RBP6 - MOW! Ottoman deity SG

Charis

Realms Beyond
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For the next RBP game in the warmonger trilogy, we're going to
try a pretty difficult variant - Mounted Oscillating War (MOW).
We're looking to the MOW the grass of slower moving civs by
showing the superiority of speed. Mounted units hitting hard for
a limited objective then demanding peace. On Deity level.
Many good ideas were kicked around, ranging from an extremely
difficult 'Perpetual Oscillating War' (POW, always in a war),
to basic OW (which suffered the same problem as Always War, that
your first war comes too early and AI has too much of an advantage.)

Here's the rules for MOW:

*Our only attackers are the 7 fast units: Chariots, Horsemen, Knights,
Cavalry, Tanks, Mech Inf and Modern Armor.
* Foot units are looked down upon (silly grunts), too slow, and never
ever allowed to leave the city they're built in. This allows MP and
defense but they can't show their face in public. (Attacking a stack such
that you can't 'move' is thus ok. Warrior from a hut must beeline home)
* Artillery is too slow to keep up with us. It may be built for defense,
but cruise missiles and air/naval support will have to do. Consider
quick moving explorers to pillage down rather than bombard down a city.
* The idea is to have a war with every civ on the planet, if possible,
and with as many different types of units as possible (A real war is intended, not
just a psuedo-war. Chariots will be the toughest, and horseman not much better.)
The wars are recommended to be brief, around 20 turns, but not required.
* The Wheel must be the first tech researched, at full speed,
if you don't start with Wheel (see below)

Our civ? The Ottomans! (Other civs might be better actually, but these
guys should do quite well. Plus, I've never played them :p ) There are going
to be a few small changes, introduced after testing. We'll start being able
to build Scouts, and with Wheel instead of Masonry. Note we don't get a scout at
the start, but we can build them. Without the former our recon will be so poor
that we'll end up hopelessly behind in tech instead of just way behind. The latter
is so that we can have a chariot war (could never pull that off in test games)
The other small mod - use of the Watercolor Tileset. You don't
have to do anything special, it's installed with PtW automatically.

Civ: Ottomans (Industrious/Scientific, UU: Siphali 8/3/3 100 shields, some mods too)
Map: Standard, Pangaea (70%), 5 billion, normal temperate climate, sedentary barbs
Foes: 7 foes, none with a fast UU
Victory: Cultural and Space are disabled (No Russian space wins here :p )
Style Points: 1 for each civ we have a war with (7 max), 1 for each different
fast unit we use as best unit in a war, 7 max). 1 bonus pt for Conquest win.
So we're not handcuffed too much by the rules as far as warfare, but how many
style points can we snag? All 15? :hammer:

Roster: The following expressed some OW interest --
Anarres, Arizona_steve, Gothmog, JMB, Reagen. Also, RBP2 and RBP5 ended
recently (gulp), so there might be a few from there who want some revenge?!
I wouldn't mind a roster a little bigger than usual here, up to seven,
as long as the game moves along quickly. We'll be tighter on the time-limit
and skip rules for this game. If you're interested, please confirm here if
you want to join the MOW game. If you've gotten into another game already due
to my delay in starting this, my apologies - don't overcommit yourself.

=========

I'm going to go just a few turns, then pass right off. I made sure the map
was a true pangaea, and that there were horses nearby, but that's it.

We start on a river spot next to dyes with two BG next to us. On settling,
there are horses, a wheat, and a cow in the outer part of range, nice!
We start to road and irrigate toward the wheat, and send the scout south.
He very soon sees a hut and hits it for... a settler!! :p
Finally, a non-horrible start in one of my deity games.

Before you know it, it's 3450 BC. And we hit a hut for Ceremonial Burial.
Rome has Alphabet and Warrior Code, and lacks the Wheel. Unfortunately he
just learned Bronze. Legions. That's one civ to hit earlier rather than later!

That's enough to know the start is just fine, so I'll hand off.
Consider the two current build items as placeholders, pick what you want.
We're able to build rax and/or chariots at the capital.



Save file 3450bc

Turn lengths will in general be 10turns, but our next leader can go 19 turns.
Roster and order to be finalized shortly.

Charis
 
I am interested.... if you'll have me ?

EDIT : I had a look at it :eek: and this way above my level sorry.... :(
 
Sounds exciting and I'd love to join, but....I'm already in enough SGs as it is, so I'll have to reluctantly pass.

I'm sure it'll be lots of fun, and I'll follow it closely.

-Sirp.
 
