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Author Topic:   The Infantry Horde

Maitreyabuddha posted 06-15-99 07:20 AM ET
I'm after a little advice about eliminating the Believers. When I land on their continent(Take a peninsula first. So much easier to defend), after I take the first city, out of the fog comes a massive horde of synth/impact guys. My military strategy tends to rely on a few high tech high skill units, and these all get tied up slaughtering religious nutters. It tends to take me several decades to wear the Belivers down to a point where I can take the rest of their land. Copters help, but not much. Slaughtering uncounted numbers of Christian fundamentalists is fun, but is there a faster strategy?
gruedragon posted 06-15-99 07:35 AM ET
Do you have drop pods? Unless I'm Gaian and have a large force of mindworms, I usually try to wait until I have drop pods, and maybe orbital insertion capability, before launching any major offensive. Why go through and army when you can go over them?
sandworm posted 06-15-99 08:58 AM ET
Attack from two ends of the continent - feint at one end first with a couple of units(preferably w/ good defense and on favorable terrain - rocky, a bunker, or a base ), wait until she starts to amass the bulk of her forces around you, then land a fistful on the other end. You can take a few cities (they'll likely be poorly defended) before she can finish off your first landing party and travel to the other end of the continent. She may be forced into a surrender before that happens, but don't count on it, esp. with Miriam.
It can be a little harder if she has air power, but you'll still have some advantage.
On the other hand, if she has mag tubes she can move her ground troops to the other end of the continent in one turn...
If you still can't beat her, start playing as the Believers. Few things are as dangerous as armed religious fanatics
Plato90s posted 06-15-99 11:07 PM ET
A two prong-ed attach will help to draw off the Believer Army, but at the end of the day, you still need to kill them all. So the key is to break that army up into manageable segments.
First, you need to land a substantial force of at least 6 units and try to capture 2-3 cities quickly.
Second, destroy roads leading to the rest of the Believer territory. You won't be moving for a while because they'll be coming to you. Destroying roads means their infantry units will be stuck outside you captured cities, vulnerable to attack.
Third, you must have command centers in the captured cities in order to heal your units. Bring 1-2 artillery units with you because artillery bombardments can prevent you from healing.
Finally, reinforce ASAP. A good mix of speeders and infantry [2:1] is needed. Speeders can run out of the city and kill that pesky artillery unit. You'll likely lose it, but what the heck. As long as you maintain a favorable exchange ratio, you're winning.
Once you take out the bulk of the Believer army, you can move on. Miriam usually spends her first couple of centuries stockpiling that army and she won't have the infrastructure to build more units.
MichaeltheGreat posted 06-16-99 12:53 AM ET
For either the fanatic bitch or the Godless commie Yang, I like to use "Hivebusters" - well armed and armored hovertanks - Shard/Neutronium is my preferred, as I can get those techs early enough in the game. Deep radar is very nice, and so are cloaked units later on. Six or eight of those, with good air support and a few decent garrison infantry to follow on are devastating (stack an air unit with a good defensive ground unit and a bunch of your Hivebusters close behind.) When you take a city, bring in a fresh SAM needlejet for air defense. Hovertanks are far preferable to rovers - they don't need roads, and they could care about terrain - they move through it all. Once they are elite (monoliths are the key once they are commandos, move them to a monolith for the upgrade to elite) they have FOUR moves - being able to move up, attack twice and move up or back afterwards is hard to top - especially with six or eight of these things.
Also, after you take a few cities, she'll want a truce - give it to her, reinforce and repair your units, then go after her for the kill. If you've got naval and air units all around, don't waste them bombarding her units, unless softening up a stack of units you are about to hit. Instead, go after their most productive squares - mines and the best farm squares. If you can hit the enemy capital and take it, the resulting inefficiency really hits energy production in their other cities, making it tougher for them to rush completion of new units.
