GR6 - Persia II - AW Demigod.

[Gyathaar]

Leader created armies are regular no matter what, and there is no way for them to promote.

As a sidenote it could be noted that even artillery units are regular or vetaran depending on if the city has barracks or not, but it only matters for koreans where the UU can promote to elite and produce leaders

 

[T_McC]

Heh. The bizarre logic here is that the Leader is a regular unit (what happens if you spawn a leader on defense in a city with Barracks?) so the formed Army retains his regularness. The army can't promote because it is never fighting, the individual units inside of it are. The retreat function has to come from the Army, not the unit fighting, because I've seen Sword Armies retreat. Which is a really complicated or a fairly sloppy bit of programming.

So Armies built in cities with Barracks should be veterans and more likely to retreat when red-lined. I'm up in this game so I'll check our Armies. If Gyathaar is correct, all of our armies will be regulars.

 

[LKendter]

Well this is going to be a domination win. If my guess below is right conquest can't happen until marines.

 

[Greebley]

That definitely looks one tile. I am fine with domination.

 

[T_McC]

GR6 - Counting Down

1250 AD (0)
Turn Science up a notch to get Banking in 4. We're still making a profit so we can upgrade our boats.

All of our Armies are regulars. Just a curiosity.

Swap Borazjan back to the Harbor I had started on my last turn.

Find space for 9 more scientists and decide to turn Science up to 30% to get Banking in 2.

I see two more spots on the ex-Arab island to settle, we already have a settler in place for the first.

IT - Win a couple, a few things land. Biggest problem is that Egypt founds a city in front of our Armies that appears to be Garrisoned by 200 units.

1255 AD (1)
Found a city on the Arab island, repel the invaders. Re-target on the Egyptian island.

IT - Win about 4 vs. the Egyptians, Celts drop off a Knight. Make that England dropping off a Knight.

1260 AD (2)
Win 8 battles without loss. Egyptian cities appear to be very heavily defended.

Banking is in, ToG in 8. Spin through to optimize scientists. Still due in 8 at +28 gpt.

Given the presence of the 1-tile Egyptian island I intend to burn all cities.

IT - I don't understand the Egyptian targetting. Now they are all running back to beachhead city.

1265 AD (3)
Win 5 battles and raze Heliopolis. We get 5 slaves and 2 Trebs.

Spend small money to rush a couple of things. We may be making a field trip from the Arab island once the Celts figure out where they want to land.

IT - Few things dropped off, including Rifles. The Egyptians ran all those troops up to pillage a single tile. Now they are running back again.

1270 AD (4)
Firstly, find the landings. All 9 units dealt with.

Kill two Pikes and burn Asyut.

1275 AD (5)
Celts land a pair of 4-unit stacks, neither on our homeland. Worst part is that I got faked out on the Arabian island and ran both Immortal Armies away from where the landing actually occurred.

Lose 1st unit in a Cav vs. Cav attack, win three others on Egyptian island. Off the 4-unit landing in the Arab island, as the landing coincided with my bringing 3 more Cavs over on the last turn.

Start to shuffle workers back to Persepolis in anticipation of drawing Rails as our free tech.

1280 AD (6)
Whack a bunch of stuff: Two Knights on our homeland from the Ottos, a four-pack from the Mongols on the Arab island. Found New Zohak on the Arab isle.

1285 AD (7)
Kill 4 defenders and raze Pi-Ramesses. The Egyptians have a stack of 28 defensive units wandering around. Just keep the Armies away from them and they'll melt away.
Take a little chance and head out for the Desert Isle with 5 Cavs. A touch risky if we get a big landing on the Arab isle this turn.

1290 AD (8)
All those defensive units ran East, but our Armies are going west.

Celts land 2 Cavs and 2 MDI in our East by the bait city. Knight pops leader on the 2nd MDI, becomes an Army.

Kill two more Egyptian units.

Now the MM to get ToG next turn: We'll make 120 gold.

1295 AD (9)
Nuts. We got Nationalism. Softly researching Steam Power. We can get it in 11 turns. The Egyptians are of no help, we aren't getting any money from killing them.

Land 5 Cavs on the desert isle. Maybe we'll take out both cities?

1300 AD (10)
Mongols land 2 Crusaders and a Musket, and on the next tile over the Celts land 3 Rifles and an LB. Decide the Rifles offer a grand opportunity to train a new Cav army and kill two of them. Dispatch all invaders with no losses.

Meanwhile on the Arab Isle ... the Mongols land 3 MDI and two Pikes. All of those are killed.

On the desert Isle notice that the Mongol city is now defended by a Rifle and turn my attention to the Egyptian city. It burns, although the 2nd lost unit of the round is a vet Cav vs. a reg Spear. Move the surviving units towards the main Egyptian island.

Kill three units and raze Memphis, acquiring 5 more slaves. The Egyptians appear to have 4 more major cities on the island although they keep founding new cities to be wiped out. I'm hoping their going broke is whittling down the number of junk troops they have so we can start to re-settle their lands.

