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Author Topic: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)  (Read 9982 times)

Bouchart

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Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« on: December 02, 2013, 03:47:30 pm »



After my successful Let's Play of Deadlock, I wanted to do a strategy game that people are more familiar with.  In particular I wanted to do the WW2 scenario of Civilization 2.  It's one of the two scenarios that come with the game.  For this scenario I'll be playing as the Axis, on Deity difficulty, the hardest.  Also I'm going to assume people are familiar with the game mechanics of Civ2.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The scenario ends at either the end of December 1947 or when all computer players are defeated.  The latter won't happen because the map is way too big.  Score is calculated by the number of "objective cities" held on the last turn.

An objective city is either:
1. A city pre-designated as an objective city at the start of scenario, or
2. A city with a World Wonder in it.

The two stack, so you might see a city marked as ObjectiveX2.  London is ObjectiveX4 in this scenario, because it has four Wonders.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Axis is poised to attack France right at the outset.  If the computer is controlling the Axis, they get the first turn and will always capture Paris.  It's some AI script.  France is everything in purple.  They also have a few cities in North Africa and the Middle East.  They put up decent resistance because they have a lot of Partisans to get in the way of things, but they generally fall quickly.

Amsterdam, in light blue, is the Neutrals faction.  They consist of Amsterdam, Stockholm, Belgrade, and Tehran.  They are little more than a speed bump.  They are so technologically backwards that they don't even have the ability to build tanks at the start of the scenario.  Or railroads.  Still, they tend to last the whole game because Tehran is so far out of the way.  That little bit of yellow at the bottom is Spain, who don't do much of anything.  They have Magellan's Voyage, though.

The orange there represents the Allies.  They have all of Britain, the east coast of the U.S., Greece, and part of the Middle East.  They start with the most advanced technology, except they don't have Advanced Flight, which the Axis does.  They're an odd faction because they are so spread out.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Axis also starts with a submarine fleet in the Atlantic.  They'll be useful destroying a couple of Allied transports.  The subs don't require support.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here is western Europe at the end of my turn.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And here is eastern Europe.  Nothing changed here.  White is Russia.  They're a little behind in technology, but cover a lot of territory, and are isolated enough that they only really fight the Axis.  They're big problem is that they don't have a lot of railroads so it takes time for them to move their units around.  It's also a reason not to invade them early on.  The Axis and the Russians have a cease-fire that expire in the middle of 1941.  Also, Istanbul down there is under control of the Turks.  They have five cities, and don't do that much.

Speaking of railroads, I've set my cities to build mainly engineers.  It's crucially important to get railroads up and running as fast as possible.  Most Axis cities are already connected at the start, but the further they expand, the fewer railroads there are.  France doesn't have too many.

I've set research to 0%, taxes to 60% and entertainment to 40%.  The computer researches faster than we do, we already have a tech advantage, and we have most of the technologies we need to win already.  We're might need Rocketry (for SAM batteries), Labor Union (for the best defensive unit, Mech. Infantry), Robotics (for Howitzers, which ignore walls), and maybe Laser (for SDI Defense if the computer ever builds nukes).  None of these are urgent, and it's best to use our resources to rush build units now anyway.  Anything we need can be stolen with Diplomats from the Allies, eventually.
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Bouchart

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2013, 06:05:56 pm »

After Turn 2, we suffer a handful of minor counterattacks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And an Allied engineer makes landing in Denmark, for some reason.  Most of Turn 2 will be spent mopping up a few enemy units, building railroads and healing tanks in France.  We take Bordeaux.  Marseilles and Vichy will take some work, because they have Walls.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We also knock out the defenders in Athens and later capture it with a Paratrooper.  The Axis don't start with Combined Arms, but they start with a paratrooper.  I don't find them too useful most of the time.  They're mobile, but aren't much stronger than a Rifleman.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our sub fleet isn't in a good position but we knock out a destroyer.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Turn 3, we take Tunis.  We're spread a bit thin in North Africa, though.  Vichy falls.  Stockholm will fall next turn, and Belgrade probably will too.  Marseilles may take two more turns.  At this point, we're getting a bit spread thin, and I'm not going to advance beyond that without more tanks and railroads.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A submarine takes out an undefended Allied transport, with 8 units on board!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

On Turn 4, Operation: Build Some Railroads is working nicely in eastern Europe.  No action there.  Stockholm and Belgrade fall, as predicted.  Other than that, it's just a bit of mopping up random units and trying to heal.  We build our first Diplomat.

Turn 5, I rush build a Transport in Amsterdam.  We have a few Diplomats now, and I'll use them to steal technology from the Allies.  Invading Britain will have to wait a few turns as I build more tanks, and heal my bombers.  The cities we capture don't have Barracks or Airports, so it takes a while.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We capture Marseilles.  Here's Europe at the end of Turn 5.



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Sheb

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2013, 06:18:31 pm »

Nice, PTW.

What are the objective cities?
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Bouchart

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2013, 06:31:01 pm »

There's a lot of them.  From the first post, you can see there's a total of 70 objective points.  Now, there are a handful of cities with more than one objective point, so I'd say in total there are probably 55-60 objective cities, too many to list.  Pretty much all of the cities in western Russia are objective cities.  Capitals, and places where major historical battles take place are objective cities too.

