Wanted: Civ Game Analysis

[PRIMEMOVER]

Okay...here's the situation...I need your help in analyzing the game referenced below and answering a few questions for me. If those of you who welcome a challenge, I've got one here...

I'm in a one-on-one struggle (Monarch level) with the Aztecs for World Conquest. I'd like to win a conquest vic, but may not have time. As China, I've trumped the Aztecs numerical superiority with my nukes (which he doesn't have)...I've nuked the capital and am attempting to cut off their resources in an attempt to halt their mod. armor/mech inf. production and win a war of attrition...

Please take a look at my current game and if you can offer some insight in to the following, I'd be most grateful:

1) Although I've cutoff the capital, they still enjoy access to luxury resources...why is that? Next to stragetic resources, these are of great importance in eliminating.

2) The Aztecs have linked somehow 2 oil, 2 rubber and 2 aluminum although I've scoured their territory and cannot find these resources linked via roads to either a harbor or airport...Can those resources be utilized if they're unlinked but within the working radius of a city? I'm dumbfounded as to where they're getting these resources. I'm anxious to know where they're linked because they're prime nuke targets.

3) Some helpful analysis would be welcomed as to how to proceed militarily. I feel I can win on histograph score and possibly conquest if I can handicap their production...ruled out domination...too easy and too time consuming.

Your insights/critiques would be most helpful and I would welcome additional sets of eyes on my current game and most particularly answer the three questions above...Thank you!


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Mao,_1804_AD.SAV

 

[dojoboy]

1) Although I've cutoff the capital, they still enjoy access to luxury resources...why is that? Next to stragetic resources, these are of great importance in eliminating.

2) The Aztecs have linked somehow 2 oil, 2 rubber and 2 aluminum although I've scoured their territory and cannot find these resources linked via roads to either a harbor or airport...Can those resources be utilized if they're unlinked but within the working radius of a city? I'm dumbfounded as to where they're getting these resources. I'm anxious to know where they're linked because they're prime nuke targets.

3) Some helpful analysis would be welcomed as to how to proceed militarily. I feel I can win on histograph score and possibly conquest if I can handicap their production...ruled out domination...too easy and too time consuming.

1) He has an airport = airlifting in luxury & resource supplies.

2) His cities are probably built on top of them, and if that city has an airport,...

3) Produce modern armor & bombers; build mech inf. only for defensive purposes in the future; invade w/ 3 transports filled w/ modern armor in 3 different locations (valleys, working your way through the valleys and pinching the cities in the mountainous regions); keep the capital isolated (try and destroy the airprt / bombers) but do not capture it (capital will jump and it might jump the a better location for them).

That is from a brief glimpse.

 

[AlanH]

1) Although I've cutoff the capital, they still enjoy access to luxury resources...why is that? Next to stragetic resources, these are of great importance in eliminating.

Their capital has an airport. That links it other cities with airports.

2) The Aztecs have linked somehow 2 oil, 2 rubber and 2 aluminum although I've scoured their territory and cannot find these resources linked via roads to either a harbor or airport...Can those resources be utilized if they're unlinked but within the working radius of a city? I'm dumbfounded as to where they're getting these resources. I'm anxious to know where they're linked because they're prime nuke targets.

Marathon is sitting on top of oil, and is linked by road/rail to other cities with airports. I'm sure if you look around you'll find other examples. Use Command/Shift/M to remove the cities and improvements to see underlying terrain and resources.

3) Some helpful analysis would be welcomed as to how to proceed militarily. I feel I can win on histograph score and possibly conquest if I can handicap their production...ruled out domination...too easy and too time consuming.

Conquest will require a better focus on military production, with more offensive weapons. I don't play much in the post-nuclear period, and have never used nukes, but your military seems excessively defensive, and it's deemed weak vs Aztecs by your military adviser. Can you conquer with nukes alone? You seem to be building them like they're going out of fashion. I never build many defensive units, and your ratio of mech infantry to modern armour is probably about the opposite of what I would use. With 200-plus modern armour you could roll through Azteca in a few turns, but 200 mech infantry are a waste of unit support cash. It might be worth considering disbanding a lot of them to build MA fast.

A histographic victory looks possible but probably as hard work as Domination. You'd need a lot more territory fast. Remember your score per turn is an average of all your previous scores, so to change your scoring rate at this stage in the game probably requires as much work as a domination victory would.

