JustBen
Prince
The basic strategic sitation is this: Rome can harry us in the east by marching Rifles around and pillaging our territory, forcing us to rely on Cannon to scare them away when they get close enough to our cities, or on unfavorable attacks by our Cavalry. It takes 3 turns to move infantry from our productive core to the western theatre of battle safely (see picture below), and that's where Rome has concentrated their offensive armies against us. That means that only Cavalry can move from east to west fast enough to fight off Roman incursions, which they absolutely must do to prevent us from losing Spices and sending us into pandemic-level starvation unless we crank our luxuries up to the point that we're at about -60 gpt. Thus we have no reliable mobile force in the east, forcing us to keep the infantry have where it is -- i.e. in the east, not the long road to the west.
In short, this is the most brilliant strategically offensive campaign I've ever seen the AI mount against me. To make things more exciting, we're locked into 20 turns of war. Here's my real-time log of events:
AD 450 (0)
I don't really see the need for Tatung to have Walls, so it gets vetoed to Barracks. Anyang goes to Courthouse. The aesthete in me wants Tarsus first, but the Iron that Akkad has access to me makes it more appealing as a first target. But as I said, priorities are in a secure defense. England offers 7 gpt and Navigation for Military Tradition.
IT: Rome and the Iroquois ally against USA. Iro start Newton's. Our Rider kills an attacking Cavalry (!). Korea and the Iroquois ally against USA.
AD 460 (1)
Bejing: Cavalry -> Cavalry
Tsingtao: Harbor -> Cavalry
Shanghai: Musket -> Musket
Canton: Musket -> Musket
3 Roman Cavalry stray into the open. We get 2 elites doing the obvious thing. Upgrade a couple Riders, count my Workers... Oh. That's ugly. I get 18 slaves and 5 natives. We're developed enough right now, but the rail net will be really slow in coming. Oh well; not the problem right now.
IT: Iro and Rome embargo us. Rome feeds stuff into the meatgrinder; we lose a Cav and an elte Spear but kill a Cav, a Longbow, and knock 1/2 the life off of a Cavalry army (that was our Spear, btw). The bad guys disconnect a redundant Saltpeter and a very non-redundant Spice source.
AD 470 (2)
Persepolis: Musket -> Musket
Susa revols; scroll ahead. After all my hard work, I then go to the city screen to find that WW has ratcheted up and we now need to run a 65 gpt deficit to keep our cities from starving. Great. This is a bad enough situation that I have to sleep on it. After careful consideration, I decide an all-out assault on Tarsus is the best way to get our Spices back online.
AD 480 (3)
England is about to discover Cavalry by research, so I sell it to her for a pittance (I'm penny-counting here). I hold off on assaulting Tarsus in favor of picking off Rifleman who unwisely strayed into the open. It costs us a Cavalry, but we nail 4 of them.
IT: Gringos start Newton's. Washington builds the Trading Company. Rome makes several disjointed attacks on well-defended cities; we pay a Musketman for a Cavalry, but force 2 more to retreat.
AD 490 (4)
Assault on Tarsus: We lose a vet Cavalry, fail to spring a leader once, but secure it after taking out only 2 Rifles. Our pop growth is still a little stunted, but at least we're back up to -1 gpt instead of -45.
IT: Salamanca finishes Newton's. Rome builds the Theater. Cascade is terminated. Rome lands a Cavalry pair behind the lines at Tarsus; they're still next to our road net, so it could have been much worse.
AD 500 (5)
Nanking: Granary -> Cavalry
Shanghai: Musket -> Musket
Canton revolts; bad mistake by me. We smash the expeditionary force in the west.
IT: Iro and Korea ally against Rome; that terminates the Iroquois's embargo against us.
England finally joins Rome against us; I almost care. Caesar continues to hemhorrage Cavalry against use, making sure that each full-strength, fortified Musketman with a city defense bonus gets a chance to kill one. Their army kills 2 in Macao, though.
AD 510 (6)
We take revenge on the Cavalry army, slaughtering it in the open plain north of Macao without loss. WW ratchets up again; fortunately, we can ship Hiawatha Incense and 14 gpt for Furs thanks to Korea's cunning diplomacy. He won't sell us Gems for less than the cost of 10% luxes, so we stop there. But it still lets us fire most of the specialists, which makes me relieved. I should've rushed Macao's Barracks a long time ago; I rectify that error now. Our lack of infantry in the western theatre of battle is starting to hurt in a serious way. I swap Nanking off of its Cav to a Musket.
