The main objective is to nuke Epsilon.
Copy that :salute:

But how to get there, and what sorts of arrangements have been made with the other teams to further this objective?

For that matter, I understand that Aloha was awaiting a major tech swap, and had expressed some frustration with the swap being delayed for several turns. Is that still on? It would be unwise of me to simply ask Aloha what 'our' prior arrangements were ;)

On the other hand, if the rest of Piffle isn't that interested in this game any longer, I won't hold the game up to hear answers on this stuff.

Any info on communication with Aloha and Innovia should be posted in the respective threads. Perhaps people have copies of PMs, IMchats, personal emails, &cet?

My primary goal here is to keep this team alive. I have no interest in changing an existing strategy, unless it seems evident that the strategy is doomed to fail.

Thanks again for letting me help out here :)

Just had a look at the save. Aloha has offered a map trade. I see no reason to decline it.

I'm really curious about the domestic status. What's with all the courthouses? I'd think that we'd want factories first.

I also checked briefly on the trade screen. We are beholden to Epsilon for the health of our citizens. We're going to lose 5 health as soon as war is declared, and not much of it can be subsidized by Aloha. It's really going to hurt us now that Innovia is being decimated. :sad:

Once we have US and access to nukes, we can cash rush about 2 per turn with research turned off. I'd say it's safe to turn off research for good once we have Industrialism, Flight and Radio.

Why are we slow burning Democracy? Why not finish it in one turn, revolt, then stockpile cash to do a sprint to Rocketry?

I'm still reading old threads and lots of the emails. I'm still planning on playing on Monday morning. :salute:

I'm not much help here Peter. 'Cane and Conroe are really the two players that have the best handle on how to play civ4. It's not a game I understand well.

Thanks for the input Whomp :)

Seems we've caused a bit of a stir in the Turntracker :rolleyes:

I made a pledge to play the game to win for Piffle, I don't understand Robboo doesn't respect that. :dunno:

As was said in the thread...why didn't he make an issue of it before? Rob tends to get a bit bull headed on things because of some issues we've had at CDZ with pitboss games.

I see his point about how there really wasn't warning - I mentioned the offer still stood, then the next thing that happened was I announced that I had joined.

Still - Aloha has been close to resigning several times lately. This may have pushed him over the edge. I hope that's not the case, I'm really looking forward to nuking!

Doesn't he understand the value of having an ex-Epsilonian on his side? Sheesh! ;)

For that matter, I understand that Aloha was awaiting a major tech swap, and had expressed some frustration with the swap being delayed for several turns. Is that still on?I've been putting off the trade deal in hopes of getting some input from KC. I know that he made a deal with Aloha, but I don't know any of the details. When I sent the last save over, I included a note apologizing for the delay and asking if Aloha could provide any screenshots of the negotiated terms.

Why are we slow burning Democracy? Why not finish it in one turn, revolt, then stockpile cash to do a sprint to Rocketry?Unfortunately, I cannot answer why research is turned off. I know that KC wanted to stockpile some cash. But he also sent a bunch of cash to Aloha to help them complete Artillery. And reading between the lines of his last PM, I think he was planning on using a cash infusion from Aloha to burn through Rocketry.

Thanks for that :)

I've been going through the Strangers thread, I came across this nugget:
I figure we could have Democracy in 8 turns easily if we researched. At 0 research we will get it in 17 turns so that is what I figured we would do since Aloha and Innovia are going to be a bit in getting Rocketry.
Complete Kremlin in 8 turns, get Electricity from them hopefully asap in 3 turns, highlight Fission, then Hamburger builds on the Manhatten until 1 turn left. At that time we should have 5K gold or so.
Nukes cost about 675-700 gold apiece with Kremlin and 1 turn invested. We have to go to Uni Sufferage at some point along the line. We cannot gift nukes that I can see however so we will have to attack Epsilon or give Innovia all our gold for rocketry and ensure they are in US (they are spiritual so no big deal).
Also, I made a rough estimate of land area (Epsilon has 25%; us 13%). For domination we would need all unsettled land (~30%) and part of Aloha. Such would make domination quite hard to achieve.
So that leaves space I suppose, and we do have a good enough gnp to beat Innovia there.

That pretty well explains the need for cash. However, cash rushing a Nuke should only cost 500, i think (2gold for every hammer) - unless, of course, nukes are special. I honestly don't know.

I suppose the idea of getting Manhattan to within a turn of completion is so that we have the element of utter surprise: let the Project complete the same turn we receive Rockets, so that we can rush several nukes the very next turn. Then the following turn we'll be able to hit them in several cities all at once.

