LK76 - AWE - Pangea, No armies, Random Civ

[Greebley]

Preturn: Since we have some settlers, I raise our % to 58 by planting towns where we won't expand to. I also rush some libraries.

IBT: We lose one infantry vs 5 attacks. Our spy in Babylon is captured.

1902 AD: I bombard Babylon with 80 Artillery. This redlines all units, destroys the Civil Defense, and brings the population from 12 to 6.
An elite tank still cannot take out the red-lined mech and it promotes. 3 more Artillery are needed to re-red-line the mech.
Lose a second vet tank vs an red-lined mech. Kill 7 mech, 4 TOW, and 1 Marine. I capture Babylon. I keep it for smiths and sun tzu.

Line up an attack on the Mongols.

IBT: Lose one infantry. Win 2 battles

1904 AD: Capture Ta-tu. Destroy a mongol size 1 town on the inland sea. Destroy ashur and build some new towns Get 2 Leaders and rush 2 factories.
62% land, 67% population

IBT: No attacks

1906 AD: Capture Eridu and Krakatorum.
66% land area

IBT: The library rushes in the preturn complete and push us over 67%

Notes:
Well that was the most difficult AWE win I have played in and was pretty close. I have played in more difficult AWE games, but those were lost. We did get some breaks in this one.

I feel the reason the game was closer balanced and thus longer was the lack of pillaging. With pillaging, I think games are decided earlier. Either you are overwhelmed, or you can pillage and remove the threat of advanced units.

Good game all. It was fun but harrowing.

I will attach the save just before the win

 

[Improviser]

Congratulations , this has been a really exciting game to follow.

 

[meldor]

Great game all! It was touch and go in some spots. I don't think we were in too much danger of caving, but it was a good thing we had a good defensive UU. Infantry came at the right time and heavy drafting (without killing our core) helped a lot. The things a human player can do and the AI can't.

 

[Zwingli]

Well done everyone. This is the first AW I've seen in awhile where artillery and infantry didn't prove decisive.

Aside from pillaging, another benifit of Armies is an effective increase in unit tech level. If we had allowed armies, the giant unkillable unit stacks wouldn't have built up and there wouldn't have been ~100 turns of stalemate due to tech lagging. Once we made up the tech gap, the game was over quickly.

 

[LKendter]

Well this is one of the most difficult wins I had. What is really scary with how rough the game was is that we GOT several breaks.

NO rails for Sumerian / Babylon. This reduced the number of heavyweight units we faced. We had to many to deal with as it was.
The mercs let us build musketman at half price. When you consider how close we came to breaking a few times, think what would have happened with 1/2 less defense units being built.
The long delay before the AI civs started building the UN. Why did the AI get all the way to satellites and still not build it?
There may have been NO wars between the AIs.


I would like to hear comments from the players on what made this game such a killer beyond the obvious no armies and no pillaging.

Some of things I really felt hurt us are:
The expansion was slowed down due to the Arbela military disaster. The horrid RnG luck really slowed down our initial expansion. With better luck we would have built another city a lot sooner improving our core quicker. This is one of those issues I will never know the answer to, but was a granary or 3 archers better at that point. 3 more archers may have bypassed the bad luck.

Having an underdeveloped core. This was a combination of to few workers, and our 2nd ring cities being next to the Mongols being under siege. I know if another AWE is played additional workers must be a priority.

Our tech pace was to slow. The underdeveloped core affected this. To many military problems and can't afford to squeeze in libraries hurt this. Even our expansion direction hurt, as it took to long to place down semi-useful 3rd ring cities in the Mongol direction.

 

[microbe]

Why did the AI get all the way to satellites and still not build it?

Mobolization.

 

[hotrod0823]

The initial Persian war really slowed us down at the start. Losing a few archers to redlined spears was tough to take and made getting even our second city going strong made the usually easy expasion phase easier.

Along the way I know I made a few mistakes that didn't help matters but thankfully the strength of the players following me we are able to overcome my miscues. It is different than any AWE I have played and very challenging.

I AWDG winnable probably but without the no army restrictions. We were unable to pillage the down and the units just kept coming and coming and coming. Not being able to slow the AI production ability makes for a tough situation.

Also, if I remember correctly we did have a few stacks of workers taken a few times. That couldn't have helped.

Hotrod

 

[meldor]

I think the biggest mistake we made was in the way we expanded. We expanded up the coast instead of in a bubble like fashion. We let the lure of more lux and resource denial push us into making our empire long and thin. We then had to defend a lot more cities that were farther away. Instead of all of the AI going for the same cities, we got attacked in two places because the Babs had a shorter route to bigger cities. Looking at the map, we should have expnaded towards the Babs a lot sooner and that could have made things a lot easier.

I think if we do this again, maybe we allow defensive armies only and no pillaging.

 

[Greebley]

I think our lack of workers slowed us a lot. We had towns with no irrigated lands which means they grew slower and provided fewer scientists. I know I spent more than one turn working on getting our worker count up - it always seemed we had huge numbers of unimproved squares with some towns having no improved squares for tens of turns.

I agree initial poor combat roll in the beginning also slowed us. I think in the game we played we would do better with 3 archers over the granary. On the other hand, if we won the first battle, then the archers wouldn't have had immediate use and granary would have been better allowing us to grow faster. I don't think there IS a right answer on that one, it is situational, though perhaps holding off on the granary until after the town fell would probably have been better in this case.

BTW there were definitely wars amoungst the AI. The Aztecs were attacked early on (from the replay) and I think there were at least 2 Babylon-Sumerian wars. (I also assume the end of one was what allowed the AIs to start the UN). I think the Mongols also were involved in at least one war (probably with Aztecs).

I also agree with Zwingli that the lack of armies hurt more than just pillaging. We could have gotten a lot fewer unit losses if our Cavalry were in armies.

We did have two things that made this game much easier (and possible to win) other than what Lee mentioned. We started in a "corner" (imagine if there was land to the SW of us too), and met one civ initially that allowed us to seriously hurt it (I have played a least one game with 3 civs met before 2000 bc).

 

[ThERat]

for me, it was one of the most exciting games to follow as a lurker. i didn't think you would be able to beat it in the end. my deepest congratulations, may my skills match those of this team one day