TA1 - Pandoras Box.

I've been playing this game for quite a while now and came to a sudden realisation - I've never built a stealth bomber, SDI defense network or Radar Artillery piece. Modern armour has only ever been a light distraction on the way to space. I've never even been involved in a proper nuclear war! This SG will aim to fix those little problems... Hopefully it will also make more use of naval units and make modern day combat less of a foregone conclusion.

We will play on a continents map. We can do whatever we like on our starting landmass, but we cannot deploy ground units on any other territory until we have researched the full modern age tech tree, amphibious warfare and advanced flight. Then we will head towards a domination/conquest victory. Prior to this we can involve ourselves in whatever conflicts we like, but only using ships/planes.

Now for Pandoras Box: By the turn we are ready to launch our invasion transports, we will have built exactly 1 nuclear weapon per remaining civilisation, we must then nuke the smallest city each other civ posesses. In the case of a size tie we must go for the most corrupt one. We can be as dastardly as we like with this, declaring wars and making alliances to get the whole world into a massive world war! However it must be done in 1 turn. I have a funny feeling we may want to switch to communism before this

As for a civ, I realise that America would be a perfect choice, but I've just finished a game with them and they do get used for a large number of SGs, so would rather use someone else. Would like to steer clear of the Ottomans and Vikings for the same reasons. Think the Babylonians or Egyptians could be fun - havn't seen either of them used lately and I like them both, but I'm not particularly fussed.

It might be worth seeing if someone else could make us a map for this, to ensure we have a big enough island to make the game playable, without being too big. If there are any lurkers out there who would like to make us a map but don't want to play then please post!

It will be 24 to post a got it and 72 to play. Aiming for 20 turns to start, 10 turns each from there. Possibly shift to 5 turns each when the war gets rolling. Just to make it clear NO EXPLOITS. Also to avoid the discussion, I do not want to use RCP, simply because I don't like it.

A final word of warning - I lack net access over the weekends, although I can play, so we may have to be creative with the roster.

Version: Ptw 1.21.
Difficulty: Deity
Map Size: Medium/Large - to be decided.
Map Type: Continents
Climate: Average
Civ: To be decided.
AI civs: Max, Random, Culture linked off, Respawn off.
Victory type: Domination/Conquest only.

Order to be decided:
TriviAl
Arizona_Steve
?
?
?

Suggestions...

I'd suggest a scientific civ for sure. Babylon does seem like a good choice, since being religious they get into Democracy which makes the late worker labor easier to manage, and also an easy shift to Monarchy/Communism later.

40% land will keep the tech speed high (and make early contact between the continents more likely with smaller oceans), and make it take less than forever to finish the tech tree. Although the actual wars will take forever on 40% land...

This isn't a signup (I've got two games already), but I may yet decide to do so.

Thanks for the input

I do like Babylon - find them fun to play - would definitely get the full benefits from scientific and religious in this game... Their UU could be quite useful as it enables a lot of flexibility in setting off the golden age.

I was thinking that trading techs to the AI's would speed the research pace up somewhat - we would possibly need to buy in resources and luxuries, which should help them along. But more land certainly couldn't hurt... Given the deity setting I would expect things to progress fairly quickly anyway...

At Deity you don't trade techs to the AIs except in brokerage deals. The AIs sell techs to you, if you can scrape together the cash.

Deity research costs are tremendous (167% of standard cost). Without acquiring land via military, it's almost unheard-of to get research times below 12 turns or so per tech in the modern age. LotR6, with half the world under our control, took 10+ turns to research Synthetic Fibers.

I am tentatively thinking of getting back into the SG arena after a long hiatus (Civ III burnout, real life, the usual)...

I have some Deity experience, both in solo and SG games (a few people may remember my presence on this board earlier this year - well maybe, at least I hope I'm not THAT forgettable ).

I have NEVER seen stealth fighters or radar artillery, hence my interest.

Most people also have access to PTW 1.27 now (haven't checked to see if the UK version is out), so you might want to consider using this latest version.

EDIT: Just checked, the UK 1.27 patch IS available.

Ah, some interest in this one then

I'll certainly be getting the 1.27 patch, although I'll need to work out how to switch between that and the 1.21 patch, at least until I finish gotm-22...

I'll add you onto the roster, although I think we should wait for another player or two before starting. Do you have any thoughts on the map settings/civ?

T-Hawk.

