Early Game Combat
Originally from the The SMAC Academy, by buster.
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So you want to go and conquer the world before they start outsmarting you. Or you're the neighbor of someone with such a mentality. Well then, this write-up is for you.
It covers early game fighting, early game being before planes enter the scene. Planes and the capability of units to do air drops radically change the dynamics of combat - hopefully there will soon be another write-up covering combat in the plane/chopper era.
This write-up assumes you want to get rid of someone before he ever gets any planes.
Faction choice
If you have a Mongol sort of mentality - you should pick one of the so called momentum factions.
Early assaults are best done using Hive, Believers or Sparta. Early assaults can be also done with other factions, but these are especially well suited. The Hive and Believers almost require to be played this way (at least if you are up against builder style factions like uni).
Tech Priorities
what you need is:
- a) if on an island - ships. Otherwise, just go to:
- b) probes
- c) rovers with size 4 weapon
defensive armor also helps but is not necessarily essential.
Why these units?
Probes are needed to infiltrate and will help you not to fall behind in tech. Size 4 attack rovers are strong enough to take on any of the early defensive units - while size 2 attack units will have a hard time. Infantry is too slow for an effective attack. Mobility in an attack is essential.
First a rover has the advantage of being able to move in on an infantry unit without the infantry unit having a chance to fire first. Attacking with infantry means you alway give the other side the chance to fire first.
Second, speed and range in an attack is of utmost importance. The extra movement point means you can can that much faster to the next target and/or reach more targets in the same turn. The most cost effective early combat unit is the attack rover. Highest attack value and who cares about armor.
If you need defensives to keep cities or to move along with your attackers to dam up counter attacks use 1-2-2s or 1-3-2s. A 1-2-2 oddly enough costs the same to produce as a 1-2-1. It needs to be made with the design workshop as it is not a standard unit.
If you or your target are on an island additionally: doctrine flexibility.
Recommended beeline:(assuming blind research=off)
- Centauri Ecology - you need those crawlers to get your empire going.
- Information Networks & Planetary Networks - to get probes and be able to go planned.
- Doctrine Mobility - to get rovers and command centers.
- Applied Physics and Non-Linear Mathematics - weapons.
- doctrine flexibility - ships
- High Energy Chemistry & head for planes, MMI and Fusion (puts you pretty much on regular builder beeline)
The Attack
First step
Locate the opponent. This involves producing a bunch of scouts, getting out and looking around. Popping pods will sometimes give unity rovers. Building a bunch of cheap rovers will help on this too. From the map sometimes you will know the approximate whereabout of your opponent otherwise you will need to go and look. This is not all wasted as getting the map revealed will show good places for new bases and the pods will bring in more benefits than the occasional damage they do.
As soon as you you have the tech for probes get some built and send them in the direction you find it most likely your opponent will be located.
Second step
Infiltrate. The importance of this almost cannot be overstated. With infiltration you will have a rather accurate idea of what you are up against and can put your units where they are needed. Not knowing what you are up against you need to guess and seriously overcompensate. Get a probe to the opponent and infiltrate. Don't fall for the temptation to try to steal a tech or mind control a city or anything else - infiltrate.
Sea probes - a foil with probe weapon are great for this too - they have longer movement and moves in from sea where chances of being detected are much smaller. I alway give priority to getting some of those sent off very early.
Third step
Plan the attack. This is an essential part. You need to look over your opponents bases - the ones you can see. The ones you cannot see and the overall military strength of your opponent can be seen from the city info (f4) screen and the military info screen.
If you have several opponents to choose between as a rule of thumb pick the weakest one. The leftovers will help to make you strong enough to go for the next.
Check what garrison units he has, what units he has "roaming the country side" and what he is currently producing. Btw if you see all cities producing military and 20 military units not in his cities it is not a good sign - and you (or someone else) may have an incoming invasion. Also check his diplomatic statuses to see if he already has vendettas going.
Your wish scenario is a bunch of 1-1-1 defenders and cities all busy building improvements.
From the data gotten, work out how much military will be needed for a sweeping campaign (you don't want to get bogged down in fighting - you want to plow through quickly and decisively). It is often surprisingly little - but you need to account for a bit of bad luck. Remember an effective attack is a massed attack - that is enough units to take the target (city) in one turn. You roll them in at the same time. Trickling in unit by unit means they are that much easier to kill off as they come. If you have five units send them all against the target so that they attack simultaneously. It comes out of this simple fact - 1 unit attacks two units - it will kill one and then its the opponents turn and he will probably kill the attacker. If two or more attackers attack two defenders there are good chances you will wipe the defenders taking no loss whatsoever. So when you choose your starting battle set it up so you will eliminate the defense in one move.
