DuneWars: Battle for Arrakis

[Slvynn]

Yep now its too late, but i'd like BTl being removed as well. Perhaps if fremen grow strong we can ask them to kill BTl by their own. This will remove risk from us of being plagued. We also can give them some more stuff like transport to be sure they will make their final blow to BTl.

Also please do following if you want to install 1.6.4

1. Copy your DW folder.
2. Call Folder Dune Wars 1.6.3
3. Install 1.6.4
4. Rename Dune Wars to Dune Wars 1.6.4
5. Rename Dune Wars 1.6.3 back to Dune Wars.

Thats because installer which install patch on Dune Wars folder only.
Playing game with different folder name will deny you from loading save, Civ IV Load other folders name, in which save was started – that’s old Civ IV issue. So make sure that new , 1.6.4 will have named Dune 1.6.4 after installing, and old version just Dune Wars

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Nice wars. (And no, I didn't bulb theocracy, I used the GP for golden age--it must have been researched after my turnset)
Ix would be a good target (the capital is still right next to Wind Pass, right?)

 

[Slvynn]

Ah then no theo, so summary

long term
Solaris Economy > Vendettas > Air Combat (Buzzard/ Locust / Suspensor Cariers / Desert Airfileds / 11 xp air units on carriers tech path

short term
Amassing military to assault Ix
Peace with Corrino,
attempt to fuel Fremen against BTl. (Gifting units to them perhaps)?

 

[Ahriman]

I though we gonna make quick final blow to Tleilaxu before Ahrimans set, but now its late to do that

No-one mentioned that, I though conensus was Ix was our next target.

So, i will sign peace with Shadam and will start mass invasion on Ix.

Ok, but it could be very very bloody. Recon run their cities first to check how big their defense stacks are. Wasp bombardment could help; are they in range?

My tech aim will be Solaris Economy (+25 commerce, and +2/3 health from water souks), then Kanly for now (Vendettas)

I disagree here.
Vendettas gives us heavy troopers, which are city defenders. We should be heading for personal shields or Desert Rites (if we can get water debt). We need assault troops for taking cities, not city defenders. Kanly isn't worth it yet.

As for Theocrathy - we already have that one. (Another Pacifist bulbed it once)

Bulbed it? Thats kindof a waste, given a specialist economy.
I thought he just talked about it. Ah well, whats done is done.

I propose to go for terraformation later

I strongly oppose this. Way of Liet is a relatively cheap tech, only one tech away from our path to chemical explosives, and we can revolt to Way of

Terraforming is also very slow, and takes time; unlike other civics, you don't get the benefits as soon as you switch, the benefits come slowly over time.

We can also gift techs to Fremen to get them to Way of Liet, and improve our diplomacy with them, so that they will maybe trade us Water Debt.

But the costs of getting it now are low, and the benefits are large; this seems like a no-brainer to me.

When we will get Air combat

We will have much more value for moeny by getting tier2 combat techs like personal shields before trying to get expensiev tier3 techs like air combat.

Fremen settlers are sandriding, but nevermind.

You know that, and I know that, but the Fremen AI doesn't really know that yet. We're working on it, it will hopefully be improved in the 1.6.4 (just released). So yes, the transport will help them.

How many landing stage can we build? I hoped it wasn't a big mistake to pick the wine.

2. Getting the wine was not really a mistake at all; we woudl have picked it as our second luxury good the next turn anyway (as I did). It cost us nothing this game. When landing stages aren't free again, it could potentially cost something if other civs grab the other resources before they're done.

But its a very minor issue.

I'm surprised the Tleilaxu still alive

I assumed we were leaving them for now, they are no threat. Also, if I'd tried taking more cities, then we woudl have been unable to hold off the Corrino and Ordos invasion, and potentially lost multiple cities. I would rather have cities controlled by weak players than strong ones.

I we don't like the city upkeep, just give it to the Fremen. It's easier than building a settler and gives us experience, too.

I don't understand this. Which cities do you want to give away?

 

[Ahriman]

Solaris Economy > Vendettas > Air Combat

Way of Liet -> Desert industry (or water conservation) -> Personal Shields.

 

[Slvynn]

No-one mentioned that, I though conensus was Ix was our next target.

After we finish BTl. It was clear - there were landed zealots on distant landmass.
That not good for us to leave them .

Ok, but it could be very very bloody. Recon run their cities first to check how big their defense stacks are. Wasp bombardment could help; are they in range?

Wind Pass. They are.

I disagree here.
Vendettas gives us heavy troopers, which are city defenders. We should be heading for personal shields or Desert Rites (if we can get water debt). We need assault troops for taking cities, not city defenders. Kanly isn't worth it yet.
I strongly oppose this. Way of Liet is a relatively cheap tech, only one tech away from our path to chemical explosives, and we can revolt to Way of

Terraforming is also very slow, and takes time; unlike other civics, you don't get the benefits as soon as you switch, the benefits come slowly over time.