Final Notes:
Didn't really make a whole lot of progress against the Egyptians. The amount of junk units they have is quite impressive and their cultural boundaries kept the armies moving slowly. We are starting to get a flow of Cavs to the Egyptian island as the Arab island is fairly well defended and we have our home front covered.

We have 6 settlers available to re-settle Egypt when the coast is clear. Could very well happen on the next round. We already have a significant labor force in Egypt but probably need to divert some boats to relieve the armies of warden duties.

We have a Caravel circling the other continent. Nothing we couldn't imagine, but it is a true multi-civ continent.

 

[T_McC]

Here's what Egypt looks like. The blue circle contains 24 defensive units. I doubt we should be wasting our time thinning that stack out. Our armies are covering 15 workers and 2 captured Trebs. We have been attacked at the beachhead on every turn and have not lost a unit on defense. There have been other civs landing on the Ivory tile.

Best play might be to burn the 4 big cities and then come back and capture the two new ones. Hard to believe we would have much of a problem with flips to an OCC.

 

[ThERat]

got it, might take until tomorrow morning s'pore time

 

[ThERat]

save

Pre-Turn
we are at 33/40 only, this might take a while
tweak things alittle here and there, but nothing spectacular, steam in 8 at -73gpt

IT bad start, lose a defender elite musket in egypt beachhead town

1. 1305AD
nth much

IT our frigatte gets sunk

2. 1310AD
clear a few Mogol units on homeland, sink a 1hp Mongol frigatte
turn down research a notch, now in 7 at -10gpt

IT the usual landings, did I tell you the colors make me mad, all look so similar

3. 1315AD
clear 7 units in our land and Island, attack 1hp MDI with elite musket and get a MGL, turns into an army of course
kill 6 pikes in Elephantine but it still stands, a knight shows up as top unit

IT the roaded ivory animates the Egyptian to come out of the cities, their huge stack tries in vain to reach Elephantine but cannt get there


4. 1320AD
kill another 3 units inside Elephantine, raze it for 7 slaves
kill some landings discover that Ottomans are also a shade of yellow

5. 1325AD
this is so slow, but nth much we can do even with 5 armies it's very slow

6. 1330AD
Giza is next. attack with 2 armies the rest is busy with slaves, they slow things down a lot.
kill the usual landings

IT Celts finish US

7. 1335AD
this has to go faster, attack Avaris and keep it
manage to raze Giza, but redline one army

8.1340AD
nth much, start to connect Avaris and Shiraz, rush harbor in Shiraz to connect ivory.

IT Egyptians run around like headless chicken
get some landings again, we get steam, electricity next

9.1345AD
can't see coal as resource, let's see
this is a real joke, what is this with Greebley AW games that we always end up with no coal
spot a source in Egypt just next to Avaris, once we raze the towns we should build a colony
lower lux to 10% and we can get electricity in 16

IT headless SOD running around ending up next to Avaris
Celts suddenlt land way up north

10. 1350BC
lucky our cavs and army can reach those 4 units and defeat them
manage to raze Al-Amarna
build a coal colony. hopefully we can hold it
start to rail immediately
situation in Egypt is a little hairy now, but I wanted to risk it to get coal
we need to pull back armies for protection, the only big city is the capital left
there are 6 settlers ready in Shiraz
we are now at 34/42, not much better, but can settle Egypt soon

 

[LKendter]

I doubt we should be wasting our time thinning that stack out.

Actually, with Egypt having the one tile island we will need to get rid of that stack. Waiting for one unit a turn to go away due to lack of support will take far to long. I do agree to deal with the cities first. As long as that stack is around it will really make it a pain to improve the Egyptian lands.

 

[T_McC]

Actually, with Egypt having the one tile island we will need to get rid of that stack. Waiting for one unit a turn to go away due to lack of support will take far to long. I do agree to deal with the cities first. As long as that stack is around it will really make it a pain to improve the Egyptian lands.

Yeah, but it's dying one unit a turn, every turn while we run around burning the other cities. I'm hoping that once Egypt is an OCC that stack will be ~8 units, which we can handle in 1 turn with the Armies. The units have to go, but it would have taken ~3 turns to kill the whole thing with the Armies at the end of my turns. The stack won't ever attack anything and our Armies should be able to stay ahead of it to prevent it from garrisoning cities we're targetting. We should be able to wait to deal with it.

Every pike/spear that we kill from that stack is one more Knight that Egypt can support, so clear the cities from the island and then take a couple of turns to clear the stray units. I think a Deity civ can support ~16 units as an OCC.

 

[Greebley]

Ya, I often find it effective to deal with larger unit stacks last or when they are actually threatening you.

 

[Greebley]

Forgot to include this bit:
I got it.

Signed up:
Greebley - Up
LKendter - On Deck
Northern Pike
T_McC
ThERat - Just Played

 

[LKendter]

We have passed the halfway point. We are at 34% toward domination and 42% population. We still have tiles to claim in Arabia to gain a few more. However, now that we can see more of the map there is no question that we will have to invade the other big landmass. This is going to be rough. This game has a lot more time left then I first thought.

