CTIV-6: Germs! Germs Everywhere!

[JesusOnEez]

I'm still about, just didn't get to read yesterday. I see Mucco's got it so I won't take it instead.

ChrTh, I think we need a clear definition of our goals for the end game, so each player doesn't end up playing for a different goal each turnset...any thoughts on warring with Lizzy to slow her down?

 

[ChrTh]

Goals for the End Game:

We need to reach Space first (Playing One More Turn and completing the space ship doesn't result in a win )

Techwise, we're heading towards Fiber Optics/Internet. That should catch us up a tech or two, but since it requires two Civs to have the tech for us to get it, it won't help us catch Liz.

We probably can't fight Liz, so Spies are the order of the day there.

I'd like to get our city back from Kublai (not Sparta, though) ... and I want to say Samarkand. Continuing the war past that may give us more cities, but it'll cost us the game, imo.

 

[pholkhero]

maybe razing sparta is a good idea...i odn't know if kubey would give in to peace if we just retook Sam. ~ our tanks should roll him up enough, and we could leave them in his territory to pillage and cripple him, while we focus on Scotland yard, spies, to go after Liz

 

[mucco]

Report due in a few hours, if I manage to put it together. I've got some serious technical issues (about 5 reboots per turn...), I think I can do it .
Sorry for the delay!

 

[mucco]

Finally I played my turns. That's not so catastrophic, IMO. Some good things happened, some bad too, but this game is definitely winnable. We just need to be GOOD and LUCKY, as Sirian said.

1950 (inherited turn): I see that our cities are only building military, then I watch the civic screen, and revolt. I'm a CivicFanatic, you know...
Going to Theocracy from OR, so we have 1 more promotions on all this stuff, and save a little money. OR wasn't useful at all.

1951: Attacking sparta. Railroads allow direct attacks from our mainland, I place a MG on a hill and start sending in units, outdated too, we need to get rid of all tis junk which is costing us money.

Tank defeats (15.40/28): Mongolian SAM Infantry
Infantry defeats (12.40/20): Mongolian SAM Infantry
Infantry loses to: Mongolian Artillery (5.58/18)
Infantry defeats (9.80/20): Mongolian Cavalry

I'm amassing troops at samarqand, too. Lots of nasty cavalry, they kill some units. The difficult part is establishing a solid base near the city: once you have 1-2 MGs you can start adding units. If you don't have cover the cavalry will hurt. I left some units alone (not too many...), and they were wiped out easily.

Machine Gun defeats (14.94/18): Mongolian Artillery
Machine Gun defeats (6.48/18): Mongolian Cavalry
Tank defeats (19.60/28): Mongolian Cavalry
Tank defeats (3.92/28): Mongolian Cavalry
Machine Gun loses to: Mongolian Cavalry (15.00/15)
Tank loses to: Mongolian Infantry (20.00/20)
Machine Gun defeats (7.38/18): Mongolian Infantry

1952: Spy production is started in pharsalos. ASAP, you said? No problem.

Training pays off... close call, I'm glad I promoted the unit first.
Infantry promoted: Combat I
Infantry promoted: Combat II
Infantry defeats (4.00/20): Mongolian Cavalry

Now... the Battle for Sparta:

Infantry defeats (9.80/20): Mongolian Artillery
Grenadier loses to: Mongolian Artillery (8.82/18)
Tank defeats (28.00/28): Mongolian Artillery
Tank defeats (26.60/28): Mongolian Artillery

Easy... the cavalry mysteriously vanished. Only artillery was left in the city. And Destroyers...



Infantry defeats (11.60/20): Mongolian Artillery
Captured Sparta (Kublai Khan)

Ewww! Sparta is full of Germs! We need to rebuild our protections!
Sparta begins: Granary

Some effort to kill an infantry in the woods:
Infantry loses to: Mongolian Infantry (13.60/20)
Rifleman loses to: Mongolian Infantry (8.40/20)
Rifleman loses to: Mongolian Infantry (0.60/20)
Rifleman defeats (14.00/14): Mongolian Infantry
I know, I should have saved the infantry...

