AU 502 Post-game comments

[Catt]

Re: AU 502 Post-game comments

Originally posted by ducki
Here are some questions, but by all means, freeform it if you like :

1. What did you learn about C3C version of the Celts?

Agricultural is poweful, of course, but I agree with Nathan that the Celts offer a much less focused approach. Cheap barracks does indeed make the early aggression much easier -- with a militaristic trait the Celts are useful both for early archer rushes and for building up a horde of vet warriors for upgrade. The change to Ag reminds me a bit of the old Iroquois (before C3C) -- traits just a bit "off" for a very powerful, but often unwavering, approach (as militaristic, the Iroquois would have been killers in the early game pre-C3C).

2. About C3:Conquests in general?

Not much; but only because I've played a fair bit of C3C. Communism is crazy powerful in C3C for large empires.

3. Was there anything you would have done differently?

Mine was a "sandbox" game -- played for speed and fun; since I had fun, I wouldn't have done much differently. If I had played demi-god, I probably would have been boxed in early and would have elected to archer-trim the Iroquois and/or Sumerians even though archers are a bit of a dead-end for the Celts.

4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?

Sandbox-game. France rated very high on the "annoyance meter" but not much trouble.

5. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?

N/A.

6. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

Nope.

Catt

[Aqualung71]

Ducki, I think an "AU502: Behind-the-scenes" thread is a most excellent idea! I for one wouldn't have a clue how to go about putting together a course and it would be a great help.

[Aqualung71]

AU502 – Post Game Comments

Demigod level, AU Mod

Ok, I’ll do the usual thing and address the 6 points asked of us:

1. What did you learn about C3C version of the Celts?

I think the change from Militaristic to Agricultural adds breadth to the Celts. I think Rel + Mil civ’s tend to be limited in strategic choice – ie, war or war. Whereas Rel + Ag gives a nice “fix” to the builder player because he/she can REX well while still planning a relatively aggressive game militarily. And let’s not forget that cheap Temples and Cathedrals also help the builder. Overall, a pretty strong civ.

[EDIT: Put another way, adding breadth to this civ reduces its depth --> ie, more of an all-round civ rather than a pure warmonger, which as Nathan and Catt have pointed out, makes the Celts less focused than they were under PTW.]

2. About C3:Conquests in general?

Oh, I’m still pretty impressed with the game overall. Playing so far into the modern age showed me a few little interesting things though. I found:

• Bombers (which got a huge boost from Conquests because of lethal bombard, although have since been handicapped somewhat by the Au Mod) are expensive and ineffectual units to use for bombardment of cities in the modern age, when your foe has SAM Batteries and Jet Fighters. I lost 60% or more of my Bombers when trying to attack Cities/Metros and resorted to Artillery as the safe alternative. I now look at Bombers as predominantly a Naval bombard unit, which did not really come into play in this game for me.
  
• The AI sucks at this game more badly than I thought. Having built what should have been an unassailable tech lead in the Modern Age, the Aztecs did not build a single SS component (nor did the French, as my post-game check showed), nor did they ever call a UN vote. This handed me the game on a platter.
  
• On at least 2 separate occasions, a Sumerian bomber attacked one of our cites and was shot down by an Aztec Jet Fighter, probably from an adjacent Aztec city having been put on air superiority. I never realized that could happen, but it was pretty cool to watch.
  
• We were also at war with Sumeria from 1700 until their destruction in 1780 – 25 turns I believe. Despite serious WW setting in after the first turn of war, our Democracy never fell into revolution. I found this quite strange, although I’ll admit that some of the WW inducements such as being attacked by their units didn’t happen in great numbers.
  
• Again, Armies are way too powerful.
  
• I employed tech stealing for the first time ever. I stole only in the Modern age, and only "safely", with a success rate of 4 out of 6. Anybody have any idea what the algorithms are for this? It would be very useful in deciding whether it is worth the risk.
  
• I certainly learnt more about playing this game at Demigod level. Refer comments below.

