GK2.1 - Tactical Exercise 1

[DJMGator13]

Here is the save file.

GK2.1 Exercise

@scout - you can renew the link in your first post by changing the upload folder to 8, since I re-uploaded the file.

 

[scoutsout]

Thanks Gator! I just updated the first post with your link. I appreciate that.

I need to take another look at Swedish Chef's log this evening. I remember looking at it before, but it appears I neglected commenting on it.

 

[grahamiam]

many thanks gator good luck kute, have fun

 

[viper275]

I'm not on the GK2 team but this sounded like a lot of fun so I gave it a try.

First: I go to Persia and get Iron Working, World Map, and 190 gold for Ceremonial Burial, World Map, and Map Making. Check Military Advisor. Persia has a strong military compared to us. Declare war. Send workers to mine hills and when they finished joined settler into the capital. Now I get a Mounted Warrior from the capital every 2 turns (making 13 spt frustrated me because I got an MW every 3 turns but lost a total of 9 shields per build.) Build road to Iron. Destroy Immortals at chokepoint with Mounted Warriors, send them back to Niagara Falls.

Next: Fortifying MWs at Niagara Falls. Anything that gained health or didn't lose much from combat went to attack more Immortals. In-between turns most of these MWs were destroyed, but this was fine because it softened up the Immortals. Persepolis captured.

After that: MWs destroyed again IBT. Most healed and get back the Immortals.

Turn 4: Time to take a big risk. Only 1-2 health point MWs guard Niagara Falls and switch off with others, but there is a spearman there. I send the spearman to the space MWs moved to when they saw a stack of Immortals, which turns out to be the last I ran into. They (Immortals) destroy the spear, but not the MWs. Persia's military is now weak compared to mine, according to the advisor.

Later on: A few more MWs come to Arbela. Preparing to attack. Lots of warriors get upgraded to Swordsmen in case we need reinforcements.

Last turn: MWs win the battle of Arbela and raze the city at 3700 BC.

What I Learned: Two important advantages over the Immortal with MWs. When you look at the stats, Immortals clearly look better. But in the hands of a human player, MWs can definitely win. The 2 advantages are: A. Offense. Immortals are basically Spearmen with high attack, and they're usually not fortified. This makes it easy to destroy them with MWs. B. Speed. Have a city near fighting (like Niagara Falls) and have your MWs run back there really fast to heal and go back to fighting. Switching off, the MWs can defend the city pretty well and fight at the same time. And take advantage of retreating when attacked. The MW goes back to the city, heals, and fights again. MWs are very good units that have a combat edge even when outnumbered.

 

[Kute]

many thanks gator good luck kute, have fun

HEH, thanks but I hope luck will have not the big part in this, it's all about learning skills

Here it comes:

Build Ambassady for 41
Arbela: 3 spearmen, 3 immortals
Strong military

Map Making <-> Iron Working, World Map, 5gp
Masonry, 104gp <-> Cerem Burial, Horseback Riding
World Map <-> 16 gp
Move Scout on the incense hill
World Map <-> 1 gp

Niagara Falls:
20 Mounted Warriors, all vet except 1 elite

2 Mounted Warriors hit the dust, 8 Immortals die, the Last MW is promote to Elite as he stomped on Persian land, I see another 4 Immo stacks, one turn ahead (with 1 elite)... Drat one move short to Niagara Falls.

IBT: yes! retreated from archer when redlined.

3950:
Let's use the reinforcement before using any moves from Niagara Falls' SoD.
Lost one MW to the elite before a second one defeated him.
Let's open the gate at Niag and see how my braves behave... first dies.. the other 2 kill, no one was brave enough to take the flag of leadership vs the archer (elite MW).
I choose to let another Immortal wave to crash on our glorious killing field and wait inside Naigara Falls.The warriors rush in the town to witness some bloodshed.

IBT, 8 Immortals fell into our trap and are now in stomping range.

3900 ...Humm why are there 2 radio towers around Arbela? (i'm running the mod in C3C, since it refused to run in my Civ3. Both Civ3 and C3C are french, and the problems came with missing unit data(actually translated stuff is not linked correctly) .. weird it even accepted to run with C3C). Well at least only 1 is in the 2 tile radius of Arbela, I guess I know my next objective...

