GR12 - AWM vs 30 civs, Pangea

[vmxa]

They are ahead of us and I suspect (not sure though) will remain ahead for a while.

I missd this, they are not exactly ahead of us. We know they have Med and Nat, at a few do. Most are not even in this age. The big boys are surely researching Ind/Facism/Comm and maybe even Electricity.

We have Elec and Steam, so we are pretty close, but they cannot stay up with s for much longer. We are doing about 2x the beakers the best civ can muster and 3x most of the top 10 or even more.

They will go for al those optional techs, but I guess we are doomed, I mean destined to do as well. At least we won't do Facism and Sanitation. They must fall behind as we get stronger.

So I am not gong to sweat it if every one is wanting to steal techs, only that having 2 optional tech to get and a small wonder to build to pick a 100 (Corp) and some other tech does not seem like a real necessity.

It is only mariginally better than doing them ourself. Less than that if you consider we could do some useful things with the cash needed to steal.

In the end we are like Floyd Landis on stage 20, unless we fall down, it won't matter what we do. I just wanted to present some other concepts for consideration.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Espionage sounds reasonable to me. Even if it is but marginally better than researching our way alone, it opens up the possibility of getting more if ever the AI was to get ahead by a few techs. I wouldn't call on mobilization before getting internet, since we'll want domination, but policemen make a good case for themselves as well. This and the communism/SPHQ possibility, which may or may not be worthwhile, but could be worth checking.

I looked at worker pump and settler pump cities in my turns only to realize they were shady has-been towns. I didn't really react because they did something, but it wasn't nearly optimal as you pointed out.

 

[vmxa]

I never used a Policeman or an Engineer, so I have no idea how many we could use, but we have to give up something to use one. Anyway the discussion is over from my point of view. I know when I am beat.

I have used communism and I don't like it and if you are not religious a switch is very expensive. I forget our traits, I think exp is one of them. Oh, commerical I think is the other. Some of the things I dislike about communism.

Well no cash rush, only pop rush. Corruption is spread every where, so eventually even the core gets to at least 25% corrupt. MP count is 4 so it is easy to get sucked into using at least 2 per town. That cost maint and you can get where you have a hard time fielding as many units as you want.

There are others, but I don't use it. Not saying it does not come with some positive things, just that cash rush is very useful. You can't pop rush in a size 1 town.

Moblization can be useful, but I always felt I was cheating using. Yeah the AI will use it, but I only do it if I am in a real bind.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Since we have a beakerhead farmland already set up it probably won't be worth it to go commie, misfortunately, but the policemen are like portable CH's. When a city size 12 has a good 8-10 workable tiles, put what remains into clowns and polices so as to have WLTKD and as much police as possible. You can drop corruption by over 40% right there, which may mean getting a 20+spt town with factory when it's up in a so-so city around the FP. This game is an extreme case of feasability for this: we have all(7) luxes hooked up, many hill cities and a very large selection of 30-60% corrupt towns that crave to become 10-30% corrupt.

 

[Greebley]

Engineers are very nice in corrupt towns to get aquaducts amd culture harbors - things like that.

I usually don't mobilize. I like being able to build things when we need them. You can only unmobilize by killing a civ.

Drafting can be useful for coastal defense.

I don't think we can expect to be ahead in tech when we get Industrialization - I suspect that Corp will be known and we can steal it if we go for espionage. We can see though - if noone knows corp when we get Ind, then I agree espionage may slow us to tanks. Note that I think we can steal without slowing down 100% science if the AI stays rich and we attack smartly.

I do like stealing maps. That is really powerful - knowing where to go and where all the AI and choke points are.

 

[ThERat]

communism is surely not the right government for such a huge emipre. We have a large productive core and a vast science farm estate. The intermediate section in between is good for some measures.
That said, if I can get let's say 4 scientist or none but 2spt instead of 1, I usually go for the scientists. The 2 shields aren't really worth that waste.

vmxa, do not feel discouraged by our discussion. Maybe you are the one whose idea is much better. Maybe we can reassess the situation about nationalism/espionage once we have industrialization. We surely need to go for that before even thinking of nationalism, else Hoover would be a huge waste. By then we can assess whether the AI got more techs.

