Challenge-II-03

[kcd_swede]

^Congrats! That was a very fast finish. I'm sure its faster than any UN diplo finish I've ever done at any difficulty level. So, you don't suck at diplo anymore. Quite the opposite!

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Emporer 1360AD win.

Excellent date at Emperor. Congratulations!

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Congratulations on your #1 Win (Deity t310 AD 1450), azylic!

Would you be willing to say anything about it?

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Congratulations Earthling on your ##1 Settler Win - Turn 197 = 335 AD!

That will be challenging to beat.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Earthling]

Thanks, I should do more game writeups, intend to play and submit a few more of these. All the other submissions are quite impressive too.

I really don't like Settler all that much, not trying to cheese for that top spot, but it worked out really rather well enough. I know it will be a necessity for the Conquest/Domination side of things. But this is at least an OCC so the only thing you really get a difference on is having free reign over the AI and cheaper tech, not free cities everywhere.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Now this was a wild game.



I like to try a few quick games to get a feel for the timing and temperment of the AI since I don't really know about all the peace weight stuff. First game barbs stomp me. Second attempt I get rocked by an AI early. Third game I get the Mass Media done in 1160AD but it takes 11 turns to build the UN and I only have one friendly AI despite my best efforts. Basically, after 4 hours I realized I needed a raging holy war to have a chance on this one. ALL the AI HATE each other!!!

So, break out the mapfinder cause you only get once city and it better be smoking.
Next, turn-game breaking events on, you will have plenty of gold for the bad ones and you open yourself up to tons of +3 and +1 diplo events, or the nice academy, or the +3 health and free scientist specialist one.

Do the normal race to Oxford, then spam missionaries and spread the AP religion around if you have it. Bribe AI into war against a doormat, and then pile on.

Make sure to add Mansa, he gave me free bronze working at the start, and forgives you turning down his religion later, among other things.



Caesar settled on my doorstep and pushed hard with culture. I ended the game with 19/20 of my capital tiles usable, and -4 "our borders spark tensions". He was still friendly though thanks to random events and shared war.

I fed Caesar and some others when I felt they were falling behind and traded my beelined stuff with Mansa. He actually beat me to Physics by a few turns, along with electricity and mass media. Our group hug was more than enough to push around the 3 backwards AI, gobbling up their population.

Once the UN was built i made a HUGE ERROR. I gifted some stuff to Roosevelt and Jao dropped to pleased with a -3 "you traded with our worst enemy" When did that happen? I switched to his religion quickly to get him back to friendly. I also saw Roosevelt's happy face flicker to pleased and back again between turns. I guess one thing dropped a +1 while another thing added a +1

Everyone got out the daggers and started war with each other, as I kept ending the turn praying no one made any demands of me. Really Lucked out this time, won the vote.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Was I worried that my obvious Diplomatic lapse would prematurely end a good Game ...

Louis XIV's stack of 5 Swordsmen CR1, 2 Axemen C1 (1) + CR1 (1), 3 Chariot C1, 4 Archers C1 (2) + CG1 (2) will attack in 3t.

1) Single Archer defender with 1 XP.
2) Started Barracks, but didn't finish it.
3) Started a second Archer, but didn't finish it.
4) Have a State Religion and was planning to adopt Theocracy, but can't afford the Anarchy now.
5) Currently running Slavery and City is at Population 8.
6) Have Feudalism, thus could adopt Vassalage, but again can't afford the Anarchy now.
7) Could try to whip Longbowmen, but how many can be built in just 3t. 1 or 2?
8) Capital is on a Hill, and Hill Cities are usually easier to defend; an advantage, but certainly not enough.
9) Capital Cultural Borders pop to 4, providing Cultural Defense 60; there is hope.

What would you do?

Here's what I did:

Spoiler :

Tactical Plan for Survival:

t1) Upgrade Archer with 1 XP to Longbowman via 134W payment.
t1) Resume Archer and 1 Pop whip it.
t1) Trade for Construction, Horseback Riding and Ivory to provide a future War Elephant stack to clear out any pillagers.
t2) Upgrade brand new Archer to Longbowman via 134W payment.
t2) Start new Archer; there's enough Hammer overflow from the whip to complete it in 1t with 1H overflow.
t3) Capital grows back to Population 8.
t3) Upgrade brand new Archer to Longbowman via 134W payment.
t3) Start Longbowman and immediately 3 Pop whip it (Each Pop = only 30H when unit has 0 Hammers completed).

