Goz-12 - 5CC - Large map - Space Race

[zerksees]

Well I am guessing that at least some of the panzers are defending cities. That's why I guessed it was half their fighting force. On the second turn the rest of the fighting force would be split between us, Babylon and Aztecs, and whoever else we draw in.

I suppose I was tempted just because I want to wreck them. I see all this excess production capactiy and it would give us something to do with it. We have not even had to mobilize yet. Germany does have like 8000 gold IIRC so there would be a small dividend on each city taken. We could clear out all the cities in bomber range of us then go after any resource we could take. Also having the world at war with Germany would probably cut down on new cities being built, and roads getting put back up, etc.

OTOH we could just keep them busy while we keep building ship parts.

Whomp you are up

 

[SimpleMonkey]

lurker's comment: I'd go ahead and lure Bismark into the killing fields. I haven't checked, but I'm wondering how many turns it would take to push him back out of bomber range. Not that I've ever had the AI mass so many bombers that they've turned me back. But still. Sounds like a nice dust up against the panzers would be fun.

My experience is that AI at war will not initiate any wonder-like builds, just like they won't abandon any wonder-like builds once hostilities commence. How many times have you knocked an enemy civ down to 3 cities and they're still at work on JS Bach's?

 

[Whomp]

Yipee. Great stuff Zerksees. I like our odds...a lot. If I lure Germany into war and we start whacking their panzers my assumption is they've already had their GA through the Iroquois and their max output is in the field. I will play this tomorrow with the day off.

I'll be back if anything comes up.

 

[zerksees]

I saw the first panzers well in my prior turnset, so I have to assume the golden age is well past.

Take a quick look at what we might lose - like luxes.

I think the game could go faster if there was no war with Germany, but I definitely think that crushing the mighty German army would be more satisfying.

After the initial panzer crush, you could take a city or two in the south and make it so the Germans could not reach any of our cities without spending one turn in our territory. That would make it so much easier.

How about those Bears?

 

[Bucephalus]

I think the game could go faster if there was no war with Germany, but I definitely think that crushing the mighty German army would be more satisfying.

After the initial panzer crush, you could take a city or two in the southand make it so the Germans could not reach any of our cities without spending one turn in our territory. That would make it so much easier.

I think we can do better than that; if you look at my map, you'll see how conveniently close together are their two sources of Uranium. Not being able to keep cities will slow things down a bit but it looks do-able to me.

My only reservation is the WW; IIRC, we lost two lux's when Babylon and Aztecs DOW'ed. If we can end those wars sooner rather than later, we can get those back. I reckon we could do some serious damage in 2-3 sets.

How about those Bears?

I know nothing about any Bears.

 

[Whomp]

OK good stuff. I will see what I can work out. Buce the Bears are Chicago's football team and we won a thriller yesterday to move to the semi finals.

 

[Whomp]

Pre-turn: Since we can't open diplomatic relations with the Aztecs or Babs it's probably not time to start in on the Germans yet. Try converting some taxmen to scientists to see if it would reduce our research speed but it has no impact. Keep the scientists since it may help once SETI is finished. MM Rojo to get SETI in 2 versus 3. Find a empty ivory tile and build a colony on it. Move some units towards an Aztec mountain that has rails to get to it and plant a airfield to pillage it. Locate a wine tile as well but I'll need a road to get to it so two turns. Hit a hut trying for some promos and collect 25g. Notice the Germans have another uranium at Niagra Falls(south of our new ivory colony) and Sardica(south near Byz and old American cities) so they'll have resources regardless it seems. Not that they're real close but they have 30% of world area and 46% of pop.

Check the tech picture.
We need
Superconductors for fuel cells (uran) and life support(alum)
Syn fibers for storage (alum) and exterior (alum/rubber)
Nuke power to Laser and party lounge (alum)
Miniturization and laser for Robotics and stassis (alum/uran)

IT Byz MA with Babs against us then they do the same against the Germans. Hits sign a MPP with Babs and then sign MA against us then do the same against the Germans.

