SGOTM 07 - Unusual Suspects

[vra379971]

We need to wait, guys. The fact is, if we have a larger stack than them, they won't attack us at all, and wait to be killed. Our units are far more valuable to us than them unit for unit, because we know how to use them. It's best to wait and build up a horde of tanks.

In the meantime...lets look at the Kublai situation again...

 

[marconos]

I'm not sold that Liz will join Asoka in an attack on us. Asoka we could easily take out without too much effort. Liz I agree would be tough.

I like to push things and keep it moving but I can yeild on this point and see what happens. Waiting 25 turns ... damn that's a long time in this game. We'll see what happens I guess.

 

[Melior Traiano]

Well, the decision on how to play the next 10 turns has been controversial. Believe me when I say that I really hope that it was the right decision. There's no need to belabor the reasons pro & con anymore. So time will tell. Anyway, onwards...

Turn 228: Recall the Worker back to home territory. Set the city to train him another Worker buddy. Infantry from Roman lands rejoin the main army in Washington.

Turn 229: Start city on Coal Plant. Assigned 3 Engineers to max production without affecting Industrialism's ETA. Nab Coal from Caesar. Worker starts railroading. BTW, Huayna/Kublai (I'm going to call them Hu/Ku from now on for short) consider Liz their worst enemy. They also have Infantry now, but it doesn't make much difference since they had previously upgraded the bulk of their units to SAMs.

Turn 230: Saladin completes Apollo. Caesar bombs the GA at Washington. This doesn't reclaim any land...except for 3 tiles from us.

Turn 231: Coal Plant is done, Ironworks started, ETA 5 turns. Cyrus & Cathy now both have Industrialism.

Turn 232: Cathy completes another Casing. Cyrus is willing to trade Industrialism. The only problem is there's nothing we can trade him for it. Send Workers to build a Well on the Oil right outside Nottingham. They'll be done on the same turn Industrialism is finished. Liz also has Industrialism now. Unfortunately for her, she still can't build Tanks.

Turn 233: Hu/Ku builds Apollo. Noticed that Caesar's Workers now have the good sense to build Farms.

Turn 234: Saladin completes a SauSage Casing. Cyrus is willing to trade Industrialism now, but I nix the idea of trading him a monopoly tech for a tech we won't be able to leverage for another 3 turns anyway.

Turn 235: Gave Caesar 10gpt to try to bump his research back up to 100%, but no dice. Industrialism is still on track though, so no biggie. Hu/Ku researched Fascism.

Turn 236: Ironworks done, Hospital in 1.

Turn 237: Caesar is building Oxford in Berlin. Alex demands we cancel deals with Liz. Yeah, as if. Anyway, Hospital done, Drydock in 1.

Turn 238: Industrialism is done. There is an Aluminum right just north of the city. I sent a Worker to start mining it. Once that Mine is done, we'll need to shuffle worked tiles around, but we should still be near-fold neutral & come out ahead by 1 extra .

Some notes:

Turns out Louis is the only AI on the other side of the world with Aluminum. That'll slow down those space racers a bit.

The Oil next to Nottingham is at 50% culture right now. All the more reason to knock Liz out first, so that both we & Caesar can build Tanks at the same time.

I also loaned Caesar our Stone so he can build Oxford faster.

From here on out, we're going to be crank out units. We've got insane bonuses for military production, 45 raw + 350% bonus = 202.5 per turn. It's even 50% better for building Battleships. And we haven't reached maximum potential raw yet either. With this kind of production, our Power will go through the roof once we start building up the war machine.

Techwise, I can go along with Plastics. It's on the way to Composites, which is what I think we should set as our final research goal.

Here's a good sign for ya:

Our boy Caesar has done a good job building up his Power. He's overtaken Liz, who has herself stagnated in Power. Also, ours + Caesar's Power is already #1 worldwide. And this is before our Tank building bonanza. Once we get going, our army will be unstoppable. We just need to be careful that Caesar doesn't do something stupid & lose a bunch of troops we need to capture cities.

 

[Yamps]

All right, go JC, go!

Vra379971, you haven't played at all, ready for some action?

