AU207: Big Planet - Strategy, Spoilers and Comments

[BigDork]

Arrian...

I can't even imagine that number on a standard map. But I'm sure if I had that now I could make short work of my continent and put a dent in the other.

I suspect I'll learn eventually. But I personally enjoy being a builder too. My closest thing to pure warmongering is 302 and that is turning into a fun, fun game.

BigD

[badams52]

Originally posted by Arrian
I was also happy to pull off another "first" for me: the 4x elite* Cavalry army. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Cavaliers (who generated leaders 7-10) were brought together as 20hp of 3-move hell-on-hooves. Muwahahaha!

Always wanted one of those.

BigD: Sounds like loads of fun. War certainly adds much enjoyment in any civ game I play. And of course when you have UP, the enemy rolls over like trained dogs.

[Harovan]

Now that most of you finished it already, I finally started this game, with France (I love France on huge maps!) on Emperor with the PtW AU mod.

Got a kick start, using 2 floodplains and the cattle as food source, went warrior-warrior-warrior-settler-granary and after I had the settler pump ready, I rexed like mad. Had a short skirmish with Babylon to my south, which netted me 2 workers and some money. I succeeded to keep the Zulus and Germans out by blocking the isthmuses.

Later I finished Babylon and attacked the Zulus, to get some more room. Although I didn't conquer so much, as the adjacent AI land is awful (jungle and hills) and I better wait till the AIs cleared this a bit.

I was sneak attacked by the Germans, made an alliance with the Mongols against them, and the Mongols sneak attacked me too. So everyone of us 3 was at war with everyone else. Lovely. The Mongols burned one of my cities, before I could stop their success (they came with a huge SoD). After this, they luckily went more after the Germans than after me. The Germans came with lots of Knights and gave me some problems (and fairly big losses), before I could push them back.

My wars gave me 3 leaders so far, I used them for an army (--> Heroic Epic), Leo's and a well placed FP. I built JS Bach's for good and hope to build Adam Smith's too.

It's 770AD and the Ottomans just sailed over. I leveled the techs of both continents, before the AIs do it (I was lucky to intercept the first galley). Our continent didn't have Navigation yet, since I went for Banking-->Economy instead of Astronomy, for obvious reasons.

I have the tech lead (shared with 2-3 AIs) and am the biggest and most powerful civ (France 1669, Ottomans 1370, Mongols 1212). Fun game so far, although I don't yet know if I have the time to finish it. Huge map games get very slow in the industrial age.

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well, I just finished my third turn of the war against Mongolia. I knew going into it that it was gonna be a quick war but I wasn't expecting it to go this quick. I guess after facing a massive counter-attack against the Japanese in my last war I was just expecting it in the war. But it really didn't happen.

Turn#2
I grabbed 3 cities on this turn. I got a leader. Yay!!! I used it to relocate my palace up to Berlin. This was also a good turn as far as casualties go. I lost 0 units and the Mongols lost 12 infantry, 1 rifleman, 4 cavalry, and I captured another artillery.

Turn#3
Another great round. I took two more cities. I also got another leader. Two in two turns ain't bad at all. I am saving this one for the UN. Apollo is almost complete already and the dang Koreans beat me to Fission and want more than I'm willing to give to trade for it. I'll get it in 3 turns and then just rush the dang wonder. The Mongols lost 7 infantry and 2 musketmen. I lost two MA.

The screenshot is how my game stands now at the end of the third turn.

#1-15 MA and 2 tanks about to strike at Kazan. I have several ships off the coast bombarding and also jet fighters and bombers located in Ta-tu also striking at the city.

#2-11 MA about to take the Mongols capitol for me. Once Karakorum has fallen I will be in control of the Oracle. Woo-hoo!

#3-19 artillery and 4 MI for defense. I've never really been a fan of bombardment but since the AI is just giving me the stuff left and right I might as well use it. Plus it's coming in quite usefully. Kinda changing my mind on the whole artillery strike before you launch an attack.

#4-10 MA and 1 tank. The tank just produced my leader and is going to get an upgrade. Also several of the tanks were wounded in the taking of the city. However I have a bunch of tanks back in Frankfurt that will be nice and healed and ready to go next turn. They'll be coming to join up with this group to take out New Leipzeig.

#5-5 MA and 3 tanks. These are moving with a support of battleships and destroyers taking the island cities. The cities aren't very well defended and it's not taking long at all.

Basically at the end of every turn I've been sending all my damaged units back to a Frankfurt to a)heal and b)regroup. Then I send them back up to the front where needed healed and ready to go. I usually just let the units heal where ever they are and it kinda gets disorganized pretty quickly. And a more simple war is a lot easier war.

Same as before. Yellow arrow stage 1, blue arrow stage 2, green arrow stage 3. I'm thinking 3 or 4 more turns max. And then it's time to hurt Tokugawa.

BigD

edit:forgot #5. Oops

[BigDork]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Our continent didn't have Navigation yet, since I went for Banking-->Economy instead of Astronomy, for obvious reasons.

Sir Ralph...

Umm...can you enlighten me to those obvious reasons? It's not very obvious to me.

BigD

[badams52]

I'm just guessing, but economy = Smith's = lot's of free 1 gold improvements = improved cash flow.

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well turn 4 is over and I grabbed a lot more than I was expecting. The Mongols should only have this last turn.

