Intermediate Game 8 Discussion Thread

[Nugog]

Intermediate League Game 8 has closed for submissions. Please feel free to discuss your game in as much detail as you want. The more we talk, the more we can learn from each others successes and failures......

[Nugog]

1st CharonJr: Won Conquest Victory - 1735AD - 3425 points / 71754 points

2nd pmonsieurs: Won Conquest Victory - 1735AD - 4767 points / 31133 points

3rd Fleme : Won Conquest Victory - 1982AD - 5875 points / 20829 points

Ms_Summer : Won Conquest Victory - 1958AD - 4404 points / 19354 points
draethor : Won Diplomatic Victory - 1937AD - 3278 points / 17705 points

jbp26 : Won Cultural Victory - 2012AD - 3143 points / 7455 points

Chuckman: Lost Time Victory to Wang Kon

[Fleme]

Archipelago, my most hated foe.

Starting off, the capital spot on the hill was not to my tastes so I moved on the Corn and settled there, gaining access to a better hill and an additional seafood resource. The capital wasn't going to be short on food and we hate unirrigated corn, don't we?

Moving on, an Archipelago map naturally calls for the Great Lighthouse to support any decent economy and that was my main goal. My explorers set out east-northeast and discovered a few hospitable islands which would host my first expansions. The island with Ivory, Horses (discovered!), Pigs and some seafood around it would be the host for my first expansions and were followed shortly after by a city northeast from the capital on the desert island with Gold, for both imperial integrity and naturally the gold. Having these and finishing the GL I had a nice start to feed my expansion further and my expeditionary workboat to the north had found another landmass which would come to host 2 additional cities and provide me with Wheat, Stone and Copper. My second city got the Pyramids which in turn also helped me to boost my research rates through Representation and allowed me to expand even more. Since the islands to my west were unhospitable and settled to the north by the Indians I had no choice but to continue on expanding to the northeast (blocked off to the east by the Mongols and the Chinese)

So, the expansion part was good. I managed to grab a lot of desirable terrain paving my way towards a nice empire, albeit one that's spread out between a huge distance.

The game itself went along these lines: The three AI's I soon discovered were the Mongols, the Chinese and the Indians. The first two were puny weaklings so I did not pay much heed to them or their little empires at this point but it soon became apparent that the Indians had what could well be called a continent in a game like this and were well ahead in techs and were building nearly all the wonders save for a precious few. I didn't see how I could win this one peacefully so I set my plans for war. Working my way to Astronomy and having Maces + Trebs and heading towards Grenadiers and Rifles I prepared. I started a buildup relatively early and went for the outlying Indian cities which well easily enough to my maces and due to a lack of any form of proper garrison. I worked my way to the mainland, assaulting from the eastern tip of their continent and on the city that lay there to form a beachhead. The indians were set on naval technologies at this point but their garrisons consisted of Maces and Longbows and it was not too long before the city was taken and my army moved on Delhi which fell shortly after. At this point the Indians had naval superiority and they managed to take my gold-city that also had Moai. That really pissed me off. I took it back 2 turns after but the glory was gone. Down from a godo 20 to a puny 4. So weak. Anyways, I had gotten up to Grenadiers by now and had also built a navy to take back the control of the seas so India fell soon. Even the Chinese came and took one of their cities, only to lose it to Japanese overseas cultural pressure.

Indians had expanded to a large number of islands by this point and refused capitulation even with their entire continent now under my rule. I built the Forbidden Palace in Delhi and that in conjunction with the Mahabodhi meant that my economy was set for the remainder of the game. I worked my way up to rifles and cannons and set off to capitulate the Indians which they soon did after I took a few outlying cities and set my sights on the Koreans and the Japanese. The Japanese refused capitulation all the way to the bitter end so I conquered them gaining access to precious Oil and moved on the Koreans. My army now had Destroyers, Battleships and Tanks while the Koreans focused on simply defending their island with a bunch of Rifles. They fell fast and capitulated so I packed my men on the boats and moved on China. Same deal as before. Rinse and repeat on the Mongolians.

