Grumpy Old Men AWP Hub

[Greebley]

if units avoid attacking into the woods, then we may be able to cut off the entire incan landmass with 2 or 4 units by making a barrier in the woods itself rather than building a town.

If we could do that we wouldn't need two chokes.

It is hard to say if this would work, but we may be able to keep the Incan towns without needing two choke towns.

The other possibility is to push forward to the snow area, but then we would need to hold a spot in the snow/tundra. It would only be one town needed though.

 

[T_McC]

I think what we're seeing is the AI getting locked into Cologne as a target. Not sure why they can't/won't target another city, but they aren't.

If they can't target a city they can't reach (i.e., the pathing algorithm says: Only Cologne is accessible, hence only it can be targeted), and they then only attack the city they target, we could really exploit that. Plopping a couple of Pike/Crossbow pairs (preferably with a Medic II unit in there somewhere) in the woods along the Incan choke could be very sneaky. The Incans will attack the pairs because those are exposed units, but I'm not sure the other AI will target exposed units in another AI's lands.

Even if they do we can exploit another part of the AI programming: They don't seem to be able to change missions en route. The "improved" AI algorithm for city captures introduced in 1.52 seems to be that large blocks of AI troops are allocated as "city capture", and these troops thus ignore everything else, including large stacks of enemy troops moving to attack their cities. Nice double whammy. Each civ in the battle sends large blocks of troops to attack cities whose garrisons have been weakened by troops moving out to attack cities. So ... the Incans would attack the blocking units quickly, although we could probably hold them off for a while. The other AI will have to send newly-built troops to attack the new weak point (the exposed trooops) but won't get there for 15-20 turns. During which time they are not targetting any of our cities. This has the potential to turn into a wild goose chase.

 

[ThERat]

well, these are all theories which we need to figure out. I'd say land some units in the east and maybe this diversion is enough for us to be able to attack the front town. The 2 front towns also serve the AI as canal cities, would be nice to get rid of them.

I am almost inclined to ask Greebley to play his turns if he is free tonight, then grs could take over after that without any issue. I'd like this game to be going.

 

[T_McC]

I am almost inclined to ask Greebley to play his turns if he is free tonight, then grs could take over after that without any issue. I'd like this game to be going.

Sounds like a plan.

I agree that ridding the Incans of their canal cities would be nice, although capturing their NW canal city alone allows us to slide the blockade to the other side and block all but the Incans. But I suspect the wiser thing to do is land in the east and cripple the Incans first, then worry about the canals. As it stands all the AI can do is drop units at Cologne, which isn't really a problem. I would try to have a Galley in production at all times, since naval combat is such a crapshoot.

 

[Greebley]

I can play this. I got it.

 

[ThERat]

I would try to have a Galley in production at all times, since naval combat is such a crapshoot.

since we get optics soon, I would really wait for caravels to strengthen our naval power. then we can also check the northwestern part in the fog. I am sure there is another 'hub' somewhere

 

[Greebley]

Military
We killed 82 units and lost 10. 3 Galley, 2 Mace, 2 XBow, Elephant, and 2 Cat.

The cats were accidental. I would attack with alt still held down so the whole stack would attack = cats attack and lose (I did reload once when it was easy and the attack was totally silly - the other times I didn't want to redo things).

Currently, the military is close to its lightest. Some attacks went out of the city, so I moved out cover. I was even thinking about trying to advance.

Our city has been bombarded down to 12% so we only get a real bonus on units that have taken city defense. Our walls and the castle we are building is actually going to be pretty useless. 50% of 12% is only a 6% boost for the castle that we spent all my turn building. I thought about changing it, but didn't want to throw away previous work and was hoping we may be able to recover some of its defense.

The galleys took a beating and we fell back a bit near the choke. However, we have 2 Caravels with 2 more being built.

We need more catapults

So not a lot of progress in advancing.

Research

We got compass and optics. I took a short side trip to get Calender. That gets us incense. After that We need to decide what we want to go for next. Music might be fun to try to get a great artist. It would be fun to drop down a city closer to the AI and use the Artist for lots of culture=defense). (perhaps the choke city in the Incan lands, perhaps the artic).

Economy:
Built another town. With the Colossus, it will be profitable fairly quickly as it is coastal. It also can work the Horse square and grab other lands to the east.

I really don't remember building a lot of Infrastructure. Newer towns did, but older towns were military and at the end - Caravels.

 

[Greebley]

One other comment. I haven't seen Macemen yet, which means either the AI doesn't have the tech - or more likely, the AI hasn't had it long enough for the Maces to walk over to our front line.

