Belize - When you've had enough

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Leafgreen
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Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

SR2020U
Global Crises
World Volatility - High (lower and no wars, higher and things get crazy)
Game Settings - Military Difficulty set to Very Hard (smarter unit AI)
Military Settings - default
Scenario Settings - Electricity sales turned off

I thought about using St Kitts instead, but that would actually be easier for my play style. The US loves them and the tiny one tile nations have around 11k military personnel.

I am playing on a 3 year old desktop, and at work on a newer tablet I bought from Amazon for $100. Remember that windows sucks up a lot of that storage and ram also. Game still runs fine, never had it crash or glitch but it will run slower than my desktop of course, if I get LoS with a lot of countries/launch recon sats.

Nextbook Flexx 10.1
•10.1" touchscreen
•1.83GHz Intel Atom Z3735F processor
•32GB of storage memory
•2GB DDR3L of system memory

I am using Irfanview for screenshots, paint for easy editing, irfanview for trickier editing, photobucket for a place to store them online.
Last edited by Leafgreen on Jun 11 2016, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

Belize!

Perhaps you do not know where we are, let me read you some of our tourism pamphlet. Once known as British Honduras, we are a fun loving country of 270,000 people with English as our main language, we were a british crown colony until 1981 and use the English law system. Our neighbor Guatemala still claims that we are part of their nation because the british did not build a promised road between Belize City and Guatemala.

As you can see by my portrait I am proud to own one of the 6 suits in the country and you can see our strong military fortress left to us by the british. It contains an air field for kite flying, a sea pier for cruise ships to use, a barracks for the maintenance staff and a fine tourist attraction! Almost everyone in the world loves Belize and you will too!

Finally I will leave you with a picture of our main city and the Capital Building at the end of the dock.

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Last edited by Leafgreen on Jun 12 2016, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

*Phone rings in the Capital Hut*

Mayor Leaf - Hello?
American Consulate - Ah yes, is this Belize?
Mayor Leaf - But of course!
American Consulate - Good. I want to order two BBQ pork hoagies, a ceasar salad and two iced teas.
Mayor Leaf - We are a country, not a deli!
American Consulate - Haha, I keep forgetting - you haven't researched how to make bread or light fires yet. Someday if you're very good we'll teach you! *Hangs up*

Mayor Leaf - That's it. We don't even rate a full embassy, just a consulate. And they prank call me every week... NO MORE!! You - gather my staff!!!
Cleaning Lady - Jefe? You have no staff... you want me to clean under couch, yes?
*Leaf facepalms and walks out*

--------------------------------------------

*Downtown Belmopan*

Mayor Leaf - You, are we related?
Delivery Boy - Yes mayor, you are the uncle of my second cousin's wife.
Mayor Leaf - Never mind.

Mayor Leaf - Sir, are we related?
Panhandler - Aren't you my step-brother's cousin-in-law?
Mayor Leaf - Yes, yes, of course, I remember seeing you at the wedding. Never mind...

Mayor Leaf - Hello, are we related?
Janitor - Nyet? Who are you?
Mayor Leaf - FINALLY, somebody in the city I am not related to. I am the Mayor and I want to know who you are, I may have a job for you.
Janitor - I am Russian sailor, they get me drunk and throw me off ship when we dock here three years ago. Is prank I think...
Mayor Leaf - No longer. Now you are the Lead... Head of... General... I want you to run my military and advise me. You pick the title, I can't think of one.
Janitor - You call me Komandarm Arkady Sidorov Nikolayevich? I get dacha too?
Mayor Leaf - um.. How about I just call you General. And I'm sure I can find a Dachshund for you.
General Arkady - Da!

Mayor Leaf - Hello, are we related?
Grade School Science Teacher - No? I teach here, why are you barging into the school office.
Mayor Leaf - I am the leader of this great nation! And I am looking for a science advisor. Tell me, do you know how to make bread?
Grade School Science Teacher - Of course!
Mayor Leaf - Do you know how to make nuclear cruise missiles?
Grade School Science Teacher - Of course not!
Mayor Leaf - Never mind, you will learn. I am claiming eminent domain, needs of the country, impressed into service, whatever. You are now the head of Science and Technology for the nation!
Grade School Science Teacher - Oh yay, and here I thought my Monday was going to be boring.

