Alamo Testing Thread

[DeepO]

Another idea: would it be possible to have some of the AI DD nannies replaced by something a bit bigger, like a regular BS or Aegis? Especially the Aegis is a ship to take care of, as it can spot your subs.

But please, don't make them too strong, no elite Aegis or something like that!

I was also checking what the AIs are building, and was surprised to see them building helicopters... maybe add some (not too many, 4/AI or so should be enough) to spice the game up.

Then again, can helicopters drop troops in undefended cities? in this case, let them build them theirselves, if this happens in the first few turns you'd be taken by complete surprise.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Ooo.. dillema.. do I start the new test now, or wait until the morning... nah, I just have to get some sleep

DeepO

[DeepO]

Vel, do your bonus units include some (2 or 3) cruise missiles? These could be excellent for swapping up a transport that got hit but not sunk... If not, I'll definately build some myself for when the Japanese / Chinese packs come. It would be cool if you could load them into nuclear subs, though, and I think this was currently not in it. Maybe something to still mod, even if you hope this to be the final save.

DeepO

[Velociryx]

ARGH! Okay, after wrestling half a dozen times with the game seed, I give up for the evening! Two minor problems with this version.

First, I deleted the AI's galleys that we used to start the war with previously. In their place, I put a warrior and a worker for each civ, near washington. But after I made them furious, there was no option to "withdraw your troops or declare war"....must be set up to some type of threshold....I will experiment further with that tomorrow.

Second, Russia. Can't get a spy in the motherland to save my LIFE! Six different reloads to try and get spies everywhere, and the Ruskies had my number every freakin' time!

So....this is *almost* the final version. I'll fix those two things, and see if I can figure out a way to get Gram's save game editor to work so we can adjust the date (gives me an error when I try to use it), and I think we'll be all set!

Good thinking on the cruise missiles. I didn't include any, but in looking at the build times, they only average 2-3 turns to build, so it should be a snap to arm yourself up with them (and pretty effective vs. those tranny waves we can expect!).

Whew....lots of changes in this one, but I think it's our best yet. Forgive the two small errors in the save, and I'll make sure they're corrected for the public release!

-=Vel=-

[phunny_pharmer]

Can't wait!

[Brinoch]

Vel, I'm back from the concert. I downloaded the latest version and I'll test it tonight. I'll post thoughts and results as they come!

[Bambul]

I've played through 3 turns. But I realised that I made a mistake in my unit placing right after I hit enter to end my turn and so I'm going to reload the autosave (making pretty much the same moves as before) and redo my 3rd turn.

Here's what has happened up till now:

I pulled back on the Russian front, pillaging everything in the first line. I did the same on the plains on the German front, which means I have to hold on to all 5 hills or pull back from the other 2 front line forts. I tried to hold on to everything.

I managed to do it for the first turn (and recapture my RA on the Russian front). Then on the second turn I bombarded some of the roads on the German front so that the AI MA had to either attack my front line or end their turn on the plains before attacking my second line. My plan was to hit the units in the plains enough with my own RA and MA so that my MI could finish them off on the defence.

This would work wonders for me in normal SP Civ3. But I think that here I could do it for 1-2 turns before the AI floods through my fortresses. Add the 6 MA's that the Germans landed on American soil that I had to take out and I'm starting to rethink my strategy. You got a tough one Vel

Back to turn 2:
I had 3 conscript MI's defending my 2nd line. Juicy targets like this drew some 8 MA's into the plains, which I killed off fairly easily, and got a leader too. But my MA's were hurt pretty bad and I had no attack force for the next turn.

Then I forgot about the MA's 2 tiles from my 2nd line (now defended by regular MI's). Had I noticed them I might have retreated to my 2nd line or atleast reinforced it.

But it looks like this scenario is going to take a while to crack.

[Brinoch]

All right, I played through 3700 BC, which is when my eyes became bleary and I was making movement mistakes because I'm too tired.

Overall, I like the changes Vel. Here's how my game is going...

Turn 1

First, I popped my leader for Magellan.

Then, I distributed my units along the front and this time I decided to fall back only on the German front. I pillaged two tier one fort spaces, leaving the middle square in a sort of wedge formation.

The Germans ended up taking only one fort, and that was pretty weakly done.

