DuneWars: Battle for Arrakis

[davidlallen]

Our 1st Mahdi Zealot is done and marching to Tleilaxu borders to wait there for further orders.

That is nice golden pocketbook he is carrying there. Very threatening. I guess we should put some better unit for this. Somebody also pointed out it does not have any attack animation. I am sure deliverator can include this in the upcoming Art Plan.

 

[Slvynn]

That is nice golden pocketbook he is carrying there. Very threatening. I guess we should put some better unit for this. Somebody also pointed out it does not have any attack animation. I am sure deliverator can include this in the upcoming Art Plan.

Agree, i just didnt mentioned it here b/c i threat this thread as "Show about the Mod" one.
Agree completely , i already have something in mind but i need Deliverator there., really.
And this gold thingie weight 15 kg, so it is threatening when it hits enemy heads!

 

[Ahriman]

I assumed that this guy was just a placeholder, I'm not sure a staff-wielding grey-bearded big-robed missionary dude is even close to what we're going for here.

 

[Deliverator]

That is nice golden pocketbook he is carrying there. Very threatening. I guess we should put some better unit for this. Somebody also pointed out it does not have any attack animation. I am sure deliverator can include this in the upcoming Art Plan.

Didn't you know? Battering the enemy with a golden pot is a well known Fremen battle tactic.

I was thinking a quick fix would be to reskin the Fedaykin within a different coloured robe - perhaps with some nice religious inscriptions on it. I'll start posting a unit plan tomorrow.

 

[Slvynn]

Turn 170-171
We found land of house Ordos led by Executrix.
He got quite big score, and should not be trusted.
Next turn he is demanding from us Fanaticism, and we send him back with nothing. He should be watched.

Spoiler :

Turn 172-173
Our worker finished building Harvester near Kuriya, and we found our Spice firm in capital 1 turn later than Ecaz.

Spoiler :

Turn 174
Liet of Fremen contacts us and propose Desert Rovers for Jihad. Sure, we are helping to our brothers. Also DR will help us to get suspensors, which will help us in army transportation.
More than that, we gifting to him 1 spare round of Incence.

Spoiler :

Turn 175
We got prophet in Arrakeen!!!!!
He is en route to Kuriya.
wind Pass building Library because we need that windtrap from Ix.

Spoiler :

turn 176
Mahdi spread to Sihaya Ridge.

Turn 177
We completed dune Messiah!!!!!!! Now Mahdi will spread, and we have less war weariness in our cities!.

Spoiler :

Turn 179 - Social Mobility Resereach is done and we switched to Meritocracy.
SE Economy will blossom. Meenwhile Wind Pass struggling with cultuyre for another wind trap, Kuriya building Mahdi Zealots, cities Growing. Capital build Mushtamal because it have nbegative growth and uses 9 of possible 13 hapiness. Thats bad. Next tech is Suspensors - we really need them for attack and defence - 4 tile troops movement over desert is huge benefit - and we can then be calm about Wind Pass.
Also i think there is opportunity that Ordos or Corrino or Ecaz will attack us, may be all of them. Nasty company there.
Ah, Corrino have Filbook Lib.

Spoiler :

 

[Ahriman]

The one thing about the SE: the AI defaults to just using all engineers, so we have to manually adjust sometimes if we want other specialist types. And sometimes it doesn't even work every water producing tile, so sometimes tile allocation needs to be manually adjusted too to get faster growth.

 

[Slvynn]

Yep agree.
At there is scientist in Arrakeen (which came with auto-ai assgning)
And priest in Kuriya for GA.

Next is AnotherPacifist.

 

[Deliverator]

I have skinned a new Mahdi Zealot unit and put it in a patch here. It can be installed over 1.6.3 and won't break savegames.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

180. Even though we don't want the witches to roam in our lands, we do want their sword grass (1 water and some health), so I trade 1 baradye for that. This keeps some of our cities from shrinking.
181. Bene Gesserit comes back and wants OB, no way. Mushtamal finishes in Arrakeen, I see Wind pass needs more protection, so start a zealot.
182. Kuriya finishes zealot, I start a refinery.
183. Harkonnen wants combat ornithopters, yeah right. Wind Pass has more than enough production, so I start a barracks there too.
184. Suspensor devices in, I choose crystals (we need a little bit more production, so it would be nice if there were crystals revealed in our land). I OB with Ordos and trade a burro weed for his cresote bush.

Spoiler :

185. Bangazi (smugglers) captured by Tleilaxu. I think he should be our first war target. I ask for a groundwater from the Fremen and they accept.

Spoiler :

186. Crystals in, we find some near Wind Pass and Al Yassanah. In anticipation of the need for culture, I choose Law of Arrakis (can adjust culture and allows spies).

Spoiler :

187. No! The Fremen converted to Shai-Hulud! How do we get rid of that without a missionary for our religion?
188. Landsraad spreads in Wind Pass! I move our transports and troops towards the west. There are 2 Tleilax infantry right next to our cities there, I anticipate a premptive strike so I station 2 zealots there.
189. Pilot school done in Al Yassanah, I start a bladesman there.
191. Uneventful.
192. Great prophet is born in our holy city. We can use him for bulbing Theocracy (which is a dead end tech though) or do a GA, which will help military production much more, so I begin our GA. The emperor demands crystal from us, no way. I see we can now build the Great Memorial (10 turns without GA) with 50% war weariness from our enemies, so I start it in Wind Pass. Next tech is Maula Pistols.

Spoiler :

193-196. Uneventful
197. Maula Pistols in, I choose Hard Conditioning next for more military umph.
199. We finish the Great Memorial, reassign an engineer there and build more troops. Our stack is approaching our target...

