Machine Guns and Runaway Greece

[Petiscator]

Hey guys!

So, I've been playing this Swedish/Continents/Immortal/Standard game today, and am facing the currently situation:

Start of the game:

My Continent: Sweden (me), France, Ottomans, Spain and Arabia

Continent 2: Greece, Russia, Carthage

By now (turn 276): Sweden, Ottomans (left them with the crappy city of Bursa), Arabia (conquered Mecca + Damascus)

Other Continent: Russia (conquered Yaroslavl', Vladivostok, Moscow, St. Petersburg, liberated Rio de Janeiro), Greece and Carthage.

Before the war with Russia, they had the tech lead, tied with Carthage. I was 4% worse than them, and this situation stands. Greece is close to me (techwise) aswell, and I'm planning to either go Diplomatic or Domination (I have a nice gpt and an alliance with all city-states, my spt is aroung 675, got full Tradition, full Patronage, Order opener, Rationalism opener, in that order; highest population is 19, Sigtuna, my capital is at 14). Overally nice start location, most cities are better in food than my capital, but Stockholm is great at production. Founded Stockholm, Sigtuna, Helsinki, Birka and Uppsala.

So, I see myself in a weird situation: as I conquer St. Petersburg, I see a quite big greek army (they have the biggest wallet of the world aswell), including AA guns, Machine guns and WWI Infantry. In that continent, my army is composed of 6 artilleries, 3 WWI infantry, 4 Ironclads, 5 Frigates, 2 Privateers (got eletronics right now, saved and quit before upgrading, got the money for it). My problem is, mostly the Machine guns. How is this dealt with? I got some problems when Russia had 2 of them, took me a lot of artillery bombing to take those out... What do you guys think is the best way to kill the Machine guns? I didn't get Biology yet.... Yeah, dumb thing to do, I know, but I needed to beeline Dynamite.

Should I go Diplo or Domination? Athens is 9 hexes from St. Petersburg, though on the other coast, I'm allied with all CS close to Alex and his cities doesn't have a huuuge defense (my artilleries can take that down easily). The other continent is thin, but I also have a nice water acess to Carthage (they are ~20 tiles south Vladivostok, on the same coast). If I go Dom, I'd have to face greece's army (which is composed of 290.000 soldiers, last time I checked, and mine is of 200.000, I think) and Carthage's tech lead. Any tips? Arabia and the Ottomans aren't problems, Russia is left with tundra cities by now.

One more thing: I bribed Greece to war against Russia, as I wanted to weaken both, so his army is currently marching north, not west, where my ex-Russian cities are. Carthage and Russia are in Atomic Era, I'm a few techs to get there. Greece conquered Almaty, which is not far from Athens, and Carthage conquered Geneva. I liberated Rio de Janeiro from Russia, and could liberate Geneva easily, Almaty would take some time. BTW, Swedish UA is AWESOME. I would cry if I weren't them, after seeing such a huge and CS allied Greece. With Nobel Prize, I was able to insta-buy-back my CS after the frequent coups. Capitals left alive: Stockholm, Carthage, Athens.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Petiscator]

Ok, it doesn't matter anymore, I won the game by domination on turn 276 (I wrote it wrong, when I checked last time I was at 244).

If anyone is interested: I beelined biology to get insta-oil from my dear CSs, so that I could rush buy some bombers (around 4), which helped me to conquer the greek cities of Mycenae, Corinth and Athens (the capital on turn 276). I decided to go for domination when I saw "Dido has completed the Apollo Project!". So yeah, I though "holy crap" and decided to finally upgrade my beloved frigates into Battleships and bring some Ironclads to damage Carthage's science and production output. Vladivostok and Yaroslavl' were at a strategic spot, so, I annexed both and:

a) Bought land units in Yaroslavl' to help at the Greek War: that includes more artillery, WWI infantry and even Cavalry (I almost lost my last melee unit at Athens, so I rush bought a cavalry to run and take it down).

b) Bought naval units in Vladivostok to create a bigger navy and finally conquer the 109 deffended Carthage. My fleet was of about 8 battleships, 2 ironclads, an AA Gun (gift from my dear Budapest), a carrier with a bomber and a privateer. I first conquered Rhodes (was Greek, conquered by Carthage, now conquered by me) and then ran into Carthage, which had a bomber. I almost lost some battleships, but the 3-range helped a lot on this conquest, and in the end, I got their capital on the same turn I got Athens, 276!

About the Machine Guns: it was really hard to take them down, as I took a bigger time than usual to upgrade my WWI Infantry - I got the tech on turn 276 aswell. I took care of them with bomber attacks, artillery attacks and melee attacks when they were at such a low health. It makes me think it is a good idea to create a big amount of Machine Guns on my next game as... England Well, it was the toughest game I ever played, in the end, I was 3 techs behind Carthage, but I was able to conquer Paris, Istanbul, Madrid, Mecca, Moscow and Athens/Carthage, on that order, with much joy.

I got the Order opener, which saved my happiness, and then went for the Rationalism opener and the first one on the right side of the tree, after that, got United Front, from Order, granting me many units from Valetta/Budapest/Sidon and helping me at the though war. It was a very tough and cool game. Final score was of 4967, my second best, right after my Inca domination victory of 5574. By the way, this was one of my first games where I had a really good culture output! The amount of cultural CS on the map was heavy, and I was allied with all of them, so I was getting a lot of culture and thus, policies. Alexander wanted to be friends one turn before I DOW because he was also Socialist... To bad I wanted Athens. Louvre granted me a 16 turns Golden Age, which gave me a really good gpt and the ability to buy many ships to destroy Carthage. My only friend on this game was Harun Al-Rashid, also right before I dowed...

One last thing: my religion: I got the Messiah (-25% cost of Great Prophets, Great Prophets 25% stronger), which granted me around 5 useless GProphets = 5 alliances. Really got enhancer for Sweden, I recommend it, and worked very well. I was getting such an amount of GA and GG that keeping those alliances from the evil Greece was easy as a pie. I could have easily won Diplomatically if Carthage didn't finish the spaceship parts in time - which, as I was crippling them, was also doable, but would take much more time. This was my 3rd win on immortal and I'm very happy with it. Thanks for the ones that read it

 

[Skibbi]

A) Build a defensive line at the narrowest point.
B) If you can, produce mounted units to attack the weaker artillery and infantry - infantry is what they will need for attacking cities.
C) Put your artillery in cities.