[SPOILERS - PBEM17] Kyan Does Dallas. The Orange Sensation.

[oledavy]

Having been playing through Halo: CE's campaign again recently, I think your comparison seems to be eerily accurate...

That said, remember that despite the MC the UNSC still lost basically every colony except for Earth before the Covenant collapsed into civil war (Darrell vs NoSpace?!!). So, er, good luck.

Just noticed 'Guilty Spark,' I approve

Play the anniversary edition yet? Microsoft sure is milking the series for every penny, but the updated graphics looked sweet and it was very nostalgic for me.

Errrr....wait.....this is the Civilization Forum!

[SIZE="5"]Today We Salute[/SIZE]



[SIZE="3"]Today we salute the crew of the unnamed battleship sent to pillage and harass around the Egyptian city of Pitcairn Island.

Darrell hit the heroic Dutch battleship with four bombers before attacking with the attack submarine commanded by the ruthless Jalaluddin Muhammed Akbar. The sub was sunk when attacking at 90.4% odds, the battleship winning a flawless victory and not even taking a hit. The enraged Egyptians then attacked with their nearby destroyer, sinking the battleship but being themselves brought down to 20 HP (6.0 Health) in the process. Their memory will live on forever as the first Dutch heroes in World War III[/SIZE]

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]The Burning of Jericho[/SIZE]



The ancient city of Jericho was in the process of becoming a ghost town. The Dutch High Command had given up on the city. Overawed by the Egyptian attack the previous day, they had ordered all the battered units to withdraw, and the fleets to head south for safer harbors. As their protecters abandoned them, the citizenry began to panic and flee the city. While many of its citizens crammed the roads out of the city or went and prayed for safety from the invaders at the Buddhist Temple, there were some, who decided to resist. Taking up the arms of the vanquished Dutch Army and learning the drive the armored vehicles recently produced in the city's factories, the braver citizens sought to make a stand for their city.

However, their courage was for naught. When the invaders returned the next morning after a second heavy night's bombing, the battle-hardened Egyptians tore through the untrained Dutch soldiers. Penetrating to the city center, the invaders began setting charges throughout the city, demolishing the buildings and then setting fire to the ruble. By nightfall, the entire city of Jericho was ablaze, its defenders lying dead or dying in the streets, and the victors triumphantly returning to their ships. This would only be the first of many cities the Egyptian Army would burn, they jeered.

Summary

As expected, Darrell attacked and razed Jericho. He softened up the defenders with only four bombers this time, then attacked, killing the infantry with a marine and losing an infantry to kill the tank. Net effect was he lost two infantry (deleting the one that beat the tank).

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]The Battle for Zeus[/SIZE]



The battle between the Indian Army and the Dutch defenders was raging through downtown Jaffa, and the Indian front line had reached the temple. The outer walls had been crumbled as a result of the Indian bombing attacks, but the gold and ivory statue of Zeus stood tall and proud, overlooking the scene. Lying prone atop Zeus's shoulder was David Welsh, a sniper attached to the 32nd Infantry. His spotter had been killed earlier in the day, but he was making good on avenging him.

"Damn Purples," He muttered under his breath, taking aim at a rather cocky Indian NCO farther down 4th Street.

The Dutch forces had been in trouble since the get-go. Every position was pulling back due to the sheer number of Indians. Despite the armor support, the Dutch forces were being simply overrun. They now occupied a firing line across 4th street and Sciz Boulevard (named for the famous opening battle to World War II). The Dutch forces were under orders to protect the statue at all costs, and were making their stand here. The wonder was rumored to foment discontent among foreign peoples. Welsh was skeptical himself, but the Dutch High Command had given the story enough credence to make Jaffa a Priority 1 Defense City.

"A lot of good that does us now..." he growled while readjusting his scope for the range. Seeing an Indian private huddling against the wall past the Whitman Building, he began to squeeze the trigger.

A high pitched screetching interrupted his thoughts.

"MORTARS!" came the call from below.

