GOTM 22 First Spoiler

[LowtherCastle]

On the other hand, what would you call "looking into the SDK to see what the aI will decide"? AI is only looking into our city, we are looking into its brains.

Fair point. The thing is, we're just talking about one point here. When I survived because I happened to get my warrior in one tile faster than others who got crunched, it verges on "unfair." Of course, it's just part of the game, but you have to admit, it kind of spoils the competition a bit, when people lose over a type of triviality, that everyone could and would have avoided, had they known this triviality.

As far as your point on seeing inside the AI's brain, I guess what it boils down to is this, in the GOTM we're competing against the AIs and each other. Since, as you and I both know, some of CFC community can read the SDK like a novel, it kind of makes you want it to be an open book, wouldn't you say?

 

[Sarek]

My culture expanded and new exploration discovered an english archer in the east one square nearer to my capital than my northern warrior... and that was then end.

I went southwest, but I really hate to admit that I suffered the same fate. The turn-by-turn "death-in--slow----motion" with my warrior one square further than the English archer moving straight to Rome from the southeast was really...

Unfortunately being first to submit your game is not a good thing!

 

[JackOfClubs]

Exploring Warrior killed by a lion while defending in a forest just outside my fat cross. Elizabeth walked into my undefended capitol without a fight. Game over at 3610 BC before I even discovered Bronze Working. Sigh. After all the prep I did for this game, this is kind of disheartening.

 

[da_Vinci]

Completely agree. The AI is cheating.

On the other hand, what would you call "looking into the SDK to see what the aI will decide"? AI is only looking into our city, we are looking into its brains.

Put the level above noble and the AI is cheating, put it below noble and the human is cheating. In some sense, all of the equalizer handicaps can be thought of as cheating.

Fair point. The thing is, we're just talking about one point here. When I survived because I happened to get my warrior in one tile faster than others who got crunched, it verges on "unfair." Of course, it's just part of the game, but you have to admit, it kind of spoils the competition a bit, when people lose over a type of triviality, that everyone could and would have avoided, had they known this triviality.

Good results in (S)XOTM requries good strategy and tactics, and also a superior knowledge of game mechanics (maybe the latter is what is meant by "experience"). The nice thing about CFC is how the war academy serves as an equalizer in game mechanics knowledge, to a point. I guess the answer is to discover and publish all of these trivialities (but this one was a fatal triviality ... is that an oxymoron? )

dV

 

[oyzar]

The prep should have showed that the english warrior would walk in though. As for my game i did prep and a couple time saw an english archer walk into my capital(i used the test game posted in the thread). This allowed me to go worker first teching hunting -> AH -> Bw -> wheel -> iw (and i still havent researched archery). Axemen pwned barbs hard. Settled on the plains hill so got a second city along the river claiming the copper and the elephants in the small fat cross(actually managed to lose this city to a stray barb archer that i didnt see comming when i just had a warrior defending it. Settled iron city SE to claim the furs as well. Took out english. See where we get from there. Monty have stonehenge. Pumping out praets ready to rule. Still havent seen too much resistance from the AI. Once i get cats online we'll see where this game ends up. Haven't actually had much trouble with barbs cept the one messup. At this stage the game seems winable but if the AI decides to actually start sending huge stacks instead of just 3-4 units at a time each it might get rougher. I am gonna try to make COL through Currency so i can get somewhat economy assuming i keep most of my cities then after that construction and see where we are from that point.

 

[=FC=Gorgon]

This game was above my ability but I was curious to try another AW. I seemed to last a little longer than most. I figured I would have bad guys on top of me almost instantly so I just cranked out military units and didn't wander too far from my starting city except in force.

I founded a 2nd city to the East but it didn't last long. Finally saw the iron to the SW and figured if I could get that and build prats I would have a chance. The Mongols built a city down there and I eventually got a force of 3 axeman with city raider promos to attack. All 3 got wiped out. Meanwhile I was beating back onesy /twosy attacks from the rest of the planet. I started working on a new force.

At this point I saw the swordsman were coming in and knew it was too late. I retreated the remainder of my forces back to the capital to see how long I could hang on. The main attack started around 300BC. I survived until 500AD. 800 years of staunch defending? Pretty proud of my boyz.

I knew I would get creamed on this one but it makes me want to try out a OCC. Never did that before and doing an OCC where it's not AW and you can negotiate should be pretty interesting.

