Great Generals - test game 1: Charismatic

Well, my computer's back in action, but I've managed to lose the 1590 save in the process so I had to replay the whole war with Shaka. Some things changed as I got my Great General a turn earlier (he sent more units from his western city) and it took me one more turn to capture one of his cities (I needed two more units to capture it!). Whatever, the outcome is pretty much the same.

I'll post the update a little later today.

Round 6: 1420AD - 1595AD

As I said I decided to go with the MASH option: another Medic III Chariot. Seeing how the war with Shaka would be on two fronts anyway it seemed a good enough idea.



I didn't forget about the plan to spread Confucianism everywhere. If Hatty didn't beat me to it, as she was constantly sending missionaries, not that I minded... Nottingham was set to build a Confucian Monastery before we got Scientific Method to obsolete it. I'll probably send a missionary to York and build another monastery there as Nottingham is a very good city and could use some gold/research multipliers instead of building missionaries.



In the meantime York prepared some catapults for our future wars.



We met some more rifles in Beshbalik, but they couldn't stand our Cavalry & Catapults combo.





We also found the Great Library in Beshbalik. That means we'll probably delay Scientific Method. After all we still have lots of good alternatives.



The Mongolian capital seemed well defended but you'll notice that the Rifles in it didn't have too many promotions. Should be easy as pie.



While we marched to Karakorum Genghis was kind enough to put some of his units in the open for some free XP:



And then Karakorum fell and we found it was full of goodies: Colossus (York will be happy), an Academy and a Military Academy. Admittedly it's a bit far away from the front, but it could be helpful to build a fleet that would keep our backs safe when we decide to go after Huayna. Also, with its high food count we can probably make it the Globe Theater city and draft like mad in it. Whether we should put a MI in it or not is another cup of tea.



I decided to continue and take out the last Mongolian city we could see on the continent before asking for peace. Genghis only gave us Optics in return. He wanted to give us New Sarai too, but I had no idea where it was and I didn't really need a crappy city surrounded by foreign culture. By the way, I did take him as a vassal. He won't be of much use but I don't want him to become someone else's vassal and ask that one to declare on us or something.





Oh, and here's New Sarai:



That's one crappy city! What was he thinking?!?

A summary of the use of the two medics: since we went North-South-Capital in the war with Genghis I first put one Chariot in Turfan (N) and moved the other one with the attacking stack. The Turfan one, having done its job there, came down to Beshbalik to heal the troops from that attack, and the other one continued with the stack to Karakorum. Pretty good actually, since it allowed fast healing from suicidal siege units while we were waiting to take down the Capital's cultural defenses.

In the meantime, thanks to the National Epic & Taj Mahal combo our capital spit out another Artist. Well, since we're going to war with Shaka I decided to keep it for another cultural bomb & instant out-of-revolt-ness. It means we'll be able to move more troops in the captured city on the same turn, and we'll also heal faster.



[to be continued...]

[...continued from previous post]

I got another good trade with Hatty that also allowed us to switch civics to Nationalism & Free Market. She's the only one still under the WFYABTA limit, so even if she does look appetizing to conquer I'll keep her as a trading partner since I'm starting to fall behind a lot.





While I was preparing my next war something crappy happened: Shaka's culture took Turfan from us. That meant free units for him, another city to take and we had to wait one turn to heal before the attack. Couldn't have come in a worse moment. Anyway, after that turn we still declared war on him. He had it coming.





Here's a quick look at his defenses. He has a city North-West of Nottingham and five cities on the Eastern front. I didn't count Turfan as I took it right back.







As you can see in the last image thanks to the two-move Cavalry I managed to block a counter-attack on the East-most front. By now we were able to draft (and actually drafted) Redcoats, so even a later Cavalry that sneaked in got burned really fast.

The two medics went with the two Eastern stacks, since we'd still have to heal them in order to continue toward the capital. The west front was pretty safe and I decided to wait for Shaka to send a part of his units our way before razing his city. He actually sent most of the troops there and our drafted Redcoats made little work of them.