Why are you spending an arm and a leg on research? You have all the techs, and the Future Techs just add a few points to your score. You can add much more score by spending the money on happiness, or on units to take Aztec lands. Speaking of which, I've never considered Communism a useful form of government - just one example, you can't rush anything because rushing expensive units costs too much population. You could be earning over 600 gpt if you turned off research, in spite of the fact that your maintenance is 50% of your income and is killing your economy. I guess you've eliminated Republic and Democracy because of the war weariness, but did you consider Monarchy?

Which victory conditions are turned on? It looks like culture and space may be switched off, since you aren't building space parts, and I suspect Aztecs might have beaten you with a 100K already if it was possible. If cultural victory is off then you could sell all your culture buildings as you don't need research. That would reduce your maintenance. With extra cash, even if you are wedded to Communism, you could spend it to sabotage your enemies.

As I say, I rarely play at this end of the game so my comments are based on extrapolating from what an earlier game might look like. That may be a false premise, so please take my input with a large pinch of salt.

 

[PRIMEMOVER]

Alan...Dojo...thanks for your input...

Alan...you bring up some points that I never really thought of...I've never played this deep tech-wise either.

I've been building nukes because it seemed the only way to trump their military advantage. I've never played where my main opponent was unable to build nukes...it seemed the logical factor to exploit and was really the only way to impact their trade network, population (and thereby production) and happiness so rapidly.

The mech. inf vs. MA is a valid point, but my only MI are fortifying my cities defensively for the most part...My production lies basically in MA first, nukes and some cruise missles. You think reducing my MI in each city by one would make that big of a difference? My military has been beaten so bad, I'm below the threshhold at which my military costs me anything...another benefit of communism in addition to the weariness aspect.

Cmd/Shift/M was greatly appreciated...I was racking my brain trying to figure out where their stuff was...it's key that I take it out...maybe another nuke or two on their capital will do the trick. In the meantime I'm shifting my carrier to their capital and shoot for more precision bombing to get that airport!

Do you think converting my new wealth into increased happiness will translate into greater production threshholds? My industry is cranking on war-time production level already, but I can't produce enough to overwhelm them without taking out their strategic resources and/or luxury resources and crippling them industrially! I'm building just enough to maintain a defensive posture north of Reading, holding off wave after wave of Aztecs.

I understand your point about wasting unit support cash on MI, but I'm not spending any gpt right now on military, so I don't see how that hurts me. Like I said, my primary build order goes MA/Nuke/Cruise. What I need is tips on increasing production to the level at which I can turn the tide against them. Increasing happiness? Change irrigation to mines? Many of my cities already create MA in two turns and a few do it in 1 turn...I get a ICBM in five and tactical nukes in 3 in many cities.

Many thanks to both of you and if anybody else likes analyzing others games, I'd appreciate additional input as well

 

[AlanH]

The mech. inf vs. MA is a valid point, but my only MI are fortifying my cities defensively for the most part.

Why? 220 of them is a huge number. You need to read up on Active Defence. Don't bother putting defenders in most of your cities. Just worry about the ones your enemy can hit in one turn - those close to your borders and, with Amphibious Warfare out there, coastal cities. Remember the enemy can only move three tiles into your territory whereas you can move anywhere on your rails.

Build lots of fast offensive weapons - in your case that's Modern Armour and artillery - and stream them out to attack your enemy. As you are building new ones each turn, any incursion into your territory can be beaten down by the MA and artillery you've produced that turn.

Cruise missiles are very wasteful. Very short range and you get to use them once. Bombers are much more effective. Nukes, as I say, I have zero experience with. What can they do?

You think reducing my MI in each city by one would make that big of a difference? My military has been beaten so bad, I'm below the threshhold at which my military costs me anything...another benefit of communism in addition to the weariness aspect.

Yes. Disbanding them will provide shields to speed up production of useful offensive weapons. If you had 200 MA and 50 MI you could rule the world and it wouldn't cost you any more unit support.

I'm building just enough to maintain a defensive posture north of Reading, holding off wave after wave of Aztecs.

If you had a bunch of MA you could destroy all the Aztec units north of Reading and move foward. You're fighting defensive trench warfare where you should be sending in fast attack forces. What good are all the Mech Infantry and MA doing in those cities around and east of the central lake? They'll only be any good when you are fighting your last battle before defeat. Get the MA up to the front where you can use them, and replace the MI with more MA. MI *can* be used as attackers, but they have shorter range than MA and less punch.