We have seen war elephants.

 

[ThERat]

I looked at the save, I would pull units back next turn, we maybe have higher casualties since we pulled units out of town. I'd rather pull some units towards the east to drop in Inca land
and cover that fishing net.

 

[DementedAvenger]

Should be a good one! I love AW games, both playing and lurking. What's the over-under on the highest XP unit at games end?

 

[T_McC]

Military
We killed 82 units and lost 10. 3 Galley, 2 Mace, 2 XBow, Elephant, and 2 Cat.

So we were probably ~11-1 on land, which is a fairly profitable round even with the losses.

Our city has been bombarded down to 12% so we only get a real bonus on units that have taken city defense. Our walls and the castle we are building is actually going to be pretty useless. 50% of 12% is only a 6% boost for the castle that we spent all my turn building. I thought about changing it, but didn't want to throw away previous work and was hoping we may be able to recover some of its defense.

Not sure exactly how this is calculated, but we'll get back 3-4% per turn thatwe're not being bombarded. Hence the panic that should be generated anytime the Incans are walking a catapult up to Cologne. That may be a trigger for us to attack out of the city and try to hit the cat on offense, if/when it gets buried in a multi-national stack we're boned. May even be worth building a few sacrificial HAs to try to make the cat stop to wait for it's compatriots to heal.

I took a short side trip to get Calender. That gets us incense.

And sugar. We've irrigated over the tile already, but building a Plantation still gives the same amount of food.

Music might be fun to try to get a great artist. It would be fun to drop down a city closer to the AI and use the Artist for lots of culture=defense). (perhaps the choke city in the Incan lands, perhaps the arctic).

Getting the Artist would be interesting, but I'd stay away from an arctic city that can't feed itself. Capturing the northern Incan canal city (and culture bombing it) could be beneficial, because it would separate the Incan catapults from the other AI units. If the Cats have to march up with only the Incan units as cover (and they would only be able to attack their former canal city) we should be able to kill them with minimal bombard damage.

This is an interesting part of the game because of the screwy way bombard units have been implemented. It doesn't matter what the city defenses are, a single catapult can bombard them to zero in 7 turns. If the AI were in Vassalage or Theocracy and could properly promote a bombard unit, it would only take 4 turns for a single catapult to bombard city defenses to zero, regardless of whether you start from 20%, 80%, or 125%. That's rather illogical.

Not having been part of the beta, I'd still bet dollars to donuts that at one point bombard units were more logically implemented to do a fixed amount of damage per round (like 5%/round for a Cat, 10% for a Cannon, ...), so that the amount of cultural defense the city started with was critical. But I suspect this was another thing the human figured out immediately (80% defense, I'd better bring more artillery) and the AI couldn't be programmed to understand, hence it made artillery unbalancing for the human.

Castles and Walls are also implemented weirdly. It would make more sense if the structures gave a fixed bonus to city defense, like +10% for Walls and +15% (net +25%) for a Castle, while halving bombard damage (or maybe -25% bombard damage for each structure). That would make the structures beneficial regardless of how you implement artillery units.

 

[grs]

Sorry, but I am unable to be as active as I should. Since I can hardly pick up any game outside weekends and am unable to contribute anything to the tactics during the whole week, I quit from succession games for now.

 

[T_McC]

Sorry to see you go grs. Hopefully this is because you've found more interesting things to do than play video games with strangers from another continent.

I guess that makes me up, so I'll save the strategy talk for my turns.

But we can't get the GA at Music because Ghandi already got him.

I'll play sometime tonight. This round may require six decimal places of accuracy.

 

[Bezhukov]

lurker comment: this looked like so much fun, I had to try. I discovered: Horse Archers get +50% vs cats. If you can knock the other units off the stack, you'll quickly reach blitz with HA's. Got some sweet eventual Knight/Cavs this way. Though expensive, it can be worth it to build up enough of a force to wipe the AI onslaught offensively each turn in front of the walls (this requires about double the number of units required to defend, as half the team has to heal each turn, and a tech advantage - the +mounted promotion is also essential to handle jumbos), as you can then avoid collateral damage.

Also, having built the Colossus, note that ironclads do not require astronomy. Finally a use!

 

[ThERat]

Also, having built the Colossus, note that ironclads do not require astronomy. Finally a use!

I get a feeling, the game was designed for AW hubs, since we can really make use of a lot of features here, even castles or towers for protection

 

[T_McC]

GOMAW 27 - This time, it's Personal! (in 3-D!)

