AU208: Total Eternal Forever War - Reports and Comments

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

I've played two games so far, Greece ,emperor.

Sure very fun games, and those Hoplites!!! I've come to respect them a lot, just impressive how many casualties you inflict to AI attackers.

Sadly I had to abandon both games around 500 BC as I didn't stand a chance anymore.

How come? These were main difficulties I've encountered:

- Iroquois scout contacts you after couple of turns, first war almost immediately on hand
- due to first war and building mil units, REX impossible
- sure rather easy dealing with Iroquois units, even MW's, but when Roman legionaries attack in large numbers and MW's helping them, you can hold for a while, but not too long
- as mentioned before, you need iron , horsemen or catapults to fend off those legionaries ... I had none They pillaged almost every square (sure I've tried to protect my improvements with Hoplites, but there were far too many attackers

I had some good things happening too:
Hoplites are great!!
My second game I got a GL from archer and rushed Great Library
I was not too far behind in techs, second game English contacted me, got all their techs for communications with civs on my continent
The HORROR: not only dealing with Iro MW's, Rom Leg's but also English invaders !!!

AJ

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

If contact is delyaed with Rome, first (and last!) tech trading can be profitable with Greece:

AJ

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

How did I start my first game?

Settled one tile south east, worker to chop and improve, building 4 Hoplites, research writing.

2550 BC first settler
2350 BC golden age due to Iroquois
2270 BC war with Rome

built granary and barracks in capital

had four other cities around 630 BC, but couldn't expand anymore, had to defend all time, quit when hopes were hopeless ...

Second game Greece, emp:

settle south east, immediately barracks, worker chop to fasten, research wheel, as I wanted horsemen to cope with Roman Legionaries
second game already better, but being attacked by 3 civs, with only 5 cities in my hands, it was a fun, sometimes rewarding warmongering (Great Leader for Great Library!), but ... a hopeless situation as I couldn't expand anymore, as I could only build units while all tiles got pillaged ... quit after first city loss.

Lessons learned:
- Greece might not be best choice, as early game requires fast progress (industrious, militaristic important traits), but Hoplite rocks! Carthage might be better, Great Library also possible with other civs
- emperor, normal level, is difficult. Another couple of tries will follow with Greece/emperor, if no succes I'll try China on emperor, otherwise drop to monarch
- first city to found after capital best on hills in north: better defensive stats, better room expansion, settling backland afterward easier
- third game I've started -knowing Rome would be toughest, I've immediately sent two Hoplites to their borders, inflicting great pillaging on their land. Good strat, wondering if archer rushing them on emp with Greece is doable
- should harass Iroquois from the beginning too, maybe pillaging thier horses (if not built upon them that is)

AJ

[ZargonX]

Ok, so my adventures so far:

When in with the Chinese, as mil/ind seemed a wise combo for this kind of situation (Monarch level). Settled my first city immediately, and began pumping out some warriors. My westward explorations soon encountered an Iro scout, who of course made contact. This of course, meant war and one dead scout. So it began.
Luckily, I poped a settler from a hut on the west coast and soon had city #2.

-Some tense moments early on, with some Iro archers coming out of the mountains. Fortunately, my warriors and spears held them off. Meantime, eastern exploration found the Roman borders. Delayed contact, because I had a plan...

-WAR-ROAD! Seeing the Roman border, I immediately dispatched my worker on a special mission: build a road to the front. As I had no contact yet, this was pretty easy since no one was attacking. When the road ran all the way to the Roman border, I still hadn't been contacted. My stack of archers moved quickly from my capital up the road and straight to Rome's doorstep before finally being contacted. Wham, bam, Rome was mine. 2 other Roman cities destroyed, and one more over to me. The Romans were now a non factor.

-The second benefit of war-road? I immediately had access to the iron that turned out to be under Rome. This meant I would have swords in time to help my next big project, WAR-ROAD II!

To be continued, with some pics, also...

[Arrian]

110AD so far and I've had 7 leaders. So that's Pyramids, army, Colossus, Great Library, FP, Hanging Gardens and an almost useless army. Most of my fighting is now swordsmen vs archers with the Heroic Epic.

Damnit! I should've 1) played China, my first inclination; and 2) milked Rome & the Iroquois longer than I did before finishing them.

I didn't play last night, so you guys are racing ahead of me now...

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Nor Me
epics, Pyramids. You'll have to wait a long time to build the GL or FP and an army won't pay off for a long time.

Pyramids has the advantage of stopping any serious AI prebuilds for the Great Library: they can only use the 300 shields Oracle and Great Lighthouse and the Oracle is likely to be built long before Literature.

All of those wonders are built by someone. The first army is pretty lame as it has spear/archer/archer. They have all gone elite, so it has 15 HP. This lets it take down those new 1 unit cities or defend a new city for now. The other army has Sword/sword/spear. It is the lead attacker. I did not build the FP for any other reason than I had a leader and nothing to use it on. So far each leader that came along had only one choice or two, except the first one. I mean I have no wonder to build and not enough cities to make an army when I rushed the FP. Should another leader come up tonight I will just hold him in the hpe of getting the LIB.

