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Aeson
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orangesoda
Nov 2001
time: 22:35
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I've played up till 980 AD, pretty much turning the corner on the Zulu campaign. My second AI still hasn't made it to Theology though, and I am on about turn 20 of a 50 turn research pace for Metallurgy. Egypt has just entered the Industrial Era. Japan is flourishing on their new island. Arabia just recently discovered... Writing!
In the Zulu war it quickly became apparent that the AI love to do two things with their free 'defensive' units. Pillage any tiles in the player's territory that it can reach, and garrison cities which are threatened by Armies. I had sent out 2 of my Swiss Merc Armies to pillage the Zulu Iron, and everything else they could. They've been pillaging 2 tiles each every turn, or close to it, and most of the Zulu cities in the S are disconnected from each other now.
The Zulu still have at least 200 Impi running around, and I've been using their tendancies against them. The SM Armies down S keep pulling the stack(s) that way to defend 'threatened' cities, while the main portion of my troops strike N, positioning forces to cut off cities from reinforcement before moving in for the kill. This has worked wonders as I've been able to avoid the vast majority of Zulu defenders while razing 5 of their cities so far. I think I will try to trap their main stack up N before finishing off the last city up there, boxing them in with Armies, so I can avoid fighting them entirely during the conquest.
The Zulu had been kind enough to research Chivalry for me, and so I had upgraded 50+ Knights and shipped them across. I could have basically cleared the N by now, but have been waiting for my Trebs to keep up so losses are minimized.
Leaders have been very scarce for a while (drought coincided with building the Heroic epic..go figure), and it was my 5th turn with Knights (~100 Elite victories) before I was able to build a Knight Army. The Pentagon is up, but I will be able to finish off the Zulu with the 3 unit Armies I have now, so will keep the rest empty and won't add any units to my current Armies. I have 1 3x Knight, 3 3x Swiss Merc, and 4 3x Med Inf Armies. Unit support costs were getting a bit high, so I had cities build Cathedrals instead of units for a while. Now I'm back to building Knights and Trebs most everywhere.
Getting the cash for the Knight upgrades was the main reason why I choose a 50 turn Metallurgy. Another factor was being able to rush Walls, Barracks, Harbors, Settlers, and Temples (keeps the Impi running around pillaging more!) in my cities on the Zulu continent. Also I am going to end up stealing some techs, if only to get Egypt to declare war on me when the time comes, and so need a lot of cash.
Egypt is getting scary. I'm still 3 techs away from being able to reach them, and it seems they must be at the 4 turn tech limit the way they are advancing with no help at all. I have no idea how they avoided the too many units pitfall that all the other AI seem to have fallen into. The other AI are all idiots, far behind in tech even compared to what you'd expect in an Emperor game. I know Egypt isn't bleeding them dry either, as they still don't have contacts even though Egypt has circumnavigated the globe around the N pole.
Egypt will certainly have rails by the time I can land, which may be a major problem. I guess I'll have to land some explorers first and do some pillaging.  Will be interesting to see if they will attack Armies with superior units or if they still will avoid attacking in the open. I plan on landing at the bottleneck with an Army, and seeing if they will try to kill it or not while I take out the former Japanese lands.
For now Egypt is supplying me with 3 luxuries at least, and that allows me to run a 10% lux rate.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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As best I can trace the secrets of Egypt's power are:
- The Pyramids, an early GA, and a larger core area gave them a decisive advantage over Japan in securing sole control of a relatively large land mass. I suspect that Egypt also had better land in general, including a cattle tile by their capital.
- Fighting Japan helped keep their unit count from being a drain on their economy.
- As Egypt's technology advanced, they kept learning how to build new buildings and wonders that diverted some production away from building excess units. Also, Egypt learned how to build more expensive units, which helps keep the unit count down compared with larger numbers of cheaper units.
