Mump1 - AWDG Standard Pangaea

[Mumpulus]

Patch: 1.22 C3C
Level: Demigod
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Pangaea (70% Water)
Climate, Temperature, Age: all Random

Civilization: Random - we got the Romans
Rivals: all Random
Barbarians: Random
AI Aggression: Normal

Options all set to default values

Variant: Always War (No initial trading) - First start we get

We must declare war immediately (no trading first) upon contact, but can see if we are ahead or behind, look at graphs, etc.

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Players so far
Mumpulus
Own
nerovats
Mizar
One more slot open

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Our start after moving worker to BG and settler north (we started north of the tundra):

 

[Mumpulus]

I've been a long time lurker here (the SG forums mostly), and I've decided to finally start participating actively. No better way then kicking off a game.

Settings and early save are above, I'll wait to start playing until I get a team together. I imagine this game will be somewhat of a challenge. I think the GOMAW did a few AWD(G) games on standard pangaea, but other than that I can't find any games like that here, so I thought it was time to revisit this. I've always enjoyed lurking those AW games; I'm hoping that playing one will prove equally exciting.

Any takers?

 

[Own]

This looks very difficult. Bad start, AWDG, and pangaea (obviously hardest land type for AW).

I'll sign up though. I was part of an SG that beat AWDG on standard continents with the Celts and a good start, so I'm probably qualified.

Btw, welcome to CFC!

 

[oogieboogie]

I'm already in an SG that's basically going to end up playing close to an AWE. But I'll lurk and see how this rough start pans out. Welcome.

 

[Bucephalus]

lurker's comment:

Welcome, and good luck Mumpulus.

This is a tough start in a tough variant - you've obviously got some cajones.

I shall lurk with interest.

 

[Mumpulus]

Own and lurkers all around

This looks very difficult indeed, especially with the bad start. A lot will depend on the circumstances.

Since we can look at graphs and stuff, and because we can use all the help we can get, I took a look at who our opponents are:


Now, let's find out where they are, and pillage them to death with our UU

My initial thoughts on strategy:
I usually play very conservatively, playing defense as long as there's room to expand, and expanding pretty slowly. I tend only to pillage with armies, and very little at that (I prefer razing cities with them). In this case, with this start and as the Romans, I'd go a different way though.

We have a very good UU for pillaging, so if we have iron, we should try to take advantage of that to an extreme: get a lot of pillagers out early, and try to hold on at home. I'd even allow initial expansion to be slower for this. If we can thoroughly disrupt our closest neighbors, that will help us more than getting a quick start ourselves (with this start).

As long as the AI doesn't have swords (or Immortals ), I think we have to take a chance and go light on defense. Settle on good defensive locations and expand aggressively. We are in the middle of the map, but we probably won't have anything to our south. Let's just hope the land form turns out to be favorable.

So, our approach IMO would be:

• We start with warrior code, so after a couple of warriors (one for a little exploration, and one MP), let's build archers for active defense of our capital.
• Start on BW for research, and IW after that. If our exploring warrior finds some food nearby, found a second city asap, otherwise just keep building up some military.
• If we have iron, get it, then build legions to pillage the AI. If we don't have iron, I guess we'll have to archer rush someone. I don't think we can win this if we don't get an offensive going pretty soon. Attack one civ and play defense + pillaging against the others.

Obviously, we'll have to see exactly how aggresive we can be with the hand we're dealt... Some to the RNG gods is definitely required.

Any other thoughts?

 

[Mizar]

Just a few thoughts...
I have found out that you need an adequate start for Always War on Demigod/Deity.
I don't say that your start isn't playable, just not enough information.
The landscape, neighbourhood and the important ressources iron/horses (with the Romans iron is more of a priority) are as important as the 21 tiles of the capital.
If I was setting this up with a random start I would play until IW to make sure the game is at least playable. This sort of game is hard enough but without certain circumstances it is nearly impossible.

 

[Own]

I like to play agressive in AW, especially on DG. If we just play defense, the AI's SODs with just get bigger and bigger while we haven't gotten any more powerful. I don't like the idea of sending warriors to explore, unless it's just our imediate surroundings, I'd rather wait for the AI to meet us while we expand and build a military. That way we'll be able to handle them better so that continuing to expand is easier. I guess the only reason to meet them early would be to get them in war mode to slow them down, but it slows us down a lot.

Anyway, I agree with warrior code, we need archers early on, then BW - IW to legionairres. After that beeline to mathematics for cats.

As long as the AI doesn't have swords (or Immortals ), I think we have to take a chance and go light on defense.

I agree. We should expand and aggressively fish for leaders. In AW pangaea, armys are extremely important, as they eventually have to patrol huge borders of undefended cities while your core army takes out one civ at a time.

