Releasing other nation / Policing world role-play

[Buffalo Solider]

*EDIT* : I GOT IT! There was congress, I won vote to gain Madrid. Now with 3 Spanish cities I have option to release actual Spain and not some "Independent cities". So if you have this issue... Than it might be because you don't control their capital, or somehing.... Still - I'm keeping post, because I like story behind all of it.

TL;DR; Can you ressurect "major" country if you occupy their cities? If you can, how? (I tried BtS release button, but it says it will release "Independent city", and I think it'll be just "Independent" city... Until anyone conquers it..)

For long story [if someone likes it ], here's my orginal post (that I decided to TL;DR; on top, for people who don't care) :

Hello, I started DoC game as USA and I just have fun by... Not really doing a lot (internationally) and growing/racing with UK and Russia for fastest growth, production, commerce, etc... I like historical developments and I hoped for some european world war in which I would get involved.

UK has great technology [always 3 techs ahead of me and stealing me some (~40%) of wonders ], but UK has not that great army. Russia had decent tech (militarly : same as me) and HUGE army (2.8:1 compared to me). I was having fun, building super powerful industry (100+hammers in 6 cities), while trading techs with portugal and dutch in order to TRY to keep up with UK - which is blasting through tech tree like mad.

Aaand in 1920 I got something that could be called "world war". Russia (+vassal:Austria) and France attacked Spain and UK. My big failure was not noticing when Barcelona fell. Once Madrid fell, I decided I need to intervene ASAP! I'm big friend with Portugal, so I had open borders with them, but I couldn't get open borders through Spain (even after they lost Barcelona and Madrid) to gift them units.

I moblized my defensive forces and created some artillery to make 3 transport trips (with 2 transport ships - moving back/forth each turn) with (2) rifleman, (5) artillery and (2) grenadiers to Lisbon - in meantime Spain was barely holding out to their last city (north-west one). I DoW ed Russia and France, which made me friendly with Spain and allowed me to steam with my transport ship straight to their last (European) city. However +1 machine gunner and +2 riflemen (and 3 Spanish riflemen) were not enough to stop 14 cavalry, 12 artillery, 15 grenadier, 10 rifleman storming this city... Unfortunately Spain died right next turn (due to low stability), despite still controlling Peru (they reconquered it? Or I don't know how), Philipines and some Caribbean colonies.

Later on - I "abused" cobeligerant state of Portugal by bombarding and pre-assaulting (with artillery) 3 cities on porto-ruso border from Portuguese territory and picking up some weakened soldiers, while making sure Madrid don't fall into my hands ( both I and Russia have a LOT of citty-attacker units) while not being attacked by Russia, until Russia declared war on Portugal. However - by THAT time I already had a lot of troops of mine (especially 7 machine gunners holding some hills and Lisbon. Bloodbath started, I reconquered Madrid, north-western city and Gibraltar fell soon later, but I wasn't strong enough to stop Russian counter offensive which just arrived through Austria and France into Barcelona. They sent another huge army ( 30 units ), and were assisted by 10 french and 12 (outdated) Austrian troops. With that army they were able to reconquer Madrid from my hands ( I actually retreated with my 2 tanks, 8 artillery pieces and all riflemen, while keeping machine gunners to die, while (hopefully) stopping for 1 turn as many units as possible, BUT I was still sending 3 units in EVERY turn and I upgraded riflemen to modern infantry units, so new indecisive bloodbath began on tiles next to 2 cities I was still keeping... Than - suddenly war stopped! (maybe Russian got "force peace" event and accepted it).

UK sounds like bad ally to Spain (which they are, hah) - because they sent NO units to Spanish cities, but they actually helped me (I had no fleet and just 2 transports in the beginning of war. Now I have 3 battleships and 2 transports, but early in war I lost 2 transports. 1 by Russian assault of city and 2nd by French war-ship)... UK helps only because they obliterated French fleet...

Now - I would like to occupy Spanish cities for some time ( I already sent workers from USA to rebuild devastated land around cities (and to upgrade Portuguese roads to railroads) and I started rebuilding Spanish coal plants), but later I would like to release Spain (preferably as my Vassal, but it would be fine enough (too) if they were just independent), but the problem is ... I can't (or I don't know how). I got option to release one Spanish city, but from what it says it will be independent city (and likely Portugal/France, or maybe Russia/England will conquer this city and I will have NO way to protect it). I thought about giving these cities to Portugal, but... They aren't my vassals, that only partially makes any sense and... I don't know if they wouldn't face some stability problems... I would already rather keep these cities for myself and "pretend" that they are my Spanish vasal.

It's 1960, world experienced 40 years of peace, but I keep gathering my howitzers, marines, tanks, bombers and infantry in Lisboa to reconquer Madrid and Barcelona! It would be great if I could then hand over these cities to Spain and make them my puppet.

