The Emperor Masters' Challenge 3 (on Warlords)

[karr1255]

Usually that's a joke option, but if time runs out, you might want to consider nuking Staling back to the stone age or taking 1 key city. He has big cities but not a lot, so taking one can be a HUGE blow to him.
Also I would really love to see if you can get some use out of the UU and even UB.

Very interesting game(s) so far and I hope you continue your series.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

navy seals (4 is not enough!)

And there's no reason to hold back on them. SEALs should be able to take care of all or nearly all of the offensive needs of the western invasion. They'll need some air support for bombardment and for damaging the defenders, but that's handled by your 2 carriers and bombers that join the battle later.

They do get an automatic March promotion which will help keep them ready for action (especially if your transports have Medic I), but I would really recommend 2 boats full of SEALs as a minimum. Consider 3 to cover losses, but 2 is probably enough.

I've never tried it before, but you might consider giving city garrison promotions to one SEAL per boat. The last attacker always needs to enter the city for one turn. Obviously you should be bringing in some infantry to help him out, but giving him some defensive abilities might keep him alive longer. That last guy should really be attacking at overwhelming odds even without any promotions, so "wasting" them on defense shouldn't really be a problem.

Don't forget that destroyers and battleships can bombard. They aren't particularly good at it, but if they don't have anything better to do, that will let your planes focus more on air strikes instead of bombing missions.

Once I have enough planes in the arena to afford it, I like to launch one or two air strikes on each enemy city that's within reach of my troops. That helps make sure the AI won't try to launch a counterattack, since all of his units will be damaged.

 

[Syndrome Zed]

Been lurking through the entire thread, reading with baited breath, and finally I can contribute, however minutely.

I agree with Patagonia regarding Stalin. Don't attack to stop the spaceship unless things are desperate. You've got the economy to use spies as your instruments of destruction. It can get expensive if you don't keep an eye on how far along the parts are, but you only need to sabotage one part to keep him from winning. Maybe even sabotage aluminum if you have enough spies (and if he has few enough Al mines, I haven't checked that closely yet), it'd be cheaper and possibly safer than sabotaging production. It's got its risks too, since I don't know how many times you can be caught before the AI will declare on you anyway, but if you really are in Stalin's good graces right now, you probably have enough leeway to slow things for a while. I just had to do it to Monty on a game I'm playing in those rare moments of free time - added 33 turns worth of delay to his Apollo program while I'm being doubleteamed by Toku and Asoka. Should be enough for me - and maybe enough for you?

Can't wait for the next "chapter" - keep up the good work!

 

[aelf]

I forgot that Shaka has SAMs. That's a worry. Means more artillery is called for. Either that or a lot more planes.

I read your suggestions. I gather from them that we need a much bigger force. Let's put US+Kremlin to good use for the next few turns.

Nuking Stalin is indeed an option we can consider, though I'd leave it for last and hope that it wouldn't come to that point.

 

[Elandal]

With Gustavus patching the injured, the attack force won't need to stay to heal for long times. I've liked having Medic3 cavalry with tanks as it can keep up with the speed, and they usually need to stop only for one turn after capturing the city - hopefully allowing the slower infantry to catch up (now that the culture behind the attack is gone) and march in to garrison.

Nobamba is currently defended by four units - 2 rifles, SAM, and artillery. So 4 Seals assumes lucky dice (all win). I'd take two more to counter the RNG gods The other option is to prepare to mop up with infantry, but they aren't Seals when it comes to amphibious attack.
Battleships bombard, and if needed, the carrier-based fighters strike at the defending force. Or bombard as well - you only have one battleship currently. Destroyers can bombard as well, but if the defense is indeed rifles, I'm not sure how much bombarding is really needed.. Assuming the defense situation changes slightly (as in, similar quality but an extra unit or two), be prepared to mop up the last defenders with infantry - and to lose one or two of them to unlucky RNG there.

For naval defense, destroyers should be enough. I like having a sentry destroyer or few that aim to only gather information. Carrier with fighters running recon missions can do the same even faster though. What kind of fleet is needed to handle the fleets thus spotted is another question though - Shaka doesn't have Battleships and I doubt he has a big fleet really, so a few combat destroyers should be able to take down whatever he's got swimming in the seas. The problem there is to have the combat fleet in the right place to do it..
Of course having a battleship to which destroyers can run when they feel like tailing is nice. Against a fleet that doesn't have battleships it's a bastion on the seas.

The other continent can't be navigated over the top and Shaka doesn't seem to have strong coastal cities on the eastern side of the continent, so probably his fleet would be on the western side - the side your naval attack is going to come from. This would be good, as you'd have most of your fleet there, and could sink Shaka's navy fast.

