Minitourney III - Spoilers

[Jawa Jocky]

That was too easy

I should have had a hard time getting caught up, but I've managed to do it by 950A.D. The AI will still beat me to the middle age's great wonders, but I should be back in the tech lead to start off the industrial era. I'm not this good, I think something really effected the AI tech pace in this game.

[Theseus]

Txuce, I'm glad you can play along now. Keeping track is a little bewildering though.

I suggest we all do a zip of key turing points, the way Sir Ralp did before.

I'll do one tomorrow... I'm going to bed, to dream of accelerating my worldwide takeover to Cavs (possible? impossible? 75 enemy cities to deal with).

Final thought: Just looking at our two games, I find it interesting that you went intercontinental so much earlier... maybe, against all of my earlier thoughts, I've gotten Arrianitis, and have a strange need to control MY continent first.

Naaaahhh...

[Txurce]

Theseus, I don't know if you saw my posts a while back on my use of the ultra-early archer rush, but one of its aspects is trying to juggle a few balls at once. Since my overall goal is not Ultimate Domination but to win asap, pausing in a domination game for any reason is to be avoided. The current tourney game led me into a less-than-optimal decision, which was to persist with a normal early archer rush. Even though I modified it by keeping a fifth city as a settler factory, the reality is that this unusual map allowed for extraordinarily large peaceful expansion (which can be seen in Nathan's amp, as well as elsewhere). That would have been a smarter starting strategy for me, since it took me a lot longer than most to research chivalry. On the other hand, my progress once I encountered the other continent - about 500 AD - was the sort that I look for with this very fundamentalist strategy.

Let me know how to put together a zip file, here or by PM, and I'll follow suit.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Txurce
Nathan:

You seem to have hit the Middle Ages first - did you basically build cities and libraries throughout the ancient age? This seems like a high-risk, high-reward approach to what you had identified as your overall scenario strategy. After that, your flood of GLs was the epitaph for the other civs, if one was needed. Something I found interesting is that your tech progress settled into normal mode around the time you contacted the other civs - in other words, your blistering Republic-by-550BC pace had slowed down. Any idea why? (I reviewed your republic map - you actually made it by 350 BC, about the same as the other smart guys.)

Yes, my focus was on cities and libraries (and courthouses in my most distant cities, since libraries in corrupt cities aren't worth much). There was some risk involved in neglecting my military so much, but from what little experience I have with this type of game, I don't think the risk was too great. I was high on the power graph, and there weren't AI forces wandering through my territory where an undefended city right next to them could prove to be an irresistable temptation.

I think my pace through the middle ages was pretty solid, but keep in mind that I picked up all but two of the optional techs and made the transition to Democracy along the way. That's about a 14-turn detour just for Printing Press, Democracy, and the anarchy of the transition. Alexman got to the industrial era earlier, but he's still in a Republic, and if he wants to switch to Democracy (I don't know whether he'll consider it worthwhile or not), he'll have to either research Printing Press and Democracy himself or wait for the AIs to do it. So I'm not unhappy with the pace I set. (Strictly from a "winning fast" perspective, I likely would have done better staying in Republic, but one of my goals is to have the entire continent be at least marginally productive if possible, and the corruption benefit of Democracy should help with that.)

Also keep in mind that past a certain point, "normal mode" for good players if all goes well is four turns per tech. Game rules make it physically impossible to do better than that unless the AIs do your research for you, so in the industrial age, my blistering tech pace has transformed into a blistering rush-buying pace (probably averaging 500 plus surplus gold per turn and peaking at over 900).

By the way, I'm up to 1270 AD and have about a seven-tech lead at the moment (thanks partly to ToE). Germany made Communism about as high a priority as I could have hoped for, so police stations in distant cities have recently become high on my list of things to buy with my excess gold.

Nathan

[Txurce]

Nathan, the detour to democracy would indeed explain why you eased up. Is switching to democracy from republic worth it, given that I assume you intend to switch back when you apply the Final Solution? The best way to do this might be to stick with democracy until your people revolt, and enter anarchy organically en route to monarchy, communism, or whatever you choose as your war government.

Are you more or less averaging a tech every four turns with a 500 gpt surplus? If so, I would say your Chinese engine is running on all sixteen cylinders.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Txurce
Nathan, the detour to democracy would indeed explain why you eased up. Is switching to democracy from republic worth it, given that I assume you intend to switch back when you apply the Final Solution? The best way to do this might be to stick with democracy until your people revolt, and enter anarchy organically en route to monarchy, communism, or whatever you choose as your war government.

Me, PLAN to switch from Democracy just for a piddling little war? People in a Democracy are quite tolerant of wars that swallow entire nations (aside from the odd far-away city or two) in two or three or four turns. I won't say that it's impossible that a particularly nasty combination of MPPs coupled with unexpectedly heavy losses could cause problems, but if all goes according to plan, this war (or, depending on how things go, series of short wars) will be a cakewalk.

