SGOTM3 Rome - Team Sesn

Sounds good here boss. Me, do an I told you so? Never!! Well, maybe. j/k. I just like a little verbal riposte every now and again. I concur with the elimination strategy. We know where the attacks come in. We should thus try to get an army in the 2 key cities, and let the AI suicide. (Barracks in those cities would really help.) Then take the third Army, and all spare troops and do what was suggested 80 turns ago, (By someone else) elimanate the greeks and backfill. We should be able to easily smash the tundra towns the Russians and Aztecs have down there, and replant some to get our economy started. The Greeks probably have the great 2 hoplite, 1 archer combo in all their cities. I would assault each city with 4 legions and one horse, or 1 army, 2 legions or one horse. The horse is to race ahead and park next to the city to draw the archer out. Then the horse "Should" run away, leaving an exposed archer, and no counterattack from the city.
In closing, concentrate all new forces on our back side, and good luck Sesn. Keep fighting the good fight. Remember that God causes the rain to fall on both the righteous and the wicked, I just don't know where we stand. Plus it's raining in the desert that is Rapid City, so that could be a good omen.
Maybe I am a little longwinded and lost here, but we should still be solid.
 
I made my case for continuing above, so 'nuff ced. Is it winnable? If the AI exclusively wages war on us, I doubt it. Will the AI exclusively wage war on us. I very seriously doubt it. You've got Bismarck and 3 expansionist civs on the continent; that is an accident waiting to happen. It's a matter of time before one tries to extort the other, then their forces will be busy elsewhere.

Keep killing settler pairs. Every time we do, the AI will waste 60 more shields to replace them. Human players recognize the futility of sending these sacrificial lambs into the teeth of the AI. The AI can't do that, it is programmed to keep trying to settle open land, so we can use that logic against it in an ongoing waste of resources.

What about stealing advances? I haven't done this much and understand it's cheaper than self research. Don't know how war factors into success rates.

Yes, in PTW the armies need to stay on defensive terrain too. They will be attacked.

Does anyone have thoughts on strategy beyond what's been discussed? I know Sesn wants to go after Greece. My feeling hasn't changed. Destroy Lyons, park the 2 cities down 2SW and 1NE of there and wall them immediately. Then we can work 2 4-legion army w/cats SOD to the south where Avignon, Thermo, Buffalo and all of Greece will be vulnerable. All those AI hamlets in the south can't survive on their own.

The territory south of the line running all the way from Neocaledonium to Lyons is roughly 40% of the continent. If we hold that, and there are 6 AIs squeezed into the rest, we really should be able to gain the upper hand.
 
Guess I'll double post here having read Romeo's comments. What follows is just my opinion. Going directly at Greece first is like we're a submarine that's leaking water, and the captain's immediate focus is on killing the SOB that's depth charging us. Generally speaking, that strategy causes us to sink. Step 1 is seal the hull breach and get the pumps going. Once ship integrity is restored, then we can come up to periscope depth and fire away. In this case, we should put ourselves in a position to beat the AI up as they try to come along the low ground in the east where we control these mountains and hills. I'm not convinced the AI will be baited into attacking legion armies forted behind walled cities. In any case, it's overkill and more than defending, we need the armies to attack.
 
I think (and I'm pretty sure it's been suggested, by m60 I think) that we need take the cities to our ne so we can extend our border all the way from coast to coast. Then we can look at finishing greece and the other scrap cities to our se or can push into the heart of France and clean up those southern english cities. I'm at work at the moment so can't look at the save to give a more detailed plan.

edit: when I say take, I mean burn and replace.
 
After yet another disheartening loss by the Red Sox, I go to work.

Wo, do things ever look different than the last time I saw this.

There are a number of units roaming our territory. Syracuse is also under intense pressure. Unfortunately, none of the units are stacked, so I can’t attack and remain in the city.

I steal a couple units to fill the army in Syracuse.
Vet legion kills Fr LB near Hispalis. Pull army from Neowhatever to kill vet pike. Elite legion kills rl pike/settler pair. Elite legion kills reg archer. Vet legion kills Gr settler pair. Vet legion kills vet Bab LB. Move a couple workers around.

