Civ4BtS : Pitboss APT - MASTERS 2016

[OT4E]

Part 5

The situation was promising long boring final.

Isabella has built universities everywhere and her maintance was low, so I should expect her to tech quick into modern technologies. At the same time she was rising espionage against me and running counter-espionage missions to deny me steal her techs at cheap rate. By that time I already had several intelligence agencies and was climbing up in espionage rating despite of great spies other nations had got. But if you want to deny opponent to steal techs it is possible because all the counter measures lower chance of successfull operation to somewhat like 15% and it still costs thousands of EPs. So I couldnt expect to get those techs easy, but to my fortune she was aiming rocketry which is not very important if you are not getting nukes soon.

Justinian didnt have overwhelming forces but as I said he could stack his fleet easier and by the time he had made some successfull raids on my central cities. I couldnt replant them quickly because settler is still an expensive thing even with Kremlin. That's one of the main advantages of Justinian. So I knew I had to do something right now to avoid being nuked by 3 civs in the future when they will be able to form alliances official.

Btw the game was really short, shorter than the unfamiliar with modern era reader can suppose. In fact the timeframes were the following:
- 1-10 turn of Universal peace
- on T11 I declared war to Asoka
- on T14 he was eliminated
- Brennus survived till turn of 17 with the city in the middle where Justinian was unable to reach quick, Otherwise he would be dead on T14-15 too.
- on T19 I declared war to Sal and captured 3 of his cities
- on T23 he was fully eliminated
- on T28-29 I bombed Justinian with several great artists and caught and destroyed his main stack.
- on T30 I have lost my tank stack
- and T31-T38 were the hard times for me.
- on T36 I got Flight but still lost 2 middle cities on T38.

But I gained control over the situation finally. I noticed that Justinian was keeping his fleet in his front city. It is very dangereous thing because you can have it sinked at once.


He was doing so because he was going to attack my bomb and in fact he was doing that and made a raid with 12 marines winning half of the battles under dominating air support on the first turns with Flight. Only bunker saved me and counter-espionage since Justinian failed to perform some missions in my front city which were attempts to sabotage bunker I believe. I knew I wont lose city in 1 turn so I was keeping fleet inside too.

You can see 15 defenders in Justinian's front on my screenshot above. I knew I had advantage that I could attack him with tanks and Justinian could only hit my bomb with marines. Actually I could be sure he cant hit with more than his transports can carry. My plan was to attack with marines from outter sea and to finish him with 20+ tanks from the inner sea.

But I was waiting too long and one turn Justinian has pulled his fleet back. At that time I didnt know the full story, so I thought that he had just discovered my plan. "Damn, damn I need a new plan" I said to myself. But in fact the situation was more interesting and it was the help from the side I was considering my another potential enemy, from Kankan. I didnt know much details and I only noticed this in the game log:


On T44 Kankan had declared war on Justo and lost city. "Well-well, poor Kankan declared war because he saw an incoming doom" I thought at that moment. But it was not right at all as I found out later....

Oh we are going to have the 6th chapter here....

[astrologix]

Con un poco de retraso...:

[astrologix]

Los puntos APT correspondientes serán consolidados en la clasificación trimestral del 30 de septiembre 2017.

[CHINCHIN]

Gran narración OT4E!! Esperamos ansiosos la siguiente entrega.

[OT4E]

Part 6

After few calm turns I realized that I am losing control again. Justinian tricked me prtending he is attacking me while making quick and effective attack against his small neighbor. Kankan dropped below 1000 k in soldiers and lost some cities. If Justinian was going to get all his land and some well developed cities I was in trouble again. So I told myself that I need to stop it by all costs.

I moved forward and razed 1 line of byzantium cities. Justinian's army and fleet left to the north so he didnt really resist. But the cities I took couldnt compare with well developed core of Kankan so it couldnt be satisfying. Though they brought me access to another inland see which was naturally owned by Justo. From here I could threat some of his core cities.

But I have chosen another option, I wanted to stop Kankan from being eliminated or honestly at least to raze/pillage Justinian spoils if I was late.

My fleet wasnt ready to defeat byzantium in open so I had to move carefully being sure he cant reach me. I saw that the cities on the spoke between justinians sea and the sea they were sharing with mali were not properly protected. My idea was to enter that sea and get Justinian unawared. I could send forces by land but Justo would see them and have his time to prepare to meet them or even counter attack. So boating there was much better. At least he couldnt know that I picked up literally everything like antitanks, infantries and workers.

Meanwhile Kankan appeared with a military alliance proposal. Only from him I found out that it was him who attacked but Justinian had a devastating counter-attack with great artist. Of course any help did me the huge favor because I could hardly breakthrough against full army of Justo waiting for my attack. but against busy opponent I could act pretty effective. We agreed to keep pressure on him from both sides.