I'm just about the ultimate blitzer: I come at the AI with everything I have and keep coming. And in the era of railroads, when "everything I have" is largely modern armor and mech inf, while all the enemy has is infantry and maybe the odd tank or panzer or two, that doesn't exactly make for long wars. (I won't bother with aircraft or artillery because they can't keep up!)

Are you more or less averaging a tech every four turns with a 500 gpt surplus? If so, I would say your Chinese engine is running on all sixteen cylinders.

It's definitely firing on all sixteen cylinders. My surplus varies quite a bit depending on what tech I'm on - I even had a deficit one turn out of four researching Atomic Theory so I could use ToE to get Electronics and Radio - but at the moment I'm averaging a 600+ surplus researching Refining. (I haven't actually played any more since my last post.)

Nathan

[Txurce]

Nathan, would you post a save of this sixteen-cylinder machine in action when you get a chance?

[nbarclay]

Here's the save from the time when I wrote my last couple posts. (I was able to move the science slider down a notch halfway through researching Refining, but I've since finished that and started researching Steel and I can get that in four turns without moving the slider back up - it's a slightly cheaper tech and I keep growing and investing.)

Note how built up southern Japan and Egypt are in spite of their distance; a lot of that is investment in rush building. Also note that quite a few of my more distant cities are being kept in WLTCD to bring corruption down to a tolerable level (in conjunction with Democracy and a courthourse). By the way, my Forbidden Palace is in Chinan on the flood plain north of Kyoto, just so you don't have to hunt for it too much.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

By the way, on thinking about it, the extra time I spent in the middle ages has a LOT to do with the current strength of my economy. Spending extra time there gave me more medieval turns with surplus gold to invest, and more time to build city improvements that had been neglected during my wars with Japan and Egypt. Had I entered the industrial era earlier, I wouldn't have had as much surplus early in the era, so I wouldn't have had as much momentum to keep investing as the era wears on.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Well, I finally muddled my way through the industrial era and launched my first intercontinental strike shortly after getting Computers. Three turns after my landing, America is no more. If I were running England, France, Germany, or Russia, I'd be worrying right about now.

I'm enclosing a save from the turn of the landing just before I hit the American city on North Island (which I could take the same turn my troops landed everywhere else). A total of nineteen transports were involved in the strike, although the two that hit South Island each had just five units (since I didn't expect much opposition there).

Now I wait to get Modern Armor to conquer the rest of the world. But I have my two extra luxuries, and I have my staging area, and that's what I needed.

Nathan

[jshelr]

Looking at the replay after the game, Japan got off to a very slow start. I wonder if the barbarians were especially hard on them early.

Txurce's Postscript

To achieve true WW3-like invasions with a credible AI response, it may have made more sense to say that no intercontinental invasions are allowed until 1950. This would allow at least one AI civ to stock up on MI and bombers, and make more of a game of it.

(He's right, of course. The postscript is essentially what I did. I held back until they got the tech to fight reasonably evenly. It was interesting in a way, and my report's below.)


Major Findings:

„« I think the slow research question probably indicates that the Euro civs had been constantly at war for 6000 years.
„« You Can Use RoP to Improve Invasion Mobility
„« Enemy MI Require Attacking Civ to Far Outnumber Defenders, Radar Artillery Makes Attacking Much Harder
„« The AI Civs Often Implode in the Modern Era -- They Did This Time
„« The Combined Arms Technique That Works Best Is MA Blitz Preceded By Nukes

Scenario: Having cleared Cleo from the large continent, I had fringe settlements from America and the UK. I was waiting for the AI to acquire all the military hardware to make things interesting: nukes, MA, MI, radar artillery. There was a trapped panzer on my continent.

China was the dominant economy and by far the largest civ, protected except for these fringe cities by water and ahead on tech. If I can't win this one, it's time to go back to golf.

Researched all the way to integrated defense and built the missile defense small wonder. I did this so the AI civs would have enough time to build up a decent defensive force. Had about 50 ICBMs.

Two four-unit vet MI armies, two settlers, and 15 transport loads of MA were ready to go at the Chinese city closest to the American coast.

Step one: made right of passage agreement with France.

Step two: launched invasion, covered by 10 battleships and two carriers with a destroyer out front. (Ridiculous overkill for this game.)

Got three turns into the trip to France when Joan and Bismark declared war on America. I was then lucky enough to be one turn from landing on the mountain on America's upper coastline. So, since I didn't want to wait several turns while Bismark and Joan carved up Abe, I landed the whole stack on the mountain.

BTW, I think landing on mountains from the ocean should be fixed. It's too powerful and too unreallistic.

With the two armies of MI the stack was virtually invulnerable, even without artillery. I had omitted artillery since the RoP with France was designed to make this a multi-target blitz war where artillery would just be drag.

At this point, I took out the US cities on China's homeland, although one was a two turn effort because the city could not be reached by MA in one turn. It had a tactical nuke in it!!!!

Then I got a big gift because England declared war on me. This let me stay in Democracy for a long time in the coming war. They only had one city in China which disappeared immediately.

Abe was busy elsewhere and just left the stack alone. It took three turns to eat through the mech infantry defenses and overcome some geography limits in the American invasion. I was amazed that neither Bismark or Joan took anything.

