SGFN-08: Random AWM Succession Game

[DWetzel]

I like a horse army right now, as a spear army would take too long to get to Persia to do any good. We need to get progress somehow, and an army might do that. We should load one horse in for mobility, as empty armies are painfully slow. Load 2 more after the voyage, and remember, 1 defense armies will be attacked, so always have a spear or 2 as cover in hostile areas.

Problem here is that we can't send the army alone (because, as you note, it'll be attacked, especially by Immortals), which means that we have to send some stuff with it. And if we do that, we'll effectively move at the speed of the slowest unit anyway. And we don't have a fleet (and won't have a sizable one) to transport units in quantity, even if we wanted to.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

I'm up! I can play a few turns a night and I'll post as I go.

A few thoughts preflight:
Are we going to go zero tech spending as currency isn't going to mean much and just let the GL bring us to MA? Once there, we can see what our free tech is and then decide whether to research or not. Alternatively, should we put some money to currency and maybe move to MA faster? I favor the first.

Plan for my turn set is evaporate the Dutch, build some horsies, a couple of vet galleys for coast guard work, move a force of cats, spears and horsies to the bottle neck to protect us from the Greeks and Persians and fish for leaders.

Question about the bottle neck. Pardon if it's newbish. I'm assuming we position a bunch of cats defended by spears on the mountain with horsies to kill redlined enemies then retreat back to the mountain. Do we need to drain the swamps or road them to be able to retreat back to safety?

Barbarosa is for an army, not to rush the FP? We already have a bunch of shields spent on it in Hamburg. Alternatively, we could rush the FP in Amsterdam, make it productive nearer the front and use the shields in Hamburg for a prebuild. I'm new to all war so I don't know how urgent an army is for our situation. A middle age wonder might be nice but I don't want to take Hamburg out of production too long.

It's late to start playing, so I'll await comments and dive in tomorrow.

 

[Lanzelot]

Are we going to go zero tech spending as currency isn't going to mean much and just let the GL bring us to MA? Once there, we can see what our free tech is and then decide whether to research or not. Alternatively, should we put some money to currency and maybe move to MA faster? I favor the first.

I'm pretty sure that within the time it would take us to research it, the AI will finish it, too. So we can save the money and still be as fast as by researching it ourselves. (Or at most 1-2 turns slower.) Just be patient.
Once we get to the middle age, things get different, though: tech prices are twice as high in the MA, end then I think waiting for the AI would slow us down to much. We should at least do some own research towards Invention (Longbows), perhaps even further on to Gunpowder. If we then see we have saltpeter, we could continue all the way to Military Tradition (Cavalry). Chivalry, however, would make no sense as we have no iron.

Question about the bottle neck. Pardon if it's newbish. I'm assuming we position a bunch of cats defended by spears on the mountain with horsies to kill redlined enemies then retreat back to the mountain. Do we need to drain the swamps or road them to be able to retreat back to safety?

Station just one spear on top of the mountain, so that no AI unit will go there and get the defensive bonus. Build a "canal town" directly on the Isthmus (so that at the same time it can be used by our galleys). Build/rush walls and barracks there, and then all the chokepoint units can fortify and heal there in safety. I think you won't be able to clear or road the swamp: the multitude of incoming enemy units will simply not allow this. But it doesn't matter: swamp only gives 20% defensive bonus, which is not much more than the 10% from grassland. And we don't need roads: just leave all units inside the town. Never attack the last remaining enemy unit, so that our units are never exposed outside the town. The chokepoint can then exclusively be manned with archers and cats, and we can keep the precious horsemen for the Greek invasion.

Barbarosa is for an army, not to rush the FP? We already have a bunch of shields spent on it in Hamburg. Alternatively, we could rush the FP in Amsterdam, make it productive nearer the front and use the shields in Hamburg for a prebuild. I'm new to all war so I don't know how urgent an army is for our situation. A middle age wonder might be nice but I don't want to take Hamburg out of production too long.

Barbarossa already is an army... (See turn log.) I had to convert it immediately, so as to not waste any following elite victories. Also I think the FP is not that important that we want to use a leader on it. Most of the players and lurkers seemed to aggree that an Army is the most important thing to get in an AW game. At the moment Hamburg can use a wheat tile once in a while and grow quickly. So building the FP by hand there should not take long.

