Aluminum allows modern armor to be built. Uranium is a substitute for oil for certain units. Can't remember which. I think destroyer? Oil is for almost all modern units.
Emperor Domination
- Thread starter futurehermit
- Start date
Aluminum allows modern armor to be built. Uranium is a substitute for oil for certain units. Can't remember which. I think destroyer? Oil is for almost all modern units.
lasombra
Warlord
hmmm, that sucks!
Turn 0: Reviewing the active trades screen, I notice that we're trading away our only sources of Wine and Spices (due to pillaging) rather than redundant resources. Fixed. Adjust some tiles and some build queues -- panzers in cities with MIs, bombers elsewhere, a few workers (we're down to 5, with significant repair work to be done). Took a peek at GW's island:
I think the navy should take of that before moving south. He doesn't have enough ground troops to transport out now, but I don't want to worry about it. Air recon shows minimal forces (~4 units) in Magyar, LA, and Chicago, but a stack of 9 mechs, 7 artillery in New York. I move our army (13 panzers, 8 artillery, 4 marines, a few obsolete units to absorb collateral) west out of Leptis.
Turn 1: Golden Age ends, so I adjust a few tiles. Nappy's brought a small stack:
I hit it with the fighters (gunships mostly reduced ~20%), and sit tight. Trade Flight+Radio to Ghengis for Plastics. Make a new Medic III to go with the ground stack.
Turn 2: Win 4 defensive fights, safe. He's still got 11 troops there, so I do it again.
Turn 3: Some bombers available now, but not enough to use against GW. I knock Nappy's boys down to half strength and win several marine-gunship fights (80-90%). GW's island-based fighters are destroying tile improvements around Berlin, so I shift some fighters to Berlin to intercept until I'm ready to storm the beaches (waiting on a second transport + the troops to fill them). Meanwhile:
I've only got 3 fighters available, but two get through to soften up mechs. Four artillery bring down the walls, and the CR3 panzers have favorable odds. Both win, and I take the city with no losses.
Turn 4: Nappy suicides several units, but GW is more effective, throwing mechs at the city to kill several panzers. I screwed this up, by forgetting to give the marines city garrison promotions, so the panzers are chosen as the defenders. I kill his dudes in retaliation, but the offence will have to pause for a turn or two.
Turn 5: Load the transports.
Turn 6: Storm the island. After softening it up with airplanes, I lose a marine and a panzer taking it amphibiously (both favorable fights). Three of his transports and 3 destroyers sunk in port, too. I manuever the original medic III out of Carthage (which has become isolated due to pillaged railroads) and shoot up some more pillagers. Artillery move towards LA, guarded by marines. The tanks will catch up next turn.
Turn 7: Advance on LA. Rebase the air force to Utica.
Turn 8: The setup after my air force has worked him over:
I take it with no losses, but decide not to hold it this turn. Culture lifts enough for me to reinforce the stack, however. And then, I'm looking around with a spare plane:
Aw, damn. Our life just got a lot harder. In between turns, stealth bombers take out our Oil (ouch!) and Dye.
Turn 9: Ghengis quits the war. Coward. GW restaffs LA with another half dozen units. I lose a bomber to a jet fighter, a suicide arty, and a 94% panzer (trying to milk enough XPs to get him to CR3). Occupy in force.
Turn 10: Computers in, set to Fiber Optics. Oil and Dye back online. Advance the artillery (plus some cover, of course) towards New York.
SW of LA: 1 panzer, 1 marine, 2 infantry, 5 artillery.
In LA: 10 panzers (healing or newly arrived), 2 artillery, 1 marine, 1 medic III.
Washington's forces are pretty beat down: He has 8 artillery in Atlanta and 5 in Washington, and otherwise just 3-5 defensive-looking units per city. And note that he has not railroaded his land, so his mobility is low.
The air force: 11 fighters and 10 bombers, all in Utica with the other medic III. Lost some bombers to jet fighters, replacements under construction.
The navy: 2 transports mothballed in Berlin. 1 destroyer + 1 battleship guarding each coast vs. pillagers (I caught one French U-boat, so stay alert). 1 destroyer + 3 battleships + 2 carriers almost in place off the south coast. Nappy's only got 1-2 jet fighters per city, so I'm still hopeful we can disrupt his Aluminum just on the numbers. But I don't know, I've never actually tried fighters vs. jets before, we may just lose a bunch of planes. I still think it's worth trying.
Sorted by hammers. I figured we should put West Point in our most productive city (Munich, Ironworks), which doesn't have any settled MIs. A few places need jails, this'll bring us up to 13 workers (repairing damage from bombing raids as well as rehabilitating liberated lands), otherwise it's panzers and bombers.