Mayor Leaf - You, are we related?
Ex-girlfriend - I sure hope not! You don't remember who I am?!!?11?
*SLAP*

Mayor Leaf - I think I need a bandage, do you sell those?
Shopkeeper - 2nd aisle on the right, try not to bleed on my floor too much.
Mayor Leaf - Ah, here they are. Tell me... you know about making money and such things?
Shopkeeper - I'm still open, so I guess so. But I don't have a golden toilet or a butler.
Mayor Leaf - Hmm.. a better question, are we related?
Shopkeeper - Don't think so.
Mayor Leaf - You will do. I am making you the new Economic Advisor for all of Belize!
Shopkeeper - Does that mean I get a tax break?
Mayor Leaf - No! Yes? That type of thing is decided by the Economic Advisor I would guess...
Shopkeeper - *drools* Yes, I guess I could do the job if you insist...

------------------------------

Mayor Leaf - Aha! Now I have a full staff and we are not related, so the United Nations can not complain about any nepotism or family dictatorship type thing.
Science Advisor - You mean a Monarchy?
Mayor Leaf - .... Have you found out how to make a nuclear cruise missile yet?
Science Advisor - Of course not, I am still waiting for my dial-up internet to load the first page. And it's not that simple...
General - брехня. What troops do I have available?
Mayor Leaf - We have 3 partisans.
General - Air Force?
Mayor Leaf - I think there is helicopter that gives tours of the old military base that we turned into a park.
General - Navy?
Mayor Leaf - Um... We have 2 or 3 very strong rowboats that are docked at the cruise ship dock.
General - Get rid of them all. GET RID OF THEM! And shut down that dock/air field, we are wasting money on them.
State Advisor - But... we rent out the air field to goat herders for grazing, and we make money from the cruise ships that dock there!
General - All I need is a barracks...
Mayor Leaf - So.. can we make nuclear cruise missiles YET?
Science Advisor - Still loading the first page I'm afraid.
Mayor Leaf - A good start at least. I guess. Shopkeeper, get this country making mass amount of money! I want a chicken in every pot, a dog in every yard, etc. School Teacher, get us technology! I suggest wireless internet to start with. Komandarm, get me tanks and guns and things that go boom. Lots of them!
State Advisor - Don't we need a diplomat to go out and manage our affairs with other nations?
Mayor Leaf - How hard can it be?
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

And time for the starting basics.

US and Brazil hate Belize. The rest of central and south America like belize a lot, Europe and Africa are a mixed bag. You have no income really, no military, 1 air field/sea pier/barracks, technology to make world war 1 era units. Before even unpausing the game I do the basics and i'll run through them for people new to the game.

Right to Left -

Defense. Lock out the minister from garrison control, custom priority to increase reserve personnel, global rules of engagement lock out minister control/missile auto accept/apply to all, and I scrap every unit I have. They won't me against anything anyhow.
Defense Production - alert condition/allow use of nuclear weapons, fabrication options/missile autobuild off.
Research - Lock the minister out of everything, max the research spending, and start researching Modern Environment Control. Weapons (including land) is sort of tied into air force base technology, and right now I don't even know how to pressurize a plane cabin. That means not only can I not make any real planes, I can't even trade for the blueprints for them.
Resources - who cares. I have almost no population, we don't make anything, they use almost nothing, and the minister can buy stuff we need for now.
Finance - last day trades/switch to dollars, lock minister out of bonds/contruction, custom priorities to increase infrastructure (your supply everywhere) and law enforcement (stops guerrillas). I don't care about taxes or income yet because there is nothing and nobody really to tax. I'll be making all the cash myself through trades.

I'm not building anything (I don't even have one tile with roads on it!) because there is no money for it. It's all about diplomacy at first.

First I'll do diplomacy. Since I basically have nothing I'll be trading techs to countries even more backwards than I am in exchange for some very very bad unit designs. Africa, then Africa again, SE asia, central America for the most part until I get a decent number of techs/land unit designs to trade with the bigger and more advanced nations for things the smaller nations don't have. I mostly live in the Map - Population and Commodities Filter - Diplomatic Relations overlay. You could try to go through all the countries and raise relations by getting more treaties, but I really think that takes a while to affect how they like you. And I want to use what little buying power I have to get more buying power instead for now. The newer a technology or design is, the more it is worth - for units 4 green dots is cutting edge, 3 lighter green dots is almost modern, 2 orange dots is outdated, 1 red dot is something to be scrapped - and for technology the newer the more expensive it is to research, each tech has a price listed in the detailed screen for it.