Also plan the attack route
Priorities:
- Not being seen.
- Initial strike being against as juicy targets as possible and against as many places as possible.
You basically want him unprepared and once alerted in a situation where he is already so crippled he wont be able to get any defenses amounting to anything together before its over.
Examples of such calculations
A city with a 1-1-1 defender requires two units. One unit to take out the defender (should be minimum a 2-1-2. If city has a sensor you would want a 4-1-2 as with base defense bonus and sensor bonus it is possible (though not likely) your 2-1-2 will lose) and one unit to move into the city.
A city with two 1-2-1s and a sensor will require two 4-1-2s plus a unit to move into the city. Accounting for bad luck you might want a third 4-1-2.
You want to take the city in one go - before he can move in other defenses or build a new defender.
Another example:
You want to take a city with a 1-2-1, however nearby he has a 2-1-2 and a probe.
To take out the defenders and take the cities you need a 4-1-2 + some other unit. On the following turn you can however then expect that he will hit you with a probe and a 2-1-2. You can accept the loss of a unit - it just means you need to bring along another. The probe can be more of a problem - he may retake the city (with all your units inside). That means you will need to bring along probes of your own to cover and need to have enough units in the cities so that when he hits back with the 2-1-2 it will not kill the only unit in the and the probe with it. Two units plus a probe ensures one plus the probe will survive the counterattack and can then kill the counter-attacker next turn.
Another solution would be to have the unit moving into the city be a 1-3-2 and to have a probe move in too.
That means you need:
One 4-1-2 and a 1-3-2 and a probe
or a 4-1-2, two other rovers and a probe to take and keep the city.
The essential thing here is don't attack until you have the units ready or your gain will be short lived and you might actually end up with him stronger due to having having bribed some of your units. And don't fail to take a good look.
Above is a small scale assault.
Preferably you want to hit several cities at once. The key is to look at the scene. Work out to take this I need this & this - if I were him on the following turns I would do so & so and to counter that I will need additionally so & so. Impatience is your worst enemy. Do it properly - your aim is to render him chance less. That will be the most giving and the least expensive war for you. You also want to plan the attack forward to some critical point (say taking a major city or taking three - four cities and then holding them while preparing for next phase. Look thoroughly - work out how long it will take you to get to there - what units he has and will be able to produce till then - ensure you have enough no matter what he does and add a bit for bad luck.
Some considerations on planning an attack
a) You don't wan't to be discovered in advance (usually ruling out an initial attack on central territory)
b) You (usually) want to be able to keep the cities initially taken.
c) Main targets are cities with units that can be used for counterattacks and high production cities that will be able to quickly turn out defenders and more counterattackers. Taking his HQ will make the price of mind controlling fall drastically (often to half) and severely lower his energy production. Taking a city with HGPHuman Genome Project or VWVirtual World will often send half his empire into riots.
Sometimes the best attack is combo - with a bunch of land based units and a sea borne invasion (say his capitol can be gotten to from the sea).
In any case plan it out - produce the needed units and seen them off. Meanwhile watch the scene for signs you have been spotted. Things to watch for is a sudden shift of production towards military units, a sudden rearrangement of defenses and such. The things that you would start doing if you were expecting an attack.
On planning the actual attack on the city try to find a way in that enable you to attack from a distance. That means you pick a route where the last square in front of the city is not rocky or forest. Best is of course if you can move in on a river. You preferably want him not knowing about the attack until it has happened and the city has fallen. Moving through fungus on the last stretch is another option. If its not possible to go all the way hidden you need to account for that in your planning. It means that just before the strike he will know you are coming. Try to get it down to one turns warning - meaning he wont be able to complete a defender and ensure you move enough units up so that if he tries a daring counter attack with his defender and wins you have enough to clear it out and move in anyway.
Also take into account that you may need some need some energy put aside to rush build a defensive in a newly taken city or a perimeter defense.
Successful attacks usually go one of two ways
a) You attack and sweep though wiping out the opponent altogether.
b) You attack - with a limited target in range (say a bunch of cities on a peninsula) get to a certain point - stop and fortify & keep that point.