3. Was there anything you would have done differently?

Plenty:

• My early research selections sucked very badly. This is my major lesson from this game. My major objective was to play the first 40 turns much better than I did in AU501, which I felt I had to do to be competitive at Demigod. This was predominantly about taking my time and thinking carefully about where to move my settler/worker, what improvements to prioritise and what build queue to establish. But I failed dismally on tech selection, going straight for Alphabet/Writing for the Philosophy play, which at Demigod is doomed for failure. This put me way behind on tech, a position from which I never fully recovered. It was a “nothing” strategy, and I should have gone straight for Mysticism/Polytheism for the Monarchy play, or Iron Working for the GS play. Both these routes would probably have given me far more trade opportunities and possibly allowed me to keep up in research until the Middle ages. As it was I fell dismally behind and really only got back into the game after I took out the Iroquois.
  
• I should have invaded the Iroquois sooner, preferring as usual to wait until my force was vastly superior. However, a bigger error was continuing the Iroquois war after they had been broken. If I had made peace 10 turns earlier, I could have switched fronts and invaded Sumeria with Cavalry/Knights before they had Riflemen/Infantry. This would have made a significant difference to my progress through the Industrial ages, and Iroquois could have been mopped up at any time after that. As it was, I did not invade Sumeria until I had already entered the Modern age and I had some 7 Tank Armies.
  
  In fact, in hindsight I should probably have invaded Sumeria first. They had some useful wonders and no Iron or Horses IIRC.
  
• And related to the above, I probably should have moved out of Monarchy earlier and built my FP earlier, but I was too fixated on obliterating the Iroquois.
  
• Overall, playing at Demigod level severely restricts your window of opportunity for early invasion, particularly when you have a good Ancient age unit you wish to exploit. I know others planned and executed it well, but I missed the boat. Fall behind in research and your UU could become obsolete before you’ve had a chance to use if effectively. It is this step-up from Emperor to Demigod in C3C that I have found the most challenging, because you really have to change the way you approach the game. Under PTW, this step-up came form Monarch to Emperor. In this game, I found myself behind in research fairly early for reasons I’ve outlined above. If I was playing Emperor I feel reasonably comfortable I would have been able to make up for those early mistakes with some shrewd trading, however at Demigod I paid for those mistakes for the whole game and would have lost if it wasn’t for the ineptitude of the AI.
  
• Oh yes, and I would never have traded anything to the AI for the whole game, because that seems to be the only way to keep your reputation in tact! Those of you who read my DAR4 would know that I became a trade pariah when Germany was eliminated, because another AI somehow cutoff the German trade route to me by capturing their capital, even though the new capital was also connected to my empire. And from that point on I received comments such as “Germany has warned us of your perfidy”, this scuttling any chance of gpt deals for the second half of the game.

4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?

Difficult question to answer. Early on it was clearly the Iroquois – they attacked me in 2750BC, which would have been game over if I hadn’t had some RNG luck and 3 full turns warning, which allowed me to squeeze in a couple of extra defenders.

The Aztecs were the strongest AI for the second half of the game, but I was able to keep them onside by luxury trades and later, an MA against the Sumerians. They should have given me more trouble and they should have wiped the floor with Brennus’ face…..but what can I say – they didn’t!

5. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?

• As for AU501, I had no inclination to fight a war with Cavalry. Dropping form 6 to 5 attack makes a huge difference IMHO. Then again, timing was bad for me as Sumeria got Rifleman not long after I got Cavalry, so it would have been difficult. And since Infantry come soon after Riflemen, the ability to wage war in the Industrial ages is quite limited, which really isn’t a problem for the human player as they often prefer a peaceful Industrial age. Though I didn’t use Infantry to attack this time, I still think the improved attack rating is a good move in an age that has no superior attacking unit until Tanks.
  
• The ocean prohibition for Curraghs severely limited the ability to make contact with other civs – much more so than AU501 for quite valid reasons - so we were limited to Sumeria, Iroquois and Germany for quite some time. I think this works well – even though it’s frustrating.
  
• I had absolutely zero inclination or intention of ever going into Republic. I went Monarchy (for the warmongering) to Democracy. I fully intended to move into Communism and push for a Domination win, but fankly my game was very drawn out and given the Aztecs had some 600 units by game end, it would have been a real drag and I’m not sure I could have pulled it off anyway.
  