If domination is the goal, we should simply raze Epsilon's cities and plant new settlers on them. If Space is the goal, we should keep the cities and switch to State Property.

I keep starting to compose a post and realise that it's utter drivel so delete it again. I really don't know what was decided other than KC's post you quoted above seemed to go for space as we would need just too much land for domination.

I too am a bit baffled by the reaction to you joining Piffle Peter, it wasn't as if it was planned out of sight by PM.

Well it is good to have some new blood, we have an exponential number of posts to look at! Thanks again Peter, this makes the game more enjoyable now. Maybe thats also not tinkering with civ for a month.

The idea was to give Aloha gold so they can research artillery in short order. We gave them 300 gpt or so, and would expect that back once the arty research is done. We could have had it in 5 turns but with gold loss. The Innovia stuff should be disregarded as they didnt want to participate.

Democracy is ok to finish. With Representation we research well enough; we probably need to turn research on to finish demo in 1 or maximize overflow into Rocketry as long as we get Aloha gold.

I saw it as we go into anarchy to US on the turn before Rocketry is in, and we have all our workers ready to chop the forests around when Rocketry comes in (Manhatten should be built the same turn). We can then chop into ICBMs at a couple spots in the south and SW, while buying nukes in the forest free towns (capital, hamburger, the coastal towns). We should have several nukes then the turn after Rocketry is done.

The key logistics point is getting our troops in place to hit the coastal Espilon cities that turn (which may be difficult with their ships watching). Mighty Bulwark, those Epsilon towns in the SW of their territory, and most importantly their uranium city need to be burned right away.

It will take a lot of micro to pull it off but maybe we can kill enough population and production to make it more of a game down the home stretch, especially with Aloha poking around here and there. Maybe Innovia wont be dead yet at that time and they can fight back.

If we could find their stack(s) in Innovia territory it might not hurt to nuke those too if possible. Doubt we will have that many to fire off though. I was roughly estimating how much it costs for nukes so it is good to know it will only be 500 gold or so to buy em.

Do we really need bombers and things when oil is at such a premium? It would be hard to protect those ice oil cities just as it will be hard to them to protect as well. Do nukes destroy fishing boats?

Thanks for the refresher :)

I've never been too good at prechopping - sometimes the darned forest chops before I expect it to :gripe: It's supposed to take 3 turns after Steam Power (and no serfdom), right? So if I only let the worker chop for 2 turns (t180 and t181, e.g.), I can cancel the chop at the start of t182, preventing the forest from chopping?

If that's the case, then I'll need to work backwards from Manhattan completing (Rockets won't take as long as MP).

t1: NUKE EPSILON
t0: Manhattan completes, Rocketry arrives, we set all cities to build nukes, and start workers finish-chopping. Cash rush?? Nukes will complete on the interturn. This is pricey, because none of the nukes will have any hammers banked.
t-1: Come out of revolt, move workers onto forests that need finishing
t-2: Revolt into US, stop workers from chopping (Manhattan in 1, Rockets in 1)
t-3: Workers start chopping (Manhattan in 2, Rockets in 2)
t-4: (Manhattan in 3, Rockets in 3)
...

Please look this over carefully - this is by far the most complicated timing thing I've ever had to do. Especially the timing of the chops. Does the chop complete at the beginning of the third turn?.. on the interturn after the three complete turn cycles?... see my confusion? :blush:

EDIT:
I'll do a test to confirm this, but rushing nukes should cost 500:hammers: * 3:commerce: * 2/3kremlin bonus = 1000:gold:. That's assuming we have at least 1 hammer invested. If we don't, then the cost is +50% = 1500 [500 * 3 * 3/2 * 2/3]

I always just chop, and then push the red stop button so that I dont forget what the heck they are doing and mess up.

Im pretty sure its something a little less than 700 gold with Kremlin; maybe thats 500 hammers x 2 gold -1/3. We definitely need the hammer investment bonus since we will run out of funds soon and we will need many many nukes.

But yeah the plan looks good. If all goes well, we will have several forests prechopped and roaded or just workers in place to finish the chops.

Any ides on how to tell that we knock uranium offline on turn one? They will probably just rebuild it immediately but we can keep at it. Arent workers killed by nukes or no?

I've never been too good at prechopping - sometimes the darned forest chops before I expect it to :gripe: It's supposed to take 3 turns after Steam Power (and no serfdom), right? So if I only let the worker chop for 2 turns (t180 and t181, e.g.), I can cancel the chop at the start of t182, preventing the forest from chopping?

