LK102, Deity, RaR, just win.

[romeothemonk]

I like conquest, as it seems more final than domination. Since this is kind of a feel good open-ended game, I really like conquest.
Plus we are not really that far in turn wise and will easily win before 1750, the "normal" get serious date in my games.

 

[Greebley]

Besides if we go for conquest, you will probably get to end the game

Conquest is more satisfying in a certain way. I certainly wouldn't mind.

 

[T_McC]

LK102 - Are We There Yet?

1500 AD (0)
Turn research down to 10%. We don't need any more tech, this game has gone on too long already.

Upgrade something to Amphibious Infantry. Note we have the capacity to transport 80 units at a time. Let's stretch those limits a bit. Send a couple of the slower ships ahead, I plan on cracking open a giant can of whoop-ass on turn 1.

Rush a bit of stuff. I really want to mobilize, but I'll wait a couple of turns to see what shakes out. Also not sure that helps us much with doing 1 troop/turn.

This is going to be an offensive war!

1505 AD (1)
We have 53% of the Worlds land area.

I misspoke: We can transport 120 units this turn.

We have too many workers, hopefully I can end this on my turns. I don't want to have to corral all those guys I just automated.

Load the boats and declare war on the Aztecs next turn. The can of Whoop-Ass remains closed, as I didn't load the ships in a city.

1510 AD (2)
Can't pay Ghandi to join us, so let's hit them both.

Declare on the Aztecs and hit 'em with a float-by. Four Amphibious Infantry victories later, and we own Malinalco w/Magellans. Move the Transports in and start the rest of the plan.

Capture and sacrifice a worker to pop borders a little bit. Then bombard Tlaxcala and win 4 times with pair of Cav Armies. City contains the Slave Trade, I want no part of that so I abandon the city and replace with a settler that was along for the ride. Sacrifice an Aztec worker that was captured in the city.

Bomb and capture Tlacopan without loss.

Now use some of the 32 workers I brought with me to rail towards Tenochtitlan. Bombard and then kill the first 4 Rifles with two Cav Armies. Two more Rifles fall to Elite Cavs, then a MK IV Army kills a Cannon and occupies the city. Abandon and replace with New Gao, having a Tank Army as a defender.

Only 2% gain in land area, but plenty more of Azteca to go! And we're going to be able to build Tanks on our continent and throw them into battle on the same turn.

1515 AD (3)
We lose 1 Adventurer on the IT.

Capture Xochicalco without loss. Sacrifice worker in Tlacopan to pop borders.

Capture Tlatelolco and sacrifice a worker. Still have two more for the next two cities.

Now we have 57% of the worlds land area.

1520 AD (4)
Lose a Motorcycle Scout and a MK IV, the Indians want to play rough. I can do that too. One Motorcycle Army, coming up! Hope Ghandi isn't too used to having Oil.

Capture Teotihuacan without loss.

Pop a leader cleaning up around Tlatelolco. Now I have to find 3 Motorcycles to put in it. That will be set up next turn.

Capture Cali... and Taj Mahal. Will be abandoned next turn. Then pull some Artillery up for strategic bombing of terrain. If I did this right, the Indians cannot attack with a MK IV except vs a MK IV army.

1525 AD (5)
Lost a Jeep in there, and the Indians are dumb enough to attack a MK IV army on defense. That's 29 HP at defense 15.

Decide Calix... has to stay, it is built on a Hill so it's rather defensible.

Cycle army moves out, kills 4 workers on the way. We get the Indian Oil next turn. (Provided the Army doesn't get whacked. )

MK IV army kills 3 Indian MK IV's. Then two Indian Cavs get whacked.

We have 59% land area, and hopefully next turn will be a big one.

1530 AD (6)
The Indians pull a Homer and have a Leatherneck standing on their Oil. Pillage all I can, and vow to get it next time.

Bombard and capture Texcoco. Raze Punjab and score 517 gold.

Burn Lahore (and Universal Suffrage) popping an MGL in the process. Replace the two burned Indian cities with one of our own. Now I just have to figure out how to defend it. Oh, a fresh MK IV Army should do the trick. Sacrifice a worker to expand borders.

Now we have 61% land area.

1535 AD (7)
Hmmm ... the only Indian MK IV's I saw were in retreat.

Capture Atzca.. , and the fronts will no longer diverge. Uh-oh, Envelopment ahead!

Burn Bombay, build New Timbuktu. Only have 62% of the land now, but I suspect good things on the next turn.

1540 AD (8)
Burn Calcutta and found in its place New Diffa. Copious sacrificing bumps us to 64% land.

Pop another leader cleaning up Indian units in our territory. I think next turn might be it.

I want to keep Kohlapur and replace Delhi and Hyderabad with one city.

1545 AD (9)
Lose an MG to a MK IV.

Hey, we built the Naval Academy!

Let's light this candle ... Hyderabad and Circus Maximus are flattened. Capture Kohlapur and the Emancipation Proclomation. Keep that.

Raze Delhi with Leo's. And it is all over but the shouting.

Make Peace with the Aztecs so I can move some units to the ex-Indian territory.

Save the game and hit Shift-Enter

Make Peace with India, what the hey. Then have about 30 builds complete.

Didn't end the war with zero units lost, but we lost less than 1 unit per city captured.

 

[LKendter]

We add another win.

 

[Greebley]

I was thinking you might very well win within 10 if you were agressive enough.

I like the idea that we won a RaR game without having to choose a huge food start.

I do think the AI doesn't play RaR that well towards the end. It is not good at prioritizing shield improving buildings for example. Still it plays well enough to make a good game. It also has a bigger advantage early on.

In any case, I enjoyed the game.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I do think the AI doesn't play RaR that well towards the end.

They are pretty tough in the Modern Age again. It's the mid-late Industrial times where they struggle.
Of course, the human usually doesn't allow a strong AI to reach nukes and gunships. I tried some bad start Space Victories (in other words, I wasn't an era ahead), and got attacked by quite some ugly stacks here - they even trew some nukes...

Maybe we should retry with a really mediocre to bad start?

 

[LKendter]

I like the idea that we won a RaR game without having to choose a huge food start.

Now there is a statement I really agree with.

 

[romeothemonk]

Yay, a win.
Actually Greebley I have a personal Deity game where the AI does quite well in modern war.
It is on standard Archi, and the AI was brutally tough. They got all kinds of awesome Modern Age stuff. It took 100 turns of war before I even cracked their defenses. They had 33 Battleships, 20 some attack subs, and a buttload of planes, making any offense really tricky.
Naval Manueverability was the only thing that saved my butt, and my start had 4 cows. (Nothing else at all on my island but hey).
Anyway, if the AI gets rolling into the modern age they can be very tough.
(Landing 15 armors in one fell swoop). I am not sure if you guys have ever gotten to use them, but stacks of Aegis cruisers are very nice to have, and they finally cracked the homeland defenses of the AI for me.
This game was good and fun, and I am glad that you all let me participate.

 

[T_McC]

Yeah, when the AI didn't get us early it was fairly smooth sailing. I thought the game was over when the Incans sneak-attacked us and we were able to get the Sioux in against them. If the Sioux hadn't had Political Philosophy on that turn the game might have been quite different. It also helped that Abe stabbed the Incans in the back really hard during that war, flipping sides without even sending a single unit against us.

Abe couldn't even accomplish anything by sneak-attacking us with ~90% of his offensive forces in the middle of our territory. All that got him was an elimination within ~12 turns.