AG10 - OCC Conquest (Emperor)

[6thGenTexan]

No problem. I misclicked on one of the 3 Panzers and decided to cover with 2 more. Smoke had some ships up there and must have dropped off some more troops that attacktd the Panzers.

When Smoke came after Berlin, I pretty much forgot about the workers hanging out in America.

Smoke does not have any flak of airforce. Whould it be worth building a few bombers to hit C.I. ?

 

[microbe]

preturn: We signed an MPP with France. Hmm, why? We probably will eliminate Maya anyway, but still this is to be avoided if possible.

I rearrange our workers to withdraw the blocking line to the next level, but our rubber might be in danger once the town expands. Not much else we could do.

Our forces are scattered around - this is not good.

IBT our panzer army is bombarded by artillery.

(1)1985AD: movement toward Cuello. France only has 6 MIs and 8 TOWs.

(2)1986AD: Lyons falls to Maya. Heck, where is our transport and battleship? We lost them? Anyway I guess I can't spare another 2 turns for this unsafe route. We'll have to deal with it later. I guess we'd have to use Aggie's tactic of abandoning our capital?

I move two MIs to block Mayan troops so they stay with Lyons.

IBT America demands Incense. Hmm, tricky situation. I guess I cave in for now. I wouldn't if America still had only one city!

(3)1987AD: Still movement.

(4)1988AD: There are at least 4 MIs in Cuello. Not all artillery in position yet so no raze this turn.

IBT The MI on spice colony kills an MI and is killed by another MI. A tank attacks another MI and dies. [2-1]

(5)1989AD: Good, Cuello drops to size 12. 43 bombardment shows redlined MI.
Army drops 2hp and kills 3 MI.
Cold Blood 0/1 kills MI, then 1/1 kills another MI.
Vet panzer 0/1 kills tank and we raze Cuello together with Copernicus.
[8-1]

France is OCC.

Funny thing is that we don't know Rocketry, but we can still see the Alluminum colony.

For the first time I try to "Steal Plans" on Maya by 1024g. This is how stuff is distributed:
Capital: 11 MIs (1 conscript), 1 tank, 1 arti.
Dzibilchaltun: 3 MIs (2 vet and 1 reg).
Palenque: 4 vet MIs and 2 arti.
Vitos: 5 vet MIs.
Lazapa: 2 vet MIs.
Bonampak: 4 vet MIs and 1 arti.
Quiriguo: 1 vet MI and 1 infantry.
Huamanga: 4 vet MIs.
Ica (the island town): 1 MI, 1 TOW and 1 tank.
There are 6 MIs and 7 tanks at Lyons and the other ex-French city.
All other cities have 3 vet MIs.

There are some destroyers too.

IBT I can see how Maya attacks France, cool!

(6)1990AD: movement. It's very slow to advance inside Maya territory with the artillery.

IBT 4 tanks dies on our elite MI, and the 5th kills it. One MI loses to our panzer, the other two lose to our reg flak and promote it!

[15-2]

(7)1991AD: I have to disband the 5 workers captured from Cuello.

Maya has 9 tanks and 60 MIs.

Our lux has to rise to 20.

(8)1992AD: army kills 3 MIs and we raze Dzibilchaltun. [18-2]

There are several tanks that entered our territory and I use panzer to attack and win all 3. [21-2]

Maya has 6 tanks and 61 MIs.

IBT Maya and France make peace. Maya loses one tank and one MI and we lose one MI. [23-3]

(9)1993AD: MA with France by WM+135g.

IBT France signs in America against Maya. We lose one MI but kill one tank and one MI. [25-4]

(10)1994AD: Maya has 10 tanks and 64 MIs.

IBT we kill a tank but the spice colony is destroyed again.

(11)1995AD: I decide not to create the spice colony again.

(12)1996AD: panzer army kills 3 MIs in Palenque. Elite panzer loses to redlined MI and promotes it, another elite panzer finishes it off, we raze the city.

[29-5]

Maya has 12 tanks and 59 MIs.

I'll stop here.

