Merz02 - Emperor Island Empire

HC's homeland, core cities:


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Next Targets?



* I have been knocking down their defenses, we have a pair of modern tanks at Ravenna + the veteran units from HC's mainland. Transports are available for rapid deployment.
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HC's new Capital and remaining cities:


* Our submarine is looking for ships to sink & resources to pillage.
No luck so far.
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New Military Rankings:

 
holy crap, nice muf.

for all the ugly losses because you had no infantry support lol, who really cares, easier to build more mod armor than upgrade the old tanks.

Might want to just call peace with hc so we can concentrate on hatty next.

If a town of hc's is about to get steam rolled fine but might as well just call it and focus on the next threat.

We need mechs

Cheers!
-Liq
 
Incredible turns. I say take Olla and raze Humco, then turn to the next enemy. The question is who next? It looks like there are a bunch of runners-up who are at the same tech level and same place in the space race... Hatty perhaps?

I'm gonna remember that trick of trading the AI a tech a turn before they research it. :)
 
Looking at the save game, I spot a few things I've overlooked.
- HC has a town SE of Medina (with oil)!
- Cathy looks like she will be settling one of Saladin's ruins, south of Damascus, that we raised when we were crushing Sally.

- Lots of cities need tweaking. (Rome, Cori for example).
* I'm not sure why I had so much trouble keeping citizens working the tiles I told them to work. Some cities just ignored my orders the next turn, and go back to working whatever they want. Maybe Scowler can browse the city screens and double check what tiles are being worked.

Now that I'm looking, I notice we have a lot of trades... health resources for cash. Hmmm.... we actually need the health, our cities are very sick, which is why I went for the hospitals. Even though we traded our extra's, we still have a lot of crab/fish resources that will give some of our cities added health. Pigs & cows were good for our cities too. Oh well, hospitals are coming soon, but after Ravenna hooks up it's crabs next turn, check to see if our health has been affected in our cities, please. I'm curious, if you keep extra health resources, does your empires health ratings rise? If that's the case, then maybe build a few more workboats, we have a lot of sea resources that need hooking up still, plus our new territories.
- deer near damascus needs a camp (from HC's bombing).
- maybe look around and see if other resources have been damaged from HC's bombing?

Thats just a few things. Sheesh, an empire this large is getting difficult to micromanage! But in my defense, I was focused on winning the war in HC's backyard, not looking for which deer resource HC bombed.

Good luck Scowler! Militarily, we should have plenty of options. I started building thrusters in Rome (fix the tiles in the city, plz), and we might want to start building our space ship parts. The other civs are getting ahead of us as we were fighting this war. Since HC is pretty much crippled now, we can spam the casings in high production cities maybe? Build some labs too?

I agree with Merz about finishing off HC SW of Ravenna, don't need an enemy sitting that close to our important cities. I wonder if we could take HC's oil away from him down south of Medina (near the south pole), as well? Should be lightly defended.... right?
 


Good job! Will be a tough act to follow, though :sad:

I'll probably play it tomorrow, which should hopefully give me enough time to work out how NOT to screw things up...
 
Well, if we want, we can just shut down military production and go ballz-out on building spaceship parts. The reason we might want to do this is if we think that we just have too many competitors to cripple in too short a time... but I see no reason to do it halfway. Either go all military or go all spaceship. Scowler, try to add up the times necessary for all the techs and see if it's even a viable option to go spaceship. If not, then military it is.
 
Good point, Merz. I should have given that more thought. Only two turns invested into thrusters, so whatever :)

*If we are given the go ahead for a global war, who is our biggest threat?
Hatty? - She is a few techs behind us, and it is taking her 8 turns to research biology (we got it in 4 I think).
* Cyrus - Persia has been keeping up in techs, I think. (may need to look at savegame again). If Persia is keeping up in techs, and I'm pretty sure he has been building a spaceship too... this gets interesting.... (Persia has the Pentagon too)
* MM - building a spaceship too...
* Saladin is still researching the wheel or something. He is so far behind... heh heh
* What has Qin been upto? For a second rate power, he has a pretty decent score. Have the other civs been trading techs with him for cash or something?

Would a war with Hatty before a war with Cyrus be better, or the other way around? With Cathy closing her borders, does she think she can win a war against us in the east? Can we wipe out MM once and for all with a blitz across his new capital's island?

What resources exactly, are neccessary to build a spaceship? It would be nice if we could just monopolize the worlds essential spaceship resources, and deny the other civs the option of building their ship, even if they wanted to.
EDIT- Aluminum, Copper & Uranium double production speed. Lacking these resources does not prevent a civ from building the ship though.
Nuts, there is one perfectly good plan blown to bits.

