Co-op da Whoop #4: Dario I½

[Silu]

As the most observant in the audience might already have guessed, this time around the dynamic duo is:

Silu playing Joao II of Portugal
Fleme playing Darius I of Persia

This has two benefits. First, we have Darius on our side. Second, we won't have Joao as our opponent. Personally, I think the latter is the bigger benefit.

Now, some might remember us talking about Zaroleon next, but that really was a train wreck. We started a game which was going well, and just when we were about to start the thread, we got a very improbable DoW totally blindsiding us and wrecking our game. We started another game which was also going well. We were again just about to start the thread, when we got a very improbable dagger DoW totally blindsiding us and wrecking our game. Long story short, playing the French seems to further encourage military disasters so we decided to just forget about that for now. Additional fun fact, in the latter game TGL (the library variety) went in 1600BC There's nothing bad in losing an sich, but losing in a boring fashion is mostly useless!

Anyhow, we pretty much decided that we'll write something this time around, for good or bad. I can tell you already there'll be both good and bad in this game right from the start, and that surprisingly I'll get most of the other and Fleme most of the other.

So, our settings this time around, mostly the same:

Difficulty: Deity
Speed: Marathon
Map: Large/Hemispheres/2 continents
Rivals: 5x2 AIs
Other: Choose Religions

We like to play some ways into the game for the first report, so without further ado, my start (I'm pretty sure I changed the build to warrior that turn):



Decent enough for IMP/EXP. How about the surroundings then?



Decent enough for... uh... solar panels? Land oil? IMP-popping Erwin Rommel as a GG and roleplaying with him? In any case, we quickly decided some cheeseness is in order. In the form of...



...some dudes that can ride on horseback without horseback riding! They do require The Wheel though... How does that work again? Let me know if you figure it out. But I digress... Anyway, the ever happy Hatty lives conveniently next door next to some juicy land, which would hopefully make up for my everything-but-juicy land. I'm pretty much dead weight as far as the rush goes, so the least I could do was ferry a Worker over to fashion some Immortals out of wood and cast spells that bring them to life.

I had a vast, vast expanse of land to the north, so I was a bit worried about barb defense. I asked for a single Immortal to defend against barbs - after all they decimate everything but Spears, and those don't come that early. And even if they do, I can emergency-whip some Warriors to take the brunt of them. Right?



Oh poopers.



Damn. Well, I'll just hunker up in Lisbon and conjure up some Warriors.



Looks pretty bad, but No way there could be any more barbs on the way.



Okay, disregard that. By the way, I think the "The enemy has been spotted near Lisbon" is somewhat of an understatement. Well, still, there's plenty of Warriors and Archers in that pack which our Immortal can easily destroy, not like there's any terrain defended ax---



*sigh* Me and my big mouth...

Oh well. I think it's time to pack by bags and move to the western seaside resort of Thebes! I hear the weather there is lovely at this time of the millennium.

 

[Fleme]

So, Dario I½... a catchy title if you ask me! Well, atleast when compared to Mehmeryavarman II.

Anyhow, as Silu did explain we did try out Zaroleon but the success was very limited and we lost to a variety of reasons and deemed those games not worthy of any reporting. Losses included isolation -> reroll, 2 pre-bc dows against odds and something else that escapes me. Either way, we lost a lot and decided to go for Dario 1½!

So yeah, Darius is obviously an easygoing leader and I'm sure no-one disagrees when I say that he's in the top 3 in pretty much anyone's book, so I'm off to a good start.

Well, not so much a good start as far as this report goes since I didn't take a shot of the starting location at 4000 BC. I guess we had a bit of tunnelvision and were expecting a fast loss or something but I digress... Anyhow, here's Persepolis in the event of the discovery of AH:



Here's where we committed to Immortal rushing Hatshepsut who was hogging up some of that sweet Nile we (I) decided should belong to me instead. Silu soon sent a worker my way to help out by chopping and what have you.

Here's me making my way to Egypt:



Luckily, Hatsheulle didn't opt to go for BW and apparently struck out on Horses as well. Oh well, their misfortune is my fortune.

Heliopolis, garrisoned by 2 archers, falls on the first turn of war:



Not even stopping to heal, my Immortals make their way towards Thebes and capture it. It was garrisoned by just 2 archers and was on flatland so it was easy pickings.



Still, while I'm succesful on this front you can see that Silu is pretty much screwed. More to come.

