I'm back for one game at least

M60A3TTS · Apr 15, 2020

Very good. In reviewing things in the pre-turn, I moved mil academy to Detroit and HE to Philly.

I also want to get embassies in everywhere (minus Zulu of course) now so we can stay current on any new conflicts.

Soooo,,,
87g for Iroquois
140g for Mongols
62g for England
130g for Celts
57g for Scandanavia
83g for Sumeria
76g for Maya
60g for Germany
101g for Spain

Poor Sumeria. Don't be this guy. Kuara the capital is defended by like 3 enkidu warriors.

tjs282 · Apr 15, 2020

Silly Bismarck, building a Colosseum in Pop6 Berlin, instead of a 'Duct!!! Does he imagine he's going for 160K...?

And blimey, only 2 rRifles in Trondheim, where's Ragnar been putting all his shields? Has Hiawatha been hammering him, instead of everyone else in Africa?

Alas, poor Gilgamesh, I knew him hardly at all...

M60A3TTS · Apr 18, 2020

In appreciation of the lurkers:

North America

Central America

South America

M60A3TTS · Apr 18, 2020

Unit count as of 1150AD
Settler 3
Worker 118
Medieval Infantry 16
Swordsman 10
Infantry 64
Rifleman 3
Pikeman 3
Spearman 3
Warrior 1
Scout 2
Cavalry 16
Knight 6
Artillery 33
Trebuchet 3
Frigate 15
Galleon 27
Galley 1
Curragh 1
Army 2

Power Graph

Zulu

M60A3TTS · Apr 18, 2020

Tech Race and gold in foreign treasuries

We are #1 in tech and gold. 6525 in the bank. Combustion in 1 @ 41gpt.

Iroquois down refining, steel 3415g

England down refining, steel 0g

Mongols down sci method, refining, steel RP 90g

Ottomans down electricity, refining, steel 7g

Aztecs down electricity, refining, steel 0g

Scandanavia down refining, steel, electricity, communism 7g

Celts down steam, communism 19g

Spain down steam, communism 0g

Maya down nationalism, steam, medicine 38g

Sumeria down physics, mil trad 0g and are down to a 2-tile, pop 3 tundra island

Germany down monotheism and gunpowder 1g

M60A3TTS · Apr 18, 2020

T1 1060

Lose a couple units at Hlobane as 4 Zulu arrive and are dispatched. News of our losses causes more restlessness and some core cities need entertainment to keep lux @ 10%. Have to build a temple in Omaha to keep it from starving.

T2 1070

Convoy EB-107 departs Boston with galleons Salem and Fall River. They contain infantry from United States 1st Army and are escorted by frigates Montreal and Brandywine.

T3 1080

Founded Porto Alegre.

Soccrro riots

Refining>steel in 4. We have a single source of oil.

T4 1090

Casper riots

Convoy EB-109 departs Boston with galleons Mount Rainier and Lake Ontario to be escorted by Frigate Norfolk II. The convoy carries infantry from United States 1st Army and artillery.

I short rush some settlers to push forward SA settlement. Jungle clearing teams clear 3-4 tiles now for settlement growth.

T5 1100

Founded Asuncion and San Carlos de Bariloche

Frigate Bath II starts return trip to Hlobane, having completed essential repairs at Rek-Yer. Mongols and England sign MPP

Convoy EB-110 departs Boston with galleons Orca and Pequod escorted by frigates USS Galivant and Olympia. They carry 4 infantry and 4 artillery

T6 1110

Steel>Combustion in 4

T7 1120

Founded Concordia and Montevideo.

T8 1130

Tenochtitlan completes Universal Sufferage.

Convoy EB-113 departs Boston with galleons Roanoke, Lake Placid, Mount Vernon and Red River with 8 infantry, 4 artillery and Colonel Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.

Founded Buenos Aires and Concepcion.

T9 1140

Founded Bahia Blanca

Scandanavia declares war on the Iroquois. Alrighty then. Then the Ottomans join in.

T10 1150. Founded Rosario and Las Grutas.

Combustion in 1, so once again geeks to taxmen to put gpt net positive.

We can probably expect this Iroquois War to expand to other parties as Hiawatha has the gold to bring in more friends like England or the Aztecs. Both Ottomans and Vikes are democracies although that probably won’t last against the communist Iroquois.

For organizational purposes I have the following U.S. Armies associated with a number of infantry units

1st Army deployed to fight the Zulu.

2nd Army deploying to the Pacific for future operations

4th Army for defense of the Western Hemisphere

3rd Army no units but will be the cavalry and tank armies

We have 4 infantry in Hawaii and 3 more with a settler will arrive in a couple turns. They then can head in the direction of Bremen (Philippines) in the off-chance Bismarck won’t give us the silk town for free. Alternatively, they can head west to take possession of the spices near Kuara (Java) but in either case both those luxes need to be on our short-mid term plan to take for the good of the American public.

I did build temples in a couple large cities to keep them from starving as workers came off tiles to combat WW. The temple now building for Missoula is to secure a second source of oil.

As soon as combustion comes in, we should upgrade all the galleons to transports. It is 7 turns by galleon from Boston to the Zulu beachhead and 5 by transport with of course additional capacity of 6 vs 4. We can’t use Hlobane to upgrade as the Zulu boundaries block the import of needed oil. So the ones already off the Zulu coast either need to upgrade back home or in Rek-Yer.

Next tech should be flight so we can start cranking out lots of bombers. Then Mass Prod and I think Amphib War because we are going to need US Marines. Then lastly Mot Trans.