That also got our next Great General which was put in storage for now as I wanted to take the two eastern cities next and then stop to discuss its use.



Next on my agenda: welcome to Nobamba Falls, now an English territory.



In the meantime I cleaned up the Western front:



...and then butchered the Easter defenses with several catapults before going head on with tons of Redcoats and highly promoted Cavalry.



As I said before, I used the Great Artist (previously positioned close by in Utica) to get the uMsomething city out of revolt, then drafted a Redcoat in it and whipped it until it got under the starving limit.





And after selling Huayna Liberalism and raising the research slider to boost our research I ended another round. I'll post the state of the world a little later, including statistics about units destroyed and losses. I'd say we're doing pretty well at that chapter.

State of the World: 1595AD

I've kind of reached the limit to drafting, as most cities are near or at their happiness cap. Utica has even surpassed it, that's why I set the culture slider up to 10%. I'm also planning to build Theaters in all cities as soon as I finish the current round of Redcoats.



Other buildings may also be in order, so I might consider settling the Great General as a MI in Utica after all. That city's only going to build units anyway, and even if we don't give them the extra promotions right away (except for Pinch), we can save them to partially heal wounded units.

On the foreign front I'm pretty much behind in techs. They probably have others that I don't see too. I might gift Genghis something to get him to trade Constitution but it's not a certain thing by far.



Research-wise, I'd head for Steel (Ironworks and Drydocks) -> Steam (Coal & Ironclads) -> Railroads (Machine Guns) -> Combustion and Scientific Method. Infantry can come later as a Redcoats + Machine Guns + Cannons combination with the leftover Cavalry can still do a good job.



Huayna's still first in pretty much everything but I'm closing in on him. He'll probably be my next victim anyway, but I'll have to watch my back (@ Karakorum).



I'm sitting pretty well in production and will likely get higher as soon as my cities grow back from all that drafting.



By the way, I'm thinking of changing civics to Free Speech to boost my cultural borders a bit, especially in the Mongolian and Zulu cities.

I'm currently third in power, after an awesome Huayna and good but not scaring Ragnar. Shouldn't be a problem if I choose my targets well, but I'm a bit afraid of a mass upgrade to Infantry.



A general look at the Demographics screen:



And now some war-time statistics. I've killed 39 Rifles, 8 Cavalry and lots of small fry:



...while losing 17 Cavalry, 4 Redcoats and 9 suicidal Catapults.



21 "heavy" losses vs 47 "heavy" kills looks alright. And my standing army still numbers 27 Redcoats and 13 Cavalry. I'm a little short on siege units, but I'm going for Steel after all and Utica can get some really promoted Cannons out in no time.



So, any opinions on where to go from now? Alternative research paths? Great General plans? I'm here to hear it all.

I played two rounds and still haven't finished. Huayna's land allowed him to gain all kinds of advantages on me: economic (crazy GNP), military (way better than everybody else) and scientific (he has quite a few techs on me). I managed to get to Assembly Line first and boosted my production to the point that I was in first place for a while and I'm still keeping up with him, but most of the wars fought now are just for killing units. Not sure at all if I can win this, he has too much going for him. I'll post the updates soon and continue to play from there.

Interesting; good luck pulling it out!

Round 7: 1595AD - 1720AD

This was a very eventful round, with lots of Great Generals, desperate situations and strange solutions, and the occasional bad move on my part. Cause if there's none of the latter, there's no fun. I really had to delete a lot of screenshots to get it to a manageable size, but I think I lost some important ones in the process. Oh well, these will have to do.

Just a reminder: I was still at war with Shaka after taking two of his big cities, and was heading for the capital next. And that Great General went to Utica as a MI. That city would have 9XP units without any war civic, pretty good for a Charismatic leader. It also meant that much later if I got the Pentagon I'd need only one more MI to have level 5 units.



Back to the war: I sent one force from each captured city against the capital. In the second image notice the effect of the Great Artist plus Super Medic. My units healed in no time and they were ready and eager for action once more. I even had too many so some of them went further North to take the last city before peacekeepers intervened.