Ok its cheap but we wont go deep into terraforming for now - its unwise.
We need military, and we have not good military yet, its backward-tech one. We have backward units and thats is critical.

Kanly is worth it and i am strongly oppose thing you propose. We can attck with missile launchers, which are WAY better than those shield guys.
We need to head to Air combat, which have huge benefit.
7 xp Missile launchers with collaterial promotions - you VERY understimate it.
We need siege craft.
We need air units, which have strong synergy with our civ. 11 xp is not a joke, 12 str thopters, carriers.... And much much early - Missile launchers, which are just awesome for our case. They are on way we need. Shield fighters - i dont see how htta tech lead us into proper tech path, you see?

We can also gift techs to Fremen to get them to Way of Liet, and improve our diplomacy with them, so that they will maybe trade us Water Debt.

Thats it - get Arrakis paradise tech and then Kanly - but before - Solaris Economy.
Are you sure that that civic is better short term solaris seconomy? Man Solaris Economy Water Souk provide +25% and 3 health. To every city. Its huge. That is tech n1 priority.

But the costs of getting it now are low, and the benefits are large; this seems like a no-brainer to me.

Benefits are much less than Solaris economy. Seems to be a brainer for me.

We will have much more value for moeny by getting tier2 combat techs like personal shields before trying to get expensiev tier3 techs like air combat.

As i said - we will have much more value prefering collaterial damage sige craft which lead us to our synergy tier 3

2. Getting the wine was not really a mistake at all; we woudl have picked it as our second luxury good the next turn anyway (as I did). It cost us nothing this game. When landing stages aren't free again, it could potentially cost something if other civs grab the other resources before they're done.

agree

I assumed we were leaving them for now, they are no threat. Also, if I'd tried taking more cities, then we woudl have been unable to hold off the Corrino and Ordos invasion, and potentially lost multiple cities. I would rather have cities controlled by weak players than strong ones.

there are harkonnens , thats why defence units + siege is better pick.
We need to defend numerous cities.

I don't understand this. Which cities do you want to give away?

He wanted to give to Fremen BTl cities. (those which you didnt took)

 

[Slvynn]

Way of Liet -> Desert industry (or water conservation) -> Personal Shields.

Disagree. Lets vote.

again :

Solaris Economy > Vendettas > Air Combat (through Liquid Fuel - Missile launchers)

all explained in post above.
Solaris economy +25% commerce +3 health to all our cities. 7 turns research time.
Kanly give civic +4 xp to units and defence unit of hight str.
Liquid Fuel will make us fast missile launchers with collaterial and 7 xp using canly (2 collaterial upgrades)
Then Air Combat - Carriers, Buzzard Thopters 12 str, and more xp for air units resulting in 11 xp total (3 lvl unit from oven, can be carrier by carriers)

I'll will wait for input of other 3 players - please - read both my and ahrimans posts and check save.
We need defencive units, good ones. Harkonenen will knock soon to our door. Ecaz are near too. Waiting for Shield fighters is unvise. They are also expensive and much less effective is compared to shield fighters , if we take production costs and effectivness into consideration.
We have synergy with later Air Combat (pilot schools) - its our aim to be close to path of synergy. Ablative Shields not taking any way closer to something good for us in long term .

I think i explained myself quite logically, and , in any ways i fail to see how is not going for Solaris economy is best for us.
Also i fail see how we plan to defend with current unit types. You forget about Ecaz and Harkonnen.
And, at end i fail to see our gains by postponing our synergy air techs (Air combat) and fail to see how is getting fast missile lauchers with 7 xp can be bad.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I think I agree with Slyvnn. Right now our enemies can still get to our core cities in 1-2 moves (Ix for example), and until you have some frontier cities dedicated to assault/defense, terraforming is just not safe now. Once Ixian territory is ours, it will be time to terraform.
And we need siege machines to let our zealots do their thing before they're outdated (already?).
BTW, can we trade for cheap early techs like solar power and wind power now from somebody?

 

[Ahriman]

After we finish BTl. It was clear - there were landed zealots on distant landmass.

<shrug> I assumed that changed when the previous player made peace.
Anyway, like I said, I'm glad we didnt' take them, or we would have lost cities to Corrino/Ordos.

Ok its cheap but we wont go deep into terraforming for now - its unwise.

How is it unwise?
If you mean, we won't spend lots of time buildnig catchbasins now, thats fine, I have no problem with that. But just changing to Arrakis Paradise civic gives a 1% terraform chance even with no catchbasins, and we have a lot of tiles with freshwater from wells.