Washington is building a bank in 3 as a pre-build for the Pentagon that can be built in 2 as soon as Detroit completes our 3rd army. Detroit can actually do 3-turn armies in its present configuration of 135spt. Boston’s bank is a pre-build for a destroyer.

We need to get a rail line built between Albany and New Cattaraugus. Top Secret project in addition to the one below. :mischief:

Galleon Thule Runner now in Bath after upgrading to transport needs to take settler and others to found Thule and work on railing to the east across the ice. You should probably take a second transport along to speed things up. Once the transports off-load they can remain there for later use.

We are going to need about 18-20 transports to work the Atlantic. That means we are going to need about 5-7 more beyond what is (or what will be) there already. We should keep at least 1 or maybe 2 in Dyetona to protect Cuba.

I had previously disposed of some obsolete units, but now I think what’s left should be saved for disbanding where we want to short-rush important harbors or barracks that may be needed, for Thule as an example.

South America is now almost completely settled. Two settlers in place at the southern tip ready to go next turn. We can squeeze maybe a pair of other towns in, but otherwise complete so we can focus on other endeavors.

The Aztec War is going to take a bit of time. In days harkening back to my early Incan battles, in one turn I traded three infantry for four impi. They have had millenia to crank out hordes of 16-shield vet impis. More help is coming via our trans-Atlantic convoys, and once we can add bombers to the mix, we should be able to quicken the demise of Shaka.

tjs282 · Apr 20, 2020

Mid-set dispatches:

It's 1200 AD. Does Shaka know where his kids are?

Bapedi fell in 1170, and Shaka's followup was so weak, that I felt secure in sending the bulk of those troops to begin advancing on Zimbabwe (the injured are still healing in the Highlands, though). More troops (including Roosevelt) will shortly land outside Ulundi, which will be Arty-bombed from outside Hlobane. Until then, our Frigates are keeping both towns' defenders desperately dodging shot.

In the meantime, our core-towns are now beginning to build a fleet of Bombers to ~~nuke them from orbit~~ finish off Isandlwhana's garrisons (and then man Airstrip One, once the Zulus have been expunged). We can/will do MassProd in 4T (at a profit, even!), and I will begin AmphibWar right after that as noted, so (even though the GA will be over by then) you should have plenty of towns available to build Marines for taking down Isandlhwana (and Shaka with it) -- plus any other 1-tile islands that take our fancy.

South America now has very little Forest left (but still plenty of Jungle), so I have started sending Workers north again to develop our 3rd- and 4th-ring towns (many can become productive with Courthouses), and start building the rail-route to New Cat as requested.

It's not all roses, though. Unfortunately the Iros beat us to the Thule-spot (by only a turn or two, I would guess) -- but if Hiawatha doesn't get his Temples up fast enough, we should still be able to Settle a couple of tiles south of that spot, if you want to do that? (Or were you hoping to snag some Uranium or something...?)

M60A3TTS · Apr 20, 2020

tjs282 said:
Mid-set dispatches:
In the meantime, our core-towns are now beginning to build a fleet of Bombers to ~~nuke them from orbit~~ finish off Isandlwhana's garrisons (and then man Airstrip One, once the Zulus have been expunged).

Well, while it is the only way to be sure. let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll get to nukes at some point.

tjs282 said:
It's not all roses, though. Unfortunately the Iros beat us to the Thule-spot (by only a turn or two, I would guess) -- but if Hiawatha doesn't get his Temples up fast enough, we should still be able to Settle a couple of tiles south of that spot, if you want to do that? (Or were you hoping to snag some Uranium or something...?)

Damn, and I told the wife I'd find us a little place by the sea. I also heard that they had a great school system.

ok, I'll settle for two tiles south please but I ain't paying a buck over 35k. The place needs a lot of work..

tjs282 · Apr 23, 2020

Thank-you for your patience...

M60A3TTS said:
Damn, and I told the wife I'd find us a little place by the sea. I also heard that they had a great school system. ok, I'll settle for two tiles south please but I ain't paying a buck over 35k. The place needs a lot of work..

You're not kiddin'...

(the obsolete units are where they are so they wouldn't get booted if any/all of the neighbouring towns popped their borders)

Spoiler TurnLogDR :

Handover:

So, first I have to make profuse apologies for all the burning towns: it was late, I was tired, and I completely forgot that the end of our GA in 1240 AD would mean a loss of the +1 commerce/tile, and hence an effective 20-30% decrease in our absolute LUX%-spending. By the time I realised what had happened, it was too late to stop it. LUX% is now (back) up to 30%, so the riots should all be quelled this IBT, but at the cost of quite a few beakers' worth of research on AmphibWar (we should still get it in 4T, but our TAX%-windfall on Turn 4 will be lower than it otherwise might have been).

In other news:

Although I am assuming that Monty will be our next target(?), I have not started any additional wars, since I was not sure of your intended strategy.

We built up a pretty good Bomber-force thanks to the GA, so I set our core-towns (back) to building Infs for now. Although Horses would be nice, to upgrade our Keniggits, and build Cavs (same A=6 as Infs, but M=3 means they can hit from our side of most borders, reducing WW), Hiawatha wanted a ridiculous amount of GPT + resources for them -- and I figured we were so close to MotorTransport at this point that it wasn't worth signing a deal (especially if we're going after the Aztecs anyway?).

Our Bombers are now mostly (all?) in Hlobane, from where they can hit east Iceland and western Europe, while also remaining relatively safe from flippage (with the fall of Ulundi and Zimbabwe, Hlobane got access to our Luxes, and so could start growing good wholesome American citizens -- which will further reduce its flip-risk). Nevertheless, the Infs and Armies are in the Transports anchored in the Zuluish Sea, just in case...

