AU601: Andydog's DAR 1 (playing Greece against Sabrewolf)

[Andydog]

Finally my DAR. I’ve found myself insanely busy with annoying RL lately, so this wee write-up has had to take a back burner until now.

Firstly I would describe myself as an ‘intermediate’ civ player, which means that I know enough about the game to beat it on emperor sometimes, but that’s about it. I prefer playing ‘freestyle’, which to me means that I don’t bog myself down with excessive MMing (although I recognise that others enjoy this). I personally like the game to flow, and I do what feels right at the time. We’ll see how this philosophy pays off I guess!

I had been jotting notes as I went along, but they are largely irrelevant now, not to mention boring, so I’ll provide a quick summary:

I started out with two primary objectives:

1. Exploration.

I need to learn about the world. I need to secure iron, horses, and as many luxs as possible before the AI gets to them. I also need to see if there are any choke points where I can cut off AI expansion. I need to meet the other civs and get trading techs etc straight away.

I’m playing that rascal Sabrewolf in a few other games at the moment, and in both of them he incited the world against me in war, so I’m expecting more of the same. I also know that he is a very cunning and talented player, and that he knows more about the game than me, so if I can beat off the AI while keeping up with them and him in research during the ancient age, I could be in with a chance. I did think about getting AI onto him, but decided against it in the end – he would easily be able to beat them off and would probably only serve to generate leaders for him and allow him to settler bop. Better for him to be the aggressor, take the associated reputation hits from the AI, and fork out all his cash.

2. Get some quick cities built before War.

Once he’s got me at war, expansion will be difficult. So I’d ideally like to get a unit city, a settler/worker city, an iron city and a luxury city built before the mangy wolf sends over the AI. After that it’ll be damage limitation until I’ve got enough defence and trade opportunities to keep the AI off my back.

So that was the initial plan.

[Andydog]

Here is how I looked at 3250 BC, after the initial ‘warrior waltz’ (your warriors waltz around your capital looking for luxs and city sites). I was unlucky during this period as I lost 2 warriors to barbs that came from nowhere. This caused a blip in production because I had to change from producing a worker to producing more warriors. I’ve also been very unlucky with goodie huts – no techs or settlers or even gold, just barbs and a useless map. Probably sabrewolf is getting all the frigging techs!

[Andydog]

Here’s how it looked at 2450 BC – the warrior waltz completed and 2nd city site selected. This city will be my worker/settler city, my capital will focus on growth to start off (granary), then military units while it grows bigger. I'm going to give my capital a bit of room - thinking long term here for when it gets past size 12.

[Andydog]

1600 BC arrived, and that’s when Sabre dished out all his hard earned dosh (or hard earned science) for his war alliance against me.

At this point I had:[list=1][*]found the iron and horses. I had sent a settler up to take the iron (my 3rd city), and was in the process of connecting that city with a road. [*]found the choke points to the north and east.[*]sent explorers west into the lands of the Egyptians, but they were soon taken out when war started.[/list=1] Persia took be by surprise – they flooded my territory with archers and I lost a few hoplites to them, but managed to send them home wounded and bleeding all the same. It was just as well they don’t have iron, although I expect that sabrewolf will see to that.

Egypt sent over their war chariots to attack my iron city, and the Babs sent bowmen. Fortunately my hoplites held firm, although this one was too close for comfort – I lost hoplites defending both the city and the iron from being pillaged, and was down to 1 warrior before they limped off back to where they came from.

Here it is at 1375 BC after I resisted the first wave of AI attack. The worker on the iron is about to mine it as there doesn’t seem to be any enemy troops in the near vicinity. Athens has been on emergency troop production. I decided to settle my 4th city out of the way south near the horses on floodplains so that it could do nothing but pump out workers.

[Andydog]

At this point I’m worried. None of my cities are especially productive, sabre seems to be streaks ahead in the tech race, god knows how because I’ve been giving it everything and still he’s ahead. I’m hoping to get to philo first, but I don’t think I’ll make it somehow. Sabre usually takes that route after researching pottery. I’m praying that he doesn’t gift philosophy around if he does get it first, as otherwise I’ll find it very difficult indeed.

[Andydog]

900BC: As I suspected sabre got to philo first, but luckily he had hung onto it. I traded it around and gained tech parity with most AI’s. I also managed to get peace, although this won’t last I’m sure. In a way I’m hoping sabre will waste more money on his alliances – I need to be at war to kill any settlers the AI sends thought the choke points, and at this point I don’t want to start any wars.

