Gr7 - AWM vs 30 civs on a giant map

Greebley said:
I was just realizing that things will get very interesting when the AI gets Printing Press and/or Navigation. We will probably gain a lot of enemies very quickly. Should be interesting to see how it goes.
I was thinking of this last night. We could end up at war with everyone inside of 10 turns once PP is known.
Hopefully we can trade a little before declaring.
A World map would be real nice...
 
Greebley said:
720 AD: Capture Tikal - Oh Cool - there is a new Lux next to this city.

:dance: :dance:
Another happy face is always good. With being our third luxury the marketplace multiplier will really be important.
 
Greebley said:
I kind of wish we have gone for Construction rather than Map Making.

I would like to understand by Map Making. The majority of our cities are interior and gain nothing from a harbor. I could have seen Literature for some libraries in our larger towns such as the size 12 FP city. I agree that Construction was optimal. Even Code of Laws for courthouses in some marginal cities would have been better.

Growing a city like Two Fish could happen without a harbor. The aqueduct would have paid by picking up the revenue from the fish. Don't forget we are agricultural and get half cost aqueducts. The jump from size 6 to size 7 gains 2 in unit support cost. The aqueduct cost one. We are ahead by $1 before you factor in working the 7th tile.


I appreciate keeping reserves in the rear in case of landings. However, I don't like having elite units such as the sword in Black Forest in reserve. A few more armies would help our position. Even rushed buildings help if we hit the army limit. Leaving elites inactive reduces those odds.


Once we are in the Middle Ages we have a real debate on tech. Are MDI or fast river crossings from Engineering more important?


Greebley said:
Smyrna is abandoned (our replacement city will be built next turn).
Most of the time I really couldn't care. However, with this map size we WILL hit the 512 city limit. This is a very dangerous habit to get into. We may fail on the attempt to build the replacement city.


LAK-910.jpg


I want to explain my logic for how I am proposing city placement. I want to compare my purple dot vs. Owego. The first big difference is purple dot started with no cultural pressure. The second is the current location has two addition water tiles without a harbor possible. The third is the key, and that is the number of supporting cities. With the current placement of Owego the number of cities one move away are as follows:
Owego: 1
Allegheny: 1
Mattnayutenate: 3


If purple dot was build as proposed we got:
Owego: 4
Allegheny: 2
Mattnayutenate: 4


To me the overriding concern is the ability of cities to support each other. To avoid "wasting" the bonus grassland tile we gave up 5 city support links. I personally don't feel 1 shield justifies that loss. This is why I have become so obsesses with perfect 3 tile placement. I agree that it may really hit the fan when a dozen civs all try to land behind our lines at once. We may really regret not keeping everything optimal.
 
LKendter said:
Most of the time I really couldn't care. However, with this map size we WILL hit the 512 city limit. This is a very dangerous habit to get into. We may fail on the attempt to build the replacement city.

A very good point - I shouldn't have done it this way. The reason I did was to have one less turn that it could flip in, but in doing so I totally forgot about the city limit.

I am actually a bit suprised we haven't already hit the limit. I wonder if there is a good bit of land still unclaimed on islands. Islands will be large in this game...

[Edit: Is it worth moving Owego? It has a temple now... Better now than later though.
 
LKendter said:
I would like to understand by Map Making.
My only logic here was that it was the cheapest tech and would move us out of the AA the quickest.

LKendter said:
I want to explain my logic for how I am proposing city placement. I want to compare my purple dot vs. Owego. The first big difference is purple dot started with no cultural pressure.
Yep, I'm not perfect, what can I say. I didn't see your dot map and my logic was flawed. Actually, Owego does have any cultural pressure at the moment since it doesn't share a tile with the Korean city culture. At least that's the way I understand it.
 
I don't think your logic works. It is the same number of shields to get out of the AA no matter what order. The only time that is not true is when you hit the minimum of 4 turns to research.

Also you have more shields in the GA, so you should go for the most expensive tech during the GA (assuming hitting the 4 turns is possible).
 