Time is flying by. I razed 3 cities in 12 turns, that's 4-turn per city in average. Maya has 11 cities if not counting the northern 3, and that's already very close to 2050. I'm worried, but hopefully things will speed up.

Now what to do with Ica? During my turns I was busy with building MIs. Maya still has 9 destroyers, so we won't get very far with just a couple escorts. I guess we'd have to abandon capital and rush things with money. Should be doable though, but it will take some turns too.

AI has Nuclear Power. Ecology is still unknown. This is good news. In any case, I expect Maya not to have native alluminum. The alluminum colony probably means that's its only source, so we don't need to worry too much about Maya getting Modern Armors.

France is likely to die very soon.

 

[microbe]

We need to carefully plan the order of attack, and choose the shortest path to save turns. I think we should go for Vitcos first, as it will make getting to Bonamak and Lazapa faster?

 

[Aggie]

54 turns to go. I think that we should discuss what our plan with Ica is. We could try to raze all but one Maya city on mainland before turn 510 and demand Ica for peace. The Maya shouldn't be able to expand a lot during the next twenty turns (until turn 530), allowing us to kill them in the last 10 turns. Turns 510 tot 530 can then be used to get rid of America.

Regarding the Maya: The capital is a real issue, but we have the opportunity to raze other core cities. Vital to bring them on their knees. EDIT: Vitcos is indeed a next logical target.

6thgentexan already mentioned it. We need bombers! The Maya have no defenses against it, apart from destroyers to attack our capital. So bombers and an airfield east of Berlin is essential to gain a lot of speed. Bombers won't profit from the mobilization, so they should be part rushed (worker/explorer). EDIT: 5 bombers should be able to slowly kill the defenders of CI, especially with help of artillery.

ROSTER (15 turns in peace time, 10 turns when at war):
Aggie----------on deck
Greebley (holiday from July 24th to August 8th)
homeyg--------up
6thgentexan
Microbe

 

[microbe]

This is my proposed attack plan: go directly to the rubber(s).

Cities to attack: Vitcos (5 turns) -> Vilcas (2-3 turns) -> Huamanga (3 turns) -> Vilcabamba (2 turns) -> Ollatayambo (3 turns) -> Tiwanaku (2-3 turns) -> Cuzco (2 turns)

That's about 20 turns.

I don't like the idea of making peace with Maya. We wouldn't be able to hurt it enough. If we can get it down to only a couple of cities in year 2025, for example, I may consider signing peace. However, we can also use the "found a coastal city and abandon our capital" tactic.

 

[Aggie]

It would be 24 turns, not 14. I guess you are right about the difficulty of it though. So it probably will be resettling. This should be done about 20 turns before the end of the game? We need an estimate for this, since we are running out of time and therefore should keep focussed.

Your military plans look very good microbe.

Bombers are even more vital for the island city and a fast conquest of America imho. All the more reason to build them fast, expecially with the nice number of panzers and MI that we have (no urgent need for them atm).

 

[microbe]

This should be done about 20 turns before the end of the game?

Not needed.

Building a settler -> one turn
Found city and abandon capital, rush a transport -> one turn
Get army over there while rush another transport -> one turn
Some artillery -> 2-3 turns.

My "steal plan" shows there are 3 units in the city, so we don't need too many troops there. We can even build some marines. All this could be done at the end of the Maya war (e.g., only the capital is left), so effectively I think 3 turn probably is enough, 5 turn most.

We should be able to run over America within 5 turns. I've seen Maya bombard an American city - only a rifle inside. That's why I don't like wasting the 20-turn for peace with Maya.

 

[Aggie]

You are probably right. But I don't like to do this only 3 turns before the end of the game. That's a bit risky It would be great to aim for an empty continent at turn 530.

I agree that one transport (but ideally two more), a number of panzers and an airfield close to Ica should be sufficient.

EDIT: microbe, do you agree with producing about 10 bombers now (unless we need additional panzers and MI due to losses)?

 

[microbe]

We need to act very fast to cleanup the continent at turn 530 (46 turns from now).

I didn't build any bombers because we needed more MIs. Maya starts to send troops into our territory. I think we need one MI per barricade at least. We don't really need more panzers.