I'd advocate like killercane says and cancel at the end of every turn. Barring that, cancel at the end of t181 -- do not risk going into t182 as if you aren't fast enough some chops will finish. If the chops say they finish in 3 turns, they will finish sometime during the 3rd turn (after the game goes through the worker's turn and finishes the 3rd turn chop).


t1: NUKE EPSILON
t0: Manhattan completes, Rocketry arrives, we set all cities to build nukes, and start workers finish-chopping. Cash rush?? Nukes will complete on the interturn. This is pricey, because none of the nukes will have any hammers banked.
t-1: Come out of revolt, move workers onto forests that need finishing
t-2: Revolt into US, stop workers from chopping (Manhattan in 1, Rockets in 1)
t-3: Workers start chopping (Manhattan in 2, Rockets in 2)
t-4: (Manhattan in 3, Rockets in 3)
...

Please look this over carefully - this is by far the most complicated timing thing I've ever had to do. Especially the timing of the chops. Does the chop complete at the beginning of the third turn?.. on the interturn after the three complete turn cycles?... see my confusion? :blush:


again, i'd play it safe and cancel chops at the end of every turn. On the turn when it says 1-turn to complete, it will finish the chop as soon as you give the worker command.

Thanks for the tips, guys :)

As I've mentioned before, I'll set up a test, to ensure that we know exactly how mush these nukes are going to cost, and what units / workboats they'll destroy. I'm pretty certain that nukes take out workers and improvements without discrimination, but it's a good thing to test.

Epsilon's Uranium is situated in their interior, so no one can get to it very soon. But a direct nuke hit should immobilize it. Now if we're lucky enough to have fallout appear on that tile, then Epsilon can't use it until they research Environmentalism.... unless they have a secondary source from Loco or Innovia. I don't know about that off the top of my head. I'll have to look at the save tomorrow morning when I play (about 10 hours from now).

I also think our army has to be gifted to Aloha in the next couple of turns so that they have time to upgrade and move into position! :eek:

There's a lot to coordinate, and not much time if we're hoping to nuke before Epsilon builds the UN! :whipped:

I still haven't run this test :wallbash:

I should have time this week, assuming the save continues to drag :coffee:

Something we need to start thinking about:
Stacey and I are leaving for vacation either June 16 or 23. We'll be returning on July 13. During that time, I'll only have my laptop, which can't play civ. So hopefully someone here can take those saves. Unfortunately this will be the end-game! I suppose we might get lucky, and the game will move along during these next couple of weeks, but I kind of doubt it.

I could try to recruit another turn-player, if you guys think that's easier?

Ok, I contacted Twistlok, a friend of mine, about taking over as turnplayer. This is assuming that nobody still here is able to take over for me. I leave for vacation on Friday, and won't be able to resume as turnplayer until July 14.

Twistlok is willing to take over, so he's going to start the procedure to gain access to this forum (and lose access to Epsilon, where he is currently enrolled.) I really don't think he's checked in at Epsilon in many many months, possibly in over a year.

If anyone objects to this, speak up! Otherwise he'll be taking over within a week.

I'll do everything I can to make sure that he follows the plan with no hiccups. In fact, we could even coordinate when he plays the save so that I can talk him through it.... assuming my memory is that good :mischief:

I think we need to invest hammers into the nukes first and then buy them= more nukes. We will need a heck of a lot of them. I would like to be around when we nuke them so pm me when you plan to play the turn; if you cant no worries though!

The plan is to use the workers to chop a prechopped forest into a nuke at the start of a turn, then pay for the rest of the hammers in gold. We'll have something just north of 4000 gold for rushing. Then we start a Golden Age.

But I wonder is we should wait a turn before using the nukes or not... We could conceivably use the nukes to blackmail Epsilon for tech parity. If we plan on nuking Epsilon, though, our best bet is to nuke immediately. As their pre-emptive attack on Aloha illustrates, they won't hesitate to hit us if they feel even a little threatened.

We could have 10 nukes at the start of the following turn, assuming we get enough Hammers from the chops:
Zapotec,
Eppieville
Henryville,
Tubby's Oasis,
Leonidas,
Treacle Cottage,
Brilliant!,
Twaddle,
Hamburger,
[the city south of Chappaquiddick]

We are guaranteed to get 8 :)

The Golden Age will help boost our post-turn production and gold ;)

You are sure we dont pay double with the forest chop method? In vanilla I remember chops work different (they go directly in), but I dont remember the mechanics of it. If after chop the nukes are 45/500 then that would be best, certainly. I just want to stretch our dollar as far as it goes.

