[SPOILERS] Cornflakes Returns to Civ 4: Forget 1UPT, STACK OF DOOM!!!!!

[Cornflakes]

3-4 more turns until Steel completes. Railroad would be reachable after ... 15 turns of saving gold and Machine Guns aren't any better than Infantry except for the collateral-immunity (which is irrelevant after bombers anyway). I'm still planning to stop research here and just build military. My goal is to stay alive, and by the time I could possibly research the next generation of military I'm more likely to be gobbled up as a light snack. I'm starting to look food-tier with my weakest-in-the-world military and increasingly developed cities.

[Cornflakes]

[...] by the time I could possibly research the next generation of military I'm more likely to be gobbled up as a light snack. I'm starting to look food-tier with my weakest-in-the-world military and increasingly developed cities.

This was way too prophetic Wetbandit declared war and is invading in force with about 10 artillery, 30 cavalry, and assorted machine guns, air balloons, and destroyers. I swapped into Slavery and Nationhood. 3 infantry were drafted this turn and i have a half dozen completing EOT. I'm still 2 turns from Steel ... it would have completed this turn but I know I'll lose another city which will put me just short of the necessary beakers. I offered peace to Wetbandit and I'm hoping that he is just going for an incremental territory expansion and will stop after a city or two once he sees my mass infantry drafting. The trouble is that I can't crack a stack covered by machine guns Even artillary would be hard to take out since they are also immune to collateral and 18 strength vs. the knights/rifles which make up the bulk of my military. This might be the beginning of the end.

[Cornflakes]

JR4 declares war as well. JR4’s invasion was small so I sacrificed enough to kill everything I could (about 10 of JR4’s). Against Wetbandit massive collateral-immune stack I can’t do anything anyway other than slowly fall back. Might as well take out what I can. I even killed a rifle with a Quechua (maybe it was an infantry? I can’t remember for sure).

What I do remember is that I spotted Wetbandit’s exposed workers on the border and killed 5 and also 2 of JR4’s workers.

[Cornflakes]

Superdeath mirrored an Iron/Iron so I opened borders. Superdeath then started building railroads into my territory so I'm hoping that we can arrange some type of a mutual strike on Wetbandit's invading army. This turn I sent a Coal/Coal offer to Superdeath, intending to signal "proceed with railroad construction with all speed. I also covered all of Superdeath's workers with defending units since Wetbandit has a scouting knight in the area ... otherwise Wetbandit could move the knight into my territory with the first movement point > declare war on Superdeath > kill Superdeath's workers.

I also made a line of units over my preferred railroad route. Hopefully Superdeath gets the memo and builds the railroad along my "dotted line"

   

Yellow if railroad in place (last yellow RR is started 1 worker-turn short of completion). Red is my line of units pointing the direction for Superdeath to continue the railroad.

   

My main stack is highlighted. Wetbandit is showing Transports on the ocean so I'm keeping a few Infantry inside all my cities. Hamburger is defended by about 40 Viking Cavalry and not much more (maybe a couple odd machine guns?). The Viking main stack of 30 artillary, 30 machine guns, 10-20 infantry just captured DNA. Due to my culture extending out past DNA, the Viking stack is now stuck slow-moving if they try to retreat. Maybe Superdeath will bring in an army to help me wipe it out? I can't do much on my own against the main stack other than probably a 3:1 suicide ratio ... but the Calvary stack in Hamburger I could annihilate if I can get my Catapults in play. Problem is I can't currently get catapults to attack without giving the Cavalry a chance to attack first and flank away my catapults. But even if Supderdeath just builds railroads for me along my "dotted line" it would allow my catapults to get in the first strike.

I fully understand that my units would likely die after taking out the Cavalry ... but they'll die at some point anyway as the Viking Doom Stack advances. Who knows, maybe I'll die to Superdeath via backstab after throwing my army into the Vikings, but my best chance of survival at this point is trying to coordinate with Superdeath to convince Wetbandit to back off. And then hope and pray for everyone else to see that they would suffer a similar fate of getting hit by another neighbor inside of my territory.

