Adventure 60 - Joey beats em' up!

[GermanJoey]

Thanks to Old Harry for making this map, it was a ton of fun to play.

Adventure 60
Score: 133 Points

1870 AD

The first turn definitely took the longest to play. I re-microed every city for production. No cottages, no plantations, and in some cases even starving the city. If the city is unhealthy and working 3 food farms and lakes, then who cares if the pop drops? I also built coal plants in every city but Gordium and Persiopolis, which already had them. (there, I built infantry for this turn only; in general, my cities were set to infinitely produce Paratroopers after this turn). I also switched civics to Theology and Vassalage, although in hindsight the +3 happy from Rep woulda served much better than HR's +1.



Next, I traded maps with Boudica and scouted with the Airships and discovered:

• Something like 100 (!!!) CKN's to plow through on the way to Beijing, which was also too far to paradrop.
  
• Tokugawa having Modern Armors in Tokyo!
  
• Justinian having a moderately sized empire with a few infantry and lots of rifles/cavs.
  
• Boudica being a big bad beastie.
  

I developed a plan:

• Wear down the CKN reserves with single Machine Guns until I can safely march a small stack up to Beijing.
  
• Paradrop onto Tokyo, cutting off reinforcement routes and beating down the armors with Airships to make taking the city easier.
  
• March a stack of infantry, paras, and artillery up to Constantinople and take it the traditional SoD way via the land route near Gordium.
  
• Collect all my remaining forces and attack Bibracte head-on.
  

Finally, I begged a peace treaty off Boudica, just in case she was planning to invade me when I started moving troops around. Justinian was a worry, but I was gathering most of my troops near his borders and I wanted to attack before 10 turns were up. My first tech was Fascism for the Great General and Paratroopers, the coolest modern unit by a country mile.



1872 AD
I forgot to screenshot the battle logs, but each machine gun took out around 15 CKNs, while the rest of this stack were now in range to get beaten up by cannons and random scattered trash units.



One which includes this Cuirassier, who I make my first Great General Super-Medic!



Here's what I mean about starving cities. Susa is about to gain +2 unhealthiness from the coal plant, and it is working 3 tiles that give only 2 or 3 food and no production. Might as well starve it a bit and get some extra production now.



Finally, I find that I have just enough research to get Artillery in 1 Turn! After that, flight will take a billion turns at highly negative slider, so I just drop it to 0% to save cash on troop upgrades. I spend a bundle on a few infantries and MGs this turn, and a few cannon->artilleries next turn.

1874 AD

I find a hut - wow, 15 XP, I get Drill 3 on this guy! Almost to Drill 4!



1878 AD

I try to skip ahead, ignoring the small pile of mostly-dead CKNs on that fort, but I forget that there's still so many of these freaking things. Super irritatingly, Mao uses a Great Artist to culture-bomb Beijing and both I and these CKN's get pushed back. My Drill 3 MG and a cannon (and ridiculously low odds) die in the onslight, but otherwise my troops are only injured. Still, this annoying culture shenanigans made me lose at least 5 or 6 turns from taking Beijing.



1880 AD

Finally time for the big invasion! I declare war, discovering that Mao and Tokugawa had just recently signed a defensive pact, and Paradrop I think 11 troops surrounding Tokyo, with a few taking combat 2 and a few taking Pinch. And then, the next turn:

1882 AD

I first soften up the stack with Airships again (I did as well on the previous turn, so the armors would just sit and heal instead of trash me with blitz)



and then take the city!!! That's worth T350-T311=39 points I believe.



In celebration, I declare war on Justinian and invade with a big ole stack of paras, inf, MG, and artilleries that I forgot to take a screenshot on.

1888 AD

So, Justinian has been hitting my main stack, which was building up in Gordium and is now marching towards Constantinople, but I have a second GGM3 unit as well as a Woody 3 guy, and so that stack is pretty safe. On the other hand, he has himself a main stack as well:



Don't think rifles, cavs, and grens are gonna cut through CG3 Paras, unfortunately.

1890 AD

Unfortunately, his is filled with tons of Trebuchets while mine has Artilleries. CR3 Artys completely DEVASTATE troops kettled up in a city. Here, Justinians's CG3 and GGM3 Infantries are no match for me.



That's worth T350-T315=35 points! In celebration, I revolt into Police State with the help of the Mids and the Cristo Redentor. Thank god for Police State, I had 3 or 4 unhappy faces per city because of war weariness already.

1894 AD

Tokugawa makes peace a short while later.



As does Mao. :D That's T350-T318=32 points! Just barely finished this guy off over the course of a few turns. I wish I had brought more stronger troops. My score here isn't very good I think. I'm very curious how fast some other players can take Beijing.



I don't give Justinian peace right away, though. First of all, I have to get my most valuable troops (the artilleries, the great general and the higher-XP paras) out of Byzantium while I can still walk through it, since I won't have open borders right away. Beating up his crappy stack has also been very lucretive for me; many of the troops that I flooded into Bacra are lvl 4 and 5 now. I end up giving him peace next turn.

1900 AD

Thanks to my recent campaigns, I have 3 GGs waiting to use. In preparation for my invasion of Boudica, I divide my troops into 3 stacks:

• 20 troops needing 1 XP to gain a level
  
• 10 troops needing 2 XP to gain a level
  
• The rest
  

The first stack got great general, the second stack got a great general, and the last got general to keep in reserve, in case I need it for emergency healing or something.




And finally, I invade:



1901 AD

Looks like a straight shot to victory! She sent a big stack of her own after Bacra, but I think I can hold out. Even if I can't, its not a victory condition that I have to hold that city, is it?



1902 AD

She panics and attacks my stack. I lose some units, but she loses a LOT more.



1903 AD

And that's that! Unbelievably, I forgot to upload the screenshot of actually taking the city. But, I indeed took it that turn with a few troops to spare. That's worth T350-T323=27 points



Final Score:

• +39 Points (Tokyo)
  
• +35 Points (Constantinople)
  
• +32 Points (Beijing)
  
• +27 Points (Bibracte)
  
• --------------------
  
• 133 Points!!
  

Thanks again for the map!

edit: just realized I miscounted Beijing by a turn, so I corrected my score.

[GermanJoey]

Been thinking a bit about my bungling of the Chinese conquest, and I just finally realized what I shoulda done. I shoulda built a settler in one of my lower-production cities and planted it 1NE of that fort. That's close enough for paratroopers to drop into Chinese territory directly, allowing me to avoid the long walk around as well as the second big barb CKN stack. Coulda used the extra troops to take out Justinian quicker as well. Too bad I didn't think of this sooner!

[timmy827]

Been thinking a bit about my bungling of the Chinese conquest, and I just finally realized what I shoulda done. I shoulda built a settler in one of my lower-production cities and planted it 1NE of that fort. That's close enough for paratroopers to drop into Chinese territory directly, allowing me to avoid the long walk around as well as the second big barb CKN stack. Coulda used the extra troops to take out Justinian quicker as well. Too bad I didn't think of this sooner!

You probably would have beaten me if you did - nice work, fun to see a completely different approach mirror my results so closely.

[Cornflakes]

Actually, you can paradrop into China. There us just enough range to land southeast of Beijing.

[GermanJoey]

Hmmm, it seems you're right, but I coulda sworn I tried it and it wouldn't let me. Maybe I tried it before I declared war? It was probably something stupid like that...

[Old Harry]

Yeah, you didn't start with OBs with Mao, so it wouldn't show up green until you declared...