Rat 09 - going for conquest

[Dimy]

Well that's it for now... I'll play my remaining 5 turns later today or tomorrow. It's really tough out there, especially now that Victoria declared on us. Elephantine is save now, I just need to sink their fleet. I will order the bombers from Last Hope over to the Island to bomb those Battleships and Destroyer/Carrier out there. They're quite useless on the other continent to be honest...they're intercepted most of the time and when they do get through they hardly do damage. Mansa has Modern Fighters and Stealth Bombers as well now. Our financial situation is pretty bad as well....as for science...we lack many many techs that we normally should have had by this time in the game. But...we have to keep on fighting, I think we all know there's no chance to win this game anymore, so let's give them a fight . Some more troops arrived in Last Hope my last turn... I'm healing our stack and reinforce them with the new units. Once I destroyed the English near Elephantine I will attack that English city on our continent and hopefully raze it before the end of my turnset.

 

[Greebley]

ya, I agree on plugging away. I was guessing we couldn't win either. What we can do is learn more about modern warfare to up our chance next game.

I am curious about the stealth bombers - are they bombers that fighters cannot intercept?

 

[vmxa]

No and in fact I have had many shot down by sam infanry.

 

[Arathorn]

Stealth bombers have a 50% chance of not being intercepted at all. If they fail that 50%, then it's like the standard bomber intercept chance (which I've not figured out yet). They are quite deadly in numbers.

Can you pillage oil? Oil is required for the air units, so taking out the oil can be quite a big blow. I have no idea if it's possible.

I do hope you will finish out the game. There still might be some things to be learned (by the players and/or lurkers).

Arathorn

 

[Greebley]

Stealth bombers have a 50% chance of not being intercepted at all. If they fail that 50%, then it's like the standard bomber intercept chance (which I've not figured out yet). They are quite deadly in numbers.

Can you pillage oil? Oil is required for the air units, so taking out the oil can be quite a big blow. I have no idea if it's possible.

I do hope you will finish out the game. There still might be some things to be learned (by the players and/or lurkers).

Arathorn

Thanks for the info.

I definitely plan on finishing this game out. I never like giving up a game with more to be learned.

 

[ThERat]

I definitely plan on finishing this game out. I never like giving up a game with more to be learned.

Of course we play it out...that's understood.

What I find interesting is that the AI turns now against us, the Civ that has not even one spacepart. Victoria should at least try and stop Mansa Musa from winning. In fact, friendship sometimes didn't matter for me before completion and the AI tried to invade. Why are they attacking us now? They gain absolutely nothing from this, in fact our war against Mansa Musa is her chance for victory....
I am quite sad that the AI doesn't play more for victory, but that has been stated everywhere already...hopefully the expansion will change this behaviour.

 

[Dimy]

at least Frederick is pleased with us ;-) but he won't go to war with either the english or the malinese.
I'll finish my turns tomorrow.

 

[Greebley]

It makes sense to me. We attacked Victoria's friend. She is helping him out. Winning is almost never the primary goal of an AI I don't think. Respecting their relationships is more important. She was neutral to us and friendly with Mansa.

Fredrick didn't attack as he also had a good relationship with us. Overall the result is exactly what I was expecting actually. I wasn't sure about Fredrick, but figured Victoria's chance of attacking was quite high.

 

[vmxa]

I see the point of the relationships and even understand and accept it. I would still suspect that many players would like just a bit of additional logic to be added to allow for, if not winning, at least not losing.

So to that end an overriding consideration could be to see the train coming down the tunnel and attempt to move ones self out of the way.

Maybe that would be hard to implement. Things like, well we have been buds, but hey the game ends if you launch, so I should try to stop that. So at what point does the AI put the brakes on?

I just see many people seeing the AI being willing to act as a lobster in water that is being heated. This tends to make little sense to them. I call it a sanity check.

You know I look at a 5 rail billard and pick my point using a system. Now I use my brain to see if that makes sense. A sanity check.

 

[Greebley]

If they are willing to vote for a civ to be Secretary General, then why would they attack a civ to stop a space win? If they did play the way you mention, then the UN would be pointless.

 

[ThERat]

Greebley, you are right, they acted exactly as expected. And that's the problem here. Why doesn't the AI change and stop whoever threatens them with a win. We humans act that way and it would be much nicer to see the AI do the same.

Likewise, the UN win is IMHO nonsense. because we humans would never ever vote for the AI in any game, would we? So, this victory condition should be out. Resolutions yes, but handing the win to someone else via UN just makes no sense at all.

