Own5 Madagascar's Pathetic Attempt at Conquest

[Andronicus]

1615AD cont
@ Jaipur, armies kill 2 redlined rifles -> capture (41-7)
Plant spy with French - they have 7 cavs and 51 rifles

IBT
Aztecs take Grenoble
Nora duct
Utica harbour
Gigthis factory
Gades court
Ivriz flips to Hittites ( blocks our rail communication to French front)

Next door neighbours Kanesh flip to Hittites

1620AD
Frigate d galley (42-7)
@ Bordeux army d 2 rifles then retreats, next army d rifle and LB -> capture (46-7)
@ New Paris army d 2 rifles -> capture (48-7)
@ Amiens army d cav and 2 rif -> capture(51-7)
@ Rouen eCav d rif *2 -> capture (53-7)
eMDI d 1/4 cav (54-7)
@ Ake (Mayan) army d rifle -> autoraze (55-7)

IBT
Otto and Mayans MA againsy us -> we lose silks

Otto and Mayans MA v Arabs
Mayan frigate d ours (55-8)
Aztecs capture Chatres
Carthage disorder -> scroll ahead to prevent further riots
Avignon deposes (lose 3 cavs and 4 arty just upgraded)

1625AD
@ Avignon eCav l to 1/2rif, 3 cavs d redlined rifles -> retake (58-9)
@ New Chicken Itza cav d rifle reveals a flak (mayans have flight) (59-9)
@ Marseilles army d rif and spear -> capture (61-9)
@ Rheims army d 3 rifles -> capture (64-9)
@ New Zunguin (Roman) army d rifle * 2 + guerilla -> autoraze (67-9)
@ Orleans army d 2 rifles -> capture (69-9) - Abandon after moving settler 1 tile closer to Paris
Settle New Rusiccu allowing arty reach of Paris
@ Paris armys d 3rifles and 2 cavs -> capture (74-9)
Ottoman Pike/settler pair in western Europe disposed of (75-9)

IBT
Mayan frigates leave
Brest deposes us

1630AD
@ Brest 3/5MDI d 1/4rifle -> capture (76-9)
@ New Chatres full health 4cav army loses to 4/4rifle (76-13)
@ New Chicken Itza Cav d flak -> autoraze (77-13)
Revolt 9 turns anarchy

IBT
Aztecs capture Cherbourg just ahead of our arty stack

1635AD
@ Lyons arty redline 4 rifles and reduce size 12 to 6, eCav, cav, army d rifles-> capture (81-13)
@ New Chartres army d rifle*2 -> raze (83-13)
@ Bescanon, army d 3 rifles -> raze (86-13)

IBT
Zulu-Aztec peace
Rome-Ottoman peace
Rheims flips taking our galleon planned for getting army to French islands
Bordeux flips losing healing cav
Aztecs beat us to Toulose, Strasborg, Dijon and Tiurs

1640AD
@ Rheims eCav d rif -> raze (87-13)
@ Bordeux army d rifle -> raze (88-13)
French now confined to 4 island towns east of Asia

IBT
Zulu request MA v Hittites - I decline, much though I want to dow Hittites
Rome and Ottomen MA v Japan
Otto land 2 Sipahi in central Africa (yum - leader material)
Paris deposes - lose an infantry
Brest deposes - lose eMDI

1645AD
@ Brest cav d rifle -> raze (89-13)
@ Paris cav d rifle -> capture (90-13)
cav *2 d sipahi (92-13)

IBT
Mayans return to Madagascar with cruiser, 2 frigates and transport
Avignon deposes again!
Pollution at Hippo
Several central African cities in mountainous region starve (have to wait till out of anarchy to get enough food)

1650AD
frigate d 1/4cruiser (93-13)
@Cyrene (Roman) army d 2rifle -> autoraze (army left with only 2hp) (95-13)
@Avignon eCav d rifle, cav d rifle *2 -> raze (98-13)

edit
I think that makes 10 flips - I was feeling very frustrated.

