AUSG 101 - Domination Team DAR 2

[Rhothaerill]

This is the DAR (“during action report”) thread for the second turn block of 30 turns (2150bc – 1250bc) for the domination team. Please post your DAR of the next 30 turns, including thoughts of why you did what you did in the game, along with a screenshot at 1250bc and a savegame at 1250bc. Please name your save with your nickname, team name, and the time (i.e. rhoth-domination-1250bc).

Team registry:

The Arsenal
Konquest02
Theseus
Master Zen
Taian
Beta
Charlie_Six

Current voting (by opportunist team)

Konquest02: 3
Taian: 1

Total votes: 4 of 7

[Master Zen]

Ok, me go first again! (pretty obvious I don't have much to do late at night eh!)

I'm going less detailed this time:

2150 - Archer attacks barb camp and wins (btw, the reason I had that archer fortified is that there was a US warrior which attacked the camp for like three turns but the camp kept spawning a new warrior. Thus, whenever I got the save, there were two units in the camp. I decided to wait until the camp didn't respawn until I attacked so my archer and not the warrior got the gold.). Moving slider to get gold for a future chariot-horse upgrade.

2070 - Baghdad founded. Toku wants Masonry or else... up yours buddy! (chickens out of war)

2030 - Archers spots another camp southeast.

1990 - Barb camp destroyed (damn still no promotions )

1870 - My scout now blocks the southern continent (Carthage). No carthaginian units managed to pass (at least I didn't notice)

1750 - Najran founded near the furs

1625 - Horse barb appears! In another barb combat my reg archer is promoted

1575 - Kufah built near the western game

1525 - Barb camp killed

1475 - I had sent a spear towards the chokepoint because a barb had appeared (I was only guarding it with a scout). However, a horse appeared but luckily it fortified in front of the spear. I took the risk and attacked it on this turn and killed it with no HP lost and a promotion to vet spear. On this turn the spices were connected.

1350 - Basra founded a bit north. I'll use it as a bastion against future operations by the japanese.

1325 - WAR WITH THE USA! Why? Because we're raging psycho warmongers that's why! Atlanta attacked. Only defended by one spear. Lost an archer but the city razed.

1250 - US reg archer killed, my reg archer is promoted but is at 2-hp. Khurasan founded as 3rd camp city.


Stats:

Order of battle: 5 archers (all vet), 4 chariots (all vet), 4 warriors (3 reg, 1 con), 4 spearmen (1 leet, 3 reg), 1 scout, 4 workers

GNP: 39 million
Manuf: 28 megatons

Main cities:

Mecca (3): 7 spt, 4 fpt.
Medina (4): 5 spt, 2 fpt.
Baghdad (3): 5 spt, 1 fpt.
Damascus (3): 4 spt, 2 fpt.

443 gold, +1gpt, going for Polytheism in 9. Ahead in techs compared to every civ. Japan has HBR.

[vmxa1]

Wow that was fast. I have not even started.

[Master Zen]

Strategic analysis

First of all, I felt compelled to go first since I see some of the other guys are unfamiliar with the camp system. Hopefully with this DAR you can check out more or less what was my intention behind them and adjust your own game accordingly if you so wish (and most likely do better than I did because I kinda rushed through it).

Analyzing bit by bit:

City placement. IMO city placement is the first big thing one should plan. The camps did in the first round were set ups for the planned placement (my "X"s in the other DAR's map). All in all it ended up in an RCP-3 pattern going for a 2-tile, 3-tile and 4-tile combination. The first ring, are the now three camp cities (Damascus, Medina and Khurasan). As it stands neither of them really need to get over size 4 at the moment although later on in the era I'd push them to 6. The second ring are the 4-tile cities around the capital (Kufah, Najran, and Baghdad). These are all core cities, they are not made to build units (yet) but rather improvements. Baghdad has a granary, it will be the second settler pump once it finishes the temple, and Kurfan may also switch to a granary once the temple is done and the game irrigated. That's 3 settler pumps. (a 4th first ring city will be eventually built west of Khurasan)

Finally, the last ring only has once city so far, Basra, built as a base for future operations against the japanese. Three more future cities would be built at the same distance, with the important one (i.e. next one I'd build) being the one east of Medina. With a forest chop it is possible to get a temple pretty quick and it would net the iron in its radius. The southernmost x also looks to be a great manufacturing city.

The Building Part. I can't stress enough how important being a good builder is to being a great warmonger. I used a similar definition of the term warmonger in another thread a few days ago:

War-mon-ger. noun. A player who sees military action as the road to ultimate victory. Contrary to popular misconception, a warmonger will resort to extensive building to gear up for future conflict, therefore the adoption of building and warmongering activity is only differentiated as being separate means for an end (the builder resorts to war to make room and time for building). Players who resort to reckless warmongering paying little heed to successful building are best known as psycho warmongers.