1953: Nothing big, preparing for the Cold War (aka spy completed, start another).
Killing some stuff in Samarqand, too.

1954: Hello Cathy. What do you want from us?



Of course, we'll do whatever you... wait... war? Rotten bodies attract Germs! We don't want war! Go away! Go away! Only mongolian bodies don't attract Germs .

Then, killing stuff as usual. Nothing big.

1955: Hello my friend Franklin Delano. What? War? With Russia??? Russian Germs! Ewwww!



Of course I decline both requests.

Training for the Cold War. Sci to 60%, we're losing much money.

1956: The Battle for Samarqand!

Tank defeats (21.28/28): Mongolian Infantry
Tank defeats (5.60/28): Mongolian Artillery
Tank defeats (15.40/28): Mongolian Artillery
Rifleman loses to: Mongolian Artillery (4.32/18)
Infantry defeats (20.00/20): Mongolian Artillery
Captured Samarqand (Kublai Khan)

The city is ours! Should I stop? Why? I've got so much military! FORWARD!

So many Germs...
Samarqand begins: Harbor

In the interturn, we learn that once Boston used to exist... razed by Cathy. FDR is totally crippled.

1957: Cold War Training.

1958: The enemy tries to stop our advance at Old Sarai:
Tank defeats (24.08/28): Mongolian Artillery
Machine Gun defeats (13.50/18): Mongolian SAM Infantry
Yawn.

1959: You know, I like war. The Battle for Old Sarai!
Tank defeats (28.00/28): Mongolian Artillery
Tank defeats (20.72/28): Mongolian Artillery
Tank defeats (22.12/28): Mongolian Artillery
Captured Old Sarai (Kublai Khan)



Stop? Why?

1960: last turn, I know you are all thanking God I've finished my turns... I have pushed the war a bit over the limit suggested by ChrTh. Well, maybe two bits

The Battle for Beshbalik!

Artillery loses to: Mongolian Infantry (8.00/20)
Tank loses to: Mongolian SAM Infantry (2.34/18)
Tank defeats (9.52/28): Mongolian Infantry
Tank defeats (28.00/28): Mongolian Artillery
Tank defeats (28.00/28): Mongolian Artillery
Artillery defeats (18.00/18): Mongolian SAM Infantry
Captured Beshbalik (Kublai Khan)

Easy... I've established a secure line of protection for artillery, which could bomb beshbalik's defence from 80% to 0% in two turns.



We have the power to wipe kublai khan out.



We're a bit behind Liz, however... This is still winnable.
First, we should go for kublai, the more land we have, the better. It's additional beakers! Why not, we've got the opportunity to do this. Kublai could give us rocketry and maybe some cities for peace. I'd take New Sarai and Karakorum, then grabbing rocketry for peace.
I couldn't raze samarqand and sparta, for some reason. I didn't get the opportunity. So I decided to take some more land...
There's a small window for us, still, but it's very small. Liz has built the 5 casings, the 3 thrusters, and the docking bay. This means she has robotics, so she's building the space elevator. If she gets it, it's over. No way out. We must build it, we're only one tech away from it, and we should rush-buy it. It's doable, even at the cost of losing population lowering the lux slider we must take the risk.
A war with liz seems almost mandatory, even if she has more power than us. The 4 spies are on a transport, and we must find out where are her forces, and maybe build some nukes. We must use all we have, nukes could be critical.
The spies could disconnect liz's aluminium... Sabotage... destroy oil wells and farms... we must cripple liz the most possible. Take out the improvements! The happiness isn't a problem for her, with all modern wonders. Go for the health!
The strategic disadvantage she has is being on the sea: we could potentially find the apollo city, nuke it 2-3 times, land some marine tanks and raze it in 1 turn! We should take the choice.
Our strategic disadvantage is that our best production sea cities are on the other side of the landmass, so our navy will be somewhat weak if we attack. A blitzkrieg could be the best option.
Tech-wise, I think the fiber optics choice was sub-optimal, since we won't have much room to build the internet (unrushable), and its use will be limited. Tech suggestion: robotics ASAP (even 0% lux). Then maybe fusion?
Beware of Cathy, we may declare to america to increase relationships, she's annoyed and could smash us anytime. Try to appease her!

