MM8: Philosophical Fredrick

[jameson]

Spears will work just fine against horse archers ( I had to check the manual for this) since they are classified as mounted so the spears get a 100% bonus against them. This applies when attacking them with spears too (which is a bit silly, imho) !
We should probably try and entice the archers to attack instead of attacking them, since other than the anti-archery promotion there is no unit type which gets an advantage against them and this way they at least do not get a first strike.

Hanging Gardens would be a worthwhile build ( +1 pop and +1 health in all cities) but I agree with hurrying Sistine. Alternatively, we could save up the great engineer for Taj Mahal, which we will get access to fairly soon and also benefits from the marble we don't have.

 

[grahamiam]

yeah, the spears did the job well against the horses. However, LB's and archers don't do so well vs horse archers as they are immune to 1st strikes. So, if we want to attack the cities, we'll need some cats and to get the horses online. Some horses will be good anyways as they're more mobile than what we currently have.

I'm fine with rushing Sistine's

 

[Rince]

OK, played the first 5 turns. Have to go to sleep now.

How are the rules? Can I:

1. Post my results so far and continue later.
2. Keep my results for me and continue later.
3. Post my results and give the game to the next player.

Greetings,

Rince

 

[jameson]

1 and 2 are both fine by me, I don't mind 3 but unless you're so pressed for time that you can't complete the remainder feel free to finish your set .

 

[grahamiam]

Or, you can give us hints and leave us guessing for 24hrs

 

[Rince]

Ok, I decided to give you the results, take a seat and try to breathe normally:

Here we go:

In general: Workers are very busy reconstructing our Empire since the war really leaves a trail of destruction.

T1:
After checking our current situation I decide to immediately sign a peace treaty with the French. They give us 200 gold, nice!

To improve our relations with them I give them rice for clams.


T2:
We finish research on Philosophy, i go for Liberalism next.

I try to attack the chinese horse archer near Stuttgart with a spear, but we loose. A second spear takes revenge immediately and defeats the horse archer. Workers move in to reconnect our cities and get access to the ressources back.

Another chinese horse archer appears to the west. I try to move as many units as possible to the west which is not easy since we don't have many and they are moving slowly.

Berlin completes spearman but can't build the Sistine Chapel . Going through the log shows that the Malinese completed it already a turn before.
I decide to start work on Angkor Wat due in 21, i don't want to rush it with an engineer since it's not a marble wonder.


T3:
Two horse archer approach Hamburg which is only defended by an archer! They destroy farms.

Meanwhile, Cologne completes a forge. Start barracks.

T4: Terrible news: Hamburg was captured by a chinese horse archer .

I counterattack right away and kill a fresh horse archer. Only the original city raiding horse archer remains.

The situation for recapturing looks good atm but i don't have moves left.

A chinese warrior appears out of french territory. He forces me to retreat our workers.

Cologne barracks --> Spear.

T5:
What i feared happened: Hamburg was reinforced by two fresh horse archers. Odds are about equal now:

I attack anyway since the odds are only for the first attack. The third horse archer wont't stand a chance once we kill the other two.

First attack: 3.3 vs 3.0 --> we loose
Second attack 3.2 vs 3.1 --> we win
Third attack 3.4 vs 3.1 --> we win

I think we were quite lucky there. The situation now looks like this:

Munich finishes a Buddhist Monastery --> Buddhist temple.

That's it so far. I will play the remaining turns in a few hours.

The loss of Hamburg is really not nice but i couldn't avoid it because the units were still arranged to defend against the french. Mao still refuses to talk btw.

Greetings,

Rince

 

[grahamiam]

I should have switched hamburg to a spear and pop rushed before I handed off. sorry

edit: why is Munich building culture when we need more units?

 

[Rince]

I chose a cultural building since other cities are already producing units and since we will try to get peace from china asap, probably before munich can build a military unit.

I can change production though if you guys think it's wiser.

Rince

 

[grahamiam]

Munich is closer to the lines, so I think it should be units.

 

[Shillen]

Hamburg was building a wonder, yes? Do you lose all production on the wonder when it gets captured and recaptured? I assume the library and theatre are gone as well? What about the merged great artists we had in there?

And why did Hamburg only have an archer? It's right on the border with China. I know they were attacking other cities at first but it really should have had at least 2 and probably 3 units protecting it. :/

Also, we finished research on philosophy. Were there no tech trades that could be made? Feudalism or Engineering would be nice about now.