We have Computers on both Mehmed and Ghengis. Personally I'm not inclined to trade (hold out for the Internet), but I'm willing to listen to arguments otherwise. Fascism permits Rushmore, Communism permits State Property (we're still in Merc). Or it might be possible to bribe Ghengis back into the war in ~9 turns. Or at some point, one of them might offer Rocketry (gunships and SAMs as stack protectors).
At break-even research (55%), Fiber Optics will take about 20 turns, minus about 3 turns if we can spawn a GS in Berlin in time. Right now I've got it set to production tiles to get its jail done, but the next player should switch it to a large number of scientists once that's done. Once Fiber Optics is in, Munich will take 9 or 10 turns to build the Internet, maybe slightly less if we temporarily starve it for extra workshops.
peace,
lilnev
p.s. On modern resources, and the conduct of an air war in the face of a technologically superior foe:
Aluminum is required for modern armor, stealth bombers (important for us, but the AI won't use them effectively), and jet fighters. The last is possibly the most important, because it significantly raises the casualty rate of bombers. We can still use them, if we do it right: the first several planes each turn will be intercepted. But each anti-air unit only gets to intercept once per turn, so if we have an excess of bombers, the later ones can get free shots. Generally lead with fighters before bombers, and always use healthy planes first (much more likely to survive being intercepted). Damaged planes can be used last if they're needed, or else allowed to heal. Facing jets, we should probably only use the air force every two or three turns, and not give him any interception targets on the off turns. Unfortunately that means slowing down to artillery speed for now, but so be it. Use the artillery to knock down walls, then the air force to air strike the units inside down to half strength, then capture with the panzers, all in the same turn. Try not to deploy planes against single pillagers, as the interception costs will be pretty steep against the rewards. But if there are multiple pillagers and the air force isn't otherwise needed this turn or next, go for it.
Oil is required for all modern units except mechs and artillery. It's not at all irrelevent, I just think it's too deep in his territory for now. Once we break a few border cities and deal with his reserves to put him in turtle mode, it can become an objective.
Uranium is an oil substitute for naval units, and of course for nukes. No one has Fission yet, so I'm not worrying about it yet.
I think the navy should take of that before moving south. He doesn't have enough ground troops to transport out now, but I don't want to worry about it. Air recon shows minimal forces (~4 units) in Magyar, LA, and Chicago, but a stack of 9 mechs, 7 artillery in New York. I move our army (13 panzers, 8 artillery, 4 marines, a few obsolete units to absorb collateral) west out of Leptis.
Turn 1: Golden Age ends, so I adjust a few tiles. Nappy's brought a small stack:
I hit it with the fighters (gunships mostly reduced ~20%), and sit tight. Trade Flight+Radio to Ghengis for Plastics. Make a new Medic III to go with the ground stack.
Turn 2: Win 4 defensive fights, safe. He's still got 11 troops there, so I do it again.
Turn 3: Some bombers available now, but not enough to use against GW. I knock Nappy's boys down to half strength and win several marine-gunship fights (80-90%). GW's island-based fighters are destroying tile improvements around Berlin, so I shift some fighters to Berlin to intercept until I'm ready to storm the beaches (waiting on a second transport + the troops to fill them). Meanwhile:
I've only got 3 fighters available, but two get through to soften up mechs. Four artillery bring down the walls, and the CR3 panzers have favorable odds. Both win, and I take the city with no losses.
Turn 4: Nappy suicides several units, but GW is more effective, throwing mechs at the city to kill several panzers. I screwed this up, by forgetting to give the marines city garrison promotions, so the panzers are chosen as the defenders. I kill his dudes in retaliation, but the offence will have to pause for a turn or two.
Turn 5: Load the transports.
Turn 6: Storm the island. After softening it up with airplanes, I lose a marine and a panzer taking it amphibiously (both favorable fights). Three of his transports and 3 destroyers sunk in port, too. I manuever the original medic III out of Carthage (which has become isolated due to pillaged railroads) and shoot up some more pillagers. Artillery move towards LA, guarded by marines. The tanks will catch up next turn.
Turn 7: Advance on LA. Rebase the air force to Utica.
Turn 8: The setup after my air force has worked him over:
I take it with no losses, but decide not to hold it this turn. Culture lifts enough for me to reinforce the stack, however. And then, I'm looking around with a spare plane:
Aw, damn. Our life just got a lot harder. In between turns, stealth bombers take out our Oil (ouch!) and Dye.
Turn 9: Ghengis quits the war. Coward. GW restaffs LA with another half dozen units. I lose a bomber to a jet fighter, a suicide arty, and a 94% panzer (trying to milk enough XPs to get him to CR3). Occupy in force.
Turn 10: Computers in, set to Fiber Optics. Oil and Dye back online. Advance the artillery (plus some cover, of course) towards New York.
