GR6 - Persia II - AW Demigod.

[bed_head7]

Yeah, that analysis was kind of pointless I now realize. But for a secondary plant to be worthwile (handbuilt, that is) it would need beyond the 720s to be worthwile, since it takes time to build the second plant as well. For Hoover's, I guess it would just be 480s.

By the way, I never mentioned the fact that I can actually play. At this point, it doesn't really make much sense for me to step in, but now I can go down as being in charge of occasional pointless input as opposed to my current role as victim of computer meltdown.

 

[Northern Pike]

By the way, I never mentioned the fact that I can actually play. At this point, it doesn't really make much sense for me to step in

In that case, would you like to finish off Gator01B? You're not up, indeed you've played more recently than most of the shameless laggards in that game, but someone has to do it.

 

[bed_head7]

Sure, I'll do it. I am actually really enjoying Civilization a lot with the new computer. The jump from 750 mhz to 3 ghz is pretty substantial, I've found. Not a huge surprise, but it certainly makes games where there are tons of units running around much more fun.

 

[T_McC]

Ok, now I have it and will start playing. Sounds like we can lose at any time, and the real panic will set in when we get the message about the UN being built. Hopefully the Celts won't pull another SGL.

This probably won't be back until tomorrow night.

 

[Greebley]

Can we steal the Celts map, find the town that is building it and stop the UN build by heading the stack towards it? We do have to raze as we go, but we can also bee-line for it.

 

[T_McC]

I've gotten through six turns and we have to discuss things.

We have stolen the WM. The only Celt oil is on their East coast, diametrically opposed to our armies.

We have lost the Beachhead city. I'm actually not sure how the one Cav army got killed, but I suppose it was from Celt Bombers. The city was recaptured, scuttling a significant portion of the English fleet, but was abandoned as undefendable.

We have stolen Flight.

We are sieging Entremont, but this isn't going anywhere. We haven't lost any Armies on that front, but between the Bombers and a too-small Artillery stack we simply are not going to be able to knock the city out without a miracle run on the pRNG. TOW in Metro with Civil Defense = no Fun.

The UN is not being built. The Celts are Fascist, mobilized, and are only able to run 20% science to support their enormous army. They apparently have no Aluminum, which precludes a Space loss or us getting nuked.

But the clock is ticking. We have time for one more plan, so it has to be well thought out. Here is my starting proposal:

(1) Abandon the Artillery already in Celt territory and re-group our Armies in the vicinity of the Beachhead. We run the risk of losing an Infantry army and then maybe a Cav army in the retreat, but we simply can't raze the cities available to us with that stack.

(2) We have a decent navy now, so re-found the Beachhead with an Infantry Army from our home island and one already on Celt territory as the primary defenders. Bring at least a half-dozen Flak for the founding. Use our Air Force to clear the way to the Celt island, but do not re-base planes to the Beachhead on the first turn.

(3) Hope the Flak can thin out the Celt Bomber core on the first turn after founding, then re-base our Fighters. Again, hopefully we'd have about a 1/2 dozen.

(4) While this is going on, send the second Infantry army on our home island off of our West Coast, with a target of the Celt Oil. Land it and sit on the Oil. The Celt Bombers should be thinned out already, and once we sit on the Oil they cannot build any more.

(5) Then we can concentrate on eliminating the remaining Celt Bombers and Navy to give us control of the seas. Skew our builds heavily to Bombers. If we control the seas we can go attack the English and the Ottomans to finish this game off. Most of the Celt cities we would have access to would have ~20 units in them, so attacking them would be a real exercise in lethal bombardment. The Ottos and English can't shoot our bombers down, so we could build real momentum against them.

I would not advocate a funnel vs. the Celts, we don't want to thin out their units. We want them to keep researching slowly.

Like I said, we're racing the clock. When the Celts discover Fission, Entremont can build the UN in 7 turns. Of course, if we have Bombers on the ground over there, their production might be a little bit hindered.

I think we need to get this entirely accomplished in the next 30 turns. Look at the save and let's put together a firm plan.

 

[ThERat]

I agree with the plan generally but would alter it a little. Instead of founding a city that would attract all those zillion units, use a worker and get an airport. Then we can tranport all the units except artillery and armies over. Get as many flak as possibe to eliminate the bombers slowly. I would not abandon the arty (and by the way we can't just bypass the Celt cities, Greebley rules)
Just pull that stack back and take out the city next to rubber in the process which should get rid of more bombers (they currently have only 9 of them). using the airfield, we can rebase our bombers and then carry out steps 4 and 5 of your plan.

edit: I think I forgot that an airfield is treated just like a town, so they would attack as well. In this case, I think carry out your plan with a town, but we might want to block it off

 

[LKendter]

Instead of founding a city that would attract all those zillion units, use a worker and get an airport.

An airport would get the same reaction as a city. Even with an army on it every unit possible would charge it.

 

[T_McC]

Ahhh ... that's the sneaky part of the plan. The Infantry Army heading off our west coast doesn't have to bypass any Celt cities to sit on the oil, it's 2-3 tiles in from the coast.

I don't want to attract all of the Celt units, just the Bombers. Once those are dispatched we are free to attack the other civs. Basically, I just don't see a way to do much against the Celts in any reasonable period of time. They just have too many units. If the UN wasn't available to them we could get Tank/MA armies and win a war of attrition, but we don't have time for that.

 

[ThERat]

sorry, it did slip my mind when I posted first, we better get a city down (gives us a lux with harbor) and block it with the armies. Then we need to bring over those flaks

 

[vmxa]

Why not let them send in all they want to attack the beachead? They have maybe 275-300 units and will send about 200 rifles and tows to hit you.