1655 The Babs will talk now. Aztecs are not talking. Germans get superconductors and don't have units in our territory anymore. Attempt a safe steal and we're not successful but our spy gets away. Attempt a second steal and we're successful. Well that's unfortunate they researched up that path but who'd guess. Trade superconductors to the Iroquois for their bank 3196g. I debate whether to turn on research to syn fibers which will take 22 turns at -308gpt and we have 36992g now. Hmm...decide to wait a turn and see if SETI will help much. Switch Bouncing Bucket to Life Support and rush it with Kim Il Sung. Nampo will finish fuel cells in 2. Move on the aztecs leader farming and luxs. There's two that will help us. Take a open take with an elite. Block some Celts that are near one of our rubber colonies

IT Germans start Manhattan Project.

[b[1660[/b] Life support completes our 5th part. Lose one elite tank to a tank but get 5 other elite victories taking Teayo and 32g. Plant our new wine colony and bomb some roads around it. Investigate Leipzig for 396g.

Manhattan due in 20 and it also reveals 4 uranium and only one oil. If I hire all scientists I can get syn fibers in 19. I'm still not sure this makes sense at 308gpt deficit. Keep research off.

IT Hittites and Byz MA vs. Celts. Germany and Aztecs make peace.
1665 Fuel cells complete our 6th part. Bombard Tlaxcala. Take two units but lose a vet tank. Wait for next turn.

IT Byz and Celts make peace.
1670 Bombard Tlaxcala again. Take a infantry with an elite and then a TOW and get another MGL. Send him home. Take the city and a couple new arty. Aztecs still won't talk.

IT Germans spice deal expires. With our new luxs I don't renew.
1675 Bombard Tula and take two units with our army.

ITLose one of our wines colonies as the Aztecs counter at a few places. The Byz are finished off by the Germans.
1680 Reestablish the wines. Lethal bombard two TOWs at Tula and walk into the city. Bombard Tenochtitlan and lethal bombard another. Aztecs will talk but I'd prefer to grabs the silks. Notice we've lost one of our dyes colonies to Celt border expansion. Nearly taking our oil too.

IT Get hit with a tank randomly but win.
1685 Bombard Teno and actually lethally bombard one unit. Take 5 other with a promo. Raze the city and MoM with it. This opens up space for silks and if we want another rubber.

IT Lose a mech to a tank another redlines but wins.
1690 Raze another city which I can't remember what it's called. Move on Caliztlahuaca for more oil. Stinkin' Germans move a work onto the empty rubber spot for a colony.

IT Babs and Aztecs peace.
1695 Take Caliz and open some additional space. Should have more oil and possibly incense next turn.

IT Iroquois and Aztecs make peace.
1700Take Tlatelolco but lose one elite tank follow with Huexotla since it's within arty range and will give us another gems and oil.
Summary
I'll stop here. We can either finish off the Aztecs or stop here and prepare for the Germans. There's some bombers that can be moved as well as a worker who's on one of the two incense sources. I'll leave it to Buce to decide. I didn't feel real strong about researching. We should discuss whether we want to do this or not. The Germans are the only ones capable of researching at this point but we're no prize on the research front. There's still 7 turns left on the MA with the Germans against the Babs. There's lots of barbs running around in the darkness so protect your workers and use them for easy promotions.

 

[TimBentley]

lurker's comment: Germany should be researching synthetic fibers now, looks like they'd probably choose miniaturization over nuclear power.

 

[zerksees]

Looks good Whomp.

I am on the fence about research - it just seemed like we had the chance to speed things up with it. Maybe if we build the internet? Too bad I had not picked nuclear power instead of superconductor. I wanted a tech we could build parts with, but did not do any homework on what the AI would research next. If we scrap the whole idea it would be OK with me too. If we are still over 40000 gold we could try research, but I will leave it to you Bucephalus.

If we are going to have a war with Germany we could afford the extra time for them to research fo us.

