MLDR005 NOW what?

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

Hyangsan is held by just three MI and a tank, and we take it without loss (68-9) after a 21-artillery bombardment.

We build an airstrip in our beachhead and airlift in an additional 17 units.

Three Sumerian tanks die attacking Hyangsan (71-9).


1705 (11): We abandon Hyangsan, found Last Hope next to the ruins to bring Kish within artillery range, and take Kish from its garrison of three MI for the loss of a bomber, capturing an artillery unit (74-10).

We sink two Sumerian destroyers and a nuclear submarine (77-10).

Eleven elite victories this round produced one Great Leader.

 

[romeothemonk]

Good work. I got it now.

 

[Northern Pike]

The Sumerians have 82,076 cp, and they gained 770 cp last turn, putting them on track to hit 100K in 23 turns. (These figures don't reflect the fall of Kish.) But we're about to start taking their biggest culture cities; the garrisons of the two towns we've taken so far were encouragingly small; and I think we can win.

Of their foreign cities, the Sumerians have had the Aztec ones longest. So we should head south into Mexico after we conquer the Sumerian homeland, not north into Korea.

We'll have to abandon Kish next turn. Most of the city's improvements survived our conquest, so remember to sell them.

The Sumerians are still capable of making substantial landings on our shores, so I'd be inclined to keep ten tanks and twenty artillery in our homeland unless they're desperately needed at the front.

As best I understand the matter, we should make our next attempt to plant a spy in 1715.

Moving small stacks of naval units along our coasts is extremely dangerous. The three-unit task force off Leiria should probably retreat to Smolensk until it has a larger escort.

The Sumerians have been bombing our home continent about twenty times a turn. For the most part they're just making the rubble bounce in our unimportant northwestern towns; but they're also hitting Bremen, Orenburg, and Kazan, and it would be unpleasant to lose any of those towns' factories.

I only made one attempt to bomb a Sumerian city, and the bomber was shot down. So interceptors may be a problem, although I haven't seen ours achieve anything--is this part of the game still broken?

We have four workers heading for Sumeria in a transport, so you have the option of fortifying the square occupied by our bombardment stack each turn.

The food shortages we're running in three cities are intentional--in Orenburg's case, it gets the city to 100 spt. Just keep an eye on them.

Good luck!

 

[Northern Pike]

The foothold:

 

[microbe]

Cool. It might be wise to leave its capital alone though. Maybe do an investigation first.

 

[meldor]

Great work by NP as usual, the biginning of the end...

Microbe
RomeoTheMonk (Playing, and couldn't wait for NP to finish posting, thought I might forget)
Northern Pike (Swapped)
el_filet (On Deck)
Meldor
ChrTh (Skip until...)

We have the complete hit list:
Portugal - Gone
Germany - Gone
Aztecs - Gone
Sumeria - It's us or them
Korea - Gone
Ottoman - Gone
Greece - Gone

 

[niiru]

Cool. It might be wise to leave its capital alone though. Maybe do an investigation first.

Lurkers Comment: Judging by the F7 wonders screen, their capital is their culture powerhouse. The pyramids, Great Library, Newtons, Leo, Universal Suferage, and Seti are there, and The Internet is being constucted there. Those wonders alone are probably generating 40-50 cpt at this point in the game. That having been said, it's probably safe to ignore Ur for the moment. It's building a wonder and the AI in general doesn't seem to like stoping those when it starts them. From your turnlog, they started building it in 1680. The Internet is 1000 shields and ur is a size 12 town, so I'm going to guess their production is around 50. That's around 20 turns, or just about 15 to go. So in all likely hood for the next 12-15 turns, Ur isn't going to be producing units. Neither (probably) will Istanbul (the UN) and Tenochtitlan (Manhattan). So I guess it comes down to the choice of going after Ur which is probably 40-50cpt or heading down the coast and using that mountain chain to your advantage for a few turns. Issin, Sumer, and Tzintzuntzen are probably 20-30cpt and might be as lightly defended as the two cities you've already taken.

By the way, good luck guys. I've been rooting for you for a few months.

 

[romeothemonk]

Good points Niiru. I am going to try and play this tomorrow morning or possibly some tonight.
I will probably avoid the Capitol but aim to take out anything that sounds vaugely Sumerian. The AI capitol on Demigod is usually guarded by ~12 units around this time. While this is their best culture city, trimming other cities that show up on f11 for only 2-4 defenders is a much better deal. Also I am hoping that rampaging through their core will cause them to mobolize, and slow their culture gain rate.
All that said I really hate playing against Sumeria and the Ottos in C3C. Too often they turn into runaways, and abuse the scientific trait to spam mass culture.

 

[LKendter]

All that said I really hate playing against Sumeria and the Ottos in C3C. Too often they turn into runaways, and abuse the scientific trait to spam mass culture.

lurker's comment: Certain civs do have a tendency to cause trouble. AG14 ran into the same Ottoman problem. Don't forget Persia on this list. Take one look at LK79 for what I am talking about.

 

[meldor]

We have had at least two run aways in the NOW series. I think this one showed a good lesson in the fact that it was probably best not to have dogpiled Sumeria at the point that I did. We could have probably handled the landings at that point and hoped that Sumeria didn't start a dogpile on us. It accelerated their land grab and made them too strong.

 

[romeothemonk]

I might have to go after Ur. I have a hitlist. I will keep a running track of the hitlist.

Before I start

 

[Northern Pike]

Niiru, thanks for your comments and your interest.

