Railroad guns instead of normal artillery?

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    • Railroad guns instead of normal artillery?

      I have this idea of ignoring the normal artillery branch entirely and just wait for day 4 to get railroad guns as axis....
      Getting both is honestly perhaps too expensive to achieve....so only one of them would be good to have in a game round i think?
      What do you think? Is this workable?

    • Kyrollous wrote:

      I have this idea of ignoring the normal artillery branch entirely and just wait for day 4 to get railroad guns as axis....
      Getting both is honestly perhaps too expensive to achieve....so only one of them would be good to have in a game round i think?
      What do you think? Is this workable?
      getting both is not too expensive

      because artillery needs goods and food
      railroad gun needs Iron ,Oil , Rare material
      so you need to spend your all resource types , they need different resource types

    • Kyrollous wrote:

      I have this idea of ignoring the normal artillery branch entirely and just wait for day 4 to get railroad guns as axis....
      Getting both is honestly perhaps too expensive to achieve....so only one of them would be good to have in a game round i think?
      What do you think? Is this workable?
      Ignoring the entire branch is not advised. You’ll need AA or you stand a chance or your precious railroad guns will get picked apart from the skies.

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

    • Kyrollous wrote:

      No no I mean the normal ARTILLERY not AA...
      Should I ignore it and wait for RRG to be available on day 4?
      No , research + produce time of railroad gun will take days , you will spend at least 5 days to have one railroad gun , you will need high level secret lab to decrease its production time , so you will spend a lot of rare what your planes or heavy armors need
      Go artillery

    • RRG's are good on defense and pitched battles, but they cannot support the army of an expansionist empire. They're too slow for that.
      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.

    • I've used the RRG strategy and won 100 player maps against skilled opponents. Both coalition wins as well as solo wins. It is a viable strategy, and you never have to build a single "normal" artillery unit.

      As always, choice of units is heavily dependent on doctrine and resources. If you start in an Axis country that's low on goods, the RRG is perfect.

      Use your starting units, bolstered by extra AC and cruisers. A stack of 10 Axis infantry can take down a city easily. You don't need artillery or rocket artillery for that. Do that for a few days. Research LT because it's required for MT. Build a few if you need them, but try not to. Start building regular (not motorized) AA guns so by the time you can produce RRG's you can defend them from air attack.

      Once the RRG's start rolling off the assembly line, pair them with AA, and skip-research the AA to level 3. Axis AA is a very effective unit. And that's a good thing, if you're low on goods. You're not going to research an air force or build airfields. Those are far too good intensive. You're going to win this with metal/oil/rares. RRG's punish the enemy from long range (exceeding the RRG range and damage of other doctrines!) and stacks of MT+AC clean up the wounded remains that dare to approach into close range.

      SW Africa is a good country to try this with. Stacks of 10 Axis RRG + 10 leveled up Axis AA will make your enemies weep. Stacks of 10 Cruisers + 1 Destroyer will escort them to other continents, providing air cover until they land, and from then on your Axis AA will decimate enemy air forces.

      Once, a player controlling North + South America tried to counter my RRG stacks with RRG's of his own. The superior range of Axis RRG (and the inferior speed of Allied units) ensured he never had a chance. His stacks of Mot Arty and Mot RRarty were easy to shoot-and-scoot as well. This was a skilled player who won N+S America on his own, with a 20:1 kill ratio. What I'm trying to say is that this strategy is not just a way to kill noobs. You can beat the best players in CoW.

    • z00mz00m wrote:

      I've used the RRG strategy and won 100 player maps against skilled opponents. Both coalition wins as well as solo wins. It is a viable strategy, and you never have to build a single "normal" artillery unit.

      As always, choice of units is heavily dependent on doctrine and resources. If you start in an Axis country that's low on goods, the RRG is perfect.

      Use your starting units, bolstered by extra AC and cruisers. A stack of 10 Axis infantry can take down a city easily. You don't need artillery or rocket artillery for that. Do that for a few days. Research LT because it's required for MT. Build a few if you need them, but try not to. Start building regular (not motorized) AA guns so by the time you can produce RRG's you can defend them from air attack.

      Once the RRG's start rolling off the assembly line, pair them with AA, and skip-research the AA to level 3. Axis AA is a very effective unit. And that's a good thing, if you're low on goods. You're not going to research an air force or build airfields. Those are far too good intensive. You're going to win this with metal/oil/rares. RRG's punish the enemy from long range (exceeding the RRG range and damage of other doctrines!) and stacks of MT+AC clean up the wounded remains that dare to approach into close range.