My point is, get your cities into shape and soon! In this game, I gave special emphasis on two types of cities, the camps and the settler pumps (Mecca and Baghdad). The camps had their barracks quickly built (Khurasan is new and will get the barracks hurried by a forest chop). However, the true feat here isn't so much with the camps but with the pumps. The pumps here are actually dual cities. They are both pumps and camps. The trick was to successfully manage WF allocation as to make them build both a settler and a unit during the time it takes them to recover the lost pop points from the previous settler.

Take Mecca for example. By coordinating food and production, it builds both a settler and a 20 shield unit (archer or spear) in a 7 turn period while never going below size 3 and never wasting a turn. Baghdad will now produce a temple with 6 turns remaining. Since it is a 5 spt city, it will knock out a settler right before it turns into size 4 (Baghdad will need further coordination to make it not drop to size 2).

Why all this fuss over two silly cities? Because out-REXing yourself is bad! I've seen people who have a huge amount of cities and then can't either defend them or make them productive soon enough (not enough workers and poorly connected). What this build allows is for every settler being built, a unit will soon follow for defense (and MP purposes).

In the long term, this as well as the fact that Mecca only built a granary means there is potential for a palace jump if necessary. Hopefully this will be accomplished once the camps outlive their purpose sometime in the middle/late middle age. Normally I would only build 2 camps around Mecca but I built 3 because Mecca's production is so darn perfect it never needs to go above size 4. All those extra tiles in its radius are best used then for the camps.

Strategic Situation

We have one opponent (Carthage) which is basically shut out from the fun. Good. Japan and the US are the main rivals, with the US being perhaps the greatest one since they are closer and seem to be expanding more aggressively. They also have apparently the iron connected which means they'll start building swordsmen soon. Time for pre-emption. The US is not large enough to truly be a threat to our survival, but it deserves to be battered down a bit. The weapon of choice at this stage is the archer and the objective is not ambitious: knock out 2, hopefully 3 cities and then ask for peace (and whatever goodies they want to spill out).

Next step would be japan. Japan is farther away and is best dealt with horses. For this reason, a considerable chariout upgrade is planned. I would expect around 8 horsemen for this attack (with perhaps an extra 2 on the way) and try and push them as far back as possible hopefully even killing them off if there are few casualties. Finally, a death blow should be dealt to the US with a swordsmen stack.

So the plan would be

1) build archers (done) and damage the US.
2) after the archers, build up chariots (being done)
3) sue for peace with the US, and upgrade the chariots to horses and launch against Japan
4) after the chariots are done, build warriors.
5) mass upgrade 10-15 swords for a death blow against the US
6) build horses once warriors are done.
7) Kill of Japan with remaining horses.
8) Do I see a mass Ansar upgrade after this... yes!!! Meet Allah, Hannibal!
9) see who else is out there and kill them too.

Summary

As you can see my strategy is 1) consolidate, 2) build up 3) cripple the biggest rival a bit 4) keep on building up 5) Kill your neighbors 6) expand like the plague.

I am not a fan or wreckless expansion. Nor am I a fan of ultra early warfare against civs that aren't ultra close. I like to calculate the enemy's expansion and check them once they out-REX their defensive possibilities. On Monarch this is much easier. Sure, the cost of not killing them so early are bigger, but then again, so is your military capacity compared to gearing up for an ultra early conflict (where there is always a tradeoff between building/expanding/war)

That is IMO, the beauty of the camp system. It allows to to feel safe at first and strike with more power a bit later (even if your enemy is also a bit more powerful) yet never sacrifice the building/expansion.

Well, I hope this explination works out well, and good luck to everyone in this round!

[vmxa1]

I like it, nice job.

[charlie_six]

Hey folks! I will be gone for work till next friday, so I dunno if I'll have the time later to do this, so here's my thingie

The Plan: See graphic below. I saw OBJECTIVE FUR as the biggest settlement threat. That's some nice terrain, so I wanted to deny Japan and America of it. I'd block Carthage with a scout, and scout, but not engage the Americans unless they settled to close for comfort.

I figured beyond the American core, there wasnt great land they would be settling, and thier rate would be slower than the Japanese.



(sorry for the ruff graphics, at home I reinstalled some stuff and dont have ms office lol)

[charlie_six]

1950bc - Trade some tech, currently researching poly, (going for monarchy) Only had 3 forces available to defend OBJECTIVE FUR, so right off the bat I had them hot-foot it up there. The ragtag manuever force consisted of a scout, a archer, (took care of a barbarian on the way, but no time to rest!), and a conscript barbarian.