I don't think Bug's logic is totally wrong since research beakers also depend on how many AI's know a tech already, so sometimes it's cheaper to go for some tech first...or am I wrong?
 
I have always understood that techs get cheaper depending on how many civs that you know have the tech. By cheaper, I mean that it takes less beakers to research it. If you go for the cheapest tech, you may be able to save a lot of beakers in the tech race if you are playing catch up. I think we are presently in catch up mode. Anyway, that's why I went for MM v. construction.
 
I don't think this has ever been true before but we have too many Catapults. This is Monarchy which requires less and unit costs is a just too high. A tempting idea is to give a stack of about 16 of them to the AI in the hopes he upgrades them for us. Won't do it in a succession game though.

40% science is -19 gold. I will work on reducing that down. I want to run at least 40% as a minimum.

IBT: Lose a MW that retreated last turn. He was supposed to kill the enemy, but instead didn't damage it - so it attacked back and won. Lose 3 workers I couldn't get to safety (slaves from the razing of Heraclea). I am hoping to get them back. MDI lands on our shores.

730 AD: Landed MDI is killed. Capture Nicea (another strategic capture).
We get a second leader = MW Army. Most armies heal.

IBT: No attacks.

740 AD: Build Eastern Woods (Suggested name was too complex).
Archer kills a MW.

We can run 0% Lux, and 50% science at -13 gpt which gives us construction in 6 turns.

IBT: Lose 2 Spear, Catapult, MW retreats vs several Sumerian Swords(killed 3 swords). Mis-judged whether it would be attacked

750 AD: Capture Sardica (Byz), and Anshan (Sum). Line up attack on Lagartero.

Notes:
Things look good in the South. We have a choke point to defend behind - not that I have seen any activity from that direction however.

In the North, we are a bit thin. We need to reinforce up there. Sumeria is still capable of sending troops. Egypt sends some in too. I can tell it is not AWE though, the numbe of troops is definitely less.

The Byzantines are to the East. We have been taking some bigger cities of theirs so recently they have been sending less units. there appears to be more land to the East.

Very few landings from ships. No units at all from Korea. Are they at war with the Mayans who also haven't attacked in a while?

No knights seen yet. We have 5 turns to construction. I would like to try to keep science at 50%. This means more settlers (we currently have 6 unplaced). Unit cost is down to 83 gpt.

I suggest looking through the cities in enemy territory and deciding which ones to replace. Lee's usually suggest replacing the one near a new Lux - the settler in the South is to replace Tikal for this reason. Many cities are not in great positions, but we don't want to raze when we are not ready to replace. yet. Capturing is better in that case. We may lose cities by razing if we hit the max city count. My advice is to capture everything that is not immediately replaceable. It can be abandoned later. Any unhappiness will wear off before we have communism (the earliest time production matters) so that is not an issue either.

Here is a picture of our South, East, and North fronts:

GR7_AD750.jpg


GR7_AD750a.jpg


GR7_AD750b.jpg


The Save
 
save

Pre-Turn
just to get an idea about our foes so far:
Sumer: 21 cities
Egypt: 18 cities
Maya: 14 cities
Korea: 9 cities
Byzantines: 6 cities
we have currently 42 cities
MM quite a bit, can see after 10 turns how exhausted Greebley must have been, we get construction now in 4 at -13gpt
everything looks a little messy since we keep all those towns, we need slaves as well, rather raze more

IT well, well we lose a wounded swordarmy that was placed in Anshan next to 3 swords, nothing at all I could do :(

1. 760AD
found Ganogeh, MW army mops up 2 swords at Anshan
raze Lagathero for 17g and 2 slaves, kill a settler pair nearby, kill a few units here and there

IT not much, but it seems there is a new Civ coming from the south

2. 770AD
true enough we meet Dutch they are up 3 techs, no trades and we are at war
found Hilly Billy to connect our south to Tikal and Dark Forrest in the, yeah, deep dark forrest
create a short term city placement plan to connect all those displaced cities and close the choke in the south

