HNDY01 Babylonian Rampage (AWE C3C)

[Greebley]

Preturn: I adjust some cities. We have several that are size 5 & 6, but not growing. I decide to let them grow slowly to get them size 7. One elite longbow hadn't moved so I reduce the longbow stack to 7. switch Uruk to Worker. We are only being attacked by one civ? Interesting.

IBT: A wee bit of bombardment
Uruk: Worker-> Longbow
Samarra: Marketplace->Longbow

1305 AD: We kill off the Longbow stack and the longbow nearby. Armies close to Hittite cities.

IBT: A wee bit of bombardment
Babylon: Pentagon->Worker
Nineveh: Longbow->Longbow

1310 AD: We capture Adana. It has a nice collection of workers in it - 5 in fact. That will help. I keep the city for now at least.
Raise science to 10% (-3 gold) - Go from 42 to 32 turns on banking

IBT: A wee bit of bombardment
Babylon: Worker->Longbow

1315 AD: Do not attack this turn. There is a lot of Hittites. I abandon Adana

IBT: A wee bit of bombardment. Now that is a big stack of Cavalry.
Oh lovely. Someone turned off the disorder preference. So when the boats get lucky and take out our gems, every city riots. Please do not turn off that preference! I like to cycle ahead and have only 1 city riot and not our whole empire.
Tell Wilaya: Warrior->Warrior

1320 AD:
Arabia has a stack of 10 cavalry. Not bad for a civ on another continent. Unfortunately, it means I have to head back into the jungle and abort the roading of the next square. 10 Cav could take out all our armies, if they chose to attack. From the jungle I get to bombard and attack first.

Our cities are a mess. 75% are riotingand I need to raise lux to 10%. Plus I have been trying to get the worker count to be able to road jungle in a turn, so we have no workers to fix the problem. Ugh!

Ashur switched to Cathedral.

IBT: A wee bit of bombardment.
Babylon: Worker->Colosseum
Eridu: Cathedral->Colsseum

1325 AD:
We lose 3 Longbow attacking injured Cavalry (bombarded) - all elite! The Veterans all win. 5 injured Cav remain (3 retreats).

IBT: A wee bit of bombardment. Some cities have so many boats on their coastal squares that they starve. Our economy is getting worse, not better.
Hindana: Harbor->Worker
Nineveh: Longbow->Worker

1330 AD: OUCH! 36 worker turns to clear damage on the mountain with the gems. Our armies are all size 4 now.

IBT: A wee bit of bombardment. A Mongol Mini-SOD shows up.
Nineveh: Worker->Spear
Samarra: Longbow->Spear

1335 AD: We road a jungle square. Will advance again under the 2 spear armies next turn. We can now road in a single turn BTW.

IBT: A wee bit of bombardment.
Northern Gap: Market->Aquaduct

1340 AD: Kill some Zulu. Will wait a turn to advance I think the Cav should be advancing again.

IBT: More cav show up.
Nineveh: Spear->Spear

1345 AD: Get another Leader! Going to make a longbow army - except we only have 18 citeis. I will save it for now. We could easily lose an army.

Advancing still doesn't make sense. I don't think I will any advancing my turn. I did destroy one Hittite town and that is it.

IBT: Arabia has yet more Cav. This is not going well at all.
Samarra: Spear->Spear
Eulabar: Warrior->Warrior

1350 AD: Kill a bunch of units.

Notes:
The enemy units were a relentless stream during my turns other than the beginning ones.

I turned back on battle animations and enemy moves. You may want to turn those off on the enemy turn.

We may have to start taking risks and advance even if there are lots of enemy units. We have 4 armies. Maybe leave one at home and advance 3 with the workers, settler and some longbow and Trebuchet underneath. We then ignore enemy units and hope they cannot take our stacks. The real problem will be units landing behind the front as it were.

How about this: If we see a Marine, Tank, or Aircraft (or suffer major losses) before reaching the Iron we call it a loss.

My guess is that we will be losing this.

The Save

 

[handy900]

I turned off some of the "Animate" preferences because units movement and the ship bombardment was taking so long. Is that what did it?

My guess is that we will be losing this.

I agree, we are too far behind in tech. Pikes will be mostly obsolete by the time we reach the iron. By the time we get to saltpeter, muskets will be relatively useless. I'm up for quitting and starting a new game, but if anyone wants to continue to play, I'll soldier along to the bitter end.

 

[Greebley]

Are you talking about the cities in disorder? That was caused by the "show disorder reports" being turned off.

