2v2- Turn 71 rifles

[Smote]

Just played as France/France vs 2 Germanies->

One did some typical econ strat, other built great library for civil service. They got universities at some point, and used great sci for turn 71 rifles, upgrading landschnekts.

We did about turn 65 or so national colleges, expansive strategies. Teammate went Liberty, so his production sucked. I did LE as usual. I went Scout-Settler-Settler, since my capital was all grassland and I wanted good land.

Captured 3 workers from city states with my scout and spearman. My teammate was curious about every city state in the game hating us

Was heavily bottlenecked for iron (8 between us) until turn 77, when we finally finished Gunpowder. Then it was a massive Musketeer vs Rifle brawl. The Musketeers won the day, because there were a lot more of them Captured Berlin on turn 95.

 

[Smote]

They might've both used meritocracy for the Great Scis. I wish I knew when they built universites.

 

[MasterMishi]

musketeers are so strong they stand up well against rifles, they must have been sick after such a good beeline. I would have expected you to have beaten them earlier if you had not NC but spammed units.

 

[Smote]

musketeers are so strong they stand up well against rifles, they must have been sick after such a good beeline. I would have expected you to have beaten them earlier if you had not NC but spammed units.

There were problems with iron, chokepoints, and landschnekts

I did a production strategy, which ruled out early aggression (I was making water mills, granaries, stables and workshops instead), and was problematic when I had no units to produce: Spearmen vs landsnechts in an aggressive war? pass. Horsemen? Ha! (Though I did end up making 4, to help flank rifles and pillage). I was happy to trade swordsmen for lands just so I could put my production to good use again With 8 irons total, I would try to keep 5 alive, with 3 being allowed die, and be re-produced. (I had 4 cities, 3 were good, 1 was a necessary 6-iron tundra city). Muskets were such a relief, because it meant I could mass up my military, instead of forcing reckless trades to get my iron back. My teammate and I chose to get gunpowder before civil service, since I was only using mines and pastures, and he had few farms, which had the unintended consequence of no alternative unit to produce.

 

[d3vil_b3rt]

France in general is too powerful. Their UU can stand up against rifles, man that's just ridiculous. Anyway, the germans should have capitalized on their tech advantage. Perhaps it was just poor teamwork between them.

 

[Smote]

Played a rematch vs the same two this time with a partner from my friends list, who does quite well during OCC games (Baby-Ed). This time we played on the West vs East map, which is distinguised by a 5 hex wide sea down the center that seperates the two teams. This sea has several channels that can be crossed as shallow water.

Once again, they managed turn 71 rifles. However, we reached one of their capitals with about 12 longswords on turn 70. Their army of ~6 longswords and a couple landsneckts was in the wrong spot to defend this city, which quickly fell. The next capital had 6-7 rifles guarding it, but we settled a city right outside it for healing, and surrounded it with about 14-15 longswords by this time (turn ~85). Muskets were about done soon too (counter to the first game, we did Education before muskets this time, which gave us options to go to frigates if we needed to, but greatly slowed down Gunpowder).

While their teching is impressive as hell, the flaw in the strategy is it just doesn't get enough units out. It seems to only be potentially good if seperated by deep water (as a frigate rush) or with an excellent choke.

They decided it seems to not use many landschnekts, despite both of them being Germany. Perhaps they took a while for Optics, or they were too busy building necessary science and production buildings (in the ill-advised science before production ordering).

They great libraried civil service on turn 27, by the way. I had done Scout-Worker-Worker-Granary-Library-NC-Settler-Settler-Settler. The NC finished turn 28, I believe. Partner did Scout-Worker-Floating Garden-Library-NC-Settler. His NC finished turn 34. They still were way ahead of us in science (~6%) at all points during the game.

 

[MasterMishi]

Any more info on their strat to get turn 71 rifles based on your scouting?
no. of cities?
Pop of cities?

Do you think they went NC rex and beelined rifles and meritocracy?
Did you see what buildings they had when you captured their city?

 

[Smote]

I think they did this:

Both player NC -> 1-2 expands and meritocracy (GL [Civil Service])

beeline education (use a 2nd GS from meritocracy here), build/buy university
use sci slots (2)

Then use new high beaker rate to get to gunpowder very fast, and use the 2 scientists by this time to get rifles.

The problem with this strategy is the production rate is low. It might work well in a team of 3, if a third player does a more hammer-oriented build.