Spoiler Thread for AU 203

[BRC]

Originally posted by Dominae
As I finish with the Chinese, I put the squeeze on the Aztecs, coming from the North and South at the same time. The Aztec empire falls in 3 turns. As a side note, looking at their lands, I'm surprised they didn't do better. Anyone know why?

I can't tell you what happened in your particular game, but during debug, I noticed that the Aztecs would launch a pre-emptive strike against the Chinese. They would declare war and try to make a push. The Chinese would brush them aside, and then, later on (riders), China would trim them back severely. The plan was for China to hit the English during the early game, the Aztecs to blind-side China, and then China to turn on the Aztecs. This would give China near constant war, which is probably one of their strong points. Persia was supposed to wipe out Russia, although there seemed to a few cases where this didn't happen. As for creating Killer AI's, I think Theseus had the idea. Terrain might make the biggest difference, although I do believe that some civs will perform better under certain circumstances (Babylon in isolation).

Catt and Dom: Great games!! How much time did this one end up taking??

Having never been in full-blown modern era war, I want to know what are important keys, especially when you are behind?? Catt, how were you able to finally control R.I. and the sea around it (i.e. what tactics, with which units, in what combinations).

Originally posted by Catt
More to tell when I finish the game, especially the “lessons I learned” post I promised – I turned a critical eye on my own game and found numerous flaws and stupidities.

This I definitely want to see. Finish the Game.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by BRC
I noticed that the Aztecs would launch a pre-emptive strike against the Chinese. They would declare war and try to make a push.

This is probably something you did not do in your debug game: I blocked the passage from the Aztec continent to the Chinese lands by placing a Warrior on the Iron isthmus relatively early. Still, the Aztecs had plenty of room to expand into (far more than the Chinese), but did not take advantage of it. They were still founding cities in the middle of the Medieval age!

As for creating Killer AI's, I think Theseus had the idea. Terrain might make the biggest difference, although I do believe that some civs will perform better under certain circumstances (Babylon in isolation).

Terrain is definitely the main reason, but it has to be a terrain advantage relative to closest neighbors. If China and Persia had started off next to each other, each would have be weaker overall because of the fighting they would no doubt get into. In my game, the fact that Persia got off to such a fast start (they had 7 cities when I had 2!) meant that they could gobble up the Russians at any time. Of course, it was a mistake on my part to let that happen too early, but that's beside the point.

Along the same lines, Babylon had nice lands and no one to fight, so they could use their trait advantages to the fullest.

How much time did this one end up taking??

38 hours, although you can probably shave off around 8-10 of that to my having the game running be me not playing it. Still, it was a monster game, which I forced myself to play well until the very end. Modern wars are long, but surprisingly exciting, if you plan to win by Domination or Conquest.

Having never been in full-blown modern era war, I want to know what are important keys, especially when you are behind??

Unfortunately, I was never behind in my game (unfortunate that I cannot answer your question, that is). But here are some strategies that I felt worked well:

1. It is possible to wage war in the time between Replaceable Parts and Motorized Transportation. Stacks of Infantry and Artillery, along with a bunch of Workers, is all you need. Such wars will not conquer the enemy as fast as Cavalry assaults do, but they're critical in keeping the AI down to size. I keep on hearing about AIs having hundreds of units available, making them formidable opponents (see Catt's screenshot of the Bab army). In my game I tried to make sure that the AI was taking losses regularly, so that when the time came for me to conquer them, things would go a lot more smoothly. Getting them to run up against Infantry/Artillery inside Fortresses works really well for this purpose.

2. Panzers are obviously an awesome unit, but it is easy to forget that Panzers and Tanks can attack twice in one turn (for me, at least). This allows you to generate an absurd number of Elites. The trick is to always attack with fresh Veterans first, then attacking the second time when the defenders only have 1 or 2 HPs left. Panzers do this even better, as they can attack once, twice and retreat to safety (usually inside the newly-conquered city), while Tanks will be left in the open if they win twice but do not take out the last unit.