Just remembered there is a Roman slave leading a Roman cav a merry chase through the mountains of Greenland - he is about to reach a deadend and should be abandoned next turn (he drew cav and a guerilla from a town I was about to attack)
also just remembered I have some piccies

Remaining French cities

Hittite Empire

Roman Greenland with Ruins

 

[zerksees]

Andronicus - looks good. Glad to see the Sumer gone, and some Roman cities wrecked. We should be in a good negotiating position with Rome should we choose to make peace.

Definitely raze and replace if we have the settlers to offset all those flips. We should wreck the Hittites as soon as our treaties will allow it.

Bucephalus you are next.

 

[Bucephalus]

OK, got it. I'll make some plans this week, but it will be the weekend before it gets played.

 

[Bucephalus]

SPHQ - Leptis Magna has the shields built and just needs to switch over - can it be switched by scroll ahead when we emerge into commie if ensure Macchu Picchu will build 8 shields and hence complete court? I think it will do this if it uses all 6 mined tiles in its reach -> 17 shields before corruption which civassist states will be 45% -> hopefully 8 shields. These tiles need to be switched over the turn before we leave anarchy at the latest.

Sorry Mate, but I haven't a clue what any of this means
Can you give me the 'for dummies' version?

 

[Andronicus]

Sorry Mate, but I haven't a clue what any of this means
Can you give me the 'for dummies' version?

I cant make sense of it either - think I was playing too long

What I meant is that Leptis Magna already has enough shields for SPHQ but is currently building Wall St as a pre-build. (can not switch to SPHQ until we are commie)
If let things be then Leptis Magna will add another 20+ shields to Wall St on the turn we emerge into commie delaying SPHQ by a turn.
We can build it on the turn we emerge into commie if one city completes its build before the cycle gets to Leptis Magna so we can scroll ahead and change the build. The only possibility I can identify is Macchu Picchu which requires 8 shields to complete a court (alt could switch an earlier build to worker if has at least 10 shields in box but this would be more wasteful). To get 8 shields in commie Macchu Picchu needs to have at least 15 preferably 16 uncorrupted shields assigned to it which it (Macchu Piccu) can do if it is set to work all the mined tiles in its radius (rather than irrigated ones as is doing currently to emphasize growth during anarchy).
Then once we emerge into commie, Macchu Picchu builds court and can scroll ahead to Leptis Magna and switch from Wall St to SPHQ so it also completes that turn.
Of course you could just let things be and change from Wall St to SPHQ the turn after emerging into commie and only 1 turn is wasted - no big deal.

 

[Bucephalus]

OK, I understand now. Thanks.

 

[Own]

Jesus Christ!!!! I haven't been here for a while, and I thought this game was going nowhere.

 

[zerksees]

Jesus Christ!!!! I haven't been here for a while, and I thought this game was going nowhere.

No. Just us. Thanks to Andronicus and Bucephalus we have a team to work on this one. Are you playing Civ anymore?

 

[Bucephalus]

Jesus Christ!!!! I haven't been here for a while, and I thought this game was going nowhere.

I guess it's your turn then

 

[Bucephalus]

Just reporting in; I've played the first few turns tonight, and there is very little of anything going on, just endless worker assignments. Still two turns of Anarchy left. Aztecs have made peace with France; they have 150 infantry + lots of cavalry. They are gonna be a hard nut to crack.

Rome, Ottomans, Maya, and France will all give peace. Any Advice on this?

 

[zerksees]

Since we are going commie soon the only reason I can see to make peace is to keep the AI from dogpiling us.