Well, Memphus saw that we have nukes... I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I wonder if they have declared war on us yet? :lol:

Nothing like a little fireworks display for the 4th of July!! Even though it may be more of the glowing nuclear winter kind. :D

Upon opening the save, we see a message from The Leader:
http://xs229.xs.to/xs229/08275/leader_trade_offer0000388.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs229&d=08275&f=leader_trade_offer0000388.jpg)

continued:
http://xs229.xs.to/xs229/08275/leader_comment0000287.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?[url=http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs229&d=08275&f=leader_comment0000287.jpg)


Plus, it turns out that nukes will cost us 1000g minus hammers invested, so that's a bummer. When we chop a forest, we'll still have to pay ~900g per nuke. So that's only 4 nukes that we can muster this turn.

Since Epsilon is already close to building the UN, and since they have offered some techs, I propose we try to blackmail them further. Fascism is nice, but I think that we should demand both Combustion and Radio. But why should we give up Fission? If we do, they'll be able to research Ecology. Should we play hardball??

Also, I'm afraid that if we nuke Aloha, Robboo will stop playing. As much as I'd like to do it, I'd really hate to see the game die when we're this close to the end.

I'd really like to see people comment on all this, as I don't feel comfortable making these huge decisions myself. Even if it's just a 'I don't care what we do' that will make me feel more relaxed. :)

Twistlok and I will try to have the save played sometime on Saturday or early sunday (est)

4th of July seems an aptly ironic date to do some nuking. Enjoy the holiday, everyone!


(But if you want to try leverage our radioactive friends to get techs out of epsilon then let's play some hardball.)

This game is nearing the end and Epsilon seems to have it the bag. I'm inclined to hit them or have them give us the opportunity to win somehow. Their call.

It looks to me that Epsilon is the one doing the blackmailing. "If you nuke us, we won't finish the UN". And considering how fast these guys turned on Aloha, I'm not sure I want to give them 4 turns of war prep time. Unfortunately, this game doesn't end unless they finish the UN. Don't know that we have a choice ... I vote don't bother with the blackmail, but instead make them reassure us they aren't going to attack in 4 turns. Then nuke them on the turn that the UN is built. :D (Of course I haven't seen a save, so whatever you think is best also works.)

So far I tally:
Blackmail for all we can: 1
Don't blackmail: 1
Hit them sooner or later no matter what: 2

I've drafted a letter to Epsilon (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7001419&postcount=15), proposing the Blackmail option. No matter what I think we're smart to build as many nukes as we can right now. I'm not inclined to give Epsilon Fission. We'll start out there, and see how the negotiations go.

And as far as allowing Epsilon 4 turns to bulk up to repel an invasion: They are already far and away strong enough to hold back our 8 cavalry and 3 infantry :rolleyes:

Gifting our entire military to Aloha turns out to have been a colossal strategic blunder. :gripe:

Diplomacy to start the turn:
http://xs229.xs.to/xs229/08294/1765aloha0000839.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs229&d=08294&f=1765aloha0000839.jpg)

...and from Epsilon:
http://xs229.xs.to/xs229/08294/1765ep0000849.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs229&d=08294&f=1765ep0000849.jpg)

So it seems they ignored our letter.

I think we should hit Epsilon with all the nukes we have (5). Then we blackmail Aloha, and nuke them if they don't give us Radio and Combustion.

http://xs229.xs.to/xs229/08294/1765alohamap0000120.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs229&d=08294&f=1765alohamap0000120.jpg)

I think we'll have 2 nukes available to use on Aloha, assuming we don't use any on Epsilon that turn. I'd vote to hit their Capital and one of the other production cities.

I won't be able to play the save until Tuesday morning. But since I can take screenshots, and Twistlok can't, I think we should wait. Also, this will give us time to get a letter out to Aloha and Epsilon letting them know our displeasure with their choices.

Nuke em !

Well, I'm guessing this game is pretty much over, so it probably doesn't matter what we do. But it seems that we've got a couple of options if we want to go out in a bang.

The first option is to wait until the UN completes next turn. Then we lob over all of our nukes in an effort to reduce Epsilon's population. If Aloha is on board, we might be able to steal the UN from them. The opponent would be either us or Aloha depending on who has the most population.