Stalin doesn't have Aluminium, but if during the Zulu campaign you start feeling he's getting a bit too far, I'd advocate razing Rostov and Yaroslavl'. Both are big old cities with huge culture, and they probably contribute a large portion of the Russian Space Mission. Their culture gone would also mean that Nobamba and Ulundi would be free of the strong cultural pressure from the south.

Eastern part of Zulu lands and down to Delhi of India is truly a testament to war: small cities with barely any improvements. If you decide to capture Bangalore, just give it back to Gandhi: the cultural pressure it would suffer would make it useless for domination.

 

[illram]

I think your plan of attack is good but I echo the sentiment on here that we should have more troops, specifically more than 4 city defenders for the initial westermost city, and definitely more bombers. In general, more of everything!

1) Stalin: If we had the opportunity I would advocate voting to outlaw nukes. Strategically we can have the same effect with the massive amounts of bombers we will eventually have over there. The only way Stalin can do us any harm is if he can build nukes, so having nukes as an option really benefits Stalin significantly more than us. Take this option away and any conflict with him is relegated to his continent. With that said, maybe build the UN for this reason alone? This is, of course, provided we don't have a monopoly on uranium, in which case who cares, nuke the bastard.

As far as spies go, if we are powerful enough, Stalin will take a lot of abuse from our spies before declaring war on us. Also, spending 200 gold per tile to completely wipe out all the mining improvements surrounding the cities building the space parts can be as effective if not more so than sabotaging production, which is a one shot deal and often makes a minor dent in the production. You're also more likely to succeed with a simple terrain sabotage.

2) Carriers: I still say carriers are pretty useless; if they are being used for our initial beachead assault, the amount of shields is better spent on 2 more transports and 8 more artillery, which would easily handle whatever defense is on the western most city when coupled with navy seals and the initial bombardment from the destroyers. Once you have the city, land the planes there, no carriers needed.

3) Airports: Can you airlift to a civ we have open borders with? We won't be able to have an airport destination until the initial revolt (7/8 turns) in our beachead is over.

4) Homeland defense: all you need to worry about is the pillaging of your fishing boats and a possible invasion by Stalin, since Shaka will be "indisposed." A few strategically placed fighters and bombers (doing the occasional reconnaissance) and some destroyers and battleships near/on your fishing boats should take care of both of these scenarios.

 

[cabert]

I forgot that Shaka has SAMs. That's a worry. Means more artillery is called for. Either that or a lot more planes.

I read your suggestions. I gather from them that we need a much bigger force. Let's put US+Kremlin to good use for the next few turns.

Nuking Stalin is indeed an option we can consider, though I'd leave it for last and hope that it wouldn't come to that point.

what you need are seals for reinforcements and airports to lift them to your beachhead (too bad you have bad health, but WW will kill your pop anyway ).
Artillery can be built the slow way. A few tanks for ground battle will be good, but slow building them is enough.
IMHO fighters (then later bombers) and 2 carriers can be rushed anywhere, since they don't benefit from XPs. = leave your HE on land or sea units, and have all your secondary cities building planes. Big production cities, with barracks can build a few artilleries and a few seals.

You have an explorer in shaka's territory. Use it to see how his coastal cities are defended. You won't need to wait long before launching an attack.

ANd Gandhi is at war with Shaka.
If you don't help him too soon, you can capture indian cities without declaring on him

 

[aelf]

I've been thinking. Maybe we need nukes after all. We haven't thought about the possibility of Stalin joining the war on Shaka's side. Or Shaka might vassalize himself to Stalin in exchange for protection when he's losing. If we get some nukes, we can at least destroy Stalin's stacks in the second scenario so we don't need to worry so much about him.

 

[patagonia]

Regarding nukes:

With the nigh-on invincibility of SDIs, their window of use could well be limited. On the plus side, forcing Stalin to divert production in one of his cities from space-ship parts to nukes/SDI will help to delay his launch. However, it might be preferable to keep the Manhattan Project one turn away from completion and stockpile cash to rush-build a couple of ICBMs (which with the Kremlin you can probably get in a couple of turns at 100% tax), rather than going all-out and developing an arsenal, to avoid him completing an SDI and rendering them useless.

 

[Syndrome Zed]

I've been thinking. Maybe we need nukes after all. We haven't thought about the possibility of Stalin joining the war on Shaka's side. Or Shaka might vassalize himself to Stalin in exchange for protection when he's losing. If we get some nukes, we can at least destroy Stalin's stacks in the second scenario so we don't need to worry so much about him.

