Emporer Ancient Era - How do you balance needs?

[planetfall]

UnOrthodox,

Only 2 victory conditions: score, conquest. That tell you what I think of spaceship victory. Did once, and now it's the old song "been there, done that", extremely borinnnnng.

Posting a puzzle like this makes me stop and think about what to do rather than just pushing petal to the metal.

Currently don't like invasion from north because of delay. More I think about it I don't see value is smaller big island. Damage Iroquois could do is limited by range.

Thinking now, plan will be:
-- rest of continent
-- western big island
and then reevaluate. The key strength of Iroquois is in the southern middle of the snake. Without looking at terrain, NNE looks good and so does the Eastern point with 2 cities on it.

I think in Modern Era I need to beeline to Internet as I keep on losing the tech race progress. I'm thinking it is more important to get Robotics than synthetic fibers. Hopefully by that time, AI will have ecology at least and make that cheaper.

The only reason I can think of taking small island is if there is a resource there the Mayans insist on trading.

Don't think I need Marines yet. I have found it more effective to bring along a couple of settlers for cities and workers for airfields than taking cities. By that time I will be either fascist, hopefully, or monarch.
I think fascism gives slightly better researching than monarchs and too close of a game to try communists when I have never tried them before.

Again, thanks for your suggestion.

PF

[planetfall]

D#!^%&*!!* commerical civs

So much for option A and B. This is looking grim.

Good news is cyan Mayan's are gone. Bad news is Iroquois has a new city on both of the big islands AND the southern tip of my continent. How dare they????

I was wondering why I am having so much difficulty with just a jump from Monarch to Emperor. And then I noticed, Iroquois is commercial. Ugh, have I mentioned I hate the $%&**@$% commercial civs. I always target France early as they are commercial, but forgot about Iroquois. Ugh.

My military sucks, my tech lead has shrunk to 1 tech. I am demo and they are fascism and they are still gaining in techs. There is no one else to trade with so this is all self research. According to F11 I am ahead in MFG. But about 1/4 of last 10 turns that has toggled from 1st to 2nd to 1st....

Rough current military:
Germany::Iroquois

Junk navy, frigates, etc --- 0::50
Navy, cruisers, DS, trans -- 7::12
Bombers----------------12::15
Infantry----------------50::225
Tanks------------------40::0

Iroquois are building bombers like mad now and have about 10 in south point city. I am trying to culture flip the city, but don't know if that will work.

With that much navy I don't think I can use tact nukes.

Nuke question
Can tact nukes target any tile or are they restricted like ICBM's to city centers?

So now what should I try to do? I don't see any method of invading with 225 infantry, probably soon to be mechs. I don't see any options for conquest win except: sandbag a ton of cash and as soon Manhattan is completed, rush a ton of ICBM's and launch next turn.

Any other ideas for a conquest win? If not, I will have to keep plugging for a scoring win, but I expect Iroquois to invade fairly soon. Probably as soon as a culture flip works. My military is "weak".

PF

[vmxa1]

Mobilize

[planetfall]

Funny you should mention that. I was planning on doing that but needed to get Internet first.

PF

[planetfall]

Nope, decided not to mobilize. I am slightly ahead in score now and just researched fascism and switched to fascism. MFG is still number 1 so I should be able to handle without mobilization. I don't want to mobilize because there are about 125 turns left and after about 80 turns I should have the old Mayan cities starting to contribute military as well. But first I have to get happiness and factories in those cities.

Very interesting game now. I had been getting better so wars were moving earlier and earlier. It has been since the early PTW days that I had to fight a modern war.

The AI has definitely been improved for C3C

I used to see one or two attacks. Now what I am seeing is:

-- multifront attacks: NE, NW, SW, SE
-- carriers parking 10 tiles away from cities and bombarding
-- bombers hitting from any land base in range

No lo nger can 8 bombers defend a city effective from a city.
The AI is putting out a stack of
-carrier, 4 bombers
- 3 DS
My 8 bombers can wound those 4 ships, but rarely destroy them.
Here is the interesting part, after being wounded, the AI moves those 4 ships out of range into a port to heal. AND moves another stack into position. So by alternating healthy carrier/healing carrier, my poor city is under regular attack. Even 4 flak are not very effective. The DS are more effective vs bombers than 4 flak. Come on research, I need better AA.