Our other option is, if we really want to blackmail Epsilon, we could follow up on our "concerns" about our missiles accuracy. We post an announcement in the main thread about conducting a missile test. We lob one over at Epsilon and then send them an apology note for our "failed" test. Noting, of course, in the letter how the accuracy would probably have been better if only we had the appropriate techs. ;)

What ever happened to that last city of Innovia's? Did we ever take it? If we haven't I'd say we go ahead and take it out, as well. I guess another option would be to declare on all 3 of them. Take out Innovia and nuke the other two. :dunno:

We cant steal UN with so few nukes, not enough population killers. I like the nuke em all approach.

OKAY, I'm going to play the turn in about 12 hours, depending on how annoying my work responsibilities become.

When I open the save, I will have to respond to the Diplomacy that Epsilon and Aloha have proposed. See post 26 to get an idea.

I still maintain that we hold a firm line with epsilon: Nuke a couple of cities, using ICBMs from cities that they can assault in a counter attack (nukes can't be rebased :(). The idea is to knock down population and production. This turn, we don't nuke Aloha. Instead we demand, using the in-game diplomacy tools, Radio & Combustion. We mention that we still have [n] ICBMs with which to enforce our demands.

At the end of the turn we demand some cities from Epsilon, plus any techs we think Aloha isn't going to come through on. The best we can hope for is parity in tech and population. Epsilon winning by UN is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Speaking of which, Does anyone object to voting for Epsilon in a UN victory? I won't vote in this one, as I was a member of that team earlier. I think this vote should only be open to people who were never members Epsilon.

I'll vote for them, but only on the condition that they accede to our demands!

Why do we need to hear demands and make demands if the conclusion is inevitable? Just nuke everyone and we will try to invade Aloha.

Speaking of which, Does anyone object to voting for Epsilon in a UN victory?I'd say yes. Epsilon basically won the game a long time ago. Maybe if the coalition would have ever come together, it might have been a different conclusion. :dunno: Fittingly, I think it is their diplomacy more than anything else that did it.

I opened the save to see what's up. Things could be worse :lol:
-We lost Henryville, Conrovia, and Leonidas
-We are about to lose Brilliant
-We have 1 nuke ready
-Aloha accepted the trade :drool:
-Innovia accepted the trade
-Epsilon didn't :rolleyes:
-Epsilon completed the UN

Here's the complete event log:
http://xs329.xs.to/xs329/08311/1770-events576.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs329&d=08311&f=1770-events576.jpg)

Forces outside of Brilliant:

http://xs329.xs.to/xs329/08311/1770brilliant0000380.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs329&d=08311&f=1770brilliant0000380.jpg)

Forces marauding towards our core:

http://xs329.xs.to/xs329/08311/1770leohenry0000863.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs329&d=08311&f=1770leohenry0000863.jpg)

I'd like to play in a couple of hours. I think we should try and nuke an outlying Epsilonian city that still has a lot of Population. Hopefully it won't have a bomb shelter :evil:

I'll try to whack the marauders near our core.

I'll look into what we have in Brilliant, but it may be best to retreat those troops to make a stand in our core. Thoughts?

I opened the save this morning to find a message from Aloha and a message from Epsilon:

http://xs230.xs.to/xs230/08315/1775aloha0000340.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs230&d=08315&f=1775aloha0000340.jpg)

http://xs230.xs.to/xs230/08315/1775ep0000326.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs230&d=08315&f=1775ep0000326.jpg)
and here's the rest of what they want from us :rolleyes:
http://xs230.xs.to/xs230/08315/1775ep20000317.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs230&d=08315&f=1775ep20000317.jpg)

Yes, All our Base [would] belong to Them. :lol:

Then another message:

http://xs230.xs.to/xs230/08315/1775un0000216.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs230&d=08315&f=1775un0000216.jpg)


Here's most of the event log. The only lines that were clipped concerned another bombardment.

http://xs230.xs.to/xs230/08315/1775event10000566.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs230&d=08315&f=1775event10000566.jpg)


Epsilon has demanded that we accept that trade if we want to be in the game when the UN vote comes around. I think that we may still be in the game, albeit weakly, if we don't give in. However, our ability to rush nukes has plummeted with the loss of cities. We're only bringing in ~450:gold: per turn, so rushing more than 1 per turn is no longer possible. That raises the possibility of rushing Infantry.

But I don't know how long we can hold them off - if they bring some tanks down, we're toast. Of course, we could try to whack their Oil :dunno:

But I've never seen fallout over water resources, so they will likely have the oil hooked back up in 2 or 3 turns at the latest.