Late conquest win on 1984. I presume I could've gotten it a lot earlier but the Indians counterattack and destruction of my navy set me back a lot more than I had anticipated and this also delayed my plans of world domination. All in all an ok game for an Archipelago eventhough I hate the map type. Archipelago with larger islands is ok but those puny little islands that you need to settle for this and that resource... I just hate it.

As for the game, it was ok. The AI never put up any real resistance nor was there ever any fear of being conquered by anyone of them and the spots of the Mongolians and the Chinese basically meant that they could never rise to power unless the human player is really slow on expansion. Having a pacifist such as the indians as the main antagonist just makes it easy for a warmonger (not that I don't appreciate having a wuss to beat on).

Finished with a score of 40000 something.

GG.

[Nugog]

Great write up - thanks Fleme!

[jbp26]

i dont remember too much from this game, except that i just knew from the start that there wasn't going to be any oil in the immediate vicinity. i also knew i really didn't want to bother with trying to conquest on an archipelago map. i expanded like crazy and built a boatload of wonders. once i did find oil, i barricaded myself in with destroyers and rode out a cultural victory. i think i went to war all of one time. i do remember, however, that my score was terrible! stupid cultural victory.

[CharonJr]

Archipelago, I hate it, too...

As I have written I expected this game to be slow and it was fairly slow for me.

And I did move my settler on the corn for the 4th seafood and 1 more plains hill IIRC, too.

I started with building workboats while getting up to bronzeworking.

Due to the small size of our starting island I headed off looking for new land to the east/northeast.

Since I was pretty sure that this map would provide lots of seafood, but I had no idea if I would find any stone I decided fairly early to try a Oracle->MC->Mids via GE slingshot (lots of food = many nice specialists for Representation).

For me this means I want an GE 100% of the time, not just a decent (50/50) chance.

Due to this I had to find a decent spot for a 2nd city fast. I went past the gold-isle right to our east and found a decent island (2 wooded plains hill, 1 plains hill, 1 ivory) with 2 seafood a bit further to the east.

I settled this one as my 2nd city. After getting the Oracle in my first city I rushed (chop/whip) a forge in the 2nd city and build a library after this in order to help a bit with the GPP (otherwise my capital would have build its GP first).

With a chance of about 90% for a GE I got one and sent him to my capital which I wanted to build up as my wonder/GPP-farm). I did move my palace away later.

Added lots of wonders (some in the 2nd city, too) for GPPs including GLib. I think (due to missing focus on it) I missed ApoPalace and it came to haunt me once.

I kept expanding at a fairly decent pace in each direction except west (north up to the island with stone/copper, east/southeast to the island with 4 seafood, stone and iron).

Techwise I reached maces at around this time and deceided to take out the Khan who was fairly weak and sitting on 2 gem-mines I wanted to have for my people.

Basically I went counterclockwise after the Khan, first the Chinese, next India (strongest contender in my game, too), Korea next (3rd in ranking) and finally took Japan (last in ranking).

I think it took me till 1735AD to pull this conquest of for about 71k points.

I made some small mistakes which might have cost me 20-40 turns, but victory was never really in any danger I think.

CharonJr

edit: East/west mixups...

[CharonJr]

Argh, I send in the save for game #7 instead of the one for #8, just got home from work, oh well, we will see if I made it in time

CharonJr

[Fleme]

It hurts my score that I go to war so late. I really should just focus on getting a strong economy, teching away and waging my war with superior weapons instead of superior numbers.

I never even considered going after Genghis first because I was so jealous of the Indian continent.

[JungleIII]

Well… my game was such a disappointment after all the anticipation.

I’m not fond of tiny islands, but – hey roll with the punches. I was actually doing quite well, expanding well, building up assets, exploring, etc.

Built up militarily, built my navy, had the first Caravels, and then I attacked the Japanese. I did well, taking over a few cities and was now at the top…

Then… the Indian’s built the Apostolic Palace. They were Buddhist and so where the Japanese and a few others. They proposed a resolution to stop the fighting just as I was 2-3 turns from my next victory with Japan. I had to defy the resolution and take that one more city over. And, did so – and I though, O.K., I can live with the –5 happiness for defying the resolution. I made peace to regroup and had my mass of trebuchets and maceman stockpiling in the captured Japanese city to resume the onslaught when the 10 turns of peace was up.