It's late to start playing, so I'll await comments and dive in tomorrow.

Wait at least 2 more days, before playing! There are still too many open questions and the majority of the team has not yet discussed these things.

Also please check out all the core towns and see how I arranged the citizens and what needs to be changed each turn. For example Berlin, our most important town: instead of running it at 10 shields, 0 food constantly, I'm now running it in a 10, 7, 7, 6 cycle. That way it needs 4 turns for a horseman, instead of 3 turns, but at the same time it can pick up 2 food during 3 out of the 4 turns. I think it's important that we get our capital to size 9 or 10 in the long run. Then it will generate much more income and it can make 15spt, producing a horse every two turns. In the long run this will compensate for the turn we currently lose for each horse.
Leipzig remains difficult: it had grown to size 6 during anarchy, so for the next settler we didn't need food and I gave Hamburg both wheat tiles for the moment. That needs to be changed, once the settler is ready.

I actually kind of like the idea of a spear army, since spear army + horses are both move 2, which is handy. If we do go with a horse army, it would almost be better used to assault the incoming stream of units, freeing up our main attack force (cats + spears + horses, though archers work about as well in this situation) to go roaming off to Greece or Persia.

I think it is sufficient to man the chokepoint with a few spears, cats and archers. (After all, the units I had at Eindhoven for the last ten turns were sufficient to fend of the incoming stream, and if you and Overseer are right, the numbers should get smaller soon, once the Persian GA is over.) Then we can use our most powerful weapons (Army and horsemen) for Athens. (And I think for making any kind of progress against the Greek core, we need all the strength we can muster...) This leads me to your next point:

Problem here is that we can't send the army alone (because, as you note, it'll be attacked, especially by Immortals), which means that we have to send some stuff with it. And if we do that, we'll effectively move at the speed of the slowest unit anyway. And we don't have a fleet (and won't have a sizable one) to transport units in quantity, even if we wanted to.

I think these difficulties can be overcome. First of all I think 5 galleys should be enough. Land 9 spears and a settler on a hill. These should be able to hold out for the 2 turns until the second wave arrives. The second (or third) wave then contains the Army, and then wait 2-3 more waves before we break out of the beachhead towards Athens.
The Army needs to advance slowly with the rest of the stack anyway. I don't see any way of utilizing its speed. (Perhaps we can sometimes use it for pillaging and then returning to the cover of the stack.) The main asset of the Army is it's fire-power (12 HP and attack value of 3) and the ability to heal in enemy territory. With enough cats (or even trebs? If we are lucky, we might have trebs in a couple of turns, and the D-Day still needs a long time of preparation), that should be enough to grind down a Hoplite per turn.

Rather than a large quantity of settlers, I think Leipzig would be better placed to produce 2-turn workers to bring our other cities up to size 7 as soon as possible. (Obviously, we need a FEW settlers to replace the Dutch lands, but my guess is that we won't have a big breakout through the chokepoint any time soon, so getting larger and more productive cities should be a priority IMO.)

Good idea. Only problem with that: currently only Berlin and Hamburg can grow beyond 6. During my turnset I started an aqueduct in Frankfurt, but it'll still take a while.

Perhaps we should abandon the idea of capturing the remaining Dutch towns? I noticed that during my 10 turns, none of the towns have grown to size 2. But they should have, as ususally 10 turns is enough to grow once. So either the Dutch currently poprush during the interturn as soon as they hit size 2, so I never see the growth in my turn, or they have an entertainer in each town, or they work a forrest? In any case, "chase the capital" would slow us down too much I think. Just raze them and replace. Then Leipzig can still mainly concentrate on settlers (with the occasional worker to beef up Berlin & Hamburg), until we have the Dutch territory ICSed. By that time we may have enough aqueducts and switch Leipzig to 100% worker production. (Oh, and don't forget 2-3 combat settlers for the Greek campaign.)

 

[Sparthage]

I go away for one day, and we get an army. Go figure.

I'd suggest we fill the army with horsemen. Sucks about the Dutch deal though, that'd be one I'd have a hard time resisting in a non-AW game.

