Strategy:Land Defense vs Naval Offense (Supreme Commander)

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isik's Guide

With land-sea attacks, there are only a few ways to defend. (defend reasonable, I mean)

• If he attacks with a sub (presuming he has the water)

Then it's rather pointless to try to defeat it, presuming there IS a non-suicidal way to get rid of the buggers, you can't get control back easily.

• If he attacks with frigates

Set up a PD in range, it should destroy it before it can retreat, or set up a T.2 PD in which case frigates become nulled. MMLs also work.

• If he attacks with Destroyers

You should have a couple shields, and artillery up around the edges of your base. In front of everything that could get hit from the sea. Artillery, and tactical missiles (If it's still) are the only ways to go, aside from a Fatty, to defend your shore-line Land-Sea.

• If he attacks with Cruisers

T.2 PD and arty can take these down nicely. Even if air WERE allowed, he would have more than one cruiser, so T.1 bombers and GGs and actually most gunships in general, would become useless. IIRC they have TMD, so don't even try :-/

• If he attacks with Salems

If he gets on land, use combat units to get behind it. If you can get your ACU there OC it for a quick death.

• If he uses an aircraft carrier

Remember. ACCs are expensive, and then carrying all those air units, are even more-so. So by then you should have SAMs in your defensive line. And along with those, Arty TMLs and over-lapping shields.

• If he uses a nuke-sub as an under-water tac-missle silo

It's rather easy to set up lines of TMD. But impractical. Sadly that, -aside from shield toggling- is the only way to defend vs it without using torpedo-bombers.

• If he uses a Tempest

T.3 artillery, is the only way to go from land. Aside from nukes and Mavors. But both are very, very costly all-together.

• If he uses a Monkeylord

If you're Cybran, put loyalists near where you think it'll be and pray like hell. If you're UEF, set up loads of PD and Combat SCUs and pray like hell, and if you're Aeon. Pray like hell.

• If he uses a Galatic Colossus
  • as Cybran: Same as ML, but you may want conbat SCUs non-the-less.
  • as UEF: Combat SCUs and PD overload. Hope your TMLs can do something about it too.
  • as Aeon: TMLs and your own GC if you can afford it.

• If he uses a Fatboy

You're kidding, right? PD-TMLs-Dancing combat SCUs-arty-a couple hundred MMs...

Plasma_Wolf's Guide

To Defend your land against sea-units..

• Vs Subs:

Use a lot of engineers to construct some torpedo defense. Subs will continually try to destroy them while your building, but when you're done, you'll be able to take them down. Ensure your engineers are still on land. Yuo can also use engineers to reclaim the subs, if you know where they are. Reclaiming won't work well with the Cybran and the UEF, because their engineers are amphibious and the enemy's subs can hit them. Aeon will be very successful with reclaiming subs: their engineers hover, so they can't be targeted by subs.

• Vs frigates:

T1 Point defense is enough (just as isik said)

• Vs Destroyers:

3 T2 Point Defense is good enough if you set them under a shield. I sunk 2 destroyers with this (the destroyers where on their own of course). Artillery is very useful as well, because the range T2 Point Defense isn't much larger than that of a destroyer, while that of an artillery is. Tactical Missiles are useful, but only if you're quite sure the destroyer isn't moving soon.

• Vs Cruisers:

The Aeon cruisers are easy to destroy, T2 Point Defense is enough. For Cybran and UEF, you've also got to have a tactical missile defense.

Tech 2 artillery is very useful here as well. Do not use Tactical Missiles. Cruisers have missile defenses

• Vs Battleships: Using T2 artillery is the only thing which will do much damage. The cannons on the battleship have got a range quite similar to the artillery, so you're doomed if you have no artillery, ensure your coast is shielded, otherwise, a battleship will blow your defenses up in a minute.

Tactical missiles won't work because of missile defenses.

For UEF: use the Fatboy. The range of its cannons is similar to that of a battleship, and the rate-of-fire is as fast as an UEF tech 2 Point defense Very Happy

• Vs Aircraft carriers (Atlantis included):

For your sake: I hope you've got a lot of AA alongside the coast, your opponent is smart enough to keep these ships out of the range of your artillery. If one comes occasionally within your, artillery's range: concentrate all firepower on the aircraft carrier before it launches its aircraft.

