David Dwyer
Chieftain
Lately, I've just been playing a modern era scenario using the default rules. Everyone has all the tech and there are six civs on six continents with 10 cities each. Continent 7 has the uraninum. Needless to say, I grab the uranium and get into a war with the Japanese over it. By now, I've a nice fleet of 2 Aegis, 4 Battleships, 3 Carriers (carrying 3 jet fighters and 9 stealth bombers) and 6 transports with 8 radar artillery, 8 mech infantry, 32 modern armor. We land and it isn't pretty. In the resultant fracas, they counterattack the landing site (no hills or mountains to land on only grasslands and plains on the coast) and kill several mech inf. My bombers concentrate on the city next to us along with the radar artillery and the naval units and give it a good pasting. It's still over size 13+ with veteran mech inf defenders (2 undamaged, 3 damaged) and 2 conscript mech inf. If you've looked at the combat calculator you'll realize the odds were not happy ones. Despite high production my attack petered out due to lack of units. Errors -- did not use bombardment to isolate resources (strategic ones especially), cities bombarded by artillery and bombers have their infrastructure torn to hell which makes keeping the masses happy enough not to flip difficult, ran out of offensive units due to 5:1 loss rate of modern tanks versus fortified mech inf in metropoli. Sue for peace and try again. I did however manage to gain 1 great leader who instantly became a victorious army. Build Heroic Epic, Iron Works/Military Academy (in my capital) [208 shields/turn production (209-1 waste)], Pentagon, 4 nuclear subs with tactical nukes each plus two ICBMs and a complete set of Armies with a dozen cruise missiles to go with the new strike force. Given MPPs, expect to find self at war with everybody for 20 turns. But air power and fleet kept them at bay. Finish off Japan in 1 turn blitz and Persians and Zulus declare war. ICBM their capitals and away we go. Rest of world declares war. Tacnuke Paris. Have one tacnuke left -- darn SDI! Use bombardment by bombers to isolate resources, hurt units in the open. Use cruise missiles to soften up units in cities -- N.B. Cruise missiles fired at cities will always damage/kill units and never kill population or buildings. Sort of opposite the Stealth Bomber's Precision Strike ability. Follow up assault with armies in front until down to damaged mech inf. Send in the armor. Casualties but in repeated offensives generate a total of 4 great leaders beyond the first. In addition to the cruise missiles (6 or 7 per city to soften it up) the occasional tacnuke/ICBM softens up other cities. Have now conquered Japan, France, Persia and am now working on Zululand (poor guys have had their capital nuked a second time -- all those grassland squares are now desert
The use of cruise missiles to bombard cities to avoid ripping up the infrastructure and take it relatively intact without reducing all the buildings the way massive artillery/bomber strikes would seems a nice point. But only if you plan on quickly killing the relevant civilazation as the culturekampf can be brutal otherwise. (Had one city in Persia flip while I had 4 armies resting in it -- had rush built temple/library/coloseum/cathedral but it went anyway [gold rush as a democracy]. Oh, and note on the combat calculator -- it's nice but after you get three armies and can build the pentagon the maximum army size goes up to 4 units which if all elite means a total of 20hp and the calculator only assumes a maximum of 15. Of course, cruise missiles are a late game tech, so this isn't too relevant on how to smash early strongly held cities. There all I can say is let the armies attack first and the elite whatevers clean up afterwards. As long as the AI doesn't manage to build an army to defend with, it's not a problem. So far I haven't seen any of the AI's build armies, but then again with their island kingdoms they may not have got up to too much trouble. But in the other games I've played from chieftan thru monarch, I've yet to see the AI field an army. Maybe I've just encountered wusses to date is all. But twice in this game I've had 19 hp armies die due to attacking fortified undamaged mech inf units. Fortunately production has been high enough to keep the armies coming currently have 8 armies in the field with hp's from 16-19 and am about to switch to communism as war wearyness is getting extreme -- government just collapsed into anarchy -- had expected that it would just get unhappier and unhappier until I couldn't keep them happy the way repeated drafting / pop rush would do to the cities. Other than that the Zulus are on the ropes and China is next and last. Unless I trigger a domination or culture victory first.
