COTM 13: Bringing the Fox to Bay (final Hunting Tips thread)

[Renata]

COTM13: Bringing the Fox to Bay (final Hunting Tips thread)

This thread is for Conquest-level players who need a little extra help with their game. Players seeking help should ideally have reached the Modern Age in order to post in this thread, but in a pinch, may ask for advice provided they have at least reached Refining (and can see oil). No save may be posted past the end of the Industrial Age, and anyone who reveals the location of Modern Age resources will be lined up and shot. (Kidding.)

Any player who has submitted their final save to the GOTM upload server is eligible to comment, but please observe the spoiler rules listed above.

Cheers,
Renata

 

[Stilgar08]

Just before COTM14 will take place, this thread gets a customer

Yeah, I know, but don't worry:
Nobody is more surprised but me still being alive and all!

Nevertheless I am and I'm having a question:

I did what Megalou and Klarius suggested (Thank you; without you I wouldn't be alive anymore ) in the second hunting tips-thread and used up my good rep and ROP to get my hands on the GL (I had every tech before education, but Caesar already is in the modern age!). It brought me all the way through to COMBUSTION *WOOOHOOO*
Rome is finishing its war against Egypt in a few turns, he has all IA-techs + at least the first-tier modern age-techs and synthetic fibers (Ahh, those great modern-era tanks... He's building the UN right now.)

After the GL-coup I'm eye to eye with Egypt, Portugal and Byzanth, but Rome is ahead (the other civs are gone)...

I'm missing infrastructure of course (only having a few libraries and everything from BEFORE education), have the most cities (about 46-48), but cannot research flight or mass production myself (would take ages with current infrastructure (25turns would be the best to get...).

I'm at war with Egypt and Portugal and I'm on friendly with Byz. Rome is threatening me with demands (the last one was map+100g - I gave in), I have spies in my gov (getting regular messages about this-never experienced that on my regular level (which is monarch); cool! ) Rome is at war with everybody but me...

Caesar owns more than 2/3 of his continent and I'm sure he will win his wars sooner or later (Cleo already lost most of her land and Rome is coming from both sides) I'm having approx. 3/4 of MY continent with 2 roman cities in the west and Henry in the north. I don't have enough military to kick his A§$%& right now, so I play quite defensive.

I have the most points, but very likely Caesar is going to the stars without me...

My question is: What should I do? I DID plan to build infrastructure but I'm bound to build up military, because stupid Henry attacked me!
I'm undecided wether to try to kick Henry's butt now or to make peace asap in order to be able to start building infrastructure.

I don't think I can compete with Caesar since he also owns about 11,000g and is powerful! He's mad at me and even declines to buy my coal... I feel like a sitting duck here. I'm not in danger but victory isn't in reach either... right??
Do you see a way to win this instead of waiting for Rome to finish it's spaceship??

Diplo: Even if I would get the UN (or Julius would held elections (which I doubt): I'm sure Egypt and eventually Byz will get wiped out and I'm not good friends with Henry.

I'm trying to finish the game but if I get in trouble concerning time I will submit a retirement defeat (which would be too bad since I'm soooo proud of myself that I'm still alive! ) COTM14 sound more promising, though...

Again: Thanks for your help!!!

 

[Stilgar08]

[EDIT] Sorry, posted twice...

 

[Megalou]

That's really interesting, Stilgar!

Your description gives me a pretty clear picture of the situation. It's not an easy one. Have you checked the Roman culture? You're probably threatened by both it and by spaceship loss. Some other issues:

1. Is there a way you can keep Rome from getting the necessary resources for spaceship? (I guess that means rubber, since you can't see uranium and aluminium yet.)

2. You may try to butter up Portugal and then capture the UN and hold elections. But this is extremely difficult with the firepower Rome has. There is no guarantee the elections will be held the turn after you capture it, and surely you can't hold a Roman core city for more than 1 or 2 turns (probably 1.)

