DEFCON Beating the AI as a beginner

Before The Game Begins

For a beginner, DefCon can be kind of confusing and difficult, even against the CPU.

Before you start a DefCon game, you should know what the scoring mode is. If the scoring mode is the Default mode, then you will want to play fairly "aggressively." If the scoring mode is Survivor, then you will want to play a bit more conservatively. If the scoring mode is Genocide, I don't play that mode often, but obviously you want to be even more aggressive.

In the beginning it is helpful to play against the CPU with teams of 3 on 3, choosing allies who are contiguous to you so they do not pose a direct threat. This gives you time to focus on strategy rather than immediately defending your fleet or knocking out the enemy's.

I personally like to play as North America with South America and Europe as my allies. This is probably not the easiest choice for a number of reasons, but I understand the geography and I like having two oceans around me and no contiguous enemies.

There are even easier choices of allies, so find one that you like and stick with it. The CPU is not very good at the game, so you should be able to win with a bit of practice. Other examples include:

North America, South America, Africa

North America, South America, Russia

North America, South America, Asia

Also, before you begin, make sure you know the victory trigger and timer. These are super important. The victory trigger is the percentage of nukes left in the world before the victory countdown begins. The timer is the length of game time after the trigger. The default trigger is 20% and the default timer is 45 minutes. In a six-player game, it doesn't take long for the five CPUs to use most of their nukes, so the victory trigger seems to happen sooner than you expect.

If the victory trigger catches you off guard, you are probably going to lose, especially if you are playing with no contiguous enemies. This is because it takes a long time for your silos (ICBMs) to reach faraway enemies. The flight time depends on the location of your silo and its target. As an example, if you are North America, hitting a target in Asia or Russia takes 15+ minutes of game time. Hitting a target in Africa takes even longer. So if you haven't used your silos before the trigger, and you only have the default 45 minutes, you are probably going to end up with unused nukes. This is bad.

Because that can be frustrating, I started out playing with custom rules using a victory trigger of 10% and victory timer of 100+ minutes. In real games against people you won't have this luxury, but this was helpful for me as a noob to get understand the tactics and mechanics of the game.

I also recommend enabling Pause as the slowest setting so you have the option. Note that if you change the scoring or game mode, it will reset many of the custom options. I don't know if this is a bug or feature but it's worth mentioning...

So let's assume you set up the game in your favor as described, 3 on 3 with contiguous allies and with a forgiving victory trigger and timer so that you basically don't have to worry about it.

DEFCON 5 - Building Placement

When the game begins in this format, you will get to see what your friendly allied neighbors are doing in terms of silo placement and fleet formation. I recommend waiting for them to place their silos and fleets.

Once they place their silos and fleets, you should think about the following questions:

Which oceans are the CPUs strong in?

Where do CPU silos overlap with my territory?

Do I want to play an aggressive game capitalizing on force multiplication or a defensive game to not allow any obvious weaknesses?

What makes it challenging is that these decisions are all linked together. However, knowing what the CPU allies are doing helps you figure out what kind of strategy to choose. Sometimes CPUs will be strong in a particular ocean and weak in another. In that case, you have a decision to make: do you want to place most of your fleet in the other ocean(s) or place your fleet in the strong ocean and capitalize on that imbalance? A "defensive" game plan would be to place most of you fleet in the weaker ocean, while an "aggressive" game plan would be to place most of your fleet in the stronger ocean.

From trial and error, I have found that regardless of game mode, it is usually better to capitalize on force multiplication (overwhelming numbers) rather than balance. This is because the CPU is kind of tactically bad, so you can compensate for a lack of force in the weaker ocean by utilizing better tactics. On the other hand, you can use your numbers advantage in the stronger ocean to dominate the enemy and keep your entire fleet floating when DefCon 1 begins. Sometimes, however, the CPUs place their fleets in a balanced manner, so it is up to you which ocean you want to be "strong" in. I recommend choosing the ocean where you will have the numbers advantage.

Once you figure you out which ocean you want to be the point of attack, you can then place your silos. The cardinal rules of silo placement are:

Silos should be placed very close to each other so that they can defend each other.

Silos should be placed to defender population centers. This doesn't mean that you should place silos next to population centers, but rather, that you should place silos in the path that you anticipate most missiles will come from.