I see what you mean - looked at some older large map deity games in the modern age and it does start to gum up the research... even with 2 full cores of good cities things run somewhat slowly. Most of my games don't tend to get that far. The only one of mine where 4 turn modern research was happening was gotm-20 - this had 5 remaining civs, but I had nearly all their gpt...

We can militarily acquire our own starting continent for this version so we should be able to get a decent amount of land before the modern age. The kicker is that most of the other civs should still be in play, which seems to make for a very large slowdown... I'll be curious to see how this pans out. It may be slow, but domination/conquest are the only ways to win, so there is no massive hurry...

Hi TriviAI

I’d like to sign up if poss. I’ve not been involved with SG games before, but have been lurking for a while. I’m fairly new to Deity (used to play Emperor or Monarch). But I have really got hooked on the extra challenge since GOTM 20. I’ve notched up 2 space, one UN and 1 domination victory now. Also, having been innspired by these Succession games boards, I am playing a slightly Deity Lite (gave myself 2 extra workers to start) always war as the Chinese. It’s currently 1590AD and I’m still alive, but holding off the Ottomans, Mongols and Indians at my 2 town beachhead on their continent is really bloodthirsty (3 infantry armies and 100 or so arty are required to hold them each turn). My kill ration must be 10:1 though, as it has to be in this sort of game…. Great game though, probably the best nailbighter I’ve ever played…

Anyway, I digress. I’d like to play this SG too, as part of the reason for me playing Deity AW is that I was also keen on seeing a bit more modern age / combined arms action instead of bog-standard cavalry rushes.

I’m personally not too keen on the Babylonians, and would be more inclined towards the Egyptians. I haven’t played them for months, but they were fun when I did. The Chinese also rock in my view. Never played with them before till my AW attempt, couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, but a 3 move UU, mil and ind work real well together.

Also, as regards the map. We’re going to really a reasonable sized landmass to have a chance with our modern age warfare (and a look in at the various resources we’ll need). How can we guarantee this? I like the idea of a non player generating the map for us… Is there anyone we should ask?

Cheers

Kello

Dammit. Wrote a proper reply and it vanished into the net somewhere

Anyway, be more than happy to have you join!

Sounds like you are playing at a similar level to me. I've just made that jump from Emporer to Deity as well - Finished a couple of full games and several lite versions. Although nothing as impressive as an always war!

No problem with the Egyptians. As T-Hawk said the Babylonians would be great in pushing towards a full tech tree - as it will be a very builder-ish game during the middle... however the Egyptians Industrious ways would certainly make starting easier. Wouldn't want to make someone play as a tribe they disliked...

As for the map, I'm not sure who to ask. If I can't find anyone, then I'll create a random one and spend a while scouting to see if it's usable. If I play last in the rotation, then I shouldn't have too much pre-knowledge.

Anyway, I was going to hold off on this one until the end of the first week of September. This is because: The 1.27 patch will have settled in, I'll be back from my trip to Spain and I should have a working net connection at home. Finally.

If that is OK with you, then I can PM you closer to the time?

I would generate a map and check it for you, no problem.

Just specify the exact parameters and
the patch (I have both 1.21 and 1.27)

Belisar, thanks very much.

Still working out exactly who we're playing/what size map and other minor details like that

Would it be OK if I PM'd you a bit closer to the start date?

Arizona_Steve, welcome back! Who could forget you or the lovely Mrs.

LOL Mrs_Arizona_Steve (aka Marie) is cursing my renewed interest in this wonderful game, so I'll be limiting myself to one succession game at a time (although I'll continue with my efforts to get back into things - I'm a little rusty, so I've been soloing a few Emporer games, and an always war at Monarch, all of which are pretty much won as I write this).

Looking forward to conquests BTW - I'll probably get that the day it arrives at stored, just like I did with PTW.

Originally posted by TriviAl

Still working out exactly who we're playing/what size map and other minor details like that

Would it be OK if I PM'd you a bit closer to the start date?

Click to expand...

Yes, send a PM at least one day before you want to start the game.

“Sounds like you are playing at a similar level to me. I've just made that jump from Emporer to Deity as well - Finished a couple of full games and several lite versions. Although nothing as impressive as an always war!

