[PB79] Just one more Game

[xist10]

I don't now.
I don't think I can survive a 2v1 right now - or a 3v1.

My coastal lines are relative weak. Add the fact, that I'm not sure if i could get a longer peace with Miro and I don't want to start thinks right now.

If I could get a longer peace, I do think about blitzing Gira and/or coldrain.
Right now I'm relative sure I could sink coldrains fleet in the harbour - but then I need to defeat the 60 tanks and 40 artillery. And even that should be relative easy in a few turns.
Right now coldrain is missing the necassary SAM troops to counter bomber collateral if he invades. Or I do need to use a nuke.
And If I could get the fleet, I do have to fear nukes, but otherwise I should have relative free rein on the islands.

And right now I do think that I have chance to defeat Gira in ~20 turns ?
I'm not that impressed with Gira's warfare in the 81 and my fleet and my army are both bigger than Giras.
And even here, Gira seems strong but he has every where a part of his army. All islands have ~20 units garnison ? And 5 small fleets of 50 ships ?
I do think I could defeat that in detail.

But I know that both is "We are home at Christmas" thinking.

[xist10]

After the Apo, the United Nations could not agree on a Secretary-General either.

That surprises me a little. Coldrain's abstention was actually expected - even if I had hoped for a vote in my favour.
But that Miro abstained and didn't vote against me?

Although, on closer inspection, I could certainly have expected Miro to vote in my favour.
To explain this:

Just like me, Miro postponed nuclear fission and only finished (started) it after coldrain's Manhattan project was finished.
I think the conclusion that Miro is only partially interested in a nuclear escalation is not unreasonable, is it ?
And I also think that my plan to bring in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty may well be recognisable.
I am at war and have invested the 1000 in the UN.
So I actually want to introduce a resolution, don't I?
The forms of government are all rather suboptimal for me at the moment - police state is necessary for and , vassalage brings the 2 XP - which incidentally brings me to 10 XP ships, slavery is an important part of my war efforts.
Free market economy is clearly better than environmental protection, theocracy also brings the 2 XP.

I can also get peace this way, but Miro offered me White Peace and as far as I know there are no targets for city handovers - if this is even possible in the UN. - Diplomatic victory has no effect.

This leaves the 3 special resolutions. +1 favours me and Miro ~50% more than coldrain or Gira.
We have more cities and are PRO.
Trade routes despite closed borders are currently more of an advantage for Miro/coldrain. However, the strategic value of closed/open borders is difficult to judge, because this means, there is no real reason for Gira/coldrain to open borders - outside of support for a side.

This leaves the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as the 2nd probable aim.

I think I will vote for Gira in the next vote.
No Secretary-General could be worse than a "bad" right now.




Miro offers another air battle.
I don't want to compete against the 15 planes here at the moment.




Here in the south, however, a few fighters are isolated on an interception course.
And I can throw 2 transport boats out of the fortress and sink them with my submarines.




And slowly my Combat3 fighters are gaining the upper hand.

I overlooked the fact that fighters were also stationed in Neapolis, but I still traded off 8:1 this turn, plus a loss to the SAM.
Unfortunately, the 1st submarine failed at 91%. But things went very well in the air.




In the end, I pull the carriers back a bit so that only the 15 fighters from the Chinese carriers can attack my fighters. - In addition to the 15 fighters on an intercept course, there are a few more fighters in the Chinese cities/forts.

[xist10]

Miro takes advantage of the weak fighter cover and attacks in the north.
I didn't expect Miro to track down these submarine. And I'll probably have to station a few fighters in Ibrossim - or SAM on the islands.




In addition, the marine on the hill in front of Mediolanum ‘finally’ falls.
4 fighter attacks were too much.




Otherwise, Miro still has fighters on an intercept course - but this time only 11 here on the carriers.




11:2 this time and I can promote the first fighter to Combat4 next turn.
Okay, fighters from Carthage would already reach Combat5, but I built only tanks there.

Although that would also be worth an idea, a group of elite fighters.
I'll add the calculation to the post about air combat.




Or for RealmsBeyond directly in the text.
Elitefighter are interesting. Generally, they are worth it, because the trade 2:1 in the air and air space is limited. So if I take a look at the victory chance, Miro needs 3 combat2 fighters to take down one of mine combat5 fighters.
On the other hand, I only have a 34% chance to survive an airfight undamaged. So the chance to survive 2 airfights are less than 50%. Still, this is an improvement over combat2 fighters and 50% fights.

But then this cost me 2/3 of a commando tank. Okay, you could argue that commando tanks alone aren't that good, they need nuclear weapons. And then I don't need many commando tanks.
I will think about it.
And I need to thank civac, who did found this small quirk of cIV combat in a comment in the civfanatics thread - and I confirmed this by testing.




After some thought, I've now sent this to Miro. It's a ‘maximum demand’. At first, I wanted to send a cease fire for better negotiations, as you can adjust things on both sides in a cease fire. But since I want to use the nuclear option next turn - cease fireor no cease fire - I think that's a bit to early for that.
What can I do, I'll just be a bit presumptuous again. - I do like the cIV diplo system generally more than the ciV (PBEM System), because you can send more than one offer at the same time. But the fact, you can't see or even modify the already send offers ?

[xist10]

In the turn change, Miro is now bombing the area between our cities.
At least I get a general from it. - On closer inspection, there's something wrong. That gave 5 XP (defensive) for my SAM ?!




There's the united fleet - Miro had moved the northern fleet here over the turns.
Jackpot




2 tactical nukes later and the fleet is gone.
Bombers weaken the small flotillas and then my fleet cleans up.