Then - India proposes: return the captured city to the Japanese… Can’t do that – I am on an island and all my forces will be bumped back home. Defy again – every nation out there votes to return the city to Japan. Now it’s minus 10 -unhappiness and my economy is crippled. I can’t see getting out of the doghouse (by voting on a resolution which passes), because they keep proposing to return Japan the cities I worked so hard to capture as I slide lower and lower in happiness…

What to do… land my forces and attack the Indian capital instead, which holds the Apostolic Palace, he only has 2 maceman and 2 Longbowman in the city. I land with 4 times that amount including 5 trebs.

But, he has a castle and bombardments aren’t working fast enough. He is shipping in men from other islands and moving men from his neighbouring city and he now has double the initial defenders, and so… I attack. The Trebs take him down – not as well as I like, but seem to work. I throw everything at him… and lose on 85% success chances, and even 97% chance, etc, etc…. It wasn’t meant to be, down to his piddly 2% strength left… his last few guys hold out and I’m left with nothing.

A gamble that couldn’t have gone worse – no men left, cities left undefended, a crippled economy, the enemy now cranking out men and knowledge like no tomorrow….

I will certainly have to figure out a better strategy to counter or work with the Apostolic Palace when owned by a friend of the enemy… I can’t see how I could have played this one differently – once the Palace was built, I couldn’t compete unless I took the city over.

I have run across this occasionally in other games and it is quite scary the power of the Palace in the wrong hands… Because humans are warmongers, the Palace seems to work against us.

[Fleme]

So you ended up giving up or what? Sucks to go down like that.

[JungleIII]

Yep - resigned. I hadn't ever had that major a gamble go down so badly... if you saw how many 85-97% combat chances I lost on - it was like the game was out to defeat me....

I know... winge winge winge....

Overall - a good lesson

[CharonJr]

Personally I try to get the ApoPalace as fast as possible since it has haunted me too often already.

I would rather face having to stop my war than get hit with the -5happiness most of the time. I would even habd back the cities if the Apo resolution is running that way. But while doing this I would do everything I can to attack the city with the Palace with overwhelming force.

In order to not get voted on "to stop the war" I feel that ideally there should be no more than 2 turns between declaring war and getting the Apo city.

Everything else is secondary to this, even if it means losing one more city to Apo voting, I have to have a large enough force by the time I do attack.

CharonJr

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Fleme
Archipelago, my most hated foe.

I hate Archipelago as well.

Results posted.

[CharonJr]

Ah, nice

Is that a typo with the date or shouldn't pmonsieurs have more points then me with the same date and higher base points ?

CharonJr

[Nugog]

Same date - score is also dependant on population, number of cities, techs etc etc.

I had to double check it a few times as well....

[CharonJr]

Will have to take a look if I can find any information about the scoring system, this seems strange.

I would have assumed that pop/wonders/techs/... would be included in the basic score already and normalisation is just turn/time dependant, but obviously not.

CharonJr

[Fleme]

20000? Why did I have the distinct recollection that I had 40000? Hmh, well who cares, I came in third with the highest non-normalized score!





I'd like to hear from the winners. How do you win so early?

Also:

Originally posted by Nugog


I hate Archipelago as well.

Results posted.

This was before I ever laid eyes on Boreal.

[CharonJr]

Originally posted by Fleme

I'd like to hear from the winners. How do you win so early?

Basically what I already wrote before, but mainly the following:

Fast research due to Representation from the Mids and nearly contant war with maceman/trebs+ once I had a decent force to tackle (Kublai?) Khan.

I was rather light on number of units really, but being 1-2 eras more advanced than the AIs does help Due to this the unit costs were managable, I needed less Galleons for transport and the initial buildup-phase was faster, too.

CharonJr

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Fleme
This was before I ever laid eyes on Boreal.

Now now - the Boreal script does teach you certain lessons.................

[draethor]

Fast research due to Representation from the Mids and nearly contant war with maceman/trebs+ once I had a decent force to tackle (Kublai?) Khan.

This was my huge mistake. I rarely run specialist economies, and didn't think about switching to representation until well into the game.

Though I also tend not to use the whip too much, but with the abundance of food I was whipping instantly in most cities as soon as the -happiness thing was up.

Big whoops on the specialists though! :P