deity aw

[Dirk1302]

@gkey,

Spoiler :

no choke on Babylon as i wanted to build settlers/workers before unit spamming. Defending is easy at the beginning but progressively more difficult later on.Babylon, isn't the worst ai sofar, Peter and Han have big stacks.

Position is ok but i have no idea how to win it atm. I'm spamming settlers right now, Once i have all these cities really online i can at least spam serious amounts of units myself combined with building wealth. The collateral damage from trebs once the ais get them is bad though. I don't see any way of defending against that atm. Maybe posting 20+ units in both blocker cities to soften collateral, i have several drill IV skirmi's as well they take a little less collateral at least.

@snaaty

Spoiler :

How did you get so much xp on one skirmi? Good luck or some intentional start? Maybe getting one top defender that just survives all is key? I'll get a GG shortly, maybe i should pin it on my current top defender?

@ABCF

Spoiler :

Same approach as i saw you do in a warlords immortal game ages ago , there it was a lb on a hill chokepoint that killed off zillions of attackers . Maybe making such a top defender is the way to go. I'm a bit worried about your expansion though , it'll take time to get them online so your super hero will have quite a bit of work to do.

 

[Snaaty]

ah... ...finally things start rolling

@ dirk, gkey, abcf:
you can read all spoilers, including the one for my game, nothing new for all of you in them

@dirk:

Spoiler :

the super defender is the usuall thing to happen, following this rule:

1. promote all skirms to fs
2. settle all gg in one city so you can get fs4 skirms out there
3. with cats comming, the first fs4 skirm usually kills ALL cats without taking damage and therefore takes out entire stacks allone (fs is brutal)
4. get 1 super defender in each chokepoint/hillcity
5. dont upgrade superdefenders. like that you will get another super lb defender (only upgrade them to rifles if you get there and take them with you on the offence, else they take away the needed promos from the other units)

6. healers: get a woody 3 axe or spear and kill off retired mounted units at 99% odds, slowly leveling towards woody 3 str1 healer 1

-> from my experience, super unit ggs are a waist, since having 99.5% fighting odds means that each and every one of them is bound to die after winning 200 fights (im talking about experience here, and it ALWAYS happens, so to avoid any luck components, dont rely on gg heroes)

something else concerning your blocking cities:
in my opinion, putting the lower blocking city on the desert hill (4 tiles away from the higher blocking city, on the gems) and NOT on the plains hill 8 from your position was a mistake (besides from the extra hammer and the bronze easier to defend):
with both blocking cities at only 3 tiles distance, you can move units after engineering from city to city in 1 turn, therefore needing fewer units to defend both cities (where the bigger ai stack is you move more units into) and dont risk loosing them while moving them between the cities to knights/curassiers)

edith adds after having a look at your save:
questions:
- why didnt you put your gemcity ontop of that gem hill?
- why did you delay ironw (we need to know if we have iron and where it is. the bronze we cant hold cause its to close to the front. iw also is needed to clear some jungle near the front)? aso, you could take the barb city with swords, giving you some extra cash and maybe a worker...

what else:
- i like that you settled the western city that early (watasomething). i didnt find this spot in time, so i settled marblefish, which is suboptimal compared to your city
- i would have promoted my defenders different (all get fs, cg comes after that)
- i would have picked alpha before currency for the research boni. that should be bigger then the few gold of the extra traderoute given the fact you dont have 2 islands settled already

@ gkey:

Spoiler :

the fort is a death trap... ...give it up and stay in the city. hard lesson to learn:
borderland cities have exactly 1 use: keep your core cities alive and operativ. farm them and whip them to death
-> all tiles you like to work should be BEHIND the city. clear forests/jungles near the city asap once you can

concerning your def units:
wrong mix. forget about the axes, get fs skirms. they are better, much, much better (4base strength, + 25 city + 25 hill + 20 cg1 + 25 fortify + 4-8 fs with fs4 = 8 str + 4-8 fs... ...they dont get scratched very often and once one of them reaches cg3... ...ouch)

your tech path is/was wrong for this map:
getting the oracle, you should have beelined towards monarchy. we are so low on happy that only hr can be the solution.

compared to my game at a similar stage you have only 1/3 of the tech output at 100% research: 100 beakers compared to 300 beakers...

-> you should have settled the island city early + spotting the second island city, meaning priorizing currency on this map is a must...