 

[grahamiam]

And why did Hamburg only have an archer? It's right on the border with China. I know they were attacking other cities at first but it really should have had at least 2 and probably 3 units protecting it. :/

I left it with only an archer. I should have poprushed a spear before handing off (as I noted above), however, I usually don't like to do stuff like that on turn 10. I thought the warning at the end of my turns was enough to get the message thru and to move the axeman from Munich over to Hamburg but it wasn't, sorry

 

[Mark1031]

I am back. Ouch the loss of Hamburg is tough. I think we should wait on culture for a while and get a military up, take back hamburg and make peace. The AI is no puch over in civIV and they can smell weakness. Will have to reassess culture after the retake.

 

[Rince]

I left it with only an archer. I should have poprushed a spear before handing off (as I noted above), however, I usually don't like to do stuff like that on turn 10. I thought the warning at the end of my turns was enough to get the message thru and to move the axeman from Munich over to Hamburg but it wasn't, sorry

Of course i realized that we need defenses in the west. We simply had too many units in the east. It took them very long to get to hamburg. Moving the axeman from Munich would have left Munich itself undefended.

As i said, i think you held up great against the attacks. I think the loss of Hamburg is the result of our small army having to fight in a two front war.

Anyway, here comes the rest:

T6: Luckily, the already badly wounded enemy archer in Hamburg doesn't get reinforced this time! I promote both spears outside the city with "city raider" and attack. The first one already takes out the occupant and we regain the city .

As you can see, the Great Library is still here and so are the specialists:

I set production to walls.

The enemy warrior deep in our empire gets killed by a war elephant.

Frankfurt: Barracks --> Crossbow.

T7: Mao lands 4 horse archers near Frankfurt! Another one appears near Hamburg.

I don't attack them. Worst they can do is destroy our cow farm.

T8: He attacks with the horse archers. They all die quickly thanks to our spears. One of our brave units dies though.

Mao now finally wants to talk. I offer a peace treaty and he is willing to pay 20 gold for it! Deal!

Stuttgart: Spear --> Spear.


T9: We (re)gain access to horses. Hamburg finishes it's walls and starts work on barracks.

T10: Hamburg in now well defended, 4 Spearmen and 1 War Elephant.

Munich: monastery --> market
Essen: library --> galley
Berlin: angkor wat is due in 9.

I tried several times to make some deals with Philosophy but nobody made a good offer like Engineering for example.

Some stats:

Our empire:

Glad to give the game over to jameson:

mark1031 --> on deck
Shillen
Nerovats
grahamiam
Rince
jameson --> up next

Greetings,

Rince

 

[jameson]

I see it; will most likely not be able to play before Saturday evening though so if Mark wants to pick it up first I wouldn't mind a swap.

Good job on fighting off the Chinese . Regardless of us being at peace now, it's probably a good idea to build up our military a bit more right now. Hopes of Hamburg getting to legendary culture status seems well and truly shot now anyway after the surprise attack.

 

[Mark1031]

We can wait as I have 3 other games I'm up in as well as RL catching up.

 

[jameson]

In that case, I got it .

 

[Shillen]

The great artists are gone. We had two of them merged in the city.

 

[grahamiam]

Of course i realized that we need defenses in the west. We simply had too many units in the east. It took them very long to get to hamburg. Moving the axeman from Munich would have left Munich itself undefended.

well, this is a learning experience for all of us, i'm sure, so take this for what it is. imho, we definitely should have stopped building C.I., switched to a spear, and pop rushed it. It would only have delayed the wonder by 1 turn. Munich was well behind the lines and the axe could have moved over as
well. The defense of Frankfurt during your turns (2 archers and 1 spear vs 4 HA's) shows how well spears do against horse archers and how much they could have helped. Also, (and I'm not trying to rub it in here, just trying to disect the situation so we all can learn ) we should have upgraded the archer to a crossbow (str 3 vs str6)

With 3 defenders, China would probably not attack Hamburg, but instead try to bypass and go to Munich, thus running into our other units coming from the east as well as any units Munich had built (instead of finishing a monastary). Tactically, this could have been prevented, even with the small amount of troops.

 

[Rince]

I agree that i most probably could have prevented Hamburg from being captured. But in hindsight it's always easy to say what should have been done.

Upgrading is difficult since we are very low on cash.

Rince

 

[Shillen]

Yeah learning experience. Just I agree with grahamiam that it could have been prevented. Not blaming you or anything it's just you make it out like it was just something that couldn't be stopped, when I don't believe that's true. It's alright, we're still in good shape to pull out a win. Should we decide whether to scrap going for culture victory or what? Culture would be very difficult at this point, IMO. But winning through military or space race wouldn't be too hard.