When I got to Democracy tech, I went through a double-revolution: from Bureaucracy to Nationalism and Slavery to Emancipation, went through five straight turns of drafting three Riflemen a turn from my various cities (at least one apiece from each city, plus extras from some of the happier cities) then when I was done getting free military units, I revolted from Nationalism back to Bureucracy and from Hereditary Rule to Universal Suffrage. Each revolt was only one turn long of Anarchy, so by piggybacking my dip in and out of Nationalism on to my other swaps, I saved one full turn of Anarchy. (It would have taken one turn to go straight to UniSuff + Emancipation, plus then two more turns to dip in and then back out of Nationalism.)
The eighteen Riflemen I got from five turns of Nationalism (revolted to Anarchy on the sixth, but AFTER getting my three Rifles that turn) more than gave me enough land army to feel secure for the moment. So I continued teching and building.
I did get my Iron colony in the west. Universal Suffrage allowed me to rushbuy some key items, such as a Theater and a Worker.
Victoria declared war on me a second time, in the 1800s, and this time I had the forces ready to combat her. I had Frigates and Ironclads, and these saw action. I had Infantry and Cannon, and with these I managed to capture one city of hers in the south, just west of Houston. I held her off, and she never really did much except to pillage my nets at my northern colonies. I bought in allies against her (Spain) and Russia declared vs her on their own. Then I made peace.
As the clock neared 1850AD, I was building factories all over my empire. Russia was pulling away in tech, and it became clear to me that I would lose to Catherine in any fair fight for the space race.
Catherine had to be stopped or my game was already lost. There was no way to get anybody to fight her (not even Izzy, who "feared the might" of the Russians). Catherine had Oil and all resources, a significant Air Force and Navy, and would probably get to Robotics before I could do much to her. I basically had to build my armed forces from scratch!
There were two hopes for me. 1) Catherine's production level was as low as mine, so most of her troops would be upgraded units, not new units. 2) The AI is still weak when it comes to handling its navy. (This is probably the most significant area in which the AI's competence level is "unsatisfactory" in my personal view: it simply does not fight well one navy to another. It conducts some good amphibious landings with groups of ships all loaded with troops -- we saw that earlier when Caesar sent in three galleys of troops at Houston and I had to pull a miracle out of the ether! But fleet to fleet? Needs a LOT more work. A lot more.)
So I built Drydocks in several key cities (even ones with low production) and had them work on nothing but ships. This saved me having to build barracks there or worry about airports or transports to get the troops in to the action. Some other cities built Barracks and Airport, but no Drydock! (I really specialized here!) I had to get my oil connected, too, and that took some effort, as the only oil in immediate range was on the frozen side of my home continent, beyond the Peak, and I had to send a settler and workers over there and STILL wait about ten turns!) I built the Pentagon out of Washington, once I had moved to the new computer (and patch 1.09, with a functional Ironworks). Swapping to Vassalage but NOT to Theocracy meant 8XP units right out of the gate. (I stuck with Free Religion to avoid risking more AIs piling on me while I had everything aimed at Russia.)
I built a Carrier fleet with three fully loaded Carriers, six Fighters, three Battleships, three Destroyers and several transports. I trained a few Tanks, all City Raider III. You'd be surprised how effective City Raider III Tanks are during amphibious landings, despite the penalty. I also built some Navy SEALs. They cannot promote City Raider, but do promote Combat line and can get Pinch for bonus vs Gunpowder units (most defenders). They come with First Strikes and MARCH, plus are Marines (amphibious, no penalty), so they are actually more effective than City Raider III Tanks when attacking from the sea, believe it or not.
I declared War on Catherine as soon as I had my fleet in position near her mainland, along with two Transports. I also declared on Montezuma, since he was Catherine's ally. My third Carrier, at the time, was still assembling, so I went in with two loaded transports and two carriers. I used my ships to peel off all of her city defense bonus, and I used my Fighters in Airstrikes vs her units, to soften them up. Then I went in from my transports and burned down one of her four mainland cities! (I razed because I didn't have the forces to protect that city, and didn't want her to recapture it.) A little regrouping, some reinforcements, and it was time to attack Moscow!
Moscow I kept! Catherine had built Broadway and Rock-n-Roll there, and I'd have command of these much-needed resources when the city came out of resistance. Several other wonders there, too, and it would be a good site for the FP for me.)
Then it was on to her Holy city of St Petersburg, although by the time I got there, she had gotten to Robotics and begun to promote her Infantry units to Mechs.
Even Mechs can be softened up by airstrikes, though. American Navy SEALs are a fearsome modern age unit if used wisely!
