The Pygmy of Elba

Seraiel · Feb 24, 2016

Rusten said:
@Seraiel
You're speaking from a HoF deity perspective which is not realistic for 99% of the playerbase. A regular forum user doesn't choose opponents or decide to HA rush before the game starts. You can influence your luck by not choosing a certain strategy because you're not min-maxing the game.

For normal games you add some extra HAs to counter "unlucky rolls". To claim that HAs is 80% luck is absolutely absurd!

I'm speaking from my perspective Rusten and that is the one of GOTM / HoF. HAs are 80% luck dependant is not absurd at all, if you attack with a calculated number of HAs, chances that you'll fail are there, if you attack with a calculated number of Elepults you won't fail, simply because the Elephant is OP and Catapults remove the main resistences that HAs need to overcome.

From another point of view, if you say "normal players simply build more units and then they also win" , how is that good play? A unit needs to be cost efficient to be a good unit. A HA is expensive and worst case he dies because he needed to attack with 2.5% chances which were shown as 25% survival but it simply didn't retreat. Now HA 2, 3 and 4 come, 4 kills the Walls + Hills Archer, great, 3 defenders to go maybe. In the end the attack can easily take 10-15 HAs and those are so many resources that taking the city simply wasn't worth it, and waiting for Construction would have been better. Ofc. it can happen that the city is on the flat land and that the AI has only two Archers in it, then great, 4 HAs, 1 loses, 3 surived, win.

Idk what you don't understand about my impression of what is luck. Luck for me is when I win a fight that had low chances. With Catapults I don't have those fights, therefore Catapults = 0% luck. HAs however are sometimes even weaker than the defenders, they can also be stronger however and they have 20% base-survival chance and if a defender is much stronger it can happen that the HA either damages the defender, he can die doing that, he can withraw or maybe he simply dies and doesn't do anything. Depending on what result gets chosen by the RNG, a Walls-Hills-Spear can take 8 HAs or just 2 and that is what I mean with luck. With Elepults the variation on that Spear is minimal, maybe 1 unit.

Rusten · Feb 24, 2016

But on lower difficulties there will be no walls and you can easily pillage the metal on the 1st or 2nd turn of war which means almost no spears. I'm not dismissing your perspective or argument for the games you play, I'm just saying that it's not relevant to people playing in S&T on lower difficulty levels. HAs are incredibly cost-efficient for normal speed warfare -- at least up to (and including) immortal.

Expecting lots of walls+hills+spear is not realistic. This game is a prime example. It's on monarch -- not deity. Furthermore, if you don't have a way of pillaging metal or see lots of walls then you don't attack with HAs but instead go construction route. This is what I mean by making your own luck and not min-maxing the game.

And when I attack with HAs I attack with so many that I will capture the first few cities no matter how bad rolls I get. If unlucky I may need more reinforcements for the final cities. When you reach a critical amount of HAs there is no luck involved, even if the battles are not 90%.

Edit: You're also assuming ivory which is a bit of a stretch.

MyBabylonIsBig · Feb 24, 2016

Here we go.

Turns 116-135

Spoiler :

Seraiel · Feb 24, 2016

@ MBIS:

I remind you for the 3rd time now to plz turn on detailed city info and to go through the options-menu and customize it like you think it's best, plz do that right now after you have read this, it's horrible to see those screens and not even be able to see how long a build builds.

Regarding the zigzag-road because you wrote that you didn't fully understand the explanation (at least that's how I understood your statement) : Units can move diagnoally and horizontally + vertically. if you i. e. had built the road from Metal Pig towards you capital like pigs -> Grassland Hill -> Plains-Hill 1NE and then SE diagonally down ttowards the capital again, then you'd now already have two roads towards the Copper spot. You can save a lot of workerturns if you build the roads not directly but really plan them, and Workerturns are almost the most valuable in the beginning that exists. Moving diagonally means you can basically gain 0.5 tiles with a move because E i. e. is 1 tile but NE are 1.5 tiles. Hope this is understandeable now

.

