So it appears that my path to domination is finally clear. Ten turns from now, Modern Armors will swarm over Carthage, who is still two techs away from the Modern Age and would then have to get Computers to get Mechanized Infantry. Once Carthage is done, a huge airlift (to Berlin, hah) will use those same armors to destroy Scandinavia. The Zulu can be taken after that - they've been in wars forever and are six techs behind. And that should be enough for domination without having to invade Fortress Ottoman.
But then Carthage and Scandinavia apparently pull a brokerage between each other to jump into the modern age in 1610 AD. So my window to hit Carthage might be short indeed.
In 1640 AD, it's time.
So now I want Hannibal to declare war. I try planting a spy - which succeeds. Then I demand he withdraw (he had a battleship in my territory for some reason), and he agrees. I try an immediate technology steal (he's got Amphibious Warfare, which I don't), and that fails as I wanted and Hannibal declares war.
Once again I bring the entire world into alliances against Carthage. And I start a one-beaker run on Stealth, just for the fun of it. I've never gotten to use a Stealth Bomber.
Modern Armors against a civ with only Infantry that's been at war and thoroughly gassed forever is a blowout, of course. I raze and replace most of the cities, keeping the two cities that hold Universal Suffrage and Bach's Cathedral. I apologize for not taking pictures, but by now I just wanted to get this over with. The war takes twelve turns - having to take out the radar towers does slow the Modern Armor advance, and also I'm using the armors for garrisons and defense because I really never had time to build up a large surplus of infantry.
I also probably could have been pulling Leaders in this war, but I had one saved from the end of the last Scandinavian war to make sure of getting the United Nations. Although of course nobody could ever win an election in our blood-for-rivers world - heck, probably no civ could get a single vote from any other.
In 1700 AD, Osman has researched Fission - good, not Computers. I trade him Synthetic Fibers plus 230/turn for it, rather than risk a steal failing. My saved Leader rushes the United Nations. Good, Osman lacks Uranium (and I've got four).
But the very next turn after Carthage is eliminated, for absolutely no reason at all:
Wow. Synchronized, on the same turn, so I can't even pay one to ally against the other. Well, I can pay the Zulu for alliances against both, for whatever little distraction they might manage to be.
I grab a bunch of the idle slave workers (got about 3.8 gazillion from razing Carthaginian cities), build a dozen airfields in tiles not used by my cities (mostly mountains), and start airlifting twenty armors every turn to my city on the Viking continent. (I had the foresight to rush an airport there.)
Scandinavia - still lacking oil - starts very comically pouring a dozen marines a turn at my stronghold cities on that continent. They do have a dozen battleships in the water between our continents, though, that I need to get rid of.
I also ended up at war with still-OCC Arabia after triggering their MPP with the Ottomans when I attacked an Ottoman ship in their territory.
Also in here, I chanced to look at the Civilopedia entry on Radar Towers, and that states it gives a 25% bonus to both attack and defense by that civ, not just defense as I'd been thinking. Experiments have determined that Radar Tower bonus applies regardless of whose territory the combat is actually taking place in. That makes situations like this desirable:
By planting a combat settler there, I can use a slave worker to build a radar tower in a place where it will give ME a bonus in attacking that city. Radar Towers thus significantly change the dynamics of modern warfare, giving the modern armors more of an advantage over the defenders than previously. They do force the blitzing armors to slow down, often taking an extra turn to get a combat settler into position and an armor in position to attack an enemy radar tower, but they result in significantly fewer armor losses.
Also in that pic you can see a Leader that's stuck in enemy territory until I capture that city. I was pulling two and three leaders per turn during much of this war. Here's a comical shot of the Old War Vets home:
I had one city flip back during this war:
Funny part is that I captured it from Scandinavia but it flipped to the Ottomans. When I retook the city, it had only one Ottoman national and three Viking nationals inside. Heh.
Anyway, the Scandinavian war lasts from 1710 AD to 1756 AD. Eleven turns, which is not all that short when Modern Armors are on the scene. Ragnar wouldn't speak to me right up until the bitter end; the longest I've ever seen that be the case.
So when that war ends with Scandinavia's elimination, I go to load up my Modern Armors to take over to the Zulu and keep going to finish off domination. But there's only one problem with that - hey, where did they all go? I've only got about 35 left, after flinging them all at Scandinavian cities on that last turn so I could conquer and keep the last eight or so cities as a group without worrying about counterattacks or flipping.
So I take a handful of turns to rebuild some more Modern Armors. And I finally manage to get a transport full of Marines through to that silly little one-square island to eliminate Arabia.
Also, there's that rule that domination requires 2/3 of the world's population. I estimate the Ottoman population at around 20-22 million, and mine's only 35 million, even with the captured Scandinavian cities. So I irrigate Veii, Ravenna, and Pompeii to maximum capacity, and dump in a gazillion captured Carthaginian workers; those three cities of sizes 37, 36, and 35 account for seven million population each and put my total up to 50 million.
By this turn, 1768 AD, I also have all the old Carthaginian cities up to two border expansions (temple plus library gets two expansions in 20 turns, which was my approximate expected timeframe for winning), and the Scandinavian cities up to one border expansion, and all the territory on both my continents within my borders. Domination hasn't been triggered, though; looks like I need one final war...
I couldn't make peace with Ottomans until Arabia was finally eliminated because those two civs had MPP. I have no designs on invading the Ottoman island, since the spy shows they still have over 100 infantry crammed into that rock. But I still have four turns left of alliance against Ottomans with Zulu. But one quick territorial demand later, I'm at war with the Zulu again, and make peace with the Ottomans and sign them to an alliance. ("Rome is at peace with Ottomans and at war with Zulu. Rome has ALWAYS been at war with Zulu...")
