-12-2004 22:35									#6
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As Dry says, Settler-Blitzing is an excellent way to get another MP out of Tanks. It is frequently devastating in MP.

	16-12-2004 00:22									#7
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The reason Tanks move 2 MP while Calvary has 3 MP is that Calvary was indeed faster than the Tanks most countries had at the start of WW II. (Exception was the German Panzer. The multi-attack bit as more of Germany's superior tactics.)

For that matter, the very first Tanks were deployed very late in WW I by the British and French. More of these actually broke down all on their own than from enemy action! They were also extremely slow, just slightly faster than normal marching speed.

Using them piece meal is the same poor tactics initally used historically. Concentrate them into a big stack, fill them full of fuel and cut'm loose! Infantry can follow up to secure the land.

	16-12-2004 00:23									#8
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The counter tactic is BOMBERS! to cut the rail and road networks leading up to the area.

quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus As Dry says, Settler-Blitzing is an excellent way to get another MP out of Tanks. It is frequently devastating in MP.

	16-12-2004 00:57									#9
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Cut them loose is fun, especially with Panzers, but it gives losses. I prefer the Russian approach - Artillery rules the battlefield. With a large stack of it, you can have crap units, and still win most battles.

	16-12-2004 01:06									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Modo44 I see what you mean, but it's only important in very basic strategies (i.e. Tanks only...). For people like me, who like combined arms for it's efficiency (very, very small losses), it's not an option anyway, so it never becomes a real problem either. And the AI seems to be going around the stacks I talked about, often completely ignoring them. Most of the time, AI units try attacking my cities, instead of the advancing forces. So, while it looks like they are exposed, they get by with few or no losses on defense. I guess the Germans would be a good choice for your late-game wars. A government switch might help the WW problem as well.

Agreed, and I, too, prefer combined arms warfare. This is mainly something I stumbled on and was exploiting when I decided to post about it and spur some discussion, not so much a eureka moment that solved a long-time frustration.

As to your last paragraph, the Panzer is, indeed, one of my top 5 UU's for that very reason, but I don't want to play every game as Germany and don't want to switch governments for the added anarchy and the research/commerce boost. It's a case of tactics following government/tribe choice, rather than the other way around.

	17-12-2004 18:18									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Modo44 I see what you mean, but it's only important in very basic strategies (i.e. Tanks only...). For people like me, who like combined arms for it's efficiency (very, very small losses), it's not an option anyway, so it never becomes a real problem either.

Combined arms and blitz are not incompatible.
With this build-city tactic, you bring your arti within range of the ennemy city and take it in the same turn. It is certainly not a tank only tactic.
If you made it right, you need defenders only for the wounded tanks; the artis might need some, but not always (typically against 3-movers).

	17-12-2004 18:27									#12
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Except if you don't use exploits, right? While technically possible, I consider combat-Settlers an exploit. And I don't use it in my private games.

And considering leaving Arties in the open... I have met some German Panzers lately, thank you very much.

	17-12-2004 20:02									#13
	Re: Tank Blitz Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

If the ennemy city is 3 squares away, I send my settler with enough defense in ennemy territory the turn before, build the city inside his territory and voila.
I disband the city later for a worker or a settler.

Whoa, never tried it, but how can you build INSIDE enemy territory? I sometiems accidentally try to build a city inside opponent territory and I get the WAR warning (this will cause war...) and I back off. Never thought to give it a try. My guess would be that the city will not fare well (esp. if the other Civ is culturally equal or superior)
Anyway, on the tank blitz itself. If I'm going after a small Civ (usually Ottomans or Spaniards), if they're advanced enough, I get a right of passage. Then it's a chess game, put all your pieces into position and then strike! It's alot of fun to put tanks or modern armor against musketmen and in some cases, pikemen(!). With conquests, I seem to be getting more leaders (which build a victorious army and then the military academy), so I can build armies and they kick @$$ against any single units.
Doesn't even have to be modern armor or even an army. Get a sizable atack of units into enemy territory under a RoP agreement and you can whip him pretty good if you have a tech edge. Of course, it only works so many times, because your trust among other nations takes a beating.
I also like to whittle him down to his last city, offer peace for a HUGE price and then take him out. In fact, I once got the French to give me their five remaining cities (not counting the capital, of course), all their gold, a couple of non-essential techs (music theory, Free Artistry, etc) and even a few workers) for peace and then took their capital. Didn't get any more RoP's after that nor was I able to sell peace for a high price anymore.

Stephan III of the Mighty Norsemen

	17-12-2004 20:30									#14
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"Whoa, never tried it, but how can you build INSIDE enemy territory? I sometiems accidentally try to build a city inside opponent territory and I get the WAR warning (this will cause war...) and I back off."

If you're already at war, it's not too much of a problem.

	17-12-2004 21:09									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Modo44 Except if you don't use exploits, right? While technically possible, I consider combat-Settlers an exploit. And I don't use it in my private games.

Ah, if you consider it an exploit, ok. Respect.

quote: And considering leaving Arties in the open... I have met some German Panzers lately, thank you very much.

When arties are in the open, no need of Panzers, Cavs are enough threat... that's why I said not always. Have to be carefull, of course.

	17-12-2004 21:26									#16
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The thing with Panzers is, the AI will attack Infantry, and even Mech. Infantry with them. Meaning, you need to defend those arties better than against Cavs. Unfortunately, I had to learn it the hard way. Oh well, now I play the Germans.