Do Railway Gun stack counter strategies exist?

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    • Do Railway Gun stack counter strategies exist?

      What would be the best counter to those large stacks of RRG’s with meat shields and AA, other than the same thing? Is there even one? The only things I can think of is pumping out like 5 nukes, throwing them over and dodging or taking ints, then doing enough damage to blow up the stack. Obviously that’s not the most cost effective thing, though if they do not have ints and you wait long enough, let them capture a province and move out of its center, you can nuke the province and get damage done that way. Still, not always gonna be doable.

      Another idea is getting them near the coast and then using huge fleets to bombard the stacks, making sure to get as much damage done before they retreat out of range and bombard you. These stacks seem like the meta in the game, and even though I usually can just overwhelm them, I’d hope there is possibly another option rather than accepting a lot of damage and throwing your melee units at them.

      CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate

    • It depends. There's no single answer, it depends on the other units the player uses, how active they are, your doctrine and units and activity level, etc. They've become popular enough now that many players use them without knowing why and without knowing how to craft a strategy around them, resulting in weaknesses that you can exploit.

      If it's a really good player, there may not be an answer.

    • Weird, I wrote an answer to this thread, but it never got posted. Must be my network connection or something. I don't remember exactly what I said, but the gist was similar to what jubjub bird mentions. Your ship strategy would be ineffective, unless you stack like 30 convoys or subs in a big mixed stack.

      It's coming back to me now. I suggested that if the RRG stack isn't within a day's march of your core lands or strategic production sites, you should use fast units like ACs, LTs and mot to conquer as much of the resource base of the nemy as possible. This is very situational but my only suggestion for your predicament.
      Have an amazing rest of your day ^^

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    • This was coming out my Fat Albert game, where I crushed my enemies with these concepts, the question was when fighting skilled players. I did use that rush their cities strategies on my enemy though, got the job done. I had high level stacks of 50 ships with like 2-3000 health so they could tank it, but they can’t be everywhere at once…

      most of the time though JubJub is right. The enemy can’t protect their guns and I just run right through them. The scary thing is when you face players competent in their use.

      CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate

    • Claudio NVKP wrote:

      Well, in some cases, you can use a sacrifice unit, whoch gets bombarded, and the other unit then attacks the big stack.

      Claudio NVKP wrote:

      Well, in some cases, you can use a sacrifice unit, whoch gets bombarded, and the other unit then attacks the big stack.
      You have to time it so that it’s not 5km within the original stack (or else every one is hit anyway) and make sure the units you send have enough health so they aren’t one shot and they arty stills get a hit off anyway.

      CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate

    • It depends exactly what it's stacked with. If it's just AA against the obvious air attack, the stack's main weakness is that it has no scout units, so I deal with them by putting together a decent-sized stack of militia (or commandoes if I have the research and can afford to produce them) and sending that at it. Whenever I can I force bombardment units into melees.
      If it's also stacked with scout units, that's when this strategy becomes a problem, but I have yet to play against someone who thinks to do this.

      EDIT Disclaimer: the stack still has to be reasonably big before it stands a chance of doing much damage, although the unarmoured defense those things has isn't great.
      Her Ladyship Aragosta
      A.K.A. "The Backstab Person"

      Pan-Asian is a better doctrine than Axis when played correctly and you cannot change my mind.

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

    • And of course if there's a meat shield this wouldn't work at all unless the initial stack you send is huge and the other player isn't paying attention during the meatshield attack.
      Her Ladyship Aragosta
      A.K.A. "The Backstab Person"

      Pan-Asian is a better doctrine than Axis when played correctly and you cannot change my mind.

      You just lost The Game.

      Join the Madness here:
      CoW Forum Players! Unite!

    • Unless you're willing to build absurdly large stacks just so you can be sure they'll survive both the meatshield and perpetual bombardment, nope.
      Her Ladyship Aragosta
      A.K.A. "The Backstab Person"

      Pan-Asian is a better doctrine than Axis when played correctly and you cannot change my mind.

      You just lost The Game.

      Join the Madness here:
      CoW Forum Players! Unite!

    • I guess out maneuvering them and taking their cores will have to do. On the bright side, the nuke strategy will still work. Just gotta overwhelm any interceptors with my own and drop it on a province after they capture it. Fun.

      CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate

    • Depends how heavily they've invested in ground anti-air. You could always sink the time and resources required into acquiring nuclear rockets; good luck to them stopping one of those.
      Her Ladyship Aragosta
      A.K.A. "The Backstab Person"

      Pan-Asian is a better doctrine than Axis when played correctly and you cannot change my mind.

      You just lost The Game.

      Join the Madness here:
      CoW Forum Players! Unite!

    • Fair point, but I wouldn't put it past a sufficiently skilled player to think of that and park anti-air on the central node separately.
      Her Ladyship Aragosta
      A.K.A. "The Backstab Person"

      Pan-Asian is a better doctrine than Axis when played correctly and you cannot change my mind.

      You just lost The Game.

      Join the Madness here:
      CoW Forum Players! Unite!

    • Carking the 6th wrote:

      They can’t be everywhere… big enough stacks of tacs can kill them as well, if they split off to little, and let me nuke them directly anyway, if they split off to much.
      So basically this leaves us with the fact that nukes are necessary in competitive games now? Its annoying that they had to make obsolete RRGs the best weapons just to get nukes to be used.
      Have an amazing rest of your day ^^

      "Everything is impermanent. The only thing that is permanent it impermanence itself."

      Need support? ---> Send a ticket here!

      dxter's CoW Battle Calculator ---> Use it here!

      :tumbleweed:

      o7