And then I run out of units to move.

IT – We survive two attacks, with one of our legions promoting.

660 ad (1) – Rome legion -> legion. Cumae legion -> pike. Neap leg -> leg. Vet legion loses to vet LB. And again! :mad: finally kill a LB with a legion, and he promotes. Kill another. Bombard some units, but again, no real stacks to attack.

IT – The English start Shakespeare’s. :eek: See a couple Am knights trying to flank to our east.

670 ad (2) – Gonzo cat -> cat. Army retreats vet knight. Vet legion kills elite LB. Vet legion kills vet LB.

IT – Elite legion behind walls loses to a reg LB, -1hp. We retreat a few attacking knights.

680 ad (3) – Rome legion -> legion. Pompeii legion -> legion. Pisae legion -> cat. Hispalis legion -> cat. Byz leg -> cat. Luna walls -> cat. Vet legion wins and promotes vs reg LB. Vet legion kills Aztec settler pair. Elite legion wins vs rl knight.

IT – We fend off a lot of attacks, gaining two promotions. Japanese start Megellans. :sigh:

690 ad (4) – Veii legion -> legion. Antium legion -> legion. Ravenna legion -> legion. Vet legion kills vet LB. Elite legion kills 2/4 LB. Army kills vet knight. Bombard a few units/improvements. AAARRRGGGHHH! A misclick leaves 4 workers out in the open, rather than in Ravenna. Not sure that I can protect them from the two knights right next door. I risk two vet legions. Hopefully at least one will hold.

IT – one legion does indeed hold.

700 ad (5) – Rome legion -> legion. Cumae pike -> legion. Neap legion -> legion. Lug legion -> cat. Brundisium cat -> cat. Even though cats go 0fer, vet legion wins and promotes vs vet spear in tlalosomething, city is burned. Caesaraugusta is founded. Elite legion wins vs reg LB.

I watch in nothing short of horror as the 10 hp slayer army loses flawlessly to a 2/4 knight on pastoralis. The worst part is that the slayer army was trying to escort home TEN cats. They are way out in no mans land, and there is zero possibility of saving them. I bombard everything in sight anyhow.

Kill a couple more LB’s with vet legions.

IT – We hold off several attacks, but lose an elite legion to a knight, again flawlessly. The people give us a palace expansion! :lol: Aztecs begin Smith’s.

710 ad (6) – Try to bombard a couple units, but I’m largely unsuccessful, surprisingly enough. On the upside, we now make 17 gpt. :rolleyes:

IT – Somehow we manage to avoid losing any units.

720 ad (7) – Pompeii legion -> legion. Elite legion kills reg LB. Two vet legions destroy Kish. Elite legion kills rl knight. Elite legion gets rl killing reg LB.

IT – Lose an elite legion in counters.

730 ad (8) – Rome legion -> legion. Antium legion -> legion. Cumae legion -> legion. Aeson rax -> cat. Elite legion kills rl knight, and the rng offers me a token. Anthony is born, and Sesn’s slayers are reborn.

IT – Lose a vet legion, fortified, behind walls, across a river, in Brundisium (hills), and the attacking knight lost a single hp. :sigh:

740 ad (9) – Veii legion -> legion. Neap legion -> legion. Gonzo cat -> cat. Elite legion kills reg LB. Two vet legions kill two vet swords that were dropped off next to Caesaraugusta.

IT – We lose two more legions in Brundisium. What is it about that town? German sword also cuts road to Syracuse.

750 ad (10) – Rome legion -> legion. I miss Antium’s growth, and Antium riots. Pompeii legion -> legion. Pisae cat -> cat. Ravenna legion -> legion. Vet legion kills vet sword near Caesaraugusta and promotes.

I have left most of the offensive units unmoved for two reasons: I am getting rather frustrated with this game tonight, and it seems like that has become something of a habit in this game.

I have no comments at this time, but I will post some thoughts tomorrow.

Firaxis - 606
Jason - 296

GRRRRR
 
The war zone
 

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Bad luck Sesn :(

Whilst you survived well, I think you demonstrated that the RNG is gonna get us - losing the army and then this...?