First trade - Zambia. 3 techs worth 2b for 4 bad designs worth 200m. Angola, the same. Ethiopia, Sudan, Madagascar, etc, the same. I don't care if they now know how to make 1937 era artillery or 1957 era tanks - they'll never have more than 1 research slot. Saint Lucia, Grenadines are tiny islands next to Cuba with no unit designs but some very basic cheap techs - I trade for those. Yemen, Oman, Bahrain have no designs but some cheap techs I trade for. I go back to Africa and trade more techs/designs to Mozambique for $600m, now I have a little bit of cash to barter with for the more expensive techs too. When it comes to trading for money or buying something with cash remember that the AI changes it's values each day and that trades take a bit to go through. If you offer 8 designs to somebody and they say acceptable, it might not be acceptable the next day when they actually make the decision - personally I always try to trade 8 or 20 or whatever for cash, THEN throw in an extra design to make sure it goes through. By the middle of February I have all the techs that can be traded, all the unit designs worth having or decent for trading, and $5b in the bank.

Also when trading other nations will only want to trade a certain percentage of their oil, or their cash, etc. If they only have 6b they might refuse a trade no matter what you offer if you try to take 2b of that. And some things are worth more than others. Techs... not much. Unit designs are worth more, cash is worth a even more. You might trade 20b in techs where you could buy it with 1b in cash. Some nations are just stingy. Egypt, Ukraine, France, china come to mind, you'll never get a fair deal with that them. Some countries like Canada and Australia seem to actually give a fairer deal. Save Russia, US, England for the very last as they probably have a few techs that other countries don't.

Next I'll make treaties. If they are yellow (3 dots) or better I can usually get away with 3 treaties at a time but sometimes you just have to do it one treaty at a time or throw in a unit design to sweeten the pot. If they have 5 green stars (friendly) I might be able to get away with everything I want in one trade. Red... they might not even do any treaties at all no matter how many extras I throw in. And you can never add anything to make a formal alliance go through - either they will or they won't.

There is a certain order of easiest to hardest treaties to get and I'm sure I'm wrong but pretty close. You already have an Embassy with everyone. Then Free Trade (better rates on trades) -> Free Flow of Labor (helps your unemployment level) -> Criminal Extredition (Just a feel good treaty) -> Full Transit (Why bother with them one at a time unless you are REALLY micromanaging) -> Line of Sight (may slow down the game a tiny bit, but I know by looking if I can see their units, I have all treaties with them already) -> Formal Alliance. Formal alliance contains non-aggression pact, line of sight, full transit in it but rarely will anyone want to ally. You just have to get as many treaties as possible, keep your unit production facilities low (I honestly think even having deactivated ones matter) and don't declare any wars. Then wait and wait.

If they will not do a formal alliance you can do the rest to help relations over time. Missile defense is a no-brainer, nobody will throw nukes first except for you anyhow. Mutual Defense... be careful with that one, you can get drug into a war - or if you say no to your ally under attack your treaty integrity will take a hit. Non-aggression pact, why not? There are exceptions to all of these if you are looking at them as a target. But even if some tiny nation is worthless to you NOW, it could be *THE* place you need 2 years away as a refueling point for your planes and ships, or a launching point to invade somewhere else.

My way of going through them all is tedious but works for me. I'll pause the game and go through every country I want to like me and make what treaties I can. Unpause, wait for them to reply. Then open each message and go to that country and get the next treaty. Right now I have 68 countries who accepted treaties and I don't want to miss a half dozen from being too unorganized. The colors (how well they like me) didn't really change, but it is easy to see who has how many units, where they are, where they are going, and who I have treaties with now. When I finish with all the treaties it is mid March. Still nobody will ally with me which leaves me with giving them deals very lopsided in their favor over and over, or just waiting. Since I'm a little country i'll wait a while.


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Last edited by Leafgreen on Jun 11 2016, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

*3 months later*

Mayor Leaf - So... how are we doing?
Science Advisor - We know know how to make bread, have wireless internet, can make nuclear reactors for vessels, have some great dark matter and stem cell research going on. I have traded for as much technology as we can use but right now we just have to research some things ourselves. I want to build 5 Research Centers.
Mayor Leaf - So... you can put nuclear reactors on our rowboats and fill them full of genetically altered marines, but no Nuclear cruise missiles?
Science Advisor - ...
General - Sir! China just declared war on India! We must support one side. I think we should condemn their action and make India happier with us.
Mayor Leaf - Noted, I support that.
State Advisor - Now that we have money, I want to build a power plant. Coal is the cheapest and fastest, but then we'll have to import coal. And I suggest some roads to connect all our cities and connect to the border of Guatemala so they'll stop trying to take us over.
Mayor Leaf - Excellent!
State Advisor - And I want to buy back all of our debt.
Mayor Leaf - I guess it couldn't hurt.
Science Advisor - Mayor... How on Earth did you get so many treaties done with so many countries so fast?
Mayor Leaf - Simple! I took a bottle of rum with me and dated the secretary of each country's policymaker. They hold the real power.
State Advisor - I notice that the US, Brazil, Belarus, Ukraine, China hate us still. Strike out?
Mayor Leaf - They had male secretaries. But that brings up a good point, we need a patron. Someone very advanced, very large, very powerful, and rich. And like you said, the US and Brazil both despise us.
State Advisor - France seems to like us.