To start the war with Germany, you will need to remove the worker blockade so they can send their tanks after the Bab town up north (assuming they have not taken it already). Then you can issue remove or delcare and get easy pickings on the panzers in our territory.

Bucephalus you are up.

 

[Whomp]

I've been thinking the only way to speed up research is to get Germany in a peace mode. We have 7 turns left on our alliance versus the Babs and then it might make sense to only go to war if we get caught stealing.

I'm not sure if having research labs (internet) will accelerate our tech pace very much. It would be better to just build the research labs. Researching Nuke power could make sense because it would open up laser which will eventually get us to Robotics. I'm with Tim Bentley and think they'll go for modern armor with synthetic fibers.

I have this vision of them dropping a few nukes on us too. Sabotaging Manhattan at some point might be worthwhile.

 

[SimpleMonkey]

lurker's comment: With a 5CC, your need for the Internet isn't so huge. Build the research labs individually. (Love getting the Internet when I'm at over 100 cities, though.)

I've noticed a tendency for the AI to get a little nutzoid once you start getting close to launch date. I once had 5 civs declare on me -- no provocation, I swear -- as I was finishing the last three parts. So you really might want to put the hurt on Bismark before he can launch some ICBM's to make your lovely cities glow in the dark.

 

[Bucephalus]

Wow, we're whipping through these turns quickly; I'll try and keep the momemtum going.

Before I play though, I think we need to reach some conclusions on war and research.

My own two-penneth is that currently war with Germany is not a good idea; they still have 65 Panzers (and 278 Mech Infantry) after 15 turns of war with Celts/Babylon.

However, I also think that war is inevitable since stealing is the only realistic method of getting the 5-6 techs that we need; at current research rates it would take 100+ turns to research them ourselves.

And soon, Germany will run out of enemies, and will begin knocking out SS Parts; it seems to me that even if we are not caught stealing/ sabotaging, there is every chance that we may need to trash Berlin and their SS.

Given all this, my strategic thoughts are that we should spend the next 21 turns researching Synthetic Fibres; during those turns we build nothing but tanks. Added to the ones we have that would give nearly 100 Modern Armour for someone to play with on turn 22. That puts in a strong position even if they have SF themelves by then; but if they have gone for Miniaturization or Nuclear Power - well, as my Old Mum used to say, "The World's your lobster!".

Edit: as an after-thought, I would also point out that SF is required for it's SS Part; if we don't research it then we must steal it. What happens if we fail? German MA against tanks.

 

[zerksees]

The internet: Just realized it is useless since we alreday have research labs in all the cities. I was thinking it would boost science.

Tech research: I am not afraid of the tech pace being too slow from the AI. In fact I do not want them to go any faster. I want us to go faster.
Further I would not research syn fibers. I am not afraid of German modern armor. Any self research should be directed at getting a tech advantage, which means researching something the AI will probably not. The choices are nuclear power or miniaturization, or wait till we steal those and go to the next level. It looks like I wasted a lot of shields on SETI and the research labs.

Germany: I think giving them peace is a very dangerous proposition. They will build up units at a really fast pace. Waiting too long is bad since there will be no other enemies left. If you don't want to start the war, then mobilize and build more arty, tanks and mech inf - should be able to add 40-50 more units if we mobilize. Since they are already at war with two AI, we can bring in whoever is left. I am guessing that most of those German mech inf are defending cities.

The modern armor threat can be neutralized by a couple key city razings. It will be important to have more arty type units to damage invaders.

If war is not good currently, I say it will be good at the start of my turnset

If we do steal syn fibers, I suppose a tank mass upgrade is in order

Should we gift Celts forward so they can build mech inf and TOW? They would last longer in our fight against Germany.

My final answers are:
- Forget research and keep stealing. If we must research go for mini or nuclear power
- Keep Germans busy with wars - hopefully we do not have to fight them for the next 10 turns
- Mobilize to build up for the offensive to start next turnset (or sooner)

Whomp?