Fourth step: Finish the war
In the end the one who will win is the one who can most units there. That means unless it is a very short term thing you need to be able to outproduce your opponent. If you at start were about equal - your initial success should hopefully now have tipped the scale in your favor.
One mistake commonly seen is reluctance to divert the resources needed to get a war over with. Sometimes players wish to at the same time build a facility or something because it will improve the base output later or because switching away would cause a mineral loss. When making such decisions remember that your failure to get it over quickly could mean that you will be bogged down in war for a long time - which will have huge expenses and only one winner - player number three who is not taking part in it. Take this into account and be very sure you do have enough before diverting your attention. The safest is to be no nonsense about the matter get enough units there plus a bit and get it over with then worry about other things.
The only time it would be relevant to start producing other than military is if a city is crippled from lack of a facility - if the war will be over no time soon and you need to plan ahead (in which case suing for peace would probably be smart) or there is no doubt you already have what is required to win.
Remember war is bad for your progress - it costs and there is a lot of waste. The results of a successful war will help you. What you want is the results with as little war as possible.
There are some general military doctrines which actually applies very well to SMACSid Meier's Alpha Centauri. One such is that that the losses of a smaller army, all other things being equal, tends to be greater than one of a big army.
Say two armies of 4 units each go to war - likely is in the end there will be one unit standing. Say an army of 8 go to war against one of 4 - likely is the army of 8 will lose two - three units the army of 4 will be destroyed. Basically the greater the imbalance the fewer your losses. Ideal scene - you wipe him completely in the first hit taking no losses whatsoever.
What I want to say with this is ensure you have enough units out there to decisively tip the scale and worry about other stuff after.
And before you completely finish him off - ensure you have probed him dry of all techs and his map. If he is allied with someone and they have exchanged maps that may well give you the complete view of your next target.
Special situations
Moving in on defensively well planned cities. (see defensive strategies below)
- This is tough - if he is prepared, has rovers to counter attack, probes to bribe your units and have terraformed so that you will be spotted and can get under attack already two squares out, you need a way superior force. You probably need to stack with armor too. In any case attacking such targets is a pain and will take a while. The stacking is a mixed blessing as all units will take damage if one member is killed. All I can say is you need to either bring a lot of defensive armor or calculate that you will lose probably 3 units for each of his and just bring more than that.
- My advice is to if at all possible simply bypass the city and direct your attack against another one less well defended. then take this one last when all his other cities are now working for instead of against you.
Nuisance raids -
- usually employed against an enemy where a full scale assault is unrealistic (due to strength). Here your ambition is not to conquer but to cripple or devastate the enemy using only little resources. Early on losing a city or two and a couple of formers can be a serious set-back. Here you just want to look for some weak spot to sneak in and make as much a mess as you can. You can sell off facilities in taken cities (trying to make them less useful before they are retaken) - wipe them out (take into the account the penalties you will be imposed in the form of sanctions - this may not be feasible). In any case the taking and retaking will cut their size - wipe most of their facilities. Putting all workers to specialists may help cutting size further through starvation. Planning steps basically follows above and you just want to wreak some havoc.
Before engaging in partial wars or nuisance raids remember to take into account the other players. You getting into lengthy warfare with another will give an advantage to any third or fourth player. So ensure its worth it.
Early defense
Defensive strategies are not so dissimilar to offensive ones. Getting infiltration is as important when defending as when on the attack. Knowing whats coming is a great help to preparing a defense.
Thus locating and infiltrating other players is vital also when you are a peaceful player. Don't fail to check what the other players are doing - signs of an impending invasion are lots of military being produced and the military being moved out of the cities.
If it looks like you are about to be invaded - don't hesitate, switch to full scale military production now. It may annoy you to change your plans, but you can better afford to waste some production and make some units you did not really need than to be caught unprepared. Don't be half hearted about it. Some players tend to let the cities complete whatever they are on hoping they can avoid waste by not switching. Generally this is a bad idea. Unless you are up against a fool - the likely invader would probably not have decided to try if he had not estimated that he had a very good chance of pulling it off. This means that you are probably seriously outnumbered and have no time to waste. The 8 minerals lost from switching to some other production is peanuts compared to loosing just one well established city.
Other than that defensive strategy is a lot about taking the momentum out of the attacker.