A shell impacted directly behind him against the crumbled wall, the blast and shrapnel throwing him forward, falling hard off the statue onto the atrium floor. As he lay bleeding out, he watching a a quick grouping of three shells hit the statue, shattering the wonder sending ivory chunks flying through the ruins of the temple.

"Damn Statue," he muttered just before slipping away into the eternal embrace of death.

Summary

NoSpace made no attempt to break through my navy, and instead went for the city overland with their Army. Their four bombers brought the defenses down to 5%, then they sent in their infantry. They lost five infantry to kill my five defenders. I expected to do a little bit better being on a hill, but meh, such is war. They withdrew the majority of their force back to Aleppo however, which introduces a number of threats for next turn.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="5"]Turn 174[/SIZE]

Turn 2 of World War III
Cities Remaining: 29/33

At this rate (2 cities a turn), I'll be dead by turn 189

Alrighty, so Darrell and NoSpace made the expected moves, and one surprise one.




NoSpace again grouped their forces, other than the five infantry from the Battle for Jaffa back in Aleppo. They moved up some naval reinforcements, and a transport carrying three mech infantry and a fourth unit I'll presume is a marine. They have five of those transports loaded up with twenty units: fourteen marines and six infantry if I got my count right. They can do a lot of damage with that force. However, my hope is that they'll have to expose their fleet to do so.

My idea before this war began was that Darrell and NoSpace would initially take cities, but that they would have to sacrifice fleet to my monster navy to do so. However, so far they've both worked around that. Darrell through massive air cover, NoSpace through the speed of their ships and use of Aleppo as a covering base. It's kinda frustrating actually.

So, here the situation in the south when I ended my turn:



Darrell rushed some defenders into Kenya as expected (two mechs, a marine & three rifles), so I was unable to take the city. He additionally bombed my fleet with a couple of his aircraft.

The Indian Battle Fleet consisted in the city consists of two missile cruisers, four battleships, and ten destroyers, with the following promotions and health:

Missile Cruisers

Navigation I
Unpromoted

Battleships

Barrage III – 31.2
Combat III – 32.4
Combat III
Combat II – 28.0

Destroyers

Combat III – 17.4
Combat III – 11.1
Medic
Combat I – 20.4
Combat I - 20.1
Combat I – 20.4
Unpromoted – 23.4
Unpromoted – 21.0
Unpromoted
Unpromoted

Additionally, three of their transports are Nav II, meaning I have five cities under threat: Damietta, Beruit, Edessa, Sidon and Constantinople. Edessa is obviously the defense priority, however, there is absolutely no way I can defend the city. The HMS Surprise took the pair of Combat II tanks with my GG's out of the city, just ahead of the coming Indian invasion force. They could potentially take multiple cities next turn, but with limited recon (only 1 airship out of Aleppo), they may not realize all the opportunities they have. I seriously do not know why they moved the airships out of the city when they could have had total visibility on a very large area.

Sidon is defendable from one tile, and they would have to tranverse a precise route to reach Constantinople. So, I split my navy into two roughly equal forces to cover both tiles, while simultaneously threatening a large number of tiles should they leave their fleet out. Their air cover is still based out of that fort, and I positioned my fleets just out of range of the bombers.

Defending Sidon, I moved every available unit into position: a missile cruiser, five battleships and ten destroyers. Just enough to oppose all sixteen of their warships (also coincidentally 6 Str. 40 & 10 Str. 30). This is a 50/50 battle if they choose to take it, and would involve them risking transports, as their ships are damaged. My western fleet consists of seven battleships, fourteen destroyers and four transports. Some of my destroyers are damaged, but this battle would be similarly bad for NoSpace to take. I have the transports still loaded to open up the option to go and fork the northern Indian cities. Currently, I'm threatening Aleppo. They have three mech infantry, five marines and an infantry in the city compared to my pathetic force of five infantry and three marines, but they don't know that, and it's enough to face the archers and longbows still staffing most Indian cities.

If I were Novice, next turn I would take Edessa and Damietta/Beruit. I'll respond to the fleet situation next turn, try to mop up more of their offensive forces and move to threaten their cities. The bad news is that they're in Nationhood and are drafting Mech Infantry. The worse news is they now have flight for fighters and bombers of their own. The only good news is I began researching flight this turn and will have fighters of my own soon. Additionally, Shoot has offered to trade me bombers very soon.



