Gr7 - AWM vs 30 civs on a giant map

[LKendter]

Setting up a reserve of several mounties behind each front would be prudent. If there is a break through then we can react.

I got 1 MW as part of the guard in a decent amount of the core coastal cities. However, there are still gaps. At this point I am rushing MW and spears to Choke Triangle. Almost all my losses where there.

Egypt and Sumeria are starting to be contained, and offensive may be possible soon.

 

[Greebley]

I felt we had to expand rapidly - running at 20% science would have killed us. We have now expanded however and need to consolidate our new position. You are correct that we are slightly overextended. The next 10 turns, like your turns are probably not about expansion (we can expand some), but to get to the point where we have sufficient troops to handle incoming units.

Situations change - Too many Catapults on my turn can easily be too few 20 turns later. I would like to wait a bit artillery though - we are close to having trebuchets - more cats now would just be more maint cost for an inferior unit that is soon to be replaced. We can't afford to upgrade artillery (it is also not worth the cost) so cats will become obsolete.

Getting our cities above size 6 will help too.

 

[LKendter]

We have now expanded however and need to consolidate our new position.

Once I took out the Byzantines I did hit a wall in the north. The good news is that wall is starting to break, and I hope some offensive can come that direction soon. I don't see expansion for the choke-point area in the near future.

The next 10 turns, like your turns are probably not about expansion (we can expand some), but to get to the point where we have sufficient troops to handle incoming units.

Well I still expanded some as the landmass stopped to the east. I still am getting a few backfill cities that should become specialist cities soon.

Getting our cities above size 6 will help too.

A few more have during my turns, and I am trying to squeeze in a few more aqueducts. However, I am finding it harder to put cities on anything but military. The Choke Triangle area keepings feeling close to collapsing, and I am sick of that feeling.

 

[LKendter]

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/GR7-950AD.zip


910 AD
I killed 16 units. I redline another army trying to stay alive by Choke Triangle. An elite swordsman dies to a 1 HP sword. (67-7)

I achieved a tactical success in clearing out all the Egyptian troops behind our lines. The Egyptian landing is cleared out from Grand River.


I hate spending cash to rush, but I felt I had to get a barracks in Choke Triangle. Our troops need to heal faster, or this area could break. I have to many armies down for healing.
(IT) I am getting tired of Portuguese knights killing our fortified spears behind walls with catapult support. We lost 2 and the AI lost 2. (69-9)


920 AD
I killed 18 units while losing 1. I continue to push they armies in the Choke Triangle to the limit and redlined another one. I just can't get this area stabilized. One bad round of RNG luck and it may break. (87-10)

Would you like to guess what leader I saw again? For a hint, read my last turn log. I planted another MW army.

The Chalcedon area has been a great leader farm this round. I would have preferred another sword army that could survive better in AI territory, but there aren't enough swords in that area.
(IT) I got a major scare, but the MDI simply retreated our sword army. If a knight had attacked it, we would have lost it. As I keep saying, I have to push the armies to hard.

We lost another unit in that area. I can't get fresh troops there fast enough. (87-11)
When is the initial blast from Portugal going to end, and where are the Maya still coming up with so many troops from?


930 AD
I killed 10 more units. The horrid catapults at Chalcedon limited my attacks. (97-11)

I see the first Roman units start to arrive at the choke point area.

Forest Choked is formed. I abandon Tikal and get rid of the Mayan citizen. Silks are us is formed. I get the joy of fixing all the cities again.
(IT) I killed 4, and lost 3 units. We really need pikes in the Choke Area. (101-14)

Egypt is coming back in force at Chalcedon just as I was thinking offensive may be possible soon.

940 AD
I killed 12 units. I lost an elite sword to an injured EW. I captured a catapult. I gladly will take no support costs bombard units. (113-15)

I finally get a chance to pillage a road tile that should hopefully make it harder for knights to get in range of Choke Triangle.

Rodentville is formed.
(IT) I actually get a turn free of attacks. I watch the Romans start to arrive in force. At least they are sending horses that are a lot easier to kill. There are still a ton of Sumerian units wandering around. Endiku Warriors are just too cheap to build.


950 AD
I killed 22 units. (135-15)

==========================

Summary:
Don't forget the Vikings are in the game. They WILL attack coastal cities with Berserks. We need to get every core coastal city up to 2 units to reduce the risk of a surprise. IMO we will have to risk the corrupt cities such as Hilly Billy. There is a limit how many troops we can afford to tie down in coastal defense.