We are in the middle of the map

While we aren't in a corner, which is obviously very favorable, but we aren't in the middle, as the tundra means we're near the bottom coast.

We have a very good UU for pillaging, so if we have iron, we should try to take advantage of that to an extreme: get a lot of pillagers out early, and try to hold on at home. I'd even allow initial expansion to be slower for this. If we can thoroughly disrupt our closest neighbors, that will help us more than getting a quick start ourselves (with this start).

I like this idea, but every tile takes a legionairre two turns to pillage, while it takes a legionairre army one turn for two tiles. But a legionairre army is so powerful I wouldn't want to use it just to pillage. Also, at the early stages, AI defense is so weak, we might be better off just razing cities with an army or a stack of legionairres.

Just a few things extra:
- Workers are hugely important. Use them to build roads more than to improve tiles, as unit shuffling is very important.
- We need to build GL, so en route to mathematics we will have to get masonry, which we can use to prebuild it in a high shield town.
- Sometimes, the AI will send all there units to one city, which is very good. Just stack our guys there and let them get slaughtered by our cats and legions. But then we must expand away from that point. Placing another city next to that one would be disastrous. I found out the hard with in a solo AWD standard continents as the iroquois that was going very well. I had gotten a city that the AI was throwing everything at. I just stacked cats, spears, and MW's, and they stood no chance, I was generating leaders, all was going well, I even had lots of room to expand away from the front, but instead I plopped a city right next to that one. They instantly split up their forces, went imbetween the cities to pillage, and my weak defense couldn't handle it. Let's just make sure we don't make that mistake.

Edit: Forgot that we start with WC, so lets go BW - IW - masonry - mathematics - writing - lit.

 

[Own]

I tried a game very similar to this, and found some useful info as to the AI's wave patterns. You will meet one early, and it will shove about 6 warriors at you (or six archers if they're mil). After that they give you no action for a while, then they have a wave of about 3, then each wave slowly increases in numbers. This alters our strategy a bit here. Early on, we should build a good amount of archers and warriors, then after the initial assault, take advantage of the AI's absence and rapidly build workers and settlers.

 

[nerovats]

Since I'm only in the sgotm now I should have timeto join this one.
Seen worse starts then this, but AWDG will probably play over deity level. Don't like the ai we're facing, only the iro's are missing. Agree with science path. GL is a must if we can't trade first turn. I also think this should be played agressively. Try to not meet to many civs at once, preferably find one deal with them, find next. Hope AI will assist in that.

 

[Mumpulus]

So, Mizar, you interested in playing in this one? I can tell from Rat's RaR AW that you'd be a good addition to the team (And if any other members of the regular AW crews would join, I wouldn't mind either )

I would play until IW to make sure the game is at least playable.

We should definitely beeline to IW, I think everyone can agree on that. But as you state yourself, for this to work there are a lot of factors that need to turn out right (or at least not too bad). I've been solo playing random AWE starts on huge pangaeas lately, and although having iron makes things a lot easier, I've also had cases where I had no iron nearby, but where other circumstances made things easier again. But of course, you are right that we have to play a bit to see where this can go. I was planning to wait a bit until I had a few players .

With respect to Own's comments:

• Warrior exploration will of course be limited to the immediate surroundings (standard AW pattern)
• We're not smack in the middle, that's true, but most likely we'll still have three directions to defend from. That's actually the worst part of this start right now. Let's hope for the best with the lay of our lands. At least our river doesn't have too many weird bends...
• Pillaging with single units is cumbersome indeed. I was actually thinking "suppression" mostly, but my keystrokes came out all wrong.
• AI defense is weak at the start. The AI doesn't understand strategic positioning of troops, and in general just stacks a fixed number of defenders in each city. Hey, the AI knows where our troops are, but we do too . Anyone know how many per town? On emperor it's two, demigod will probably have a bit more? In any case, selecting a single opponent for a nice razing campaign is the way to go. Who knows, we may have someone so close by we can keep their cities.
• Agree on the worker comment. One of my flaws is I don't build enough in the early part of the game. Please remind me when the time comes .
• We need to get the GL, but it's not at all certain we'll be able to build it. I also tested a different AWDG start while waiting on this, and the Dutch built it well inside the BCs. Again, let's see what happens. In any case, we should go for it.
• Fully agree on the tech path: we have WC, and a GL helper with alphabet. BW - IW - masonry - mathematics - writing - lit it is.
• On the AI tactics: it's very important for the team to know what the AI attack patterns are, so please share them in your reports, preferably with screenshots run through your favorite paint program to show paths. In all the AW games I've been lurking here over the years, I've found that adding this kind of detailed information helps a lot, and is indispensable on the higher levels. (Sorry if I'm stating the obvious here.)
• And then finally on the wave patterns: exactly right. We'll have to build sufficient defenses early on, but after the initial rush, we mustn't be afraid to dial back the military a bit, or, alternatively, to reserve some part of the military to return the AI visit.