SW of LA: 1 panzer, 1 marine, 2 infantry, 5 artillery.
In LA: 10 panzers (healing or newly arrived), 2 artillery, 1 marine, 1 medic III.
Washington's forces are pretty beat down: He has 8 artillery in Atlanta and 5 in Washington, and otherwise just 3-5 defensive-looking units per city. And note that he has not railroaded his land, so his mobility is low.
The air force: 11 fighters and 10 bombers, all in Utica with the other medic III. Lost some bombers to jet fighters, replacements under construction.
The navy: 2 transports mothballed in Berlin. 1 destroyer + 1 battleship guarding each coast vs. pillagers (I caught one French U-boat, so stay alert). 1 destroyer + 3 battleships + 2 carriers almost in place off the south coast. Nappy's only got 1-2 jet fighters per city, so I'm still hopeful we can disrupt his Aluminum just on the numbers. But I don't know, I've never actually tried fighters vs. jets before, we may just lose a bunch of planes. I still think it's worth trying.
Sorted by hammers. I figured we should put West Point in our most productive city (Munich, Ironworks), which doesn't have any settled MIs. A few places need jails, this'll bring us up to 13 workers (repairing damage from bombing raids as well as rehabilitating liberated lands), otherwise it's panzers and bombers.
We have Computers on both Mehmed and Ghengis. Personally I'm not inclined to trade (hold out for the Internet), but I'm willing to listen to arguments otherwise. Fascism permits Rushmore, Communism permits State Property (we're still in Merc). Or it might be possible to bribe Ghengis back into the war in ~9 turns. Or at some point, one of them might offer Rocketry (gunships and SAMs as stack protectors).
At break-even research (55%), Fiber Optics will take about 20 turns, minus about 3 turns if we can spawn a GS in Berlin in time. Right now I've got it set to production tiles to get its jail done, but the next player should switch it to a large number of scientists once that's done. Once Fiber Optics is in, Munich will take 9 or 10 turns to build the Internet, maybe slightly less if we temporarily starve it for extra workshops.
peace,
lilnev
p.s. On modern resources, and the conduct of an air war in the face of a technologically superior foe:
Aluminum is required for modern armor, stealth bombers (important for us, but the AI won't use them effectively), and jet fighters. The last is possibly the most important, because it significantly raises the casualty rate of bombers. We can still use them, if we do it right: the first several planes each turn will be intercepted. But each anti-air unit only gets to intercept once per turn, so if we have an excess of bombers, the later ones can get free shots. Generally lead with fighters before bombers, and always use healthy planes first (much more likely to survive being intercepted). Damaged planes can be used last if they're needed, or else allowed to heal. Facing jets, we should probably only use the air force every two or three turns, and not give him any interception targets on the off turns. Unfortunately that means slowing down to artillery speed for now, but so be it. Use the artillery to knock down walls, then the air force to air strike the units inside down to half strength, then capture with the panzers, all in the same turn. Try not to deploy planes against single pillagers, as the interception costs will be pretty steep against the rewards. But if there are multiple pillagers and the air force isn't otherwise needed this turn or next, go for it.
Oil is required for all modern units except mechs and artillery. It's not at all irrelevent, I just think it's too deep in his territory for now. Once we break a few border cities and deal with his reserves to put him in turtle mode, it can become an objective.
Uranium is an oil substitute for naval units, and of course for nukes. No one has Fission yet, so I'm not worrying about it yet.
pigswill
fly (one day)
Still on 28% land; Napoleon will give you another 29%; if Washington gives you 7-8% you'll be ok but you have to annihliate both of them (and grab the territory) before a launch. Interesting.
lasombra
Warlord
hmm, just had a stupid idea: shoot down GW to one city and sue for peace with a bunch of techs. then I remembered that he's nappy's vassal...
To me it seems like nappy doesn't have that many troops, so if we just keep rolling and tech to the internet in the meantime...
To me it seems like nappy doesn't have that many troops, so if we just keep rolling and tech to the internet in the meantime...
futurehermit
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2006
- Messages
- 5,724
Ok, nice round! I figure things should go like this:
1) Mop up GW
2) Put Nappy into turtle mode
3) Take the 4 key cities, razing if necessary
4) Mop up Nappy
5) Invade whoever is weaker between Mehmed and Genghis and win before one of them launches
That is a tall order. I am thinking we need to get Scotland yard produced so we can get spies overseas to slow them down as needed.
1) Mop up GW
2) Put Nappy into turtle mode
3) Take the 4 key cities, razing if necessary
4) Mop up Nappy
5) Invade whoever is weaker between Mehmed and Genghis and win before one of them launches
That is a tall order. I am thinking we need to get Scotland yard produced so we can get spies overseas to slow them down as needed.
futurehermit
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2006
- Messages
- 5,724
ok, great!