War weariness started to set it. I probably had about 10 or so cities go into civil disorder. But I just bumped up my luxuries to 10% and that should do the trick. It's not like I'm going to be at war much longer.

I managed to take 4 more cities this turn. But it cost me some.
I lost 3 MA. The one that really hurt was an elite that was killed by a redlined infantry. The Mongols lost 12 infantry, 2 musket, 1 pikeman, 2 marines, 1 frigate, and 1 ironclad.

I've got 54 MA right now and more are being produced each turn. After this last turn of war I'm gonna regroup and hit the Japanese hard. My first target, their oil. After that it's just a mop up action.

I haven't decided yet if I approve of the English having a city on my continent. But I have a little while before I have to worry about that.

BigD

[BigDork]

Forgot the screenshot.

BigD

[BigDork]

Originally posted by badams52
I'm just guessing, but economy = Smith's = lot's of free 1 gold improvements = improved cash flow.

Makes sense to me.

BigD

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well it's pretty much over. They are down to one city on the southern island defended by cavalry. I'm attacking with 4 elite tanks. Hrm, tough call there.

The screenshot shows the biggest set back I had in the war. I had 4 jet fighters, 2 bombers, and 2 MI in the city when it flipped. That was my whole air force!

One thing I noticed from this war was that the Mongols were sending their workers into Japanese territory and then disbanding them. I guess they really didn't want to become part of my slav....I mean foreign work force.

Considering what I was fighting with and against I was surprised at the number of losses I endured. This last turn I lost 3 more MA. One was to a regular musketman. But they lost 2 cavalry, 5 riflemen, 6 infantry, and 2 musketmen. All they have left is a couple of cavalry in their last city.

And now, on to Japan!!!

BigD

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well I rushed the UN with the leader from my war with the Mongols. I decided that I'd had enough of 207 and decided to call the vote. What was I thinking!!!

So Wang is the winner. Everyone was polite with me. But I guess they just love Wang more.()

So I'll probably go back and play it out later. I'm 1 turn away from Apollo and then I'll just blast off into space. But for now I'm done. It's been a thrilling day of Civ but it's bed time. More later...

BigD

[Harovan]

Originally posted by BigDork
Sir Ralph...

Umm...can you enlighten me to those obvious reasons? It's not very obvious to me.

BigD

Basically what badams52 said.

Originally posted by badams52
I'm just guessing, but economy = Smith's = lot's of free 1 gold improvements = improved cash flow.

It's not only 1 gold improvements. With PtW, Smiths makes free upkeep for Harbors (1), Marketplaces (1), Banks (1), Airports (2), Commercial Docks (2) and Stock Exchanges (3). Together they have 10 gold upkeep, though not every city can have Harbor and Commercial docks. Multiply this with about 30-40 cities of your low and medium corruption core and you see, how obvious the reason is.

[badams52]

Oops, my mistake on the 1g improvements. I was thinking Civ 2 for a second there...forgot it was only the "trade" city improvements.

And obviously Smith's became much more important with PtW.

Origianlly posted by BigDork
War weariness started to set it. I probably had about 10 or so cities go into civil disorder. But I just bumped up my luxuries to 10% and that should do the trick. It's not like I'm going to be at war much longer.

There have been many times I've been at war and had the luxury slider up to 40/50% due to WW. One time my war lasted so long the citizens revolted and I had to switch to monarchy. I tried to switch back into democracy hoping that WW had been reset. It wasn't.

I wish after 1 revolution you could "check out" all forms of govt and see which one will work best a la civ 2.

[Theseus]

I'm reaching the end... doing an AAR is gonna take a while. I also haven;t read everybody else's yet, so bear with me.

Painful on my poor and old but trusty computer... but a LOT of fun!!

[nbarclay]

Egypt - The Early Years (4000 BC - 230 BC)

I'm finished, and since my previous posts were rather sporadic and lacking in screenshots, I'll start over from the top. I'm hoping for an AAR worthy of a huge map.

Egypt sprang forth from the valley of the Nile, lands of flood plains, grasslands, and even a few grazing cattle. Fortune smiled on her people when friendly tribesmen nearby taught us the skill of Pottery in our earliest days, and we immediately set to work on a granary. Doing so left us vulnerable militarily and with little chance to scout our surroundings, but our people valued growth above all else.

We got a bit of a scare in our early years as a group of warriors who called themselves Babylonian wandered around our poorly defended lands. But peace prevailed, and our nation was able to grow large and prosperous. We researched straight toward a form of government we would someday call Monarchy, sacrificing speed of research in favor of the accumulation of massive amounts of gold. In the meantime, since we had never taken the time to learn how to figure out how wheels worked (and since so much nearby terrain could not be crossed by wheels in any case), we started training over thirty fighting units with clubs in the hope that the same skills could later be transferred to swords.

Monarchy came in 510 BC, and with it numerous exchanges of technology. The Zulus, Mongols, and Japanese had knowledge of the making of Maps, which we lacked, but otherwise, we were caught up with the rest of the world. More importantly, we could finally start production of war chariots, a unique innovation unmatched anywhere in the rest of the world.

Expansion continued, but we saw that we would soon reach a point where peaceful expansion proved impossible. That left only one alternative: war. In 230 BC, we were ready.