-> how i usually play/do the def:
- try to defend with a stack of 6-8 skirms in each borderland city, backed with a woody 3 healer and maybe a spear
- only build farms in the borderland cities
- whip the needed defs there, ignoring
- with hr you can easily counter 10 with the defenders you will have in the city

--> so the rule for borderland cities:
whip them, whip them, whip them, stack defenders in them

@ abcf:

Spoiler :

nice try. if you manage to keep your ggs alive (knights will be a big problem... ...i usually lost my super ggs to knights (immune to fs), so i stoped making them at some point) and to grab a bit of land, you are in really great shape. your teching is impressive, way better then mine...

about my try:

Spoiler :

no, still no detailled summary due to lack of time... ...but is will be done at some point:

i made some heavy mistakes that might cost me the game (which isnt going bad, but its not ideal, so i dont expect to win it:
1. not scouting enough early and not finding marble, so no oracle for me (which puts me in a bad position techwise compared to the other saves right from the start). i was getting hit by bad luck here: babylon sent one of their super archers directly towards my capital... ...i was forced to put 3 warriors in and couldnt scout anything... ...later, when the archer was no more, i decided to scout towards babylon (and the future frontline) first)
2. forgetting about spionage totally... ..., this was a full zonck... ...in teamgames you ignore it, cause the spio there is totally bugged, but in sp its bringing a tech for around 600 beakers around 500 AD when putting the spypoints right from the start on the closest neighbour... ...argh
3. to light on defenders... ...i had some unlucky fights, loosing more skirms then expected and still delayed building more defenders cause i was waiting for feuda... ...now in so lightly defended that i might be killed within the next 10-15 turns... ...maybe, maybe with lots and lots of really heavy whipping in can counter this and stay in the game a bit longer

-> im at 600something ad right now, got feuda this turn

-> another bad developement in my game:
ramses of rome is really, really running away... ...if he decides to tech some modern warfar techs soon, im very likely dead (rifles, grens, curassiers, cavs would really, really hurt)

 

[GKey]

Horrid game on my part, restart. Kind of mad on myself. No need to try being too smart, bro, settling on PH is fricking OBVIOUS! (Speaking to myself)

Spoiler :

Chocking Babylon with woody warrior, stole 4 workers and hope for more, suddenly run with 2 skirmishers into city defended by only 1 bowman, worth a try!

,
while going oracle Monarchy. Then I meet Ramses. Guess what?

He is at war with Darius!

He was the wonder spammer my previous attempt, but he busy now!
So I look how long takes learning Monarchy - 13 turns? I'll take it!
and then:

So now it's way better then in my previous attempt.

Keep chocking Babylon with maces. Razed another city.

I am tending to repeat that mech infantry rush like in that OCC AW game. GG mechs had not 95.5 but 99.7-100% vs infantry fortified in city on hill. Only question if I will be alive by then. .

 

[Snaaty]

i edited a few more tips/infos in your spoiler in the post above. you should read them for your second attempt (will help) + read also what i wrote in dirks spoiler concerning the placement of the blocking cities...

-> your second game looks great, but i wouldnt rely on this taktics to work on a regular basis

 

[dprkforum]

I never tried a game above Chieftain, but I will try this one. What is the most that will happen?

Lose the game? Yep. I will post the results so "lolz" can ensue.

 

[Snaaty]

Horrid game on my part, restart. Kind of mad on myself. No need to try being too smart, bro, settling on PH is fricking OBVIOUS! (Speaking to myself)

just had a look at your new save:

Spoiler :

your teching is impressive in this game

question:
- why did you builb phil? it seems weird on aw since you very likely wont run pazi and the reli was already gone...

what else:
- you have a religion but no shrine... ...i would try to breed a priest to get more cash
- taking susa should have high prio... ...you should have settled this city yourself with currency (but is see you already have a gally with maces heading there)

def:
- for my taste, you´re to ligthly defended. if erwin dies your toast. as soon as knights (ingnoring fs) you should put more lbs in
- like i said already in earlier posts, i dont like relying on heroes defending. they live, you live, they die... ...well jup, not good.
- best way to defend in my opinion is with a bunch of promoted skirms, later lbs, backed with a few cats to weaken heavy stacks.