I easily took the Zulu capital which proved to be a great city. I have another Military Academy in it, plus lots of buildings and wonders. Its position is a bit out of the way for future wars, but maybe it will be the starting point of a sea invasion.





I also moved the second super Medic in the captured capital to give those units a healing boost, but that war was over anyway. The next city fell without problems and I decided to make it a gift to Hatty since it would have been swamped in her culture anyway. She was to become my ally against the Buddhist block. I don't forget my friends. (for once in my games....)



Since Shaka was willing to part ways with an excellent tech I agreed to take him as a vassal. He won't back-stab me or Hatty this way, but he won't be of great help either as he's down to one city.



Going back a bit let's see what happened on the domestic front. I whipped two Universities for lots of population to be able to start the Oxford University in the capital. Karakorum was one of the whippers, but it would grow back with all that food available to it once the war with Shaka was over.





A review of my kills so far. Not too shabby, but I think I was caught in possession of too few siege units. (12 lost cats and 19 cavs... not good)



I also changed civics early in the round since I wasn't going to draft anymore. Yes, only one civic changed, but I was starting to have enough town to make it worth it, and I wanted the culture to build up in those new cities.



As I said before Oxford went in the capital and Globe Theatre in Ulundi. That city has great potential and I planned to make it a sea military power for a future war on Huayna.





Speaking of Huayna, he's getting insanely powerful. This won't be a walk in the park, that's for sure. I should probably have expanded a little toward him, as he now has such a great territory that he dominates in almost every aspect.



[to be continued...]

[...continued from previous post]

I continued to trade with Hatty to try to get back in contention. I was lucky enough that neither Huayna nor his trading buddy, Ragnar, went for Assembly Line. I was counting on Factories & Coal Plants to get me to the top in production and I also wanted to win the Pentagon race.



Then the first part of disaster struck. I didn't see Ragnar sneak in a lot of troops toward Hatty. He was going to take another big city so I decided I should do something about it. I canceled my open borders with him and also with Huayna who was also preparing for an attack on Hatty.





All those Inca troops from my territory got pushed back so Huayna held off his war declaration.

A little earlier I got most of my troops in London and Nottingham in preparation for wars against the Buddhists, so I just moved them near Ragnar's troops and hoped he wouldn't take the city until next turn.



Strange enough he didn't, as he decided to pillage some stupid improvement. The city wasn't very well defended, and I was certain it would fall, but we (Hatty and I) got lucky this time. I proceeded to take out all of Ragnar's troops and from the military screen I could see there weren't many others coming from his territory.



That gave me my next Great General, who was put to build a Military Academy in London due to its closeness to the future war fronts. That's two GGs for Medic III, one as MI in Utica (HE & WP) and one as MA in London.



But things were going from grim to gruesomely bad. Huayna finally did declare war against Hatty and (as I later found out) landed a war party somewhere near Memphis. When Hatty came in demanding that I honor our friendship I thought and thought and thought and finally accepted. World War I was just starting.



The big problem was of course that my capital was near the front. Huayna had certainly kept lots of troops on mainland, but I was waiting for him with some cannons and the troops backed up by the two super medics. I counted on him coming in with a couple of stacks, and I was counting on going on the counter after that, aiming for the three border cities. Wanna see how wrong I was? This wrong:



There's only one big stack there (2S1E of Huayna's city), the rest are destroying my road network. That would suck later on, as it meant I'll have troops stranded out there after killing off the pillagers, easy targets for the next wave. For there was a next wave, and another, and another...

I clearly should have built some early western cities, if not for their direct value then at least as buffers. My capital got pillaged, rebuilt and repillaged at the expense of quite a few workers, but I had to rebuild and reroad, or else I would have had no advantage over the incoming troops.

Despite spending two turns in anarchy to change civics, and one to acquire the religion I switched to Nationhood/Theocracy/Confucianism. Hoped that it would save me...



Hatty was sending some reinforcements my way, so I thought she'd do well back home. I was now on the front line of this world war.