Let's start with the planning. Vra, you suggested going for Hu/Ku, let's look into that plan as well.

Who's the next target: Asoka, Liz or Hu/Ku?

Btw, did JC manage to build 6 universities for Oxford so fast? Impressive.

 

[marconos]

Liz should be our 1st target IMO. She is the real threat on our continent and since we took the time to build the infrastructure and research then we need to use that and take out the strongest 1st. Liz, Asoka, Cu/Ku then Alex last IMO.

Course doesn't that win us the game

Edit:
Just reviewed the scores, power, culture etc from the other teams.

At this time there are 3 teams that appear to be going for a space race victory, Geezers, Choconuts and Fifth element. We really need to keep an eye on Fifth Element. Due to their current score I would wager that they are farther along in the tech race then we are. Due to the speed at which their score shot up they are the big concern for us on winning the overall game. I believe we need to keep a close eye on the information we can gleen from the score sheet.

There are some other teams going for a domination victory. I don't believe we have to worry about any of them on this. My reasoning for this is seeing that those that started their military build up earlier end up getting caught by the puter, IMO. Those that start after us are starting too late. I believe we stumbled upon the best time to start the war.

At this point I think Fifth element is our real competition and we really have to keep the pressure on to be able to beat them.

Just thought a review of the other teams chart information was worth reviewing.

 

[Yamps]

Lot of planning ahead, making your own judgments before reading is highly recommended.

Spoiler :

War plans

I'll say it immediately, I propose an attack in 10 turns.

But first, let's look at the diplomatic situation a bit:

Cyrus, Capac/Kublai and Asoka are cautious at our team. That's it, everybody else is annoyed at our team! That's a dangerous position.

Capac and Kublai are rather strong and have DP with Cathy. We have to prepare a lot for them. Hopefully, they'll dogpile on Liz when we attack her. They don't hate us, we should attack somebody else first.

Liz is also strong, we'll need many units to take her. She doesn't have oil, that's very important. That tile has stayed at 50% for a long time, it is a good bet that we won't lose it. If we do lose it, we should use spies to sabotage that. Liz only has one worker, she won't rebuild so fast. We should also consider sabotaging the uranium to prevent her from building battleships. Of course, we have other things to built first, we need those tanks.

That leaves Asoka. We have to hurry, he still doesn't have Industrialism but he has oil. We also don't want those elephants airborne, he needs only Flight for gunships! Btw, if we lose the oil, we'll take the one Asoka has. In the mean time, we can always borrow from JC for a while.

Liz is dangerous, she could join the war against us. I propose we send a defensive stack in Hamburg: 3 inf and 3 arties that are not promoted from Washington + 3 tanks. It is important to know the playing order: we, JC, Asoka, Liz. If Liz attacks on the Hamburg front we can soften that stack considerably and JC also has troops there for more damage before she moves again. She has a lot of soldiers down there, but that should stop her.

Let's build 10 tanks in ten turns, send some reinforcements to Hamburg and attack Asoka! We'll be building more units during the war to prepare for Liz. It is important to have low casualties, one unit means one more turn!

We have to prevent oil access to Liz and stop her from building gunships. Kublai/Capac will most likely have them, that will complicate things. We should consider marines also instead of tanks later.

As long as Liz doesn't have oil, she won't get much stronger. We are going to need many land units and ships to conquer her, let's spend the time on Asoka first. We don't want him to grow stronger with gunships and tanks.

Techs:

Composites are not the right answer because Modern armor also requires Computers! Plastics now for more power for JC, yes. Btw, if we build a hydro plant we'll remove the 2 from the coal plant! We'll have some food issues when we finish that aluminium mine, that will be useful.

Here is the proposal:

Plastics->Radio->Computers->Robotics for mechanized infantry. We can have that sooner than modern armor. We need ~40 turns atm to reach mech. inf. It looks like that we'll need ~30 turns for Asoka and Liz. Computers will hurry up the research and Indian cities will do it too, we can expect to have mech inf. for the final war with Capac and Kublai.

 

[vra379971]

Solid plan as usual.

The one thing I have to add is that, unless we are using that silver for some sort of reason, I propose to replace it with a Fort.