And even more interesting, now a new carrier of 4 fighters is joining the bombing carrier. Wow. nasty, nasty.

I am kind of stuck again. I have 1/2 of my navy: all carriers, most transports, a few BS,DS. But defending against carrrier bombers eats up resources and I can't fill carriers with airforce or build up rest of navy. Much less the army units needed for invasion. I'm hoping ManuPlants will give me an edge. Right now researching Rockets so I can get jet defenders.

Any ideas on a good strategy vs carrier task forces?

Also, is there anything I should NOT be building at this stage of the game?
PF

[UnOrthOdOx]

Q: How many pop did the different size cities lose on the switch to Fascism?

I haven't gotten around to it yet...

[planetfall]

2 unless it is a very small city. The city never loses all its citizens. Iroquois were already Fascist and I didn't not want to experiment with commie at a new level since I have never played with that govt.

Biggest problem is with newly conquered cities you can't build culture buildings until your population is greater than native population. So in conquering and where you need culture, you bring in settlers. Also rushing is pop rush instead of cash rush.

PF

[UnOrthOdOx]

Well, I'm a fan of the pop rush, personally, but am also a big fan of communism, so haven't ever pulled the trigger on going to Fascism.

I had a sandbox game I was going to use as a testbed and switch between all the govt to compare, but I got a virus and lost that save so I've gotta set up a new one here...

[vmxa1]

I tried to warn you about the bombers, they are pesky. Carriers and transports always have three escorts. This makes it very hard to hurt them, unless they get too close to shore.

[vmxa1]

So you can either go ahead and pay the cost of replacements and chip away at the fleets and bombers they have until you can win or go on a serious build up and attack them.

[planetfall]

Unorthodox,

For sandbox suggest setting up a scenario with debug and make them identical. Then after you change to fascism, you can use the Control-A to add back 2 citizens to changed cities. You will have to make a list of cities and their size prior to fascism switch.

vmxa1,
Well other than the scenarios, I had not see how C3C played. It is different with DS/BS having AA. I'm seeing a ton more DS than before, guess they are bomber fodder.

Impulse is to get carriers, transports before land, but have to think this thru. It may not be the best strategy. Just building bombers and using them to get AI at max range is not working. Too many turns are churned.

I think I might try letting them hit, taking a few lumps, until they get closer where I can get the wounded as they try to escape. Losing bombers to yellow or even red ships is a lose situation.

PF

[vmxa1]

One thing I have been seeing is the the carriers will never come any closer than they have to, in order to be in range. As you have seen this makes taking them down with bombers very hard to do and very boring. You need maybe 20 bombers. If you do not sink the ships, they will go into port and heal and you will have to start over.

They will sent transports with escorts in and those can be blasted with arties and sunk by plane or ships. They soon give up on that and you will only see carriers.

The only way to stop it is to go after them or get a victory.

[Aqualung71]

I'm with vmxa1 - naval warfare has become a lot more tricky. To avoid paying the high price of a war of attrition, you've got to build your naval/air forces and then hit them all at once. Bombers are vital because their bombard capacity is much better than ships, but you just have to accept that you're going to lose a bunch to AI ship AA.

One strategy the AI used against me in AU501 was to use subs to specifically target my Carriers, which a BS/DS/CS escort is powerless to stop.....it was a bit too late to hamper my invasion, but if done at the right time it would have seriously screwed my plans. Still, watching the shield investment of a Carrier and 4 Bombers sinking to the ocean floor is not a pretty sight!

[planetfall]

C3C AI naval maneuvers

Ok, this game is basically over. Two cities on purple snake continent and one air field. Alas in establishing the DDay base, 2 Iroquois cities had have an improvement auction. But with fascism what can you do. Oh such a shame.....

