ALC Game #8: Alexander/Greece

[ArmoredCavalry]

If you do decide that nuking is the way to go, I recommend fission so you can finish the MP while going after monty.

I find it takes time to prepare a proper nuclear attack, and also sufficiant observation of her army.The AI's tendancy to stack most of thier army in a few key locations is easily exploited as 2 nukes can instantly kill every unit in a stack no matter how large. Start the war with about 4 nukes and keep building nukes anywhere with decent production.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Should I continue warring against Monty, or switch to Hatty? Hatty is pretty close in technology to me, much closer than Monty who I don't think even has Galleons at this point. Monty, at this point, still refuses to talk, so I may have to raze one or two more cities if I want peace. Then again, if Hatty's more on par, it may make sense to keep after Monty for now and hit her with the nukes.

Certainly keep razing Aztec cities until he offers peace. If you switch at all, make sure you put him completely out of commission first. Raze about half his cities minimum before you give peace. Really though, at this point, you have such a technological advantage that you should probably just press the issue and finish him off. Since you don't need to defend the conquered cities, you should be able to press the attack much more aggressively and kill him off fairly soon.

Make sure you keep one or two of the cities along the Egyptian border for use as airbases from which to launch bombing missions. Once you have a nice squadron of planes, you can probably conquer Egypt with whatever leftover forces you have on that continent. You really don't need technological superiority or even parity if you have planes. Collaterally damaged defenders are easy to kill.

For that reason, I would say your research path should be Fission, Radio, and Industrialism. Probably in that order. If you want to play with nuclear weapons, you need to get started on the Manhattan Project early enough that you can finish it and build some missiles before you win. Tanks will make things go a little faster, but you really don't need them. You do need bombers. After that you can probably dial back the research to a fairly slow rate and use the leftover cash to rush builds. Other than maybe some of the modern health and happy technologies, you shouldn't need anything past those three.

You're fine on domination, but your margin may not be as big as it appears at first glance. It looks from the screenshot like you kept 2 Persian cities? And that has gained you almost 3 percent toward domination. You'll probably need to keep an absolute minimum of 2 more cities, and 4 is probably a better plan (2 on the border, one in the center of Egypt and Aztec because fighters are fairly short range). That gets you roughly another 6 percent, which puts you around 60%, only 4% away from domination. I don't think you'll go over, but just make sure you don't get cocky and start keeping cities for silly reasons (ex. an obsolete wonder or a wonder that won't gain you anything significant in the 5 turns remaining before you win by conquest).

 

[Eqqman]

And what about techs? I'm going after Industrialism for Marines and Tanks now. What should come after that? Radio for Bombers? Artillery? Something else?

I might go for Rocketry + Fission and then whatever you happen to get. If you're willing to rely on Nukes, then you shouldn't need anything else really.

 

[Eqqman]

Since you don't need to defend the conquered cities, you should be able to press the attack much more aggressively and kill him off fairly soon.

Totally! One of the good side-effects of razings is that when the city has gone, the AI generally loses interest in attacking whatever units you have in that tile since there is nothing left to defend or reclaim. You might even notice units that looked to be heading for the city suddenly go elsewhere, even when they could be better used on a counterattack vs your weakened city-razers.

 

[kniteowl]

Back Stab Hatty by attacking her at her rear (most northern lightly defended cities) while she busy protecting her broader against Monty lol... Or you could cripple Monty 1st if you want.... then back stab Hatty

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Agh...I haven't checked up on this ALC in a while. I don't really have much advice for world conquest that hasn't already been said.

Well, maybe a bit. If you are facing very large numbers of annoying city-defenders in a Civ, you can thin out their military by attacking and not capturing a small city of theirs. Bombard its defenses down to 0, and then kill every unit in there but 1. The next turn, all of the Civ's available units will be on their way to that city, and some should probably arrive immedietly. You are now facing a bunch of unfortified units in a 0-defense city while your entire military is ready to meet them. Blow them away and wait for the next batch. In about 5-6 turns, you should have exhausted all of the military reserves of your foe, and can now steam-roll them. It takes a bit of a time investment in the beginning, but thinning out their military will probably save you in the long run.

Or you can just nuke them.

One second piece of advice I have was probably more relevant on page 12, but I'll give it anyways. People were citicizing you for selling resources for paltry sums like 2 GPT for Dyes and the like, and rightly so. However, my objection there was not that you shouldn't be giving them your resources, but that you could have sold them for much much more.

What you should have been doing was selling every single surplus resource you had for 3 times as much money as you were getting. By proper trading techniques (spelled out in my war-room article), you can get trade yields that look like this:

Guaranteed to make you rich! Order now!
Expect AMAZING results within 10 turns!
This is not a scam! (For you anyways...)

 

[cabert]

well, i have the feeling the game will be over before you have nukes!
Monte will be history in what? 10 turns?
If you keep building troops (including fighters in low production cities) and tech to radio for bombers, you'll be ready to crush hatchepetsuh.
Sure, she'll be somewhat stronger than monte, but you're on the attacking side, it's much easier to attack than to defend in this situation.
Build a carrier and don't bother too much about keeping any monte city. If you do, you'll have to defend it against artilleries = lost cause.
Continue using the sirian doctrine against hatchepetsuh, and raze everything.
When you have 4/5 bombers ready, you can think of keeping a beachhead if none of the cities you already have is in range.
But beware!
The AI will attack your bombers stack= you need to cut all the fast counter attack options. You don't want a stack a artillery to come into action.
artillery must be attacked in the open (after a round of bombing from 10 fighters/5 bombers, any stack will be easy to take with some infantry ).