 

[shyuhe]

@ Silu. Now what was I saying in that other thread about early BC defeats on marathon deity

 

[Silu]

@ Silu. Now what was I saying in that other thread about early BC defeats on marathon deity

Defeats? Who's being defeated? The spirit of Joao will live on

 

[Yared]

As the most observant in the audience might already have guessed, this time around the dynamic duo is:

Silu playing Joao II of Portugal
Fleme playing Darius I of Persia

This has two benefits. First, we have Darius on our side. Second, we won't have Joao as our opponent. Personally, I think the latter is the bigger benefit.

Long story short, playing the French seems to further encourage military disasters so we decided to just forget about that for now.

I agree with Fleme in that the thread title is pretty catchy Better luck this time. Also, beautiful rush.
-
BTW, I see that the Portuguese get the UU as well. What happens if you're playing Ragawa of the Japan/Viking? Do both get the ability to pick between Berserk and Samurai? Or do the Japanese get just the Samurai and the Vikings the Berserk?

 

[Silu]

BTW, I see that the Portuguese get the UU as well. What happens if you're playing Ragawa of the Japan/Viking? Do both get the ability to pick between Berserk and Samurai? Or do the Japanese get just the Samurai and the Vikings the Berserk?

Nah, you don't get your ally's UU/UB. That Immortal was gifted, partly due to me knowing how to utilize it best for the defense of my empire (clearly, seeing my success in that regard so far) and partly to take advantage of the free unit maintenance you get for your first few units - I hadn't yet passed the free unit threshold.

 

[Yared]

Aha. Thanks.

 

[CarlH]

Do both get the ability to pick between Berserk and Samurai? Or do the Japanese get just the Samurai and the Vikings the Berserk?

Each civ can only build their UU, but they can be gifted and remain UUs.

 

[Yared]

When you gift your UU to someone else when you're not playing team-matches, they revert to the normal form right?

 

[CarlH]

^^ I have never gifted any unit, other than a missionary for cheasy AP purposes, to another civ, so i dont know.

 

[Infantry#14]

ouch, the barbarians are very brutal! Marathon barbarians are extremely hard to deal with.

Building the GW may actually be very beneficial as both players become immune to barbarians. Both players share the effect of wonders, except the Taj Mahal wonder only grant golden age to the player who builds it.

In team games, 1 should specialize in techs and wonders and the other in military.

 

[ahcos]

"there's nothing bad in losing -> an sich <-" ? why do you use german here i know there are several words that have no counterpart in english, but "an sich" could be easily translated to "whatsoever" ... oder so :X well, just curious...

that's some ... well, no bad luck after all, i mean, marathon... you knew it, didn't you archery is one tech away, are the borderpops so important that you take myst > archery? not that archers would help you to break the barbarian besiegement, but personally i couldn't sleep well knowing that there could be barb axes any second ... and then you're seriously screwed. once again, silu gets the beating and fleme the hugs it seems (= 2 corn, pig, horse, 4 Fp, hills, wood, river.

silu, the night is darkest before the dawn.

 

[Infantry#14]

wait a minute, this game is not lost yet! Fleme can gift cities to Silu (from Egypt) and that will be Silu's new capital should the old capital is destroyed by barbarians.

 

[Silu]

Building the GW may actually be very beneficial as both players become immune to barbarians. Both players share the effect of wonders, except the Taj Mahal wonder only grant golden age to the player who builds it.

Well, the GW is always a huge risk as I've seen it go as early as 2960BC. Plus barbs very often enter borders before a human can complete it. It's hugely unreliable with these settings.

"there's nothing bad in losing -> an sich <-" ? why do you use german here i know there are several words that have no counterpart in english, but "an sich" could be easily translated to "whatsoever" ... oder so :X well, just curious...

Well, it's somewhat of an expression as far as I know... and it's shorter than the Latin counterpart, "per se". Oh wait, it's not. Crap. In any case it doesn't have a very handy translation in English, certainly not "whatsoever"

that's some ... well, no bad luck after all, i mean, marathon... you knew it, didn't you archery is one tech away, are the borderpops so important that you take myst > archery? not that archers would help you to break the barbarian besiegement, but personally i couldn't sleep well knowing that there could be barb axes any second ... and then you're seriously screwed. once again, silu gets the beating and fleme the hugs it seems (= 2 corn, pig, horse, 4 Fp, hills, wood, river.

silu, the night is darkest before the dawn.

Well... Immortals handle Axes much better than Archers, with the terrain we have. And a couple of Warriors is usually enough to deal with the Spear or two that pops up. I wasn't planning on getting 3 Spears to enter my borders by 2300BC. In any case Archery would have been too late, and border pops are a priority to get the Egyptian conquests rolling. Teching Archery should be avoided if at all possible since it's a mostly useless dead end, though I don't think we can avoid it here...

wait a minute, this game is not lost yet! Fleme can gift cities to Silu (from Egypt) and that will be Silu's new capital should the old capital is destroyed by barbarians.