      SW Africa is a good country to try this with. Stacks of 10 Axis RRG + 10 leveled up Axis AA will make your enemies weep. Stacks of 10 Cruisers + 1 Destroyer will escort them to other continents, providing air cover until they land, and from then on your Axis AA will decimate enemy air forces.

      Once, a player controlling North + South America tried to counter my RRG stacks with RRG's of his own. The superior range of Axis RRG (and the inferior speed of Allied units) ensured he never had a chance. His stacks of Mot Arty and Mot RRarty were easy to shoot-and-scoot as well. This was a skilled player who won N+S America on his own, with a 20:1 kill ratio. What I'm trying to say is that this strategy is not just a way to kill noobs. You can beat the best players in CoW.
      there are some problems here

      enemy had na +sa and I guess you had big area too so he knew you were enemy from last ones
      he had no spies and he couldn't see your long journey over sea with cruisers and destroyers ??
      from africa to america how many hours need to disembarking ??

      your enemy had a big area to invade with railroad guns he had no nuclear rockets even his advantage with allied doctrine ?
      probably he had only one target not 50 artillery with different stacks

      even you had armored cars as anti air , your frontier stacks are weak against attack bombers
      so your experienced enemy hadn't any attack bomber ?

      he could try to use some rockets to slow down your railroad guns even

      railroad gun damage is not too much and it needs time to fire , it can't hold many enemy stack
      especially if you have weak stacks against air units in front of them , and no artillery protection for railroad guns

      I think artillery is important to protect railroad guns as anti air as
      so railroad guns can focus to enemy artilleries while your artilleries are attacking to enemy ground units
      railroad gun is mainly artillery killer not killer of melee units

      I guess your experienced enemy made a lot of mistake at war

    • Lots of good questions, I will try to answer them all.


      Undaunted wrote:

      enemy had na +sa and I guess you had big area too so he knew you were enemy from last ones
      he had no spies and he couldn't see your long journey over sea with cruisers and destroyers ??
      from africa to america how many hours need to disembarking ??


      ...


      even you had armored cars as anti air , your frontier stacks are weak against attack bombers
      so your experienced enemy hadn't any attack bomber ?

      The enemy was not communicating, and not trying to ally with anyone. He was complacent, thinking he would win, and he had every reason to think so. His stacks of level 2 motorized arty + rocket arty were working. He had level 4 AC's to negate the Allied speed penalty. He had a very large and advanced air force of fighters, tactical and attack bombers, all level 3-4. He did not invest in a navy, since he didn't need one yet. My stacks of cruisers were enough insurance to protect transports during the crossing. After that, the AA were enough of a deterrent.

      He did kill some of my single AC, both from the air and with his superior, level 4 AC. Scouting ahead and taking new ground was difficult for a while. Eventually, I had to build interceptors in South America to keep his bombers away from my AC. But he could not dislodge my RRG + AA stacks, and I slowly pushed up the continent. He made a stand in Colombia, but the power and range of Axis RRG broke his artillery to pieces. After that, I was fighting his newly built stacks of RRG in Central America and Mexico, but my RRG had both better quantity and quality.

      Undaunted wrote:

      your enemy had a big area to invade with railroad guns he had no nuclear rockets even his advantage with allied doctrine ?
      probably he had only one target not 50 artillery with different stacks


      ...

      he could try to use some rockets to slow down your railroad guns even

      This was happening before nuclear bombers were available. Anyway, those are easy to shoot down with AA. Nuclear rockets were far away. By the time those were available, the enemy was defeated and gone inactive.

      My stacks had enough HP to absorb damage. Rockets are very inefficient. You can't hurt a large army with rockets. Those are only useful against transports, on land or on water. Or against airfields. But they are ineffective against hard targets. For example, I can build a tank for the price of a rocket, and the tank can absorb the rocket hit and keep going while the rocket is gone. Getting them to the front is also quite painful, and they are very vulnerable during transport.


      Undaunted wrote:

      railroad gun damage is not too much and it needs time to fire , it can't hold many enemy stack
      especially if you have weak stacks against air units in front of them , and no artillery protection for railroad guns

      I think artillery is important to protect railroad guns as anti air as
      so railroad guns can focus to enemy artilleries while your artilleries are attacking to enemy ground units
      railroad gun is mainly artillery killer not killer of melee units

      A stack of 10 Axis RRG does a crap ton of damage. I had 3 such stacks at the start of the invasion, and by the end I had 5 stacks. That's a lot of damage output. They are slow, but the slower the terrain the better they work. It means they have more time to reload.