In the north, Darrell broke off his transports and some escorting destroyers to head west, now threatening Acre. Waiting for the hammer to fall, I drafted the city and whipped a tank. I just don't have the strength left to defend it, and my navy is now all elsewhere. The city will fall on his turn, then he'll presumably go for the cities along the jungle arm. He positioned the main portion of his fleet - missile cruisers, destroyers and the carrier (with cruise missiles and jet fighters) farther west. He produced a sixth (visibile anyway) transport to the south in Kenya this turn to that needs to be watched. He's still surrounding me with a ring of death consisting of bombers, and his fleet is really starting to grow in strength. However, he keeps making little mistakes.



In two turns of war, he has failed to pillage my bananas! It would be so easy, and really hurt with the health situation I'm facing. Not that I'm complaining.

After Acre is razed, I'm going to refound an inland city in the north between the old Jericho and Acre city locations.

I'm grooming Constantinople to be my fortress city on my west coast. The city is only in bomber range of one of his cities, and is on a hill, so it lends itself to being defensible. Additionally, it is my ironworks city and a high defense priority. Pretty much all the defensive land units I'm producing from here on out on the continent are going here. I'm additionally building up a force of tanks here - to serve as defenders and a counter-attacking force when Darrell eventually tries to put an army on the ground.

The cities I should be able to keep besides Constantinople are Sidon & Hattin, which my navy can defend. My cities along the sea between me and Old Peru should all be pretty safe, as there's only a couple ways into the area and it's far away from any air support for the Egyptians or Indians. My cities in Old Peru and island holdings in the south Sea are all safe as long as Darrell and Novice choose to ignore them and go after my core

Speaking of which, I'm hoping to raze Pitcairn island on t176. I now have three battleships positioning to be ready to lower the city defenses, including the one from Overexposure which pillaged more nets then fled a missile cruiser produced in the city. Darrell's fighter recon potentially had visibility on 1transport after it was produced in Smolensk. I promoted that one to Nav I and moved it to Shoot's city of Zonguldak to pick up four infantry from Pindicator II and hide out of range. The one produced in Kiev moved to Smolensk, so to an observer it would look like I produced one and didn't move it. I'll be able to hit the city with seven infantry and a marine. He currently has an archer, rifle and spear defending it. The problem is that he'll definitely draft out a mech before getting hit, which will be hard to remove. I have yet to run a WB sim, but I may end up waiting until I have a larger force before making any moves against his western holdings or Overexposure. Shoot is due to get me a couple marines soon anyway. I could alternatively offload the troops and attack, but I'm pretty sure he has bombers in range to negate it's effectiveness. I may just be better served by waiting until I have a significant force before attempting anything. However, if I got bombers from Shoot before the attack, I might be able to pull it off.

Speaking of Shoot, the updated ledger:

[COLOR="Green"]t173: 1 Missile Cruiser

Total:
1 GS
3 inf
2 destroyer
1 battleship
2 missile cruiser [/COLOR]

Darrell and I had a friendly chat earlier tonight where he jabbed I was commanding Shoot's navy. This is to prove the vast majority of those ships have always been mine

Plans for Operation Going Commando go apace. I upgraded a couple EI's for it and produced more marines. The EI carrying the GG's is under a tiny bit of risk this turn, but almost certainly nothing will come of it. Going to use bombers based out an Ottoman fort to support the initial attack on cornered market. The key thing is going to be getting the fleet to the staging tile undetected.

I'm using my GG either for a super city defender mechanized infantry for Constantinople or a military academy somewhere when I get military science. I thought about upgraded a slew of battleships to Combat III, but decided it wasn't worth it. I can always produce another commando unit later as well if I want to. For now, he's idling in Samaria waiting for a mech infantry or military science.

Is there any super-unit I should be thinking of lurkers?

I dipped under six banks thanks to city razings, and now cannot complete Wall Street in Jerusalem. I think things will probably remain that way, even if I try to get more banks up, so I'm going to put the city producing something else and give up on it.

