Late Game Strategy

[peter grimes]

Upon opening the save, we see a message from The Leader:


continued:



Plus, it turns out that nukes will cost us 1000g minus hammers invested, so that's a bummer. When we chop a forest, we'll still have to pay ~900g per nuke. So that's only 4 nukes that we can muster this turn.

Since Epsilon is already close to building the UN, and since they have offered some techs, I propose we try to blackmail them further. Fascism is nice, but I think that we should demand both Combustion and Radio. But why should we give up Fission? If we do, they'll be able to research Ecology. Should we play hardball??

Also, I'm afraid that if we nuke Aloha, Robboo will stop playing. As much as I'd like to do it, I'd really hate to see the game die when we're this close to the end.

I'd really like to see people comment on all this, as I don't feel comfortable making these huge decisions myself. Even if it's just a 'I don't care what we do' that will make me feel more relaxed.

Twistlok and I will try to have the save played sometime on Saturday or early sunday (est)

 

[pindicator]

4th of July seems an aptly ironic date to do some nuking. Enjoy the holiday, everyone!


(But if you want to try leverage our radioactive friends to get techs out of epsilon then let's play some hardball.)

 

[Whomp]

This game is nearing the end and Epsilon seems to have it the bag. I'm inclined to hit them or have them give us the opportunity to win somehow. Their call.

 

[Conroe]

It looks to me that Epsilon is the one doing the blackmailing. "If you nuke us, we won't finish the UN". And considering how fast these guys turned on Aloha, I'm not sure I want to give them 4 turns of war prep time. Unfortunately, this game doesn't end unless they finish the UN. Don't know that we have a choice ... I vote don't bother with the blackmail, but instead make them reassure us they aren't going to attack in 4 turns. Then nuke them on the turn that the UN is built. (Of course I haven't seen a save, so whatever you think is best also works.)

 

[peter grimes]

So far I tally:
Blackmail for all we can: 1
Don't blackmail: 1
Hit them sooner or later no matter what: 2

I've drafted a letter to Epsilon, proposing the Blackmail option. No matter what I think we're smart to build as many nukes as we can right now. I'm not inclined to give Epsilon Fission. We'll start out there, and see how the negotiations go.

And as far as allowing Epsilon 4 turns to bulk up to repel an invasion: They are already far and away strong enough to hold back our 8 cavalry and 3 infantry

Gifting our entire military to Aloha turns out to have been a colossal strategic blunder.

 

[peter grimes]

Diplomacy to start the turn:


...and from Epsilon:


So it seems they ignored our letter.

I think we should hit Epsilon with all the nukes we have (5). Then we blackmail Aloha, and nuke them if they don't give us Radio and Combustion.



I think we'll have 2 nukes available to use on Aloha, assuming we don't use any on Epsilon that turn. I'd vote to hit their Capital and one of the other production cities.

I won't be able to play the save until Tuesday morning. But since I can take screenshots, and Twistlok can't, I think we should wait. Also, this will give us time to get a letter out to Aloha and Epsilon letting them know our displeasure with their choices.

 

[Whomp]

Nuke em !

 

[Conroe]

Well, I'm guessing this game is pretty much over, so it probably doesn't matter what we do. But it seems that we've got a couple of options if we want to go out in a bang.

The first option is to wait until the UN completes next turn. Then we lob over all of our nukes in an effort to reduce Epsilon's population. If Aloha is on board, we might be able to steal the UN from them. The opponent would be either us or Aloha depending on who has the most population.

Our other option is, if we really want to blackmail Epsilon, we could follow up on our "concerns" about our missiles accuracy. We post an announcement in the main thread about conducting a missile test. We lob one over at Epsilon and then send them an apology note for our "failed" test. Noting, of course, in the letter how the accuracy would probably have been better if only we had the appropriate techs.

What ever happened to that last city of Innovia's? Did we ever take it? If we haven't I'd say we go ahead and take it out, as well. I guess another option would be to declare on all 3 of them. Take out Innovia and nuke the other two.

 

[killercane]

We cant steal UN with so few nukes, not enough population killers. I like the nuke em all approach.

 

[peter grimes]

OKAY, I'm going to play the turn in about 12 hours, depending on how annoying my work responsibilities become.

When I open the save, I will have to respond to the Diplomacy that Epsilon and Aloha have proposed. See post 26 to get an idea.

I still maintain that we hold a firm line with epsilon: Nuke a couple of cities, using ICBMs from cities that they can assault in a counter attack (nukes can't be rebased ). The idea is to knock down population and production. This turn, we don't nuke Aloha. Instead we demand, using the in-game diplomacy tools, Radio & Combustion. We mention that we still have [n] ICBMs with which to enforce our demands.