  Playing a Religious civ therefore gave us lots of flexibility on Government choice. I found the AI still made poor Government choices though, and by the Industrial age the 3 leading AI civs were all in Fascism and stayed there for the duration.
  
  I personally believe Republic has been nerfed too hard and needs a review. I don’t think it detracted from this game because Monarchy was a good choice for the Celts anyway, however under other circumstances it could have been annoying.
  
• I saw a Helicopter – the AI dropped 2 paratroopers in the middle of my territory, on plains, 2 tiles from any city. It was a good laugh.
  
• The AI seems to like Special Forces units – saw a few of them.
  
• I can personally attest to being frustrated by the inability to move Tanks on unroaded mountains/marshes! On one occasion, the only roads to a Sumerian city I wanted to attack were occupied by Aztec/French forces and I had to wait several turns until they were vacated. Later, a surviving Sumerian Rifleman hid in the mountains where I couldn’t get at him – this was on the western island where the only units I had were Tanks. I even moved a worker to the marsh to build a road, stupidly forgetting that I couldn’t cover him with a Tank (duh!), and promptly lost him to the Rifleman who sat in the marsh untouchable nexzt to my glorious Tank Army! Ok, so I could later have airlifted some Infantry, but it didn’t matter by then!
  
• I was the first to research Free Artistry, after all civ’s were firmly in the Modern age. Similar situation with Amphibious Warfare and Advanced Flight, both of which I was able to get valuable Modern age techs for in trade. I’m not sure if this is a problem, but certainly the flavours seem to give the human player the opportunity to outsmart the AI in tech choice and trading.
  
• Naval changes – I hardly built any ships past the Middle ages. I’m still not sure whether I would ever build a Coastal Fortress.

6. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

Well, we had some domestic strategic resources, which is always nice

More seriously though, I would classify having 2 fairly aggressive neighbours, Germany and Iroquois, as a negative Easter Egg. This had a catastrophic effect on some players who succumbed to early invasions, as indeed I would have without a little luck. This was clearly ducki’s intention – to test out the acknowledged military might of the Celtic GS by planting some early threats. This made the early game particularly more hazardous for those of us who chose to sacrifice security for the traditional REX’ing option of building an early Granary. And it seems to have made the game essentially a killer at the higher levels, as Aeson and Alexman would attest.

However, I am not criticizing ducki for this menacing AI selection. In fact, I believe it was necessary to achieve one of the scenario’s objectives – to test out the power of the Celts. And I think that objective was achieved.

Another interesting occurrence was the fortuitous siting of both Iron and Coal in the French capital of Paris. In my game the Franch certainly took advantage of this. I noted in only of my DAR’s how well the French had planned Paris, and IIRC around game’s end Paris was producing something like 180 shields with Factory/Plant/Iron Works. Incredible power in one city!



Overall, a well set up game in my opinion. Thanks to ducki for the thought and time he obviously put into it, which I think allowed us all to play an interesting and uniquely challenging game, while still being within the confines of what you would consider a "normal" C3C game.

Cheers!

[Madine]

AU Mod, Monarch

What did you learn about c3c Celts?

This was my first time playing the Celts, and I didn't buy ptw, so I don't have a good past point of reference.

They seem like a good civ with a good UU.

What did you learn about C3C in general?

An otherwise strong AI civ (Sumerians in my game) can be really crippled by lacking resources.

The AI seems to do very poorly in the industrial age.

The AI really likes to build defensive units.

Using armies against an opponent with no armies seemed to be a huge advantage.

Was there anything you would have done differently?

I had to restart, so I got the chance to do some things different. I built more defensive units early on.

I wish I had finished conquering the Iroquois. It turned out that later one of their cities had oil I needed.

Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?

Sumerians. They compete with me for space on the main continent. They were dominant culturally, so did well in border pushing. Later they declared war on me, and it took some time to defeat them.

How did the AU mod affect gameplay?

The weakened calvary didn't greatly affect my war with the Iroquois, but with stock cavalry, I might have tried to invade Sumeria. With the mod, I didn't think that it was worth it.

My 2nd government choice was democracy, under stock I likely would have picked Republic. I didn't think that paying double support would be a good option.

