Own5 Madagascar's Pathetic Attempt at Conquest

[Bucephalus]

29 down in 4 turns, can he do a further 25 in 3?
- looks touch and go

Doing great

I wouldn't bet against it. Nice going, Zerksees.

 

[zerksees]

Thanks guys. I played the rest of turn 7 last night and that stack of modern armor I recently upgraded was put to good use. I took 4 more Mayan cities (Bonampak, Kaminaljuyu, Yaxchilan and Calakmul) I also cleaned up one more Arab city.

On the IBT the Arabs took Lahore - reminding me they were on the east of Asia. On turn 8 I retook the city and cleared them out of two other cities.

I also took Aretium and the Romans are down to 2 landmasses
the Mayans have lost Copan, the Arabs lost Yamama. Lots of life left in the turn but not sure how much time this weekend.

thats 10 down and 15 to go

There is one Mayan city on an island south of Australia (is this corect and where is New Zealand on this map anyway?), and three Roman cities on a tundra/forest filled landmass in N America. Either of these could stop me from making it in 10 as the logistics of getting units there is going to be challenging.

 

[zerksees]

Turn 8 continued:

Dispatching the Romans in the north: Had a couple marines in N. America. Put them, a settler and 5 modern armor in a couple transports, and was able to take one of the cities, use the settler as a combat settler to get to within one tile of the other two cities, and use modern armor to whack the other two cities. The Romans have just their capital remaining.

Shrinking the Maya:
Used brute force to take Palenque - a size 15 city on a hill with 4 mech inf inside. First put a combat settler down so our MA and tank armies could reach. It cost a 17/18 tank army and a couple modern armor but it is now ours.

Been pillaging some roads so the Mayan masses can't make it back to the cities in time.

Moved the artillery stack to attack Lagartero. Redlined all the mech inf in there. It sits on the other side of a mountain range so all I could do was put our three healthy cav armies to work - they took out two mech inf but one cav army was was lost.

Took Baghdad and Kufah from the Arabs. Also took their settler and its landing party. They had 4 settlers - the other three were in Kufah. The Arabs have a 30+ high stack of marines and infantry that I have kept cut off from their cities, so they spend their time trying to take undefended cities, which I raze right when they are on the doorstep.

Prep for end game:
Reposition the unused half of the bombers to a place that could reach all remaining Mayan cities.
Moving settlers to S. America and Australia. Combat settlers will ensure all the cities can be reached.
Rush build units in lots of cities, a few more marines, some settlers and of course bombers and modern armor. Also disbanded a few ships into coastal towns to help with rush builds. Units too far to make a difference are being fortified.
Also I have been abandoning cities in Americas and Australia as they are not needed and I do not want any flips.
Disbanded some units in Lagertero to build a transport, which will be needed to take the Mayan island city of Uxmal. The attack will launch from Lagartero in turn 10.

Turn 9:
Only had about 15 minutes for turn 9, so I whacked Caesaraugusta and the Romans are dead. There were enough bombers that the marines went in unopposed. Poofed 8 units where ever they were. Caesar has decided to roll Cuban cigars for a living.

Also took Lagartero from the Mayans. We have 6 combat settlers so expect the two remaining cities on the main Mayan landmass to go this turn. I'll follow the same disband to build transport trick in Lagartero and have a dozen marines for the assault on Uxmal, plus our entire stack of bombers.

I have the win-loss notes, but I don't think it is worth counting as it is not really relvant at this point.

With 7 cities to go, right now I would say there is little doubt that Bucephalus and I will meet Andronicus' challenge of completing this game in 20 turns.

I might let the Arabs last to turn 10 just so the annoying Mayan AI does not have the privilege of being the last to go.

 

[Bucephalus]

With 7 cities to go, right now I would say there is little doubt that Bucephalus and I will meet Andronicus' challenge of completing this game in 20 turns.

Superb! I didn't think it possible, particularly with the hard turns I had just getting a toehold in Australia. Well done, Zerksees.

 

[Andronicus]

Very impressive

 

[zerksees]

Turn 9 continued:

Tikal falls (84)
Lazapa falls (85)
Bombers positioned, 10 marines on the continent, disband more mobile SAMs to build one more transport. Used some combat settlers to help the units reach.

