AU601: Andydog's DAR 1 (playing Greece against Sabrewolf)

[Andydog]

Medium term I’m hoping to catch up with his score by the end of the middle ages.

My current concerns are:[list=1][*]Need to get the tech lead, which means my free tech has to be one that the AI’s don’t have. This is CRITICAL.[*]I’m struggling to keep infrastructure up with city growth. I’ve made worker production a priority but still I’m struggling. I only have 10 workers to 12 cities, and there are too many tiles being worked that haven’t been improved. I desperately need to up production. This situation has arisen because I’ve been more concerned with plugging choke points with units and cities (thinking long term) than adopting an early REX strategy. I hope this was the right choice! I’m 4 turns off getting that diamond hooked up, so after that I’m going to get lots of hills and mountains mined.[*]Where to build the FP? I want to get started on this as soon as I can by rushing a courthouse but can’t really see anywhere ideal yet. I’m thinking a highly productive sea city so I can get lots of ships out, but placed so that I still get good benefit from reduced distance corruption.[/list=1]I’d appreciate some advice on my game so far. Are my strategies the right ones? (Obviously I’m not asking for anyone to give anything away that they shouldn’t, just an objective view).

[Andydog]

What a turn.

My swords wasted the Babs' bowmen. I paid off the Babs a measly 6gpt for peace and Construction. My free tech was Feudalism, and none of the scientific AI’s had gotten that one yet – they both seemed to get monotheism. Offered it around and got deals such as:

[Andydog]

I’m now at peace with everyone except the salivating wolf. I’ve gifted all the techs around to the AI so that they can build pikes – this is to defend against Sabre’s attacks, hopefully knocking a bit more out of his forces than they are at the moment. I got lots of cash in trades, and bought a few libraries for culture and science. Got a few RoP agreements, so hopefully it will make it a bit more expensive for Sabre to buy them off next time. Science jacked to 90% thanks to all the dosh coming in. Sabrewolf is now two techs behind all the AI’s. He may get them by suing for peace with the AI’s he’s at war with, but at least that will slow his leader production down and keep him at peace with them for 20 turns. I'm hoping that all this will force him into a 'reactive' game rather than controlling it as he's doing now.

I’m thinking now it’s time to carry on expanding, to build markets where possible, and keep that tech lead – trading newly researched techs around with the AI’s for more techs and money. Hopefully Sabre's troop support and Monarchy government will keep his rate of research down.

[Andydog]

Well, as I suspected Sabre traded peace for the 2 techs he was missing - Theology and Monotheism.

Persia and myself finished researching Theology on the same turn, and I notice Sabre doesn't yet have it.

I chose Theology to research because Sabre would most likely research the tech that the rest of us didn't have - Engineering. I’m hoping that one of the AI's gets to it first so I can trade Theology for it and then gift Engineering around so that sabre can’t trade it. If he was researching Feudalism (or Monotheism, but unlikely – I think he’ll be going for Sun Tzu’s or the Workshop) when I established the tech lead, then there is a good chance the AI’s will beat him to Engineering.

The big dilemma I have now is trying to determine when sabrewolf is going to attack me. His power graph is massive, I'm sure he must have a few armies by now - leader generation is a strategy I would be using as Rome, and he's been at war for ages. It’s a bummer I never got any leaders. I had 5 elite swords that were administering sever arse kickings, and also elite hoplites, but once again lady luck shunned me.

Interesting how it's all panning out - by keeping me at war he's slowed my expansion, forcing me to balance that with defense, but the war has also helped me secure the tech lead - most of the AI's were only too happy to give me peace after loosing so many troops in my choke point defense, and I'm sure all these alliances must have cost sabre dearly.

But if he sends over a few AC armies before I get Gunpowder then he probably has the game – I don’t think I’m in a position yet to beat off that sort of power.

So this is why I've been trying guess when he'll attack. He could either be adopting the 'sledgehammer strategy' (build all the military small wonders and then slam your opponent with multiple armies) or he could adopt a 'wounding strategy' (send over an army or two to cause as much destruction as possible until they're both dead, thereby crippling your enemy severely).

So what would I do then if I were sabrewolf? He knows that the AI wars against me haven't been effective, other than to slow down my expansion. He knows that I have lots hoplites and he's seen my choke points. He knows he can out produce me and I know he likes to build. This would all suggest he'll take the sledgehammer strategy, perhaps using knight armies? Or he may decide to wait until he gets Cavs, and hit me with Cav armies, maybe unloading a few onto my shores via Galleons.

So I'm going to risk the possibility of a short-term attack in favor of anticipating an attack in the medium/long term. I will maintain my current strategy.

