LK83 - AWE Invitational, Random Civ, Emperor

Greebley said:
In any case, I will likely concentrate on Infra this turn.

One funny thing I have noticed is that if the kill ratio is TOO good and one continues to build units, you end up killing science. The solutions are to either go on the offensive (costs units to take out cities) or build more cities and Markets.

This is exactly why I got the city built closer to the wines. I know we need to expand to get more unit support. My turn was going toward more and more buildings. More leaders would help with expensive churches available, along with aqueducts. The only problem is we don't have a clear settler source.

For the moment I am not worried about workers. However, if we don't get some free workers soon we may be forced to build more even though it will make the unit support worse.

The other thing we eventually need is some specialist cities. However, we don't have any cities that bad at the moment.
 
One thing about building our own workers is that once we end the initial expansion and start getting slaves we can meld them back in to give us both the smalll unit cost and boost some of the cities above six to get the greater support.
 
Preturn: Switch about some builds. I left one town build a Cat and one town building a Pike May decide later that we need to be building more units, but 29 unit cost is pretty high.

IBT: A Javelin is dropped off on the Mountain near our town. 8 more appear to the West.
An MDI is dropped off near our southern border town (currently guarded by a warrior, but we have pikes that can cover). An Egyptian unit shows up to the North.

260 AD: Declare War on Egypt We now at war with 6 civs (out of 7). They were equal in tech and had more towns than us.
Move 2 Pike in the town near the MDI.

IBT: The MDI attacks and wins 0-1

270 AD: Kill the 2 MDI & 2 Archer stack after bombardment. MDI kills the landed Javelin. Army kills the MDI in the mountain.
6-1

IBT: A Dromon pounds our town. The enemy troops move next to our city.

280 AD: I don't attack yet as the cat need to move back (they went to the other city to attack the MDI stack).

IBT: The enemy troops move (mostly away from us to go around).

290 AD: Kill a Horseman with an elite Sword. Bombard a spear and 2 Horsemen. Armies are healing.
7-1

IBT: No attacks

300 AD: Bombard some Javelins. Science is at 10% and we are at +1 gold (built 2 settlers). Kill 3 Javs, 2 Horse, and an Archer
13-1

IBT: Most units retreat.

310 AD: Kill 2 Javs.
15-1
IBT: French show up to the North. Hmm... It was probably a mistake to not go for those Barbarians right away. Spain also comes by to attack them.
Declare war on Spain

320 AD: Our border has doubled in size. There are now civs to the North of us coming down I suspect. I will be working on getting things set up.
Kill 2 more Javs. A barb Horse and a Barb camp.
18-1

IBT: Here comes the first wave of celts (that I have seen). 2 ancient Cav and 7 Horsemen are seen.

330 AD: Anyang and Shantung are founded. I raise Lux and Science by 10% each (both needed it). Our science is at 20%. Kill 2 or 3 units.
20-1

IBT: We learn Education. Fortunately we also learn Chemistry on the same turn

340 AD: Kill 2 MDI and a Jav.
23-1

IBT: A Spear on a Volcano kills 2 Ancient Cav and a Horseman on defense before it dies.
26-2.

350 AD: Anyang road is complete. Shatung's road will be done in 2 turns or so. This is also the length of time until the wines are hooked up which we need.
Kill 2 MDI and 2 Horsemen.
30-2

Notes:
I was NOT really able to concentrate on Infrastructure. We needed Pikes too badly for the Northern front (I did about 50% of our shields on Infrastructure or so).

The above is bad. Our unit cost is still 27 gpt and science is at 20% still. In part this is because I raised Lux to 20% because we need to get our cities over size 6 which means fewer specialists. When we connect wines we can raise science to 30%

I checked to see how much science we needed for Metallurgy. It is 1920 beakers. We need about 40 science a turn to achieve that. We are currently at 7. While I agree completely with Lee that Min Science runs are very bad, in this case I don't think we can improve our economy enough to get Metallurgy in less than 50 turns - we essentially need to average 50% research and can only run 20% at most for the next 20 odd turns.