      One important tactic is to take the ground ahead of the RRG so they travel at full (turtle) speed instead of half (turtle) speed. This makes it difficult for enemies to approach. Also keep in mind that Axis AA guns are quite good against armor, especially heavy armor. So if the enemy decides to rush a large stack of tanks, you can always split off the AA in an emergency and block them. This works especially well in hills and cities, where AA get a terrain bonus. It's better to have some ground units in reserve, of course, and I did.

      RRG are especially deadly against artillery, but if you look at their stats, what they really excel in is killing heavy armor. That covers both motorized artillery, as well as tank destroyers, medium tanks, and heavy tanks. A large stack of infantry will survive longer against them, but they will move more slowly, thus taking more hits on the way.... and in the end, everything dies.

      Undaunted wrote:

      I guess your experienced enemy made a lot of mistake at war

      Tactically, the enemy was very sound. He couldn't do any better than he did, with the research he had invested in. He was committed to air power and motorized artillery and AC's and he did very, very well against every other opponent on the map. He beat a strong coalition in North America, on his own.

      His only mistake was not adjusting his build strategy sooner. He thought he could isolate my separate RRG stacks and rush them with 2-3 stacks of his own artillery. That didn't work, because I always retreated, and wore him down. He also thought his air force would save him, but he underestimated the power of leveled up Axis AA. They were dealing far more damage than his bombers could take, and he gave up on that plan very quickly.

      Maybe another thing he could have done was to prevent my landing, but that was really hard. His core was in NW USA, and I was crossing from Africa to Brazil. There wasn't enough time to research and build a navy and move it into position. He had to fight me in the jungles and hills of South America, where he couldn't move fast enough to approach my RRG stacks. So he slowly got bled to death and pushed into the sea. He made a last stand with RRG of his own in Mexico, but I had 3x as many and mine were superior in power and range. He didn't land a single hit, only got a few of my AC that were always running around taking land, slowing him down.

    • z00mz00m wrote:

      Lots of good questions, I will try to answer them all.


      Undaunted wrote:

      enemy had na +sa and I guess you had big area too so he knew you were enemy from last ones
      he had no spies and he couldn't see your long journey over sea with cruisers and destroyers ??
      from africa to america how many hours need to disembarking ??


      ...


      even you had armored cars as anti air , your frontier stacks are weak against attack bombers
      so your experienced enemy hadn't any attack bomber ?
      The enemy was not communicating, and not trying to ally with anyone. He was complacent, thinking he would win, and he had every reason to think so. His stacks of level 2 motorized arty + rocket arty were working. He had level 4 AC's to negate the Allied speed penalty. He had a very large and advanced air force of fighters, tactical and attack bombers, all level 3-4. He did not invest in a navy, since he didn't need one yet. My stacks of cruisers were enough insurance to protect transports during the crossing. After that, the AA were enough of a deterrent.

      He did kill some of my single AC, both from the air and with his superior, level 4 AC. Scouting ahead and taking new ground was difficult for a while. Eventually, I had to build interceptors in South America to keep his bombers away from my AC. But he could not dislodge my RRG + AA stacks, and I slowly pushed up the continent. He made a stand in Colombia, but the power and range of Axis RRG broke his artillery to pieces. After that, I was fighting his newly built stacks of RRG in Central America and Mexico, but my RRG had both better quantity and quality.

      Undaunted wrote:

      your enemy had a big area to invade with railroad guns he had no nuclear rockets even his advantage with allied doctrine ?
      probably he had only one target not 50 artillery with different stacks


      ...

      he could try to use some rockets to slow down your railroad guns even
      This was happening before nuclear bombers were available. Anyway, those are easy to shoot down with AA. Nuclear rockets were far away. By the time those were available, the enemy was defeated and gone inactive.

      My stacks had enough HP to absorb damage. Rockets are very inefficient. You can't hurt a large army with rockets. Those are only useful against transports, on land or on water. Or against airfields. But they are ineffective against hard targets. For example, I can build a tank for the price of a rocket, and the tank can absorb the rocket hit and keep going while the rocket is gone. Getting them to the front is also quite painful, and they are very vulnerable during transport.


      Undaunted wrote:

      railroad gun damage is not too much and it needs time to fire , it can't hold many enemy stack
      especially if you have weak stacks against air units in front of them , and no artillery protection for railroad guns

      I think artillery is important to protect railroad guns as anti air as
      so railroad guns can focus to enemy artilleries while your artilleries are attacking to enemy ground units
      railroad gun is mainly artillery killer not killer of melee units
      A stack of 10 Axis RRG does a crap ton of damage. I had 3 such stacks at the start of the invasion, and by the end I had 5 stacks. That's a lot of damage output. They are slow, but the slower the terrain the better they work. It means they have more time to reload.

      One important tactic is to take the ground ahead of the RRG so they travel at full (turtle) speed instead of half (turtle) speed. This makes it difficult for enemies to approach. Also keep in mind that Axis AA guns are quite good against armor, especially heavy armor. So if the enemy decides to rush a large stack of tanks, you can always split off the AA in an emergency and block them. This works especially well in hills and cities, where AA get a terrain bonus. It's better to have some ground units in reserve, of course, and I did.

      RRG are especially deadly against artillery, but if you look at their stats, what they really excel in is killing heavy armor. That covers both motorized artillery, as well as tank destroyers, medium tanks, and heavy tanks. A large stack of infantry will survive longer against them, but they will move more slowly, thus taking more hits on the way.... and in the end, everything dies.

      Undaunted wrote:

      I guess your experienced enemy made a lot of mistake at war
      Tactically, the enemy was very sound. He couldn't do any better than he did, with the research he had invested in. He was committed to air power and motorized artillery and AC's and he did very, very well against every other opponent on the map. He beat a strong coalition in North America, on his own.

      His only mistake was not adjusting his build strategy sooner. He thought he could isolate my separate RRG stacks and rush them with 2-3 stacks of his own artillery. That didn't work, because I always retreated, and wore him down. He also thought his air force would save him, but he underestimated the power of leveled up Axis AA. They were dealing far more damage than his bombers could take, and he gave up on that plan very quickly.

      Maybe another thing he could have done was to prevent my landing, but that was really hard. His core was in NW USA, and I was crossing from Africa to Brazil. There wasn't enough time to research and build a navy and move it into position. He had to fight me in the jungles and hills of South America, where he couldn't move fast enough to approach my RRG stacks. So he slowly got bled to death and pushed into the sea. He made a last stand with RRG of his own in Mexico, but I had 3x as many and mine were superior in power and range. He didn't land a single hit, only got a few of my AC that were always running around taking land, slowing him down.
      you had more railroadgun than I guess
      What you build at cities at the beginning ?
      Were you member of african coalition ?

    • Undaunted wrote:

      you had more railroadgun than I guessWhat you build at cities at the beginning ?
      Were you member of african coalition ?

      You don't win the map with a handful of guns, you need firepower!

      The start was focused on AC, then some LT until the MT research came, then MT going forward.
      This was enough to win battles in the open, while the starting infantry fought in cities.
      Food and goods were mostly going to recruitment centers and AA guns.
      Food was also going to cruisers, which allowed me to clear coastal cities without losing HP.

      I was at peace with some noob neighbors while killing the ones that looked more dangerous.
      The noobs eventually went inactive, as they tend to do.
      At some point, Algeria sent a stack of doom from the other side of Africa.
      It took about 2 days of shooting and scooting to kill that beast.

      Then it was South and North America.
      The rest of the world was boring, mostly running around with MT+AC stacks and tactical bombers.
      No way I'm driving RRG's across Asia :)

    • Pros of RR guns:
      • Only one level, so less research (and less RMs being used)
      • Great for destroying enemy buildings and morale quickly
      • On average, has better ATK stats than normal artillery
      • Largest range of all land units


      Cons of RR guns:
      • Way more expensive than normal artillery
      • Harder to stack (with normal artillery you can destroy most single units in one blow with an 8 or 9 stack)
      • Really slow, will take a while to reach their destination (and thus, can't outrun other enemy units)
      • Practically no AA defense

    • z00mz00m wrote:

      Undaunted wrote:

      you had more railroadgun than I guessWhat you build at cities at the beginning ?
      Were you member of african coalition ?
      You don't win the map with a handful of guns, you need firepower!

      The start was focused on AC, then some LT until the MT research came, then MT going forward.
      This was enough to win battles in the open, while the starting infantry fought in cities.
      Food and goods were mostly going to recruitment centers and AA guns.
      Food was also going to cruisers, which allowed me to clear coastal cities without losing HP.

      I was at peace with some noob neighbors while killing the ones that looked more dangerous.
      The noobs eventually went inactive, as they tend to do.
      At some point, Algeria sent a stack of doom from the other side of Africa.
      It took about 2 days of shooting and scooting to kill that beast.

      Then it was South and North America.
      The rest of the world was boring, mostly running around with MT+AC stacks and tactical bombers.
      No way I'm driving RRG's across Asia :)
      did you produce any infantry or plane ??
      you started to game with 5 cities what did you build at them ? I dont think it is 5 tank plant ?