That's the idea. Though luckily the old capital won't get destroyed if barbs take it and can be retaken. Palace will jump though.

 

[Moroktonos]

An Sich and Per Se... in English?

How about... "in itself" or "as such"? That was a very funny write up, though it did describe a very unfortunate turn of events -- very little I read here actually makes me laugh out loud, and this did. Those are some unholy barbs too!

 

[roberteriksson]

I love this serie

 

[ahcos]

well, i'm german and ye, there are always terms in a language you can't translate, but "an sich" ... think it can be translated, but not without taking away the meaning "an sich", but that's the case with most translations apart from the more usual stuff like "hello, my name is...". whatever. was just wondering as most people won't understand it, on the other hand it's not to hard to guess the meaning in the context.

regarding archery... ofc, immortals deal with 75% of the upcoming barbarian stuff pretty good, still they're not so good as a defense even vs. axes - you have to attack in order to receive the +100% bonus, or am i wrong here (immortals can fortify after all...)? so if you attack an axe and have somewhat crappy odds and get out of the fight with ~30% HP or, even worse, you have to attack in in on a hill/forrest tile (you've plenty of them around your cap..), you're screwed, because you leave the city undefended OR lose the 100% bonus. multiple immortals would solve, but as far as i can see you only have one immortal here. anyway, i might be wrong here because i'm not too sure about how immortals "work" regarding defense.
beside that, yes, archery is a dead-end and yes, borderpops are always freakin' important, but i've found archery to be the "without it you'll be DEAD and the game will END" rather than the "dead-end" in emperor+ and especially marathon if i lack metals in a favourable position.

don't get me wrong, i'm only a emperor player on it's way to immortal and therefore ain't questioning your decisions, i'm just curious how you made 'em and try to learn from it.
would you've chosen archery if this would've been a solo game (no need to speed up conquest and stuff)?

 

[Silu]

well, i'm german and ye, there are always terms in a language you can't translate, but "an sich" ... think it can be translated, but not without taking away the meaning "an sich", but that's the case with most translations apart from the more usual stuff like "hello, my name is...". whatever. was just wondering as most people won't understand it, on the other hand it's not to hard to guess the meaning in the context.

I just was under the impression that that's one of them international expressions. Apparently the usage of that term (in other languages) goes back to Kant (as in, das Ding an sich) and is mainly used in context of some philosophical blabberance. I could argue that you need to be have a pretty philosophical attitude to eat Deity 1500BC dagger DoWs on a regular basis.

Never would have thought I'd be having a linguistics conversation in a CdW series thread!

regarding archery... ofc, immortals deal with 75% of the upcoming barbarian stuff pretty good, still they're not so good as a defense even vs. axes - you have to attack in order to receive the +100% bonus, or am i wrong here (immortals can fortify after all...)? so if you attack an axe and have somewhat crappy odds and get out of the fight with ~30% HP or, even worse, you have to attack in in on a hill/forrest tile (you've plenty of them around your cap..), you're screwed, because you leave the city undefended OR lose the 100% bonus. multiple immortals would solve, but as far as i can see you only have one immortal here. anyway, i might be wrong here because i'm not too sure about how immortals "work" regarding defense.
beside that, yes, archery is a dead-end and yes, borderpops are always freakin' important, but i've found archery to be the "without it you'll be DEAD and the game will END" rather than the "dead-end" in emperor+ and especially marathon if i lack metals in a favourable position.

Immortals eat Axes alive. They only receive the Axe bonus on offense, but I was going to defend my second city, which is surrounded by flatland, so Axes wouldn't have got anywhere - plus Chariot vs Axe in forest even is a favorable matchup. In half a dozen turns I would have got a couple of warriors and reinforcements (read: another unit) from Persia, so I would have been totally fine. After Oporto fell we pretty much just decided to forget about Portugal for now and focus on finishing Hatty off and establish an outward fogbust perimeter from Persia.

Immortals can sometimes even handle barb Spears alone if you can establish a perimeter, since a fortified Immortal on a forest hill is a coinflip against a Spear.

would you've chosen archery if this would've been a solo game (no need to speed up conquest and stuff)?

Don't think so, since I wouldn't have Hunting in solo (with it, definitely). Probably would have settled on the Copper/Copper in 1st ring with 2-4 Warriors as initial defense. Of course here even that would have led to probable doom but that's Marathon barbs for you sometimes. Note that in solo I would also have +1 Worker in my lands (since I ferried one over) for more chopping.

