Cities or Silos first?

In-depth tactical discussion on how to lose the least

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Spitfire
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Cities or Silos first?

Postby Spitfire » Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:55 am

So I have my subs waiting just off the coast of my enemy. Finally he decides to fire his silos.

Now that his silos are in ICBM mode instead of AA mode should I:

A: Try and take out the silos so I can use my own silos later and lose less missles?

OR

B: Go for the cities now, but later when I launch my silos the chances of the missles getting through are not as good?
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Postby Benno » Fri Nov 17, 2006 5:31 am

I think it depends on how many people are playing.

If you're playing 1 on 1, then definately go for the silos. When you later counterattack with your own silo launch you will obliterate the defenseless enemy.

If there's more than one other player though, I vary my tactics. If you know that the enemy is launching silos at you, then it pays to drop a nuke or two on each of his silos. Each hit will take out 3 or 4 nukes (that won't be landing on you anymore). Although a kill is worth twice as much as a loss, it's still worth it, particularly as a few less missiles in his swarm means that your own defenses will cope better. Quite often I'll aim to take out a couple of the closest silos for this reason, but I will still send roughly half my missilses for the cities in order to gain points.

If you dont think that they are launching at you, then forget about the silos and go straight for the cities. There's a good chance you can reduce all of the major cities to negligible population, and still have your silo nukes in reserve for another (now more populous) player. Watch out for the victory timer though.

That's my 10 cents worth.
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Postby Timmeh » Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:19 am

Which scoring mode are you using?
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Postby GenericKen » Fri Nov 17, 2006 9:22 am

If your opponent has flipped all of his silos in a 1v1 situation, you definately kill the silos first. The only exception i can think of under these circumstances would be if you didn't have enough nukes in your fleet to kill many of his silos, and even then, the nuke reduction on your opponent is often worth it. When his silos are gone, you can be confidant of winning the long game by leveraging every single nuke in every one of your silos to take his entire population.


However, generally, in starting off an engagement, I like to fire off one or two nukes at the city first. The first strikes pay off the most, and even if your attack happens turns out to be an absolute failure, you can still get lucky and not walk away empty-handed. More importantly, though, Anti-Air has real difficulty firing at nukes coming in at angles (as opposed to nukes headed streight for them), so at the very least the offset nukes will draw more fire for longer than your first few nukes against the silos themselves.


In a multiplayer game, almost always hit the cities first. That's where the points are. Someone else might kill those silos for you, and there's a good chance that the nukes in those silos won't be headed toward you anyway (they'll generally fly toward the most vulnerable or nearest player on the board).
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Postby Spitfire » Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:29 pm

Timmeh wrote:Which scoring mode are you using?


usually the scoring mode is regualr or +1 for a kill and -2 for a loss, but my fave mode to play is survivor.

i often do switch between going for cities and silos depending on the situation. i was just wondering what others did.
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Postby NeoThermic » Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:54 pm

If he's flipped all into ICBM mode, silos. Although if you can, take out any radar that could show your subs, and make sure you've got a battleship or a carrier in the area to fend off any bombers that could be used to squash your sneak attack.

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Postby Gen. Ripper » Thu Nov 23, 2006 4:05 pm

Dont forget....dont just launch blindly the second the first silo has opened up....most people....(i would assume) fire their silo's in groups...so as not to leave a moment undefended.....wait for a few secs once his first nuke has been lauched...it might be a bluff......
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Postby newb » Sat Nov 25, 2006 5:12 am

GenericKen wrote:In a multiplayer game, almost always hit the cities first. That's where the points are. Someone else might kill those silos for you, and there's a good chance that the nukes in those silos won't be headed toward you anyway (they'll generally fly toward the most vulnerable or nearest player on the board).


What he said ++

Multiplayer is all about diplomacy and trying to make sure that none of those nukes head your way and still making sure you get the biggest cities.
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Postby Masaq » Tue May 08, 2007 10:57 pm

Gen. Ripper wrote:Dont forget....dont just launch blindly the second the first silo has opened up....most people....(i would assume) fire their silo's in groups...so as not to leave a moment undefended.....wait for a few secs once his first nuke has been lauched...it might be a bluff......


While my tendency here would be to wait a second anyway on the basis that subs fire off quicker than silos (and I've used a silo launch as a bluff to encourage a backstab from an ally myself), I'm pretty sure that most players I've come across have tended to launch silos en-mass, at least if they're launching in the end stages of a game in order to make sure as many nukes as possible bust through defences. Group-firing / silo cycling between defence/offense generally seems unpopular (at least on the forums) :?:
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Postby The_Mitch » Wed May 16, 2007 6:33 am

Hit'em both if you can. My first strikes always target every silo I can see as well as larger cities. When using carriers have the first wave go for silos then the second wave hit cities/other units.

If your situation is you only have subs though, I'd say go for the biggest city and target the hell out of it.
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Postby Radiant Caligula » Wed May 16, 2007 12:43 pm

no matter who you play, BE DECADENT!

Very decadent.
Go ballistic.










That's all I have to say..
-First you wanna kill me. Now you wanna kiss me?? BLOW!

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