Note that upgraded units have their Fortification bonus reset to zero.

Four unpromoted Longbowmen wait in a Hill City for Hell on Earth in the form of the 14 units mentioned above who proceed to attack as planned.

The 5 Swordsmen attacks inflict horrific damage on all four Longbowmen, but none seem able to place a killing blow.

The 2 Axemen attacks inflict significant damage, but can't seem to place decisive blows that kill or allow the next attacker to kill.

Can the exhausted, probably half strength, Longbowmen hold up against the attacks of 3 Chariots? Yes, although some of the Longbowmen falter and may not be able to survive even an Archer attack into our Hill City.

Finally, 4 Archers attack, but at least one Longbowman is too weak to survive another attack, so 1-2 Longbowmen must face 2 Archers each and try to survive.

The Enemy is no longer attacking, my King. Where are they hiding? There may yet be a second wave of them. No Sire, our Scouts have searched and the nearby Enemy units now all wear the plumage of our Longbowmen stained Scarlet.

Status of our four lightly fortified and unfortified Longbowmen:

5-XP 2.1
4-XP 3.6
3-XP 1.6
3-XP 2.8

Sire, the Enemy is willing to talk now. They want 105W for Peace. OK, let them have their Gold, but we stall complete our Barracks and adopt Theocracy as soon as Possible to be prepared for another unprovoked War. Our Longbowmen promoted to Guerrilla 2 (1) and Guerrilla 1 (3) shall provide further deterrence, though our enemies be fools.

The Capital's Population is now 5 when it would have been 9 without War, but we did survive at least.

Hope you enjoyed the story.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[kcd_swede]

What would you do?

Here's what I did:


Hope you enjoyed the story.

Sun Tzu Wu

Yes, I enjoyed it! Very resourceful to get up to 4 LB's for defense so quickly. If I was Louis, I'd never attack 4LB's in a city with that stack, I'd always either bring along seige or HA's with the withdrawal promotions.

But if I were Louis and went after a capitol that had 1 archer, and then 3 turns later by the time I walk through the territory it had 4 LB's (organically grown, rather than re-stationed from nearby), I would shout some very foul language about how the AI cheats.

Hope your game continues to proceed well!

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Yes, I enjoyed it! Very resourceful to get up to 4 LB's for defense so quickly. If I was Louis, I'd never attack 4LB's in a city with that stack, I'd always either bring along seige or HA's with the withdrawal promotions.

But if I were Louis and went after a capitol that had 1 archer, and then 3 turns later by the time I walk through the territory it had 4 LB's (organically grown, rather than re-stationed from nearby), I would shout some very foul language about how the AI cheats.

Hope your game continues to proceed well!

I glad you enjoyed the story; I tried to add a little "human interest" to otherwise boring Game Mechanics. When its your only City on the line, its not boring at all; You just wait to see whether your defenses hold and the Game continues. Or see hours of Game Play go down the drain. Got me excited enough to write about it ...

I wrote this story in the hope that others in a similar AI DoW situation may see a way to survive an AI DoW even when almost completely unprepared and even when the DoW is completely unexpected.

Other than my Capital having a much lower Population than it could be, my Game is moving rather swiftly, despite some early Game mistakes in Research path and in dealing with Slave revolts which can be devastating in OCC.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Preface:

This Story includes references to micromanaging Hammers, so if such things cause your eyes to glaze over, note that you should not continue reading this story of tactical defense building.