 

[Yamps]

Liz should be our 1st target IMO. She is the real threat on our continent and since we took the time to build the infrastructure and research then we need to use that and take out the strongest 1st. Liz, Asoka, Cu/Ku then Alex last IMO.

Course doesn't that win us the game

We'll need too much time to prepare for Liz to fight her effectively, I propose the attack on Asoka while we build up for Liz. I explained the details in a previous post.

Edit:
Just reviewed the scores, power, culture etc from the other teams.

At this time there are 3 teams that appear to be going for a space race victory, Geezers, Choconuts and Fifth element. We really need to keep an eye on Fifth Element. Due to their current score I would wager that they are farther along in the tech race then we are. Due to the speed at which their score shot up they are the big concern for us on winning the overall game. I believe we need to keep a close eye on the information we can gleen from the score sheet.

We can't be sure that the Fifth Element are researching faster then we are. Of course, if they are going for Space they'll have higher research on their own, but we are betting on JC to bring the difference, we are gaining land and JC is building Oxford atm. Anyway, I honestly don't see that Space could be faster than Domination in this game although you never know what other teams are up to.

There are some other teams going for a domination victory. I don't believe we have to worry about any of them on this.

That's a bold statement!

My reasoning for this is seeing that those that started their military build up earlier end up getting caught by the puter, IMO. Those that start after us are starting too late. I believe we stumbled upon the best time to start the war.

At this point I think Fifth element is our real competition and we really have to keep the pressure on to be able to beat them.

If they attack earlier they have to fight easier opponents. Anyway, it is very hard to compare things. We had some delays due to religion, it is quite possible that other teams signed PA before we did. We also did make some mistakes and those teams do have a lot more experience than we do.

Anyway, let's keep the effort and fight till the end!

Just thought a review of the other teams chart information was worth reviewing.

Yeah, I'm looking the graphs constantly. However, I do feel that those graphs are too spoilerish, especially in a OCC game. I think that they should use delays in displaying the info, the teams are not really encouraged to play as fast as possible this way. I'm certain that those power graphs are influencing game play, we'll see at the end how true is this statement.

 

[Yamps]

Solid plan as usual.

The one thing I have to add is that, unless we are using that silver for some sort of reason, I propose to replace it with a Fort.

Thanks!

Well, we are selling that to Saladin and accumulating the resource trade bonus. He is almost cautious at us, it would be good to get that. We probably won't get more from that silver, but it would be bad to lose the bonus we already have.

Most importantly, I don't see that we have enough troops to properly guard that hill and the city right now. Liz has transports, she could use them to attack the city directly. I also think that those soldiers on the forest tile should be in the city, we have rails now for fast unit deployment. Concentrating troops and using the rails to attack where needed is better IMO, we don't want to lose soldiers scattered in small groups.

Of course, that fort could be very valuable later when we make a full attack on Liz.


Let's examine things closely as usual, details are very important for this game.

 

[Yamps]

I have to say, aren't you amazed with JC's economical views? Farms and specialists everywhere, you'll hardly find a heathen cottage in his lands. That's one mean SE player out there!

 

[kcd_swede]

OK, nice work... now build some tanks and lets roll!

 

[Melior Traiano]

Option 1:

If we attack Asoka first, are we solely relying on a high Power rating to keep Liz from intervening? So let's say we build 2 Battleships to block the sea approach to the city & protect the Fish & Clam. That means 8 Tanks will be available to invade India. That will be more than enough to wipe Asoka out.

But if Liz does intervene to help Asoka, things will get a lot messier. Liz could send troops to attack Washington & Hamburg at that same time. That would stretch our forces thin, but we can still hold. And whatever losses we sustain can be made up for quickly given our current output. What I'm more worried about is whether Caesar would send troops to capture cities if there's a large stack threatening Hamburg from Kyoto. If Caesar starts turtling, the war will stall very quickly.

