AU207: Big Planet - Strategy, Spoilers and Comments

[nbarclay]

The way I did it was

(1) Disband a cavalry for the first 20 shields.
(2) Short rush a cavalry for the next 60 shields.
(3) Build the last 20 shields normally.

The disband was to get over the 2x price hump, and the short rush was to avoid paying for all of the remaining 80 shields when city production could cover at least 20 of them.

[badams52]

I wasn't quite clear what you had meant, and this clears it up. Very interesting concept, and a new way to work the system I didin't know.

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well I got to play for a while today. I just didn't feel like OCC so I fired up 207 for some more huge map action.

It actually took me a couple minutes to get used the the fact that I was almost in the tech lead and that I had a huge empire opposed to one city. I was raking in the cash and had a large army to do my bidding. I actually made a mistake right off by trading away scientific method for a butt load of money and other nice stuff. But I wasn't done building ToE yet!!!

The first order of business today was the elimination of the Zulu. This was completed using my 5 elite cavalry I had lying around. I figured cavalry vs. impi would be a unfair fight in my advantage and my best bet to get my first leader of the game. And it worked. Good thing too. Since my mistake trading scientific method the other civs were also building the ToE. Since I was almost done researching replaceable parts I did some investigation and saw that I had enough time to finish replaceable parts before I rushed the ToE. Now Shaka and Hammurabi are hanging out in my dungeon of shame.

Politically it's been interesting. After years of war finally Japan and Mongolia have made peace. England and Egypt signed a MPP and the Ottomans and Korea also signed a MPP. It's gonna be a bloodbath over on the other continent the next time there's a war. That's another thing that I messed up at first. I was expecting Wang to hate my guts but instead he was very friendly. Mixed up my games again. Oh well.

Bismark is one crazy cat. I had reduced the Germans down to three cities. I figured I'd use them as a kind of buffer between me and the Mongols until I decided to take them out. Well Bismark goes and declares war on the Mongols. Okay whatever. And then he tries to get me in the war too. Umm, no. I am definatly not ready to take on Temujin just yet. So Temujin asks me if I will join them in a trade embargo against the Germans. Sure why not, they're gonna be gone in a few turns anyways.

That's where I am. I have the next two days off from work so I'll get more in. Maybe I'll even finish it up. I'm getting close to tanks and once I do the Japanese are in big, big trouble.

BigD

[Arrian]

a civ that makes demands of a nation that just wiped out one of the world's next greatest powers in one turn and another in two has no business living.

Exactly.

Interesting that it was the Arabs who messed with both of us.

-Arrian

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well I had a long night with 207. I'll write all about it later but I've been sitting infront of my computer for over 6 hours and have had enough. More tonight.

BigD

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

I finally got some software for screenshots(that was free) so attached is a screen from my very first go at 207. It isn't pretty.

Tomorrow I'll regail you all with the tale of a large war against Japan and something kinda stupid I did.

BigD

[BigDork]

Oh how the mighty have fallen

Hi everybody...

AU207 is taking forever. I definatly am not a fan of huge maps. It takes me about 5 minutes a turn just ordering my workers around. Anyway...

As I said I ended up playing a lot the other day. I said 6 hours but it was closer to 8. I really took a big chunk out of the game.

I think I'll start just about the time I get tanks. For many, many years Hannibal has wanted to punish the evil Japanese empire. Why is not quite remembered but it has to be done. I even did prebuilds for tanks. I wanted tanks and I wanted lots of them. Once I got motorized transportation(I believe that's the tech) I started churning out tanks just as fast as possible. Soon my army of unstoppable metal death was ready.

A long time ago I had stranded a Japanese spearman on an island next to one of my cities. I new that if I had demanded he be removed that it would mean war. Tokugawa is just that kind of a guy. And for years I let him stay not ready for a war with Japan. I learned my lesson from the last war, or so i thought.

So when I had about 50 tanks ready to spill over the border I so kindly asked Tokugawa to remove his offending spearman from my island. As expected he declared war. And my tanks were on the move. I captured several cities on the first turn and got into position to grab more on the second turn. I used my more obsolete units to grab as many workers as possible before they all scurried away.