So do we accept their offer? Here's the overview of how much we have left:

http://xs230.xs.to/xs230/08315/1775over0000346.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs230&d=08315&f=1775over0000346.jpg)

We can expect to lose Chappaquiddick next turn, but that's the only city that I can see units outside of. Their transports are frequently promoted to +1 and naval movement, plus they have Refrigeration. So there could be more transports along Aloha's coast that we can't see. We could lost Hamburger and Twaddle as well. The following turn we'd likely lose Balderdash. At that point we'll have almost no economic power left, just some production. Perhaps we should revolt to Nationalism and start Drafting?

How best to end this game, fellas? :dunno:

I think we chose this path knowing it would not end in victory, but that it would be fun. Let's see this through, and fight for the win.

So I saw what you posted about the PM you sent Aloha, but if that was the end of the communication then that by no means condemns you as having made a mistake. We did not say, "Go get peace" --- we asked if they were thinking about it. If they just took that as carte blanche to take peace if they wanted to and not even communicate that to us, then they have no right to be as . .. .. .. .. .y as they are.

P.S. I vote for Epsilon in U.N. We may be a bit nutty to go after them, but at least we're consistent (*cough* not Aloha *cough*)

Epsilon has demanded that we accept that trade if we want to be in the game when the UN vote comes around.I think our reply should be "Nuts!". :D

As for what to do with our one nuke, do we know where any of their stacks are located? Otherwise, just have a look around the map to see if any happiness resources are clumped around a single city. We might be able to get lucky and add to their war weariness. :dunno:

Good idea about nuking the luxury resources! I hadn't thought about that. Unfortunately, we can't see any of their stacks. So I will target Luxuries and population. Of course, now that they have Ecology, they can scrub the fallout. So be it.

The PM that I posted was the complete text. I agree that we weren't giving them outright permission, but I can understand their interpretation. I really think, on the whole, they weren't a team that spends as much time and energy thinking things through in this game as I'm accustomed to. It will be very interesting to see the post counts for the different teams by the end of this ;)

SO far, it's 2 votes to continue nuking Epsilon :D

Considering that you also sent other messages saying that our strategy will be destroyed if they go for peace I think that they are just finding excuses. Yes it could be taken that way but only by a large stretch of the imagination. Definitely not your fault.

Just find something more to nuke, Epsilon will just lose our vote for the UN if they wipe us out.

update to follow in a few hours. Highlights: we nuked 3 fresh cities :D

I won't be able to play the save until Monday or Tuesday morning, as I'm out of town.

One of the websites I read regularly is ArmsControlWonk. It can get fairly technical sometimes, with engineers and analysts going back and forth on the value of RRW targeting re-works and such, but sometimes an article hits pretty close to home:

Source (http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1950/minium-deterrence-essay-online)

Would like to comment on minimum deterrence:

I guess with that concept a premium must be put on survivability (of the whole strategic complex), because in the end it’s a game of chance, and even a numerically greatly superior enemy has always to be kept afraid, that a counter-strike would devastate him.
(A few ideas about minimum numbers below).

And then the question of targeting. Aiming strategic weapons at military targets is wasted. Strategic warheads are clearly made to annihilate population centers. THAT is what deterrence is about. Military complexes might be hardened to withstand – or so the military might think and figure they could ride out an attack, but with population centers that’s a whole different story.
A strategic weapon is foremost a terror weapon.

The balanced minimum numbers game (for the U.S., taking the lower SORT limit as basis):
— 18 active SSBNs (21 in total, derived from SSNs to save costs) with 14 missiles each with 3 RVs each (makes 252 missiles with 756 warheads). Reasoning: Survivability of a smaller number of platforms against sneak attacks is questionable (assuming a 33% peace-time patrol rate = 6), plus more platforms give more attack vectors against BMD systems. It’s basically the Carter option.
— 270 active rail-mobile launchers (300 in total) with 1 missile each with 3 RVs each. (Makes 270 missiles with 810 warheads). Reasoning: Again railcars are more survivable than silos, the C2 problem basically no different from SSBNs.
— The question of “rogue regimes” and the limited strike option. For that 30 silo based single-warhead missiles with DAY penetrator warheads (like a modified W80). Reasoning: Deterrence might not always work with lunatics, there might be a situation where a tactical quick strike is required. An ICBM is still fastest, the silo position would make it clear that it is not a general (sneak)-attack on one of the other powers.
— No airborne component, no strategic cruise missile component.

— PS: As missile a “Joint Strategic Deterrence Missile” (or whatever you want to call it) is worth a thought, since that commonality would save money and make balancing the force easier. (I’m aware of the different requirements of SLBMs and ICBMs). Warhead somewhere around 450kT fixed yield. No dicking around with DAY, no downloaded-MIRVs. Strategic deterrence has to be a clear, no nonsense game.