Expansion within my territory has been on hold – I’ve been building my primary core into a massive research factory with markets and libraries, but this is nearly finished and so I can now pursue some serious rexing while maintaining the research momentum.

I will set enough workers to have fortresses in place within the choke points by the time I get to Gunpowder - I can then immediately populate them with Muskets and Trebs.

I will soon start a pre-build for the Observatory in my Gem city – I’m getting tingles at the thought of how much science that one will be pumping out!

[Mickeyj]

Not keeping your DAR up to date?

Are you going to continue to fight off sabre for as long as possible? How's the war weariness in your remaining cities at the moment?

I haven't been bothered to read the AU rules at what stage can you read Sabre's DAR to see where it went wrong?

[nbarclay]

The only times players are allowed to read their opponents' DARs in this game are after the game is over or if the oppnent agrees to allow it earlier.

[Andydog]

I haven't been bothered to read the AU rules at what stage can you read Sabre's DAR to see where it went wrong?

I haven't properly read sabrewolf's DAR yet, these past few weeks have been very busy for me socially and at work. I’ve barely been able to keep on top of my other PBEMs. I'll spend a bit of time going over his DAR this weekend, to see how I should have done things differently.

However the game is now over, my heartiest congratulations go to Sabrewolf.

He took me by surprise, not just by attacking early (I mentioned above I was anticipating the attack to come a bit later), but by the route he took to get to my lands.

I hadn’t been able to explore through the Persian lands, (I was mostly at war with them and I think 3 curraghs were lost that way to barbs), and for some reason didn’t expect him to come from that direction. From what I’d seen of their land, it looked to be an island, so the bulk of my forces were concentrated in my northern choke point. I did have some defense in the eastern choke point (just enough to keep Persia at bay), but not enough to fend off the power and speed of sabre’s AC armies.

The AI lost masses of troops in my northern choke point, but it was only a matter of time before they punched through - I kept having to send hoplites south.

So where did I go wrong? I guess not exploring enough (although I tried), maybe not REXing enough early on? This was difficult due to being at war with the AI’s.

What do others think? I’d be interested.

Anyway it was a great game, enjoyed this one and trying to second guess my opponent. It was a game that always had me on my toes, and I was always looking forward to receiving each turn.

So thanks to Sabrewolf, that’s three games he’s beaten me in now! Thanks also to the AU team for making it possible.

[Andydog]

How's the war weariness in your remaining cities at the moment?

It got bad toward the end once my forces had been penetrated. Before then, there were no problems with war weariness. I think Republic was the right choice of government - my science output was number 1 and I was managing to keep the AI out of my territory while suffering few losses until they hit me with med infs at the same time sabre penetrated my eastern choke point. And when that happened it was all over anyway.

[alexman]

Good game Andydog.

I think you're right that exploration was extremely important for Greece in this scenario, but that side was the harder of the two to play, so you might not have had a chance anyway. The combination of Ancient Cavalry, the militaristic trait, and the overpowered Armies in C3C, were too much for anyone to handle.

[sabrewolf]

andy, thanks for the game and thanks for the happy end (well, sort of )!

when you get a chance to check out my thread, you'll see i took a more careful look at war wariness. by having the AIs repeatedly attack you, you gained a lot of war-happiness... but eventually every single wasted AI unit harmed you. my legionary up north had seen dozens of war chariots entering your lands and none came back.
every single attack "costed" you 2 WW points, so even after 15 unsuccessful attacks, your war happiness was compensated.

but i guess my city-capturing gave you the rest there. with 16 points for each city, the 4th first cities alone already threw you over +30WWP.


generally, i'm not sure republic is a good idea in such a PBEM (especially when you saw me war-whoring from the first moment on), also because the AUmod weakens republic. and with the 3gpt per unit, it will have eaten up you trade bonus from republic.

but you did get me worried at one time... when i saw you getting construction in about 7 turns. had you gotten engineering... life would have been a lot harder for me.

and with some leader farming you may have had the right counter-measures against my AC armies (i needed a total of around 60 offensive elite victories (and maybe a half a dozen in defence) for my 4 leaders).

[sabrewolf]

oh, and btw:

it's not that you were scouting too little... i just made sure your scouting units wouldn't get far because of the perpetual war. but i forgot your curragh and am happy that you didn't send the gallic swordsmen against me (other that the persians, celts had iron).

and rexing... well, i presume having war chariots and bowmen permanently knocking on your door made defence important.


but all in all, considering you weren't micromanaging at all: well done! your strategy was quite good and without my armies, you would have had a good shot in the long run (better capital placement and cheap libraries)!