Some of your people are going to die. You need to figure out who you are willing to sacrifice up front, and work accordingly. For example, if you play as North America, it makes sense to give up the West Coast in favor of defending the East Coast

CPU allies silos will defend you as well. Sometimes you can take advantage of this

I think the biggest mistake beginners make is they try to defend every population center. This is always a bad idea, because the design of the game forces you to sacrifice some people to save others. If you try to spread your silos all over the territory, you will end up with large numbers of casualties and destroyed silos.

Another potential mistake is to place silos right where the population centers are. This is not always the worst idea, but it's usually not the best formation either, because where you really want to place silos is in between the population centers you are defending and the sources of the nukes. Nukes in this game always follow a parabolic trajectory. This is difficult to explain but pretty simple to grasp after a few games.

Speaking of trajectories, my number one goal when playing the CPU (and also people) is to force the enemy to use their ICBMs to hit me. ICBM shots will come from predictable trajectories, while sub and bomber nukes will come from unpredictable trajectories. So in the beginning, placing silos near population centers can compensate for weaknesses in defending against bombers and subs. But in my experience, it is best to place silos as if they are defending mostly ICBMs, and make sure you don't let bombers and subs have a field day. At least in the ocean you are going to be strong in.

Here is a silo formation for North America that gives up on the West Coast. This is probably not a very good formation, but it's good enough to win. Typical formations include hexagon, line, triangle, and rectangle. The reason I chose this formation is because I want to prioritize defense of the East Coast from ICBMs and I did not want my silos to defend my CPU ally. Note that this formation is one that will only work well if most incoming missiles are from the Pacific side, and assumes you can defend the Atlantic from bombers/subs. More on this later...

Here is a similar formation that is placed a bit closer to population centers on the East Coast.

Here is a line style formation that attempts to cover more ground but is riskier for the East Coast.

Finally, here is a noob formation that will result in you losing the game most of the time.

Once you have chosen your silo formation, you are basically committed to giving up on part of your population that the silos are not protecting. It is very annoying when the game gets going to be nuked, but you should remember that you chose to let those people get nuked, and focus on nuking the enemy. Otherwise you may make bad decisions about fleet formation or usage in an attempt to save some people, which is usually not worth the costs.

Next you should place your radars. When playing in this 3 on 3 format against the CPU, placing radars is usually not an important decision. Just make sure your radars cover your territory, especially those areas where enemy units and missiles are likely to come from. Place at least one radar so that it provides visibility to your silos.

Now comes the choice of where to place airbases. Generally speaking, I prefer to place a majority of airbases (3 or 4 of 4) near the same ocean I place the majority of my fleet, which is also the same area I place the silos. This is because airbases give you a decisive numbers advantage in naval combat. The non-protected population centers are going to die anyway, so I don't waste much effort trying to defend those populations who are probably going to die no matter what.

DEFCON 5 And DEFCON 4 - Fleet Placement And Movement

Finally you place your fleet. I like to wait until the CPU allies have placed theirs, which doesn't take long. As mentioned before, I like to play on the strength of the CPU allies and place most of my fleet in the ocean where they are strong. If they have chosen to be balanced, I like to place my fleet in the ocean nearest the silos.

When placing your fleet, there are a few rules of thumb:

Create fleets of the same unit type

No more than 3 units per fleet no matter which unit, especially subs and carriers

Place battleship fleets near each other and at the tip of the spear, so that they can support each other

Place carriers behind the battleships so they are close enough to launch planes

Place carriers in groups of 2 (you should use one carrier for fighters and the other for bombers ideally)

Place fleets to take advantage of your airbases

Place subs in groups from 1-3, and place them in a way that gives you a sort of radar of enemy movements before DEFCON 3. Subs have terrible vision but it's good enough to see where enemies are coming from

Place your units in a way that utilizes your allies for a numbers advantage. If you can be in a situation where you have a 9 on 3 in battleships, you are probably going to keep all of your battleships. But if you have a 6 on 2, you may lose a battleship. The bigger the numbers disadvantage, the better.

Here is an example of what not to do.

Why is this bad? First, the fleet is too big. A fleet has to move together, and this means these 6 units will always have to move together. Second, the fleet is not particularly good at anything; it is a mix of 3 types of units, and will be evenly matched against CPU fleets. Third, the carriers are exposed, and there is no reason you want carriers to be at the front of your formation. You want air units, followed by battleships, and then carriers. Finally, there is little reason to use subs in this manner. While subs can help in naval battles, it means you can lose them, and not have them for forward positioning later on in the game.