Invention may be close; the only question is how close are the Vikings. The other danger is Spain landing conquistadors. There are spots they could land and take out empty cities unless they die on the beach.


Once we get feudalism I would like to see some pikes up to the Choke Triangle area. I am not sure what tech makes sense next. We can get 2 attack @3 MW for less that one attack @4 knight. I would love engineering to stop having the rivers slow us down.


The good news is two less civs with my killing the Byzantines, and the Koreans going away.


We are getting close to some specialist cities. I can't wait to have some on-line to speed up our science rate.


This is no question in my mind that the next push is toward Sumeria and Egypt. Portugal has knights and the great wall. The Maya have MDI. The Romans have feudalism, so you know MDI are getting close. We haven't seen much of them, but the Netherlands are coming from the south.


Sumeria is backwards and way behind us in tech. Egypt is slightly behind us. I would prefer to knock out 2 civs before we try three of four superior civs. Especially when it would give up the killing zone. I have actually started moving addition troops toward the north. The other plus is the MW armies are probably a lot safer in the north. I have seen very litte fast units up north.


We really want to let the courthouses complete. We can use the short-term production boast, and some century the Peoples Republic of the Iroquois will appreciate them.


What is crazy is that we have 10% of the world's population. With 27 civs in the game it should be 3 or 4%.


Signed up:
Greebley
ThERat
LKendter
Matt_G (currently playing)
Markh (on deck)
Sir Bugsy

 

[LKendter]

The above is the southern front. It finally calmed down. Now this it is a little less insane, it is time to make our lives easier. I would really like to the roads built along the white lines. I have to let to many AI units live due to the lack off roads.

DON'T clear the swamps and jungle. All that horrid terrain has really slowed the AIs down. We don't want to destroy an excellent tactical position. I have some workers already hiding under the sword army in the swamp. The only way to lay the roads is to take advantage of army immunity.

 

[LKendter]

The above is the eastern area. I placed most of the new cities in this area. The two dots are the missing cities to finish filling the area in.

 

[LKendter]

The above is the northern area. The numbers show how many troops in the bigger stacks. The red arrow is where I suspect the Sumerian core is, and the direction we need to expand.

The blue dot is needed to blockade that map area more effectively.

The brown dot is the start of the city expansion toward Sumeria.

 

[ThERat]

Tough going, luckily we were able to set up the choke area, imagine to fight all of them further up north and we would be toast.

I agree with going for engineering first, we want to get rid of the annoying river crossing malus. I think with pikes and all our MW armies, we should be able to take out Sumer and Egypt. They have quite a few towns as well, the land up north should be big, good for building more scientist farms.

I don't think we can afford to place 2 defenders in every single town. Only the valuable towns. If we happen to lose a town, we can always re-take it, remember how pathetic the AI landings are. And, unless they know us, Vikings and Spain would not attack us straight. We only need to start worrying once we have contacts and war is declared, but it will take some time for them to come.

I ask again, how many turns does our research take at the moment? I think the GL would have paid off many a times by now...

 

[LKendter]

I don't think we can afford to place 2 defenders in every single town. Only the valuable towns. If we happen to lose a town, we can always re-take it, remember how pathetic the AI landings are.

1) I was only suggesting my defense plan for the coastal towns. If the landings get hot, then add a 3rd fast unit along the coast.
2) I was planning on the interior being empty.
3) I suggested leaving Hilly Billy and further west empty. We will need to eventually have some mobile defenders in the east.
4) AI landings may be pathetic, but if we start getting 4 or 5 at once it is ugly.
5) The AI may very well raze some of the cities.

I ask again, how many turns does our research take at the moment? I think the GL would have paid off many a times by now...

I didn't pay that close of attention. I know we still have several turns to go on Feudalism.

I agree the GL would have paid off, but we aren't that far behind the civs we know. We are getting close to our first specialist farm cities to speed the pace up. The 4 civs in the MA can't even offer us engineering.

 

[ThERat]

had a look at the save, unit costs are drowning us again, we need more towns...actually the choke now looks good and defendable, I would send out the sword army and try and raze some towns, then slowly expand forward. same goes for the north.

And by the way, I think currently it is not really worth to nurture those 2spt towns, rather milk them for scientists, I checked and with some MM we can reduce science a notch, get feudalism still in 3 at around 60gpt.