The game design looks good. I might have been tempted to give it a go, but I've been wrapping up commitments without taking on new ones lately, as I expect to be up to my eyeballs in MOO within a week. :)

Good luck.

- Sirian
 
Charis,
Just wanted to say I will be watching this game with great interest. Alas, my caliber of play isn't good enough to participate......yet. The Defiant game was a great read. Congrats to all of you for sticking to the variant rules in the face of overwhelming odds. :goodjob:
Matt
 
Foot units are looked down upon (silly grunts), too slow, and never ever allowed to leave the city they're built in.

OUCH - to insane for me. It looks like every city I capture that is hopelessly corrupt has to build its own defence without even being vet.
 
Charis, I wasn't listed, but I'm feeling like getting a win, with something a bit more straight-forward, after the RBP5 experience. I like pushing boundaries, but I like a bit of feeling good, occasionally, too.

Good luck with this one! I'll give moral support.

Arathorn
 
Charis, looks tough. I agree with LK that having to build a defender in corrupt cities will be a problem. But that just means lots of razing I guess. I was wondering how you would get into a Chariot war too, I never could in my tests either. Good luck, even with wheel it will be difficult. I am in two SG's right now (my limit), but if one finishes and there is still room here I'll ring you up again.
 
Looks tempting, but I've been itching to try a deity always war game, so I just started one (DAW1).

I think its going to be very tough to sqeeze a chariot war in there. That's such an important time to get settlers out and there's not much time before horseman appear.

I'll be watching closely and cheering you guys on. Good luck.
 
Charis, have you tried this at a lower level with success? I like the anti-infantry concept, espcially after playing the Inf2 game. Too bad this is a diety game. I think this game at Monarch would be difficult! Hmm, may have to try it. Maybe HOT3???? :lol:

Good luck! :)

Hotrod
 
Are there nothing but mice here? I will join you Charis, even if it means going down in flaming horse droppings. That is of course if you still want to press on.

I think AW is probably an easier variant than OW, as the AI is not quite adapt at bieng at war the whole game. However that initial beating can hurt.

Charis, if ou want me, give me until Tuesday before you add me in. I need to finish LK39 and get QSC-C2 posted.
 
Charis, I like the idea quite a bit and would love to give it a try. But the timing is simply not good for me, with two succession games running already and a fair amount of RL work to be done. Then there's this thing called MOO3 coming out this week that I have some small interest in trying out... ;)

Good luck finding a roster - how difficult can it be finding more people interested in trying a crazy variant on Deity? :crazyeye:
 
Charis,

I am still interested, but like Sulla, the timing really isn't good for me... (2 SGs at the moment (although, RBE6 might finish reasonably soon), my quals in ~ 2 weeks, and a trip to Japan in ~ 4 weeks).

If you get a large enough roster so that 1) the overall time commitment won't be too much, and 2) there would be enough people to take over when I go to Japan, I would still like to play...

JMB
 
Meldor: I would play if it were anything but deity essentially. Definetly and interesting concept but deity is not something I am experienced enough to join.

Hotrod
 
If enough spots are open I'll take one.

Since I think that mobile units are the way to go for conquest and ocillating war is one my prefered ways of waging fairly constant war, I should be right at home. ;) I must admit though that I would drop the rax at the capitol and go for a settler factory (5+ food available), letting all the new cities pickup the tab for military production and workers for connectivity .
 
I'm in pretty much the same boat as JMB. If enough people join such that the turns don't come fast and furiously, I'm in. Remember my standard disclaimer from the (P)OW discussions -- I'm a builder, not a warrior, at heart, so please be patient with me. :)
 
I would like to suggest that if we are going for all 15 style points that we consider the situation so that we don't stumble 'coming out of the blocks'.

This is deity, horseback riding could come very early by popping a hut or the quick pace of techs that will occur on a panagea. I would suggest that we not build barracks initially and immediately build as many chariots in new cities as we can before we get horseback riding (well once we have about a dozen this plan could be relaxed off). If a newly formed city can't get a road hooked up quick enough we would have to settle for a spearman (maybe warrior and a worker) that would then be used for MP. An early war should be waged mainly against warriors and archers, quick and clean. The capitol could stop spitting out settlers once we have a half dozen cities or so and then it could refocus on infrastructure and military needs. Once we do aquire horseback riding we could switch production over to barracks and switch over to more conventional methods.

Any comments?
 