I think Illram's right (IIRC, I think it was his/her suggestion). Massed bombers would be as good as nukes even in that case. By the time Shaka would vassalize to Stalin, you'd already be securing your gains on the continent. Which should mean you'll have a good number of troops already in place, and a lot of the bombers and arty as well. So if you were Pearl Harbored by Stalin you should have pieces in place to deal with any stacks that come your way. Instead of having to spend money rushing nukes and diverting production to the Manhattan Project, I think spending the money on espionage (to undercut Stalin's ship) and production on bombers and troops would build your powerbase on the other continent faster, as well as provide you more flexibility to counter Stalin - especially if he doesn't enter the war on Shaka's side at all. Then you have a very expensive set of paperweights.

Another option - a tranny or two of SEALs sitting off of one of Stalin's bigger cities. If he brings his troops forward to attack you, hit him from behind with the SEALs and raze it to the ground. The presence of the SEALs will usually get the AI to pull troops back to deal with them, giving you even more time to reposition your forces or finish with Shaka. Obviously this'd only work if the city's not overly defended, but even a small landing force showing up near one of the big cities tends to make the AI "panic" a bit.

Another option - use diplomacy to do what you can to sour relations between Stalin and Shaka between now and Shaka's demise. See if you can bribe Stalin into halting trading or changing to an un-Shakalike civic. If Shaka's almost toast - say one or two cities left - and still hasn't vassalized, you might even let Stalin get a few licks in himself and bribe him into a war with Shaka. The AI's are so opportunistic, they tend to do it anyway, and steal a good city or two out from under you after all that war effort.

 

[aelf]

Don't forget that in this version the AIs don't really take things into consideration when deciding to accept a vassal. Ideally, we could give Stalin Communism so that he will switch to State Property and become friendlier with us. But he might still be stupid (or smart) enough to accept Shaka as vassal and declare war on us. I can almost see war with Stalin as a foregone conclusion. In that case, a few nukes can be useful to obliterate his bigger stacks (he has a lot of units) to give us some breathing space. Heck, a preemptive strike might even be called for.

The problem with bombers is Stalin has a lot of SAM infantries. He might be able to counter a lot of our bombing runs, making it difficult to weaken his stacks. AFAIK, two nukes will destroy all the units on the tile. So wouldn't it be better than bombers? Of course, there's the problem of SDI. And we can't nuke within our own territory, right? Still, a nuclear capability wouldn't hurt. I agree with patagonia's approach.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

hey aelf, nice game, very enjoyable read.

i read this fairly quickly to catch up so apologies if I'm off base.

think spending the money on espionage (to undercut Stalin's ship)

think spies to cut the resources he needs for the spaceship and nukes.

 

[cabert]

Aelf, as I said, I finished your game, but it was with the patch, so your fear of stalin vassalizing shaka may be right.
Still, trading communism to him seems the best move.
You don't need to give it. You can ask him something for it, like "stop trading with shaka". Didn't try, but seems a good move.
Anyway, he's in a space race = not inclined to go to war.
You don't need to face him, really.
Just build up a strong army, and you should be safe.

Seals are great !

 

[aelf]

I'm playing the next round. Going slow. A lot of careful planning is required. And I agree with Cabert - SEALs are great!

 

[DrJambo]

It's surprising how well a bunch of artillery and navy seals will do when performing amphibious attacks. With a good stack, they could take almost all of the AI's coastal cities and they even cope with mech infantry not too badly.

 

[aelf]

Finished with the round. I shall post the update soon. It's going to be a long one, though, so it will be divided into two parts. I hope to post the two parts on the same day, but I can't guarantee it.

 

[Thomas G.]

Well hustle up, that is what we are paying you for!

Hehe just kidding, awesome pro bono work you are doing here. Civ IV firm should pay you something when one forum thread about one SINGLE game gets 555 posts.

 

[aelf]

Round 13: 1904AD - 1950AD (Part 1)

If anything, this hobby is unhealthy in more ways than one

The round began with more war preparations. As you guys pointed out, we needed more SEALs, more tanks, more infantries and bombers. And we have to be quick to win by domination before Stalin launches.

Next tech to be researched was Radio for bombers. We needed quite a few of these hard-hitting guys as the carriers were just not going to help far beyond the coast. The blitzkrieg arm, having no artillery for the sake of mobility, would also need them for bombardment. Following that, we would research Fission, just in case we need nukes to take care of Stalin if he joins in. Let's hope that wouldn't happen between the start of our invasion and us completing the Manhattan Project.

A look at the base hammer output of our cities revealed which city was better off building the wonder:

Saladin's former capital, of course.