Introduction:

After his first failed DoW, I improved his Diplomacy to about +8 Pleased with fair trading at 2 of 4, waiting to trade a substantial Technology for mucho Wealth and +2 fair trading. Knew he had "We Have Enough on our Hands." and considered that the target might be me. I had increased Defense by 2 Longbowmen (upgraded Archers) and Walls which cost me 5t, so I thought that would be enough. When I got Engineering in trade, I saw that I could organically build a Castle in 3t which is the no. of turns a foot Army we need to get to my Capital, so I continued building Oxford University. With just 1t short of completing Oxford University, Louis XIV submits his 2nd DoW. Why couldn't he have waited 1 more turn, so I could have completed Oxford University in t201. Berlin's Population recovered to 9, before becoming stagnate to rush University and Oxford University.

The Challenge and the Defense to meet it:

Louis XIV's initial 25 unit SOD:

5 Macemen C1, C1, C1, CR1, CR1
2 Knights C1, C1
1 War Elephant C2
2 Horse Archers C2, C2
4 Crossbowmen C1, C1, CG1, CG1
1 Pikeman C1
2 Swordsmen C1, Wm1
1 Axeman C1
1 Chariot C1
6 Catapults CR1, CR1, CR1, CR1, Col1, Col1

Here's what I did to meet Louis XIV's second DoW and SOD:

Spoiler :

AI that I had traded Stone for Dye + 2 Wpt, loss access to it via Culture; this occurred with 5t remaining on Oxford University which became 8t remaining. This meant that a Castle would no longer take just 3t turns of Organic building to complete; it would take at least 5t and maybe 6t (avoiding negative Growth).

t1) adopted Slavery, with plan to built Castle in next 2t turns using the Whip.
t2) Started Castle build at 15 Hpt with Bureaucracy and Forge (x 1.75) = 26H.
t2) Trade 40 Wpt for Iron and upgrade two Warriors to Pikemen for 224W each.
t2) Access to Iron unfortunately removes Archer as a build and upgrade to Longbowman option.
t3) Two Population whip of 150H Castle; 2 x 44H x 1.75 = 154H, Whip OF = 26 + 4 = 30H.
t4) Castle Defense reduced by 6 Catapults from 100 to 88.
t4) Spy was caught in Berlin.
t4) Sufficient OF Hammers to build 7th Longbowman 5 XP (Great Military Instructor & Barracks) in 1t.
t5) Castle Defense reduced by 6 Catapults from 88 to 76.
t5) Spy was caught in Berlin.
t5) Start 8th Longbowman with 1H OF at 16 Hpt x 1.75.
t6) Castle Defense reduced by 6 Catapults from 76 to 64.
t6) One Population whip of 75H Longbowman; 1 x 44H x 1.75 = 77H, Whip OF = 28 + 2 = 30H.
t7) Castle Defense reduced by 6 Catapults from 64 to 52.
t7) Louis XIV's 5 units of reinforcement arrive inside Borders: 3 Knights C1Fl1, Fl2, C1; War Elephant C2; Maceman CR1.
t7) Sufficient OF Hammers to build 9th Longbowman 5 XP in 1t, but must divert 1-2 Citizens from Gems Mines to Workshops for sufficient Hammers, so Research suffers.
t8) Castle Defense reduced by 6 Catapults from 52 to 40.
t8) Start 10th Longbowman with 2H OF at 12 Hpt x 1.75 at some negative Growth.
t9) Castle Defense reduced by 6 Catapults from 40 to 28.
t9) One Population whip of 75H Longbowman; 1 x 44H x 1.75 = 77H, Whip OF = 28 + 2 = 30H.
t10) Castle Defense reduced by 6 Catapults from 28 to 16.
t10) Sufficient OF Hammers to build 9th Longbowman 5 XP in 1t, but must divert 1-2 Citizens from Gems Mines to Workshops for sufficient Hammers, so Research suffers.
t11) Louis XIV starts his 30 unit stack attack with Catapults, some Knights, War Elephants attempting to crush Longbowmen, Swordsmen, Axemen, Pike, Macemen to smash Longbowmen and finally Crossbowmen to finish off the heavily damaged Longbowmen.
t11) Louis XIV's initial attack over a River into a Hill Castle resulted in 20 of 30 units lost, 8 units damaged, most of them heavily damaged to near uselessness, and two Crossbowmen remained undamaged, but did attack and killed heavily damaged Longbowmen.
t11) Each of Louis XIV's six Catapults caused collateral damage, but the amount is unknown, but I suspect it brought down all Longbowmen to below Strength 5 and most below Strength 4. The Catapults probably did very little direct damage due to attacking fortified Longbowmen on a Hill City with still Defense 16 of the Castle remaining.
t11) 7 of 11 Longbowmen were lost. All four surviving Longbowmen were reduced to Strength 1.6-1.8, but three earned promotions, two level 4 (City Garrison I) and one Level 3 (Guerilla II), bringing these three's Strength up to 3.6-3.8 and after a single turn of basic healing (no Medic), Strength was back close to 5, enough to handle Louis XIV's remaining 10 units.
t11) One knight each overwhelmed our collaterally damaged Pikemen, so the Warrior to Pikemen upgrade was a bad choice, since Iron prevented building Archers which could have been sustained for 7 turns after the Castle was completed, resulting in 7 Archers of which 6 could have been upgraded to Longbowmen at 134W each.
t11) Louis XIV is still not willing to speak, after foolishly losing 20 units in a failed attack.
t12) Louis XIV seals his loss by ordering his remaining 10 units, many of which probably did earn promotions to renewed health, to attack the remaining Longbowmen, three which which were healthier now than after last turn's Catapult attack and with better defensive promotions (City Garrison I and Guerilla II).
t12) Louis XIV's second wave meets with the Grim Reaper, all except a lone Horse Archer that withdraws from combat.
t12) All four Longbowmen survive at Strengths 3.3, 2.9, 2.6 and 2.3.
t12) Longbowman with strength 2.3 is short 1 XP of level 4, so it attacks the Strength 1.0 Horse Archer at 86% odds and wins its level 4 promotion.
t12) After Louis XIV's second attack on a nominally peaceful City-State becomes a complete disaster for him, he is willing to talk about Peace, but wants 680W for it.
t12) After many Technology trades that required extra Wealth to seal the deal, Wealth is done below 900, so I'm not willing to give him 680W, but I'll take his 1220W.
t12) Simply to avoid paying in Wealth, I offer Liberalism for Peace to Louis XIV which all the advanced Civs have already. He readily accepts. I immediately take his 1220W for Economics; Wealth for me and fewer unit upgrades for Louis XIV.
t13) Louis XIV submits his DoW to Augustus who declared War on technically advanced Huayna Capac some turns earlier. If one can't defeat a tiny little City-State, maybe one can dog-pile on a backward Civ on the opposite side of the Map.