...

defenders in borderland cities you need (based on my experience without heroes):

pre catas: 5 skirms
after catas: 10 skirms
after maces/else: 10 skirms, 5 lbs
after trebs/knights: 10 lbs, 10 skirms

...

research:
- i usually go machinery-engineering-guilds-banking
- going the conventional lib path seems tempting but very often ends up with you dying to ever increasing stacks... ...to avoid tempting luck, better ignore it

...

overall strat:
putting constant pressure on the ais was the strat. that worked best for me. after having maces + cats + trebs (at latest with knights) you should start to go out and take (raze + resettle on hills) cities to increas your land. not expanding constantly will get you very often to far behing the big ais (here ramses of rome) and you get crushed with rifles/cavs and such due to sheer numbers. only enough land and therefore numbers on your side can change that (at least that had been the case for me)

...

having said all this... ...so you dont get me wrong... ...i only want to point out some things i would do different / havent managed to pull off myself... ...your game seems strongest so far (your like 500+ beakers ahead of me + you have a religion)... ...im very interested to see how things work out and if you are really gunning for lib, im very curious how it will work out

 

[GKey]

@Snaaty

Spoiler :

Tech rate thx to 8 stolen workers and not expanding too rapid.

I haven't bulbed philo, teched it.

Will increase defense now.

Tech path - Going for Mil Science ASAP (preferable from lib). So I upgrade my GG CR maces to grens.

Completely agree with constant pressure strat.

Thanks for kind words, will update soon.

 

[dprkforum]

Screenshots are not necessary for this summary. I got my entrials handed to me on a silver platter with all the trimmings by 1000 BC. I did record my gameplay, though. If anybody is interested in a laugh, I can upload it to youtube.

 

[Dirk1302]

A long post about my adventures on this map and some thoughts on this format

@Snaaty

Spoiler :

Indeed building block on desert hill was a huge mistake, i did it to to get the calender resource in second ring reckoning that i could put units between those both blocker cities. Completely forgot about the extra move after engineering. Not used enough yet to aw format, takes some practice to get the hang of it. It had one advantage though, that barb city flipped around 100 AD to my empire.

I didn't like to build the city on the gem hill, it gets the happy of course but loses out on some good commerce. I had hoped to get the mines up sooner but harchers have a habit to just roam behind that city. One of the reasons to delay IW for me.

For getting economy up currency is way better than alfa, research and wealth go through production modifiers. So you up the slider by building wealth and as a consequence the science part of your commerce goes through library/academy. This makes a significant difference.

Iron, we have it or we don't but right now it's not that interesting imo as skirmishers are much better and cheaper than any metal unit atm. IW will be my next tech.

Well...until 1120 AD

Spoiler :

Went IW first then set slider to 0 as i can't pay for my empire anymore. I settled 2 fish horse island, it helps a bit by giving every city 2 2coin trade routes. In a nutshell i developed the empire further making sure to have enough units in both blocker cities. Most of the time i kept some 6 units between both cities for emergencies. Tech path IW- Feud(525AD switch vassalage)->Col->Calender->Aest->Lit (HE in capital)->Construction->MC->Machinery.

I have research up to 180 bpt at 50% and that'll be significantly better after guilds(grocer) and banking (bank). However Darius is already able to field cavs and Ramesses is one turn from rifling with also Miltrad already in the bag.

So i think i call it a day, in a normal deity game with tech trading on many ais wouldn't have had rifling at this point, certainly not if they'd been at war constantly as here. I suspect that Ramesses and Darius have very good land.

So what could have been done better.....

Spoiler :

Apart from the things Snaaty already mentioned especially placement of the blocker cities ( didn't matter much until this point) i don't think i played that bad, the constant need to build units puts a heavy strain on everything else and i still got the empire developed properly.

I did make another mistake in not channeling spy points early ,i often forget that, here there might have been some stealing. Then again i might have stolen something like MC perhaps but i would have had to research alfa which i don't need now. And then you have to build spies, i don't think i was really ready for that.

I would be very surprised (and in awe) if someone managed to win this one. I think that a normal build up like mine or Snaaty's will just fail on this map. I agree with Snaaty that you have to take out Babylon (at least) to have a chance here. I need guilds banking and engineering (and HBR) to do that. I can get those techs in ~ 15 turns from now.Then an attack force needs to be assembled, another 10 turns at least as it must be a huge stack. I can start with knights right after Guilds/HBR of course. Once all techs are in i would whip ~ 3 units/ city in 10 turns getting me some 30 units.Add some lb's and knights i've built after Guilds gand i'll have an attack force of ~ 50 units.

So i could have made the push against Babylon in 25 turns ~1370 AD. Much to late on this map as i'm probably facing infantry or at least loads of cavs from Ramesses/Darius by then. Maybe Guilds/banking should be skipped but only engineering and puny pikes to go with trebs/lb seems a bit shallow.

So maybe the game should be opened differently, if you get GW that's a huge asset as you can now opt for a spy economy (maybe best even without GW?). You also get more GG's. But it'll cost you on expansion i think.

