HNDY08 - AWDG Babylon - Small Pangaea

Tremendous!

Later: it's a minor point, but Babylon can give Ellipi the one mined tile they share, speeding up Ellipi's build without losing any time on its own.
 
Greebs - Fabulous progress. I feared Damascus was sticking our neck out too far and here it is a great chokepoint. Things keep getting better and better.
 
:D Outstanding stuff Greebley. :goodjob:

Do we control all the iron?

We are smokin' in this game. Two armies can press the AI bigtime while we expand & get some infrastructure going in our homelands.

We need at least 1, preferablt 2 cities building infrastructure in the core at all times. Libraries, markets and ducts are priorities.

Roster and Order of Play
Handy
Sir Bugsy
Greebley
Yom
grs UP
Northern Pike

Our deal with Yom is he will post an "I got it" when he can play immediately. He has a big classload and cross country, so he will just jump in when he can. grs is therefore up, unless we see an I got it from Yom.

You guys are making this look too easy.
 
I think I can jump in on election day, but we'll see.
 
Pre: Just do the proposed tile switch.

IBT: Maths - Construction. We can build a Forbidden Palace now.

730BC: Sword army built. Uruk founded. I have to use the army to clear barbs - we need to settle our homeland.

IBT: Sumeria pillages one of our iron sources.

710BC: Kill 2 spears in El-Amarna and take it. Kill a spear near Damascus and get a Great Leader. Damascus gets the Forbidden Palace. Kill another archer (4-0).

IBT: The Forbidden Palace completes.

690BC: Disperse a barb camp.

IBT: Defeat 2 archers attacking Elephantine (6-0).

670BC: Move all units out of Elephantine and abandon it. We probably could hold it, but we are not able to quell the resisters with so many enemies around. We needed the army to defend it and I feared it will flip soon. It was difficult to be reinforced anyway, because it was 4 tiles away and had many mountains around it. Lose a warrior to a barb.

IBT: Egypt lands an archer near Mecca and starts Sun Tzu's.

650BC: Kill an Egypt spear/settler pair (7-0).

IBT: AC dies attacking our elite spear (8-0).

630BC: Disperse a barb camp. Elite bowman kills an Enkidu (9-0).

IBT: ---

610BC: Kill the landed archer. Elite bowman kills another Enkidu (11-0).

IBT: Sumeria starts Sun Tzu's.

590BC: Kill an Egypt archer. Sword army is finally filled and on the front (12-0).

IBT: Our first catapult is online.

570BC: Elite bowman kills archer (x2). Sword army kills enkidu/settler pair. Eridu founded, barb warrior killed (15-0).

IBT: Kill an archer and lose a bow on defense (16-1).

550BC: Disperse a barb camp. Elite bow kills archer and we have another leader. I have fortified it in Damascus. Bow army kills an AC and an archer. Sword army kills 2 archers (21-1).

Settler should settle 3 east. I would rush the Heroic Epic either in Mecca, Eridu or the next town to uncover more fog. There is another barb camp nw of the gold hill near Ashur and probably one near the horses s of Damaskus.

I screwed the sword build in Babylon a bit, so it will waste some shields this time. We have 10 towns + 1 settler, so we should get another settler (probably Ashur) soon, to be able to build a third army and The Pentagon.
 
Sounds like good turns grs. Very nice kill ratio.

I would save the leader for the third army. I don't think that our chances at getting leaders is high enough to use it on the epic. I have seen two player rounds go by with no leaders in more intense combat than we have here. A We can probably get a 12th town fairly quickly?

The heroic epic is only 200 shields; we will be able to build it I think. Perhaps in our FP town Demascus?
 
21:1 is a fabulous kill ratio. Nice leader farming as well. Third army and the pentagon sounds like a very good idea. I think the HE would be worth it.
 