Medina, Khurasan, Mecca, Damascus and Basra fall (86-90). Arab AI is dead. 31 marines, 15 inf and 16 ships go poof. I guess I decided that the annoyance was not worth letting them last one more turn.

Turn 10:
There are 6 fighters, 1 destroyer, 3 mech inf and 1 TOW infantry in Uxmal. Bombers wreck down all the units except one redlined TOW infantry. It falls easily to our marine and the game is over.

Any thoughts on communism now that it is over?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/27707/Own5_1860_AD.SAV

 

[Andronicus]

Any thoughts on communism now that it is over?

Well it certainly did better than I anticipated
In republic we would have had more money from tax farms and been able to cash rush.
OTOH not sure how we would have handled WW given large number of troops in enemy territory. Usually I dont find this a problem as wars tend to be short, but the number of units particuarly Aztec and Mayan would have made rep challenging

 

[Bucephalus]

All hail the 'Mad Madagascans'!

That was tons of fun, and I've learned so much from playing with you guys.
If you ever plan something similar, count me in.

Any thoughts on communism now that it is over?

Overall, I think it was the right choice. The only time it really hurt, was not being able to cash rush walls/barracks/civil defence when we landed on Oz; having said that, flip risk was so high that I would have probably played it the same way, regardless.

 

[Adjust]

Guys, it's been great following this thread once it was re-established. I have learned a lot and have a question your posts have prompted. What is a "combat" settler? Is that just a settler that you take into battle with a stack? Are there any special strategies or tactics you would recommend?

THANKS!

 

[zerksees]

Final note on turn 10: Mayans had 84 units go poof at the end - mostly MI and TOW infantry.

Regarding communism - thanks for your replies. The war with Maya started in 1782, so it lasted 39 turns best I can tell. That is not terribly long, though the lux slider would have probably been up to 30% by now - best I can tell. I don't know the math on war weariness because of unit losses, or our units being in there territory.

The only time it really hurt, was not being able to cash rush walls/barracks/civil defence when we landed on Oz;

This can be offset by bringing along units to disband, or one unit and workers to join/pop rush. I did this by disbanding mobile SAMs at the end to rush transports in Mayan cities full of resistance. (Disbanding units to finish building other units or buildings is not affected by resistance/anarchy in the city.)

Thanks to both of you for playing along - this was a lot of fun. I plan to PM you if I do any similar games.

 

[zerksees]

combat settler is one that you use to move the enemy territory so your units can reach further into enemy territory. There are several varaiations, but the one I used in my last turnset was to put a settler right on the border, build city 1 to push the border into Mayan territory, then if needed put the next one right next to city1, abandon city 1 and build city 2 moving the border in further yet into enemy territory. Of course this works best if the land already has railroads

I also refer to a settler who goes under a stack of defenders and waits one turn as a combat settler, though I did not use that tactic here.

There are a ton of tactics for this game. I learned a lot from the war academy and succession games. I write up a lot of games - find links to them in zerksees civ index - in my signature in the prior post.

 

[Adjust]

One more question!

What is a tax farm? I frequently find myself short of gold. I see that the best players seem to have fabulous gold resources all of the time. Maybe this will help.

Thanks Again! Great Work!

 

[zerksees]

tax farm is a corrupt city (all the commerce and gold is lost to corruption)where you irrigate all the tiles, and turn all the extra citizens into tax collectors. Like food, tax collector income is not subject to the corruption rules so all the money from tax collectors you get to keep. You can also run out of money if you have too many improvements, too many units or not enough cities/terrain improvements.

 

[gmaharriet]

Way to go, guys!

I knew this thread had been going for a very long time, so I went back and looked at page 1...it started in September 2005. I think that's called perserverance.

 

[markh]

Congrats guys. It was great fun to follow this game.

 

[zerksees]

Way to go, guys!

Thanks to you and markh - As you know the entire team changed! Now how many times has that happened?

I think that's called perserverance.

This is the nice part of not playing SGOTM - you can spend a as much time as you want finishing a game (well at least it did get finished).

 

[tupaclives]

Congratu-ma-freakin-lations!!!!

I've been following since you revived this game (so for several months now) a fantastic game to lurk on, and its always great for me to read games with my Civ-idol Zerksees