Babylon and On - Spoilers and Strategy

[DeepO]

Originally posted by jshelr
This thread is becoming sort of like a VFW meeting for survivors.

VFW? Could you explain this, I'm not familiar with it...

Further, I didn't use nukes (I got nuked, but that's hardly an advantage), so surely it is possible to do without them. But you are right in one thing: without nukes nor armies, turns take extremely long because of the battles and planning of battles... You don't need to be overly efficient, and I made quite a bunch of mistakes (over reaching, or not bringing enough troops was the most common; but this happens in all my games), which is fine as long as you have reinforcements on the ready to do better next turn. And you need those anyhow as there always is a large luck factor in Civ III.

DeepO

[Catt]

Alas, I've been to busy to do much civving - haven't played Babylon and On (and still waiting to know the song reference ) and haven't played AU 101. But I have read through the entire thread and kudos to all - great games and great stories. It helps that I learned a bit as well .

I'm curious re: the lack of armies and the costs associated in attacking fortified MI in hilltop metropoli. Did anyone build and use cruise missles? It's been a long time since I found myself fighting a very powerful AI civ in the "future tech" era, but IIRC correctly cruise missles were a very effective first strike at those tough AI cities when armies were not available. Rather than wheeling up 20+ radar artillery, moving 5 - 8 cruise missles to act as an artillery force can work very well (and if I'm not mistaken [it has been a long time] cruise missles will not destroy city improvements - they will only target units, so no risk of destroying that marketplace you may want to keep).

Any cruise missles used in Babylon?

Catt

[jshelr]

VFW -- pre Vietnam, anyway, returning US soldiers formed clubs that met regularly, played pool (billiards), drank beer, complained about the younger generation, etc. Veterans of Foreign Wars was one of them.

I don't think of nukes as an advantage. If you shoot, you will normally get shot. But I did benefit in mini tourney III from the AI civs nuking each other. When I then invaded the other continent in that game the cities were crap and easily taken. I think some of our games saw the same thing happen to the human player's benefit.

In the game we are discussing, nobody did any nuking for me and it was much tougher sledding. The good luck I had was that all the AI civs immediately went to war right at the start of the scenario and left me alone to devlop and get some tech.

Maybe I should express the efficiency argument differently. I was careful not to over extend and I did make very few mistakes of that type. Instead, my mistake was probably not being aggressive enough. For example, I sent no "expeditionary forces" out to take the smaller islands but kept the "main army" intact pretty much all the time. It slowed me down and the clock just barely ran out. To do it the way I did it you would have had to be very precise. See you at the Alamo.

[Velociryx]

Heh...just had one other idea for an MT game....the title in my head is "barbarians at the gates" and the player would start with limited money, some troops, but no cities. You'll also start in some really unattractive real estate....tundra, desert, or jungle, so when you finally DO get to take your first city, it won't be all that good, and doing so will automatically put you at war with whomever you take it from.... I'm twisted, I know....I know....

-=Vel=-

[FrustratedPoet]

I like that idea very much.

Vel, perhaps you will have to clone a couple of extra versions of yourself if you want to have time to follow through on all these ideas you have?

[Velociryx]

Ya....but I'm not sure if the world is quite ready for two of me.... No worries tho....given sufficient amounts of sweet tea, tortilla chips and conqueso dip, I can fortify myself sufficiently to get it all done. I'm thinking the Barbarian scenario should be on a small map, so it won't be QUITE so much work.

But, to give myself more time to work on other stuff, I did decided I pretty much needed to shop for some testing volunteers for the Alamo thing. Just too many ideas buzzing around in my head to do 'em all without a helping hand or three....

-=Vel=-

[jshelr]

Catt

Good point on cruise missles. Had some "at home" and I do like their impact on attacking stacks. Found it hard to get them to cross the great waters. They sould be air liftable, don't you think. It's sort of funny that you can airlift MA but not, say, settlers, if I am correct.

[Catt]

You're right; on island maps the lack of an airlift capability for CMs makes them tough to use. But, IIRC, they're pretty cheap, and can be rushed fairly cheaply - just was wondering if someone used them (since this scenario struck me as an occasion where someone could plausibly and unashamedly say that CMs were very useful ).

