Military strategy.

[vonbach]

Military strategy. What sort do people use? Rover rush blitzkrieg? Blitzkrieg was invented not in Germany or in England but in the Confederacy by the way.
The wall of infantry backed by artillery? I'm just curious how other players wage war in their games.

[Nexii]

With unmodded costs you would use all rovers, and all air once it's available.  I mod costs to be more balanced and I find it's better to have a mixed force.  Often depends on the terrain and distance the enemy is away.  If the enemy is close or it's rough terrain then more infantry.  Open areas, rovers dominate.  Air can pick off units not in cities but has a harder time otherwise.  If there's a lot of fungus (especially if next to their cities) then mindworms are really deadly.

[vonbach]

I've taken to the wall of infantry lately. Backed by artillery and some rovers. It works quite well actually.
Rover rush is all fine and good but unless you can steamroll the opposition your going to get hurt unless
you can force a peace treaty.

[Nexii]

Artillery is very key if you nerf rover/air some.  Especially if there's a choke point where units have to funnel in.

[vonbach]

Artillery is very key if you nerf rover/air some.  Especially if there's a choke point where units have to funnel in.

I haven't really played with the values of Air or rover units. My normal strategy is the Rover blitzkrieg but I decided to
try something new for once. The nice thing about infantry armies I've found is they may be slow but they have staying power.
I always give them full armor, unlike rovers. I find artillery nice to have when facing mind worms or AI infantry stacks.
I like to use Air units in defense against rovers myself.

[Nexii]

Infantry can work if you have a big tech advantage.  Generally though with default costs, you could get an air unit for the same price as an armored infantry.  And the air unit would kill the infantry 1 on 1. 

[vonbach]

I generally make targeting his air units a top priority so they rarely last long. You really don't need that big of a tech advantage.
Usually just enough to blow through resonance armor. Just get an artillery unit or two, air cover if you can get it there, a rover or two
then as many infantry units as you can manage. I also taken to stationing these units in my cities as garrisons an extra in each city
if possible for an inevitable war.

[Buster's Uncle]

I depend mostly on out-producing and out-teching - I can usually avoid war long enough while I build that overwhelming force does the job nicely...

[vonbach]

I think everyone does mostly.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, that's my war strategy - I can mostly prosecute any vendetta declared on me ad-hoc, the AI being so dumb.

[Mart]

Artillery was given more meaning in expansion, as I read somewhere. I remember, that shortly after SMAC release, it was not very useful. Recently, when I play games of SMAX and have campaigns against AI, I find having artillery necessary. Though my army is composed from x-1-1 infantry, 1-xt-2 rovers for defense or 1-xt-1 infantry, and artillery is (x)-1-1. Almost no rover artillery for their higher price.
For increased movement I use land transports, so my infantry is at chosen turns as fast as rovers.
Drawback: higher upkeep, but mostly more micromanagement.

The thing with AI is, that they build rover artillery, which can quickly reach fight area. Arty to arty duel can be deadly, so in order to have unaffected army approaching enemy base, their number should be somewhat larger than number of AI arty units there. It all depends on morale (social choices) also, vendetta when running wealth values SE is more costly.

This is with giving AI more time, playing builder or hybrid, not momentum when conquering AI as soon as possible. They have typically more units in the bases, more defenses like perimeter defense or sensor somewhere behind, that before air power is difficult to get rid off and is left not destroyed during attack.

The land transports is interesting thing. Similar to sea transports, introducing more micromanagement, requiring more time for preparation, though gratifying when attacking army with little losses completes a campaign.

[vonbach]

How do you make land transports that move more than one unit? I found I could only put one infantry in each so I found land transports pointless.
I just wish there was a way to build a flak cannon to protect my armies from air power.
 

[Mart]

I think, if you enable "heavy transport" ability, this could make a land transport with 2 units capacity, but I do not remember now, if that was really so, it was some years ago.
Still, with capacity of 1 unit they are very useful for me. That is true, it costs 1 mineral upkeep more. Expensive, but after population boom it is not so significant as in early game.
Notice, that since they are 2 separate units you get additional benefits when compared to rovers. When entering a rocky tile or any other with move cost 2 or more, only your transport looses the points. Even having 1 point only. The carried infantry or rover have their move points full for an attack, for example. Rover entering rocky tile or forest without road looses 2 points. So if it is not elite it cannot attack. What is worse, it is a "sitting duck", cannon fodder, and AI looses this way. Good thing is, AI very often builds attack with armor units, infantry.

Isn't AAA ability flak?

[vonbach]

Isn't AAA ability flak?

Ehh Its not quite the same thing. I mean something that can hit air units at range. I suppose I could just make the
occasional "air defense" infantry unit.

I think, if you enable "heavy transport" ability, this could make a land transport with 2 units capacity, but I do not remember now, if that was really so, it was some years ago.
Still, with capacity of 1 unit they are very useful for me.

Yeah thats why I've never used them. Just 1 unit per rover so I just wait a turn until I attack.
Typically when I do this I start with captured mind worms. Then my main force of infantry backed by
artillery and some rovers. Mostly I used to just rover blitzkrieg and it works but it depends on exploiting the AI.
So I'm trying something new.

[bvanevery]

The carried infantry or rover have their move points full for an attack, for example.

Interesting idea.  I never thought of that for land combat.

I did figure some similar things out recently for orbital drop combat.  "Drop transport" takes the damage, not the unit that emerges from it.  "Drop transport" can be heavily armored and slow, creating an armored protection for whatever unit emerges from it.  Downside is I think even the carried unit loses its movement when dropped.  Unless maybe it's Elite?  I had some unit that could move away from the drop transport, not sure what it was.  I haven't done a lot of orbital drop combat.  It's pretty late game, and I've often won by some other method, or gotten bored and quit.  One problem with drop combat is it's a one way ticket.  To get back up into space, you need to build an airbase quickly.  Hence the stack of Drop Formers.

As for what kind of fighting I do... anything and everything!  It depends on the relative strengths and weaknesses of our techs and industrial output.  Sometimes I need to remember not to fixate on a way of doing things; for instance, assault by water is possible rather than forcing oneself over a dangerous land bottleneck.  The AI can be pretty stupid unless it's got a horde of units to work with.  Even then it's pretty stupid.  But once it's on the defensive, it tends to sit around in a base waiting to get killed, no matter what you so.  That's why rover rushes work, because the AI is usually too stupid to counterattack your 1 defense occupying forces and wipe them all out.  A human wouldn't be taken so easily.