Rat 24 - AWE Training Game

[TheOverseer714]

I like dot map #2 better. We could always move off the Iron later if we had to, but 1 tile is not gonna make or break us. I think those mountains may need roaded and garrisoned to avoid them being bases for the enemy. I was able to lower the lux slider to 0% to help the budget, but we need more luxes to keep it low.

 

[gmaharriet]

Ok, I've completed my pre-flight and I'm ready to begin. I'll check back in 2 or 3 turns for any additional suggestions and certainly after writing is completed if I get that far.

 

[gmaharriet]

I just completed turn 3. The English have established Newcastle just S/E of OUR silks. I can either settle aggressively on the originally planned hill next to the silks, or on one of the other two proposed sites...the iron hill or the eastern site on the river.

In gmawanda are 2 spears, one vet and one elite, plus 3 archers, one elite, one healthy vet and one 3/4 vet. The v-spear just behind gmawanda is covering 3 workers who have completed a road and can move next turn toward whichever direction we choose to settle. Our settler is currently in Greebley River.

I'm VERY tempted to go ahead and settle on that hill by the silks, but I have no idea how much culture the English have or our danger of it flipping. Well, this IS a training game, so I'm asking our experts for advice. Here's a screenie of the situation.

Spoiler :

 

[ThERat]

I would settle aggressive and then once we have a stack of archers/swords, take out that city. This early flips shouldn't pose a problem

 

[gmaharriet]

Thank you!!! That's what I wanted to hear.

 

[gmaharriet]

Rat24_1100_BC

Turn 0 Preflight:

Military:
Warriors 4
Archers 6
Spears 4
Non combat:
Settler 1
Workers 6

Cities:
Salamanca=>archer, 3 turns
Rat Falls=>Archer, 5 turns after giving mined BG to Greebley River
Greebley River=>palace(GLib pre-build), 46 turns, growth in 4
Alleniel=>archer, 1 turn - changed to v-spear in 1
Aabras Folly=>worker, 3 turns - changed to r-warrior for MP in 3, growth in 7
Cattansaraugus=>barracks, 10 turns - changed to r-archer in 1
Gmawanda=>rax, 15 turns

Treasury:
21gp, -2gpt

Press <enter>

IBT - Chinese r-warrior moves next to gmawanda. Alleniel spear -> archer in 10, Catta... archer -> worker in 5.

1) - 1075_BC Kill Chinese warrior with v-archer, move wounded e-archer to gmawanda to heal in safety.

IBT - English establish Newcastle just S/E of OUR silks.

2) - 1050_BC Northern workers complete roads and 2 move to iron mountain. Southern workers complete mine and move south to road.

IBT - Salamanca archer -> settler in 5, Aabra's Folly, r-warrior -> worker in 5

3) - 1025_BC Southern workers complete road to gmawanda, northern workers begin roading iron.

IBT - Greebley River grows to pop 4, Palace in 36.

4) - 1000_BC Move settler to Alleniel and some units toward the front. Spear and 3 workers move south of gmawanda to begin forest chop and roading.

IBT - Rat Falls archer -> archer (iron should be hooked up before archer completes and will change to a sword.)

5) - 975_BC Settler moves to gmawanda. Workers begin forest chop and road.

IBT - Chinese want to talk. I don't think so. English r-warrior moves toward gmawanda. Catta.. worker -> warrior.

6) - 950_BC Workers complete iron road, at the same time connecting the dyes. Settler and another spear move to forest south of gmawanda. Archer builds in Alleniel and Rat Falls changed to swords.

IBT - English r-archer joins r-warrior near gmawanda. Salamanca settler -> spear. MM Rat Falls to use Salamanca's mined wheat for a couple of turns to shorten sword build by a couple of turns without slowing Salamanca's growth or spear build.

7) - 925_BC Settler and 2 workers move to plains next to dyes and settlement hill, covered by a spear. New settler heads toward choke area. All of our citizens are VERY happy having 2 lux and the slider continues at 0.

IBT - English warrior and archer move right next to gmawanda. Aabra's Folly worker -> r-spear

8) - 900_BC Move settler in position on hill next to dyes with spear. Begin roading plains tile to settler with workers covered by a spear. Decide to risk letting English units attack fortified spears in gmawanda, rather than risking an attack on them on a forest.