I also feel spying might waste our money if we do not have enough of that. Let's hope the Dutch get money back via trades, but they might be hurt enough already. I rather they have all the cash than Rome. Thus, I would leave Netherlands alone for now. Go after Sumer/Carthago and return once Netherlands have their money back.

edit: since we decided to go for Hoover, we should start another prebuild soon. But there is no wonder available at the moment. Maybe we can start a prebuild with the most expensive build a few turns before gaining scientific methods (estimate around 20-25 turns away)

 

[markh]

I got it. Will have a look at it this evening.

 

[vmxa]

Talking about maps, we do need to get some armies out finding the world now. It could be very important to be able to cut off some oil from some countries.

It depends on who has oil and where it is, but we may be able to prevent bombers in some civs. I don't know how many will get them and also have oil. We can hope that the strongest civs will lack it, but that is probably not the case.

So rolling out to expose the map while pillaging would help. I would not be surprised to go 100 or more turns, but that should mean about 7 of the over 100 cost factor techs for the AI. That is not enough to get to modern age for them. It means 10 or there abouts for us.

One of the reason for them being right with us at this point is that they were able to do some trading and got the free techs from any scientific civs. Also we were not doing better than them until recently.

As to engineers, I would have to look hard at the numbers and the places. Some of what is now being suggest will put cities out of the war effort for a very long time. Factories/CH/Police Station and so on. worse yet if Sanitation is desired. By the time they are completed, I wonder how badly we will need the increased production in 30 or 40 places?

Again Engineers means less beakers, I am not sure about the RoI. Maybe it is a good deal, in a map of this size it could be. Still we should be razing a number of towns per turn in 2 or 3 sets from now. The rails will free a lot of firepower.

One of the things I left out of the cash spending was the value of upgrading a bunch to infantry and some arties. The difference between a 140 and 180 tech is one about 1 turn of research, even the 200 is 2 tirns or 3 tops.

I would rather have tank 16 turns sooner than not. I guess at the amount of time saved if ToE was used to get closer to tanks. Tank armies will bust infantry, not with impunity, where cavs will be very risky (in town).

 

[Greebley]

I think the best thing is to not make a decision on espionage until we have industrialization. Then we will know whether we can get Corp or not from the AI. If the AI doesn't have Corp we research it ourselves. If they do we know we get at least one tech possibly more from the AI by stealing.

If we don't have cash and it doesn't look like we will have some when we get Espionage, then we skip it.

If we can steal Corp and if we have a good bit of money then esp isn't going to cost us 16 extra turns - we steal it instead and get it instantly. We are slowed a few turns, but having a world map without sending out armies and the ability to draft (good for protecting coastal towns or even rushing builds with unit disbands if used with discretion) makes it worth those turns IMO.

 

[vmxa]

The 16 turns was not a reference to Spying, rather the time saved or not saved if ToE was used to get techs for Tanks.

You think we will need to draft in this game by the time we can get around to Nationalism? I sure hope not. Add to the time needed to get to Espionage and the IA up, surely we will have seen much of the rest of the land.

That would be the time needed to do RP, Med, Sci, Ind, then Nat and then Espionage. Let's say 65 turns more. You do not see us getting some scouting/pillaging/attacking done by then?

BTW I appreciate that no one is taken this in any antagonistic way. I am interested in exchanging ideas and seeing if anyone has a reason or explaination that can convert me. So far I see the views and I am not totally convinced. I do agree that it does come down to primarily how many turns are left in the game.

Well that and I see a lot more effort in going around popping factories, CH, ect using engineers, than just keep making troops. I guess I am lazy.

 

[Northern Pike]

I appreciate that no one is taken this in any antagonistic way.

No problem. This is a well-mannered Civ III thread. The general level of incivility in the Civ IV threads is extraordinary.

 

[markh]

I have played two turns. Takes quite long now. Will continue this evening.
For research I would be tempted to go RP, Med, SciMeth and then straight for tanks using the 2 freebies from the TOE on that path. I think with the additional scientists from our railing and expansion we will have enough research power to get Atomic Theory and Electronics in a reasonable time when we need to research these techs to get modern. Tanks with their double attack per turn will give us even more promotions and leaders. I would let the AI build Hoovers for us.

 

[vmxa]

Now there is my hero. I figure we would spend 6 turns extra to get those two techs, but save about 16 towards getting tanks.

Unless the AI is able to get to it a lot faster than I would expect, it will not beat us to Hoover. It probably needs 15 turns to built it and we could have a pre ready to roll.

The main thing to me is that without tanks those Infantry will be a real bear. By the time we can get a few tank armies up, we may be seeing infantry in some metros and that is more than cav armies should be ask to attempt.

