GR2 - Sherman's War (C3C AW).

Got it!

... and already playing.

Through 4 turns, Carthage is folding like an accordion. We've captured 4 cities and haven't yet lost a unit. I've got to go out, but I'll post my turns before I go to work. May only get through 5 today.

We currently have 41%/61% area and population. I think we will hit the domination limits fairly quickly, and capturing Carthaginian cities instead of razing won't slow us down much, as we (so far) haven't had to defend them.
 
Great work guys! We are closing in on the win. I also will vote for conquest - its seems most of my games are domination these days. It also looks like conquest is easier.


Do you think we need to upgrade our Trebuchets to cannon? If all that is guarding cities is spear we may not need to.

I also think I would like to maximize the number of armies we have at the end of the game, so continue to avoid risky attacks with them (in other words, when they get low on hp let them heal first).

[Edit: The AI's seem way behind on tech. I think we should destroy all cities on our continent to eliminate flips. The difference in tech price is not that big - its like a 20% discount for the AI with only 2 civs around (5/6 cost to 2/3 cost). I don't see them advancing far no matter what and won't have Saltpeter even if they do get to Mil Trad (no way will they make it to nationalism)
 
GR2 - Smoke Yourself Thin

1350 AD (0)
Pre-turn MM. The only useful things we can be building now are Cavs, boats, settlers, and possibly temples or harbors in coastal cities. Magic number for Cavs are 14, 16, and 20 spt. F8 check, we have 38% land and 58% pop. Carthage has 20% of each, so we're probably going to have to take a chunk of Rome. After Music Theory, all the scientists will either be put back in the fields or sent to collect taxes. Swap a lot of build orders and a few tiles.

We'll have to start transporting the armies over to the Carthage continent. Ours is just about finished.

1355 AD (1)
Incan capital down to size 1. Mission accomplished. Assault on Cadiz: Four-Cav army wins twice, promotes, and we capture the city.

1360 AD (2)
Lots of Carthage troops running towards Cadiz. I estimate we'll see them in 34 turns. Assault on Malaca: Three Cav wins later, we capture the city. SW saltpeter falls out of Carthage boundaries. Assault on Saldae: Two Cavs, two victories and the city is ours. Carthage city is disconnected.

1365 AD (3)
Assault on Nora: Two Cav victories and the city is ours. Edrine flips away from us. Kill a spear in Aydin and bomb population down to 1. Will retake Edrine next turn. Read Greebley's notes on the board, and agree to cleanse our continent. Elite knight kills spear, we capture Aydin. Spend a bunch of money rushing temples in coastal cities. In two turns we go all cash anyway.

1370 AD (4)
Elite knight and vet cav punch Edrine's ticket. Kiss Osman goodbye. The Men of Troy off two spears in Hui???, but the Inca live on. No clue where they went, maybe a settler on a boat. Assault on Oea: Cav army kills musket, two vet cavs win, and the city burns. Kill 4 Carth units in the field, without loss. Make that 6. Aww, isn't that cute. The Romans are blocking a choke point with a regular spear. My knight army says, "Homie don't play dat!".

1375 AD (5)
Music Theory comes in. Nashville switched to Bach's Cathedral. All pointy-heads fired or set to work collecting taxes. Income up to 335 gpt. Get a Great Leader named Leader on the Carthaginian continent. I think I'll rush the palace over there to prevent flips.

1380 AD (6)
Somewhere in there I combined two turns into one, so as far as I'm concerned, nothing happened.

1385 AD (7)
Military Academy completes. All the Roman troops run away from the choke. An army victory and two Vet Cav wins later and Hippo burns to the ground. We build a city on the 1-tile choke point in the east. The Roman city opposite it shows spears as defenders. Like waving raw meat in front of a pit bull. You better believe Hispalis burns, without losses. Let's see, with the Military Academy, our Knight army performs as a 17-hp Rifleman. I think that will hold up against the Roman forces. Screw up and add 4th member to our Javelin Army. Oh well, now we have two armies for the home front.

1390 AD (8)
All Roman troops run back to the choke. Rush walls at choke. Kill 4 Roman horses that had already passed the choke. Lose 2 Cavs at Cumae, but burn the city to the ground. Clean up almost all remaining Roman troops on our side of the choke.

1395 AD (9)
Short rush barracks at choke point. Kill two Roman MDI with knight army. Re-fortify army. Kill 3 more MDI at choke point. Lots of border expansions from rushed temples.

