C3C PBEM : "Alba" - Great Armada scenario

[ironduck]

down goes one more dutch frigate..

turn for spain

 

[semental]

Capture Mekines, lost a musketeer, maybe something else.

Oran, killed Bachi.

Killed the Dutch men army, almost got the musketeer one. Might have got a musketeer in there too. Lost a tercio, 2 pikes, 4 dragoons or something like that. (note to self, start writing it down).

 

[ironduck]

Last round!

Looking at the power chart our alliance is actually starting to grow stronger after a game of comparative weakening. We have around 50,000 victory points combined, but the Maghrib-Protestant alliance has around 70,000, so it's a clear victory in that aspect.

Turn for France

 

[LouLong]

Yes, I did not even get to play my turn(s). We had already an excess of 250 VPs, which makes me think I have to raise the VP score in MP (already done for SP but MP needs more as it is much more active).

Of course "we" won (that is especially the Dutch under Portuga actually) but what is more important for me was to be able to playtest the game and I want to thank you all for that. Some things were "broken" (mills, pirate ships, ...) and nevertheless the game reached its end which is indeed very nice. Especially thanks to Ironduck, Portuga and Eric_A who accepted these issues and played from beginning till end and Semental who accepted the difficult challenge of taking over difficult Spain.
I hope you had fun despite its being a test PBEM and that you found the scenario representative (Dutch up to Nantes !!!) of the time (units, evolution, ...).

I know it has made the Great Armada scenario better in later versions and I hope we can reach a near-perfection with our next PBEM !

And congrats on Portuga who nearly alone defeated the catholics.

 

[ironduck]

Oh, I thought we would have this round to finish.. maybe post some victory screens for a formal ending? Like the power chart or something..

If the victory points had been higher I think things might have had a chance to switch a bit in the other direction as Spain was starting to get stronger and we were catching up in tech (I was just starting on frigate tech).

If the Scots had not taken on England from the start it would have been a very quick victory for the protestant side. Spain had a really bad start getting beaten left and right, which made the game an uphill battle for the remainder of the time.

A big problem for the Spanish alliance was how far behind we were in tech. Ireland and Scotland take a long time just to catch up, so they can't help with it in the first half of the game. Meanwhile Spain and League had their hands full fighting and not much money to research. So it wasn't until Scotland caught up that we could get new techs. At that point League were gone and Spain was in religious monarchy, which meant they couldn't research at all. So they gave all their money to Scotland which then did all the research alone (in the end Ireland helped too).

I had really expected portuga to invade Scotland, so was building up millitary, but it never happened.. and I never got the ships needed for a big Scottish invasion (I still think the transport ships should be able to hold more units).

Good game guys

 

[semental]

Ditto - good game! I enjoyed it and appreciate being able to play. The Protestants certainly cleaned our clocks. Not sure if the "Brothers" of my High School would have approved! It would have been nice to play the position from the start and have my own mistakes to make but it was a challenge.

Just to expand on what the Duck said, it was impossible to do tech at all. In fact, early on we were running toward bankrupcy. Once things settles and population returned and roads built, it came back to a positive. But the use of Inquisitors is necessary while impossible to do anything worthwhile in tech. I was also in war-time mobilization which did have some positive effects but also has its well known limitations.

Thanks again for the game. Let's play it again sometime!

 

[portuga]

Thank you all for this great game.
The scenario is great fun. Congrats Loulong.

Hoof. Finally I managed to beat ironduck. Ironduck won the other two games I played with him

I started this game with the small Dutch because I didn't had the time to play the scenario in single play. The sugestions from my allies was that I was supposed to play defensivelly. I did for some turns but spain never attacked, and after a while I had a big stack of reiters that I decided to use . My allies had no use for the gold so they were sending it to the Dutch, which allowed to build an army very quickly.
I conquered some unimportant spanish cities (since they should be less defended) and eventually I reached the norther border of the league. Since that border used to be safe for the league, Eric_A didn't had many forces defending it, and those northern cities were near the league capital, so loosing those norther cities must have been a big loss for the league. That how the Dutch transformed into a european superpower
What was a surprise for me, was that spain never managed to have a decent army in the north. Too much corruption, I guess.

Vs the scots, it seams we were both wainting for the other to take the initiative to disembark but, like ironduck said, none of us ever had a big enough fleet to do so.

Near the end I thought about trying to disembark in ireland, but I thought that it would be least expected in the NW of spain. Loulong's pirate ships reconed the top defenders of the spanish coastal cities, and I advanced for Corunha. However by this time I was playing to collect victory points and didn't had any long term strategy.


I don't think I can sugest much to balance the game. The dutch power in the early game came from the Gold given by England and France. I don't know what was the spanish strategy in the early game, but I think that predesad was a bit lost in the scenario, and might have tried to improve the cities or build too many tercios.
I have played against Aeon in another game, and It wasn't a really big surprise to see him defeated by ironduck.
So I guess all I can sugest is that the scotish and the dutch should not be too weakned in the next MP version.

