PH09: The King and We

[pholkhero]

as with PH10, we've come to a crossroads and I don't want to play w/o some consensus.

yes, war is coming, but what are our aims?? neither Biz nor Ram will declare on teh other (R is afraid of B's military might). Vassals come free in 2 scenarios: the vassal gains more than 1/2 the land and population of the master, OR the vassal loses 1/2 of its land.

Here's the various options open to us:
Plan A:

Someone else drew this line, but if we were to succeed, this would most likely fulfill the "Lose 50%" requirement for Qin, and he would be free (to vassalize to us). My fear is that we may get bogged down achieving it, and it does nothing to weaken Biz directly.

Plans B and C, that I made:

The northern one can be B; the southern, C. B takes out a few Arabian cities on the way west for Biz's lands. This may be enough (w/a city or two extra) to make Sally throw off the yoke. C is the most direct route, taking us right into German lands after Basra falls.

At this point, I think i'm in favor of C. We can leave a small army up north to deal with any chinese incursions there, and maybe send a small stack out to pillage or even take an ill-defended city. Thereafter, the main force heads right for Baghdad as Objective A, which would lay the heart of germany bear for us (but, utnil Mecca falls or is a non-threat) our supply lines would be under fire.

I am going to wait to play until i hear from everyone ~
pholkhero >> Plan C fan
GreyFox
beserks01
Crotazzo >> OoP still?
Simon_c
Negyvenketto

 

[berserks01]

I am in favor of C as well. We want to take Biz down while he's still somewhat manageable. The longer we wait, the stronger he's going to get. And hopefully when we raze/capture enough of his cities, Ram might join in.

 

[Simon_c]

You're right about plan A not weakening Bis, and the longer we wait, the stronger he gets. I don't think I could pull plan C off, but then I've not got the "prepare for war" skills down very well, other than have more and higher tech troops.

I'd probably still vote for plan A though. (I think Bis would counter attack, taking some of the sting out of his army) but I can support plan C if we do that.

 

[negyvenketto]

I feel if we go with plan A, Qin will be free sooner and that will weakening Bis eventually. Not mentioning Churchill is closer to Germany than us, so Bis probably will attack him first. I suggest to gift Steel to Churchill to help him in war.

 

[pholkhero]

pholkhero >> Plan C fan
GreyFox >> ??
beserks01 >> Plan C
Crotazzo >> OoP still?
Simon_c >> plan A
Negyvenketto >> Plan a

okay, hopefully Fox will break the tie on this, otherwise, I'll go w/plan C tomorrow
_______________

 

[Simon_c]

I suggest to gift Steel to Churchill to help him in war.

Humm. Now there's an idea.
I guess the risk is that Winston looses half of his empire, breaks free, then offers up Steel, but I expect Bis will have it soon enough.

 

[Crotazzo]

Im back!!... i would rather go the C route... Capturing the south will give us better cities.
What i dont like about the A route is that we will end up in a bottleneck to get to biz (note that shangai has a couple of peaks) .. by doing the A route biz can defend a lot easier that taking the C route.
I dont know the magnitude of salidins or quins armies, so i might be wrong.

 

[pholkhero]

I started off the set by pulling every defender but 1 from our far-flung cities to strengthen our defenses. I also came up with a plan of attack. I decided on a 2-pronged initial assault, with a 3rd one to start once the attack gets underway and China counterattacks.

Here’s the main force, 1st Army:

The Plan Formerly Known as “C.” Capture Basra, and move west into Germany.

2nd Army, @ Fort Montezuma

Raze Aden, and move on to Anjar and Kufah. Afterwards, it will try to hook up with 1st Army and reinforce it.

And 3rd Army, playing defense until a Chinese counterattack:

I switched up the plan a bit because, with the lay of the land, there’s 3 access points into our empire, and we’d need some defense at each. I decided to augment the central avenue’s force, and go on the offense there. Then, as new builds would go to Paris, that army could also go west into China to do some damage there. See ~ I combined all three plans! Great idea, huh?

The first part of my set was getting all this prepared, but in 1878 ad, the Great War started.

I declared on Arabia for reasons of poetic justice (and plus, we WERE invading just their lands at first).