On the Russian front I decided to hold all three tier one spaces. The Czarina took two forts from me, along the middle in a linear fashion. I noticed something else that was interesting: the Russians used only Bombers -- no fighters. They mostly died, and triggered my Golden Age.

Frankly, both attacks were weak, and I took my territory back with ease.

My counter was pretty standard: soften 'em up with RA and Bombers and then smack them silly with MA. I did that and defeated all intruders. In fighting the Germans, I received leader #2 who became a second army. I also rushed an army in Washington. The first two armies became 19 and 20 point MI armies holding the tier two fortresses on the Russian front. I destroyed all the tier one fortresses on both fronts, and created my perimeter.

I don't have the cash to examine plans, really. And, as a note, I can't get a spy with Russia. No matter what. I spent every coin trying (as a test) and failed every time. Oh well.

I fought in the inner sea, and I'd like to add that it's more challenging. I'm not sure if you added ships or not, but I had a devil of a time locking it down. The Russians actually landed two transport loads of troops into the homeland before I could stop him. Now, those 16 died horribly at the hands of RA, Stealth bombers, and elite MA, but he still penetrated my defenses.

Strategically speaking, I contemplated using my nukes to whack one of those closeby enemy cities, but decided against it. I thought I could stop the Germans and Russians with my regular lines and save the nukes 'til later. I suspect wiping Moscow out would have ended the transport tango.

War Weariness

I guess forcing the opponent to pick a fight with you doesn't really matter. It should, but I started the game with massive war weariness. I think my unhappiness was 48% from war weariness. My cities had no happy citizens, only content and unhappy. So, the only two options were adjust the slider -- sacrificing money and research for happiness time, or switch governments immediately. I prefer Democracy, and so I undertook to limit my war to "defense" only -- keeping my forces within my cultural limits and policing the seas to ensure safe and fair passage for all (Except the Russians, Germans, Japanese and Chinese). However, it's clear that at the end of 3700 I have a decision to make. The weariness is building up and my research is anemic. I need to switch soon.

Turns 2-6

As bizarre as this may sound, not much is going on. The bad guys are building their ships, and I can't research well. I've stopped them up on land. The Germans sent two MA armies against my lines. They both killed one MI and died the next turn from a RA/MA counterattack.

The Russians, meanwhile, are not doing a thing. I'm pretty sure that they are loading all their transports again. I've encountered 4 or 5 coming down from St. Pete's.

The real battle is on the high seas. The Chinese came at me full steam, starting on turn 3. They had traninannies galore both west and east. I actually had to use DeepO's nuke to ensure the threat was eliminated. I think the stack was 8 traninannies (16 ships). I didn't think I could get them all, so boom.

It's a good thing, too. They had a second wave of 4 traninannies two spaces back (and 2 more after that) -- I couldn't have stopped all of them without a nuke. And, I don't know about you guys, but I feel that a nuke needs to do some serious damage. A final note -- the Chinese are using their Aegis cruisers as escorts.

Against Germany and Russia it's still fun in the inland sea. I had to build some destroyers to take the sea over. If Russia or Germany were smart, they'd build some transports here... With a little planning, they could overwhelm you and hit you all along the coast. With good pressure on your chokepoints, they can force you to choose which will be weaker -- and any weakness and you go byebye. Frankly, they should consolidate their individual fleets and push the transports through to your coast despite the cost. You couldn't stop them both short of nukes.

This makes the inland sea a challenge. Which is good.

I whacked both the German and Russian carriers early. They park them near your coast, still in their cultutal territory, and bomb you. Annoying, and with the way they didn't support them I sank them with no real cost.

The sheer number of fleet units you face makes unit management very important. I made a couple mistakes with leaving my units out in the open, and the Chinese pounded them with air power. Nice.

I like to try and use the subs as pickets, but you have to be careful. I've lost a lot of my subs -- granted, they've done great damage, but not nearly as much as they should have done.

The Russians and Japanese hit me with a serious destroyer push immediately after the Chinese west coast invasion was defeated, so I was able to shift north and stop the Russo-Japanese movements. However, this left me uncovered to the south again, and lo and behold. The Chinese are coming again. After stopping it, I fully expect the Japanese transports to be coming.

These sea battles have had some questionable results... for whatever reason, the Germans kick my butt on the water. I swear they beat me more often than not -- even after bombarding and bombing. I also an elite battle ship (with 5 hp's) to a regular transport.

