Always War Charlie

[Seraiel]

Idk. , but that Horse-Archer is a Combat II HA against the weakest possible defender, didn't you have any Spears below your defending units? The chances of the HA are shown as 26% so the HA even had 46% survival odds with his withdrawl-chance, units not taking any damage at those chances can happen and will happen with very many fights. What you need is 1 Formation-Spear (or better 2-3) and then those troll the HAs because they have STR 11.8! (Double strenght afaik is about 1% chance so 1% for the Horse-Archer to survive against a fortified Hills-Formation Spear. )

And the Drill line, afaik you don't need all Drill units that suck against mounted attackers but you only need something like 6 Drill units because 1 Catapult can do collateral to a maximum of 6 units and I believe that the Drill-units are chosen because they're the best suited (this may be wrong, I only have very good experience with i. e. only having 3-4 Drill 4 units in my stacks that seem to pwn all sorts of Catapults and suck up the collateral, but I also wasn't attacked by 125 units yet ) .

Also: Have you thought about defending with Catapults? Siege Weapons are immune against Siege, I'd not wonder if the would get taken as defenders under certain circumstances and Catapults are not even weak defenders in all of the other cases, they have STR5 and the only anti-unit is the Horse-Archer so maybe build a combination of Drill-Archers, Formation-Spears and Drill-Catapults? Mixed with very few Shock-Axes?

 

[Seraiel]

What should or shouldn't be done is all very theoretical and pales in comparison with the specific requirements of a single game at a single instant.

Having a sound plan is all good but... can you make it work ? Sometimes the game insists on foiling your best plans.
For this reason, a screenshot is about the best argument that one could make.


You picked my curiosity, Seraiel, with talk of easy, strong & np Machinery bulb.

What do you mean with that post BiC? Is anything of that in regard to what I wrote? What I wrote was all true and I was only trying to imagine the scenario and come up with ideas as helpful as possible towards the mentioned situations / difficulties that Pangaea experienced.

 

[Pangaea]

Guess I need to be even more blunt then

Teching in AW games is very tricky. The economy is crap. Hence the focus on cottages to at least get some commerce.

I don't have metal, nor IW, hence no spears. It would have helped, but Hwachas would rip through them, so there is that...

Don't have Construction either. Nor Math for that matter.

HAs are not a defensive unit, but if you can use them to wreck incoming stacks, that are units that don't get to bombard down your walls or cause collateral damage, so effectively they are defenders. Very active ones. That way you also get more GGs quicker, which also helps greatly in these games.

Quite simply, these games are very tough. Getting enough techs to bulb Machinery is not something that is "easy". Sure, if you get there that can be a very handy unit, but it's a long way, and before then you need to defend against a neverending stream of incoming stacks, containing swords, catas and usually elephants long before you can get either longbows or crossbows. It's why the early game is so important, and not getting screwed by the RNG is arguably even more important than in normal games.

Perhaps this was simply a too poor leader and too poor map to be playable, short of absurd luck with the RNG and the AIs choices. Or maybe all the armchair experts can do this much better than me?

(Maybe this sounds too harsh as I'm a bit disappointed now. Sorry if that is the case)

 

[Rusten]

I have enough on my hands atm so you can't convince me to start this game yet -- it's so stressful and time-consuming -- but I've been reading some of the general discussion.

These games are incredibly stressful and it's very difficult to give useful advice without playing yourself or at least playing several games with the same settings. The difficulty is much higher than that of a normal deity game. I'm with Pangea in that it can be really annoying to see armchair quarterbacks. Coming up with a strategy that looks good on paper is very different from successfully implementing it into the game.

Machinery bulb for instance sounds great on paper, but it's incredibly hard to get there. You will get swamped by military units before then. It needs a much more concrete plan to get there.

At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite I will touch on this:

I don't have metal, nor IW, hence no spears. It would have helped, but Hwachas would rip through them, so there is that...

Last game (Ottoman) I teched IW right after HBR because "HAs and archers alone can't defend an empire". You really need metal at some point so I think you should've prioritized that. I think that's a strategical error you can improve upon. Korea being a civ is a concern though.

I didn't play the map yet so I don't have a feel for the commerce level (only seen BFC), but if it's low then skip HBR and only get IW in that case. Of the two metal is more needed.

And regarding cottages I agree with BiC above. Secure cottages are crucial.

