Phaedo's 1st basic skills training game: patience required

[Aabraxan]

Now I re-read that, it seems a little brusque; that was never my intention.

No worries. No harm done and no hard feelings. I was never bothered by its brusqueness. Truth is, I did miss the point. It's a lesson I won't forget.

Every critisism that I have made throughout this thread was intended to be constructive, to help you learn from the mistakes that thousands of players - myself included - have made and learned from.

And make no mistake -- they've been tremendously helpful.

I think you have done well in this game and, providing that you continue to learn, you have the potential to play at the highest level.

Thank you. As I said above, I think I've done decently, just not well. I'm continually amazed at the depth of this game. There's just a lot to learn.

 

[Aabraxan]

It's important to think ahead.

And to remember to cycle through towns occasionally, so that I don't forget to change old or outdated builds.

No no. The best way to learn is to play a game on a higher level than you feel comfortable with. We've learned a great many things in this game already: . . . [big long list] . . .

Looking over that list, I realized that I'd already forgotten some of the lessons, like the scout movement issue.

I saw your post regarding winning the game in 920 AD. Congratulations. Any idea when you finally chased the Romans off the second continent?

 

[Aabraxan]

@Phaedo & Mr_2_You: We've all commented that our MMing skills need work. Would you be interested in another TDG, this time focusing on MM skills? I'd be happy to set it up. We can sort out the details in the new thread, if you two are interested.

 

[mr_2_you]

@Phaedo & Mr_2_You: We've all commented that our MMing skills need work. Would you be interested in another TDG, this time focusing on MM skills? I'd be happy to set it up. We can sort out the details in the new thread, if you two are interested.

absolutely. i recently tried a solo emperor game and found myself overwhelmed by 2500 BC. clearly i need a new strategy. i'll be looking for that new thread.

 

[Salarakas]

I saw your post regarding winning the game in 920 AD. Congratulations. Any idea when you finally chased the Romans off the second continent?

I secured the two eastern islands a turn or two before clearing out the main continent. All the AI civs folded during the last 2 turns. I didn't make any deals with any of the civs as I saw no need for them. Fighting all 3 at once was easy as well as they had burnt all their excess units fighting each other. Because of this I only got one MGL and that was three turns before I won so it didn't help much.

 

[Elephantium]

@Phaedo & Mr_2_You: We've all commented that our MMing skills need work. Would you be interested in another TDG, this time focusing on MM skills? I'd be happy to set it up. We can sort out the details in the new thread, if you two are interested.

lurker's comment: I'd be interested in getting in on that game, too.

 

[Aabraxan]

@ Elephantium: noted. I haven't set up the thread yet, but PM me so that I don't forget to reserve you a place.

 

[D'Artagnan59]

Good news: I'm back.

Bad news: The save won't run on my computer.

 

[Bucephalus]

@ Phaedo:

Sorry mate, but someone else is going to have to take this; I'm limited for time, and to be honest, it's such a mess I can't generate the enthusiasm for the work needed to mount a cohesive military campaign.

 

[Phaedo]

No worries. I can't take it tonight but I will get to it tomorrow

 

[Phaedo]

As it seems up to me to take the next step, here I go.
The plan is to clear as many of the cities on the main beta continent as possible. With that in mind, I want to get as many cossacks as I can over there. My focus will be to max our gold and use that gold to rush units. I'm going to shut down our research (maybe do the lone beaker thing). I also plan to get into war with all the remaining civs. I know this means breaking the German deal but such is life. We don't need a rep and it ought to speed up the win that is a foregone conclusion.

1050AD T00
Step 1: Cycle through our empire and change builds and citizen allocation
After about an hour I changed a lot of citizens, changed settler builds to workers so as not to waste too many shields, changed almost all the gallion and frigate builds and MMed for food in corrupt cities. I don't know who did it but when a city has waste such that it is only producing 1 shield, there is no reson to mine anything around it. All the squares should be irrigated so that it can support specialists. Mines are just a waste of land and worker moves.
Stept 2: Drop science to 0% now +554gpt after some harbour rushes
Step 3: Declare war on Germany
Take two of the slaves working near Berlin. Move the stack of cannon into Kraut lands. Gather the cossacks on our continent and send them to our dispach point.