Option 2:

On the other hand, if we attack Kyoto first, it would be very straightforward for Caesar to follow us and probably take the city on the first turn of the war. After Kyoto, the Tanks should split off from the Infantry/Artillery stack to spearhead the attack on York ASAP. IIRC, units heal faster in the city not in resistance, so the Tanks should be moved into Washington to heal (they should not be left to heal in Kyoto). The 1 movement units can catch up later when the Tanks heal after taking York. Then, leave a token force to beat down the defenders at Nottingham while sending the main army on to attack Bombay. Caesar would capture Nottingham, and by the time he gets to Bombay, we'll have killed almost all the defenders. We also have the option of gifting units to Caesar at Washington that he can march to Bombay immediately.

To do this efficiently, we'll need to leave 4 Artillery in Washington that'll be ready to move out as soon as the Tanks are good to go. The Artillery can bomb down defenses at York in a single turn & then be available next turn for collateral damage, if need be. Chances are Caesar will be lagging a little, so it probably won't be necessary to send in the Tanks the same turn as the bombardment. So probably leave the 3 unpromoted Artillery behind in Washington & add another one after war is declared. If we have the production, keeping spare Artillery in Washington will also speed up the turnaround time before we turn on Asoka too because we wouldn't have to wait around for the Artillery to march back from London before we march on Bombay.

Since Option 2 virtually eliminates the possibility of fighting two AI's at once and leaves us with more control over how things will develop, I'm voting for it. There are big potential downsides to attacking Asoka first, but not so with attacking Liz first, as far as I can see. It's true that Asoka might have teched to Gunships by the time we go after him, but since he's not much of a militarist, I'm doubtful he'd field enough Gunships to be any more than a speedbump to our advance. Same for Asoka fielding Tanks.

Teching to Mech Infantry first looks reasonable to me. Not the best city buster, but it's a good all-around unit. And it'll be available much sooner than Modern Armor.

 

[classical_hero]

Btw, did JC manage to build 6 universities for Oxford so fast? Impressive.

He only needed to build 3 since it is the size of the map that counts for how many you need.

 

[Yamps]

@Option 1

Option 1:

If we attack Asoka first, are we solely relying on a high Power rating to keep Liz from intervening? So let's say we build 2 Battleships to block the sea approach to the city & protect the Fish & Clam. That means 8 Tanks will be available to invade India. That will be more than enough to wipe Asoka out.

But if Liz does intervene to help Asoka, things will get a lot messier. Liz could send troops to attack Washington & Hamburg at that same time. That would stretch our forces thin, but we can still hold. And whatever losses we sustain can be made up for quickly given our current output. What I'm more worried about is whether Caesar would send troops to capture cities if there's a large stack threatening Hamburg from Kyoto. If Caesar starts turtling, the war will stall very quickly.

Yes, we would be relying on high power and lack of bribing options for Asoka, Liz is more advanced.

There are problems with this option of course, it's risky.

Sea defense:

Those 2 battleships wouldn't be enough. Liz is surely building battleships atm. We have 2 options:

1) Ignoring the seas

We would lose health bonuses from Fish and Clam but we could get that back using Uranium, Cyrus would sell us Fish and Clam for that. Losing the Crabs would mean additional -12 for a total of -13 We could compensate with farming the forests, we could pre-farm them now. That would bring 6 more . If we build the supermarket, we can get 3 more . Of course, we need Refrigeration for that. We would also need 4 more fishing boats eventually, that's 4 more turns to build them.

Basically, this doesn't look like a good option.


2) Defending.

We would need at least 5 battleships, IMO. Liz will most likely build at least 3 battleships.

That means 5 more turns.


JC's movements could be problematic, this plan could get really messy. Our defensive stack in Kyoto would have to clear things up fast to reduce problems for JC.

Btw, Asoka has 2 war elephants. Gunships are strong against tanks, 48 vs 28. We have to be careful about that.

@Option 2

Option 2 lacks exact numbers and the required time. More importantly, option 2 has a major misconception. We don't have to fight Asoka too if we attack Liz! Asoka won't help her, he is cautious at our team and only pleased at Liz.

Option 2 should be the attack on Liz only. We need exact plans and numbers for that. Here are the garrison numbers:

Liz

Kyoto

4 inf, 2 art, 7 SAM, 3 WE (city)
4 art, 4 SAM, WE (farm tile)

York: 3 inf, 6 art, SAM

Nottingham: 2inf, SAM

London: 6 inf, 5 SAM, 3 art

Ships: 5 destroyers, battleships expected.