 

[Meatbuster]

Lurker's comment: But AI should at least know to attack any civ they consider their enemy if that civ is close to winning via SS or culture.

 

[ThERat]

for all Rat 09 players, I started this new game and reserved a spot for you in case you would be interested.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=3468214#post3468214

 

[vmxa]

If they are willing to vote for a civ to be Secretary General, then why would they attack a civ to stop a space win? If they did play the way you mention, then the UN would be pointless.

Ah you mean it is not worthless (j/k). You could allow for that sort of a victory, but not letting them have a free hand at Dom/Conq/SS.

All I am saying is most players will shake there head, watching them smile as they are executed.

I can see a vote as you are not so much losing as you vote for allies, but that is not the case with a SS or Dom or even culture win.

Sorry I will butt out now.

 

[Dimy]

Turn 5 1960 AD:
Before going to the next turn I rebase our 3 bombers from Last Hope to Ostia on the former Russian/Egyptian continent. I’m planning to use the bombers on the English Battleships.

IBT:
Mansa bombs our stack on the hill outside Last Hope and kills two Marine’s with Mech Inf’s.
Victoria’s Battleships kill one of our Destroyers and destroy some nets outside Alexandria.

Turn 6 1961 AD:
I kill the English Elephant Archer with a gunship and loose a heavily promoted, but slightly wounded tank to a wounded Artillery! Odds were in our favour by far… I then attack it with an equally promoted tank and destroy the arty. I attack the English Gunship with a Combat II promoted Marine, but loose the Marine…Odds were in our favour again…some bad luck this turn.

I finish the Gunship off with the Mech Inf that was defending Elephantine.
I’m moving our wounded stack back in Last Hope… Mansa now has a Modern Armor just outside our border and two Mech Infs. I promote a Gunship with Combat II and and Ambush (+25% against armoured units). I attack the Modern Armor with 4 Fighters and it’s down to 20.0/40.0 hitpoints. Our promoted Gunship has now 24.0 vs 9.8 Odds to win… so I send him in.

No need to say we destroyed the Modern Armor.

I bombard the English Battleships outside Alexandria, both are down to 20.0/40.0. I sink the 1st one with a Battleship that just moved into position and the 2nd with a Destroyer from Alexandria. Now there’s just the English Destroyer and Carrier left to take care of.

I airlift some tanks to the Russian/Egyptian continent, I’m prepping the attack on Newcastle.

IBT:
We get bombed a lot… Mansa is bombing tile improvements outside Arretium (the western edge of our home continent), his airbase is the city on the small island west of our continent.
Victoria meanwhile is bombing improvements from Newcastle as base. Mansa moved a Modern Armor at the city gates of Last Hope, it’s only one, so I use the same strategy as last turn.

Turn 7 1962 AD:
Well..that strategy didn’t work so well this time around… Only two fighters make it through, 1 is shot down and the other intercepted. The MA is down to 34.4/40.0 and all our gunships need healing, the tanks will for sure get killed though, all the odds are negative while one of Gunships has 22,3 vs 16,8 against the MA…I decide to go for it and finally luck is on our side!

We kill the MA. For the rest it’s just moving around…some more tanks arrive on the southern continent and I’m healing our bombers.

IBT:
Mansa offers a peace deal where we pay him 510 Gold, I reject. The English move an Artillery and Marine outside Last hope, that’ll be no problem.

 

[Dimy]

Turn 8 1963 AD:
Now...some shocking images from our War Reporters...if there are any minors viewing this thread I advice them to skip this part as it's quite confrontating.

...

...

...

...

...

...

A dead English Marine...

I destroy the English invaders outside Last Hope.

I attack the English destroyer outside Elephantine, a 2nd Battleship is nearby but doesn’t have enough moves left to sink the English Carrier.

IBT:
Just some bombing from the AI but not that much action.

Turn 9 1964 AD:
We have a nice stack of Tanks in Tarentum, just outside Newcastle… I had two bombers to bombard the city, but one gets intercepted, the 2nd only reduces city defence from 20 to 17%. Victoria has a City Garrison I Mech Inf and Infantry in the city a City Garrison II Longbowman, there’s also 3 fighters and a Bomber. We’ve got 9 Tanks and 2 Gunships, so shouldn’t be a problem.

We kill the Mech Inf at first strike, I used a City Raider III tank for that success, the same tank killed the Infantry and needless to say that the remaining Longbowman wasn’t of much help to Victoria. I take 86 Gold and burn the city and with it…the English fighters and bombers.

I sink the English Carrier with our fresh Battleship…the English are gone now from the Southern Island. I’m moving troops again and start rebasing our Bombers back to Last Hope.