IBT - English warrior suicides on spear in gmawanda. English archer suicides on spear protecting workers. English begin building Pyramids.

9) - 875_BC Overseer's Chunk established on hill -> walls in 20. Wounded 1/4 spear returned to gmawanda to heal (rax due in 1). Worker stack is a bit out of phase after the last forest chop, so 1 covered by v-spear and 2 moved to road to iron hill and covered by e-spear, leaving 1 wounded spear and 4 archers in gmawanda...I'm not happy about this.

IBT - Chinese r-horse moves on top of iron hill and another toward Overseer's Chunk, and an English r-archer and an r-warrior move to the mountain between Overseer's Chunk and Newcastle. gmawanda rax-spear.

10) - 850_BC move last southern worker to join the others under the e-spear and the other v-spear to Overseer's Chunk. Leave settler in gmawanda, which is farthest from the enemy units, but it still has movement, as do the archers there, but they are too distant to attack enemy units. Spears are all fortified in preparation for attacks. Lowered sci slider to 60%, 13gp in treasury and +3gpt, writing still in 2. Palace due in 30.

Notes: There are 2 swords and a spear due next turn in our core, but they won't be able to reach the front in time to deal with enemy attacks. Greebley, I'm sorry to leave you with 4 enemy poised for attack...it had been relatively quiet until now. I'm looking forward to your detailed log of how you handle this, because I'm at a bit of a loss.

Screenie:

Spoiler :

And the save:

 

[Ansar]

Well, this certainly proves me wrong about the AI not using horsemen in AW.

I'll edit this post later. It's 2 AM here and I can't comment while I'm half asleep.

 

[Greebley]

They definitely use horses when they have them and don't have Iron.
On the bright side it means if we can deal with China we will get our UU.

I got it.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn:
I switched Cattansaragus to a worker rather than a Warrior. We don't need more warrior at this point. They will cost us 1 gpt - AW you almost always end up having more units than you can have for free.

Same with the Spear in Aaraba's Folly. It would be a regular Spear. Since we only have limited numbers of units we want vet only. Switch to a Barracks.

Decide I want to get some Swords in the capitol before we go for more Spear. Spear is an ok choice, but after connecting iron, I tend to make Swords for a little while before building Spears. I will probably build 2 Swords in each town and then put one of the 3 towns on Spear again.

In terms of military:
We have a Spear guarding 3 workers that can be attacked by a Horse. For this case I think we should move an Archer onto the stack. This does 2 things.

First, with two units on the square, we cannot lose the Workers because only 1 unit can attack. I find I use this strategy on a fairly regular basis - A city cannot fall if there is one more defenders than possible attackers(until tanks or Cossacks) Fairly obvious, but worth remembering. I have saved a city from Cavalry because I moved in a regular Warrior. Of course sometimes it is not worth it or you don't have enough units, but in this case we do.

Second, if the Horse wins, then we will have an Archer that can attack it and will likely kill it. Otherwise the Horse could retreat.

Similarly we have 2 Spear in the town threatened by 2 Warrior and a Horse. We can move Archers into the city.

I keep an Archer and the Injured Spear in the gmaWanda.

I also redistribute some of the units in our Core to send a few more forward toward the front. We have not seen boats yet, so they are pretty safe at the moment. We want to take out the English town and more units forward makes that easier.

The AI isn't very good at landings - and tend to first land single units. If the AI was any better then this strategy would be bad. When we do see a boat, I suggest at least one sword should be retained in our core to handle landings.

The picture below shows how I moved the forces.

I double check to see if we could get writing in 1 at 100% but we can't.


IBT: China decides not to Attack. One Horse is on a Mountain
Rat Falls: Sword->Sword
Alleniel: Sword->Sword
CattanSaraugus: Worker->Barracks (not sure what to build here, but barracks for now).

825 BC: After I use the Elite to kill one Warrior, I am in the position in the picture below. I have two options, I can attack or defend. I don't want to just attack 2 because the last Horse would kill one of the attackers and I don't have a Spear to cover. Attacking has the problem of the Horse in the mountains - that battle I might lose as it is nearly even. However, I think the Chinese Horse are going to both go for Gmawanda which is also nearly even odds for two battles. Therefore I think attacking seems best. Note there is a risk of more Chinese Horse that could reach one of the Archers.