3. Although I've always been a proponent of pillaging during war, you usually do not want to pillage enemy RRs if your goal is to capture their city. Once those rails fall under your borders, you'll be able to use them to ferry your units either to or from the front. The advantage this creates cannot be overstated.

4. Always bombard. I had a stack of 20 Artillery that lasted me about 80 turns in the game. Protect such stacks with an Infantry Army (which the AI will never attack), and make sure you soften the enemy up before bringing in the Tanks/Panzers. Because you can only bombard a different target every 2 turns (bombard, move to next setup spot, bombard again), I highly recommend using two large stacks. In my game I used Bombers, which are in fact more effective. The main reason I kept the Artillery around is that I think with the AU mod changes they counted as military units for purposes of quelling resistance and reducing unhappiness (a nice effect).

5. Cruise Missiles are quite powerful. Although you lose the unit when you attack, one strike is sometimes worth 4-6 Bomber runs. The actual results vary, though, but I'm determined to test them out some more in another game.

6. MIs cannot attack twice. I learned this the hard way.

7. Once MIs are available, drafting those in your core cities and disbanding them in newly-conquered ones is a efficient way of getting improvements up in a hurry (Temples, etc.). This was discussed in another thread, but I implemented it for the first time in this game. Works like a charm, even though it's tedious and exploitative.

8. Boats. Ironclad -> Battleship upgrades is all you'll ever need.

That's all I can think of for now.


Dominae

[BRC]

Dom: Thanks.

5. Cruise Missiles are quite powerful. Although you lose the unit when you attack, one strike is sometimes worth 4-6 Bomber runs. The actual results vary, though, but I'm determined to test them out some more in another game.

Ok. I am very excited to use these in my next game, but how do they work. Can you move them around?? I hear that we're not supposed to load them onto transports. Can you move them between cities, throw them on carriers, what?? I really want to play with the modern stuff.

Where's Catt's new thread??

[Dominae]

Cruise Missiles move around in the same way that any ground unit does. I'm not sure what happens when one gets captured, or how loading onto transports works (or Armies!). When you want to attack with one, you just use its Bombard ability, which has a range of 4 tiles. You lose the missile after that one attack.


Dominae

[BRC]

So you can move them around on your rail network, and fortify them wherever?? How many move points?? Just 1. Thanks.

[alexman]

Yes, they are just a zero-strength ground unit with 1 movement point and a bombard ability (which uses up the unit). In stock Civ3 you can move them into transports (but not load them from a city, because they don't have the load flag), but in the AU mod we have made them tactical missiles, so they can't be carried by transports at all (the AI refuses to load a unit with the cruise missile strategy).

[laissez-faire]

I find cruise missiles to be more effective (albeit costlier) than arties and bombers. The reason being is that they only attack the military units guarding the cities, plus they have the possiblity of a two-, three-, or four- hitpoint punch. A hefty dose of ten of these or so on a well-fortified city will leave a stack of MI's with one or two hit points, a city full of improvements, and a whole gaggle of foreign nationals willing to sacrifice their lives for the construction of communist libraries and temples.

Regarding more killer AIs, China was my last civ to fall. Beijing was guarded by 13 MIs. It took 22 cruise missiles, 2 armies of 2 MAs each and 22 individual MA strikes to bring it down. Great job on the modding, and thanks, alexman, for the answer on the settler airlift question. Makes sense.

I need to go back and check the readme, but I thought I remember reading that bombers were given the lethal water bombardment flag. If so, that was not working as it didn't let me strick ships with 1hp left. EDIT: I see now that the lethal sea bombard was given to fighters only.

n.b. The game took me 22 hours with no idle time and was very exciting.

[BigFurryMonster]

What does 'AU' mean?

[laissez-faire]

Regarding my game, it was not necessarily a nailbiter to the finish. Although I was fighting MIs and MAs with Infantry and Panzers for quite a while, I had the strongest of all civs (Babylon) gracious with me for over 200 years. I never tried anything border-line insane like Catt trying to wrest Resource Isle away from the Babs (China razed a Persian city on the middle bend that opened up oil for me). People warred nicely without lobbing nukes at anyone; and I received a domination victory in 1999AD.

