Standard Emperor on Communitas_79. SV on Turn 385
What started out as a sleepy Tradition CV game really got hot and heavy towards the end. It was all a great win....that I should not have won (See below).
You'll note that I started on a large continent. There is actually a strategy thread going on right now asking the question "should you go over your normal city numbers playing Tradition to fill up an island?". Hehe, well this is my answer
I had 7 cities (with 1 puppet towards the very end), which is a bit more than I usually play for CV, but it was absolutely worth it. I never had a single enemy unit set foot on my island, so I maintained just a skeleton land force, and committed all of my forces to naval, which was vital.
It was Polynesia as number 1 all game, with me nipping on his heals in 2nd place. We shared a tense border for all of the game (bottom left in the screenshot), and it finally exploded into the late game. It was pandemonium, two large fleets of Destroyers, Battleships, and a few subs slammed against each other, just as Missile Cruisers were coming only. A few atomic bombs went flying, and a collection of heavy bombers picked off ships on both sides. Then we had the side show, the Zulus declared on me from the west and brought an antiquated fleet of cruisers and ironclad with them. I also had some old ships, so the old timers got to duel it out in the west while the "real men" fought in the southwest.
I had committed almost ever bit of supply into my navy....and it was
just enough. I was killing lots of ships, but the weakness of Tradition/Freedom's late game production against Order showed its hand, and Polynesia had so many ships. But with a lot of dancing, some key atomic bomb drops, and a little late war help from the Netherlands, I held my ground.
The vast majority of the game I went for a CV, and had all the tools you would want to do the job. I had the entire world under my cultural heel for a LONG time....except damn Polynesia. They also went cultural, after that war it was clear that:
1) I would never defeat Polynesia militarily. I was lucky to hold him off defensively, let alone start and offensive campaign.
2) CV was off the table, there just wasn't a way to inject tourism quick enough.
With that in mind, I went for SV. And so the science race was on. Polynesia had Order's science engine humming, and we were neck and neck in techs...he through raw awesome, and me through strategic wonders like CERN and Hubble to keep pace.
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And this is where I say while I won....I shouldn't have won. Polynesia had all the tools....the tech, plenty of aluminum, the power of Order's production and tons of cities....this should have been a neck in neck production race for SS parts....likely with Polynesia being the winner. But, Polynesia didn't make a single SS part, not one. So what should have been a brutal finish....just ended in a whimper. And its not the first time I have seen this.
I'll put some notes in the next post, but this is the key takeaway for the devs. There is something screwy with the AI in the very late game in regards to SS parts. I have seen this behavior before, my guess is they commit to a victory condition, and do not know how to switch to SV.