I’ll unhappily admit that I gave up on that game last night…. I’d managed to take out 3 Mongol cities with my 7 or 8 armies, supported by about 100 artillery, but the Indians had destroyed by iron clad defended shipping lane with subs, battleships and carrier borne bomber assaults. They also started both the Manhattan Project and the UN on the same turn… I was doomed… My hope was that they were mobilized, as I thought this would stop them building wonders (is this right?). I was 12 turns from combustion, so had no way to ship troops over to their continent, with flight still some 25 or more turns away… I’ve given up, but may revive the save to see if I can pull something out of the bag. “

“No problem with the Egyptians. As T-Hawk said the Babylonians would be great in pushing towards a full tech tree - as it will be a very builder-ish game during the middle... however the Egyptians Industrious ways would certainly make starting easier. Wouldn't want to make someone play as a tribe they disliked...”

You are of course right about the Babs on reflection… A good chance at a tech lead or at least parity, plus a commendable culture should really help when we attempt to take on the other landmass/es.

”Anyway, I was going to hold off on this one until the end of the first week of September. This is because: The 1.27 patch will have settled in, I'll be back from my trip to Spain and I should have a working net connection at home. Finally. “

Yeah, I haven’t installed the patch yet anyway. Damn Blaster worm got me last night on my home PC, but I should have that sorted today with a fix on a CD from work… Strongly recommend people update their patches or virus software on home PCs or it really kills your internet connection.

”If that is OK with you, then I can PM you closer to the time?”

No probs.

Cheers

Kello

It may be a bit early to start talking about all this stuff, but I’ve been musing whilst bored at work….

Originally posted by TriviAl
Now for Pandoras Box: By the turn we are ready to launch our invasion transports, we will have built exactly 1 nuclear weapon per remaining civilisation, we must then nuke the smallest city each other civ posesses. In the case of a size tie we must go for the most corrupt one. We can be as dastardly as we like with this, declaring wars and making alliances to get the whole world into a massive world war! However it must be done in 1 turn. I have a funny feeling we may want to switch to communism before this

Click to expand...

My one concern with this is that all our most productive cities will get nuked to hell IBT after this, especially if there is one dominant civ on the other continent/continents. The ideal situation I think would be if there are 4 or more varied civs still in existence and all pretty evenly matched. But is this likely? If everyone has had the chance to get to the end of the modern age (v. likely in deity that we’d have much if any of a tech lead), is it not also likely that one civ overseas will have begun or already managed to dominate, due to their access to resources or superior size?

The best way perhaps to do this turn would be in something like the following order.

1) Declare war on Civ A (strongest opponent)
2) Do whatever it takes to get Civs B,C,D,E etc to declare war on Civ A
3) Declare war on civ B, and try to get civs C, D and E to do the same (rinse and repeat – but this gets progressively harder as our rep gets ruined)
3) Declare war on anyone we’re not already at war with and Nuke all small cities of civs.
4) If we are the first to initate a nuclear war, in my experience, the whole world will be totally outraged and hate us for it. They’ll throw whatever they can at us… i.e. nukes if they can, even the civs that we just allied with Civ A against, but at least they’re all already at war with Civ A, and can’t get out of it too easily. So say 10-15 of our top cities get a pounding.

ITS GONNA BE MESSY!

n.b. MPP’s will probably not do any good at helping us in this period, as we’ll be ones initiating the first strike, not the other civ…

Points for the earlier game that this raises:

i) It may actually be benefitial in terms of a win for a nuclear war to already have happened in the world before we launch.
ii) In case we don’t have uranium and aluminium on our continent, we’re going to need a clean rep, good relations (strong culture would help) with other civs, and some valuable resources or monopolies to be able to trade for these items.
iii) We may well need a LARGE standing army before launching the Pandoras box assault, as our production may be screwed the following turn – this might be difficult to maintain in Democracy, so we may want to switch to Communism or Monarchy earlier that the turn before this….
iv) It may not be advisable to have all our units in one massive SoD before we launch the assault. As if the AI knows where this is (which it appears to, even without a spy) it may get nuked.
v) Some workers ready to clear that pollution, and some cash in the bank (if in monarchy) to re-rush factories to get our production up to scratch.
vi) We’re likely to have already experience MAJOR golbal warming if all civs are left to develop until we nuke and invade.

Also, does anyone know if the AI reacts differently depending on which victory conditions are turned on? A clever AI would play a conquest/domination only game like the weakest link… keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Ally with smaller civs to take out a larger dominant one (vote off the strongest player) etc.


Cheers

KELLO

Kello...

Shame that the AWD broke down, are you tempted to carry it on and see what the Indians do to you?