Zozo posted 06-16-99 07:19 PM ET
This is how I dealt with the Believers:
1) If she is my neighbor then I rush for Impact Rover and beat her into submission before she can get impact (sometimes even before I get synthmetal).
2) If she gets impact you can bet your life that she will do a impact infantry rush on you. Sigh !! Maybe you can still beat her but your precious initial resources will be drained fighting the horde off.
Her strengths: very cheap and fast production of impact infantries. It takes her something like 15 minerals to get a 4-1-1 unit and she can throw a dozen of those at you every turn until you're worn out.
Her weaknesses: little use of artillery (or very late in obtaining this tech), very bad use of airpower even when she gets it (this happens to almost all AI factions !); only occasional use of rovers; stacked-up units (since there are so many of them); and they came at you as insane fanatics who move in only one direction.
So, your best bet is to use airpower to contain her horde of troops into a few squares, bombard the hell out of those squares with the arties and take them all out by collateral damage once they are seriously weakened. I once took over her continent (she was #1 in military before I invaded) with 1 missile infantry and 3 arties, since those were all I could carry in the two rickety slow-as-death foils I had at that time, (I call them D'Artagnan and the 3 musketeers after the game ), about 6 airplains, and 2-3 ships. I use the planes mainly to protect my 4 ground units and force her troops into a few squares by the ZOC; the arties and ships to bombard the hell out of those few squares; and then the missile infantry (at 2/3rd strength even since it had to get out of the city to attach her unit one square away) to slaugher a whole stack at a time. The best kill got 16 units in one shot by collateral damage. I managed to kill something like 60 units she sent my way with this small force and when she ran out of troops, I started to take over her empire with no casualties.
In other words, 1) rest your units (with command center) since they will have a lot of slaughtering to do; 2) herd her mindless troops into a stack and aim to kill a whole stack at a time to wear her out faster (use a needlejet or interceptor for this purpose). She will give up after you kill a few big stacks of troops and start the offensive to take more bases.
So, my advice is: Try to kill more efficiently by mass executions of those religious nuts, not one at a time. Always try to avoid a 1-to-1 duel with her troops even if you win since you will be worn out (or at least get a lot of resources tied up) because she has a lot more troops. Sending hordes of mindless one-direction troops is her strength if you give them any chance at all to attack but it's also her weakness if you force them into stacks and then knock the whole stack out.
Plato90s posted 06-16-99 10:44 PM ET
Good strategy, guys.
BTW, Michaelthegreat, what do you do when you have to fight the Hive or Believers when all you've got to work with are Impact and Synthmetal?
Maitreyabuddha posted 06-17-99 08:25 AM ET
Thanks for the great advice. In my last game I didn't have to do any large invasions against the believers because they were on a tiny island. After eliminating all Miriam's sea colonies I decided to get revenge for all the frustration she'd caused me in the past and lowered the entire land mass into the sea. Slowly.
Sethito posted 06-17-99 10:41 AM ET
How did you lower the landmass to the see?
Sheitan posted 06-18-99 12:00 AM ET
With a sea former. Select the "Lower terrain" terraform option and perform it right next to shore.
Then laugh maniacally as their island is submerged beneath the waves.
NB: This is an atrocity.
Also note that bases with Pressure Domes will not be swamped.
- Sheitan
Drago Sinio posted 06-18-99 01:40 AM ET
My strategy for Miriam is to obliterate her whole faction as soon as I can find her. Nothing fancy, just a large quantity of infantry with nerve gas pods. You can just wipe her right off the map. Infantry are best for this because with the 25% bonus when attacking a base plus the 50% bonus with the nerve gas, no defensive unit stands a chance. And the earlier in the game the better. And no truce, no stopping just completely obliterate one base after the other. Then she aint around for the rest of the game to annoy you. This is also a good tactic for the hive, though they are a bit stronger on the defense. Miriams advantage is on the attack, and she never gets a chance if you hit her hard enough and soon enough. And its also cool to have the other factions pass "sanctions" against you for a few hundred years. This tactic seems to make the other factions less likely to pick a fight with you too. And you get the nerve gas early in the game, way before any of the high tech stuff.