 

[Buffalo Solider]

It's so cool, that I can release nation like that : ) I'm really looking into more wars and having more fun with policing world... I even sent some technologies to Germany (they were slow) and now Italy declared independence, so maybe there will be more interesting stuff in Europe after I smack Russia out of Spain.

 

[Buffalo Solider]

Some SS's telling more about this story : )

 

[LukeAtmey]

Thanks, was a fun read and it seems evident that you've clearly enjoyed this playthrough! All the added content has made the late eras in this mod my favorite part of the game so I similarily enjoy playing big nations (America, China, Russia) in the 1700ad scenario. Even if you manage to out do all the competition and surpass your rivals I find there's always some fun mini goals you can invent for yourself in the role of being the "world police". Be it militarily intervening local conflicts and crushing the pesky opposition to bring peace or using your diplomatic sway and riches / UN power to stabilize conflicts.

 

[Buffalo Solider]

That warms my feelings, that someone found my post interesting

I initially picked US, because I thought, that I will just go boom and out-pace rest of world (as it's easy to do in RFC) and just relax and waste some time after work, but goal of out-booming rest of the world quickly became very hard to realize ( I believe I play on monarch difficulty, or 3/5 ), I also failed all historical goals so I started looking for alternative goals.

Spoiling a little bit - finish of this playthrough was .... "anti-climatic"*, but events before it were good story. I will try to write it up in interesting style

During years 1963-1980 I was very occupied by catching up with absolutely CRAZY british commerce/science machine. I built a lot of power buildings giving me +10% of food and +10% of commerce and later nuclear plants, because I realized that each power building applies +2 unhealthiness, so I ran out of ways to produce enough health in my cities (I like this change made in DoC, but I only wish there was some +1 pollution power plant, maybe oil plant? because nuclear/hydro plants are "extreme" in their own way, and Oil plant could be nice middle-man). I produced very few units and I conquered Havana and placed new city in Alaska right next to oil field (figuring out, that maintenance costs of this city will be nothing compared to another oil resource, when I had oil company in 6 cities and those cities had all +gold buildings). Thanks to this city I was again on + (gold-wise) while keeping research on 100%. I finally had enough cash to upgrade all my minuteman and rifleman on American soil, to stop possible "sneak attacks" by Canada, or Japan (diplomatically - Canada hated me, but I had great relations with Mexico, I also was at war with Japan and Colombia every now and then (deffensive wars. Don't understand what they were trying to achieve, because they were just losing ships for no gain) I also had Christ the Redeemer wonder, so I hopped from free market to welfare state for about 3 turns in order to grow my honolulu, havana and alaska cities by buying factories/power plants and assembly plants, so that they can carry on with building rest buildings by themselves.

During all of this time I managed to finally beat British in technology but, I forgot about my "arch-enemy"... Russia finally got their laboratories running and within ~8-12 turns I was witnessing them upgrading rifleman to infantry, then I spotted first tanks and soon they had huge airforce of bombers and fighters! They were also invading Germany and already conquered Old-Prussia and Poland regions... I decided I needed to intervene again, but (again!) Germans didn't wanted my troops on their soil, so I wasn't able to make open borders with them, until I declared war on Russia.

War started with swift fall of Barcelona (1st turn of war with Russia, because I already had my troops on French soil right next to city, so their only task was to storm it with help of bombers and artillery), then within 3 turns I conquered Marseille and I didn't wanted to attack Paris, because I felt like French moving their capital to other city would be too anti-climatic.

I started moving my troops through Italy to conquer Vienna, but once my troops started arriving at Austian border, I realized it isn't going to be so easy... Russians started using bombers and after I moved second tile deep into Austrian territory Russians sent very few infantry units to kill few of my units. I decided I absolutely need to run away... If Russia sent few more units, they would probably completely wipe my ~25 units army, as they had absolute domination in air (I made BIG mistake of focusing only on bombers, believing that Russia will not have any air force by time of next war. Not only I couldn't stop them from bombing my units, but also I wasn't able to bomb their units! Vienna was already far enough, that only bombers in Marseille were able to reach it, but aditionaly Russia had a lot of fighters which deleted every squadron of 4 bombers that tried to bomb Vienna from city of Marseille. In meantime Germany was quickly losing ground! Despite me sending them gold and technology to upgrade their units - they lost Berlin and they were holding up to their last 2 cities - Frankfurt and Hamburg.

On plus side, I managed to achieve capitulation from France and peaceful vassalization of Portugal ( I agreed, because portuguese had $$$OIL and I swiftly demand it from them in exchange for nothing ), while entering defensive pact with Netherlands and convincing them to join war efforts... So now it was whole Western Europe vs Russia (England never peaced out from first world war)...