IT Sumer shows up next to Anshan with many units, Dutch approach Tikal and Egypt sword lands next to our capital
defeat Byz MDI in the forrest

3. 780AD
kill 5 units at Anshan
found Kawauka to connect towns, need more settler to fill gaps and have better placement
march onto Adrianople, reduce science to 30% still get const next turn

IT
gr7780.jpg

lose a spear in the forrest
there are many Dutch units near Tikal, we get const and go for lit in 4 at -16gpt

4. 790AD
take out Adrianople and get a leader :D taking out a Sumer settler pair right next to it, form MW army
to help out in the south against the Dutch, take out 3 horses there
march on to Copan, where the Mayans have their iron

IT lose 2 units on defense, Egypt lands 2 units behind the lines

5. 800AD
take out Copan netting 20g, 2 slaves and 1 cat
defeat some Sumer units, but lose 2
fail to take out all Egypt units behind the lines
defeat 4 Dutch units next to Tikal

IT defend successfully against 4 units, no losses

6. 810AD
found Deep forrest after taking care of that last Egypt spear
found Choke point on hill in the south
bomb units at Tikal and get another leader :D , one more MW army
send out MW army to see land east of Anshan

IT Korea lands a unit behind the lines near capital, defeat a sword on defense

7. 820AD
send armies east, would like to remove Byz, they are down to 5 cities
abandon Tulum to immediately replace with Tulum II
advance towards Varna, Caesarea and Coba
take out 5 Sumer units in the north

IT defeat 2 units on defense, get literature, CoL our last AA tech in 4 at 60% science. spot a unit in a very similar color from ours

8. 830AD
Portugal it is, have all resources, 25 cities and no trades available, war it is
lose an elite sword trying to take out a wounded EW, lose an MW trying to take out a sword
bombard and take Varna, keep it since it's in a proper location
raze Coba for 18g and 3 slaves, raze Caesarea for 4 slaves, Byz is down to 3 cities and has no iron now

IT oh, another new color pops up directly south of Tikal, win once on defense
an Egypt stack of 9 comes into view east of Varna

9. 840AD
meet annoyed Rome with 14 cities and declare
found Leetaigon in the east and Golden Hills at the sea in the east
heavy fighting in the north with Sumer and south with Dutch, take out around 10 units and lose 1

march on to Constantinople

IT defend against 2 Sumer swords, Dutch are attracted by empty Tulum II

10. 850AD
set up attack on Calcedon next turn, attack and raze Constantinople, next player should be able to take out those 2 remaining
Byz towns and then advance onto Sumer, which has too many cities
found Choke triangle on hill for better choke defense and to take pressure off Tikal
we have 5 armies around there, some are healing, once we healed we should go on the offensive again
lose 1 unit in the north taking out Sumer units
we can run now 60% research at -7gpt, unit support is still a whopping 79gpt
Ratnawake is building a granary so it can build settlers faster

Summary:
added cites 10 (52 now and still did not reach the limit), 2 turns left for CoL and MA, met 3 new Civ's, lost 1 army and gained 2
we have 5 settlers on the way, there is a lot of room where Byz used to be, keep on churning out settlers
 
some pictures for the lurkers and for us to strategize

a lot of empty land here which we can settle, there are some settlers on the way
gr7850a.jpg



the southern defence triangle, we have 5 armies around and should go on the offence once some are fully healed
gr7850b.jpg



the north, I was holding the line only, we could be more aggressive here as well
gr7850c.jpg


there are 2 Byz towns left, easy to be taken out
gr7850d.jpg
 
Greebley said:
Many cities are not in great positions, but we don't want to raze when we are not ready to replace yet. Capturing is better in that case. We may lose cities by razing if we hit the max city count. My advice is to capture everything that is not immediately replaceable. It can be abandoned later. Any unhappiness will wear off before we have communism (the earliest time production matters) so that is not an issue either.
Well unless with killed the civ we never get rid of the war whiner factor. Captured AI cities are permanently more unhappy then native cities.

