AU 601: Alexman's Roman DAR 2

[alexman]

550 AD

Russ is avoiding confrontation, opting to gift his southern and eastern cities to the Persians instead.

This is a good move on his part.
It makes sense to conserve his forces and defend few cities well, giving them a chance to counterattack and kill one of our Armies. The alternative would have been to spread out his defenses and try to defend everything, but then the armies would have been able to attack and heal before continuing to the next target.

I still don't know how many armies he thinks I have. From the battle report I sent him, he should have been able to figure out that I have more than two, but there is no way he knows about Germanius and Maximus yet.

[vmxa1]

He may not know exatly, but the power graph should give him some clues.

[alexman]

590 AD

The Greeks continued their retreat, razing and gifting cities to rival civilizations as they moved west.
Finally, in 590 AD, the Roman armies have caught up with them, only to find their slaves hard at work building fortifications on the mountains around Athens!

Since Caesar does not yet know the Greek offensive capabilities, he decides against rushing blindly into the Athens valley, for fear of counterattack. Instead, he plans to inflict some damage and seize control of a mountain from which to conduct the pillaging and raids on the core Greek cities.

With that strategy in mind, Anthony, Octavian, and Hadrian charged the Delphi mountain before the Greek slaves had a chance to complete the fortress. Three out of the six Hoplites were killed, but the Roman armies all suffered bad losses, and had to retreat to avoid a counterattack. The mountain remains in Greek hands.

[alexman]

600 AD

But Caesar was not going to give up that easily. Next turn, with all five armies within range of the same mountain, he ordered another attack. Even though Alexander had replaced some of the losses of the previous turn with two Hoplites, the fresh troops did not have enough time to fortify on the mountain, so they were easier targets.

Germanicus, who had arrived at full strength from the south, attacked first and killed a Hoplite with a loss of 4 HP. Then came the turn of the three wounded armies from the previous turn’s battle, with each killing one Hoplite. Octavian’s Army, attacking at a 10 HP strength, came close to losing his battle, but in the end he survived with just 3 HP remaining. Germanicus attacked again to kill the final defending hoplite, advancing onto the mountain and capturing four Babylonian slaves.

Delighted with the success of his generals, Caesar ordered the captured Babylonian slaves to construct an outpost, so he can obtain intelligence on the strength of the Greek forces. With several slaves helping, the outpost was constructed instantly, revealing the stunning news that Greece had a second army in reserve, still waiting to be filled with units! Alexander must be waiting for the discovery of Gunpowder to fill it with Musketeers.

The leader of the fifth Roman army, Maximus, who had yet to attack, pleaded with Caesar to let him charge deep inside Greek territory and capture the empty Army before it could be filled. He had just enough movement points to get the job done. Caesar recognized that this was a unique opportunity, and under normal circumstances it would have been a no-brainer, but in this case it was not worth the risk. As you know, the loss of even a single army would result in a Greek victory in this game. So Maximus traveled to the Delphi mountain to protect his wounded comrades instead.

[Catt]

Re: 540 AD

Originally posted by alexman
But in the end, as with all AU courses, it doesn't matter who wins.

Three cheers! I'll give the same to Russ when the game is over -- to do so now might give away too much.

Catt

[alexman]

610 AD

In response to the gathering of all five armies (even if four of them were wounded) onto the Delphi mountain, Russ abandoned Delphi, but did not abandon Marathon. He claims he did it so that our troops would be nicer to him if they had some home cooking, but I think he just forgot.

The four wounded armies gladly walked into marathon to heal, while the healthy army pillaged two tiles and retreated back to the mountain, so that a 1-move unit (especially bombardment unit) cannot attack from Athens.

Meanwhile, Roman scientists discovered Navigation and traded it to the AI for Metallurgy (SoZ finally obsolete), Banking, Military tradition and loads of gold (coming from Greece, for sure). The Germanic tribes have Music Theory and Democracy, which are of no interest to Caesar. Physics are next in line, due in 4 turns with a gold surplus because of the AI income.