Liz will also build marines, her numbers will increase.


Our forces:

Beijing: 5 inf, 2 MG
Washington: 14 inf, 11 art, 2 MG

I estimate that we'll need ~10 tanks, ~10 marines and ~5 battleships. That's at least 25 turns of preparations.


Let's try to make exact deployment plans for the war with Liz, we have to plan this now. Try to find mistakes and weak spots in plans, that's the best way to find the correct approach.


Mech. infantry

We'll need lot's of cash to upgrade the soldiers, we have ~25 units for the upgrade. GP will be born in ~10 turns, let's hire merchants and gamble for the great merchant. We also have to take more cash from JC, reducing the slider to 0% would be too slow to accumulate all that money.

@Classical

Thanks for the info, I forgot about the tiny map setting! This means that other civs also have Oxford, built in better cities than Berlin. JC wasn't able to build it in Rome, he already has 2 national wonders there.

 

[Melior Traiano]

So I need to clarify some things about the attack Liz first plan (option 2):

There is no misconception about having to attack Asoka. I was just pointing out that after London is captured, to keep the war machine rolling at high efficiency, we could send our main army at Bombay while Caesar finishes Liz off by capturing Nottingham. Whether that's feasible will obviously depend on what kind of shape the army is in after we take London. But if we keep a spare Artillery/Infantry stack in Washington, I don't see any reason why the Tank stack can't come right back, heal a turn, then drive into India with the Artillery. That way, we don't need to wait more turns for the Artillery at London to walk all the way back.

Here's how I envision the plan unfolding:

Build 2 Battleships & 8 Tanks. Deploy the Battleships, move the 8 Tanks + 10 Infantry + 8 Artillery from Washington to the Forest SW of Kyoto. While the Tanks spend two turns driving to the front, build 2 more Battleships & deploy them. Declare war on Liz, inflict maximum damage to her defenders in the city and send a Barrage Tank or two at the defenders not in the city. Send Caesar in, capture the city.

Split off the surviving Tanks from the army, heal the Tank stack in Washington. Group the Tank stack with available reinforcements (which are being built this entire time after the second pair of Battleships is done) & march on York. Bomb, assault, capture. Heal in York. Meanwhile, the Artillery/Infantry stack that attacked Kyoto should have healed in Washington & part of that stack will rejoin the Tank stack at York. Leave some of the ex-Kyoto stack in Washington.

Stack in York attacks London. Afterwards, Tank stack immediately returns to Washington, heals and pushes into India with available reinforcements. Throughout the entire war, the 3 Infantry now fortified on the Fur should protect the Oil next to Nottingham. Once London falls, send Caesar to Nottingham & use the 3 Infantry on the Oil + a new build Tank or two to beat down the defenders for Caesar to capture. By the time Caesar captures Nottingham, the Bombay offensive should be well underway & Caesar can waltz in to capture Bombay.

The idea I'm trying to promote here is that we should keep spare Artillery around and let the Tanks do the crisscrossing across the continent. If we march too many Artillery around east to west and then back, that's lots of turns wasted on movement that would be unnecessary if we keep spare Artillery at Washington & move the Tanks back & forth.

 

[Yamps]

@Melior

Oh, you are planning to attack Bombay after we take London! Ok. Btw, how efficient is tank barrage in Vanilla? I haven't used that in a while. Let's work this out:

• 10 turns for 2 battleships and 8 tanks.
• 2 turns do deploy the tanks and to build 2 more battleships.
• Infantry and artillery sent near Kyoto few turns earlier. We don't need to send them to soon, we have to be careful about revolting chances in Washington.
• 3 infantry soldiers on oil.

Okay, on the 12th turn we deploy the battleship. Where do you think we should deploy them? Near Nottingham to protect the Clam and Fish or on the Crabs? We can get Clam and Fish from Cyrus. Things will depend on the number of Liz's battleships, we don't want to lose those ships.