Alternative Tactical Defense Building Plan:

What I did above was less than optimal. Here are some other ideas.

Spoiler :

Since I started with about 2200W surplus, I had plenty of Wealth to upgrade Archers to Longbowmen; avoiding Iron would have allowed this option and staying with Caste System and Population 9 would have permitted 20 Hpt x 1.75 = 35 Hpt via 4H Plains Workshops which is almost enough to build a 37H Archer every turn. Skipping the Castle build and adoption of Slavery saves 3t and 1H per Workshop. Although the Cultural Defense of 60 plus Walls could be beat down faster, 2 more Longbowmen could be Archer built/upgraded before the Enemy arrived at Berlin (total 8). Each turn of Seige (Bombardment), an Archer would be built with the slowly depleting overflow and upgraded to a Longbowman. The Bombardment would destroy 24 Defense per turn, so the Enemy would likely attack 2t later at Wall Defense 12 when 2 more Archers could be built, resulting in 9 Longbowmen and 2 Warriors rather than 11 Longbowmen and 2 Pikemen. The final unit build would maximize Hammers to be a Longbowman, since would be no chance to upgrade it or promote it before the atatck. However, Louis XIV would have to proceed with his initial 25 units, short of the 5 latecomers consisting of 3 Knights, 1 War Elephant and 1 Maceman which significantly weakens his attack. If Louis XIV delays another turn to reduce Defense to 0, he will face another Longbowman. If he waits until his 5 units of reinforcement arrive, he will face four more Longbowmen (A total of 14 Longbowmen, 1 Archer and 2 Warriors).

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[AutomatedTeller]

another option might have been your own cats and beat down his stack.