 

[vmxa]

The general level of incivility in the Civ IV threads is extraordinary.

I have not follwed that forum. I have not fired up my IV since around the time 1.52 was coming out. I just did not care for all the options in the tech tree. It made too many vaible paths to chose from for me.

 

[Greebley]

My thought is that once we get Espionage, we can catch up with the AI who will probably have Corp, Refining, Steel, etc. Thus we steal those techs. and end up not much behind where we would have been if we had been researching ourselves.

In other words, we are only delayed if the AI isn't as fast at reasearch as us.

The AI research is slower, but there are enough AI that they probably research all techs at the same time. Thus they may not be that far behind us.

I guess that is the real question though: How fast does the AI research?

 

[vmxa]

Yeah, it is a guessing game as no one has been there before. I would be interested to see what civs have left in terms of towns. Just the ones that have 5 or less and other than Babs.

I mean I do have a pretty good idea what the top 3 or 4 civs are doing in terms of bpt. The rest are in 100 to 200 range.

If they are paying 90%, less any discount for not paying first price, they can't do all that well. I think the top was less 600bpt and #2 was much less.

 

[markh]

Just a short update. Played another two turns yesterday. The East got very calm. Our single cavs are sufficient to kill all incoming units which are quite low in numbers. The cav armies are on razing duty. The icy southeastern is now in the dark. It is not worth living there anyhow. I lost one cav army. I attacked a reg rifle in a 12ish city with an almost full health army. At least I could put two new ones on duty. The Chinese and the Portuguese are fighting each other, so it is calm over there. In the West I will try to expand a bit. The single units + the knight armies hold there easily, so I sent out 4 cav armies to explore and raze in that area. Absolutely annoying is the bombardement of the Korean frigates. Northern star lost it's market, lib and harbour due to it and it seems there are coming more Korean frigates each turn. How I wish we had bombers or artillery.

 

[vmxa]

Yes the shore bombarment phase is very annoying.

 

[markh]

Played five. Here it is :

0) 1768AD : lower science to 40%, electricity still in 2
hit enter

IBT : heavy frigate bombardment of Northern Star. The marketplace is destroyed. Stupid AI. Why are they building frigates on a pangea ?
lose a musket and worker stack to a Dutch cav, 1 cav suicides and a frigate suicides against our caravel (2-1)

1) 1770AD : raze Breda, Middelburg, Erech
get a leader
I gave up counting the kills

IBT : electricity comes in -> rp in 10 at 100%

2) 1772AD : raze Asyut, Marad, Leiden, Kurtha
lose a cav army at almost full health to a reg rifle

IBT : Northern Star's lib and harbour are destroyed

3) 1774AD : raze Edfu, Oea, New Madras
get a leader

IBT : nothing to report

4) 1776AD : raze Abydos, Umma, Akkad
lose a yellow knight army against a 2/3rd swordsman

IBT : nothing important

5) 1778AD : raze Sumer, Zabalam, Hierancopolis, Maastricht

IBT : nothing

6) 1780AD : raze Texcoco, Rusicade, Chongfu
get 3 leaders

IBT lose one redlined cav army, maybe I was pushing too hard

7) 1782AD : stop here and give it to vxma. We can stop building any cannons. We have enough to redline everything that comes in range. I started to abandon cats as they are not useful any more.
We need far more workers to enlarge our science farms. Started building these.
Lucky vxma. Korea just started a war with someone else. All frigates are withdrawn. There is one cav army in the West that is lacking one more member. Had no vet available anymore. Next turn you will have enough volunteers to join.
This turns into a major slugfest scoutsout would love.

Now that I have played I think Hoovers will be a waste. The AIs in the east are collapsing and in the west they are unable to make any trouble. Keep on getting leaders for cav armies and go for tanks asap. That are my 2 cents.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/GR12-1782AD.SAV

 

[ThERat]

Northern Star's lib and harbour are destroyed

I think we can avoid this by putting in some obsolete units into the city. Let the frigates redline archers etc. I am sure due to the many luxes we have there are some MP's we do not need any longer.
This way you avoid this kind of destruction.

We can stop building any cannons. We have enough to redline everything that comes in range. I started to abandon cats as they are not useful any more.

I would never abandon the 'slave' artillery we have. So, if you abandon cats/trebs, please use only our own.

As for research, vmxa will reach the point of medicine I guess. After that sci methods and then we need to decide whether to really press for tanks with 2 free techs or to go for Hoover. As it stands, it is 4:2 for Hoover at the moment