Here is another example of what not to do.

In this example, at least we are not putting carriers at risk. But this is still usually a terrible idea. The CPU (and most humans for that matter) will come at you with large numbers, and spreading your fleets so thin means you will always be fighting at a disadvantage. The battleships are too far apart to help each other in time, and the carriers are too far behind the battleships to help them as well. More often then not, this will result in losing large numbers of naval units without killing many enemy units.

Here is an example of strategic fleet positioning at least against the AI.

Note that the carriers are close to, but always behind, the battleships. The battleships are grouped in 3's but very close together so they can help each other when we find out where the enemy is. I have zoomed in closely because a lot of the time, this is how close you want your fleets to be to each other to have the numbers advantage.

Note that this is not a smart formation in every scenario for North America; it depends on where your airbases and allied fleets are, as well as your strategic goals. You should place fleets according to your strategic goals; if you plan on dominating the Pacific, you should place airbases on the Pacific and most fleets in the Pacific. When the enemy arrives, you will have a numbers advantage, especially if your ally is nearby to guard the flank.

Also note that this is a defensive fleet position. I have placed the fleet very close to my coast line. Good players will often place their fleets at the opposite edge, the boundary of their ocean, but this is risky for new players because it leaves your coastline undefended and vulnerable to subs and bombers. I prefer to wait for the AI to come to me and engage the AI so I can guarantee numbers. But more advanced players will take initiative and place their fleets forward so they can guarantee forward positioning by the time DEFCON 1 arrives.

Here is an example of a risky but potentially effective fleet and unit positioning in a 3v3 against CPUs.

Note that I have decided to put almost every unit in the Pacific, while leaving the Pacific populations unguarded. This is because I think the CPU can handle the Atlantic without my help. However it is risky to leave carriers unguarded like I have in this screenshot. The benefit of having a few carriers in the Atlantic is to defend against subs/bombers that slip by the CPUs, and to have a forward position.

The obvious downside of this positioning is that if I am wrong and the CPU does not hold the Atlantic, I am a bit screwed. Against humans, I would be completely screwed, but the CPU doesn't notice these kinds of things. So it is possible to defend against a few stray carriers and battleships and planes with a few isolated carriers, as long as you hide your carriers well.

Also note that my airbases are entirely undefended and all in Alaska. Against humans this is usually terrible because humans would notice and nuke them. However against CPUs it is quite effective, as the airbases and a few carriers are powerful enough to steer CPUs to where my fleets are, where they will surely face a numbers disadvantage. My fleet is positioned near the allied fleet, and the ally will usually move towards that spot, so by the time I engage the CPU, my ally will be near by to assist.

DEFCON 3

Once your fleet has been placed, it is your decision whether and how to move it before DEFCON 3. I prefer to wait for the enemy to come to me and face an overwhelming numbers advantage, but you can also do well by flanking them or blitzing them. Since you cannot use your air units before DEFCON 3, you should be prepared to start launching air units the moment DEFCON 3 arrives. Your fleet should be placed to take advantage of air units. This is why I like to wait for them to come to me - the airbases usually give you air superiority.

Should you encounter the enemy before DEFCON 3, do not attempt to position your fleet for direct engagement without an overwhelming numbers advantage. This will result in loss of units. You want your planes to engage the enemy. The goal should always be to gain air superiority first, and use your fleet to pick off the enemy. If you wait on your side of the ocean for the enemy to come to you, your airbases will give you a big advantage.

Sometimes you may have an overwhelming numbers advantage. In that case just go for it. This happens with allies when your ally is stupid and does not defend his own coast line, or when the enemy spreads units too thin. Here is an extreme example of what an overwhelming numbers advantage looks like at DEFCON 4.

Most of the time you won't have this kind of advantage. If there is any question I prefer to wait or retreat and let the enemy make his move. However, advanced players will utilize tactical movements to create a numbers advantage without numbers; i.e. by flanking the enemy, distracting the enemy, forcing the enemy into a narrow passageway, ganging up with allies, or surprise.