Infantry and guerilla were more viable offensively. Still, it was plain that infantry had the advantage on defense.

The lack of AI artillery didn't seem to affect the game much

Removing lethal bombardment from bombers made them less attractive to me. I felt I was better of with tanks.

Easter eggs?

I think the ones I saw were already mentioned.

[Aqualung71]

Hmmm, AU502 is pretty quiet. Anyone still playing this? Perhaps everyone's doing the quiz!

Ducki, perhaps you call get the ball rolling again by giving us some of the background and rationale for setting up the scenario and then we can discuss how certain things played out in the actual game.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by aqualung
Hmmm, AU502 is pretty quiet. Anyone still playing this? Perhaps everyone's doing the quiz!

Ducki, perhaps you call get the ball rolling again by giving us some of the background and rationale for setting up the scenario and then we can discuss how certain things played out in the actual game.

I'm still working on it every so often. My demigod game got bogged down in DAR5. I made a slight error that forced everyone to avoid trading with me (a stupid error ) so I'm probably not even going to get to research flight before finishing the game. I have about 57% of the world under my control right now. I just need to get some time to take enough of the Aztec lands to hit the domination limit.

[ducki]

Originally posted by aqualung
Ducki, perhaps you call get the ball rolling again by giving us some of the background and rationale for setting up the scenario and then we can discuss how certain things played out in the actual game.

Ahh, well, let's see...
My original drive to set up the course was simply that Dominae all too often sets up the courses and doesn't get to participate, so I wanted to give a little back.

Since it was my first course, I thought of making it sort of an AU Lite course - so as to keep expectations low - but decided there was no getting around just doing an all-out course.


Since the GS is considered by many to be the "best" Ancient UU and Agriculture is (at least in my opinion) overpowered, I figured those two things as well as the Religious trait together would take up a littel slack if I accidentally made it too hard.

Once I'd decided on the Celts, following Dominae's stellar 10 Tips, picking the opponents was easy.
1) I wanted opponents that could compete militarily, so that meant a)the Iroquois and b)Ivory - this would give us 3 fastmoving 3-attack units at around the same time.
2) If I wanted the AI to keep the Ivory, that meant they needed to be either aggressive or expansive - Germany and a bit of a cop-out with Sumeria, but there was more to it that just that.

France is really the only Easter Egg. Originally, that continent had one Civ at each corner/peninsula. As soon as I saw all the wines, though, I knew France was going there. French. Wine. I found it mildly amusing. Since I'd have to move those two AI start spots anyway, I feel this was rather minor. The second AI start spot from France went to meso-America, the mountains and rivers cried out for the Inca.

Byzantium was in quite a pickle, so there is where my hand was the heaviest. I had to link up two islands to form one - the editor-familiar folks here probably spotted that - and I took (yet another) Iron from France for them - I think. Maybe I just thought I did, hard to recall. Finally, I gave Byzantium one final helping hand with coast and sea lanes - I knew they'd be in a tough spot, but hoped that Seafaring+Contact would help them expand a bit better than they did.

On the homeland, finally, I moved each starting spot 1 or 2 squares to help the AI not hurt itself even more than it already does by settling so far apart - at least I was hoping that would be the case.

I know there were other solutions to the things the map generator threw at me, but I did have a reason behind every change I made and every AI I picked. In the end, though, it's impossible to predict what will happen in the real game. Aeson got smacked early as did alexman. I messed up and forgot to zip the Regent and Monarch stock games, so Makahlua stretched to Emperor and did so with authority and determination, as did others. Did I make it too hard/easy? I'm not sure. Drawing any such conclusion from the wide range of AARs is impossible. Did I fail to have a strong enough theme for actually teaching/learning something purposely? I think so. My original tendency towards "AU Lite" and my fear of screwing up enough to turn folks away from the course made me dilute any possible preconceived notion of a "Lesson" so much that AU 502 ended up as unfocused as some have deemed the C3C Celts. Broad, but not very deep.

Don't worry, though; I feel pretty good about the course itself. Mostly I'm a bit tweaked about the little technical things that didn't work right - forgetting stock Monarch/Regent, somehow not getting the graphics search folder working right, etc. I did learn a lot, though.