Did you think about making horses to flank his cats and take them out before they could kill your defense?

I have no idea if those ideas would have worked better or not, but it's what I thought of as alternatives.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

another option might have been your own cats and beat down his stack.

I did consider this, but Catapults cost the same as Longbowmen. Another problem was I would either have to attack his stack over a River or move 2 Tiles to get into a position to attack without crossing a River, but then any surviving Catapults would be lost a an inevitable counter-attack.

Did you think about making horses to flank his cats and take them out before they could kill your defense?

Yes, I did consider building Knights, but they are even more expensive to build. In addtion to paying 40 Wpt for Iron, I would have had to pay 20 Wpt for Horse to even have the Resources to build Knights. I think this may have been a better option than Catapults, but I have no experience flanking siege units via mounted units, so I had no idea how much damage I could expect to inflict. The C2 Elephant and two C1 Knights probably would have made the first three Knight attacks chancy, depending on flanking promotions alone for survival and thus the damage to siege units would also be uncertain.

I have no idea if those ideas would have worked better or not, but it's what I thought of as alternatives.

The Longbowman is the best unit to build in this situation:

Given that Louis XIV was willing to suicide his units across a River onto a Hill City, building Longbowmen was the best option. Longbowmen have +25% Hill Defense and +25% City Defense and 5 XP allowed Guerrilla I (+20% Hill Defense) and Guerrilla II (+30% Hill Defense). Add to that Hill Tile Defense (+25%) and River Defense (+25%), the Longbowman have net bonus of +150% to which one must add any Fortify bonus (up to +25%) and remaining Castle Defense (+16% when Louis XIV decided to attack), for +166% to +191% (depending of turns of forify bonus).

Build Archers and Upgrade them to Longbowmen:

Since Wealth started at 2200, the option of building a 37H Archer and upgrading it to a Longbowman is far more appealing than building a 75H Longbowman. With enough Hammers, the Archers can be built at close to 1 per turn with 4H Plains Workshops, Forge and Bureaucracy. Upgrading an Archer to a Longbowman costs 134W. Note that access to Iron removes the option to build Archers and Archers builds are converted to Crossbowman builds. Possession of Military Science (which I did not possess until after defeating Louis XIV's SOD) permanently removes the option to build Archers.

I no longer think that 2 Pop whipping a Castle was needed to buy more time to build additional Longbowmen ...

The fastest Tactical Defender construction Strategy:

Another interesting and possibly the best option would have been adopting Nationhood and drafting 4 Musketmen with 2 XP (5 XP / 2) while building Archers organically at nearly 1 per turn and upgrading them to Longbowmen. This would have allowed drafting 4 Musketmen with 2 XP and building 4 Archers -> Longbowmen with 5 XP in 5t (the time it would take Louis XIV to get to the Capital and bombard for 2t). This would have resulted in the initial 6 Longbowmen and 2 Warriors, 4 Musketmen with 2 XP, 3 Longbowmen with 5 XP and an Archer with 5 XP. Even with one Musketman and Archer not being promoted or upraded, 4 Musketmen, 9 Longbowmen and Archer would have been a formidable Defense where the 2 Warriors would have taken some of the collateral damage from the Musketmen and Longbowmen and may even waste the efforts of the final 2 attackers if the remaining Defenders were very weak (better to lose 2 Warriors than 2 very weak Musketmen or Longbowmen). Notice that these 16 Defenders would have been facing 19 City killers and 6 Catapults. I wish I had used this Defensive Tactical Plan instead. The Catapult hits would have been spread among 16 units spreading the collateral damage of 6 units per Catalog much more . Given that there are only 3 more City Killers than Defenders, I'd expect 5 or less non-Warrior loses. There would always be stronger non-Warrior Defenders than Warrior Defenders, so realistically the Warriors are only a factor in diluting the Catapult's collateral damage and would not Defend. (Without Bureaucracy, the Archer building would be slowed to 2 per 3t though, but that may simply result in one less Longbowman than planned above (15 Defenders is still a very strong Defense indeed). I now regret not considering Nationhood/drafting without building a Castle.

Sun Tzu Wu