*Entire rooms laughs*

Mayor Leaf - But seriously, they like us but still demand a very high price for anything in trades. The UK isn't much better, China hates us.
General - Is simple. Mother Russia.
Mayor Leaf - Well, they DO like us a lot. Done, I'll try to establish closer ties with them and hope they don't do something silly in Europe and eastern Asia at the same time.
General - When do I get tanks? Bombers? Submarines?
Mayor Leaf - Soon. First we needs some allies and I'll bribe them into permanently loaning us some 'military advisor' units.
State Advisor - But we don't have the troops or even food to support a large army!
Mayor Leaf - That's the beauty of it. The 'military advisor' troops will man the units, and we'll send them off to Guatemala or Mexico for training exercises and they can pay for all the support.
General - Brilliant! Now we just need a target...
Mayor Leaf - I have some in mind. But right now I think it is time for a nap while everybody gets rich and decides they want to be our friend. Then we can trade for those riches and pick some longterm allies.
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

I traded tech and land designs to people with lots of cash, making sure to try and avoid any selling to people I will later trade for units. And I trade nuclear weapon tech to nobody. Once I had 120b in the bank I went unit shopping.

Once you have a Mutual Defense treaty (but be careful who you sign them with!) you can see their units in reserve. The best countries I've found have few techs or designs, a lot of units in reserve, and don't demand a million dollars for a popsicle. Poland, Netherlands, France (if you can afford their prices), Russia/US of course (if you can afford their prices), Chile, Argentina, Columbia, Venezuela. Australia, Taiwan, South Korea are great for ships but have few land units in reserve. I've never been liked enough by India, Pakistan, Ukraine or China to get a mutual defense treaty with them.

I'm shipping all my units from Europe to Caracas, Venezuela first. Merchant marines love to dump the unit on the first tile you have a transit agreement with which can leave them all over the place, some places you can't even get to without a transport ship of your own. Units from South America I'm just telling to drive up since I have full transit with all of Central America and most of South America. I am not trading for any type of air force as getting them home would be a problem and they can't take land. Right now I have about 300 land units - half infantry, about 1 tank/5 infantry, about 25 air defense and the rest mobile artillery. No transports, anti-tank, recons but I won't need them. Only half of my infantry is amphibious and all units are 3 or 4 dot but they are very mismatched and not as reliable as I would like so I will lose a good number of them in any conflict. I also bought 20 very pricey but very good escort ships, mostly from Australia but a few from Russia. I now have enough troops to take over Mexico if I want to, or all of Central America (but entire world would hate me with that many DoWs). But I have a different target in mind.

Everything is parked in Mexico and my daily profit/loss is about -250m which includes trading for the industrial goods needed to build 12 research labs. I currently have a 130,000 strong military but my bank is down to 10b, which I will have to fix before any wars - I'm guessing 150b before I do a DoW and the world hates me. Meanwhile in August 2021 there are multiple alliances happening every day but only the one war still going on, India and China with no winner. And the world is very poor, nations that were once well off are broke, nations that were once very rich have maybe 20b in the bank.

Another big issue when I take over any country is my horrible tech base. The power grid alone will cause a giant problem, there are a couple of basic power grid techs that double your power output? efficiency? that I just don't have and you can't trade for them. Add in the industrial goods to rebuild damaged structures, having to actually supply my own units afterwards and 150b might not even be enough to last me until they world likes me enough to do trades again.
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

End of September 2021 and i'm getting bored and the world is becoming even more poor, plus elections are in 7 months. Time to get ready for go time. =)

Increase unit readiness, increase efficiency, stockpile military resources, trade for as much cash as I can, move units into position. If a country does not have cash i'll do 90 day trades for goods.

I managed to increase my treasury to 70b but there isn't any more money to take. My first half dozen research labs will be done at the end of October which gives me 30 days. Last step is to buy 100 2 dot recons and infantry, anything fast and mobile and put them in reserve. Thankfully I traded 15b in designs to Poland and got 65 of them right there, the only allies I have made so far are Chile, Netherlands and Poland.

