[spoilers] wetbandit prioritizes civ4 over more profitable endeavors, again

[Hollybombay]

Fairly sure that is the case. No gifting of anything units/cities ect.

Hows the empire doing?

[wetbandit]

It's a complicated situation on my end.  While JR4/Refsteel gets to enjoy relatively peaceful borders, I have borders with 2 wildcards: DZ and Cornflakes.  It makes everything more complex from my perspective.

Where I am fortunate and Florida and the Aztecs are not is the naval arms race.  My position means I don't have to participate.  They are competing with each other.  Florida has 36 ironclads (that I can see), which is a huge portion of their power advantage.  And they have to defend on two seas.  While it's certainly nice for them to have those units even after they obsolete, they must retain naval superiority, which effectively diverts from their ability to produce land units.

But they also have 76 infantry.  That I can see.  That's really the absurd part of their power as I am at parity with almost everything else they have (aside from navies).  I'm in war mode:



Power levels and army compositions I can see:
















BGN/Cairo get artillery in 3 turns.  I have 10 artillery now and am making about 10 a turn with production and upgrades.  The upgrades are very expensive, but I don't see what catapults do at all at this point, unless I sent them to the cornflakes front.  The plan is to declare war in 2 turns and try to peace out DZ.  I need to know if I will be fighting a 2 front war.  A number of turns ago, I cancelled my DP with him and made some other offer to attempt to communicate that he should cancel his DP with Cairo/BGN.  He didn't.  I take it as DZ may try to poach my border city in the event of war.



If DZ doesn't accept peace, I'm going to attack him.  I see little downside to this.  DZ has a tiny army.  I would prefer NOT to fight him, so I can move in en masse against Florida.  But if DZ doesn't take peace, Florida can't invade me for fear of northern retribution.  Aztecs can't invade me as taking my southern base throws the game to Florida.  Same with superdeath.  But cornflakes is in the "let the world burn" position, so it's difficult to determine how he will react.

I think the goal of the war is to get Florida to lose 2-4 cities.  Certainly their northernmost city and 1-2 on my border.  That should reduce them somewhat from relative #1 power.  But it won't be a fast moving war.  The idea would be to to plant on the desert hill (where cornflakes knight is) that can fork Talibanjos and Ammo-Sexuals.



Economically, my golden age will end in 4 turns.  I will slowly get to combustion and then Mil Sci and Fascism.  I'm considering swapping into Theocracy for the xp, but it doesn't really give me a level.  I am resigned to moving into SP as well.  Going to war with Florida, and by extension DZ, will mean I lose my only source of wheat and my source of wine, which is +3 health I can't replace except by making workshops give food.  I hate it.

But tech is secondary to units now.  The primary benefactor of this war will be superdeath.  Even though he still doesn't have AL, his land and hammer advantage will eventually play out.  He is even in power to me now, and he lacks infantry and artillery tech.  I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually wins, unless either Aztec, myself, or Florida gain an insurmountable land advantage.  

There's a lot involved with positioning of units, so I'm happy to provide pictures if there are requests.  In the time of airships, many things can be revealed.  I don't have much coverage over superdeath, but I do over everyone else, more or less.

[wetbandit]

GA ended and I painfully swapped into serfdom and state property.  I don't imagine teching much past combustion until the resolution of this war. One of the hopeful niceties to declaring came through and cornflakes sold me wheat for 10gpt.  This was essential as Floridamen continued to give me wheat for all this time for essentially nothing.  2 health is incredibly useful.  Thanks!

I have declared on the FloridaMen.  DZ's defensive pact went into effect and I offered peace.  He accepted and gave me wine for a duplicate resource trade.  We have enforced peace now and this eliminates one of the wildcards.  With DZ's offer of iron-iron and OB, I trust he is with my war efforts.  Now only cornflakes remains as a wild card.  Who knows what he will do.  I doubt he will attack me directly, but I suspect he may go after superdeath if superdeath commits somewhere.

All of this said, it's tough to simply move a stack into florida territory to get hit by 70+ infantry, 44 cav, and assorted siege.  The goal now is to pick off Athens through DZ territory.  Strangely enough, steam power plus serfdom doesn't mean workers make 1 turn railroad, soooo hitting Athens may be tough.  Hopefully, I can also knock down Al-Abama.