The question thus become whether we want to run min research for Metallurgy and try to improve our economy in the next 50 turns, or do we run Max resarch and hope we can improve by lowering unit costs (reaching size 7 or build more towns, disbanding units), building Markets and getting our towns bigger?

One way to get unit costs down would be to disband all our archers and warriors (We have 7 of them). Problem is we really need more units to handle the incoming AI units.

I would try to let the markets currently being built complete. We really need them. We may need to have at least one more towns building units though.
 
With the Dromons in play the wines spot MUST have a unit on it to take the bombardment. If I had thought more carefully about the Byzantines and Dromons being the game I would have stuck with the original dot map.

I have more thoughts on the science disaster department. Do we go for astronomy next? It is the cheapest of the 3 techs, and the AI will research it before we complete. Of all the techs, that has the best chance of getting under 50.

I can't even stomach the thought of a 50-turn minimum run for the science rate. That pretty much insures tanks vs. rifleman. At best we are stuck hopeless behind for tech for more of the game.

:eek: The Spanish have horses. We have going to be stuck with Conquistadors and 6 movement factors. This is going to make putting workers anywhere near the borders high risk of losing them unless we protect them. I notice those units won't attack much of anything.



Well the havoc truly starts. The double front has begun.

I hope Meldor has more leader luck. We are going to need that 3rd army and the Pentagon.

No final dot-map as green dot is still left to build. I think we need a team idea on expansion direction before planning beyond green dot. This is what I see as a general attack direction. The front doesn't get to much expansion. If we can't increase the science rate we lose IMO. The dyes get us another desperately needed luxury.



Signed up:
LKendter
Greebley
Meldor (currently playing)
Grs (on deck)
Northern Pike

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.
It will drop to 5 to 10 turns in the industrial age.


Variant restrictions:
1) Homeland defense armies only. The armies are prohibited from leaving our borders for even a millisecond. This includes attacking a stack outside borders and moving between 2 cities if there is a border gap.
If an army is trapped outside our borders due to a flip is must return to the nearest city. It may NOT kill any units on the way there.

2) Leader hording is prohibited. If we get a leader, and can't build an army it must be used to rush a building. We can delay using the leader to get it moved to an optimal city and waiting a turn for the shield bin to get empty. Once a leader is set for a building, no shifting back to army.
 
I like the idea of going full on astronomy. I believe explorers also comes with Astro and we could use them to try to find horses even if it means sacrificing a few.

Finding horses would give us a direction to procede. It would be worth pushing in that direction if they are reachable. If an explorer can get to them in one turn, I would call that reachable.

[Edit: There is one big benefit in the North - All the towns are on Hills. Our pikes will defend with defense of 6 + fortification bonus (.75?) that means on average a cavalry or Infantry will lose against them. We will need more trebuchet there. The enemy also has better defense.
 
350 AD (0)
I don't change anything. I hope it doesn't kill us later. If the RnG turns ugly, it could it, well, ugly.
(I)Lots of troops on the way, more retreat. One MDI commits suicide on a pike. (1-0)

360 AD (1)
I hate to let the ACs get away but the horse are more important. The MDI army kills two of the horsemen. The cats ping 4 of the 5 archers. We then kill two of them and generate a leader.

I have two choices:
1)Build the third army, even though we don't have the units to fill it yet,
2) or swap a city to a pike and then rush the marketplace. This will allow that city to get back to building units or another building.
 
My first thought was to go with a rushed market until I remembered that the pentagon would be there with the third army. One question is if holding an empty army would violate the spirit of the game. Would it be leader hording but in a different way?
 
One question is if holding an empty army would violate the spirit of the game.
This issue was leader hording. We are not hording a leader. The MDI army I built during my turn took several turns to fill.

IMO we need an army on permanent duty in the North along the secondary front.

@Meldor - What did you do with the science rate and research direction?
 
I agree with using the Great Leader for a third army.

Not too surprisingly ;), I think the granary I started in Hangchow would help us a lot more than the temple we've switched to there. Getting our settlers from towns which need twenty turns to replace the population lost is hurting us, so why not do something about it? And building workers for merging could help our economy a lot, if that's permitted in this series. Depending on where you are in your round, Meldor, we might still be able to switch back to the granary.
 
