Rat 42 - CCM Heading to the Moon

1849 (4): Many more enemy units are in sight on the main front this turn. We slay thirty-one Indian, twenty-five British, four Nubian, and two Spanish units, for the loss of three Panthers (284-15). Pz. Abt. Civinator generates a Great Leader, who rushes a commercial dock in Welcome Back.

The Gadir enclave is mostly quiet. We expunge one British unit and sink four ships of the line, two Aztec and two Nubian, offshore (289-15).

We sink three Austrian galleasses off the Austrian coast (292-15).

We sink a British steam frigate with a carrier-based Stuka—good fun (293-15).

We complete thirty-six structures.


1850 (5): Our landing force, led by the Bismarck and the Graf Zeppelin, approaches the final Carthaginian city of Rusaddir, sinking an Aztec flotilla of six ships en route (299-15).

We sink an Aztec vessel off our western island with carrier-based air (300-15).

In the Gadir enclave we bombard and scatter three British units (303-15).

We sink an Austrian galleass off that coast (304-15).

We sink two British steam frigates off Cirta with Stukas re-based in (306-15).

On the main front, we harrow thirty-four Indian units in the desert north of Bien Hoa, losing a Panther (340-16). We gain two Great Leaders, who rush commercial docks in Paderborn and Sidon.

We crush eight British units approaching Vientiane, gaining a Great Leader, who rushes a commercial dock in El-Amarna (348-16).

We shoot down five British blimps—though on previous turns, our fighters have done a terrible job of this (353-16).

A treacherous race:

The Canadian sneak attack isn’t related to any MPP. Their first attack is one of those glitchy affairs in which a naval unit directly attacks a unit on land, so perhaps the glitch led to the DoW rather than the other way around. This unit (a galleass) redlines and retreats, as does a cav in their only other attack.

We complete 142 structures, mostly rushed.

The Turks declare war on us due to their MPP with Carthage. They’re on the southwestern or island portion of the pseudo-pangaea, so it means nothing.


1851 (6): We mop up three Nubian units landed next to Sylt on the western island, and one landed next to Chuquiapo on the smaller nearby island (357-16). Our flying boats prove very useful for ground bombardment during this episode, and the sight of a cav unit being torpedoed is superb, though sadly I can't seem to capture it in a screenshot. But was that the intent, Civinator?

Well, I’m tempted to punish the Canadians’ impudence, but I’ll stick with the policy of leaving our remaining large neighbours for other players, so we just swat away twenty-three Canadian units within our own borders (380-16). We gain a Great Artist and two Great Leaders, who rush a commercial dock in Dariush Kabir and hospital in Gaza.

In the Gadir enclave we defenestrate a single English infantry, and sink two Aztec ships offshore (383-16).

Off Kolhapur we sink three Indian ships of the line (386-16).

All across the main front we disembowel one Aztec, one Nubian, two British, four Spanish, and five Indian units (399-16). We gain a partisan.

We sink two Nubian ships off the western island (401-16).

Our expeditionary force lands next to Rusaddir. We sink an Austrian cog en route (402-16).

Our expeditionary force is fiercely attacked—by Aztec units, not Carthaginian—and we have wretched luck, with inf and even a machine-gun unit repeatedly losing to cav and hussars. We go 5-7 overall (407-23), but still have plenty of strength for the attack on Rusaddir.

We shoot down three blimps, all in the Gadir enclave (410-23).

We complete 23 structures.

One source of aluminum disappears, another appears, and a saltpetre source runs out as well.


1852 (7): Research down to 30%, Total War still due in one turn.

After a heavy naval bombardment we storm Rusaddir, held by three riflemen (413-23), and:

We collect 13048 gold.

We don’t need another isolated enclave difficult to reinforce, so we abandon Rusaddir and sail away, first destroying four vulnerable Aztec units (417-23).

We adjust the MM of our Carthaginian cities, which can help us much more now.

Our peace treaty with the Maya has run its course, so we declare war on them.

We seize Calakmul, held by a fire lancer, a Javelin Thrower, and a longbowman (420-23). We gain two partisans.

We capture Bonampak, held by two late pikemen (422-23).

We take Palenque, held by eight assorted primitive units, and sink a galleass when we enter the city (431-23).

We dispose of Chichen Itza’s garrison, held by a fire lancer (432-23).

We pick off three Mayan units outside cities (435-23).

We torpedo landlocked Chichen Itza with flying boats, then storm it (held by three fire lancers; 438-23), and:

On and around the western island we account for two Nubian ships and four Turkish ground units (444-23).