Set up the airport on the second turn and started pumping in reinforcements as they were built on the home continent. Also, it was just 10 tiles from China to America, so I parked several battleships half way and made a safe passage for transports.

Aeson's recycling blitz tactic works great. BTW it delivers a foreign national as the settler. So, there may be a flip risk if you leave the new city unoccupied. (For those who missed it, Aeson's tactic is to sell improvements in captured cities for both shields and gold. This allows the accumulated shields to immediately build a settler. On the first turn after capture, you abandon the city and use the new settler to build a fresh one. This ability requires researching recycling or buying it from the AI.)

The US war got me all I needed, including additional luxuries. England is at war with France and Germany. I back off a bit and build more MA for a few turns.

When I'm ready to go, I try to use Bismark's stranded tank on the home continent to make him declare war on me. That does not work, since the program does not give me the option of telling him that he's in my territory. Not sure what happened there. Does the program recognize there is no way for Bismark to remove the tank.? He could still disband it.

Anyway, failing that ploy, I planted a few spys in France. Joan cheerfully killed them all, but would not declare war.

Bismark missed the spy entirely. His army was not impressive, underweighted in MA and overweighted in MI. I wondered at the small number of nukes. The reason turned out to be the AI had been in nuclear war for some time. Cities had been hit and completely cleaned up by the time my MA arrived on the scene.

So, China proceeds to batter cities in a steady blitz of the continent. The AI nuke war left many cities relatively weak and probably crippled their ability to build units rapidly. I took most cities out in standard fashion with no bombardment. MA attrition was significant. I think it takes about 15 MA to take out a metropolis defended by five MI. You will lose about five MA knocking hit points off the five MI. The next five MA will usually win. The last five can clean up any stragglers and provide a few healthy survivors to defend. Judged by the times I ran into them, if the city has a stack of radar artillery and, say, 10 MI defenders, it would take a huge number of attacking MA to win.

There were a few healthy cities where I proceeded the attack by dropping a nuke. In a close fight with limited attacking resources, this would be the only way to blitz successfully. It degrades the defenders significantly -- BUT IT ALSO SCREWS UP THE RAIL NETWORK.

It is interesting to note that nuking makes me sick. I will, however, cheerfully raze a captured city completely. Strange.

I found very little use for artillery or airplanes on offense. MA move too fast. Nukes are much more powerful at softening up.

In conclusion, SR's idea remains a good one. Maybe someone should volunteer to post a saved game when he comes naturally upon a situation where a moderan era war/invasion looks necessary and of uncertain outcome. Then we could all play it out.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by jshelr
When I'm ready to go, I try to use Bismark's stranded tank on the home continent to make him declare war on me. That does not work, since the program does not give me the option of telling him that he's in my territory. Not sure what happened there. Does the program recognize there is no way for Bismark to remove the tank.? He could still disband it.

I don't know what happened, but as long as Bismarck has a city left, auto-retreating works. I moved a few leftover troops of my continent, and had a few troops removed from an island as well. Seas are not stopping retreat-options.

You did have an embassy, didn't you?

I found very little use for artillery or airplanes on offense. MA move too fast. Nukes are much more powerful at softening up.

The only way airplanes can keep up is stationing them on carriers, and moving these after / before you let the bombers loose. However, it is not really necessary, outproducing the AI on MAs is less tedious.

DeepO

[Harovan]

Sounds like you guys are having fun. Glad to hear . I definitely won't be able to play at least till next week. During the week I have a lot of work, a deadline is pressing me, and the next 2 weekends I'll have guests, so I guess my game is doomed. I never continued a game I didn't play for more than a week. Oh well. May be the next minitourney then.

[Velociryx]

Hmmm...that's an interesting idea....I might fiddle around with that....not exactly mismanage my empire, but play "stalwart isolationist" for a while--simply make a rule for myself that I will not make any tech trades with the AI up to the save point...having to research it all myself, in the face of cooperative AI research *should* put them in a decent position...and I'll make sure to reign in the expansion, too...give us a good, sturdy lil' Switzerland nation, and see what happens from there?

I'm thinking about:

Large
All map settings random (or maybe even one of the 'pelago settings for landmass)
Raging Horde Barbs
12 Civs (lots of potential for cooperative research)

Level: Monarch or Emperor?
Civ: Unknown...but prolly the Babs (since I won't be attacking and expanding much in the ancient era, at least the greater bulk of my buildings will be cheap!)

I'll play the game until I hit.....what? Halfway thru the Industrial Era? Just outta the middle ages, and then we'll do a compare from there?

If anybody's interested in something like that, lemme know!

-=Vel=-

[Harovan]

Good idea. But a lot of people will have problems to play, because a large map in the modern age needs a state of the art computer to perform well, especially when making invasions etc., with lots of units involved.

As for the termin to publish the game, I would suggest the moment when both Replacable parts and Refining are discovered, because that is the moment when the era of the modern land and sea units begins.

I would like to play this out, maybe starting next week.