Techs required are:

Fibre Optics: other civs have/are researching - cockpit
Fusion: *nobody has yet* - Engine
Satellites: many civs already have - Thrusters
Genetics: *nobody has yet* - Stasis Chamber
Ecology: *nobody has yet* - Life Support
Robotics: *?* - Docking Bay
Rocketry: *many civs already have - casings
 
Many civs already have Fusion and Fiber Optics? Jesus. This is a tough decision. Again, it depends on how fast we can research the remaining techs. If in a reasonable amount of time, we can almost certainly beat everyone to a space ship just by putting like ALL our cities on parts.
 
And the cities not on parts we build military, but keep the military back, ready for an emergency pounce on an AI that's close to winning.
 
Here is the diplomatic outlook....


Edit, I was thinking Fission, not Fusion, which is pretty much the same except it is totally different.
I also didn't include HC, because we know he knows Mass Media, and has no other tech advantage (yet)
I never bothered looking at Saladin, because really... what's the point?
 
Looked at the save... the info screen in the 'projects' pulldown tells you exactly who's built Apollo and what parts they've built. Cathy has no Apollo so rule her out. Both Mansa and Cyrus have built a substantial number of parts. So attack them. We need Robotics for Stealth Bombers and Mech Infantry; take that tech immediately after Medicine. Go after Cyrus first, I think he's ahead. Build almost all Modern Armor and raze; we won't be needing infantry (switch out all the marine and infantry builds). In ten turns we can have like 15 Modern Armors ready. Ships can bombard down defenses.
 
I think MM has a greater tech adv, but is weaker than Cyrus.
Cyrus has a larger military, but I think we have the tech advantage in units. Maybe we attack Cyrus now, while we still have that edge, and try to hit him where it hurts before he gets composites (etc), and is able to fight back?

Our army is nearby, upgrade the promoted tanks maybe, and we blitz across his capitals island to cripple him?

I disagree with halting our footsoldier builds though, with all our new cities, we need somebody to garrison them while our promoted units are sent off to the new front. And mixing a few SAM's and marines into a tank stack helps them fight mixed units on counterattacks. (If Cyrus has gunships, I'd keep a steady stream of SAM infantry units following our tanks around.) And I'd keep attacking him until he is out of the game. All his cities are fairly close to our core, so distance shouldn't be such a big issue. I'd just keep stomping on him until he is toast. Once we know he is crippled, we can mop him up.

At the same time, if we can blitz MM's new capital and supporting city, he would be hurting, again. I'd like to just finish this guy off, razing his far off cities if we must, but he is an annoyance. We fought him once, and he keeps coming back, just end him.

If we can deal with these two chumps speedily enough, I think we may still have time to engage Hatty before she gets mech inf, she is further behind on techs than Cyrus and MM.

*Edit: I do think Merz has the right idea about Modern Armor though, if we attack Cyrus, we should use as many Mod Armor units as we can reasonably produce, as he lacks composites. Mod Armor is our advantage, might as well hammer with our tech advantage than waste time sending standard infantry to the front. (But I still would produce some, mainly to at least garrison our cities and prevent our attack from stalling)

And that is a very smart tip about the projects menu! Thanks Merz!
 
Sorry for the delay. It took a while to work through and I ended up playing it in two sessions.

There are 65 turns remaining. The time to research the rest of the spaceship techs:

Fibre Optics: 9
Fusion: 14
Genetics: 10
Ecology: 7
Robotics: 12
---------------------
52 turns

Even allowing for tech deflation, we would be cutting things fine, especially considering our production capability is not especially marvelous. And the other civs already have a head start...

So, my focus this round will be preparing for a war with Cyrus (and Mansa, since they have a defensive pact).

Turn 0 (1985 AD)
After the formidable previous turnset HC should in theory present little further threat, and there is no point wasting additional time on him while there are more important matters demanding attention. Let's see what he is willing to give us for peace:



We have no need of Mass Media so the cash will do nicely, helping to pay for upgrades later.

I start switching military builds that have more than two turns remaining.