First thing that I noticed is that you're building Farms in your capital. I first found that to be a wrong choice, but when I think about it it's actually a great choice. Normally, in 95% of the games one will want to cottage the capital because it's food-rich and one will want to run Buro. In your case however your capital is food-poor but hammer-rich and therefore it'd i. e. make an excellent HE-city. Napoleons capital has food and Gold, so it's commercial output is much higher, it's completely logical to cottage that city and re-build the Palace in it while preparing your capital now for maximum troop-output and completely neglecting research, because you get enough from TRs + Specialists + coastal tiles to get through to Currency (on Monarch, on Deity this would not be possible like that) .

Then giving Napoleon the Fish was very wise, because every time you deny a demand of an AI, there's a chance that it'll start preparing a war against you afterwards. There are certain AIs that have an almost 100% chance to prepare a war against you if you deny their demands (I believe Roosevelt has the highest chance) . You didn't need the Fish and Napoleon could not benefit from it, because he doesn't need the health, so it's a free 10T peace-treaty with no downsides.
Demands are btw. only demands when an AI is cautious or below, even when they say "we demand" . A demand on pleased or friendly actually is a beg. With begs, there isn't any chance of the AI preparing a war when denying it.

Then I noticed that the Horses-city was unhappy at size 4 but was building a Warrior. That Warrior should have come out of the capital, because that city has low food but is hammer-rich, it can build the Warrior fast and is unlikely to become :mad:

. The Horses city should have therefore build a Worker or Settler, because (I already wrote this once) when producing Settlers or Workers :mad:

citizens don't consume :food:

!
Try to plan better ahead next time and remember that rule about the Workers and the Settlers and that they make :mad:

citizens like they didn't exist, while otherwise they'd consume :food:

just like any other citizen.

Then (major fault) : Researching IW was not necessary. Axes are almost as strong as Swords, against Axes they're even the better unit and they're especially strong enough to win together with Catapults. You only need IW if you need to remove Jungle, Swords are not worth it as a weapon, and the chance that the AI will research IW early is very high. Maybe you could have gotten it for free from Napoleon after taking 2-3 cities in a peace-deal, and then kill him off 10T later. The much better choice would definitely been Currency, and after Currency you should either go for CoL and bulb Philosophy with the GS you saved (has the great advantage that you get a Religion and you will want one as you're going to be isolated for quite some time as it looks, Religions have huge bonuses) or (option) you prepare a double Astro bulb (then skip Meditation to not unlock Philosophy for the GS and don't research anything that unlocks Paper, then research Compass + Optics and from there you can jump directly towards Astronomy instantly with using 2 GSs and then reach the other Continents (very good option) or research Metalcasting (for Forges) . Personally I'd go with the Astro-bulb, then I'd research Metalcasting for Forges, CoL, CS and then Compass + Optics + anything that is needed to unlock Astronomy, bulb bulb -> Galleons.
The other option is to bulb Philosophy, research CS -> MC -> Paper -> Education and then Lib -> Astronomy. This is slightly slower but would be a better approach if you i. e. would want to go for Space, so you need to decide on a victory condition.

Ah, read further, Napoleon founded a religion, that's lucky. Then you can still think about bulbing Philosophy, because Pacifism is an awesome religious civic, the main thing is really that you need to decide for which victory you want to go, Domination is more Astro bulb, Space is more the Liberalism line and Culture is completely different from anything, then you'd i. e. need to make sure that you get Philosophy first and also Divine Right first to have 3 Religions.

If Napoleon builds Missionaries btw. then he's on the so called "Missionary Strategy" currently, then you don't have to fear him at all, because AIs following that strategy don't attack without warning.

One short tip for whipping Phalanxes: If you invest less than 5 :hammers:

then you can 2-pop-whip the Phalanx and get another Phalanx from the OF. This will save you a lot of whipping-anger which is always important, but especially in your case on this map, because you (almost? ) got no happyiness-resources.

MyBabylonIsBig · Feb 27, 2016

It’s like RL has a defensive pact with Napoleon and keeps distracting me on purpose.

Seraiel said:
I remind you for the 3rd time now to plz turn on detailed city info

My game refuses to save settings, remember? Sometimes I turn it on, sometimes it slips my mind. Or maybe Napoleon turns it off on purpose, one can never be sure with him.

Seraiel said:
Hope this is understandeable now

I feel very silly now. Yes, it makes a lot of sense.

Seraiel said:
The Horses city should have therefore build a Worker or Settler, because (I already wrote this once) when producing Settlers or Workers citizens don't consume !

I should probably write it down somewhere, since it’s the second time I forgot. Although, in this case it was likely an already pre-build Warrior from my Wheel-Pottery time, I don’t remember for sure.

Seraiel said:
Researching IW was not necessary.

Part of me knew that. The other part of me was going all about Kings of Metal puns I could do. I’ll try my best to not screw up like this anymore. I’ll probably fail miserably at this, but I’ll try.

Seraiel said:
so you need to decide on a victory condition.

I’ve never conducted a massive naval operation before, and I understand that Pericles isn’t the best ruler to do it, but it’s Monarch and I can probably get away with it, right? So I’ll try Domination. Space would’ve definitely been easier, though.

20 more turns incoming later on, and probably another set of turns after that.

MyBabylonIsBig · Feb 27, 2016

Turns 135 - 155

Spoiler :

Seraiel · Feb 28, 2016

Would be interesting if I would not be the only thing writing something towards this game.

From the last post I think everything seems fine. A few more Catapults wouldn't be bad, but you can build those during the war. The Spearmen are afaik not really necessary because you have Phalanxes and iirc. those are like an Axe with Spear-abilities but only against Chariots, so not i. e. Horse Archers, which is why many see the unit as a fail. In this situation with Napoleon having Horses and Chariots they could actually be really nice though

.

Regarding the Astronomy-bulb I can give only theoretical tips, because I've not played one yet. I only know, that the players that go for that strategy usually create 2-3 GSs and double-bulb Astro while sometimes even bulbing Optics. Standard research through i. e. Cottages doesn't count that much in those situations, though I'd not neglect it completely and would build some Cottages on Napoleon's Grassland.

dutchfire · Feb 28, 2016

Strange French borders on your Turn 147 screenshot, does it imply that the other French city is up there in the NE?

MyBabylonIsBig · Feb 29, 2016

dutchfire said:
Strange French borders on your Turn 147 screenshot, does it imply that the other French city is up there in the NE?

Yep. I’m not sure how did I miss it – my Warrior-scout was north just a few turns ago, and there were no sight of activity, only a slightly worn down garrison in Rheims.

Seraiel said:
The Spearmen

I plan to send a few Phalanxes to cut Napoleon’s Copper right away. His Horses, however, are well beyond my reach, and the Pigmy can always switch to HA without Copper available. Better safe than sorry.

Turns 156 – 170 (The Copper Wenches War, part I)

Spoiler :

Seraiel · Feb 29, 2016

Kudos for not giving up after those fights.

I ask myself how it is possible, that a Chariot attacks your Phalanx in Orleons. A Chariot has STR 4, a Phalanx has a STR of 5 and a defensive bonus of +100% against Chariots so it has STR 10!!! The winning odds of that Chariot must have been below 1%, what was going on there, was the Phalanx wounded or something? AI attacks wounded units even at low chances (careful, GGs if possible always get attacked so never leave a GG alone on the open field) . Napoleon has high courage so also attacks at even lower chances than normal, but a Chariot against a Phalanx? :crazyeye:

Regarding the war in general:

You're making a few errors. You sent out a single Phalanx towards the Copper to pillage it. AI evaluates the STR of a unit by calculating the tile-value, so if only 1 Phalax is on 1 tile, than that tile has the tile-value 5. An Axe also has a STR of 5 and Napoleon has high courage, so it's expectable that he'll attack that Phalanx. To counter that you need to send 2-3 Phalanxes towards the same tile to raise the STR-value on that single tile, Napoleon is unlikely to attack a tile with a value of 15 i. e. with a unit that only has STR5, this is why i. e. 2 units on one tile have a largely higher chance to survive than if every of them were solo on a tile.
And Orleons, how is it possible that that city has size 4 and after the capture it is size 1? If a city has 20% cultural bonus, then use 2 Catapults to attack it (or 1 if the Catapult has Accuracy so the city has 4% culture after bombardement) and then sacrifice 1 Catapult again against the city and then attack it on the same turn. Every turn you threaten a city the AI is likely to emergency whip it so you need to minimize the time in which you threaten it. Threatening a city is, if you have troops in range to attack the city, so if i. e. an Axe stands directly besides a city or if a HA is 2 tiles away (not diagonally btw. , that's a weakness in the code) .
Then the Worker that got stolen. AI cannot think like a human can do, so it cannot i. e. see "ah, there's a unit on tile x, now that unit can move 1 tile so it can only be on the following tiles in the next turn" , the AI lives completely "in the moment" and therefore can see as far as it can move! A Chariot can see 4 tiles along Roads (6 tiles with Engineering) or i. e. 2 tiles across plain territory or i. e. 'til a Forest and no further. You wouldn't have been able to see that Worker maybe (though you would have in this case, because borders have a sight-radius aswell, and you're directly besides Napoleon's borders) , but that Chariot can see the Worker from 4 tiles away, and with you not guarding that Worker it's a free win.

Also learn this trick: With owning Orleons and with many units being in Paris, pillage the Roads that lead to Orleons, leave some units near the city but leave the city undefended! This has a high chance, that AI will try to capture that city (but can't in 1 turn) so it may lure out units which you can then kill on the open field!

And one more thing: Don't build those Courthouses. Courthouses are very expensive buildings and you play on a low difficulty, maintenance cannot be that bad. I don't even build more Courthouses than needed to unlock the FP and that from mid- to endgame onwards on Deity. It may be sort of a special situation on this (stupid) map, because you basically have no land on which building Cottages would make sense, but you still have economical options. Work a Mine and produce Wealth, run Scientists to generate GPs and also gain :science:

by the Specialists themselves (you need to pay more attention towards that in general btw. , I believe Metal Pigs didn't work 2 Scientists during the build-up phase and recently, remember that you want 2-3 GSs to bulb Optics + Astro and that you also need to get there, I think I already wrote, that you should make a GP-Farm or HE-city out of your capital, so if it i. e. has a Library then run 2 Scientists there two and generate 2 GSs simultaniously, and if the horses city has 2 improved FPs and needs to reduce whipping-anger, then hire 2 Scientists there too a.s.o. ^^) .
Barbarian Bear btw. is too big and is working a Plains Farm (= bad tile) , whip the city for reinforcements.

And one thing towards the war that I just saw: I once learned by the user pob, that no matter what, the City Raider promotion is always the best you can take for Siege, forget about Barrage and Drill, because the stronger a unit gets, the more chances it has to cause damage and the higher the damage will be. Barrage sounds good, when having only very little siege and when wanting to do maximum damage, but the way to get there is City Raider.
Take Accuracy for the case the any Catapults (or whatever you'll have later) get to 5XP, because it's the most valauble promotion available as it doubles the bombardement-capability of a Catapult so 1 Catapult with Accuracy is basically like 2 Catapults without. This is very important to get down cities protected by Walls, because Walls cut the bombardement-value in half, which is why bombarding Walls-cities takes long even with Accuracy-Catapults (and which is why attacking Castles-cities is basically insane, because Castles cut the bombardement value by 4 :crazyeye:

) . Then take the Accuracy-Catapults to bombard the cities and only attack with the expendable 3XP ones until the odds are 90%. The good thing about that also is that you don't need to wait for the Accuracy Catapults to heal, because they won't suicide-attack the city and can bombard with the same effectiveness even if they're at low health.

I hope you get Paris, and then you should take a cease-fire so Napoleon isn't in war-time-production during the time where you reinforce your troops.

sampsa · Feb 29, 2016

Seraiel said:
I ask myself how it is possible, that a Chariot attacks your Phalanx in Orleons. A Chariot has STR 4, a Phalanx has a STR of 5 and a defensive bonus of +100% against Chariots so it has STR 10!!!

A Chariot has also +100% attack vs all axe-based units.

Seraiel · Feb 29, 2016

sampsa said:
A Chariot has also +100% attack vs all axe-based units.

Lol. Then the Phalanx really is the most useless UU in the whole game

.

A Berserker is a hard opposition in that discipline though ^^ .

Major Tom · Feb 29, 2016

Enjoy your writeup, MBIB. Looking forward to next chapter. No further advice than Seriaels, except: Get luckier in the battles. And dont forget to feed the cat.

MyBabylonIsBig · Mar 1, 2016

Turns 171-190 (The Copper Wenches War, part II)

Spoiler :

Seraiel said:
Don't build those Courthouses.

Kind of late for that. But I didn’t whip sixth one and didn’t start FP yet, so here’s that.

Major Tom said:
Enjoy your writeup, MBIB. (...) Get luckier in the battles. And dont forget to feed the cat.

Thanks! I will probably end up feeding the battles and lucking the cat for a few sets of turns, but then I’ll get it right.

Seraiel · Mar 1, 2016

Ok, some things...

1. Cities that have seafood also need Lighthouses. I became aware of this when I read that Barbarian Spear would starve, I thought "what? " . A Lighthouse is 60 :hammers:

, it gives 1 :food:

on every water-tile and that includes the seafood. If you look at the food-bar in Barbarian Bear it'll say something like "20/30" or "20/34" or so. That means that 15 :food:

(2nd example 17 :food:

) give 30

(the whip) so 1 :food:

= 2

. If the Lighthouse gives 1 :food:

/ turn and it costs 60 :hammers:

, then that 1 :food:

gain will have payed the Lighthouse after 30T

. Your round is still longer than 30T so you need to build Lighthouses

.

2. Your decision to build more Spears is logical, but Napoleon also has Archers, and against Archers, Spearmen are a lot weaker than Axes (or Phalanxes) . Try to understand the concept of "courage" again. A normal AI only attacks units if the chances are 50% or higher (i. e. it would attack an Axe with a Chariot, because the Chariot is stronger with its 100% bonus against Axes) . Now Napoleon has high courage so he attacks also with odds lower than 50%, but if a Chariot meets a Spear, then the chances that it'll win are something like 1%! As long as you have 2 Spears guarding your Phalanxes, Napoleon would need to attack with hordes of Chariots to get through towards the other units, and while a player would maybe even do that (if he i. e. would see that a player has only 1 Spear and if he only has Chariots) an AI will not, because the chances are too low! The Chariot against the Phalanx was something like 30-40% for Napoleon, that he'll do because of his high courage (a normal, peaceful AI wouldn't do that) but he will not attack a Spear and if he would, he'd lose, so take 1-3 anti-units into the stack to make it safe against attacks from certain types of untis, but apart from that build the stack out of the strongest or most efficient unit that you have (= Phalanx) .

3. Build more Catapults. You're again standing in front of a city, you threaten it so the AI will whip defenders, and you cannot attack because you only have 1 Catapult. Don't move your units in single, move them in one or several stacks. If you don't know what defenders to expect, then send i. e. 1 Phalanx covered by 1 Spear, Napoleon will not attack that combination and he will not feel threatened ^^ . Once you have enough units move them all together, bombard, conquer the city, heal a.s.o. .
You also don't need several healers, 1 medic-promoted unit heals all units with its bonus on the same tile

.

4. On one screen your capital is not working the food. This is the same as with a city hiring a Spy-Specialist and you don't notice it. Go into the city-menu more often and check the city at least after it has grown, after you whipped it and every time the tile-improvements change in value (= Biology, State Property, Golden Ages etc. ) .

5. I somehow don't see any Workers on the screens, they currently should be chopping...

6. You can increase the value the AI is willing to offer in a peace-deal if you threaten one or more of the AIs cities, so before you conduct peace and if you want to have a certain tech, move some units near as many AI-cities as possible and then re-negiotiate again ^^ .

7. You need to run more Specialists and build more Wealth, your economy is stalling. Also stop building units, you can win the war with the remaining ones easily. Make more use of Wealth. It's often better to build Wealth then ot build buildings or even units, try to calculate things more precisely like i. e. in the example with the Lighthouse. The Courthouses may still be worth it, the units you don't need and other buildings i. e. need to pay fully back until you reach your next big goal (= Astronomy) , because a major goal changes things too much in your favour. With Astronomy i. e. you'll get contact towards the other civs, that means you get intercontinental TRs + can trade techs, that's way more important than any building.

-----------

Try to post a little about your plan, so that people can comment on it

. There i. e. was 0 chance to prevent you from building those Courthouses, because you reached CoL during an update and didn't stop but decided on your own. I maybe could have thought of it when I wrote "research CoL" but it didn't cross my mind because for me, Courthouses are between the most useless buildings possible ^^ .

:thumbsup:

Lexicus · Mar 1, 2016

Seraiel said:
You also don't need several healers, 1 medic-promoted unit heals all units with its bonus on the same tile .

Just to add something to this, I'm not sure if it's been gone over in this thread MyBabylonIsBig but the first Great General your empire generates is usually best used to create a 'super Medic,' the GG can lead troops as a warlord and gives lots of EXP and exclusive promotions, one of which is medic III which makes any unit able to heal units in the same tile and adjacent tiles 25% strength per turn. Use the 'lead as warlord' ability on a tile with only one other (preferably mounted) unit though as you probably won't reach medic III if you spread the XP around.

This is obviously extremely desirable, as your stack with a super-medic will be able to heal in enemy territory almost as fast as enemy units, especially if you have lots of troops with March (heal even if you move on a given turn).

Imperator Knoedel · Mar 1, 2016

After you are done with this maybe you would feel at home in the Stories and Tales subforum?

MyBabylonIsBig · Mar 1, 2016

Seraiel said:
Cities that have seafood also need Lighthouses

Will do.

Seraiel said:
Go into the city-menu more often

Yep, I suppose Ill have to. I blame Napoleon.

Seraiel said:
I somehow don't see any Workers on the screens, they currently should be chopping...

They chopped two tiles already, but there was a quick detour to complete my road network.

Seraiel said:
you cannot attack because you only have 1 Catapult.

I actually have 2, 1 is already with the stack, the other is 2 turns away.

Seraiel said:
You need to run more Specialists and build more Wealth, your economy is stalling

I was a little bit carried away with war things, to be honest, but will do. Also, by more Specialists do you mean more Scientists, or should I add a few others as well?

Seraiel said:
reached CoL during an update and didn't stop but decided on your own.

My logic behind Courthouses was simple: I was sure I still have enough units, and I just got an ability to prepare, in a way, to taking more cities and moving my Capital. Wealth wouldve indeed served to speeding up my Research better. Oh, well. Wont do this thing again.

Lexicus said:
a super-medic

I settled Leonidas in Athens, since its going to become HE site, but I think next GG is not too far away. Will make one, thanks.

Imp. Knoedel said:
After you are done with this maybe you would feel at home in the Stories and Tales subforum?

Thanks, Ill think about it. Although Im still a terrible player and I abuse English grammar very hard.

All right, lets get to
The Plan:
I think I shall bleed Napoleon for as much gold and tech as I can. I will take Lyons and make peace, then Ill take Rhymes and try to make peace again. It does slow the time I get French Workers, but maybe Ill be able to steal a few between wars, and forcing Napoleon to give away his tech frees more research turns for important stuff.

Now to particular points:

Spoiler :

And heres an inventory:

Spoiler :

and Demographics:

Spoiler :

If you need more information, or some specific screenshots, ask away, I wont play until very late tomorrow.

Imperator Knoedel · Mar 1, 2016

I would raze Lyons, but I also have a phobia for one off the coast cities.

Lexicus · Mar 1, 2016

Imp. Knoedel said:
I would raze Lyons, but I also have a phobia for one off the coast cities.

On Pangaea I don't really care, but on this start I agree razing Lyon and replacing with a coastal city would be worth doing. On Continents whenever I don't raze AI cities that are 1-off coast and replace them I spend the whole rest of the game wishing I could be whipping ships in those cities

The Pygmy of Elba

If you want anything from I please ask in German

Deity

Chieftain

If you want anything from I please ask in German

Chieftain

Chieftain

If you want anything from I please ask in German

Deity

Chieftain

If you want anything from I please ask in German

Ghost

If you want anything from I please ask in German

Immortal

Chieftain

If you want anything from I please ask in German

Deity

Simperator Knoedel

Chieftain

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