The Phase Wars - OCC to Domination (Emperor, 1.14)

[Nad]

brilliant stuff Aggie! If we take over French lands, we'll be close to victory, right?

Krys is up, if he's around. Then it would be Grimjack, but he played before Aggie, so I'll be on deck

 

[Aggie]

I would suggest to fight a two front war. One vs the French and one vs the Aztecs. Then we surely have enough territory

 

[kryszcztov]

Yep yep, I'm around. So : got it ! I guess I'll have to crush the French straight away !

Anyone got his 1.21 patch yet ? Where ?

OT : Aggie, I might be wrong but is this Thom Yorke in your avatar ?

 

[Aggie]

Krys, I didn't finish my last turn. I was surprised by the declaration of war and had to go. We have a lot of troops to be used on our continent. Artillery, infantry and tanks. I suggest you use them straight away

And yes, it's Tom

 

[kryszcztov]

Well, I played 11 turns to end up in 1750ad actually, I hope it does not bother anyone... Anyway, next player will surely get the victory message ! Can we see somewhere in the game how much of the total land we have ?

pre-turn (last Aggie's turn) : The 1st artillery shot against Marseilles is heard and the Aztecs declare war on us (MPP) !
Almost all our artillery is on the other continent, so I decide for a blietzkrieg ; the French don't have oil anyway.
Marseilles (size 10) razed after losing a few tanks.
Ditto with Chartres (size 12).

IT : The Aztecs fail to attack us.
The French bombards us, and I'm afraid they have tanks and they use them to destroy some cavalries (been too ambitious last turn).

1- 1700ad : Rheims (size 12->9) razed with tanks.
Humm, I've just noticed a source of oil in the French territory, my bad...

IT : The French make a maritime launch near Sevastopol : 11 infantry + 1 cavalry + 1 tank !!
War weariness begins to strike : lux at 20%.

2- 1705ad : The great artillery strike against Tenochtitlan (size 12) begins... After 23 strikes, the city goes back to town status. A tank army takes position on the nearby mountain.
The French SoD is almost destroyed (1 cav + 1 injured infantry).

IT : Feeble Aztec and French attacks.

3- 1710ad : Aztec salpeter source destroyed.
Tenochtitlan razed.
All French troops removed from our territory.

IT : French bombardments.

4- 1715ad : We pillage a French rubber source.

IT : French bombardments and counter-attack.

5- 1720ad : Lyons (size 12) razed by tanks, 5 bombard planes destroyed.
Orleans bombardment : size 18 -> 14.

IT : Injured tanks destroyed by French tanks.

6- 1725ad : In fear of war weariness, lux at 30%.
French oil source pillaged.
Orleans bombardment : size 12.
We pillage a French horse source.
Still in fear of the French culture, we raze Paris (size 12) with tanks. The French culture is huge !!!

IT : Feeble French counter-attack.

7- 1730ad : Teotihuacan razed.
Besancon razed along with Newton's.

IT : French reinforcements arrive from their island.

8- 1735ad : Orleans now size 1.
Xochicalco now size 5.
Tlaxcala captured with an infantry army !

IT : Feeble Aztec and French counter-attacks.
War weariness increase.

9- 1740ad : Orleans (Shakespeare) captured with tanks.
Xochicalco captured with a tank army.
Heidelburg captured.
Sverdlovsk captured.

IT : Light French bombardments.

10- 1745ad : Beginning a fill-up-the-open-territory program ; first settlers built.
Hyderabad founded on an "ancient site".
Bengal founded on an ancient site.
Chittagong founded on an ancient site.

IT : Ditto...

11- 1750ad : Avignon back to size 10, so attack... Avignon captured.
Tours captured. The French have no city left on OUR continent.
Punjab founded on an ancient site.
Dacca founded on an ancient site.
Indus founded on an ancient site.
A suicide infantry attack makes us win Tlatelolco (size 1).

OK : settlers don't airlift, so you'll have to board some on a boat next turn, direction : ex-Aztec territory.
We now have a lot of tanks that can be boarded on the boats, via Hadretum, direction : the French island ! Remember to keep one boat for the settlers !
We still have some Aztec cities to capture, so making peace with Joan now won't stop war weariness. So I suggest we capture the French island (2 cities) straight away.

the save : 1750ad

WE ARE ALMOST VICTORIOUS !!! Really crazy that we could have caught up the AIs with just 1 city in the beginning. But it was an Emperor game, and there was not much land, so that made it easier.

 

[Aggie]

Great stuff I hope you enjoyed your turn as much as I did mine

 

[Nad]

hehe, great stuff...and got it....

winning this will be no mean feat...it is, in effect, winning an emperor game without a land grab, and the skills and strategies we used in this game are very useful for other games where one cannot get enough land

 

[Aggie]

Krys, it's great how you worry about war weariness We have 18000 gold and can afford 100% lux

 

[Nad]

We achieved domination on the 2nd interturn (at the end of 1752AD).This is the final save before the win (just hit end turn).

Briefly, FWIW, here's what happened:

Inherited turn, 1750AD: automated workers on home continent; rushed settlers in Carthaginian cities. Loaded troops onto transports on the west coast.

Interturn: French battleships sink a destroyer and a transport full of troops

Turn 1, 1752AD: took Leipzig. Killed a couiple of stray units; French ships sunk. Rusehed some temples. Founded 4 new cities to fill gaps on the 2nd continent

[save game is at this point]

Interturn: no counters; build instructions and victory!