3. Could you raze the Roman town that is building UN and then have time to build it yourself? If you try this, you're surely smoked on their continent and will probably need to blast those 2 Roman towns on your continent too, before they start funneling their troops through them. Always have enough tanks around to take out at least 8 Modern armour.

4. Infrastructure would be the sensible man's choice, but I'd say you're too far behind to catch up, although I don't know all the details. If, for example, it takes 10 turns or more to research a late IA tech now, then you will not catch up but would have to depend on the Romans lacking a crucial resource. You could attempt to increase your science just to learn how to deny them the resourses. (It might involve )

I've had some desperate situations like this too, and I've never solved them except by denying them resources.

Again, well done & good luck. Too bad there was a runaway tech leader, or you could have been closer to tech par.

 

[Stilgar08]

Thanx!
I'm not sure, what to do but I will probably just try to kill Henry off my continent (He still is overseas in the east) and catch some points before I get defeated...

1. Is there a way you can keep Rome from getting the necessary resources for spaceship? (I guess that means rubber, since you can't see uranium and aluminium yet.)

I don't know... I do know Rome has rubber...

2. You may try to butter up Portugal and then capture the UN and hold elections. But this is extremely difficult with the firepower Rome has. There is no guarantee the elections will be held the turn after you capture it, and surely you can't hold a Roman core city for more than 1 or 2 turns (probably 1.)
3. Could you raze the Roman town that is building UN and then have time to build it yourself? If you try this, you're surely smoked on their continent and will probably need to blast those 2 Roman towns on your continent too, before they start funneling their troops through them. Always have enough tanks around to take out at least 8 Modern armour.

I don't think I will go this way... Nukes are far away either so I would have difficulties using them anytime soon. Am I right assuming that using Nukes (never did this) won't destroy the wonders in a city?? I'm afraid of a nuclear winter, once starting a -war... Nevertheless: What do you think about a plan including my first -war ever (just came to my mind):

peace asap, then researching and prebuilding Manhattan Project, immediately building ICBM's and destroying the core-cities of Rome and Port, before they are ready to strike back... I'm pretty sure I could withstand the conventional attack of Caesar and Henry with defensive measures (fighters, artillery,tanks or infantry...).
Time is the critical resource in my game, I think, no matter which route I decide to take, but it's worth a try. What do you think??
BTW, what's better against Bombers: flak or fighters??

Thanks again! Stilgar08

 

[Stilgar08]

Oh, one more thing: I'm still republic and I'm reading occasionally that communism would be better for wide-spread civs. As mentioned I'm having 48 cities. Would communism be better for me??

 

[Stilgar08]

Ok, everybody obviously is already engaged pretty much in the pre-game-discussion of COTM14, which I can understand! Sounds like a fun-COTM, I'll definitely try!

Just to clarify: Won't push this thread again and no further need for reply here since I will submit after tonights gaming-round anyways. Were the questions I had too obvious to answer?
It's not that I'm not reading the civilopedia or the war-academy-articles, just to let you know.. I'm just asking here in order to get a certain feel about some decisions. Well, I can live without certainty concerning COTM. Thanks again to Megalou and Klarius, though! You helped me a lot!!

CU on the next COTM (I plan to try Open-Class, so don't worry..... )

 

[klarius]

Well, Stilgar, I and probably also other good C/GOTM players have next to zero experience in modern age warfare.
And I used communism only in 100k games with around 200 cities.
Other people who have the experience probably didn't risk giving tips on deity level, because they just barely master it themselves.
But, I really expected that some of the variant/SG players around would chime in. But maybe those didn't find the time, because of game overload .

 

[Megalou]

Ok, everybody obviously is already engaged pretty much in the pre-game-discussion of COTM14, which I can understand! Sounds like a fun-COTM, I'll definitely try!

Just to clarify: Won't push this thread again and no further need for reply here since I will submit after tonights gaming-round anyways. Were the questions I had too obvious to answer?
It's not that I'm not reading the civilopedia or the war-academy-articles, just to let you know.. I'm just asking here in order to get a certain feel about some decisions. Well, I can live without certainty concerning COTM. Thanks again to Megalou and Klarius, though! You helped me a lot!!

