AU501 - DAR6: Endgame

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Rhothaerill
(I for one enjoyed the resource distribution since it added a bit of flavor to what was otherwise a slightly easy win...I should have played on demigod level).

I think that came out wrong. It wasn't that it was easy per se, just that the AI is notoriously bad at archipelago maps and I had a huge tech lead early on because of that. I essentially controlled the tech pace starting in the late ancient age and continuing throughout the game. Even when I stopped quick research to build my cash flow for knights I still hopped back in and quickly became the leader again.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Rhothaerill

It wasn't that it was easy per se, just that the AI is notoriously bad at archipelago maps

"Easy" in terms of lower risk of getting walloped or out-REXed early on because you're on your own island, agreed. Still enjoyable because the AI stayed competitive much longer in my game.

I was thinking I might try demi-god next time, but I'm not a good enough Emperor player yet and if the above factors aren't in play then the next game will probably be tougher.

[Aeson]

Just finished my game. Domination victory in 1670AD score of 7860. Took 47h 27m 3s overall, about half of that spent in the Modern Era.

My free tech was Computers. Someone was going to get Amphibious Warfare soon so I finally started garrisoning towns using Mech Inf. Was able to get about half garrisoned before the Russians did research it.

I had set up a nice ferry system to help clean up pollution without maintaining large numbers of Workers on each island. 6 units could move anywhere in my territory except the two small islands in the S, so I felt safe with just half my towns garrisoned. Put the Mech Inf along the outer coasts near the Russians, and started building up a navy, airforce, and offensive army.

I wanted to keep things fun, so limited the number of Bombers and Artillery to less than 20 each. I also didn't build a lot of Tanks, and no pure Tank armies. I wanted to have a real combined arms approach to the upcoming war(s).

My first target were the Mayans, as they had the top cultural cities and all the wonders basically. As luck would have it, the Mayans had a few units in my territory, and didn't like me much at all. I demanded they remove their units just as my landing force was in position, and then signed the English and Russians up against them. The French and Dutch were already at war with the Mayans.

Because the French were at war with them, the Mayan forces were up North, and my initial landing of 2 Cavalry Armies, an Infantry Army, and 9 Artillery met hardly any resistance. Landed next to the Volcano and took a city the third turn. The second wave landed, a mixed unit Tank/Mech Inf Army, the rest of my Artillery, and an Infantry/Guerrilla Army. I had built the Military Academy in my Capitol and been pumping out Armies ever since.

It took about 3-4 turns on average to take a city. Slow going even with the Armies. I was being careful not to let any cities flip with units in them, keeping about 30-40 units in a massive stack, and using cheap individual units as defenders. Every turn I set every pop point to Scientists (or Taxmen when a tech was about to complete) and rushed a Settler or Worker from each captured city, after first rushing a Library. This seemed to work really well, and I only had 2 flips the whole game.

The Russians were able to capture a Mayan city, but I took the rest. The French were much easier as they never had Rubber. My alliances were just ending, and I had purposely not made any deals with the French so I could declare war on them. Took all the French cities except the one I wanted, the one with Aluminium. I could trade with the Russians for it, but it would cost a tech. So I went to war with the Dutch next as they had captured that city and had 2 others on the French/Mayan island.

About this time the Russians decided to attack me again. They landed 4 units the whole time I was fighting them, a full 20 turns due to alliances I signed with everyone but the Mayans. Most of their units seemed headed towards the Dutch, as I had a few ships just watching their convoys go North. Luckily they had waited until after I was able to secure the Mayan source of Rubber.

The Dutch war was the most fun I've had in a while. Island hopping, ship chaining, and making good use of airpower and naval bombardment to take out all the pesky Radar Towers. I think there is a point where you could use AI Radar Towers as an exploit though, as they always will put a unit on one. Then they are sitting ducks for a combination of Naval and Air bombardment. Much easier than dealing with the units in their cities. I made a point of destroying the Radar Towers after killing the units on them because of this.

The Russians were still at war with the Dutch, and we kept fighting naval battles in Dutch territory. I had terrible luck on one turn failing to sink a couple of Russian Aircraft Carriers and then losing half my fleet to them. After that I left my transports to the North of the Dutch islands, and sailed the tatters of my fleet back home. This allowed the Russians to take the Southern Dutch island, except for one city I got from the Dutch for a peace treaty. Made peace with the Russians and kept the city.

The game was getting kinda long at this point, and so I decided not to wait the 20 turns before finishing off the Dutch. Up till then I had kept every agreement. Quickly finished off the Dutch and then sent everything I had to go hit the English. I also put together 2 Modern Armor Armies to help finish things off quickly.