The Zulus are now on their last legs -- which is good, because we really need this war to be over soon. But although we own their towns, we don't fully control them yet: Ulundi still has multiple resistors and already back-flipped once (which is why our troops are mostly outside). So I just set those towns to build Temples for border-pops, to reduce Aztec/Bab pressure, while we wait for a Marine(s) to become available to attack Isandhlwana.

With Arty in the former Zuluish Highlands to redline any new garrisons across the water, and the Bombers in Hlobane to kill them, we will only need 1 Marine to take Isandhlwana. However, finishing Shaka for good will take a little longer, because he also has 2 CrapTowns requiring demolition: Intombe (in Spitzbergen, which our troops can reach and land on from the Zuluish Isles), and Ngome...

...so you might want to start a small force of Infs + Arty in that direction already, even before we have a road/rail-route from Anchorage to Homer (that's what the Workers are near Anchorage to do)

Since we did not need any more troops to fight the Zulus on their mainland, I did not send any new troops across the Atlantic yet, so I have been stacking them around Bath, just so that they are all in one place (for embarkation, or for razing CrapTowns in North America). However, it also occurred to me (after returning most of our Transports to Bath, of course :wallbash:

) that -- now we have Flight -- rather than sailing new units over to Zululand, we could use some of our frankly huge Worker-force to build multiple Airfields across North America (one per core town?), and one Airfield in Zululand, and then fly over any/all units which are Airliftable, saving our Transport-capacity for those which aren't (can't remember if Arties are Airliftable, but Settlers aren't, I think?), and for short-range transport to beachheads on the Aztec mainland.

Most of the time spent on my set has been devoted to Worker-shuffling (no automation!), continuing to de-Forest, rail and mine/irrigate the outlying regions of North and South America. (I'm thinking it might be time to go to 5T-sets...?). Most Forest is now gone in the Amazon basin, but I didn't start Jungle-clearing in earnest yet (only a few coastal tiles so far, mainly to deprive the AI of potential high defensive-bonus landing-spots).

I have also sent more colonists towards the South Pacific. I figured, Settle the islands that were closest to us first, and occupy the more westerly ones (Kiribati, Guam) with troops until more Settlers can reach them. Although Eurasia is pretty much full, the AI is still Settling Australia, so we still have some time.

Finally, our last tech-sale to Hiawatha just expired, so I sold him Steel for 220 GPT (the best lump-sum I could get was ~3960g: so we stand to make more from him via GPT, provided we don't DoW him -- or vice versa!).

Save is below.

M60A3TTS · Apr 24, 2020

Re: Burning towns. If I had never done it myself, might be worth commenting on. As it is, we'll let it go.

Re: Monty as our next war target. Words were exchanged. Both sides claimed the other side fired the first shot. Film at 11.

Re: Our bomber force. Not an amazing size, but since we have no air opposition, even modest will do nicely.

Re: The Zulu war needs to end. Strongly agree. Two down, one to go. Our marines have the Spitzbergen mission.

Re: Sailing to Zululand. I have an idea that is a little elaborate perhaps, but with a series of coastal chain stations, we can carry a dozen units of any type to the US, Zululand or points in between in zero turns. The pics below were from some earlier planning but should be almost ready to go with minor modifications when you get the turn back. We can still do a few supplemental airfields for the European theater when we get back.

It is a different story in the Pacific. Here we can't do exactly the same thing obviously due to the greater distances involved. I think what we largely need to send over are settlers who can't be air transported and workers for creating additional airfields. Our base of operations will be the Solomon and Marshall Islands, mainly for the purpose of obtaining silks and spices that are a reasonable distance from these locations.

Re: Air-liftable units. Armies, artillery and settlers cannot be airlifted.

Re: Trades with Hiawatha. We are into the Modern Age now with Rocketry in 9 while generating a cash surplus. He has an obscene amount of cash, 9500-ish but I don't really see a need to keep feeding him techs that he just sells to England and Mongolia. We're only 3 techs from modern armor, so we really don't have to beat ourselves up in a tech race now. We're so far ahead on an industrial basis. He hasn't railed a single tile in his capital yet. I want to let the gpt deal expire and then kick him off the continent so we don't have to keep looking over our shoulder for stray Iro units lurking in the tundra.

Re: Huge worker force. Yes, we're a bit overweight in that department now. We can bleed off some with airfield creation, but I don't think we need more worker builds at this stage beyond our Pacific islands. Let those other towns do settlers now.

Re: 5-T set. I didn't see this until I was was already past 5. Feel free to do either 5 or 10 for your next set and I will drop to 5 thereafter.

Re: More stuff. We need to secure the remaining luxes to keep the citizens of our Republic placated. I'm not talking trades either. First focus on the Aztec wines in Spain then the Pacific Command needs to get those German silks before Bismarck gets war-dec'd by a more powerful foe who gets to them first. Also see what we need to grab those unclaimed-at-the-moment spices in Java. Nearest settlers are on boats NE of Hawaii, so they will be a while.

We're at 30% lux tax and 21% war weariness. We really don't want to be in a position of implementing a 40% tax if at all avoidable, ergo we push for those remaining luxes. I will have the turn set up tomorrow most likely.

M60A3TTS · Apr 25, 2020

T1 1255AD Do some forest chops and tile redistribution to put Norfolk from 15 to 20spt to help navy builds. Philly has shields to spare. Same thing with Little Rock and St. Louis to put out 2-turn bombers. More chops north of the St. Lawrence Seaway NW of Montreal to help the factory build. Omoka Village founded.

IBT Babs and Ottomans ally against Germany. With that, Germany ends her war against the Ottomans. Suckah!

