Isolated emperor start

[Giaur]

Giaur:
You said that you lost a lot of units. From that graph, you were producing them at about the same rate of loss! I have never seen such a fast fall from power!

I did. Just look over the same graph. Look over Toku and Brennus statistic ;p.

I do not know how to explain better what happened. You can look over Logs, but for me it's simple. Unit comes, unit is destroyed.

Snaaty: I am quite surprised the numbers you faced. In my game Cyrus had abaout half strength of yours. 5.2 mln soldiers, as I remember well.

edit: However, when I played Freddy in your recent topic, I had to face unexplained numhbers of soldiers owned by Louis. This game might be simply bugged.

 

[Snaaty]

@ Giaur:

I wouldn´t go as far as to say that the game is bugged, but by having a closer look at the powergraph´s of our two games compared, we can see that Cyrus must have had an army about 4-5 times bigger in my game compared to yours when we compare his power to Toku and Brennus and assume that they were about the same strenght in both variants (in my game, Cyrus had about 10 times the army of Toku and Brennus and about 3 times the army compared to me with 100 units, since he was backwards compared to me and modern troops count more, he must have had about 500+ units altoghether)... ...perhaps my Cyrus was simply troop crazy

 

[shyuhe]

I give up due to human WW. The modern war is a little hard on my poor computer. I actually denied Cyrus oil for the entire game (I sabotaged his sole oil well every time it was completed) so he only got troop upgrades - no new oil based troops. Even then though, he had massive stacks left over from his earlier war that just took forever to whittle down. I'm exhausted. My early and midgame errors really made the endgame war way too hard (although it was fun vassalizing everybody else). This is the closest auto-save of when I stopped:

 

[Giaur]

@ Giaur:

I wouldn´t go as far as to say that the game is bugged, but by having a closer look at the powergraph´s of our two games compared, we can see that Cyrus must have had an army about 4-5 times bigger in my game compared to yours when we compare his power to Toku and Brennus and assume that they were about the same strenght in both variants (in my game, Cyrus had about 10 times the army of Toku and Brennus and about 3 times the army compared to me with 100 units, since he was backwards compared to me and modern troops count more, he must have had about 500+ units altoghether)... ...perhaps my Cyrus was simply troop crazy

That's a myth. I checked your save. Nothing extraordinary. You are lack of aircraft and your navy is weaker than mine. Your Cyrus was little stronger than mine (120%). It's impossible to build such a strong military as you said. But in bugged game everything is possible. I experienced myself 15 artillery units appearing from "air".

 

[Snaaty]

That's a myth. I checked your save. Nothing extraordinary. You are lack of aircraft and your navy is weaker than mine. Your Cyrus was little stronger than mine (120%). It's impossible to build such a strong military as you said. But in bugged game everything is possible. I experienced myself 15 artillery units appearing from "air".

The saved was after I killed 120 land-units and about 10 navy units from Cyrus...

 

[Dirk1302]

Here's a writeup of the efforts sofar. No saves yet because i'll try one more time tommorrow.

I didn't have much experience with modern wars and it showed:

I tried 2 times declaring in 2000 until now, first time i just sent 2 stacks each consisting of some 40 mixed units in with medic chariots-3. I took some 6 cities but in the meantime my stacks were killed off, had to sue for peace 15 years later to save 15 wounded units and only have 50% of land now with 35 turns to go. Second time i sent 2 stacks but this time i pillaged all railroad before the stacks so that i was save from artillery. This worked better, AIs just put artillery on the now unrailroaded squares which i could kill off.
Since i only declared in 2000 this took too long though. I also went bankrupt so i had to sue for peace again.

mistakes i think i made, roughly in decreasing order of importance:

0. declaring too late (2000)
1. I upgraded to sam infantry against gunships because i thought Mech inf is armored (it looks armored).
2. going bankrupt i upgraded too much units, better build new ones and save some cash so as not to go bankrupt.
3. using artillery instead of aircraft, artillery slows down the stacks.
4. I had some 12 stealth bombers but i should have build more. I had too much modern armor i think.Mech inf is more useful generally i think.
5. not building mT rushmore and jails everywhere before war.
6. not using theocracy (used fr to keep my trade partners happy) and not settling at least one general in He/IW city.
7. not researching as fast as i could saving for upgrades.
8. not building scotland yard (not that important but it gives some useful info)
9. underestimating the power of the enemy


things i noted

-M-INf not armored
-Air units and gunships are both extremely useful
-Airports are also very useful for the airlifts, these lifts are not shot down by fighters as in civ2
-Like others i noted that the AI wins lots of fights in his own turn also against units that aren't wounded, a bit strange. Have to look
at the battle log more closely for this phenomenon. I sometimes suspect the AI of knowing the outcome of a fight in advance.
-Try to avoid modern war, it's tedious

unsure of
-Is it better to raze cities instead of than keeping them, having settlers ready once you've sued for peace? I think so.
-WHich are the best civics for modern war? probably Police state (instead of HR which i used for happiness), free speech and theocracy
-Do your units get a defense bonus in a city in resistance?
-Jail + mount-r + police state is how much ww left?



Tommorrow i'll give it one more try going back to earlier save (1950 or so) and i'll post saves then.

 

[Snaaty]

@ Giaur:

Since I was also quite curious, how many troops an AI could/would build, I used the worldbuilder to count throught the troops Cyrus had before I started my attack...

I´ts no exact count, because I had to add up every city and stack, but it goes down to about 350 - 400 units (he had one stack of 11 carriers for example)

 

[Snaaty]

@ Dirk:

I´m not the best to give tips, because I wasn´t able to win this war in time because of the immense ammount of resistance Cyrus put up...