On bad side... Germany lost Frankfurt right next turn, despite it being defended by 6 german, 8 american and 2 netherland troops. I completely lost air-war, as 6 out of my 20 bombers got shot down and ~8 of them just retreated after dogfight with Russian fighters. Only few were able to bomb Russian death-stack, but also Russians were able to absolutely bomb forces in Frankfurt to their minimal strength. Germans lost Frankfurt and Hamburg capitulated to become Russian puppet.

In meantime I released Spain, because... I decided I just want to do it . Their cities "could" help me with war effort, but really - I was only interested in airlifts from America. I was already able to airlift 4 units to Europe each turn thanks to my vassals and I didn't wanted to stop economical recovery of Spanish cities, as they had seen enough of war and devastation in past decades. They had new coal plants, assembly parks, repaired terrain improvements and so my mission in Spain was finished.

After fall of Germany front-lines again stabilized, because I focused on quick reformation of my Air doctrine. Within few turns I built about ~12 fighters and ~6 bombers and dominated skies once again. I also started airlifting 2, or 3 modern battle tanks... These beasts are able to win attacks without consideration for tile defense, or enemy having anti-tank infantry... and I only promoted them with +10% strength bonuses, as they were already beefy enough to attack cities and I wanted them to be also useful in city defense and on field just outside of cities. I also started moving in few anti-tank infantry, SAM infantry and marines. I designated one city to create nuclear bombers, but I wasn't focusing on nuclear units too much (which turned out to be great decision!**)

In meantime I won space-race against British and Netherland... I just didn't wanted them to get there first... Also one turn of anarchy in UK (caused by me finishing "First Man in Space" before them) added a bit in my race for technological hegemony. I also kept spying on Netherland and UK to see all their cities and what are they producing (probably should've spied on USSR instead? Well, maaaybe, but their spy defence was through the roof, so I decided I prefer to see "everything" my technological rivals do, instead of "attempting" to see what my military rival does).

I thought I was again in control and I focused on fighting in air, using Amsterdam and Paris to host lots of fighters and using them to engage and fight with Russian fighters. Small Russian army (about 12 units) arrived next to Paris and I bombed it a bit and killed 8 of them... What happened next was a bit terrifying... Russians managed to sneak through skies full of my fighters and SAM infantry and dropped Nuclear Bomb on tile between Bordeaux and Paris. Defences of both cities dissapeared from face of earth and Russians captured Paris with their 4 bombed and weakened units from previous turn... I managed to recapture Paris, however Russians already arrived with another army of 12 units...

** - Remember when I said me not focusing on nuclear warfare was good decission? Well... It turns out I can NOT bomb my vassal territory, so Russians could use nukes while I could not...
Realizing this advantage for Russia - I thought about rage-quitting this game, especially after my nuclear bomber got shot down, failing to nuke Vienna, but I decided to carry on... I build a TON of SAM infantry, fighters and only few battle-units, as I had no problems winning on ground. I was only affraid of nukes. It turned out I had just really, really, REALLY bad luck with paris-bordeaux nuke. I managed to shoot down about 2 or 3 nuclear bombers in following turns. No nuke touched me till the end of game.

* - now to the "anti-climatic" ending... I just built my first ICBM and dropped it directly on Moscov. The End... ... But before that I started getting another edge in war technology by introducing stealth bombers that made great job evading fighters and even shooting them down when intercepted. This started to quickly turn war into my favor, I even captured whole Germany and it remained under my occupation, until the turn I decided to resign from further play... I peaced out Russia by demanding Berlin and... Maybe it is somehow climatic in a way, but by burning their capital and potential for strong enemy, I also burned my desire to continue this campaign... I won... All the way through. I doubt any other power could change that... Maybe if Russia and UK joined forces, but I have no reason to betray UK and they just like me, while disliking Russia. It is similar to historical ending, because I won second world war after dropping nuclear bomb and caused pax-americana, so maybe I even like this ending after all

 

[Buffalo Solider]

I also made this :

It's possible to pick small lies I made - on this history re-cap But I told everything from memory and only now see small inaccuracies.




I'm currently trying to roleplay German Reich in 1700 start, but I found it extremally difficult to be "meaningful" in any way as Germany...

In one game I captured Austria-Hungary (except for Italy), but still wasn't meaningful enough to be invited to congress.. And because of 2 additional cities I was far from tech lead. I quit, because I just barely failed to settle 7th great person in Berlin (despite settling in 1 great general... It counts! Maybe I will aim to settle 2 great generals and 5 "normal" GP, eventually)

In other try I lost to sudden Russian invasion and huge army rolled through Königsberg...