• Vs Nuclear subs:

The same tactic you use against normal subs (at the top of my reply).

• Vs Tempest:

The same tactic you use against normal battleships. If its submerged: Just as against normal subs, only now you'll need a LOT more engineers's to reclaim, especially if your Cybran or UEF. Or you'll need to build MUCH more Torpedo Defense at the same time.

• Vs Monkeylord:

Fore your sake, I hope you've got an experimental to counter it.

In the case of only using land-units:

1. Keep your Fatboy at a large distance (UEF).
2. Send your Monkeylord towards it immediately, escorted with loyalists (Cybran).
3. Send your Galactic Colossus towards is immediately, with harbingers escorting it.

If you don't have an experimental, you're doomed. Maybe Cybrans aren't, if a loyalists EMP discharge is close enough to shut down the Monkeylord (just send those directly to the Monkeylord, he'll crush them).

• Vs Galactic Colossus:

Just as against a Monkeylord, but it'll take MUCH more time, and the Galactic Colossus will destroy more than half of your base, so ensure you evacuate all of your engineers.

• Vs Fatboy:

yes, well, err.

Get you're ACU out ASAP, it you're opponent knows where it is, he'll try to take it down immediately, and the Fatboy's firepower is too much for any shield or defense structure. The only way to take it down soon. Ensure some Tactical Missile Launchers are at the right spots, so you can target anything which comes on land. 3 missiles are enough to take the Fatboy down (if you won't give it time to recharge shields).

Trozz's Guide

Let's talk land vs naval.

• Oh noes, Auroras are coming after you.

On a small map like Finns, these things can easily hit the back side of your base. How do you counter them? You have options!

1. Throw some of your own T1 forces at the Auroras to kill them; they only have 140 hp, making them the most fragile Light Tank.
2. Greet the invaders with your ACU; Auroras only do 26.67 Damage Per Second, so your come can tank it and kill them.
3. Build T1 Point Defense buildings to protect your assets; not recommended if the Auroras are currently attacking your engineers.

• Oh snap, Frigates!

Subs will eat frigates for breakfast, but if you don't have any naval force, don't worry. Frigates are just foreplay until the Destroyers show up. You generally cannot do much to Frigates unless you have T2, but Frigates won't be able to do much to you either. The most they can do is camp on the shore and kill off some beach-line economy. Note that if the frigates are actually stupid enough to camp on the shore, you can throw some T1 land forces at them to sink them... in to the sand... (yeah, I don't get it either). If you do have any T2 tanks or MMLs, those frigates will be owned sideways. Don't waste your mass trying to build PDs to stop frigates.

• UEF Riptide Hover tanks.

These things are really easy to spot, even if you have mediocre air scouting. Counter them with T2 land forces. Be sure to have a radar up by this time so they can't effectively hit-and-run your bases. Riptides only have a sad 18 range (which is the same as T1 UEF tanks).

• Destroyers.

These units are why you fear losing naval supremacy. They can bomb your base well outside the range of your land forces and PD. Sure, you could torpedo bomb them, but only if you have air supremacy. If you're slow enough to lose the water, who's to say you'll also have the air? Let's go with the easiest (and only practical) defense against destroyers. Radar, Shields, and T2 Artillery. Be sure to assist the shields with your engineers if you don't want your shield gen to explode horribly.

So, let's assume the destroyers don't turn your base in to a field of reclaimable resources.

• Next threats are battleships.

The same combo described above (shields/radar/arty) is still your best bet. Make sure you have shields overlapping each other. Don't build T3 static arty to fight off these things; that's just a silly waste of mass. T2 artillery have the same range as Battleships at a much lower cost; use them. If you ever manage to get air superiority, T3 bombers and T2 torpedo bombers are nice for sinking unsinkable ships. You might as well throw in some gunships too, just make sure they won't be hit by a mob of interceptors (and if so, just make sure you have more interceptors).

Finally nothing kills naval units better than subs. Until FA launches, subs are the best way to gain naval supremacy. Sometimes it's a great idea to build a sneak sub factory (especially in a huge water map like RA) to help deal with the hostile water.

• OMG Trozz, what about TML's?

Yeah, whatever, you can use these things if you want. They are functionally the same as artillery, but I'd rather focus my attention on how to attack the enemy's ACU. Besides, a clever opponent will be able to counter your missiles with naval TMD units.

References

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