Trading Navigation to the AI will enable Russ to discover the location of Rome, so I would not have normally done it. However, since this game is essentially over, and especially because I want to finally read the other Roman DARs, I had no problem trading Navigation and even my World Map to the AI.

[alexman]

660 AD

After some skirmishing, it all comes down to this: A Knight Army attacking a Hoplite Army in Athens!

We know for sure that one Greek army consists of two veteran hoplites and one elite swordsman. That gives us a 71% chance of victory with our 18 HP Knight Army. We like those chances.

The question is what happened to the empty army we saw a few turns ago. If Russ is saving it for a counterattack, it’s not an issue this turn. If he filled it with veteran hoplites, we have a 71% chance of defeating it too. If he filled it with Elite hoplites then we would have a 47% chance of victory.

So the worst case scenario is to be facing a 3-Elite-Hoplite army, but that possibility is not certain if the Greek leader wants to counterattack, or if he is saving his elites to generate more leaders.

Further, we will not get better odds unless we wait until reinforcements have arrived from Rome. Waiting would not be fair to Russ, who is probably not enjoying this game any more, so Caesar orders the attack! Whatever happens, congratulations to Russ for putting himself in a position to have a good chance to win the game.

Hadrian throws his Knights into the gates of Athens. It is a fierce battle, and many Roman Knights die in the effort. But in the end, the Roman army is victorious with 11 HP lost. It turns out that the army they were attacking was a pure hoplite army after all, so Caesar feels very fortunate to have Mars on his side.

After the battle, Athens shows another army as the best defender. This time we are sure it’s our old friend, the 2-hoplite 1-sword army. With the odds in his favor, Germanicus attacks and wins with a loss of 13 HP. Anthony, Octavian, and Maximus then kill one hoplite each, and all five armies retreat to heal out of range of Greek trebuchets.

With both Greek armies defeated, it seems that this game has been decided. I had lots of fun, and as expected, Russ proved to be a formidable opponent.

[alexman]

In hindsight, I should have been able to figure out that the first army defending Athens was a 3-Elite army, since there are 15 HP showing. I didn't think of counting the green bars, and rushed into the attack hoping that it was the old hoplite/sword army. Better lucky than good! I had only a 33% chance (0.71*0.47=0.33) of surviving both army battles with none of my armies lost!

Thumbs up to Russ for offering battles that would give him the best odds of killing one of my armies.
He was unlucky.

Some post-game analysis: the militaristic trait coupled with the awesome power of Armies in C3C can work wonders, especially when you have available a moderately weak AI against which you can train your troops.

So contrary to my initial feeling, Rome and Greece are actually relatively evenly matched in such a game. Rome had slightly better land, access to Ivory, and exclusive access to the large but backwards Celts for a long time. This made the map easier for the Roman player than for the Greek player, IMO.

I was happy with how my plans worked out. The early exploration (including the conservation of exploring warriors who didn't risk hut-popping) paid off in terms of contacts, so I was able to trade myself into an early tech lead, not to mention the cowardly alliance against Greece. I think I had a good balance between expansion and military. The REX allowed me to build up a very strong economy by the end of the game, and the early military (including the 300 early shields invested in the SoZ) paid handsome dividends in terms of leaders (I think got 16 by the time I made peace with the Celts at around 600 AD).

Many thanks to Sir Ralph for balancing the map, which was very good for such a scenario. Also thanks to Russ for always in being in good humor and enthusiastically playing several turns a day until the end, even when it was clear that things were not going his way.

[jshelr]

I had fun and learned quite a bit, including some incentive on brushing up my homework on how c3c armies work and should be formed.

The format is fun and can easily be replicated by any two players who want to give it a shot outside this AU game. Other map styles and rules about attacking the AI might prove interesting.

Thanks also to SR and to Alexman for an entertaining game.