I tried to take care of that stack first. Spent the cannons (again, not enough!) to soften the troops, then in went the Cavalry and Redcoats. However he was full of Pinch promoted Cavalry, and my Redcoats would still have problems with them. I got my next Great General midway through my counter-attack and waited to see what happened in between turns. I was still in anarchy so there was no need of settling him right away.



I did manage to win most of the battles there, but then it was my turn to get kicked. I didn't have enough troops to protect my wounded stack the way I should, and here are the consequences:



I then decided to pull out a stunt that worked miracles. I spent the GG to get my wounded stack promoted, as that meant I could heal off some of the damage on those troops.



Thanks to that my troops survived the next turn. I also moved the Nottingham super Medic with that stack to help them heal.

Hatty's troops were also coming to my help, and there was a face-off of stacks between her and Huayna.



[to be continued...]

[...continued from previous post]

Huayna was losing troops like mad, but so was I. No real chance of counters as I had to protect my two border cities.



Here's a look at my losses so far:



Only three cannons died, but I didn't have many more anyway. The desire to build Redcoats had been too great, but I should have dedicated a couple of cities to cannons only.

On the other hand, I did kill a lot of units, and Huayna did show signs it was getting to him a bit. I'm sure he still had lots of units guarding his inner cities. Good for him...



Ragnar only sent a few Cavalries here and there, and finally a few turns later agreed to pay for peace. No techs, but I took it anyway as it meant a few less pillagers to fend off.



And then I finally managed to get a counter-attack on the way. Short as it was, it meant I took one city and extorted a few bucks off Huayna in the process when I demanded peace from him. I previously asked Hatty to follow up and destroy a city NW of the one in the picture (it had Versailles), but she was back to her incompetent self and just moved her troops around.



The money I got from Ragnar, Huayna, Huayna's city, and the fact that I could go back to 0% on the culture slider meant I was able to research at 100% again (with huge deficit of course) toward my Assembly Line goal. More about it in round 8, but that will probably take sometime as I have to sort the screenshots and upload them first.

Round 8: 1720AD-1916AD

With the war over and Assembly Line coming in a few turns I decided to go for a civic change: Bureaucracy and Organized Religion for Pentagon (in the capital) and lots of Factories & Coal Plants.



I then tried to time all my cities to more or less finish their builds on the turn Assembly Line kicked in so I could start on the infrastructure. I had to get some Fishing Boats back as a rogue Incan Transport evaded my Ironclads (yeap, I built Ironclads!) and pillaged my coasts.



My next Great Person was a Great Scientist whom I spent on partially researching Scientific Method. My idea was to get Oil and an Oil-based navy for naval supremacy for the next war.



Hatty was a dear in peace-time, giving me money to upgrade my troops and Railroads to speed their way to the front in exchange for Pentagon. She was still at war with Huayna, so I wasn't afraid she'd take a shot at the Pentagon herself.



I stacked most of my troops in Vilcabamba and I upgraded some of them to Infantry. A few Redcoats weren't far from another promotion so I decided I'll upgrade them later.



My next tech goal was also achieved and I got the Fascism Great General. I used it for a Military Academy in Nottingham, a city I would later terraform toward production. Too bad about all the money/research buildings in it, but this was war time. I also built Mt Rushmore on the East Coast in Nobamba (the isthmus city); I was certainly going to need it.



In the meantime Hatty still hadn't managed to keep her backyard clean, and even lost Memphis. This could turn really bad if she was going to capitulate to Huayna, but I hoped her new Infantries would do the job and at least keep her independent. Indeed, she got it back a few turns later, but I think I missed an announcement where she lost it again. That's gonna be a pain in her neck if Huayna ever decides to declare war on her again.





Fortunately, she knew who her friends were, and gave me another juicy tech for the now useless Fascism.



A few turns later I found a couple of Oil supplies and now I had everything I needed to start my real navy. I even deleted the Ironclads as they would only add to my costs without providing any help.



