ALC Game #23: America/Lincoln

Use the mall to keep people happy at home, while SEAL's wreck havoc somewhere out there ( probably it was the designer idea )

i have finally finished my shadow game. the result is in spoilers (no information other than victory type and time):

Please post any and all shadow game or spoiler information in a separate thread, thanks.

Round 8: 1720 AD to 1772 AD (26 turns)

I played a shorter round last night and rather than keep everyone waiting, decided to post the results thus far. This is crunch time anyway, so I'd prefer to check in frequently to see if any course corrections are required.

I started off by fine-tuning all the cities in my civilization. This affected my research, shaving one turn off the next tech target I chose.



Several of you recommended this one. It is on the way to Computers for the Internet, and it should make good trading fodder, I hoped.

I ran one less specialist in Washington and increased the number of priests in Cuzco in order to get a Great Prophet so I could add a second shrine in Tiwanaku.



I also had a few AP resolutions popping up, such as this one.



Ahhhhh... it's so nice to be in control of this stupid thing. I had everyone declare war on Caesar. A few more share mutual military struggle diplomatic bonuses weren't going to hurt. As it turned out, though, this world war didn't last long.

I also remembered--a turn in to the round--to adjust my espionage, throwing the bulk of it at Hatty.



I expect Hatshepsut to be my main competitor for a space race victory, so this was done in hopes of having some espionage points to do things like sabotage her space ship production, her aluminum source if she had one, and so on.

As I said, the war didn't last long. Caesar soon sought a sugar-daddy.



I was in no position to invade him anyway, without enough modern troops to do justice to the task.

With the war over, I sought some protection and some more diplomatic bonuses with the Buddhist bloc:



Defensive Pacts all around! I don't think I've ever had that many at once. I'm fairly confident that this means I don't have to go to war now, not unless I want to.

I finished that next tech, though not before Hatty beat me to it. As I recall, she had it at the end of the previous round.



I then traded it around a little. Several more civs had it, such as Hammurabi, who in fact completed Rock 'n' Roll shortly after this! I think he must have had a Great Engineer lying around in order to accomplish that so quickly. But a few civs did not have it, such as Saladin.




Huh? Radio for Medicine? Relax, there was a method to my madness.




Yes, that's what I was really after: Industrialism, and adding Medicine to my offerings meant I was able to pry it loose from Gilgamesh. So now I could build the UU, and did so, producing a handful of Navy SEALs before the end of the round. I had a lot of infrastructure to build, however, so I didn't devote any of my cities to military units 100%.

A bit more good news: I have aluminum. And as it turns out, right next to two cities I took from Montezuma.



So we don't need to use that Great Scientist for Aluminum Inc. He's still available, along with the Great Artist. I was pondering another Golden Age, but I'm holding on to have that happen at the best moment.

I also got beat to Cristo Redentor (by Hatshepsut) and to the Eiffel Tower (Hatty again). She also built Hollywood. She's really on a roll in this game, isn't she?

Another opportunity for an AP vote came up:



I opted for nothing this time. I was trading with all the listed civs and wanted to keep doing so. I also figured that having defensive pacts across the board could limit my late-game warring options.

I made one more tech trade, this one with my good buddy Shaka:



I'm hoping that will be it for tech trades. The Internet is within reach, most of my needed infrastructure is now in place, and I'd rather not keep giving easy boosts to the Immortal AI.

Hatty wasn't done with her wondermongering. She built the other wonder that Mass Media enables.



However, this time it did her no good.



Yes, I'm Mr. Popularity. A UN diplomatic victory is possible and tempting, but as I mentioned in a previous post, it would deny me the chance to show off both the UU and the UB. As it happens, no UN resolutions appeared before the end of the round.

I got that Great Prophet I was after, and got my second shrine.



That provided a nice little bit of spare cash.

And I finished my next tech, and this time, for the first time in this game, I was the first one there.



Everyone else wants it, but they won't be getting it from me. I began building the Three Gorges Dam in Boston, since it's the city on a river with the best production (and not much else it needs to build right now). And I chose Computers as my next tech target, aiming for the Internet.

And that's the round. Here's a look at the domestic advisor:



Mostly civilian builds, though some of them are military-oriented and will boost my power rating a little. Some more good news: I managed to get most of the national wonders completed this round, with Ironworks going in Portland, Oxford University in Washington, Mt. Rushmore and the Hermitage in Tiwanaku (mostly for the additional culture), and Wall Street in Cuzco, the Taoist holy city. I also spread Taoism to a few more of my own cities.

Foreign relations, glance:



It seems that Hatshepsut has fallen out of favour with our Buddhist brethren, whereas I'm the winner of that popularity contest. Could it be sexism on the part of the boys? Shame on you, lads! But keep voting that way anyways...