HolyWarrior posted 06-21-99 02:24 AM ET
Muahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa
You will NEVER defeat the Believers! The streets shall run red with your blood! The Believers rule all! Bow before the Almighty!

MichaeltheGreat posted 06-21-99 02:53 AM ET
Plato - I usually play PK, Gaian, or sometime Morgan, occasionally any other faction. If the Believers EVER get a technological edge on you early in the game, you are playing wrong. Early in the game, unless you are sharing a small island not big enough for both of you, it is possible to get them off your back with diplomacy - a little gift here or there. Only when they start demanding things like Airpower or Orbital spaceflight do I tell them to shove it, but by that time I'm well ahead in tech and economy, so I can crank out better weapons.
It's narrow strategic vision to assume you have to fight early in the game. You know she has a production advantage (as AI) and she has a 25% bonus. Early in the game, the AI is not as aggressive, so if you have to buy them off for a while, do so, and then don't get even, get interest. I almost always manage to keep anyone off my back until about 2200 to 2220, by which time they wake up to the fact that I'm technologically dominant and no longer interested in sharing.
I play strictly at Transcend/Ironman, where the AI has the biggest production/cheat advantages. PBEMs against human players are a little different, but again, human players don't have AI level production advantages, only those from SE choices, and the human who plays the believers is usually a little more rational than the Miriam AI.
In game play, the only city I've EVER lost to anything, human, planet or AI, was a brand new size one colony that got taken out by a random mindworm out of the fungus the turn the colony was founded, before it's scout was complete. And that was in only one game, so when it comes to fighting in SMAC, I've yet to lose. That is mostly because I work at picking when and where to fight, not just trading punches anytime, anyplace. As Gen'l George S. Patton III put it: "Senior commanders must concentrate on where, not how, to defeat the enemy." In the open strategic game, you have to also consider the element of when.
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Author	Topic: The Infantry Horde
Maitreyabuddha	posted 06-15-99 07:20 AM ET I'm after a little advice about eliminating the Believers. When I land on their continent(Take a peninsula first. So much easier to defend), after I take the first city, out of the fog comes a massive horde of synth/impact guys. My military strategy tends to rely on a few high tech high skill units, and these all get tied up slaughtering religious nutters. It tends to take me several decades to wear the Belivers down to a point where I can take the rest of their land. Copters help, but not much. Slaughtering uncounted numbers of Christian fundamentalists is fun, but is there a faster strategy?
gruedragon	posted 06-15-99 07:35 AM ET Do you have drop pods? Unless I'm Gaian and have a large force of mindworms, I usually try to wait until I have drop pods, and maybe orbital insertion capability, before launching any major offensive. Why go through and army when you can go over them?
sandworm	posted 06-15-99 08:58 AM ET Attack from two ends of the continent - feint at one end first with a couple of units(preferably w/ good defense and on favorable terrain - rocky, a bunker, or a base ), wait until she starts to amass the bulk of her forces around you, then land a fistful on the other end. You can take a few cities (they'll likely be poorly defended) before she can finish off your first landing party and travel to the other end of the continent. She may be forced into a surrender before that happens, but don't count on it, esp. with Miriam. It can be a little harder if she has air power, but you'll still have some advantage. On the other hand, if she has mag tubes she can move her ground troops to the other end of the continent in one turn... If you still can't beat her, start playing as the Believers. Few things are as dangerous as armed religious fanatics
Plato90s	posted 06-15-99 11:07 PM ET A two prong-ed attach will help to draw off the Believer Army, but at the end of the day, you still need to kill them all. So the key is to break that army up into manageable segments. First, you need to land a substantial force of at least 6 units and try to capture 2-3 cities quickly. Second, destroy roads leading to the rest of the Believer territory. You won't be moving for a while because they'll be coming to you. Destroying roads means their infantry units will be stuck outside you captured cities, vulnerable to attack. Third, you must have command centers in the captured cities in order to heal your units. Bring 1-2 artillery units with you because artillery bombardments can prevent you from healing. Finally, reinforce ASAP. A good mix of speeders and infantry [2:1] is needed. Speeders can run out of the city and kill that pesky artillery unit. You'll likely lose it, but what the heck. As long as you maintain a favorable exchange ratio, you're winning. Once you take out the bulk of the Believer army, you can move on. Miriam usually spends her first couple of centuries stockpiling that army and she won't have the infrastructure to build more units.