Excellent comments, CB, in fact, I think I'm going to put you first in the line up :p The lack of cheap barracks, compared to the cost of chariots, and their low attack value, makes them about the only unit where you lose too much speed building rax first. I was thinking that if we had a brief chariot war where we whacked a pair of workers and a settler pair on turn one would be ideal. It would be a major blow to a neighbor AI, and we could fight a skirmish war on territory of our choice away from our cities, while we wait for them to talk. It would take a moderately small number of troops to do well, could happen VERY early, and would not ruin our expansion too much at all. I think we should start with the intention of going for all 15 pts, but not suicide to do so if events speak against it. It would probably make sense to have several scouts out there as well, to help keep us up or even ahead on tech, despite a lower number of cities. Perhaps go for HBR in 40 after the current reseach to 'block' it from huts, maybe even taking HBR as the spoils of our first war. In fact, it would be interesting if we could get the horse-based techs as peace concession from our wars - HBR (Chariot war), Chivalry (a late Horseback war), and Mil Tradition (a late Knight war).

@Lee -
>>> Foot units are looked down upon... and never ever allowed to leave the city they're built in.
>OUCH - too insane for me.

I take that as a compliment, thank you :hammer:
Look at it from the other side. This was close to being an *only* mounted unit game, but the use of real defenders in the city their built in is a concession TO sanity.

@Arathorn - I sure do hear you! If I hadn't said I would do this and held people off, I would have chosen something easier. In fact I'm likely to join a builder game with high fun value rather than challenge. (If you do have comments on our starting strat and/or chariot and horse wars on deity, speak up man)

@hotrod - I've tested it partially on emperor (quite doable) and slightly on deity where I won an initial skirmish war and didn't have time to test it later in the game.

@jmb - I was going to say hop in but then took a closer look at what you've got coming. Ouch! Study up on those quals man, and have a good trip :p

@sulla - I'm also looking forward to trying Moo. This might be the last SG I'll host in a while, to give that a fair shake. 'Beyond' that depends wholly on just how good or bad Moo3 turns out to be. I'll of course press on with any ongoing civ committments/SG's.

So far the roster is shaping up to be:
Charis, Cartouche Bee, meldor, skyfish, and reagan.
I would still like one or two more (partly to not overload reagan), and will consider there to still be open spots. Any others who've not responded should do so - whether immediately or if another SG finishes soon.

Much thanks to the others who chimed in and posted their well wished :love:

Charis
 
Some bits of advice:

- Build your initial city and at most ONE more before going towards war. Later cities cost WAY more in development time and lost shields than they provide for a long time (through the ancient age, usually, at least). In my no-tech experimental games, I found this to be critical to get going fast enough.

- Cities are better tribute in early wars than techs. Techs are easier to get through a zillion means than cities. Take as many cities for peace as you can possibly get. The earlier you attack, the more cities you can get, too. (I *think* the AI uses nearby resources/luxuries, happiness, city size, buildings, length of time in city, and total city culture as its main determining factors in valuing a city for peace.) Since you'll be building so few cities initially, these tribute cities will be important producers, you hope.

- Expect to autoraze and not capture. The AI will defend its capital with too many units to take easily (think 6ish good defenders) and will whip any other threatened city mercilessly. This actually helps with the cripple mentality, but it's not so useful for building yourself up.

- Horsemen do just fine against pikes, if you attack wisely and in numbers. Don't knock yourself out to get your 2nd war done ASAP.

- Overall, early you want fewer bigger cities. More cities leads to better overall strength, long-term, but short-term it's not as powerful. Your capital, especially, needs to hit 10 spt ASAP (ideally at size 5 or 6 and then doing a worker/settler immediately before/upon hitting size 7). Initial build order -- scout, granary (depending on food situation -- T-hawk's the master of knowing when to do this, IMO), chariot*4 or so, then maybe a settler, then chariots, with a barracks maybe thrown in sometime it fits shields best....

- I think blocking HBR with min research is a good idea -- maybe don't even get it in 40 turns. Hope/pray for good luck from huts -- much MUCH harder on deity than on emperor, however.

That's all I think of now.
Arathorn
 
OK, I got it.

I know it's tempting to allow the capitol to start producing 10 shields per turn ASAP and do a real real early war. My concern is the risk from counter attack (with zip for defense) and how much cash we have to spend to keep a growing city that size out of disorder on deity. However, if the early rounds develop in a way that a cheap war comes on a silver platter, I'll adjust accordingly. :) For now, I'm going to go for the settler factory, that city should be able to pump out a settler every four turns and those cities should be able to pump out a couple units each and then a rax. When we run out of prime sites we can let the capitol get up into the 15+ shields per turn (look at all those bonus grasslands), pump out horsemen every 2 turns. If we could position ourselves to be able to rush the Great Library and Sun Tzu, it will be a cake walk, but there are a few miles between here and there. ;)
 
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