Island Nations

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    • Island Nations

      I have yet to play an island nation like UK, Japan, or Madagascar.

      What have been other player’s experience with them?

      I imagine there would be advantages in the early game for players, like me, who prefer to focus on building their industry instead of rapid expansion. However in the mid to late game, I foresee having so much of the core cities exposed to attacks from the sea to be a large vulnerability.

      Not needing to secure land boarders in the first few days of the game would be a big advantage, but how long would that last.

    • This is from what I've seen other really experienced players do, not from personal experience, but I hope it helps.

      In the early game, try to secure some territory on the mainland. This will make future expansion a lot easier than something like a proper naval invasion.

      In the early-mid game, begin putting quite a lot of research into naval units, especially naval bombers, and submarines. Those two are critical in the late game.

      In the mid-game, build up a lot of submarines and naval bombers. Make your naval bombers patrol all naval points around your core island. Start building an island-encompassing sub-barrier.

      By the late game, your subs and naval bombers should be of a pretty high level. The sub barrier should be done, and your navy one of the biggest in the world. At this point, you are expanding on the mainland as if you started with a land-based nation.

      I hope this helps!
      Kind regards,
      Donk
      Bytro game addict and avid CoW player.

      "Þ" > "th"


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    • spamming battleship and cruiser.

      they will work as artilery and pretty worth it against other island states. yes, you will be so hard to invade other island states if the player is active and online regularly.

      I have a thread talking about amphibious warfare, setting offensive and defense etc, but.. Yeah it's gone

      here some story : i played world at war too much and half of that was played as tanganyika, 70% of madagascar player i meet is lvl 50 - 70 with 0.70 kd and 30% is high level player but still not understand the game mechanic,

      that's way im not boring playing as tanganyika cus many kind of madagascar player i meet, it's a fun aerial combat, strategical bombing and missile exchange, also gaining support of other african nation.

      i always spamming naval bomber in early to block madagascar from expanding. both me and madagascar is mass produce interceptor and make our own battle of britain me as a invader with startegic and tactical bomber and madagascar as a defender, man i miss that moment.
      ꦮꦺꦱ꧀ꦲꦺꦴꦫꦲꦺꦴꦤꦺꦴꦱꦺꦁꦲꦶꦱꦺꦴꦢꦶꦭꦏꦺꦴꦤꦶ

      Normal Day in Call of War

      World at War Playthrough

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Tolol_aja ().

    • I find naval warfare one of the most fun parts of CoW (though probably not the most efficient), and playing as an island nation you have the best chance of getting involved in it.

      In the first days you are hampered in your expansion, because every attack takes 7.5 hours longer than normally (3h embark, 4.5h disembark) PLUS your troops are vulnerable disembarking. Air can help a lot here, clearing your landing beaches of enemy troops. In the far East on the 100p map (Phillipines to Australia), you have to take this into account several times, because you'll need to make multiple of these hops. I'm not a big fan of naval bombard support, you'll often find that sailing them to the next place takes a lot of time, and they become useless as soon as you start expanding further inland.

      On the plus side, it is very unlikely that you are under early attack, so you can basically use your entire land army for offense.

      As the game progresses, don't rely on land troops for core defense: naval bombers and subs are the way to go. Key is early warning, so make sure you spot any invader on one of the potential incoming routes. Make sure your enemy doesn't get foot on land. You said you're afraid you're vulnerable for late-game attacks on your core; on the contrary, you get 4.5h of extra defense time against a very vulnerable enemy. Massacre them in that time.

      When you are an air player, seriously consider building carriers. They take some time to get the hang of them, but once you do, they're wonderful units, controlling both the ocean and deep inland on a hostile continent. In many situations, they can negate the build time (and revolt risk) of building air strips when you're advancing fast. They may seem slightly pricey, but compare that to all the air strips you WON'T need and you'll see they are pretty economical as well, and MUCH more flexible. I usually play with enough carrier capacity to base my entire air force on, even though you won't do that all the time; and when fighting trans-ocean, even more than that to support carrier bridges across them.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.

    • Wow, that sounds like a lot of work to secure your core with an island nation. Lately I’ve had a lot of success starting off land locked and making my first conquest to get coastal cities to build a navy. However in my last game I had an early game stare down with four active player neighbors. I was afraid of attacking any of them for fear of being vulnerable to attack myself. It made me consider an island nation for my next game.

    • I still haven't gotten around to playing an island nation, but I think I'm bumping that up pretty high on my bucket list.

      I'm probably really overthinking this. Especially as Pan Asian, would it save on resources to ignore producing level one arty and armored cars? Both are available to research level two on day two. I figure focus on building battleships, naval bombers, recruiting centers, and industry on the first day. Then when you have the level two research complete on day two, start building arty and armored cars then. You could also probably do the same with interceptors since you can research level two on day two and level three on day three.