Everyone should do an airdrop, however unnecessary, to have a look at the graphic.

We sink a Nubian ship of the line off Gadir (445-23).

We batter eleven Indian units in the desert north of Bien Hoa (456-23).

Around Vientiane we abuse eight British units, losing a 150mm howitzer (464-24).

We pulverize forty-seven Canadian units in the vicinity of Hippo Regius (511-24). We gain five Great Leaders, who rush commercial docks in Besançon, L’vov, Thorn, and Gnesen, and a hospital in Welcome Back.

We sink two more Indian ships of the line off Kolhapur, and a Spanish galleass off Santander (514-24).

We should complete about thirty-five structures this IT.

Six partisan victories this round yielded one partisan.

Eight lawyer victories this round generated five Great Artists.

272 elite victories this round produced fifteen Great Leaders.

The next player should definitely conquer Canada, since it divides two portions of our empire. As an exercise, try to do it in one turn. Other attacks are at your discretion. We’re at 57% of the world’s territory, so we should keep an eye on that number but we don’t need to start abandoning conquered cities yet.

We have a substantial transport fleet off Pressburg, for whenever we want to cross the narrow straits to the southwestern arm of the pseudo-pangaea. (Lurkers may not realize that the Turks, Aztecs, Chinese, Vikings, and Austrians are on a separate island, though it’s impossible to see this unless you load a save.)

It’s a bit dangerous not having a full road network on the western island, so we’ve airlifted in some workers to finish the job.

We’ll discover Total War this interturn, leaving only Nuclear Bomb before we enter the fourth Age.

There are three Turkish units on Chuquiapo Island north of the western island, but they shouldn’t give us any trouble.

Our present armoured car with an impossible acronym is a useful build, since it can be airlifted to the western island and the Gadir enclave, unlike heavier units.

We’re keeping Panthers in Hamburg, Tigers in Königsberg, Pz III’s in Leipzig, and specialized units in and around Berlin.

This is a finished turn, although many ships and planes still have movement.

The main front now:

Very nice progress!

Northern Pike said:

Hmm, at the last minute I find a stack of twenty-four fortified workers perfectly hidden behind the flying boat occupying the tile directly to the south. That’s a minor problem, Civinator. So with the capacity to do some combat railing, we'll attack on the Polish front.

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Where were the fortified workers? I was fortifying a lot of them, but I did so by moving them to the capital, fortify, then unfortify and go to work once I took stock of them.

We capture Warsaw, held only by two arqs and an artillery unit which we auto-destroy in a way I don't quite understand (100-3).

We storm Gniezno/Gnesen, held by three arqs, for the loss of a Pz III. This time we seem to auto-destroy two artillery units, as shown in the screenshot (106-5):

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I think those are the batteries auto-produced by the Coastal Fortresses.

For a race to the moon, this game has an insane amount of fighting!

I think we have been playing always war a bit too long to be peaceable.
In any case some good progress. Glad to see we have gotten rid of some of the civs.

I think Commando Bob is up now. Theodore E. Rat should be back to play afterwards.

Civ 3 *was* the best for AW!

Even better than Civ 1 or 2? Or SMAC?

Elephantium said:

Where were the fortified workers? I was fortifying a lot of them, but I did so by moving them to the capital, fortify, then unfortify and go to work once I took stock of them.

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Slightly north of El-Amarna, in the semi-desert area south of our Japanese lands.

I centralize and fortify workers to see what I've got available too.

You must be right about the autodestruction of coastal batteries.

LKendter said:

For a race to the moon, this game has an insane amount of fighting!

Click to expand...

I see three reasons for that:

1. CCM, at least at deity, is extremely demanding in terms of how much land the player has to grab to reach four-turn research. 90% of what we now hold is probably strictly necessary in that sense.

2. We have a secondary goal of getting a full look at the WWII and modern units, since a normal game of CCM, or even CCM AW, is typically won with WWI tanks and armoured cars.

3. As Greebley observes, it's just what we do.

Got it.

On a whim, I Googled for the "expanded" name of ThERat up in Post #674. I queried with that name in quotes and find only one instance of it; Post #674.

I've read about people that take great delight in finding search terms that only return one hit in Google. I find that a concept intriguing but hardly useful. Such information is only a nice piece of generally worthless trivia. I mean, how many times in a day can you mention that name in ordinary conversation? (And why would a person even try?)

I didn't put that name in this post in order to keep it unique in Google.

Some day I need to get a life.