I’ve sent some settlers off to try and plug those choke points. I’ve got troops on their way over to fight the Persians, who probably won’t be far off a harbour – if I was sabrewolf I’d be giving them iron. I plan to set up shop on those eastern hills, and defend against immortals there.

The Babs have sent over more bowmen to my iron city, but this doesn’t concern me as it’s well defended and they’ve already had their GA. Speaking of GA’s mine came and went early for very little benefit, as I expected. It looks like sabre has just gotten his – he is pulling ahead at a great rate of knots. He must be in Monarchy already – I assume him being first to philosophy helped with that.

I got CoL’s and traded it around for money and peace. I wonder how long peace will last this time.. Will Sabre waste more of his money on more war? I hope so because it will serve my interests for now. My only quandary is what government to choose. I’m sure Sabrewolf will stay at war with me, so Monarchy is the obvious choice.

However, I do have lots of luxs. I also need to disperse my troops to the choke points to defend my civ from there – thus military police happiness will be lacking in my core. In the end I took a risk and chose Republic. War weariness can be controlled and I really need a good science boost.

[Andydog]

My plan is now:[list=1][*]Guard those choke points with hoplites and swords, killing or blocking any AI settlers that come near them, also defending against future wars that Sabre will incite against me.[*]Get some galleys out to defend my shores against more settlers and troops.[*]Expand!!! I need more cities. My priority will be to build them around my capital, then on the sea around my landmass. After that, plug the gaps. Also need to hook up more luxs.[/list=1]490 BC: Established a Republic – growth is now much better and I can hike the science rate. More settlers are not far off and troops are on their way to the choke points. I was only 3 turns in anarchy!! My first bit of luck in this whole friggin game. If the ww does get too much, then I won’t feel so bad about changing to Monarchy later on.

[Andydog]

450 BC

this aught to keep those Persians at bay for a bit

[Andydog]

and here is how it looks up north. still a bit of work to do to plug that choke point. I also need to waste sabre's warrior, I'm sure he's up to mischief there.

[nbarclay]

Do you know you can check what government other civs you've met are in from the F3 screen?

[Andydog]

I did actually, but only found that out this week. Cheers anyway!

[Andydog]

290 BC

That wolf boy has just paid off the civs again - I'm back at war with the world, except for the Germanics.

It looks like I'm slipping behind in techs - I just got currency and the others have that and Construction. I am praying that my free tech I get with the new era will be one that the others don't have, I need to keep up with everyone tech wise, otherwise I'm doomed!

[Andydog]

170 BC: I am very nervous. I'm two away from Construction and so are about to move into the next era, getting the free tech. I sooo need it to be one that the AI's don't have! Not because I need peace, but because I need to trade it around and establish the tech lead.

Looks like Sabrewolf is at war with Carthage and the Germanics. He was fishing for information as to whether I had obtained a leader yet from defending against the AI, and he slipped in that he had one. (He may or may not have, I don’t know, he’s given me bum information before so this could well be bollocks). But if he did get one then I assume he will make an AC army – I saw he got SoZ a while back. The question is, will he use this AC army in his AI battles, or will he send it trotting across the world to wreck havoc with my hoplites? I’m also having visions of a big SoD on its way over that involves heaps of Legionaries.

In any case I’m going to stick with my defensive strategy and plug the north and east choke points with units, cities, walls and fortresses. I’ve got my sea city pumping out galleys to defend my shores, but it isn’t producing them very quickly and I just lost one that was on its way down the Celtic east coast. I didn’t see how it died but assume it was barb galleys – it was hit a few times on the northern leg of its journey, and it also lost hps sinking an Egyptian galley, so was pretty weak at 1hp. I need to develop my galley city infrastructure but the bulk of my workers are full on trying to hook up the diamond at the moment.

I’ve been expanding and now have 12 cities, here is how it looks:

[Andydog]

My northern defense strategy is progressing slowly. Lots of bab bowmen on their way down to die horribly. I also plan to land grab that Ivory, when the opportunity arises.

[Andydog]

I’ve been keeping an eye on the F8 screen and see that sabre is still pulling away with cities and population. It looks like he must have at least 20 cities. I’m not too concerned about this as my overall strategy is a long term one – establish the tech lead, keep out the AI until my little corner of the world is fully settled, and then build build build to a space victory, keeping sabre at bay in the process with heaps of defense in the chokepoints and seas.

[Andydog]

Medium term I’m hoping to catch up with his score by the end of the middle ages.

