Crazy tactics that just might work

I did nothing really crazy I think.

In 1 game me and my bud were in north and south america fighting 10 enemies (almost all the rest of the world). They used gold to scout our troops several times a day (if you catch 55 planes with your subs on the water, or a group of over 60 tanks, they take mesures). No military sabotage spies detected at that time and they posted some of their info in the newpaper, as well as their battleships opening fire on my invisible subs --> definately gold usage. Except for moving my naval units several times a day slightly to avoid them being caught all the time by enemy units, me and my ally also exchanged armies after he lost all his navy. He lost them very fast , but that also ment he was less likely to be explored with gold from then on. I gave him destroyers and subs to accompany his new battleships and he gave me sea bombers in return so we could both react with sea bombers and ships if we caught anyone landing.

Later on he develloped the nucleair superweapons. I didn't, but I supported with rare materials.

In another worldmapgame I was #1 as Romania. Yoegoslavia was my former ally, but now inactive. I only conquerred a part of his former territory, Greece, Albania and Yougoslavia. The rest of Western and Southern Europe was mainly controlled by South-Afrika, who was #2. A lot of players were planning an attack on me as I was quite superior to them in army, eco and size. I delayed D-day thanks to spies. I intercepted a message from #4, who was behind the conspiracy vs me telling another player about the troop locations of #2. While he wanted #2 to attack me. I informed #2 about it and he said he wasn't planning on invading me anymore. My military sabotage spies revealed troop loactions of #3 and #4 and I got some good kills. All the time I was moving an army From Eustern Europe to South east Asia to go to Benchuanaland, who was #3, by sea in order to invade and defeat one enemy. I couldn't go through the Suez canal, because I would be spotted by their ships. My military sabotage spies also told me that there was no navy near the south-eastern coast of Afrika or South-east Asia. I brought some subs through the Suez Canal to south-east Asia to accompany my men from there to Afrika.

South Afrika and I were both massing troops in Europe, since we didn't trust each other. If I could control the land of Benchuanaland I would be right next to the core provinces of South-Afrika and I could sort of hold them hostage to force him to retreat part of his units out of Central-Europe, while keeping other invaders out of western europe. Most players planning an attack on me would come from Afrika or the America's. I knew his armies were in South Amerika and in Europe, only few men in South-east Asia and Afrika itself, so military wise I could really pull this one of. Unfortunately he attacked me and I couldn't make him my puppet, but only send him on exile to South-Amerika and Oceania.

eruth wrote:

I make my guys cut as far into their territory as possible, never stopping to defend my new provinces, and just keep going until they die.

Once, I was up against French Sudan as Nigeria fairly early into a world map game. French Sudan rushed me with 18 units in one spot towards my rich oil-producing south and at my capital city, Lagos. I had recently come out of a war with Libya and Equatorial Gabon, winning, but severely injured military-size-wise. Outnumbered by 3 to 1 total, and with no way of combatting his enormous army, I send 2- 2!- units into his mainland to cause a distraction. Well, not only did I cause a distraction, my "distraction" worked so well because he had so few troops defending his core provinces that I was able to capture 3 cities and 1 major grain-producing province before meeting any resistance. After I had captured all of his land, simply dodging his killer army (aside from close skirmishes and bombing runs where I would trick him into going somewhere then at the last second I would change direction) I finally surrounded him with 5 stacks of 6 units (tanks, armoured cars, and infantry units- all I could muster) and converging on him in Lagos and was able to destroy his army, coming out of the war severely weakened with having to repay army debts to my ally Algeria but with 8 more IC's and still alive.

Another time, I was playing a 22-player match as Morocco, and I had conquered Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, and part of Algeria before a very strong power finally confronted me. The UK was insanely powerful, with 39% of the world's armies to my 16%, I believe it was. But the thing that killed him was my navy. You may ask, wait, purplepizza, aren't all those countries basically land-based? But wait a minute. Since I had taken over Portugal, I had Ponta Degalda. Now, after the UK had conquered almost all of my European land (besides parts of southern Italy) and all of my African land, he decided to deliver the final blow and send all of his units after me. This was because I inherently placed my entire army in Ponta Degalda because I had a special strategy: wait it out. If I kept my armies to defend, it would be futile, so I moved my armies to Ponta Degalda in hopes that my trap would work. I had a much bigger navy than the UK despite my lack of land units (this was in June or July when I first started playing COW and navies were actually useful), so I surrounded all of the ways into Ponta Degalda with my powerful navies. Now, he throws his dozens upon dozens of units at me (around 200 units) with no naval cover! Now I destroy all of his units at sea, and needless to say I fought back against the UK and actually ended up winning the war.