1400 AD (10)
Found the Incas! They are East of Leptis Minor. Kill two Carthage units, lose 6 of 7 HP to a reg. NuMer (both retreats). Kill three more Carthage units. Theveste is in big trouble next turn. Parked a 19-HP, 4-cavalry, 12 attack army next door. And a Knight/Cav mixed army. Utica is not in good shape either. Kill 6 Roman units outside of choke point. Short rush harbor at choke point.

Summary: We have 48%/68% of land and population. Not sure whether conquest or domination would be quicker, but conquest is simpler. If everyone plays 10 turns, I don't expect to see this game again. Didn't keep track of kill ratio, but it was something >50 to 2. Without any artillery. I am shipping artillery and muskets/pikes to the choke city, as the Romans have a bunch of crap units. The city is defended by two knight armies, so unless the pRNG really hates us the Romans will have to come up with about 40 units to take the city. Research is off, and Greebley gets the wondrous task of MM'ing our cities for specialists. I had most of the cities set for max growth, so we should be picking up some more income as cities max out in size. In 10 turns, we were able to capture 4 enemy cities and raze 4 others. It will be downhill from here, as Carthage should start to get gassed. By the end of Greebley's turn we should be making progress into Rome as well.


Put 'em out of their misery






And I'm off to work, so in case anyone asks: No, I did not jump our palace to the other continent.
 
Couple of pictures:

First, the situation in Rome

GR2_Rome.JPG


Rome has an MDI/Legion stack outside the choke. They cannot get past the city, so we are playing defense there and fighting Carthage 1-on-1 on their half of the continent. Once we make more progress against Carthage, at least one of the armies can be released to pillage Northern Rome.


and the situation in Carthage.

GR2_Carthage.JPG


Utica and Theveste could fall on the next turn, and then it's free-running for the Cav armies to get to Carthage city.
 
Ok, I have got it.

By the way, I am finding I like Always War games. Is anyone interested in trying another? This game was pretty easy, mostly because of the unusual start, but also due to the power of pillage. I would like to try a harder one like emporer or large pangea with 11 other civs and see what pillage can do there. Barbslinger, I know you were trying to start a game. Do you feel like starting another AW? TMcC, Handy, you want to try another? We could discuss any special rules. I would like to try the "kill all other civ citizens and cities - no contact even to declare war (unless they contact you)" variant at some point. Other ideas?
 
I was thinking the same thing of going to emporer. I would like a start with fewer borders though. If we start in the middle it will be trouble. After the holidays and patched would be best for me.
On our game, looking at the Rome lands, it would seem to me that Rome is due north. Veii is usually the 2nd city in the list so it has to be close to that. I would turn the pillager around and head up there veering to the W to uncover more fog and pillage.
 
Originally posted by Greebley

... Is anyone interested in trying another? Other ideas?

I'll play. AWE or a pangea AWM or any other variant is okay by me. c3c or PTW - you can decide. 11 AI civs would take a long long time to play.

Raze-O-Rama where we must raze all cities (except maybe great wonder cities) might be fun. Limiting ourselves to 10 cities total at any one time would be quite a challenge. You can't build them too close, but don't want a big mass to defend either. Colonies for luxuries would come into play.

Also - I've always wanted to play an AW game as Babylon. :D
 
I am interested in another AW game. I would prefer we stick to Monarch if we are going to add additional variant restrictions, or we go "standard" AW (or Tactless AW) on Emperor.

Playing on continents is a definite advantage for the human, so Monarch on a Pangaea is an additional challenge, and Emperor on Pangaea would be very challenging.

I think it is hard to draw hard conclusions from this game about the relative difficulty of AW in Conquests vs. PTW. A lot of things went right for us here. Beginning with the distribution of civs/landmasses. Had we started on the smaller continent with only one opponent, this would have been a very different game. There were two 3-defense Ancient Age UU's, but both ended up off our continent. We never had to face a unit with a defense of 3 until we had Cavalry. I was a little skeptical about the Javelin as an AW UU, but I now believe it is one of the better ones. Not as good as the Hoplite or Sipahi, but pretty good.

I do believe the inability to rush wonders with MGL's can make AW easier. The key to our victory had to be the total economic collapse we inflicted on the AI.

@team: I have sent each of you a PM.
 
I agree with T_McC with regards to an AWE game. AWE is tough enough without adding any additional constraints.

This was a relatively easy AWM game due to the incredibly good starting location we had, the early war the other civs were involved in, and the early capture of the Pyramids. The UU also turned out to be alot more useful than I expected. I've never won an AWM this quick, not even close. Awesome! :D

The Agricultural trait is quite powerful in AW where fast city growth is crucial. Agricultultural + Pyramids is almost unfair.