I do agree we must at least temporary capture due to the map size.

As for capturing everything, we may really want to think that through. The odds of holding a size 12 Sumerian city are very low. OTOH 4 or 5 slave is really nice.



ThERat said:
IT well, well we lose a wounded sword army that was placed in Anshan next to 3 swords, nothing at all I could do :(

This is why I really hate healing armies in front line cities.


One thing that was very scary in that picture was the exposed MW army. Let me repeat a fact: I have seen MDI / Knights attack 1 defense point armies.


Signed up:
Greebley
ThERat
LKendter (currently playing)
Matt_G (on deck)
Markh
Sir Bugsy
 
One thing that was very scary in that picture was the exposed MW army
no knights so far in the north and I think MDI's attack 3 MW armies, but for whatever reason not the 4 MW's as long as they are healed. I agree to better let them work in tandem with sword armies, but I want to get rid of Byz fast.

as you can see, I have not captured everything, we would end up spreading our front too thin, that's how we lost the army in that town.

We can't afford though, to just stay back and capture nearby cities. better go out and raze and get slaves. once we hit the city limit, we raze and replace with a city near our borders.
 
@ Rat - I really like the way you set up the choke triangle.

I think if we offensively defend the choke triangle we can turn our attention to Sumeria after the Byzantines are done.
 
850 AD
I started reviewing the game. The first thing I did was look for short-term cities. My first decision was to not bother with the really high corruption cities that will be useless before communism. The line of to corrupt looks like it will run along the cities of Hilly Billy, Kawauka, Nicaea, etc. Anything to the east of that isn't worth looking at for now. There may be more at the Sumerian border area, but until we get more cities it is hard to tell.

The following cites have been become short-term cities: Caughnawaga, Mattnayutenate, Gaya, and Akwesasne.

We are playing a pure forward defense game. The problem with that is that a collapse can totally cascade against you. One of the LK series losses saw a total meltdown in a matter of turns after the front lines broke. While we don't have the front-line problem, we do have landing havoc possible at any time.

I think our best coastal defense will be 1 spearman and 1 MW for now. This gives us mobile defense, and two units per city. That is one of my goals for these ten turns. My other goal is to get some workers back to the core rather then being wasted on 100% corrupt cities. All the furs near Kiohero are bonus grassland with extra income. That is not the city to leave choked by forest. Especially when chopping all that forest can speed up building in that city. Lee's Gold should be up to size 7, but there are still forest not chopped.

The last problem is all these settlers, but no escorts with them. This doesn't make me comfortable.

The big challenge looks like trying to find a 4th luxury. My gut feeling says it doesn't exist on this continent. I think we will need to invest in churches once they are available.

:confused: Why do we have a settler inside the flip risk city of Anshan? I will admit I hate captured cities to begin with, but that would make a flip that much more painful.
(IT) I lost 1 unit that had been left exposed. (0-1)
The ugly level has increased as 2 Portuguese knights have appeared. I don't recall seeing reports of knights before.


860 AD
I killed 7 AI units, while losing 1. (7-2)

The area under the most pressure is around Tyendenaga. Sumeria is still sending a lot of stuff, and we have a wandering Egyptian stack with multiple swords in the area. I would really like another army in that area.
(IT) 4 Sumerian units die at Kahnawake. We came close to losing units. (11-2)
We have finally left the AA. The next science goal is feudalism as we to start getting pikeman for defenders.


870 AD
I killed 7 units, while losing none. (18-2)
I could have killed more, but lacked sufficient offense near the choke triangle area. I recall a complaint about to many catapults, but I feel we are short. I can't do much at all with the Sumerian attacks.

New Mattstown is formed. Chalcedon is captured with 4 resistors. :(
I can now tell we are on a huge map, as the delays are starting up with change of city ownership.

I load the missing MW into one of the armies at the choke point.