I had built the UN, and would have won by vote at this point. Elizabeth had been voting for me each time, Catherine for herself, and the Dutch abstaining. With the Dutch gone, I decided not to call any more votes and go for a Domination victory.

First I scoped out all the English Carrier and Transport groups. On the first turn fighting the English I sunk 3 groups of ships and landed 8 Armies and all my Artillery (had captured quite a few by now) next to London, their Aluminium, and their Oil. 4 Aircraft Carriers full of Bombers and about 40 other ships bombarded the cities and Radar Towers, and I took 3 cities the second turn. After that it was slower going due to terrain and focusing on the Transport groups the English were sending out almost every turn. Really wish I had made a couple Marine Armies. The English had taken most of the NE Dutch island, and so I made peace for 4 of the cities there after taking about half their main island. Then broke the peace treaty and hit the Domination limit by taking 2 more of the main English cities.

I had stopped researching very fast at all (had gone for Stealth instead of 'space' techs), so the Russians were ahead of me in the Space Race, but I still had 2 techs they didn't. Had been able to stay in a Republic the whole game even with all the fighting.

[alexman]

Theodora’s Smile: part 11

For one hundred years after the discovery of Flight, the World entered a period of Cold War. The People’s Republic of Byzantium had entered the modern age as the technology leader over the World’s remaining Democracies, but the Mayas, English, and Dutch refused to acknowledge the superiority of the vast red empire. Instead, the democratic nations tried to spread their anti-communist propaganda, casting Theodora as an evil leader aiming for nothing else but world domination. That may have been true, but Theodora didn’t like to be hated like that. She boiled inside, but managed to control her temper. She spent her energy modernizing her empire’s infrastructure and at the same time continued building tanks and airplanes - just in case.

Finally, in 1405 AD, William of the Netherlands went too far. He had troops in her territory left over from an invasion of former Sumerian lands, and when Theodora asked them to return home, William declared war. It was a mistake that would cost the Netherlands dearly. Byzantine scientists had in the meantime reinforced their tanks with Synthetic Fibers, which made them better for breaking things. No, the Dutch military was no match for the Byzantine combined arms invasion force.

[alexman]

Theodora's smile: part 12

In just 65 years, Theodora reduced the Dutch archipelago from a rich and prosperous trading empire to just another component of the Byzantine Communist States. The Byzantine military machine, however, was far from done. In fact, it was just getting warmed up for the big showdown against hated Smoke-Jaguar, who had been the world’s largest superpower since the Ancient Age.

[alexman]

Theodora's smile: part 13

Theodora knew that she would obtain her world domination faster and easier if she went after Elizabeth next, but she wanted to play with her modern age toys by beating the biggest, meanest boy on the block.

So she used her veteran spies and her considerable accumulated gold to steal the plans for Smoke-Jaguar’s military, and then attacked him. These plans were especially valuable for locating and destroying the Mayan navy and air force before they had a chance to harass the Byzantine invasion force.

The battles that followed in the former French province of the Mayan mainland were fierce, and casualties from both sides were mounting. The Mayas eventually lost most of their navy and air force, but they still kept on fighting. When their Tanks were destroyed, they were smart enough to avoid confrontation with the Byzantine Armies. Instead, their counterattacks consisted mostly of sending swarms of TOW and Mechanized Infantry to flood and pillage the French countryside so that Theodora could not supply her recently conquered cities. The Byzantines countered by rushing harbors in the conquered cities, and using their navy to transport their army from one target to the next. Roads were not needed for the Power of Seafaring!

Finally, in 1520 AD, as Theodora’s forces approached the gates of Chichen Itza, Smoke-Jaguar took a look at the world map and realized that it was 66% covered by Byzantine Red. He saw no point in continuing to resist.

Theodora smiled in satisfaction. Her countless hours spent micromanaging workers, civil engineers, and ship chains had finally paid off. She had led her seafaring nation to world domination, and had a blast doing so.

[Dominae]

Awesome game alexman!

Equally-awesome report!

It's great to see many of you playing with Modern-era toys. Even on Deity most of these scenarios end with Tanks (and often long before that). Many of you commented that the Modern era was not really necessary, but I'm just glad the scenario was conducive to exploring it.


Dominae

[Theseus]

Great game and report, alexman. That's one heckuva Commie military machine you got goin' there!

My report's coming up shortly.

[Theseus]

Theseus’ end game (and beyond!)

As I had left off with the discovery of Flight, and Computers as a free tech, I was basically an idiot and playing out the game as a builder, rather than 1) thinking about the late game strategic resources that I would need and almost certainly NOT be available in my lands, and 2) taking advantage of a Monarchy empire built for warmongering.