Galileo44
Great Scientist
Can anybody post a graph of production or power, so we know where we stand with our chances against Nappy and the others?
Sorry for being so unhelpful these last few turns.
Sorry for being so unhelpful these last few turns.
Galileo44
Great Scientist
*Double Post*
pigswill
fly (one day)
Lurking
Re Vassalising Washington. If Washington loses 50% land/pop then he can break vassalge with Napoleon and you can then go for peace with Washington seperately. In my limited experience you tend to get capitulation or techs, rarely both. If you're looking for domnation without overseas invasion it would probably be a mistake to vassalise Washington as you'd only get 50% of his remaining land and population towards domination.
Re Vassalising Washington. If Washington loses 50% land/pop then he can break vassalge with Napoleon and you can then go for peace with Washington seperately. In my limited experience you tend to get capitulation or techs, rarely both. If you're looking for domnation without overseas invasion it would probably be a mistake to vassalise Washington as you'd only get 50% of his remaining land and population towards domination.
Melon Head
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2006
- Messages
- 134
Tough luck with Nappy being so powerful; he can do that if he gobbles up a few opponents, as happened to you this game.
Looks like you're in a decent position, though. Admittedly, you're not winning any tech races, and the Emperor production bonuses aren't helping on that front, but you have a raw production advantage even with a large part of your territory being pillaged. That tells me that once you start your offensive, if you're able to repair some of that terrain, then you will be able to steamroll Nappy and GW nicely.
About aluminum, that will be a big threat. It might (I think definitely) be worth sacrificing a number of fighters and/or bombers to pillage the terrain tile as soon as you can get a city in range. If you have a carrier, you might even be able to sneak around to the far side of his territory. Of course, you will have to deal with a lot of air defense; Nappy has a few jets per city, but if you can pillage it, it will stop his production of MA, jets, and stealth bombers for at least as long as it takes him to rebuild the terrain improvement, and that should hopefully give you a little breathing room.
Overall, remember that panzers are still competitive against MA, so you really only need to worry about his MI and airforce at the moment. Just build up your forces and steamroll GW first, then Nappy.
I wouldn't worry much about the other continent space-racing. They're not nearly far enough along for that, and once you take out Napoleon and GW, they'll be easy pickings.
Looks like you're in a decent position, though. Admittedly, you're not winning any tech races, and the Emperor production bonuses aren't helping on that front, but you have a raw production advantage even with a large part of your territory being pillaged. That tells me that once you start your offensive, if you're able to repair some of that terrain, then you will be able to steamroll Nappy and GW nicely.
About aluminum, that will be a big threat. It might (I think definitely) be worth sacrificing a number of fighters and/or bombers to pillage the terrain tile as soon as you can get a city in range. If you have a carrier, you might even be able to sneak around to the far side of his territory. Of course, you will have to deal with a lot of air defense; Nappy has a few jets per city, but if you can pillage it, it will stop his production of MA, jets, and stealth bombers for at least as long as it takes him to rebuild the terrain improvement, and that should hopefully give you a little breathing room.
Overall, remember that panzers are still competitive against MA, so you really only need to worry about his MI and airforce at the moment. Just build up your forces and steamroll GW first, then Nappy.
I wouldn't worry much about the other continent space-racing. They're not nearly far enough along for that, and once you take out Napoleon and GW, they'll be easy pickings.
We lead the world in production. I believe we've now passed GW in power. Nappy is still ahead of us, but he's been essentially stagnant since the war started. Mehmed has the most power, but no Aluminum (unless he's getting it from Ghengis in trade).
I don't think we want to vassalize GW. His land is good, his cities are cultured, and wiping him out completely would eliminate "rejoin our motherland" penalties. Of course, don't wipe him out before the Internet is done.
peace,
lilnev
I don't think we want to vassalize GW. His land is good, his cities are cultured, and wiping him out completely would eliminate "rejoin our motherland" penalties. Of course, don't wipe him out before the Internet is done.
peace,
lilnev
lasombra
Warlord
I think we just have to keep rolling, even with our less advanced forces while teching to the internet. is internet a project? otherwise we could start generating a GE or 2 to pop it...
lasombra
Warlord
hey vra what's up? it's been over a week...
futurehermit
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2006
- Messages
- 5,724
that sucks. i can try and play tomorrow or saturday maybe.
priorities: internet, taking out GW (after internet), getting a huge-ass army including navy for naval assault...anything else?
Question: What does a balanced modern-era assault force look like? I rarely do modern-era wars and don't really know the units all that much.
priorities: internet, taking out GW (after internet), getting a huge-ass army including navy for naval assault...anything else?
Question: What does a balanced modern-era assault force look like? I rarely do modern-era wars and don't really know the units all that much.
Similar threads
- Sticky