 

[Fleme]

To t200

Well, my segment started with finishing the war on Egypt. I was in a situation in which I virtually could not extend any more troops towards the war effort as borders were swarming with barbarians to a degree I've not seen before and Persepolis was just building Immortals non-stop to like t150. However, I did catch a lucky break with the barbs too; A spear and an axe moved in on Memphis and fail as they did, they dented the defenders enough for my conquerors of Egypt to get acceptable odds.

I razed the city as my economy was already stretched; Egypt was removed from the map and carrying on with my tradition of missing screenshots of importance, I don't have a picture of it.

t150 the pressure was finally under control and I had actually built my first settler and settled Pasargadae on the river.



Some barb stats:



Carrying on to t200, things were peaceful and rather uneventful:





You can see DG filling the void Hatty left. I'm not too worried about him as I don't think he will be DoWing on us 1v2 but who knows. We're aiming for Monarchy as happy resources are virtually unexistent (incence, silk) to enable the riverside cities to grow. I'm hopefully looking at something like 300 beakers per turn by 1 AD.

 

[Silu]

To 1500BC: Enemy at the gates!

So we left off with Lisboa facing imminent doom, and Joao considering moving to Thebes. At the final battle, people were dying left and right... The Persian loan-army, the cowards they are, were watching the carnage from a nearby forest instead of risking themselves by joining the fray. The dust cloud that the battle raised lasted for 40 years, and when it settled...



By the skin of their teeth, the Portuguese had prevailed. Why the skin of their teeth you ask? Because there certainly wasn't any more skin on their back:



Yeah... about 2000BC, capital is my only city, at size 1 and unable to grow. Peachy. Oh well, at least IMP makes size 1 Settler buildage faster. With more Persian soldiers, maybe we could even get to keep a city this time! With the Egyptians being only history anymore, there're soldiers to spare.

The Persians started to be jealous of Joao having two palaces, and demanded the other back, sadly...



Meanwhile, Lisboa was allowed to grow to size 2! Of course this was the cue for more Axes and Spears to jump from the shadows all around, leading to...



...yeah. I guess I'm destined to lead a 1-pop empire.

After this, I get out the most expensive fogbuster I've ever had. No way I'll settle it with just a single Immortal guarding it this time.



Finally, after some more Archers, I could settle Guimarães on the ruins of Oporto. Barbs threw themselves against it, but that only gave one of my two Archers defending it CG2. Finally the barb troubles seemed to be behind. ABOUT TIME, at 1900BC.

A barb Swordsman popped from the fog a few turns later. Well, surely even he can't do anything against my defense of CG2 Archer, Archer and C2Shock Immortal?

Or can he? A turn later our veteran Archer lay dead, with barely a scratch on the barbarian. Turn after, the now-promoted Swordsman proceeded to slaughter the other Archer. This time our Immortal could mop it up without a scratch. Next turn, following a barb Warrior, ANOTHER Swordsman comes out of the fog. There were some Persian reinforcements on their way, but this distracted them somewhat (note: that guy spawned on the single tile on the peninsula not visible - glad the barbs got their use out of that as well!):



Meanwhile in Guimarães, a Warrior attacks our half-fortified C2Shock (drumroll):



Bringing it down to 2 strength and facing the second barb Sword! With the city being 3 turns from an emergency Archer whip! With the reinforcing Immortal (more behind it) distracted to save Lisboa from the surprise Axe! I think this paragraph needs more exclamation marks!

After getting my 2nd city razed by barbs AGAIN, the jolly barb headed towards Lisboa. Well, we had 2 Shock-Immortals there, both getting okayish odds, so we fired one against it. Fail. Fired the other on the now gravely wounded Sword. Fail. I could barely mop it up before it would undoubtedly get 2 promotions next turn, leaving me in this situations some would probably call "precarious". I call it "optimizing barb defense sizes". Though I wouldn't mind if our fogbusters didn't constantly 1) die against the odds 2) be called to reinforce some goddamn periphery (like Lisboa) all the flippin' time.



The guys that built this settlement didn't feel too sure about themselves. At least there's 2-5 turns of cottage built on each of those flood plains due to dodging barbs



No but seriously, there are tons of Immortals around now with a fogbusting grid almost all the way to Russia (well not really, plus there're three tiles east of Coimbra, to be busted in 2 turns by that warrior almost visible in the lower right), there's NOOO way barbs could cause me any more significant trouble.

...

Right?