How did communism come in handy? Somewhat handy when drafting conscript MIs. Quite handy for "deculturalizing" captured cities through pop-rush. Very handy for war-weariness (considering probably 100 of the last 130 turns were at war with the world). It is still not a governmental option for me though in a non-AU game, really not even for a scientific civ. The science/money drag is too much.

AU stands for Apolyton University.

The history of the world according to Germany:

[Catt]

Originally posted by BRC
Catt, how were you able to finally control R.I. and the sea around it (i.e. what tactics, with which units, in what combinations).

Actually, I still don't totally control R.I - yes, I control the territory, but I am still getting occasional airstrikes and landing parties, and I simply don't have enough materiel to truly take control of air, sea, and land.

The actual R.I. invasion was thrown off kilter quite considerably from the original plan by two events: (1) a declaration of war from China just before my assault, and (2) Babylon's discovery of Computers with a sufficient treasury to enable massive upgrading. Even though both of these events occurred just before my invasion, I decided to go ahead with it anyway rather than pull back and seek alternative oil sources (until the invasion I had a a wonderful relationship with Hammy, having a constant luxury deal and the occassional tech / resource deal -- Hammy traded me oil for my galleon-transport upgrades -- but I let all deals lapse a few turns before the invasion).

The first event caused my to keep a bunch of artilllery at home and also to slow my planned reinforcements to R.I. The original plan called for most of the arty to go to R.I., and called for immediate additional transport loads of infantry to reinforce our positions. I actually hoped to be able to take all of R.I. with infantry and arty, and to do it pretty quickly. With China threatening, I didn't want to risk moving a second huge stack of infantry away from the homeland.

The second event made me reconsider my goal of taking all of R.I. with infantry. My measley 4 arty bombarded an infantryman guarding a radar tower near the first objective which I then destroyed before assaulting the city. I figured I would need at least 4 infantry to take down 1 MI (somewhat conservative estimate), and hoped that the city wasn't guarded by a stack of MIs -- I got lucky and lost only 2 infantry (IIRC) in destroying a regular MI, and then underneath was only an infantryman and a cavalry (IIRC) -- my losses taking the city were much lighter than expected. I did get a little unlucky in that the harbor was destroyed in my assault.

Until panzers arrived I essentially turtled, fortifying enough troops in the city to prevent a flip, and fortifying the rest in the surrounding tiles. I got a little aggressive and detached a 6 unit infantry force into the mountains outside the city, thinking I would have a look at the other city defenses -- I believed that the Babs had sent what they had available at my forcers on the first several turns, and despite the presence of MI, that the remaining cities on R.I. would be lightly defended and open to a quick strike. Not true, and my entire strike force fell to counterattacking forces.

Until panzers, I was unable to do much but replenish my defenders, bombard the invasion forces being dropped off outside my city, and attacking red-lined enemies with infantry. It took two cycles of panzer production (with a 7-turn gap in between) to generate enough offensive firepower to really push into R.I. With 15 or so panzers, I marched a stack of 10 or so infantry into the mountains southeast of my city -- from there, the panzers (with a movement of 3!) could strike at either of the two southern Babylonian cities - burning 2 movement points to cross forest, the third in the attack. I was surprised (but not very ) to see how lightly defended the cities were -- before the attack, I spent roughly 80 gold to investigate both cities, looking for the easier target. Each had 1 or 2 MI, 1 or 2 infantry, and maybe a cavalry -- but each also had 5 or 6 bombers / fighters. My panzer stack succeeded in taking both cities on the same turn, and since the rails were intact, the infantry stack moved in as garrison and cover for the wounded panzers. Then it was down to just one smaller city which soon fell.