The problem with ABCF's and Gkey's save is imo that you have to develop all the land in time to assemble the attack force in time. It brings you nothing if you get to engineering/guilds or even better early if you have like 4-6 cities. I settled most cities pretty early and still not all the infra is there.

Looking at gkey's save i think that his city placement on the front line with only one block city ( i was shocked by the number of defenders in that city however) is much better than mine and also Snaaty's. Having to defend only one city is a an enormous advantage compared to 2 cities:

1. You don't lose fortify bonus by switching units between 2 cities.
2. I often had a large stack before both cities so i had to decide which city gets most defenders for that turn.

So if i had to do it again (and no i don't need to) i would settle like gkey and try to grab GW. This would cut down on troops significantly, only one city to defend and more GG's. Maybe i would go for a spy economy then, need Babylon's religion for that to make it really profitable.Don't think it's enough on this map but it's the best i can come up with.

Stats and screenshots

Spoiler :

I killed > 500 units. I lost 4 longbows and 21 skirmishers in the process. Those skirmishers don't do too well if they have to defend against knights.

Units in blockcities atm
Djenne 7 lb, 8 skirm. 2 spear, 1 axe
Kumbi 8 lb, 9 skirm
2 lb's 1 turn from Djenne

Was a bit better earlier took some losses lately on the skirm's, would need some extra lb's if i were to play it out. I actually followed Snaaty's recommendation on number of units/city instinctively.

The sorry tech chart


And the empire

 

[ABigCivFan]

If you have GW GGs come fast and cheap. a couple of super GG defenders can buy you a lot of time (not needing too many units) to improve your econ.

Here is a combat log at 500AD



This GG Longbow has a strength of 26 strong as an infantry when defending. It typically wont get scratched vs a contemporary army. it has a losing odds of 0.0% against elephant and ha here. it only took 3 rounds of fight to kill a HA and 4 rounds to kill a phant.

The only thing it fears is large stacks of flank HA since they are immune to First strike, enough of them can cause damage to the GG. So you do need a supporting stack of Drill skirms in case the GG can not defend anymore. A medic 3 unit is also a must before this Super GG gains medic 3 himself.

 

[Dirk1302]

What promo's did you have on that lb? By 500 AD i had defenders with Drill IV, CG III, Guerilla II too. The rest of the promo's doesn't help that much. You can get 85% extra against everything if you'll get to combat V shock/formation/cover in addition. This'll hurt promotion of your other units however. I would have needed 2 with my 2 block cities.

Then again you'll get enough GG's to sacrifice one or maybe 2 for a strong unit and that can help especially in the early stages. I didn't really need my last GG ( 2 cities with 3 instructors already) and the healer wasn't that helpful either.

With GW it must be good tactic to make such units. Still a bit concerned about the promotion of the rest of the units though, they are sitting idly by and when knights come......

 

[GKey]

IMO with this Ramesses of Rome we did not have a chance from the start.

Aggressive leaders instead of wonderwhores could make this winnable.

So 9.60vs26.10 makes it 0% losing odds. I'd like to know what percentage needed for odds to become 0%.

9.60/26.10 = ~0.3678 = 37%, I guess, I am mistaken somehow. Some info could be useful.

 

[Dirk1302]

Combat odds don't work that way. Don't know how they work precisely but even with a small advantage like strength 9 vs 8 the odds quickly go up to 60-70%. For the next aw game i need to read up on promotions and combat odds i think.

@Snaaty, i tend to agree with gkey. This map is too hard. You give very detailed advice about what has to be done -> engineering->guilds then go to war before you face rifles. What is the usual time the ais get rifling with this settings. I had hoped it would have been 1400-1500 AD. Is this realistic on average?

Have been thinking about how to play this optimally. I think it has to be a combination of the strats in this thread:

Get GW, gives huge benefits
Place cities like GKey did
Use GG for 1 or 2 early super units as ABCF did so we have our hands free early game
Expand aggressively/ settle cities early like Snaaty and i did.

In addition

You'll get 2 great spies from GW, you can steal quite a lot of techs with the first one. But maybe even stronger is settling the first one and run to alfa immediately. Raise the spy slider and you get 100% benefit more then the 75% science boost. Also with spies waiting in enemy cities you'll get a a further 50% gain on tech cost, there are other modifiers against you however so i'm not totally sure how it works out. However since we outspy our opponent there maybe more positive modifiers. Sure you have to field spies but you don't need libraries anymore. you can build 3 spies for each library.