I turned off the animations as well. Otherwise you could have a meal waiting for the AI boats finishing their "Wee bit of bombardment".

 

[handy900]

Greebley i didn't touch the "show disorder reports", just animate. In solo games I turn off all animation, speeds things up quite a bit.

On another topic...

Played a fun little game this week that would make for a nice SG. AWM on a tiny map where I sought out the AI so as to get all 3 into war that much faster. I played as China. It would be quite a challenge to play as a non militaristic civ and win. War comes very fast (since I sought it out), and the land is tight, so 1/2 priced walls & barracks are quite helpful. With about 10 cats, 5 horsemen and an army for cover you can raze alot of cities. Kind of a rolling jaugernaut. Much Fun The C3C army movement allows you to pillage and still move to provide cover for the cats & horses.

 

[barbslinger]

Will play, hopefully later tonight. I am at work right now working on a Tomahawk wing.

 

[handy900]

Originally posted by barbslinger
Will play, hopefully later tonight. I am at work right now working on a Tomahawk wing.

Ok Good Luck

 

[barbslinger]

Pre-turn 1350BC – Road is complete but I have units that can’t move yet and I don’t want to leave stragglers in the open so I’ll fortify and wait to see how we do against 5 Arabian cavs coming in. We’re going to starve in Carchimesh but uless I want to lose 33 shields towards the aqueduct I see no way around it.

It – Lots of bombs dropping on us.
[1] 1355 – Move workers, 2 armies and 3 LB’s N 1 spot. Buckets have to come back. Bomb and kill 2 zulus.
It – Bombing
[2] 1360 – Kill 3 cavs and retreat 2. No leaders. Road north is complete.
[3] 1365 - Ashur cathedral complete and it can do 10spt with no growth. Kill a few units and progress the road crew one north.
[4] 1370 – That was close. Our LB army nearly bit it. Can’t leave him just hanging out. The ships bombed it down and then a LB nearly decapitated it. Shoot! Lost a 5/5 LB to a ¼ cav. That’s a 97%! Unbelievable, I was expecting a leader from that one. Pop an elite on another attack though. I have been rotating out fresh spears and warriors in the southern bombing areas to minimize shelling damage. Starving Babylon one turn to get the colloseum in 1. Road is complete to our goals and no pillaging thus far. Just realized I need a clear path for road to connect through so I’ll have to stop off and try and take out the Hittite city.
[5] 1375 - Witnessed a protugese ship fighting someone in the fog. Cleared a path on the road and after a sussecful Bucket campaign I moved 6 of the buckets up with group to assault Hittite town next turn.
[6] 1380 – Bomb and kill the musket and pike in Hittite town. LB on top. Raze city with *Elite Lb and he’s exposed but only if there is a horse somewhere. Now I’m confused about what to do. The last posts were for cities along the way, but I know if I plant a city here it will come under attack and we will have to wait. I want to raze the iron town and then plant the iron and upgrade. Then we can get some action going. Lets see how it turns out.
[7] 1385 – Our road between Sippar and Northern Gap gets bombed out. Good thing we have a harbor. They did have a horse and I lose the *Elite. Since everyone left our city to go after Elite I have no action.
[8] 1390 – They didn’t attack the bowman army left alone by itself but he got a ZoC on a knight.
[9] 1395 – The arabs are building ToE! to little to late?
[10] 1400 – Were sitting on the hill over Harran ready to attack next turn. Left an elite exposed but again I think he is OK.

Next turn you should be able to bomb Irontown down and then use an elite and then the bow army to hopefully kill the units off. We may have to road the hill we are on to provide a clean path back to our harbor and once we settle on hill SE of iron we are upgrading. I have another settler building in 5, I think to go for horses. Gems are hooked up in two. You really have to be diligent on swapping out and rotating units around areas they are bombing. Put fresh ones in and beat up ones out. I didn’t check to see if any cities grew so do a quick sweep. I SEE MED INFS in our future and swords. Good luck. Rifles are a coming.


>> THE SAVE <<

 

[T_McC]

I see it, and can play tonight.

Maybe after my turn we can make an assessment of whether to continue. Sounds like I may be seeing Infantry from overseas during my 10.

 

[Greebley]

My hope is that while the other continent is running away in tech, that the same is not true for the Hittite and Spanish. If we can grab all their lands before they get infantry, and we can settle it and handle sea invasions (pushing to rails?), a lot of corrupt towns can support alot of scientists), then we may have a chance.