The coolest part was all the kills made. I had some pretty experience guys for the final defense and it was a slaughter for a long while. I just wished I could have lived to force them to use macemen on me. : ) Finally tally:

Unit Killed Lost
------------------------------------
Lion 1
Panther 1
Wolf 1
Worker 1
Scout 3
Warrior 25 5
Swordsman 22
Jaguar 3
Axeman 34 10
Spearman 9
Archer 36 9
Chariot 12
Horse Archr 1

Killed 153 and lost 25. Not bad.

Thanks for the games.

G

 

[warren peace]

I wonder who will win this game. First attempt (contender), I lost in 3580BC! I settled on the plains hill and I sent my warrior on local scouting to the west. An English bowman showed up from the east and I couldn't get back to my undefended capital quickly enough! Quickest loss I ever had!

Have tried replying, but still not much luck. What is the secret?

 

[Thalatta]

3580?! That's the same year I died! I settled on the plains hills and went worker first, figuring I'd keep my warrior close enough to home to defend against roaming archers, but Lizzie managed to pick my warrior off of a forested hill...and that was that.

A second try got me two cities and copper, but I eventually went down to a mass swarm of archers from five directions - Lizzie, Monty, Genghis, barbs and someone else all decided to send two or more archers at about the same time. Genghis and his stack of four combat II archers was pretty nasty...

I feel like it's beatable, but that's also with knowing where the closest iron is now.

 

[Jastrow]

I made it to the AD's and am still alive, but I am in no danger of comming close to winning the game.

I move the warrier and saw the gold. Settled on the plains hill to get the gold and pig into the fat cross (thus, as I was to find out later, and others have also learned, missing the bronze in the fat cross). Testing suggested that wandering around with the warrior was quite risky (a panter shows up, and its game over), so I decide to leave him in the captital at all times. Built a second warrier as my first built, and used him to scout.

At size two, I then built a warker,barraks and a few more warriors. Researched towards IW, and times a settler to be done at the same time I discoverd Iron. Saw Iron in the western desert, and sent the settler to found a city on it. Connected it with a road, and managed to get about 4 Prats out, which I used to whipe out England. I have kept London (which the AI HORRIBLY placed to miss out on the wheat, GRRRR), and another English city.

Unfortuntaly, when the troups started comming from 7 other nations (plus barbs), I simply could not hold everything. I lost my Iron city in the east, and my improvements around Rome are getting pummeled. At least, I still have London, Rome, and one inbetween city, so I am still kicking, but right now, my best chnace of victory might be Cultural, and with no religions, only 3 cities, and in these settings, if that is your best chance, then I think things are not far from hopeless.

 

[Cat Behemoth]

3580?! That's the same year I died!

For me it was 3700 BC.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I move the warrier and saw the gold. Settled on the plains hill to get the gold and pig into the fat cross (thus, as I was to find out later, and others have also learned, missing the bronze in the fat cross).

I'm not convinced missing the bronze is that big a deal provided you research archery early on. Your culture will expand to pick it up the bronze as a resource within 75 turns and, having tried replaying a couple of times, I don't think the AI is likely to throw anything at you that can't be dealt with by archers during that time. Possibly the early axes might be useful if you're planning a super-early axe rush, but I doubt that's a viable strategy in this game as the losses in an axe rush tend to be high, and in this game you can't afford to lose many units (Maybe someone will be along in a moment to prove me wrong )

 

[da_Vinci]

Have tried replying, but still not much luck. What is the secret?

IIRC, Lawrence of Arabia (or at least Peter O'Toole) said it best (paraphrasing) "The secret is not minding that you lose."

dV

 

[Drphil]

After playing with AW a little more, it appears that if you keep even a measily warrior in the capital, lone opponent civ units - even archers won't enter your territory to attack until after certain date. In this one GOTM if you didn't build a warrior to keep the home fires burning first before walking more than a couple of tiles from home, chances are you were killed early by the English archer who really has no choice but to stumble across Rome.

 

[Shono Mercy]

