11-11-2001 06:42									#1
	Raging Dragon Strategy Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Well, this forum has been mostly dead for awhile...

But mostly dead is different from "completely dead". Someone's gotta revive this forum... might as well be me. A man who's love of civ2 scenarios is only outclassed by his lack of strategy when playing them.

That being said, here's some strategies I've been working on for the semi-recent "Raging Dragon" scenario.

In my opinion, this scenario has a few balance problems (much too hard for China, much too easy for CIS) but... what do I know.

Playing as the CIS: Don't. It is much too easy. Not only can the AI China not conquer one of your cities, but you can take Beijing (and hold it) on the second turn! It's no fun to play this side.

Playing as China: Difficult, very difficult. But not entirely impossible...
You start out poised to attack Vladivostok and... that other city in the north-east who's name escapes me at the moment...
The best thing to attack with are the heavy artillery, take the other city before taking Vladivostok, when you take that city, all the nearby CIS military will disband. Second best thing to attack with are sappers, try to take these cities without suffering any casualties.

Next, you've got to decide where to strike next... the most obvious spots are central asia, and siberia-to-Europe.

Both are more difficult than they appear...

The CIS has a TON of tanks, the only thing separating you from oblivion is the crappy AI and your gigantic brain.

I'd recommend going for central asia first, because when you start invading Siberia-to-Europe, the game starts throwing roadblocks at you. Capture the wrong city, all of a sudden the Russians have partisans and that especially screws you up in central asia where there's a lot of mountains. Further in, and when you capture the wrong city, NATO is at war with you for the rest of the game.

Once that DOES happen, however, take Taiwan. It's surprisingly easy. You've got a few freighters and transport boats, just build a bunch of marines, send a few tanks there, and suddenly you've got control of that island.

The only problem is that the NATO forces won't disband, so suddenly you might own both the Taiwan cities, but you've also got a lot of F-15/16's sitting right next to you.

To sum up strategy, at least initially, "strike quickly, hard, and in the right order."

...yes, I know this strategy isn't all that good.

Anyone come up with anything better, or some additional parts that help?

	11-11-2001 22:05									#2
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

moving on...

Units
Type 85: This tank is okay, it doesn't ignore city walls, so you're taking your chance if you attack a city with it.
Type 90: This tank ignores city walls, should be able to kill most tanks inside a city, and infantry.
YZ-583: A less good version of the type 90, build type 90's instead, unless... you don't want to.
J-7 Fishbed: This plane is near crap. If you're lucky, it might be able to win a fight against infantry, or an attacking mig, but don't bet on it.
J-8: Slightly better than the J-7, but not by much. Use this for defending if you can't spare a SU-27.
Q-5 Fantan: This jet isn't very good, but it should be able to destroy almost anything outside a city or in a city with no SAM missiles.
JH-7: This plane is much like the Q-5, only a little stronger, and it has better range.
H-6 Badger: A long range bomber, can take out most targets, unless protected by SAM, or if they're on mountaineous terrain, it's obsolete, and not very good, so be careful.
Romeo Class: These submarines suck. They can't destroy anything. You're better off disbanding all of them.
SU-27 Flanker: What the chinese planes should be. It's expensive, but worth it, so you might want to rush-build these wherever there's an airport close to the front.
T-62: These tanks suck. They're good for clearing partisans, once those start appearing, and if you're lucky, they might be able to win a fight against an infantry on grassland, but they're really not very good.
T-80: ONE city starts producing these. You might want to rush build them in that city whenever you can. It's a better version of the type 85, but only slightly.

You probably notice something right away: all of these units aren't very good.

Occasionally you'll get Russian units whenever you capture a key city. Don't waste these units, but don't go all out to protect 'em either... you're victory doesn't hinge on the survival of these units like in some scenarios.

	13-11-2001 19:43									#3
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

On the second turn, you should be able to capture tashkent and all russian cities in the mountainous central asian area. After doing this, advance in the north and capture irkursk (probably spelled incorrectly...).
The reason you want to wait is because once you capture irkurtsk, the russians get the guerilla warfare tech and partisans start appearing everywhere, it can really slow you down if you're not out of the mountains when that happens.
More notes about the units, it's always better to build a stronger unit over a weaker one (unless you absolutely can't afford it). Afterall, which would you rather have pulling a cart, two strong oxen, or 2000 chickens?

	14-11-2001 06:28									#4
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Well, I'm not sure that offering strategies to someone opposing me in a PBEM is a good idea, but here goes:

*The scenario was designed for play as the Chinese, which is why they start out relatively weak. The Chinese units suck because they suck in reality (China's modern technology is roughly equal to the technology used by the west in the 1970's)

* Because there's no rail link between China and central Asia, it's a lot easier to campaign in Siberia as you can bring reinforcements up quicker (especially the very handy heavy artillery and sappers)

* By keeping moving the AI struggles to cope with the Chinese advance, and you can often catch valuable units out in the open and bomb the hell out of them.

Cal: re the PBEM game, please let me know if you think the Chinese units are too weak or unbalanced, and I'll adjust the stats. (this will also make Jerkwaterbox happy )
From my testing the Red Guards are a handy unit (I increased thier move from one to two for the multiplayer version)

	14-11-2001 23:22									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I found the J-7 fishbeds useful in my game. They were a good (and cheap) way to "bait" the Russian fighters into the open and then counterattack them with my stronger fighters. They were also a great way of exerting ZOC's to make sure a CIS ground counterattack in their turn would be ineffective unless they had cleared the skys and re-established air superiority. I don't know if you did that intentionally Case, but it was a feature I really liked in the scenario!

	15-11-2001 21:16									#6
	Tired of ads?

Cal,

Might I officially invite you to submit a review of Raging Dragon at

http://www.civfanatics.com/reviews/...ndex_date.shtml

kobi

	21-04-2002 02:47									#7
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Time to revive this topic, as I'm now back in the Raging Dragon PBEM.

Kobayashi- I will have a review of Raging Dragon submitted before the end of the weekend.

Back to strategy:

In terms of order to start, I think this strategy may be the best...

1. In the North Siberia: after capturing the port cities in the east, you want to capture Ulan Ude and Cita and then STOP. There's one break in the railroad between Ulan Ude and Ulan Bator... build a railroad there before continuing. You want to fight the war in the North with super-powerful artellery whenever it's possible.
2. A lot of cities in the central asian area start out with no air protection and some tanks out in the open. This should be taken full advantage of. I recommend putting all the tanks into this area, as there's no railroad to take advantage of. This area should be taken before it can be defended properly.

As for the tech tree..... they don't seem so important in this scenario. Really.