1150 AD (0)
Whack Khan's injured Galley and score another promotion for ours.

Hire 2 scientists and whip the Castle in Cologne. It has to give us some defense back.

Fire a superfluous specialist in Frankfurt and pick up 3 gpt. Shuffle tiles to get court built a turn sooner in Dortmund.

Decide to use overflow in Stuttgart on a Harbor. Maybe it gets us some more money? Court in Dusseldorf can be slow-played, pick up another 3 gpt.

Start Hanover on a workboat, that will generate more food faster than a Lighthouse. Can't see why Hamburg is building a Settler, but why not. We'll need another one eventually.

We're getting a pot-luck specialist in Munich this round. Hope for an Engineer so we can rush Chichen Itza. City has to build a Court and the National Epic, but those can wait for the current Caravel.

Only a dozen units around Cologne, seems like a lull.

1160 AD (1)
Win vs. a Sword, then all the other units go home.

Castle puts Cologne's defenses at 30%, so not bad. We'll see how much it grows next turn.

There is a French city on the coast near our N. There is a tile of Ocean between the coasts, so no invasion from there yet. Poke around with one of our Galleys and find Vilcas, the Incan copper city.

Vitcos only has two defenders, so I advance four troops. Let's see if Huyana has any money. I'm also interested in seeing how the AI reacts to our troops.

IT - Calender in, head for Theology. Music is unappealing and we're not going to build Theaters right now. We're also following the AI a little here.

1170 AD (2)
MAUVE ALERT! MAUVE ALERT!

Start to shuffle Galleys for an amphibious assault on the French blight. Single Caravels should be able to hold down the E. blockade for a few turns.

1180 AD (3)
Win three battles and burn Vitcos to the ground. I think we'll be refounding in this general area, but we don't have the proper mix to hold the city right now. We also sink 3 Incan Galleys in port.

Then go on offense and kill two more units outside of Cologne.

IT - Win two at Cologne, lose coin-flip with Galley.

1190 AD (4)
Of course the Great Person is a Merchant. He can either add 1 food/6 gpt or discover Paper. Paper is worth 1287 beakers, or 7 turns of research. I think we'll want a Super Specialist with this guy, but we can wait to discuss.

Win a couple of more outside of Cologne on offense, and set sail with the force to raze the French city. We have a Caravel already blocking the tile they would need to use to actually cross with a Galley, so we're fairly safe.

Crack the whip at Cologne again, this time for a Forge. Net wash for Happiness, but now 25% stronger whips!

1175 AD (5)
Win coin flip in the seas, then win 2 of 3 in the field on defense. Losing the coin flip last turn meant I couldn't evacuate the units that had razed the Incan city.

Just now notice we cannot cross to attack the French city, so go for plan B: We attack Vilcabamba. Eight units in four galleys make the journey.

1185 AD (7)
No attacks for the last couple of turns. I don’t know where the AI went, but they should return in buckets soon. Of course, Cologne now has a 65% cultural defense, so unless they’re bringing Cats I’m not worried.

Theology comes in and I go for Drama next. We will want Theaters and I don’t see anything else really pressing at the moment.

Troops will make landfall in 2 turns. I have left Cologne defended by a 47-XP X-bow + two other level 3 Crossbows and a stout Maceman. A couple of level 3 Pikes are also hanging around and a couple of Longbows will arrive shortly.

1190 AD (8)
Kill two Egyptian HA’s and lose a Caravel attacking an Egyptian Galley.

Big attacks incoming.

1195 AD (9)
Lose another biased coinflip in the water and have a fishing net pillaged.

We only lose 1 unit to capture Vilcabamba, but there are units from 3 nations inexplicably hanging around there. Including to the south. So this could get ugly sooner rather than later. If we can make it through the next IT, we should be in business.

1200 AD (10)
We win three battles (while the AI mostly just sits there), and I’m going OT to clean up the mess I’ve made. :grimace:

Whack an Egyptian Galley around our nets, start to get in position to close off the seas again.

Big French stack waiting to attack … into 80% defenses in Cologne. We may have enough units there very soon to re-found the NW canal city.

Just now realize our Caravels cannot pillage fishing nets. :crazyeyes:

1205 AD (11)
Kill at least 8 French units on the IT without loss at Cologne. Have a X-bow now promoted to City Garrison III/Drill IV. Maybe we should add Combat I at some point?

Kill Hattie’s other Galley and start to send re-inforcements to Vilcabamba. Also whack another couple French troops, leaving a Spear behind.