settled on hills 1SW also after seeing gold with warrior. Built Warrior first while starting warrior wanders near. I only made it wander further when 1st warrior to be built is 2/3 turns left. Like my practice games, I go for Archery first for better city/hills defense, and glad I did coz I'm still alive. After building first(or maybe 2nd) warrior, Hunting was already discovered so I built a scout for faster exploration. I promoted starting warrior with woodsman I & II after winning some battles with the wild animals and some wandering scouts for faster exploration and better defense on forests. Beelined to IW after archery and discovered it by turn 61(I think) and only saw the Iron on desert SW of capital. I pop rush my settler ASAP to start connecting that Iron to Rome, then pop rush worker(good thing Rome is @ size 4 already). Made 1 warrior advance earlier to scout the area and prevent barbs from taking my settler(being too cautious ) When my archer reach the hills 1SE of Iron, followed by my settler, there's already a wandering barb archer next to it! It's a good thing that I still haven't promoted the archer(gained XP fr barbs trying to take rome) with City Garrison and therefore decided to promote it with Hills Defense first! Eased my worries when my archer wins battle the following turn, and so 2nd city is built. Warrior guarded the worker while building mine and road from Iron to Capital.
While exploring, I find it that it was a good spot to build Science City on top of Stone on top of hill SW of Rome, coz being beside river towards Rome and access to Ivory and 2/3 Flood Plains I think, so I planned 3rd city to be built there. I then realized that Elizabeth was there and built a city 1E 1NE of it. After building at least 3 prets with city raiding, I razed that city without casualties and built my 3rd city afterwards. Elizabeth also built a city NE of Rome which was at exact borders with my 2 cities so that's her city that I captured.
As of now, I'm currently busy defending Rome and Iron City due to continious attacks of different civs. I'm still able to defend both with 1 archer each with City Garrisons and Hills Defense Promotions, and at least 1 axeman w/ Combat and that add'l +25% vs melee promotion for better melee defense. I also currently have a Combat II and +25%melee promoted axeman guarding the Iron tile and 2 Combat III promoted Prets to guard the roads and resources of Rome.
I currently have 4 cities, with slow research coz of constant building of military units, and I'm about to face 2 stacks of troops with at least 5 units each from different civs going towards Rome and Iron City(hope I can still defend). I started last Thursday and am only going to continue my game today that's why I can't remember the exact details. Wish me luck and hope to finish the game in whatever victory condition possible

 

[Shono Mercy]

Just as I suspected! I wouldn't survived that wave as stated by my previous post. I knew it will be my downfall since my source of Iron got cut out and the mobs wont stop coming, one civ after another, as if it was a tag team match! Lost interest playing since my high level prets lost even having 80%+ chance of winning. And since I have no more source of Iron, I can't build any more prets but just archers. Started Archer spamming by 300+AD and tried to find out how long I can survive. The result was surviving until 605AD. It was fun looking at their units getting destroyed continiously by just a few archers. Now I wish someone can win this game and avenge all of us that didn't

 

[Cletus]

This goes both ways though. In my retry I had 4 axemen kill 9 archers in 3 cities without any loses with 24-26% "odds". That was good for me.

Wow. (0.75)^^9 pretty slim chance of happening. Enough to make me think "maybe" the odds aren't really 25%. in my case i noticed axemen with the melee promotion against axemen without it (75% or so i think), I've had bad luck, but I didn't lose 9 in a row.

Editied to add: used calculator, not so bad ~7.5% chance to win 9 in a row at 75%

(im assuming u meant u had 25% chance of losing)

 

[Cletus]

Exploring Warrior killed by a lion while defending in a forest just outside my fat cross. Elizabeth walked into my undefended capitol without a fight. ....

Ouch.

To anyone:

Do all of these game's of the month not have tribal villages?

Seems like last month's had 'em? Is there any way to know before you start exploring?

 

[AgedOne]

I haven't played a GOTM for a few months, having first been unable to find any time, and then having got involved in SGOTM05.
I was tempted by this one - but what a horror it was! As many of you have already seen, I notice, this was one of the most difficult GOTMs in a long, long while.

The Start

My warriors moved and saw the gold. After a bit of pondering, I founded in place rather than moving SW - mainly because I wanted the more productive start rather than the commerce. I'd like to see how it turned out if I had moved instead. If I get time, I'll have a look.

My warriors went off on a kind of minimalist exploration sweep. They stayed very close to Rome, but tried to push back the blackness in a clockwise circuit.

Well, that was the plan, but events overtook us! Ten turns in, and we had met Monty and Genghis' scouts, when suddenly there was Liz's archer strolling our way! Eek! Could be an early finish! What happened next was that our warrior chased back into Rome, our first build (another warrior) completed, and for some reason the archer thought better of it and turned away rather than attacking!

I'd gone straight for Hunting - Archery as my tech path. I was under no illusions about the need for strong units as soon as humanly possible.

The Defence Begins

By about 30 turns in, I had 3 warriors and had started my first worker. I knew archery and was researching Bronze Working. I had met 5 of the AI, but hadn't actually been attacked by anyone yet.

The 3 warriors fanned out to spot approaching units, but stayed very close to Rome.

On turn 38 (2860BC) we got BW, revolted to slavery, and spotted the copper supplies - especially the one just to our north.

The next stage involved using our new archers to escort our worker to the copper and painstakingly connecting it up.