IBT Some skirmishes between our rivals. I wasn't aware they were all at war (I guess I should have checked the diplomacy screen)

1060AD T1
Finished the build changes and put most of the cities on wealth
Razed a Roman city in the north
THEN all the workers started moving all over the place. What the H#$& is goign on? They are on automate! Please, please, please please, please NEVER do that again. The workers that were going to focus on railroading our attack route and giving water to the cities we have on the beta continent just wasted all their moves. There were even workers on our original continent moving to tundra to do something. No wonder the improvements in our empire are a mess.
Raze the Roman city near New Berlin, move the rest of the cossacks to new berlin
Make a new army and move it towards the railroad
Raze the German city N of Sttugart
We have more than enough forces on the beta continent to win in the next 20 turns. I don't think I'll be able to do it but hopefully I'll clear the continent (maby not but most of it at least)

IBT Zzzzz

1070AD T2
Raze Leipzig
Finish loading an army and move it towards Berlin
Raze New Berlin(another island cleared)
Raze Washington
Raze Baltimore
Raze Heidlburg
Keep RRoading towards enemy cities on the beta continent
Found a bunch of cities to get rid of the settlers (we are at +567gpt now at least)
Start sending some gallions to the straights between the continent and the last populated island

IBT Nada

1080AD T3
Raze Miami
Keep railing and moving troops towards enemy cities. The cannon stacks are ridiculously slow so I decide to start sending them over to the small eastern island. Maybe the'll get there in 3 turns or so. Enough time to take out a city or 2 before the end of my set.
I set all the newly built cities to wealth. Partly for the coin (that we don't really need and partly bacause I can't be arsed to manage them +607gpt
Rush some harbours and cossacks

IBT The yanks take out 2 cossacks with a couple MI. I guess cossacks really don't defend well

1090AD T4
Raze Salsburg
Take Berlin just because Nikita Khrushchev wanted it so badly (dumb though as now I have to manage it)
Raze Frankfurt
Raze Detroit
Both the Americans and Germans are down to 3 cities each on the beta continent. See, we were ready for war

IBT

1100AD T5
Raze Hamburg
Raze Konisburg
Raze Munich and the Germans are off the main continent
Take Philedepphia so we can get Sun Tzu's and our units can heal faster
Raze Buffalo
American only have Huston left and I'm heading to the Eastern Island

IBT Zzzz

1110AD T6
The Americans are no more as Huston falls
Raze Bonn on the Island
Raise the lux slider as we have plenty of cash and we don't need any more units

IBT lots of we love the Czarina day and Mecca riots

1120AD T7
Raze a German city but I forget the name. Both the Germans and the Romans are down to 1 city each

IBT The Germans settle a city (I guess all they had was a settler)

1130AD T8
Raze the last German and Roman city and that seems to be it

Thanks everyone. I learned a lot for the game. A special thanks to Sal for pointing out the ins and outs of a settler pump and Buce for the military eye. I've included the save just befor the game wins if you want to check it out.

The last city

Our opponents

 

[Bucephalus]

Nicely done, Phaedo.

 

[Phaedo]

Thanks. It took about 6 hours to play the 8 turns. I think I was at it for about an hour and a half before I hit return for the end of turn 0.

 

[Salarakas]

Well done Phaedo. It's always amazing to see how quickly the AI civs fold when the human players unleash their wrath on them.

Bucephalus was right in that this was perhaps much too easy to be a really effective training game. This proved to be a walk in the park even with a very mediocre civ, choosing not to use the best save after the first 10 turns, poorly managed settler factory in the beginning, not going for chivalry/knights etc. In retrospect we should have picked a worse start.

Still, this is actually the first game I've finished in years. I almost never continue playing after I get railroads as in my normal games it's clear by then that there's no way of losing the game... it would just be butchering the AI units. It's fun I guess but it does get a bit tedious after a while. The things I most enjoy in this game are the rapid expansion phase in the beginning and the medieval wars with knights and cavalry.

Cheers for the game everybody

 

[Aabraxan]

Good job, Phaedo.

As to the galleon & frigate builds in the corrupt cities, I know that some of the builds were mine. As to the terrain improvements, however, I did not build any mines near totally corrupt cities. I'm not sure which cities you were talking about, but I'm going to bet that the mines were leftovers from other civs. I remember making mental notes that I'd have to send workers back around to irrigate over the mines.

Thanks, guys.

 

[Phaedo]

Sorry about that, I think I may have just been a bit frustrated at the beginning of the set and was a bit harsh. Actually, I'm not sure what I was talking about with the mines.

Although we did have more gallions than we needed, it was nice to have them and have them in place to get to the islands quickly as well.

Perhaps it wasn't the most challenging of games but I certainly learned a lot. It's too bad that GL trick never came off but all and all a successful game.

 

[Bucephalus]

It's too bad that GL trick never came off

But it's another string to your bow for another occasion.