From what I've seen (mostly on lower levels), the trap that sometimes kills isolated AIs is that when they don't have anything better to build, they build gobs of cheap units. Paying for those units destroys their research capacity, so they have a hard time learning how to build anything other than gobs of cheap units. In this game, Egypt seems to have been the only civ that was able to stay essentially out out of that trap.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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I hadn't really thought about it, but under the odd conditions of this particular game, the tactics used in fighting the Zulus can have a major impact on the research picture. With my approach of using bombardment and offensive units to destroy Zulu forces as quickly as the Zulus send them (or as close to it as I can manage), I probably have them below their free support threshold by now, or at least not significantly above it. Couple that with the fact that I haven't been engaging in economic warfare against them, and they are probably researching more quickly now than they were before the war in spite of the cities I've captured or razed.
In contrast, a defensive strategy that generally lets the Impis roam free and absorbs attacks against Swiss Mercs would not reduce the Zulu unit count nearly as much, and as cities are razed, the need to support the same free-roaming Impis with fewer cities could make matters worse. Pillaging tiles would only add to the Zulus' financial difficulties.
Normally, playing havoc with a victim's economy is a good thing. But with the Zulus the best assistant for getting techs from the Great Library, it can actually hurt competativeness relative to Egypt. In this game, if the Zulus are destroyed or rendered impotent before they research Education, the situation gets messy. Catching the most advanced other civ up with the Zulus in tech could help, but could also risk creating another threat that would have to be dealt with after Egypt.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Aeson
I plan on ICS through the Zulu lands for unit support, army support, and mass Temple/Library builds. |
Mass temple/library builds? At the rate Egypt is growing in culture, the game would be practically over by the time cities on the Zulu continent can build temples without rushing them, and rushing temples/libraries on the kind fo scale needed to make much difference would take massive amounts of gold away from research and/or unit upgrades.
On the other hand, I'd thought about building extra temporary cities on the Zulu continent so I could get extra armies myself, and the unit support aspect (which I hadn't thought of) makes the idea even more attractive (albeit not by a huge amount). Then, when and assuming I switch to Communism, I can shift to a mode with fewer, larger cities.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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I'd missed the fact that it's 160,000 culture instead of 100,000 in this game; that's a change in C3C that I hadn't noticed before (and very much a change for the better). That makes a big difference in the risk of losing by culture, and in how quickly a loss by culture could happen.
I'm at 1090 AD and my conquest of Zulu territory is proceeding nicely. With the Zulu reserves depleted, the invasion isn't feeling all that different from what I'm used to on lower difficulty levels. I'm up to fifteen armies (all but two unpopulated because I'm trying to generate elites and leaders), and I just rushed the Military Academy toward the center of the Zulu continent. It's useless for building armies now, but I'm getting all the armies I can support with leaders and it will be a nice place under Communism with the SPHQ located there. I'm up to something in the neighborhood of eighteen cities on the Zulu continent, ten of them camps built purely to boost army and unit support.
I recently sold Chemistry to the Arabs for 45 gold per turn and a little over 50 up front. I'm not entirely thrilled at doing so, but I still have a two-tech branch lead on them to trade if they get Astronomy and I'd just as soon not have them line Egypt's pockets. Speaking of Egypt, they're in Fascism now, so I hate to think how many troops they'll be able to support by the time I land.
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Aeson
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orangesoda
Nov 2001
time: 22:35
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Didn't get much time to play. So only a few turns to report.
Now that I have enough Knights over, I started killing Impi and trying to generate Leaders with them. I set up a trap in the N, luring in a stack of ~200 Impi with an empty city (Amsterdam 2). Screwed up by not sitting a unit on the Jungle, and that's where they all went.
No matter, my stack of Trebs next to the Jungle were pinging down about 30 of them a turn. They were boxed in, but could get out of my territory to heal by moving onto a free Grassland tile. Then my Knights would kill the 3 hp Impi the next turn while my Trebs would ping down another 30 or so.
Now there are about 20 Impi left, and I've taken away their retreat by building a city.
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The Egyptians made contact with the Hittites finally, so I declared war on the Hittites, and signed Egypt up as an ally. No real purpose other than to try and keep Egypt on my side as much as possible, and to divert some Egyptian units, as they had captured a Zulu city with their Cavalry.
