jtw@wuee1.wustl.edu (Trent Wohlschlaeger) (06/12/90)
I almost always win at 12, win > 50% at 13, and usually lose at 14 and 15. I always start out with a fighter, then immediately switch to armies until I have most of the cities on my home island conquered. At that point, I assign the first port, or the one with the nearest interior city (to provide armies), to make transports. If I have another port, I make destroyers. Find the nearest island with the fighter, drop a few armies, and just keep going with the transport, exploring as I go. Send the next ship off in another direction, looking for more land. I don't bother filling transports with 8 armies during the exploration phase, and usually drop off only 2 or 3 armies on each new island. Try to get a fighter on each new islands ASAP so you don't waste time wandering around in the wastland at 1 square/day with armies. Nothing pisses me off more than finding out I just walked by 3 cities at a distance of 2, and thus didn't see them, missing out on all that production. Consider this: the longer it takes you to take a city, the later you then get to the NEXT city, and so on. Thus, it behooves you to find and take cities as soon as possible, because this mushrooms for each following city. After the second or third sighting of the enemy, I usually start switching my destroyer ports over to producing carriers. This results in a good naval balance, for me. When I notice that the enemy has a LOT of battleships, I start converting a few ports to create those, myself. I find a ratio of about 2 carrier ports to 1 battleship port to be good. I don't bother with subs, the computer always seems to know exactly where they are. I usually start a single bomber about day 30, and don't usually start another bomber city until about day 70. It's nice to have 1 or 2 0-radius bombers to punch a strategic hole in his defenses. I've found the keys to winning are: 1) As much as possible, out produce him. From comparison with the 2-human game (and observations outlined below), I'd guess that the production rates are halved for the computer (i.e. it only takes him 2 DAYS to make an army.) 1a) spread like a weed. Once you get one city on an island, start planning to move to the next one. Possession is 9/10 of the game. 2) Control the seas. It doesn't make any difference how much he produces if he can't get it to the next island. Flood the seas, as it were, with ships. 3) Once you control the seas, take control of the skies. You'll never land on his islands in force through a cloud of fighters. 4) Never attack an army with an army. What's the point? Your odds are better if HE attacks YOU. Just run by that army, headed for the nearest city. NOW FOR THE BIG SPOILERS, AND DON'T SAY YOU HAVEN'T BEEN WARNED: 1: Blockade his ports. That's right. Just park a ship adjacent to a port square and NO SHIPS WILL LEAVE THE PORT. I start this with destroyers, and then gradually replace them with carriers. Then you can attack his ships IN PORT with fighters based on your carriers AT YOUR LEISURE! 2: Try to get a plane in each of his cities. You can watch his troop movements, and HE CAN'T ATTACK YOU!!! Just move in and stay. When you need to refuel, fly a new plane in and THEN fly the old one out. Note that you'll need a lot of carriers (from spoiler 1) for this. 3: Get more than 2 attacks per ship/fighter!!! Just take the first attack, then Command-B. You can get 3 attacks per ship, and 20 ATTACKS PER FIGHTER PER DAY!!! 4: Get theoretically unlimited attacks from a single fighter! Combine 2 and 3. Move a plane into one of his cities. On his next turn, he will fly all available fighters into that city, but remember, they can't attack. The next turn, just keep Command-B'ing until they all die, or they finally shoot you down defensively. Sure, it's a cheap shot! But then, I didn't write the code, so this must be a feature. This works for killing armies and ships, too. I also like to have a bomber trailing the fighter, so that I suck his entire airforce into a city, and then bomb it the next turn. I counted at least 14 fighters killed with a bomber-0 this way! 5: STRANGE BUT TRUE: if you have a fighter in one of his ports, and that port produces a carrier, the carrier takes your fighter with it and even is so nice as to refuel your fighter! Not very useful, but interesting. Well, have fun, and if you don't like the spoilers, don't use them. Trent a carrier which then leaves the port, then