Good to see you're having a think about the game... I'm a bit bored at work today as well So...

I had been thinking about that part of the game and think you've hit the nail on the head with the way to play it... I have a feeling that any civs we can't draw in at stage 2 will declare war on us as soon as we drop a nuke.

One option would be to save up a lot of cash and get others to declare on us via espionage - would save our rep - although we'd have to be very careful to do that properly - i.e. IMO trying lots of different rushed spying is not exploitative - repeatedly trying the same thing is. As we have a full tech tree, tech steals will be off the cards... so spy exposure and steal plans are the only options... The whole thing is possibly a bit 'borderline'?

The reasoning behind the Pandora's box idea was that industrial > later warfare tends to be a completely foregone conclusion... thought a world nuclear war would go some way toward evening those odds off....

I hadn't realised the AI could attack targets other than cities with nukes.... could get interesting - not using SOD's on the offensive could be tricky. We should have our troops sea bound on the first turn of the war, perhaps splitting the fleet into smaller/protected stacks might help. We will have a huge army by the full tech tree point - we will have some time with fully improved high production cities with 'idle hands' Anti pollution clean up crews are a must... just need to store them outside blast radius. SDI could be useful as well

Changing governments to Commie/Monarchy is an absolute must. Republic/Democratic WW will be crippling.

Large map with max civs and a specified design will hopefully ensure enough space for us to spread a little and for a number of other civs to survive into the late game? A careful standard map could be the same. Resources are likely to be an issue...

As for civs, I'm happy with either Babylonians or Egyptians, can decide a bit closer to the time.

Might be worth starting this one off a bit earlier, if we can recruit a couple more people soon?

Originally posted by TriviAl
Shame that the AWD broke down, are you tempted to carry it on and see what the Indians do to you?

Click to expand...

Sort of… but I don’t think I’ve got a hope in hell though… I think that the Mongols and the Japanese (the only others left in the game) will both vote for the Indians as they’re 2nd in population… But you never know.. if they’re the first to use nukes on me, everyone might hate them and abstain…

I won’t get the chance to destroy their cities that are building the wonders, and espionage is not an option as I don’t have that tech…

Originally posted by TriviAl
One option would be to save up a lot of cash and get others to declare on us via espionage - would save our rep - although we'd have to be very careful to do that properly - i.e. IMO trying lots of different rushed spying is not exploitative - repeatedly trying the same thing is. As we have a full tech tree, tech steals will be off the cards... so spy exposure and steal plans are the only options... The whole thing is possibly a bit 'borderline'?

Click to expand...

So are you saying that we do that to everyone after step 2?

So the order might go like this?

1) Declare war on Civ A (strongest opponent)

2) Do whatever it takes to get Civs B,C,D,E etc to declare war on Civ A

3) Steal military plans of civs B,C,D,E etc to try and get as many to declare war on us as possible

4) Say civs B and C declare war as a result of the spying, get D and E to ally against them if possible

5) Expose enemy spy of any civs we’re not already at war with. Hoping they’ll declare war….

6) Declare war on all remaining civs then launch missiles

But then again, nuking EVERY other civ doesn’t make sense really anyway, unless we basically plan to play AW from that moment on… Our rep will be totally ruined by using nukes anyway…How about we agree to declare war on the 3 strongest remaining civs?

Originally posted by TriviAl
I hadn't realised the AI could attack targets other than cities with nukes.... could get interesting - not using SOD's on the offensive could be tricky.

Click to expand...

Don’t quote me on that, I’m not sure… I’ll do a quick test now… Yep… you can attack units instead of cities (boats too)… The advantage of boats being attacked is that it only creates pollution on any land tiles that are close.

Originally posted by TriviAl
Changing governments to Commie/Monarchy is an absolute must. Republic/Democratic WW will be crippling.

Click to expand...

Yep… Military support costs for both Commie and Monarchy are the same… So say we had 30 cities, of which 20 were metropolises, 6 cities and 4 towns, we could support

(20x8) + (6x4) + (4x2) = 160 + 24 + 8 = 192 free units support.

Originally posted by TriviAl
Might be worth starting this one off a bit earlier, if we can recruit a couple more people soon?

Click to expand...

I’m keen to start anytime soon… Why don’t you post an update on the Sucession Game Registry – if you haven’t done so already…

Cheers

Kello

Hi again TriviAl,

I'm having problems with the 1.27 patch... Any chance we could play in 1.21?

Thanks

Kello