My frantic Factory building did get me in first place in terms of production after all. If only I could keep that up once Huayna got his own Factories online...



Another goal for this round was finished when I whipped the Pentagon for 10 population. It seems extreme, but by now Ragnar had Assembly Line too, so did Hatty who had finally made peace with Huayna (no capitulation...) and I needed to change civics anyway.



A huge change of civics by the way. Universal Suffrage (I was first at Communism and was building Kremlin), Free Speech (from Bureaucracy), Emancipation (finally!), State Property (oh yeah! people's workshop power!) and Free Religion for happiness/research. This is probably going to be my last civics change, since I'm not going back to military ones thanks to twice promoted units from Pentagon. Maybe Police state will be an option if I run into too much war weariness.



But it seemed I wasn't going to war soon as the Buddhist block decided to get a Defensive Pact. Sheesh. Hatty never agreed to one with me though...



[to be continued...]

[...continued from previous post]

Due to running lots of engineers I got a GE as my next Great Person. I was thinking of spending him on Wall Street in Carthage, but the city had enough production to finish it in 12 turns. So I kept it for future use. Maybe even a Golden Age, seeing my production power right now.



I forgot to say something about a couple of other National Wonders. Ironworks got finished in Karakorum, who was becoming an awesome production city (too bad about its Academy, but yey for a Military Academy) and Scotland Yard ended up in uSomethingZuluCity. I needed the Spies to try and take out Huayna's oil wells (two on the continent, one on an island) since Ragnar only had one and would probably not trade it to Huayna.

Once I finished the Kremlin I went to see our cute little trading partner to see if I could sucker her into giving me another tech. Turns out I could, if only half a tech and some money.



I was still doing well in production (the down spike is me whipping the Pentagon I think, or civics change?).



But Huayna had plans of his own.



I decided to take out some of his production (copper mine) and later some food too to slow him down.

Then the show was back on, with me on the losing side it seemed. Tanks & gunships & planes & SAM vs Infantry & Cavalry & Cannons. Not looking very peachy.



And sure enough...



Well, at least I didn't have to fight both Ragnar and Huayna, though Ragnar was Furious with me and he will probably join in the party later on.

Weird enough, I launched a Golden Age in the middle of this war. I desperately needed the bonus to keep up with the incoming flow of units. I hadn't yet pillaged the Oil wells and that island oil looked hard to take (he had a city on it).



There was less action in this war - at least so far. I managed to get the bigger navy and flooded his shores, so I was able to deprive him of some tiles. I still have to pillage a Clam tile to set him even more backward in health. He was going to have big problems in that department.

On the other hand the land war was going pretty bad for me. My captured city held on, but I got frequent Tank or Helicopter incursions which really damaged my supply lines toward the city. I decided to go for fighters and bombers as the only chance to get back on the offensive. I'm almost there, 5 turns to Radio and already started building fighters. I got tanks too, but still had no good answer to Gunships. The only bright spot of the war so far is finally leaving Huayna oil-less with two pillager Spies and one Marine force invasion.



I lost one Spy trying to destroy his Alluminium supply, but I'll get another one ready the next turn. I plan on keeping him without oil and disrupting his food sources when possible, but his very close to Robotics. Another headache for me.

I'll post a state of the world in a few minutes.

State of the World: 1916AD

First, a look at what I'm building. Mostly units with the occasional happiness building. I might move the culture slider up a little but that shouldn't be a permanent solution if I still have happiness buildings available.



Relations are still bad with Ragnar. I'm going to try to get my vassals on better terms with Hatty. She only has the demerit from close borders and vassals with me but she's only Pleased. She also won't go to war for anything, probably because she completed the Apollo Program in 1904.



I got another Great General in the meantime that I settled in Utica for level 5 units (3XP from barracks + 4XP WP + 2*2XP from MIs + 2XP from Pentagon = 13XP).



That makes: 2 super Medics, 2 Military Academies (London & Nottingham), 3 MIs (2 in Utica, 1 in London - when did I get this one?!) and one mass promotion in times of trouble for a total of 8 Great Generals so far. I have two other MAs in Karakorum and Ulundi thanks to Genghis and Shaka.