— PPS: The question of MIRVs. Six is obviously an optimum number to destroy an area target like a city, but if you want to keep to an upper limit of warheads, then 6-MIRV missiles result in a too low number of missiles, endandering survivability (esp for the SSBN portion). That’s why three in the above dalliance, to provide a balance of launch platforms, missiles, and warheads.

Emphasis mine in the above. It seems like we've reinvented the wheel :lol:

Of course, when we open the save we may find that our ability to bring hardship to the evil Epsilonians has fallen dramatically :scared:

Are we still prepared to fight it out to the death? As things stand, we can't even hope for a sound 2nd place, as Aloha's population is quite a bit larger than ours ;)

It's kind of fun defending an indefensible position - at least, it's more fun than it was in debate class :lol:

Are we still prepared to fight it out to the death? As things stand, we can't even hope for a sound 2nd place, as Aloha's population is quite a bit larger than ours ;)Once we lost our allies (did we ever have them?), this game became un-winnable IMHO. To me this war is about making the final turns interesting and fun to play. Something you've definitely done, Peter! Personally, I don't see that a peace treaty buys us anything. Unless maybe they want to give us the UN as part of a peace deal ... :hmm: :mischief: ... nahhhh, let's just keep lobbing nukes!

OKAY, players. Time to turtle down and give these creeps the end-game they deserve :cowboy:

Here's the event log. Aloha declaring war on us really killed the vestiges of our economy. I've got a proposal to handle that, but let's look at the most important bits first.


First the good news:

We can rush one more nuke :woohoo:
It will drain our treasury, but I think it's going to be money well-spent. Also, check out the map of Aloha for targeting purposes. As of now, they don't have any bunkers in any cities. I just wished I had remember to look for them in Epsilon before we targeted. Oh well, live and learn.

Now for the bad news:

Two fleets, one outside of Twaddle, the other outside of Hamburger. In my opinion, the costs of trying to hold these dying cities are not outweighed by the benefits of their income. Proposal: Evacuate all Forces

And in the southeast, a stack of tanks. I really wish we could afford a second nuke for these guys! This is what may keep us from casting a vote in the UN :scared:

How to handle these last few turns?

My suggestion is to revolt to Police State, Nationhood, and Theocracy. This will help to put some of our people back to work. The others we can bribe with the luxury slider. Take a look at the Domestic Adviser screen - the worst cities, happiness-wise, are also the ones I'm proposing we abandon this turn.

We'll rush a nuke in Eppieville (we've got just enough cash), the other cities will continue building infantry and artillery. But mostly infantry. All we need to do is have one more unit than they have attacks, and they won't be able to take a city. But to do that, we're gonna need troops. I'm not that experienced with Drafting, so I'll be sure to read up on that.

EDIT: pic hosting site is down, so I've loaded all the screenshots into our gmail. teamPiffle is the user name, grenade is the p-word.

1795, pre-play

We lost Hamburger and Twaddle, as expected.

http://xs230.xs.to/xs230/08352/1795event0000971.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs230&d=08352&f=1795event0000971.jpg)


Epsilon has landed a sizeable tank force.

http://xs230.xs.to/xs230/08352/1795east0000112.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs230&d=08352&f=1795east0000112.jpg)


Our defenses in Treacle Cottage:

http://xs230.xs.to/xs230/08352/1795tc0000585.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs230&d=08352&f=1795tc0000585.jpg)


All's quiet on the western front, more or less :lol:

http://xs330.xs.to/xs330/08352/1795west0000659.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs330&d=08352&f=1795west0000659.jpg)


The proposed Civics change, with 2 turns of anarchy :mad:

http://xs330.xs.to/xs330/08352/1795civic0000125.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs330&d=08352&f=1795civic0000125.jpg)


I still think we should nuke Aloha's capital. I forgot to double check that they didn't rush a bombshelter in the inter-turn, but as of last turn they had none. They will lose close to 10 population :evil:

We can hold Treacle Cottage this turn. We have more defenders than they have attacks, so even if we lose every battle, they still won't be able to take the city. Of course, that balance changes if we pull any of the units out, like the cannons. At this point, I think it's more important that our units stay alive, rather than wasting them against Epsilon's tanks (which can heal in a few turns anyway :P)

They have a much larger stack of about 6 tanks 2 NE of TC, just inside the cultural borders. I'll make sure none of those tanks have the 'use enemy roads' promotion, but otherwise that stack will be in range of TC next turn. At that point I propose withdrawing our forces from TC, and falling back.