I think my chances on leaders were good, because you handed me many elite bows and I could fight vs reg archers on flat ground. I would say it will take us about 8-10 turns to found 2 more reasonable cities. 200 shields is roughly 6-7 swords, that is a lot firepower we would miss. I am quite sure we will get a leader during the next 10-20 turns - simply because I have not seen a single AI unit that requires iron.
 
I agree. Don't build the HE from scratch. 200 shields worth of swords is too much to throw away.
 
Well I haven't seen the save so you may be right. I think we could get that last town faster than 8 turns though. Switch the next sword build to a settler instead and send it out. An average of 2 turns to get the settler and 3 to move it into place?

The other option is to put off the H Epic to the 3rd leader (from now). Army; Pentagon; HE (rather than building it that is).

I trust Northern Pike to look things over and choose. Both options have good arguments for them.

The reason I want the third army ASAP is the reason you state. Right now the towns are weakly defended. That will end when they get Muskets. I feel we should be as agressive as we can get away with and then slow down & build more infrastructure when they get Muskets.
 
Greebley said:
I would save the leader for the third army.

Not looking at the save, I tend to agree with this. At some point after we have the FP and Pentagon we'll find ourselves in a spot where we need 4 additional cities to build another army. It's then we can rush the HE, when we have nothing better to do.

Nice turns grs. :goodjob: 10 to 1 is the ratio we need.

Roster and Order of Play
Handy
Sir Bugsy
Greebley
Yom
grs
Northern Pike is up :D
 
Great round, Grs. :goodjob:

Got it.
 
Just so everyone knows, my workload at work has increased significantly. As such, my internet time will be down during the workday. I will be checking in each evening.
 
550 (0): Hmm. The decision between a third army and the Heroic Epic is finely balanced, all right. My first thought is that we're down to one non-asterisked elite unit, setting aside warriors and spearmen, so we can't have great confidence that we'll get another GL soon. If we knew for a fact that Naboplasser would be our last GL for a while, I think we'd certainly use him for an army--so that's my choice.

I'm also influenced by the fact that attacking out of the Damascus bottleneck, which will be tricky because success will widen the front we have to defend, will be easier if we can afford to use one army for defensive purposes.

Babylon swordsman --> swordsman.


530 (1): A healing turn.

El Amarna catapult --> catapult.


510 (2): Our armies move adjacent to Alexandria, destroying two Egyptian archers on the way (2-0).

One of our swordsmen defeats a barb warrior approaching our furs colony (3-0).

In response to our threat to Alexandria, three Egyptian units pass right through the city and advance on Damascus. :smoke:

Damascus barracks --> swordsman.


490 (3): Our armies take Alexandria from its garrison of two regular spearmen (5-0), and raze it, for a total haul of three slaves.

Our swordsman finishes off the Circassian camp near the furs colony, and we destroy a horseman from the same camp. In the north, however, a full-strength Bowman falls to the warrior holding the other barb camp, without even doing any damage, and I have to divert a swordsman in that direction (7-1).

Ashur swordsman --> swordsman, Uruk catapult --> catapult.


470 (4): Our sword army takes Hieraconpolis from its garrison of two spearmen (9-1).

We found Samarra three squares southeast of Damascus--meaning we're pushing into Egyptian territory, but very cautiously. The city is next to a mountain, but there's no way we can avoid this entirely as we expand out of the bottleneck. We now have twelve cities, and Naboplasser forms our third army. Filling it up with swordsmen will take some time, though.

Our Bowman army moves into Hieraconpolis, destroying a Persian horseman on the way (10-1).

Our northern swordsman disperses the Nubian camp (11-1).

We destroy three Egyptian archers and an Egyptian spearman in the Damascus-Samarra area, with our catapults doing good work (15-1).

An Egyptian archer landed next to Akkad last turn dies attacking it (16-1).

A real surprise--the Persians are willing to attack the yellowlined army I put into Hieraconpolis to cover the redlined army there. They lose three archers without achieving anything (19-1), but I have some anxious moments as they reduce our armies to one and three hit points.

