ATG: Attacking cities

[DakaSha]

How does one take over a fairly well defended city?
I have been bombing, shelling ,cutting off supply points for about 6 months and have 4-5x as many power points but when i attack the city i get wiped out without causing almost any damage.

I can only attack it from 3 hexes due to it being a coastal city however it is completely surrounded (by me and water)

I'm attacking mostly with infantry of all types. Readiness and supply are maxed out

What am i missing? I know the defense role has been increased for this but sheesh xD. My attacking forces have another enemy in their back.. does this make a difference?

edit: am i supposed to just max out (not go over) battlestack each turn and weaken the garrison over the course of a few months?

edit: also still havnt seen a single tank :-/

[Barthheart]

1. Yes make sure you don't go very much over the battlestack number. THen more over you go the more damage will be done to your troops.

2. Use Artillery to reduce the defenders entrenchment.

3. Then use airstikes to further reduce entrenchment and readiness.

4. Then attack from all three side at once.

Mortars are good for attacking. MG's are not so good, better for defence. SMG's are better for attacking into cities.

Supplies can travel over water too. You need to have planes and naval units near by to interdict the supplies coming in that way.

Hope this helps.[8D]

[DakaSha]

The thing is i was doing all that ^^
6 months of artillery, airstrikes, naval port blocking, attacking from all three sides

I guess cities just arnt easy to take over xD

edit: to be honest everything seems extremely hard to attack... im not a general but this seems awfully exaggerated

[Josh]

Yes there has been definitely a change, more emphasis on the defense. I've noticed that too, not a bad thing IMO.
So either you prepare good for an offense, or do some manoeuvering/encircling.
 
I haven't tackled a fortified city yet, am about to. But have you tried strategic bombing?

[Tac2i]

Cities can be taken down but if properly defended can take some effort to do so. If you wish me to look at a save game I'll be happy too.

[DakaSha]

thanks for the offer but i started a new game.. im still testing stuff.
In the new game i managed after months to take one down.. however it was attackable from all sides

[Twotribes]

Ok what is battlestack max and where do I find it in the game?

[Tac2i]

This might help some:  BattleStack.

Each hex has a battlestack value. If you exceed that value (too many troops attacking the same hex), you suffer combat penalties. This usually isn't a problem unless you are heavily massed against a hex. Note that if you have allies, this battlestack thing carries over into their turn.

[Josh]

Battlestack max is 100, without getting penalties. Attacking from multiple hexes gives you more strength points without a penalty. So 100 from 1 and 2 hexes, 150 from three and so on. Same for Art. and Air attack. This number BS (BattleStack...) something, is displayed in the rightcorner of the screen. If you do an attack this number is portrayed in the lower half of your screen. So attacking with 150 Art points says something like this 150/100 so there's already a penalty involved. So you'd better use one of those Art./Air stacks to attack another unit.

/edit, Webizen beat me to it, need to learn to type f-a-s-t-e-r. [:D]

[DakaSha]

does it even matter with air/artillery? Also how does that make sense..?
with massive ground assaults i can sort of understand.. hard to coordinate such a large attack and there is only 'so much' land to maneuver on

But with air and even more so artillery? You could kinda argue the same for air (but i dont think id agree) but when it comes to artillery shouldnt more just be better? More explosions = more bang no?

edit: maybe supposed to simulate the fact that some forces are just so dug in that they cant really be effected? dunno

[Vic]

It can indeed be very hard.

The best way to tackle such a well defended town is to encircle it and then reduce it structural points to 0 so it cannot produce supply itself. Without supply the defenders will lose their ability to fight well in 2-3 turns.

best regards,
Vic

[DakaSha]

Ok. I WILL GET A WELL DEFENDED TOWN SOME DAY

[torontorock]

Just wanted to thank you guys for explaining battlestack in this thread. I am a new player to the game and am in the process of trying to familiarize myself with it and how to do everything and I didn't realize there was a battlestack maximun or what the heck it was. Now I do (no more than 100 units of anything attacking per hex). Just out of curiosity can anyone tell me specifically what the penalties are? Increased casualties with no increase in attack strength?
 
Have a good day all
 
p.s. Oh and is the range of the different aircraft types listed somewhere?

[Josh]

ORIGINAL: DakaSha

does it even matter with air/artillery? Also how does that make sense..?
with massive ground assaults i can sort of understand.. hard to coordinate such a large attack and there is only 'so much' land to maneuver on

But with air and even more so artillery? You could kinda argue the same for air (but i dont think id agree) but when it comes to artillery shouldnt more just be better? More explosions = more bang no?

edit: maybe supposed to simulate the fact that some forces are just so dug in that they cant really be effected? dunno

Well it was primarily to avoid a gamey exploit in AT, namely creating killer stacks of Art/Bombers that would really annihilate any opposing unit. You *still* can create an Art unit with a hefty punch, but not the OBLITERATOR from AT. That's a good thing IMO.
So anything above the 100 BSArt (Battlestack Artillery) (displayed in the right corner of your screen) and the Art gets less and less efficient.
Same for Air attacks ofcourse.

[Josh]

ORIGINAL: torontorock

Just wanted to thank you guys for explaining battlestack in this thread. I am a new player to the game and am in the process of trying to familiarize myself with it and how to do everything and I didn't realize there was a battlestack maximun or what the heck it was. Now I do (no more than 100 units of anything attacking per hex). Just out of curiosity can anyone tell me specifically what the penalties are? Increased casualties with no increase in attack strength?

Have a good day all

p.s. Oh and is the range of the different aircraft types listed somewhere?

Not quite sure about the exact penalties but more than 100 is indeed more casualties (because lower Hitpoints) with only a little more attack strength. I wouldn't worry about attacking with 110-115... but certainly not with 150, that's gonna cost you.

The range, not sure if there's a list. But it is displayed in the writedown of the unit, click on it and it's under General description: move type;Air10. So that would be 10 hexes. Note that improved bombers and such have a much better range.

[torontorock]

ORIGINAL: Josh


Not quite sure about the exact penalties but more than 100 is indeed more casualties (because lower Hitpoints) with only a little more attack strength. I wouldn't worry about attacking with 110-115... but certainly not with 150, that's gonna cost you.

The range, not sure if there's a list. But it is displayed in the writedown of the unit, click on it and it's under General description: move type;Air10. So that would be 10 hexes. Note that improved bombers and such have a much better range.

Ah ok. I was looking at unit descriptions to try and find the range info and saw the Air10 but wasn't sure if the 10 was reffering to range. Thx a bunch for the info

[Barthheart]

ORIGINAL: torontorock

ORIGINAL: Josh


Not quite sure about the exact penalties but more than 100 is indeed more casualties (because lower Hitpoints) with only a little more attack strength. I wouldn't worry about attacking with 110-115... but certainly not with 150, that's gonna cost you.

The range, not sure if there's a list. But it is displayed in the writedown of the unit, click on it and it's under General description: move type;Air10. So that would be 10 hexes. Note that improved bombers and such have a much better range.

Ah ok. I was looking at unit descriptions to try and find the range info and saw the Air10 but wasn't sure if the 10 was reffering to range. Thx a bunch for the info

Just a further clarification: Air10 means it spends 10 AP(action points) to move each hex. As you research better planes you'll see their move change to Air8 say, which means it spends 8 AP per hex to move.

[torontorock]

Ah k thx for the clarification barth

[Tac2i]

By the way, in a human PBEM game with some AI that I'm playing and being reported on the the AAR forum, I took down an AI capital on my third assault (3 turns or months in game time). Was fun driving my armored spearhead through the enemy to get there.