At that point (assuming we reach it, which is a big if), we need to stop the culture and spaceship win; kill the mongols, and get esponage and start stealing tech. When we get to flight, we beat everyone up and win and move on to AWDemi (Bombers and knights can take out Mech Inf cities with ease).

[Edit: Barbslinger, I was also thinking that not settling towns might be much better. They AI will not pillage roads. The biggest difficulties will be keeping away settlers and keeping the road clear. If we can spare the army, we may be able to road several ways so that the AI cannot block it. Given the threats of landings and the fact we don't have rails, makes defending several points difficult. If we can get enough knights to keep the lands safe, we can then settle everything.
]

 

[barbslinger]

While playing your imagination runs through a gamut of potential scenarios and possibilities. I felt it was relatively easy to clear the road up to 3 tiles away from Sippar. The spear army never once was contested and you can put escorts underneath. I had the entire bucket brigade and all LB's sitting 2 tiles north and killing the cavs on the hill and all others around it. I got a little chicken though and gradually brought them back as my turns wore on. I think they will disconnect us fairly quickly once we take out Irontown and plant city. I was thinking while playing that it would be advisable to NOT plant the city until the road is clear. Then immediately plant and upgrade prior to continuing turns. Upgrade as many as possible and change over builds. A pike/MI army someday soon would be NICE!

 

[handy900]

Good Luck T.

Greebley - interesting plan for the Spaceship. IF we pull this off it would be quite a win.

To the AW Gang - There may yet be one challenge left for us on AWM. Tiny pang map versus 3 militaristic civs with ancient age UU's. Celts, Aztecs and Rome as our enemies. That would be a challenging game. Does anyone have an interest? I'd think China would be a good choice for us to play.

 

[Greebley]

I would be willing to try that after this game (or one of my other ones) ends. I would also really like to try another AWE (with Spain being my top choice).

 

[T_McC]

HNDY01 - The Struggle Continues

1400 AD (0)
Frankly, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I think the plan is now to move a settler up to where the Horses/Iron are and plant there, with the idea that we would use a harbor to get the resources back home. Likely requires two settlers.

We are doing min.Sci on Banking. Losing 4 gpt with 24 turns to go. Settler positioned on the Hill, but can't build there until the Hittite city is destroyed. I think we have to build on the resources to prevent them from being continually disconnected, so the settler and Spear army will move on top of the horses and found.

Swap Sippar to a Settler. We will need more towns to support our units, and I think the front will be moving away fairly soon. We need two more cities to use our Leader to form a 5th army. I think it will have to be another spear army, to defend one of the new towns.

<Return>

1405 AD (1)
See purple Rifles and Guerillas. Shore Bombardment ad nauseum. The Arab Guerilla is on the Horse square I want to settle. Bomb a few, kill a few, lose no units. Push the front forward one more square.

1410 AD (2)
Move Settler + Spear Army to Horse Site. Kill 4 units with Northern Army and LB's. Kill two units near Sippar, will lose an LB on the IT.

1415 AD (3)
Lose said LB. And see first Conquistadors. These could be a PITA. Found Equinia. Kill 5 units near Sippar, will lose another LB on the IT. I think the front will have to come back a square, due to lack of surrounding roads.

1420 AD (4)
Almost lose spear army, have to move Bow army in as well. Equinia has definitely given the AI another target. I don't really fear losing the city now, but the advance on the Iron site has been delayed. Give a square near Sippar, and kill about 5 units. Shouldn't lose another unit there on the IT.

1425 AD (5)
Equinia holds, and the worst is over there. The Walls came in this turn. Everybody runs away from Sippar. Gems get knocked out again. Note to all future players: Always rotate out the injured units and put fresh ones up there. I think 3 will keep everything connected. No new unhappiness, since I never adjusted for the Gems being re-hooked. Re-gain the square near Sippar, and kill 5 more units. There are now only 2 enemy units around Sippar, and both are red-lined. I think the major offensive force can move north to assault the Iron.

1430 AD (6)
Spot a stack of 5 Carthaginian Cavs near Equinia.

Have to take most of them on offense. Avert crisis by killing 3, retreating 1, and taking the other to 2 HP.

Also note that Hittites don't have Horses anymore.

1435 AD (7)
Spot the first Infantry. Looks like good killing NE of Sippar, as three civs have settler pairs. Lost an LB to a Cav on IT, kill Cav now. Put settler in spot for 20th city. Another settler is in Sippar for 21st.