 

[Pangaea]

2 Woodies Those things can be a real difference maker in these games. Well done!

I see you settled cities differently to me, so will be interesting to see how that plays out. Your opening is stronger, though, so it looks good so far Although missing out on the Wall may become a problem. With the entire world against you, it's nice to not have to worry about barbs wrecking your stuff too.

xposted:
That's a fair point Rusten, and if I have another go, it would perhaps be better to tech IW myself instead of relying on stealing it post-Alpha. My game effectively ended before I could do that.

 

[Windsor]

And the Drill line, afaik you don't need all Drill units that suck against mounted attackers but you only need something like 6 Drill units because 1 Catapult can do collateral to a maximum of 6 units and I believe that the Drill-units are chosen because they're the best suited (this may be wrong, I only have very good experience with i. e. only having 3-4 Drill 4 units in my stacks that seem to pwn all sorts of Catapults and suck up the collateral, but I also wasn't attacked by 125 units yet ) .

That's not how it works. Units already below the hp-limit and the direct defender is excluded then the targets are chosen randomly. Note that also siege weapons can be targeted (but since they are immune to damage they obviously don't take any) so having siege in your own stack is the best way to mitigate collateral. 6 units however is not enough unless you're lucky.

Only the direct defender gets chosen by the "best defender defends rule".

 

[Pangaea]

To get a little notion about the viability of the Machinery bulb, I added up the costs of the techs that are needed, and compared with what I had done in the game when it was effectively over.

With this leader, you need 12 techs as the absolute minimum to open up the Machinery bulb. They cost ~3350 . Subtract about 500 if you get up to Priesthood and Oracle MC. And keep in mind this would be side stepping stuff like AH and Archery, which you need.

Up to the point in the game I was pawned, I had researched techs for about 2000 (ignoring free HBR from Oracle).

Unfortunately I think it's one of those ideas that look good on paper, but are very difficult, if not impossible, to pull of in practice in an AW game, at least this one. Others are more skilled than me, though, so maybe it can be done with enough luck and focus.

Interesting that Rusten said that Immortal AW is more difficult than normal Deity, because that is exactly what I wrote in a PM to BiC earlier today.

 

[Seraiel]

I think it all comes from my secret desire to see you shadow one of these AW maps.
But I guess I'll resign myself for now. You're busy somewhere else

Don't worry, I already thought about playing one of these AW-games just for fun . The problem is just, that the HoF has either the greatest or the 2nd greatest Gauntlet of all times currently, and it's gonna take me months to finish it.

After that and if there's still interest I'll happily join an AW-game if it's with Julius or better Sitting Bull . I haven't played SB for ages and would love to try out the XBow-rush again and I haven't played Julius for even way way way way longer and I crave for being allowed to play with Praets again .

Maybe you play the Gauntlet in the HoF with us and I play the AW-game in S&T with you afterwards?

 

[Seraiel]

@ Rusten + BiC

I definitely didn't want to sound precociously or like "a keyboard jokey" (that's the term I learned for people who only know about theory but explain that they're the greatest because ... to everybody else) . I'm just trying to help as good as I can. I already wrote to Pangaea in a PM that I think that the map and especially this start + the leader may simply be a too large step from the last game

Regarding what Pangaea wrote about the XBow-rush: XBow-rushing without any form of is not possible. Idk. because it's years since I used that strategy but I still know that it was a very easy one with 2 Golds, really, very easy, I think with 2 Golds I oracled Machinery, GE or GS-bulbing it and oracling MC cannot be that difficult (sry if this is wrong) . Which techs do you really need:

1. Pottery
2. Archery (maybe not necessary if finding Bronze? )
3. BW
4. Meditation
5. Priesthood
6. Agri (starting tech for SB, I see Charly being more tricky like Kaitzilla)
7. TW
8. Hunting (not necessary if Archery is not needed because finding Bronze)

That must be possible even without a Gold (with it should really be very doable) . So the great problem with this map is in addition, that it has neither Copper nor Iron, sry, but that's simply too harsh, it's impossible to defend with only Archery units and Horse Archers, as Rusten wrote.

Set up a game with a start that is more like the last one and preferably Sitting Bull but Julius should also be ok to good but there must be Iron somewhere and I'll try to finish it 'til I get a decent map for the Gauntlet, deal?