And building workers for merging could help our economy a lot, if that's permitted in this series.
Worker merging has always been done. In fact, LK75 and LK79 both saw heavy merging. All the workers were free support ones by the end.
 
I felt we needed the border expansion. Our army is limited by the close border and that seemed the city that was going to take the heat. Having to wait until a unit is next to our city to attack with the army seemed limiting.

I agree a granary is very useful though.
 
370 AD (2)
Build an army with the leader. As for the granary vs the temple, I stick with the temple. I agree a granary will be next, but a border expansion would be great to make them move farther back to heal and we don't have the troops to settle anywhere right now. Sword army takes out an American horseman. Archer kills one last archer.
(I) Hangchow Temple->Granary.

380 AD (3)
Our army moves back to await loding. I upgrade the sword that made it to an MDI. Our elite MDI takes out an archer after our cats and trebs ping 5 Javs. I decide to rest the MDI army in place as we have 2 archers and a spear trying to slip past Xinjian. The Sword army at Hangchow takes out a warrior that was reating on a hill. I would have cleared the other jungle square so we could swap the army from Hangchow to Xinjian in a single turn, but it will happen next. Right now there are 31 enemy units in sight.
(I)Lots more units arrive. The Spanish begin Sistines.

390 AD (4)
OK, ther are now 48 units around. I upgrade the spear at Chengdu now that they just drop off a Jav next to it. Our pingers don't do as well this turn. Our MDI army takes out a spear and an archer but drops to 4HPs I cover it with a pike. The elite archer takes out the last archer slipping past Xinjian. The two MDI's at Tatung kill a Jav each, but our vet archer fails to kill a 2hp Jav. I wine is connected we can't drop lux less than 20%. We would have never gotten the extra 27gpt out of the markets to drop the research time. Its a good thing it is on a lone scientist. I swap Nanking from a pike to an MDI so I can have a second for the army. MM Canton to get the market a turn early.
(I) An AC dies promoting our pike at Tatung but it dies to an elite horse.

400 AD (5)
Sword army kills an MDI and an archer. The MDI army rests. Ping the elite horse and some of a stack of Javs. Our two MDI at Tatung take out 2 Javs without taking a scratch.
 
Hangchow Temple->Granary.
With being our only +5 food city that is the right move.


we don't have the troops to settle anywhere right now.
Now that is a sad phrase to read when we are already choking to death on unit costs.


Its a good thing it is on a lone scientist.
ARGGGGGGG. What happen to the suggest to try for astronomy? Another AWE game of hoplessly behind in tech. This sucks big time.
 
Re Astronomy: LK we are making 15 beakers at 20%, 23 if we can raise to 30%. It is totally pointless. We would only waste money on more science. Astronomy is 1920 beakers right now. We actually have more need for metallugy anyways, but as this is even more expensive all but min science is blowing our money out of the window imo.
 
Grs said:
...all but min science is blowing our money out of the window imo.
IMO the failure to research at a decent pace is the kiss of death in AWE.

One minimum science run is all but the kiss of death already. Last time this happened with a science choke was the first AWE attempt as Persia. That was lost to a UN vote. The last LK AWE almost ended due to a UN vote and we barely caught up in science in time.

If nothing else we had better be able to follow the AI down the cheap tech path at the end of metallurgy run. At that point the beaker cost is less.

I will be blunt - I don't want to continue the game if we can't get above minimum research after metallurgy.
 
We need markets and libraries in all cities. We should be devoting at least 1/2 our cities to this. Additionally, lets get our cities larger than size 7. We do these two and research should be more reasonable. Finally, don't waste the money we get at min research. Keep it for research of the next tech. We may even be able to research very high for a while on the money we save.

We got a leg up on the GLib. If we had missed it we would be further behind on tech than we are now. Since games at empire have been won without the GLib, we are not dead yet. I do agree that if we can't get our research to faster than 50 in 50 turns we have serious problems. I don't think this will be the case if we work on correcting the research problem.
 
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