You are looking at an application of what I call The Sirian Doctrine. Swoop in from the sea, obliterate city defenses in one turn with capital warships, bombard defenders in the city with carrier-based Fighters, then strike from the sea with Tanks and Marines. At the moment, the AI is all but helpless to stop this military strategy, since the only counter to a modern naval fleet is an even bigger, badder fleet of your own! The AI doesn't do fleets in the size and power necessary to stand up to my favorite approach, and so with it, even from a major tech hole, fighting uphill in to the teeth of superior units, The Sirian Doctrine decimates the AI.
After capturning St Petersburg, Catherine had only one mainland city left.
By land and by sea, we took them down.
After losing her core of four cities on the Russian mainland, Catherine was limping but not yet pacified. She still had four strong cities left and several resource colonies.
I encountered a vicious nest of Mech Infantry in her Islamic holy city.
That was the toughest fight of the war, and the toughest war to fight. From there, I was just getting stronger, with ever more highly promoted units, and gradually increasing the size of my forces, adding land air and sea units.
Catherine was the only AI who was ahead of me in technology. I left her with three minimalistic fishing villages, knowing that she was no more threat to launch or to attack me.
However, the time and resources it took to knock Chatty Cathy out of the running allowed Venerable Vicky to pose a launch threat. I had no choice but to declaw her next.
Attacking the English mainland wasn't hard. I came up from the south, and she was right there where my fleet had finished wiping out the Russians. I caught an unescorted English transport in the open and found it too opportunistic to sink that with four modern units onboard. So I attacked before I was fully ready!
Nevertheless, my three Carriers and onboard Fighters, plus massed capital ships, allowed me to pick off her scattered (but strong!) navy one or two ships at a time. If only she had combined those in to a real fleet, she could have given me an absolute fit!
I razed the first city I captured, on the southern corner of her mainland. I kept the Taoist holy city of York, and then came the decisive moment. London had half the English navy docked inside it, apparently a staging area for Vicky to launch an amphibious assault. Although I had to go through a lot of units, and Vicky was starting to build Gunships and Tanks, I was able to take out London, and RAZE IT. After picking off a couple more English cities, I had knocked out more than half of her production and teching capacity, and could put her on the backburner. Finishing her off could wait. In the mean time, I needed to deal with Rome, Aztecs and China, before any of them could launch! Here's the map at that point in time:
Modern age warfare to stop a runaway Financial civ from launching can turn in to an all-or-nothing affair! The time and resources you burn taking out the tech leader lets other AIs cruise along. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The larger the map and the more opponents you need to overcome, the harder it is to get it done before one of them can launch.
I went for Rome and Aztecs simultaneously. The Sirian Doctrine can chew up coastal cities on any oceanic map, but with nearly all cities on the coast, and the AI completely incapable of standing up to carrier groups fleet to fleet, this kind of warfare is well doable even on Immortal, where I have won a game before in just this fashion.
After Rome, I had to hit China. The AI really doesn't have a strategic answer for The Sirian Doctrine. I'm not sure there IS a land-based answer. If the AI were pulling this strategy on me, I'd fight back at sea. Sea Superiority, in this context, is much like Air Superiority in real warfare. You are at the mercy of the enemy's targetting and timing if he controls the sea. He can concentrate his attack force and, with ship movement being relatively high, can move in to position to threaten multiple targets at once. Defenders simply cannot mass their defense at any single point, and so it becomes impossible to defend. If the attacker chooses to raze, there is literally no defense at all except to wrest control of the sea away from him.
My best unit died in the attack on the Chinese capital.
That was versus a wounded unit, too, so it was a really bad dice roll. Oh well. That was the last of mainland China, and I mopped up one more city and then halted. I had enough population to accept victory via Backdoor Domination, and the UN completed in 1987AD. A few turns for the procedures, and victory was claimed.
No AIs were eliminated, as they all had some fishing villages on various islands, and it had been more important to push on to stop the next juggernaut than to mop up the dregs of an already beaten foe.
I killed almost fifty enemy Destroyers and only lost six.
That's because divided = conquered. The AI only uses ship pairs, or builds guards for its transports. The AI landing/invasion routines are improved, but the fleet AI for naval warfare and Sea Superiority is still essentially nonexistant.
This was my first game of Civ4 on the retail version, and it was well short of a cakewalk. The Space Race puts a lot of pressure on the warfare side of the game. Trying to conquer your enemies before one can launch is much more of a pinch than in any previous civ game, including Civ3.
- Sirian
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