And plz set up the game with BUFFY, if you don't want to though it's no problem, then I'll make a 2nd install of CIV with BUG + BULL.

If you want I can set up the map, but then I have the advantage of having map-knowledge, even if I try to not look at as many areas as possible.

 

[Rusten]

@Seraiel: Don't worry about it, I know that you're just trying to help. Just remember that these games differ quite a bit from the norm. If you were to play them you're in for a nasty surprise.

Here's the GP preference list: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952
Lightbulbing machinery is not easy.

 

[Seraiel]

@Seraiel: Don't worry about it, I know that you're just trying to help. Just remember that these games differ quite a bit from the norm. If you were to play them you're in for a nasty surprise.

Here's the GP preference list: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952
Lightbulbing machinery is not easy.

Thx .

Ok, so the GS Machinery bulb is out (needs Maths + Alpha) .

Great Engineer has Machinery as his first tech so Sitting Bull should really great for trying this tactic. Maybe take mean opponents but a good start like in the game from BiC? I'm not sure I'd have any chance with a start not having at least 1 Gold and I just pray for Bronze.

Difficulty Immortal? Or are some of you playing Deity?

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

Don't worry, I already thought about playing one of these AW-games just for fun . The problem is just, that the HoF has either the greatest or the 2nd greatest Gauntlet of all times currently, and it's gonna take me months to finish it.

After that and if there's still interest I'll happily join an AW-game if it's with Julius or better Sitting Bull . I haven't played SB for ages and would love to try out the XBow-rush again and I haven't played Julius for even way way way way longer and I crave for being allowed to play with Praets again .

Maybe you play the Gauntlet in the HoF with us and I play the AW-game in S&T with you afterwards?

I think the whole point is that you don't get to cherry pick the conditions.
You are obviously a very skilled and meticulous player, but you mention HoF a lot. I dunno about others, but from what I understand HoF is often cherry picked to have insane starts (correct me if I'm wrong), which kinda makes me not care all that much about it. I'm sure pulling off those insane things you do is still very hard and requires both excellent micro and long term planning (way above either my skill or my patience), but I can't help but wondering how those skills translates to a game like this.
A game where you get dealt a bad leader (admittedly relatively less bad in AW scenario's I imagine) with a meh to ugh start and winning pretty is (probably?) not an option.

In other words, seeing you slug it out in the mud with the plebs.

Maybe that is not what is meant, but it is what I'm curious about. Maybe you'll dazzle us all and emerge squeaky clean anyway.


Pangaea: I'm tempted to give it a try, but as (sloppy) Immortal player, maybe I should chicken out and try this on Emperor instead?

 

[Seraiel]

I think the whole point is that you don't get to cherry pick the conditions.
You are obviously a very skilled and meticulous player, but you mention HoF a lot. I dunno about others, but from what I understand HoF is often cherry picked to have insane starts (correct me if I'm wrong), which kinda makes me not care all that much about it. I'm sure pulling off those insane things you do is still very hard and requires both excellent micro and long term planning (way above either my skill or my patience), but I can't help but wondering how those skills translates to a game like this.
A game where you get dealt a bad leader (admittedly relatively less bad in AW scenario's I imagine) with a meh to ugh start and winning pretty is (probably?) not an option.

In other words, seeing you slug it out in the mud with the plebs.

Maybe that is not what is meant, but it is what I'm curious about. Maybe you'll dazzle us all and emerge squeaky clean anyway.


Pangaea: I'm tempted to give it a try, but as (sloppy) Immortal player, maybe I should chicken out and try this on Emperor instead?

I am an Elite Quattromaster (on Deity ) , so I have played all civs, all maps, all speeds, all [everything] ^^ . I also play GOTM since a little time, so I can play normal maps, don't worry. HoF is different, but if you've won 50+ Deity-games with all different conditions, then adapting to anything is possible (maybe not as the top-player in first try but winning really should btw np. ) . I don't know about AW because I didn't play it yet, and I am very sure that I'd need 2 or 3 tries to adapt to it, and that with doing a lot of brainstorming and theoritizing and imagining all sorts of situations, gambles and options .