I played a tiny map Hittites recently and the war chariot 2.2.2 is alot of fun. Very early GA, but perhaps it's a civ to think about.
 
Preturn: Ok, the end is coming soon. I wake up many units. All cavalry are going to boats except a very few to guard. wake up cities with 3 defenders so I can move some up north. Change several temples to settlers and rush some of the settlers.
Upgrade all knights in towns with shift U, upgrade a few more units.

Kill a few longbow near an army


IBT:
Some longbow attack a knight. 2 lose and the third causes a retreat.
It seems there is a goodly number of Roman units (18 total - 14 are MDI). Some attack our injured armies (not included in count)

Techumseh: Cav->Cav
Istanbul:Settler->Settler
Georgia FP: Cav->Cav
Edrine:Settler->Settler
Winefield: Settler->Settler
Vicksburg: Settler->Settler
Machu Picchu: Temple->Cannon
Uskadar: Settler->Settler
Atlanta: Settler->Settler
Allegheny: Settler->Settler
Cattaraugus: Settler->Settler (did i really rush that many? It didn't seem that many :lol:
Ake: Harbor->Settler
Charleston:Cav->Cav

1405 AD:
Attack Roman SOD. I lose 1 Cav and leave rome with 5 MDI (1 regular, 4 vet), an archer and a warrior remaining in the stack

Attack on theveste loses 1 cav and the city is taken.

Various other fights - don't think I will include them in detail anymore - just overviews.

Settle New Orleans in the new world

Change Iznik to a settler.

IBT: The rest of the romans attack the army bringing it to 1/2 hp
Bedford Forrest: Frigate->Cav
Iznik: Settler->Settler
Greebleyville: Cannon->Cannon
Andersonville: Market->Cav
Theveste: Quell resist and riots. Whoops, forgot to sell barracks. I do so and set it to starve again

1410 AD:
Build Ek Balam (to expand borders)
Capture Sulcis
Found Rome in the North. Not where I was expecting it

IBT: There are still some roman troops
Sherman:Cav->Cav
Sulcis suppressed and riots
Langcaster: Cav->Cav
Lil RoundTop: Cannon->Cav
Tara: Settler->Settler
Gettysburg: Aquaduct->Settler
Hurry a temple in Birmingham

1415 AD:
Thaenae auto-destroyed.
Capture Utica
Capture Rome
Build Cozumel (home continent)
Rusuccuro is autodestroyed
Hurry Galleon in Cuzco
A few units attack Carthage and Sabratoro
Build Bridgemont.
Theveste rushes a settler
Hurry settler in Istanbul
lose 2 cav in battles

IBT: Two MDI vs Rome both lose
Istanbul builds a settler
Theveste builds a settler

1420 AD:
lose 3 cav trying to take carthage very bad RNG on carthage.
Frigate loses to a galley another frigate sinks it.
Build Copan
Build Palanque
Hurry Settler in Sulcis
Large number of Roman MDI are killed

IBT: Roman Longbow attacks pike on hill and loses

1425 AD: Finally capture Carthage
Get another leader - make a Cav Army
Capture Ravenna
Capture Hadrumetum
Capture Sabratha
Build Tika
Hurry Settler in Theveste
Hurry Settler in Istanbul
Hurry Settler in Kabah
Hurry a few key temples

IBT: Romans kill a Cav that was pillaging.

1430 AD: Capture Antium
Lose a Cav attacking a Num Merc
Build city of Bonampak

IBT: Minor troop movement

1435: Build city of Quirgua
Capture Carthago Novo
Capture Leptis Magna
Rush settler in Sabratha
Rush settler in Ravenna

Made it to 60% land owned...

IBT: Lose a Cav due to a longbow attack.

A lot of happiness due to another Lux

1440 AD:
Gades Captured
Pompeii Captured
Another frigate loses to a galley.
Veii Captured
Cirta Captured
Tartanem auto-destroyed.
Build Calakmul

62% land (pop is 87)
Hurry settler in Antium, Rome, Ake, Utica, Carthage, Sabratha.

IBT: Washington riots, Veii Riots (from suppressing resistance).
Build cities of Lapuza, Camelbreath, Piedras Negras, Uxactun, Cuello
Byzantium Captured
Calaris Captured
Rusicade Captured.
Lol Captured.