If you choose to wait for the enemy, you may go through much or all of DEFCON3 without engaging the enemy, and sometimes it will backfire if your ally is unhelpful. In this case, South America is not being very helpful (I wanted them to be right next to my fleet by this time), and I am not being helpful to Europe (I have no fleet in the Atlantic except for a few hidden carriers, and I am not willing to use my planes for anything other than defense at this point). Still, I can feel confident that the CPU will not be coming from the North Pacific, so I can expect to engage the CPU where my airplanes are ready and my battleships are waiting.

The number one priority at DEFCON 3 is to gain and use air superiority to pick off enemy naval units. I have played many games in which I do not lose a single fleet unit at this stage. This is not hard against the AI because the AI will generally send fleets of 6 units, a mix of carriers and battleships, at you. The AI is too stupid to think about tactics, it is just going to go straight at you. It does not do much to gain air superiority, so this is a weakness to exploit. In general, whether playing 3 on 3 or not, the CPU's lack of tactics are a major weakness to exploit.

In practice, the first units to encounter the enemy should be your fighters. You don't want to send the fighters on a death mission, which will happen if you send a bunch of fighters straight at the enemy fleet. Instead, you should use your fighters to draw the enemy to you, where you have the numbers advantage. From there you should use your bombers to engage enemy ships.

I have not figured out whether it is generally better to target battle ships or carriers. There are arguments for both. If you engage the battle ships, it makes the carriers easy to pick off with your own battle ships. If you engage the carriers, the enemy will be screwed because of air superiority. My only advice is to always use the numbers advantage no matter who you target.

If you place your fleet correctly, you can end up with 3 or 4 airports sending 8 fighters and 4-8 bombers and 6+ carriers sending a ton of fighters and some bombers at the enemy fleet before your first naval engagement. I have seen where an AI fleet of 3 carriers and 3 battleships is killed before they can even hit one of my naval units.

Try to make sure that when your naval units do engage the enemy, they are in a position of overwhelming advantage. You should have as many of your battleships as possible at the tip of the spear, and ideally use your allies to attack the flank.

If you can successfully defeat a few waves of enemy fleets without losing many naval units, you have already basically won. This is not hard to do against the AI in a 3 on 3 scenario.

Engaging The Enemy

Some advice when engaging the enemy before DEFCON 1 (i.e. naval battles)

Range is very important. Numbers don't mean anything if your units are staggered, because then only a few of your units will engage the enemy initially, and probably you will lose some of them.

Whenever you engage the enemy from one direction, you should make sure you have numbers.

To have numbers, you must time your units approach. That means launching aircraft that is farther away before launching closer aircraft.

If you can engage the enemy from multiple directions, especially from the air, it will give you a huge advantage. Classic example is to send a swarm of fighters straight at an enemy with inferior air numbers, and then to send bombers 90/180/270 degrees to the fighters when the enemy launches its fighters. This will give you free reign to kill enemy ships with your bombers, and often you won't even lose the bombers because the enemy has no defense from that direction.

Bombers are very effective against ships as long as they have fighters to cover them. This is because bombers have longer range than any of the naval units.

Never send your bombers into a situation where there are unopposed enemy fighters pointing at them. You will just lose your bombers, which are far more valuable than fighters, and leave your carriers exposed. If you see this coming, do not hesitate to redirect your bombers back to an airport or carrier.

Fighters require constant refueling. The range of a fighter is a "suicide" range. It is the range a fighter can go in a kamikaze mission. You don't want to do that if you can avoid it. Rather, try to send fighters half the range, and position carriers to let them refuel.

Since fighters require refueling, you should have a few carriers near the tip of your attack that are safely positioned and allow your fighters to return.

If you have a numbers advantage in battleships, don't hesitate to send a carrier group (1 or 2) to the same spot to allow your fighters to refuel.

Do not let the enemy find your airports, let alone swamp them with fighters. If you let them find your airports, they will nuke them, and if you let them swamp them, they will make your airports useless.

If you can trade a lot of fighters and some bombers for an AI fleet of 6 ships, do it. Try to preserve your ships, because this will be decisive in later engagements.

Even though fighters do little damage against naval units, having a swarm of fighters (and carriers nearby to refuel) with no enemy air resistance is usually a recipe for success.

Everything in this game is slow. It takes time for your air units to reach their targets, and even more time for your naval units.

Air units take a long time to turn, and air units are mostly useless if they are not pointing at the enemy. So if you think you need to turn, do it sooner than later, and do it as safely as possible.

If you have a numbers advantage, direct your fleet at a single enemy unit. This is not the default behavior (units will engage other units on a whim) but if you let the CPU handle this, it will throw away your numbers advantage.

Utilize the geography of the map to your advantage. Engaging an enemy in an open ocean is wasteful because the enemy can split up, attack your flanks, etc. If you can, try to use land to guard your flank.

When using battleships to attack naval units, they will generally advance toward the units they are attacking, especially when those units are out of range. So, if you must advance, advance from the rear first. This will ensure that you have numbers at the point of engagement.

Do not use subs to engage enemy ships unless you are desperate. Subs are far more valuable as forward attack units and not defensive units.

Stay mindful of carrier/airport operation modes. It take a long time to switch from fighter to bomber. This can be a difference maker because if you wait for the enemy to engage to switch modes, it may already be too late.

If you have a big group of battleships against a 3/3 mix of carriers/battleships, you should try to use aircraft from a perpendicular direction to engage, then attack the ships with your battleships in numbers.

If you are facing a 6 battleship fleet, even if you have a 9 or 12 fleet, avoid engaging the fleet head on. Instead, use fighters to swarm the battleships, bombers to pick them off at long range, and try to kill 2 or 3 enemy battleships before engaging with your own. If you do this, your battleships can destroy the enemy without any loss of naval units.

If you see enemy subs lurking by you, don't worry about it. Just note where they are going and prepare bombers and/or a few battleships to be in the area to pick them off.

If you find yourself a victim of an attack from multiple fronts, retreating straight backwards doesn't help because the AI will engage you head on. It is better to retreat separately and plan on using your aircraft to pick off the enemy separately, especially if you can attack one of the flanks. If possible, retreat toward your allies, your coastline, and near airports.

Sometimes when you ask carriers to send planes they will also decide to move in the same direction. Keep an eye out for this. I don't know why this happens but it is annoying.

Bombers can stay in the air a long time, so pre-staging bombers in multiple rear positions can be super effective. If you find there is no air resistance, you can send the bombers to kill the enemy fleet without losing your own ships. If there is, you can try to retreat or refuel without losing the airplanes.

The AI prefers hexagonal 6-unit fleets. This can be exploited severely because the units are spaced such that they are not in range to defend each other. If you can pick off a single unit in the fleet, ie at a vertext of the hexagon, go for it.

If you want your AI to help, you have to force it to help. It's usually focused on getting a forward position and defending coastline. It will attack the enemy head-on, so if you spot this, you have an excellent opportunity the flank. Conversely, if you engage the enemy head on and force them to the flank, your ally will actually help you.

Count how many naval units you destroy. There are 36 per territory, and 12 are subs in groups of 4-6. If you can eliminate a carrier group of 4 carriers and 2 battleships, then the remaining group is going to be battleship heavy, meaning you should go for air superiority and bombers, then finish them off with your massive battleship fleet.

Airbases are particularly helpful in use for bombing enemy fleets from an unexpected direction if you are engaging head-on. Just 3 bombers timed correctly can eliminate a carrier or battleship if it does not encounter fighters.

Once you have eliminated two fleets with 7 or 8 of each of the carriers and bombers, it is safe to assume there are no reinforcements arriving. If the CPU doesn't make its fleet, its using the others as a defensive or forward position from another direction. At this point, leave a small contigent of 1 carrier and 1-2 battleships to combat subs, fly bombers from your coastal airports, and start heading to your subs to get forward positioning.

Once you have defeated the majority of enemy naval units, start positioning carriers to act as relays for fighters to refuel. Since you know there are few enemy units left, it is safe to leave carriers undefended.

Start forward positioning subs as soon as possible. As you progress, send battleships followed by carriers to assist the subs. The most important function of carriers at this stage is to provide a few fighters to guard subs from bombers and a few battleships to guard subs from planes in general.

DEFCON 2

DEFCON 2 is kind of pointless but it is a good trigger to start making moves. Nothing new happens at DEFCON 2. However, torwards the end of DEFCON 2, you should be thinking about the enemy subs. They have certainly slipped past you and are near your territory. To defend against this, use your airbases and carriers to send 3-6 bombers to cover any ocean near your territory that your fleet is not occupying. If you do this, you will never need to worry about subs.