Finally, this was the last turn of my golden age, so I revolted back into slavery:



I then proceeded to do a ton of whipping. I wish you could whip multiple units to competition in a city in a turn, as it would make it more painful to take cities like Edessa and Acre for Darrel and NoSpace.

Losses to date:

Dutch Losses

13 Battleships (156,000)
2 Destroyers (16,000)
10 Transports (60,000)
2 Tanks (50,000)
20 Infantry (320,000)
1 Machine Gun (10,000)
3 Cannon (24,000)

City of Rhodes
City of Aleppo
City of Jericho
City of Jaffa

Total: 636,000 Soldiers Dead (Not Including Power From Buildings/Pop)

Allied Losses

6 Battleships (72,000)
3 Destroyers (24,000)
1 Attack Submarine (8,000)
4 Transports (24,000)
8 Marines (144,000)
1 Mech Infantry (30,000)
7 infantry (112,000)

Total: 414,000 Soldiers Dead

The Power Graph:



End Turn.

[oledavy]

Cities only autoraze if they've never grown. You cannot starve a city down so that it autorazes.

Whenever I see a post in my thread from NH, I know I made a mechanics error or he's answering my latest mechanics question

certainly live up to your moniker

[regoarrarr]

I dipped under six banks thanks to city razings, and now cannot complete Wall Street in Jerusalem.

This gave me great joy to read as this happened to me at least 2 or 3 times during our war

[oledavy]

This gave me great joy to read as this happened to me at least 2 or 3 times during our war

Thought you would get a kick out of that

[Tatan]

Halo tangent spoilered for off-topicness...

Just noticed 'Guilty Spark,' I approve

Play the anniversary edition yet? Microsoft sure is milking the series for every penny, but the updated graphics looked sweet and it was very nostalgic for me.

Yeah, I own it; the game is a pure exercise in milking the cash-cow, but I bought it anyway because I only ever owned the PC version of the original and wanted it in console form. Between the cool graphics and the ability to forge on some old favorite maps of mine, I think it was worth it (if expensive).

Errrr....wait.....this is the Civilization Forum!

Well, Realms Beyond as a whole is a variant gaming forum, and Halo has its variants... ever tried playing using only plasma pistols with all skulls on?

Darrell hit the heroic Dutch battleship with four bombers before attacking with the attack submarine commanded by the ruthless Jalaluddin Muhammed Akbar. The sub was sunk when attacking at 90.4% odds, the battleship winning a flawless victory and not even taking a hit. The enraged Egyptians then attacked with their nearby destroyer, sinking the battleship but being themselves brought down to 20 HP (6.0 Health) in the process. Their memory will live on forever as the first Dutch heroes in World War III

Hey, you killed Admiral Ackbar, surely that counts for something!

Is there any super-unit I should be thinking of lurkers?

Apologies if you already covered this in some way, but depending on how many of them you have left you could try joining the GG to a stack of EIs for super cheap upgrading to transports.

How many battleships/destroyers do you have right now overall after the recent fighting, anyway?

Also, lastly, it's been said already but I really appreciate the extensive updates you've been doing. I know from experience that it's not always easy to do while fighting a lopsided war on your own turf. It makes it all the more interesting that this is the first war in an RB game with both sides using a lot of modern-era units (at least, it's the first such war that has been extensively reported on). I could only dream of an end-game naval war with Dutch dikes in PBEM10, it's cool seeing someone finally pull it off!

[NobleHelium]

Apologies if you already covered this in some way, but depending on how many of them you have left you could try joining the GG to a stack of EIs for super cheap upgrading to transports.

You only get free upgrades for the one unit that the GG is attached to. You can't attach it to a stack.

[Tatan]

You only get free upgrades for the one unit that the GG is attached to. You can't attach it to a stack.

I read this comment, went "O RLY?", sifted through Kylerean's PBEM4 thread for a couple minutes to find evidence to the contrary, then found the appropriate sentence, only to realize upon re-reading it that I had totally misunderstood it. Okay, don't listen to me...