      In the South Pacific most of the islands can be completely bombarded by battleships. You'd need to develop a land army before taking on Australia, but you'd have a few days to build it up. I usually take a slow and opportunistic approach to the early game anyway, so this may fit my style.

      To your point, K.Rokossovski, the first few days are probably slower than usual. And you won't need to worry as much about being invaded as countries that share a land boarder.

      That sounds like good advice about keeping a stack of naval bombers on your core would be key to defense in the mid to late game along with subs on aggressive fire control settings. Possibly even using militia, AT, and bunkers in your coastal cities in your core.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by 6thDragon ().

    • While battleships are indeed good to clear coastal land defenses, they're down on two of the three rock-scissors involved (plus against surface fleet, down against subs and NB's). I usually find myself building one or two L1's in the early game, to bombard AI land troops, then abandoning them altogether. Condider cruisers instead; a L5 cruiser matches a L3 battleship in firepower and that's a viable option with the early pan-Asian availability and giving them research priority. The extra speed and air defense will prove extremely valuable later on.

      Don't defend your islands with land troops (militia, AT, bunkers, etc); when enemy troops make landfall you're already too late so son't bother at all. Rely on sea defense.

      Consider hardly building troops at all in the first few day except some naval stuff (including NB!) and maybe a few arties, and use your res for industry development instead. Your initial army is often enough to take out a few neighbors, even if it is risky to cross waters. I usually don't start building any tacs or AB's until day 4 or so, and interceptors even later. Do research the techs though!
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.

    • Focusing on cruisers instead of battleships is a strategy that has worked well for me in the past. You just described my Comintern naval strategy almost exactly. I like to focus on leveraging the cruiser buff, completely ignore battleships and spend the resources instead on keeping a large number of cruisers that are as leveled up as possible. I was trying to adapt my strategy to leverage the Pan Asian bonuses. Funny how when I play Pan Asian, I usually only include one cruiser in each naval stack and rely instead on putting an aircraft carrier with interceptors with each instead for air superiority. Although this probably wouldn’t be achievable until at least day 5 (carriers use a lot of metal too). I usually just get the cruiser for the view range (the view range of a Pan Asian cruiser is awesome). This will have the added advantage of allowing me to use the interceptors for air support as the army moves inland. Yes, battleships are slower, but the Pan Asian speed bonus should bring it up a little. Although naval stacks of just Pan Asian destroyers and cruisers would definitely be fast! With the Pan Asian buffs to battleships and increased attack range, they are better than cruisers for clearing other island nations of coastal defenses, especially if you can go at a new or partially active player around day two or three if they didn’t build a navy as aggressively as a competent player would.



      You’ve given me something to think about, as always. Maybe I’ll make it a last-minute decision based on who my neighbors are. An experience island player will probably focus on naval bombers, which battleships will be very vulnerable to. I certainly won’t have the resources to research and build significant numbers of cruisers, battleships, destroyers, and carriers in the early game, or at least not if I also want to build industry. It may also depend on where I can build airstrips and where the interceptors can reach to provide air defense. My last game I played as Korea and went after Japan right away. This would be a more extreme version of the same overall strategy focusing on naval and air initially.



      Building a navy and industry aggressively in the early game will use a lot of metal. I usually buy it on the market in the early hours of the game before the cost goes up. All resources start at the same price, but food and metal usually go up by day two (and even more after that), while oil and rare materials usually fall a little. This option will be even more critical here.



      I’ll probably also declare war on an island AI about ten hours into the game even if I’m not in position to attack them for a few hours. The supply drops occur around 12 hours into the first day anymore…I think; I’m still getting use to the new supply drop timeline (I started a thread on this earlier, but no one responded to it). This way, the supply drop will go into the country I’m at war with, and with any luck, I’ll get the resources I need right away to build momentum quickly.

    • I finally got to do a Pan Asian island. I went with PNG.

      @'K.Rokossovski
      Thanks for the advise on focusing on cruisers. I tried it and it worked very well. My offensive navy was just cruisers and destroyers, which I tried at a 5/2 ratio. I used naval bombers and subs on offensive fire control for coastal defense. I also built a fleet of aircraft carriers once I started building an air force, around day six or seven. I almost never do it before then.

      The first day of the game I pretty much only built navy and naval bombers. I did the research and once I had level two, I started building arty and armored cars. I also put my ordnance foundry at level two on day two ( had never done that before either). Building arty and ACs directly at level two probably saved me a lot of resources and allowed me to build an effective army quickly. I led the military ranking on the day four, which I had never done before, but that can also partly be attributed to having so many newbies going on offense on day one taking heavy casualties.

      I did get the timing of the supply drops down and declared war on an AI at the ten hour mark and got lucky with exactly the resources I needed at the time. Wow, getting resources with the supply drops on day one is a powerful advantage.