It's not a matter of strategy anymore. It's merely tactics : you want no road /railroad leading to your beachheads,unless they are in your cultural borders. That's why it would be better to just use the cities you already have and start growing culture (any GA from your philo leader in sight?)!
If you really need another launching pad, you need to pillage every road around it before taking it (hatchepetsuh is creative remember).

edit : the agressive trading proposed by hans looks like an exploit for me. Powerful in some situations, but not fair (the AI's like a vassal, but he doesn't know it ).

 

[UncleJJ]

I'd like to see some nukes used in this game and it should be possible with a little planning. At present we're researching Electricity and then heading for Industrialism... why not go for Fission and then Industrialism? That will slow down getting tanks etc, but I guess nukes will speed up the conquest in their own way. I would certainly consider using them against Hatty as well as Monty... against Hatty to vaporise her army and Monty because he's so deserving of a few mushroom clouds.

Manhattan will have to be built in London I guess and even though it might add to the bad health a factory there will add a few more hammers per turn (about 12 raising production to about 140 / turn). Manhattan should take 11 turns to build at that rate.

If researching Industrialism were delayed the 8 turns by Fission it would mean that in about 20 turns you'd have powerful force mix of Carriers with fighters, (to scout and soften up targets), ICBMs to provide the heavy artillery and tanks to finish off the remnants. Bombers aren't going to be as usefull if you have few cities and are subject to counterattacking.

Should be fun and and finish off the vanilla ALCs with a bang ... of nuclear proportions

On economic matters. Several of your cities Athens, Beijing and Bagdad are running scientists when merchants give a better deal since you have 100% gold multiplier and only 85% research... a small deal here that is normally even better without Free Religion. Wall Street will be finished in Shanghai soon and merchants there will be the best specialists.

Many cities have riverside farms (often unworked) while windmills and mines are worked by the govenor for hammers. Changing some of these farms to watermills will give those cities a nice boost to productivity and commerce and will be better than working windmills and mines.

War weariness can be helped by researching Fascism and building Mt Rushmore... in London after Manhattan perhaps. Also you could build a few temples or a Confussian Academy for +3 happiness.

 

[cabert]

another thought : score!

If you're going to wait for nukes, it could be time to think of milking...

food (farms) should be your biggest concern in every city (with a favour for those not too big science contributors), to increase the final score.
I never do it (i like finishing earlier better), but would like to see it done.

 

[UncleJJ]

I'm not sure if there is anything special about the way a conquest victory gets scored, but if it is on the same basis as a domination victory score ... population, land area controlled, research and wonders ... then obviously a domination would get a better score in this situation since we'd get all pop and land from Monty and finish quicker.

I've never had a conquest victory, or even though much about how to go about one, but they seem best suited to small maps and limited numbers of opponents. We have surely gone about getting a conquest victory the wrong way here (if a high score and quick victory was the objective) but that is due to only making that decision very late as an afterthought.

I'd say ignore the score for this game and go for the unique experiences of conquest and use of ICBMs.

 

[cabert]

must say you're right uncleJJ
milking may not be doable this late in the game...

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

What you should have been doing was selling every single surplus resource you had for 3 times as much money as you were getting. By proper trading techniques (spelled out in my war-room article), you can get trade yields that look like this:

Guaranteed to make you rich! Order now!
Expect AMAZING results within 10 turns!
This is not a scam! (For you anyways...)

While I admire the ingenuity it took to come up with that approach, I think most people consider that an exploit. Clearly if the AI understood what you were doing, it would cancel the deals.

 

[carl corey]

Dr Elmer here is right about the "exploit" feel of this tactic. If I remember correctly Sisiutil is also aware of it, so I guess he chose not to use it for the same reason.

 

[Sisiutil]

Dr Elmer here is right about the "exploit" feel of this tactic. If I remember correctly Sisiutil is also aware of it, so I guess he chose not to use it for the same reason.

Yes, that's pretty much it. The AI only seems capable of cancelling deals by declaring war.

 

[carl corey]

Sorry to derail this a little, Sisiutil. But that's pretty much why I don't like the peace-time vassal system in Warlords too. They will give you tons of gold for your resources, which I can understand since you're supposed to protect them from the evil AI that wants to wipe them out. But if they DO cancel the vassalage because they feel powerful enough to stand alone, they don't know how to cancel the trades too. And it's bye-bye economy for them forever if you manage to keep them pleased.

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

You don't even need to keep them pleased. The AI normally accepts resource-for-gold trades even when furious, because I've never seen their gpt redded out.

 

[aelf]

Now that Monty has annoyed you, by all means destroy him in the most brutal manner possible

It will be interesting, though, to see an effective strategy that includes using nukes on competent enemies. It seems to me that nukes in Civ4 do not reflect the military value they have in the real world. They are easy to defend against (bunkers and/or SDI) and are prohibitively expensive for something of questionable destructive strength anyway.

 

[D'Artagnan59]

Destroy Monty.

 

[wioneo]

Destroy Monty.

Just because he had thousands of his own people savagely murdered doesn't give you the right to kill him. Show some civility, brutes.

 

[bitplayer]

Destroy monti!