Grumpy Old Men AWP Hub

[Bezhukov]

lurker comment:

"Capturing the central are or a choke on each hub will seperate the AI's up. We will no longer have to deal with larger stacks, but only puny ones at each choke."

This was where my game got a lot less crazy. Considerably lowered the standard deviation of enemy stack strength.

 

[Greebley]

Turn 490 (1880 AD) (Land: 2-0)
There are some spots that are in the fog of war and we have workers on the edge of our territory. This is a bit dangerous as a Barbarian could appear and kill the workers. I move two units to make sure all squares in french land are visible.

We defeat two a Cavalry and Grenadier in the IBT.

Turn 491 (1881 AD) (Land: 22-0 Water: 5-0)
Kill 1 Grenadier, 2 Elephant, 2 Cat, 4 Knight, 1 Cavalry, 1 Rifle.

Kill a Frigate and 3 loaded indian Galleons. Does this count as 4 kills or 13? I guess I will count 13(4 water, 9 land). Also destroy a work boat for the cheap exp.

I can tell this game has changed since my last turn. No longer hiding behind walls I hunt down and destroy all units I can reach.

Turn 492 (1882 AD) (Land: 23-0 Water: 6-0)

Defeat a Knight and a Caravel. Advancing on Avaris.

Turn 493 (1883 AD) (Land: 28-0 Water: 5-0)

Defeat 2 Longbow and 2 Catapult in Avaris. Also kill a Knight.
Captured Avaris (Hatshepsut)

Turn 494 (1884 AD) (Land: 30-0 Water: 8-0)
Defeat 2 Caravel 1 Frigate in water, 1 Musket and 1 Cat on Land.
Advancing both on the next Egyptian town and the Indian town to the West of the French choke.

Turn 495 (1885 AD) (Land: 41-0 Water: 10-0)
We learn Physics and start towards Artillery.
We kill 1 Galleon and Frigate.
We kill 1 Rifle, 1 Musket, 4 Cat, 2 Cavalry, 2 Knight, 1 Crossbow

Turn 496 (1886 AD) (Land: 49-0 Water: 11-0)
Defeat 1 Caravel
Defeat 4 Knight, 1 Cat, 2 Elephant, 1 Cavalry
Bombard El-Amarna and Hyderabad

Turn 497 (1887 AD) (Land: 63-2 Water: 11-0)
In El-Amarna we lose 2 70% Cannon battles vs longbow. Kill the 3 Longbow, Maceman, and 3 Catapults.
Razed El-Amarna It had little to recommend itself.
Kill 3 Rifle, 2 Knight, 1 Elephant, 1 Cat.
Hyderabad is bombarded to zero, but I will attack next round.

After razing El-Amararna, we have established the french connection

Turn 498 (1888 AD) (Land: 81-3 Water: 12-0)
This time we get Lucky and our cannon wins against odds. We kill 1 Rifle, Grenadier, Longbow, and 3 Cats in Hyderbad without loss.
Captured Hyderabad (Gandhi)
Thought long about whether to keep this town before deciding to do so. It will keep an eye on the Central area at the very least and it has some very minor merit as a town.
We kill 2 Knight, 3 Cavalry, 2 Cat, 1 Mace 1 XBow, 1 Rifle, 1 Grenadier (capturing a settler)
We also kill a Caravel.

We lose a Infantry in the IBT after killing a Cavalry in defense.
Start advancing on Egypt's Choke city

Turn 499 (1889 AD) (Land: 93-4 Water: 15-0)
We kill 3 Caravel.
We kill 3 Cavalry, 4 Cat, 3 Knight, 1 XBow, 1 Rifle.
We lose an Infantry.

Turn 500 (1890 AD) (Land: 108-4 Water: 18-0)
We kill 3 Caravel.
We kill 2 Cavalry, 1 Maceman, 5 Knight, 3 Cat, 1 XBow, 1 Elephant, 1 Rifle
We kill a Longbow in Hieraconopolis (Egypt choke city). It has no defense due to destroyer bombardment.

Notes:
Egypt shouldn't be hard to take out. I haven't even seen a musket from them yet. Towns still have Longbow guards.

I think we should take out the central island to the choke for the 3 civs to the West. After we take out Egypt we can advance on the final 3.

