06-07-2002 21:56									#1
	End of the modern age: mini-tourney IV spoilers Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Since no-one else has started an MTiv spoiler thread, then I'll do it. Not that that much has happened so far in the game.

I'm just researching the last tech in the modern age, so I figure that all of the non-military strategy is done with now. The year is 1804 (if I remember correctly).

I don't have my notes with me, so I'm doing this from memory. I started off trading for techs with gold per turn deals and anything else I could throw together. One trick that worked quite well was for example to trade my only supply of oil to someone, which was worth a lot of money to them (i.e. a few techs for me) and then buy the oil more cheaply off someone else (since I now had a need for it) since I had a smaller civ. I managed a few deals that didn't cost me anything but gained several techs once I started catching up with the stragglers. Anyway, I know that I managed to get 22 techs in the first 33 turns, and when I hit the modern age I managed to get ahead of Russia. I didn't do any research myself, and didn't get involved in any wars, just traded and built military and production ability.

Once I had mech inf and modern armour I started thinking about war, and decided to pick on Russia as my first victim. Actually, I was aiming for the island just north of the Babylon empire, since with lots of different civs there there was the possibilty of an oscillating war type thing. But as it happens, I didn't want to mess up my reputation too much, since I still had per turn deals going with everyone except Russia. Russia, kindly, had a spearman defending this city, and an infantry patrolling around it. So I built a few bowmen to go with my modern army, and rather than use marines to take the city, landed everything next to it. A bit of bombardment later, and a victory for my bowman, and we're in a modern golden age, and my cash production jumped by 300 gold per turn. Decided to do a bit of my own research to avoid getting entangled in any more per turn deals, and to avoid giving money to the competition. Everyone else weighed in on the war against Russia in short order (the MPP network strikes again), and in the ensuing chaos I managed to get up north in time to capture the last two Russia cities. So as my golden age ends, Russia is no more, I've captured three cities, and am on the last tech in the tree (and I now have a domestic source of uranium, so I don't need to trade for it any more). Trading my excess oil has been very productive.

After I've got the tech, I'll switch to communism, and just crank out the military. China will be the next target, since it has some lovely mountainous terrain for MI landings. I just need to build up a force of jet fighters first, since I suspect I'm within range of the Chinese mainland I think.