The dreaded alpine horde

[Drago Sinio]

THE “ALPINE HORDE” ATTACK

I tried, just for something different, an all Alpine Troop military in my last game. I had
every city but my three best build Vet Alpine Troops, and used nothing else but spies, to
conquer the world. Government , of course, was Fundamentalism. I rush built as much as
possible.

My tactic was simply to surround the target cites, one at a time, with Alpine Troops. I
had the Alpine Horde destroy whatever terrain improvements they could, while waiting
for the spies to come in and tear down the city walls. Once the walls were down, the Vet
Alpines were very effective in taking out the AI defenders, since I always waited until I
had a three to one ratio before attacking. 9 Veteran Alpine troops attacking 3 Alpine
defenders is a win every time, once the walls are down.

Alpine Troops make GREAT pillagers when they attack in mass. You can position some
on hills or mountains as protection , while others destroy irrigation and roads and such..

I found it was most effective for the spies to just destroy whatever random city
improvement they could. That way they often survived and became veterans. It would
take about five or six spies attacking at once to bring the walls down this way. It really
tore up the infrastructure, but for this strategy all I needed was a barracks , so no big deal.

After taking each city, I had it rush build two engineers, a barracks, and then of course
more Vet Alpine Troops. This creates a steadily advancing “Alpine Horde”, which will
conquer the world with increasing speed as you go. The Horde gets REALLY huge in no
time.

This of course works best on a small map, mostly land, with lots of hilly and mountain
squares.

Try it sometime

[Ming]

Xin Yu showed me just how good alpine units could be in MP. He teamed up alpine units with explorers.

The explorers can ignore ZOC's and just wander through your terrain almost impervious to harm in combo with alpine units. With both being able to move three squares regardless of terrain, he could move them anywhere he wanted. He could block off key roads so I couldn't reinforce cities as he attacked... What a killer combo
[This message has been edited by Ming (edited October 30, 2000).]

[Shogun Gunner]

Great subject line!!!

I'm already sold on the Alpine Horde Attack. I have printed out this post and will give it a try this weekend. Thanks for the idea!!!

Here come the Viking Alpine Horde!!!!!

[tonic]

Ming, couldn't the Alpine-Explorer combo be substituted by the single Partisan unit? Maybe Guerilla Warfare is one or two steps down the techtree but if you get the tech, would the Partisan not serve the same purpose? I really hate the Barb Partisans when that get to your city pattern - worst than leeches to remove!

[Ming]

First... single units can always be bribed

Second, I'll take the defensive capability of a vet alpine unit over that of a vet partisan any day of the week! Partisans don't scare me

[Blaupanzer]

This is sort of the Chinese warfare strategy. I just tried it, works well as long as the player stays focused on unit production. Spies/diplos sufficient for ZOC issues, since they're going in anyway.

[DarkCloud]

quote: The explorers can ignore ZOC's and just wander through your terrain almost impervious to harm in combo with alpine units. With both being able to move three squares regardless of terrain, he could move them anywhere he wanted. He could block off key roads so I couldn't reinforce cities as he attacked... What a killer combo

Thanks for the hint Ming, I had always thought explores were useless!

[Drago Sinio]

Another variation on this idea is to place alpine troops , siege style, on every square within the target cities production radius. This will eliminate the defenders by robbing them of the minerals that support them. ( If the civ you are attacking is a democracy or republic). Then the surrounding alpine troops all attacking on on turn can take out the remaining defender or two, even with city walls in place. This is good tactic if the city is well devoloped, and you dont want to destroy the improvements. Especially since if the civ is a democracy you cannot bribe the city.

I think that spies make the best ZOC units, since they also have that extra range of view so you can see what you are about to walk into.