So I've had two very very weird experiences this weekend:
1) A game where we had NO wars from Ancient Era to 1900. Yeah. It helps we were all archipelago'd out.
2) A game where I reluctantly became Germany in WWII.
Let's talk about the latter:
Babylonians, Raging Barbs, Ancient Era, Continents. 12/4 AI.
a) Right off the bat, the Incas don't settle their city on the first 3 turns. I show them the error of their ways by immediately killing their settlers. Incas removed from game.
b) So I meet my neighbors. India, Germany, Russia, America, Japan, Mongolia.
c) Germany seems to be the troublemaker, and I'm striking up friendships with America and Japan, India less so.
d) Germany goes to war with US and Japan, tries to recruit me. I lost my military assets while scouting (Raging Barbs are fun) so I really couldn't shore up the forces in 10 turns. Plus, I was thinking about getting a UN victory this time since I've never done that.
e) India joins our coalition, and Germany calls a ceasefire. But they're still really pushing those boundaries hard and we're starting to get really close to each other. But luckily we've just gotten Open Borders tech, so scouting farther ahead we see that Warsaw is the only CS on our continent. Polynesia appears to be on another continent.
f) Germany looks like its building up troops again, but now Mongolia invades. I defend myself on one front while preparing to fight Germany on another.
g) Mongolia was just testing me, I made it to their capital but it was too well fortified. I move my troops to the German border to cover a US and Japanese rebuildup.
h) Japan doesn't appreciate this and declares war on me. Apparently they roped America in with them. So over 2 rounds of fighting and ceasefire, I had to take them down one at a time. Japan had set up a pocket of resistance on the ocean and America had a small river fortress that was rather pointless (because my capital was on the same river delta, DERP.)
i) I beat them both down, but India, my only steadfast ally through this, starts distancing itself. Soon, the rest of the continent denounces me. India and Russia are both running single-city strategies, Mongolia rapid expansion. I took this brief period of peace to reinvest in infrastructure and tackle a wonder or two.
j) Fucking Germany. They take my weakest Japanese city. I build things back up and well fuck, Mongolia jumps in. I'm in a two-front war. I run headfirst in the German capital, by this time I've got Civil War-era weaponry, so sieges are rather easy against his late-Medieval troops (who were very threatening mid-game because they get Landsknechts sooner than Longswordsmen, and Babylonians are only optimized for early-game plinking).
k) Mongolia manages to hold me off at its Capital, so I build up troops for the inevitable. They do the same. I take the initiative this time, trying to pull them into an ex-American stronghold (hill fortress). It doesn't work, they go for the ex-Japanese coastal pocket. Ugh. India joins in to opportunistically take advantage. That's low.
l) I beat back Mongolia. Russia still wants at me, so I set up a cordon at a small Mongolian border town. I fortify it and station some troops. But I change my mind and leave only 3 troops there so I can free up manpower for India, which is pounding my Production-oriented city. By this time I have aircraft and I've got them completely boxed in. After a short ceasefire, I try to get them to loosen that tight formation by giving them Open Borders (I'm after their capital by now, better to let them spread out). India doesn't take the bait. But the fight is on. Artillery and aircraft manage to keep them from taking my cities, but FUCK RUSSIA JUST NUKED ME. Nuked the Mongol territories and took that cordon I had set up.
m) IMMEDIATELY rebase all my aircraft to ex-American hill fortress to kill off anyone trying to finish off that nuked city. Eventually I get confident enough with WWI-era infantry that I just fucking airstrike EVERYTHING in the way and use only 2 ground troops to take the entire country. But India's still a problem.
n) They have modern sea power and anti-air all over the place. All of my attempts to airstrike or seastrike their capital fails. Eventually I set up a rotation for my fighters and bombers that keeps the pressure on (while taking NO air losses) and allows a few tanks to roll in and finish them off. Jesus. Fucking rough. But now I own the whole continent...which doesn't make France or Spain happy.
o) France initially didn't give a shit about my ongoing wars, but Spain and Polynesia fucking hated me. Eventually France buddied up with Spain and hated me too. I remember being at war with FUCKING EVERY COUNTRY AND CITY STATE AT ONCE. ;____________________; So it ended up being Polynesia denouncing me, then a turn later France/Spain doing the same. But, they mostly left my continent alone. Eventually I got Satellite tech and saw that they were on two slivers of land. And since I didn't really explore the ocean much (too occupied with, you know, building land and air units) that I didn't notice that the Persians didn't seem to be big because they were a single-city nation. I learned my lesson. For a while I had troops pumped out from my wartime queues, I keep them around since they were Modern Era. Upgraded all my fighters to Jets.
p) And then came a time of massive massive unhappiness. I was at -17 happiness, yikes. Protip: red fist icon means you can't just annex + purchase courthouse (this tactic costs 820g but gets you a +2 to net happiness). Did this a few times, but mostly concentrated on happiness buildings + food buildings. Then I unlocked Petrol and nearly simultaneously built science buildings all over the place. (By the end of the game I had 5 Great Scientists because of this). My cities were pumping out 150+ science. Then it was culture. I got my capital up to +93 culture, turned the ENTIRE COUNTRY to gold production so I could buy up culture buildings in former Russian cities. Protip: conquered cities default to GOLD FOCUS. This may cause cities to build tons of trading posts. Switch it back to Default Focus if you don't want a crippled city.
q) So, I had built nearly all the improvements for all 15-ish of my cities, decided to knock out the space victory. Culture victory would take too long, and the UN victory required a 14-vote bloc (there were only 9 available votes because I had killed too many people ;____;)
In the end, I was a secular communist fascist with spread out air power and a small continent of rapid reaction land troops, and a modest 2-ship navy. And except for in the Russian peninsula, every city was utopia, even the ex-Mongol capital which had recovered from the nuke. I'd experienced at least 2-3 two-front wars tonight. They're just exhausting. I'm just lucky that they weren't stupid enough to challenge my defensive positions seriously.
YAY, final score 2800s.
Things I learned about myself:
- The larger my military, the more likely I am to use it.
- Despite being a huge critic of Cold War theory, I sure as hell tried to use it quite a bit after a ceasefire.
- I dislike nukes, because they slow down the process of subjugating people. That sounds so horrible.
- I almost never play single-city builds, likely due to my bad experience vs Mongolia in the "Evil Empire" scenario I made. I still have nightmares about a zerg rush of modern tanks mowing down 3x Giant Death Robots. It's why I turned off the Legions mod (troop stacking and more promotions).
- Cities regenerate faster than airpower. If you're not massed up in sufficient numbers, just let the city heal back to full, then get those numbers up. Then rotate in and out so you constantly have a few planes in the green. By this point, artillery units should be nearly useless and even Battleships should be having trouble. Start using cruise missiles.
- If you have only 1 of a luxury resource left, only trade it for another luxury good (preferably one that your people want). The excess ones should be for new luxury goods and at least 200g in cash. Hold out if you can.
- Before you cross a river, remember that line-of-sight may reveal an unpleasant surprise. Like 4 sides of being surrounded by artillery.
- Don't be afraid of anti-air batteries. Numbers will win out the day against them.
- Never send a last-era troop to take a current-era city. You're just asking for it.
So, I'm going to sleep now that it's 6AM. Will format and add pics maybe later? Derp.
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