[Dominae]

I think it was a success.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Dominae
I think it was a success.

Very much so. I've enjoyed the course a lot and once I do find the time to finish it it will be my first demigod win...not that I play much SP anymore though.

[Aqualung71]

I "third" those opinions

Ducki, as you said in the teaser thread the idea was to test out the military strength of the Celts and also to see whether the new Agricultural trait assigned to them made them even stronger than they already were....possibly too strong.

I think what you did - by putting relatively aggressive civ's nearby, one of which had a good early UU, and as you've said, intentionally giving the Ivory to Sumeria - was a pretty logical way of testing that contention.

And judging by the early DAR's, it worked the way you had hoped - many of us had early setbacks because of our neighbours' military aggressiveness. And as we all know the importance of those first 40 or so turns, being forced to add more units into your early build queues or perhaps delaying sending out settlers by a few turns (as I did), can have a significant impact on your game.

I'm not sure, but I suppose the "aggressive neighbours" factor would have more of an impact at the higher levels. It certainly made the game a lot harder for me, since I am still only struggling to come to grips with the whole new approach to the game that demigod level seems to be requiring of me. So in that respect, I wasn't so focused on "how good are the Celts", rather, "how can I survive?"

I'm not so sure about what the Agricultural trait does for the Celts, other than make them less focused as has already been stated a number of times. Clearly it assists any civ with REX'ing, and therefore probably more than offsets the loss of the Militaristic trait for the Celts.

That's enough random ramblings from me for now.

Overall though, congrats to ducki for a job really well done, IMHO!

[Jawa Jocky]

Re: AU 502 Post-game comments

Originally posted by ducki

1. What did you learn about C3C version of the Celts?
3. Was there anything you would have done differently?
4. Which civ gave you the most trouble, and why?
5. How did the AU mod affect gameplay?
6. Did you find any Easter eggs?!

I'd like to thank Ducki for one of the funniest games I've played in a long time

1. They rock. When I was pumping out vetern GS durning my GA, I was invincible. Only another civ with a equally well time GA/UU combo could compete and you know the AI will not be running that civ.

3. It was easy so I should've played a more difficult level.

4. I steam rolled over what I thought would be the toughest civ and never looked back. But Sumeria was probably the toughest, but that was just them having a lot of units.

5. Played standard.

6. I won before education so I missed over half of the game.

[JimiD]

Late finish...

Start of with thanks to ducki for organising this, enjoyed it, at firmly feel up at Monarch level now.

Had to reinstall at about 500AD, with only a save from 320AD, and couldnt face replaying the game, what with AU503 now up and running for a while. Will try that now, but the sun is out in London, and RL gets in the way...

So, what did I learn:

power of good start and a settle pump (a guess i wont be using this too soon on AU503...)

a despotic GA is not such a bad thing.

I didnt wait for monarchy, the Iroquis and sumerians were pressing in, so just rolled out the swords. I didnt get the max out of the GA that I might have, but I got a boost. Also, by takig it early, no one else had anything but spearmen and Enkiku (sp?). I wasnt really fighting, just rolling them over. Got cross if I lost a single GS. The germans were trimmed by the Sumerians, who it turn failed to produce swordsmen in any number. The Iroquios, who should have had MW, had 2 in total, including one on an island to the left. The seem to have their mainland horse supply disconnected, so they didnt put up much of a fight.


So on the topic of despotic GAs, little early boost versus a later bigger boost. Has there been a debate on this in the past? Given the importance of early resource advantage it must have its role.

I wont be afraid of it in another game, just dont rush to mine your BGs (more hersey!)

[ducki]

I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I'm about to undergo the reinstall pain, myself. Seems my HD has a bad block and scandisk can't fix it - not too bad, except the registry entry for my profile is apparently on that block.
Blech.

Back OT - there's some discussion of Despotic GA in the 503 DARs and I agree that early advantage is magnified - the trick is to make sure it's actually an advantage - if you won't gain (m)any shields percentage-wise, it may not be "worth it", but if you do stand to get a good boost, I'm not afraid of it any more either.