Well then I got a shock. I ended my turn thinking that this was gonna be a nice quick war with me total dominating the Japanese. I had set what I felt were very reasonable and achievable goals knowing that I wasn't gonna take the whole continent in this one war. Anyway I end my turn and suddenly unit after unit appears. When all was said and done there were about 70 enemy units poised for a counter-attack. Eep!!! Not what I was expecting at all. While I was not overly concerned because most of it was cavalry and infantry vs. tanks and it was the AI after all, the sheer number of units made it a little dangerous. If the AI was any better at warfare I could have had a couple of problems.

So instead I stopped my advance and let the Japanese units get ground down. I'd wait until the stacks of units were on my railroads and then send in the tanks. Attack and after the battle hurry the tanks away to be healed. A few turns of this and then there was no more cavalry. A few turns later most of the infantry was gone too. I'd still get mini-stacks coming at me every turn but Japan was done as a military super-power.

[BigDork]

After the second turn of the war I was worried about reaching my objectives. I considered pulling the Mongols into the war but didn't want to be stuck at war for 20 turns or until Temujin and Tokugawa make peace. So I stuck it out. And honestly it worked out for me.

Once I had reduced the opposing forces I easily reached my objectives. I was easily out-producing the Japanese and was sending 4 or 5 new tanks to the front every turn thanks to a very complete railroad network.

And I would have stopped after reaching my objectives if Tokugawa would have agreed to peace. But he refused to even talk to me. Okay then. So each turn I'd take one or two more cities and each turn he refused to talk. I've never had an AI civ refuse me for so long. Finally having taken their capitol he was ready to sit down at the negotiation tables. But he wanted a straight peace. I would gain nothing more than what I'd already taken. But with war weariness starting to show up strongly I decided it was a good idea.

So now the Japanese are a broken society. I have destroyed their once mighty army and have taken their ancient capitol city from them. Oh well, to bad, so sad. So now I'm getting ready to remove the Mongols from the map. I've had it out for Temujin since my last try at 207. I just don't like the Mongols and am going to show it to them with all my new shiny MA.

Hopefully I'll be done soon. I've gotten several of the modern age techs already. I actually haven't gotten fission yet however. I'll probably just end up trading for it. I'm pretty sure I could win with a UN vote and don't want to go that route. One thing that I've improved on because of 302 is my tech trading skills. I'm making lots of cash because of tech whoring some. Yay!!!

[BigDork]

And now BigDork's dorkiest mistake of the game...

I felt like a total moron when all this was said and done. As I said I was having some trouble with the Japanese at first. So I figured I'd head straight for MA's to help kick some Japanese butt. So I am running at 100% and get the tech soon enough. I go to upgrade all my tanks to MA and can't do it.

Dang it, where's my aluminum??? I go to my advisor and check it out. Nope, none connected. I look all over the map and can't find any. I'm just about to curse out whoever set up this friggin map but I know that others had it so where could it be? I'm still looking all over the map when I decide to go back and check out the tech tree again.

Ummm, yeah...you kinda need to research rocketry to get aluminum. I know this. Honestly I do. But in my rush to get MA I just totally brain farted. Oh well, live and learn.

BigD

And whoever it was who did the map, don't worry, it wasn't bad curses. I luv ya.

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

One other thing of note from my war from with the Japanese. I started the game with 0 artillery and ended with about 15. The Japanese were nice enough to provide me with all of them. So now I have a whole bunch of artillery to use against the Mongols in my next war. Very helpful.

BigD

Wow it's a slow night at work

[Arrian]

Game, Set, Match

It's all over, folks. As I suspected, via the cultural win:

[Arrian]

Replay Screenies, Part I

[Arrian]

Replay screenies, part duex:

[Arrian]

Replay screenies, finale:

[BigDork]

Dang Arrian...

You really dominated that game. You controlled more of the continent than I do now 400 years earlier. But what's with letting the Zulu live???

BigD