Grumpy Old Men AWP Hub

[ThERat]

save

Pre-Turn
well knupp in his unique fashion played 11 turns again, this time I am not going to cut to 9 but we let him cut his turns
unhappiness is rampant with 14 faces from WW, we need to cut that down
Cologne is on a jail when it can never be unhappy? lucky we didn't invest any shields there, draft a rifle there
use Great Engineer to get us combustion since Statue of Liberty really needs a lot of shields even with that Engineer
go for economics to get us infantry eventually

open the choke and get our lazy buggers back to work, connecting oil wells

IT 2 caravels get daring and attack a wounded clad but sink

1.1814AD
being grateful for every single jail we get, Machu Picchu has 1 now
oil is connected and we can go for destroyers/transports now

2. 1816AD
2 knights appear at the choke and are defeated, sink a caravel too

3. 1818AD
more Egyptian units show up including a real SoD
2 more caravels join the glue factory
WW dropped a notch in some cities

4. 1820AD
economics are in, corporation next, Oxford is done, Munich also goes for a jail
sink 2 caravels
there nicely spread out stacks near the choke, I hope it stays that way

lose rifle with 96% odds, defeat 4 units

5. 1822AD
more units turn up, we get 334gold due to Oxford not being able to be built in Hamburg
(that's actually a possible exploit since you could make money building a wonder in many cities)

need to work on those stacks, one has 3 units one is beyond the limit
of course, lose 3 cannons at 70% to 86% odds, I really hate the RnG in Civ4
shred the whole stack of around 25 units

sink the usual 2 caravels

6. 1824AD
suicide 3 cannons again, why is it that the AI retreats their cannons half of the time, as for us...
lose a cav at 96% but shred 12 units

7. 1826AD
MM drops by another bit
next big stack to work on
throw a cannon at it that retreats finally, win with one, but lose 1
kill 22 units, but need to leave 6 wounded cats untouched, we don't have enough units

defeat 1 caravel

8. 1828AD
corporation is in, go for communism in 8 (for state property), infantry would take 13 turns
well, you know it already, 2 caravels are sunk

the stacks are now not that big, but in the back Caesar is coming with a new big stack
defeat 10 units, the rest can heal which is much needed

9. 1830AD
Hamburg starts wall street, Cuzco finally finishes ironworks and goes for rax for happiness
we face 26 units in 2 stacks at the choke

lose 1 cannon and kill 16 of them, need to leave 10 alone

IT 5 units suicide at the choke but a knight takes out the fort

10. 1832AD
we get 95gold for ironworks obsolete in Berlin
defeat all 9 units at the choke

once we have a jail in Munich and rax in Cuzco we should lower lux
I do hope that state property will help us a ton with finances especially since we have to run high lux

overall I am very please with the open choke, stacks came in 1 by 1 making it pretty manageable
we killed 110 units and lost 9 there, this is well acceptable especially most were cannons
there is now a big Roman satck, but I do hope we burned the rest, once this is done we can think of going out for a razing spree
and to keep WW low, take out one nation after another

 

[T_McC]

Our next research topic should be Fascism so we can revolt to Police State. I think we're past the point of no return and need the WW reduction (and Mount Rushmore).

When we do go back on the offensive we should start in France (like we have any other choice ) since our WW is coming from the French. It sounds like the Egyptians lost most of their units so we should be down to the visible Roman stack and the Mongols(?). The AI should be out of large stacks after that and our superior units should allow us to not have to so aggressively defend any cities we build/capture.

 

[ThERat]

during my turns, first Egypt then Mongols burned their units, so I guess after that Roman stack we will face the trickle that should be easy to handle.

By the way state property requires only communism, Mount Rushmore is the wonder that needs facism.

 

[Bezhukov]

"kill 22 units, but need to leave 6 wounded cats untouched, we don't have enough units"

lurker comment:

At this stage of my game I got use out of another little-used promotion. Old HA's that had been on MP duty got moved to the front lines and quickly gained the blitz promotion. Any old mobile unit will do (HA's were good for their cat bonus), but blitz can really come in handy to clear out the dregs.