 

[TheOverseer714]

A horse army can pillage and return to the stack, doing a 'march to the sea' in reverse. We might get another army out of it with the attacks along the way. As far as the choke, there is a swamp to drain before we canbuild a town on it.

 

[Lanzelot]

As far as the choke, there is a swamp to drain before we canbuild a town on it.

Oh yes, I always forget about that...

On second thought, my plan for the chokepoint may not be that good after all: if there is a heavily defended town blocking the path, the AI may not keep sending their units that way. Perhaps it's better to setup the choke point on the mountain and keep an undefended town a couple of tiles behind that. As outlined earlier, this would keep attracking the AI units in big flocks, while we can implement D-Day on the opposite side of the continent at our leisure. All it requires is a road on the mountain (for the cats).
Setting up the canal town still has time until we actually go for Persia.
Only slight drawback is that we can't have barracks on the mountain, so we might need a few more units there, as healing is slower.

 

[DWetzel]

Oh yes, I always forget about that...

On second thought, my plan for the chokepoint may not be that good after all: if there is a heavily defended town blocking the path, the AI may not keep sending their units that way. Perhaps it's better to setup the choke point on the mountain and keep an undefended town a couple of tiles behind that. As outlined earlier, this would keep attracking the AI units in big flocks, while we can implement D-Day on the opposite side of the continent at our leisure. All it requires is a road on the mountain (for the cats).
Setting up the canal town still has time until we actually go for Persia.
Only slight drawback is that we can't have barracks on the mountain, so we might need a few more units there, as healing is slower.

That's usually the better way to do it. Or have a town with barracks and a few horses (which the AI will be happy to try to attack). Bombard for a couple of turns, then when the AI gets adjacent, attack and retreat.

 

[Lanzelot]

PS: splunge, one important point I forgot in the handover notes: I fortified one of our curraghs, because it is going to be attacked by a Persian galley next turn. Don't forget to unfortify it after the attack and continue scouting!

(That actually happened to me once in a GOTM... I fortified a galley in order to give it a better survival chance for a coming barb galley attack, then saved the game and continued playing a couple days later. By that time I had completely forgotten about that galley and it remaind fortified for a dozen more turns, before I finally realized that I still wanted to explore the world a bit... )

 

[splunge the 2nd]

Here's the turnset so far. No major happenings in the first 5 1/2 turns.
I have the capability at this point to wipe out the Dutch. Are we letting them live for any particular reason?
Mostly what I've done is built forces for eventual asault on the Greeks (I assume) and held on.
By the way, as this is my first SG, let me know if I'm writing too much or too little, and please be patient with my goofs.

Spoiler :

Turn 1: Immortal attacks spear SW Eindhoven, dies and spear promotes to elite.
Berlin spear>horse
Heidelberg 2 barracks>horse
Stuttgart cat>cat
Bombard Eindhoven to 1 and take it w/o loss. Gain a worker. Set population working fish as content.
Elite archer kills dutch archer with 1 health lost
Bombard Greek ship off coast, loses 1 and flees!

Turn 2
Persian stack approaches Eindhoven Immortal and 2 archers
Greek stack of horse and 2 archers moves adjacent to Eindhoven
Leipzig settler>worker
Eindhoven cat bombards Greeks, horse loses 1. Rush walls for 36 gold
Load horse into army and move north for shore patrol.

Turn 3
Persian stack moves away from Eindhoven. Going where? Attacking Dutch?
Greeks call, offering peace. We laugh! Greeks attack losing archers and horsie flees after losing 1. Single hoplite is approaching.
Amsterdam rax>horse
Rotterdam cat>galley
Eindhoven rushed walls>rax (healing)
Koln horse>horse
Aztecs built MoM
Cats in Eindhoven brings Dutch archer to 1. Don’t finish it off as too tempting for the Persian stack

Turn 4
Persian stack adjacent to Eindhoven, (not for long)
Viking galley approaching Konigsberg
Leipzig worker>worker
Konigsberg cat>galley
Aztecs are starting the Hanging Gardens
Bombard Viking galley to 1
Bombard Persian stack. Elite archers kill archers. Lose a full health elite archer to 1 health immortal who promotes, sigh. Elite archer kills him with 1 health lost.
Workers work

Turn 5
Hoplite and 3 Greek horses are approaching Eindhoven
Greek Galley near Utrecht
Hamburg goes into disorder. (Very sorry) I assume we’re not allowing reloads, so I move old warrior in to MP. If I didn’t mention it , sorry.
Sink health 1 Viking Galley which surprisingly approached our cost rather than running. No loss to our galley.