[vmxa1]

I went with China for the very reason that the civs with ancient UU will get a GA before they get their feet wet.
This is what happens to Rome and Iroq. England has Man Of War so they did not trigger it when I busted a city they dropped near me.
I have expected the next era to be the big problem as tech wil be harder and contact slow for me. I will likely have to stay in Monarchy due to warring.
I am guessing that I wil not have horses or many lux. I have a large area now and only one city had shielded grassland (old Rome). This means very little mining.
Looking forward to getting back to the game.

[BigDork]

Another loss

Hi all...

Well I've finished another game. I'm knocking these out quicker than I did the OCC games. Anyways, this time I played as Persia on regent.

Here we go...

2630BC-Contact with Iroquios. I hate scouts. Traded masonry for pottery and ceremonial burial

1725BC-Contact with Rome. Got iron working and alphabet for 176 gold.
So far getting my butt kicked. Warriors are beating my spearmen when defended in walled cities.

730BC-Antioch is autorazed by Iroquios

[BigDork]

710BC-Iroquios capture Pasargadae

670BC-Iroquios capture Arbela

630BC-Autoraze Roman city of Neapolis. 1 vet spearman
killed 2 and almost killed another archer.
-Iroquios capture Susa

The attached image shows my last stand.

[BigDork]

510BC-Romans capture Persepolis


Game notes:

This is ending up being a game of attrition I'm not winning. It seems to be costing me on average 2 archers to kill 1 legionarry. Also when an Iroquios mw or a Roman legionarry attacks I almost always lose a spearman. Even in walled cities.

This game almost right off the bat I was playing a defensive game. I attempted 1 offensive which was crushed completely. I managed to autoraze a size 1 city but the cost was heavy. I lost a spearman and an archer on the way to the city. Lost 2 archers attacking the city and one other archer was knocked down to 1 hp. And then after the city was autorazed I lost him, another archer and a spearman.

Well, gonna have to give it another go I guess. I think China this time.

BigD

[BigDork]

Game over, 30 minutes.

BigD

[Dominae]

Leadership Opportunities

More from my game:

If you'll recall from my last posts, I was had knocked the Iroquois down to one city, but was having a tough time with the Romans (Archers against Legions). My strategy was to use small bands of Elite Archers and Spearmen to pick off the fledgeling Roman cities which would undoubtedly be less heavily defended (rarely does Rome send a Legionary to escort a Settler). Hopefully I would also get a Great Leader from all these skirmishes. I had secured a war front of two walled cities near Rome, which the Roman forces could not penetrate.

Then I got a Leader, way up in the northlands. "Huzzah!" I cried, the realised my Leader was far away from home, with Barbarians and Romans all-too-eager to assassinate him. Slowly but surely, my stack of 3 Elite Archers and 1 Elite Spearmen played escort duty, as the Leader scouted out ahead and made progress toward his new career as caretaker of the Great Library. Although leaving a Great Leader out in the open is pretty scary, the three movement points make them excellent scouts in a bind (two moves through Forest!).

Why the Great Library before the Forbidden Palace? Many reasons. First of all, the other civs were making good progress up the "Wonder tree"; only the Hanging Gardens and the Great Library remained unfinished in the Ancient age. Second, I was only beginning a new REX phase to grab the land up North, and so the Forbidden Palace could wait (I figured). Third, I was (rightly) very afraid of my tech progress potential in this game, and reasoned that the Great Library was a at least a part of the solution.

Meanwhile, I had created an Iron Colony in that oddly-shaped Mountain range. The Romans must have realised this spelled their doom (I figured I would take my chances with Swordsmen versus Legions instead of waiting for Catapults and Math) and began to send Legions to thwart my plans.

Only a couple of turns after the first Great Leader, another appeared, and so Sun Tzu made his way toward his new home in the Forbidden Palace. I decided that the fertile Iroquois lands (which they never got to use!) were perfect for my second core.

Here's a screenshot of this period of my game (yes, my Elite Warrior guarding the Iron survived the Legionary attack, but barely!):

[Dominae]

The Fall of Rome

Shortly after the Legionary attacks abated and my military was "Average" compared to the Romans, I knew it was time to strike. I got some pretty good RNG luck early on, grabbing a couple of cities without casualties.

The I advanced on Rome. I was expecting a really tough battle, but I only lost five or six units in the actual assault. I love how the AI thinks that taking defenders out of a city under siege actually helps it by bolstering defense somewhere else; the turn before my main assault, 2 Vet. Legions came out of Rome and headed toward other cities! That made things a lot easier.

Just for interests sake, here is a list of my forces at the time:

15 Archer (almost all Elite)
12 Swordsmen
11 Spearmen
10 Warrior (awaiting upgrade)

I felt this was enough to see the end of the civs on my continent, and set most of my cities to produce Libraries.

[Arrian]

Heh, Dom's FP is 7,8 of mine.

But oh, for the Great Library!

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
Heh, Dom's FP is 7,8 of mine.

Yours is better-placed. I wanted to use up the Leader ASAP, since I was sure to fight many battles with Elites in the near-future. Nothing came of that, though: I was "stuck" on two Great Leaders for 1000 years!


Dominae