-------------------------

I went to work, my tablet runs the game slower so I try to keep the fun stuff to do there. Irfanview was only taking desktop screenshots though so I don't have any for this battle.

South Africa. Lots of Uranium, 45m population, a little bit of oil, far from any real enemies. Mexico would have gave me a border with US (bad), taking all of central America would have meant a dozen DoW (bad), Australia has uranium AND oil, but only 25m population.

End of September, I bought 100 2 star recon/infantry, shipped them home and put them in reserve. Then made Mozambique an ally and gave all those units to them for free. One month to ship them home, 2 months to ship to Mozambique. Once those units got to Mozambique I locked all resources so the AI wouldn't trade for more at ruinous prices and bankrupt me (I have large stockpiles already), broke all treaties with SA (supposedly less of a diplomatic hit if you severe all ties with your target first, but I've never seen a difference) and went to war.

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(yes, it says texas. I just ran a random country and started a game to get the pre-war map for a screenshot)

In the NW I had a single lonely infantry run across the border and back fast, before planes could get there. Sure enough 40 tanks came to investigate and drove around that horribly low supply area. But.... SA had transit treaties and came at me from multiple sides, killing the poor little infantry. Still, it did it's job very well.

While tanks were chasing the infantry around my ships attacked Capetown and the base next to it in the SW. Ship attacks don't draw land units that I've seen, and soon everything close to the water was down to only partisans. My main force of about 200 landed in capetown and took a small area around it, then waited for the captured city to start pumping out supply and for the rest of the enemy to counterattack. Sure enough, dozens of those cursed Oliphant II came and hordes of pesky little recons nibbling at the land I'd taken. Ship bombardments and my land units holding ground sent them running and if there was a large stack of them damaged I would sortie out to finish them, then pull back again. A few times I just sent them all to repair - not the best way, but the full health units popped right back out again.

Units allied with SA started to arrive now, Sweden and Slovakia and a half dozen other countries. SA LOVES to make instant alliances if attacked. My real force in the NE moved in with no opposition and started taking all the cities outside the Pretoria complex, while Mozambique sent recons around to take the non-city land. By now SA has no units left but their allies are all over the place. My larger force in the SW starts to move east along the coast taking all cities and leaving a small force of 3-4 in each, regaining supply, moving to the next city with ships supporting them.

Now it's time for the last push and I throw all of the main force at the Pretoria area, I'm loving Mozambique now as they hold all the ground I've taken in the NE. Units with a dozen different flags are approaching and...

Colony, Liberate, Annex?

My bank is at 25b, I have lost 45 units out of 300 (very sloppy war) and it is the beginning of March. I send ALL units into reserve and hit the dreaded Theater - repair all facilities button and watch my bank drop down to 452m, then climbs back up to 30b as I sell off every unit not 4 dot to Canada. At the end I have a positive income (for now, until I run out of Consumer goods stockpiled), Canada likes me again, Poland and Mozambique love me, and I drop oil/agriculture/consumer good/timber prices to 0% and taxes down to 25% - just squeaking by the election in April. The rest of my research centers come online at the same time (12 now) and I scrap all of the air base, sea ports and production facilities. About 600 units of 20 different nations are in-country, no telling which side they came to fight for but odds are it wasn't for me.

Now to be quiet and good for 6 months, a year, 2 years while I learn some basic techs, people stop hating me as much, I build roads and slooooowly more facilities. 80% of my problems come from trying to build too much too fast. =)

Oh, and Brazil lost their election and the government changed. Now they love me.

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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

(yes, thread is messy. i'll make it pretty on the weekends)

China vs India war ended in mid 2023, no winners and china only lost a little bit of worthless land. I have yet to see any 'tensions increase alert level' messages and no other wars. If I did not record it I wouldn't believe this is High level of hostility.

July 2024 and I have just rolled out my first batch of F/A 18F fighters and Lav-25 Bison. Delta III subs are also in production. They don't hold as many missiles as the Ohio class, but they are almost twice as fast and I can't make Ohios yet **edit I must need glasses, the Ohio are faster. I sold the 4 Delta III I had made**. I finally researched Power Grid II (1934 tech!) and still have III, IV, V to research. Each take about 2 years and give +50% to all power output. Currently researching Naval Force '70, Common Missiles (have all nuclear techs researched) Satellites, Free Electron Laser (next tech is fusion, then cold fusion (+100% output to fusion reactors)), just finished Air Force Production '43. My land units are in the 1980s range now. Belize starts out as #49 in tech, I am up to #24 and have 14 research labs running + 6 more under construction. Self-sufficient (finally!) in everything but not making a profit yet unless I stopped researching/building units. I am not trading Uranium to anyone, stockpiling it for missiles later on.