The tech board:



No one else has refrigeration besides Saladin, so I may end up researching it myself after Computers so that the UB is available. But otherwise, I'm finally in a half-decent tech position in this game, with at least one tech in hand on everyone toward a space race victory.

Given the prevalence of Fusion among the non-Buddhists, I was thinking of proposing and voting for a nuclear non-proliferation treaty as my first action as UN Secretary-General. I know some of you wanted to see nukes used, but I think they'd just mess up my chances at a space race win.

And a look at the map.



Once West Point is completed in Pasadena, I was thinking of devoting several of my cities (Pasadena, Norfolk, New York, Sacramento, and Anchorage, all of which can produce units with additional XPs) to producing military units while the others focus on infrastructure. Then I thought I'd invade Zara while still pursuing the space race win, thus giving both the UU and the UB a chance to shine. It would be nice to capture Aksum in particular, which has several wonders. Most of them have expired, but it has Broadway, which would be useful both for happiness (further leveraging malls) and as resource trading fodder. It also has the Mausoleum, which is another reason I haven't used the two GPs for a golden age yet, since it would be beneficial to have the GA extended.

By the end of the round, Caesar broke away from Zara and became and independent state again, so obviously that was a voluntary act on JC's part rather than a capitulation. Still, I don't think invading the relatively backwards Roman empire would really give the SEALs a chance to show their stuff. Zara is a much more challenging and attractive target.

Now, how to best utilize the SEALs? The challenge now, of course, is that siege weapons cannot attack directly from aboard ships, which to my mind in fact nerfs units like the SEAL and the Marine it's based on. How else can you cause initial collateral damage? Well, there are always planes, but that would require me to research Flight, which is most definitely off the space race tech track. So do I just throw SEAL after SEAL into the fray, losing several to bad odds and contributing to war weariness back home? Or do I land all my units before attacking, which really doesn't give the SEALs a chance to show off their amphibious attack capabilities? The more I think about it, the less I like this change to siege weapons. Yes, it makes it more challenging for the human to win, but it does so at the expense of the effectiveness of some other units, in my opinion. But as always, I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter, on this and everything and anything else that's relevant.

Looks like Zara has a lot of coastal cities for the taking in your SEAL incursions. He's a Hatshepsut supporter in the U.N and it doesn't seem like your friends will care if you decide to kill him and free his vassals. In fact, making sacrifices such as researching Flight and using SEALs to liberate the nations under Zara's influence seems like a perfect job for the U.S.A and an appropriate move for an ALC. You really can't use SEALs to their full potential without planes and ships to do collateral damage and lower defenses anyway. Victory condition really doesn't matter, as long as the UU and UB are used properly. I suggest banning nukes in the next U.N vote if you want to keep the Space Race option open.

If you do win the race to the internet, you'll fairly quickly pick up flight anyways, and probably refrigeration within a few turns, or maybe even by the time the 'net is finished. I'd focus on a beeline to the latest techs needed for SS parts, since you'll pick up the early ones and the sideshows anyways. And at this point, even if your power dropped like a rock, having all those DPs means you barely have to worry about war anymore if you wanted to ignore it. Be careful of that if/when you DoW on Zara - losing the DPs might make JC declare on you (not that it'll do much good), and will almost certainly make him easy to bribe into declaring, unless your power is really high.

The good news about WW is that if you can get through the techs for the SS, you can use the culture slider to help. The bad news is that, as you said, siege weapons don't help you avoid casualties. I think the solution is to mass-produce some flanking promoted units to throw out first - unless, did I see, you can no longer withdraw from an amphibious attack?

I'm pretty sure you have the most cities - if so, +1 TR per city helps you the most, so I'd go for that if you aren't going for UN victory.

I think a quick deviation to research flight is in order before/after finishing computers, in order to get some fighters online. Sacramento and Atlanta would make good bomber bases until Derbe Berhan and Lalibela are captured (two cities I'd give priority to, as from there, it is a hop and leap to Aksum, then a jump from there to the Ethiopian heartland).

I'd say your amphibious stack should be lots of SEALs for the landings, infantry or m-guns with CG promos to guard your new cities, and tanks/gunships to sweep into the interior or support your SEAL landings. As to whether more tanks or SEALs are beneficial, more SEALs would be best. With their march promo, your landed SEALs could form a secondary or tertiary stack to either give a strong frontal push on one front or land in the rear to squeeze Zara between tanks and SEALs.

I honestly would do the diplomatic victory. It seems so right for this game, with everyone loving you. Do it!

Oh, and show off the UU and UB with FDR and Washington.

You don't need to go to war AT ALL, and you'll probably lose a space race (espesically if you go to war). Diplomatic, come on.