In 3rd try, I tried to go for "historical goal" of settling lots of "great people" in Berlin... I built civic squares and had lots of specialists. I built museums with 2 great artists (yeah, I even focussed on great artists.. But I think speding 2 great people in exchange for 2 musseums is worth it. They give a lot of bonus GP %) and adopted isolationism for +1 free spec... I was pretty strong (better than in 1st and 2nd try), but it was still not it... Englad was absolutely smashing me in technology.. I don't know how to compete with them. It's especially annoying that no matter what I try I keep failing 3rd historical goal. I just literally can't get any industrial tech as first country... Not to mention doing so with 8 techs.

In first run I tried military conquest, in second run I really tried to focus on commerce and huge production (kinda similarly to US gameplay), 3rd run I quit, because I didn't felt enough "power"... I will either need to lower difficulty from 3/5 to 2/5, or try many more times, as it seems it's hard to be "meaningful" as Germany... I think it might be under-powered civ in DoC, but I might be playing it wrong...

It is a bit off topic, but I don't think I tried hard enough to start separate "how to UVH as Germany?" topic I will keep trying for now and share with interesting story, if I get to one!

I think beeline for ~2-3 artists to get 2/3 musseums, settling ~2-3 great generals in Berlin and maybe even trying to get 1 great spy will be my way to attempt it... 2 generals and 1 spy will almost make 50% of great people. Meanwhile I will "waste" 3 great people on artists->musseums. Because of musseums, I will be able to get 4 more GP before UVH date and then use my super-fast GP generation to boost technologies and maybe I will research more with GP, than with commerce... Maybe I will even convert some villages to farms...

 

[banzay13]

I also made this :

It's possible to pick small lies I made - on this history re-cap But I told everything from memory and only now see small inaccuracies.




I'm currently trying to roleplay German Reich in 1700 start, but I found it extremally difficult to be "meaningful" in any way as Germany...

In one game I captured Austria-Hungary (except for Italy), but still wasn't meaningful enough to be invited to congress.. And because of 2 additional cities I was far from tech lead. I quit, because I just barely failed to settle 7th great person in Berlin (despite settling in 1 great general... It counts! Maybe I will aim to settle 2 great generals and 5 "normal" GP, eventually)

In other try I lost to sudden Russian invasion and huge army rolled through Königsberg...

In 3rd try, I tried to go for "historical goal" of settling lots of "great people" in Berlin... I built civic squares and had lots of specialists. I built museums with 2 great artists (yeah, I even focussed on great artists.. But I think speding 2 great people in exchange for 2 musseums is worth it. They give a lot of bonus GP %) and adopted isolationism for +1 free spec... I was pretty strong (better than in 1st and 2nd try), but it was still not it... Englad was absolutely smashing me in technology.. I don't know how to compete with them. It's especially annoying that no matter what I try I keep failing 3rd historical goal. I just literally can't get any industrial tech as first country... Not to mention doing so with 8 techs.

In first run I tried military conquest, in second run I really tried to focus on commerce and huge production (kinda similarly to US gameplay), 3rd run I quit, because I didn't felt enough "power"... I will either need to lower difficulty from 3/5 to 2/5, or try many more times, as it seems it's hard to be "meaningful" as Germany... I think it might be under-powered civ in DoC, but I might be playing it wrong...

It is a bit off topic, but I don't think I tried hard enough to start separate "how to UVH as Germany?" topic I will keep trying for now and share with interesting story, if I get to one!

I think beeline for ~2-3 artists to get 2/3 musseums, settling ~2-3 great generals in Berlin and maybe even trying to get 1 great spy will be my way to attempt it... 2 generals and 1 spy will almost make 50% of great people. Meanwhile I will "waste" 3 great people on artists->musseums. Because of musseums, I will be able to get 4 more GP before UVH date and then use my super-fast GP generation to boost technologies and maybe I will research more with GP, than with commerce... Maybe I will even convert some villages to farms...

in my last game i didnt setltle all GP, kept some for last - i build Neuschwanstein Castle - so i got my last GP right in time. And i settled general and spy too. And used 1 or 2 great scientis for bublle teach.

 

[Buffalo Solider]

After few tries I was consistently getting like 10-12 great people before time, so settling in GP early on was my mistake. They come easily. Early GP might be better used to push techs.

It's pretty good that "great generals" count, because in last game I conquered Netherlands, Poland and Austria and 3 of my settled GP were generals... I really recommend early conquest of Amsterdam. It's poorly defended, this city is great to generate GP and you remove one scientific rival.

But I failed because I wasn't researching fast enough (England, France and US were all faster than me. Japan also got better than me) . Next time I will NOT trade techs with US (they were only ahead, because I traded some techs with them. Usually they are slightly behind the rest)... Maybe I should conquer London in early game as well . Perhaps conquering Austria is not good idea, it might be better to just conquer 3 capitals from 3 tech rivals (Amsterdam->Paris->London) and keep city count low (6) so techs aren't that expensive.

But for now, I resigned from trying. I started modding DoC, so these runs weren't "legit" and then I lost interest in game. One day I will make it!