The reason I'd like to start with a 1 Gold good food Sitting Bull game is simply that I want the game to make fun and I also want to try that specific approach, not because I want to cherry pick. Look at my writeup "Replay #9 - Systematically Beating Deity" , I played a Large / Normal / Boreal map in it and won somewhere in the 14xx by Conquest iirc. , so I know how to play poor maps, I just don't like it . I also don't wanna start on hard-mode right in the 1st game, and the game Pangaea set up seemed way to harsh for me right from the beginning. [EDIT] And as written, I'd like to play SB or Julius again since years already, because Praets are just the best UU in the whole game apart from the Quechua (but Incans are a CIV on its own anyhow, they're banned for EQM with reason) and that Sitting Bull XBow rush tactic + everything about him just sounds like he's really made for AW / PvP.

Thx for the compliment btw. .

[EDIT]

If someone seconds or thirds that I should play this game with Charly I'll do it. I just really hope that Pangaea doesn't see it as a fail if we change towards the map / leader that I suggest, let him set up the new map . Let's play this game as the game after the next game once we've played Julius without any Gold because that's a steady rise in difficulty like it should be imo. . From a super-good start to a late-game-leader with a poor start is just too harsh. I'm not the only one that is harsh, Pangaea is also (it's ok though because we're as harsh to ourselves or can deal with harshness well on the other hand) .

------

[EDIT]

The start for the final game with Tokugawa in something like 10-20 games from now .

 

[Gurni]

Well i played many AW games (but never came to this forum, so hi there!), and what i think about this start it's just very difficult.
Pangea you shouldn't be frustrated about failing here, most would.

Spoiler :

Why is it so difficult...Charly has bad starting techs, and they fit nowhere into your starting position. Combined with no early what i call "booster tile" aka gold, gems or stone, you naturally struggle from turn 1.

Stone is so very imortant in those games on high difficulty, Pyramids are the easiest way of teching without worry about plunder or setting up many cottages without Financial.

Gold or Gems give other possibilities, like the early Horse Archers you tried.
That can work. It needs full speed in getting there and then making a big stack with the goal of destroying or at least hindering AIs. But just Horse Archers without that plan, yeah that is not good. They are an offensive unit and need to be sent out, fast.

Now for this start, what can you do...honestly, playing something else
There are just so many problems with this Capital and leader combination, like floodplains towards the AI and just not having something special.
For people who want to try anyway, there basically (and in my opinion only) is no way around trying to Oracle Feudalism.

Difficult? Absolutely, but there's a gold tile not that far away (and i would settle next to it, ignoring food for that purpose) and work only that.
Techs...Agri, Mining (Cap at least has some river mines), Archery, Wheel, Oracle, Monarchy. I guess this could work on Immortal with the Oracle speed, supported by some basic Cap commerce and gold. But an early settler and going for gold first would be required (and something i would do regardless).

While improving more cities with Pigs or cottages might look tempting, i don't think there's time for that without setting up basic defense and the Cap would rather work mines.

 

[Seraiel]

Welcome to the forums .

I believe you should put that map knowledge into spoilers Gurni, because we all play the game without using World-Builder or any sorts of cheats, so moving the Settler to search for a different location is something that doesn't occur to anyboy, because we think 1 try, better not lost it because of playing risky .

Having Stone and Mids is a good point though. I ask myself the whole time already how you're able to make it without Police State. I know, only 50% WW in AW-games, but still, Police-State is an absolute must imo. ! REP in the beginning to tech, yes, definitely too, but I can imagine teching with Cottages mostly, I don't use Specialists for the anymore anyhow but just for the .

I'll wait for Pangaea's answer and am also very interested in more voices about the scenario . As it's now, you already have 3 voices for the scenario being either very harsh or even too harsh, and we're good players, if we back off something because it seems too harsh that says something ^^ .

 

[Gurni]

Did put spoilers around it, thanks.

 

[Pangaea]

Difficulty Immortal? Or are some of you playing Deity?

The point I've tried to get across, is that this is much more difficult than you seem to think. You know how hard Deity can be, and that I have won on Deity, multiple times. I'm not kidding when I say Immortal Always War is much more difficult than a normal Deity game. I'm sure you'll realise that yourself when you try it.

Heck, with good diplo it's possible to defend your cities on Deity with warriors until you break out with Cuirs. Here, by at least 1000BC you'll be under non-stop pressure from increasingly bigger stacks, and due to high unit maintenance, it's nigh on impossible to get any teching done.

In fairness I didn't know how tricky these games are before I tried it either. It's just one of those things... people don't know how hard it is until they've experienced it first hand.