The units are fairly scattered on the last turn in particular. I also started to make a wall. There was a nice row of forests to facilitate this.

Here are pictures of the Egyptian and Western fronts:

Note that a city to get our destroyers through the Egyptian Choke saves us many turns of getting our destroyers around. Before deciding if you want to capture or Raze Hieraconopolis we should decide where we want such a city. My thought is to Raze Hieraconopolis. It is a lousy spot and blocks other spots for such a city.

 

[T_McC]

I should be able to get to this tomorrow night.

 

[MasterShake]

Great read guys
going to try AW right now

 

[T_McC]

1890 AD (0)
Stare at the screen for a while and decide, hell no, I'm not going to try to optimize the specialists.

1891 AD (1)
Lose a Cannon at 96.4%, but otherwise accumulate XP while burning Hieracanopolis to the ground. We'll re-found the city to be a canal.

Whack some other stuff and cut down trees for fun. Should take Alexandria amphibiously next turn.

1892 AD (2)
Capture Alexandria.

Kill other assorted flotsam without loss. Maybe get Byblos next turn.

1893 AD (3)
Mt. Rushmore is built

Capture Byblos. We're choking the Egyptians off here.

1895 AD (4)
Found Magdeburg on the Egyptian neck, cutting her off from the other AI. I won't be able to finish her off, but Rat will.

1896 AD (6)
Capture Bengal.

1897 AD (7)
Capture Elephantine. Egypt is quickly heading downhill, most of their military was contained there.

1899 AD (9)
Capture Memphis, and then capture Jaipur and seal the western front. At least for the 4-5 turns that it will take to finish off Egypt.

I think the AI has lost more cities this round than we have lost units. I believe we have lost 4 units this round, 3 of which were Cannons.

1900 AD (10)
We have a Settler fortified S of the remaining fortress. Just figured we might need one, but there's no plan for the unit.

Most troops are in Jaipur, next player gets to choose the next victim.

There are two forces in Egypt, an Infantry stack + an Artillery in Memphis (plus whatever you ship over from our core), and an injured stack approaching Pi Ramesses, which has shrunk 4 sizes in the last two turns.

I guess we keep the Egyptian cities and burn everything else from here on out, otherwise we risk triggering domination. The game may even last long enough for us to build Panzers (a completely useless UU under these circumstances).

 

[ThERat]

I will finish Egypt?
I think knupp will do that so that I can take out the next target, preferably India as the #2 in score.
Hey, I want to use panzers and see what they can do, so can we beeline for that tech, please.

 

[T_McC]

Panzers come with Industrialism (next after Electricity). In this game, they will do nothing a regular Tank couldn't do. Their bonus is +50% vs. Armored units, of which our opponents will have none. Kind of a weird UU since you have to be behind in tech for it to be better than the unit it replaces.

 

[Greebley]

I thought they also were +2 strength?? I played them once but it was a while ago.

 

[knupp715]

Ugh. Why must I be up in all my SG's at the same time!!!

I've got the save. Will play today but if not, definitely tomorrow.

 

[friskymike]

lurker comment: Brilliant game guys. I wonder though, if a ring map would have been easier than hub? You would have had two choke points but it would have been longer before AIs on the opposite side of the board attacked you, and you could have taken the AIs one by one more easily perhaps. Maybe something to try for the AWM sequel

Panzers come with Industrialism (next after Electricity). In this game, they will do nothing a regular Tank couldn't do. Their bonus is +50% vs. Armored units, of which our opponents will have none. Kind of a weird UU since you have to be behind in tech for it to be better than the unit it replaces.

I know Rat is dying to use this unit, if not in this game then I think we will have a chance in Rat11 as the AI is equal or ahead of us in techs, hopefullly the window between tanks and modern armour is not too short.

 

[Sirian]

Ugh. Why must I be up in all my SG's at the same time!!!

That is the Law of Feasting. Gluttons beware!

 

[knupp715]

The Pentagon is built. Captured Pi-Ramesses, barb city of Chinook (razed), Setia(razed), Thebes, and Heliopolis. As you can see from Setia I decided to go after Rome because our destroyers had bombed a lot of their cities down to 0% all ready and India is the farthest away for our destroyers (or they were).