My current concerns are:[list=1][*]Need to get the tech lead, which means my free tech has to be one that the AI’s don’t have. This is CRITICAL.[*]I’m struggling to keep infrastructure up with city growth. I’ve made worker production a priority but still I’m struggling. I only have 10 workers to 12 cities, and there are too many tiles being worked that haven’t been improved. I desperately need to up production. This situation has arisen because I’ve been more concerned with plugging choke points with units and cities (thinking long term) than adopting an early REX strategy. I hope this was the right choice! I’m 4 turns off getting that diamond hooked up, so after that I’m going to get lots of hills and mountains mined.[*]Where to build the FP? I want to get started on this as soon as I can by rushing a courthouse but can’t really see anywhere ideal yet. I’m thinking a highly productive sea city so I can get lots of ships out, but placed so that I still get good benefit from reduced distance corruption.[/list=1]I’d appreciate some advice on my game so far. Are my strategies the right ones? (Obviously I’m not asking for anyone to give anything away that they shouldn’t, just an objective view).

[Andydog]

What a turn.

My swords wasted the Babs' bowmen. I paid off the Babs a measly 6gpt for peace and Construction. My free tech was Feudalism, and none of the scientific AI’s had gotten that one yet – they both seemed to get monotheism. Offered it around and got deals such as:

[Andydog]

I’m now at peace with everyone except the salivating wolf. I’ve gifted all the techs around to the AI so that they can build pikes – this is to defend against Sabre’s attacks, hopefully knocking a bit more out of his forces than they are at the moment. I got lots of cash in trades, and bought a few libraries for culture and science. Got a few RoP agreements, so hopefully it will make it a bit more expensive for Sabre to buy them off next time. Science jacked to 90% thanks to all the dosh coming in. Sabrewolf is now two techs behind all the AI’s. He may get them by suing for peace with the AI’s he’s at war with, but at least that will slow his leader production down and keep him at peace with them for 20 turns. I'm hoping that all this will force him into a 'reactive' game rather than controlling it as he's doing now.

I’m thinking now it’s time to carry on expanding, to build markets where possible, and keep that tech lead – trading newly researched techs around with the AI’s for more techs and money. Hopefully Sabre's troop support and Monarchy government will keep his rate of research down.

[Andydog]

Well, as I suspected Sabre traded peace for the 2 techs he was missing - Theology and Monotheism.

Persia and myself finished researching Theology on the same turn, and I notice Sabre doesn't yet have it.

I chose Theology to research because Sabre would most likely research the tech that the rest of us didn't have - Engineering. I’m hoping that one of the AI's gets to it first so I can trade Theology for it and then gift Engineering around so that sabre can’t trade it. If he was researching Feudalism (or Monotheism, but unlikely – I think he’ll be going for Sun Tzu’s or the Workshop) when I established the tech lead, then there is a good chance the AI’s will beat him to Engineering.

The big dilemma I have now is trying to determine when sabrewolf is going to attack me. His power graph is massive, I'm sure he must have a few armies by now - leader generation is a strategy I would be using as Rome, and he's been at war for ages. It’s a bummer I never got any leaders. I had 5 elite swords that were administering sever arse kickings, and also elite hoplites, but once again lady luck shunned me.

Interesting how it's all panning out - by keeping me at war he's slowed my expansion, forcing me to balance that with defense, but the war has also helped me secure the tech lead - most of the AI's were only too happy to give me peace after loosing so many troops in my choke point defense, and I'm sure all these alliances must have cost sabre dearly.

But if he sends over a few AC armies before I get Gunpowder then he probably has the game – I don’t think I’m in a position yet to beat off that sort of power.

So this is why I've been trying guess when he'll attack. He could either be adopting the 'sledgehammer strategy' (build all the military small wonders and then slam your opponent with multiple armies) or he could adopt a 'wounding strategy' (send over an army or two to cause as much destruction as possible until they're both dead, thereby crippling your enemy severely).

So what would I do then if I were sabrewolf? He knows that the AI wars against me haven't been effective, other than to slow down my expansion. He knows that I have lots hoplites and he's seen my choke points. He knows he can out produce me and I know he likes to build. This would all suggest he'll take the sledgehammer strategy, perhaps using knight armies? Or he may decide to wait until he gets Cavs, and hit me with Cav armies, maybe unloading a few onto my shores via Galleons.

So I'm going to risk the possibility of a short-term attack in favor of anticipating an attack in the medium/long term. I will maintain my current strategy.

