Mump2 - AWDG Standard Pangaea

[Mumpulus]

@Buce: I don't feel like kicking off an entirely new start right now, so I'll play the Mizar save now. If that turns out to be unwinnable, your suggestions are surely something to consider.

So, I'd like to give this variant another try, but not before I get a few things off my chest. Now, I haven't even written a hundred posts yet, and already I'm doing two things that will probably be frowned upon, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to tell you what happened when I played other people's turns, and I am going to ask someone to consider dropping. Three things actually: this is a very long post.

I think this game was very winnable. ThERat played an awesome start, razing an enemy town super-early. That did it for the Iroquois and we were able to contain them very easily. Furthermore, we got very lucky with three nearby civs lacking all resources, and as soon as we saw this, we were able to pillage the one civ that did have resources very quickly. And finally, although we had a broad front throughout, there was the promise of a very nice choke to contain the more advanced and stronger civs while we would take care of our half of the pangaea.

When Rat said that he played his set despite having no hopes whatsoever to win this, I realized this game was over. Because of that, and because I didn't have anything particular to do today, I decided to replay this game starting from my last save. I wanted to make sure that the things that went wrong weren't attributable merely to bad luck. I played until 50BC, and attached the save to this post.

What was different:

• I continued the campaign in the northeastern holdings of the Iroquois, but kept unly Mauch Chunk.
• I didn't go for the Dutch. (They eventually built the GL in Amsterdam.) As soon as the Iroquois were done, I move the army south a bit to assess the situation. I raze one small Dutch town near our blue dot 3, then checked diplo to see resource distribution. The Ottos were the only dangerous party here too, so I sent the one army their way. I only got my second army a while later.
• I beelined to monarchy, and was able to revolt while not under any threat at all.
• I didn't found Ratae Corithingy south of the river so soon (but if you open the save you'll see I'm in position to do so right now)
• I also got lucky and had AI-AI wars (the Persians and Dutch I believe); still, even without that, the front would have been manageable (I often had troops to spare). I haven't seen any fighting recently, so I think they've made peace now.
• I got a third leader, which I didn't use to rush the FP, because the initial Ottoman MDI stacks were moving towards the lightly defended east, and I got nervous. The army you see covering the settler east was created just 2 turns ago. It turned out I could have easily done without that army (although it's convenient to cover the settler now, the new town would have been delayed otherwise). With our fast moving units, we actually have little trouble focusing our defense where it is needed.

Summary: we agreed on several things, like beelining to monarchy and not keeping the far away Iro towns. I also warned against pushing south too soon without roads, and I strongly suggested to build roads in the west. No-one seemed to disagree with that, but it was done differently anyway. If we are to win a game like this, we have to agree on a plan of action, and then execute that plan. An SG team can perform better than an individual for two reasons: (1) stronger players compensate for weaker players, fixing the things the weaker player did wrong in a previous turnset; (2) the team discussions leave little room for important things or little opportunities to be missed. I think the second factor is way more important, especially on the higher difficulty levels. But for the discussion to have any benefit, the plans have to be followed.

Then, upon opening the save, here is what I see:

• Two towns are rioting. Now, our furs have been cut, but this has not happened in the last IT (no units on the furs, enemy or ours (in case the pillager was killed this turn, there would be one there)).
• We are employing 5 clowns, none of them needed. We are employing 4 taxmen. We are employing 0 scientists.
• Yellow dot has not been founded. Instead, there is a new town 2 tiles from Eboracum, next to a volcano.
• We are building galleys in Agedincum and Lapurdum
• We are building reg spears in Curovernum and Glanum, two new towns in a region where I'd rather see one.
• Also building reg spears in HopeTown and Isca
• One more grassland has been irrigated. Although we no longer have the despotic penalty, we probably need production more.
• Eboracum is wasting food

Cubsfan, I had a bad feeling about this when you first asked to join, and sadly my fears have come true. It's so important to thoroughly know the game mechanics in the early game, and obviously you still have some things to learn. I think it would be better for you to learn a bit more with regular games on emperor before you move up to DG, let alone play AW on that level. I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, especially since I could have avoided it in a much better way at the very start.

I appologize if I have come on too strong just now. It is not my intention to spoil the fun for anyone here. And rest assured that I still had and have fun playing this game, no harm done at all. On to the next one

 

[Mumpulus]

@ThERat: I saw your question on SGLs earlier, but forgot to answer. Yes, SGLs are on. I always leave them on, and on two different occasions even got one in AWE standard pangaea games: in one game on Lit, in another one on invention or gunpowder (which is the reason why I don't believe in the GL on emperor, even in AW).

But I know the reasons for not enabling them, so if you or anyone else feels strongly about this, I'll gladly disable them if I have to roll a fresh start.

 

[Mizar]

Yea, we have already a start on hand if we chose to stay with the celts. Let's see if it turns out to be better in the long run than this one.
Go team

lurker's comment:
Have you considered Persia - Immortals are MI's for the price of a Sword; or maybe Greece - Hoplites defend like Pikes, for the price of a Spear.

Both would give you that all-important early advantage, and arguably have better trait combinations for self research.

Scientific is always nice to have in AW but I'm fine either way.
The 2 movement of the gallics is certainly worth the 10 extra shields as he can defend a lot of towns and that was exactly what was necesarry on my last turn, lots of shuffling around cause the AI threatened multiple cities.
Of course immortals or a defense-3 unit is also huge.

 

[Mumpulus]

I started a new thread with the Mizar start: Mump3 - AWDG Standard Pangaea, take 4