 

[GKey]

Sounds like a plan, BUT, GW with Ramesses is a huge gamble (my gamble with Feudalism from Oracle post 1500BC was even bigger though).

If someone got a link to correct combat odds calculation it would be welcome. I am curios to know what makes odds become 0%.

Restarted 2nd time.
All the same, plus I rushed marble site and got GLib in Timbuktu

I think Currency is not that vital on always war maps. We need to sunk these ~ 500 beakers, plus get galley and 2 settlers to have these 3 additional commerce per city. Doubt it worth it. Cities are busy with infra/units and not able to build wealth any soon. May be I am wrong though. Not to mention maintenance been increased by these 2 island cities.

Don't think early expansion is a way to go here. Even with 7 stolen workers my tech rate increasing very slowly. May be we should make it succession game with more detailed analysis. At least I would be happy to participate in such SG.

BTW regarding 0% losing odds, I saw it in this OCC AW map. It is solely based on GGs and I saw 0% odds quite a lot when I played it. Spent hours googling promotions info then.

 

[Dirk1302]

GW goes very soon anyway. But in Deity AW you may have to gamble for it as otherwise prospects seem to be very bleak. On this map reloading and making sure you'll get it so you can try spy strat isn't such a problem as the map remains a major headache.

I'm not with you on the currency issue. Those 2 island cities are both very good, they bring quite a lot of commerce themselves and they pay for themselves by giving each city 2 coin tr's. I was whipping lb's in them at the end. You really really need the expansion imo. Teching fast means nothing if you don't have the means to whip a big army subsequently. I was close to getting a really decent techrate in my game, grocer and bank would have allowed me to research at > 300 bpt i think with maturing cottages as well. Ais were just way too fast, as fast as in normal deity game i think. Now imagine a normal deity game in which everyone declares on you and never takes peace .

As you say i didn't do wealth too much but it was helpful for instance in getting feud earlier.

 

[Dirk1302]

I played an immortal SG game once where we used spies alot:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=320105

That game wasn't so difficult but it was a horror to play once we went on the attack.Playing even 8 turns costed loads of time as you had to constantly recheck for scattered enemy units.

I think that in deity aw we need continents as well so we don't face that many units constantly

 

[ABigCivFan]

This particular LB GG has D4, CG3, G2, Formation,Combat6. promoted in this order.

Formation first since I want that +25% ASAP against Horse Archers which are immune to first strike. All other promos dont matter much. When he gained more XP, i threw in Shock, cover, Medic1-3, Morale.

Since the GGs gets 100% more xp, it is actually very efficient to milk xp with a single GG per city than trying to promote a bunch of regular defenders. 1 super GG can defend as well as many many regular defenders due to collateral damage.

 

[Snaaty]

well, at least i didnt have to surrender... ...i got properly defeated at 800 AD:

Spoiler :

lib went to darius btw around 700 AD. he showed up with currassires shortly after... ...but not enough of them to kill me. what did kill me, was this:

View attachment 287334

View attachment 287335

i managed to hold the lower blocking city, but lost 7 units out of 12
there (5 to the knights from ramses, who hit after my defs were severely weakened... ...i hate knights

in the upper blocking city, i had 14 units... ...guess what... ...yes, i lost them all, but not hanibal of japan, the idiot-samurai-spammer took the city... ...no, it was the cleanup troop from predro...

...

i mentioned it earlier, but here are the main reasons again why i was pretty sure it was a lost cause:

1. i got blocked by a babylonien superarcher around t15 near my capital and had to spam warriors not to get killed... ...which lead to the next point
2. i didnt manage to grab the gw. and without the gw and a spy economy, it is very, very hard (almost impossible i´d say) to keep up in tech...
3. i didnt manage to put together a somewhat decent attack force in time. the window of opportunity is around 800 - 1200 AD with knights, maces and trebs to take out 1 ai... ...i actually neither had cs nor machinery (nor col or mc) arount that time... ...only good thing about this game was that japan with his super stack combined with the knights from ramses ended my suffering pretty early... ...i have to be honest, im impressed, very impressed what the ai managed to throw at me that early

 

[GKey]

^^ Samurais.... At least in my game Hanni got owned by Darius. Did not help much though.

 

[Snaaty]

i will put online a new game these days... ...things can only get better, cant they (and as i have mentioned somewhen and somewhere, i was so bold to claim i could win about 1 out of 3 aw games)

-> so i promise to loose all three games here in public to prove me wrong

...

i edited a few reasons into the spoiler, why i think i lost the game (besides the fact i got samuraied, that is... ...nothing i could have done about that i guess, no matter what i would have done there...)