AD 520 (7)
Susa: Cavalry -> Cavalry
More leader fishing and harrying of Roman forces intruding on our territory.
AD 530 (8)
Beijing: Cavalry -> Cavalry
Tatung: Barracks -> Musket
Antioch: Courthouse -> Barracks
Canton: Musket -> Cavalry
Tienstsin: Musket -> Musket, hire a specialist (badly needs a Market, but needs defense worse)
Ellipi gets swapped from Cavalry to Aqueduct; we need more people. Physics remains prohibitively expensive, but America will now buy Horses from us. Since this is due to Iroquois gains against them, I'm unwilling to ship them for fear of our credit rating.
IT: America and Korea make peace. Rome offers peace, but we cannot accept.
AD 540 (9)
Persepolis: Musket -> Musket
Shanghai: Musket -> Cavalry
Chengdu: Musket (regular; oops) -> Aqueduct
More partisan-style attacks on Roman invaders. I can't seem to muster enough full-health Cavalry to assault Akkad decisively.
IT: My luck runs out. Persepolis falls to Roman Cavalry, setting off a new round of debilitating WW.
AD 550 (10)
Tsingtao: Cavalry -> Barracks (oops again; this is getting embarassing)
We get a palace expansion, but I'm just not feeling the love. I fling the Cavalry I have at Persepolis; it should've been a giveaway assault, but of course their last veteran Cavalry kills off 3 of ours.
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And that's the way it is. Our strategic situation is slightly worse than when I picked up the game, and there's plenty more of this war to go. Our tactical situation in the west is nothing less than catastrophic. I had no idea that retaking Persepolis would be a problem. I was wrong, and now Darkness is going to pay for it.
With the benefit of hindsight (and only that benefit; see my comments in previous posts for a more faithful analysis of TMcC's choices in that regard), I wish we didn't have those alliances. It would've been better to eat whatever Rome had to throw at us for only a few turns than to expose ourselves to their long-term production advantage. I think the real problem was that no one realized what an amazing strategic position Rome had, and so there was no appreciation of how important it was to quickly terminate this war. As it is, our entire economy is devoted to pouring out forces that are being fed into a meatgrinder for absolutely no gain to our civ. The world is at war (we can't downplay the importance of this; it's definitely a big point in favor of the MA network TMcC set up), but our facade of strength is beginning to collapse.
The Caesarian Wars
In short, this is the most brilliant strategically offensive campaign I've ever seen the AI mount against me. To make things more exciting, we're locked into 20 turns of war. Here's my real-time log of events:
AD 450 (0)
I don't really see the need for Tatung to have Walls, so it gets vetoed to Barracks. Anyang goes to Courthouse. The aesthete in me wants Tarsus first, but the Iron that Akkad has access to me makes it more appealing as a first target. But as I said, priorities are in a secure defense. England offers 7 gpt and Navigation for Military Tradition.
IT: Rome and the Iroquois ally against USA. Iro start Newton's. Our Rider kills an attacking Cavalry (!). Korea and the Iroquois ally against USA.
AD 460 (1)
Bejing: Cavalry -> Cavalry
Tsingtao: Harbor -> Cavalry
Shanghai: Musket -> Musket
Canton: Musket -> Musket
3 Roman Cavalry stray into the open. We get 2 elites doing the obvious thing. Upgrade a couple Riders, count my Workers... Oh. That's ugly. I get 18 slaves and 5 natives. We're developed enough right now, but the rail net will be really slow in coming. Oh well; not the problem right now.
IT: Iro and Rome embargo us. Rome feeds stuff into the meatgrinder; we lose a Cav and an elte Spear but kill a Cav, a Longbow, and knock 1/2 the life off of a Cavalry army (that was our Spear, btw). The bad guys disconnect a redundant Saltpeter and a very non-redundant Spice source.
AD 470 (2)
Persepolis: Musket -> Musket
Susa revols; scroll ahead. After all my hard work, I then go to the city screen to find that WW has ratcheted up and we now need to run a 65 gpt deficit to keep our cities from starving. Great. This is a bad enough situation that I have to sleep on it. After careful consideration, I decide an all-out assault on Tarsus is the best way to get our Spices back online.
AD 480 (3)
England is about to discover Cavalry by research, so I sell it to her for a pittance (I'm penny-counting here). I hold off on assaulting Tarsus in favor of picking off Rifleman who unwisely strayed into the open. It costs us a Cavalry, but we nail 4 of them.