Then, scouts report - contact settler force and 2 Japan warriors for escort...oh my!

Showdown near Osaka.....

[charlie_six]

And here was the situation at the home base. I had mecca pump out a extra worker. Wanted to connect the iron, and have the area developed enough. I did my best to use the Zen technique of camps. I was concentrating on building and ect, and as you can see later, kinda went crazy on roads.

The settler there is headed to Najran. Baghdad founded before, (prolly same time as Zen's)

I played all this last nite before I saw Zen's thingie

I was frustrated with Damascus...just not doing much of jack.

[charlie_six]

1790- Showdown at Osaka and skirmish

Well, I blocked the forward progress to the sweet spots, then they took off to the mountains. I figured no biggie, go settle that hill over there.

But then a settle came back, with only 1 warrior escort. They breached the line I drew, so our brave lil archer guy attacked and was victorious! Slaves show here moving S.

With only 2 cities, I figured this force would be adequate to block. I sent a reserve barbarian regular as reserve.

[charlie_six]

And here's the 1750 COPbc, (Current Operating Picture)

OBJ FUR: Looking good, got 2 settler, mission success so far on that front.

Observation Post 1, (OP1) (the blue triangle) Looking ok..but with the 1/1 Cav (dismounted) being dismounted, he can't screen, so he's keeping a lookout for settler activity

OBJ Spice: Looking good, no activity.

Back Home: It's arseholes and elbows near Baghdad. I think I developed it too fast there actually, and it's pop went through the roof.

[charlie_six]

1575- Sold Myst to carthage for some cash(20g)

by this time got horses connected, and already traded for horseback riding, (horse connected in 1700) so a camp produce the first MOUNTED element, the 1/2 Cavalry (Mounted)

Just in time too, as Japan counterattacks, and so do the barbarian horde. Unknown to the scout he is doomed Moving south to an observation position on the mountain, he is ambushed by a mounted barbarian force that just established a new camp near there.

1575 was a ruff year, with all this happeneing, Abe bullies for horseback riding. I gave it to em.

Of course the camp thing worked great, I was able to manuever my really small base militia to defend, and no worker production lost!

[charlie_six]

1375bc another busy year

OBJ Fur- Still holding back a civ with a bad-arse archer, and 2 warriors. The warriors got out of that scrable before by using the woods. The Japs attacked, and failed

OBJ Landslide, (OP1 and Screen) Americans got a city through, the 1/1 Cav tried to run as fast as they could but didn't make it in time to block. with 1/3 and 1/4 Cav out there now, the screen is up and running.

OBJ Spice: ALERT! A Carthage settler is spotted! I put douwn Kufah a few turns before. A note on Kufah placement:
1. Yeah, it's at 4.5 or 5 but I chose it's location for blocking value, and mobility, (creates a canal if you want to get ships thru)

Cities are going nicely, I was still frustrated with Damascus...I know its just a camp but ugh! I still havent put a barracks there, was producing militia folks.

There is our first swordsman protecting a worker for a future city, sent him to take care of the barb situation down there. (search and destroy)


Currently researching Monarchy in 24 as you can see

Heres the COP of 1375bc:

[charlie_six]

1250bc (sorry not much content and whys but im in a kinda rush)

Here's the COP for 1250bc. Yeah maybe went overboard on the horseman, but I like my information. This is close to where I wanted to be at 2150bc..OBJ FUR ready for settlement unfettered, have iron and horseback riding, with monarchy in 17 turns.

If Atlanta gets too close to our iron, we can move heavy swordsman down the iron road to make that happen. We have a great picture of what's goin on on the continent, and control the important terrian..(if you think that's important..I do anyways

I did my best with the Camp strategy, maybe 1 too many worker, and I didn't use a slave for the colony, (ouch heh)

Biggest city placement for discussion is prolly Kufah, but I stated why before so debate away hehe.

We have the biggest, baddest, most technologically advance army in the known world.

We are advance tech wise with writing, and poly, with monarchy just around the corner. Sold poly to carthage, but they dont have HR

We set the conditions for OBJ FUR to be settled, and we have that option. Japan in eager for peace, so we can do that also.

Civ wise, ok, I made some mistakes. First time at ZenCamping(tm) Could have produced a settler in Baghdad before the temple cuz it grew really fast.
Basra has had a worker clearing the forest for the temple.

But gotta mosee, good luck all! Nice map too btw Zen. I feel all warm and fuzzy we placed some cities in the same spot.

[charlie_six]

oops and the save:

[Rhothaerill]

I'm definitely interested in seeing how the camp strategy works on this map. I took RCP into consideration when designing it, but didn't take camps into consideration since I haven't ever used them before.