Right now, I am involved in an Elite AI match (where I originally planned to save @Diabolical's butt by attacking Germany Love you, Diabolical!) where I am France. Communist Russia (Diabolical) was being attacked by Germany, who would very easily win if someone else didn't take action. So, I logged on and attacked Germany, taking much of his land by Day 1 of my offensive. However, come Day 2 of my offensive- Spain attacks me from the south, quickly overrunning my defences and taking Paris on Day 4 of my offensive. However, I'm not like a real-life WW2-era France, so I decide to fight on. With small amounts of provinces scattered around Europe, most of them in Poland and Ukraine, one Ajaccio and one Munich, and with Spain occupying all of the territory I occupied from Germany, and a very small army (11 units at most), I decide to be a weirdo tactician and just taunt Spain and Germany in a very odd way. This is an Elite AI map, so countries have opinions of me and they can be politically active, so I have right of way through most countries (I am the most liked leader in the world) and Share Map with Sweden, Tunisia, and Belgium. Now that we got background out of the way, I am using my special alliances to dart in and out of Spanish territory, staging raids on lightly fortified cities, using my infantry unit in Ajaccio to land in Spain and cause massive damage to Spain, all while my main armies of 6 and 5 units (so powerful! ) are doing the main work in conquering the big centres of production in Germany and France. So, summed up, I am using small armies to fake out Spain and using my big armies to do the heavy lifting (not defending any provinces, because if a province rebels to another country instead of Spain, that is even better for me!). Spain is pretty easy to trick, so I plan on continuing my tactic until I can centralise my armies and attack and defeat Spain once and for all. Look, I think I have a picture here:

https://gyazo.com/a50c8dd52f0908eb96d2c4206498ca2e

So, playing as Nigeria, I allied with Upper Volta an Italy, Weve taken out basically all of the Round part of Western Africa, And Literally everything North of the Congo and West of Sudan and Egypt are controlled by us, with italy making huge gains in Europe, and basically dominating the whole continent. Volta has French Sudan, and I got a random 2-3 province thick line running between him and the Italian coastline to the Atlantic, where I captured Santa Cruz. Tanganyka, one of the only two other players in Africa has, in short, everything between The Congo, South Africa (the other player), and Sudan, except Madagascar. He sends a share map offer, I accept, and say, this is only so we can divide Africa, I want the Sudans and the Congo, you can have the rest, he's like screw you, I'm invading the congo, does so, I only get a small slice of the land bordering me, But it was the part I really wanted, so was fine. Then He conquers South Sudan. Im like, fine, but just let me have North Sudan. He instantly invades. I'm like, get out of North Sudan, or this alliance is over (exact words right there) and he sends his units to move into my principal border production cities. I'm like, uh, yeah, I can see those, and cancel share map, and start sending units to the border. I tell my allies that I need help, 12 hours later I sent one of my messages to Tanganyka instead of volta, whose forces are gathering on the ivory coast, where I told him to put them so we could invade brazil. Meanwhile, Tanganyka has lost three times as many forces as me, by only sending his untis to the very few provinces I actually have defended, and taken very little ground. I'm like, yeah, this is good. Over the next few days, eh has made slow progress, because my lines are basically a seive. But I have made massive progress against him, though I cant hold any of it, driving my medium tanks deep into his territory, trying to take out his production centers. My forces are just now reaching his capital (mine is in central Algeria, because he'd gotten close to where I'd moved it, in central Nigeria) Meanwhile, Upper volta is finally getting close to doing something, He is landing In Angola, so I presume he will then continue on to Tanganyka's heartland, the entire southern part of my empire is lost, but he has taken twice my casutlaites, and almost twice italies casualties, but italy is now distracted by massive casualties in Europe against several other guys, but my push straight forward agaisnt all odds tactic really seems to work well. Heres a picture of the battlefield as it is when I post this:

http://prntscr.com/9pu6sz

Interesting indeed. I will keep this in mind for sure.

purplepizza117 wrote:

Once, I was up against French Sudan as Nigeria fairly early into a world map game. French Sudan rushed me with 18 units

On my own, however, as the Soviet Union, I built up 160-180 level 4 (max) rockets (80 were built within 10 days of the war) to prepare for a war against an AI, Sweden, and used them well. Sweden suffered 100,000 casualties to my 7,000 in the first 4.5 hours of the war. I then used my navy of 36 ships (2/3 of which had been produced in the 2 preceding weeks) to halt Sweden's far superior navy to a standstill and hit them with rockets. Now, you might be thinking that I invaded through sea. Not so. I had conquered every single province surrounding Sweden, and except through Visby (a city in an island off Sweden's eastern coast) my conquest was entirely terrestrial. As Sweden's military was all but defeated, I swept through the country in 2 days flat.