Deity Is Insane

[superslug]

I haven't posted any public updates since the craziness that was my Deity20K game, but I've been playing a few more huge maps here and there.

I've been focusing on conquest. I'm open to whatever victory conditions come my way, but I'm still concerned about my ability to wage war on higher levels. To that end, I rolled a bunch of pangaea maps. To my dismay, I never found any opening spots with enough breathing room.

So I went back to archipelago. It's a counterintuitive choice for conquest, but it did buy me time to survive and grow until the Industrial Ages when I could access Communism, Steam Power, artillery, and my precious bombers.

I've exterminated the Americans with Mounted Warriors on my home continent. Overseas, I wiped out Egypt with cavalry, and the Inca got crushed under my tanks and bombers.

China has a continent to themselves and the tech lead. They've also built two spaceship parts and are working on a third. Since they're the imminent threat among the surviving AI, I've decided it's time to invade.

My spy tells me that they have ~600 military units. I'd probably face a counterattack of ~300 in the first turn.

I think my landing force is big enough to withstand the assault before going on offense, but getting them down there is making me build a bigger navy than I've ever done in Civ. I just built 60+ transports in a single turn by drafting several hundred mechanized infantry and then disbanding them for shields. I don't even want to think about how many people lost their lives rushing the rest.

I may post some pictures soon. This one is gonna be fun.

 

[Spoonwood]

What's the land percentage on your map Superslug?

 

[superslug]

Pretty sure I set it for 60% water for maximum land tiles. I wanted room to build at least 60 cities.

 

[Spoonwood]

Having you been getting gpt and lump sums of gold from these Deity AIs?

This thread might inspire me to play a Deity game, after I finish this Regent Arabian Huge game I have going.

 

[superslug]

Tech trading has been very lucrative in both lump sums and gpt deals.

 

[superslug]

 

[superslug]

When I typically land on an AI island, worker units are the last thing I think I'd bring along outside of settler creep or pop rushing. This time was a unique opportunity with not one but two peninsulas ripe for the taking. At the time of that screenshot, I was still at peace and RoP with China, but the tanks were protecting a stack of workers who were clearing the marsh for a settler unit.

 

[superslug]

 

[superslug]

14 game turns and one real life week later, my forces have landed. ROP not renewed. All trade deals expired.

My sincerest apologies to the residents of 0 Bait. Your future is bleak.

 

[superslug]

 

[superslug]

The Chinese have settlements on multiple islands and continents. I also don't want them bribing anyone to join them against me. Dogpiling every AI against them solves both problems for now.

 

[superslug]

 

[superslug]

150 bomber runs later, and China's 300 Mech Infantry and 100 Modern Armor couldn't reach any of my forces in one-turn. I pulled my one defender out of Bait town on the eastern peninsula and sailed him off on a transport. China took the bait and concentrated several hundred forces there.

The town will obviously fall next turn, but those 400 Chinese vehicles will get hit several times by my bombers before they could even hope to get to the western peninsula. I've got nearly 100 artillery, a dozen armies, and hundreds of my own tanks and mechs waiting for them.

They're still three technologies away from building the final SS parts, and I'm confident Beijing will be an ashtray by then. Then, it's just a city-by-city grind.

Hopefully, my artillery stack can carry on the conquest. My bombers will need to come home to deal with the Zulu at some point. They're the only other AI to have built SS parts or have a nuclear arsenal.

 

[Southern_Man]

What are you doing with the Chinese forces that went after bait town? Are you blocking them with armies from returning to the active battlefield.

Sorry, it looks like you are just distracting them and I looked at the map too quickly. So a more focused question now....Once the forces are bombed down but then they come and swarm towards the western peninsula, do you have a strategy to utilize then? Will you use a funnel of doom or funnel of deception? Will you protect that town with just one army blocking all marches, or even possibly a barricade and a defender (mech infantry?). I haven't done the math but I don't think it would attack a barricaded mech infantry with a tank. I've read a fair bit of tactics on combat at higher levels, but have no real experience of it myself, so I struggle to figure out the right tactics to utilize in a particular situation.

 

[superslug]

The Chinese did take over the bait city as planned and put a lot of units into it. I used my bombers to kill them all and make the city empty again. This made it bait for one more turn.

The irrigated tile two squares away from Canton has ~100 artillery sitting in it. I used that, bombers, and armies to take over Canton before also evacuating that town. It was secondary bait.

The Aztecs have landed ground forces, too.

Between all that and the AI's reluctance to attack a healthy army in the field, my line has barely been touched except by a few cruise missiles.

 

[superslug]

The Mongols sneak attacked me on my home continent. My MPP with the Zulu came in very handy, but I can't sit back and let Shaka handle it for me. Genghis is at least six or seven technologies behind everyone else, but what he lacks in quality he makes up for in quantity of units.

I now face a two-front war home and overseas, and I'm reliant on help from the Zulu who are building both a nuclear arsenal and spaceship parts of their own. I'll have to turn on them myself soon enough.

This game will take time and not have a great FF date. As best I can recall, the Huge/Deity/Conquest table only had three entries. I'd be proud to have any Deity slot, but a #4 sounds good to me, regardless of how it stacks up against the existing entries.

It'll be nice to have the HOF back online after the server migration.

 

[superslug]

10 days later, a lone Modern Armor rolls into the bombed-out remains of Beijing.

The Chinese space ship is destroyed.

I was very tempted to burn the city to the ground, but I pulled the workers and artillery out with my MA unit. The empty shell of their former capital will now serve a turn or two as bait and keep their several hundred surviving units off of my frontline.

Most of their Modern Armor is gone, but there's one tile with at least 200 MI on it, and there's plenty of foot soldiers behind. My artillery and bombers have been concentrating on 3-movement units first.

 

[superslug]

CHINA

The Chinese are putting up a better fight than I could have imagined. Their SAM units and jet fighters whittled my 150 bombers down to under 100 at one point. I hunted their SAM units down without mercy and have eliminated all but one. I also replenished my bomber ranks back to higher numbers.

In my last week of game play, I haven't taken a single Chinese city. That stack of 200+ mechanized infantry is impossible to reduce if it's all on one tile. I have to bomb at least two cities to emptiness for the MI to split up and refill Canton and Beijing.

Without cities falling, it's a war of spreadsheet attrition. They seem to build/draft between 5 and 15 units per turn, but my artillery and bombers can often kill between 30 and 40. At some point, their offensive units will be done, and my tanks will roll.

MONGOLS

The sneak attack on my home continent was a bad idea. I brought some artillery and tanks home from the Chinese front, built more, and enlisted the support of my Zulu neighbors. I now have a stack of doom settler creeping its way through the Mongol heartland.

Their defeat is highly likely. The trick is making sure I beat the advancing Zulu forces to the two sources of Uranium up for grabs. That missing resource prevents them from building the last three spaceship components.

AZTECS

They declared war on the Zulu for some reason, but I have an MPP with the Zulu. War with the Aztecs is highly likely in the next turn.

I'm fighting alongside the Aztecs on the Chinese island, they have a few cities and troops on my home continent, and I have dozens of vulnerable cities on their home continent. I didn't want this complication.

VICTORY CONDITION

With over 200 turns left, I can't rule out finishing my original goal of conquest, but I'm also hedging my bets. If this game gets to be too overwhelming, I'll either hold a UN vote or build my own spaceship and launch.