Around this time, we suffered far more at the hands of the barbarians, who were swarming all over us with archers and not letting us have a moment's peace, than we were from the AI. In fact, on turn 65, we almost lost Rome to a moment of lunacy when a barb archer defeated a warrior and moved in on the empty capital. A rushed warrior saved the day!

We suffered so much trouble from the barbs, that the copper mine was not finally hooked up with Rome until T76 - and we could get some axemen into the game at last!

Attacking Elizabeth

Liz looked like one of the weakest AI, and she had just started settling cities around our eastern borders. I decided that I had to do something active rather than defending against the incessant barb / AI drip-feed attacks for evermore. So we got a force of axemen together and attacked Nottingham, which was just to our east on about T100. It was small, so we destroyed it.

We then moved on towards York, a more substantial city to the south-east.

We managed to take it and hold it around T120.

This was a time that I felt our forces were quite strong. We had a kind of armoured defence border around Rome - axemen and archers standing on the hills who seemed able to defend against the sporadic attacks. Meanwhile, we had enough of a force to begin to bother the enemies with our axemen.

We took a barbarian city (Yue-Chi) that was down to our south-east - capitalising on Genghis' own attacks having weakened it.

It all Starts to go Downhill

Just when I thought things were going OK, a couple of things came along to wreck everything we had built up.

First a barbarian axeman slipped into Rome's borders. I realised too late that we had nothing we could attack it with - just a few archers - and while I was trying to get some axemen over they pillaged everything I had been relying on - the copper mine - cattle pasture - a mine! Wah!

Then, very much against the odds, a Mongol archer defeated the lone axeman we had defending Yue Chi, which they razed.

At just about this point, we had researched iron working, and saw where the nearest stocks of the stuff were. Down in the south west, right near Genghis Khan's borders. We rushed a settler party over there and founded Antium beside it around 300BC.

Things suddenly were looking desperate! We had no longer go any kind of metal hooked up, were running very short of axemen, only had 2 cities and a bunch of archers - and now, in came Monty with a whole load of chariots!

This proved to be a devastating attack, where we lost any workers and improvements that we had. We held on to our cities, but everything around them was destroyed!

The Siege Develops

The game now took an ugly (and I've got to say it, boring) turn.
We were trying to build enough forces to push the AI away from our cities, build some workers to reconnect our copper - and iron if we could.

It just went on and on! Attacking forces came in from all directions, from all nationalities. They weren't the most deadly units. Mainly axes, archers and chariots. The military strategy was pretty useless most of the time - they could have done far more damage to me if the had half an idea what they were up to. But it never let up, and I could see there was actually going to be no way back from this.

Sadly, we lost York. 50AD. Monty took it well against the odds, winning at 21% and 17%, then defeating my remaining healthy unit the next turn with his very wounded attackers. That left a bad taste.

Wave after wave kept coming in. The units began to improve. I began to see war elephant, swordsmen and horse archers. I could only whip as many archers as the cities could take.

At one point I managed to get a worker out to the copper, but never quite got it hooked up all the way back to Rome. The escorts were finally beaten and that worker was lost.

After that, it was a long wait for the inevitable. Whip archers until the citizens screamed.

Antium went down to Mongolian war elephants in 455AD.

I can't tell you about the very end, because at 500AD Rome still stands, surrounded by enemies of many colours!
View attachment 159947

The end is not long away...

 

[Markus5]

I'm happy, in a way, that I died really early because of the AI's ability to see unguarded cities. It's been torment.

 

[da_Vinci]

After waiting for too many archers before founding near the copper, and letting China settle near it, then losing my desparate archer rush to kill that city, I lost the game that counted in 35 AD (see post 39).

Started again (not for submission, of course) settled SW for the gold to get the metal techs fast. Got archery to survive to axes, founded by the copper/ivory to get axes so I could survive to iron. Then settled iron city. Praets, razed a couple of English cities, got to cats, went east and took London (kept), Hastings to fall soon (see 500 AD shot). Managed a WE that is helping hold off Monte's HAs, raze a couple of barb cities for needed cash in the south. That army is returning to Rome to help stop the latest wave. Razed one Khan city , and one Aztec city founded on English rubble. Just razed a new China city N of the iron.

Don't know if I can win from here ... but hopefully London/Hastings will be less harassed (Monte knows I am there, but not the others I think). Key is to be able to dispatch an offensive division without leaving the homeland too vulnerable. We shall see ...

battle stats: killed 4 scout, 16 warriors, 16 swords, 2 jaguars, 30 axe, 17 spear, 55 archers, 39 chariots, 16 HA, 2 WE, 2 cats
losses: 3 warriors, 1 archer, 2 spear, 7 axe, 3 praets, 2 cats.

And still they come ...

dV