Finding her Ottoman partner leaving her at the alter, Babylon brings in the Scandanavians against Germany. As if Ragnar doesn’t have his hands full already.

And since the Ottomans are no longer feuding with one party, the Iroquois bring in the Celts against them to even the score. Hmm, I don’t think Oz came out ahead in that deal. We’ll see.

T2 1260AD More railroads in Newfoundland. The Aztecs don’t seem to mind. Ship more workers overseas

IBT England and Ottomans make peace. And again, just to make things fair, the Iroquois bring the Babs into their Ottoman war. And Celts with Iroquois go against Vikes, because, why not? The Zulu attack our forted infantry in Homer. I don’t need to tell you how well that worked out for them. Celts land an MI in SA to attack the Ottomans. As in one. Should be fun.

T3 1265AD AW in, Mot trans in 4. Marine builds kicked on. Erie and Tucumcari riot. Don’t know how I missed them.

IBT Spain joins Iro against Oz.

T4 1270

2nd Army infantry land at Guadalcanal. Camp dispersed for 50g.

IBT Sumeria joins with Iro against Oz. Yes, they will be bringing a lot to the table, eh?

T5 1275

Guadalcanal founded.

T6 1280AD

Settler arrives on Munda. 2nd Army Infantry land unopposed at Bougainville.

Iroquois and Vikes make peace

Found Cape Dyer

T7 1285AD

Babs and England ally against Scandanavia

T8 1290AD

Ngome razed by our infantry

War declared on Aztecs

North America

Artillery bombs rifle at Coatepec. Bombers from USS Lexington take out the defenders.

Tanks from 3rd Army autoraze Tultitlan and Coatepec

Artillery and bombers from carrier Enterprise bomb defenders at Tlapanaloya.

Coyotepec is hit with artillery and captured by cav army. Now Halifax.

Greenland

Marines land at Jilotzingo and autoraze the city.

Bombers from Rek-Yer sink an Aztec frigate off Tequixquiac

Bombers then take out spear defender there. Marines land there unopposed and city autorazes

Iceland

Arty takes down two rifle defenders and the Rough Riders kill them. One still redlined.

Marines storm in to capture Zitlaltepec

Artillery and bombers hit rifle defenders in Chalco and Hlobane Cavalry take the city.

Marines storm into an empty Isandhlwana and raze the city.

Two tanks and cav clean up Aztec units in our territory. Knight grabs a pair of his workers.

T9 1295AD

Destroyer USS Drayton takes out Aztec frigate after it and a second frigate and galleon are softened up with arty from Hlobane. Planes from the Lexington finish the job. A fighter squadron from Enterprise on a search patrol reports nothing to the northwest of Lexington.

With the arrival of oil-powered destroyers and naval aviation, the Navy Department acknowledges that the Age of Sail has passed. Frigates Brandywine and Bath II are broken up in Zimbabwe. Temple in 1.

With mixed emotions, our remaining curragh and galleon are given orders to abandon ship and are scuttled.

Our first airfields are going in around Alaska and Yuma.

Some build assignments are changed that eliminate long term infra builds. They are all in very low shield cities so no loss there.

A transport in the Pacific on scout duty finds the Celts already pushing into what is to be our rear area with a settler + 2 cav. IBT they settle New Lugdunum. Zulu make peace with Ottomans, as does the Maya. Galveston gets her factory doubling spt from 22 and 44 putting the city as a major shipbuilder. Starts destroyer.

1300AD

Zitaltepec gets R&R. That’s Raze and Replace.

Many more airfields in Alaska

Lexington gets her fighter squadron. She is joined by Enterprise between Rek-Yer and Hlobane. Three destroyer escort and each fleet carrier with three bomber and one fighter squadron.

US 8th Air Force with thirteen bombers to Hlobane, now Dublin.

Infantry Army (1st Infantry Corps) for the invasion force as part of Operation Overlord arrives in Zululand.

In order for Tucumcari to not waste a lot of shields for a fighter needing 1s, I switch to bomber in 1T by stripping off all workers from the irrigated tiles. After it comes in next turn, please replace the workers and let it produce fighters at 16spt. There’s just no way to get it to 20spt as corrupt as it is.

Omaha has a factory in 2. May be worth adding a hospital after that comes in as it is at 39spt.

Ottomans down to 2 cities. Capital of Sinop in the Azores and his one SA town of Urfa that all his enemies, namely Iroquois, Sumeria, Babylon, Mongolia, Aztecs and Spain are trying to get at. Trade them Sci Method for Sanitation, 49g and 45gpt. Good thing he had the cash that we need or we would have added our name to the enemies list. After it runs out, we’ll kill him anyways if he’s still around.

Mongols down flight and Mass Prod w/700 in the bank. Sell WM to Mongols for their TM and 101g. Get 64g and TM from Brennus for our maps. Of course the Iroquois have even more gold, 10,234. And he’d give it all to us for flight. I just can’t do it. We’ll lay claim to some of his stash once we start cleaning out a number of his tundra towns. Still 9 turns to run on the previous deal, and that’s fine. He’s cautious now, down from polite a while ago. He has 5 units in our lands. I didn’t try to boot him and as long as that Ottoman town is in SA he’s heading in that direction. Any of our cities in range of his horsies are garrisoned.

Science to 50% -54gpt with 977 in the treasury. Now Rocketry in 5 and done.

I am strongly leaning towards mobilization in my next set. We have or will have factories in all key locations by then with maybe the exception of a couple.

Duluth 20spt can now build a factory in 9

Oklahoma City 23spt can build one in 11

I think both of these could wait for later. Otherwise there are a full set of harbor builds in Hawaii that would be nice but again could probably wait. What we need a lot of right now is units. Let me know what you think.