At the end of the turn we demand some cities from Epsilon, plus any techs we think Aloha isn't going to come through on. The best we can hope for is parity in tech and population. Epsilon winning by UN is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Speaking of which, Does anyone object to voting for Epsilon in a UN victory? I won't vote in this one, as I was a member of that team earlier. I think this vote should only be open to people who were never members Epsilon.

 

[pindicator]

I'll vote for them, but only on the condition that they accede to our demands!

 

[killercane]

Why do we need to hear demands and make demands if the conclusion is inevitable? Just nuke everyone and we will try to invade Aloha.

 

[Conroe]

Speaking of which, Does anyone object to voting for Epsilon in a UN victory?

I'd say yes. Epsilon basically won the game a long time ago. Maybe if the coalition would have ever come together, it might have been a different conclusion. Fittingly, I think it is their diplomacy more than anything else that did it.

 

[peter grimes]

I opened the save to see what's up. Things could be worse
-We lost Henryville, Conrovia, and Leonidas
-We are about to lose Brilliant
-We have 1 nuke ready
-Aloha accepted the trade
-Innovia accepted the trade
-Epsilon didn't
-Epsilon completed the UN

Here's the complete event log:


Forces outside of Brilliant:



Forces marauding towards our core:



I'd like to play in a couple of hours. I think we should try and nuke an outlying Epsilonian city that still has a lot of Population. Hopefully it won't have a bomb shelter

I'll try to whack the marauders near our core.

I'll look into what we have in Brilliant, but it may be best to retreat those troops to make a stand in our core. Thoughts?

 

[peter grimes]

I opened the save this morning to find a message from Aloha and a message from Epsilon:




and here's the rest of what they want from us


Yes, All our Base [would] belong to Them.

Then another message:




Here's most of the event log. The only lines that were clipped concerned another bombardment.




Epsilon has demanded that we accept that trade if we want to be in the game when the UN vote comes around. I think that we may still be in the game, albeit weakly, if we don't give in. However, our ability to rush nukes has plummeted with the loss of cities. We're only bringing in ~450 per turn, so rushing more than 1 per turn is no longer possible. That raises the possibility of rushing Infantry.

But I don't know how long we can hold them off - if they bring some tanks down, we're toast. Of course, we could try to whack their Oil

But I've never seen fallout over water resources, so they will likely have the oil hooked back up in 2 or 3 turns at the latest.

So do we accept their offer? Here's the overview of how much we have left:



We can expect to lose Chappaquiddick next turn, but that's the only city that I can see units outside of. Their transports are frequently promoted to +1 and naval movement, plus they have Refrigeration. So there could be more transports along Aloha's coast that we can't see. We could lost Hamburger and Twaddle as well. The following turn we'd likely lose Balderdash. At that point we'll have almost no economic power left, just some production. Perhaps we should revolt to Nationalism and start Drafting?

How best to end this game, fellas?

 

[pindicator]

I think we chose this path knowing it would not end in victory, but that it would be fun. Let's see this through, and fight for the win.

So I saw what you posted about the PM you sent Aloha, but if that was the end of the communication then that by no means condemns you as having made a mistake. We did not say, "Go get peace" --- we asked if they were thinking about it. If they just took that as carte blanche to take peace if they wanted to and not even communicate that to us, then they have no right to be as . .. .. .. .. .y as they are.

P.S. I vote for Epsilon in U.N. We may be a bit nutty to go after them, but at least we're consistent (*cough* not Aloha *cough*)

 

[Conroe]

Epsilon has demanded that we accept that trade if we want to be in the game when the UN vote comes around.

I think our reply should be "Nuts!".

As for what to do with our one nuke, do we know where any of their stacks are located? Otherwise, just have a look around the map to see if any happiness resources are clumped around a single city. We might be able to get lucky and add to their war weariness.

 

[peter grimes]

Good idea about nuking the luxury resources! I hadn't thought about that. Unfortunately, we can't see any of their stacks. So I will target Luxuries and population. Of course, now that they have Ecology, they can scrub the fallout. So be it.

The PM that I posted was the complete text. I agree that we weren't giving them outright permission, but I can understand their interpretation. I really think, on the whole, they weren't a team that spends as much time and energy thinking things through in this game as I'm accustomed to. It will be very interesting to see the post counts for the different teams by the end of this

SO far, it's 2 votes to continue nuking Epsilon

 

[Furiey]

Considering that you also sent other messages saying that our strategy will be destroyed if they go for peace I think that they are just finding excuses. Yes it could be taken that way but only by a large stretch of the imagination. Definitely not your fault.

Just find something more to nuke, Epsilon will just lose our vote for the UN if they wipe us out.

 

[peter grimes]

update to follow in a few hours. Highlights: we nuked 3 fresh cities