Spoiler Thread for AU 203

[ducki]

How I won before even going on the offensive.

1. Settler by SW furs
Placement on Liepzig took me 30 or more minutes to decide, but I finally opted for the site next to the lake for the same reasons I would choose a river, but inland instead of coastal - I wanted to be able to block this isthmus with a single border bump, which worked.

2. The Great Library
This one allowed me to upgrade enough knights for 4.

3. Charity
I gave away an insane amount of Techs, Luxuries, and Resources or sold it for ridiculously cheap prices, merely to ensure that England, Azteca and Rome stayed in the game so I wouldn't be the easy target. This worked out well. England died out during the 2nd or 3rd war, but Rome is still around at Replaceable Parts, with 4-6 cities and constantly renewing deals for Iron, luxuries, and buying discount-priced tech.

4. Leo's
This (usually unimportant) Wonder probably is the turning point, allowing my stifled nation to keep up (somewhat) militarily without needing to continue to grow. See 5. The unexpected Golden Age this Wonder triggered allowed me to build my FP at an acceptable speed.

5. My first Sino-German war
This was with Knights and was 100% passive-aggressive. I was afraid Mao was coming into my territory to attack my woefully weak military, so I did the Chokepoint Shuffle for enough turns to build Leo's Workshop and upgrade to Pikes and a dozen or fewer Knights. When England joined me, they lost their two chokepoint towns, leaving me enough uncultured area to sneak a town in between England and China. "Peaceful" expansion was another key for me.
The war also netted me a Leader which became an Army, enabling the Epic and Academy later. Had I not been in a GA, the I'd have rushed the FP instead.
The fact that all 3 of my allies made peace after fewer than 10 turns gave me at least half my GA for infrastructure building instead of knights.

6. "Peaceful" expansion
Adopting a passive-aggressive stance, and joining a longterm MPP/ROP with Xerxes proved to be far more advantageous to me than anyone else. First, in the screenshot below, you can see how strong it can be to have a settler or two handy anytime anyone goes to war nearby. I spent a huge chunk of my treasury in most of those towns rushing Libraries and Barracks, and then Temples, with the occasional Wall rushed if necessary. I really should drop a couple more settlers down on each side of Hastings and rush culture.

7. Smaller, smarter military
I've actually kept my entire "offensive" military in the Brandenburg-Nottingham-New Berlin corridor, building a Fort on the Iron Mountain near Canterbury and placing Cannons with Pikes/Riflemen as a foil against China. While I did keep 2 Cavalry near Stuttgart until Persia razed China's fur settlements up there, as soon as Riflemen became available, the Cavalry were restationed in New Berlin. My entire military has been unbelievably small for the entire game. Currently, at its largest, I have 4 Artillery, 4-8 Infantry, 1 Army(Knight-Knight-Cav) of Elites, 2 Cavalry.
My Artillery/Cannon were positioned in the perfect spot to soften up incomers, and with 2 fortified defenders in a Fort, noone would attack them. Now that I have Rails and have added New Frankfurt to the map, I often have to detach Cannon/Artillery to N.Frankfurt, but they always return to the Fortress.
Canterbury, Nottingham, and Hastings have all changed hands half a dozen times which probably explains why Canterbury has not flipped to me yet. Nottingham flipped some time ago and has not been attacked since.

8. Sino-Persian Wars
These have pushed China, Persia and Russia into a "buyer" position on tech. Only Babylon leads me, and I recently caught up due to...

9. TOE + Hoover
I actually got it. A leader hung around Berlin for over 20 turns to ensure this. The long wait is mostly because I always forget the extra tech between Steam and Scientific Method, so my prebuild Military Academy was off...way off. Regardless, I got TOE, which led to Hoover Dam, which one is probably not that important, but I like to deny it to the AI. This with the Ironworks in Hamburg gives me a Wonder city.

I think I've won without conquering any land...
...my "peaceful" expansion has opened up an easily defended gateway to conquering Tientsin, along with its Ivory and a small chokepoint at Chinan.
...Wonders, Great and Small - Great Library, Leo's Workshop, TOE, Smith's, Ironworks, Shakespeare's(in FP city) and I might get Universal Suffrage, though that won't matter much.
..."seller" position in tech. Currently making 459 gpt from other civs(mostly Babylon).

Knowing that I have to go get oil makes it tougher, and I'm playing as though I don't know of Resource Island, so my first offensive will be against the Chinese to take Ivory at the very least.