Event Log:
1724 AD: Julius Caesar has capitulated and is now a vassal state of Zara Yaqob
Otherwise it would have been an automatic war of Zara vs the Buddhists.

There are a lot of FULL HANDS now.
Shaka & Hatty are most likely after JC. But the real trouble might be Zara! He is friendly with JC and pleased with all the other Buddhists, but cautious with you. If Shaka & Hatty DoW JC first then this means good bye to your DPs leaving you only with Hammy & Gilga who are unfortunately rather far away. In any case, Zara's full hands mean he is in full military build up mode which may pose a true challenge for an American invasion.

You can use Guided Missiles to soften city defenders before sending your Seals or even Airships for cities without MGs (upgrade later when 'net gives you Flight).
Or you might want to (re-)allow Barrage on Tanks.

As mentioned by blusox, flight will be teched by a few AI fairly soon. If not a quick diversion to flight. the do the SEALS thing with Zara. You are in contention for a space race victory, and can always fall back on a diplowin if hatty seems likely to beat you to the punch. Sweet Justice considering how many times an AI will do the same thing to you while your ship is in flight. Take into account the effect on your diplomacy Zara will have if you vassalize him. Consider forcing him into Buddism if you do. To up his popularity.

What the no-siege-attack from the sea means, is that the carrier is back in business. It can do the job that battleships can't, not effective, but still.

Sisiutil said:

Given the prevalence of Fusion among the non-Buddhists...

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I think you mean Fission.

Sisiutil said:

By the end of the round, Caesar broke away from Zara and became and independent state again, so obviously that was a voluntary act on JC's part rather than a capitulation.

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According to the screenshot you posted Caesar had enough land and was only slightly below the 50% population threshhold. So a little population growth was all he needed to break free. A danger with taking a vassal who's relatively large.


As to the overall plan for the rest of the game I don't really see the need for an unnecessary war just to show off the UU. Keep in mind this is Immortal difficulty, so you can't afford too many suboptimal moves. It would be a shame to lose the win as the result of playing around with the UU.

Validator said:

It would be a shame to lose the win as the result of playing around with the UU.

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I wouldn't mind.

How many non-coastal cities does Zara have? If none, you can have a one-turn war. SEALs in transports + Battleships for city defenses + Carriers & Fighters. That's all you need. No city protection if you can kill him in one turn. Otherwise I think you're better off going for space or diplomacy without detouring through useless wars.

It could be risky to go war with Ethopia. You give up all your DPs (and I believe the diplomatic bonuses they offer) and you don't have flight (but maybe airships can suffice).

You will also trigger the wrath of Zara's colonies and Saladin was fairly high on the power meter somehow last round even though it would be tempting to 'liberate' Sid Sushi from him.

I guess at the end of the day what do you get out of it? 1 maybe 2 extra happiness out of Broadway and an extra 5 turns on your golden age. It will however cost you Charlemagne and Saladin's votes in the UN, the defensive pacts and at least a -1 you declared on our friend from some of your buddies. If you could convince them to war with you, that might change things but that doesn't look possible. I just can't help but think this war is for the sake of warring. If you must war, do it after the spaceship has been launched , you've got plenty of other games to show off how pretty the Navy Seal's are.

Btw I am willing to bet Hatty lost diplomatic status because she changed out of Hereditary rule and Bureaucracy which are Gilgamesh's and Hammurabi's favourite civics , though maybe not...

If it is true that Zara is declaring on Sis, I don't think that's cause for too much concern, even if the defensive pacts do go out. Sis can use the UN to demand peace and its mostly likely the Buddist circle will vote in favour of that.

"How many non-coastal cities does Zara have? If none, you can have a one-turn war. SEALs in transports + Battleships for city defenses + Carriers & Fighters. That's all you need. No city protection if you can kill him in one turn. Otherwise I think you're better off going for space or diplomacy without detouring through useless wars."

Well, You could try "one turn war", as you are president, I mean chairman of the Americans now, but remember the "one turn war" your colleague is now having in real life

Your path seems clear right now. Space is a clear victory that you can win. A war doesnt gain you much of anything. You could finish the game sooner without the war. Youve got enough defensive troops so put cities on research and get to space.

I vote for UN diplomatic victory if possible, space race if not. Warring without need is a waste of time, and you don't want to roleplay after all. You didn't replay or adjust during other installments where the UU didn't get to play an important role, at least for America there'll be other opportunities.

It seems to me this game is begging for a diplomatic win. Why not get the victory, and then attack just to see what might have been? Build a spaceship too, if you want.

Actually, there are TWO bonuses to the SEAL: amphibious, which you can't use, and march, which you can most definitely use. Going to war would be dangerous, but if you do, I'd do it to the Egyptians. They have more wonders, are closer, and have resources you don't have.