Power rating is increasing measurably and I'm above JR4 now.  The benefit I enjoy is that my military is mostly comprised of modern units.  Don't think other folks can say the same other than Florida, but a lot of their power is tied up in naval arms races.

Destroyers may actually be key as they materially obsolete all prior naval units.  Florida has to get there to maintain control of their coasts.  Unfortunately, I think the balancing naval powers to Florida will get there appreciably later than Florida, so that portends some unforseen consequences.  But ultimately Florida has to focus on military solely and not GA production.  Who knows if they can do both at the same time. 

I went into the game to pause for DZ and saw the war declaration by JR4/Refsteel on Florida.  That's fantastic.  Maybe they can raze that border city. 

I don't know how this war will turn out, but there should be a lot of fighting for the foreseeable future.

Here are some recent pictures:

[wetbandit]

It's still a big phoney war.

It will remain a big phoney war until Aztec can get some modern units in mass quantities.



Florida has narrowed the artillery gap.  I have 40 arty, they have 20.  I have about 60 machine guns to their ~35.  We have the same amount of cav.  The humongous disparity is that Florida has ~95 infantry to my 15.  He has so many hitters (~80 infantry plus ~44 cav) in range of any tile I move to with my big stack that he could simply overwhelm it with numbers and acceptable losses.  And a ridiculous bounty of xp, GGs, and crippling WW for me. 

I can't tell with certainty how Florida would react to a mass invasion.  I know I would attempt to wipe out my stack if given the opportunity.  That's the assumption under which I choose to operate.  That may mean losing Florida's northernmost city, but I think everything that they threw at me would heal by the time whatever northern army threatened something important.  And then Florida crushes that army.

But it kinda doesn't matter when Aztecs army is full of rifles/cannon/cuirs/infantry.  If they can't make a dent or significant gains against Florida, what's the point?

They have 2 arty.  For pete's sake, DZ has 15 arty.  DZ still is competing with Cornflakes for lowest power.  I knew I could count on you DZ, except you have not built roads (!) throughout your territory.  Otherwise, I could have hit Florida's western city at acceptable losses.

I really don't want to move into Florida territory and risk my entire stack.  If he wipes it, the war is effectively over and he wins.  He marches into my land or he turns around and wipes everyone else's stack.  Superdeath/cornflakes turn on me and I get eaten.


So we wait while I build machine guns in sufficient quantity to withstand the alpha strike or make it so painful to Florida that they can't throw everything at it.  I think that's probably like 80+ machine guns on my side, plus the 40-50 arty.  And even then, Florida can wait until I move onto flat ground to hit me.  Florida also has pentagon, so pretty much ALL of his infantry can take Charge and negate half of the machine gun bonus.  His cav may also get odds on machine guns on flat ground too.  And at that point, that's a lot of dead Viking pixelmen for nothing.

Time is still somewhat on our side.  Aztec PRESUMABLY will start buildling up after combustion comes in.  They are slated to get it before Florida.  If they are serious and clear the Florida seas with destroyers, that's a huge win.  Maybe superdeath will jump in and do the same, albeit with ironclads.

In the meantime, I am attempting to stay disciplined and not attack cornflakes.  The main deterrent for me is that I am buying wheat from him. That's it.  He recently got AL and actually has some infantry.  Otherwise, his army is not much.  Even 39 knights on no big sweat.  I think his neighbors (everyone except Florida), would probably come along with varying degrees of enthusiasm and stay at war with Florida.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

thanks for the in-depth strategy discussion. I don't know a lot about Civ IV, so when you explain the nuts and bolts of warfare it really helps me follow.

[Hollybombay]

How would you rank everyones chances/ how they have done this game?

[wetbandit]

It’s been difficult for me to find time to play and report, but I hope to post some pics later.

Florida offered peace at 50/got. I saw DZ peaced out and countered with 900 gold. Next turn I saw Aztec peace out and got a counter at 55gpt. I took it, got wheat from Florida, and declared on cornflakes. I took two cities.

DZ positioned his troops to attack my west, including bulldozing a lot of tile improvements for airship forts. I declared on DZ and reinforced my west. While at tech parity, my army is still Larger and DZ has to worry about his west and east.

Aztec sniped a city from cornflakes and it looks like cornflakes took it back. I really don’t understand what aztec are doing.