If you have positioned your fleet defensively, it is possible to not engage the enemy until the end of DEFCON 2. This is not necessarily bad but it can be bad if your ally is not helpful and especially if the enemy comes from multiple directions with numbers.

In the screenshot below, you can see what happens when an unhelpful ally (me) doesn't help at DEFCON 3. I am trying to run away and hide my carriers while sending a few bombers in a desperate attempt to kill a carrier.

A bit later, I finally made first contact with the enemy in the expected area, near LA. I have been flying in the North Pacific the entire game, so I would have seen a fleet there if it was coming. Due to fog of war I can only see the battleship, but you can be sure that there are usually a fleet of 6 units when you are playing the AI.

What you don't want to do when you first engage the enemy is to send battleship fleets to fight it. They will not have the numbers advantage you want and you will lose some of them. Instead, you should use your planes to engage, which will have the effect of weakening their defenses and steering them towards your ships. Having both fighters and bombers in the area is very helpful. This will allow you to use the bombers effectively against the ships. The point is to try to pick off a ship or two but more importantly, steer the fleet to your fleet.

In this case, the AI surprised me a bit by sending fleets from two different directions, and I wished I didn't put all of my airbases in Alaska. However, being able to send bombers to kill the Northern fleet from Alaska was useful. If you can kill ships with planes, you usually come out ahead.

After some time the Northern fleet was damaged but still managed to get close to my coast line. However, I did not spend any ships to kill the ships in the Northern fleet. On the other hand, the big fleet below was more evenly matched with my fleet than I thought it would be, and my ally was nowhere to be found. So I am going to have to engage with my ships.

After a while you can see that this time did not work out as hoped, since I lost half my battleships and still had a few ships and bombers left to kill. Putting all of the airbases in Alaska was a bad idea, but if you can survive the onslaught, you will be able to move forward. If you do a good job, you won't lose many ships. This is not a good job...

Hopefully by DEFCON 2 you have mostly defeated an enemy fleet or two, and you have some confidence that you can send many units to the enemy ocean. You should always keep a mental count of how many units you have engaged/killed and how many are left. There are a total of 24 battleships and carriers per territory. Typically the AI will send 50% or more of its fleet straight at you with reckless disregard, and spread the remainder to defend its ocean. If you were successful in DEFCON 3 and DEFCON 2, it will be easy to kill these isolated defensive positions.

In my stupid Alaska airbase example, I was nowhere near a forward position quite far into DEFCON 1, and a few nukes slipped by and hit the West Coast. But I was able to kill more of the enemy fleet than they killled of my fleet, so I could safely move forward with a large portion of my remaining fleet.

From an offensive perspective, the most important goal between DEFCON 2 and the early stages of DEFCON 1 is to get your fleet in a forward position. This means your subs are protected but close enough to the enemy to strike, your carriers are behind your battleships and have air units availble. Do not send a large number of fighters near enemy coastline; this is a waste of units. Use fighters to defend your fleet from enemy bombers. Ideally you should use a fighter or two to scout the enemy coastline and find some airbases and silos. It's not always easy to do this.

If you are too late to get into forward positioning, as shown below, you risk being unable to kill enemy silos when they launch their first nukes. This is a big advantage to lose, so it's really important to get there. You can send subs ahead because they will not be detected until you try to launch, but you should ideally get your battleships and carriers up there as well. This will help you protect your subs. Here is a picture of what it looks like when your fleet is late to arrive:

As you get your fleet into a forward position, you should remember to place your carriers in a safe position that allows aircraft (especially fighters) to land when they need to land. This does mean you risk exposing your carriers, but if you have been successful, by this time you should have confidence that your carriers will be safe. Fighters cannot go very far so you really need your carriers to be evenly spaced to allow them to get from your base to the enemy's.

Finally you should always assume the enemy has 12-24 subs near your base, meaning you need to keep those bombers flying in the ocean. If and when the enemy subs surface, they will be easy pickings for your bombers. The only thing you can do wrong is to not have the bombers in place.

Forward Positioning For DEFCON 1

By the time DEFCON 1 arrives, your subs should be in the positions you expect them to reach enemy silos. However, you are not really prepared to use the subs until you have an idea of where enemy airbases are. This is because enemy bombers can destroy subs before a single MRBM is launched.