There are four rankings for the final score: Decisive Victory (>54 points), Marginal Victory (>32), Marginal Defeat(>16), and Decisive Defeat(<6).  On a previous playthough I did a few months ago, I conquered basically everything from Moscow to the east coast of the U.S., and barely got a Decisive Victory.  The Axis start with 16 objective points.

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EuchreJack

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #4 on: December 02, 2013, 07:34:44 pm »

Sweet, I overlooked the scenarios when I last had Civilizations 2.  Good luck!

mainiac

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2013, 08:10:32 pm »

The computer is such a cheating bastard in this scenario.  I remember playing as the allies and raging at the screen because for some reason Germany starts with the great wall of china and can force me to make peace at any time.  So then I played as Germany thinking that turnabout would be fair play but nope, the AI refused to listen to me and I couldn't force peace on them in return.
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Bouchart

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2013, 09:14:20 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After Turn 5, an Allied cruiser takes out our defender at Marseilles and the French liberate it.  Because the French took back their own city, we don't get any Partisans here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And the Russians sneak attack us!  That's earlier than I would have liked.  A tank destroys a rifleman near Leningrad...and that's all they do.  Finally my turn rolls around again and I retake Marseilles.  I then send a diplomat steal technology from London and snag Democracy, and then steal Mass Production from Southampton.  The turn ends with a lot of rush-building tanks and bombers.
Russia attacks our riflemen in a fortress outside of Leningrad and we suffer no losses.  There's an Allied battleship outside of Marseilles that's causing problems but we keep Marseilles.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Turn 7, we finish off the French partisans outside of Marseilles, so all France has left is Algiers, Beruit, Casablanca and Damascus.  Our bomber kills the defender in Beruit and I paradrop in to take the city.  And this is the reason I don't usually use paratroopers- they usually aren't strong enough to defend against any Partisans.  Hopefully France won't throw everything they have to retake the city.  They don't even try on their turn.  A few attacks from Russian tanks near Leningrad and Budapest are repulsed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After a successful bombing campaign, we capture Southampton.  All we could move into the city were two tanks, a diplomat, and a few fighters.  The diplomat ran to Manchester and stole Miniaturization.  We also bomb targets in Alexandria, Riga, and outside of Odessa.  We move our units outside of Leningrad and move them back to Helsinki.  Russian fighters shoot down our bombers outside of Odessa on their turn.  That's a bit of a loss, since bombers are expensive units.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our turn comes up again and we capture Damascus and Algiers.  Casablanca is a bit out of the way and there's some partisans to mop up first, which will take a few turns.  Then we reinforced Southampton with 8 more tanks.  We'll need to rest our bombers before moving forward.  The next turn, we capture Riga and take out the partisans outside the city.  On the Russian's turn, they attack Riga and destroy one of our tanks but we keep the city.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our turn comes up again...and we take London.  Our tanks kill the partisans outside the city too, along with an engineer.  It's now Feb 1942, and we have 29 objective points.
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Bouchart

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2013, 09:15:06 pm »

The computer is such a cheating bastard in this scenario.  I remember playing as the allies and raging at the screen because for some reason Germany starts with the great wall of china and can force me to make peace at any time.  So then I played as Germany thinking that turnabout would be fair play but nope, the AI refused to listen to me and I couldn't force peace on them in return.

Germany doesn't have the Great Wall.  The Allies run Democracy, which means the Senate can force peace treaties.
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EuchreJack

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #8 on: December 02, 2013, 10:50:26 pm »

Well, you're doing better than the historical axis, good job!

Bouchart

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #9 on: December 02, 2013, 11:13:05 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Allies counterattack and kill a few tanks outside of London.  We wipe out the marines near London on our turn.  Since we have a bomber in the area, we start attacking Leningrad, and attack Odessa with tanks.  On the next turn, we now have most of France connected by rail, and everything east to Riga.  We attack Jerusalem with a bomber but it's intercepted by a fighter and killed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We start pressing further into Britain and start bombing Manchester.  We later that turn capture the city, and also Odessa.  Odessa is an objective city, and now has a population of 1.  If I lose a battle there, the city will be destroyed, unless I can get a Walls up there soon.  I also sent bombers to attack Alexandria, which fortunately doesn't have any fighters to defend the city.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well, I'm now at war with Spain.  In trying to send my tank (along with a bomber) to finish off France, the Spanish got all mad that I was in their territory.  Rather than withdraw, I declared war.  They killed my bomber along with a couple of engineers in France.  It's ok, I planned to declare war on them when I was done with France anyway.  Spain has three objective cities and I'm poised to take Tangiers next turn.  The Allies also finish research on Rocketry.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Speaking of Rocketry, the computer loooooves to fire cruise missiles at naval units.  Any ship out in the open is in extreme danger.  If we can steal Rocketry, we can build AEGIS Cruisers, which have extra defense against air units and missiles.  We'll need them to invade the U.S. coast.  We take Leningrad thanks to some bombers and a battleship, and start bombing Newcastle.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

