You can't win them all...

Specialist290

Terracotta Statue Man
Joined
Jul 1, 2003
Messages
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During an OCC game I noticed that the old maxim "Some civs just play better than others" seemed to be somewhat true. I was the Japanese (an appropriate choice for OCC, I must say). My other opponents were the Sioux, Chinese, French, Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians.

The early game was relatively uneventful. Typical OCC scenario for me at this point--explore a little, send Caravans to the Chinese every few turns, use exploring Diplomats to bribe the occasional unit, etc.

Anyway, all this changed when I met the Sioux. When I first met them, they already had a sizable empire, and they decided that my glorious and strong nation (all one city of it) was just right for them to pick on. Naturally, in true OCC fashion, I accepted the first few demands, but later it got very annoying to get one demand every 2-3 turns from them, so I began refusing their demads. They, of course, landed units and sneak-attacked me, proceeding to wage an combat that went along the lines of sent units overseas--land units--watch as units get killed by the defenders of Kyoto. Finally, as I got "modern" techs, I decided that I was getting tired of this and built me an Ironclad to intercept their ships (which were still Frigates at the time )

Anyway, I had Marco Polo's and used it to trade maps with just about everyone else frequently, and I saw that Europe was still split among the French, Romans, and Greeks, and it appeared that they were fighting amongst themselves. The Egyptians happened to be at war with the Sioux (like I was, though the Sioux hadn't made any gains there either) and the Greeks. The Chinese and I were, of course, all the way over in the Orient, separated from the European states by the vast Central Asian steppes and deserts.

Little did I know what was about to happen next.

As the game progressed, the Greeks seemed to get a leg-up on their French and Roman opponents techwise (I began seeing Greek Cavalry slaughtering the woefully underequipped defenders of French and Roman cities; they were still using Phalanxes and Pikemen) and soon began expanding eastward into Russia-Central Asia--where, of course, they ran into the Chinese and began yet another war.

I, of course, was paying only slight attention to all this while I continued to fend off the Sioux and make some serious money off of my allies, the Chinese. I finally managed to get a cease-fire with Sitting Bull (I still marvel at how it took him 2500 years to learn his lesson) and was thus freed up to begin building more and more Food Freight as I prepared to begin my space program.

However, the Chinese were getting seriously pounded by the Greeks (they lost several of their frontier cities in Central Asia) and came begging for me to intervene. While a prudent OCC'er knows that it's not wise to get mixed up in warfare, my honorable side began to get the better of me and, forsaking a possible game win in order to provide what little assistance I could to keep my allies from being steamrolled, I accepted.

Back in the West, the Egyptians had somehow managed to build up this monumental defense in a city near the modern Suez Canal (I forgot the name of the city) that would hold the Greeks at bay for several decades to come. The Romans were already under the Greek boot of subjugation, and the French, though by now they had begun building Musketeers and were actually beginning to hold out somewhat, did not appear to be able to survive for much longer.

Meanwhile, I had amassed a small force of Spies and began bribing Greek units as they started to approach Chinese cities. Using this "mercenary" force I was able to destroy the Greek arrisons of several captured Chinese cities, but, unfortunately, I was still trying to remain true to the "one city only" rule, and the Chinese never did manage to retake those cities (except on a few occasions, but they lost them again later, so it didn't make much of a difference).

At this point in the game, the Greeks and Sioux were by far the dominant superpowers of the globe. The Greeks were actually approaching my tech level at breakneck speed and had amassed an empire amounting to the entirety of Europe (the French finally going down in a blaze of glory, their last city only falling after their final defender had killed six units) and most of Central Asia. The Sioux were still around Renaissance tech, but they dominated practically all of North America (minus that strip of tundra/forest up in Canada). The Egyptians, still holding the Greeks at bay, had control over all of Africa, while the Chinese controlled modern-day China and India and had only stopped expanding into Central Asia when they crashed into the Greeks.

And that was about as good as it got, since the Greeks soon discovered Mobile Warfare. Their tanks finally managed to smash through the Egyptian defenses that were keeping them bottled up, and most of North Africa was brought down in a rapid blitzkrieg. The Greeks took the Egyptian capital soon afterward, triggering a civil war which ended up slitting off the Russians in control of their cities in southern Africa.

In the Orient, my mercenary force was finally feeling the full might of the Greek war machine. Unit after unit was lost as the Greeks reinforced their offensive against the Chinese, and soon our presence in Central Asia was totally lost, exposing the unshielded Chinese to the raging storm.

Ultimately the Greeks conquered all of Africa, destroying both the Egyptians and the Russians in the process. From there, it went downhill as the Greeks discovered Robotics and began systematically demolishing our loyal Chinese allies--with me being unable to do a thing about it.

Correction: I was unable to do anything about it directly. I was, however, building a Transport, a Carrier, and a Nuke for a last-ditch sudden strike against the capital city of the Greeks, Athens. I managed to sneak around the Greek's rather large fleet presence in the Indian Ocean, but, as luck would have it, only a few squares from nuke range, I was ambushed by a Greek task force that sent my tiny insertion team and one armed nuclear device (along with a million-dollar Carrier and my only Transport) into the Deep.

The rest can be easily summed up in one short sentence: The Chinese eventually fell to the Greeks, valiant as they were, and the Greeks beat me to Apollo and landed their Spaceship while mine was still under construction. It was a truly belittling game, but I enjoyed every moment of it. After all, it's not often in Civ2 that you get a thriller like that game I just shared.
 
Wow! Spectacular! What ever happened to the Sioux, though? Did they offer you an alliance against the Greeks?

An alternate way to deal with something like this: I one time had a game situation similar to this (though it was modern techs). I built airbases in Zulu territory (my allies) and would go out on patrols to clear out the invading Mongol armies. When the Zulus lost a city, I cleared out the defenses, but didn't take the city. As I moved up the tech tree, Howitzers joined them and Stealth Fighters replaced the regular Fighters. I didn't help the Zulus capture any true Mongol cities (Ormuz, as opposed to Ibabanago). With a small change in strategy, could you have done that?

It's games like what you just described that make me love my idea: Wouln't it be great if you could share the same square as your allies? That way, you'd be able to help them defend their cities, either staging offensive or defensive units in their cities. That's the general idea, but some of the details, I don't know, like: Would the the alliance have to have reached a certain length of time before you can share the same square? What would happen if it was a Chinese city, but only your units were defending it? Would it fall under your control? I don't know the specifics, but I love the idea.
 
Glad you liked it :)

No, the Sioux didn't make any offers of alliance; they were still "Uncooperative" with me all the way to the end of the game. They didn't appear to like the Greeks too much, either.

As for your strategy, I really couldn't implement any aerial support (I was trying to stick true to the rules of a One City Challenge, and it would have been a bit dangerous to ship Engineers out to the front). However, I've heard about it elsewhere, too, and the next time I have an ally in trouble I'll be sure to try it out.

Re stacking w/ allies: Yeah, that would be good. They actually have that feature in SMAC, I think.
 
Surprised this didn't get more posts.

But yeah, great story and yes, indeed allied stacking is a feature in SMAC (I wish my CD wasn't so scratched, it also had SMAX on it)
 
(Whoa, ancient thread is ancient. And people are still reading this! :eek: )

@flygon: To be honest, I'm not all that surprised myself; traffic around the Civ2 part of the forum was extremely low the last time I checked it out. Still, glad to see that people still dig up these things :)
 
Well, kid, another few weeks and this thread will be a full FIVE YEARS OLD !!!
 
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