 

[knupp715]

well knupp in his unique fashion played 11 turns again, this time I am not going to cut to 9 but we let him cut his turns

Hey I like my uniqueness I have no idea why I keep playing 11 turns, but I never was a very good note taker, sorry. I'll make sure I play 9 next time.

Cologne is on a jail when it can never be unhappy? lucky we didn't invest any shields there

Sometimes I think I would forget my head if my SG teammates didn't remind me to grab it

Good turns.

 

[Greebley]

knupp - the best way to tell when to stop is to end at a round number of years. Early on this means ending on a year divisible by 100 (exceptions are 1750BC and 1250BC which are divisible by 50). Later it should divisble by 50 (I think) and then 10. 1812 cannot be the correct ending year - it must be 1810 (or 1820).

You can also see the number of turns left in the game on the victory screen.

 

[Greebley]

BTW, I got it.

 

[knupp715]

knupp - the best way to tell when to stop is to end at a round number of years. Early on this means ending on a year divisible by 100 (exceptions are 1750BC and 1250BC which are divisible by 50). Later it should divisble by 50 (I think) and then 10. 1812 cannot be the correct ending year - it must be 1810 (or 1820).

You can also see the number of turns left in the game on the victory screen.

Yea, I did see that I handed off the game on an uneven number but I wasn't sure if it was me. Sometimes though, I get sucked into the game and if nothing particularly noteworthy happens on a turn I will skip it altogether and what do you know, I end up playing more turns than I'm supposed to.

Good luck btw.

 

[angeleyes]

lurkers comment


I wonder why you don't put a city on one of the two silver-hills in the front.
With a force it gives a city two happy faces. Further imho you should take
out cives one by one and not let other civs interfere when taking out one.

 

[Greebley]

Here is one way that can sometimes work to tell you what is in a stack - I used the Mil Adviser to inform me what units the country had. I guess you would also have to watch the stack closely to see which nations have units there. It won't work if there are more than 1 huge stack, but it works here.

After that one initial big stack the AI went back to dribbling units at us. Some AI are now sending Rifles and Cavalry which makes it a bit tougher.
Overall we killed 131 with 8 losses - a majority of those were Cannon on attack.

I also sent a stack forward to consider taking out the Egyptian town. I finished bombing down the defense, but didn't attack so I can use the cannon. I did make one blunder - I didn't bring one of the units with medical.


As for France....

They said one would be daft to build a city in France. Well last turn I built one anyway. It was burned down on Knupp's last turn. This turn I built another one. We have yet to see if it will fall over, burn down, and sink into the swamp.

I did give it good defense. It is on a hill and seemed an appropriate use of the Great Artist at the time (It later occurred to me that using it for the French choke would have been a better plan). I was hoping it would push back the French borders, but unfortunately, the borders are too well established to be easily pushed. France has made tenative gestures in its general direction, but for the most part, the AI is still going for the choke. The new city has better defense than the choke cities so I think it may actually be safe. This time I did put it on a more useful square so it could become a useful town.

We got communism and revolted to state Property. It helped, but not a whole lot.

I didn't understand how drafting worked and made the city Macchu <something> a mess until the unhappiness is gone. Drafting is NOT a good way to reduce city size if it is unhappy.

I also considered a city near the silver as was suggested by Asperge, but unless I am mistaken, you can't build cities in enemy land so I couldn't put it on the silver itself. We may want to do this though as we could use the extra happiness from the silver. It is one reason I sent the attack force to destroy the Egyptian town. Lets build it on the silver itself so no pillaging.

Future:
I think we should send more units into France. We need to make forward progress and this time there won't be huge monster stacks, so I think we can do it. The city should really help with this as a bridge-head. If we fail, I wasted the Great Artist (if we succeed we gain 50% more land which would be worth the Great Artist).

TMcC, I was tired when I finished this. The game almost certainly needs MMing.

Our new town:

 

[Kylearan]

lurker's comment: Hi,

great game, guys! This really reads like an AW game should be, although that SoD display "bug" is really annoying. Not sure how Firaxis could change the GUI to fix this...

Quick question, if you don't mind: Maybe I've missed it, but you did not built the Pyramids, correct? Has WW been a problem for you? Have you ever been forced to raise the lux slider over 30%? (I haven't really tried AW myself yet)

-Kylearan

 

[T_McC]

No, we didn't bother with the Pyramids. We have raised lux to 40% at times, some of which were even necessary.