[Dominae]

ducki, you've exploited a interesting angle on the whole scenario by expanding peacefully during wartime (this is not a bad thing). Thumbs up for for being innovative!



However, the game is far from over. Going through with Communism and a Domination/Conquest win is the point of the scenario (not being a peaceful builder!), so get out there and bonk some heads!


Dominae

[ducki]

I intend to, Dom, it's just a matter of timing.
If I can keep Persia and China at war, I plan to wait maybe until Panzers.
If not, it's about time to switch now.

My plan is, keep plugging away at infrastructure(factories, courthouses, police stations, marketplaces and hospitals where meaningful) and start an infantry-artillery buildup, both for garrisons and for beating on China.

However, if Persia and China make peace and return to Democracy, they'll outpace me and my Infy-Arty will not be as strong, which means I'll have to fight a bloody war against tanks then or a bloody war against Riflemen+Cavalry now.

Either way, I'm skipping Cavalry(I know, I know) and heading straight for the grunts. With Hoover and Factories (and Ironworks) I should be able to get Panzers up pretty quick once I have oil.

My big fear, aside from a Sino-Persian peace leading to the loss of my tech lead, is a Sino-Persian peace leading to me being the new target - I want to pick the fight, not get picked.

[Fosse]

A pretty bad loss

Okay... I've finally been able to set aside some time for 203, and I met with a crushing defeat long before reaching Communism.

My game really served to teach me how much I rely on early tech-extrortion wars. Without being able to get those early techs from a neighbor I wasn't able to even have discovered LIteracy before the other civs had a good ten, twenty turn lead.

I didn't have a suitable city for pre-building the wonder either, because everyone was churning out settlers, workers, and defensive military units.
I did, however, have a great deal of land thanks to the taking full advantage of the chokepoints, and a number of new cities that were just about to become productive when the attack came...

China marched right up to my cities and began their offensive. They attacked with a few archers and maybe ten warriors, which I would have easily defeated with my swords, spears and archers, except I did not forsee that China would be using the "Warriors Defeat Anything" strategy.

They wreaked havoc on the western isthmus and I was forced to surrender a city in the east for peace. It was that or annihilation.

I was allowed to build maybe fifty turns until the second quarter of the middle ages (everyone else was starting the last round of techs for this era) when Chinese riders began another offensive.

I had to buy a ROP from Persia, which was also at war with China, and their knights were able to quickly move to the west isthmus to do battle with China, but their forces were overwhelmed and I was losing a city each turn.

THe defeat was decisive and humiliating, and has made me realize how much I HATE that the human is forced into certain behaviors (you can't really call them strategies) to keep up on any level above regent (I was on Emporor).


In the end: No wonders, half an age behind in tech and falling, unable to defend own territory. Not a useful game to study Communism, but maybe a lesson to me on how not to play the early game.

[BRC]

Thanks for reporting Fosse. Sometimes the game just decides to hit you when you are at your weakest. Catt had a similiar thing happen in the last AU game. If you want to, go ahead and play again. I'm sure you'll get a different result.

[Dominae]

Re: A pretty bad loss

Fosse, I'm sorry to hear about your game; like BRC said, you've probably learned something, so it is not a "loss".

Originally posted by Fosse
THe defeat was decisive and humiliating, and has made me realize how much I HATE that the human is forced into certain behaviors (you can't really call them strategies) to keep up on any level above regent (I was on Emporor).

What behaviours are those? I feel like I dictate how I play the game, but maybe I've been playing Emperor so much that I'm not sure whether my "behaviours" are in reaction to the AI or not.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by ducki
Either way, I'm skipping Cavalry(I know, I know) and heading straight for the grunts.

IMO, this is one of the best moves you can do in AU203, and is not a bad plan in any game with the AU mod. I'm still undecided as to which is better: Cavalry, or Industrialization. If I feel like I can survive long enough, I tend to research only the required techs and hit the Industrial corridor as quickly as possible. This sets up an huge advantage against the AI. On the other hand, a dedicated beeline to Cavalry usually seals the game in short order. I would venture that in games where the game is already in hand (i.e. you know you're going to win), Cavalry is the best bet, while in the ones where further work is required, skipping Military Tradition is better.


Dominae

[Jawa Jocky]

Fosse.

It sounds like you didn't do enough diplomacy in the early game.

[Bluefrog]

Blue da be deeba da bah

PtW AU Mod, Monarch.