IBT:
Not much happens, a Pasture is destroyed in the west by a bomber but that’s about it…quiet.

Turn 10 1965 AD:
No action at all, just moving units..shipping 4 tanks from the southern island to Last Hope. Satellites is due in 1 turn and I queued up Composites next so we can build Modern Armors. We’ve got 6 Bombers now in Last Hope and building some more.

 

[Dimy]

Well...even though I didn't have the opportunity to advance inside Mali territory you guys can't complain about the amount of the explosions in the reporting above Certainly some death and destruction there...
Anyway, now we cleared the English threat we can start shipping over units to Last Hope again, we've got quite some tanks and there's transports waiting at the pickup point down south.We might want a couple of fighters in the west of our main continent to defend against the Mali bombers, I just ordered a Fighter that should be finished next turn.
Here's the savegame and good luck to Greebley!

 

[Greebley]

Ok, I got it. I will see if I can make any progress. Sounds rough though.

 

[Greebley]

I have gotten through two turns. The Preturn was long - our economy was a complete mess. Our capitol went from -10 food to +1 food (we were averaging -5 food in our cities). I lost my notes [But then found them again - see below]

What I don't understand is why we weren't doing more to fix the problem. We had workers fortified in the capitol, even though 3 out of 7 of our health resources were disconnected. Lux rate was giving the capitol -4 happiness (pretty much all cities were unhappy). Finally, there was an engineer in the capitol rather than working the lands and stopping starvation? It made no sense. Even though we are likely to lose we shouldn't play that badly. Take more time and only play 5 turns if you are short of time. Starving all cities by 3-5 population is not good (My hope is that we only got that bad on the last turn or two and the effort to clean up was left to me).

I was able to trade for Bananas and get the Corn connected. I made piece with Vicki. Finally, I raised Lux to 20% and fiddled around with which squares were being worked. This brought all cities to positive food.

In 1967, I destroyed Mansa's town to the SE of ours (the least protected one). He will now throw his modern Armor at us, I am guessing. It should get interesting.

I hope to continue tomorrow.

Here is a before and after shot of the capitol:

Edit: How odd, I couldn't see my Word file, but now I can. Here are my original notes.

Preturn: Boy, our civilization is in a complete mess. In fact it looks like we have given up - we are not even attempting to try to fix the problems we have.

Take a look at the screen shot of our capitol.



There are several things very wrong with this picture.
1) The most obvious problem is that we are at -10 food and we aren't trying to fix it. We cannot afford to allow our capitol to just starve. That will cost us more in commerce and shields than fixing some of the issues.
1) At -4 unhappy people, we want to have culture higher to give us more happiness 20% or 30% (depends on other cities).
2) Why do we have an engineer? He could be working the town gaining us +2 food and +7 commerse.
3) Looking at the top, we have way too few happiness and health bonuses. I went and checked -we are only working 4 out of 7 of the health bonuses. If we can connect those it will be +4 to +6 food per city.
a) It is true that bombers are destroying our resources - we have to fight back. We need to defend those resources that can be reached by the enemy.
b) Why do we have workers just fortified (or auotmated?) in the capitol? Aren't we even going to attempt to get back some of the bombed spots?

As important as building military is, I don't think we should ever let our cities simply starve.

So I need a plan. First I raise Cult to 20%. This makes most cities balanced for happiness. I would raise Lux to 30%, but we really need to get modern armor.

Next I need to deal with the lack of health. We are missing 3 health resources. For the clam we have a destroyer that I move over to the square. It has been pillaged so I also start work on a workboat to connect it up.

I am fairly sure the Corn and probably the Sheep have been bombed. Right now we aren't trying to defend them. I will change this - build some SAM units so that if they AI continues to go for those resources, we will be able to kill off some of his bombers.

IBT:

1966 AD: We Trade for Banana using Marble. We connect the Corn. Note also we have Spice in our Territory, but only one is connected and we are trading it away as far as I can tell.

BTW, it is annoyingly very difficult to tell where you are being bombed.

 

[Dimy]

I was a little occupied fighting during my turns to micromanage the large number of cities we have as well, only the last 2 turns or so were reasonable quiet. So sorry about that. And about the resources not hooked up... mansa is going to keep bombing them, so unless we build some fighters and sams it's about useless to connect them again.

P.S. If you put the workers on auto connect trade network or whatever it's called, they should automatically reconnect any resources that get disconnected by enemy bombings. Also, I think we should fortify SAM Infantry's on all the resources in the west that mansa can reach with his stealths. That should help for the future.