 

[ThERat]

sorry doublepost

 

[LKendter]

had a look at the save, unit costs are drowning us again, we need more towns.

Unit costs alone don't tell the picture. What really counts is the science rate. It is respectable.
There are several more settlers heading to fill in the eastern gaps.
I did get a few more cities placed, and got more above size 6. We even have more aqueducts in progress.

...actually the choke now looks good and defendable, I would send out the sword army and try and raze some towns, then slowly expand forward. Same goes for the north.

I almost had a complete collapse just a couple of turns ago in the south. Rome has just started to arrive. I really don't want to push our luck on both fronts at the same time. I started pushing the majority of the troops toward the north. I think we need to hold on one front, and push the other front hard.

There is no way I want to give up the somewhat sane front in the south. The Choke point is a great hold point, and I hope we can slaughter Sumeria and Egypt in the north.

And by the way, I think currently it is not really worth to nurture those 2spt towns, rather milk them for scientists,

If they are at maximum size, I have no problem with that. My complaint is when people rush to hire scientists at size two, and kill growth. I prefer to keep the cities growing to get more scientists in the long-term.

 

[Greebley]

I also think we should keep to the choke in the south and clear out the northern part of the continent first. This just seems to make more sense. Once the south is our only front other than landings, we will be in a very strong position to push forward there.

On tech, remember that we chose a pretty high number for the tech needed to advance and the difficulty is Monarch. I don't think we will find a highly advanced continent elsewhere. They may be ahead of us, but I doubt they will be far ahead. We may even be able to keep up or go ahead eventually.

 

[LKendter]

On tech, remember that we chose a pretty high number for the tech needed to advance and the difficulty is Monarch. I don't think we will find a highly advanced continent elsewhere. They may be ahead of us, but I doubt they will be far ahead. We may even be able to keep up or go ahead eventually.

Well a big clue is the completion of wonders - Bach's and Copernicus have NOT been built. We don't have any runaway civ at this point. Sumeria ofter becomes the monster, but in our game they are backwards!

 

[markh]

I would go for Chivalry asap. Knights are of more value here than crossing rivers without penalty in my opinion. Knights will make life much easier.

I will go on a business trip tomorrow, but I will have my notebook and my game CD with me. I do not know whether I will have access to the internet in the hotels (I expect it at least), so skip me if I do not post a "got it" soon after Matt played. I am back on 29th at the latest, but I am quite sure I will be able to play during this trip. I have plenty of time in the evenings.

 

[LKendter]

I would go for Chivalry asap. Knights are of more value here than crossing rivers without penalty in my opinion. Knights will make life much easier.

What has more value - 2 MW or 1 knight? We can build over 2 MW for each knight we could build. AW is often about troop volume.

 

[Greebley]

For me the biggest advantage of knights is that they can be put in armies that can move independently and don't need to be defended its the defense of 1 that makes MW the lesser unit IMO.

A Knight army is a bigger advantage than 20 odd MW in my opinion

River crossing is also significant though. I suggest we get knights soon, but they don't need to be before engineering, IMO.

 

[markh]

Yes, good point. I just think that research can be done much faster with knights as they have 3-defense, so we do not need that many pikes. Beside MWs which are no-defense we have to build pikes. That is additional unit costs. With knights we do not need pikes.
Engineering gives us trebs which are great, but in our game cats will do it quite some more time as the civs on our continent are not very advanced and researching engineering will slow us down in my opinion. We will face many more enemies soon and I do not know whether the pure count of MWs can handle that.

 

[LKendter]

I just think that research can be done much faster with knights as they have 3-defense, so we do not need that many pikes. Beside MWs which are no-defense we have to build pikes. That is additional unit costs. With knights we do not need pikes.

Are you proposing our city defenses be knights? IMO 30 shields pikes should be on the defense.

 

[Matt_G]

Got it.
I agree with pikes on defense and engineering before chivalry.
I took a quick look only tonight, and will try and play some tomorrow. I put in a 12 hour day today and I am exhausted, so keep the comments coming.
BTW the Maya have ivory. Whether it's on this continent or they are shipping it in from an island remains to be seen. Just thought Lee would like to know we may have that fourth lux on this landmass in our future.

In answer to Rats question a few posts back, Germany has Sun Tzu in Berlin.