1440 AD (8)
Portugal founds on our east coast, then we found Out Portugal as a cultural push. The Portugese city has to go, as it cut off our Horses. Zulu have 6 Knights outside of Equinia. Trebs do a good job, and go 5/6. With two armies, I'm not really worried. Also bag a couple of units around Sippar, and get a pair of slaves.

1445 AD (9)
Win 2 on the IT at Equinia, kill 3 Zulu knights and retreat 1 on our turn. Get two Spanish slaves outside Portugese city. Position troops to burn said city next turn. Also have another settler at the front, waiting for the next couple of turns.

1450 AD (10)
Kill 6 Knights and 2 MDI on defense at Equinia. Whack Sao Paolo, sinking a Galleon. Got no money for it, however. Clean up a little riff-raff around Equinia. Only visible threat for next turn is a Chinese Cav, but couldn't reach him this turn.

Final Notes:
We had Horses for a little while, and will get them back soon. Moving the front forward meant an end to offensive operations against Hittite cities, but those will resume soon also.

There is one settler active (under a Spear army) that can go to a supporting square for Equinia. I think we still have a few turns of killing off the backlog of AI units from our continent. The offshore folks seem to be landing troops well away from us, as I didn't see anything dropped besides a settler pair. Our economy is ridiculously bad, as a result of having to run the shore blockade. Next leader should remember to pre-build for Banks in our four large cities, we need money more than troops. Hopefully we can get to the Iron soon, and build some Knights so we relax the blockade.

 

[T_McC]

The Current Situation:

The Red dots are spots I think we should settle next. It is awkward to work the Iron in there, but we'll figure something out. I think we need to push it now, as the clock is starting to tick for Airplanes and Big Ships.

The AI's on our continent aren't up to Cavs yet, so our window is still open a bit.

Most of our workers are trapped in Equinia.


Hot Potato!

 

[barbslinger]

I was thiinking you should have taken out Harran, the Iron town, prior to settling. "[10] 1400 – Were sitting on the hill over Harran ready to attack next turn." I suggested that on my last turn and after seeing your post last night I went and attempted it. There was only one musket and one other unit in there and it fell with ease with Trebuckets hitting it. No unit loss with army making last kill. We have horses and city is standing. We're still barely clinging to life.
This game is looking more and more dismal and would take a miracle to pull it out. I don't even think 10 back to back leaders would help at this point. It wont be long before we are facing cav/guerilla with infantry support. If they breech us it will fall quite rapidly. I would certainly play it out though and revenge will come when we do "The Handy Bab Revenge - RAWE"

 

[T_McC]

Yeah, the order I was going in was:
(1) Found the city with Horses.
(2) Raze Harran
(3) Fight my way up to the Iron.

But a funny thing happened between (1) and (2). The city got attacked by Cavalry, and I had to move the "offensive" army and the Trebs into the city, killing the chance to attack Harran. Our city won't fall, and we are moving the front-lines up to meet Equinia, so I think we have a shot at Harran on the next 10. Biggest obstacle: We're running out of money. Most of our Iron based units will have to be built, not bought.

 

[Greebley]

Sounds like banks will help a good bit.

This game has been on a razor edge between victory and defeat for longest of any game I have ever played. I still don't know if we have a chance of winning or not.

So Ted is up (I hope he remembers he is playing this - he mentioned in other threads he was going away and then that he was back, but not here).

 

[handy900]

Originally posted by T_McC
HNDY01 - The Struggle Continues

1400 AD (0)
Frankly, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Sounds like a good bumper sticker You did great, as always.

Ted is up I'll send him a PM.

If he needs a skip I'll pick it up, but I may not play until Sunday. The large mouth bass are calling me...

BTW - I played a solo teeny tiny map AWM as China against Rome, Aztecs & Zulu. I had decent land, horses, and it was a blowout. Two sword armies & a stack of cats & horses did the job. So, T_McC's assertion that there is no challenge left on AWM for this team still stands. The only AWM variant that would challenge this team unless we get really crappy land like we had in T_McC01, would be something like playing a non AW Civ. without building any units that require Iron + raze all cities + no slaves + no wonders, or something else along extreme self imposed limits.

Anyone ever tried an OCC AW game – on any level?

I'd rather go for Greebley's idea of am AWE Spanish Conquistador Challenge. That’s the game I’m looking forward to.

 

[TedJackson]

Hi guys,

for some unknown reason this game dropped off my subscription list

I'm up in a couple of other games so I won't be able to pick it up before tomorrow at the earliest.

Feel free to pick it up if you have the opportunity Handy and I'll slot in behind you.


Ted

 

[TedJackson]

Got it


Ted