Strat Forum PBEM 3: Game Report

[Arrian]

I'd love to see a AAR like this from Dave.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

I plan to write another post with some diplomacy comments.

For now, some kudos:

DaveMcW: for winning the whole thing, in a very convinciing manner.
jshelr: for sticking it out even though your chances for victory were very slim.
Sir Ralph: for creating a very scary Ottomania (Sun Tzu's, Leo's and a 30+ Shield capital!!).
alexman: for being patient with me in trades, especially when reminding me of the tech formula.
Nor Me: for building the Pyramids years before my first Temple!


Good game, all.


Dominae

[Rhothaerill]

Sounds like a fun game though. Too bad I missed out on all the PBEMS. Oh well, soon...

[Nor Me]

I didn't building the Pyramids!
I only built the Great Wall. DaveMcW built the Pyramids.

I did start an AAR some time ago. I will finish one eventually.

[Arrian]

Well that changes things.

From reading Dom's AAR, I thought that Dave built the GW as a prelude to war, using its benifits to shut down any attempted counterattack.

Instead it appears he built the Pyramids, triggering his GA very early, and leveraged that into conquering you despite the GW.

I'm even more curious now.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

I sold Dave his GA, letting him kill my warrior for 40 gold.

[vmxa1]

Wow that was very interesting to read, nice job of putting it together Dom.

[Nor Me]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I sold Dave his GA, letting him kill my warrior for 40 gold.

I see. Well, that proved to be a mistake.

[Catt]

Great game! Would love to see reports from other players.

Are you all still playing the "Balanced Pangaea" game and if so was there any unhappiness with the map / start?

EDIT: Just checked the PBEM forum and see that you're up to ~2000 BC after many months Hope you're having fun!

Catt

[BRC]

I really hope that everyone feels as if they got a fair start. After seeing Dom's, I can't help but feel that maybe I screwed up somewhere. Nice game all.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Nor Me
I didn't building the Pyramids!
I only built the Great Wall. DaveMcW built the Pyramids.

I did start an AAR some time ago. I will finish one eventually.

Ha ha! Goes to show how much I was paying attention. Correct me if I'm wrong, though, but the Great Wall changed hands rather rapidly after its completion, right?


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by BRC
I really hope that everyone feels as if they got a fair start. After seeing Dom's, I can't help but feel that maybe I screwed up somewhere.

I'm not 100% sure about Nor Me, but everyone seems to have had a fair start, other than perhaps jshelr. Stuck in a smallish peninsula against Carthage, it made for a very tough game on the Chinese. Overall I feel the map was well-balanced enough. Without good knowledge of what happened on the other continent, my opinion on this is not worth much though.

Although I did have a sweet starting location, the balancing factor with it was that there were very few Hills and Mountains near my capital. This made for a very slow-moving middle- and late-game. I expanded well enough, but I ran out of gas rather quickly, and it took me forever to build Aqueducts and/or Marketplaces. With the need to keep research high, I could not really afford to rush these critical improvements.

What I should have done was Palace-jump to somewhere near the Chinese border, where there were plenty of Hills and Mountains that could be exploited to at least have a few cities over 25 Shields per turn.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
If you were going for a Maginot line, when in the heck did you leave the hill tile 22 of Anyang open? That's the perfect tile to dump an invasion force on if you're China.

Good eye, Arrian.

I would like to say I had a good reason for that, but the answer is far simpler. I took that screenshot after reloading the save today, and playing out the turn as I remember having played it previously (just to get the shot to agree with jshelr's experience). I did this rather fast because it took a little while digging through all the saves, causing this error to appear in my otherwise-superb Maginot line.

I should also add that that unit formation was just for fun, as jshelr and I were quite the team by that point. I could think of nothing better to do with the units until foreign boats started appearing on my coasts (at which point they would be put on "shuffle to block the coast" duty.


Dominae

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Nor Me
I see. Well, that proved to be a mistake.

It was obviously not my only poor decision in this game, and by far not the worst. In fact, for me it was a good deal, because 40 gold for an obsolete regular warrior, who was done scouting anyway, is a fair price. Better than 2 shields.

Generally spoken, I played the ancient age well, taking and multiplying the advantage of a good starting position. Despite the fact, that I did not find a settler (I hardly got anything useful out of huts), I turned out the #1 power at the end of the ancient age. But then, I completely screwed the medieval age. The seemingly cruel end was more a relief for me, getting me rid of a game I disliked since many turns ago, because I had hurt myself with a row of very poor decisions.

As I said, at the end of the ancient age my situation was, that I had a pretty productive core, with one full-power (4 turn) settler factory and one half power (6 or 8 turns, IIRC). Luxury-wise, though, my situation was very bad. All I had was one dye, and not even anything to trade. Later I secured 2 incense, already in 2/3 corrupt area, but then that was it in my immediate neighborhood. There were more luxuries farther away, deep in the 1-shield area.

What I should have done now is continue REXing into the high corruption area, keeping my population low, building a camp in the neighborhood of my capital to build an FP there, and later to palace jump into the new acquired area.

What I did instead was REXing half power, raising my population and building wonders in my capital, making a palace jump forever impossible. True, my capital was a kickass city with 30 shields at size 12 without GA, but that was about my only good city. The inner core was so-so, the outer areas sucked, and no Courthouses could help. I had completely forgotten to take in account the brutal corruption setting of the AU mod, and was reminded of it only after it was already too late. In this game I developed a deep grudge against this mod and never used it again, neither in SP, nor in a new PBEM, where I vehemently refused to apply it. That's probably a stupid move to reject a whole mod only for one setting, but... that's a very important setting for me. I hate corruption and waste. Others like it, but I effing hate it. I can't help it. And I just can't stand if the only legal means to fight it (switching to Republic + building Courthouses) are hurt in a mod, leaving only "illegal" - read: exploitative, not intended by game design - means like RCP (which wasn't yet known when this game started), "distant capital" and a palace jump. So, /RANT now.

What also was clearly visible: I completely, full 100%, suck at diplomacy. All I can do are "fair" trades. If somebody starts to nag about a price (ring, ring, Dominae...), I'm inclined just to say "screw you" (with better, more polite words of course), than to continue to haggle like on the fish market. I mostly left the haggling part to alexman, who was a good tech partner for the whole game. This gave me a rather obscure, may be even scary view. This is also a warning, never -ever- to give me a diplomatic office in a demogame. I will screw it for sure. But then, my demogaming period is over anyway.

In the mid-medieval, after realizing my mistake, I tried to repair my situation half hearted. I begun to build an FP the hard way in the northern mountains, after I spent a fortune to get the city up to 3-5 shields (5 with food deficit, 3 with surplus to fill up). After I got my UU, started that half-hearted war against Dave, which I had planned some 20 or 30 turns before. To be honest, I wasn't convinced to get anything good out of it, because Dave had set up a fierce defense, with walled cities on hills and city inspections had shown lots of defenders in them. I was out for a GA and may be a leader. I thought my chances were 50-50, but they were most likely worse. Oh well. Dave wrote me in a mail, that he saw it coming (of course he did, and I knew that) and I had better attacked alexman. But I just can't attack a good partner. And since due to my complete diplomatic failure Dave never developed into a good partner, well... we know how it ended. After I opened the save that day, my first thought was, damn, how could this happen? And the second, praise the Lord, that nightmare is over.

[FrustratedPoet]

Excellent read!