Bibracte must be destroyed

[dorkynorky]

I need some advice to try and destroy Bibracte and avoid a space race loss. I'm used to being methodical in my military campaigns, but in this instance time is of the essence and so I figure I'd lay out my strategy and get some criticism. I'm feeling a bit wordy, so if you don't want to read a novel but might have some ideas to help me, skip down a bit.

Wow! What a game. Continents. I'm Willie on a continent with Hami and Ragweed. By the time I build up enough troops to begin conquering Ragmuffin I discover the other continent has Boudica as master of Hattie and Louie with a pathetic Asoka skulking as the lone unconquered civ. Needless to say, Boudica has billions of troops and Louie is well on the way to a cultural vic as a vassal.

I get Ragweed pacified while staving off an invasion attempt by Boudica. Rush my army over to India just in time to sneak in and destroy Orleans at 49k culture to avert the loss. Of course, Hami controls all the oil on my continent so I build an another army to wipe him out. Now the stage is set. Boudica walks over India and builds the Internet and collects all the techs Hami and Louie had been raking in, so now I'm facing the advanced military juggernaut, who of course has founded 3 corps as well.

I build up two 80 unit invasion fleets as Boudica builds the spaceship parts. I point my way to Robotics so that I can upgrade my large numbers of infantry. The fleets are launched. I have been gathering intelligence via subs and fighters (flying out of Egypt, love those vassals that give open borders) and can see that Boudica has about twice the navy I do so I've planned an amphibious assault to try and take out some of the ships in port.

Enough narrative, current status:

- I just got enough EP to get B's demographics and am at 0.6 in power. Still accounting for the fact that I've got over 90 percent of my decent land forces on her continent and she's got a much better navy and the few corp execs, I figure we might be even in ground/air forces (of course all her units are modern and the only modern unit I've got is mech inf.)

- She's built everything but the engines and cockpit, diplo screen shows she can research Fiber Optics

- I just took two cities, one on the east coast one on the west. Each is about 7 spaces from Bibracte with 1 intervening city.

- only 10 out of about 50 of my infantry have been upgraded to mech inf, but at 100percent gold I can upgrade 5 per turn.

- it will be 5-10 turns before I can get about 40 more troops in by ship, assuming I can get them past her superior navy

- it will be 10 turns before either of the cities I just took come out of revolt and I can get an airport built to expedite reinforcement.

My plan:

- for around 5 turns upgrade infantry and build bombers. Use the bombers to
- take out her aluminum, oil
- bomb any counter attacking troops
- bomb the defenses of intervening cities and Bibracte

- if I can reach another coastal city in a turn, do an amphibious assault to try and pick up another bomber base, downside is that with B's better navy any ships left in the water at the end of a turn will be toasted

- try and sneak a few troops in on ships

- follow this course until she gets fiber optics, then make my move on the intervening cities, leaving at most 5 defensive units behind. I only care about these cities as bomber bases and perhaps for reinforcements if I can get airports in. As far as I can tell I don't care if they are retaken as long as I can take Bibracte.

Do these plans seem solid and are there any other decent strats I'm missing. I could bomb her navy and hope to take them out opening the sea lanes, but I'm concerned such an approach will take too long.

In the end, if I can take Bibracte in 20 turns, I'll have to knock out another French city in an extra 10 turns to avoid cultural defeat. However, that shouldn't be too hard and then I'll have 40 turns left in the game to make up the score difference between myself and B, which should be a cake walk after I've taken or destroyed about 1/3 of her cities.

 

[FriskyBuddha]

Don't take the cities, raze them

don't worry about resources since she is already at corp, she'll just get them from someone else anyway

what about EP, and you sabotage her current building projects?

don't wait to upgrade all your unit. Move your infantry in, take the hits on good defensible squares, and whittle both armies down, then your reinforcements can roll over the remains of her army

Also don't worry about smaller cities if you can bypass, get right next to bibracte and start bombarding so when your reinforcements get there you'll bbe good to go

btw, raze the city when you take it

waste all your army as long as you crippler her infrastructue, you can always rebuild with your intact economy and infrastructure

 

[dorkynorky]

Forget it. Army one destroyed on second turn after landing wo even breaking a sweat. Thats what happens when you get hit first by 30 mobile artillery.

After averting the cultural loss at turn 350 I should have realized that in a game with Boudica as queen of the other continent my only hope was to turn everything toward research and go for the Internet.

I tried emperor level about 4 months ago after having owned the game for a month. Bad idea. After several months learning the ins and outs and getting to the point where monarch level was a sure win I've gotten back to emperor. I've got city and economic management down pretty well, but I'm still missing it on a couple of strategic front's. Thats what happened here. Down in techs at turn 350 with the only civ atop me in score being a civ that builds units out the whazoo I should have put everything I had into making up the tech deficit.

 

[misterrat]

You could try using spies, lots of spies and lots of EP, to sabotage aluminum, oil and other resources need for spaceship and military. Doing this is sort of a last ditch attempt though. The only time I tried it was in a situation similar to yours, where I had an ally on the other continent and was able to airlift spies. It didn't work - my ally was invaded and crushed.

 

[Mercenary82]

You'll have to nuke her, its the easiest way to deal with the problem.

 

[SJN]

Well, I built up a military production city that could pop out Level 6 units out of the chute. You know what you can do with level 6? That's right, "commando". 1 commando tank per turn is a pretty powerful factory.

So, if I were in your shoes, I'd use my mil-prod city to produce an army of tanks that can rush the capital.

Oh wait.... I *did* this as Boudica.... whoops!

-- SJN

 

[Solomwi]

Well, I built up a military production city that could pop out Level 6 units out of the chute. You know what you can do with level 6? That's right, "commando". 1 commando tank per turn is a pretty powerful factory.

So, if I were in your shoes, I'd use my mil-prod city to produce an army of tanks that can rush the capital.

Oh wait.... I *did* this as Boudica.... whoops!

-- SJN

Yeah, it's pretty easy to do with Boudica. My last game as here, I had commando squads assembled of just about every type of modern unit, including MI upgraded from anti-tanks for the free Ambush promo. I love Agg/Cha.