Superdeath is sitting on the sidelines. I expected him to jump in on cornflakes.

I’d prefer to end the war with cornflakes or DZ and just fight one of them. This needs to happen before enforced peace expires with Florida.

Cornflakes has a lot of exposed coastline and a lot of old trashy units, supplemented by growing infantry. He can’t handle machine guns and arty though. Hoping to get to a point where I can wipe out his 2 mover stack as that is tactically annoying to plan for (40 knigs). )

[wetbandit]

Pictures!  I will answer your questions soon, holly.

Peaced out with DZ.  Made sense in light of war with Cornflakes and borders over there.  DZ is building more blimp forts on my border.  So is Florida.  Not a good long term sign.



Cornflakes did some AI moves and sacrificed 3 knights to capture 3-4 workers.  Not helpful long term for him because DZ culture was going to and has now overwhelmed the city, so I can no longer have a rail path to Hamburger anyway.  It looks like he also lost another 10-12 knights retaking his lost city from Aztec.  That's helpful.  While knights are not ultimately material units at this point, 40 knights did require at least a passing consideration about how many machine guns to leave behind to defend, and how to prevent shenanigans from someone who could be capable of wandering around with a 40 knight stack for shits and giggles.  You can at least say on behalf of knights that they are immune to first strikes, so plate armor at least confers some unrealistic protection from bullets.





Moved into Cornflakes territory in force to attack this city.  I don't think I'll go further than this over land, at least.  Next focus for Eastern army will be to take DZ's western city(ies).  Especially if he is going to posture to fight me over the homeland.  God I wish I could have attacked him before he had arty.

Aztec razed two of Cornflakes cities.  Can't help but think Superdeath is kicking himself for not taking the southern city.  That's a good play by Aztec to deny superdeath land. 

Fortunately, it does look like superdeath is going to jump in.  I imagine he will go for Cornflakes capital.  It's very undefended.  He can have it, as long as I get at least the two coastal cities. 



As I said previously, I don't know what Aztec is going to do to plan to win this game.  He's not building modern units (as far as I can tell).  He has a land disadvantage.  He doesn't have a clear victory condition (like Florida, Superdeath, or me to some extent).  He needs to expand.  I hope they don't decide to fight me and instead remain passive towards me.  That's a big key to my game at this point. Shit, if they didn't attack me when Cornflakes, Florida, and DZ dogpiled me, why would they fight me now? 

Because of that inexplicable occurence, I'm playing with house money.  Some info screens:





Florida's culture attempt is slllloooooooooowww and steady.  Still only one GA.  But it appears everyone else is freaked out about it.  They deleted all of their ironclads/frigates (as far as I remember) on the big shared ocean since combustion came in.  He's at about 200 cpt for his 3rd city, which is at 18k.  Given the cpt amount and amount of culture, I think it's likely he has a 4th that's not far behind.  Granted, he hasn't juiced the culture slider yet. But without a lot of artists, he is WAY far away.

I'm glad that Aztec has abandoned their ally, for whatever reason.

[wetbandit]

I don't think I'm overly paranoid, but this certainly feels like a situation where no one else is really helping me out.  And actively massing on my border on top of that.  Like here:



DZ's troop build up on my border portends bloodshed.  There's no plausible alternative explanation.  Indeed, he now has 57 (!) Cavalry to feed to the machine gun gods.

I am encouraged somewhat by Florida's positioning.  Rails are complete towards his border with DZ, and his troops are closer to that end despite knowing DZ has ~30 airships in range.  There are relatively few rails on my border, although, he only needs to complete one section to fork two decent cities if he decides to move in with his 50 Cav.  DZ also was the only party who actually did something against Florida, maybe there is some animosity.

Most importantly, I don't see how taking me down a peg serves Florida.  I am a counterbalance to the two other theoretical competitors, superdeath and Aztec.  While I am also a competitor, superdeath is a bigger longterm competitor with his land advantage and HUGE MFG advantage.  He is doing 1300+ MFG.



Florida probably can't win if superdeath focuses exclusively on alpha striking Florida's ocean culture city.  I suppose they also can't win if they don't get stronger, and the path of least resistance is through DZ.  Right?  