Spoiler :

 

[Slvynn]

189. Pilot school done in Al Yassanah, I start a bladesman there.
191. Uneventful.
192. Great prophet is born in our holy city. We can use him for bulbing Theocracy (which is a dead end tech though) or do a GA, which will help military production much more, so I begin our GA. The emperor demands crystal from us, no way. I see we can now build the Great Memorial (10 turns without GA) with 50% war weariness from our enemies, so I start it in Wind Pass. Next tech is Maula Pistols.

193-196. Uneventful
197. Maula Pistols in, I choose Hard Conditioning next for more military umph.
199. We finish the Great Memorial, reassign an engineer there and build more troops. Our stack is approaching our target...

189. If there Pilot School building long time and no barracks - why building Bladesman!!!!! ?????? Thats city for Ornithopters!
192. That prophet was for GA. If you bulbing then why you dont using inquisitors immidiately to clear our cities? More than that - Maula is not priority!!! Next tech is supposed to be Benevolence which give us Heirs that mean total 25% str to our stack, or , total negation of plague penalty!
197. Even worse!!!!!! Who need Hard Conditioning when we wasted research for Jihad!

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I'm sorry, I haven't played this mod as much as you have. I'm still new to the intricacies of what's a plane and what's not. Actually, all our cities except for Al Aqabah have barracks, so I don't see that was wasted. Benevolence is quite expensive, but I guess we can switch right now.

 

[Slvynn]

Ummm sorry if i sounded harsh abit, i just think you need to advise with such things
No problem, i think Deliverator will set bit better course , and thats ok, all we are learning here...
Sorry and cheers

 

[negyvenketto]

I wanted to post last night, but my net let me down
I feel the spice firm is just waste of money if we have just 1 spice ...
Arrakeen has lots of spices nearby if we want to use it, but needs more worker.
We don't need that many cottages anyway if we run SE, do we.
What kind of resource is groundwater, we build well on it, still have to trade for it
Ezac and Corrino are in WHEOOH mode, keep an eye on them, hopefully won't us while warring with theilaxu.
Agree on we should be more careful to choose what to build in a city (the only few cities with Mahdi should build Zaelot, not Master Guardman)

 

[Slvynn]

I wanted to post last night, but my net let me down
I feel the spice firm is just waste of money if we have just 1 spice ...
Arrakeen has lots of spices nearby if we want to use it, but needs more worker.
We don't need that many cottages anyway if we run SE, do we.
What kind of resource is groundwater, we build well on it, still have to trade for it
Ezac and Corrino are in WHEOOH mode, keep an eye on them, hopefully won't us while warring with theilaxu.
Agree on we should be more careful to choose what to build in a city (the only few cities with Mahdi should build Zaelot, not Master Guardman)

1. Cottages is just best aviable improvement for our Fresh watered sinks atm. We just have not any substitution for them. (we didnt teched proper techs)
2. No, it does not add nothing - Groundwater have no benefits besides a tile bonus and fresh water spread. I dont know why AnotherPacifist demanded it. *shrug*
Also we should be kinda kind with Freemen.
3. We have Serfdom. That means those spice tiles very soon - is not big issue.
4. Good point on WHEOOH.
5. Wonder in Wind Pass is good. That will be powerfull city.
6. Veeeery important notice: Attacking Tl capital from land having suspensors - is not wise idea. Our forces can be in next tile to it just at turn of DoW if we move army by transports through desert to that Windtrap tile S from New Bandalong.
7. why build susspensor gunships if we have thopters and school built? We need trantsports but not gunships.

 

[Ahriman]

I ask for a groundwater from the Fremen and they accept.

Note that the Groundwater resource doesn't do anything. Its an old remnant.

How do we get rid of that without a missionary for our religion?

Eventually, inquisitors.

Great prophet is born in our holy city.

IMO all great people should be settled. The bonuses to specialists from Meritoracy and Faufreluches apply to settled great people.
We don't need golden ages, we are spiritual and can already shift civics without anarcy.
The longterm gain over hundreds of turns from settling them is higher than a GA. And if we want GA's we can do that in the future when the payoff is larger.

Just in general, can we please try to discuss strategy and tech paths before each round?

Maula pistols is pretty weak for us; mahdi fighters (particularly massed) will make better city defenders for us.
At this point, we should be building a massive army to invade, not building infrastructure/economy.

The longer we delay our invasion, the harder it will be, because the more entrenched they will be. As it stands, they may now have high enough cultural defenses that we will be unable to invade without getting mortars to knock them down.

 

[Slvynn]

Yep all we needis lots of Zealots and Trsnports to carry them. This way we can attack capital 1 turn after DoW. Tahts pretty neat.

Agree completely on discussion. Also if we have something there is no need to get motre og that kind. Maula Pistols and Harsh Conditioning are WORST techs for us now. Zealots are all round units, we beelined Jihad and thats our bonus, Ornithopters for desert cover/enemy desert attack counter, and Suspensor Transports for swift strikes.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Would you like me to replay my rounds? I have time to do it, for the sake of benevolence and heirs and not using a GP for GA.

 

[Slvynn]

I think not, its adds challenge, lets just discuss things later on
cheers

 

[Ahriman]

Yep all we needis lots of Zealots and Trsnports to carry them. This way we can attack capital 1 turn after DoW. Tahts pretty neat.

I would rather build more zealots, and walk into the enemy territory, than detract from our army size by building transports. Its not like the enemy will be able to reinforce significantly in the ~3 turns we spend walking to their capital.

The main question is, should we go for mortars? I think we will probably need them, Tleilaxu had a high culture output, thanks to their early game religion.

 

[Slvynn]

You also forget about pole. It have not good production, so there, almost surely, very poor defence. Having polar ice early is good bonus. We should not ignore that. At country should be set to mass spamming of 70% zealots, 20% ornithopters and 10% transports.