Mech v. Minion is still a tough target, though.




I tackle the city anyway. First take out the with the destroyers, then the planes.




My tanks still have a poor chance.




So I choose the nuclear option.




I promptly lose a 90% battle, but after that it's clean up time.
I omitted a big part of the log.




Finally, I have free access to the southern sea.
The city guards are single, obsolete units.

And Miro shouldn't have any nukes yet - but if I advance, he probably will.
The trick is to load the missiles directly into the submarines in the city. Otherwise, I could evade the nukes - Which was my trick.

And coldrain unfortunately has a submarine within range of my fleet. I don't think coldrain has nukes already, but I'm not sure. I do spent ~7 on my 3 nukes.

If I can place my own cities via Rome and Mech vs. Minion and thus ‘formally’ cut Miro off from the Southwest Sea, I would be quite prepared to end the war. - This would also make a new Royal Valley foundation justifiable again.
It would also be good if I could remove Telefenestration and Pan Fall o Rome.

I think I'll claim Fall o Rome again. Otherwise I would also be happy with a white peace - and hopefully a longer peace then.

Unfortunately, I can't really defend myself against nuclear weapons because, as I said, all of my empire's tiles can be reached with tactical nukes from submarines.

Next turn is the UN election again.

[xist10]

Okay, no pop-ups and at least no destroyed fleet.
Unfortunately, you can't see the destroyed fleet from Miro in the graphs yet.




Telefenestration hasn't really been reinforced, by the way.




Apart from the nuclear submarine. - No idea what CtH changed there.
Pure chaos. In any case, the german translation "Angriffsuboot" doesn't fit - the correct translation should be "Jagduboot" - Hunter (Killer) submarine - and I just call them Uboot and nuclear submarine (which should even be the appropriate terms when used in CtH).

The city has no air cover, the fighters give my tanks a good chance.




Unfortunately (fortunately) I didn't sink a nuclear weapon in the harbor.
In principle, I should have a view of all the cities in the world from the turn after next and thus be able to see whether anyone has nuclear weapons - at least as long as I move before everyone else. Sub as fire platform are sadly invisible, so I only see how mayn nukes Miro has.

By the way, I'm already planning my next nuclear strike.
With ~ 10 more nuclear weapons, I would even go megalomaniac and consider carrying out a first strike on coldrain.
He currently has the fleet (and army) in one place - well, I make that mistake too, but I do like to think, that my army/fleet can't be reched by tactical nukes.




Otherwise I'll have to watch out here.
It feels like Gira is planning a culture victory right now.
Diomede has been doing cultural terror for a while, but Savoonga is relatively new in this list. Plus some religions (3 or 4) in the cities?

But they are all island cities on my border.

[xist10]

The 100 ships were more of Miro's military power than expected.




Unfortunately, Miro has his first nuclear weapon.
It should only be one, but now the hide-and-seek begins.




But first there is the second command action in the game.
I use commando tanks to remove the air cover from Pan Fall o Rome and, after bombing it with the guerrillas, storm 2 marines.
Unfortunately, they can also be reached by Miro.




But now I can colonize the southern peninsula.
Here is the new foundation of Rome.




And now this could backfire, but I'll try to get Gira - and coldrain - to join Miro.
After all, Miro has lost a third of its military power in the last few rounds.
And it's better for them to join in against Miro than for them to be on Miro's side.

[xist10]

Addendum to the last round.
Log part 1 - Lost a bomber to a SAM in the city.
In fact, I'd have to calculate whether it's worth it - the bomber survives more often, but is 40% more expensive.





And part 2.
It went quite well - even if it was a bit tight at the end with the marines. I had to use one of the command tanks at the end.

The Worker was of course disbanded and the looted windmill made a counterattack on the tanks impossible, as I also tore down the rails afterwards.

However, this is a double-edged sword, as the rail connection is also missing.




Gira has now been unanimously elected Secretary General.




The Chinese counterattack was weaker than expected. The marines survived, as did the forward command tank.




And there's the next Tactical Nuclear Weapon - I strongly suspect this is Nuke No. 2.




I, on the other hand, look around for the next target.

Miro is warned and spreads the units out properly.

Mediolanum isn't really worth it. Especially as I can also achieve something here conventionally.




Neither is the small group in the fort outside Ravenna.




Wingspan the island will be interesting.
I have the transporters for a direct capture.




Or just Ravenna with the 15 tanks.




In the end I choose Ravenna and one knight survives and unfortunately I can't reach the city - as I said, tearing up the road was a double-edged sword.




And then I attack Medialanum conventionally.
I lose 1 bomber to the SAM in the city, a fighter to the SAM in the field - this time I cut the roads first.




After that I have relatively high chances - 85%+. The 3 losses are to be expected.
The nice thing is that, as far as I know, the road on 7 of the iron cannot be built by Miro - unless Miro hides the workers on transporters.

This means that Miro probably no longer has access to CreCon.




I founded Bithia in the south.
In between, I thought about founding the city on the free tundra tile or on the fort.
But the fort is on the wrong side, the tundra tile is a bit worse, if i want to built up my own cultural pressure.

The commando tank has already been moved to the south of Lixus.

Who can find the mistake?

If I hadn't cut the road on 7 of the iron with bombers, I probably could have razed Ravenna with a commando tank.




And now the question: Should I go for lasers and SDI in terms of research?
That would probably be 18 turns with saving.




Or should I go for computers and internet - and hopefully steal lasers from Gira/coldrain ?
More like 9 turns ?