France - get a few boats over to their island holdings and finish them off.
Ottomans - no harm no foul - peace is fine unless they want something for it.
Maya - they have deep pockets and could give us problems buying MAs against us. Carthage enemy #1 here IMO. Keeping them in war will keep their war weariness up and force them into fascism eventually. Making peace with them might keep them from doing MA with Aztecs against us. I could go either way on this one.
Rome - Carthage enemy #2 - no peace for them

 

[Andronicus]

Rome, Ottomans, Maya, and France will all give peace. Any Advice on this?

my 2 cents

Our biggest threat is Aztecs, the only power on our super-continent
MA Aztecs against Mayans whilst we build up a defensible position and get attackers in place, then provoke war with immediate steal or boot order would be my advice.
I would therefore stay at war with current enemies unless they had something worthwhile to offer. The big threat is if someone else MAs Aztecs against us first

Things could get rather hairy if Monty dows before we are ready (at beginning of anarchy would have been a challenge )

 

[Own]

I guess it's your turn then

Nah, I've finally figured out SG's arent' for me. It took me about 5 games in which I frustrated everyone else by taking forever to play. I was gunshy, just afraid to start. I might join a civ4 training game, though.

Btw, I've been in New Mexico for a while, no computer, but I could occaisionally go to the lib to check the forums. Will try to get back into civ, and I think that only means cIV. I think Civ3 is done for me, I've made no progression in getting good enough to beat a level/variant I haven't beaten, for a while. I know everything one can know, I'm about as good as you can get without the patience of an elephant. Meanwhile, I've only waded in the waters of civ4, I've heard it requires a little less patience than civ3.

 

[Bucephalus]

Apologies for the slow progress, but these turns take forever on my computer; it should be done this evening.

We are now a Communist State.
I allied the Aztecs against Maya, agree with Andronicus on this, Aztecs are the biggest current threat.
Somehow our rep is trashed, we cannot get gpt deals. Word is we shafted the Japs at some stage.

 

[zerksees]

I know these turns are long. Just keep at it when you have time and it will get done. Since our rep is trashed why stop there? Perhaps a back-stabbing DOW on the Aztecs is in order?

 

[Bucephalus]

Well guys, that was probably the most tedious set of turns that I’ve ever had to play. If I wrote a turnlog you would lose the will to live halfway through, so I’ll give you an overview.

We continue to be at war with the Maya. They have developed a tech lead over us all; they have bombers, destroyers, they used to have a battleship (we sank it with a frigate) and they will have tanks soon. We are allied with the Aztecs against them, partly to prevent them sharing techs, but mostly to try and keep the Aztecs on the inside, spitting out. The Aztecs have become a problem; with hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have allied them against France, and maybe not Sumeria. They have grown strong, riding on our coat-tails.
Strategically, we couldn’t possibly defend our recently acquired cities in former French and Indian territories, not to mention the units lost with every flip (just the five in this turnset), and I’ve withdrawn our forces to a defensive line across the Middle East. Maybe before we go to war, we could gift them to someone weak; or abandon them, they are currently contributing little but corruption, and we are not going for domination.
Since we cannot match their numbers, I believe that our best strategy would be to have a military edge when the fighting starts. For that we need to get ahead of them in tech, so I used a large part of our treasury to finance spy missions. Our man in Rome is swimming with the fishes, but we picked ‘Smokies’ pocket twice, first for Steel, and again for Combustion. I have set science to fund research in to Flight (7), while saving enough money per turn to finance a steal on Mass Production. Both of these are known only to the Maya.
As I mentioned, our Rep is busted, so gpt deals are out, but only the Maya know more than us anyway.
Aztecs just made peace with Rome, it would probably have been a good idea to pay them to break it, we don’t really want them talking, do we? Maybe the next player will put that right.


The Save:http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/38078/Mad_Madagascans_1700_AD.SAV

 

[zerksees]

Thanks for your effort - hope it was interesting.

Do you recall what turn our spy got kicked out of Rome? The last time we tried to plant one there?

Without looking at the save I'd say it is my job to build up for the next war.

I would like to clear the continent of Aztecs before going after the Maya. Your thoughts?

Possible plan:

Of course we need to take the Aztec cities in Africa.

We build a pillage line at the border and force all the Aztec cavalry to cross without support of troops. We could leave all the cities weakly defended with a few infantry and some conscripts. The Aztecs will defend them with cavalry, which we can subsequently destroy with our armies on the counter attack. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Of course the infantry will attempt to cross the unpaved zone. We can use whatever artillery and armies we have left to wear down the stacks.

To stop the flow of cavalry send an army into their territory to disconnect horses.