But, they likely even out in the end. It's clear that I need to build more navy on the west coast. I can't even contemplate taking the uranium until after the first Japanese echelon is taken out (1-2 more turns). And, with my attrition rate, I need some new hulls.

This, too, is good. The battle is in the balance, and I need to be on my toes. I have to husband my ships, use my stealth bombers to thin the ranks and pounce on my enemies close to my shore. Recon is critical. Hitting close to shore lets me heal up and fight again another day.

Some lessons I've learned...

1. Don't buy an army right away. You're gonna get leaders. Use them to build armies early.

2. Husband your ships wisely. Don't drift into enemy air cover, and don't waste them on one-way missions. You need every ship, so find another way.

3. Don't lose the inner sea. Even though the Russians may not land in the danger spots, it's still damn annoying (and potentially costly) to have to kill 8 units every turn or two.

4. Use your nukes on large concentrations of ships. The way the game is structured right now, stopping them on land is easier than at sea -- which is why they keep coming.

5. War weariness is still a real pain in the keister.


Some thoughts:

1. Great job, Vel. Especially on the naval stuff, I like it.

2. We need to fix war weariness, or switch to a different government.

3. DeepO, tell me what you think after your test, but is the land battle too easy? I mean they throw a lot at you, including armies, but I'm having no trouble holding. My border forces are, in fact, increasing.

4. The nuke choice is tough. I like it. Two ICBM's and two tactical nukes and the tacticals are on the east coast, away from most of the action. Nasty.

5. The paratroopers are fun, but they'll probably never be used. They are a nice last resort defender, though.

6. As much as it pains me, the RA's in the mountains might need to be slowed down another turn. As it stands the workers in the mountains build a road in T2, and voila they are at the front that turn.

Now it's off to bed for me. I'll try and finish my game after a brief nap.

[Velociryx]

That's what I like to hear! Good news indeed!

One of the coolest parts about putting the map together and then placing the units was in the actual design of the various tactical and strategic challenges.

The modification of the choke points, for example....making one of the first tier german positions a plains tile makes that a very dicey position to hold, but as you say, if you retreat from it, but not the rest, then you gotta divide your forces out over five tiles and you NEED to hold them all. OTOH, if you burn that fort, you may decide to just burn the whole first tier and pull back. Tough call.

Likewise, on the strategic side of things....what to do with that starting GL (an army on either front would be a Godsend, but then again, ten turns to Magellen's is too long to wait....what to do?), and the Nukes. When to use them? Hit early and hard to buy yourself some time and breathing room, or save them for when you're "situation critical?"

All sorts of tough choices to be made, and nearly every turn.

Risk MI/MA to try and recover some stolen RA, or eat the loss and consolidate what you *DO* have?

Ideally, this really WILL be, in the end, an unwinnable war. That's the goal. Sure, we don't want it to be frustrating in the early goings, but by establishing the rule that there can be no peace, and against such vast nations allied against you, the hope is that there's simply no way to do a military win. So, the ship is your only out. But....keeping everything intact long enough to build it...keeping the wolves at bay for *just* long enough to launch....that's the magic....I have not yet had a chance to play the latest version, but my gut tells me we're pretty close to that....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Hmmm....seems like then, from the early report that the combined weight of those extra HP's and the extra padding in Washington....perhaps we went a bit too far the other way where the landward invasion is concerned....will have to contemplate that...we definately want the landward invasions to be every bit as dicey as the battle for the sea lanes!

Have a good snooze! I just rolled into the office, and am stratagizing on a couple of final changes....

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

Vel, what if you put 5 warriors for every civ in the US territory? That should make the "leave or declare war" available... and you still can destroy these with your MIs that get the stand down orders. maybe some will get a little bit damaged, but it should be too much.

Spying in Russia: I had this in beta 1, where I also couldn't infiltrate one country (I don't remember which, but maybe even the Russians), that is a bit of a problem of course.

Bambul, it certainly is true that it takes a little getting used to before all goes according to plan, but this makes it part of the fun, no? I've played the first turn a couple of times now, and each time I learn a lot regarding defense. Maybe this is not needed in normal SP play, but again I expect it to be very advantagous in MP.