I gifted Monotheism (and techs up to it in the case of the Japanese, Celts, and Arabs) to the AI who didn't have it yet. Declared war on the Arabs, and traded Chivalry to the Mongols for an alliance. Also gifted Chemistry to the Mongols, to make sure their next tech would be one I didn't have. They should lose a few units, grab a few more cities, and spark their GA, so hopefully I get to Education by the time the Zulu are finished.
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I've stopped razing Zulu cities, as I have enough units to keep them from flipping, and enough cash to quickly get them down to size 1 by building Settlers and starving them.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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I'm up to 1190 AD now. The Zulus are down to two cities: their northernmost city and their southernmost city. I just traded Metallurgy to Arabia for Astronomy. So everything's almost ready for me to invade Egypt except for one tiny complication: Egypt just declared war on me!
The turn before I traded for Astronomy, an Egyptian settler escorted by three cavalry landed on the Zulu continent right next to where I had a settler ready to found a city. (I really should have captured the Zulu city I'd just finished attacking instead of razing it, but I had different ideas from Shaka about where I wanted my cities.) I built my city, put one of my 4x Swiss Merc armies in it, and made sure everything else in Egypt's attack range had at least four units in it. Two of the three Egyptian cavalry attacked a nearby captured Zulu city, while the third stayed behind in an absurdly futile effort to protect their settler. (Yes, it's absurdly futile to try to defend a settler when there are several cavalry and a dozen or more cannons in the area. ) Egypt won a battle offensively against a Swiss Merc, but now their cavs are dead and I have two Egyptian slaves. In shield cost, that's almost a ten to one kill ratio in my favor, which I can live with.
Somewhat oddly, Egypt has been showing up as not having Saltpeter the last few turns. That means Egypt won't have as many frigates and privateers to send at me (although I know they do have at least some frigates), and it could be especially nice if it means fewer cavs and more knights when I invade Egypt.
Another interesting thing happened a few turns ago: I actually sold a tech to Egypt! One of the AIs researched Printing Press, and Egypt had never gotten around to researching it. I traded Chemistry to the Hittites for it and then sold it to Egypt for a little over 1100 gold and a world map (which finally let me see what the rest of Egypt's land mass looks like). I was both pleased and a little surprised to find that Egypt hadn't started work on a rail networkyet.
I'm thinking I'll probably ride out this war with Egypt, make peace, and then violate the peace treaty a few turns later with a landing in Egypt. That way I won't have to worry as much about having frigates attack my caravels as I try to land. In the meantime, I wonder whether Cleo is stupid enough to keep throwing settlers and units away if I raze the northernmost Zulu city and leave the land vacant for a while. (Well, vacant other than a couple dozen cannons and some cavalry. )
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Aeson
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orangesoda
Nov 2001
time: 22:35
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I finished off the Zulu in 1180AD, with some help from the Egyptians. They captured 3 of the N cities, and then I followed their Frigates around the coast capturing Zulu cities they were bombarding. Worked very well.
I've spent most of my gold rushing cultural improvements and Settlers. Cultural difference with Egypt has become stable at 43k difference, so no worries there. Egypt has also just gone into Fascism, right after Communism, and doesn't have rails yet.
My 'war' with Arabia payed off, as the Mongols have quickly researched Theology and Education. 3 more turns on my 50 turn Metallurgy.
ICS on the Zulu continent is going well. Only a few more cities to place down S. My army support costs have dropped a lot because of the extra cities, and I have 4 empty Armies waiting for Cavalry. Have 6 3x Knight, 2 3x Med Inf (lost one in the fighting, only Army loss to date), 3 3x SM, and 1 4x Knight Armies. 
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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Cleo fell for it, landing two settlers escorted by a single regular rifleman right next to three cannons (which had been injuring a frigate) and two tiles away from more than thirty. Thanks, Cleo, for the four additional slaves!
I made peace shortly thereafter (in 1265), giving Egypt an updated map and a handful of pocket change. The Hittites are still at war with me from one of the more useless alliances in history (although I imagine I could have gotten peace with Egypt on better terms if it weren't for their Hittite alliance). I'll probably let that technical state of war drag on since as long as my people are angry at the Hittites, they won't be as unhappy.
