AU 107 Spoilers

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Catt
You're probably early enough still that Hammy hasn't hit 100K points, but once again based on my perfectly accurate scientific measurement,* if Hammy could possibly be getting close to 100K, you need to do some trimming of Babylon or some rushing of culture.

My culture is still just under 15,000, which translates to about two centimeters of culture on my display (a 21-inch monitor with about 35cm width currently in use). Babylon has just a little over over 5cm of culture, which puts them well under 50,000. They would have to out-culture me at a rate of more than three to two to hit 100,000 before I hit 50,000, and there's no way that's going to happen. But yes, I would be in very serious trouble if the ratios were still this bad later in the game.

Nathan

[Theseus]

Before I even get to the to the rest...

Catt: a hundred-fold! Thanks, tough week, you got good humor.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Theseus
Before I even get to the to the rest...

alexman: a hundred-fold! Thanks, tough week, you got good humor.

[Edit: Original post named Catt, mistakenly, but whose posts are a never-ending source of amusement / learning / enjoyment.]

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by nbarclay


My culture is still just under 15,000, which translates to about two centimeters of culture on my display (a 21-inch monitor with about 35cm width currently in use). Babylon has just a little over over 5cm of culture, which puts them well under 50,000. They would have to out-culture me at a rate of more than three to two to hit 100,000 before I hit 50,000, and there's no way that's going to happen. But yes, I would be in very serious trouble if the ratios were still this bad later in the game.

Nathan

I use 21" as well, but would it not depend on the resolution setting? The higher it is the smaller the depiction.

[nbarclay]

"Men, you see that cavalry army out there? We're about to go up against the most powerful force France has to offer." Colonel Thaddeus Augustus of the First Republican Tank Battalion smiled, and it wasn't pretty. "They're dead meat! Charge!"

I don't know what Joan was thinking, declaring war and trying to slip twenty-someodd cavalry past London (upper right-hand corner), but this has to be the stupidest AI strategy I've ever seen. About twenty of her cavalry, three of them in an army, were caught in the open field where they could be butchered with minimal losses. Only the units smart enough to stop on a mountain with a rifle unit for cover survived. The only deaths on my side in destroying the attackers and capturing Joan's three Russian cities were one tank unit and three or four cavalry units, although I did have quite a few injuries. Next turn, my artillery gets shiped back from the original home island along with nine additional tanks and a couple extra cavalry, and the direction of invasion reverses.

Also, as Joan should have expected given my history, when she declared war on me, I bribed the entire world (except for Germany) to join me in the war against her. Not that I especially care whether they join in the fighting or not, but that puts a serious damper on France's trading ability.

The one down side is that this is probably going to slow down my research just a tad, since I decided to move the luxury slider up a notch to make up for the loss of furs. Hopefully, research labs can make up the difference before too long, though. (No, I'm not going to bother with interrupting my work on city improvements to speed up war production; Joan just isn't that much of a threat.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Let's see Joan try to get through the choke point now. The Mech Infs are two deep except in London where the first backup is an elite old-fashioned infantry.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by vmxa1

I use 21" as well, but would it not depend on the resolution setting? The higher it is the smaller the depiction.

Good point. Since we're being scientific , I should have made it clear that I play at 1600x1200 resolution.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

My scientists are miracle workers. It took most of my gold reserves, but I actually managed to maintain a four-turn tech pace researching the tail end of Fission, then Nuclear Power, and then the first three fourths of Miniaturization in spite of the war. (Yes, I'm trying to build even more of a production monster than I already have.) I've been ignoring the top part of the tech tree on the theory that I can pick up a couple techs through trades when the scientific civs enter the modern age.

It's 1645, and France is nothing but a memory. But now I have a new war to contend with. Once I took care of France, I figured I'd annex Persia's last couple cities to eliminate even the theoretical risk of a culture flip in my earlier Persian cities. That went as easily as I could have asked for - a couple tank attacks and a couple cavalry army attacks and it was over. But I'd missed the fact that the Zulus had signed a MPP with Persia, so now I'm stuck in a war with the Zulus. The question is, do I want to ride things out until the Zulus are ready to talk peace, or do I want to join Babylon in an alliance to wipe the Zulus off the face of the map?

On the culture front, I'm at a little over 20,000 and just a tiny bit under half Babylon's culture. I'd already passed the French during the war to take over the second spot culturally.

Nathan

[Aeson]

Great stories guys!