PS on the naval forces: Every time I move a carrier all the aircraft aboard go to sleep and have to be woken up again by hand and then set back to doing whatever they were doing -- air superiority for the fighters to restrict the bombardment on the fleet to a dull roar mainly. It's consistent with all previous Civ games but annoying. And air recon cannot spot subs, which is another bit of ahistorical rulings (Orion P-3 ASW planes?). You really need Aegis or subs to spot subs. The idea of upping Aegis stats to reflect it's cruise missile capability is one I disagree with, it should basically be able to carry them. Similarly if you want to -- the Russian Navy had heavy battlecruisers which carried surface-to-surface nukes analogous to the tacnukes in the game and the refitted US battleships of the 80s and early 90s had cruise missile capability too. So requiring they carry them to fire them is okay by me -- point to designers: cruise missiles can't bombard from on board a transport so presume without some tweak in the editor they can't bombard if aboard a naval unit. Why disagree with the uprated Aegis stats? Note that precision guided munitions and cruise missiles in particular aren't cheap. JDAM guidance parkages are now starting to come down in price, but only due to massive production. Consider that US forces nearly shot themselves dry of JDAMs in Afghanistan and that cruise missiles are nearly depleated due to the "Tomahawk Chop" policy of the previous administration. One of the reasons US forces/policymakers are still only talking about an invasion of Iraq is the need to replenish the arsenal. On 9/11 Boeing had the capability to manufacture 1000 JDAMs per month with ability to scale up to 2000/mo if funding was forthcoming. Current contract is for 2000/mo with capability to surge production to 3000/mo if needed. Remember 1 JDAM = 1 smart bomb and B-52s, B-1s and B-2s can carry a lot of bombs (or cruise missiles) so having to buy cruise missiles to replace expended ordinance may be a bit of micromanagement in CIV3 but is realistic. Personally, expect sufficient JDAMs to be available by this Fall. Guns of August/October Surprise anyone?
All in all I do enjoy the new Civ III, it's different but enjoyable.
David Dwyer
Post 2 of 2
The use of cruise missiles to bombard cities to avoid ripping up the infrastructure and take it relatively intact without reducing all the buildings the way massive artillery/bomber strikes would seems a nice point. But only if you plan on quickly killing the relevant civilazation as the culturekampf can be brutal otherwise. (Had one city in Persia flip while I had 4 armies resting in it -- had rush built temple/library/coloseum/cathedral but it went anyway [gold rush as a democracy]. Oh, and note on the combat calculator -- it's nice but after you get three armies and can build the pentagon the maximum army size goes up to 4 units which if all elite means a total of 20hp and the calculator only assumes a maximum of 15. Of course, cruise missiles are a late game tech, so this isn't too relevant on how to smash early strongly held cities. There all I can say is let the armies attack first and the elite whatevers clean up afterwards. As long as the AI doesn't manage to build an army to defend with, it's not a problem. So far I haven't seen any of the AI's build armies, but then again with their island kingdoms they may not have got up to too much trouble. But in the other games I've played from chieftan thru monarch, I've yet to see the AI field an army. Maybe I've just encountered wusses to date is all. But twice in this game I've had 19 hp armies die due to attacking fortified undamaged mech inf units. Fortunately production has been high enough to keep the armies coming currently have 8 armies in the field with hp's from 16-19 and am about to switch to communism as war wearyness is getting extreme -- government just collapsed into anarchy -- had expected that it would just get unhappier and unhappier until I couldn't keep them happy the way repeated drafting / pop rush would do to the cities. Other than that the Zulus are on the ropes and China is next and last. Unless I trigger a domination or culture victory first.PS on the naval forces: Every time I move a carrier all the aircraft aboard go to sleep and have to be woken up again by hand and then set back to doing whatever they were doing -- air superiority for the fighters to restrict the bombardment on the fleet to a dull roar mainly. It's consistent with all previous Civ games but annoying. And air recon cannot spot subs, which is another bit of ahistorical rulings (Orion P-3 ASW planes?). You really need Aegis or subs to spot subs. The idea of upping Aegis stats to reflect it's cruise missile capability is one I disagree with, it should basically be able to carry them. Similarly if you want to -- the Russian Navy had heavy battlecruisers which carried surface-to-surface nukes analogous to the tacnukes in the game and the refitted US battleships of the 80s and early 90s had cruise missile capability too. So requiring they carry them to fire them is okay by me -- point to designers: cruise missiles can't bombard from on board a transport so presume without some tweak in the editor they can't bombard if aboard a naval unit. Why disagree with the uprated Aegis stats? Note that precision guided munitions and cruise missiles in particular aren't cheap. JDAM guidance parkages are now starting to come down in price, but only due to massive production. Consider that US forces nearly shot themselves dry of JDAMs in Afghanistan and that cruise missiles are nearly depleated due to the "Tomahawk Chop" policy of the previous administration. One of the reasons US forces/policymakers are still only talking about an invasion of Iraq is the need to replenish the arsenal. On 9/11 Boeing had the capability to manufacture 1000 JDAMs per month with ability to scale up to 2000/mo if funding was forthcoming. Current contract is for 2000/mo with capability to surge production to 3000/mo if needed. Remember 1 JDAM = 1 smart bomb and B-52s, B-1s and B-2s can carry a lot of bombs (or cruise missiles) so having to buy cruise missiles to replace expended ordinance may be a bit of micromanagement in CIV3 but is realistic. Personally, expect sufficient JDAMs to be available by this Fall. Guns of August/October Surprise anyone?
All in all I do enjoy the new Civ III, it's different but enjoyable.
David Dwyer
Post 2 of 2