I made peace with the Zulus a while back, allowing them to keep their last (and southernmost) city in exchange for Music Theory and a little gold and gpt. Depending on what order AIs research things in, Music Theory might possibly do me some good in trading. In the meantime, I've shifted from having gobs of tax collectors (especially in the former Zulu lands) to having gobs of scientists researching Physics. My tentative plan is to get Physics myself and then beat up on Egypt however long it takes to get Banking, Theory of Gravity, and Magnetism from them (assuming I don't get one or more of the techs from someone else first). Then I can push full speed ahead researching Nationalism and Communism myself, at which point I'll be in good shape.
At current rates of cultural growth, Egypt can hit 160K in about 100 turns and I'll hit 80K about ten turns after that. (Of course both figures will go down over time, but that gives a general feel for the situation.) So if I can put a serious dent in Egypt in the reasonably near future, I should be on track to prevent a cultural victory without having to go too far out of my way.
My camp cities in Zulu lands are under orders to produce settlers, partly for additional camps and partly for the invasion of Egypt when I reach a point where I dare build more than a single city. I can rush completion of settlers if I reach a point where I need to, but I'd rather not hurry about it. In the meantime, the camps' excess populaiton is providing a nice source of scientists - I can research at a bit better than a 50-turn pace with the science slider at zero, using only scientists, and then kick up my research rate when the situation calls for it.
Attachment: ad 1255 cleos folly.jpg
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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Another update: in 1275, I traded Military Tradition to the Arabs for Navigation. (Not that the Arabs have any horses or saltpeter to take advantage of the tech.) ETA for the invasion of Egypt is about ten turns. Unfortunately, a world map I got as part of my deal with Arabia indicates that Egypt has recently started their rail network. 
Edit: That let me trade to the Mongols for luxuries, allowing me to drop the luxury slider back to zero at long last since my core cities had marketplaces, colosseums, and cathedrals. If it weren't for my monstrously huge military (359 units and growing), I could manage a halfway decent tech pace.
Another Edit: I just checked the government situation, and Egypt is in Democracy, Arabia in Republic, and everyone else in Monarchy. Republic, coupled with Arabia's rather considerable unit losses fighting a losing war with the Mongols a while back, must explain why Arabia is doing so well in tech.
Last edited by nbarclay on 13-04-2004 at 07:22
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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It's 1315 AD, and the entire Dutch fleet of fifty-three caravels has arrived off the coast of Edo. Fifty-two of those ships are loaded, with the contents including seven 2x Swiss Merc armies, ten 2x cavalry armies, 31 stand-alone Swiss Mercs, 38 standalone cavalry, 33 cannons, an elite swordsman, a regular MedInf or two, and a settler. And the mountain next to Edo, with its 100% defense bonus, is unoccupied. (Of course that means the cannons can't land immediately, but you can't have everything. )
First, I contact Cleo and trade a world map and some pocket change for Egypt's latest map. Their rail network has progressed a bit, but is still far from complete. Good.
Then I contact the Hittites and make peace with them, since that's probably an easier thing to do before I'm at war with Egypt.
Then I sell Egypt contact with the Mongols. After all, I can't bring the Mongols into an alliance against Egypt if they and the Egyptians haven't met. That finishes my diplomacy with Egypt, so I declare war even though the peace treaty is only half over.
Next, I build some alliances. Arabia allys with me for 120 gold, the Mongols for 300, the Hittites for 240, and the Celts for 280. The Arabian and Celtic alliances break embargos that Egypt had arranged during our previous war.
I then get back my gold from the Celts, along with some furs, in exchange for Monotheism and Engineering. The other civs are willing to give back my gold in exchange for world maps; apparently, they haven't been able to scrape up the cash to buy world maps from Egypt. So for the cost of some maps and a couple obsolete technologies, I enlisted the entire world in an alliance against Egypt and brought in some furs to supplement my luxury situation.
As an afterthought, I bring the Zulus into my Grand Alliance as well. That's a bit risky since the Zulu city is the only place on the continent that I haven't walled off with workers and cannons to preclude the possibility of an Egyptian landing (which was how I freed so many troops), but I'm inclined to choose that risk over the risk of having Egypt entice the Zulus into an alliance against me.