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-16-99 12:53 AM ET For either the fanatic bitch or the Godless commie Yang, I like to use "Hivebusters" - well armed and armored hovertanks - Shard/Neutronium is my preferred, as I can get those techs early enough in the game. Deep radar is very nice, and so are cloaked units later on. Six or eight of those, with good air support and a few decent garrison infantry to follow on are devastating (stack an air unit with a good defensive ground unit and a bunch of your Hivebusters close behind.) When you take a city, bring in a fresh SAM needlejet for air defense. Hovertanks are far preferable to rovers - they don't need roads, and they could care about terrain - they move through it all. Once they are elite (monoliths are the key once they are commandos, move them to a monolith for the upgrade to elite) they have FOUR moves - being able to move up, attack twice and move up or back afterwards is hard to top - especially with six or eight of these things. Also, after you take a few cities, she'll want a truce - give it to her, reinforce and repair your units, then go after her for the kill. If you've got naval and air units all around, don't waste them bombarding her units, unless softening up a stack of units you are about to hit. Instead, go after their most productive squares - mines and the best farm squares. If you can hit the enemy capital and take it, the resulting inefficiency really hits energy production in their other cities, making it tougher for them to rush completion of new units.
Zozo	posted 06-16-99 07:19 PM ET This is how I dealt with the Believers: 1) If she is my neighbor then I rush for Impact Rover and beat her into submission before she can get impact (sometimes even before I get synthmetal). 2) If she gets impact you can bet your life that she will do a impact infantry rush on you. Sigh !! Maybe you can still beat her but your precious initial resources will be drained fighting the horde off. Her strengths: very cheap and fast production of impact infantries. It takes her something like 15 minerals to get a 4-1-1 unit and she can throw a dozen of those at you every turn until you're worn out. Her weaknesses: little use of artillery (or very late in obtaining this tech), very bad use of airpower even when she gets it (this happens to almost all AI factions !); only occasional use of rovers; stacked-up units (since there are so many of them); and they came at you as insane fanatics who move in only one direction. So, your best bet is to use airpower to contain her horde of troops into a few squares, bombard the hell out of those squares with the arties and take them all out by collateral damage once they are seriously weakened. I once took over her continent (she was #1 in military before I invaded) with 1 missile infantry and 3 arties, since those were all I could carry in the two rickety slow-as-death foils I had at that time, (I call them D'Artagnan and the 3 musketeers after the game ), about 6 airplains, and 2-3 ships. I use the planes mainly to protect my 4 ground units and force her troops into a few squares by the ZOC; the arties and ships to bombard the hell out of those few squares; and then the missile infantry (at 2/3rd strength even since it had to get out of the city to attach her unit one square away) to slaugher a whole stack at a time. The best kill got 16 units in one shot by collateral damage. I managed to kill something like 60 units she sent my way with this small force and when she ran out of troops, I started to take over her empire with no casualties. In other words, 1) rest your units (with command center) since they will have a lot of slaughtering to do; 2) herd her mindless troops into a stack and aim to kill a whole stack at a time to wear her out faster (use a needlejet or interceptor for this purpose). She will give up after you kill a few big stacks of troops and start the offensive to take more bases. So, my advice is: Try to kill more efficiently by mass executions of those religious nuts, not one at a time. Always try to avoid a 1-to-1 duel with her troops even if you win since you will be worn out (or at least get a lot of resources tied up) because she has a lot more troops. Sending hordes of mindless one-direction troops is her strength if you give them any chance at all to attack but it's also her weakness if you force them into stacks and then knock the whole stack out.