If you get a town on a hill with 2 or 3 inf armies and as many calv armies as you can to the town and all the defenders you can ship, it will take out a lot of them. If the roads are all pillaged near the site you can get in a wall and a barracks.

You only need 4 flaks and the rest are not consider for shooting down a bomber. The game will not consider the rest.

From alexman

AA combat formula

The real strength of each AA unit is 1/10th of the value shown in the editor. So Flak has a strength of 0.2.

Each AA unit in the tile being bombarded takes a shot against the defense of the bombarding air unit. The chance of shooting down the air unit is A/(A+D), as with all other forms of combat in Civ3. Remember, A is 10 times less than what is in the editor for the AA unit.

The maximum number of AA units that are given a chance to shoot down the plane is 4. Any AA units above 4 are ignored.

So, for example, if you want the formula for the probability of N units with a strength of A shooting down a plane with defense of D, here it is:

1 - (D / (D+A))^min(N,4)

D is the defense value of the bombarding air unit (2 for a bomber). No modifiers apply. A is the AA strength of the AA unit (0.2 for flak). N is the number of AA units, not the number of air units.

min(N,4) = N, if N less or equal to 4
min(N,4) = 4, if N greater than 4

The SAM battery works like this:

For each bomber, there is a chance equal to the interception chance for the SAM to fire (50% against conventional, 5% against stealth)

If the SAM doesn't fire, the bomber continues as if the SAM were not present. This includes the chance of getting shot down by AA fire.

If the SAM fires, it has a A/(A+D) probability to shoot down the plane (A=8 for the SAM, D=2 for the Bomber). If the plane is not shot down, the Bomber survives, but it loses its chance to do any damage as well.

 

[ThERat]

I rather they all choke on their units, that really slows them down. Once they burn all the units, they will research and kill us via UN.
Thanks for the flak info, so lets get 4 per stack.

@T_McC, I assume you are playing the remainder of the 10 turns, don't you?

 

[T_McC]

Oh yeah, I'm going to finish these turns. Have to take another look at it, we may not need to abandon the Artillery. Not a lot of 1-move terrain between us and the ocean.

 

[Northern Pike]

I think this is basically a good plan, but I have the following comments and points of dissent, following T's numbering:

1. This is my most important disagreement with the plan. I think our stack in the Celtic heartland, even if it can't take Entremont, represents a valuable insurance policy against a UN loss. If the Celts begin the UN in Entremont or Alesia, the stack can pillage that city with explorers and artillery, which would be perfectly legitimate since it didn't bypass anything in getting where it is; if they begin it in Cataractonium or Burdigala, the stack might actually be able to raze the town in question, which wouldn't be the capital or a hill city. In the ideal case we probably wouldn't have sent those armies into the middle of the Celtic lands at all, but now that they've slowly made their way there, and can still help us in various ways, I don't think we should lose more time withdrawing them.

2. I agree, except that I'm not sure about "decent navy" yet; only our three destroyers will be much use in protecting our galleons from the threats they now face. We have just four strong towns which can build naval units, and right now only two are doing so; we may want to adjust this.

3. I wouldn't bother with fighters, which are junk, at least for the human player. I'd base our AA effort strictly on flak units.

4. Definitely. Although I realize this is easier to say than to arrange, in the best case the infantry army would be accompanied by explorers to pillage and workers to build it a barricade on the oil tile.

5. Sounds good.

 

[LKendter]

3. I wouldn't bother with fighters, which are junk, at least for the human player. I'd base our AA effort strictly on flak units.

Well I have shot down more bombers with air planes, then flak...

 

[Northern Pike]

With ordinary fighters? Even jet fighters are feeble against bombers, in my experience.

 

[ThERat]

3. I wouldn't bother with fighters, which are junk, at least for the human player. I'd base our AA effort strictly on flak units.

I don't know really about this, but jet fighters are pretty effective and are much more mobile

 

[Northern Pike]

My opinion of fighters is based on a reasonable amount of play in this era, but not as much as LK must have seen. If the consensus is against me, perhaps my experiences have been misleading, like those of the "catapults suck" crowd.

Vxma, thanks for the valuable information. Are the data in the AA (that is, non-SAM) category meant to apply to all units with an AA value, or just flak units?

 

[LKendter]

My opinion of fighters is based on a reasonable amount of play in this era, but not as much as LK must have seen.

Well I have certainlly lost enough bombers to jet fighters. To be honest, I am not as sure on regular fighters.

I haven't proven it, but it seems like the AI is less likely to attack a city with fighters on air patrol...

 

[T_McC]

Heh. The point of the fighters is to be scouts. Unless they can't see Subs, the fighters scope out the channel for the (maybe) two-turn trip to the other island.

But here's my problem with what NP is suggesting: Say we leave all of those armies in the Mountain fortress around Entremont. And let's be optimistic that we can eliminate the Celt Bomber threat. What exactly are those Armies going to accomplish? At best we're looking at pillaging the tiles around the Capital and relying on the AI to not understand how to use Airports to put more troops into the city. The stack can prevent a UN loss, if the Celts begin the UN in a city it can reach. Pillaging around the city before the Bombers are taken care of will only be a temporary solution as we can't spread the armies out to ensure that the tiles couldn't be repaired.

Hmm ... I wanted to retreat the Armies to use them on other fronts. as attempting to get the territory required for Domination from the Celts is foolhardy. But we can't use the Armies on other fronts until we control the seas, and when we can do that we can move the Armies being used as homeland defense. So we're not really losing anything by leaving the armies where they are for the balance of my turns. I'll see how well we can pillage with the Artillery and Explorers. Maybe we can starve Entremont below 13.