MEGA Random Game, (Allied Eyes Only)

[Jeffrey H.]

The last turn was good for me, I think the AI throws itself at my AC's and I'm getting good k/d ratios:

[Jeffrey H.]

But to be honest, I'm having a tough time with fuel. All of a sudden, I've gone from swimming in the stuff to conserving every drop. It's those dayam planes I tell ya. I've stoppped all non essential movement of fuel burning vehicles and unfortunately, that has stalled my offensive. I did manage to cut off a portion of the AI army and I'll starve them off slowly over the next few turns.

My engineers are not placed well to upgrade my facilities, so I'm trying to get them placed over the oil wells to upgrade them to the next level. I also have a destroyer screen around the AI's foothold on my land mass. Hopefully, I'll get some relief and be able to move forward next round, we'll see.

Here's a screen shot of the front lines, notice the pocketing of the AI in the Northern section:

[Jeffrey H.]

Turn 26 SITREP:

It's time for an overall view of things. The next series of screenies is a summary of my overall position. In general, things are going well. Except that is for the war against the PR. My fuel stocks went *poof* and my paltry supply network had me completely grounded and walking. Horseflesh never looked so good.

I've now fully discovered the Northen Island that I tripped upon a few turns back. There wre 3 cities on it and all 3 were fully fledged producing cities so, overall I am very, very lucky on initial placement. I'd say this is a huge variable in the starting setups of the various regimes, that is the number of "people friendly" cities which will allow full production of the "owning" regime.

[Jeffrey H.]

In the Central are of the home land mass, the war rages on. I am fighting battles with the PR, an AI regime and it's always got the upper hand. I've been slicing and dicing my way into it's lines but, as I said in earlier posts, the lack of fuel is hampering me in a big way.

I rather foolishly invested in aircraft right away and in the preperations for war stripped my HQ's of PP's to make fighting units. What happened was that I quickly exhausted my fuel supplies and my engineers were building roads and I had no PP's. Bad deal all the way around. You need engineers on oil wells and PP's for them to consume to upgrade your oil facilities. I had none of those things.

The mercenary base I found in the crate has turned out to be decisive. It has allowed me to wage a war on two sides, and do so effectively. Although the mercenaries are not high quality troops, you know what JS said about the quality of quantity.

[Jeffrey H.]

And the overall, I've got about a 10th or so of the world explored and found one major NME. My ally Bob has recently taken his second city and has eyes on the 3rd. We are slowly getting there. Overall, I plan to link up with Bob on an Eastward expansion but for now I have to clear the PR rats off my home land mass, and keep exploring.

[Jeffrey H.]

Oh and one more thing, just NE of the PR AI regime I found another Island where the PR has at least 1 city. In fact, I suspect that it has it's home city on that Island. I was circling around it with transports and destroyers but those have been called home and mothballed for lack of fuel:

[Jeffrey H.]

Turn 36 SITREP:

I've finally pushed the Peoples Republic AI off my home landmass. It was a war of attrition that I won after some harrowing turns of near collapse. I was truly trapped trying to fight and research and make fuel. As others have pointed out, producing synthetic fuel is not an option except for extreme emergencies. It simply doesn't work economically. You're much better off using PP's for upgrading oil wells to level 2 or 3 than making synthetic fuel.

Here's the home land mass, near the NE corner where the final battles agains the PR were waged. Also shown is the PR home island in dark which is next on my list of things to do:

[Jeffrey H.]

The Northern region is a real sucess for me, I've found another isalnd that was virtually uncontested and a few more prospects are on the immdeaite horizon. The problems here are logistics and force balance. Where on the home landmass I'd geared up for a land war of attrition, here I'm seeing a Naval challenge from the 2 AI regimes I've encountered here. I have a small destroyer fleet and that's doing well convoy raiding against the PR scouts I've been encountering, but the sinking feeling I have is that more will be needed soon, if not already. [pun not intended BTW].