Ravenna begins: Modern Armor
Arpinum begins: Modern Armor
Kumbi Saleh begins: Modern Armor
Djenne begins: Modern Armor
Damascus begins: Modern Armor
Antium begins: Modern Armor

IBT:
Neapolis finishes: Marine
Arretium finishes: Aqueduct
Timbuktu finishes: SAM Infantry
Gao finishes: SAM Infantry
Medina finishes: Infantry
Confucianism has spread: Lisht (Egyptian Empire)

Turn 1 (1986 AD)
Qin demands that we adopt Police State. We will probably want this later to mitigate war weariness, but in the meantime we prefer to keep the science bonus of Representation, at least until Robotics is complete: I tell him to get stuffed.

HC adopts Bureaucracy / Organised Religion

Hatty completes Casing No. 4. However, according to our spy in Memphis it is unlikely that she will be much cause for concern:



Neapolis begins: Modern Armor
Arretium begins: Modern Armor
Timbuktu begins: Modern Armor
Gao begins: Modern Armor
Medina begins: Modern Armor

IBT:
Cumae finishes: Airport
Pisae finishes: Marine
Circei finishes: Jail
Mecca finishes: Aqueduct
Khurasan finishes: Barracks
Kufah grows: 9
Kufah finishes: Infantry
Atico finishes: Harbor
Juli finishes: Granary
Machu Picchu's borders expand
Confucianism has spread: Hangzhou (Chinese Empire)

Turn 2 (1987 AD)
Cool - we've disovered another (pre-mined) source of uranium at Neapolis.

Qin is also lagging behind in the space race and can probably be discounted.



Cumae begins: Modern Armor
Pisae begins: Modern Armor
Circei begins: Modern Armor
Mecca begins: Modern Armor
Khurasan begins: Modern Armor
Kufah begins: Modern Armor
Atico begins: Modern Armor
Juli begins: Courthouse

IBT:
Huamanga grows: 5
Huamanga finishes: Granary

Turn 3 (1988 AD)
Hatty completes Casing No. 5

Huamanga begins: Harbor

IBT:
Setia finishes: Market
Timbuktu finishes: Modern Armor
Basra finishes: Infantry
Atico's borders expand
Confucianism has spread: Atico
Andahuaylas grows: 5
Corihuayrachina finishes: Theatre

Turn 4 (1989 AD)
Mansa finishes Thruster No. 3

Research begun: Robotics
Setia begins: Laboratory
Timbuktu begins: Modern Armor
Basra begins: SAM Infantry
Corihuayrachina begins: Granary

IBT:
Basra grows: 6

Turn 5 (1990 AD)
Rome begins: Modern Armor

IBT:
Rome grows: 17
Arretium finishes: Modern Armor
Mecca finishes: Modern Armor

Turn 6 (1991 AD)
HC now has a monopoly on Robotics.



Arretium begins: Modern Armor
Mecca begins: Modern Armor

IBT:
Cumae finishes: Modern Armor
Neapolis finishes: Modern Armor
Pisae finishes: Modern Armor
Galileo Galilei (Great Scientist) born in Kumbi Saleh
Djenne finishes: Modern Armor
Mecca's borders expand
Juli finishes: Courthouse
Machu Picchu finishes: Theatre
Taoism has spread: Machu Picchu

Turn 7 (1992 AD)
Qin completes Casing No. 1.

We have a Great Scientist at Kumbi. He could build an Academy at Setia for approx. 45 extra beakers; I'm not sure what else he would be good for at this stage. I have him air-lifted to Rome for safety and the SG can discuss what to do with him.

Cumae begins: Modern Armor
Neapolis begins: Modern Armor
Pisae begins: Spy
Djenne begins: Modern Armor
Juli begins: SAM Infantry
Machu Picchu begins: Forge

IBT:
Antium finishes: Modern Armor
Arpinum finishes: Modern Armor
Timbuktu finishes: Modern Armor
Kumbi Saleh finishes: Modern Armor
Huamanga's borders expand

Turn 8 (1993 AD)
Cyrus offers us Mass Media in exchange for Fission. Somehow I don't think that would be a good idea...
Persia has also now completed Thruster No. 3.

Arpinum begins: Modern Armor
Antium begins: Modern Armor
Timbuktu begins: Modern Armor
Kumbi Saleh begins: Modern Armor

IBT:
Pisae finishes: Spy
Gao finishes: Modern Armor
Huamanga finishes: Harbor
Corihuayrachina's borders expand
Machu Picchu's borders expand
Tiwanaku's borders expand

Turn 9 (1994 AD)
Pisae begins: Modern Armor
Gao begins: Marine
Huamanga begins: Marine

IBT:
Rome finishes: Modern Armor
Mecca finishes: Modern Armor
Medina finishes: Modern Armor
Kufah finishes: Modern Armor
Corihuayrachina finishes: Granary
Cuzco finishes: Theatre
Tiwanaku finishes: Lighthouse

Turn 10 (1995 AD)
Cathy has now broken off trade with us, declaring us her "worst enemy".