Kanly is worth it and i am strongly oppose thing you propose. We can attck with missile launchers, which are WAY better than those shield guys.

Missile launchers, strength 8, +50% city attack.
Shield Fighter, strength 12, +~20% city attack (I forget exact number)

So: city attack 2 missile launcher = strength 8, with strength 15.2 attacking cities (and can they even kill units?
City attack 2 shield fighter: strength 12, strength 19.2

Kanly will give at most one more unit level, so 10-20% modifier.

I have no problem with buildnig some missile launchers (do we have nitrates resource? I forget), but I don't think they're enough on their own. They certainly won't be if our enemies get heavy troopers.
We can bombard with aircraft too.

Are you sure that that civic is better short term solaris seconomy

Solaris economy is relatively cheap. I'm fine with getting solaris economy before way of liet as long as we can get solaris economy immeidately.

But recognize the difference; Solaris economy gives a bonus after we build structures everywhere; way of liet starts giving us benefits even without diverting any resources away from the military.

But I really recommend Way of Liet before Vendettas. Way of Liet will be very cheap; Vendettas is much more expensive.

there are harkonnens , thats why defence units + siege is better pick.
We need to defend numerous cities.

This makes no sense to me. You say this in response to why I didn't start attacking Tleilaxu again, over-extending us.
Siege units are terrible city defenders. Whereas shield fighters (with cultural defenses) are still good, and are strong enoguh to destroy incomnig suspensor destroyers.
So a mix of shield fighters + missile launchers is much stronger than a mix of heavy troopers + missile launchers.

Also, what happens if the enemies start building Force shields? Shield fighters ignore them, none of the others do, and it takes a long time to bomb them down.

You also seem to be leaving Liquid Fuel out of your tech path, I don't think we have this yet.
There is bad synergy between Liquid fuel and vendettas; missile troopers are also ok city defenders.
Whereas there is better synergy between liquid fuel and personal shields.

Then Air Combat

IIRC, Air Combat is very very expensive. We can get many, many, cheaper techs (way of liet, imperialism, desert industry, water discipline, academies etc. etc) for the price of pushing to that tier3 tech.

As a compromise, I propose:
Solaris Economy -> Way of Liet -> Vendettas -> Liquid Fuel -> Water Discipline -> Desert Industry - > Personal shields -> Air combat.
And maybe Academies or Guild Banking in there before air combat.

This would give you most of what you want.

Take a look at how expensive air combat is and how long it would take, particularly without academies for universities first.

 

[Ahriman]

I don't understand the opposition to way of liet; all it costs us is like 3-4 turns of research. That's it.

And the economy benefits from Water Discipline and Desert Industry are large, we won't be able to afford building air combat units without larger cities and deep mines.

If someone could post the beaker costs of the techs under discussion, it would probably be very helpful.

 

[Slvynn]

As a compromise, I propose:
Solaris Economy -> Way of Liet -> Vendettas -> Liquid Fuel -> Water Discipline -> Desert Industry - > Personal shields -> Air combat.
And maybe Academies or Guild Banking in there before air combat.

As compromise - i agree with this, with removal of Personal Shields.
Yep Solaris Economy aviable right now, 7 turns with unexpensive building with huge benefits of 3 health and 25% cash income.
Missile launchers with kanly = 2 levels = 2 collaterial promotions. Thats a HUGE bonus. Shield fighters cant do collaterial damage. Missile laucnhers do that and are on way to Air Combat, getting us closer there.
Specialised units are better. Defenders should defend and it will make good hammer outcome of defence, and missile lauchers will do collaterial, and bombard (you also forgot missile troopers - which will intercept our low-tech aircraft, rendering hornet borbardment completely uneffective)

 

[Ahriman]

As compromise - i agree with this, with removal of Personal Shields.

You really think you can take cities defended by heavy troopers and rollers with just missile launchers without very large losses?

With hornets and shield fighters, we can take defenses low enough that the shield fighters mostly win, and so we preserve our army.

With double collateral damage missile launchers, you will have to suicide a lot of missile launchers in order to take cities. That's not very sustainable.

Bombers and shield fighters will be much more effective than using lots of missile launchers.

 

[Slvynn]

You really think you can take cities defended by heavy troopers and rollers with just missile launchers without very large losses?

With hornets and shield fighters, we can take defenses low enough that the shield fighters mostly win, and so we preserve our army.

With double collateral damage missile launchers, you will have to suicide a lot of missile launchers in order to take cities. That's not very sustainable.

Bombers and shield fighters will be much more effective than using lots of missile launchers.