So I attack the Archer on the mountain first and win. It takes 2 Archers to kill the English Archer in the forest, and then I lose my final Archer attacking the Horse in the Plains. So two Archers lost attacking def 1 units=terrible RNG (RNG is random number generator - i.e. terrible luck). The Archer that defended the Spear with the Workers covers the 1 hp Archer on the mountains.

I sometimes hate Archers, they can be so pathetic. Fortunately, there is a sword almost there.

IBT: Surviving Chinese Horse retreats. Archer steps onto the Mountain next to our city. We are going to want to put a unit on that mountain so the AI doesn't get the better defense all the time.
We get Writing. Math is 12 turns and Lit is 18 at + 2 gold and 10, 15 at -2 gold (we have 19 gold)
Capitol: Sword->Sword. I could go for Settler, but by letting our Capitol grow in size we have more shields which means faster Settlers and swords.

800 BC: Greebley River is about to grow so we could get Palace in 24 turns . The 28 however seems better for timing which means we can give up the 2 shield BG back to Rat Falls and speed up the next Sword.

Also moved some units to the mountain for a better view of incoming troops from the west.

IB: Chinese Horse continues to retreat. Acher moves forward rather than Attack.

775 BC: Attack Archer with our Elite Archer and win. Move first sword to mountain with Spear and Archer near Newcastle.

The Spear to the East is the one I mean:

IBT: 2 English Archers Spotted in the East. We can handle with our own Archers.

750 BC: Attack Newcastle with Sword and kill a Spear. I didn't attack with the Archer yet because if I injure a Spear rather than kill it, it will just heal. It is better to wait until we have more attackers so an injured unit can be killed.

IBT: Archers Advance to Gmawanda.

730 BC: Two of our Archers kill the 2 English Archers.
Hold off attacking Newcastle for one more turn as we get 2 more Swords at full health - the Sword that attacked is at 3 hp and better not attacking this turn.

IBT: Capital: Sword->Sword More swords for an offensive seems good to me. When the Capitol get closer to size 6 it can build the settler.

710 BC: Built a town, Othniel's Iron Fist on top of the Iron for the hill bonus. Since I am not building Settlers at the moment I renamed Catta-whatever to Ansar's Tiedye Shop since it is on the Dyes and to complete the trend.

Note on the dotmap #2 the final town was 4 away from Overseers Chunk. I would move it to within 3 (so one square closer from overseer).

I attacked and razed Newcastle - the first Sword killed the only defender.

IBT: Chinese Horse shows Up

690 BC: Kill Horse with Elite Archer. Start advancing toward China.
Raise Lux until Silks are connected for Capitol Happiness (we are currently roading them).

IBT: No enemy movement

670 BC: Spear on a mountain to watch Chinese. Lower lux and science - still getting Math in 3.

IBT: Spot Chinese Settler, Spear. Another English Archer.

650 BC: Kill Spear and capture our first two foreign Workers. There is an English Settler, Spear here just beyond the Chinese. They may settle though so we may not get any Workers from them.

IBT: English settle Oxford next to us.
Salamanca: Sword->Settler. We are finally size 6

630 BC: Lose a Sword taking out Oxford. Elite Archer kills injured Spear.

IBT: 2 English Spear and Archer are spotted.
Chinese Archer Spotted.

610 BC: Move away from Chinese Archer. It is on a mountain. If it follows we can attack it in the plains.

Notes:
We lost the early Archers and the Sword at the end.

A side effect of letting the Capitol grow was we got tech much faster. Math started at 12, but we got it in 9 I think.

We have several Spear on mountains. I like doing this if the enemies don't have Swords. The one next to the Chinese town make it impossible for the Chinese to improve the city(AI send workers to city if enemy within 2 or 3). There is an Spear near what is likely to be the Chinese Capitol. Finally there is a Spear watching the direction of the English. Without Swords the AI is unlikely to attack these mountain Spear.

We have an attack stack, but I don't consider it big enough to go after the Chinese Capitol. There is a strong reason to want to attack the Chinese first, that is they have Horses that we want.