IT: Gringos start Newton's. Washington builds the Trading Company. Rome makes several disjointed attacks on well-defended cities; we pay a Musketman for a Cavalry, but force 2 more to retreat.
AD 490 (4)
Assault on Tarsus: We lose a vet Cavalry, fail to spring a leader once, but secure it after taking out only 2 Rifles. Our pop growth is still a little stunted, but at least we're back up to -1 gpt instead of -45.
IT: Salamanca finishes Newton's. Rome builds the Theater. Cascade is terminated. Rome lands a Cavalry pair behind the lines at Tarsus; they're still next to our road net, so it could have been much worse.
AD 500 (5)
Nanking: Granary -> Cavalry
Shanghai: Musket -> Musket
Canton revolts; bad mistake by me. We smash the expeditionary force in the west.
IT: Iro and Korea ally against Rome; that terminates the Iroquois's embargo against us.
England finally joins Rome against us; I almost care. Caesar continues to hemhorrage Cavalry against use, making sure that each full-strength, fortified Musketman with a city defense bonus gets a chance to kill one. Their army kills 2 in Macao, though.AD 510 (6)
We take revenge on the Cavalry army, slaughtering it in the open plain north of Macao without loss. WW ratchets up again; fortunately, we can ship Hiawatha Incense and 14 gpt for Furs thanks to Korea's cunning diplomacy. He won't sell us Gems for less than the cost of 10% luxes, so we stop there. But it still lets us fire most of the specialists, which makes me relieved. I should've rushed Macao's Barracks a long time ago; I rectify that error now. Our lack of infantry in the western theatre of battle is starting to hurt in a serious way. I swap Nanking off of its Cav to a Musket.
AD 520 (7)
Susa: Cavalry -> Cavalry
More leader fishing and harrying of Roman forces intruding on our territory.
AD 530 (8)
Beijing: Cavalry -> Cavalry
Tatung: Barracks -> Musket
Antioch: Courthouse -> Barracks
Canton: Musket -> Cavalry
Tienstsin: Musket -> Musket, hire a specialist (badly needs a Market, but needs defense worse)
Ellipi gets swapped from Cavalry to Aqueduct; we need more people. Physics remains prohibitively expensive, but America will now buy Horses from us. Since this is due to Iroquois gains against them, I'm unwilling to ship them for fear of our credit rating.
IT: America and Korea make peace. Rome offers peace, but we cannot accept.
AD 540 (9)
Persepolis: Musket -> Musket
Shanghai: Musket -> Cavalry
Chengdu: Musket (regular; oops) -> Aqueduct
More partisan-style attacks on Roman invaders. I can't seem to muster enough full-health Cavalry to assault Akkad decisively.
IT: My luck runs out. Persepolis falls to Roman Cavalry, setting off a new round of debilitating WW.
AD 550 (10)
Tsingtao: Cavalry -> Barracks (oops again; this is getting embarassing)
We get a palace expansion, but I'm just not feeling the love. I fling the Cavalry I have at Persepolis; it should've been a giveaway assault, but of course their last veteran Cavalry kills off 3 of ours.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
And that's the way it is. Our strategic situation is slightly worse than when I picked up the game, and there's plenty more of this war to go. Our tactical situation in the west is nothing less than catastrophic. I had no idea that retaking Persepolis would be a problem. I was wrong, and now Darkness is going to pay for it.
With the benefit of hindsight (and only that benefit; see my comments in previous posts for a more faithful analysis of TMcC's choices in that regard), I wish we didn't have those alliances. It would've been better to eat whatever Rome had to throw at us for only a few turns than to expose ourselves to their long-term production advantage. I think the real problem was that no one realized what an amazing strategic position Rome had, and so there was no appreciation of how important it was to quickly terminate this war. As it is, our entire economy is devoted to pouring out forces that are being fed into a meatgrinder for absolutely no gain to our civ. The world is at war (we can't downplay the importance of this; it's definitely a big point in favor of the MA network TMcC set up), but our facade of strength is beginning to collapse.
The Caesarian Wars
Kuningas 
) Caesar also is down to 87 gold. I can tell you that when the war started, he had over 9000. (I didn't mention it in my report, but I figured the Koreans and the US were coming into this war, might as well be for us rather than against us.) We are at maximum WW, so further war isn't going to enrage our poplulace any more. Also by doinking the ROP's, we are in by far the best position to capture Ravenna and Virconium. 