Silly man.

On the other hand, and I think this is what sucked me into that path, I had one heckuva economic machine going, with very manageable corruption / waste, and as I’ve always said great warmongers have to also be great builders!

So, I was banging away at 100% research, had typically 800-1000+ gpt coming in, my treasury was well north of 10,000g, and so was building out and short rushing the fun late-game stuff like crazy…. Offshore Platforms, Mass Transit, Commercial Docks, etc., and then actually circle back for some of the not-quite-so-valuable buildings like Colosseums and what-not. For the lesser-developed cities, a quick ramp-up through the basics, but then getting them through Courthouses and Police Stations to self-sufficiency for the bigger builds, like Factories and Hydros. Everything was RRed and properly mined or irrigated by now, so I joined all of my native Workers to mostly Sumerian and Hittite cities, and had the slaves on pollution patrol. I used an SGL for the Internet, and hand-built SETI and then the CforC.

It was really a lotta fun!!

Here’s a pretty good representative screenie… Varna and Adrianapole were the only cities really fully built out, so I had them tasked to slooowly building out modern sea and land units. My military was pretty limited, with a TOW Infantry or MI in each city, sometimes one of each in key coastal cities; I had a whopping total of 2 Tanks at this point (although I did still have four Armies waiting for MA toppers).

[Theseus]

The Russians (amazing comeback) built the UN in 1630AD, but never called a vote… I wasn’t really worried about it, given the many MPPs and MAs and ongoing wars throughout the game. I was first outta the gate on building a SS, and got started on the Engine, Exterior Casing, Cockpit, and Docking Bay in the early 1600s. Looking back at saves, I still, for the LIFE OF ME, can’t imagine what I was thinking, knowing that I’d have major resource problems, and still just happily building away. I finally, FINALLY, started to wake up to the upcoming military challenge in the mid-1600s, and started loading MAs into the Armies and committing to military builds and a jump-point in Bad-Tibira at the northern tip of Sumeria. I still hadn’t decided whether to go after the Dutch or Maya.

[Warning: More stupidity in the road ahead. ]

Well, the good news about having built so much, and thus having gotten the productivity of most cities up to a reasonable level, and also of having saved up so much gold, was that I was able to whip up a meaningful military force pretty darn quickly. At the end of 1695 AD, I was posed to attack the Dutch, with two naval stacks as pictured below, splitting:
2 BB
2 Cruiser
4 Destroyers
6 Frigates
14 Transports
Two 4xMI Armies
Two MA+3x Cav Armies
Two MA+Cav+2xKnight Armies
Two MA+3xKnight Armies
10 MI
10 MA
4 MS
4 Arty

[Sidenote: As I posted at MZO last night, I absolutely LOVE how the extra movement point for Armies balances out 2- and 3-movers! ]

Typically, I prefer to mount much more massive and combined arms IC invasions, but I figured that given the strength of my Armies I could forgo such… and much like each of my previous wars in this game, I was wrong, and that meant this went slower than usual, and I had to scramble for reinforcements.

I also, absurdly, was still playing by Marquess of Queensbury diplo rules (which included not being in any current trades with the Dutch), and sillily (sp?) continuing with my builder-ish ways.

/me looks for the “I am the WARMONGER formerly known as rpodos” hat and t-shirt that have obviously been misplaced.

[Theseus]

But here was where my fundamental IDIOCY kicked in: Yes, the IC invasion was all but unstoppable, and yes, on the next turn I realized that more Colosseums, etc., was stupid, and switched most every decent city back to military units, and yes, I had completed seven SS components… but all of a friggin’ sudden, the Mayans were 5(4)/10 and the Russians were 4(4)/10, and both at tech parity or ahead of me, having researched different paths and traded!!

1700 AD sorta stopped my cold. I actually took a day or two off of playing to think about what I wanted to do.

[OK, hang on a sec, I’ve gotta digress into one of my “Civ3 meets Theseus’ RL” stories. My little pause in the end-game was, oh, about a week and half ago, call it 2/10. In RL, I advise corporations on real estate matters, and one of the initiatives I am involved in is as co-head of a team focused on European multinationals with significant North American operations. So, I’m on a conference call about this with people from all over the US, Canada, and Europe, but I’m also working on an unrelated memo, and I’ve got Civ3 stuff running in the back of my head, mostly AU 501 and GS… the discussion is about which countries to focus our resources on, and the woman charged with the Benelux countries (i.e., Belgium, Netherlands , and Luxembourg) complains that there aren’t enough companies to go after. I’m listening with half an ear, and someone says “Alright, then, let’s forget Benelux,” upon which I start with alarm, and blurt out “NO WAY! We’re going after the Dutch!!”]