A big thank you to everyone who took part, and to everyone else who has read the game and offered encouragement and advice along the way It was a tremendously fun game, and we played very well as a team, so well we made the game look easy. Now, let's party [dance] and let's have a (wow, managed to use that smiley in a positive way!)

 

[Aggie]

Thanks for a great concept Nad

I promised myself to play less SG's, but that said I'm very interested in your new idea

 

[ChrTh]

Great work guys!

 

[Nad]

Aggie, lol will have to think up something a bit crazier than this one!

the problem is that since we have demonstrated such overwhelming dominance at emperor, there's only one way forward: deity I have just 1 deity victory to my name (although I've only really made a couple of serious attempts). So going for a deity variant might be biting off more than we can chew. That said, I've got a few ideas lurking and if everyone likes any of them, we could play another succession game alternatively, I know Krys is looking to start a simple deity non-variant game, and I would also consider playing in that once he gets it set up (if he accepts me in his team, of course ) - I only ever play one SG at a time though, so it will be a toug decision! Play a simple deity game or a difficult deity variant?!

 

[Aggie]

Well, I have played about 4 or 5 'simple' deity SG's up to now. I wouldn't be interested in such a game. Some kind of variant that makes it somewhat harder would be nice. An example (though done already, and I know you like to be original - me too ) is an honorable variant. Makes it harder, but AFAIK not to a degree that we can't coop.

And I certainly believe that both krys and you are good enough to beat a straight deity game in a SG.

 

[Nad]

Okay, Aggie, I take your point. I'm in no rush to start another succession game, and we can toss about some ideas until we come across something we like. As I say, I've had a few crazy ideas, most of them still need some research and testing before I can be sure they would work as a succession game. Here's a couple of ideas I've had though

1) A finger in every pie - not always war, but we are obliged to take part in every war that occurs! That is, if one AI declares on another, we must join in, although it is up to us which side we take. We can, of course, sign alliances and get paid for the war, but the key point is that we must join the fight straightaway, and we cannot make peace until one of the original protagonists makes peace....this game could get messy....at deity, this would be very diffcult if we have to do some early fighting...we might also have to break deals to join in fights, and that could make keeping up in tech very diffcult, if our rep is toasted. I would imagine this would be best played on a pangaea map, any victory condition.

2) No gold variant....this would be more of a peaceful builder game....the idea is that you must always have 0 gold in your treasury at the end of every turn....you can do whatever you like with the cash, but you must make sure that before the end of every turn, you have none left...I tgought up this idea originally to make a space race more exciting...when you get into the industrial age in most games, a space race is easy to win because if you get a tech lead, you can sell tech for tons of gold and thereby bankrupt your opponents while funding your own research, thus your tech lead carries on growing....this puts the boot on the other foot, trying to win a space race while having no gold! What I don't like about this idea is that the game might be a bit slow, because you would probably have to engage in diplomacy every turn to give away your cash if you can't use it for rushing. This game could be played on any sort of map, although you would probably want a religious civ (otherwise anarchy would be very difficult, since without a treasury, you can't have any outgoing gold per turn in anarchy without selling off buildings)

3) re-creation of Japanese history....this is an idea I have had recently but I'm still researching...one of my friends at uni has been doing a lot of Japanese histtory and he was telling me about the Japanese rejection of guns and their adherence to bushido...maybe we could do some sort of game where we don't have access to saltpeter, yet we oblige ourselves to wage war in that period?!

What do you think, any potential in any of these?

 

[Aggie]

They're all great. No matter what we would choose, I'm in!

1) This would be great, but deity seems to be too hard. I'd say emperor for this one.

2) VERY interesting concept. I'm really curious how this ould work out. Not only in the IA, but also the ancient times I like the idea of a more peaceful game. Haven't played them in ages.

3) Very good idea as well. We would miss out muskets, cavalry and cannons. But we would have samurai. So it's something that can be done.

 

[Grimjack]

Thanks for a great game guys.

Unfortunately for me, I cannot sign up for new games at this time, since vacations are coming in, and I will have no chance at playing.

Grimjack

 

[kryszcztov]

Damn it ! I missed victory by 2 turns ! Hey, just joking, but I must admit that I had thought "Could this be the last turn ?" and then tried to finish the game before 1750ad, but either I have been too greedy at the beginning, losing too many units, either there was not enough units to quickly destroy the French... Anyway, yes I enjoyed my turns quite a lot, I think I had never razed so many cities so far !

That was a nice concept and I would enjoy some others in the future. So now I don't have any more SG to play ; I will try to set up mine during the week to come. I have to patch up to 1.21, now that I have no more reason to stay with 1.14. I think I could deal with 2 SG (mine and another one ?), not more because I have to start GOTM 20 + QSC, and btw I need to work for my exams !! Holidays next week-end ! Nad, you're welcome, of course ! Like you I've just had one Deity win so far (English, continents, space victory), so another standard Deity game plus GOTM 20 will be fine for me.

As for your ideas, Nad, I think the one I like most is the one about zero gold. Could be interesting for diplomacy, a key part in a Deity game... If we could play this builder game, then I would like to go warmongering in my SG.

 

[Nad]

@ Grimjack...sorry to hear that pal, we'll really miss you in the next SG

 

[Nad]

decided to go with option number 2 for the next game!!

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