I am roading the mountains to help with defense. I realized after I did this that this wasn't the best move. Instead I should have started getting Irrigation to our cities. I think we want to irrigate all the way back to our Capitol. There are 3 more workers for this task heading away from our Core.

I would keep Chinese cities!. The chinese are feeling the effects of war and we have more culture than they do with our one temple. With us attacking them, they will not build any culture at all. Saving some settlers by taking their cities will help us expand faster. The chances of a flip will be low to non-existant (especially if we starve the cities to size 1).

For the Capitol it can be at 10 Shields at size 5 or 6. If we prefer we can keep it on Sword rather than the Settler. I would like to expand at least a little and chose the Settler, but many ppl would probably keep it pumping out Swords for the Chinese war. If we do go this route, then keeping all chinese cities is mandatory, IMO. Problem is that they will tend to drop to size 1 and autodestroy.

Greebley River will grow in 2. At that point I would MM for Shields to hurry the Palace/Library to be as close to when we get lit as possible (doesn't need the 2 food it has now). We could bring it closer to when we get Lit by giving it the BG from Rat Falls.

From the following picture it looks like we may be able to set up additional chokes. Note the water to the East of us. English seem above this water while the Chinese Beneath. It is something to consider when we expand past the choke.

Picture:

 

[gmaharriet]

Great turns, Greebley! Thank you so much for the details on your reasoning behind what you were doing. I've read several of the AW games played by you and ThERat, could "see" differences, but without understanding the "why". This has a very different feel from a regular semi-peaceful game.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Why not learn from the best? I think TheRat and Greeb are THE experts on AW and they are good teachers to boot. I'm glad to be a part of this, I'm already starting to think better on military operations in my solo game. I need this, I think I'm still more of a builder. Gotta be a better war-monger to survive at higher levels.

 

[Ansar]

I'll look over the save tonight and start playing.

Probably done by tomorrow.

 

[Othniel]

Excellent work, Greebley. This game is progressing quite nicely!

Permit me a few detailed questions/comments from your log:

Preturn:
I switched Cattansaragus to a worker rather than a Warrior. We don't need more warrior at this point. They will cost us 1 gpt - AW you almost always end up having more units than you can have for free.

Does the offsetting reduction in lux slider from using reg warriors as MP justify their existence? I know that right now we have very happy people, but that has to change at some point.

Built a town, Othniel's Iron Fist on top of the Iron for the hill bonus.

Alleniel and Othniel's Iron Fist...TWO cities named after me! I am truly blessed and favored among the nations!

A side effect of letting the Capitol grow was we got tech much faster. Math started at 12, but we got it in 9 I think.

This was a good move. Our plethora of luxes is allowing the bigger cities to stay happy, which is good for us. At this point, I vote to throw out my antiquidated settler-factory spreadsheet.

I am roading the mountains to help with defense. I realized after I did this that this wasn't the best move. Instead I should have started getting Irrigation to our cities. I think we want to irrigate all the way back to our Capitol. There are 3 more workers for this task heading away from our Core.

Yep...and hmmm. Irrigation won't do us much good except for the cow and the plains until we switch to Monarchy. Just observing as I know you know that.

For the Capitol it can be at 10 Shields at size 5 or 6. If we prefer we can keep it on Sword rather than the Settler. I would like to expand at least a little and chose the Settler, but many ppl would probably keep it pumping out Swords for the Chinese war. If we do go this route, then keeping all chinese cities is mandatory, IMO.

My opinion is to keep the capital on a regular settler cycle. I think we'll still be ok on number of swords but I'm not an AW veteran. I DO think we should keep the Chinese cities regardless.

Greebley River will grow in 2. At that point I would MM for Shields to hurry the Palace/Library to be as close to when we get lit as possible.

Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, our Palace pre-build is only 300 shields because we don't have enough cities yet to bump it to 400. That means we'll still have a ways to go once we switch the pre-build to the GLib.

From the following picture it looks like we may be able to set up additional chokes.

Could you specify further because this wasn't totally clear to me. Did you mean a kill zone using the mountains?

 

[Greebley]

Does the offsetting reduction in lux slider from using reg warriors as MP justify their existence? I know that right now we have very happy people, but that has to change at some point.