CU on the next COTM (I plan to try Open-Class, so don't worry..... )

Sorry, I was too busy. Your plan is good. You could perhaps destroy the Roman Uranium assets. But you should probably switch to Communism first since war weariness will go up very quickly when Rome starts bombing you and landing troups.

I suppose that both in-game time and RL time will be short. But I'm not sure how fast the AI tech pace is.

 

[Stilgar08]

Hi.
I just want to point out, that I'm not angry or disappointed, that no one answered here. I just was a little bit surprised...

Plan A is gone, Rome built Manhattan already, I'm having flight, Byz is gone, Egypt still there with 4 cities and Port. has 1 city left (I killed him and Rome does the rest). I will try to get ICBM's but they are far away...

I'm communist already and it pays off. I stole Flight from Henry. He still has mass production. Right now I'm on min. research for electronics and earn money (466gpt) to steal mass prod. from Henry as well... after that I will go for max research to get at least to ICBM's...

One question is left (will send this to Renata as pm as well, but I'm afraid the answer might not come in time since there's not much (real) time left, so I post it here also. Comments are welcome! ):

Is it an exploit if I gift a city to Henry, surround this city with my units in order to protect him from Caesar? I would do this to keep him around longer and to make me able to steal mass prod. from him. If I wouldn't do it I'm pretty sure he will be gone in the next 5-10 turns...

Personally I don't consider this an exploit, but what do you think??

 

[klarius]

It's common practice to protect pet civs from the big guys and not considered an exploit.

If you are still at war with portugal, you could also buy mass production with gpt in a peace treaty and then let Rome destroy them. This is considered an exploit by many, but allowed in C/GOTM.

Min research will lead you nowhere. You have to steal more techs and prepare for the DoW from Rome when you should fail a theft.
Alternatively you could research the relatively cheap IA techs yourself full steam and start the stealing again when you reach MA.

 

[Twonky]

Were the questions I had too obvious to answer?

No, it´s more like Klarius said. I for one have been viewing this threat, but your questions (i.e. concerning communism) were out of my experience, so I rather replied nothing instead of unbacked and probably misleading information.
Actually, this game was my first deity-victory ever, so I´ll be more active in the hunting tips when lower difficulties are discussed.
Sorry for the lack of feedback, good to see you got through the game anyway. And good luck with the COTM.

 

[Stilgar08]

Ok then! And I thought I was just asking questions too stupid to answer (seriously)!

Renata pm'ed me and confirmed my plan is fine! So I will take this road now...
I won't steal techs from Rome because I'm afraid of the backdraft if I would get caught...
I only need mass prod. from Henry and afterwards I will do research at max... Let's see if I can follow this road. Maybe when having enough defense I will try to steal from caesar as well.

Thanks to everyone for your encouragement!

 

[Megalou]

Nice going! You don't mention UN. If it's not built yet I assume you have a prebuild ready just in case you can pull it off?

 

[Stilgar08]

Ok, I'm done. I don't have time to play on today, so I submitted. Thanks to everyone for your help...

Nice going! You don't mention UN. If it's not built yet I assume you have a prebuild ready just in case you can pull it off?

UN has been built ages ago in Rome, but since it was just the 2 of us left it was of no use for him anyway.
When I retired Caesar already had 4 parts of his spaceship and 75000k (year: 1772ac) and initiated a war with me because I tried to plant a spy. Very likely I would have lost anyway...
That war would have gone on for ages or he would have dropped the bomb on me and it was already late in the night...
Since I don't have time to play tonight I submitted but I will continue to play after submissions are closed and I'll find the time (COTM14 coming up and I'm on vacation for 2 weeks). if you like to know how things will go on I will let you know, of course...
If you are interested: Attached is the save I submitted (I just reached modern age and don't know any modern age ressources, yet)