2 first MW redlined but scored, 3rd died and promoted a foe. Sending an Elite vs the wounded freshly promoted yet-to-proove immortal, no mighty brave shone through the fight.
Humm the second stack of 3 is in persia, and kills 2 of my MW, only one Immortal with 2hp left, but this time i'll not overextend, it will die in time.

IBT, only 1 immortal rushed on our territory
3850 We have a strong military! (a couple of warrior finished their training last turn)
Iron due to join next turn, lets not be foolish and wait. (1 redlined MW withdraw, 1 dies to the immortal...and finally no more Xman troups around)

IBT cultural extension, only 1 immortal on persian ground

3800
Iron colozined, 4 Warriors are now wielding powerfull iron sword!
Let's try a dash to Persepolis, with it destroyed, our cultural border will allow the spearman to protect our mounties. Persepolis fall to my first 2 mounties, leaving only 1 MW exposed.
Mauch Chunk founded on the tile SW of former Persepolis, the forest (and it's road) is now ours.
Sending a MW on the forest.. hmmm the radio tower is protected by the injured immortal, can't go there.

IBT a lone immortal wanders around

3750 a MW sack the radio tower and the spearman on it
the exposed MW killed the Immortal and claimed the forest NW of Arbela, nice spot, it will allow me to cross the river next turn, move my fully healed SoD on it (spear include)!
i'm wicked enough to sacrifice a worker and the scout to push the fog of war away (chances are Xman won't disband the worker)

IBT ack Alleghny is rioting (I should not have focused on the purpose of the excercise ;p)

3700 good news, the scout died to a regular warrior and the worker is still there. Xman is gazed.
The SoD cross the river, the spear stomp on a mined grassland, the worker enjoy the sun on the hill.

IBT An immortal in Arbela.. An elite MW retreats.

3650 17(and a redline Elite) MW in line to take Arbela : 2 MW killed for 2 spear and 1 immortal.
------
In conclusion, nice exercice, are the radio towers a feature or a bug? It sure scared me out for a moment. There is indeed a lot of Mounted Warrior, more than enough to claim the persian capital, but on the other hand it's a good thing. Many players don't build more than a handfull of unit and don't understand why they don't conquer easily. With that SoD handy they will 1) see the benefit of troops building, 2) see the towns can cope without a full infrastructure, and 3) will go sling-ho on the persian without fear of losing their troops.

 

[scoutsout]

@Swedish Chef: Sorry I didn't look at your log before now, but it looks to me like you learned from the exercise... particularly the point this one was designed to teach.

One note: If the AI has troops in your territory and you do not have the "Move Or Declare War" option, tell the AI to move his troops out of your territory. On the next turn you will normally get the "Move or Declare" option if the same units were left in your territory, even if the trespassing unit is just a worker.

@Viper: As you continue to play the game, you will find that your observation about Mounted Warriors and Immortals in the hands of a human player can be applied to other units as well.

@Kute: I have no idea why you had Radar towers in your game. That is odd...because vanilla Civ3 has no equivalent to radar towers. The scenario was fairly basic, so that may have contributed to some of the oddities you experienced. I'm glad you were able to play it.

...and I hope you all got some enjoyment and benefit from it.

 

[DJMGator13]

The radar towers happened to someelse when they ran it in C3C. Apparently the requirement to create them is not included because the save is a Civ III game and they did not exist in Civ III, so the AI built them.

Kute, you should have been able to open it in Civ III since it is unmodded. Are you modded for the GOTMs?

 

[Kute]

Never tried a Gotm, so no i'm not moded. The weird part was tha C3C opened the save and not Vanilla. I might have fumbled with a Civ3 patch somewhere, it looks like i used an english patch on a french version. *shrugs*
But yes, the scenario is fun and helpfull, so you did not do it for nuthin'. And many thanks fo' your quick link.

 

[Rubruk]

Thank you Scoutsout for this interesting and very helpful exercise. I've learnde a lot.
Although I'm a little late, I tried it out at home and would like to post my results.

Since my german version of Civ1.29f can't read the file, I used PTW1.27fG.

