AU 105: The Power of Gold: Spoilers

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Theseus

The reason I'm so self-satisfied is that I've got the invasion of Persia queued up for the next turn, with 4 major landing zones (including rubber and aluminum denial), and huge amounts of bombardment support (JFs, Bombers, and CMs, not to mention the naval fleet) on two... suffice it to say that, among my total military force (353 units, including only 2 Workers), the attack includes 85 MA... and Xerxes has a grand total of 6 Tanks.

Is aluminum denial even relevant? It sounds to me like Xerxes probably doesn't have much idea what to do with aluminum yet if he's still stuck with tanks rather than MAs. In any case, it sounds like an impressive mismatch.

How do you say "buh-bye" in Persian?

If you're Xerxes, maybe, "Arrrrrgh!!!!"?

Nathan

[Catt]

RL time constraints have prevented me from playing the game (or likely doing so in the near future), so I went ahead and read through the spoilers - interesting challenge! Wish I'd had the time to play.

I might do what alexman did and play an OCC just because I haven't done so in a long time.

Catt

[Theseus]

My AAR to date (still haven't attacked Persia yet):

Great start site... build some Warriors, went exploring due south, saw the evil Romans. Whoa, Nelly!! I wasn't gonna take no chances... Thebes went on full "red" alert, and decided I decided to devote my one town to an ultra-early attack, with about 5 Warriors and maybe 3 Archers. No Workers, no Settlers, just go go go!!

The Romans settled Antium in between the two furs halfway between us... protected with a Warrior. Ha!! Destroyed it, moved on to Rome. Decided it would be too hard for the moment to beat one or more Spearman on a hill, so I pillaged, killed a couple of stray units, and negotiated peace.

Mind you, still haven't built a second town yet... just building Archers. Send off the force, built 1 Settler, and then started on the Colossus (had to have it given all that gold, so I startede on it early then normal). Attacked again when I had 8 Archers plus some remaining Warriors poised. Cost me 6 Archers. Take Rome, they respawn in the western jungle (haha), I extort Iron Working, 100 gold, and a Worker.

I'm diggin' this game!!

Start building out and exploring... met the Greeks. They look far too healthy, and start building outlier cities moving north... Luckily, they hadn't met the Romans, so didn;t know what a bastard I'd been.

So, I start building and expanding, filling in most of the good land above the jungle, all the while stocking up on Swordsman. I unleashed hell with two stacks of 10 each on Greece's two northernmost cities. Razed'em, but lost probably 6-7 or so Swords in the process (fewkin' Hoppies). Negotiated peace with Greece, got Mapmaking and something else, and went back to building.

Saw the Persians across the channel... good brokerage opportunities. Bastard Xerxes slipped a town into the jungle, but obviously it wasn't much to worry about.

Built, researched, and traded for a while... the picture below is at the pause before the Knight Storm, maybe 200-300 AD.

I actually hadn't saved it for the AAR; I blew it up so I could figure out where to put my FP and then relo the Palace. I wanted perfect positioning assuming that I would eventually fully control this hemisphere. I started handbuilding the FP in the town just above the Persian intruder just around this time, with the intent of eventually moving the Palace to either Athens or Sparta.

Oh, and I also used the downtime and the glorious power of being industrious to clear a path down through the western jungle, road it all the way to that single mountain just east of the new Rome, and build a fort there. Great rally point for the leftover Swords, and the many Knights that I'd soon have.

[Theseus]

The next chapter... Knight Storm.

The first piece of good news is that Greece goes to war with Persia, and razes the little jungle city. This lets me create a very good front line of barracks towns, east to west across the upper jungle. I quickly clear all the jungle immediately around these three towns (I'm fanatical about this). So know I've got a forward mountain fort, good repair and recovery facilities, and a strong road system from far in the north stabbing into the soft Greek belly.

On learning Gunpowder, and realizing that Greece had the only saltpeter on the continent, I went to town with about 30 Knights, supported by maybe 10-12 Swords. Got Rome out of the way as a first stop. Raze some crap Greek town, and wait for their offensive forces to come my way. I was pretty impressed too, with Greek attack stacks of usually 4 Swordsmen plus an Archer (the AI ain't so dumb), and stacks of 5-6 Knights at a time. Too many regs though. Also, Greece didn;t promote to Musketmen fast enough...

I mopped up, and the randomness gods started blessing me with promotions and then GLs. I had one string of Knight victories of 6-7 promotions in a row!!

Like I said, diggin' this game!

I ended up taking Delphi, Ephesos (wine) and Sparta, and razing I think 4 other towns / cities.

From GLs, an Army, the Heroic Epic, Sistine, Leonardo, and a new Palace in Sparta.

I took a break, and in the second Knight war, in which I took Athens (GLib ) and another town, I got a couple more GLs, for Bach, Magellan, Smith, and another Army.

Later, pre-building during the ensuing builder phase got me Newton and Univ Suffrage, and also assorted SWs.

With Cavs and then 5 attack Riflemen, the final continental battle with Greece was over (unfortunately the Iroq were able to sneak in one town on the west coast, but it didn't bother me too much).

On to the Production Phase.

[Theseus]

The Warmonger as Builder

As I always say, you need great infrastructure, and a great empire, to be a truly effective warmonger.