After the initial surge is over we can take their cities and raze them.

Edit: I am guessing our rep got wrecked when Japan lost their last port while we had a trade going with them. I do not recall doing or seeing anything deliberate to get that wrecked.

 

[Bucephalus]

Thanks for your effort - hope it was interesting.

It was too slow to be interesting. My computer kept stopping while 'Windows' increased the size of my "....virtual memory paging system", whatever that means.

Do you recall what turn our spy got kicked out of Rome? The last time we tried to plant one there?

Turn 7, I've not tried since.

Without looking at the save I'd say it is my job to build up for the next war.

I would like to clear the continent of Aztecs before going after the Maya. Your thoughts?

Absolutely. We will need a lot of military to take Maya, so we would need to feel safe on our own landmass.

Possible plan:

Of course we need to take the Aztec cities in Africa.

We build a pillage line at the border and force all the Aztec cavalry to cross without support of troops. We could leave all the cities weakly defended with a few infantry and some conscripts. The Aztecs will defend them with cavalry, which we can subsequently destroy with our armies on the counter attack. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It will be difficult to reinforce our 'French/Indian' cities now that we have no ROP. I wonder if there is any reason to bother? It will be a long time before they are any real use to us, and they will spread our forces really thin.

Of course the infantry will attempt to cross the unpaved zone. We can use whatever artillery and armies we have left to wear down the stacks.

Sounds good.

To stop the flow of cavalry send an army into their territory to disconnect horses.

A good idea, but I suspect that they have several sources.

Zerksees, I personally would wait for tanks and bombers, but then I think I'm a lot more cautious than you. If you feel comfortable preparing for a war sooner than that, then go with it, unless Andronicus has any real objections.

 

[zerksees]

Pre-flight:
- Visit all the cities. Did a lot of MM on outlying cities to produce more shields. We have enough gold. Also changed a lot of courthouse builds to aqueducts. These cities will be stuck at size 6 for a long time if we build courthouse first (example: city makes 5 good and 3 corrupt shields. I don't think it is worth the time investment to reduce corruption). Cities that are less than half corrupt can afford to wait a while for courthouses. Most artillery builds also changed as I think we enough of them atm.
- Cut science to 0%. I like stealing techs and at +879 per turn I should be able to make a safe steal attempt every three turns or so. At 80% science we are 7 turns from flight.
- Dispatch some of the armies and cavs to start cutting roads in Asia. I want to make it difficult for Aztecs to reach us. Also dispatching some units to go after Hittites. If they are dead then their cities can't flip, and we can get their furs. Trade deals over in 1 and the DOW can come any time after that
- Drafted a few conscript infantry. I can't stand having our border cities completely undefended. Stayed away from core cities - only those with good growth potential and low shield output (5 or less), and size 7 a plus.

I am in a quandry as to how to defend from the Aztecs. We are thin and spread out. I agree there has to be a defense line to protect Africa and Europe, but not sure about the other outlying cities. I believe we should have some infantry to help withstand their initial assault. After that their units will be exposed and we can wreck them. Hey - they will not attack armies in the open - maybe I can use that to advantage.

One thing I know is I do not want to sell them any techs.

They have units all over our territory and I am so tempted to issue "leave or declare". Maybe after a few more turns of prep.

I guess I disagree with building an army now when we have so many other needs, but do not change it because shields will be wasted.

IBT
Mayan fleet heads east - apparently to engage the Aztecs
Bayonne flips to France - no one in there so no units lost

1705 AD
Steal mass production carefully from the Maya spending 2481 gold.
Retook Bayonne and razed it.
Took a Roman worker and attacked a city defeating one infantry.

End of the session - more to come

Thinking about a backstabbing DOW on Aztecs when the time is right. Any objections?

 

[Bucephalus]

I'm not sure why we would want to defend the outlying cities; as far as I understand Communism, all they are doing is adding to our total corruption.
Also, the former French cities are flipping with regularity, losing any defenders every time. However, you and Andronicus are more accomplished players than me, so I will follow your' lead. And learn.