Attachment: ad 1315 invading egypt.jpg
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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The assault on Edo was interesting. Egypt didn't try to attack my landing force, but did reinforce Edo with about three or four extra cavalry (and, in a classic show of AI stupidity, moved a cluster of three frigates and a galleon into the city).
Then, in my turn, I ran up against a serious flaw in the game's mechanics. When you go to load units in an army, the only thing the game tells you about the armies is how many slots they have free. I decided to try loading cavalry into armies to see whether the order in the loading list would match the order right-clicking, but when I ended up with a mixed cavalry/Swiss Merc army, I reloaded. (I could have set up a test scenario to see if I could load the units savely, but running the test in-game and reloading if it failed was a lot easier.)
So with no reliable way to know which army I would be loading units into, I had to resort to Plan B. Fortunately, Egypt left the hill northwest ("7") of Edo vacant, so I was able to move armies there, move cavalry to load into the armies, and still have two moves left to attack. Some of the units were damaged by the ZOC of enemy cavalry in the process, but the maneuver worked: I was able to set up my ten 4x cavalry armies to attack the Egyptian riflemen.
Even so, with the armies reduced to two attacks each instead of four, the battle was close. One army was forced to retreat after trying to tackle a second riflemen, so I started playing it safe and using fresh armies against each new rifleman. The armies finished the riflemen without any further close calls, and then went through the cavalry without incident, but an army was reduced to four hit points using its second attack on a MedInf. (That looked a lot scarier while it was happening than it seems in hindsight; I saw the army go red, but it's hard to see exactly how many hit points a 16-hit-point army has left.) Then I was out of army attacks and attacked a MedInf with an elite cavalry for what turned out to be the final round of combat. I razed the city, moved a settler into position to replace it, and moved in armies and cannons to defend the city site and the neighboring hill. I left the standalone units on the mountain as an invitation for Egypt to attack me there and maybe give me some elites and/or additional leaders. But since I'd used all but three of my elite Swiss Mercs as the nucleus of armies, odds of getting a leader weren't especially high. (I hated putting elites that hadn't yet generated leaders into armies, but with a limit of two units per army aboard caravels, I figured I'd play it safe and build mostly ten-hit-point Swiss Merc armies.)
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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The results of my initial "bait" trick were mixed. I suffered heavier losses than I'd hoped for, but I did some damage to Egypt in the process. Still, I don't think the kill/loss ratio was as good for me as is really needed on Sid.
Egypt's counterattack reached its peak in their turn in 1330, which came very close to being an outright disaster for me. When I'd planned my invasion, I didn't realize that with all that rugged terrain around, Edo was on flatland. Worse, I didn't think to compensate by building my city 7 from the original Edo to get the hill defense bonus. Then I went barracks-then-walls rather than walls-then-barracks, and when Egypt had a stack of over a hundred units including (I think) over fifty cavalry, my defenses were a bit lacking. The results: four out of seven Swiss Merc armies and two out of ten cavalry armies dead. And it could have been a whole lot worse. All but one of my surviving armies were redlined to a point where elite standalone cavalry and 3/4 Swiss Mercs were having to defend by the time it was over. (One Swiss Merc army didn't participate in the defense because it was guarding the hill "7" from the city at the time. For a few minutes, I was mentally kicking myself for not recalling it to the city along with the rest of my forces, but then I remembered that if it weren't on the hill, more Egyptian cavalry could probably have attacked that turn by going over the hill. So if that army had participated in the city's defense, it probably would have been redlined or killed like all the other armies. Still, the optimal move would likely have been to use a cavalry army instead of a Swiss Merc army as an obstacle Cleo's forces would rather go around than try to go through - but of course that assumes I would be willing to trust Cleo to go around rather than through if the army were cavalry rather than Swiss Mercs.)
The following turn was also a scary one. On the plus side, my walls were finally up and fewer of Egypt's attacking units were cavalry (although they had plenty of knights and MedInfs). On the minus side, I had a lot fewer armies, and about three of the ones I did have had moved the previous turn and so didn't heal. By the time it was over, most if not all of my armies were into the red, but I suffered no outright losses.