The stack "bug" isn't that difficult to fix: Just have the final line of the list (after the ...) read (47 units) or however many there are. If you wanted to get fancy, it could read (France 47 units, Rome 21 units). Somewhere in the listing process they have to calculate the number of units in the stack or at least keep track of where they are in the display to show the ... , all it would take is a modification of the code to drop the ... criteria by 1 or 2 units and add the final line.

On a related note: We do realize that State Property isn't the civic that reduces WW, Police State is, don't we? State Property improved our economy by eliminating distance from palace maintenance costs.

 

[Greebley]

I knew the difference at least and switched for the economical benefit. I would head for police state after we get infantry. Getting infantry seemed a priority to me - we are going to have higher losses now we are fighting cavalry and Riflemen and I would like to stay ahead with the Infantry.

TMcC, if you feel the WW tech (facism?) is more important you can switch when you play. It is a tough call.

The pyramids would have definitely helped. WW was high. For the Incans we killed them fairly quickly so it wasn't too bad. France has been another matter entirely.

 

[ThERat]

I knew the difference at least and switched for the economical benefit. I would head for police state after we get infantry. Getting infantry seemed a priority to me - we are going to have higher losses now we are fighting cavalry and Riflemen and I would like to stay ahead with the Infantry.

I pretty much agree, fighting them with infantry will be much easier. France however is still backwards and we might be able to take them out with the current set of units.

 

[Bezhukov]

lurker comment:

Kyl, I played a similar game (though I cheated and turned on no-tech trading, although I had much worse lands) and ended up with 22 WW unhappies. I never did go to Police State tho, as I was enjoying the combo of Respresentation and Mercantilism too much (rushed SoL too). With Jails, Rushmore, conquering several religions, etc.. it can be managed. Highest I got was 30% lux, got 'er back to 20% at the end. If you can avoid losses, the WW only goes up when you advance, so you have some measure of control over it.

 

[T_McC]

So we have a new city, and Hattie lost one ...

While the old anchor in France is holding well ...

And while it will give Knupp a much more interesting start to his nine turns ...

this could be subtitled: "Sucks to be Louis", since now he'll be on his own against us.

Infantry in 1, then we head for Fascism to lose some of the WW. We should be free to break out of Greebley's Folly rather soon, but no need to be impatient. I gave the AI plenty of other targets to look at.

And yet, they never got to attack a city on that round.

Transports are around the choke to float our army between the fortresses, Silverton and Sandwich. New production should probably be directed north through Greebley's Folly, I think we can capture anything we wish in French lands since our troops will be so advanced relative to theirs and his friends will get hung up at Sandwich. We could push the French choke south a city, and I've already started to bomb it with an Ironclad. I don't think we have furs yet, so that city would be beneficial.

Not to suggest anything, but Berlin can build Amphibious Infantry (and any unit that has Combat II can be promoted to Amphibious) and we have a really powerful navy on a map where most cities are coastal ...

I think the AI is suffering from WW as well, they don't seem to be doing a lot of research anymore. The only thing they have over us is Astronomy, and we are still the only ones who can build Cannons.

Our game-long kill ratio is 1684-210, or essentially 8-1. We have now killed ~160 Caravels. O, why can't I put Blitz on a Destroyer!?!?

So back to Knupp for nine turns. NINE TURNS!

 

[knupp715]

Nice turns, I've got the save.

I think I might play 14 turns this round...

 

[ThERat]

what a setup

This will be the end for France pretty soon I guess. We might want to keep any French city unless it's junk. The faster we get rid of them the sooner WW will go down. Furs will help too as did silver I guess.

 

[Greebley]

Good work TMcC. I think the sandwhich should allow us to take out France.

I am also really glad you were able to grab the silver. We really need all the happiness we can get with the WW.

 

[angeleyes]

lurker comment:

Kyl, I played a similar game (though I cheated and turned on no-tech trading,

If i am correct no techtrading means you cannot trade with the AI but the AI
can trade with eachother so in AW there's no difference...(?)