WOOT! 67%

Here is the save:
Save Just before domination

Some final pics:

This was a small continent off the Roman/Carthage main one:
GR2_AD1445.jpg


This is what is left of Rome at the end:
GR2_AD1445Rome.jpg
 
Woo-hoo!

I guess Carthage was just about gassed when my turn ended, and you took out most of Rome's troops in the first couple of turns. Who'da thunk this game would end pre-Industrial? No one else could even cross the oceans yet.

I find it ironic that in the middle of my turn, I read some posts on this board and abandoned the capture-and-settle strategy to reach domination, and switched to "burn everything". Then at the beginning of your turn you switched back! :lol:

I also find it interesting that Greebley captured/founded enough cities that by the end of the game we weren't paying any unit support costs.
 
Ya, TMcC, after voting conquest, I ended going for domination anyway. Kind of silly. In part my decision was based on the discovery of that 3rd mini-continent which made conquest harder, and in part on the reports of how close domination was. It was a fun game, though perhaps not the challenge it could have been. Even watching the replay, I still don't know why we never saw any Aztecs until late.

I will be out until Jan 5th. We could start the next game just after the new year, and put me at the end of the roster. Between now and then we can set things up though.

I had an idea:

We could roll up 2 always war monarch pangea starts with the "raze everything, kill all workers, no diplo, etc." type game, and 2 always war emporer continent starts with normal AW rules. We can then vote on which one to play again like last time. Do ppl like this idea? The start

Also I was thinking of letting someone else run the game, especially as I will be out at the start. Is anyone interested? If not, I don't mind running it. We will just start a few days later. I was thinking someone might have fun running one :)

[Edit: By the way, at the start of my turn I tried disbanding the FP to see what kind of benifit it was giving us. The gpt dropped from 278 to 176 or so. So it was about 100 gold benefit per turn to have the FP. I am a bit suprised by the reports of building the FP making things worse. It is true if you build it late in the game, you will move production from useful cities to less useful cities; but usually people don't wait that long for building the FP. The hundred gpt gain is about what I would expect. The reduction in distance corruption does make a difference. So why there are dire warnings against building the FP in all cases - my opinion is that those people haven't really tried building it. Either that or their FP - Palace building strategies are very different than mine and a lot more ill-suited to the change/bug.
 
Thanks guys for the fun of this game. I look forward to a tougher challenge down the road after the holidays.

Only thing I missed was getting to kill any Romans or Carthagians. Well, if they would have been tougher they would have met the business end of my cav rifle.

This game went pretty easily I felt. Once we passed the hump at Bull Run withstanding the intial charge it was on cruise from then on. If the Aztecs would of had Jags it may of hampered us but not so much. If Rome would have been on our continent it would have been trouble.

Happy Holidays Greebley, Handy and T_McC. See you soon in another SG.
 
As for the next game, I think we should pick either the Monarch slash-and-burn on Pangaea, or Emperor straight-up on continents. My choice would be Monarch slash-and-burn. After we win that, we can move up to Emperor.

We should pick a civ to use in the slash-and-burn game. I figure an offensive unit from the Middle Ages as a UU. That gives us the choice of Japan, Russia, Ottomans, China, India, and Austria. If we were really open-minded we could also use the Mongols or Arabia, but I don't think either UU is that good.

From the earlier list I would probably exclude China and Austria, since China has been a traditional AW pick in PTW, and Austria is being used in the MLDR series game currently being played. It might be too easy as the Ottomans due to the uber-UU Sipahi. Japan would be neat, as we get to be militaristic, and the UU has some real legs. But my two nominations are for the "new" UU's in C3C, so I would want to play either Russia (blitz-capable Cossack) or India (bonus HP, resourceless Jumbo). If I had to choose, I want India. Ghandi as a super-destructive egomaniac is a conceit I can't pass up. Plus we should be able to do a lot of blitzing with armies, rather than relying on Cossacks to do it.

If people want, I can run the game in Greebley's absence. I can start a discussion thread tomorrow, unless someone has a better idea.
 
T_McC.

AWM again sounds good to me. Since you volunteered to run the game, I'll assign you my proxy vote so you can cast 2 votes for the civ of your choice. I've never played Japan or India in AWM, so either sounds okay to me.

I hope we get the FP patched a little better (more like PTW)before we play AWE in c3c.

I don't mind waiting for Greebley to get back before we start.
 
Hello, last post before I leave.

I agree that india sounds interesting. Why don't we just go with that. To make it a challenge just use the first start you get.

I also agree on the pangea slash and burn.

Set up the game and I will check in when I can. but definitely by the 5th/6th.
 
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