For each sub, you want to position it far enough away from the coastline to avoid easy spotting from bombers. If you can, place battleships near or in front of the subs, and a carrier with fighters circling the group so that the fighters are out of the line of fire of the silos. This will guarantee your subs are not too easy to destroy.

If you can find an airfield near your sub and preemptively destroy it, your subs will probably survive. If you cannot find the airport then your subs will probably die without getting off 1 or 2 shots.

Often you can't get this kind of clean formation because it takes a while to win naval engagements and the subs can get in place from DEFCON 5 onward. So you may find yourself taking a gamble on using MRBM mode with an unprotected sub.

Fighters are useful to protect ships and subs, particularly after the enemy launches ICBMs. However, fighters have short range. So you must position carriers to allow for easy refueling.

Part of getting into forward positioning involves sending bombers to a safe location equipped with SRBM launch mode. Note that you should ONLY click the right trigger when in SRBM launch mode, as this navigates the plane. Left button launches the nuke. When playing as North America, I like to send 4-8 bombers to the sea between Alaska and Russia, because nobody ever defends this with a silo, and it's a great spot to engage the silos in Russia when they are exposed.

I like to wait for the enemy CPU to launch most or all of its silos before using my subs. Sometimes the CPU takes a while to start. Generally speaking, once you see the enemy CPU use one silo, it's going to use all of them within a few minutes.

If you have your subs in groups of 2, consider using one in each group to MRBM, and save the other for a rainy day. If you have 3 groups of 2 subs, and activate 3 of them in MRBM, you can topple 6 silos and maintain another 3 subs for other purposes.

As soon as the enemy launches ICBMs, your bombers should be used to target he most inaccessible silos. Use subs to reach silos near the coastline. Use bombers to kill silos in the interior.

If you get forward positioning in DEFCON 1, do not use this to nuke enemy cities. Focus on nuking the silos.

The trick about targeting silos is that they require 2 shots, and they lose 5 nukes when hit once. So if you hit an enemy silo only one time, and that silo has already launched 2 or 3 nukes, chances are likely you are going to run into an ABM system. Bottom line: when targeting silos, aim to send 2 or 3 shots at them at once, rather than spreading them out. It is far better to kill 4 silos for sure than to aim at 6 silos and only kill 2 or 3.

If you have switched one sub to MRBM and it spouts off 2 shots without any opposition, it's usually safe to MRBM the other one. Again you want fighters swarming the subs to help, but even if not, you can feel reasonably confident that if your MRBM sub has lasted 2 shots, it's safe to launch the other one.

When silos are in ICBM mode, you just need to hit them in relatively rapid suggestion to get the job done. That means if you have two MRBM subs and 4 targets, you should send your first target of each to the same silo, and so on.

Bombers are most useful when they are prestaged in an area that is close to the silos. It takes so long for bombers to arrive that you want them to be staged and ready, ideally in SRBM mode.

If you lose MRBM subs, don't try to use the other sub immediately because it's going to die. Instead think about how you can support the sub (fighters and battleships) and then start nuking.

When silos are in ICBM mode, the only thing you can do wrong is to mis time or mis target the ICBMs. Mistiming means a target that is so far away in time that by when you get there, the silo is air defense again. You want to send two or three ICBMs at the same silo so it doesn't get into air defense mode too soon.

Once silos are in air defense mode, it will be much harder to kill them.

DEFCON 1 - Nukes

After DEFCON 1, when playing the AI, there is a typical sequence of events to look for:

AI attempts to use bombers to nuke you

AI attempts to use subs to nuke you

AI attempts to use silos to nuke you

If you are successful, the AI will be unable to even attempt nuking you with bombers, and their subs will be killed. So at this point all you need to worry about is the silos. Thankfully, the AI is dumb, and will always eventually open up their silos and start trying to nuke you at some point after the subs fail. The AI usually opens up all of their silos in a short period of time, so it is worth waiting a bit for them to expose their locations before nuking.

Once the AI exposes the silo locations, you should use your subs and bombers to nuke the silos and airports. It takes 2 nukes to kill either of them, and 1 nuke will half the time it takes for the silo to become a missile defense again. So I generally try to send 2 nukes at once to every silo I can once I know my subs will be safe. I send in any fighters as decoys, then I then use the bombers as insurance for all the targeted silos.