 

[romeothemonk]

IHT: Kish had a 34% chance of flipping. Sold of improvements and abandoned, but I resettled Irktusk. I move 4 more units to irktusk and viola, no flip chance.
IBT: The Sumerians bomb us a lot. In a piece of stunning good news the Sumerians built Manhatten Project.
Turn 1: In the good news, I think he is mobolized as his culture grew ~380 points last turn. Use bombers to sink a Sub and destroyer. Kill 2 mech infantry by Irktusk, lose 1 tank. Setting up to take Ur next turn. Upgraded a few units here and there.
IBT: They really smack Bremen and St. Pete, we shoot down 2 bombers.
Turn 2: It is 1725 and our spy plant fails. Nuts. Kill 2 mechs and a tank, found counter UR. I was wrong, Ur has 14 defenders. Oh well. Yellow line most and start the charge. I am really glad this is not like RaR where all the units have defensive bombard. Kill 10 units in Ur with our Armies, kill 2 rl mechs with Elite tanks and 2 rl tanks, for a grand total of 14 units. No Losses. we get 6 slaves and 2 arty. Also sink a DD along our resupply route.

IBT: We shoot down 4 bombers and lose 1 interceptor. We lost 4 units at Irktusk, the lost more. We lost the tank that razed Ur. Sumeria makes ~348 per turn.
Turn 3: In a bid to make things interesting the Sumerians throw 6 units on our Island. I found one of his carrier groups, and use all availible planes and ships to send a fully loaded carrier down. BooYah. Sink a DD and Transport combo. Sank a BB that was bombing our shores. Setting up an atack on Umma.
IBT: Sumeria is wasting a lot of stuff attacking a Tow Army supported by artillary in a city. Kill some stuff on our Island. Lose 1 tank, 4 infantry. Kill 20+ Units.
Turn 4: I found End to Umma. Kill 4 units in Umma, and 2 planes, capture it, sell off everything. Raze Erech, Abandon Umma.

IBT and turn 5: Another landing on our Island. Starting to look kinda bleak up there. Sink a transport fleet. Kill 3 mech Infantry on the Island. Clear out the landings on the Island and move our bombers up to that airfield. Set a continental rally point in novosibiresk.
IBT: Shoot down a bomber with a mobile sam. Mobile Sams do not hit often. They continue to throw all kinds of new units against our landings, which are just eaten up.
Turn 6: Lose 2 bombers, but kill a transport fleet. Found Double Damage. I rushed a horbor last turn and we now have spices. I take out Sumer, and start on Bad Tibira. Take Bad Tibira, raze Lagash.

I could only handle six turns here. Since Bad Tibira only has a 30% flip chance, and requires a garrison of 150 units, I would continue the Sell off and abandon it. There is a 2 turn boat path to the new world. We need some more combat settlers. Good luck to the next person. The MM should be really simple now, as I really reduced speacialists. We now have ~40 turns to finish the Sumerians off now.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/MLDR05-1735AD.SAV

 

[microbe]

Fantastic job!

Sumeria makes ~348 per turn.

Looks like we have enough time now.

 

[romeothemonk]

Actually, I have Sumeria at less than 300 culture per turn now.
Sorry about some of the troop arrangements and stuff. I know that there are 3 or 4 exposed tanks, but we are making troops faster than the Sumerians now.
With the Rally point, I use it to load armies, settlers and arty, then take everything else and airlift it over.
Almost all our bombers are on our little Island, I think they should be used to sink incoming and outgoing fleets, along with destroying any landings up there. We still get bombed every turn, but it is down to ~10 bombers instead of ~30. As we get more settlers, we should be able to breeze through some more towns.
His new capitol is the Aztec city with Shakes in it.
I would not use bombers on cities, as every city I attacked had at least a fighter in it.
This game is the first time I have every seem commies pay unit support.
We can try to plant a spy next turn, but I would use some of our cash to upgrade stuff on the home continent. We still have some spears and such around. I upgraded some stuff, but not even a quarter of it.
It is possible that he has nukes, as he did build the Manhatten project, but as long as we continue to plow through his core he shouldn't be able to build many. With knocking out Sun Tzu's, Smiths, pyramids, and I think Bach's, his economy should really be suffering. In addition I am sure that I took out some of his top science cities. This is amazing, the game went from bleak to highly winnable in 3 turn sets. Thanks to NP for the Awesome setup.

 

[LKendter]

With knocking out Sun Tzu's, Smiths, pyramids, and I think Bach's, his economy should really be suffering.

lurker's comment: It isn't just the economic killing. Pyramids going away killed a lot of culture.
Any ancient wonders that doubled dying will destroy his culture rating.

With Sun Tzu gone he is probably building more regular troops.

 

[meldor]

Great job, we should be able to finish this one off within the next round of turns....

Microbe
RomeoTheMonk
Northern Pike
el_filet (Playing)
Meldor (On Deck)
ChrTh (Can play the last turn set???)

We have the complete hit list:
Portugal - Gone
Germany - Gone
Aztecs - Gone
Sumeria - Just about punch-drunk
Korea - Gone
Ottoman - Gone
Greece - Gone

 

[microbe]

I think the fact that AI ignored Sanitation is one reason that we could make better progress.

 

[Northern Pike]

I think the fact that AI ignored Sanitation is one reason that we could make better progress.

Yes. A lot of things have gone wrong for us in this game, but that was a good break.

Great stuff, RTM.