Our capital is Zapotec, and I'd love to get that darned MC off the coppermine so that we can get some half-way decent production out of it :whip:

Anyone think we should hold our last nuke back, and try to take out Epsilon's attack force in a fwe turns? We almost certainly won't be able to get another nuke in this game :sad:

Anyone think we should hold our last nuke back, and try to take out Epsilon's attack force in a fwe turns? We almost certainly won't be able to get another nuke in this game :sad:Well, you are more familiar with the situation on the ground than I am ... But I would say let's hold the nuke in reserve. We might need it to keep us in the game "one more turn" down the road.

I also don't think we should nuke Aloha's cities. We told them that we wouldn't nuke 'em if they gave in to our demands. Besides I doubt that nuking them will make a difference game-wise, so we might as well take the high road. :) Even if they did declare on us ...

Out of curiosity, how many turns until the fabled UN vote?

Good advice, Conroe :)

I haven't posted a turn update yet, but I have played the turn. I indeed held the nuke back. In fact, I'm hoping we can manage to corral Epsilon's forces into a tight knot, at which point I'll nuke'em. :evil:

Then we might be able to mop up the weakened units, and stay in the game until reinforcements arrive.

Another reason for not nuking Aloha is that they have bunkers now :sad:

I'll try to get more posted soon.

I've opened the save, had a look around, and took some screenshots. This game is almost over :)

http://xs330.xs.to/xs330/08350/1800dipvic0000605.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs330&d=08350&f=1800dipvic0000605.jpg)



Our quaint little lands:

http://xs330.xs.to/xs330/08350/1800over0000175.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs330&d=08350&f=1800over0000175.jpg)



The Attacking army in the East:

http://xs330.xs.to/xs330/08350/1800tub0000562.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs330&d=08350&f=1800tub0000562.jpg)



The Valiant defenders of Tubby's Oasis:

http://xs330.xs.to/xs330/08350/1800tubdef0000612.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs330&d=08350&f=1800tubdef0000612.jpg)



The Attacking army in the West:

http://xs330.xs.to/xs330/08350/1800zap0000487.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs330&d=08350&f=1800zap0000487.jpg)



We still have one nuke, held back for an emergency :crazyeye:

But we cannot use the nuke within our cultural borders, nor within one tile of our borders :gripe:

How are we to hit their stack?.... I guess we should have hit it last turn :dunno:

This all should be moot, as I believe the game will be over after Aloha's turn, assuming they vote the party line and allow Epsilon their Dipomatic Victory :salute:


Robboo has asked that the save not be sent until after he has a chance to get his life situated post-Gustav. So we have time to discuss the best defense strategy here.

2 comments...

1. I wouldn't have quit if you nuked me.

2. I was willing to sacrifice some pop to take some cities from you. I fully expect a nuke every turn after I attacked you. I also see my lack of trusting you guys to be completely on our side was correct. If I read it right..you were deciding to be faithful to us or not.

Had you not declared war on us, we would not have nuked you. You had asked for a promise that we would not attack you for the rest of the game, and I was going to honor that.... until you declared war :lol:

What really pushed me to attack was the trade at the end. Until that point I was debating on seeing if I had a chance to sneak into victory by not attacking either of you. BUT that trade request where you said accept it or get nuked...was the deal breaker.

Someone mentioned that I was using the turn player switch confusion to my advantage...you betcha. I think I got about as much gold in those 3 to 5 turns as what you asked for back.

We were defeated... I had to play sneaky to push my civ deeper into the game and to perhaps grab second. When You guys donated the troops, I stopped building troops and went straight infrastructure. Since that time I probably built 5 to 10 units. The only thing I would do differently..try to hit you 4 turns earlier so you would have been eliminated.

Prior to that...I think Aloha's idea of getting LOCO and INNOVIA to join us in a loose alliance to attack Epsilon would have been a game changer. Innovia attacking LOCO ended that. I haven't found out why or what caused that.

Prior to that...I think Aloha's idea of getting LOCO and INNOVIA to join us in a loose alliance to attack Epsilon would have been a game changer. Innovia attacking LOCO ended that. I haven't found out why or what caused that.

Loco were in dire straights even before the invasion of Innovia, if they had prodded any further the entire structure would have fallen down, instead they razed our best city (which never helps!) and Epsilon took advantage when they invaded. If Innovia had contiued and took Loco, then it could have been a two horse race in the end.

Anyway all we could have done is supplied a token force and act as a staging ground for invasion. :)