The goal at this stage should be to wipe out the silos. The airports are also good to wipe out but always prefer the silos. The sooner you can kill the silos, the fewer nukes will target your populations. I have played games where I have wiped out 6 or more silos before they can launch even 12 nukes from them. Do not attempt to spread your nukes at the expense of a sure fire kill, and especially target silos that are grouped together. Silos that are isolated will be easy to kill later.

At this stage your subs will be very vulnerable, so if you have done well, your battleships should be around and positioned around them. This will protect them from enemy fighters and bombers. If you don't have the battleships or fighters to protect them, consider using a single sub first before changing them all to MRBM mode. It takes 240 seconds for them to start shooting, during which they can be killed very easily.

If you have not done so well, you may have to take a gamble and expose your subs, because if you wait too long they will get a lot of missiles off. Here is a picture of what it looks like to take a gamble with your subs. Note that the ally CPU is distracting their aircraft somewhat. Still the subs are not in position to hit all the silos, and I have clearly over-done it with targeting the silos, which can be corrected by canceling orders. I like to wait and see which silos get killed before I start canceling, though.

If you have a fleet to protect and nuke the enemy, then keep your silos in defensive mode.

But if you have not been able to maintain your fleet at this point, you may consider launching some ICBMs of your own. Timing is key. You want your ICBMs to arrive at the same time as your forward-launched nukes, so you may need to launch them long before you launch your MRBMs or bombers. It can take a long time for an ICBM to reach the enemy, so you should take this into account.

Typically by the time the CPU starts going buck wild like this, they don't have many subs or bombers left to nuke you with. But sometimes they do. You should always keep a mental count of how many you have killed to know how many to expect.

When the CPU starts attacking you with its silos, and assuming you have the fleet advantage and positioning, the goal is very clear: kill the silos. Kill as many as you can. Do not worry about the cities; if you can kill the silos, the cities will be yours.

In this example, I've played pretty terribly. I lost half my fleet or more, and most of my bombers. But I have all of my subs, and the CPU is not defending against my subs. So I am able to attack and destroy almost all of Asia's silos, and a few of Russia's as well, all without spending any of my silos ICBMs, and before some of them get off many missiles. The AI's behavior is very predictable so you can exploit this, especially when the victory timer is long.

When in doubt, it's usually better to over-target a silo than to spread too thin. If you can knock out 3 or 4 silos for sure, it's better than trying to knock out 6 at the risk of only knocking out 2. 3 "in flights" per silo is usually good enough.

Unfortunately, it's not so easy to find and target enemy airbases. This will usually require sacrificing some fighters and/or bombers. It's worth it if you have the units to do it, though, because if you can also knock out airbases, your bombers will be unopposed.

If everything goes well, you will knock out a lot of silos before they can even send all their nukes at you. The AI tends to target population centers over silos, but you should still be mindful that they may target your silos, and wait for the opportune time to start using your silos.

In this example, I knocked out Asia's silos and the CPU targeted Africa's silos and Asia's cities, I forgot to target Russia's silos in Europe with my subs. So I am left with all my ICBMs and four Russian silos. My team is already ahead and there is nothing the CPU can do to change that because the CPU has no nukes left or no delivery methods left. Unfortunately my ally South America has more people left than I do, so they "win" technically, but our team has obviously handled the enemy, as we're winning before I even launch a single ICBM.

In a good scenario, your silos will kill most of the enemy nukes, and the enemy will be mostly undefended. In this case, you should simultaneously target enemy silos first with simultaneous nukes, meaning use 1 nuke in this silo and another in that silo around the same time. Rule of thumb for an isolated target silo is that it takes 3-4 of your ICBMs launched at the same time to kill it. If you still have subs and bombers to nuke the silo use them.

Finally when the enemy silos are no longer an issue, use your ICBMs and any remaining nukes to nuke the enemy population. If everything goes well, the nukes will all land and you'll win easily.

Once you can reliably win in this 3 on 3, long victory trigger/timer scenario, you should try to win in a default trigger/timer scenario. This will require more strategy because you cannot wait for the enemy to exhaust their ICBMs to send yours. But by this time you will have your own opinions on how to time and do this.

Good luck!

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2580802469

Beating the AI as a beginner