What's the best way to occupy a nation?

[monkbel]

So, as EU I am attacking Alpine States. One state country.
I have 7 armies, most are 4 mil, some are 4.3 mil.
Defending country has no armies, 4 mil.

So I moved all 7 armies in at once. I am moving them out as they get down to 10% strength. I occupied 40% of the country and basically ran out of my armies.

Does it even help to have 7 attacking armies at once in one area? or should I cycle the new 100% armies when first armies run out?

or what's other suggestion?

[silencer4]

Attack with everything you've got. Though EU beginning military level ain't that good for Alpine States, US on the other hand has capable military

[SteelHeart]

1. Deathball your armies. A hightech doomstack can cap a region in a single mission phase.
2. Always, always send you armies direct to the capital region. Capping any other region does nothing.

[DarkestOnion]

I prefer Raise Unrest/Public Opinion and Coup as it appears to upset the AI less than rolling tanks in where somebody might drop a nuke on their own capital to take out my doomstack

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by DarkestOnion:

I prefer Raise Unrest/Public Opinion and Coup as it appears to upset the AI less than rolling tanks in where somebody might drop a nuke on their own capital to take out my doomstack

Controlling the nation to Unify it is bad if their miltech is worse than the main nation, since Unifying with them will lower miltech, but conquering them won't.

As for OP, I'm not entirely sure how combat works, but it's obvious that there's diminishing returns from sending many armies at once against a difficult target. You need to only send a few at a time, then send someone else in and pull out the damaged armies to go heal. Eventually you'll get them.

[Morti]

Alpine states is a rugged territory so mountain warfare doctrine can help you, then i'd send armies 2 by 2 and cycle them, consider using advise mission with a 10+ command councilor on the country controling the armies ( if you start the invasion with USA armies, advise USA, once they've retreated their armies, switch the councilor to EU when you send EU armies in... )
Is it true that coup don't annoy AI as much as other way to get control ? ( once you control can you still declare war between your nations to unify them ? )

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Morti:

Is it true that coup don't annoy AI as much as other way to get control ?

Generally, yes. Purge actually causes quite a lot of Hate, as does Crackdown. iirc a coup causes less Hate than a single Purge does.

( once you control can you still declare war between your nations to unify them ? )

Yes. And it's very often a good idea to do so, since it can let you get rid of their allies, or tell their armies to go twiddle their thumbs somewhere else while you conquer them. As for nukes, I'm not sure if any loose nukes are created after conquest, but if there are then you could just disarm them to avoid that.

[monkbel]

Originally posted by SteelHeart:

1. Deathball your armies. A hightech doomstack can cap a region in a single mission phase.
2. Always, always send you armies direct to the capital region. Capping any other region does nothing.

what's "deathball"?

[monkbel]

Originally posted by Morti:

Alpine states is a rugged territory so mountain warfare doctrine can help you, then i'd send armies 2 by 2 and cycle them, consider using advise mission with a 10+ command councilor on the country controling the armies ( if you start the invasion with USA armies, advise USA, once they've retreated their armies, switch the councilor to EU when you send EU armies in... )
Is it true that coup don't annoy AI as much as other way to get control ? ( once you control can you still declare war between your nations to unify them ? )

what's the thing about "annoy AI"? is there a danger with annoying AI? (besides nukes)

[Morti]

if you manage to make peace with some of them you can focus to the pro-aliens ones, in the other side, if you're at peace with pro-aliens ones, you won't annoy aliens ( so you can tech in peace with 100 MC of campus/university )

[DarkestOnion]

Originally posted by monkbel:

Originally posted by Morti:

Is it true that coup don't annoy AI as much as other way to get control ? ( once you control can you still declare war between your nations to unify them ? )

what's the thing about "annoy AI"? is there a danger with annoying AI? (besides nukes)

You generally annoy any AI Faction when you take their countries, habitats, steal or sabotage projects, imprison/assassinate their councilors, or perform hostile takeovers on their councilors. Essentially, if you try to directly/strongly compete with any AI faction - they go to In Conflict (or War). At that point if you ever go over any in-game Caps...the game will immediately trigger an RNG event to cut you down to size, often in the form of a huge sudden bonus to take your habitats - which allows the AI to take over enough MC to put you just back under that Cap

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by DarkestOnion:

At that point if you ever go over any in-game Caps...the game will immediately trigger an RNG event to cut you down to size

No. It won't. If you go over your caps the AI will try to target you because it's easier to steal your stuff. As a sane person would.
If you're over your MC cap you MIGHT get an event where a hab tries to defect.