Anyway, we really needed to hurry:

If we were not fast, we might not have any base from which to launch our eastern front.

Ironically, Stalin came again demanding that we end all trades with Gandhi:

As much as I'd hate seeing the man join the coming war on the side of Shaka, we needed the open borders with Gandhi to make our job a lot easier. Even if we could land our army inside Shaka's territory directly, we needed somewhere to base our bombers first.

And soon, we were ready to begin:

As you can see, we're even with Shaka now. That didn't mean we'd have an easy job, though. Careful planning would be extremely important to ensure the success of our campaign.

While we sent our forces off, we got out next GP, a prophet:

At last! Judaism was the biggest religion in the world (coincidentally, we have a Jewish America ), so I sent him to build the Jewish shrine:

A 25 gpt jump. Not bad at all. This would certainly help us keep our economy afloat during the war and in the inevitably high WW.

Our tanks had reached the eastern base first, and it looked like we could put them into some use even before the western front was opened:

If we didn't help Gandhi, he would lose his second capital and we would be flanked by Zulu territory in the east. That would be intolerable. We must help our Indian allies against the terrorist threat. Down with Ayatollah, err... Chief Shaka!

I had thought the western front would be opened first.

As you can see, we're a few tiles short there. Let's hope the early change in plans wasn't a bad portent.

[to be continued in the next post]

 

[aelf]

[continued from previous post]

Just before we declared war, I cancelled all deals with Shaka to see what effects it would have on our empire. Ouch. We were getting valuable wheat and gold from him. This made Refrigeration and Malls our next priority. We definitely needed the extra health and happiness (we were getting Hit Musicals and Hit Singles from Stalin).

As a few tanks saved Gandhi to the east, we began our amhpibious assault in the west:

This was D-Day. Coastal bombardment with our ships, followed by airstrikes with the fighters and then the Navy SEALs attack. First city captured:

We didn't lose anything in this battle. Our garrison troops moved in. An extra infantry was airlifted in. I think Shaka threw a few pieces of artillery at us in retaliation, but the SEALs took care of those.

In the east, our tanks had successfully repelled the Zulu offensive. It looked like Shaka relied on artillery and relatively higher numbers against the Indians. With our tanks, we had superior quality and were able to destroy their forces quickly. But our blitzkrieg arm had been delayed a little. Another coastal city fell on the western front:

We lost at least a Navy SEAL due to bad luck in this battle.

Then our tanks began to roll into Zulu cities:

Hey, we're playing the parts of both the Americans and the Russians in WW2 Of course, the area to conquer is a lot bigger here. We airlifted an infantry to the new city for defense, which would be a procedure repeated for every new city in the east.

We captured the Mahabodhi and the Statue of Liberty among other neat things in Delhi. The shrines really helped keep our economy afloat as time went by. The SoL helped get our new cities running with free engineers.

And we got a GG for our pains:

Ironically, he's Japanese He became another instructor at Bibracte, which was pumping out veterans with its Heroic Epic, GMIs and West Point (plus the Pentagon bonus).

Our tanks, supported by bombers, did a fantastic job:

I think we lost one or two to bad luck so far, but we had more than enough to take care of the limited defenders in the eastern Zulu cities.

On the western front, our troops and artillery, not to be outdone, captured the Zulu capital with the assitance of the carriers and a few bombers:

Victory did not come free. We lost a CRII artillery, a CRIII rifleman and one fighter plane. But dividing our stack into two SEAL-protected groups really helped us overcome Shaka's artillery attacks and prevent higher losses. And old Gustavus Adolphus was there to make sure our units healed up quickly. Of course, we also had spies to tell us where exactly the Zulu artillery were, so that we could position our troops accordingly in the first place.

The relatively quick loss of their capital indicated that the demise of the Zulus was only a matter of time. Stalin, though, remained a worry. We had a spy in one of his core cities. He was building the Space Elevator, obviously engrossed in his space programme. However, he had mech infantry. If he were to join in on the side of Shaka, we would really need nukes to be safe from his technologically superior forces.

Would we be able to end this war before the Russians come into the picture? Or if they did join in, would we be able to overcome them? Find out in the second part of this update, which will be posted later.

 

[NaZdReG]

egads aelf quit keeping us waiting

J/K this thread like the others is freaking awesome. Quite a SOD jeezus man think you brought enough firepower??? The game looks only a few turns away.. quite frankly I almost always use a war machine to finish the game as domination to me is more fun that space race or culture. once you blitz the rest of his cities you're very very very close to winning. get those nukes up and blast stalin into the stoneage if it comes to that.

get those spies in there to watch him.. pillage him out if you need to but watch your back.

NaZ