The one useful tactic that it is sometimes easy to forget is to station units on all roads needed to preserve inter-city travel. I was subject to repeated bombing runs and occassional ground forces pillaging, and at one point had one of the cities isolated and unable to be reinforced quickly -- a landing party would have spelt trouble. With a road and/or rail network in place, I could rapidly move all necessary forces to any city threatened by invasion forces. In another boneheaded move, I researched Radio before Flight, thinking that radar towers would be great help. A half dozen turns into my research I realized that I desperately needed some air cover, but I didn't want to waste the accumulated beakers by switching. What really made the move boneheaded was that I suffered (and still suffer) a tremendous worker shortage -- there was no way I was going to sacrafice workers for radar towers -- one of my many mistakes in this game.

As for sea control, I am keeping 3 battleships and a sub fortified in port -- when invading forces get close, my measley 4 arty's bombard and the navy goes for the kill. Plenty still slip through and drop off landing parties, but I'm doing enough damage so I only rarely see stacks of 16 arriving simultaneously. Hammy has belatedly understood the power of tanks, and now most landing parties are a good mix of MI and tanks -- still, occassionally a transport makes the dangerous trip only to drop off 2 units -- not a threat, obviously.

This I definitely want to see. Finish the Game.

I haven't had much play time lately (but have had time to post!). It is now 1810 and I am within striking distance of Persepolis (and Leo's) and only a few turns from MA -- at that point, the game should proceed more quickly. Fighting China, Persia and Babylon at the same time has dramatically slowed my progress -- I don't have the industrial strength to hold the line against all three and at the same time do some disemboweling -- with MA, I should be able to do so.

It's been a long time since I had competitive modern warfare, and it's refreshing. But in reality, modern warfare is where I think the AI is at its weakest. Babylon should be able to crush my forces on R.I. -- any human would've done so within a turn or two, but the AI isn't very good at either (1) sea-lifting or air-lifting troops, or (2) recogniziing the threat and stomping it before a base can be established (i.e., moving some of its massive army off of the Babylonian mainland and crushing the invaders on R.I., even on the risk of leaving the homeland a little less secure). The AI also doesn't recognize the threat of 3 move attack units (the panzer is, IMHO, very important in this AU game), so it is sometimes easy to sneak up on cities which are lightly defended but which, to the human eye, are within reach and vulnerable. So while I enjoyed (and enjoy) the underdog feeling of taking R.I., the best tactic employed is really just knowledge that the AI won't do a very good job of countering a decent stack of concentrated force - so even a woefully out-gunned human can attack a much stronger AI.

Catt

[Catt]

Originally posted by laissez-faire
Beijing was guarded by 13 MIs. It took 22 cruise missiles, 2 armies of 2 MAs each and 22 individual MA strikes to bring it down.

That's a lot of firepower. Nice game laissez-faire -- it also looks like Persia stomped Russia pretty early in your game -- my game would have been a lot tougher if Persia was on my southeastern flank -- I think mine would have gone more of the way of NorMe's had that happened.

Catt

[Catt]

My game plods along slowly. Not much time to play the past couple of days, but I'm getting in half a dozen turns each day.

I made peace with Babylon just to end the bombardment on my newly conquered territories on the main continent while I went after Persia -- but not before I got to see a Babylonian paratrooper airdrop onto R.I. from Babylon proper -- not a great tactical move, but was great to see an airdrop (which I've seen only a few times before, the last many months ago!).

With Babylonian peace I was able to bring some naval forces out of the safety of R.I. ports. Of the subs pictured, I have one. Hammurabi sure must believe in the power of submarine warfare! My sub is stationed just NE of the coal mountain -- just north of the interloping Persian destroyer / transport team.

Catt

[jshelr]

As Catt says, this game goes slowly, a couple of turns a day take a half an hour.

BTW, if you don't attack resource island, Babs eventually will start to bombard the German mainland from there, although a few jets on air superiority will make it expensive of them to do so.

My oil city just flipped to China and I guess it's time for an invasion.

[Theseus]

WOW!!!!!

I'll be picking up again over the weekend... what great AARs!

[BRC]

Glad to see you enjoying yourself.

BTW, congratulations. You were right. The best way to create Killers is through terrain.