Rat44 CCM - Ultimate Challenge

[Northern Pike]

I've finished playing, but I need another session to do the report. I'll post by Friday evening.

As we've all said at one time or another, these CCM endgames are formidable. The player thinks of a turn as basically done, with the combat over and just the housekeeping left--and then that takes another two days.

 

[Northern Pike]

View attachment Rat44-1823AD.SAV, end of turn

 

[Northern Pike]

1821 (1): We successfully safe-steal the plans of the three civs with whom we aren't already at war. The troublesome Austrian settler is in a clipper off Innsbruck, just as we'd expect. The Carthaginians have a ridiculous six settlers, two at sea, and one clan. The Koreans don't have settlers or clans.

We take Arbela, the final Persian city, but they have a houseboat settler somewhere so we re-load.

We declare war on Austria, to begin our push east from Lisbon in the north of the active continent:

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We build the garrison for our attack on Sagres. From now on I'll only mention garrisons when we aren't able to build them.

We can't build a tactical town to bring our early tanks into play immediately, since in CCM we can't found on desert tiles. Thus we may lose a lot of Hotchkisses in the attack on Sagres. Just removing the town's garrison, held by a rifleman, costs us two (1-2).

In the event, however, we take Sagres from its three defending inf for the loss of just one Hotchkiss (4-3).

We found the tactical town of Gangnam to bring us closer to Austrian Leiria.

We demolish the garrison serving Leiria and Guimaraes, held by an inf, at the cost of an ET (5-4).

We storm Austrian Leiria, held by four inf, for the loss of an ET (9-5).

We seize Austrian Guimaraes, held by four inf and a marine inf, at the cost of an ET (14-6).

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We capture Rijeka, a city in Austria's core now held by Egypt. We overcome the four defending riflemen for the loss of one Hotchkiss, also destroying three Zeppelins on the ground (21-7). We claim 3141 gold in loot.

We eliminate Linz's ungarrisoned garrison.

We take the Austrian capital of Linz (they having lost Vienna), defended by four inf, for the loss of an ET (25-8).

We storm Eger, held by a rifleman and a musketman (27-8).

Carthaginian-held Vienna is in our way now, so we declare war on Carthage.

We found the tactical town of Spokane to give us access to Vienna and Innsbruck.

We seize Carthaginian Vienna, defended by six riflemen and a musketman, for the loss of one ET (34-9).

We capture Innsbruck, held by three inf. We lose an ET (37-10).

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We found the tactical town of Charlottesville, bringing us closer to Budapest and Hieraconpolis.

We take Budapest, held by three inf (40-10). This ends our offensive against Austria for now, since we can't take their last town until we account for their houseboat settler. We're lumberjacking up a torpedo boat in Innsbruck in hope of drowning the settler next turn.

Thus the next phase of our offensive will centre on Carthage. We found the TT of Culpeper, giving us access to Pressburg and Belgrade (both Carthaginian).

We excise Pressburg's garrison, held by a rifleman (41-10).

We storm Carthaginian Pressburg, held by two riflemen. We lose a Hotchkiss (43-11).

We remove Hieraconpolis's garrison, held by a lawyer, though we may not attack the town for a bit (44-11).

We seize Carthaginian Belgrade, manned by two riflemen (46-11).

We mop up a Carth rifleman and hussar around Belgrade, somehow losing a Hotchkiss to the latter (48-12).

We found the TT of Crozet, bringing us closer to Salzburg and Graz.

We clean up our lines by capturing Hieraconpolis, though it costs us two early tanks (held by three Askaris; 51-14). We steal 6339 gold from the wealthy Egyptians.

We demolish Graz's garrison, held by a rifleman (52-14).

We take Carthaginian Graz, defended by two riflemen (54-14).

We storm Carthaginian Salzburg, held by an inf, three riflemen, and a Schneider (59-14).

We seize Rusicade, held by two riflemen (61-14). Now we can get past the great mountain barrier with a culture bomb in Rusicade and a combat settler, so Egypt's core is at our mercy whenever we want to turn in that direction.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

The Carthaginian front now looks like this:

 

[Northern Pike]

We should be able to take at least three more cities before we run out of railing gangs.

We found the TT of Louisa, giving us access to Hippo Regius.

We capture Hippo Regius, held by two inf and a rifleman. We lose one ET (64-15).

We ship fifty workers over from our home continent, since they're our limiting variable at the moment.

We shatter Carthage's garrison, held by a musketeer (65-15).

We found the TT of Ruckersville, allowing us to attack Carthage and Utica with early tanks.

We take the Carthaginian capital of Carthage, defended by four inf, three riflemen, and a clan, at the cost of three ET. We destroy three coastal batteries when we enter the town (76-18).

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We dispense with Utica's garrison, held by an arq (77-18).

We storm Utica, held by an inf, a marine inf, a rifleman, a hussar, two knights, and a Schneider. We know from stealing the Carths' plans that the latter three units are loaded onto a galleon, but they disembark automatically to fight. We lose a Hotchkiss. When we enter the town we destroy three coastal batteries, sink a galleon, and capture two settlers = workers (88-19).

We found the TT of Roanoke, moving us closer to Theveste.

In fighting between Utica and Theveste we smite a hussar, a rifleman, a heavy artillery, and a musketeer, also capturing two settlers (so the Carths are reduced to their two at sea) and destroying Theveste's garrison. We lose a rifleman and one of our heavy artillery, which seem constantly to get destroyed in attacks that should be safe for them (92-21).

We seize Theveste, held by an inf and a rifleman, and destroy three coastal batteries (97-21).

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We found the TT of Lynchburg, allowing us to move units next to forest-bound Leptis Minor for next turn, and to rush a dreadnought near Carthage's houseboat settlers.

We found the TT of Greenwood, giving us access to Leptis Major.

We remove Leptis Magna’s garrison, held by a musketman (98-21).

We capture and raze Leptis Magna, defended by an inf and two riflemen (101-21). We gain eight foreign workers.

We smash Sabratha’s garrison, held by a rifleman, and sweep two other riflemen off our route to the city. We lose an ET (104-22).

We take Sabratha, held by two riflemen and an inf (107-22).

This essentially concludes the Carthaginian campaign, although we won’t eliminate them for a while since they’ve got a distant island city.

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

In scattered fighting outside cities, all through the turn, we slay three Carth riflemen, one Carth hussar, three Austrian inf, one Persian bombarde, and one Egyptian Lancia (116-22). We gain one Great Artist.

We found eight coastal cities in various spots so that we can rush ships to hunt down houseboat settlers.

We abandon seventeen cities, mostly in China.

We repel four minor counterattacks (120-22).

Great War Experience --> Radio, due in four turns.


1822 (2): Using mostly dreadnoughts just rushed in newly founded towns—this is what you can do with CCM levels of gold —we sink a Persian galleon we hope contains their settler; an Austrian clipper we know contains their settler, and one other unit; and six assorted Carthaginian ships including the galleon containing one of their settlers, along with another unit (130-22). There’s one Carthaginian galleon holding a settler we can’t attack this turn, but it’s trapped and doomed.

We storm Arbela, defended by three riflemen (133-22), and:

 

[Northern Pike]

 

[Northern Pike]

We capture a worker and a supply shipment.

One Persian unit that we can see comes off the map.

We seize and raze Leptis Minor, held by four riflemen, thus completing our conquest of the northern peninsula of the active continent. We sink at least one vessel in harbour (138-22).

We receive no workers from the razing—that old oddity.

Our next task is to take the four remaining enemy cities on our side of the mountain barrier, eliminating the Austrians at the end of the sequence: