GR17 - AWE vs 30 civs

[ThERat]

I will not forget that made rush to prevent the UN against Persia that time. UN and space can be real threats if one of the AI's manages to get very big

Progress sounds good, Greebley

 

[vmxa]

The one thing I agree with is that it does not matter which way we go, we will not lose. As to landing before tanks, I don't see how the ToE will affect that one way or the other.

If we pop it and and grab AT and Elec, the Ai will just not research those, until later. There by actually getting towards tanks sooner. I am dubious of our chances to land before tanks in any case.

Anyway it is now a dead horse, so I will stop beating it.

 

[Greebley]

MMed electricity to 6 turns though we are at a deficit and may take 7 turns anyway.
Set builds with 12 or less shields to workers. We have more, but not enough yet I don't think. I might also want a road to the front line which will take many workers.

IBT: Bombardment that we all love to hate or something like that. No attacks that I see.

1585 AD: I am going to MM Copan for TOE. That means I will improve this town first for maximum shields.

IBT: Landing in the normal spot.

1590 AD: Copan is max shields now with 34 shields and is prebuilding TOE. We need to get Sci Method in 29 turns

1595 AD: Driving the enemy back. We lose a Cav or two. We get a Leader (cav army).

1600 AD: Attack Amsterdam. It has Pyramids so we are keeping it - this should be interesting to try to hold...
Attack and Capture (for now) Ollantaytambo. Abandon new Copan

IBT: Ottomans have been destroyed by English
Persians are building US. I am glad I started the TOE build.

1605 AD: Ollantaytambo is Abandoned after the Cav Armies move. I abandon another to make a forward town
I try to protect Amsterdam but am ran out of Armies.
Lose an almost healthy army trying to kill a healthy Rifle.

1610 AD: Amsterdam now takes 2 turns to get to for Cavalry(step into no road, step back on road, step into our lands) since I ringed it at one out.
Capture and abandon Corihurayachina from the Byzantine. They are up north BTW. Build a new town.
Capture Arnhem (A dutch core city near Amsterdam) - keeping it in case it is useful for us.
Another Leader for an Army
Cutting roads to advance means a slow game - long pauses - but I don't think we can get a "front" without it even doing so we are stretched thin. Need more Armies...
Our third leader of the turnset and 2nd this turn We build an Army that will have 3 elite*
BTW, I have found a coast due east and I think only the Byz are north of it, but am not sure. I sometimes see Vikings sort of northish.

IBT: We get Electricty and start for Medicine to get TOE. It should take 20 turns or so (Med in 9) and RP is a long 16 turns and won't work with the pre-build I think we want to go for Hoover - the techs (electronics and At Theory) are the most expensive and I see this going on to the modern Era - so while getting Ind and RP would be tempting, it puts us farther behind in tech since we would then have to get those two tech that are so expensive. Also getting Hoover really boosts production that we always need when invading.

1615 AD: Capture Breda, Maastricht, and Holward (Dutch). Find a size 1 Dutch Island. That is not good. It means we can't kill off the Dutch and have to raze all those nice towns we have capture (excepting the Pyramids of course). Even worse the newest size 3 army went out on a boat thinking it could land - If a boat is in range we could lose the Army. I was planning on landing to get off the boat.
Abandon Holward - Army is injured. Note that I am hurrying Settlers (via catapult disband) to try to shrink Amsterdam faster.
Abandon The Hague and Arnem

Oh Viking do seem to be south along with the Germans (a new civ sending units), French, Rome, and Dutch.
Since I sold lots of buildings I can raise Science to 50% and Med in 8 - Actually it Arabian units not Viking to the north - I bet they are up there somewhere.

IBT: Crud - Amsterdam deposed us. We lose some Regular and Obsolete units. I was hoping to get the settler built to drop the size by 2 but no such luck.
Our Army survived and can land again. Yay!

1620 AD: We capture Amsterdam back. It reduced 2 anyway (3 after we capture it) - they drafted a dude.
Capture andahuaylas (Byzantine) and Abandon after the Army moves.
Razed Delft, Abandon Maastrict and Breda and replace them
Raze Bremen ( German -near Breda).
Another Leader - another yay!
I moved out the units of one town so that the bombardment would switch to the other city.

IBT: We spot the first Infantry - Viking Sure enough the ships all switch to the other city with units in it. Even better the ships stop next to shore and we will be able to bombard them and send them all home.


1625 AD: Den Helder (Dutch) captured so we can get our injured army home and then Abandoned.
Another leader - this time from an MDI We are up to 29 armies.

Notes:
France and Vikings have Cavalry. Byzantines had knights but no longer have Salt or Iron (i.e. no fast units past horses). I have not seen fast Arab units though they have Horses but no Salt so Knights are possible. Romans could build Cavalry, but I haven't seen any fast units from them yet. Germany has no Horses so no fasts units. Dutch have lost Salt - building mostly Rifles now.

I have been MM'ing - and building rails in towns with the "wrong number of shields". I haven't yet started converting irrigated grasslands to mines which we will want to do in our core. A decent amount of our core is improved

Medicine in 5 and then SM - our odds on TOE seem reasonable to me - two civs have started US, but we started our preturn in a super high shield town not that much later.. After that RP I think - or Industrialization.

We are up to 61 workers - I think we finally have a decent number. There are still towns on workers, the next player can choose whether we do have enough and if so - what to change the towns to. Looks like we need more settlers. There are 3 near the capitol and a 3 or 4 in field. I had turned off production when I had lots, but finding the Dutch couldn't be eliminated meant I didn't keep the cities I wanted to and had to replace them.

Its really too bad as replacing the Dutch cities cost us tons of research beakers - grabbing big cities is how to really jump up research by a hundred (or hundreds in some cases) beakers. I am hoping we can keep German (and other civs) cities - it would really help us catch up again in research - ready made towns of large size with aquaducts is the key to high research. Starting from scratch adds very much less.

Here is a picture of the Netherlands ex-core and our replacement cities. Note that Germany is to the south and they don't have horses. I have not cut all routes down south yet (I didn't prioritize due to Germany's lack of fast units).

The following is the rest of our front. I am slightly worried about Tikal, it needs better Cavalry defense I think.

Here is the Byzantine campaign. Given the hindsight of knowing where all the civs are, it would have been better to go for Arabia and Byzantine in the north first (with more armies) The front line will be much shorter if we eliminated them and could make a line straight across owning all lands to the north.

The iron in this picture only shows up in Z mode. Almost a cheat in that you can see under the darkness. I think they could have programmed that better.

The Save

 

[Greebley]

The one thing I agree with is that it does not matter which way we go, we will not lose. As to landing before tanks, I don't see how the ToE will affect that one way or the other.

If we pop it and and grab AT and Elec, the Ai will just not research those, until later. There by actually getting towards tanks sooner. I am dubious of our chances to land before tanks in any case.

Anyway it is now a dead horse, so I will stop beating it.

If the AI grabs TOE, then it usually an AI in the lead techwise. They get two more techs and will amost certainly grab two techs toward tanks - that means they get tanks maybe 30 turns earlier (assuming 15 turns for later techs - it might be only 20 turns if they are getting techs in 10). I am estimating how long it takes us to take out the rest of the island, but given their position, if they get tanks 30 or 20 turns earlier we have little chance of getting to their shores before they do. With 20 or 30 extra turns we have a chance of getting there first.

I do not see why you think they will avoid AT and Elec if we get it. As I understand the post on AI tech choices the techs will take fewer turns to research and thus be more likely to be chosen - not less. Its been a while since I read that post though. In any case, it makes little difference - the AI is fairly random in their tech choices with techs with units and govts being most likely. I don't think much changes the chances - the only factor I know about is number of turns to get a tech.

 

[Greebley]

Roster:
Greebley - Just Played
NP - Up
M60A3TTS - On Deck
vmxa
ThERat
markh

 

[Northern Pike]

Fine progress.

I've got it. Thanks for the extensive briefing on the situation.

 

[vmxa]

I do not see why you think they will avoid AT and Elec if we get it. As I understand the post on AI tech choices the techs will take fewer turns to research and thus be more likely to be chosen - not less. Its been a while since I read that post though. In any case, it makes little difference - the AI is fairly random in their tech choices with techs with units and govts being most likely. I don't think much changes the chances - the only factor I know about is number of turns to get a tech.

They will not research AT/Elec, because the wonder is already gone. They will go on the other lines and come back later. So would you. What is the value of Elec to them with no Hoovers? They will have coal plants and be happy, same as you would.

The discount for second research is not going to make AT or Elec very attarctive. Fourth and later will just trade for it as the AI to Ai discount is a better deal.

I really don't care about the price of techs after RP. I will get them eventually and a turn or two savings does not matter much as it is about taking towns anyway.

Well at least about hurting them and that is usually the best way. I just want to get armies and let them do what they do best. In Emperor AW games, the Ai struggles to even get to the modern age, unless the the map is favorable to them, such as lots of invasion required.

 

[Greebley]

If it wasn't so slow to navigate, I would try to find the strategy article on how the AI chooses tech. You are giving it much more intelligence than it has - though a completed hoover might matter somewhat for electronics - I don't fully remember if they tested that. I do know that At Theory is definitely not going to change odds based on hoover.

