Sury demigod shadow

[a pen-dragon]

Well it's t252 and Saladin has modern armors . I tried attacking with 130 tanks to see what would happen, I could capture 1 city but modern armors+gunships just devour tanks, he has sushi and I'm losing a ton of tiles to that, he can just take 3 border cities after I take my turn. Do I just tech to my own modern armors? He's still fairly far from space.

IMHO modern armour are never that much better than tanks, certainly not justifying teching up to composites.

regarding Saladin taking cities, a few front ones is fine, as they typically are not the most productive and you can then attack his units while they are in a city, and unfortified.

Gunships and modern armour are what the AI will have as mobile units, while the cities will mostly be defended by (mech) infantry. This means that you will only face significant counterattacking in the first few turns, as by then his units will be depleted. If his army is not in Damascus it might be better to wait for it to come to you, destroy it, and only then attack cities.

That said, tanks into gunships does burn a lot of units.

I do not like nukes.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I do not like nukes.

Do you find them getting shot down too often?

 

[a pen-dragon]

No, this has nothing to do with gameplay. I suppose you could call it a sentimental folly, but I just want to avoid using nukes as much as possible.

Accordingly I never build the Manhattan Project myself.

 

[Plains-Cow]

No, this has nothing to do with gameplay. I suppose you could call it a sentimental folly, but I just want to avoid using nukes as much as possible.

Accordingly I never build the Manhattan Project myself.

Interesting! Do you also avoid slavery for the same reasons? Saw people talk about that before. Cool thing about nukes in-game is that they speed capitulations A LOT (so long as they don't own a vassal lol).

 

[a pen-dragon]

Do you also avoid slavery for the same reasons?

Not any more. I did not manage to beat Deity without Slavery. I suppose I could pull an odd game or two off, but that is not worth the time (probably many failed attempts) and effort in my eyes.

 

[pmarc]

Rather than sacrifice a lot of weaker units that don't do collateral, I would let their stack come to a city with some suitable defenders (anti-tank, SAM against gunship) and possible weaken it with collateral from artillery and bombers. Tanks' strength is their double attack that can wipe a lot of units once they've received max collateral.

 

[jnebbe]

to T299

Spoiler :

Finally got around to playing this again. Replayed from ~t240ish. Built a lot of markets+theatres for happiness, and few banks where it made sense. In my first attempt, I sent my stack straight in instead of letting Saladin's stack come into me to not suffer war unhappiness, and was immediately at -300gpt after 2 or 3 turns. Also went back into HR since keeping Napoleon friendly doesn't matter anymore.

I got quite lucky here. Qin peace vassaled to Saladin, but freed himself the turn I was going to attack. I don't know why because Saladin has converted 2 cities from sushi and is significantly stronger than Qin

The first 2 turns were very scary, probably took an hour just to play those out lol. I think I lost 4 border cities immediately and then counterattacked with my CR tanks. Lost over 60 tanks just from these 2 turns.

Once the initial wave of units was taken care of, I sent a stack of about 80 forwards.

I could no longer build tanks so I checked around to see what happened

The rest of the war was going well so I just ignored it and kept pushing. Medina fell and I got 2 corp HQs + Hollywood, very handy.

I was just now starting to retake my border cities. I had less cities than I started the war with but Saladin wants peace now
(see those ruins south of the oil? I misclicked raze city and didn't feel like reloading lol)

Something pretty bad happened here but I don't have a pic. Saladin built up a small stack in the fog of war and slammed it into Mecca. I lost 20 tanks in 1 turn and was left with just 6 or 7 half hp tanks left. I couldn't move reinforcements in quickly because it was surrounded by culture, so I just doubled down and took all the south cities. I didn't wait for any EP discounts, just took them as fast as possible. In the end Mecca just barely held.

War unhappiness is 10-15 in every city, even with forges/markets/theatres/jails in most cities, and I really want just a few turns to reset, get some more EP stored up, and get tank numbers back up. So I push to Baghdad with everything I have. This battle was on a knife's edge, I had just barely enough tanks to consider taking it.
...and with that, I ceasefired. I don't care if he vassals to anyone else, I'm the strongest in the game. I've lost 180 tanks and have ~80 left.
Saladin is done with the tech tree, but is still 5 parts away. His capital is in Kufah and I should be able to destroy it if he launches.
Qin is building parts, but he doesn't even have composites, so I'm not worried about him right now.
Culture win is still 100+ turns away.
Vassals can still win if they launch a ship right? I think I need to just wipe Saladin.
Game looks to be in the bag

 

[Plains-Cow]

to T299

Spoiler :

Finally got around to playing this again. Replayed from ~t240ish. Built a lot of markets+theatres for happiness, and few banks where it made sense. In my first attempt, I sent my stack straight in instead of letting Saladin's stack come into me to not suffer war unhappiness, and was immediately at -300gpt after 2 or 3 turns. Also went back into HR since keeping Napoleon friendly doesn't matter anymore.