Turn 6
Greek galley unloads ***1 warrior!***
Greek attack approaches Eindhoven but only moves Hoplite adjacent, leaving 4 horses behind, awkwardly in range to attack any unit that kills the hoplite.
Berlin horse>horse
Leipzig worker>settler and shift some tiles worked with Hamburg to speed growth.
I take a break to take my daughter to lunch!

 

[DWetzel]

Looks fine at a cursory glance. And no, we want the Dutch completely obliterated. I think that we probably haven't got time for "chase the capital" in order to capture the Dutch cities.

One exception to that, I suppose--if they don't have any units scurrying about, we could leave Utrecht for last and capture that with units that are produced. I suspect we have our hands full enough in the south between finishing Dutch cities and dealing with incoming Persian and Greek units.

 

[GamezRule]

That's what I was kinda thinking too, Splunge.

 

[TheOverseer714]

You might separate what happens between turns from what you did, but its not that important. Killing the Dutch is like swatting a gnat at this point, do it as the situation permits. Be careful about exposing troops and remember a point removed with artillery can prevent an attack and cause a retreat.

 

[Aabraxan]

lurker's comment: Sorry to have been away so long, gang! Hope the game's going well. Has it been decided what to do with the army? Or did I miss something in the turnlogs about that? If it has not been decided, I'd reccommend a spear army over a horse army. Horse armies just die too easily, and if a horse army gets wounded, I wouldn't be all that surprised to see it attacked. I thought I saw that Immortals arrived at Eindhoven, and I'd guess that immortals just might attack a horse army. OTOH, I think they're less likely to attack a spear army. It's much better for hiding a stack of catapults and archers. Unfortunately, that arrangement becomes move-fortify for the army, which can get tedious. If you have horses, they can hide under it, as well, and those will all move at the same speed.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

I played turns 6 and 7 last night. I'll post a formal turn log when I'm done. I had to do a reload for a save SNAFU, not to undo an error.

I found a satisfying way to solve the horse army vs spear army debate. Why choose when you can have both (and I don't mean a mixed unit army!)

 

[Sparthage]

Does that mean what I think it does?!

 

[splunge the 2nd]

Yep! Popped a MGL while swatting invading horsemen!

 

[Sparthage]

Yep! Popped a MGL while swatting invading horsemen!

And now...
The smilies!

 

[Lanzelot]

Yihaa!!

Nevertheless, I don't see the usefulness of a spearmen Army. We want to do three things now:

• attack
• attack
• and attack

The Greek's most dangerous unit is the Hoplite, so my vote goes for two horsemen Armies! Elite spears should be sufficient for protection. No need to waste an Army on that.

Another idea would be to save the leader for the Heroic Epic, but I think at 200 shields this small wonder is not that expensive, so we can as well build it brick by brick.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

Questions for the group
Second army-horses, spears, or wait.
Horsesro: fast, a chance to kill hoplites, great pilage oppurtunities. Con: weak defense, might get attacked by Immortals, MI's (not too far off)
Spears: Pro:Can use to block the isthmus to allow workers to drain the swamps and set up a blocking city. Moves at 2 so can use as defense with horse SOD. Con: going to be obsolete soon.
Waiting for better units to load: Pro-may get more useful life out of it. Con-we don't have iron for knights or pikes so it'll be a while.

Long term strategy with short term consequences. I only loaded 1 horse in the previous army anticipating need for galley transport. Are we planning a seaborn assault on the Greeks or should we consider a land crawl through the swamps for the iron. Either way we're exposed in our expansion and still can maintain protection of our core. If we want to go the land route, I'll fill the horse army and use it to finish the Dutch hold outs then send it scouting to land route to Greece and pillage to annoy them.

Perhaps fill the horse army and keep the new one with 1 unit.

Any input before I return to play tonight would be welcome.

 

[Sparthage]

I'd like to see a spearman army. I know that it's debatable, but it would be useful for protecting those horsemen that we'll be using until we take a source of Iron. And besides, we'll see some then (hopefully).