Back to the game:

This whole situation s*cked, and it was my own damn fault. I decided on a four part plan:
1) Gotta go ahead and take down the Dutch, for the rubber and aluminum.
2) Need to massively and quickly build additional aggressive forces, concurrently getting my SS built.
3) Need to engage the world in MAs against the Maya (I’d take my chances on Russia).
4) Need to take down Chichen Itza.

Well, that was a whole lot to chew on, and it made for one heckuva end-game. I prolly cut it a wee bit overly close, due to my under-manned initial attack on the Dutch.

That said, I did in fact slam into the b*stards, taking down the southern Netherlands in short order, and thus securing the various resources. Back at home and in Japan, Sumeria, and Hittite-land I converted all meaningfully productive cities to military, primarily MAs but with a smattering of Destroyers, MIs and MSs in the low-shield cities.

But more importantly, by now we were all up to Smart Weapons, and the friggin’ Mayans were at 9(1)/10… I dialed back to 0% research, and between techs, resources, and gpt, enlisted the remaining world against them. On the edge of my seat… (!!!)

Next turn, they had stopped building the final SS component!!

Cutting it very close, I had left the four Armies that included Knights and one of the 4xMI Armies and just barely enough MAs, MIs, and MSs to take out the last two homeland Dutch cities, and was able to land an IC invasion force at Chichen Itza 21 in 1745 AD:
One 4xMI Army
One 4xMA Army
Three MA+3xCav Armies
6 MI
23 MA
3 MS

It cost me quite a lot… I burned my treasury down to 1000g or so in the process. Unfortunately, I could only deliver a Cruiser and a Destroyer in support in this time frame, so the boys were going in without any form of arty, air, or meaningful naval support. This was an old-fashioned, slug-it-out, brute force, low ground landing, with g*ddamn enemy radar towers all over the place, and against what was now the definitive KAI of the game.

Jesu Christo, the Mayan counter-attack was something to watch!! I actually first had gotten up to let the AI part of the turn play out, but when I came back I realized the Mayans were still going, and in fact re-loaded to watch it play out… maaaaan, Cruise Missiles galore, Bombers, Radar Arty, MAs, Tanks, MIs, Cavs, you name it, Smokie came after me HARD!!

But not enough, you big-ass earring mofo… and you gave up on your last SS component due to the world attacking you… and more importantly, mighty BYZANTINE launched for Alpha Centauri in 1750 AD!!

SS win, 1750 AD. I’d clawed my way back to top stats across the board, and scored out at 4554. Both Maya and Russia put up a damn good fight though, in various respects being right behind me, or even ahead of me. A real nail-biter. J

The space race going into 1750 AD:

[Theseus]

And beyond…

But hey, WTF, this is FUN with a capital F, U, and N!!

For the first time ever with C3, I think, I went past the win just to keep banging around with the AI civs. Felt like Civ2… you own the game, but you’re not yet done with your empire nor your military conquests.

I had actually won without completing my domination of the Dutch home continent, nor punishing the friggin’ Mayans as they deserved!!

So, a little mayhem, perhaps?? Hmm hm hm hm hm? Just in case, btw, Tac Nukes built on three of my four primary isles, and one ICBM on the way.

First, the incalcitrant Dutch… even with my Armies, they are stubborn little buggers. I mount an atttack on Utrecht (northernmost on their homeland, on an iron hill), and get my head handed to me. :grr: Retreat to heal.

Ahhh… the Maya-b*stards have taken a city on the near-west isle… that calls for, hmm, MODERN PARATROOPERS! Fast-builds in the homeland, and an Airport in Trebizond (my westernmost homeland city).

And the major attack on Maya’s turf takes place, and Chichen Itza is captured… but it’s an ugly sight.

[Theseus]

Flash forward a few years… dateline: 1766 AD:

It’s a messy world. I finally took down the Dutch homeland, and negotiated peace, catching up on a few of the non-SS techs I hadn’t bothered with. Rules of thumb: Rush Library and Temple; keep a fair number of units there until pop is <6; starve pop and build Workers till town is below 3 pop, then start building.

[Theseus]

I was almost there smacking around Maya on the western isle, but wanted some Stealth Bombers before trying to use 8+ MPs to take out Der. Lost several MPs, but with them sitting on a mountain with 11d, Maya paid a heavy price for not that much aggregate damage. The MP graphic is very cool.

[Theseus]

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