My "allies" superdeath and Aztec have massed troops on cornflakes border.  At least Aztec has done something, but I fear that their razing of Cornflakes southern city actively discouraged superdeath from jumping in.  To that end, superdeath could easily take Cori.... as it's defended by one (1) rifle.  I realize he lacks airships, but where is your sentry unit to see this!



My "allies" have also imposed the full burden of the collective action problem in both the Florida and cornflakes war onto me.  Note lack of any military buildup for last 30+ turns.  As an aside, would it be easy in the next version of RtR to replace years with turn numbers for the x-value for these graphs?  Or is there a handy reference table for that somewhere that, in my current addled state, I was unable to find?



Onto my war.





Cornflakes evac'd and left 2 rifles in the city.  I took it at cost of 1 arty and 1 infantry, which are left as sacrifice. 

I made a possible error in keeping DNA.  I still feel I can leave with very little costs, and keeping the city instantly saved me 75gpt in unit costs.  And Cornflakes, if he is savvy enough, can combat settle open space in this area relatively easily.  Which would make razing the city fairly low benefit.  Combined with the other 60 and 80% cities still standing, I think that weighed against razing.  It did stink that the city only had a forge and grocer.

It does hurt me because I am also preparing for open war with DZ.  I don't think I can push against both Cornflakes and DZ at the same time, at least without risking Florida punishing me for doing that.  So I can't take peace now with Cornflakes without assuring that my troops won't be trapped by his borders.

Some long term thoughts:

Tanks are great.  I've not had the opportunity to get them in an RB game, I don't believe.  I've gotten run over by tanks during a silly CV attempt back in SevenSpirits mod.  But I don't see them as necessarily game breaking here at all in the short term, certainly not to attack cities.  Everyone will have access to Anti-Tanks.  Anti-Tanks get 100% vs Armor, start with Ambush, and get defensive bonuses.  Mass tanks without siege support (i.e. 1-mover units) still face cultural defense.  Even fortified machine guns aren't half bad against tanks.  Until Bombers come around, tanks as 2 movers, by themselves, aren't going to cut it on offense.

This is a primary reason why I've decided to go 95% into army building during this era.  These units will still have great utility when tanks start rolling around.  Arty, I think, will still be king, as Armor gets no bonuses or flanking against Arty.

Plus, all of these techs are obscenely expensive.  Only Aztec appears to be appreciably teching towards something new.  Superdeath is backfilling and Florida is saving gold and possibly upgrading.  Hoping I can draft others onto electricity and decide on Industrialism or Flight.

[wetbandit]

This is not being a friendly neighbor:



Combined with him spending EP on me now, I suppose superdeath views me as a threat.  I think this is a big miscalculation.  I need a big army to help with Florida.  I'm not and I'm not inclined to be very digestible.  Moreover, I don't think he can get to space before Florida wins culture. 



Florida is not that close to culture, but part of the problem for everyone else is that they have multiple cities at 80% plus.  Nothing but reducing them to a few cities is going to derail their culture attempt.  In light of that, I don't think superdeath is going to be able to overpower Florida on his own, despite his massive MFG lead.  He still needs 2 techs for Arty and 3 techs for industrialism.  And he has a long nasty border with Aztec to worry about.  And Florida still have a 2M power lead on him.



Enforced peace ends with Florida next turn.  



If they want to wreck me, they probably can, maybe not by themselves, but if they move in on me, DZ, and probably everyone else, declares on me.  A small part of me is rooting for that outcome to finally prove that everyone was out to get me in this game all along!

I'll give them a free hand with DZ.  They have a combat settler in Yokel and that is far more useful against DZ than me.  They could settle 3N of Nap-poppie, but that doesn't give them much on my border.  They can flip at least 2 tiles against DZ.  They also have an airship in cornflakes capital and can hopefully conclude that my eastern border with DZ is untenable.

I take Cambrian Explosion next turn unless there are a mass of magically appearing railroads which will allow Cornflakes to reinforce it.  It's going to get razed, I can't hold it and I need to clear up some culture.  I believe this will free up at least 1 of the tiles north of DNA which will give me some flexibility for movement.




Turned tech on for electricity to get started.  My gnp stinks and drafting everyone to electricity and then tanks (or flight) will be necessary.  Not interested in getting radio, but I imagine that's where Florida will go and that eiffel tower will drastically increase the pressure.