A precarious situation - seeking advice or comments

[Sarcastro]

I'm the Zulus, it's 1946, and I've got an army of 100+ Modern Armors. I'm #1, and the Indians and Babylonians are roughly equal for #2. The score puts the Indians very slightly ahead, but in terms of power I'd say that the Babylonians are in a little better shape.

The Indians have the tech to build Modern Armor, but a crappy economy, so don't have many (or perhaps any). Babylonians don't have the tech yet, but I'm sure they will very soon. I'm more powerful than either of them, but not by much, and certainly not more powerful than their combined forces. I have the superior navy in terms of numbers, but we all have battleships, so I don't have an edge in tech. All three of us are about to be able to build nukes, as the Indians just completed the Manhattan Project.

There are two minor civs left, the Persians and the Japanese. The Persians are essentially my unwilling vassals, and the Japanese are totally pinned down by the Indians. They are both largely irrelevant, but the Japanese might be able to distract the Indians a bit.

There's the basic geopolitical situation. Now:

I share a narrow border with the Indians that is pretty easily defended, as it lies on an isthmus. At the other end of my empire, there is a long border with what used to be China, and is now Indian. On the other side of that lies the Babylonians.

Ideally, I would like to crush the Indians first, but I'd like to keep that "formerly-Chinese buffer state" between myself and the Babylonians. I'm having the classic two-front war problem - if I commit myself fully to attacking the main portion of Indian territory, I leave myself open to attacks from their minor portion, as well as the Babylonians.

The key will be to keep the Babylonians out of the war until the Indians are subdued. However, as there is no love lost between the Babs and I, this may not be possible, even though they don't particularly like the Indians either. The ray of light: I recently beat the hell out of the Babylonians when they attacked me, and seized all of their territory that had formerly been the Germans. So perhaps they'll remember that.

My thought was to defend my isthmus to start, and capture all of the "buffer state." Then, I would give it to the Japanese, and concentrate on whacking the Indian mainland. Does anyone think, given what I've described, that I'm going to be able to keep the Babylonians out of it? Bear in mind that there is no chance that they'll sign a MPP or alliance against the Indians with me, and since I intend to attack them next, I wouldn't want it anyway.

In addition, the nuclear clock is ticking, and the situation will become even more difficult once they possess nukes. I'd also like to finish the Indians, at least, before they get Mech Infantry, but that may not be possible. I might have to just settle for maintaining the peace and going for the spaceship.

Whatever. Any comments?

 

[eyrei]

Are you sure you cannot get an MPP with the Babs. It may cost you quite a bit of money, but it will completely guarantee they not only stay out of your hair, but they will be forced to attack the Indians.

 

[Hobbes]

Have you built the Intelligence Agency? If you have you should try to plant spies with every civ, that way you will know how many and what types of units your opponents have (nukes included). In my experience, the AI is very hesitant to play Dr. Strangelove, so unless you push the button, just make sure you have a few nukes.

As to launching a war get a MPP with one of your main opponents if you can, if not choose one of the weaker ones. If no one will do this pick on your weakest opponent and fortify your border against whoever your not going to war with, before the war starts (i.e. forts, mech infantry and artillery, with a few tanks for the counter attack). Good luck.

 

[Sarcastro]

Well, I have looked into the possibility of getting an MPP with Babylon, but they won't do it. I even put 3/4ths of my cities on the table and they still wouldn't do it.

In any event, that would still run counter to my purpose, because then they would attack the Indian buffer zone, which would foul my plans there.

I'm working on positioning landing fleets at various points around the Indians' coast, so that I can strike at about 4 (haven't completely decided yet) points simultaneously when I give the word.

Actually, I'm really enjoying this particular game because of this depth of political and military strategy. I'm faced with downsides to each of my plans, and so I'll have to weigh consequences against possibilities. Nothing is clear-cut, and so this is one of the best games I've ever played. I had a situation similar to this earlier in the game with the French, the Chinese, the Germans, and the Persians, which I was able to brute-force my way through. It's been a blast.

(edit: Oh, I have been trying to spy, but my spy got captured and killed last time I checked out their troop positions, and I haven't been able to plant one since. That's one thing that I do wish was easier in this game. It'd be fine if the missions were still hard, but planting the spy should be easy.)