The plan has its risks, only 2 inf and 2 MG would stay in Beijing. Washington would be thin on defense too: 4 inf, 2MG and 3 arties. Liz has a lot of artillery there. That stack could attack Washington directly or move on towards Beijing. JC has some soldiers in Washington, he will probably leave 2 inf in the city.

We have to railroad the Washington - Beijing line for easier defense. I suggest we don't protect the oil! Liz doesn't have fast pillagers, she would have to spend one turn to move units out of the city first. We should build a tank for the first turn of the war to kill those. However, we could have some problems with spies. Do you think that protecting the oil would stop her spies?

Anyway, I think that your plan will work! Maybe just few more defenders back home to protect us. Oil tile should be railroaded too, that way we can use the soldiers on that tile elsewhere if needed.

When we take Kyoto and regroup in Washington life will be much easier. Nice combat tactics! Yes, those 3 arties left in Washington will be used to bombard York. Tanks and reinforcements will take it, London will fall with the help of the surviving arties from Kyoto. Battleships can bombard Nottingham while main forces move towards Bombay.

Sounds good!

Vra, what do you think? You are scheduled to play next, examine the small details. Have we considered everything?

Next turnset should bring us in position to attack Liz on the next turn. That's ~12 turns of war preparations.

 

[vra379971]

It seems everything has been considered, will muse a bit more when I open the save at home in an hour's time. Seems like button pressing turnset for me, and I'm happy with that =)

The one thing that hasn't been discussed and should be is promotions. I am a fan of first strike - what that means is City Raider 2 or 3 promos on Tanks - from there we can look at a Barrage promotion...I think I might like a mix of City Raider 3 and CR2+Barrage 1 Tanks to be honest.

 

[Melior Traiano]

Btw, how efficient is tank barrage in Vanilla? I haven't used that in a while.

Barrage 2 does some collateral (20% IIRC) which isn't spectacular, but it's decent if you factor in that the Barrage 2 Tank isn't a suicide unit like an Artillery is in many matchups.

Okay, on the 12th turn we deploy the battleship. Where do you think we should deploy them? Near Nottingham to protect the Clam and Fish or on the Crabs? We can get Clam and Fish from Cyrus. Things will depend on the number of Liz's battleships, we don't want to lose those ships.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if Liz manages to field more than a couple of Battleships, at the most. I think she'll build Marines if she builds any units. The AI isn't "thinking" in terms of imminent war with us, so it probably thinks the 6 Destroyers it already has is adequate to defend its sea assets. I would deploy 2 Battleships each onto the Fish & Clam. They should be more than a match for Liz's unpromoted Destroyers, not all of which she would commit to an attack, in any case. They should block Liz from being able to land units on our doorstep. She could still reinforce Nottingham from the sea, but we shouldn't have any problems bottling her up in the city or crushing any that venture into our land with a couple of new build Tanks.

The plan has its risks, only 2 inf and 2 MG would stay in Beijing. Washington would be thin on defense too: 4 inf, 2MG and 3 arties. Liz has a lot of artillery there. That stack could attack Washington directly or move on towards Beijing. JC has some soldiers in Washington, he will probably leave 2 inf in the city.

It's true that we might take some losses at Washington, but the city should still hold. We'll also be cranking Tanks from Beijing pretty much continuously, so I don't think we'll be in jeopardy of losing Washington.

We have to railroad the Washington - Beijing line for easier defense. I suggest we don't protect the oil! Liz doesn't have fast pillagers, she would have to spend one turn to move units out of the city first. We should build a tank for the first turn of the war to kill those. However, we could have some problems with spies. Do you think that protecting the oil would stop her spies?

I've looked at London & York closely & don't think Liz has built Scotland Yard. We could leave the Oil undefended & fortify the 3 Infantry on the Silver hill instead. And keep a couple of new build Tanks nearby, just in case.

Anyway, I think that your plan will work! Maybe just few more defenders back home to protect us. Oil tile should be railroaded too, that way we can use the soldiers on that tile elsewhere if needed.

I agree that we should railroad at least the Beijing-Washington corridor. Since we've got monster production already, railroading the remaining Mines & Lumbermills isn't so critical.