- Oh, and welcome to the Sixties !

mucco

EDIT: the save...

 

[pholkhero]

are close enought that bombers could attack one of her cities??

edit: nice turns, btw...this is getting supremely interesting and becoming a very close race...I've never had to run w/this kind of plan, so i'm greatly looking forward to sabotaging the Engish spaceship

 

[ChrTh]

for bombers we'd have to get flight, and unless we get it for free, I'd rather not waste the beakers

Internet will get us Rocketry, maybe a couple other techs (need to look at save to see), I think it's worth it for that and for denial purposes.

JesusOnEez, you're up ... think you can take another healthy chunk out of Kublai?

 

[JesusOnEez]

I see it and will carry on researching to Internet. Given the fact we seem to be taking Kublai fairly easily, I may raze as many of his cities as possible and only take the really good ones. No point lowering our research rate by taking new cities, especially when we want a build up of money for spies (which I've never used before).

I won't be playing until tonight, so in the meantime can someone explain how spies work?

I assume you send them to enemy territory and they can show you all of the usual city information and you can sabotage a cities current build?

 

[Sina]

I won't be playing until tonight, so in the meantime can someone explain how spies work?

I assume you send them to enemy territory and they can show you all of the usual city information and you can sabotage a cities current build?

They are quite easy to use. You just move them onto the tile where the city is. Then you can open the city window and have a look at what Lizzy is doing. When the Spy is on the city tile, it will get additional options. One of them is to sabotage the cities production. This is, however, very expensive. The more turns are invested in the build, the more it will cost to sabotage.

If you have your Spy on a tile with improvement, you'll get the option to sabotage the tile improvement. This costs 200 gold.

I both cases there is a chance of being caught although I think it's lower for destroying the tile improvement. I had better results with it.

The first thing to do is to have a look at one city and find out what resources she has, then locate them and take them out with some Spies. Use another one to check cities for what they are producing and locate those that produce spaceship parts.

 

[ChrTh]

I've thought about it, and I'm wondering if we shouldn't build the Internet. The only other person who'll be able to get it in time is Liz, and that's production she's wasting instead of building spaceship parts.

I say make peace with Kublai (get Rocketry from him) after a couple more razes/captures. Since his new cities will have to have all the healthy buildings before they can be productive, they won't be a factor in the endgame, so I would build Culture/Research/Wealth in them: culture to expand the border, research until we have all the spaceship techs, and then wealth (or units).

I haven't looked at the save, but we should only need a couple more techs to build all the spaceship parts (and once we get them go to 100% wealth). By the time Apollo is finished, we should be able to have all our Factory+3 Gorges cities building pieces, the more production the bigger the part. Spies should be able to keep Liz down, but sabotaging tiles that she uses for trading may be our first course of action.

I'll try to look at the save later and expand these thoughts.

EDIT: Also, get back to OR as soon as possible. We need to build buildings still and OR makes it faster.

 

[mucco]

I've thought about it, and I'm wondering if we shouldn't build the Internet. The only other person who'll be able to get it in time is Liz, and that's production she's wasting instead of building spaceship parts.

I say make peace with Kublai (get Rocketry from him) after a couple more razes/captures. Since his new cities will have to have all the healthy buildings before they can be productive, they won't be a factor in the endgame, so I would build Culture/Research/Wealth in them: culture to expand the border, research until we have all the spaceship techs, and then wealth (or units).