Your nukes have done you no favours. If you plan on Conquest you need to be able to move forwards as you take Aztec territory. You'll have to rebuild roads and rails where you've pillaged and nuked them before you can advance. You can't even advance troops to your own frontiers at New Yangchow because your own territory is a wasteland.

I'm a simple soul! If you want to beat the Aztecs the easiest way is to roll a major force of MA straight into their cities. Use artillery to weaken their defences first, then just do it. Civ3 is really not very subtle when it comes to warfare. Once you go on the offensive, if you can absorb the AI's initial counter-attacks and kill their offfensive stacks, you are usually left with defenders and a few new-build attackers to kill each turn.

I understand your point about wasting unit support cash on MI, but I'm not spending any gpt right now on military, so I don't see how that hurts me.

It hurts because in combination with the fact that you are in Communism you can't short cash rush new builds.

 

[dojoboy]

I'm a simple soul! If you want to beat the Aztecs the easiest way is to roll a major force of MA straight into their cities. Use artillery to weaken their defences first, then just do it. Civ3 is really not very subtle when it comes to warfare. Once you go on the offensive, if you can absorb the AI's initial counter-attacks and kill their offfensive stacks, you are usually left with defenders and a few new-build attackers to kill each turn.

I agree w/ Alan, you've got to amass an offensive force and take cities from the Mejica. If you want to use nukes, use them. But, you don't need more than 2 - 3. Don't use them just to vaporize cities.

(1) Make sure enemy rails/roads are destroyed within 2 - 3 tiles of where you invade. You don't want the AI counterattack to reach you upon entering his lands.

(2) Once you invade, the AI will move EVERYTHING he's got to confront you. Soon, there will be a massive stack poised to strike you. This is when you drop one of those nukes smack dab on top of his huge stack. Wah-lah!

(3) Keep his capital isolated (no airport or rails/roads). You need to keep doing flybys, because you can't see his workers in the fog-of-war trying to rebuild roadways.

(4) Get rid of the mech inf. At least go to one / city. They can take out units in battle, but they're not offensive units. Can only attack once per turn and do not have the blitz capability of MA. Remember, an MA can attack 3x on one turn if poisitioned correctly.

You could win this war w/ roughly 20 - 25 MA in the field at all times, pushing into enemy lands. Post a save file showing your progress. I'm curious.

 

[PRIMEMOVER]

Again...thanks Dojo, Alan...great insight and I appreciate you taking the time to review my game.

I'll play several more turns taking your advice in mind and I'll post a new file in about 10-20 turns so you can see my progress.

 

[PRIMEMOVER]

To AlanH and Dojo...just a quick update to the game you helped me out with a few days ago. Took your advice on a couple different items:

1) Greatly reduced my MI inventory in favor of increasing MA production...it seemed to work and I cut back in nuke production!

2) Reduced research to 0%...converted that extra cash into happiness.

3) Thanks to your keystrokes to view concealed squares, I located (and neutralized) Azteca's Oil reserves with a well placed ICBM...I was also able to sneak in another nuke on their capital and destroy the airport!

Shortly after step #3, I watched with great excitement as their MA numbers fell from 106 (in 1804), to its present level of 2, while my own MA levels went from 48 to 150+!

I still request your help in locating their aluminum and uranium reserves...again, I'm pulling out my hair trying to locate them! I've looked everywhere twice!

All in all, between executing your suggestions and staying true to my own strategy of exploiting my nuke advantage and using it to take out a key resource for them, I seem to have turned the tide and like the plague, my MA are spreading all over Azteca! Curious that they never began building nukes once they obtained uranium (where ever they did?)...any ideas?

Thanks again for your help...I'd like to think this a perfect example of the power of this forum and its ability to provided guidance and education from those experienced to those less-so!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Mao,_1850_AD.SAV

 

[Nicci]

i downloaded both games and (what are the Vict. Cond.?) it seems u r a 1000 points behind. that's the only thing to concentrate on besides wiping the aztecs out that is. u were improving on that.
the bottom line is: peace won't help u here. wipe out the aztecs.

 

[PRIMEMOVER]

Nicci...only vic conditions are conquest and domination...I'm well on my way to a conquest victory...my first one!

And as you can see, I'm not looking for peace!