On the scientific front, I'm thinking of Composites as my only military way. Forget about Robotics and head for Modern Armor & Invisible Bombers. I'll try to get Plastics from Hatty to speed my way there.



Thanks to the Golden Age I'm topping two of the most important stats: GNP and production. Can't be bad, eh?





I'm still way lower on power, but maybe if I can keep Huayna from building tanks and gunships I can have a chance. I need lots of planes to counter his incoming Mechanized Infantry.



Here's an overall look at the demographics. I'm still behind in land and not sure if that's gonna change.



My losses are still ok so far. And I'm making Huayna pay for every incursion in my territory. Let's hope I can get on the offensive at some point, as this attrition war isn't helping me at all.





And finally, a look at Huayna's health problems. Notice that he only has one bananas tile, one clam that's about to get pillaged, one corn, one sheep and one wheat. If I manage to pillage some of those it could get fun.



That's it for today. Any ideas on how to win this are more than welcome.

carl corey said:

Round 6: 1420AD - 1595AD


Oh, and here's New Sarai:



That's one crappy city! What was he thinking?!?

Click to expand...

Question.
If New Sarai is not his capital then what is?
It is missing the star on the pop.

If you take a look at the minimap in that image you can see two brown patches in the South-East corner. He had two cities there on islands, one of them being the capital. I was eager to get to Shaka so I decided to stop the war. I don't think I even had Astronomy at that point. I posted the image about New Sarai since he wanted to give it to me in the peace treaty but I had no idea where it was.

Ok thanks.

It finally ended. 18 hours and 18 minutes of play, I think more than I played on some of my Marathon speed games! Anyway, I'll post the update tomorrow, I'm way too tired from playing the final session. Modern wars are madness to manage...

Round 9: 1916AD - 1960AD

So, I started this round still at war with Huayna Capac. I was still building my navy and was also trying to keep Huayna from going too deep with his pillagers. Fortunately I managed to cut all his oil sources, which meant no more tanks or gunships.

You can see the first effect in the next screenshot; there was no pillaging attack on the next turn. Not that there was anything left to pillage anyway.



He did send a couple of bombers against the Vilcabamba defenders, but those can easily take care of themselves. And I was starting to have some fighters set to intercept there. Wait until I get bombers and then he'll pay for all this pillaging.

There was trouble elsewhere though. Hatty's peaceful ways led her to the first piece of the spaceship: an SS Casing, and later another one were built. The clock is ticking.



Back on the war front, I checked to see what Huayna would give me for peace. I'm still not ready to go after his coastal cities as I don't have enough marines, and my air fleet is still in the making. Unfortunately he wouldn't part with any of the techs, but 1000 gold come in handy anyway.



Despite our "Peace Treaty" I still continued to pillage his two oil wells whenever he would rebuild them. Oh, and since Hatty declared that Ragnar was her worst enemy I decided to relieve Huayna of some of his excess gold.



On the other side of the continent a small Mongolian town decided it wanted to be ruled directly by the master... and got disbanded. It really wouldn't make a good city; heck, that's why I razed the first one that was built nearby!



Ulundi's multiple wonders and specialists got me another Great Engineer. I saved him in view of either one of the late game wonders or another Golden Age. The only problem with the latter is that since I'm using mostly Engineer specialists I was likely to get more of those, and I needed three different GPs for my next Golden Age.



Back to Huayna I saw he got Mechanized Infantry as predicted. Even without Tanks and Gunships any future wars are going to be pretty tough.



Oh, and what's he building in that little border city?



That's right, the Apollo Program! He did in fact start to build it in a core city earlier, but his wars with me delayed its completion. Why did he now choose this city for it is beyond my understanding.

Next on the research agenda we finally got our Radios which meant Bombers were now the build of the year.





I then set research for Computers, hoping to trade it later for some of the techs along the Composites path. But I couldn't refuse trading Flight for Biology to Hatty. A little more population can't hurt anybody.