Mansa has now researched Ecology.

Rome begins: Artillery
Mecca begins: Modern Armor
Corihuayrachina begins: Courthouse
Cuzco begins: Airport
Cuzco begins: Marine
Tiwanaku begins: Marine

Save

P.S. Don't be alarmed by the fact that many of our cities are starving or in odd configurations: I was doing everything I could to crank those units out as fast as possible!
 
We have 21 units of Modern Armor, and most of these are now located in the vicinity of Neapolis as this is the best staging point for an assault on Persia. There are three (or is it four?) transports full of Armor already just off the coast of Pasargadae as this is the weakest of the three cities on that island. Most of our fleet is also nearby to help bombard defenses, including a carrier with three jet fighters on board. There are also ships ready to take out Cyrus's oil platforms at a moment's notice.

Current intelligence regarding Cyrus's defenses:












A spy has also just arrived in Persepolis:


As they now have a defensive pact we have to go to war with both Mansa AND Cyrus. I concentrated the bulk of our forces around Persia as it poses the most immediate threat (militarily). From what I've seen, many of Mansa's troops appear to be outdated and we should be able to defend against him until most of Cyrus's military has been wiped out. With a bit of luck we will be able to scare Mansa into switching away from his military builds to protect himself. This is the current power graph:


There is some cash in the kitty and I have done a bit of upgrading already; once Robotics is in we can slam research to 0% and make sure everything is state of the art (we still have archers and longbows in some cities...). Maybe this would be the best time to attack?

We should be quite capable of crippling Persia and Mali; we just need to delay them for another 55 turns so that we can win a score victory.
 
You're leaving Liq 21+ units of Modern Armor to play with? You know how mad that sounds? :lol:
Sheesh... talk about shock-n-awe. Cyrus is not going to be happy once we send the tanks on a land rush across his frontier. Heh heh. Convienient that MM is nearby too, just a few transports to ferry troops from Rome (airport) to Mansa's capital island should be enough to overwhelm him.

Now what did they say about a two front war...? ;)
 
I just got home from work and just wanna go to sleep.

feel free to obses over scowlers turnset muf and I'll read it in about 8 hours.

turns after sleep and I become human again.

21 modern armor? boggle. well gotta go to war with that much.


Cheers!
-Liq
 
Liquidated said:
...feel free to obses over scowlers turnset muf
Cheers!
-Liq
You asked for it! :king:

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Deer near Damascus still require a worker to make a camp.

Our Great Scientist could be used to throw 2400 beakers at Fibre Optics, or hold onto him for Great Age. I'd grab the beakers, and bring in Fibre Optics that much sooner. Whatever, no wrong choice.

Medina is on Wealth, maybe we switch it to... anything? (gunship, artillery, marine etc... even a grocer would be nice.) - I think Scowler (and I) ran into a problem with the empire being so large, sometimes a mistaken click gets overlooked when your focus is at a different part of the world. Heck, maybe Scowler inheirited this from my turnset! No worries, we'll get Medina back into production.
Setia is on Wealth as well, building a jail (for our upcoming wars) might be an idea (11 turns).

A lot of cities are stagnated, starving, from tile set-ups left over from the war. We can get them growing their population back, and raise our income slightly as well.

Circei needs a jet fighter, badly! Cyrus is right next door, has two neighboring cities we should worry about. Sardis has a bomber waiting to hit us back, a jet fighter and SAM infantry at this island may be in order. (Upgrade Longbowman to SAM for 320 gold?)

Saladin only has his capital city, it is on the way to MM's holy city. Maybe we just wipe out Saladin, and keep him from making diplomatic trouble for us behind out backs. Wiping him aside will also allow us a new base closer to the front in which to stage attacks against MM.
* Check if Saladin is in Defensive Pact with Anyone. If not, attack him first (Before Cyrus & MM).

Hatty is pleased with us, she is friendly with Cyrus, trades oil to persia! Hmmmmm.... watch your back!