Overview of AI naval maneuvers
Please review and let me know if you see anything amiss


1. Carrier task force
Numbers-- Here may see more if AI has strong lead, but with civs about equal I see 3-4 task forces.
Composition-- 1 carrier, 2 DS, 1BS, at least 3 bombers, maybe a fighter
Movement traits-- tends to hug coast and setup 10 tiles away from target city so it's bombers can have long runs. At least 2 sites will be chosen, usually at opposite ends of empire. It is common for carriers to alternate to respond to human bomber action. Wounded carrier will port and revived carrier will take post position for a regular bombing action. Escort vessels practice static defense rather than active defense as they are concerned with air defense.

2. Transport force
Numbers-- Vary, but usually see at least 2 enroute
Composition-- 1 transport, either 3DS or 2DS and 1 BS, plus troops of course. Do not see artillery on transport.
Movement traits-- Tend to go open ocean direct for target. Since going shortest route to target do not try to avoid coast lands along journey.
When most naval units are red lined, often freezes next turn: neither considering this force a suicide force nor attempting a retreat.

3. Sub force
Numbers-- Just a hand few
Composition-- lone wolfs
Movement traits-- tend to be open ocean and see out carriers.

4. Bombardment units
Numbers-- usually several BS and DS on patrol and coast bombardment.
Composition-- lone wolfs
Movement traits-- used to destroy coastal tile improvements and to distract human from main action.

Overview of Response tactics

1. Air only
a. vs Carrier task force
Since the Carrier force has 4 units with AA and fighters, and you want success, i.e. 3-4 bombers/unit and carrier has weaker values so it is the last to go, you need somewhere in the neighbor of 20 bombers per Carrier force. This is a massive number and any less will probably just result in you losing bombers for zip.

b. vs Transport force
Again 4 units, but vulnerable to air. Often they are by the coast and so vulnerable to artillery. If so lucky, hit first with art's to reduce AA effect. I saw loss ratios of bomber vs DS of about 1:5 and bomber vs BS of about 1:3 to AA action. Very favorable to human. 100sh for bomber traded for 5*120=600s or 100sh traded for 3*200=600. So for every bomber you lost to AA, AI loses 6 x as many shields. Can you say war of attrition. The units on the transport force are extra bonuses.
Normally you don't have to worry about synced Carrier and transport forces.

c. vs Sub force
Unless subs are near shore, you can't see them and so can't attack them. You need DS or AEGIS to find them within range of your bombers. No AA so easy 100 shields. The only problem is the annoyance of running all these search missions in order to locate them.

2. Ship only
Have not tried these but here is eval anyway.
a. vs Carrier task force
Need good stack of BS/DS. Expect to lose several to bombers plus defense of BS. Caution attacking DS can easily take out your BS.
May be slightly less costly than Air missions, but will still take sufficient resources.

b. vs Transport force
Here you don't need to worry about bombers, so success will be higher. This is just offense vs defense. You need to be on offense for best results. Only problem is getting in position as AI will target where you are not.

c. vs Sub force
Here success is high. You just need a ton of DS in order to find the sneaky buggers.

3. Sub only
a. vs Carrier task force
This is the way to go vs this unit. Get a wolfpack of at least 3 subs. Favor the open sea and set up so you either end up at the carrier or 1 tile closer to carrier. Assume you will lose 2 subs, 2*120=240shields. Sometimes the 1 tile escape will avoid AI counterattack. You will trade 240 shields for subs for 180s carrier, plus the bonus of any aircraft on deck plus the extra bonus of no more sea based bomber attacks from that carrier. Bottom a couple carriers at AI favorite location, keep a couple packs in deep sea just waiting and AI will port carriers in vicinity. Mission accomplished.

b. vs Transport force
Not advised as your offense is generally weaker than defense. And the weak transport will out run you.

c. vs Sub force
Not advised unless find target of opportunity. The problem is not in power but in ability to find targets.

4. Redirect production
Best defense against AI navy is to increase AI need for army. Can we say DDay Revisited?

Thumbnail cheat list
AI Carriers -----use subs wolf packs
AI transport task forces ----- use Air Force
AI subs -----use DS and AEGIS
All AI Naval units ----- use DDay invasion.

Does this make sense and help at all?



PF