My current production is 20/10/2. Lav-25 Bison, F/A 18-F, Sierra III. And that (*#& ally Mozambique I gave 100 units to? They had a government change and are hostile, I am VERY glad I am pumping out land units finally!
Bonus thing about the Bison and F/A 18F, I can sell those to Canada for good money if I need to. I am also making a couple of Candid-C just for trading to Canada. All of the miscellaneous units have left my country now but spies from a dozen countries are spotted.


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Units I CAN build but should not be able to given my techs? Land and Naval seem spot on, Air... F/A 18 E, F. IF-1 Wren, Mig 23-IIR Flogger, JH-7A Flounder, SU-25KM Scorpion, L-195A-Aero, J-10 Jian, J-10N Jian, Mig-35 OVT Fulcrum, F-16C Falcon Block 60, Nimrod AS4 ASW, A310 MRTT, IL-76 MF Candid-C, A-400M Airlifter, TU-300 ANTK, Yun-8YU yunshi ju-8U, Hong-8 H-8
"That's O'neill, with two l's"
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Leafgreen
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

May 2026.

I finally finish Jet Airframes II. After that I purchase all the missile technology up to ICBM and Missile Silos. Fully self-sufficient on everything and I have locked uranium so I can auto-buy all uranium on the market. Every game seems to be slightly different but I have finally entered the 'Golden Years' where I can go a little crazy on building and buying techs, meanwhile selling Lav-25 Bison, F/A-18F and Candid-C to Canada for big bucks. If Canada has over 100B in the treasury they will pay 28-33b for each plane, and up to 3b for each Lav. When Canada gets too low on cash, they just go deeper into debt. =)


May 2028.

I'm at the stage where unemployment is constantly low, around 2.3%-2.8% but I have so much easy cash available that it doesn't matter much. I still can't use/buy normal missiles or planes, but I am currently researching fusion tech and power grid upgrade III (still 1940's tech) and building coal plants because you can NEVER have enough power. I'll go straight from coal to fusion when I can. Current build capacity is 50/15/15/24 which is a little light on ground units and very light on missiles, but I still don't have 'good' units to produce. Ranked #7 in tech. If I can be patient enough for the next level in unit designs i'll be ready for world conquering, meanwhile I'm building SLBM.

Current Units -

Infantry - Bison (Canadian) eh
Tank - Leopard 2a3 (german) eh
Arty - Lar 160 (Israeli) eh
AA - MiM 104 Patriot (American) eh
Transport - Transportpanzer (german) best in the game I think

Multi-role - F/A 18-F (American) good, for now
Strategic - B1b Lancer (American) okay for now
Awacs - JSTARS (American) good, for now
Transort - Cossack (Russian) best in the game I think

Subs - Ohio (American) eh
Escort - Sovremennyy (Russian) eh
Transport - Sacramento (American) and Nanyun (Russian) good for now

SLBM - Serb (Russian) best in the game I think
NLCM - Gyser (worldwide) best in the game I think
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Leafgreen
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

2029

Tired of having low population and unemployment, I've been good all week long. Time to take over Mozambique!

Simple little war. Run 2 stacks of ships up the coast and annihilate anything in a coastal city, backing them up with 3 stacks of F-18s. Whatever is left, just run some Bison with F-18 support at them.

Zero losses. The war was so short I decided to go west and take over their neighbor too, now I have 88 million population. Didn't even stop to repair between wars. Universally hated except by Poland and Canada but I have 300 nukes so not terribly worried about it, I could lay waste to America and Europe. Starting to build fusion plants (so expensive!) but still researching air force '79 tech, that is really holding me back from any unit upgrades. I think the days of profitable sales to Canada are almost over so the next few days will be building a solid base of consumer goods + supporting materials. Currently ranked #2 in tech, have 60/15/15/48 for production but I have cash trouble.

I ran the game as Belize 3x before this and by now I always had Zumwalt, Gerald Ford, F-35 CV, Mist Tygers, Satan-3, etc not only researched but built. Plus no debt, positive cash flow. This time I have 200k+ extra power, 1 trillion in debt, way behind on units. Makes it different at least, not so easy this time around. Before I always got to the point where I could see taking over the world would be pretty easy and restarted, trying to make it harder.