You should be able to finish off the Zulu next turn. Thule Runner with 3 marines and destroyer escort can hit Intombe.

The North Atlantic chain stations are about done after I shoehorned in Port Inquit.

Port Inquit 2 transports

Cape Dyer 3 transports One needs to go to Thule next turn

Thule 1 transport

Camden 2 transports offshore

Hellissandur 2 transports, 1 of them offshore

Chalco, technically a flip risk, no transports.

Edinburgh, 2 transports 1 of them offshore

Transports Lake Placid and Roanoke are south of Greenland. You can send them to Camden and shift the others over I city to the east, or just send them straight there. Up to you.

Now onto Overlord

To invade Spain, next turn you can start the preliminaries by using our bombers in taking out the road improvements leading to Tlateloco. Then you can switch to the city itself to reduce the defenders. We have one infantry army in place and another army due next week. That should be infantry as well. We’re going to need them later so may as well do it now. Occupy the Pyrenees when you are in a position to invade to cut off Spain. Then you can focus on taking Tlateloco with whatever you need. We have 3 tank and 2 cavalry armies ready to be moved where needed. I shipped over extra workers to the UK to help finish roads and such there. Two transports can move from Dublin to Ulundi once the Zulu are gone, along with the flip risk. You may even want to move the bombers to Ulundi as well.

We have carriers Hornet and Yorktown building. They can join Enterprise and Lexington to support marine assaults against Atzcapotzalco, Tzintuntzen, Malinalco and Tula. Meanwhile the army can be massed in Spain in preparation for the next mission, Operation Cobra.

I’m anticipating the Iro war will be a quick one, similar to the first operation against the Aztecs. We’ll see where we are in a while for that.

In the Pacific, let's get those back islands occupied ASAP, before Brennus causes us trouble. We have one airfield in Hilo and another one you can add next turn. Bougainville, Rabaul, New Caledonia, et al need airfields so we can fly stuff in to get our defense established. Workers are in queue there. The transports headed there can probably stay in the forward islands for future ops and we'll fly in everything else. If we need more settlers though, that will require more transports. Between transports Sea Skate and Lake Michigan around Hawaii we have 7 workers, a marine, an infantry and a settler.

Finally as mentioned before, play 5 or 10 turns for your set as you like.

M60A3TTS · Apr 25, 2020

I didn't go into all the details on Alaska city builds. Basically looks like this now.

tjs282 · May 2, 2020

M60A3TTS said:
Trade them Sci Method for Sanitation, 49g and 45gpt. Good thing he had the cash that we need or we would have added our name to the enemies list.

You may have intended to make this deal, but when I started my set, we didn't have Sanitation. When I remembered to do so, I swapped it for Steel with Brennus instead, along with Dyes for his Silks + WMap (all one deal). Washington, Boston and Omaha will finish Hospitals soon.

Here's the nitty-gritty:

Spoiler TurnLogDR :

Handover

I captured Isandhlwana on Turn 1 as expected, but Shaka didn't die. So I made peace with him for his WMap, to eliminate WW and find out where he was hiding: turned out he'd founded Swazi on the same turn as I captured Isand. I therefore sent 2 out of the 3 Marines on towards Swazi, so that if Shaka is stupid enough to MA against us (he's been gleefully signing MAs against others), you could kill him quickly. The Thule Runner is now just offshore (beyond the imminent border-pop), but unfortunately, I accidentally sentried the escorting Destroyer, USS Cummings, partway through the journey, and left it behind. When I realised what I'd done -- a couple of turns later -- I woke it up and sent it on, but by that time the Thule Runner was already well ahead, so it's currently undefended. And the Cummings just spotted a Privateer -- so you might want to land those Marines, just in case...

The Aztecs seem to be folding fast. We now hold Western Europe almost to the Rhine, and I just (this turn) killed a(nother) large stack of their units. We are also seeing incoming from England and Mongolia, but not in anything like the same numbers (at least not so far). Lizz has an RoP with Hammi though, so her Cavs can come in via Babylon.

You have a stack of vTanks and a Tank-Army healing in Hastings (which should now be relatively safe from flippage, especially if the resistance is quelled this interturn), and a stack of eTanks, courtesy of that aforementioned large Aztec stack, sheltering under the Inf-Army outside Tenochtitlan (along with Marines and Arty). The Bomber force from Dohblane is now stationed on the Airfield near Hastings, from where they can hit incoming near Tenoch, and also London and Warwick (your choice). (Although hidden by the mini-map in that screenie) our Atlantic Carrier-groups, also with 3 r+vBombers apiece aboard, are approaching/blocking the Strait of Gibraltar, along with some Transports.

The first Pacific Carrier-group (USS Constellation) just set off from Panama towards Kiribati. No planes are aboard the Constellation yet, but there are several Bombers/F-15s being built, which can be rebased to that convoy en route. The Transports and Destroyers in the Caribbean are on their way to Panama, in preparation for moving large numbers of non-Airliftable units (Artillery, Armies, Settlers, SAMS[?]) west into the Pacific. Two Transports in Panama are already loaded, but had so few MP left, that I decided to wait for their escorts.

What else...?

There are 2 un-named, unfilled Armies waiting in Detroit, to be filled and dispatched as you see fit.

I used the ship-chain via Thule for several turns, but it's been inactive for the last couple of turns, since I built an Airfield in the (formerly) Zuluish Isles. So I started Airlifting (Tanks + Marines) over instead, because until I could get sufficient Transports into play in Ulundi (now Plymouth!), and secure the Hastings beachhead, everything was piling up near Plymouth anyway. The ship-chain boats are still in place, though, and with the successful actions of the last 2 turns, and Transports now able to shuttle between Hastings and Plymouth in 1T, those Armies can now also be sent to Europe if you wish.

