CHRONICLES

RBCiv Epic Five

Did I mention that I built Theory of Evolution? Only one besides Colossus that I built. I moved up the bottom branch, to get those expensive techs out of the way while I followed India up the other branch with my research (I had stopped buying from them, and gone to shadow research where I could, first civ research where I could not).

The first turn of war I had to move my tanks into place. Second turn, I wiped out one offending city and took control of the mountain choke point fortress they had manned. They snuck some units past me first, though, and I finally got a great leader from it.

I used them to make a tank army, then started on the Epic. I thought about mobilizing for war, but decided against it. The terrain was rugged in northern India, so it took a few turns moving tanks and infantry and artillery one tile at a time. Meanwhile, I used my first choppers to transport units to the isle with Magellan's, the better to slow the enemy ships wandering around.

I had a very odd occurrence on the mainland. My fourth city, with one tile within range of that tiny coal isle to which I could never move settlers or workers (can't airlift them, can't ship them under these rules), that one jungle tile sprouted disease. Heh. Somebody forgot to inform Civ III that under this variant, none of my people even visit that island!

India also landed troops to attack my FP city, once. My artillery chewed them up and spat them out, and also slowed their shipping by bombing the ships from the shore, which caused the 'clads to run away, and strand the frigates until they could get new escorts. Could be why they only invaded here once. Before too long, I had taken over their nearby ports in the area, and sunk the ships caught in port.

Then came the Blitz Turn. I razed the Indian city with the rubber, then captured Delhi (NOT their capital, btw. ??? Yes, apparently they had lost their capital in an early war, just like happened to my Zulus in Epic Two! and they had come back from it to be the King of the AI hill) and also Madras, all on that one turn. I kept Delhi and Madras both for the wonders they contained. I used a captured worker to make a rubber colony, and I was back in business making tanks, choppers, and troops.

I managed to hold to the two captured cities while I starved them down a bit, but I had a mass of troops in Delhi and just two units in Madras. Madras did flip on me once, but I had my tank army parked between the two cities to guarantee same-turn recapture, if needed.

Meanwhile, I razed Bombay (their capital) and captured the rest of the mainland, finishing up on the same round Madras flipped.

I used my second leader to rush a police station, in the newly captured English city of York. It was actually close enough to my capital to become a sixth core city, down there, completing the "six" ideal for a core on a tiny map. No wonders left to grab, and no way to transport armies off the mainland, so might as well.

India landed cavs on Magellan isle, but they got slaughtered, sent to the glue factory.

Next I started on the big isle to the south. I landed a big stack of infantry and marines (mainly marines) on the mountain with the iron, at the city across from my south fishing village. That was a rough fight. I landed more units at the other cities within range and decided to build my airport down there, not at the big Indian city (flip risk) but at the tiny former English town with no Indian nationals in it. I did not take any pics of these turns, though maybe I should have. I also used my few paratroops and one chopper to ferry marines to that island west of my south core. That was one of the last areas settled, and for some unknown reason, the AI's only settled the north half of it. The south half remained bare all game, only land on the map to do so. I had painful losses on this island, in the north, where the town was in the hills. I just kept sending units into the meat grinder and it fell, finally. (My bombers were occupied softening more urgent targets -- I didn't build many bombers, maybe should have built a few more but I didn't).

So now I have an airport on the big isle in the south, and I've taken over the isle to the west. The Indian capital is on the big isle east of their mainland, so that will be last. (Leaving Madras and Delhi as big flip risks, but reducing risks on all the distant island captures.)

India tries repeatedly to recapture the oil north of Delhi, and mopping up these landings eventually yields my third and final leader, which I use to rush the factory in York.

I took over that tiny isle west of the west isle. I have just now in this game come up with a theory: the map generator never seems to make any landmasses of a single tile. All the tiniest isles are at least two tiles. That's been true as long as I can recall. Never seen a one tile island. If anybody ever sees differently on a randomly generated map, please let me know.

An airport on the south isle allowed tanks to mop it up. There were now just five islands left: one in the south with three cities, one between it and the tiny isle, which had three English cities, but India razed two of them. Then there were the three isles within range of my former Greek colony, I'd held on to all these centuries. It was time for the final push!

My forces were landing all over the place now. I had more choppers, my cities making marines at a rate of about three per turn. Choppers can airlift units to any tile within six range of their current city, or they can "rebase" to any friendly city, carrying a unit with them. The first method, you can move the chopper each turn. The second, it takes a second turn to rebase back to the original base (if necessary to get fresh troops). So my chopper availability, with six units, was just about in line with my troop production. My few bombers were racing all over, trying to soften up some targets. It helped, but not a lot. The demand for marines was such, there was little time to build bombers.

By this time, I have Rocketry. War weariness overtook me in there somewhere and I took a turn to swap to Monarchy. The last of the island strongholds must fall!

My first landing on the former English isle in the south was met with stiff resistance.

I had to fly in reinforcements, and that took more choppers. Then the AI pressed its luck and did poorly the second round, attacking my fresh troops, leaving just a single 1hp defender in the town. What a sorry move. The town fell much faster than it first seemed when the AI kicked my tail on the first round.

My first attack on the south isle was defeated! Lots of losses in this game, brutal losses with nonretreating units attacking large cities unsoftened by bombardments. I just kept on training marines, though.

Finally, with a hold on all but the south isle (and troops in position there, with reinforcements arriving now steadily), it was time to attack the big isle, get a foothold there and an airport to bring in more troops.

South Isle continued to struggle against me. They were putting up one hell of a fight down there.

I was using too many chopper sorties to move troops around, so I took a couple choppers and lined them up from former English city to take the direct route. Instead of using airports to reposition troops to get to choppers to drop them off, I'd cut out the airport and use choppers from the mainland.

Long ago, the Indians had annoying grabbed Smiths when I was thinking of trying for it, and what's worse, they grabbed it on the big isle, in a city across the water from their capital, as the Greeks had done the same with Magellan. Silly island wonders! Smiths I could have used, but it would come too late to matter. Still, it would be mine, finally.

South Isle continued to fight hard, killing off my units, but I had too many reinforcements for them, and the place finally fell. Now just a few cities left, and an airport rushed on the big island. The game was almost over.

Down they go, falling now like ducks in a row.

Just one more city and it's over! One more turn. Going to finish in 1802AD.

Woohoo! I'm all done! Game's over! We win! Um... hey, where's my victory message? Aw nuts. Stupid Indians have a settler on a boat somewhere. My spies tell me it's only one, thank goodness. I line up some cruise missiles (and even rush a couple) for next turn.

They landed the following turn, on the big isle in the south, where my tanks had been airlifted and were idling. That was the end of that. Game now finally over.

Whew! Well, this map was everything to hope for: lots of little islands to hop, lots of copter action, marines, airports, some minor paratroop activity (those would be worth a lot more if they didn't have that silly "must launch from an airport" requirement. If bombers don't need that, for goodness sake, paratroops ought not).

I hope everyone who played this one enjoyed it. I found it a refreshing change of pace and I enjoyed the combat action. The start was rather weakish, and it took some effort to build up for the final struggle. I wonder if anybody's India will be wiped out, instead of surviving the early "no city" scare when their only city was taken (in my game) then taken back the next turn (they had a settler active, or they would have been gone). Wouldn't it be odd if somebody else's game has England as the superpower? Heh. Doubt it, with their desert start point.

- Sirian

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