That AI regime in the top left is the New Union and the other AI regime with the ships patrolling the straights is unknown to me at this time. They are not hostile and for the time being I'm appreciative of that. The New Union has contested that new island but meekly and I've sent some raiders and scouts to figure out what is there, I've got a very limited force for fighting so I didn't drop them off just yet, I want to know what's hiding in there. Again, the logistics are crimping me. The newly conquered cities are not yet fully producing and the island immediately South has not been developed enough yet to properly serve as a logisitcs support base for continued expansion. The newly conquered lands are lightly defended at best.

[Jeffrey H.]

I do have one trick up my sleeve however....

[Jeffrey H.]

Hehehe, I can't wait to see how these work out against NME shipping. Lastly, here's an overall shot of my place in the world, also showing my ally Bob:

[Jeffrey H.]

Here are some different views of the game as of a few turns ago. Right now we've just completed turn 41 but these were taken a few turns ago.

The island that has the city of Taipei is the PR regime stronghold, it's going to be a very tough nut to crack.

In the North, there is a large empty landmass that the New Union claims, but it essentially undefended. The the NorthWest, there is a small uninhabited island that appears to be empty from naval survelliance.

In the NorthEast, I've stumbled across a fresh island with two oil wells and no AI regime, a stroke of luck this late in the game.

[Jeffrey H.]

This is a production summary of all my cities:

[Jeffrey H.]

...continued:

[Jeffrey H.]

It's been a few turns past turn 48. I'm up against purely owned territories now, I don't think any nuetral areas of significance are left. Here's a few photos. Thisone is at the very tippty-top of the known world, you can see in the right hand side the portion of the map it belongs to:

[Jeffrey H.]

I'd say I've got about 1/4 to 1/3 of the map explored. Several AI regimes have been contacted. I'm only in one real shooting war right now and that's with the old nemesis, the People's Republic. They are much tougher than I first thought.

This shot is just South of the previous one, you can see some newly discovered coast lines of AI regimes and a pic of the uninhabited island to the left side which I am taking control of. It appears to be completely empty right now.

[Jeffrey H.]

Moving on, this shot is just South of the one above. You can see that island I took from the New Union as well as the blob of a place that is empty but owned byt them. That patch of rubble was a crate that I tripped upon that turned out to be a regime. I split and left them alone to pester the New Union, heh.

[Jeffrey H.]

And this one is just East of the one above, you can see my exploratory destroyer in the top left. Since I've been building many ships, the world has been explored by greater and greater amounts.

Bases are established, engineers shipped in, ports constructed and HQ's are created and transferred. This way I can continue to expand and hopefully when necessary, bring in a good fight in a hurry when needed.

[Jeffrey H.]

Moving just South from the last one, you can see the last empty island I found, it had nocities but it did have a couple of oil wells and a raw materials source. I decided to colonize it and use it as a base for further logistical support of the effort moving east.

Also, in the top right section, there is an island-ette that I've affectionately titled "channel islands". Ive taken them and begun to transfer some aircraft to them for use as a forward base against some of the AI regimes on that extended coastline.

I will eventually invade that coast but the logisitcs and invasion force simply aren't there at the moment.

[Jeffrey H.]

Then on the main thorn in my foot right now, the AI regime known as the PR. The isnald to the top right is a single city island that I stubled across many turns ago. I've completely circumnavigated it and establish a clandestine base with my engineers. Next I'll shuttle over some of the veterans of the first PR wars and seek to engage the enemy on this island. I need to take the island and it's city for continued Eastern expansion.

Also, you can see the PR's island fortress of Taipei. It's got loads of troops with supporting arms. No aircraft and no ships however. I've established a group of aribases in a tiny peninsula just of the bottom left of this shot, from there I am using my LevelBomber III's to pound these guys.

[Jeffrey H.]

On to the next discovery, more PR cities ! Scattered all over the bottom of the map from as far East as my destroyers can travel. I'll have my hands full for some time with these guys.