Plato90s	posted 06-16-99 10:44 PM ET Good strategy, guys. BTW, Michaelthegreat, what do you do when you have to fight the Hive or Believers when all you've got to work with are Impact and Synthmetal?
Maitreyabuddha	posted 06-17-99 08:25 AM ET Thanks for the great advice. In my last game I didn't have to do any large invasions against the believers because they were on a tiny island. After eliminating all Miriam's sea colonies I decided to get revenge for all the frustration she'd caused me in the past and lowered the entire land mass into the sea. Slowly.
Sethito	posted 06-17-99 10:41 AM ET How did you lower the landmass to the see?
Sheitan	posted 06-18-99 12:00 AM ET With a sea former. Select the "Lower terrain" terraform option and perform it right next to shore. Then laugh maniacally as their island is submerged beneath the waves. NB: This is an atrocity. Also note that bases with Pressure Domes will not be swamped. - Sheitan
Drago Sinio	posted 06-18-99 01:40 AM ET My strategy for Miriam is to obliterate her whole faction as soon as I can find her. Nothing fancy, just a large quantity of infantry with nerve gas pods. You can just wipe her right off the map. Infantry are best for this because with the 25% bonus when attacking a base plus the 50% bonus with the nerve gas, no defensive unit stands a chance. And the earlier in the game the better. And no truce, no stopping just completely obliterate one base after the other. Then she aint around for the rest of the game to annoy you. This is also a good tactic for the hive, though they are a bit stronger on the defense. Miriams advantage is on the attack, and she never gets a chance if you hit her hard enough and soon enough. And its also cool to have the other factions pass "sanctions" against you for a few hundred years. This tactic seems to make the other factions less likely to pick a fight with you too. And you get the nerve gas early in the game, way before any of the high tech stuff.
HolyWarrior	posted 06-21-99 02:24 AM ET Muahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa You will NEVER defeat the Believers! The streets shall run red with your blood! The Believers rule all! Bow before the Almighty!
MichaeltheGreat	posted 06-21-99 02:53 AM ET Plato - I usually play PK, Gaian, or sometime Morgan, occasionally any other faction. If the Believers EVER get a technological edge on you early in the game, you are playing wrong. Early in the game, unless you are sharing a small island not big enough for both of you, it is possible to get them off your back with diplomacy - a little gift here or there. Only when they start demanding things like Airpower or Orbital spaceflight do I tell them to shove it, but by that time I'm well ahead in tech and economy, so I can crank out better weapons. It's narrow strategic vision to assume you have to fight early in the game. You know she has a production advantage (as AI) and she has a 25% bonus. Early in the game, the AI is not as aggressive, so if you have to buy them off for a while, do so, and then don't get even, get interest. I almost always manage to keep anyone off my back until about 2200 to 2220, by which time they wake up to the fact that I'm technologically dominant and no longer interested in sharing. I play strictly at Transcend/Ironman, where the AI has the biggest production/cheat advantages. PBEMs against human players are a little different, but again, human players don't have AI level production advantages, only those from SE choices, and the human who plays the believers is usually a little more rational than the Miriam AI. In game play, the only city I've EVER lost to anything, human, planet or AI, was a brand new size one colony that got taken out by a random mindworm out of the fungus the turn the colony was founded, before it's scout was complete. And that was in only one game, so when it comes to fighting in SMAC, I've yet to lose. That is mostly because I work at picking when and where to fight, not just trading punches anytime, anyplace. As Gen'l George S. Patton III put it: "Senior commanders must concentrate on where, not how, to defeat the enemy." In the open strategic game, you have to also consider the element of when.