Expansion within my territory has been on hold – I’ve been building my primary core into a massive research factory with markets and libraries, but this is nearly finished and so I can now pursue some serious rexing while maintaining the research momentum.

I will set enough workers to have fortresses in place within the choke points by the time I get to Gunpowder - I can then immediately populate them with Muskets and Trebs.

I will soon start a pre-build for the Observatory in my Gem city – I’m getting tingles at the thought of how much science that one will be pumping out!

[Mickeyj]

Not keeping your DAR up to date?

Are you going to continue to fight off sabre for as long as possible? How's the war weariness in your remaining cities at the moment?

I haven't been bothered to read the AU rules at what stage can you read Sabre's DAR to see where it went wrong?

[nbarclay]

The only times players are allowed to read their opponents' DARs in this game are after the game is over or if the oppnent agrees to allow it earlier.

[Andydog]

I haven't been bothered to read the AU rules at what stage can you read Sabre's DAR to see where it went wrong?

I haven't properly read sabrewolf's DAR yet, these past few weeks have been very busy for me socially and at work. I’ve barely been able to keep on top of my other PBEMs. I'll spend a bit of time going over his DAR this weekend, to see how I should have done things differently.

However the game is now over, my heartiest congratulations go to Sabrewolf.

He took me by surprise, not just by attacking early (I mentioned above I was anticipating the attack to come a bit later), but by the route he took to get to my lands.

I hadn’t been able to explore through the Persian lands, (I was mostly at war with them and I think 3 curraghs were lost that way to barbs), and for some reason didn’t expect him to come from that direction. From what I’d seen of their land, it looked to be an island, so the bulk of my forces were concentrated in my northern choke point. I did have some defense in the eastern choke point (just enough to keep Persia at bay), but not enough to fend off the power and speed of sabre’s AC armies.

The AI lost masses of troops in my northern choke point, but it was only a matter of time before they punched through - I kept having to send hoplites south.

So where did I go wrong? I guess not exploring enough (although I tried), maybe not REXing enough early on? This was difficult due to being at war with the AI’s.

What do others think? I’d be interested.

Anyway it was a great game, enjoyed this one and trying to second guess my opponent. It was a game that always had me on my toes, and I was always looking forward to receiving each turn.

So thanks to Sabrewolf, that’s three games he’s beaten me in now! Thanks also to the AU team for making it possible.

[Andydog]

How's the war weariness in your remaining cities at the moment?

It got bad toward the end once my forces had been penetrated. Before then, there were no problems with war weariness. I think Republic was the right choice of government - my science output was number 1 and I was managing to keep the AI out of my territory while suffering few losses until they hit me with med infs at the same time sabre penetrated my eastern choke point. And when that happened it was all over anyway.

[alexman]

Good game Andydog.

I think you're right that exploration was extremely important for Greece in this scenario, but that side was the harder of the two to play, so you might not have had a chance anyway. The combination of Ancient Cavalry, the militaristic trait, and the overpowered Armies in C3C, were too much for anyone to handle.

[sabrewolf]

andy, thanks for the game and thanks for the happy end (well, sort of )!

when you get a chance to check out my thread, you'll see i took a more careful look at war wariness. by having the AIs repeatedly attack you, you gained a lot of war-happiness... but eventually every single wasted AI unit harmed you. my legionary up north had seen dozens of war chariots entering your lands and none came back.
every single attack "costed" you 2 WW points, so even after 15 unsuccessful attacks, your war happiness was compensated.

but i guess my city-capturing gave you the rest there. with 16 points for each city, the 4th first cities alone already threw you over +30WWP.


generally, i'm not sure republic is a good idea in such a PBEM (especially when you saw me war-whoring from the first moment on), also because the AUmod weakens republic. and with the 3gpt per unit, it will have eaten up you trade bonus from republic.

but you did get me worried at one time... when i saw you getting construction in about 7 turns. had you gotten engineering... life would have been a lot harder for me.

and with some leader farming you may have had the right counter-measures against my AC armies (i needed a total of around 60 offensive elite victories (and maybe a half a dozen in defence) for my 4 leaders).

[sabrewolf]

oh, and btw:

it's not that you were scouting too little... i just made sure your scouting units wouldn't get far because of the perpetual war. but i forgot your curragh and am happy that you didn't send the gallic swordsmen against me (other that the persians, celts had iron).

and rexing... well, i presume having war chariots and bowmen permanently knocking on your door made defence important.


but all in all, considering you weren't micromanaging at all: well done! your strategy was quite good and without my armies, you would have had a good shot in the long run (better capital placement and cheap libraries)!