Round 8: to 1870 AD
Let me just start off by saying that I was extremely honoured and humbled to find both of my strategy articles included in the new
Civ IV War Academy. Thank you very much to the folks who put it together for that honour.
Anyway, on to the summary of this game's round.
I started off by implementing some of the trade advice several of you gave me and renegotiated several of my deals with Hatshepsut and Cyrus:
I then went back to each of them and took each one's totat GPT for one resource. I was especially hoping to cripple Hatty by doing this, since I was pretty sure I was competing with her to build the Kremlin--and she had a head start. By taking away some of the healthy/happy resources I'd been selling her, I hoped that whichever city she had building the wonder would lose enough production for me to catch up.
No such luck!
Oh well, it's not THAT crucial a wonder at this point, and heaven knows I've had my share of them in this game.
I had put off a civics change in hopes of snagging this wonder; I put it off a couple more turns until I had railroads so my workers would have something to do during the 2 turns of anarchy. Then I made the change:
I spent several turns getting my invasion forces ready. I know a couple of people asked for a list of units, but I'm sorry, that's VERY tedious work! Suffice it to say that I had two invasion armadas--one on my west coast and one on my east. Each one consisted of about 6 Frigates and 10 Galleons.
The Galleons were loaded with a mix of units. Each stack had about 3 Cavalry, 6-10 City Raider Grenadiers and/or Rifles, 6-10 Cannon, about 6-10 "defensive" units (Grenadiers and/or Rifles with Combat, Pinch, and Formation promotions), and one Phalanx with a Medic promotion. One of the Frigates in each armada had a medic promotion as well.
I waited until the ships were positioned so I could take the two initial target cities, Sardis and Tyre, in the same turn. I already had five Frigates at anchor outside each city, and when each armada was 1 turn from the target, I declared war.
The Frigates then moved in on each city and unleashed a round of bombardment. As I'd hoped, 5 Frigates managed to pretty much cut the city defenses in half. So on the next turn, the Frigates were able to eliminate the defense bonus completely:
The following two shots will give you an idea as to the opposition I was facing, and what I had to attack with:
I attacked first with almost all of my Cannons, especially those that had a City Raider promotion, hoping to do not only collateral damage, but also to weaken the city's best defender. These Cannons were pretty much doomed--following the Syrian Doctrine and attacking off a ship gave a big +50% bonus to the defending unit. Nonetheless, a couple of the Cannons managed to withdraw. I did not attack with all available Cannons; I saved one Combat I/Barrage I Cannon to defend the city, to use against a counter-attacking stack.
Once the Cannons were finished, I attacked with my City Raider units. Most of these were Grenadiers. Since the AI seems to favour Riflemen for defending, this worked out well. I didn't lose a single one. Eventually the Rifles were gone and I was able to use the CR Rifles I had to take out the defending Cavalry:
Even so, Cyrus had a LOT of defenders. So I wound up using some of my Cavalry and "defensive" units to finish the attack on the city:
End result: I captured the city and got a free Worker in the bargain.
I then loaded the city with every defensive unit with a movement point left: about 3 Cavalry and the same number of Rifles, 2 Grenadiers, even that Medic I Phalanx and my 4 Accuracy Catapults! No sense taking any chances.
Tyre fell much more easily, as it only had four defenders, but it fell much the same way.
To make a long story short, each flotilla of Frigates sailed south, and within a couple of turns I razed the two southern Persian cities, Arbela and Samaria by attacking with my surviving Cannons (lost them all, but I've got reinforcements on the way) and my healed City Raiders. Cyrus' counterattack was one of the weakest I've ever seen--each turn he sent nothing more than a single Cavalry unit at Sardis. Since I had upgraded two Combat II/Pinch Grenadiers to Machine Guns, they didn't stand much of a chance.
Back home, I completed the Statue of Liberty (yay!) in Medina and the Ironworks in London. I finished researching Assembly Line, I've upgraded all of my Grenadiers and Rifles that are in country to Infantry, and have started on the Pentagon in London:
London is a production powerhouse, yet it's not optimal. I've throttled its growth because of the health problems posed by all those floodplains (and the loss of Cyrus' sheep). I'd appreciate some advice here--should I just assign those Engineers to tiles, let the city grow, and leave the food surplus to handle the unhealthiness? What about putting Medicine higher in the research queue for a hospital? And should I keep another Persian city (Persepolis or Pasargadae) for the sheep?
To help in that decision-making regard, here's a look at the victory conditions:
So, good news for the conquest win goal: we're quite a ways from having the land we need. I haven't worked out the tile count, and, granted, the two captured Persian cities have yet to reclaim their fat crosses, but 51.31% strikes me as being a long, LONG way from the required 64%.
I'm researching Combustion, which will allow me to upgrade the Frigates to Destroyers and the Galleons to Transports--stronger, faster-moving units all. After Combustion, I'll be able to research Flight. Once I have it, a civics change may be in order. Universal Suffrage would allow me to rush-buy airports; while Nationhood would give me a happy bonus for each barracks, and with the Pentagon, I no longer need Vassalage's XP bonus. It would allow me to stave off using the culture slider to fight WW--I'm going through a lot of gold now, and with all these planned upgrades and rush-buying, I'm going to need more!
The saved game file:
And wasn't it Alexander who stood on the hill and wept, for he saw he had no more worlds to conquer? 
Throw in some protective tanks to keep the blitzers covered. Be careful with attacking hill cities, as you won't get blitz and your last attacker will be stranded.
Great game so far.