You need 1 missile laucher to suicide, others will bomb. Then you go with zealots and heavy troopers,
You forget that Venddettas unit is hight str and still very good for clearing, so it will be polishing unit, which take cities.
Hornets are junk because of intercepting rocket/missile troopers.
So you'll have shield fighters attacking full % of cultural defences.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Getting Way of Liet also has some political advantages. Remind all of us novices please, Ahriman (not Prince of Persia, lol, no pun intended), which civs hate Arrakis Paradise and which civs like it? (Maybe we can finally get some stronger allies other than the Fremen who like Paradise, against the Harkonnens)

 

[Slvynn]

Getting Way of Liet also has some political advantages. Remind all of us novices please, Ahriman (not Prince of Persia, lol, no pun intended), which civs hate Arrakis Paradise and which civs like it? (Maybe we can finally get some stronger allies other than the Fremen who like Paradise, against the Harkonnens)

AFAIK Atreides and Fremen and may be BG that like Arrakis Paradise.
Ordos, Ecaz, Harkonen, Ix, Corrino are choam spice consumers. Never seen them adopting Paradise civic. Always Spice one.
If we to convert to Paradise now - Ecaz will join coup against us with harkonnens. thats where Heavy Trooper will be usefull. And without it early - i am not sure we will be able to hold all our cities.

 

[Ahriman]

You need 1 missile laucher to suicide, others will bomb. Then you go with zealots and heavy troopers,

1 suicide really won't do that much damage, and zealots will get slaughtered by defending heavy troopers, and heavy troopers will die too. They're only strength 10, with no attack bonuses.

Anyway, we could go:
Solaris Economy -> Way of Liet -> Vendettas -> Liquid Fuel -> Water Discipline -> Desert Industry
for now and then re-evaluate whether or not we need Personal Shields. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. If you're right, and we don't, then we can skip it. Does that seem reasonable?
(Also.... I have a feeling Liquid Fuel is going to *require* Desert Industry.)

We could also pick up Theocracy at some point in there, they will be fairly cheap by then.
We'll probably need some more workers too to start building level 2 mines and wells. Those take a long time.

Ordos, Ecaz, Harkonen, Ix, Corrino are choam spice consumers. Never seen them adopting Paradise civic. Always Spice one.

Corrino and Ecaz and BG hate paradise. Ix and Ordos don't care either way, but may still adopt spice industry (which makes them hate paradise).

 

[Ahriman]

Another thought; as much as possible, we should defend our lands in the desert, using hornets to soften and then thopters to attack incoming stacks with transports. So a large airforce will help us a lot, and run regular recon runs each turn into the desert (or station sentried thopters) to keep watch for attackers.

If we can get Wormriders from Fremen water debt at some stage it would be even better.

 

[negyvenketto]

I think we should trade Climate Controls from the Fremen and believe we will be able to do the same with Way of Liet soon.
Solaris Economy -> Imperialism -> Landstraad -> Vendettas -> Chem. Explosives -> Liquid Fuel will be more than enough for the next 20 turns and we can discuss again after.

 

[Slvynn]

I think we should trade Climate Controls from the Fremen and believe we will be able to do the same with Way of Liet soon.
Solaris Economy -> Imperialism -> Landstraad -> Vendettas -> Chem. Explosives -> Liquid Fuel will be more than enough for the next 20 turns and we can discuss again after.

Agree )
3 against 1 atm
and yep we can trade cheap techs like way of liet

As about air defence -agree 200% completely - thats where our hornets still can be very usefull, but not in bombing cities.

 

[Ahriman]

I think we should trade Climate Controls from the Fremen

If the Fremen have climate controls now (which would surprise me) then by all means trade for it. We should trade for any tech the Fremen ever get that we don't. But I suspect they won't have any.

and believe we will be able to do the same with Way of Liet soon

and yep we can trade cheap techs like way of liet

The Fremen have no economy. They are not going to be able to research techs like this for a very long time.

We should research this ourself. It is cheap, relative to other techs at this stage. And its required for water discipline tech, which will provide a big economic boost.

As about air defence -agree 200% completely

Air defenses lowers the urgency for building lots of city defensive units urgently; we can do it with hornets and falcon thopters.

thats where our hornets still can be very usefull, but not in bombing cities.

Why not? If the enemy doesn't have missile troopers?

Solaris Economy -> Imperialism -> Landstraad -> Vendettas -> Chem. Explosives ->

Chemical explosives is vey cheap relative to Landsraad and Vendettas, we should get it much earlier, mortars will be helpful in attacking Ix.

Do we really have 3 votes against a very short side-track to get us way of liet? (And weather scanners, which will be a large economy boost especially for our polar cities).
The benefits are large and the costs are small. Why should we delay?

Take a look at the tech beaker costs, and how expensive things like landsraad and vendettas are compared to techs like climate controls.