Brinoch, I don't know if Vel made the inland sea more challenging, but last time as well it was very close for me. I ended up destroying the final transport with just a 1HP sub... very cool if it works

I too would use the leader for Magellan, but I'll maybe play next time without doing that. The key is, however, that you really need it later on, so you have to count on another leader appearing... it's a bit of a risk. come to think about it, I'll build Magellan anyhow, with all the new elites GLs should be easy to come by, and I can still use these on armies.

If the war weariness was 48%, than it has gotten (a little) better: I saw 62% WW last time in the first turn. This might depend on which city you investigate, though, so nothing conclusive yet. However, having the AIs declare war on you might not be the final path yet: the first offensive action is also a big one. I don't know if killing warriors in your own territory is considered bad, but when you get sneak attacked in a game, your happiness actually goes up, instead of down. I can't see any way how you trigger that, though. [side note to Vel: have you tried the nuking thing you were initially thinking about? If you nuke a Chinese worker, all will declare war on you, and the Germans and Russians will draw first blood, being offensive in your territory. This might be better for WW-issues... if you don't get a massive hit being the first to use nukes]

Both the Russians and Germans aren't doing much over land? It is no problem that they load a few transports, as long as they don't start mass-loading on the North... I'll go over the game and try to steal plans to keep an eye on them. But, and this was also something I had hoped for in previous betas, it could be that they are forming a SoD... of MAs. Ouch. Let's hope so

Subs picketing: indeed, very tense, isn't it? A static line will get picked of very fast, you have to retreat them from time to time, and let Magellan do the work for you! One of the major tactical implications of this game: sneak in, scout, and retreat again! I also have used quite a few of my F15s on recon, something else worth a try.

I'm just replying as I'm reading along all the new posts, to not miss too much, and I just read your lessons learned... I can't agree with you more. I only rushed an army on T1 because I wanted to test the marines, and was not going to play out the game as planned. Otherwise, I wouldn't have done it either.

I'll certainly post my thoughts after I played through it myself, so far I have a few comments, though. I was hoping that the RA in the mountains would not be accompanied with two, but only with one worker. This will delay them an extra turn. Further, I'll certainly see if you can guide either Arrian or DeepO to the western coast in time, otherwise one of the two has to move West. The Japanese had, in beta 3, the nastiest packs, and required a nuke anyhow. But, you still have an ICBM left, if you are saving it... I am happy to hear the Chinese are coming from the East, that coast was a bit too easy in last tests

Vel, regarding the beefed up MIs... it might be a better choice to give us some more, but lesser experienced troops. Elite MAs are quite intimidating, it seems. However, if either the Russians or Germans are forming SoD, we could have a fun time defending on our hands, certainly now that the nukes are brought back. I'll start testing now, and will report when I have some results. Be sure to drop a note some time before you start making changes, I'll try to peep here regularly... that is if I'm not that focused on the game that I forget all around me

DeepO

[Velociryx]

Good thinking on the 5 warriors....and we've got plenty of MI's that will be ordered to stand down on the setup turn, so that should work out just fine. Plus, the four extra workers make for a nice lil' boon...

Will prolly undo at least a bit of the hp bonuses on the fort lines, drop some of those Elite MI's back to vets, and replace the few units I deleted from the initial attack waves. That should put us to about where we were....Other ideas for making the land battle a bit trickier, or do you think that should do it?

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

I just went through the first turn, and indeed, it is too much. Maybe it comes from my bad experiences with them, but I mainly fortified the German front, instead of the Russians. The Russians were able to capture 2 of my forts again, but the Germans just turned around after some initial bombing!

I think that the AI is calculating risk based on quality, and not on numbers. If you could make the majority of the elites back to vets, but add (I mean add as in extra units, not taking some of the city defenders ) a few vets to get to the same number of hp, we should be fine. Perhaps, if you empty a few of the cities a bit (leaving just one defender), and add these to the front it would also be good. But take the regulars then, instead of the vets.

No, definately lose the majority of the elites, and we should be fine. I wouldn't tweak the attack forces, the Russians are more then able enough to break through, and if the Germans weren't scared away they too would have taken at least one fort.

DeepO

[Velociryx]

And we can't be having scared Germans on turn one!
Duly on the list for when I get home then!

-=Vel=-

[phunny_pharmer]

Nice tuch, having the other civs start in anarchy...is that supposed to be ironic, in a way?

Can wait to test!