If we build bombers, make sure do it this way: disband worker, rush explorer (by 72g), switch to bomber to get it in one turn. We have a lot of workers and money and time is precious.

 

[Aggie]

The Maya attack us because the other foe with weaker units can't be reached. I strongly suggest that we consider the pros and cons of opening the route to America.

otoh: We now have oil, rubber, coal and luxuries. I guess that is too big a sacrifice. Maybe we should keep the door locked.

 

[microbe]

If we have enough MI to fortify on the barricades, we should be fine (and we may want Maya to suicide against us). I think I would withdraw the 3 MI in the north and put 2 MI on the Pompeii choke (one tile east to the spice colony) instead of one?

I think we do need more bombers and arti at home.

 

[Aggie]

Yes if we want to defend the choke then we should put 2 MI's there. We better not leave too many lone units wander around. The Maya will attack us once France is gone. Microbe is right that it probably is good for us that they fall into our trap called Berlin.

This game is a race against time. 54 turns to go and still we need to raze 14 Maya and 10 American cities (probably more at the time that we are declaring war on them). If we would allow us to take 10 turns for America (should be enough), then we have 44 turns for the Maya (apart from Ica, which can be conquered while we deal with the USA). 3 turns per Maya city. The last 8 of them should fall fast (one per turn) so we have 6 turns per core city. This appears to be enough, so we shouldn't be tempted to rush things and split our forces. One SoD (and maybe two later) should be capable of getting the Maya to their knees.

If you agree or think otherwise I like to know. We should now agree on the strategy and play this one focussed. Their capital is cut from the rest of their empire so I like to follow microbe's suggestion to go for the rubber asap. No rubber means no strong fast units for the Maya.

 

[julia]

i very much enjoy your writeup, thanks!

quick lurkerquestion:
why not use paratroopers for Ica? if you have enough bombers on an airfiel you should be able to kill all the forces in Ica, no? they will rebuild one MI, maybe draft another the next turn, but thats no matchup for 10+ bomers... maybe only one para could save you all the trouble with abandoning berlin?!

good luck!

 

[Aggie]

That's a very good remark. But we need advanced flight for that, which we lack at the moment. Afaik no AI has it either and it would take 30 turns to research. We have a lot of money and could go full research. It's one of the options to get Ica and probably one of the best. Either helicopters or paratroopers would help us out, but both require advanced flight.

 

[homeyg]

Alright, I got it. I'll have the turns posted either later tonight or tomorrow.

 

[Aggie]

homeyg (and the rest...although microbe already did), please give your point of view of how we should play the endgame

 

[microbe]

Some more thoughts on opening up the choke. We really only need rubber and oil. We can use lux slider so lux isn't necessary. Now what if we fortify 3 MI on rubber and oil colonies, together with barricades? Maya probably would attack us, but it would pay big price, and we can re-create colonies immediately (I didn't see Maya forify on the resource when it destroyed our spice colony), as long as our MI supply continues. In the mean time, I hope America wouldn't settle on our resources.

I think I'm still against opening the choke now, but we should consider doing so when:
1. American towns expand and eat our rubber colony (in this case we should open the choke and create another rubber colony in the east)
2. Maya attack gets too strong at our capital (which I doubt will happen)

The game is at a crucial point. I would expect some stop-and-discuss now and then. Every turn is important.

 

[6thGenTexan]

Isn't there rubber north of us in the area I cleared? That would lessen the need to hold abe in check if we have other sources. I think the oil colony is the one we need to be sure of.
I'd keep the choke closed until we need to attack abe. It might be worth fortifying several MI in a barricade on the choke when we declare and let abe send his cavalries at us to die.

 

[Aggie]

microbe and 6thgentexan convinced me that it is better to kep the choke closed and heavily guarded.

homeyg, how is it going? I don't mind when you take a bit longer for it (we all should be allowed to play our turns in this sg), but I love to see a sign of life.

 

[Yom]

lurker's comment:

Why does Quirigu have a question mark in its name? It seems like a sort of weird bug... I wonder how it came about.