I've also made a small start on Airlifting Marines over to Rabaul, and just Airlifted a small group of Workers + Slaves to New Caledonia (where a Transport is docked), for shipping to the nearby islands and turning into (more) Airfields. I think all the Airfields have been used, but you can build some more if you want to: there are still two small stacks of Workers + Slaves awaiting orders in South America, to be disposed of at your discretion (I wasn't sure what your plans/priorities were).

I have done a lot of Jungle-chopping, railing and irrigating during my set, and watered farms in S.Am. have been allowed to grow to Pop7+, but those without access to freshwater are already topping out at Pop6 (I've set most to slow-building Settlers). I (hate ICS, so I) think we should aim to get all the South American farms to at least Pop7, though: even though each (needed) 'Duct in a dry farm will cost us 1 GPT, growing them all into Cities will save us 4 GPT on unit-maintenance (we currently have >500 units, but only ~300 free-slots, so we're paying 400 GPT). If we use e.g. CivEngs and build Cavs-to-disband (we now have Horsies!), we should be able to get the Ducts up reasonably fast. I haven't started doing this yet, again because I wasn't sure what your preferences were.

The Pacific islands are a different matter: my philosophy here is that we don't really want these near-useless 1-tile island-towns for ourselves, we just don't want the AI-Civs to occupy them! So my preferred strategy here would be 'Fish-and-Forget': i.e. if they have a Fish, build a Harbour, get them to Pop3, and let 1 citizen go fishing, while the other 2 become Geeks (=marine biologists?). If no Fish, leave them at Pop1, and turn that citizen into a lone-Geek. Until the AI-Civs also have Marines and the boats to move them (and only Hiawatha is close to AmphibWar, but he still lacks MassProd), we don't even need to garrison these towns.

Save is below (and thank you for your patience). Now, go get 'em! :hammer:

M60A3TTS · May 2, 2020

tjs282 said:
The Bomber force from Dohblane is now stationed on the Airfield near Hastings, from where they can hit incoming near Tenoch, and also London and Warwick (your choice).

What, did Homer Simpson move to Ireland and get elected Lord Mayor? :lol:

M60A3TTS · May 3, 2020

tjs282 said:
You may have intended to make this deal, but when I started my set, we didn't have Sanitation. When I remembered to do so, I swapped it for Steel with Brennus instead, along with Dyes for his Silks + WMap (all one deal). Washington, Boston and Omaha will finish Hospitals soon.

Thanks for taking care of that. I may have made the deal and saved it under a generic "Lincoln of the Americas" save, rather than the SG save I would normally do.

tjs282 said:
I captured Isandhlwana on Turn 1 as expected, but Shaka didn't die. So I made peace with him for his WMap, to eliminate WW and find out where he was hiding: turned out he'd founded Swazi on the same turn as I captured Isand. I therefore sent 2 out of the 3 Marines on towards Swazi, so that if Shaka is stupid enough to MA against us (he's been gleefully signing MAs against others), you could kill him quickly. The Thule Runner is now just offshore (beyond the imminent border-pop), but unfortunately, I accidentally sentried the escorting Destroyer, USS Cummings, partway through the journey, and left it behind. When I realised what I'd done -- a couple of turns later -- I woke it up and sent it on, but by that time the Thule Runner was already well ahead, so it's currently undefended. And the Cummings just spotted a Privateer -- so you might want to land those Marines, just in case...

Unfortunately the LZ is just too hot with all the wars on and there is an Aztec frigate that redlined our escorting DD, so I withdrew the group to relative safety. At least that's the hope. In any case, Shaka just left at the right time and will live on a while longer. I think we have largely mitigated the flip risk in their lands as the American civil population significantly outnumbers the few natives remaining.

tjs282 said:
The Aztecs seem to be folding fast. We now hold Western Europe almost to the Rhine, and I just (this turn) killed a(nother) large stack of their units. We are also seeing incoming from England and Mongolia, but not in anything like the same numbers (at least not so far). Lizz has an RoP with Hammi though, so her Cavs can come in via Babylon.

The English and Aztecs are largely gassed. It's all onesies and twosies now outside Tenochtitlan, now Paris. We have had fierce resistance from the Parisians who threw our garrison out but has since been brought back under control. To be clear though, they aren't going away any time soon as they have quite a few cities farther east.

tjs282 said:
You have a stack of vTanks and a Tank-Army healing in Hastings (which should now be relatively safe from flippage, especially if the resistance is quelled this interturn), and a stack of eTanks, courtesy of that aforementioned large Aztec stack, sheltering under the Inf-Army outside Tenochtitlan (along with Marines and Arty). The Bomber force from Dohblane is now stationed on the Airfield near Hastings, from where they can hit incoming near Tenoch, and also London and Warwick (your choice). (Although hidden by the mini-map in that screenie) our Atlantic Carrier-groups, also with 3 r+vBombers apiece aboard, are approaching/blocking the Strait of Gibraltar, along with some Transports.

Hastings, now Lisbon has been quiet. I decided to found Lorient in the NW portion of the French coast to cut travel time from England in half.

tjs282 said:
The first Pacific Carrier-group (USS Constellation) just set off from Panama towards Kiribati. No planes are aboard the Constellation yet, but there are several Bombers/F-15s being built, which can be rebased to that convoy en route. The Transports and Destroyers in the Caribbean are on their way to Panama, in preparation for moving large numbers of non-Airliftable units (Artillery, Armies, Settlers, SAMS[?]) west into the Pacific. Two Transports in Panama are already loaded, but had so few MP left, that I decided to wait for their escorts.