Kill four Incan units at Villa, there are two Mongols that can attack next turn, then we should be clear for a turn or two.

1210 AD (12)
Vilcabamba comes out of resistance and we spread Confucianism to it. So a border pop in 15, but the Walls will be completed by then.

Huyana has a nice stack at Cologne, including a Cat. I’ll give him one turn to attack before I come out of the city.

1215 AD (13)
The Incans bombed and waited. Smart. Now it’s my turn. Lead with two suicide cats, I don’t feel like losing any other units. Scratch that … one suicide Cat, one victorious Cat.

Then kill 7 units without loss.

With that, things are cleaned up.

Final Notes:
By my count, we were 50-6 in kills that round, but 46-3 on land. We have separated the Incans from the other AI so our invasion of their lands can begin soon. I think we have plenty of troops to re-found the NW canal city, probably right where the Incans had it. Then we can shuffle a few troops between it and Vilcabamba since we probably want the better troops in the north.

I was periodically turning research off to upgrade units in Cologne, a couple of Spear-->Pike and a couple of Archer-->Crossbow. We are researching Guilds because Knights are nice, and so are Grocers. It is also required for Banking and Mercantilism. When we are ready to attack the Incan core in earnest we should research Divine Right and build Versailles (1/2-price with Marble) in Cuzco (or someplace better).

Pictures to follow.

 

[T_McC]

The newly-remodeled Incan choke:

If we re-found on the ruins the cities would be 1-move apart. I suspect the Northern city would see more action, particularly once we start to drop troops into Huyana's core.

The Great Merchant is fortified outside Hamburg. If we make a SS out of him, that's where he'll go. Paper isn't particularly expensive or exciting for us to research.

There is also a settler fortified near the southern coast. I think he (and his escorts) will have to go by boat rather than trying to navigate the enemy troop stacks. We should also build another Missionary to accompany him. The settler and Missionary can ride in Caravels, the other stuff can't.

Next build in Munich should be the National Epic. The Courthouse didn't finish on my round and I wasn't going to whip the city.

 

[ThERat]

great work taking the 2nd canal city, but we should be aware of the fact that south of the hub connection can be galleys. Maybe send a few caravels south to clear that part.
Now we can slowly take the core of Inca, keep nice cities, raze bad placements.

I think we should go for grenadiers (chemistry) and then grab steel as a free tech with liberalism, cannons really rock.

Roster
ThERat
grs - resigned
Greebley
T_McC
knupp715 - up

 

[Pervis]

Lurker's comment: I too tried this out. First time out I had a 1-width choke, and opted to settle my choke city behind a forest, as forest's defense bonus couldn't be reduced by bombard. I put most of my defense in the woods, and some archers in the city and eventually a medic II. The AI however didn't know what to do, and instead of sending SoD's, it sent piles of galleys, and would sometimes drop some units right behind my choke city or attack straight off the boat. I don't think the AI ever actually attacked the forest, just produced huge amounts of galleys. It also wouldn't send the galleys farther up my coast until I put another town close to the choke city and it was joined with the rest of my culture. It seemed to want to stay inside the culture boundaries of my choke city and wouldn't leave to pillage any other towns, just that one.

Judging from my experience you could use the forests as a choke and the AI would instead attack Cologne since that city is the only one it has an overland path to.

 

[T_McC]

great work taking the 2nd canal city, but we should be aware of the fact that south of the hub connection can be galleys. Maybe send a few caravels south to clear that part.

There may still be enemy Galleys taking the long way around the Incan continent. Except ... once the canal cities were built the pathing algorithm should have taken all Galleys (except the ones the Incans built on their N coast) through the canals. But we're going to want to send a Caravel clockwise around the Incan lands anyway, so maybe we'll run into someone.

Something else:

Placing a Caravel/2 Galleys at the red dot will, thanks to the ice, block all non-Incan Galleys from approaching from our South. Probably worth using the Caravel that is already over there to confirm that Hatty and Huyana don't share a non-coastal connection through cultural boundaries, otherwise that also serves as a Galley channel.

Theocracy is available and we may want to switch. We could use another Medic unit for the city we're likely to found, and one (preferably Medic II) for the Incan assault. Being in Theocracy for a few turns allows us to build Medic Explorers.

We're going to have to watch how we deploy our Galleys. We could move the blockade from around Cologne down to Vilcabamba, which will also put the boats closer to the Incan core for troop transport. But we also must keep a couple around Cologne because we won't be able to keep a road connection to the Incan canal cities.

There's no rhyme or reason to the troops I'm building. Just a little bit of everything until someone has a better plan.