The situation by that time (T52-T54) was the following
- I almost purged former Brennus lands from Justinian using that he was busy
- but as I mentioned there was huge risk that he would gain more in the north
- I replanted some of the cities but still couldnt feel safe there because he could return and kick my borders back by replanting
- I had my units in transports ready for something

Also you can see minimap of the screenshot : and this one

I rushed into the inner sea but failed to keep cities on the spoke even the one I replanted. Due to better air support and luck Justo didnt let me come on the distance to attack anything. Anyway his cities on the coast of that sea were well placed and protected so I couldnt make real threat to him. But it seems that I interrupted his plans on Kankan and he wasnt dying, Mission was accomplished though Justinian was advancing to my fleet tile by tile and I still had not enough ships and planes to counter-attack so I had to retreat. And the path to retreat was cut.

Meanwhie Isabel was growing in all terms and I had to keep major forces on her borders .The game was already done by that moment because Justo seemed to lose his motivation after he got backstabbed. But with each turn the risk of entering into deep nuclear war later with Isabel was rising. So I had to invent something..

[OT4E]

Part 7, hopefully the last one

I was convinced that I need to destroy Isabella's peacefull development. It was some kind of break on Justinian's front. I couldnt advance in the south, my fleet was not enough for open attack and Justinian wasnt really going to capture anything.

By that time my fleet was located in the sea between Kankan and Justo, but was slowly retreating tile by tile. I had significant garnisson on Isabella's front in the East and some units in the middle. I also started producing commando marine in my West point cities. This is one of the Mocte's key advantages, he only need 17 exp for commando. I only had some of them distributed in the different parts of the map. I have to mention that I was in golden age and was growing GA on caste, so I couldnt slave, but I made many pre-slaved units and was chaining them out, so my power was rising up.

I decided to throw all of my armies separately. I knew it will be bloodbath because small stacks are very vulnerable and can be destroyed without significant loss from the defender. The goal was to raze as much cities as I could. After that I was going to restore army quick with my 30 cities.

Here is the initial plan.




I knew it would be costly but after all it turned to be real disaster for me.

First of all I lost ~20 spies trying to change Isabella's civics and making a small revolution in her front city. I was so mad that I couldnt make a revolt that I wasted literally all spies at that 44% and didnt leave one for counter-espionage. Therefore Isabella changed my civic using just 1 spy. This was the most painfull because it extended my revolt back to slavery by 5 turns. And without slavery I couldnt produce almost anything because of low pop and base production and constant need to build wealth.

The second thing I was losing all battles including 80, 95% with commandoes. What is worse one of that battles did 0 damage to defender. So therefore I failed to raze several big cities I wanted to get rid of most of all.

And the third thing I underestimated the capability of Isabella's army and got 90% of army completely eliminated. The main mistake was I didnt take in account promotions from generals she could get. In most common cases people use them for commandoes. I am still sure Isabella could make me much harm in counter attack because I left former arabian cities without any garnisson at all, so 2-3 commando could simply take them and could even deny me winning.

But fortunatelly Isabella didnt take opportunities to counter attack and was focus on defending. And in the return I got some lucky opportunities to raze other cities, inlcuding the most important battle for Murcia where I successfully sank all Isabella's fleet. I razed it with the last unit I had for that attack using commandoes too.

Also one of the breaking points was when Isabella changed civics to Mercantilism to which she was going to turn me in the first given opportunity I believe and I got lucky to return her to Free Market back. I think I could lose the game if I had to wait 5 more turns to switch back to Slavery. But finally I guaranteed that she could no longer switch me to anything, neither Justinian.

In just a few turns I restored my soldier count to 4 000 k but this time Isabella was dropped to just 3 core cities which were severe worn by urgent whips she had to perform.

I returned my fleet and some restovers to defend Kankan from Justinian final attack. I dont think that I made any decisive turn there, and I believe Kankan could have defended by himself at least against Justinian who had lost enthusiasm. Against me earlier Justinian was acting much better and effective.

In a few turns from that point I razed Constantinopolis using Great Artist and 6-8 commandos along with 5 other cities. But in fact there was nothing heroic since Justinian wasnt trying to do his best to defend. That's one of the reasons I have nothing to say about last 10 turns of this game, they were not really interesting.

Thank you for your attention.

Special thanks to Kerkus for playing really well especially at the beginning and mid-game.Your power was growing faster than mine, that's impressive.
Also for ChinChin for defending properly. You brought me some fun and made me worry.
Also for astrologic for his brave and desperate attack on Justinian. You are an expample how people must at least try to challenge and not sit behind.