IT – Lose a vet legion, fortified, behind walls, across a river, in Brundisium (hills), and the attacking knight lost a single hp. :sigh:
Click to expand...

That just sucks...

My main concern, though, is that whilst we are researching invention, the AI are nearly at the Industrial age, although we don't know how far along the bottom of the tech tree they are. But Shakespeare's?? :wow:

Facing riflemen with legions and longbows will be tough. It might even negate the possibility of a conquest or doomination win.

I therefore think we should consider the possibility of trying for a diplomatic victory ;)
 
The rng gods are indeed angry with us (but not Romeo :lol: ), and I don'tthink they can be appeased at this point.

More than facing rifles, I worry how long before we see some cavs running through the fog.

We are getting swamped. It was all I could do to hold our ground. I started to assemble troops in Syracuse for a push on Paris, and then I lost all the cats.

We have a settler in the south, I was going to settle between the two game tiles down there.

You're right Tal, that attack was a microcosm of my turns.

The ai seems to be cycling between pressuring Ravenna, and Brundisium/Syracuse.

With the army in whatever town that is on the western front, the English are a non issue, but we can't pull out the army either.

I'm veginning to feel pretty pessimistic about this game, and for that I apologize. However, I have started to realize we may get the dubious distinction of being the first team to lose a SGOTM. Go us!

Looking over my turns, I don't see any real tactical blunders, but it sure feels like I made some.
 
Hey guys, maybe one of you can help me out here. I am interested in playing the Conquest of the month. How do I do this? I downloaded the save, but do I post intent somewhere? If I do play, which saves must I submit? Where do I submit? I haven't found a good list of what, where, when and how yet. Any rules? or can I exploit away?
 
@Romeo: Same rules as GoTM, I believe, so no sploits, only dastardliness... I don't *think* you need to submit any save bar the last, but you need to keep regular saves for examination if necessary (I keep all the thousands, plus 500AD and every 100 or so after 1000AD, just in case) - you submit in the CoTM sidebar of the GoTM page on the main CFC page.

@Sesn: I had similar feelings after my turns. I must have made a mistake, there must have been something I could have done.

But I think the simple fact is, we are not used to losing. A combination of very tough variant and lousy, lousy, awful luck has combined to put us in the position the AI usually occupies (in fact, even worse). And we just are not used to it!

As for the pessimism, I feel it too. I will fight on as long as possible and as hard as I can, but I think that cavalry and cannon are not far away, and then it really will be bend-over time.
 
So history will say the Roman Army did its duty, but succumbed to overwhelming numbers and unfortunate circumstances? Could be, but we're not done yet. I wish the AI would build cannons, so we could capture them! Still need new settlements in the south. We have the troops there to clean out that area.
 
Tarkeel, have you guys finished? I knew your team were way ahead, but if you are done, that's fairly impressive...
 
Yes, immense odds, and poor luck. Feels like a cop out though.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that we were doomed from the get go. Where did it all go wrong?

1. The confusing rules, which led to unnecessary declarations. I'm beginning to think this was more important than originally thought because of the trading opps missed. How much different would things be if we could fight back with knights and knight armies?

2. Bad rng. Again, this feels like a cop out. We are all aware that the rng is fickle, and should not have to rely on it so heavily, but ONE leader to rush the GL and boom....

3. Lack of a cohesive strat early on. I think that we delayed using legions too long. Yes, we also made our GA more effective in doing so, but the effective lifespan of legions is not all that long. Pikes were prevalent not long after we started using them in force.

4. For me, lack of AW experience made this even more difficult. It is quite apparent that things must be handled much differently in this type of game. I'm not sure what things we should have done differently regarding this, but I imagine that's part of the problem. We did however, pass the "can I hold the line" phase, which I thought meant the game is effectively won, but our breather didn't last for long.

5. I think that we should have focused on Greece first. While there is no way to predict how things would have differed (and I really liked the sub analogy M60), I can say that if we had been able to backfill it would have two effects: First, it would have rid us of a second front that while little more than a nuisance, still drained some forces. Second, we probably would have been able to assimilate the mountains, making our enemies attack us from open ground where there is no defensive bonuses.