For all those concerned with the culture values of AI civs, Lovro has updated Apollo to show those values from any save game. It's a nice utility to have, like Mapstat.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...threadid=21814 (the version near the end of the thread)

[Theseus]

1808 AD

I'm still scrambling to catch up. Germany and Babylon are the big dogs, and have 2-5 techs on me. Zulus are gone, France is weak by on tech parity with me (actually slightly ahead, but I'll catch up with the next tech I research). The checkerboard pattern for France and England is mostly my doing, btw, from oscillation / extortion wars and subsequent gifting of cities.

I successfully plant a spy in Germany... OHMYGOD!!! Bizzie-marckie has just finished off Russia as well, so I'm assuming they have just had or are in the midst of a GA.

21 Panzers
23 Marines
138 Infantry
2 Cannon
23 Arty
2 Ironclad
2 Subs
4 Destroyers
9 Battleships
11 Bombers
3 Armies

Killer AI civ, indeed!!

Understand, I am just finishing Mass Production... this SUCKS!!

This leads to the crux strategic decision of the game, and what will hopefully be my best game strategy ever (I'm very pumped!).

I need to *perfectly* execute a judo move, sucking the German bastards onto my own killing fields but only when I can realistically sap their power in 1-2 turns, while concurrently (hopefully) screwing up their production capacity, and then, having depleted their offensive forces, go on the attack.

With what, you say?? Infantry, Cav, and Arty?? "Don't do it, Theseus, you'll get massacred... Panzers and Arty and Bombers!! Wait for Tanks at least..."

And that wwas what I almost did... but I leaned back, took a sip of scotch (Chivas Regal... Lizzie sends me cases), and thought a while.

Do I research Motor Trans? What happens, even if I go after the bastard with say, 30-40 Tanks?

Nope, I chose to research Flight. I'm gonna set a bear trap to cut Bizzie into shreds...

First step, mobilize... pump out Infantry and Arty by the dozen. Second, ship every single Worker I've got over to the continent... I need forts, now damnit! Get to Flight, build Airports in my frontline cities, as well as my big production centers back home...I want Fighters everywhere.

No war until *I'M* ready... a defensive rock for Hammie to smash himself on, and then enough offensive power to truly ruin his day.

[Theseus]

1846 AD

I've entered into an MPP with Hammy (as a side note, he had a Frigate and Galleon wandering around near my cities... he's got a jillion Marines (but no Tanks?), so for fear that he'd pull some stupid stunt, I did the naval equivalent of Settler / Spear 'guiding' with a bunch of Transports (!) and led him back to his own waters ).

I declare war on Bizzie, but totally cleanly, no committed ongoing deals (meaning, I was selling him Silks, but the 20 turns are over). I only Arty and sink 2 Battleships he's got way up north, in my territory.

I consider enlisting Lizzie, but I *want* Germany to come at me, not just smash through her paltry remaining defenses... I'll try to get an alliance with her after Bizzie's is committed.

I have never had such a strong defensive position. Local disposition includes: At least three Infantry fortified in a fort, with 1-2 Arty, on every single piece of rock. 4 Fighters and Airports in every frontline city. Around 20 Tanks, with at least 10 more coming every turn. 30+ Cavs. 50+ Arty. 130+ Infantry. 5 defensive and 3 offensive Armies.

On the other hand, Bizzie-Commie has kicked my agent out of Berlin, so I don;t know exactly what he has... but it's gonna be a lot worse than in 1808 AD... uh, excuse me, excuse me, what happened to France?! Germany turned France into an OCC (I negotiated peace with Joan, and traded Flight to her for Amphib.)

I think to myself that this may be a little too early... I'd like more Tanks, but I haven't seen any MIs yet, and I need to nail the counter-attack before Bizzie gets there (although his head thingie just turned modern).

And I wait for the counter-attack...

[vmxa1]

Oh man, that sounds brutal. Very depressing to go against someone that size. Only way is to get them in a spot that you can hammer them and the can not reenforce quickly or fort a ton of units with arties and get them to go frontal. Most of my attempts at that, they elected to go around the stacks. I would use my mobile force to keep picking of some units and thin them out and bombard them at every step. Much work and very scary. I once watch over 80 JW attack a city, sooo very long and frigthening.

[flash9286]

I want a new Au now

[nbarclay]

Theseus, good luck with your judo move.

I decided to go ahead and bring Babylon into the Zulu war. I got a bit of a nasty surprise, though, when I discovered that Babylon's only access to ivory required a road through the northernmost Zulu city on the continent. My trade deal for Babylonian ivory to replace the Zulu ivory I'd been getting was cut off the same turn I made it, much to my people's displeasure.