View attachment 753805
I got quite lucky here. Qin peace vassaled to Saladin, but freed himself the turn I was going to attack. I don't know why because Saladin has converted 2 cities from sushi and is significantly stronger than Qin





View attachment 753806
View attachment 753807
The first 2 turns were very scary, probably took an hour just to play those out lol. I think I lost 4 border cities immediately and then counterattacked with my CR tanks. Lost over 60 tanks just from these 2 turns.





View attachment 753808
View attachment 753809
View attachment 753810
Once the initial wave of units was taken care of, I sent a stack of about 80 forwards.




View attachment 753811
I could no longer build tanks so I checked around to see what happened



View attachment 753812
The rest of the war was going well so I just ignored it and kept pushing. Medina fell and I got 2 corp HQs + Hollywood, very handy.



View attachment 753813
I was just now starting to retake my border cities. I had less cities than I started the war with but Saladin wants peace now
(see those ruins south of the oil? I misclicked raze city and didn't feel like reloading lol)



View attachment 753814
Something pretty bad happened here but I don't have a pic. Saladin built up a small stack in the fog of war and slammed it into Mecca. I lost 20 tanks in 1 turn and was left with just 6 or 7 half hp tanks left. I couldn't move reinforcements in quickly because it was surrounded by culture, so I just doubled down and took all the south cities. I didn't wait for any EP discounts, just took them as fast as possible. In the end Mecca just barely held.



View attachment 753815
War unhappiness is 10-15 in every city, even with forges/markets/theatres/jails in most cities, and I really want just a few turns to reset, get some more EP stored up, and get tank numbers back up. So I push to Baghdad with everything I have. This battle was on a knife's edge, I had just barely enough tanks to consider taking it.
...and with that, I ceasefired. I don't care if he vassals to anyone else, I'm the strongest in the game. I've lost 180 tanks and have ~80 left.
Saladin is done with the tech tree, but is still 5 parts away. His capital is in Kufah and I should be able to destroy it if he launches.
Qin is building parts, but he doesn't even have composites, so I'm not worried about him right now.
Culture win is still 100+ turns away.
Vassals can still win if they launch a ship right? I think I need to just wipe Saladin.
Game looks to be in the bag

Were you able to run the culture slider at all? I don't see it on in any of your recent screen shots. Oftentimes you can run the culture slider and make MORE gold than if you had it off because it's allowing citizens to work towns/gold/etc. I've experimented with it a lot.

 

[jnebbe]

to t313

Spoiler :

I said I was the strongest in the game, welllll Qin just got composites this turn and now he's damn close to his own ship. My tank numbers are still under 100 and ofc he is PRO

I did the math, I needed 116 more land tiles for domination. Saladin's remaining land was 124, plus 8 more in his little pocket on the west, plus 2 more for an unsettled island to the south.

Redeclared on t302. Napoleon got bribed against me, but I was able to get some reinforcements in Medina just in time (which is pretty important to hold since it has 2 HQs)

Saladin was just too weak so I rolled over the rest of his cities. Nap+huayna didn't even have their own tanks, much less mechs or modern armors, so I just rolled over them too.

gg
In the end it wasn't even close because Qin researched stealth instead of fusion.

Thank you all that helped with this game, I had a lot of fun and learned a lot.

 

[Plains-Cow]

to t313

Spoiler :

View attachment 754184
I said I was the strongest in the game, welllll Qin just got composites this turn and now he's damn close to his own ship. My tank numbers are still under 100 and ofc he is PRO

I did the math, I needed 116 more land tiles for domination. Saladin's remaining land was 124, plus 8 more in his little pocket on the west, plus 2 more for an unsettled island to the south.



View attachment 754185

View attachment 754186Redeclared on t302. Napoleon got bribed against me, but I was able to get some reinforcements in Medina just in time (which is pretty important to hold since it has 2 HQs)





View attachment 754187
View attachment 754188





View attachment 754189
Saladin was just too weak so I rolled over the rest of his cities. Nap+huayna didn't even have their own tanks, much less mechs or modern armors, so I just rolled over them too.



View attachment 754190
gg
In the end it wasn't even close because Qin researched stealth instead of fusion.

Thank you all that helped with this game, I had a lot of fun and learned a lot.

View attachment 754191

What would you say your biggest takeaways were?

 

[jnebbe]

What would you say your biggest takeaways were?

Tanks kick ass
Grow cities more (and don't get your first 1-2 scientists out from capital)
BW early is not always that important; cities need to grow first before whips, and working a couple good tiles earlier can make up for the missing hammers from 1-2 chops
Let their stack come to you, on immortal you can just fight it head on with no problems

 

[konata_LS]

Congrats to your win!
Even my current playing skills are unable to help or advise people who play on immortal and above, it's always a pleasure to read others' discussion and write-ups.

I did the math, I needed 116 more land tiles for domination. Saladin's remaining land was 124, plus 8 more in his little pocket on the west, plus 2 more for an unsettled island to the south.

Correct land tiles counting & calculation are important. In a game I'm playing, I calculated wrongly the tiles on my continent thus have to launch a naval invasion just for 1.29% of the land to reach domination .