 

[Joben]

Originally posted by Sarcastro
(edit: Oh, I have been trying to spy, but my spy got captured and killed last time I checked out their troop positions, and I haven't been able to plant one since. That's one thing that I do wish was easier in this game. It'd be fine if the missions were still hard, but planting the spy should be easy.)

mmm i agree with that. try reducing the cost of spy activitys they are excesive and if they were a little cheaper you could do more, which would sorta aproximate makeing them easyer.

 

[tstowe]

I am in a situation similar to yours at this very moment. While you are beefing up your forces for a multiple thronged attack into Indian territory also beef up a large number of high defensive troops along each of your border towns along both borders. Even at a loss of city production along the border, send out troops to destroy all rail and road networks between you and his cities along both borders to somewhat limit his mobility plans. Maintain a large number of artillery and bombers in all of these cities to hit him as he is trying to cross these tiles.

While building up this army continue, almost every turn or so, to hit Babylonia up for a peace treaty, embargo, and hopefully a MPP against India. Expect high cost in this. Also continue friendly relations with the other civs and negotiate with them to place an embargo and hopefully a MPP against the Indians.

When you begin the attack have the intention of taking his capital on the first main attack causing him to move his capital and to lose his largest producing city. Once taken, sell everything in the city and destroy everything around it. Continue beating his capital city once it moves. If your navy is large enough deploy them such that they can begin destroying roads, railroads, and irrigation along the coastal cities as well as bombard the cities occasionally to destroy city features and kill the population. The reason for taking the capital first is so that he will pull forces back to try and re-establish that city. Also, maintain separate army and radar artillery forces throughout to begin destroying all terrain improvements within his control.

Have the intent of defending the smaller border. But make sure that you deploy enough naval and/or other forces to take and destroy those cities in that area that have naval and airport facilities to cut off those supply lines.

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In my game the Persians pretty much destroyed some 10 or so cities before I had enough troops deployed to take his capital. The minute he declared war I sent an Acft Carrier with one bomber and three F-15's, 3x destroyers and 6 battleships the area around his capital, which was set back from the shore. I pounded the hell out of the terrain and bombed the cities, especially the capital, until I had several transports arrive with enough troops to take the capital. The minute I took his capital he began pulling his troops back. I hope this helped.

 

[Sarcastro]

Update: I beefed up my tank forces along the border with the buffer zone, and was able to destroy the attacking force that came from it, containing them there. So that part of the plan worked.

My massive tank attacks on three fronts at once of their main country also worked well, but of course took significantly heavier losses. I lost about 25% of the tanks I sent in, all to fortified Mech Infantry, but have so far captured (razed, actually) all of my objective cities, including their two largest (netting me a total of about 30 workers, who were immediately put to work building fortresses), which were also the first two capitals. My thrust at their capital nearly hit a snag when their battleship fleet came at my transports (carrying 16 Veteran Modern Armors), but I had exactly two battleships more than I needed. Both of them were beat down to 1 HP before I was able to land the tanks and haul ass out of there, so it was close, and I lost 5 other battleships, but they did their duty.

My goal is to completely obliterate and recolonize their mainland, and leave their other section intact, and so far it's going fine. I have been counterattacked by a couple of their Modern Armors, but their economy is no longer sufficient to build many, if any, of those, so it'll be pretty smooth sailing from here on out.

Not a peep from the Babylonians. I'm assuming my display of force near their border kept them humble.

I don't think I'll ever try a one-front attack again unless I'm forced to. Multipronged attacks just work too well.

 

[tstowe]

Your report of a successful attack was good to hear. I was hoping that you would post your results.