I brought Babylon into the modern age and traded Fission for their advance of Rocketry. I also brought Germany into the modern age hoping they'd pick up Ecology, but they ended up with Rocketry too. Oh well. At least the Zulus didn't manage to come up with the gold to trade for the advances I'd given Germany. (I find it amazing that Germany is still in the game. They've been sailing around with a galley and a frigate forever!)

As I was researching toward getting Synthetic Fibers, I sent an invasion force with tanks and a Mech Inf army to attack the Zulus. My first attempt misfired when I tried to land in Babylonian territory and they ordered me out. My Mech Inf army (the first of several armies led by graduates of the Berlin Military Academy) ended up way up north, while the tanks were sent home. So I had to take my transports back and try again. But my second effort worked, complete with a second army to replace the first one. I captured two cities with that force and a third with a second wave brought over by transports (led by my first Modern Armor and two cavalry armies). One of my first wave's victories gave me a leader, who built the Maximus Memorial Airport to bring more troops in. (That's one way around the problem of not being able to rush airports while a city is in resistance!) Better, I now had my own source of Ivory! Additional MAs airlifted in got me my fourth Zulu city, and I had to sign a ROP with Babylon to grab a fifth. But Babylon beat me to my sixth target.

If you look carefully on the bottom of the map below, about a third away across on the left side, you'll see where Babylon had a single city on my continent. Since we had a ROP agreement, I parked a heavy force of MIs and MAs (and one elite old-fashioned infantry) in a position to prevent any possibility of a sneak attack.

One last interesting tidbit: Babylon had no oil! They actually did have an oilfield available on an island posession, and one of their Zulu cities was poised to give them a local supply when it expanded, but they never got their connections set up. So while Babylon had previously used imported oil for battleships and destroyers, they never got a chance to build any aircraft or tanks! (Which helps explain why I was able to beat them to some of the Zulu cities: they hadn't had a domestic saltpeter supply either, so they were waging their war at infantry speed.)

Nathan

[nbarclay]

When Hammurabi ordered my first invasion force out of his territory, he made one little mistake. He forgot that it's unwise to annoy a hungry tiger.

I wanted war, but I had a problem: we had an alliance and a ROP agreement. I didn't want to wait, but I didn't want to break my agreements either. So I called in my dirty tricks specialist, and he came up with a real gem. First, I prepositioned forces in key places in Babylonian territory. Then I started fiddling around with spies. Unfortunately, my spies didn't realize I wanted them to get caught, so it took a while before one was. And Hammurabi was still polite with me afterword. Ugh! Well, if excessive polteness was a problem, I had a solution. I kept demanding reparations for the trouble he had caused my troops, and he kept refusing until he was furious with me. Then I set a new spy to work, and that time, when the spy was caught, Hammurabi declared war. So much for the ROP agreement.

Six cities fell the first turn, but very few of my MAs were left uninjured. The fighting slowed down from there, but by the time I hit the domination threshold, I owned a significant majority of the continent. Domination victory, 1745 AD, 5048 points.

By the way, the war with Babylon finally knocked me off my 4-turn research pace. I'd been relying heavily on income from Babylon, and when that dried up, I couldn't maintain my research pace even on a relatively cheap tech like Space Flight. (I'd previously gone the Robotics route, and even got my first ever chance to use Radar Artillery during the war with Babylon.)

Nathan

[nbarclay]

To recap, my success in this game was due to a combination of luck, skill, and a certain amount of audacity. There were three real keys to my success.

- I knew my research rate would be atrocious, so I made a huge bet that I could get the Great Library. It worked, and that let me accumulate huge stockpiles of gold while everyone else was researching. (Of course to pull it off, I had to get a size 8 city with only one luxury, which required the will to make heavy use of the luxury slider.) By the way, being a commercial civ is great for going after the Great Library because you don't have to waste time on Alphabet.

- I really lucked out in having Persia complete Leonardo's just in time for me to take it. But it took some real trickery to maximize my use of the wonder. By trading away all my iron, I both made it possible for me to build horsemen instead of knights and brought in a little extra gold for research and eventual upgrades. That played into my earlier Great Library gambit perfectly: I had gold, and I had a wonder that let me get twice as many cavalry upgrades out of the gold as I could have otherwise.

- I knew, both from what I saw in my own game and from what I had read from others, that Germany was my main long-term threat. Conversely, that also made them my main long-term opportunity. If I took them out, I would have their size and power and my size and power both. My horseman upgrades gave me the firepower to do it, and by the time the dust settled, Germany's capital was my capital. (It was a pretty fantastic city, too. Toward the end of the game, with a factory and a nuclear plant, it was churning out armies in three turns!)