Pre War Analysis

(founded only on information available at 4000bc)

Immortals have a much greater attack value than the defense value of
Mounted Warriors. So, MW has to attack and must not be attacked. On the other side,
MW have more movement points. We can use this for an active defense
of Niagara Falls. Take all Mounted Warriors into this town and attack, when
Immortals arrive before the city. Since Mounted Warriors have an additional
mouvement point, they can retreat into Niagara Falls and heal completely using
the Barracks.

Is there another use of two movement points? I planned to attack citys or stacks
from a distance of 2 tiles. Of course, one has to take the city or eliminate the
enemy stack in one turn to avoid counterattacks.

What can we do, if we attack inside the Persian Cultural border?
It is impossible to use Persepolis in this way since northeast Persepolis is a river
and on the souteast is a forest: a defense bonus for the units
that we want to attack. Since we don't know yet engineering, crossing rivers costs
one movement point.

Question: A Mounted Warrior attacks across a river, wins and crosses the river.
Has he still a movement point?

Second problem: inside the Persian cultural borders, the Persian units
can move faster on roads. This is dangerous, because my units can be attacked before
I can do anything.
My plan was to take the settlers into Persia and found at
an appropriate site a town. The surrounding tiles must be without defense bonus.
The roads around a new city give no movement bonus to enemy units because we
have cultural influence. The problem might be a cultural flip.

Diplomacy

I contacted Xerxes and tradet technologies: gave Ceremonial Burial and Map Making,
obtained Masonry and Iron. Since 2-movement units are our only tactical advantage, I gave not away Horsback riding.
Unfortunately, I dit not establish an embassy or tradet maps.

The Defense of Niagara Falls

Firstly, I declared war. then I attacked the Imm directly SE before Niagara Falls.
Two units of Mounted Warriors died without taking a HP off the Imm !!! Why ??
Then I changed production in most of my cities to Mounted Warriors. I lost 5 or 6
MW as fought the first two stacks of Immortals.
After this loss I got nervous, because I could not know, how many Immortals where build in this exercise. So I did something I have never done before in CivIII: I poprushed some Mounted Warriors. With the Golden Age, production run much better, so I got enough units.

Then I got a great Leader.

Immediately I build an army of 3 Mounted Warriors. It is possible to attack twice,
and it has have 12 HP. Against a numerically superior opponent it is better to give up
one attack in order to have a higher survival probability.

One turn later I got a second Great Leader !!! unfortunately, it was impossible to
create another army. For every army, 4 citys are needed and we have only 7 citys.
So I rushed Herioc Epic, but no more Leader appeared.
I left my units in Niagara Falls, until the stream of Immortals dried out.
Since this is a constructed scenario,it is impossible to estimate, how many Immortals
are there. I was even more carefully than normally
not to risk a large part of my troops.

Invasion

My invasion into Persia was not optimal. I lost some units (e.g. my settlers)
and won only because my army was quiete large. I had units with one movement point in my stack of Mounted Warriors. After moving the stack one tile, it was impossible
to move the Mounted Warriors further.

Post game analysis

After reading the tread with the descriptions of the other players, I've seen
that I have not remarked some facts. Pillaging roads can slow down enemy troops and
give the possibility to counterattacks.

DJMGator13, you pillaged one tile southwest of Persepolis. This gave two counterattack
possibilities before they could attack Niagara Falls (if they survive).
This is of course better than the one attack possibility against 1 movement point units
we have automatically since they can not use our roads.

Furtermore, I did not consider that 2 mp units have another movement point, if they
attack with their first MP. (run away)

One question remains. Have troops better chances to win, if I produce at the same time more troops of this type ??? I had this impression already when I played CivI.

Thanks again.

 

[DJMGator13]

One question remains. Have troops better chances to win, if I produce at the same time more troops of this type ??? I had this impression already when I played CivI.

What you are producing has nothing to do with the the chance to win. There are several combat calculators available in the Utility forum here that you can use to see the win percentages.

Furtermore, I did not consider that 2 mp units have another movement point, if they
attack with their first MP. (run away)

Or to continue moving forward after killing the offending unit

 

[Rubruk]

Thank you, DMJGator13. I've found these utilities.