To end the turn, we capture Casablanca and the French are wiped out.  A turn later we take Tangiers.  There's more skirmishing outside of Alexandria, Odessa and Leningrad.  I'm having some trouble in northern Spain because there's some mountains in my way.  We capture Murmansk, which is far north of Leningrad.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, we bombed Baghdad only to find it was defended with a single cruise missile.  Then we paradropped into the city.
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crazysheep

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #10 on: December 03, 2013, 05:16:24 am »

ptw

let's see if you can take over the world! :D
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Bouchart

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #11 on: December 03, 2013, 12:21:04 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our next turn, we capture Newcastle.  The rest of Britain should fall soon, thanks to the bombers.  The Allies start the game with a couple of fighters, which they wasted early on, and haven't built any since.  Hopefully I can take the rest of Britain before they start building SAM batteries.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Turkey, alarmed that I'm amassing tanks outside of Istanbul, sneak attacks Bucharest and takes out a defender.  Next turn, we take Istanbul but lose a tank in the process.  We also take Belfast, but on the Allies' turn they take it back.

On our turn, we take Alexandria.  Alexandria has the Pyramids so we can sell off our granaries for a little extra cash. The fighting in Spain has been going slowly, but we destroy Zaragosa.  Fortunately it's not an objective city.  The computer is now smart enough to build fighters to counter our bombers in Turkey but more importantly Russia.  It's going to be hard without bombers because their cities have walls.  We take Izmir.

Our turn comes up again and we destroy Barcelona, which isn't an objective city either.  We steal Rocketry from the Allies and retake Belfast and conquer Edinburgh.  Only Scapa Flow and a handful of partisans remain in Britain.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here is the eastern front.  A little south of here we're advancing on Sevastopol.  We're also making progress in Spain.  Next turn, we take Vigo and Ankara.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

June 1944, we take Valencia, Antioch and Suez.  And here's what Britain looks like.  There's a group of airbases that extend from Britain to Iceland over to Canada that we can use to take our bombers and fighters over to America.  Getting a transport across might be tough since I've spotted a few AEGIS Cruisers in the Atlantic.  We have 45 objective points now.
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Sheb

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #12 on: December 03, 2013, 12:43:14 pm »

Since you only have two more years, wouldn't you do better if you focused all of your troops on the USSR?
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Bouchart

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #13 on: December 04, 2013, 03:41:53 pm »

I think I have enough time to do both.  New York is worth 2 victory points and Washington is worth one, and I can airlift ground units out from there back to the eastern front.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We steal Combined Arms from the Allies and capture Scapa Flow, but they take it back next turn with a partisan.  My turn comes around again and I retake the city.  We also capture Kars and wipe out Turkey.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

December 1944, we capture Rostov.  This city didn't have a wall so it was easy for tanks to take it out.  Just about every other Russian city in the area has walls, though.  We also capture Batun, Lisbon, and Mosul.  The advance in Spain has slowed down a bit but they have only three more cities.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

An Allied helicopter flew all the way across the Atlantic and recaptured Belfast.  I had moved some units out of there because the Allies had a battleship nearby.  Russian fighters shoot down a few of our bombers.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

June 1945, we capture Tehran, defeating the Neutrals.  This is also a stepping stone to Krasnovodsk, which is an objective city.  We also take Jerusalem, and control most of the middle east.  All that is left is Basra, as well as Cambridge, which the Allies built north of Basra after the scenario began.  Allied ships are being annoying in the Atlantic but I'm gradually moving some bombers towards New York using the network of airbases to the north.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In August, we finally take Moscow.  Since they moved their capital a bit away, I decided to take a diplomat and bribe Smolensk.  Bribing a city still creates partisans and there's a bunch in the area, but they don't do too well against veteran tanks.
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Bouchart

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Re: Let's Play Civilization 2- WW2 Scenario as Axis (Screenshot LP)
« Reply #14 on: December 04, 2013, 07:54:07 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Next turn, we also bribe Minsk, and begin bombing targets outside of New York, but they counterattack with fighters.  It turns out that Krasnovodsk is just out of reach of bombers based in Tehran.  There's also a barbarian uprising near Tehran.  Yes, barbarians show up in this scenario, but mostly in Russia and the middle east, where there are fewer cities.  They consist of partisans and cavalry.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

February 1946, we finally finish off the Spanish.  We capture Magellan's Expedition in the process, which would have been more useful were it not for the fact that our ships are right off the east coast of the U.S. right now.  Speaking of which, they're fighters have been shooting down our bombers but I've got four bombers left over there, along with a fighter or two.  I also bribed Gorky.  The next turn my tanks take Voronezh, and Kiev after losing a few tough battles.  Here's the eastern front, April 1946.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

June 1946, we bribe Grozny and Kazan, and also finished off the fighter jets in New York.  The Allies respond...by flying a half damaged helicopter into France, which just kinda sits there.  Russia wipes out our defenders in Kazan and paradrops in.  We capture Basra, and aside from a few partisans, have total control of the middle east.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nazi Alpine Troops then ski into New York City and capture the Hoover Dam.
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