 

[ThERat]

regardless of the tech path, the AI has to go for AT/electronics eventually and that's just keeping them slower.
The issue here is that most likely all those overseas AI's are democracies and that keeps their research pretty high up. The aim is always to get them to switch to fascism and throw away their research.

Nice progress, Greebley, the game looks huge and our continent indeed is very big...

Could we sneak in a frigate or 2 to simply check out the water and find out where the AI is hiding overseas?

 

[M60A3TTS]

Since AT and Electronics gets us to Modern Armor faster, I'm good with that path. Enough Cav armies with a supporting cast will always deal with AI tank threats.

 

[Northern Pike]

I've played three turns and part of a fourth. We'll soon reduce the Germans to one city, but it's unlikely that we'll be able to locate that town, so we can't keep German cites for science camps as I'd hoped.

It's slow going, and RL hasn't helped, but I'll post in time for M60 to play on Friday at latest.

 

[Northern Pike]

1645 AD, end of turn

 

[Northern Pike]

1625 (0): I keep a fair number of worker builds, but change the ones in cities about to reach size seven.

A musketman is shot down by the Dutch outside New Tulum (0-1).


1630 (1): Nineteen French riflemen move next to New Tikal, so Greebley was right to be concerned about the situation there. We start shelling the stack, taking one HP off most of its units.

We raze Dutch Zwolle, held by three riflemen (3-1). We gain three slaves.

We raze Lauwersoog, held by two riflemen, a Swiss, and an LB (7-1). We gain two slaves.

We locate and raze Heidelberg, held by three musketmen and an MDI, also overrunning a German LB on the approach (12-1). We gain five slaves. I'm going to concentrate on the Germans while their cities are still garrisoned by musketmen.

We found Brooklyn, Barrytown, and East St. Louis.

We mop up a Greek cav, a Persian cav, and an Immortal landed between Quirigua and Cornerstone (15-1).

In the far north we disperse a barb camp held by a warrior (16-1).

On the northern main front we strike down eleven foes, including an Arabian stack of eight, while losing a cav (27-2). We gain a GL and our thirtieth army.

On the southern front we slay ten enemies, including all four French cav in view (37-2). We gain a GL and our thirty-first army, which puts us exactly at the limit.

We ping nine enemy ships.

A Byzantine knight redlines and retreats attacking Biggle.

The French rifleman stack doesn't attack New Tikal.


1635 (2): We raze Dortmund, held by two musketmen and an LB (40-2). We gain two slaves.

We raze Bonn, held by three musketmen and an LB (44-2). We gain six slaves by various means.

We found the tactical town of Major Dude, giving us access to Frankfurt.

We raze Frankfurt, held by three musketmen (47-2). We gain six slaves by razing and capture.

We cut down two English cav and a Korean knight landed in the usual place (50-2).

We take a look at the northernmost of the two iron colonies noted by Greebley, but it's on a mountain and the Vikings have a rifleman fortified there, so we can't attack.

We found the tactical town of Dirty Work, bringing us closer to Stuttgart.

We raze Stuttgart, held by three musketmen and an MDI (54-2). We gain six slaves by various means, and a treb.

We found Midnight Cruiser and With a Gun.

Late in the turn we locate and raze Brandenburg, a size-two desert city held by two musketmen (56-2). We capture a treb.

We found Fire in the Hole.

We smite fourteen enemy units on the northern main front, and four on the southern (74-2).

We ping one enemy ship.

An Ansar falls attacking Twixt (75-2).

After I add a fourth unit to the garrison, we finally quell some unrest in Amsterdam. There must be a thread on this, but it seems to me that having one more unit in the city than there are resistors is crucial.


1640 (3): We take Byzantine Tiwanaku, held by two pikemen (77-2). We capture two workers and a treb.

We raze Cologne, held by three musketmen and an LB (81-2). We claim five slaves by razing and capture.

We found Change of the Guard.

We take Konigsberg, held by three musketmen, and capture two workers (84-2). I’ll start trying to hold large German cities in fertile land now.

We take Hannover, held by two musketmen, and capture two trebs (86-2).

On the northern main front we liquidate eight enemy units (94-2). We gain a GL and our thirty-second army.

On the southern main front we expunge fourteen enemies, including a French stack of two cav, six riflemen, and two MDI, while losing a cav (108-3).

We ping twelve enemy ships, mostly Hittite frigates.


1645 (4): We take Hamburg, held by three musketmen, and sink a caravel in port (112-3).

We’ve reached the point where the German homeland appears to end in a coast, and we can’t see New Berlin, a late and presumably a distant foundation. So I’m going to return to razing/abandoning German cities.

We take New Leipzig (soon abandoned), held by two musketmen (114-3).

We raze Nuremberg, held by three musketmen (117-3), and gain five slaves.