That turn:

Used that knight for a demoralizing effect on the enemy

I took Basra 3 turns later in 1881, but razed it by misclick In the end, I decided the misclick was better as I don’t think I had the troops to keep it from the coming counterattack. I had already spied this in Arabia, moving east:

Those Flanking Cavs might sound the death knell for Collateral Carnage.

I retreated 2nd Army back to Chartres to defend there, in case Biz was heading in that direction. Instead, he moved south to Hastings. I had to scramble to get troops there, and though Biz had a bit of he ended up taking the darn thing!

I have no picture of it since it was so aggravating, but the outlook is bleak for us, I’m afraid. For the first time during this long-asz game, I feel pretty hopeless for our situation.

Here’s the army Biz has near Hastings, and we’ve got not much army north of them:

Here’s the remnants of 1st Army in Germany:

On the upside, we got Astronomy (on my last turn), and two good random events:

Here’s the save, I advise you all to take a look. We haven’t got much behind Hastings in the way of defense, and our army is overextended (I just started retreating them home). So, as I said, things don’t look good for our faithful heroes.

pholkhero >> just played
GreyFox >> UP NOW
beserks01 >> on deck
Crotazzo
Simon_c
Negyvenketto

 

[GreyFox]

SO I am UP? GoT iT.

 

[pholkhero]

I actually was suggesting that everyone take a look at the save an offer their opinions. We're in pretty dire straits, methinks, and we don't have much protection in our backrank cities. I can't see how we're going to stop Biz from having a romp with our cities, nor how we could come back from that loss.

Thus, all should take a look and see what they think, too ~

but play if you think it's salvagable.

 

[GreyFox]

Okay. I don't mind delaying.

IMHO, there's no way we can stop bismarck. I predict we are going to lose churchill as pet to Bismarck, and a few of the previous English cities as well. We don't even have the advantage versus QSH, who is sporting Anti-Tank and cavs. Only Sally is roughly on par, but we don't have the forces to take cities from him.

In summary, I think we are royally screwed. We entered into a war without first assessing how strong our enemies are, and as a result, we are going to be punished by emerging much weaker after the war ... if we emerged at all. Our only hope now is to get peace ASAP.

--

 

[berserks01]

From the save, I think Biz and his lackies outnumber us 3 to 1 at least. If we can survive for a few more turns we can try and sue for peace.

But I can't picture a win for us in any situation....

 

[Crotazzo]

damn... we are in big trouble. Ramses will probably try to join with biz to take a bite if this war gets longer.
Unfortunately the game punishes the player that fell a little behind in tech. After the point that u cant tech trade with anyone u are probably lost (unless u pull a culture or diplomatic win).
In my opinion the pretty much crappy start and the early 0% research war is the easiest way to loose a game.

This reminds me of this game i played, with equal result (this was in warlords though)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=239305

 

[pholkhero]

We entered into a war without first assessing how strong our enemies are

well, we all knew that Biz was stronger than us. even with equal-sized armies, though, the AIs increased reliance on mounted units does indeed throw a monkey wrench into any mostly-siege stack.

the pretty much crappy start

that start royally blew

 

[negyvenketto]

I will be up for PH11
Hopefully with a decent starting location

 

[pholkhero]

sure ~ check it out ~ the complete rundown

 

[GreyFox]

So are we giving up or what?

 

[berserks01]

Give up?!? NEVER!!! We'll rather die like the scums that we are than to give in to those blood-thirsty Germans!!!

 

[pholkhero]

fight it out ~ to the bloody, bitter end ~

also, feel free to play more than 15 turns. I've been thinking about moving to the Greyfox "Stop @ something important" turnsets than strict limits, so play what you feel ~

 

[pholkhero]

also, in a game i'm in the middle of, when i thought all was lost when a stronger (though not an Agg AI stronger) opponent attacked, I whipped for my dear life, and came back from jaws of defeat. I think, maybe, we put up or shut up here, and try and make it either a great win or a great loss.

Let's whip out an army from all our cities ~ whip for all we're worht and whip more, even for 1 pop. We crack our cities back to 2s and 3s and 4s, and try to make an aztec horde ~ whaddayasay?