That's the remnant culture of dead Egypt. I lost around 6 units, a couple were bad RNG, the rest was a roman counterattack on our injured army.

 

[knupp715]

Some of that stack is healing, the rest can be moved if you want to Rat.
Lots of rienforcements being built fast.



That is our injured army that keeps getting hit by collateral damage again and again.

Stats:




Somehow we are 2nd in imports/exports?!
I think it is safe to say this game is in the bag.

The Save:

 

[ThERat]

looking good, this is in mop up mode now, maybe each of the turnsets now can take out 1 Civ.

Now, this game is and was fun, are you people up for another game? We need to think about the map/difficulty etc.

 

[ThERat]

save

Pre-Turn
I don't think we should build any more cities, unless we want to hit the domination limit
reduce lux to 0%
decide to join the Great Prphet to Hamburg, we won't get so many GP any more

IT we get broadway for more happy faces

1. 1911AD
flatten Pisae taking out 11 units and sinking another 10 naval units in port
might as well take on India, shift a big stack forward towards India

2. 1912AD
healing and moving forward

3. 1913AD
still moving on

4. 1914AD
finally reach Madras, this is slow, Rome is still 1 tile away
land 2 units in the Roman hinterland

IT industrialism is in and the time for panzers has come
go for plastics for Three Gorges Dam

5. 1915AD
we do have 3 sources of aluminum
with all the border expansions we get,we are now at 53%
Madras is flattened for 200gold

IT Rome is desperate and throws 6 units at one of our stacks
no success though

6. 1916AD
Rome is razed as well for 200gold first panzer comes online

IT Mongols really attack a mini stack in their land and manage to kill 2 infantry

7. 1917AD
raze easternmost Roman city with a small landing party

IT Indians suicide 7 of their units in order to save their land, doesn't work though

8. 1918AD
make landfall with a few units at Samarquand in Mongols east
bomb Karachi and move towards Antium

IT Mongols manage to defeat our small stack in their north, but hope the diversion of units will help in the east
to raze land from there

9. 1919AD
lose artillery but raze Karachi
bomb Antium and start attack

IT Romans throw some of their units at our stack at Antium

10. 1000AD
the glorious moment I have been waiting for

raze Samarqand
we have a supply line running to fetch units from Inca land via Egypt

raze Antium, start to attack Ravenna
we do have a supply line from France there, which includes units from our core

there is also a city that needs a transport to ship our units, a transport will reach there soon

India has radio now, we might want to go after them faster

how many more turns?

 

[ThERat]

Greebley is lucky because he gets to use all the panzers, that have been produced, with them Mongols and Rome should be razed pretty fast, India might take a while longer

plastics are due in 4, we can let Cuzco build the Three Gorges Dam, not that it matters here

one more thing, the game has become very slow with, stopping all the time and then starting again...not nice to play actually

 

[Bezhukov]

"reduce lux to 0%"

 

[LKendter]

one more thing, the game has become very slow with, stopping all the time and then starting again...not nice to play actually

Sounds like you are hitting the problems I had before upgrading to a gig of memory. If you see the hard drive light constantly going on, you need more memory...

 

[ThERat]

Sounds like you are hitting the problems I had before upgrading to a gig of memory. If you see the hard drive light constantly going on, you need more memory...

what? even more, I upgraded to 1 GB already due to Civ4.
Actually the game's graphics aren't that outstanding that I want to spend another $100 for 2GB.
What bothers me more is that in hot Singapore, if I run the game during the day, my computer will just shut down playing this game simply because the rig gets too hot. If I air condition my room, it's fine or run in the night...crazy. I hope they can do something about this.

 

[Jabah]

What bothers me more is that in hot Singapore, if I run the game during the day, my computer will just shut down playing this game simply because the rig gets too hot. If I air condition my room, it's fine or run in the night...crazy. I hope they can do something about this.

Ecological alert, playing CivIV is increasing global warming.

Private message for GBush in DC, global warming is not caused by cars, industry or air conditionning but by people playing CivIV. If you want an easy way to manage to reach some of reduction goals, just ban playing CivIV in the US.

Not only Civ is bad for your healths (physical and mental ones), but it is also bad for the environment... Bad Civ... Bad...

Jabah