One of the ways to do this is by "defensive terraforming". Having an exposed city one can buy oneself some time through terraforming.
Having a ring around the city of forest squares means the attacker cannot roll in from afar but needs to park in front of your your city before attacking. Having a 4-1-2 in the city means you can kill off two incoming rovers before he gets to fire a shot. This basically forces him to bring in minimum 3 rovers or to bring along defensive armor and stack his units. Making roads on the forest squares enables you to move out - hit and move back in.
Just don't extend the roads so that he can use them to move in on you even faster. (one ring around the city means you can move out but he cannot use them to move in).
I usually set up defenses like this if I expect early trouble:
Have a good look at how you would proceed if you were the attacker. What route you would pick what cities would be first etc. Sensor the most likely or hidden access - say a large fungus patch or river squares leading to the city.
Terraform forest on the squares immediately in front of your city, put road on and then forest again on the second row outside the city. This means when he moves in on you he will first be stopped by forest two squares out, then one square out. Already two squares out you can move out a defensive rover, hit and move back in. Next turn he will be in front of your city and you can hit him with the rover again twice. With this set-up one defending 4-1-2 will usually take three incoming 4-1-2s before they get a chance to fire back.
My defense is usually based around offensive units used defensively. A bunch of cities connected with roads - forested on the "outside" as described above mean you will have warning enough to kill off the first incomings and move in reinforcements before he gets to your city. Ideally you kill him on the way in. Attacking cities set-up in this way requires a way superior attacking force. It takes most of the surprise element out and makes it very costly to move in.
The main point is the warning time. It enables you to build more rovers to replace what you loose and allow the ones first used to repair. Actually I have fought several games where I for several turns fought off incomings, killing them as they came to me, then sending my now considerable rover force the other way. Especially when the attacker was unexperienced enough to trickle in rather than sending a huge force altogether. Also probes are great. As his units are typically much further from his HQ than you are from your his units can usually be bought cheap. Besides that they are immediately active - meaning they can be used the same turn they are bought to kill off more of his units.
If you can see you will lose the city start selling off buildings and tearing up roads leading to the next one. Basically you want to leave as little as possible behind and make it just as hard to move on. Move formers in the way - whatever you can to slow his progress and buy time to crank out some more units.
Defended like this attackers surprisingly often lose the appetite or their whole attack force for the war than to turn the other way.
Perimeter defenses - command centers etc. help too, with better defense and faster recovery, but what has proved successful and is not very costly in my experience is the offensive defense as above. It requires some terraforming - which you would probably be doing anyway and some rovers placed around your cities that can quickly be moved around to help against incomings and it requires you to have a look at where the enemy is likely to show up.
Defending against seaborne invasions
That is a tougher one. The damn things can show up every where. Realistically this is almost impossible to defend against. You can look out and have decent defensive units but thats about it. What you can do is to have several defenders and a rover in important cities but mainly you should ensure you can quickly retake what may be lost. This is not very hard or costly to set up.
A transport can hold two units so most often what you will meet is two attacking units being landed. If you have two defensive units plus a rover in the city he wont be able to take the city before you can kill off his units. If you are not going to arrange that much defensives ensure that you have a couple of rovers that can be gotten to the scene quickly. Disasters usually only happen if the matter has been given no thought at all.
You may get hit by two transports though. Unless you want to start investing major resources in defensives - best is a plan B for retaking cities lost to a sea borne invasion. This basically means roads linking your cities and some rovers spread around that can quickly be moved to the scene. (Maybe one for every two - three cities). This way you can quickly retake whatever was lost. It is rare to face early large scale sea invasions due to the amount of planning and preparation involved in building the transports and rovers and sending them off. Thus some evenly spread rovers should quickly be able to kill off attackers and retake whats lost. The main thing is that you have enough to outnumber what may get landed and that they can be gotten to the scene in a few turns.
Due the time involved in getting 5 transport built, filled and sent off you should have infiltration before they arrive and so know they are coming. If not you have tough times ahead. If you know they are coming - beef up defenders in coastal cities and have a bunch of rovers in land ready to strike back. Some ships to intercept is of course recommended too. As said this is rare though as it requires a major investment and usually takes a lot of time to pull off. The most important is - again - having infiltrated so that you will not be caught completely by surprise.
You won't be seeing many cruiser transports until you also see planes and then its a whole other story.