And after I acquired a decent number of bombers, and built two marine invasion fleets (one with mainly Utica forces, the other one with mainly Karakorum marines) it was that time again:



First things first: bomb's away!



Followed by the first sneak attack. I razed the city and unfortunately had to leave my man behind. He'll be remembered.



Along with the other marines from the second invasion force. Unfortunately this one had to go around to get to the Northern cities afterward, since Ragnar blocked a more direct way along the shoreline.



[to be continued...]

[...continued from previous post]

A couple of turns later I realized that the Eiffel Tower hasn't yet been built, and I was certainly going to need the happiness later on, so I spent my GE on it and adjusted tiles to finish it in two turns.



The Southern fleet was happily continuing its war games, without bomber support this time. Again, razed and moved on. I was just aiming to cripple Huayna's production, not to take cities that would be engulfed in his culture anyway.



And I finally got around to mounting an inland attack. Despite bringing in a few defenders after razing that city I had quite a few losses. He was using his fighters and bombers again and my only protection were the Vilcabamba interceptors.



Then my Northern fleet made its way around Ragnar's islands and starting doing some damage of its own.



Remember what I said about expecting to get GEs? Here's another one. He got sent to Karakorum in case we need to build something big in there. All cultural wonders had already been built, so he had to wait a bit.



All the fighting got me another Great General which was settled in Karakorum for 7XP Marines, one XP away from another promotion.



And all was well on the Northern front. I skipped a few smaller cities deciding to only raze the big ones and not waste my Marines.



My inland force went for Versailles next. I still didn't want to keep any cities since my bombers could still reach far enough to reduce defenses and soften Huayna's units. So Versailles city got razed too.



Then I noticed something that happened on the previous turn.



I was first in score! Go me! Finally I could win on Time...

Aaaanyway, back to the war, I razed the last two Eastern cities and built another one in a slightly more central location to fill the gaps. I had two other Settlers prepared as I didn't want Ragnar or Hatty to get any weird ideas and settle there.





And then it was time to keep my first (actually second after Vilcabamba) Incan city. My bombers weren't reaching Huayna's troops anymore and I was in sight of his capital's huge artillery force so I needed some backup. Once I took it I moved most of my Vilcabamba defenders in it, hoping I could survive the counter, heal with the aid of one of the super Medics, and go on the offensive once I got things secured.



By the way, Huayna has just built the UN. I was pretty sure I could get elected Secretary General with Hatty's help, so it was all the better. Had Hatty built it it would have been a totally different affair.

And then, just as my advanced defenders were... eh... defending... Ragnar finally had enough and decided to join the party.



The southern fleet (healing in my territory with nothing left to do) immediately set in motion and revealed these incoming troops.



[to be continued...]

[...continued from previous post]

I considered what to do for a while and decided that two wars were one too many. I tried to convince Huayna to give me a tech or at least a part of a tech, but all I got from him was money and Memphis (Egyptian) which I promptly return to its rightful owner. It did have the Confucian shrine in it - juicy - but it was going to be under huge Egyptian pressure so I decided Hatty could use it better than I.





Seeing that I could hold off the pitiful Viking attacks I planted another city in the Marine-cleared North. I was still quite far from a Domination win, but every tile would count.



Then in 1955 it was time for the first World Elections. Guess who I voted for.



And with a little help from my friends (and vassals) I got elected Secretary General! The world loves me! Ahem...



Of course, the thread isn't named Great Generals test for nothing, so the war still continued. I got another GG settled in London for level 4 Marines (3XP barracks + 2XP Pentagon + 2*2XP MIs = 9XP).



Of course I didn't wait for these marines to launch the Southern fleet. I just secured the North and sent most Marines from there with it. I would be able to do more damage on that front than against a few isolated Viking islands in the NW.

I also got rid of the thorny airbase that Ragnar had planted in the (former) middle of Huayna territory, then sent my bombers to do some pillaging from a distant Egyptian island.