We raze Munich, held by three musketmen, and gain five slaves (120-3).

We raze Leipzig, held by three musketmen, and gain nine slaves by various means (123-3).

We start attacking Salzburg and eliminate one musketman (124-3).

Outside cities in Germany we destroy four German MDI (128-3).

We begin attacking Byzantine Cuzco and rout one pikeman (129-3).

We abandon Tiwanaku, Konigsberg, and Hannover.

We found The Fez, Royal Scam, Charlie Freak, Black Cow, Pretzel Logic, Haitian Divorce, and Green Earrings, pushing our line forward on the northern main front.

We trample one Viking MDI landed in the usual spot (130-3).

On the northern main front we expunge nineteen enemies, losing a knight and a leader-fishing swordsman (149-5).

On the southern main front we wipe out six enemy units, including two Viking inf (155-5).

In no-man’s-land we account for a Byzantine LB (156-5).

Our MDI army heading for the southern enemy iron colony (still under the fog) wrecks a Viking coal colony.

We ping eight enemy ships.

One JT victory this round didn’t produce a slave.

Thirty-six elite victories this round generated three Great Leaders—normal expectation precisely.

 

[Northern Pike]

We should take Berlin and Salzburg easily enough next turn, leaving the Germans with just the city we can’t find.

We’ll have to abandon Hamburg next turn.

We’re keeping our cities and our workers safe mostly with the combination of razing and blocking (with armies on the remaining roads) recommended by Greebley. It works well, but it’s essential that we move armies around each turn so that we can see three tiles beyond our many undefended towns (the cities from Brooklyn to Change of the Guard need particular attention of this kind), or we could lose them in batches.

There are a fair number of enemy riflemen in the pocket between With a Gun and Haitian Divorce, but we have enough cannon to keep them too depleted to attack, and eventually to grind them down. The two armies on roadless forests in the area are stacked with enough workers to chop the forests and build roads next turn. It’s important that the MDI army should pillage the fortification it’s on—which we don’t need, but which could help the enemy stacks—before any worker actions on that tile.

I’m assuming we’ll rail two tiles next to Dirty Work next turn, so that the armies now on those tiles can move to barracks without expending MP and heal fully.

Our MDI army on a fortified hill in no-man’s land is heading SE to the enemy iron colony under the salient of fog.

We can’t prudently attack the Viking rifleman guarding the northernmost iron colony, but our cav army in the area should be able to pillage all the roads to the colony in a few turns, even though it’s escorting slaves.

I like Rat’s idea of exploring the oceans a little, and we’re building two frigates on our east coast, at least one of which we could probably afford to rush soon.

We could reduce the science rate one more notch and still be on track to discover Medicine this IT, but to my mind that would be cutting it a little fine when we’re building settlers in science camps.

Our capital may need happiness MM after it returns to size twelve this IT.

The settlers are next to the capital, and some healing attack units in Neufchateau.

 

[Northern Pike]

Rolling forward:

One burg too few:

 

[vmxa]

Black Cow and Deacon Blues are my favorite Steely Dan tunes.

 

[Greebley]

Good turns NP.

I am hoping there is some civ we can eliminate. Our science is still very slow and keeping some larger cities will greatly help us. We have been very unlucky in this and it is really hurting our science - no other game had 16 turns for RP (though it may be less now).

Many of our new towns don't have irrigation. I would make sure they all have irrigated land so they can start growing faster. We will gain more science that way. Eventually we will merge in workers so by that point we will want a minimum of 3-6 railed irrigated squares. I think we should not start the Aquaducts until we have RP and can hire engineers to get them in less than 10 turns. Getting those towns over size 7 will help with the unit costs.

It looks like Vikings are the next civ south. It would be nice to eliminate them and the threat of Berserkers.

 

[M60A3TTS]

I'll get to this on the weekend. Have to take care of Rat21 first.

 

[Northern Pike]

Black Cow and Deacon Blues are my favorite Steely Dan tunes.

I'm glad you liked the references. I don't think there's been a band anything like SD since SD, which is unusual given how quickly most musical styles are recycled. I suppose musicians today aren't willing to spend sixteen hours tweaking three seconds of music--if I remember that famous Rolling Stone article correctly.

It looks like Vikings are the next civ south. It would be nice to eliminate them and the threat of Berserkers.

Unfortunately the Vikings are an almost impossible target at the moment, since they have infantry. So in addition to whatever we do against the Dutch, we need to advance a little towards the Byzantines every turn, even if it's just a matter of roading one jungle tile.

 

[Emp. Killyouall]

Lurkers comment:

Yes, I noticed the tunes as soon as I read the city names... While I am young enough to have gotten the Citizen collection and not the original, Steely Dan is amazing.