[Cornflakes]

For all the effort Wetbandit is putting in, his total war gains to date are one fishing village (with Rice) and one small city totally swamped in Donovan’s culture. I knocked off a small stack in DNA last turn, which Wetbandit burned on his half. A turn or two ago Cambrian Explosion was burned, but not before it had been drafted for all it was worth, and then whipped a couple times.

Same thing is likely to occur at Ice Age, although that city has always been filler quality. And Wetbandit’s stack is getting ever closer to where Superdeath could hit them in neutral or my territory. Will Superdeath attack? He had a sizeable stack (comparable to mine I think) next to Jeffrey last turn that I though was going to make use of the freshly constructed railroads in my territory ... but instead they moved on a side railroad south of my capital where they aren’t any closer to helping out. I can’t make sense of that. He can’t be trying to hide his movements from Wetbandit because there are Viking knights roaming the entire area. If Superdeath moves a stack into my territory in a position that could clean up I would gladly suicide my stack first.

[Cornflakes]

Superdeath still hasn’t moved in his stack to aid mine. Instead, he now has 2 settlers in his stack 1NW of Jeffrey. It looks to me like he is going to try a counter attack on Wetbandit after I am defeated? That will not go well   Although Superdeath’s power is twice mine, his stack that he his showing is less. I’m over 50 infantry now (most of those completed/drafted after Wetbandit’s war declaration). Wetbandit has 70 collateral-immune machine guns and artillery. And that, folks, is the horror of late game warfare. I have 150+ units and I’ve only had like 6 cities for the last 100 turns.

[Cornflakes]

Wetbandit offered peace. After thinking for a turn I countered with a cease fire. 10 turns of guaranteed peace doesn’t do anything more for my long term survival that 0 turns of guaranteed peace. I would rather keep my options open. [EDIT: forgot to mention Wetbandit accepted the cease fire]

[Cornflakes]

Huge development on the northern front! Donovan just obliterated a sizeable stack that Wetbandit had holed up in Hamburger. 50+ cavalry, and around 20 each artillery/MG/Infantry. I don’t know why Wetbandit left those units there inside a city surrounded completely by Donovan’s culture. Donovan couldn’t have lost more than a few Artillery to kill that entire stack, and his army is completely safe from counter attack well inside his own culture. I’m curious to see the carnage on the power graph. That was probably half a million to a million solders that Wetbandit lost. ... in the grand scheme it probably isn’t as bad as it sounds since the world is on the verge of entering the Tanks era (2 turns for Wetbandit IIRC, and the other major players are hit on his heels), and the cavalry at least are on the verge of obsolescence.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

So why does Culture make such a difference in Civ IV warfare? I gather it confers some kind of bonus to the defender, but how precisely does it help?

[Cornflakes]

So why does Culture make such a difference in Civ IV warfare? I gather it confers some kind of bonus to the defender, but how precisely does it help?

Because you can’t use roads inside the culture of someone you are at war with ... meaning prior to losing the city if Donovan has closed borders or declared war, Wetbandit’s 1-move units would be stuck requiring a full 2 turns to move past Donovan’s culture, plenty of time to get run down and obliterated. And now, Wetbandit can’t reach Donovan because he can’t use Donovan’s roads.

in Civ 4 there are 2 ways to [successfully] fight:
1) surprise
2) overwhelming force, which usually equates to Collateral damage via 1-mover siege units. 

In both cases, culture often plays a heavy role since whoever controls tiles with their culture can move quickly over roads (and now railroads). This also creates situations like my destruction of Elkad’s army by first capturing a city, causing Elkad’s cultural control to flip neutral and allowing my army (i.e. catapults) to use the roads and strike Elkad’s now exposed army.