But:

Razing cities and resettling: Depends upon infrastructure of captured city

Civics: Police State (but don´t switch to early, because it prevents buyrushing units (I mad this mistake) free speech and theocracy

city in resistance: no def. bonus

Jail + mount-r + police state is how much ww left?: nothing left I think (but could be wrong)

...

I also didn´t use aircrafts (used modern armors / mech inf 2:1 and some artillery to defend first city). But since I never advanced I had no problems with advancing speed (but in general this worked quite well for me in the past when giving some modern armors collateral, so no artillery needed...)

But is seems, that only in vanilla, this worked out quite well, before this (my first) endgame war in warlords, I never would have expected one AI to build something like 400 units (+ 2 vassals with additional troops...)

 

[Mutineer]

Well, look on my game. I think it was a correct way to handle this situation.
In my save Cyrus was supperpower to.

 

[Snaaty]

@ Multineer:

I already LOOKED ad your saves... ...and belive me, I´m really, really (I mean really) impressed how you pulled this through... ...and I learned quite a lot by looking at your saves and turnlogs...

...

So to summarize it up, I more or less failed completely in this endgame war... ...waited to long and then striking directly for Cyrus... ...I simply underestimated the ammount of units I would have to face... ...well, at least I know now how to DON´T do a modern war in warlords

 

[Giaur]

@ Giaur:

Since I was also quite curious, how many troops an AI could/would build, I used the worldbuilder to count throught the troops Cyrus had before I started my attack...

I´ts no exact count, because I had to add up every city and stack, but it goes down to about 350 - 400 units (he had one stack of 11 carriers for example)

I am right after system crash. I lost one pertition completely. I was writing post, when system crashed on me. I could give you some numbers but without a proof though (I lost that save, and all the others).

Cyrus: 5.8mln before 1.9 after
Wash: 1.8mln before 1.3 after

Units killed in this war:
1) Navy
Carrier 5
Transport 9
Destroyer 18
Battleship 10
in summary 42 units (both Cyrus and Wash)

2) Land
SEAL 13
SAM 25
Marine 5
Mech 27
Gunship 49
Artillery 57 (I was surprised, however I often left computer during AI's turn)
Modern Tank 7
Cavalry 12
in summary 195 units

3) Aircraft
Jet 16
Stealth B. 10
in summary 26 (mainly belonged to Cyrus)

The whole number killed units equals 263. Cyrus lost 5.8-1.9 = 3.0mln soldiers
Washington lost 1.8-1.3 = 0.5mln soldiers. So 6/7 of these 263 units belonged to Cyrus. That means Cyrus lost 225 units.

Some try to explain these odd things (in your and my save)
1) I killed more units so power drop should be higher (it is)
2) Cyrus had stronger military in your save (about 30% I think). He had more turns more to improve his military. I ended this war in 1946
3) maybe if you clicked one more turn, the power drop would be seen more clearly

It's the best comment/advice I can make.

 

[Giaur]

I suppose there won't be global summary due to some lazy players, who aren't determined to complete this task

edit: next adventure should be some non-domination victory. I am lame in Space Victory. And I never attempted to Diplomatic Victory

 

[Dirk1302]

I suppose there won't be global summary due to some lazy players, who aren't determined to complete this task

edit: next adventure should be some non-domination victory. I am lame in Space Victory. And I never attempted to Diplomatic Victory

Well you can't blame me for effort . And yes i agree no domination next time. Space race on immortal ok with me, at least i know what i'm doing then.

@Mutineer, before trying for the last time i'll certainly give your game a close look.

@Snaaty, thx for the tips, no ww with police, mt-rush and jail would really help, ww got me to my knees both times going up to 19 in capital(where i had jail) when using HR. I tried police state also but still ww got to 9 and now i had no HR.

 

[Giaur]

@Snaaty, thx for the tips, no ww with police, mt-rush and jail would really help, ww got me to my knees both times going up to 19 in capital(where i had jail) when using HR. I tried police state also but still ww got to 9 and now i had no HR.

Jails are neccesity in Domination. Police State usually indicates that you cannot handle with the situation, but it happens to the best.

P.S. I had once situation when ww reached 25, I think.

 

[Mutineer]

That units I killed and lost in Cyrus war.
All together 459 Cyrus units were killed.
Actially more, I miss Arty line somewhere.
Kill 92 Arty lost 64 Arty.

So together 551 Cyrus units killed

 

[cabert]

That units I killed and lost in Cyrus war.
All together 459 Cyrus units were killed.
Actially more, I miss Arty line somewhere.

That's why you're better off finishing domination before the modern era I guess.
It's a bit strange, though. Cyrus is usually a rather good victim.

edit : is there a way to tell how/when those units were produced?
I have the feeling that 2.08 AIs use whipping and drafting and possibly $rushing a lot.

 

[Giaur]

That units I killed and lost in Cyrus war.
All together 459 Cyrus units were killed.
Actially more, I miss Arty line somewhere.

Do you find any explanation for such high numbers?
I will look at your save as soon as I install the game ...

edit: are you sure, all the units belonged to Cyrus?

 

[Mutineer]

edit : is there a way to tell how/when those units were produced?
I have the feeling that 2.08 AIs use whipping and drafting and possibly $rushing a lot.

Look on Victory screens, there is Statistic page.

 

[Mutineer]

edit: are you sure, all the units belonged to Cyrus?

Yes, All others were less advanced when I take them.
Others Infantry/riffles/cannon numbers.

 

[Giaur]

hmmmm ....

Consider his military production of 1500 (he is Imp and could construct plenty M.Academies)
This means 10 units could be produced each turn.
20 turns last to collect 200 more units. This is the difference beetwen your Cyrus and mine. That's not so terribly long.