I think having some MP is worthwhile. The tricky part is how many. However, when we get Pikes, the Spears we own will essentially become MP's. Cash tends to go toward research not upgrades. Additionally, we have a lot of coastal cities which means we may end up needing a decent defender for them. For these reasons, I felt we had sufficient for now. Having 3 Lux also probably contibuted to the decision. So its hard to really say. Building cheap warriors rather than temples later does have some merit and I think if we had 0-1 Lux, the warrior would have been a better choice.



-------------

I didn't realize Allenial was named after you so ya you get two towns.

For irrigation, we have some plains up north that could use water plus faster growing towns by irrigating the cow seems reasonable to me - it means we can pump out settlers faster. The real cities that need it are the ones below the choke of course. In any case it will take some time to get water up north and the GLib will hopefully get us to Monarchy - though we need to meet other civs to really take advantage of it. China is too war torn to be a tech leader.

Palace goes to 400 at 2/3 OCN, but I always forget what the OCN is. In any case I don't think we are close - we probably need 11-14 towns or so?

As for the choke comment, it really depends on the shape of the water to the East. But if we put a city on the square the stack with 3 swords is on, we have separated the English from Chinese. These cities or ones a bit farther north can handle the English while most of our troops are south going after China. Of course if that is just a small lake it won't do us a lot of good, but it would do some good at least at first.

So a 3-4 city wide choke I guess from our current choke to the lake to the east.

 

[Greebley]

I thought I woud try writing a bit about Armies in AW.

Because armies have so many hit points, they can make attacks that would likely kill a normal unit. For example, if a Pike was on a hill it could pillage and there were insufficient Catapults to bring it to 1 or 2 hp, then it is likely at least one sword would die killing the Pike. The army has enough hitpoints that it will kill the pike with very little chance of dying.

Their extra movement point allows them to travel farther and so are more likely to be able to reach where you need them.

They have enhanced attack and defense. The way it works is this: Sum up their attack and defense of all the units in the Army and divide by 6 (before cavalry). For example, a sword army with 3 swords is (2+2+2)/6=1. That means they get +1 defense and defend at 3 instead of 2. Their attack is (3+3+3)/6=1.5. I am unsure if this rounds down so the attack would be 4 or 4.5 With 4 swords we have (3+3+3+3)/2=2 or +2 attack. Because of this bonus Armies will generally have the best attack and defense of any unit in addition to their hit points After Mil Trad and the Mil Academy is built, you divide by 4 instead. So a cavalry army is (6+6+6+6)/4=+6 attack. If you figure it out size 4 armies have double their listed attack and defense after you own the academy. I think I got all this from some strategy article.

The ability to pillage without using a movement point up and since healthy armies aren't attacked, it is definitely possible to send them into enemy lands and cut vital resources and pillage as you go.

Another very important use of armies is to defend stacks outside of cities. When an army is safe from attack is a bit complex, but the number of AI units that can attack an army is not considered. So even if there are a 100 units next to an army that could kill it eventually, they generally won't. I will discuss when an army is relatively safe and when it is in danger below. The point is that any units under the army are safe. For example,

1) you want to bombard an large enemy stack. Using the Army as cover, then it doesn't matter how big the stack is, you can move out your Cat, Trebs, etc and bombard, and then cover them with an Army.

2) You want to build a road on a given square, but there are lots of enemies all around. Covering workers with an army will allow you to do it. In Gr18, this is the only way to build roads to support new towns. Since it takes 2+ turns to road (move on, road), I often combine roading with letting the Army heal. I can also be combined with the Army attacking a nearby stack. Sometimes the workers follow the Army(when army does move off the road saves a movement point), sometimes the Army follows the workers (when you want roads in key locations).

3) Covering an attacking unit or units. If you can't make an attack because the AI will attack back, an Army can cover the attacker and often attack itself.

4) Covering an Injured Army. The AI will target armies that lose too many HP. Covering an Army with an existing one can save it. It is also better to make a more risky army attack before you attack with an Army that could cover if the hit points drop low.

So when is an army safe? As I mentioned it is complex, but there are basic guidelines:

1) An army in a city is never safe from attack. I have seen a Warrior attack a Modern Armor Army.