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Leafgreen
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

Boring time the last few days on the tablet while at work, watching the ticks slowly go by for a year. Finally I was able to unlock Air Force '79 and then buy a few of the follow-up techs, now I can do some serious plane design trading. Starting to launch Commo sats and have Fusion Power unlocked but so expensive I never seem to find the extra cash for the time needed to build them. Plus I researched Nano-something, I upgraded all of my Industrial/Consumer/Military factories to advanced this year and tore down the old ones.

Another year on the tablet, full day at work. Unlocked... Modern Military Advances 3? 5? 7? Something like that and bought a half dozen techs it unlocked, now my cup runneth over with design upgrades. Also researched Cold Fusion and become ranked #1 in tech. Sold ALL of my military to Canada and bought all the designs I could find, sold those to Canada and had just enough to pay the U.S. for the designs I wanted. 730 BILLION dollars worth, leaving me with almost nothing and an entire military to rebuild. But I do have 11 commo sats and 100% coverage, 6 recon sats and 50% coverage (recons slow my game down on the table, 50% is fine) but still 4 years away from SDI sats. No SDI, no ballistic attacks so I am still (in theory) weak to multiple wars by powerful countries. Canada would have the strongest military on the planet now except they keep selling units, they try to board MM at Ottawa and... go boom. =) Here goes another year while I rebuild my military....

Again running into low unemployment, so time to take over somebody large near me... Tanzania! I had pre-positioned units next to them but had to wait a few months for more power plants to come online, meanwhile watching mass amounts of merchant marines sail past to them. I HATE MERCHANT MARINES! Makes researching, building, using transports worthless and they are way too powerful. I kept watching 3-4 MM stray into my sea zones next to a stack of 5 Zumwalt/2 Michigan loaded with good missiles and damaging them so bad I would have to send them for repairs. Or just flatout destroying one of my ships. After going through that cycle a few times I just pulled my navy back and let the OP MM do whatever they wanted.

A stationary small row of combat stacks (4 inf / 2tank) with AA and arty support behind them on the left side of the river, a larger force on the right near the coast with a combat stack that would dash in and capture the enemy village, then retreat. 3 stacks of Zumwalt/BBN Michigan/a CVN Gerald Ford to give me seaborne artillery and 4 stacks of F-35 CV. Combat stack takes their city and they come to take it back, ships pound them until almost dead and they retreat, my planes go finish them off. Meanwhile 150 line units in reserve just in case I completely misjudged this fight.

They had almost 1,000 units... far far more than I expected from a country that is poor with a 2/0/0/0 build capacity. But I saw a lot of French units in their military so I am guessing that is who they were buying from. Oh yeah, they made an alliance with Italy to get help - but too late.

I lost 1 unit. His initial swarm of outdated Fishbed fighters all had missiles and shot together at a Zumwalt before my F-35s destroyed his air force.

Mexico declared war on me, but did nothing else. I only have 3 stacks of tanks/infantry in Belize.

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I doubled down and decided to take out Malawi too. Why not? They have about 18 million population, no unit production, no military at all, 4 cities. I divided my Tanzania combat units into 3 forces and pushed forward, pretty easy.

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Current Units -

Infantry - FCS-W
Tank - M1a4
Short range arty - M1211 125mm Mortar
Long range arty - 9K62
Anti-air - S-500
Stationary transport for LR arty/aa - M-8
Transport - Transportpanzer

Multi-Role - F-35C CV Lighting II JSF
Strategic - B1b Lancer
Awacs - JSTARS
Transport - Cossack

Carrier - CVN Gerald Ford
Capital Ship - BBN Michigan
Escort - DDG-1000 Zumwalt
Subs - Ohio
Transport - Sacramento and Nanyun

And the nuclear options available.

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Just a note with all power upgrades researched including cold fusion (only power option I don't have yet is dark matter). I've seen discussions on forums comparing them all but Coal is hands down the winner. Even IF cold fusion is doubling fusion power output (which I am not seeing), Coal takes 1/7 the industrial goods, 1/35 the cash, 1/3 the time to build, 1/14 the upkeep and gives half the power of Fusion. Rough ballpark... 1 coal mine can support 4 coal power plants and has the same cost, upkeep, time to make. And it's low tech.

Side note, I have NOT researched any of the nuclear power tech upgrades since I was going to go straight from coal to fusion originally. If a tech isn't useful to me I am not researching this time around like Clean Coal Technology (-10% coal power output, -10% pollution) since I have over 200 coal plants.