The Pacific started heating up, but will now settle down a bit as the Mongols have found a new friend and will be focusing their attention in a new direction.

tjs282 said:
There are 2 un-named, unfilled Armies waiting in Detroit, to be filled and dispatched as you see fit.

I used the ship-chain via Thule for several turns, but it's been inactive for the last couple of turns, since I built an Airfield in the (formerly) Zuluish Isles. So I started Airlifting (Tanks + Marines) over instead, because until I could get sufficient Transports into play in Ulundi (now Plymouth!), and secure the Hastings beachhead, everything was piling up near Plymouth anyway. The ship-chain boats are still in place, though, and with the successful actions of the last 2 turns, and Transports now able to shuttle between Hastings and Plymouth in 1T, those Armies can now also be sent to Europe if you wish.

The armies remain empty along with a new one just arrived to await modern armor. But we should get them overseas.

tjs282 said:
I've also made a small start on Airlifting Marines over to Rabaul, and just Airlifted a small group of Workers + Slaves to New Caledonia (where a Transport is docked), for shipping to the nearby islands and turning into (more) Airfields. I think all the Airfields have been used, but you can build some more if you want to: there are still two small stacks of Workers + Slaves awaiting orders in South America, to be disposed of at your discretion (I wasn't sure what your plans/priorities were).

As above, the Pacific is now going to be a bit more settled, though I still want the German silks in the Philippines.

tjs282 said:
I have done a lot of Jungle-chopping, railing and irrigating during my set, and watered farms in S.Am. have been allowed to grow to Pop7+, but those without access to freshwater are already topping out at Pop6 (I've set most to slow-building Settlers). I (hate ICS, so I) think we should aim to get all the South American farms to at least Pop7, though: even though each (needed) 'Duct in a dry farm will cost us 1 GPT, growing them all into Cities will save us 4 GPT on unit-maintenance (we currently have >500 units, but only ~300 free-slots, so we're paying 400 GPT). If we use e.g. CivEngs and build Cavs-to-disband (we now have Horsies!), we should be able to get the Ducts up reasonably fast. I haven't started doing this yet, again because I wasn't sure what your preferences were.

We should clarify that now. We hadn't nailed ourselves to a victory condition, but let's focus on domination, with conquest and space as ones to be kept in our back pocket as it were. Both are viable but conquest may become rather tedious and space rather easy. If we decide on either of the latter two, it wouldn't be a bad thing per se, but if we at least focus on one condition, some decisions will perhaps make more sense.

In light of that, if we were going space race, I'd agree we should squeeze out every beaker we can from South America. That would make aqueducts the order of the day where they are needed. But with domination, we need settlers and more settlers to cover a map that is still largely the AIs. As far as the tech race goes, it really isn't much of a race. There's us, the Iroquois, and everyone else well behind. We will only be half way through the 540 turn game when we're pulling in modern armor. With what we have, running the board all the way to future tech will hardly be an issue if things go that far. In terms of saving unit cost, this is also true, but we're positioning ourselves to occupy a lot of new lands that likewise will reduce our expenses. And to occupy the new lands we are once again back to needing settlers. Unless there is a real value in a place going forward, raze and replace is going to be the new order of the day. We largely have the important great wonders in our possession, and the most valuable is easily within reach. What isn't? Well Smith's, MoM, SoZ...you get the picture.

tjs282 said:
The Pacific islands are a different matter: my philosophy here is that we don't really want these near-useless 1-tile island-towns for ourselves, we just don't want the AI-Civs to occupy them! So my preferred strategy here would be 'Fish-and-Forget': i.e. if they have a Fish, build a Harbour, get them to Pop3, and let 1 citizen go fishing, while the other 2 become Geeks (=marine biologists?). If no Fish, leave them at Pop1, and turn that citizen into a lone-Geek. Until the AI-Civs also have Marines and the boats to move them (and only Hiawatha is close to AmphibWar, but he still lacks MassProd), we don't even need to garrison these towns.

I agree, we're committing too much to these places as it is, but that was in part to keep our conquest victory option more viable. I want to reinforce the Pacific to keep these isles from becoming easy pickings for the AI and stirring up unnecessary WW. Otherwise, get the carriers in the Pacific to watch over areas not easily covered by land. Hawaii's two airfields have been instrumental in forwarding troops to these bases as the air transport range is inadequate from the mainland. Likewise shuttling fighters off the Constellation helped us get air defenses in place though there is not quite the need for them as of now. So CINCPAC has one mission now, get those German silks!

M60A3TTS · May 3, 2020

Pre-turn

Admin stuff

Tenochtitlan now Paris

Hastings now Lisbon

Tlateloco now Toulouse

Xochicalco now Malta

Texcoco now Gibraltar

Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral King, requested an increase in aircraft carriers, mainly to be sent to the Pacific Fleet under Admiral Nimitz.

Galveston, New Orleans, Norfolk, Bath stop destroyer construction. Carriers Leyte, Oriskany, Antietam, and Shangri-La now on the slipways. Tank builds swapped to F-15s in anticipation of equipping the carriers.

IBT we lose a couple infantry in exchange for a Mongol cav. Not what we’re looking for.

1355AD (1) DDs O’Bannon and Stump into the Pacific.

Artillery hit Mongols and English rifle. Bomber take out rifle and we set tank against Mongol cav. Win that and get General Sherman.