To close. A big thank you to Semental and ironduck for playing with so much enthusiams till the end.

I'm sorry I can't play another game with you. I'm sure it would be a great game, but I'll have a great work load until the end of the year. I'll probably only come back to PBEM in the CIV 4 times

 

[semental]

To answer a bit on the northern army, something I did help screw up a bit. I am not sure what predesad did but there are two problems. The first is the corruption. I may have been able to handle that better as I learned how to do it later. But early on it was unworkable. The other is what to build? Spain lacks anything close to comparable to the Reiter and the Tercio is simply to expensive to use offensively. In fact, I would suggest that its offensive value drop a bit with its cost. It is tempting to use offensively but it just is not worth it. But Spain does need some offensive troops even if they are not great ones and it needs to be ones it can afford to build. I only played this once for a few turns in SP - mainly to see what I had started with (Hey! Spain really did have an Armada!). It was not readily apparent to me how to execute an offensive game plan but I did not try and probably could work it out (I would rather stumble through in PBEM than hone it in SP, but that is me). As it was, I should have at least made a better defense of my Northern position.

And you picked up Coruna just in time, I had just made a Tercio for the town and was concerned about its weakness from just the attack you did. But the real problem was Lou and his bands of pirates running up my coast. I could not adequately defend all of the coast cities so something had to be left open.

Ah well, Good game and thanks for having me!

 

[ironduck]

Lou, perhaps you could give a rough rundown on how you have changed balance from the version we played and to 2.0? You said that war weariness is less for Scotland and the Dutch, but you put up tech cost for Scotland? You also increased pirate ship cost to 10 shields. And tercio is now 9 in defense instead of 10.. anything else?

I still think the transport ships should carry more units, and having some kind of offensive, not too expensive, unit Spain can build might be good as semental said.

Portuga, how much gold did your allies give you? Your army was growing so rapidly even several countries together we couldn't keep up with you, it was crazy! The Scots took advantage of their early golden age to rush a bunch of highlanders and thus take out England, but after that ended it took a long time to really get enough production running and meanwhile the Dutch just became the most powerful nation in Europe.

This was a really fun scenario to play, even though I didn't get to beat portuga again Btw, portuga, I never really could attack you because: a) I couldn't afford building a big fleet (both transports and galleys to protect it, you always destroyed my transports every time they ended their turn in the water!) b) I didn't have men-at-arms (available now in 2.0) so I couldn't surprise attack, I had to sit around on land while you could regroup and c) if I put in a real invasion and lost Scotland would be ripe open for a counter (you were much stronger). You could probably have wrecked major havoc if you had attacked my cities directly (men-at-arms) and moved from there like you did at first when England was still around.

Btw, did any of you use the spy service thing? I noticed it was possible to build near the end when we finally got the tech, but I didn't build it (and was spending the money rushing units anyway).

 

[portuga]

Portuga, how much gold did your allies give you? Your army was growing so rapidly even several countries together we couldn't keep up with you, it was crazy!

Don't remember very well. Alltogether, maybe around 50 to 100 G/turn from england and france.

Btw, portuga, I never really could attack you because: a) I couldn't afford building a big fleet (both transports and galleys to protect it, you always destroyed my transports every time they ended their turn in the water!) b) I didn't have men-at-arms (available now in 2.0) so I couldn't surprise attack, I had to sit around on land while you could regroup and c) if I put in a real invasion and lost Scotland would be ripe open for a counter (you were much stronger). You could probably have wrecked major havoc if you had attacked my cities directly (men-at-arms) and moved from there like you did at first when England was still around.

I didn't knew the scots didn't have man-at-arms... That would really change the strategy...
I stoped building men at arms after you had pikes. It was very dificult to beat a fortified pike with men-at-arms. Also, I always though to be strategically more important to secure central europe then to anoy the peacefull scots

 

[nivekclough]

I see that you guys wont have Portuga in your next game... Does that mean you need another player?

I'd be more then happy to fill the empty slot!

 

[ironduck]

Hi nivekclough - I think we're already full up, we're just waiting for akots to get back so we can start the game.. we opted to only have a few players because this game was going too slow when we ran it as an 8-player game. Sorry.. you can start a Spanish Armada pbem too though, most of the games in the pbem forum are either epics or the standard scenarios, there's definitely room for more user created scenarios. Don't forget to get the latest version 2.0 (a/b/c)

 

[LouLong]

A few remarks :

Tercios cannot be built in the new version, the same for Heavy Galleass. They are spawned by one wonder each. This was done to avoid the spreading of galleass in the Atlantic and to avoid Spain building tercios in all its cities and being weak for the first half of the game and invincible for the second part.