6. Finally, if you look in the spoilers, we were contacted by Greece before any other team. In some cases only a few turns early, in others many turns earlier. Again a guess as to the impact, but we couldn't even get a second city down without having to have sufficient defenders.

None of these points are meant to be a slight in any way shape or form on anyone. Indeed, I was as much at fault here as anyone for the human errors made. I am merely trying to identify what things had a large impact on how this game will end up, and by doing so, improve my own gameplay and understanding of this type of variant. I would appreciate any input anyone has on any of these things to furthur clarify.

I am sorry if I seem to have a very pessimistic attitude about this game suddenly. I spent several hours last night observing the futility though. It also doesn't help that there are few things in this life I dislike more than losing.

Make no mistake. I will play this game to the bitter end and make the bastards pay at every oppurtunity. We will not go quietly into the night.... :ninja:

EDIT: If nothing else, my little rant there was rather therapeutic. I'm feeling much better now. :)
 
I agree with all that Sesn. Some inexperience, some bad karma...

Still, it's a learning experience! By the way, i think our pessimism is shared because the others have not yet played a set of 10 turns after the appearance of knights. Once you do, and you see that you are holding back the tide with a bucket, pessimism is a natural reaction!

By the way, once more for effect...

SHAKESPEARE'S!! :wow:
 
I'll try to keep this somewhat simple w/regards to the above.

1&2. Certainly the GLib goes a ways to balancing the field.

3. I could go on a ways on this one. If we had gone GA in despotism, we would not have gotten the shield bonus where a tile was already producing 2. That would have significantly reduced Rome's production where we had a good number of BGs. True, we would have settled a bit faster, and maybe gotten us over the hill.

I don't know a legions lifespan is affected as much by the pike as by the longbow, esp with the Medeival Infantry modded out. To win this kind of game, you need good kill ratios, and a 4-1-1 LB can kill legions that aren't forted on good terrain all too often. You would think the 3 defense of the legion would count for more.

5. I understand that killing Greece first means one less player on the map. But has Greece really been the problem of a second front? We lost the one town to archers, which from the git-go I knew was a risk with a 1-spear defender. What else have they threated us with? He had no swords, no horses/knights. His terrain basically stinks, hemmed in by the mountains. The threat of the east IMHO have been all the other AI troops marching through.

The biggest problem, (and I've never played an AW game through, period) is that you have to defend what you settle. At least that's the conclusion I came through on all the reading I've done. To do that, we would have to road all the way across to Athens/Sparta, dropping new towns every 3-4 tiles. The workforce just hasn't been there, as 10 workers won't get it done. We needed them to develop the core. Not sure how we assimilate the mountains. It's virtually impossible to defend some of these hills and not expect casualties even with forted troops in walled towns because there are so many adjacent mountain tiles, and we can't occupy all of them. Maybe some of the Spoilers will prove Sesn right on this one. I certainly won't feel hurt if they do.

6. If you have the original 4000 BC save, do this. Play 20 turns. At the start, plant the settler and lock the worker down in place and simply do nothing. Keep skipping turns. As soon as Rome culture pops, the same thing happens every time. You see the Greek hoplight outside the expanded border. Every time, he does the same thing, wanders back east without saying anything. What happens after that is a seemingly random event. Sometime Alex contacts you to trade for WC, and sometime he does not. That was a big variable that worked against us. I don't see how the "smart player" controls this.

I'm not trying to act like rah-rah, nothing to fear here. We may be 99.5% doomed, but let's take it one step at a time. Don't worry about cav, we're not there yet. We still have terrain to settle in the south, let's do it. The AI will make stupid unit moves. Take advantage of them. We shouldn't just build legions, we need some infrastructure. When an elite legion in a walled town loses to a 1hp sword, don't let it get to you. Walk away from the game for a few if you have to. We're playing to win, not see how long it takes for our last legion to die in Rome. I didn't sign on for that. End of rant, now I feel better!
 
I'm gald that a bit of blowing off steam has helped everyone!

I didn't mean to come across as negative or that I was looking to blame something or someone. Nor do I want people to think I've lost hope (not quite there yet ;) )

Basically, I do whiney rants - M60 does proper ranty rants!
 
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