From there on, the game was mine to lose. I had a real scare when Russia took huge advantage of a major mistake I made in not fortifying my border better, but I'd built up so much size and production capacity by then that I could lose a lot and still have a lot left to counterattack with.

Nathan

[Catt]

Great stories, all!

I wavered on whether to read the spoilers posted since last Friday (my last log-on) without screenshot attachments being shown (I assume the increased traffic is making Markos take drastic temporary measures?). In the end, I couldn't resist reading and will come back for the screenshots later.

Catt

EDIT: problem with my browser - screenshots showing up just fine.

[Theseus]

Tonight's story... the German counter-attack.

[BTW, although this game is taking me a while, it's INTENSE!!]

1848 AD

This is it... D-Day.

HOLY SH-T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have never, NEVER seen an AI civ attack like this.

First, the Bombers... it felt like the battle over London... but the Fighters held!! I think I knocked out at least 10 of the Jerry bastards.

Then the Panzer attacks... I think I only lost 2 Infantry!! Cost Bizzie at least 5-6 Junker-mobiles.

And the spearhead attack... hold onto your hats:

Three 3xPanzer Armies
Two 3xMarine+Infantry Armies (Mixed-units!! Smart though.)
39 Panzers (incl. Armies)
27 Marines (incl. Armies)
20 Infantry (incl. Armies)

There's also a Battleship, Destroyer, and Transport stack threating the mountains on the north coast (within 2 tiles of land... oh dear!).

But here's the good news: I've got him just where I want him!!

[Sidenote: The most decorated US Marine ever, Chesty Puller, got caught with his troops at the Chosin Reservoir in the Korean Conflict. A junior officer reported to him that they were completely surrounded... his reply? "Good; no matter which way we shoot we'll hit one of them." ]

Bizzie has TOTALLY overcommitted; I'm able to plant another spy at this point, and see that he's got a total of 52 Panzers and 34 Marines... not for long!! (And 188 Infantry... whew!... but I'll deal with that later).

He's on my chosen and prepared killing grounds, and now (here's the best part), the "3 Tile Trap" is gonna close shut on him!!

I gotta show you some of the German stacks...

[Theseus]

The bottom right stack is just 3 Panzers.

Here's the middle stack.

[Theseus]

And the top stack.

[Theseus]

And the SoD.

[Theseus]

NOW, I enlisted Lizzie, as Bizzie-work if nothing else. Eventually, this would contribute to her doom, but *damn* she got paid well for the alliance.

[vmxa1]

That should keep you happy for awhile.

[FrustratedPoet]

I'll have nightmare's about that tonight ....

I can't wait to find out what happens next!

[Arrian]

Wow, Impressive. You're gonna need all of that artillery you have stockpiled.

-Arrian

[Catt]

Theseus:

How goes the war?

. . .

I said, how goes the war?

. . .

How Goes the War?

. . .

Dammit - HOW GOES THE WAR??!!!

. . .

You can't just leave us hanging with the barbarians at the gate. Updates needed


[Looks like you're having fun]

Catt

[Arrian]

I second Catt's post. I wanna know what's going on! Did you turn back the Hun (well, I have no doubt that you did, but how bloody was it, and how exactly did you do it)? Out with it, Marine!

-Arrian

[Theseus]

There are about a dozen threads I want to post on, but I'm time-constrained.

Figured I couldn't let the saturday-afternoon-serial hanging, so here's the next chapter:

1848 AD: The Aftermath

If I do say so myself, this 'judo' move worked out textbook perfect. Bizzie-da-fool totally overcommitted, and did so on a pre-designed killing ground.

Vet Cav first on the Panzers, didn't care if they were lost. Elite Cav on the SoD, counting on retreat odds. Second Tank attacks, and Infantry attacks, from fortified positions.

A f-cking massacre... if you've ever seen Minard's graphic of Napoleon's march on Moscow, you know what I mean. And it ain;t over yet... the horror of retreat is yet to come.

Here's what's left after my counter-attack.

[Theseus]

1850 AD

One turn later, including the initial Hun attacking force and all reinforcements, here's all that is left.

It will be more clear in the next screen or so, but the beauty is that I knew the bastards would over-extend 3 tiles into the killing ground, and that I could slow down the retreat long enough to exterminate.

[Theseus]

1856 AD

Here's a gratifying upcoming capture...