Power, Coal - 80 days to make, upkeep $59m, Output 381k MWh.
Power, Fusion - 220 days to make, upkeep $814m, Output 762k MWh
Power, Antimatter - 235 days to make, upkeep $914m, Output 991k MWh
Last edited by Leafgreen on Jun 23 2016, edited 1 time in total.
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Leafgreen
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

Mexico wanted a war, they'll get one. I was looking for more oil resources and I don't want to attack northern Africa, middle east, Venezuela, Australia and open up a new front. Mexico has some tasty spots and we're already at war.

Silly Mexico gave me time to build a barracks, sea port and air base there and move forces. 12 of my research labs are there so if would have been a hard hit if they had actually attacked. Mexico has no allies as usual and my only worry is if Canada decides to 'help' me - I only want to advance and hold ground up to the red line. No way do I want a border with the U.S.

After this I will have the option of advancing south into Central America, or north into Africa. Both options mean a lot of war declarations with little in return except empty land or hungry populations, I'll still have to build power and goods for all of them. Looks like I am firmly stuck with 2 theaters now to defend and patrol.

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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

Mexico has 6/0/0/2 build capacity and they have been throwing waves of Merkava-4 cutting edge tanks at me. I had to repair my ground troops holding the line so often I was starting to get worried, but then the attacks tapered off after I killed 150 units and Mexico did their 3rd incredibly stupid thing.

1 - declare war on me
2 - never move a unit across the border to actually attack my lightly held land
3 - now that I have beaten off their attack and thinking about starting to take their land, they just offered me peace.

Get Out of War Free card, i'll save that offer until I take the land I want.

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A week later and another wave of Mark 4 Merkava I remember that the peace offer will only last 30 days. Doh! I didn't bring the large numbers of troops and artillery needed for a large, fast, grab and hold land type war. Having to push my troops faster and harder than I like and if I put units everywhere needed to hold land I won't have enough to take land. A few times Mexico slipped a recon unit between stacks of out of supply units and I didn't get all the area I wanted - but I took the oil area and the northern/eastern coasts.

7 units lost, 281 Mexican units killed (2 patrol boats, 3 planes is all I met), 210k military casualties and 160k m3 land seized. A lot of agriculture and oil production, not much population or anything else. Going to be messy defending that but hopefully their economy takes a serious nosedive for a while. After building more wells, I am making around +1.5m bbl/day. So around $500-700M/day in extra I can trade.

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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by Leafgreen »

Noticed something game-changing that I missed and my strategy is very different now. I am years ahead of everyone else research-wise and kept getting techs with sweet units. Yet for some reason I thought 'multiple' would include me but it never does. Ever. Only 'worldwide' units do. I passed up buying the M1a5 design and stuck with my M1a4's and FCS-W (like the bison better) and kept waiting for this or that tech so I could upgrade them all.

Soo... I put all research except GDI sats and laser AA on hold, bumped my production capacity from 60/15/15/48 to 100/15/15/48, lost an election and researched/started spamming the Crow apc that's been available for years. Fast, long range, lasers so it has an 80 combat time but not amphibious or air droppable. 44 day build time, can chew up any infantry it sees and hold it's own vs tanks.

I now see that it doesn't matter what I research, i'll always be behind. So I have to take out the major powers or at least their ability to produce new units in any quantity and then sell them, taking out their research capability would be nice also. 6 carrier groups, 4 more gun groups, 120 F-35, 1200 THAAD-erint/Crow/9k62/transportpanzen later I am set for some serious wars. Laser AA around my vital areas at home, 3 GDI sats up so far, all of my M1a4 and FCS-W in reserve and I am breaking even on cash. Lots of power, lots of oil, lots of nukes on my deployed boomers - I went back through all the research I had queued and took a hard look at what would actually benefit me.

Laser cannons, advanced naval weapons, dark matter warheads, antimatter warheads, electro magnetic guns... those were almost finished. Cancelled, of zero use to me. Bipedal can continue because I get one recon out of it, ion burst tech chain can continue, I think I get a hover infantry from it or phaser cannons. Still going through the list but that might be it except for a helicopter. And some more Soft/Hard defense bonuses.

US just started deploying the M2020a tank which is better than anything I can build anywhere in my research tree. Time to take them out.

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Had a better but much riskier idea on the drive home. Colonize the U.S.
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JollyGoodBork
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Re: Belize - When you've had enough

Post by JollyGoodBork »

Oh. The U and the S.
This will be interesting

Honestly there should be a way to allow global techs if you wanted to play a more sandbox game.
I don't think I would use it, but many others would.

I'll follow this AAR, you're very detailed and know how to use screenshots. So yeah, keep up the good work!
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