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+Persian war+
(South):
* Main target: Sidon (oil); 1 inf, 2 SAM, 1 jet [isolated island], marines will help.
- worry about: Arbela; 7 inf, 1 SAM, 1 gunshp, 2 jets, 1 artillery, 1 battleship [large city on larger island east of Sidon, south of Tarsus]
- Tarsus; 2 inf, 1 SAM, 2 jets

(mainland):
* Main target: Persepolis (Capital); Scotland Yard, The Kremlin, The Pentagon! 2 SAM, 2 Marines, 3 gunships, 3 Jets, 1 bomber, 1 Battleship, 1 Carrier, 1 Great Engineer *** Centre of Mass ***
- worry about: Samaria (Coal); 2 Infantry, 1 bomber.
- Pasargadae; 4 Marines, 2 SAM. 1 Artillery, 2 Jets
- Susa; 2 SAM, 5 Infantry, 1 Cavalry, 2 Gunships, 2 Jets, 2 Destroyers

(northwest):
* Main target: Sardis (oil); 2 infantry, 1 bomber
- Zohak; 1 Marine, 1 SAM

(north): unknown defenses, shares border with MM
* Main target: Dariush Kabir (oil)
- worry about: Gordium (next to MM's land), large city
- Ghulaman (copper)

(south pole) unknown defenses, south of Qin's homeland
* Main Target: Ergili (oil), size 2 town.
- send transport with some armor, should fall easily

(eastern territory)
Main Target: Tyre (***Aluminum***); unknown defenses, west of Hattys mainland. The sooner we take this city, the faster Persia will fall
- Bactra; near MM's mainland


+Mali War+

(mainland)
*Main Target: Niani (Capital); 2 SAM, 1 Inf, 1 Marine, 1 frigate
*Worry About: Tekedda; 3 Inf, 2 SAM (too close to Rome for my liking)
- Katsina (isolated island); 2 inf

(northeast) unknown defenses
* Main Target: Walata (Christian Holy City) $$$ The faster we take this city, the faster MM will fall.
* Worry about: Tadmekka, iron resource. Likely decent production, watch for units spilling out of here attacking Djenne, Timbuktu.
- Taodenni
- Kano (isolated Island)

(north) unknown defenses
* Main Taget: Awdaghost; east of Persian cities, likely decent production. Watch for units attacking Djenne, Timbuktu from here.
* Worry about: Wadan (horse resource)

(south)
- Zaria; Southwest of Kufah, 1 Inf
- Bilma; Southwest of Kufah, unknown defenses
- Ngazarguma; Southeast of Medina, not strategically important. unknown defenses

(eastern Territories) unknown defenses *** Centre of Mass ***
* Main Target: Agades (Coal Resource); South of Hatty's capital
* Worry about: Awlil (***Aluminum***); decent production. South of Hatty's capital. The faster we take this city, the faster MM will fall.
- Taghaza (stone + Coal); Northwest of Hatty's capital.
 
Luv_Muffin said:
Our Great Scientist could be used to throw 2400 beakers at Fibre Optics, or hold onto him for Great Age. I'd grab the beakers, and bring in Fibre Optics that much sooner. Whatever, no wrong choice.

I suspect the Scientist is pretty much useless now. With 55 turns left Fibre Optics will do nothing for us and I don't think we have a chance of another Golden Age. Once Robotics is in we might as well turn science down to 0% and devote all our finances to the war.

Medina is on Wealth, maybe we switch it to... anything? (gunship, artillery, marine etc... even a grocer would be nice.) - I think Scowler (and I) ran into a problem with the empire being so large, sometimes a mistaken click gets overlooked when your focus is at a different part of the world. Heck, maybe Scowler inheirited this from my turnset! No worries, we'll get Medina back into production.
Setia is on Wealth as well, building a jail (for our upcoming wars) might be an idea (11 turns).

Yikes! I certainly didn't notice this, and I was trying to check every city each turn! (Actually I did put Setia on Wealth so that we could research Robotics as quickly as possible, but I don't remember altering Medina).

I DID have a lot of problems with specialists (especially artists) being reassigned each turn in certain cities. Absolutely infuriating and I couldn't work out why it was happening. Maybe it was something in the patch, because I don't remember specialists being (quite) so finicky before.

Good idea about the jail. We will also want Police State once Robotics is done.

A lot of cities are stagnated, starving, from tile set-ups left over from the war. We can get them growing their population back, and raise our income slightly as well.

This was deliberate in order to maximize our military build-up. Liq can alter these as he sees fit.

Excellent analysis, muf. I'm already starting to feel jealous of Liq's forthcoming triumph...

EDIT: Is Saladin really worth the trouble? I think he may be pacted with Cathy, but even if he isn't it just seems like a waste of time and resources.

RE-EDIT: Yeah, Sally is pacted with Cathy - don't waste time on him:

 
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