Do we need to reconsider our opinions on factories? We know how hard it will be to survive on the other continent we will need to get up to infantry. We may need to drive toward ToE to get Hoovers. I think the complexion of game has changed. It is still quite winnable at this point as long as the game doesn't last long enough for the UN to come into play from the Celts.

I agree that size one Avaris is low flip risk. However, we should still try and limit our risk. There is no reason to leave our badly needed workers hiding in the city. If anything, we have a serious debated about bringing some back home. Rails make homeland defense so much easier, and reduce the amount of troops required for homeland defense.

 

[ThERat]

wasn't hiding the workers in Avaris, they just had been escorted back from razed towns, we could send some back, I agree.

We should build factories later on, but first research electricity, RP then espionage and maybe we really need communism?

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Decide to build a few more Rifles. They can be useful.

I also move a Galleon toward a Caravel with Cavalry. Otherwise, there is the risk of losing the Cav.

IBT: Some Mongolian Cavalry land near Bampur.

1355 AD: Armies are mostly healing. Kill the 4 Cav and a Knight.
Bombard the big Egyptian stack.

IBT: 2 Landings - 1 Cav and 4 Cav

1360 AD: Both landings dealt with (lose a Cav to a 1hp Cav on flat)
Attack Alexandria.
Raze Liszt. Build 2 towns on the egyptian Island.
Bombard the Egyptian Stack some more. One new town keeps the previous bombard from healing.

1365 AD: Capture Alexandia. Kill some of the random Egyptian units (there is no longer one huge stack).

1370 AD: Build 3 towns on the Egyptian Island.

1375 AD: Build 2 more towns. Destroy the last mainland Egyptian city.
Lose an Elite Knight vs a 2hp Cav.

1380 AD: Healing. Egyptian presence gone from mainland.

1385 AD: Kill a settler stack on Egyptian island.

1390 AD: Kill Saltpeter town of the Mongols on the small island.

IBT: Very large landing: 4 rifles, 3 cav from the Celts. 4 Cav from the Mongols

1395 AD: Kill large stacks. Lose an immortal trying to kill a Cavalry. Lose an Elite Spear trying to leaderfish vs a 1 hp Cav.
Celtic transport spotted We are definitely trailing in tech.

1400 AD: Oops - Accidentally hit enter. The game is on 1405 with no units moved. I will post pictures of both landings.

IBT: 2 landings - see maps.

Notes:
This game is still tricky. Transports means we will be seeing tanks soon. We need artillery and Infantry ASAP.

The reason for lots of banks is to allow us 50% research. There is a big deficit if we try right now. You may need to change one or two to Cavalry as the landing recently grew in size and we need more offense.

We have 4 armies in Galleons to take over to the main AI continent. We should do this right away We will be seeing destroyers soon and (haven't seen any yet) so they should go across right now.. We can also start razing towns with 4 armies if we do it very carefully. Only attack with healthy armies, leave one at full health, and favor mountains and hills (since we may see tanks). I would land on the hill near Amarikh and head toward the celts.

We need more offensive units on our home island. The size of the landings suddenly grew quite a bit. I would ship an army back from the Arabian Island.

For the large current landing, my suggestion is to bombard the rifles until the Cavalry is on top. Then stop bombardment and kill the Cavalry. We don't really have the offense to kill all the rifles (our home Cavalry army is hurt from last turns landing).

The big landing:

2 Cavalry on Arabian Island:

 

[LKendter]

OUCH - this is sooner than I even expected transports.

I have it, and am very gratefull for railroads...

 

[Greebley]

To repeat a point I made earlier. Get our 4 armies onto the other continent before Destroyers show up. They are already loaded and can get over in 2 turns.

Signed up:
Greebley - Just Played
LKendter - Up
Northern Pike - On Deck
T_McC
ThERat - Just Played

 

[LKendter]

To repeat a point I made earlier. Get our 4 armies onto the other continent before Destroyers show up. They are already loaded and can get over in 2 turns.

I already caught that point and have to play a tactic that I don't like. If we have AI infantry, the cavalry armies may be all but useless.

 

[Greebley]

If there are infantry, we go for Pentagon and get 4 cav over there. This gives us 12 attack strength. That is strong enough when combined with 16+ hp to take out Infantry protected cities. It just slow.

[Edit: Alternatively, we can send Artillery across. I would rather have a chance of losing artillery than a chance of losing armies. I suspect we will want to do both. Build Pentagon, get 4 Cav and artillery support and start taking out cities.

We have seen no Infantry to date. Chances are good that at least one of the three civs lacks rubber.

 

[T_McC]

What are we researching? If we have to get many more techs Communism would look really good. If we think RP and then nothing, we don't need to revolt. It would be tough to go through an Anarchy even if Communism would likely double our shields and research capacity. We also probably haven't built too many Courthouses in anticipation of a revolt.

I'm concerned that trying to build Factories would have almost the same impact as a revolt. Our core cities would be tied up for ~8 turns building and research would likely be curtailed to get cash to shorten the builds.

Definitely put a 4th member in each army you land on the main opposition continent. Those armies aren't coming back.