Back to my current game with the Persians. . .in comparison to what you had done by building up a strong defensive border - I have deployed a rather strong defensive line of at least 1x Modern Armor, 1x Mech Infantry, and 2-3x Radar Artillery along the now highly active front between my forward forces and the Persian cultural boundary. He continues to send groups of some 10 or so mixed troops from swordsmen up to riflemen to that border and attack to break through. BUT, In front of my troops I have cleared all roads and rail up to two squares into his territory - giving my Radar Artillery plenty of time to weaken his forces. While this line has been successful at maintaining the defense I have sent out groups of three Modern Armor to all of his strategic resources and luxuries, destroying them and all roads and rail that lead to them. I have destroyed all of his colonies and have destroyed all roads and rail going to each. My navies have been hitting his naval port cities destroying that line of communication (of course this takes considerable time seeing that you never know when the damn thing is going actually hit his naval port) as well as blocking his ability to launch naval vessels.

One thing that has aggravated me to no end is the fact that you cannot airlift Artillery between two cities with airports. This is very frustrating.

Seeing that the Persians have not been able to bypass my troops he has been steadily wearing the hell out of the German's, who now have about 3 cities left. The Persians have simply been razing every city they have captured.

The one good thing to this whole story is that the two civs that are on the same continent with me (Rome and England) have remained out of the battle. Nor have they allied with the Persians and attacked me. BUT, to counter this I have continued to strengthen (although slow) my long borders with these two.

I enjoy these trading of stories. Email me anytime you like. Go to this website: www.golemlabs.com and d/l there demo. I think that you will enjoy this one as well.

 

[Arathorn]

In your initial description, you left out vital information. It might be that you didn't even consider it.

That is, strategic resources. How easy would it have been to eliminate all sources of Indian rubber (a killer for a land war) or Babylonian uranium (to avoid those nasty nukes)? That's possibly a more important issue than location.

Another point (probably too late). Since you seem to be bent on conquest (and let's face it, most Civ3ers are at one point or another), I would have made the MPP with Babylon, to encourage peace. Once India is gone, get in position around Babylonian cities and break the MPP in a spectacular fashion....

Arathorn

 

[Sarcastro]

Originally posted by Arathorn
That is, strategic resources. How easy would it have been to eliminate all sources of Indian rubber (a killer for a land war) or Babylonian uranium (to avoid those nasty nukes)? That's possibly a more important issue than location.

Yeah, I did consider that, but there wasn't any way I could have wiped out all of their sources of both those resources in the first turn. For whatever reason, in this game we all had plenty of those resources widely scattered around our three empires. Now, after having made the attack, the Indians are very badly damaged, and such a strike is becoming more possible. I am driving to cut off the Indian uranium, but I doubt that they have the production left to build a nuke anyway. I think if they did, they'd've used it before I razed half their empire.

The Babylonians are another matter, but there's no way I could have tackled them and the Indians at the same time. Babylon is actually slightly more advanced than me, even though I have greater power, but it's close. Nukes may become moot, though, because the Indians were the ones who built the Manhattan Project, and I'm closing in on the city with it. I will most likely destroy it, stopping the nuclear race in its tracks.

Another point (probably too late). Since you seem to be bent on conquest (and let's face it, most Civ3ers are at one point or another)

Usually, I'm not, but I set out to try and be more agressive in this particular game for fun.

I would have made the MPP with Babylon, to encourage peace. Once India is gone, get in position around Babylonian cities and break the MPP in a spectacular fashion....

But... I couldn't do that because I wanted the Indian buffer zone between myself and the Babylonians to remain intact, and if I'd had an MPP, the Babylonians would have rolled over that area in no time. That's one of the reasons the situation was "precarious" to begin with. As it goes, it's worked perfectly: I've simply contained the Indians in the buffer zone to that area, and have been able then to concentrate on their mainland.

 

[Rock]

Hey, 100++ modern Tanks is enough to kill anything. I had 3 superpower in my game. china at my north west, Japan at my north east and India with mech infantry on multiple front mostly around the south east area. I had 60+ modern Tanks, Mech Infantry. I had a huge industrial power, 5+ modern per turn, I am able to attack Japan and India at the same time taking around 6 citys per turn. No double I lost 8+ tanks on the first turn, but replacement is there to make up the lost. China join in the attack on my side and now there is total war all over the world. Now 5 turn had got by. I got 1/3 japan citys and 1/3 of India citys.

Difficulties is Reign, Large map and lots of land.

Conclusion is Modern tank can kill everything. Keep building and you will never need to fire a single nuke.