Now that we are in the Middle Ages I noticed all of the AI lack engineering. It looks like we aren't to far behind.
(IT) One unit dies on each side at Kahnawake. (19-3)
Egypt turns around and starts heading toward Chalcedon. The majority of Sumerian troops turn around, and I suspect that is there target.


880 AD
I killed 13 units, while losing 1. I nailed a settler. (32-3)
The choke triangle feels worse despite all the kills. I burned a lot of the cash left to get all 3 choke point cities walls.

Trebizond is captured. Really Buggy is formed.

LAK-917.jpg



The choke triangle is getting quite warm.
LAK-918.jpg



(IT) There are no AI attacks. Now Sumeria is also moving on Chalcedon. This actually makes me happy, as that city has a stack of catapults. The problem it does have is an awkward placement that isn't in range of any other city.


890 AD
It takes 2 MW to stop a 1 spearman landing by the capitol. I killed 9 units. I nailed 2 more settlers. You can't have enough free labor. (42-3)
I redlined one of the armies at the choke point for extra kills, and I still don't feel I've killed enough. Choke Point is getting close to unmanageable.

Smoke this is formed.
(IT) :wallbash: Our silks are pillaged by Tikal. :wallbash:
We loss 2 spearman, and killed just 1 knight at Choke Triangle. (43-5)
Salamanca riots, and a lot of other cities have to get specialists.

Egypt gets serious about landing troops.

LAK-919.jpg



900 AD
I killed 8 units, while losing none. (51-5)
The Egyptian landing is only partially killed, and distracts desperately needed MW from the Choke Area.

It stays tough by Choke Triangle. I simply can't kill enough units, and have to settle for chasing them away with damage. That is not the way to win AW games.
(IT) Egypt lands another sword in the exact same spot.

A Portuguese city appears near Choke Triangle with an instant set of walls.
I lost 1 unit, while killing nothing. (51-6)

To be continued...
 
We are playing a pure forward defense game.
The reason is that we need to expand fast, so that we can ensure that we get as many cities as possible before we reach the limit.
If planned and executed properly there is nothing wrong with forward defense.

I think at Choke point, you are unfortunate to face the initial stream of units since during my turns, I had to declare on 3 Civ's. After this, I feel we need to get forward to and raze towns, expand our borders (I use armies to cover the settler). We should specially shield our 3rd lux city by founding another one in front.

How many turns does feudalism take? And maybe I forgot, who netted Sun Tzu?
 
Lee,
Has the city limit been hit yet?

Sound like this could get extremely ugly very quickly...

I keep thinking of the other continent racing ahead in tech, having Printing Press and Navigation/Magnetism, and finding this continent.
Then all of a sudden we are at war with 26 civs and they are dropping buttloads of cavalry all over the damn place.

Me a pessimist? What makes you say that... :lol:
 
ThERat said:
The reason is that we need to expand fast, so that we can ensure that we get as many cities as possible before we reach the limit.
If planned and executed properly there is nothing wrong with forward defense.
I never said a forward defense was wrong. I was stating I feel less comfortable with it. I have been sweating bullets every turn at the choke point because with knowing there is nothing behind it if I collapse. I already was down to just 1 badly injured army and 1 spearman one turn at Choke Triangle. That army almost died to a knight, and that could have been fatal.

After a total self-destruct in LK83 I will never feel comfortable with this defense. Once the landings start we could totally roll over with the empty core.
 
Matt_G said:
Has the city limit been hit yet?
No

Matt_G said:
Sound like this could get extremely ugly very quickly...
Choke Triangle IS ugly. The good thing is ugly is limited to a narrow point. If we start getting multiple heavy fronts...


Matt_G said:
Then all of a sudden we are at war with 26 civs and they are dropping buttloads of cavalry all over the damn place.
That is exactly what I am scared of. Of course, the AI does have to get to navigation to trade maps and find us. Well maybe, I am not sure how far the AI cheat of knowing your troop locations goes...
 
Setting up a reserve of several mounties behind each front would be prudent. If there is a break through then we can react.
 
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