I think the corner is turned now, though. None of the units in sight in 1340 are cavalry, and ten of my eleven armies are healthy (the exception being the hill-guard unit that had just moved into the city). Even before the 1330 fiasco, I'd brought in more than forty additional cannons (supplementing my original thirty-three), so I can use bombardment to limit the number of Egyptian units that can attack me each turn. (Those massive numbers of cannons are probably the only reason my invasion force is alive at all. Not only was their defensive fire a huge help, but they drove away a lot of riflemen that could have attacked otherwise if they were in a mood to do so.) Egypt is still showing as not having saltpeter, so even though they have a huge tech lead, their offensive punch will be a bit lacking. (For which I am profoundly grateful!)
In other news, I just traded Metallurgy to the Mongols for Banking (a tech which Arabia also hasnow). So I'm starting to think I'll research my way out of the medieval era myself and try to extort the fist-tier industrial techs from Egypt. Not that I'm anywhere close to being able to extort techs yet, but if I'm right that I've fended off the worst Egypt can throw at me, it's just a matter of time.
Edit: Also worth noting, Egypt is now in anarchy; little wonder with how many dozens of units they've lost. I'd expected Cleo to lose enough units against me that the negative war weariness from having the whole world declare war on Egypt wouldn't last long, and things worked out more or less as expected. (Egypt started Universal Suffrage before the war but didn't finish it and now seems to have abandoned the effort.)
Nathan
Last edited by nbarclay on 13-04-2004 at 15:54
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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Egypt managed to hit me with cavalry one more turn using the hill, and had a few more left than I'd expected. But after that, all they had was Crusaders and units with an attack value of four. In the year 1350, I got a leader bombarding a small number of Egyptian units on the hill by New Edo (my reincarnation of Edo) down to one hit point each and attacking them with elites. That let me replace one of my lost Swiss Merc armies, which should give me a bit more tactical flexibility when I'm ready to resume offensive operations.
The Egyptian counterattack started to really fizzle in 1355. Their stack wasn't anything that posed a real danger, but since it was concentrated on a mountain and included more riflemen than I could possibly ping down to one hit point, it made little sense for me to attack it. So I decided to refrain from bombarding in my turn and let as many Egyptians as wanted to commit suicide by impaling themselves on my Swiss Merc armies' polearms. I also diverted a cavalry army to escort my six slaves from the destruction of Edo onto the mountain northeast ("9") of New Edo to rebuild the road Egypt had pillaged. Now it's 1360, and the only units Egypt has in New Edo's borders are four riflemen, a knight, and a MedInf on the mountain to the north. But for some unknown reason, there's an assembly of about a hundred fifty riflemen, musketmen, and pikemen just north of that. I'm guessing those are escort units that no longer have anyone left to escort, but I'm not sure. Whatever is going on there, it's strange.
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vmxa1
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Oviedo, Fl
Nov 2001
time: 21:35
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
Now it's 1360, and the only units Egypt has in New Edo's borders are four riflemen, a knight, and a MedInf on the mountain to the north. But for some unknown reason, there's an assembly of about a hundred fifty riflemen, musketmen, and pikemen just north of that. I'm guessing those are escort units that no longer have anyone left to escort, but I'm not sure. Whatever is going on there, it's strange. |
It seems the AI on Sid does not like to attack with these "defensive" units. I constantly run into large numbers of "escorts" with nothing to escort and they do not attack.
These are pikes/muskets/rifles. Then you have to go after them and if they keep them in a stack that cannot be bombarded to the point that you can attack damaged units, it is a bear.
I will use my armies to kill as many as I can with no danger, until I get the numbers down to were it can be pinged.
Are you finding it to start to become a bit tiring yet? So many units to move and fight, gets to me after a bit.