And then it was election time again. Tired of all the fighting, I decided to give Diplomatic Victory a shot. Maybe not a very graceful end, but it would save me hours and hours of further fighting.



...fighting that still claimed its first Southern Viking city.



And then in 1959, after 8 wars and tons of Great Generals, the world decided I was fit to lead them as a great diplomat. Can't argue with the world...







Post mortem statistics and Great Generals musings to come soon.

Post Mortem

First of all, remember at the beginning of the game I thought one of Hannibal's cities had flipped to Hatty? It turns out it really did. Not a very bright move putting a city near a creative civ's capital...



And now let's see what the graphs tell us.
As you can see my little naval forays into Huayna's territory left me the undisputed leader in terms of production. Also, look how powerful that last Golden Age was. It was clearly worth it.



Power-wise Huayna's fall is no less impressive once I started going around his shores. And keep in mind that I didn't have the time to set up a proper army with Carriers and Fighters on them to strike before I attacked his coastal cities.



And for the last 50 turns:



There was a brief period right before the war with Ragnar in which I started building infrastructure instead of units, hoping to get a little more research and gold for future upgrades (Tanks -> Modern Armor, Infantry -> Mechanized Infantry, Fighters & Bombers to their modern equivalents). As it turned out I haven't even reached that point. I was still at Satellites, mainly because I had nothing to trade for with Hatty that would speed things up a little. The moment I got Computers she wouldn't give me more than a few hundred bucks for it.

Here's a look at the final demographics. In addition to production I'm now first by far in Land Area and Population, and also have the soldiers to take on anyone (but not everyone at once. get in line.).



My losses in this game look pretty impressive...



...until you see the kills:



Considering the fact that the last few wars were fought with inferior troops I'd say I did pretty good.

The score isn't something to brag about (in fact, it's one of my lowest winning scores ever).



But hey, I'm still a Caesar, so I'll accept the score with pride. It's not often that you get a decent enough opponent like Huayna in this game. And the fact that we were on the same continent certainly made things harder. I'm used to have total naval supremacy by this time and thus I fight intercontinental wars solely on the opponent's terrain. This was actually pretty new for me. My offline game with Toku - Fractal map but one big continent with me and all the AIs - never got to this stage as it finished with me having Infantry and that was it.

As for Great Generals, let's see how I used them:

- the first two got spent on super Medics (Chariots with Medic III and Morale) which ensured I could a) keep up the war against Genghis with Cavalry against Riflemen; b) fight on two fronts against Shaka and finish that war very early; c) heal two big defending stacks in the last wars (London and Nottingham at the beginning, then London and Vilcabamba as the front moved onward). I could have used them to heal my Marines from the two naval forces, but they would face either very low odds at first or very good odds after the first wave. So they were either dead or pretty healthy anyway. The situation would have been different had I had Fighters on Carriers with the fleets but I highly overestimated Huayna's navy and built too many Destroyers/Battleships.

- Utica became a super military city, with HE for fast production and WP and 2 Great Generals settled as MIs to pump out level 5 units. (I had the Pentagon too) Next level would mean 20XP, so 4 additional MIs to get it. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been worth it.

- London and Nottingham both got Military Academies, and London was also raised to a heavy military city when it got two Military Instructors for level 4 units. Since they were the two closest cities to the Huayna border, I think it was the best choice.

- Karakorum already had a Military Academy through no fault of my own (ok, maybe it was because of my war...), and later got a Military Instructor of its own. The northern military fleet had to take on quite a few cities and didn't have the benefit of the highly powered marines from Utica, so they had to make do with 7XP marines from Karakorum.

- Ulundi also had a Military Academy but built by Shaka. It was not productive enough, nor near enough to the front to warrant spending a GG as MI in it.

- and there was that crazy mass promotion that saved a stack from the initial Incan attack by allowing the units who got promotions to heal part of their wounds.

That's a total of 10 Great Generals, 9 earned through war and one from Fascism. Pretty impressive for a none Imperialistic leader, but then again I did fight a lot of late game wars.