2) If an AI's attack is 4x the armies base defense, the Army is not safe. In other words an army with defense 1 such as an Archer Army will be attacked and often killed by an MDI or Longbow. Defense 2 Armies such as swords will be attacked by Sapahi. Defense 3 is safe until Tanks. Note that terrain does figure in, if Def 2 armies stick to mountains and hills, they will not be attacked by Sapahi. I once played spain with conquistador Armies (def 2) pillaging the Ottomans. They were left alone in if they stopped in the hills or mountains, but I lost one trying to cross the plains.

3) A healthy army will usually not be attacked by health units whose attacks are 3x the base defense. Once the army starts losing hp then they can be attacked by these units. For defense 1, this means meeting a sword when damaged can kill it. For Armies with defense 2, cavalry, Geurillas, Infantry all are attack 6. It is hard to put an exact hp count on when the army is safe from these units. It depends both on whether there are 3 or 4 units in the Army, whether the Mil Academy is built, as well as the terrain. My memory tells me that these def 2 armies are safe if they have 10 hp or more no matter what. Later in the game with Mil Acad and 4 unit armies, I think they are safe to with 8+ hp.

4) Armies with 6 hp are safe from units whose attacks are 2x the base defense. This is sword, MDI armies with MDI and Longbow and Knight Armies with 4 units are usually safe vs anything until Tanks if they have 6+ hp. If you have only 3 then try to stay at 8+ hp just to be safe.

5) 2-4 above work well when on your own continent with the AI able to reach your cities. When assaulting another continent the AI will under certain cases attack even if they don't have good odds. The one case this is especially true is if they own the whole continent. There was one SG I was reading where an army that had been pillaging for centuries was suddenly attacked and destroyed out of the blue. It happened when the last city on the continent fell to the attacking AI. So if the AI owns the entire continent, beware. Armies may not be safe.

6) There are other times they attack armies near their cities, seemingly at random when on another continent. In one case, there were 3 def 2 armies that got attacked and destroyed by longbows. The island had their civ and one other AI on it. The Armies were hurt - about 8-10 hp. These armies had already razed several cities without being attacked. I haven't found a good "rule" for when they do this - just be aware that invading other continents can lead to more attacks than defending your home. It may have something to do with being the easiest target, but that alone isn't sufficient (armies can be safe on other continents especially at full health).

7) If an army captures a city but is in danger of being attacked by larger number of units, disbanding the city will keep your Army alive (assuming enough HP).

Building armies:
I generally like using the first leaders for Armies until 3 and then tend to use the 4th for rushing Pentagon. Heroic Epic can be rushed if you hit the Army limit or it can be built by hand.

I try to avoid building defense 1 Armies. They just don't last especially in SG's. They lose some hit points and some sword kills them. Or a MDI or Longbow. If you do build one you need to think about defending it. Only if you get a leader very early or have no iron, do I recommend def 1 armies.

I think one of the primary reasons I like going for Knights is that you get Speed 3 Defense 3 Armies these are usefull even with Cavalry roaming about.

Once Cavalry is available, def 2 armies do better in groups of 2 or 3 with one army maintaining higher HP.

Purely defensive armies can be useful, but have their own issues. One big problem is that the AI will often just avoid attacking it by going around the city its in. The one time defensive armies are good is when invading other continents. The idea is to lure the enemy into attacking you on good terrain - a city with rushed walls on a hill for example.

Ok this is getting long so I will stop here.

 

[Ansar]

Othniel, could we swap?

 

[Aabraxan]

I thought I woud try writing a bit about Armies in AW.

. . . .​

Ok this is getting long so I will stop here.

But it was very educational. Thanks.

 

[ThERat]

Greebley, thanks for the lenghty and nice explanation about armies. I hope it will help those, who aren't that familiar with them.

We could also have more 'lessons' about tech sequence and railroads and their peculiarities. Maybe later on in the game.

Currently, we are progressing nicely and I would try and expand towards the Chinese as they do have horses and that's what we need. If we could geet some horses and trigger the GA to speed up the GLib, it would be a great boost.

 

[ThERat]

The Roster:

Greebley -
ansar - swap (or skip?)
Othniel - up
ThERat
Aabraxan
TheOverseer714
gmaharriet

 

[gmaharriet]

Greebley, That would make a wonderful article for the War Academy. Even though you wrote it with AW primarily in mind, many of the principles would remain the same in any game with a lot of warfare.