Now that was really dumb!

[Willem]

I was just playing a game where I was being more aggressive than I usually play. I had vassalized my entire continent and I was working my way through the other one, trying for a domination win. I had both Monty and De Gaulle cave in to me and I decided to go for Frederick. Well Ramses and Asoka, who was his vassal, jumped in on his side as did Darius, so we had a nice world war going on. My efforts to capitulate Frederick didn't go so well though. He decided that he'd rather throw in with Ramses than cave in to me. So my only option was to try and take him out completely. Since I didn't want to become crippled with the colony costs, I granted independance to the cities I had captured and the Americans were born.

After awhile I began to realize that Monty wasn't doing well at all. For some reason the other team decided on going mainly after him. His cities were falling one after the other and it looked like I was in danger of losing one of my vassals. I decided to help him out and redirected the Tanks I had coming out at that time to his location. One city of his had fallen near my landing point so I sent an armada down to capture it, with the intention of giving it back to him afterwards. I had in mind that I would just take back all the cities that Darius and Ramses had captured and give them back to their original owners.

But after I took that city, there was no option whatsoever to give it back to Monty. The only thing I could do was give it to the Americans. I didn't want that since it would have spit Washington's empire, with France being in between his holdings. The city was clearly Monty's, even mousing over the plot showed it being 99% Aztec. Yet the game gave me no chance to give it back to him. I tried in the F1 screen and in the trade screen but nowhere was I able to hand it over. Letting the Americans have it was my only option. The whole incident really threw me off of that game and I didn't even want to play it anymore. Which was too bad since it was the most interesting game I had played for awhile.

[Fleme]

So just because you could not give a single city to Montezuma you decided to quit? I've quit over a lot of things but not being able to give Montezuma a city... haven't come across that one yet

[Jaybe]

I bet things would have changed on the F1 or when negotiating with Monty after the city got out of its disorder.

(Almost) NEVER quit a game! It's those "challenged" games that are the most rewarding, even if they are low in that "score" category.

[Blaupanzer]

You can give a city to its original owner, the one with the most culture in that city, on the diplo screen. The city will show up as white (rather than red). Offer it to Monty and he will say there is no way he could do such a trade. However, if you select "please accept this gift," he will take it. Deal done.

Jaybe's advice is pretty good on this as well. I tended to be to quick to quit and found if I hang in there, games can be pulled out. I do quit if my capitol has fallen (plus some border cities) and I have no army sufficient to retrieve it. That just sets everything back too far to recover. If Willem has conquered one continent and is slowly vassalizing the other, that really is not the time to quit in my view.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Jaybe's advice is pretty good on this as well. I tended to be to quick to quit and found if I hang in there, games can be pulled out.

I must admit, since my games are generally multiple-WEEK affairs, it is not a big issue with me if I get upset with a game and give it a rest for a day or more. Then when I return to it I am in problem SOLVING mode, not IRRITATING GAME mode.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
You can give a city to its original owner, the one with the most culture in that city, on the diplo screen. The city will show up as white (rather than red).

Apparently not if they're your vassal. No cities show up in the diplo screen when they've caved in to you, it's simply not an option. The only thing you can do is go through the Domestic Advisor screen, but it will only allow you to give the city to the colony that you created if the city is on a different continent.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Jaybe
I(Almost) NEVER quit a game! It's those "challenged" games that are the most rewarding, even if they are low in that "score" category.

Well I did go back to it. I managed to halt Ramses from wiping out Monty completely but then when he showed up at the French doorstep with a huge SOD, I reaized that I was going to have sue for peace. My forces were all up in German territory and France would have collapsed just like the Aztecs. So after that I went on a massive war build up, creating all kinds of units to go try again. I got my power rating higher then Ramses but unfortunately it was not enough. One stack he had on the border of France had at least 80 units in it. With the standard ratio of 3 to 1, I would have needed over 200 units in order to take it out. He had another stack nearby that would have required another 150. I probably could have done it eventually but everyone started building their spaceships, and I hadn't even built the Apollo project yet. I had my heart set on a Domination victory and didn't bother. So I wouldn't have had enough time to raise all the troops I needed to crush his SODs and advance on him Asoka and Frederick. I was so close too, I only needed a little more than 10% more land and I would have won.

[MoonWolf]

Did you use planes and arty? In modern warfare, I always bring a few carriers with me to soften up those SODs. Or if my bombers can reach them... well, dark fields of pain are the words to use

[rah]

"Standard ratio of 3 to 1 against the AI." Way to conservative in my opinion. Not including seige or air support 1 to 1 is sufficient if they're on your territory. And it's easy to bait them onto your territory. Most of the time all it takes is DOW. The AI relies on numbers, not sound tactics.

[Blaupanzer]

In Modern times, you get a lot more out of building an airport at the nearest city to the AI SOD and putting in 8 bombers than out of a number of non-siege units equal to your opponent's. Meeting both these conditions is more than overwhelming to your opponent. The AI, as noted by Rah, is not into combined arms warfare planning and execution -- air, ground, siege. That kind of programming is not quite available yet. Three to one is a good conservative notion in medieval times and earlier to take and hold without losing momentum. Post bombers, you will likely not need to build as many units as the AI, let alone three times as many. But it's all good, his units are your experience points.

[Jaybe]

In my last game bombers were not the ticket -- FIGHTERS were, because it took dozens of turns to gain air superiority, losing fighters left and right whether they were doing air strikes or on intercept. A GREAT game!

[Willem]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
Did you use planes and arty? In modern warfare, I always bring a few carriers with me to soften up those SODs. Or if my bombers can reach them... well, dark fields of pain are the words to use

I discovered that Bombers are pretty much useless if your opponent has Fighters. Only rarely did they make their objective. As for arty, yeah. I hit his one stack with at least 20 of them and it didn't do any good, there were just too many units. It also didn't help that both cities that had stacks in them were on hills.

[Willem]

Originally posted by rah
"Standard ratio of 3 to 1 against the AI." Way to conservative in my opinion. Not including seige or air support 1 to 1 is sufficient if they're on your territory. And it's easy to bait them onto your territory. Most of the time all it takes is DOW. The AI relies on numbers, not sound tactics.

Well I decided to move in after a 2:1 advantage and I should have waited. My forces were pretty much wiped out and he still had a good sized stack. As for the territory, I wasn't even close to mine. As I mentioned, I had already conquered my continent, I was trying to move into the other one for a Domination victory. So I had to take the battle to him, not the other way around. In that situation, and judging by the results of my assault, that 3:1 ratio still applies. Which in that situation would have meant at least 400 units. And I just didn't have time to raise that kind of force with everyone building spaceship parts.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
In Modern times, you get a lot more out of building an airport at the nearest city to the AI SOD and putting in 8 bombers than out of a number of non-siege units equal to your opponent's.

That advice doesn't do you any good when the battleground is next to your vassal's territory. You can't tell him to build an airport where it's convenient for your assault, you kind of have to make do with what you have. I had 3 Bombers and a Fighter in every city along the border but it didn't do any good. His fighters shot down half of my Bombers on the first assault. I guess maybe I should have sent in my Fighters first to get rid of his. I never thought of that. My Guided Missiles certainly did a fair bit of damage in the one city I could actually reach though. Unfortunately I had half of them in a city that was out of range of any target. I should have checked their max range beforehand. I thought they could reach the one city but they couldn't.

[snoopy369]

You can bring in a stack of SAM infantry... No reason to waste valuable air spots on fighters.