Bombers from Yorktown take out two Man-O-War

3rd and 4th Tank Corps advance on London/Rome

Bomber from Lexington drops Mongol cav

IBT

Aztecs and Vikes make peace

Albany starts Battlefield Medicine.

1360AD (2)

Make MA with Iroquois vs Ottomans for 606 gold.

Bombard Urfa and take it with a single cav vs redlined rifle. Grab a settler pair close by after killing rifle.

Move to within two tiles of Ottoman’s capital island of Sinop. Scary spearmen are redlined and left for the moment.

England now has infantry.

Tank assault with tank corps and our troops take London, now Rome with Sistine’s. The road to York is blocked, so we send two transports to Rome, offload them and take York, now Messina.

Zimbabwe now London, Bapedi now York. I know, you need a scorecard to keep up.

Pacific Theater

Constellation air patrol spots English galley northwest of Kiribati. Her F-14s make quick work of it.

IBT

Babylon and Germany make peace

Vikes and Aztecs do TE on us

Ecology>Synthetic fibers in 9 to stay positive in gold. 1832 in the bank. Saving up to convert our tanks to Modern Armor

Among units approaching Paris are the ever-dangerous Ancient Cavalry of the Mongols.

Paris resistance ends.

1365AD (3)

2 marines storm Sinop and the Ottomans are gone.

War-Time Mobilization is enacted.

3 tank corps attack Teotihuacan but riflemen hold.

IBT Mongols and Maya do TE against us.

Mongol bombers attack at Bougainville.

Paris flips! :cry:

In the Med, a number of Iroquois frigates are scuttled by their crews. Quite a sight to see.

1370AD (4)

Paris is recovered with a single tank. Teotihuacan is captured with JS Bachs. Now Zagreb.

F-15s from Constellation transferred to our forward Pacific bases. More reinforcements flown into Hawaii.

IBT we take 5 Mongol air attacks in the Solomons

1375AD (5)

Warwick is bombed and a marine unit takes and razes the city.

5 Aztec cannons upgraded to artillery in Zagreb.

Destroyers Bainbridge, Shaw and Tucker take out a frigate and two galleons by Atzcapotzalco

To deal with the Mongolian bombers, our fighter defenses begin going active in the Solomons. A stack of their cav in Albania are hit by our artillery. I check and they are willing to make peace for 60 gold so I take it. That puts us on a peacetime footing once again, and I decide to re-mobilize. Now to deal with the real threat.

All of their units wandering about the homeland are eradicated.

New Cattaraugus razed for 116g

New Khanawake razed for 117g

New Oil Springs razed for 118g

New Mauch Chunk razed for 119g. Lose a marine vs rifle. Iro lose at least a destroyer there.

New Tonawanda razed for 120g. Lose a tank to a red infantry.

That leaves the Iroquois with 8 possessions in NA and 1 in Greenland.

Now for a bit of fun:

And it is time to find some gainful employment of the Celtic army.

That should keep Hiawatha suitably entertained as we go about our work. :devil:

Trivial info-
Governments:

Scandanavia Monarchy
Iroquois Communist
England, Celts Fascist
Zulu, Germany Republic
Aztec, Maya, Sumeria, Babylon, Mongols, Spain Democracy

Synthetic fibers now in 6.

To do list:

The first phase of Operation Overlord was successful. Our troops are ashore in numbers and have moved inland. But a major reinforcement is needed. Focus should be on tank production and getting them to Europe in preparation of getting to Modern Armor.

We need to get Zagreb linked by rail next turn which should not be an issue. Workers are standing by, protected by an infantry corps. Babylon is next on our list. The capital has Leo's which will get us all sorts of really nice unit discounts and will put an end to the Babylonian tacit complicity in allowing our enemies to attack us from their lands. With Modern Armor and the armies to go with it, we're heading for Poland and first the Ukraine, then the Caucasus.

Then it will be the Mayans turn and it's a race to the Urals.

Save is not quite ready yet, but will be along at some point.

M60A3TTS · May 3, 2020

Save attached.

tjs282 · May 5, 2020

OK, I've got the save, and your invasion-plan looks impressive.

At least until we have SynthFib/Modern Armor, how do you feel about using combat-Settlement (whether using homegrown Settlers shipped via Thule, or Settlers(Foreign) spun off our European conquests)?

I like to use it to shorten the distances that my/our units have to travel on foreign soil between my/our target-towns (keeps WW lower), and keep my/our expanding borders more coherent (prevents the AI from sneaking into/through the Cultural gaps), but it can also result in a slower advance (and cash-rushing Settlers will obviously be expensive).

Were you thinking to turn off SCI% once we have SynthFib, or also go for Computers/MechInf? If we're going for Domination, I don't think we need any more techs than those two (and maybe not even the latter, since we already have TOWs)...?

M60A3TTS · May 5, 2020

I don't use combat settlers myself, but I've been in a number of SGs with Northern Pike who used to do it quite a bit. If it's not blatant, like you're using four of them in a chain to drill into a civ, I'm ok with it.

We'll have adequate gold unless WW gets put of hand, so I don't think we need to turn off science entirely. There are so many settlers building in SA that I actually did rush buy a number of them that cost 48g or less each. If you do the same, that should be fine. If we do get to the point where we're needing a 40% lux tax, that would be the time to consider turning science off.

M60A3TTS · May 5, 2020

To continue the line on future strategy, once Barbarossa is over we'll make a hard right turn and head for the Sinai, while leaving a suitable group to clean out Finland, Norway, Sweden, etc. Hopefully at that stage Hiawatha will have been so weakened by our new-found friends that our MA armies et al can storm in and start collecting some real prize money compared to the paltry handouts from the Iroquois treasury thus far.

I'm back for one game at least

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