TSG136 After Actions

[RincewindOtti]

Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 600BC
Turns played: 91
Base score: 507
Final score: 2816
Time played: 3:37:00

Not the fastest but at least sub 100

turn 1 - moved the warrior and discovered the nice NC and then I pondered for a while and .... settled on the silver SW.
Didn't want to spend so many turns to reach kilimanjaro but as vadalaz moved there, it would have been the better call.

Went left honor and then some liberty.
t50 Genghis finished GL....and lost Karakorum
t69 Kyoto (1st army)
t81 edinborough (2nd army)
t91 ulundi (delayed 2nd army) + tenochtitlan (1st army)


- Which unit mix did you decide to focus on for conquering?
Charriot Archers and scouts and some CB

- Did you find the Krepost to be valuable or unnecessary?
I built one but that's probably a mistake

- What are your thoughts on the neighbors/map/Victory condition?
funny aggro civs, map was nice for a quick DV

 

[MrRadar]

Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 250AD
Turns played: 125
Base score: 739
Final score: 2956
Time played: 4:11:00

- Describe any hindrances you didn't account for with your military strategy.
Too many chariots who coped not so well with anything not flat and clear.

- Which unit mix did you decide to focus on for conquering?
Chariots, CBs, spears and swords.

- Did you find the Krepost to be valuable or unnecessary?
Build a couple, but probably should've ignored it on this difficulty.

- Did you need/use Cossacks? If so, describe their use.
Who are those 'Cossacks'? No, never get close to them. Went for the lower part of the tree and for Liberty policies.

- What are your thoughts on the neighbors/map/Victory condition?
I swear, one of those games I will only build units. Down with all those buildings!

Map was ok, Mt Kili was supernice, neighbours behaved. Only Shaka fielded a larger army and even managed to get one pike out. Mongols and Aztecs stagnated with one city each. Went for the Celts first, then the Zulu, Mongols, Japan and Monty was the last. What a slog with all those hills, city walls and swarm of jaguars of his.

Frankly, I do believe that raging barbs actually make the game easier for the human player for DomV. You tend to concentrate on units anyway, you have plenty of opportunities for target practice to level up your troops, there is higher chance to complete quests from CS to clear barb camps or just liberate their workers for bonuses, and I saw quite a few captured settlers - on Emp a loss of a settler for the AI is pretty much crippling.

I've also encountered some strange graphical glitch: after building the ToA with GE, Moscow still displayed it being built in the city label. The city screen was ok. I saved, exited the game, verified the game cache, loaded the save and... most of the cities, including Moscow didn't have the city labels. They were still there, but I could only enter them when they completed a build and I was prompted to choose production. Never had anything similar before. I only use EUI mod.

 

[Kendon]

Game status: Domination Victory
Game date: 1600AD
Turns played: 230
Base score: 1486
Final score: 3230
Time played: 16:15:00

The Krepost provided valuable early culture. Cossacks are powerful but by the time they appeared the game was almost over.

I put melee units in front to get attacked so ranged units could destroy the attacker. Mounted units finished off stragglers. It was that way from start to finish.

My strategy was to attack whoever was weak, in this case the Celts, get unit experience and then beat the Zulus before they got Impis. Unfortunately the Zulus and Mongols both attacked me the moment I beat the Celts. I managed to thin out the Zulus, including a few Impis, but the Mongols took my second city which was discouraging.

I went back to fight the Mongols, got my city back and took Karkakorum. By then Japan was the weakest so I took that capitol. I should have attacked the Aztecs but Montezuma was so darn nice, friendly and offering great deals, that I went back to the Zulus hidden away in their forests and mountains. That was a long slow slog that moved my victory well past turn 200. Once the Zulus fell the Aztecs went quickly, really just the time it took to travel there.

I'd say roads were the biggest factor in this game, speed versus cost. I also stayed on the bottom half of the technology chart. I didn't get Education until turn 185.

 

[Tesuji]

Well I did get pretty lucky, my warrior's first move revealed Mt Kili, so I settled the grassland tile beside it, which turned out to be horses. Didn't need a monument so I never built any buildings this game.

Policy-wise I went Liberty -> Citizenship -> Republic -> Honor -> Discipline. Worker first because Emperor AIs take too long to get their workers out, and archer-rushing the first capital gets you a second city about as fast as Collective Rule anyway. Originally I was planning to take Collective Rule later to forward-settle Monty and citadel-bomb him. He planted a city there himself though, so I ended up capturing the expo, buying some coast tiles and citadel-bombing the tile just east of Tenochtitlan. Took some Honor policies just to kill barbs quicker.

Conquest order:

1st army -> Mongolia and Japan. Deleted the units after taking Kyoto.
2nd army -> Celts and Zulus. Delayed taking Ulundi and just kept it at 0 health.
3rd army -> Aztecs. AIs predictably shoot the unit sitting on the citadel tile, so Monty's 24 def city attack didn't do much. Took Tenochtitlan and Ulundi on the same turn.

Other small things:

- Abused peace deals as always, selling whatever I could early in the game to buy more units. Waited for Shaka and Monty to be willing to give up their expos in the peace deals, so that I'd take all their gold instead.
- Annexed and starved all captured capitals to 1 pop. That allows buying and building units there, and the unhappiness isn't worse than letting the puppet grow to size 3.
- Bribed Shaka to attack the nearby CS as I was approaching him and blocked his second settler. Killing his units was surprisingly easy, somehow I didn't even lose the scouts I was willing to sacrifice to move his spearmen out of position.

Would you willing to share some details to a relative newbie?
What were your armies composed of?
Why starve the cities?
Why delay taking a city?

Maybe these are common knowledge?

 

[vadalaz]

Would you willing to share some details to a relative newbie?
What were your armies composed of?
Why starve the cities?
Why delay taking a city?

Maybe these are common knowledge?

I don't have my save files anymore, but on Emperor for me a good army composition is 5-6 ranged, 2-3 melee units and a worker.

Starving and delaying capture is to manage happiness. I annex and starve capitals so that they remain at size 1, I'm pretty sure a size 4 puppet gives more unhappiness than an annexed size 1 city. The puppet gives more gold and science, but in a short game like this, that doesn't really matter.

If I took Ulundi earlier, I'd be fighting Montezuma with a combat penalty due to unhappiness, I think it's -2% per .