Completely . We need the elevator, though. So maybe we could stop research a bit after researching robotics, we'll be able to build SS parts regardless (we won't even have the apollo completed!), so there's no need to squeeze our economy to get all techs faster. The SE is more important, I think.

Are you sure about OR, ChrTh? The infra are OK in most of the cities, there's a little lack of observatories, but... we're first in science at the moment. The cities that may need further infra are the new/little ones, which won't help building the SS. The core cities seem to have all that they need, and if they need many turns to build some infra, well... no chance we're beating Liz .
Theocracy COULD be useless at the moment, but we're getting promotions on our navy with it. If we'll go the war route, an extra promotion will be huge in the ocean.
Else, consider freedom of religion. We're losing the bonus with toku (danger!), but we're gaining in terms of happiness and science. Every turn is important here, so this is the moment of the definitive civic choice.

 

[ChrTh]

I need to look at the save before I can make a call on the Civics. Elevator would benefit from OR. It's hard to judge the effect of Freedom of Religion because of War Weariness ... but any science boost is useful. It's not an easy call. Pacifism and Paganism is out, though

If we're going to get a GPP anywhere soon, let's see if we can finagle a Great Engineer; that'll help with the Elevator as well.

Also, we lost our only Aluminum during the war, let's get it hooked back up asap.

 

[pholkhero]

Observatories are needed for labs don't forget and we'll need every bonus we can get to prod of parts...it's shouldn't be a question of whether we revolt to OrgRel or not, but when!

 

[mucco]

If OR bonus applies to SS parts, then it's obviously the best choice.
About the SE, we can speed it up with the great engineer from fusion, if it's still available. Liz doesn't seem so fast teching, if she hasn't got fusion yet we may take a shot.

 

[pholkhero]

no...not to confuse...it does NOT apply to SS parts, but the lab give the bonus, and we may wnat the OR bonus to build the obs and the labs

 

[ChrTh]

Techs:
We need Rocketry, Satellites, Genetics, Robotics, and Fusion. The fastest we can Robotics is 11 turns, 14 turns for Fusion. Elizabeth has Robotics (she got that over 10 turns ago). I suspect she'll beat us to the Space Elevator. She also has Ecology and Satellites. So that leaves Genetics and Fusion as the only techs she's missing to launch.

We need to get spies over there asap. I think we also will need the Internet to catch up some of the techs (Rocketry and Satellites, I hope). Since Elizabeth has Robotics, I'm inclined to head for Fusion next for the Great Engineer ... not going to be able to really build anything with him, but as a Super Specialist in Rome he may help out. Peace with Kublai is probably a good idea to get our citizens more productive ... but maybe razing New Sarai and Karakorum will be beneficial for cultural-pressure reasons.

It's a tough situation, no doubt.

 

[Sina]

I agree on getting back into OR soon and keeping our state religion. We can sure use the production boost for the Labs.

I'm not so sure about not building the internet. If we have researched for it now and it's not that far away, I would continue on this route. The SE is a lost cause as the AI goes for it and Lizzy has had the tech for a while and we don't have 2 GE hanging around (It needs 2 + some hammers if I remember correctly).

I have not seen the AI build the Internet though. I think the AI does not prioritize it unless 2 or more civs are up on techs to them, so I don't see Lizzy going for it anyway. This is purely speculative though, I don't possess any evidence to confirm this.

 

[ChrTh]

Yeah, I agree with Sina. I think going for the Internet is the way to go, and hoping that someone else has Satellites.

 

[JesusOnEez]

so I would build Culture/Research/Wealth in them

Doesn't this go against the variant of must build available health buildings first?

Glad I held off playing for a while so this conversation took place in time. I'm going to raze Karakaroum and New Sarai to ease cultural pressure and sue for peace for anything I can get. I'll change to OR straight away if this seems feasible and if we have enough units for the razing.

 

[ChrTh]

Doesn't this go against the variant of must build available health buildings first?

Er ... I didn't consider it when I made the rules, but I'd say 'No'. We say "build" culture, but we're not actually building anything.