With the banishment of the Greeks from my lands, I went into massive builder mode... I actually don;t think I've ever had such a productive empire. The IW in Thebes rocked, even losing some to shields to waste. I was able to get out ahead on some techs too, and had gold just pouring in (over 10k in the bank, and more than 1000gpt coming in at 0.9.1).

My whole game strategy revolved around this period of time... I was sure I'd get Hoover, triggering my GA, and I wanted to have every city (almost) fully built out (and most of the jungle gone and the land railroaded) by the time it hit. I also wanted to to time the GA as closely as possible to the discovery of Motor Trans, so I could flip over to the creation of my invasion force for Persia... and mobilize at the same time!

I completed Hoover and went into the GA in 1560AD; here's the domestic screen:

[Theseus]

Building the Invasion Force

I researched Motor Trans just a couple of turns later; here's the domestic screen from 1530AD, when I was at peak production. BTW, notice that cities producing over 100 usable shields are building an Army (3 turns) or Tanks (1 turn), over 90 shields Infantry (1 turn), and over 80 shields Arty (1 turn).

I also gained the tech lead in the "corridor" coming off Electronics... I think that's a critical period to gain control of the game, as usually there are at least 3-4 techs in a row that everyone researches in the same order. Gain a lead there, wait a couple of turns, sell, rinse and repeat.

So the question is, will this use of my GA accomplish my goals?

[Theseus]

Building the Invasion Force, part 2

My GA ended in 1655AD.

By that time, I had built from scratch, solely during the GA:

3 new Armies (I had 2 from before)
54 solo Tanks plus 4 in Armies
13 Arty
17 Infantry plus 1 in an Army
19 Transports
2 Battleships

And, I ended with about 10000 gold.

My final attack force, which is now one turn away from landing in 4 groups, consists of:

85 MA
39 Infantry
36 Arty
5 Battleships
12 Destroyers
20 Subs
23 Transports
17 Jet Fighters
14 Bombers
16 Cruise Missiles

And, of course, beloved Armies:

One 2xSword+Musket+Infantry
One 2xKnight+Cav+Tank
Four 2xCav+2xTank

(I didn't realize I would get to Syn Fibers so quickly, and filled up the Armies with Tanks)

I also have one more Transport with 8 Marines going to take the oil island up north.

Even coming out of the GA, btw, my productivity has been sky-high. Having built hospitals everywhere, my cities are getting huge productivity gains from growth and thus working additional tiles... Thebes, for instance, is back up to 22.141.

Here's a picture before the brave lads went off to claim new lands:

[Theseus]

Nathan, the aluminum denial is just a side-product of taking the channel island with the rubber... Xerxes does have, however, 3 JFs and 9 Bombers, and I plan to eliminate the JFs first via my own JF bombing runs, and don;t want to face any more after they're gone..

BTW, the picture immediately above is a little artificial... in reality, this was just before I sent an initial task force to Persia's eastern coast... I shortly thereafter upgraded to MAs, and the rest of the op got under way.

It's all ready to go... enough writing, see ya after the slaughter!!

[vmxa1]

Thanks for the update.

[Catt]

Excellent, Theseus! Waiting for the invasion AAR!

In all the recent discussions regarding Palace Mobility, we never touched on an important consideration - the corrpution and waste effects of the Palace as it relates to fixed wonder locations. More to the point, it is often advisable to build those Great and Small Wonders that work off of local produciton items (after waste/corruption) near your FP rather than the Palace. You built the IW in Thebes and then suffered from waste after relocating your Palace - fortunately not much suffering since it is still churning out 140 net shields . And obviously we don't normally get a wide spectrum of choices on where to build the IW.

But it's easy to forget that a Palace move might have unintended consequences. In one of the first or second games where I was really playing with the tactic (as opposed to opportunistically relocating for some reason), I managed to relocate my capitol, only to discover that my city with the Colossus and both Copernicus and Newton's (in my former capitol's sphere of influence) had become a somewhat meager contributor to my total science output! I now try and build the science wonders, the Military Academy, etc. only in my FP core if there is any chance of my later relocating my palace.

[Theseus]

Yeah, I knew that was going to happen when I relo'd the Palace, so I spent sick gold getting courthouses, police stations, etc., up in the orginal core cities. And I did use my FP city as the primary SW site, other than the Military Academy.

Thanks for the discussions on how to do the FP / Palace thing, btw... it's really paid off in this game. Previously, I probably would have just left the Palace in Thebes, and built an FP down in Greece. What this will let me do is get the southern cities into good shape, and then relocate the Palace again into southern Persia.

[Catt]

Yup - it can be really powerful on some maps, especially after industrialization. Focusing on building courthouses, police stations, factories (and powerplants if no Hoover) can pretty quickly get an area to the "ex-core" stage -- i.e., ready to lose its Palace to a new location.

Catt

[Theseus]

The Attack, and After

Dateline: 1745AD. Massive landings.

Dateline: 1750AD. The attack begins. 7 cities captured.

Dateline: 1758AD. The Persian continent taken.

Here's the cool part: I finally found a use (for me at least) for communism. On completion of the attack, I triggered a revolution. In 1760AD, came out of it into communism, negotiated peace, getting out of mobilization, and changed all Persian cities to Temples. Poprushed in all cities where resistance had ended (2-4 cits at a time), and disbanded excess Arty in the others.

Very cool... here's the domestic screen at the end of 1760AD:

[Theseus]

Here's the 1760AD map:

[Theseus]

Jerxes de-camped the Persian capitol to the Azores... the island to the east of his former lands: