TMcC01 - Narcissistic Nehru (C3C, AWM)

[barbslinger]

I realize that we will need 3 man armies for transporting over on galleons. In Shermans they had a lot of territory that we had to get for domination. Here we may only need the main continent or perhaps the Chinese continent added. They will be a push over without horses. The 4 man armies perform better for taking out cities and we have quite a few turns remaining before we get the main continent under complete control. Surely, we will pop a few more leaders in that time span. Even now, I would make 4 man cavs. We have 36% with the north, new western front and China lands left to settle. Egypts 16% plus what we get off America will most likely put us over the top. We most likely will never have to get in a boat.
The game is now in cruise mode. A couple more 4-man cav armies and thats all she wrote.

 

[T_McC]

I thought we had a consensus (primarily due to lack of an opposing viewpoint) to win the game by conquest rather than domination. This obviously wasn't communicated well, and since my name is on the game, that is my fault.

So to state it clearly: The Almighty Nehru is not content to allow any non-Indian citizens to inhabit his world. All opposing cities must be destroyed, all opposing peoples sacrificed to the greater glory of Nehru.

We will win this game by conquest. The only exception to this condition is if a city exists that may only be attacked by Marines. In this single case we will rush some settlers and temples and win by domination.

I don't believe this will lengthen the game significantly. Worst-case scenario, it takes us 50 turns from now to win, while Domination might take 30. The Chinese island will be pikes/MDI, they don't have Horses or Iron. Easy pickings for Cavalry. The French will only have Pikes, the Egyptians only have one city on an island, and Abe has four.

Once we obtain Magnetism, it might not be a bad idea to stage an assault on Detroit. Four (or more) boats, get it done on the first try. At least 6 Cavs, 6 Cannons. Maybe one empty Galleon as cover. No more Cavs for Abe means we won't lose many troops on defense.

The only place we might need an army is the 5-city, mixed island. So let's save the 2nd or 3rd leader we get for a 3-Cav army. The fourth can be loaded once we land, and we won't be coming back. Next leader should definitely go to a 4-Cav army to bust heads on the mainland.

And to re-iterate: After Magnetism, we should probably go all-cash. I think we make >+300 gpt at 100% cash, so we can ramp up Cav production via short-rushing. I don't think we have anything that costs 70 shields, but we can get some mileage out of "rush a musket, switch to Cav to be built two turns later". Oh, and build some more boats, we'll lose some to American Frigates, so a dozen Galleons sounds about right.

 

[barbslinger]

I think we'll still be alright. Our leader drought is probably ready to end.

 

[T_McC]

Just a reminder: Yom is up and should have claimed the game by now. If he doesn't claim the game by tomorrow evening 6 PM Eastern, he is skipped and Handy may claim and play.

 

[handy900]

Originally posted by T_McC
Just a reminder: Yom is up and should have claimed the game by now. If he doesn't claim the game by tomorrow evening 6 PM Eastern, he is skipped and Handy may claim and play.

I can play tonight, so I'll check when I get home. If Yom has not posted a got it, I'll pick it up. Lots of armies to play with.

 

[Yom]

Um...actually I got it. But If I am up again before this sunday, skip me.

 

[Yom]

I couldn't find time for it tonight, so just skip me until Sunday.

 

[handy900]

Originally posted by Yom
I couldn't find time for it tonight, so just skip me until Sunday.

OK. I got it. Pillaging now.

EDITAbout 6 turns in. I'll finish up and post tomorrow. We have a new cav army on a boat on the way to Abe's saltpeter located under Detroit.

Abe is sending cav our way again. Egypt is folding

 

[handy900]

Two More Armies for us.

Pre Turn:
1750 AD my how time flies.
Magnetism in 4 @ -23 GPT and then put the slider to zero & hire a scientist in a corrupt city. I just can’t go totally to no research at all, character flaw I guess.
Tri-City Continental Choke point looks good.
Three Caravels in Bombs Away, the other is exploring.
Abe shows 13 cities + Capital for a 14 city total. I can see 10 on the continent + 2 island cities.
We’ll see what happens, but it looks like it makes sense to heal and raze cities on the continent for 10 turns. Boot to the neck type of thing.
T-Ville will build boats after the musket is complete next turn. The next player will likely have at least 6 boats to play with.
Spear Army will pillage New York, Philly and Washington.

IBT
Musket & settler drop off in old Chinese peninsula.
Muskets move from Egypt.
A lone American cavalry and several LB’s come for a visit.
Yom – cav – cav
7-11 cav – cav
T-Ville – musket – boat
Bangalore – worker – settler
Chinatown – market – cav
Chittachong – musket – cav

Turn 1 1752 AD
Wound, but do not kill musket + settler in old China, Cav retreats. No cav close enough to polish him off. Can kill next turn. I think we need 1 or 2 more cav in this area.
Found New Karachi
Kill the American cav
Pillage a little & let armies rest
Note that American saltpeter is under Detroit on the little island.

IBT
Our wounded cav dies
I see three American Cav in and out of the fog.
Gas Station – cav – cav
Boot – setter – settler
Pune – settler – settler
Sugar – cav – cav
Dromon – aqueduct – cav
Jeepers – temple – settler (corrupt)
Hail – cav – cav
Horse – setter – settler
Bang – musket – musket

Turn 2 1754 AD
Dial slider back and still get Mag in 2.
Abe has Horses & salt again in the capital.
Cleo still has no horses
Joan & Mao – neither horses or salt
Kill a couple of units with elites. No leaders

IBT
Nehruvia – cav – cav
Madras – worker – settler
Indy – cav – cav

Turn 3 1756 AD :jump:
Hot Dog! We got another cav army out of an elite in Jaipur. I’ll only put 3 cav in this baby. (Later I realized should have used this army on the continent).
America now has riflemen on the big island & probably Detroit also.
The new cavalry army heads to the boat to go Raze Detroit.
Raze But..
Attack Thebes with three elephant armies.
Each army kills only 1 musket and will now have to heal. This will take some time on large cities.

IBT
We learn Magnetism. Set to banking in 50. + 321 GPT.
I can see a few more of American cavalry in and out of fog. No attacks.
Ganges – worker – settler
S Push – cathedral – cav

Turn 4 1758 AD
Kill a few Egyptian MI
Upgrade caravels
Raze El Amarna (size 8) easily with a cav army versus muskets
Where I can I’ll use WE armies on the smaller cities & use cav on the big ones.

IBT
T ville – boat – boat
Build new T ville

Turn 5 1760 AD
Raze Elephantine
Kills some units at the choke tri city area
Army sets sail

IBT
Greebley –musket – cav
Equinia – cav – cav
Punjab – settler – settler
Yom – cav – cav
Iron town – cav – cav
East bound – worker – settler

Turn 6 1762 AD :jump:
Kill some units with elites
We get another leader. This will be a four-unit Cav Army. The army came versus a Chinese rider dropped off by boat in the old Byzantine lands, so it will take a few turns to get to the western front.

IBT
Slinger – cav – cav
Dirty – cav – cav

Turn 7 1764 AD
Kill some cav
Raze Avaris – (size 3) There are furs up there we can soon get for our own.
Found Cape Horn

IBT
Nehruvia – cav – cav
Seaside – worker – worker
Coalhopper – settler – barracks

Turn 8 1766 Ad
Pillage move workers kill a few units
Found Ruins
Rush a few cav for cash


Turn 9 1768 AD
Raze Rheims
American Frigate spots our convoy

IBT
America drops off a weak 2-stack plus a settler in old China

Turn 10 1770 AD
Kill America’s 3-stack in old China with ease. Two workers are under the wounded cav.
I do some leader fishing @ the choke area versus LB’s. No luck.
Raze Thebes (Size 12) using 3 Elephant armies.

Well, it’s been a great game! What a comeback by the proud Nehru! I might get another set of turns just because moving units by sea takes a while.
I think I made one minor mistake by loading the first cavalry army onto a boat instead of knocking some heads on the continent with it. Should have sent the first cavalry army I got to America.

The state of the Union:
You have 2 four-unit cavalry armies to play with. One is on a mountain near Paris, and 1 near Tours.
There are three Elephant armies stacked in Egypt where Theses used to be. Two are almost full strength, 1 is about half strength.
I saw a few American cavalry headed to the tri-city choke area. I think only 1 American cavalry attack was successful in any of the three cities.
There are 4 galleons 1 turn from Detroit. One Galleon has a three-unit army, the others have 1 cav each and 1 is empty. I would kill Detroit, leave 1 cav on the island and then sail to the big island. Remember, Do not load the fourth unit in the army until you get to the big island.
There are three additional galleons in Bombs Away if you want to send extra cavalry to the big island.
At +325 GPT you can rush a few extra cavalry each turn. If I counted correctly you get six new cavalry next turn to play with.
Jaipur has a nice stack of 7 cavalry plus 2 more 1 turn away. This plus the 6 cavalry that will be produced IBT should allow you to have a lot of fun.
The only negative I see is the American rifles, but two cavalry armies can deal with that.
There are a few corrupt cities It’s hard to know what to do with. We don’t need to farm scientists, but we could irrigate and grow tax men.
I count 55 cities and 10 armies, so we can build three more cavalry armies, which should be plenty. Nevertheless there are a few settlers in production. Switch the settlers to something else if you wish.

Best of luck.

>> SAVE 1770 AD <<

 

[Greebley]

I got it (and am going to at least start tonight).

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Change Hail Vishnu to a Galleon. Also change Cape Horn. I want to give the Chinese a poke.

IBT: Scattered attacks.

1772 AD: Kill some, Pillage some. No town attacks Land next to Detroit.

IBT: Advancing enemies - no attacks.

1774 AD: My third elite victory of this turn gives a leader.
Attack Paris and kill a Pike (Destroying Paris while heading S to America).
Army kills 2 rifles and a MDI in Detroit we raze the city.

IBT: A musket is killed

1776 AD:
Attack and raze Byblos
Attack Marseilles
Attack and Raze Paris
New Army advances and some Cav join it and kills some units.
New York is shrinking.

IBT: Enemy Advances

1778 AD:
Raze Marseilles
Land on the "mysterious continent".
Land on the "new china island"

IBT: Enemy Advances.

1780 AD:
America has steam power. See my first Rail.
Attack Tatung (chinese capitol)

IBT: Musket guarding Chinese assault force is killed

1782 AD:
Elephants attack and raze Houston.
Cav army attacks and razes Philadelphia
Cavalry (not army) attack and raze Busirus (nearest city to our core).
Raze the first American city on the other continent.

IBT: Cav killed

1784 AD:
First attack on New York.
Giza Attacked and Razed
Kill a Rifle in San Fran.

IBT:

1786 AD:
Attack on Texcoco with normal cav give another leader and city is razed.
Attack on Hangchow with normal cav and the city is razed (there goes Leo's).
Attack on just settled American city goes poorly and an elephant army loses 14-16 hp and dies Other army Razes it

IBT:

1788 AD:
Elephant army attacks and razes Edfu.
Attack on Abydos on the other continent does not go well - A single musket killed.

IBT:

1800 AD:
Attack on new york is bloody expensive. 2 Rifles hang on to last hp, killing one Cav army and nearly the other (some pretty bad rolling). Fortunately, the second army does not die and the city is razed. Form a wall around my Cav army.
Attack on San Fran knocks it down to 2 hp rifles. It should fall next turn.
Send another boat toward the other continent to help out the Army.

Notes:

I played very quickly. TMcC you may want to check things over.

I lost 2 armies and gained 2 leaders. There is definitely a risk attacking the larger American cities, even with nearly full health.

Don't laugh too hard at my feeble attempt to protect my injured cav army.

America does not have horses or Saltpeter, but there may be a very few Cav left.

I have completely abandoned the front line in terms of offensive units. Cav are now well past it.

It is possible TMcC might be able to win in 10 turns. It will definitely be game over by Barbslingers 10.

TMcC, if you are just a 2-3 turns from winning this, then just take 12-13 turns to finish it.

Save the game the turn before the win. I want this one for my records

The Save

 

[T_McC]

T_McC01 - Victory!

1790 AD (0)
Get the Galleons moving. That army ain't coming back no matter what, and slaves don't get a ride. Those 6 Cavalry should be enough to finish off the Chinese. Oh, there's another leader waiting for me! That Army will ... stay on this continent. I'll use the next one for the big island. Rush a couple of Cav in the East.

OK, I see the outline of the Pincer Movement.

<Return>

1792 AD (1)
Attack Lyon, leave one defender. Burn Kahun. Poised to attack last continental Egyptian city next turn. Relying on AI not using settler escorts to attack to save the Cav Army.

1794 AD (2)
Three Jumbo Army attacks, and San Francisco is faa-laaming.

Lyons and The Great Lighthouse bite the dust. We control almost 80% of the worlds population. Oh, and just so there is no consternation, that Byzantine citizen of the Deli has seen the light and turned Indian. Macao is toasted. Nicely toasted.

There is an American Cavalry on the loose. Two Jumbo Army wins and a Cavalry later, Pi-Rameses is no more. Found Chewbacca (I think that is what it said).

Abydos falls to a Cav army and ...

I'm beginning to think my reinforcements won't make it to the island on time. All the enemy will already be dead!

Abe has 10 cities, Joan 2, Mao 2. Fresh troops will land on Mao's island next turn.

1796 AD (3)
Raze San Diego, dude. From its defending Spearman.

Found Vino Vidi Vici. Found Centroid. The next turn might get a little ugly for the AI.

1798 AD (4)
Lose a unit on the IT. Moment of Silence for the last American Cavalry.

Ok, minute's up. Kansas City is destroyed. Avingon says au revoir. Tientsin whacked. Chinese and French are OCC. Full health Cav army kills American settler pair on the big island.

1800 AD (5)
Super-Rifleman in Baltimore takes about 15 HP off of the Cav army, but has the good manners to die. Baltimore razed. Abe has one island city remaining. Unfortunately the army will likely be lost next turn. Kill another American settler pair. Advance armies on Atlanta, the noose tightens.

1802 AD (6)
Idiot Americans took the slave back instead of killing the Army. Chicago is ablaze (again). By the way, who had the Aztec worker building a road? ( GREEBLEY! ) That fellow is immediately put to death. 1804 will be a very exciting year!

1804 AD (7)
Anyag falls to our Cavalry hordes.

Five down. Lose a Cav to a regular spear at Besancon. Let Joan have her last moment of glory. Three competent Cavalry win, and ...

Abe: Are you prepared to go one-on-one with the Great One?

Lose a Jumbo army by losing 20 of 21 HP to a Rifle. Burn Atlanta anyway. Kill another American settler pair. They cannot advance past our troops. 1808 should be the next eventful year. Would you believe Abe would not give us the single island city of Denver for peace?

 

[T_McC]

T_McC01 - The Second Final Insult

1806 AD (8)
Americans land an ... MDI? From a Galley? in our East. Kill that.

1808 AD (9)
Found Silky. I don't think we had that lux yet. Start assault on Washington with 3 Cav armies. After about 9 victories, Washington is history. We torch 5 WoW.

1810 AD (10)
Abe lands more garbage in our East, disposed of. I'm going OT, as it will be only 2-3 turns from here. Detroit is eliminated. The big island is cleared. Three cities for Abe. Seven armies for us, in his territory.

1812 AD (11)
Boston (and the remaining WoW) is destroyed. I think 1816 is going to be it.

1814 AD (12)
The Americans want to talk.

The stacks are positioned.

1816 AD (13)
The assault begins at Miami. First Cav Army loses 10 HP to kill rifle. Second Cav Army shows much better generalship and kills two. Vet Cav retreats, 2nd Vet finishes the job. Miami is no more. On to Seattle. Cav Army wins one, Jumbo army wins two.

2432 pts.
Nehru the Conqueror.
Damn Straight!
Pre-Victory Save

 

[handy900]

Thanks for the save T_Mc_C.

If there were a HOF for out of the pit with one hand tied behind your back wins, this game would be in.

No Great Library, No Sun Tzu

In the words of our fearless leader:
This was truly a craptacular start, and if we win from this position there is no challenge left on AWM. We have 8 cities. If you ignore the tiles the cities were founded on, we control only 9 tiles that produce 2 (or more) food without improvements

So which restriction in the situation slowed us down the most? I lean towards our variant rule that we must kill all slaves. Slave labor would have been a big boost in the early years when we had so many tiles that required improvements.

Again, crappy start, self imposed restrictions, no wonders, awesome victory.

T's quotes says it all: "... there is no challenge left on AWM"

 

[Greebley]

It appears my estimate of 12-13 turns was in fact correct Good work all! It was definitely a fun game.

Not sure how that worker got to be building a road. If it was me it was accidental hitting of the r key

Agreed that the rule of slave sacrifice was the biggest restriction, though having to build settlers for every town was also big. I think the least problematic was the lack of trading at the start of the turn.

Do people want to try another game on emporer level and see how we can do? . I am definitely up for it. I would say normal AW rules and continents for the attempt. We have discussed China and Sumeria for the civ. I would be fine with either.

 

[T_McC]

I'll echo a few of the points Handy made.

I also believe the variant restriction of "no slaves" was the most hamstringing. Not so much because we had tiles to be improved (look back at this game and figure out when it was safe to improve our entire first ring, I think it was around the time we got Cavalry), but rather because this restriction forced us to spend upkeep money on own workers, and thereby slowed our research considerably.

Not being able to keep Wonders could have been painful, but by the time we got to most of them they had expired. In the end that restriction only cost us a little money on upkeep for Barracks and Granaries, and we ended the game with over 5000 gold in the bank because I couldn't be bothered to rush anything, there was no need.

This was a pretty rough set-up: Mid-Pangaea, low food, best Ancient Age UU met in first 15 turns, civ not particulary suited to AW. Essentially every city was on the front lines until Chivalry, and the core was not off the front until almost all the way to Cavalry. We did get a couple of breaks. Having the Byz as neighbors (no valid UU), and them not having Iron, meant the worst they could do was make us watch that damn shore bombardment animation for 2500 yrs. I'm not sure what effect Cleo becoming a monster had on us. It probably restricted the total number of units we faced, many of the cities she captured would have been more productive in the hands of the original owners. But we were fortunate she never had a steady supply of horses. We also got a little lucky with the Salt distribution, although that was more "we had 3 when we should only have had 1 in our original lands". Didn't keep accurate track of the Elite victories, but it felt like our leader luck was on the high end of expectations early (probably close to 1 for every 12 wins), when we needed them, and on the low end of expectations late, when it really didn't matter.

Next game should be on Emperor, but no restrictions.

 

[T_McC]

Since I cross-posted with Greebley:

I like the idea of AWE Continents, no further restrictions. I don't yet have a strong preference for a civ, although Sumeria is a very safe choice. China has been done a lot in AW, with good reason.

But something in the back of my mind keeps saying, "Babylon". If we were to get a corner start, having an extremely strong cultural base could be very useful. All those cheap buildings would make up for the early GA, and we could probably keep up in infrastructure. Plus it's a really weird choice. Had anyone else done AW with India? No!

Oh well, I'm out of town for a few days. If you folks come to a conclusion on civ and want to start the game, I'll play. Or we can wait a week. Either way.

Plus, I've got an idea for another game I just have to playtest a little further ...


@Greebley - That "mistaken" road happened to connect two large groups of road segments leading to the American front.

[church_lady]How Convenient.[/church_lady]

 

[Greebley]

Odd. I know I didn't try to connect up any main section of roads. I didn't even bother connecting that big pot-hole right outside our borders. All the Cav wasted two moves going thru there.

I did use workers to build those silly outposts, but as far as I know that was it. Was the terrain such that it could of come from a previous player turn? Or I did it without realizing it. In any case it is a mystery to me

I am willing to try Babylon.

[Edit: Handy or Barbslinger, did either of you want a chance to run a game ]

 

[barbslinger]

Great game guys! This has been a wonderful win. We could attempt an AWE Rome, Pangea.

 

[handy900]

If I was the one who put the worker to use it was definitely an accident. I was killing them on the spot as I razed a town with the "D" key so maybe I missed & hit "R" by accident. Sure did not mean to.

I can run the game unless someone else wants to in order to up their "succession games run count". I'll be out a week in March, so an assistant would be a big help that week.

I suggest we hold out for a corner start with a food bonus on a river since this is our first AWE.

H votes China, but Babylon is ok with me, or any other civ
T has picked Babylon (I think),
B wants Rome
Y do you want in?
G is Babylon a vote? Do you have a preference?

Sounds like the 4 of us (T, G, B, H) are in.

How big a roster do you guys want?
Does anyone care where they are in the order?
If no preference, we can set the roster order with an RNG (dice).

I must admit, for me there is a certain twisted attraction to always war as the cultural elitist Babylonians. They are not a real strategic choice, but it's the irony that attracts me.