Ok, enough talk already. In accordance with Mizar's suggestion, I'll start playing this first thing tomorrow. I'm not going all the way to IW though, because that'll take so long I can mess this up before anyone else even gets a chance to play . I'll take the standard 30 turns or play to a natural breaking point.

For exploration, I'll send our first warrior to the gems mountain, then continue clockwise in a tight circle around Rome (that's what I'd like to call our first city, has a nice ring to it, us being Romans and all), hoping to dodge the early contacts.

You can expect an update in about 12 hours. If anyone cares to give more suggestions, wish us luck, pray to the RNG gods, or join this great game, please do not hesitate.

 

[Bucephalus]

Anyone know how many per town?

lurker's comment:

We had an early war in 'Rage against the Machine', played at DG; the AI cities were defended by just two Spears.

It's worth remenbering that the free units the AI gets at DG, are only Warriors, and these will form the early attacks against you.

 

[Mumpulus]

Since I'm only in the sgotm now I should have timeto join this one.

And welcome nerovats. Added your name to the roster. 1 or 2 more, and we have ourselves a full team. Definitely looking forward to starting this now.

Also agree with your comments. I'm hoping we start next to Persia and Japan, so we can keep them away from iron. I want to be as far away from the Maya as possible. Ansars will be interesting (I can't remember when I last faced those, but I don't think I have in AW), but against knight-like units, you want to strike preemptively anyway, so I think I'll like them, same for the Keshiks (which I have faced very recently). The Dutch have early muskets, but in this game everyone will have early muskets. And Sipahi are just plain cavalry in AI hands.

Thanks to Bucephalus for the quick number-of-defenders answer. So, demigod is no harder than emperor . This will be a walk in the park.

 

[Own]

@Mumpulus- seems like we're on the same page here. You're right, we may have to capture the GL. In the AWDG I referenced earlier, we missed the GL by just a couple turns, but won anyway. But this is pangaea, where the tech pace is ridiculously faster, so I really doubt it would work.

That may change our tech path a little. We probably, after math, want to beeline to monarchy.

Good luck Mumpulus in the first 30 turns. It's ok to get a new start if it's truly unplayable.

 

[Mizar]

I will join if a slot is still open.
Agree with Own, if the start is not playable, just roll another, happens often in AW.
With a good team and a lot of discussion/communication we stand a chance.

On the GL, I would try to grab it with a good-timed prebuild and try to capture it as plan B if we really miss it (this could happen if one of the AI starts it in a shield-monster town)

Don't like the ai we're facing, only the iro's are missing.

...and where's Monty and the Chinese

 

[Bucephalus]

On the GL, I would try to grab it with a good-timed prebuild

lurker's comment:

Can you really afford to set aside a shield-rich city for Wonder production in AW? Those shields would build an awful lot of units.

 

[Mizar]

Within my experience (solo games), yes. The GL is just too important.
AW is all about the balance between building improvements (and I count the GL as a MAJOR improvement) and building military.
Without the GL, you have to self-research early on (all those shield-expensive libs we will need much later AND we will have the money for unit-upgrade)

 

[Bucephalus]

Within my experience (solo games), yes. The GL is just too important.
AW is all about the balance between building improvements (and I count the GL as a MAJOR improvement) and building military.
Without the GL, you have to self-research early on (all those shield-expensive libs we will need much later AND we will have the money for unit-upgrade)

lurker's comment:

You have to factor in your starting terrain; Rome will never be up to much, and if you have a shield-rich city it will bear the brunt of unit production.

The GL, the aquisition of which is unlikely anyway, will be no good to you if you're dead.

Just my two-penneth, though.

 

[Mizar]

lurker's comment:
You have to factor in your starting terrain; Rome will never be up to much, and if you have a shield-rich city it will bear the brunt of unit production.

The GL, the aquisition of which is unlikely anyway, will be no good to you if you're dead.

No need to build it in the capital. As I stated before, one cann't judge a AW-starting position from the initial 21 tiles.
If we do well in the early expansion phase, we will have a decent chance to get it. (At least I get it most of the time)
If we don't have any city-sites with good production it will not be possible to win this variant anyway.

 

[Mumpulus]

Welcome Mizar.

I've played, and will post a report pretty soon.

Edit: still don't know if the start is playable. That might be construed as good news