For the offensive Spanish unit : well they already have the rider. Basically they have the same standard troops as England. So they are not to bad off, especially since they already start with a few tercios. Since v2.0 is being tested in an SG right now, I have noticed a few things and decided to reduce the cost of riders a little bit.
A few other changes are being made so I will release a v2.1 before we start. Anyway I have only released the SP files yet.

When they are done I will make the complete listing of changes. And the pedia, especially about gvts should be much more correct.

 

[ironduck]

Lou, how about upping the transport ship capacity? Neither me nor the Dutch could really put in a major invasion due to the lack of transport capacity (I needed something like 20 carracks to stand a chance, and on top of that I also needed to build war galleons and of course all the units to put in the transports..) Maybe go +1 with the various transports?

 

[LouLong]

I see that you guys wont have Portuga in your next game... Does that mean you need another player?

I'd be more then happy to fill the empty slot!

I am very glad and proud you like the scenario and want to play it in PBEM.
Unfortunately we indeed want to keep this a small team as it is always better in PBEMs and this will run as a play and test PBEM (albeit the possible bugs won't be as bad as the ones we saw in Alba). And the team has been complete for some time now (Akots and Hawklord join in).

On the other hand as Ironcuk said I will be very glad if you set up another PBEM about it. I would follow it with great attention and am ready to help you in all possible ways to launch it.

On the other hand please wait a bit as I will launch a v2.1 (with the MP version this time) soon.

 

[LouLong]

Lou, how about upping the transport ship capacity? Neither me nor the Dutch could really put in a major invasion due to the lack of transport capacity (I needed something like 20 carracks to stand a chance, and on top of that I also needed to build war galleons and of course all the units to put in the transports..) Maybe go +1 with the various transports?

Carrack can carry 3, that's not enough for you ? (transports in WWII Pacific carry only 1 more !).
+ Galleons can carry 4
+ War Galleons can also carry 1

If there is big outcry about it, I can still add + 1 to Carracks and Galleons ) but I am not convinced and it would be for the MP version only (otherwise the AI would be crushed too easily as humans are much better at transporting troops/landings).

About your other question, I forgot to answer about the Spy Services. I rushed it with a leader (IIRC) but completely forgot to use it. Probably because it was right before one of the summer breaks... :-( I will try to load an old save.

 

[nivekclough]

I am very glad and proud you like the scenario and want to play it in PBEM.
Unfortunately we indeed want to keep this a small team as it is always better in PBEMs and this will run as a play and test PBEM (albeit the possible bugs won't be as bad as the ones we saw in Alba). And the team has been complete for some time now (Akots and Hawklord join in).

On the other hand as Ironcuk said I will be very glad if you set up another PBEM about it. I would follow it with great attention and am ready to help you in all possible ways to launch it.

On the other hand please wait a bit as I will launch a v2.1 (with the MP version this time) soon.

Wow... I guess Hawklord has been a busy little beaver! No wonder he hasn't had time to set up our PBEM... Don't worry about it Loulong, I'll wait and try again another time.

 

[ironduck]

Lou, well there was not much of a chance that Scotland was going to build a large enough invasion fleet to take on the Dutch in our game. Perhaps if I had had men-at-arms (which you say are in 2.0) I could've captured a city and then ferried enforcements back and forth. As you could see, even the Dutch didn't have enough transports to land a significant force (they landed about 30 units which I wiped out with no trouble, they would have needed twice that to hang tough). I didn't realize war galleons could carry units, I figure that wasn't in our pbem version..

I think semental had the same problem, he wanted to land troops in France, but his fleet was so limited it was hard to get enough ferried over. Ireland was also short on ships, even though I was building them steadily I couldn't keep up with the amount I needed for my invasions. The theme through all this is that everyone seemed to have too few ships to transport their troops in. It's hard to allocate more resources to build a larger fleet when you also have to build enough land units as well as battle ships. They are, after all, what keep you alive. Transport ships are a lower priority when you have enemies left, right, and centre - which is pretty much the case all through this scenario.

So yes, it makes sense to me to give transports +1 carry ability. This scenario depends greatly on naval warfare, so it would be a further boost to that side to increase the invasion ability.

 

[ironduck]

Here's the powerchart in case anyone following the game is interested. The reason there are two for the Catholic League is that after 'The Leaguers' were eliminated the Catholic League still existed, just with only two countries (Spain and Ireland). Scotland was fighting on the Catholic side and Maghrib on the Protestand side. England (protestant) was wiped out early in the game.

 

[semental]

My problem with ships was the pirate issue that has been addressed/discussed and a range issue. Not really a big deal but part of the game. I could not land in south France because I was hanging out in front of the pirates too long and could not get far enough in one turn.

After looking at the starting position and all of those carracks, I was going to suggest modifying the galleas and using that instead. Maybe transport 2 instead of 1 or 3. A better ship and more "Armada" like, plus it is a great graphic from a style point of view. Just a thought. I suspect that predesad had trouble getting to and from the North, it might improve those odds a bit. The Brits seemed to be able to sink most anything that moved when I showed up.