When we take Kyoto and regroup in Washington life will be much easier. Nice combat tactics! Yes, those 3 arties left in Washington will be used to bombard York. Tanks and reinforcements will take it, London will fall with the help of the surviving arties from Kyoto. Battleships can bombard Nottingham while main forces move towards Bombay.

I recommend building another Artillery & leaving it in Washington, so that the 4 total can bombard York down to 0% in one turn. But if the production queue doesn't allow that, it's not critical either. 5% residual cultural defense is pretty trivial. It also depends on how many Artillery we lose taking Kyoto. I don't think we want to have any less than two stacks of 4 Artillery each, at a minimum.

At this point though, I would seriously think about using Barrage Tanks as the initial "suicide" units when citybusting because we need Artillery to bombard. Losing a suicide Artillery is worse than losing a Barrage Tank because it takes twice as long for an Artillery to get to the front than a Tank. And a Tank is a stronger, more versatile unit, too, so we really can't go wrong with a Tank-centric army. I don't see our neighbors being able to field many Gunships, if any, before we shred them with stacks of Tanks.

 

[Yamps]

It seems everything has been considered, will muse a bit more when I open the save at home in an hour's time. Seems like button pressing turnset for me, and I'm happy with that =)

The one thing that hasn't been discussed and should be is promotions. I am a fan of first strike - what that means is City Raider 2 or 3 promos on Tanks - from there we can look at a Barrage promotion...I think I might like a mix of City Raider 3 and CR2+Barrage 1 Tanks to be honest.

Be careful with that "hit end turn button", there is always sth to look at. A lot can happen in just few turns. Regarding promotions, we can delay them for the fight. CR is great for city attacks, but we'll need some tanks for other jobs as well.

Btw, please clear up the unneeded signs, I spammed them a bit too much. Look at the deals with JC, that's a mess too. Please cancel old gpt deals, renegotiate. However, Caesar will use the cash for resaerch, take before you return. We need to accumulate money for upgrades. Of course, we can't push it too much, JC needs to research too.

GP

We'll have another soon. What are we going to do with it? Suggestions:

Scientist - bulbing. What's next in line, btw? Computers maybe?
Artist - saving for Mass media or culture bombing.
GE - The three Gorges if Sal doesn't build it first.
Merchant - cash!

Let's hire merchants for 10 turns, maybe we get lucky and get the GM for mech. inf.

I've looked at London & York closely & don't think Liz has built Scotland Yard.

I haven't thought of that! It's possible to see buildings on the map!

We could leave the Oil undefended & fortify the 3 Infantry on the Silver hill instead. And keep a couple of new build Tanks nearby, just in case.

Liz has a lot of artillery in York but few infantry soldiers. Maybe she will move those arties undefended towards Beijing? In that case it would be best to let her pass that hill and kill that stack in the open. He, he!

At this point though, I would seriously think about using Barrage Tanks as the initial "suicide" units when citybusting because we need Artillery to bombard. Losing a suicide Artillery is worse than losing a Barrage Tank because it takes twice as long for an Artillery to get to the front than a Tank. And a Tank is a stronger, more versatile, too, so we really can't go wrong with a Tank-centric army. I don't see our neighbors being able to field many Gunships, if any, before we shred them with stacks of Tanks.

We'll use 8 arties for Kyoto. 4 for bombardment and most probably 4 CR immediately for the attack. Barrage is more versatile than CR for the tanks, that's true. We should probably mix it, some CR tanks for city attacks and some Barrage for more general purposes. What about pinch to fight gunpowder units in the open? Anyway, we can promote when we need to.

I'm a bit worried about those Gunships, Hu/Ku will probably have some. With some luck, they will dogpile on Liz. That would drop the DP with Cathy and make them a prime target! Maybe Hu/Ku before Asoka if the opportunity arrives.

 

[vra379971]

Okay.

I am very happy to exercise the build plan as has been layed out here...quick question though...

Seeing how Alex is alone with Riflemen, should I take a few turns and kill him now?
---

A point worth adding in.

The old Japanese tile Liz has alot of her army on the eastern coast sitting on is at 51%, so if it flips to JC, all the troops will go into the city...CR FEST!