Babylon swordsman --> swordsman.

The Persians are building Knights Templar.


450 (5): We abandon Hieraconpolis. I might have done this anyway, but the dire condition of our armies makes the choice easy.

Construction --> Pottery. We badly need a granary or two to rationalize our production of settlers, and Pottery is practically free at this point anyway--due in four turns at 30% science.


430 (6): We bombard an ancient cav, but have no prudent attacks. The Egyptians are producing regular AC, fortunately.

Ellipi and Nineveh swordsman --> swordsman.

The Egyptians are building Knights Templar.


410 (7): Our healed armies move out of Damascus, overrunning a Persian horseman and an Egyptian settler/spear team (21-1).

The AC we bombarded attacks, though down to 2 HP, and dies (22-1).


390 (8): We destroy another Egyptian settler/spear pair with one of our armies (23-1). I suspect the empty land south of Eridu and Damascus is making the AI compulsively send settlers in our direction--a phenomenon the rest of you must have seen a lot in the course of these AW games.

We get our third army completely loaded up with swordsmen.

The next Egyptian city to the east has had two cultural expansions, so it's presumably Thebes.

We destroy a Sumerian archer outside Damascus (24-1).

The Persians have a RoP with the Egyptians.

Babylon swordsman --> aqueduct, Ashur swordsman --> swordsman, Eridu barracks --> swordsman.


370 (9): Science rate down to 10%, Pottery still due in one turn.

Our two eastern armies move next to Thebes, destroying a Persian archer on the way (25-1).

Pottery --> Horseback Riding, due in four turns at 50% science.

I switch Mecca's build to a granary.


350 (10): I consider waiting to see whether Thebes completes the Great Library, or holding the city for the sake of the Temple of Artemis, but decide both would be oversubtle. So:
 
HNDY08-350BCi.JPG
 
Thebes is held only by two spearmen (27-1). This is demigod? :lol: We raze the city and acquire four slaves.

We destroy an Egyptian AC, three Egyptian archers, and a Sumerian archer on the Damascus-Samarra front, at the cost of an asterisked elite bowman, which loses five straight rounds to an Egyptian archer on a plains tile (32-2).

Seven elite victories this round, one defensive, didn't produce a Great Leader.
 
The biggest constraint on our operations right now is lack of settlers, which makes it hard for us to nail down conquered territory or finish developing our homeland. Building a granary in Mecca should help a bit. When Mecca gains a population point in two turns, we should look into giving it the nearby mined sugar tile; this is pointless at the moment, due to corruption.

Akkad is about to complete a settler which will cut its population to one, but I think we have to do it.

On the level of overall strategy, we should continue to push east with armies--once they've healed, of course--and raze Egypt's major cities while they're still held by spearmen. Pi-Ramesses and Abydos aren't as important, and the longer we wait to take them, the safer it will be to keep them. Whether we'll need to keep one army on the Damascus-Samarra front for defense is a decision that'll have to be made depending on circumstances--but if we do choose to do this, our Bowman army should backtrack while the two sword armies push on into Egypt.

My recent attacks have left a messy-looking situation on the Damascus-Samarra front (basically a consequence of our want of fast units), but I don't think anything much can happen before you consolidate there. The army nearest to Samarra can always backtrack if problems develop.

Please note that there are six slaves under the army nearest to Samarra, so of course they should build a road before the army moves.

Of our core cities, Ellipi needs the most attention from workers.

I think I've got warriors positioned so that barb camps can't appear in our homeland, though it's easy to be wrong about this.

We don't have anything invested in Horseback Riding yet, so my choice there is only a suggestion. I think it's worth four turns to get horsemen, which will help us a lot tactically, but a beeline for Monarchy wouldn't be bad either.

BTW, it's not that I meant to do it, but does anyone understand why we're not allowed to rush Mecca's granary in the saved position? When did it become impossible to trade two pop points for 31 shields in despotism?
 
Back
Top Bottom