 

[Pangaea]

I'll wait for Pangaea's answer and am also very interested in more voices about the scenario . As it's now, you already have 3 voices for the scenario being either very harsh or even too harsh, and we're good players, if we back off something because it seems too harsh that says something ^^ .

Having gotten my arse handed to me, I'll happily admit this map is probably too hard. It would be an excuse, so maybe I don't suck as much as it looks like

The reason I didn't choose Julius or Sitting Bull is that Julius is a very strong leader with a fantastic UU, so that makes AW much less difficult than it otherwise would be. And SB was chosen in the map that yyeah posted a little while back, although it was with mixed leader/civ. However, if people want to play with one of those, then I can make a map with that.

Welcome to the forum Gurni Comments to yours below.

Spoiler :

I totally agree, and this leader/start/opponents was perhaps too difficult. But I didn't want to 'cook' the map either, so just went with it (those two small edits aside). FPs on the 'wrong' side is a good point (none got busted in my try, thanks to active HA defence, but it does make it more difficult), and no starting commerce for happy and research boost is definitely a good point, that we at least had in the previous Suleiman map. Lack of copper (like last time) is also an issue. Horse helps in the very beginning, but like Rusten said, archers and HAs can't defend an empire. I learnt that the hard way here.

In the previous game I actually managed to Oracle Feudalism. Not sure that is even possible here though. You need quite a few techs, and it all takes time. And this map contains Isabella and two IND leaders. BiC happened to lose the Oracle incredibly early, so I was lucky to be able to build it in 1200BC or whenever it was. Getting through Monarchy first would probably take longer than that, as I got it in 975BC-ish in the previous map.

However, for AW, it looks like we need some early commerce boost to even stand a chance.

Oh, and there is no shame in turning down the difficulty to Emperor or even Monarch here. These games are a lot more difficult than people think before playing them. I got pawned several times on Immortal on the Ottoman map, and turned it down to Emperor, which I then managed to win. I would still say it was more difficult than a normal Deity map, by some distance. Everything people do in a normal game is out the window, and it takes some skill, luck and experience to adapt to that.

No tech trading, no selling techs for gold, no bribing AIs against each other, no surprising DOWs to steal workers, no careful build up until you break out with e.g. Cuirs. Not even any foreign trade routes to instantly (and passively) improve your economy as you get to know more AIs, and yours and their cities grow. Not even any religion spread, so OR does nothing for you. Like I said, practically every normal trick to get ahead in the game is out the window due to the nature of these games. And on top of that, you're paying out the nose in unit maintenance just so you can stay alive.

Hope I haven't put the scare into people here. It's an extremely fun game once you get going, but there is also no hiding that it can be very frustrating when you get walloped by the AIs, and have no way to fight back. If under the cush in a normal game, at least you can buy yourself out with techs or gold if you have anything to offer. No choice here. Always War, from the moment you meet an AI, to the moment you get the victory screen, or they defeat you.

 

[Windsor]

While Julius is a strong leader, praetorians don't make the game easy. As always, the difference between an easy and a hard map is huge.

And if you want it REALLY hard, then play AW with K-Mod

 

[Pangaea]

While Julius is a strong leader, praetorians don't make the game easy. As always, the difference between an easy and a hard map is huge.

And if you want it REALLY hard, then play AW with K-Mod

Definitely. Which is why I wrote "less difficult" rather than "easy"

If people want me (or somebody else) to set up a map with Julius, then that can be arranged. It's probably fair to say the current map/leader is too difficult. Pretty much no matter what map and leader one picks, AW is not going to be an easy ride.

Spoiler about current map, about some AI capitals:

Spoiler :

Loaded the game from 250AD, and went into the World Builder to see what the AIs were up to. No wonder some of them were very strong.

Sury's capital: 2 gold, ivory and iron, with stone nearby.

Louis: practically every tile is riverside, including 5 FPs, and barely a brown tile in sight. Also BFC Marble, with horse nearby. On top of that, stone is close and he easily gets it. IND + stone + marble?

Wang has BFC marble, triple food (cow, 2 corns), and stone in third ring.

Ramesses has BFC copper and four sources of food (2 corn, cow and clam).

Isabella and Genghis is on a different continent (despite being on Fractal), but theirs look pretty darn good too.

Uphill battle? You bet!!!