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Aeson
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orangesoda
Nov 2001
time: 22:35
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I am very disappointed in the AI, they reacted as expected to my 'invasion'. I landed a 2x SM army, 3 other empty Armies (didn't want my Knight Armies defending at all the first turn), ~60 Cannon, ~40 Elite SM, and ~20 Knights on Egypt's mainland. They had units on almost every Hill, but I found one open and put my troops there (777 of Edo). They didn't attack. I guess even a 2 unit Army outside a city is invulnerable against the AI. Filled up my Armies and started pillaging and Leader farming. I doubt I will place or capture any cities until I have razed the bottleneck city, destroyed the Rail network completely, and taken out Iron and Saltpeter sources.
With 4 Armies on Egypt's mainland, auto-pillage...
I landed a no Army force the same turn on the NE islands that Egypt had Settled. ~20 Cannon, 20 Elite SM, and 15 Knights. Even though Egypt is in Fascism they must be up to their unit limit now. 3 units in each city on that island and no counterattacks...
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To lead up to that point, I had researched Printing Press myself after getting Education and finishing off the 50 turn Metallurgy. Egypt didn't have PP yet. I had traded Metallurgy to the Mongols for Astronomy, then traded PP to Egypt for Navigation. Navigation back to the Mongols for Banking. Then I demanded that Egypt remove their troops from my territory (they were furious at me for destroying the Zulu and ending our alliance it seems), which prompted them to declare war on me cancelling our luxury trades that I was playing 130gpt for, along with the gpt (~100 IIRC) that I had thrown in for Navigation.
Navigation allowed me to replace 2 of the 3 Luxuries, trading for Mongol Ivory and Incense. Also, Astronomy allowed me to finally benefit from the Wines on the Zulu continent. Combined with negative war weariness from Egypt, I was able to drop to 0% Luxury rate.
The war on the Zulu continent was no contest, as I quickly took the 3 Egyptian cities and killed the few units out in the open. Seeing how well Cannon + Knights worked against Riflemen led me to try the invasion now instead of waiting for Cavalry.
The next few turns were spent repositioning troops for the invasion and rushing Banks back home. I was up to 600gpt income, working on a 50 turn Democracy. I upgraded all my Galleys to Caravels, and was using shore bombardment of Egyptian transport groups, then finishing them off with the Caravels. Should have kept some of the Galleys around for that, but took no losses anyways.
The Egyptians landed 3 times on the Zulu continent, and my Armies quickly disposed of their Riflemen, Cavalry, and Med Inf they were landing. I almost have a outpost barrier around the entire Zulu continent, but it's more for show than anything. With 12 armies, I can easily cover every possible landing site.
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One thing about outposts that I checked, they can be bombarded and destroyed. Egypt doesn't seem to have any free Frigates though, and so I am relying on only a handful of Knights back home to react if the AI ever were to try to bombard and then land. I doubt they are programmed to us that tactic though.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:35
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quote:
Originally posted by vmxa1
These are pikes/muskets/rifles. Then you have to go after them and if they keep them in a stack that cannot be bombarded to the point that you can attack damaged units, it is a bear.
I will use my armies to kill as many as I can with no danger, until I get the numbers down to were it can be pinged. |
I'm up to 1395 now, and the last couple turns, I've been pinging riflemen down to two or three hit points before going after them with cavalry armies. This turn, I almost pushed two of my armies' luck too far, though: one got down to two hit points and another down to one against especially lucky defenders. At least I have things reconfigured so the AI is coming in over hills instead of over mountains; I was able to blast them off their favorite mountain on a turn when they used an exceptionally small force.
There's a slight complication, though: Egypt has mobilized! (Their culture per turn is showing at just over half what it had been, and mobilization is the only thing I can think of that would cause that.) If they stay mobilized much longer, it precludes all possibility of their winning a cultural victory (at least unless they can stomp me militarily to get my culture down), but I guess Cleo decided she had bigger problems.
quote:
Are you finding it to start to become a bit tiring yet? So many units to move and fight, gets to me after a bit. |
A bit. Can someone please tell me how to have all my cannons in a stack bombard the same tile, assuming there's a way to do it? In the past, I've preferred to go one at a time so I could see how things are going, but on Sid where I can have over ninety cannons (I think) in a stack and not have any real chance of redlining everything in an AI stack...
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11-04-2004 10:13
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