The "airlift or not" regime is a little bit quirky, but I assume that the default settings are there for gameplay reasons - after all, you can easily use the editor to make settlers, workers, etc. airliftable - perhaps it was unbalancing in some way (to the designers, at least).

I liked the explanation of VFW - I started to write one myself, but wasn't sure if I had it right and/or was being offensive - "clubs that played billiards, drank beer and complained about the younger generation" is an apt summary for someone on the outside looking in (i.e., I'm not a V of FW myself).

[DeepO]

Catt, I captured a few cruise missiles, and used them on the cities, but I thought they did little good... maybe because I just used a few of them on each city (3 at most, IIRC). I thought the radars were good, as you don't have to build them again each turn, and can't advance much quicker anyhow. But it might be good tactic, I'll keep it in mind if I ever get in the same situation. One note, though, there was little risk in bombing the marketplace away, it was more of bombing that nuclear plant away... the AIs really were well developed in their cities, or at least they were in my game.

jshelr, thanks for the explanation, and indeed, this looks like becoming a VFW meeting... where's that beer?

In my game too, the AIs formed alliances and were constantly at war, I think it was one of the reason why we saw so many modern units, instead of the usual cavalry, ironclads etc. But in my game, the only nukes fired were by the Americans, and against the Americans. And they were very concentrated on 2 cities only. I destroyed several German, Indian and Chinese ICBMs when taking their cities, and was pleased that they shared my discomfort with the tools of death. Nukes only as retaliation, and to scare enemies away (not that that helped in my case )

The efficiency remark you're making is a very valid one, over extending happens a lot to me, and sometimes it gets quite bad. But, when being too careful you lose a lot of opportunities as well, I know my problems, and try to counter them by reinforcements. I found that that worked better for me. Indeed, the small islands were always high on my list of targets, and I did not make peace with anyone (some of the players here did). I had the pleasure of finishing 5 civs myself, instead of having to rely on allies to get that last city. Those small islands don't bring much, but my ironworks city Izumo was on one of those smaller islands... just this one city made up for all the little invasion forces, long turns, and general tedium. Besides, you need them for the domination victory.

Re: the Alamo: I'm testing it now, and it sure looks like it's going to be loads of fun!

DeepO

[Txurce]

In my win, no nukes were fired by anyone, I didn't use combined arms very often, and I never had that many MA. What made the difference was the GL I got in my second war, which led to an army factory during my GA. It was these multiple armies - frequently rushed, since I wasn't researching - that allowed me to win as quickly as I did. The other factor was geopolitical: attacking the right civ at the right time. What was interesting is that it worked out as well as it did despite my having done by far the worst job of researching of anyone who's posted.

[vulture]

Originally posted by jshelr
Catt

Good point on cruise missles. Had some "at home" and I do like their impact on attacking stacks. Found it hard to get them to cross the great waters. They sould be air liftable, don't you think. It's sort of funny that you can airlift MA but not, say, settlers, if I am correct.

Cruise missiles can be shipped abroad on transports quite cheerfully, although this appears to be a bug. You can't load them on to a ship in port with the L key, but you can move them into a transport in coastal waters quite happily with the arrow keys. Probably the most efficient way of moving them around.

[jshelr]

thanks vulture. now that you mention it (again) i dimmly recall you told us that one before. My bad.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Heh...just had one other idea for an MT game....the title in my head is "barbarians at the gates" and the player would start with limited money, some troops, but no cities. You'll also start in some really unattractive real estate....tundra, desert, or jungle, so when you finally DO get to take your first city, it won't be all that good, and doing so will automatically put you at war with whomever you take it from.... I'm twisted, I know....I know....

-=Vel=-

Oooh, I like it. But will you get a palace upon that first city capture? If not, you're in a world of hurt.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Good question! I'd think so, but in truth, I'm not sure! I've been modelling some of the units for that one....gonna make a series of uniquely named (and in some cases, totally unique, but using regular civ unit graphics) units that you'll start with....representing tribal leaders, elite units of raiders, and the like, that'll get you started. Should have a working prototype of this by tomorrow....

-=Vel=-

[Aeson]

Yes you do get a Palace. It was a fix to a bug in 1.16f IIRC. You could take your first city from the AI, not have a Palace at all, and then you had absolutely no corruption anywhere unless you built the Palace later on.