Round 9, Part 2: The War with Caesar (to 1870 AD):
The announcement of war surprised me for several reasons. First of all, Caesar had been "Pleased" with me, with no diplomatic demerits, for a long, long time. Granted, that means nothing to the AI, but still. Second, he was a somewhat distant 2nd to me in power:
Third, he was also the furthest behind in technology:
Fourth and finally, his chosen point of invasion--my recently-acquired northwest coast--was where the bulk of my massive modern military was gathered, preparing for an invasion of the other continent.
In other words, it seemed obvious to me that Caesar would be hopelessly outmatched. But the clue to the AI's "thinking", if we can call it that, came from the other two remaining civs. Both Hatty and Franklin D. sent a Galleon with a Settler and a couple of defenders to the very northeast corner of my continent, which had some unclaimed territory now, with the contraction of the captured Aztec cities' borders. Hatty won the race and founded a junk city next to the only free fur tile. One of Caesar's ships also consisted of the usual Settler collection.
In other words, the AI was being its usual, opportunistic self, willing to plunk down a junk city just to claim a few tiles of land and maybe a resource. (Out of spite, I had pillaged the fur tile's camp. I also boosted cultural output in the nearest city and soon reclaimed it.) Caesar had simply decided to see what else he could grab from a war-torn and supposedly war-weakened area.
My response was obvious and inevitable.
The two Destroyers protecting my three existing Transports off the northwest coast, and another protecting the fishing grounds outside of the city of Beckenbauer, quickly dispatched Caesar's first wave of two ships. But I had a sneaking suspicion he wasn't done. I sent a "sacrificial transport" out out into the ocean towards Rome. I discovered the second wave of the invasion, and sent another Destroyer out to intercept:
On the following turn, my remaining destroyers made short work of these ships, sending them to Davey Jones' locker with all due haste.
Still, I suspected that Caesar had more tricks up his sleeve. My intrepid little transport went further west and uncovered Rome's third wave:
Okay, now I was getting worried. Was there no end to these ships Caesar was sending? And the few ships I had in my west coast navy were not getting a chance to heal after these many battles.
I upgraded every single Frigate to a Destroyer and rushed most of them to the west coast. I have never been so grateful for having won the circumnavigation bonus! I also postponed the Transport builds in my shipyards in favour of more Destroyers. Based purely on the numbers, however, it seemed likely that some of Rome's ships would make it through and land troops. I redeployed my land forces in anticipation. I took special care to fortify defensive Infantry (Combat I and Pinch) on the hills on the west coast to deny the Romans the benefit of high ground and defensive bonuses.
Then I noticed something that I never had before in all my games of Civ, because I've never had to use it.
Transports have an attack strength of 16.
Holy crud. Who knew? Well, several people, probably, but not me, until now! I immediately divvied up the work: Destroyers get Frigates, Transports get Galleons. It seemed fitting. And highly effective:
In the end, not
one of Caesar's troops survived to set foot on German soil. Rome's dreams of conquest are--to borrow, appropriately, a Sicilian expression--sleeping with the fishes.
In summary, Caesar's armada was a mixture of jaw-dropping might and head-shaking hubris. The might came in the form of more ships sent against me than I've ever seen an AI launch before: 18 Frigates, 17 Galleons (all fully loaded), and 3 Caravels, in three successive waves. The hubris was from their contents: Knights, Catapults, Crossbowmen, Macemen, even a couple of Praetorians. Julie, Julie, Julie. Yes, Praets are an overpowered unit...
in their time. And that time has been over for quite awhile. My Infantry and Cavalry would have made mincemeat of Rome's forces, had they been allowed to land. But I chose not to allow it.
Now that his invasion force was gone, I thought Caesar would be reasonable and consider peace talks. I thought wrong:
So, Caesar refuses to talk, eh? Vell,
mein Kaiser...ve haff vays uff makink you talk.
You just
know I've been waiting to use that phrase all game, don't you?
But I ain't just blowin' smoke, kiddies:
Caesar, meet the Panzer. Panzer, Caesar... oh, darn it all, where did he go in such a hurry?
Probably off to try to drag his sagging power rating up by its bootstraps:
Insert your own Viagra joke here.
Well, leaving Caesar aside for now, let's talk big picture and victory conditions. The map first of all:
And the victory screen:
I've got the population easy, but land is another matter. Even if I brushed Hatty and Roosevelt's junk cities off my continent (and no, I'd rather not be at war with
everyone, thank you very much), I still won't have enough for the domination win.
(It really hits home how unusual the Hatshepsut ACL game was. I won domination with a single continent, mainly because the land masses were unusually imbalanced. Luck of the draw.)
So I have to invade the other continent for a domination win. I'm already at war with Rome, but we have already agreed that Caesar's territory will be the hardest to use for victory, because I'll face cultural pressure from all three civs. But I would prefer to wrap up this war with Caesar before taking on someone else.
In addition, I have a double-headed happiness problem. First of all, war weariness is starting to mount. I'm not sure if the deaths of the enemy units aboard the ships count towards WW, or just the ships themselves, but either way, I've killed a lot of Rome's men: over 40 ships in total! And if the Galleons' payloads count, that's another
68 units killed. Second, the Emancipation unhappiness is increasing as well; as I said in Part 1, it has grown to a -4 to -5 penalty in my largest cities.
On the plus side, the culture slider has a lot of room to maneuver (at 10% now, with a 497 gold surplus and Wall Street a few turns from completion). Also, I almost have all the techs I need/want to finish the game (Flight is almost done; Radio and Artillery would be nice to have). Still, as WW starts to kick in and the Emancipation penalty grows, I may have to do something drastic.
(It's interesting: in the Victoria ALC game, I ran Caste System right to the end of the game with no significant happiness problems. But there, I was going for a peaceful cultural victory, not a warmongering domination win. I had also, therefore, prioritized cultural techs and cultural (happiness-increasing) builds like temples and so on.)
Here's a strategy I've been mulling over:
Keep the civics as they are at first. Build Panzers and happiness buildings; stockpile gold. Once my transports are ready, send the troops over. Capture Arretium, the coastal Roman city that is closest to Egypt. Sue Caesar for peace. If he's unwilling, take Cumae and Heliopolis (which he took from Egypt).
Once I have peace with Caesar, and Arretium comes out of revolt, switch civics to Universal Suffrage and--
maybe--Emancipation, though peace and a new foe may make it unnecessary. Use US to rush buy airports, especially in captured Roman cities. Attack Hatshepsut for the domination win. If WW gets worse along the way, switch from US to Police State. If WW is manageable, maybe switch back to Representation.
If I go this route, Communism and the Kremlin are added to the list of "nice to have" by the time I switch to US, though they are by no means essential.
Here's the saved game. Thoughts?
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