Off topic:
Bucephalus - Chicago Bears are an NFL football team here in the US. Here is their website: http://www.chicagobears.com/. In Whomp's sig you see "home of da Bears" as his location - which is what prompted my comment the other day.

 

[Bucephalus]

If war is not good currently, I say it will be good at the start of my turnset

If we do steal syn fibers, I suppose a tank mass upgrade is in order

Should we gift Celts forward so they can build mech inf and TOW? They would last longer in our fight against Germany.

My final answers are:
- Forget research and keep stealing. If we must research go for mini or nuclear power
- Keep Germans busy with wars - hopefully we do not have to fight them for the next 10 turns
- Mobilize to build up for the offensive to start next turnset (or sooner)

No, war is good if that's your call; I actually quite fancy it, but it seemed that a concensus was lacking with that and with the research question. And I still think beating them to MA's would be huge. But I'm ready to pull the trigger now if that's what we need to do.

As far as I can see they have two sources of oil but both are vulnerable to a first turn strike so they wouldn't be replacing lost Panzers.
The problem now is that the Babs city that was to our North, has been destroyed, so we can't lure them in like was planned before. And if we DOW, Rojo is vulnerable to a 3 move unit.
How about a line of forest on the border to act as fly-paper? it would only need to cover a couple of squares, and would leave them as sitting ducks, one tile short.

Re mobilization: can you still build SS Parts when mobilized? And don't you need a peace deal to get out of it?

Maybe we should gift Babs for the same reason as you suggested for the Celts.

 

[Whomp]

Mobilization stops space parts I thought. We're doing two turn mechs, tanks and bombers. Do we really need one turn units? I would say we need lots of bombers to redline incursions but I would hate to stop building parts when they're available.

I think the forest idea is fantastic!

If we research it might be best to do nuclear power since it opens the tech tree a bit. Let the Germans research syn fibers since that's more necessary for them to fight us (with MA's) than us to fight them.

 

[Bucephalus]

Mobilization stops space parts I thought.

Anybody out there have a definitive answer on this?

 

[Whomp]

Thanks to Doc T...

Short synopsis about mobilization in C3C:

+1sp/tile for any unit with the following AI strategies: Offence, Defence, Air Superiority, Naval Power.
All other units do not recieve any bonus! (note I don't know about Nukes)
Yes, that includes all Transports, Armies, Bombers, Explorers, Settler + Worker.
Only improvements with the MIL flag can be built, but do not recieve the bonus:
Barracks, Harbors, Airports, Walls, SAM, Civil Defence, Coastal Fortresses
Only Wonders with the MIL flag can be built. Exception: You can build the UN.
Note that excludes the Heroic Epic and FP...
SS parts can be build, but not the Apollo Program.
If you switch from a unit recieving the bonus to one of the other items, the shields are retained (unlike with Civil Engineers).
Culture output is halfed.

IMHO you must be in a pretty desperate situation to mobilize during a war; the fact you cannot build any culture is ugly (unless you own the Internet!).
But, it can be a good move to mobilize before a war - if you happen to have another opponent willing to make peace whenever you want.
Mobilize, build up insane forces, go for your real target; and once you need to build other items, end the 'phoney' war.

The good news and the bad news. We can build space parts but we don't receive a bonus for bombers or arty. This is why we haven't seen Apollo built by the Germans and it may be why they're focused on war techs.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2793391&postcount=10

 

[Bucephalus]

OK, thanks Whomp.

One turn tanks is tempting, isn't it?

The only downside that I can see would be if German Bombers destroyed a city building that we couldn't replace. IIRC they only have 10 or so Bombers, so it's not likely.

 

[Whomp]

They have 16-17 bombers. Personally, I expect 9-10 to 1 win ratios for us (and higher if their oil is wiped out) so I would only consider mobilization if we absolutely have to.

 

[Bucephalus]

They have 16-17 bombers. Personally, I expect 9-10 to 1 win ratios for us (and higher if their oil is wiped out) so I would only consider mobilization if we absolutely have to.

If we can build SS Parts, what is there to lose?