I posted a more thorough early-game report earlier in this forum...page 3 I think, if anyone is interested. I'll recap here, tho. And, I'd be more colorful here, but I've only got a few minutes left on my lunch break.

Early expansion: I made my way to the chokepoints rather early. On the western leg, I placed a city directly north of the little inland lake. This would, in time, be my FP city. On the eastern side of things, I made it south of the fur bed, with Russia squeezing a settler/spear through on a galley. China ended up destroying England, and I snuck a city in peacefully with some gems, just west of one of the Narrows. Persia went to town on Russia, and razed the city (it was only pop 1) that was in the furs. I quickly claimed that land as well.

Things went smoothly, and peacefully. I traded luxuries to keep China and Persia happy (Rome soon fell to Persia), but for tech, I went for Literature, then stopped researching. On a gamble, I snagged the GL, and made the largest tech jump I've ever had with it. During this time, I built up libraries everywhere; culture, and borders, for now, and as a foundation for another tech jump after Education.

I was able to snag the Sistine, but missed out on Sun Tzu's and Leo's. I'm kind of glad I missed Leo's...even though I lost some shields, I believe, it would have triggered an earlier GA than I wanted. I kept wars going between China and Persia, China and the Aztecs, and Persia and Babylon, as best I could. Nobody took huge losses, though the Aztecs ended up a full age behind everyone else. In the Industrial Age, my Iron Works city ruled all. I didn't miss any wonders I tried for, and I tried for most. I was going to wait for MT before switching to Communism, but the oil conundrum through that out of whack.

After observing the map, I decided that Resource Island was the best place for me to attack. Babylon was a couple of tech behind me, and I didn't think they could defend the island properly. It had 4 coastal cities on it, completely forested and railroaded, partly mined. I was a little torn...we had good relations, good trades, but in my mind, it would have been better at this point to piss them off, as opposed to getting China or Persia upset with me. I landed some calvary and infantry, took the first city, and started pumping out panzers on the mainland. I ferried some of these over, and in no time Resource Island was in the hands of its rightful owner. Sued for peace, and was even able to resume my luxury trades with Babylon.

After the first Panzer attack, Germany entered its Golden Age. Hm, I wonder what I built? Hordes of panzers. The Blue Crush rolled over on China, taking the former holdings of England, as well as a few Chinese cities. After this scuffle, I warred on Persia, and when all was said and done, I controlled the Narrows. On China's side, I controlled up to the chokepoint west of the Gems. I stopped a couple of cities into Persia proper.

I had considered leaving Babylon alon the remainder of the game, but I didn't feel like keeping up the trades for those luxuries. At this point, I had 6 under my own management, but...greed set in. The dawn of airports really aided me in my assault. The Babylonian navy was tough in my game, too. I don't like big naval battles, so while I sent some battleship/carrier teams over, and the initial landings were with transports, as soon as I had my beachhead on the mainland, complete with an airport, units came in by plane. At this point, I was producing MA, and shipping them over between 6-8 a turn. I mobilized just before the war, and the war took longer than I anticipated. I never took heavy losses, and I probably bombarded a little too much, as I easily had them on the ropes with sheer numbers, but I wanted to save as many MAs as possible. After I had conquered that continent, we made peace, and I left my mobilization.

During the mobilization, something key happened, and would happen again later, as an indirect result of this long mobilization. One of the former-Persian cities in the Narrows flipped back to Persia. There were very few foreign nationals inside, and that city had no Persian border anywhere near it. I haven't read too much about the formula for flipping...not too into the number-crunching as some here. I had no idea why this happened, but I came down to two possible conclusions. First, Persia could have used propaganda. I used it a lot, myself, after I got Synthetic Fibers...didn't see much need of any more techs, so I was gaining over 1000 gold each turn. Had to spend it on something, so I bribed other cities over to my side. I mainly went for size 4 or less cities, and even then most took several tries. However...I don't think Persia did this, as they were pretty poor at the time, and the city in question was size 6. Unless the AI gets major discounts on espionage, I doubt this was the case. The other option was the simple culture-flip. But...their borders weren't anywhere near it! The only possible way this could have happened was if they leapt far ahead of me in culture, which may have been possible...I was in mobilization for a long time, and culture gains were halved. I don't know. Later in the game, one of the former Bab cities flipped back to them, same circumstances, except I was no longer mobilized. I may have to dig through savegames and see a few things, but...it was just odd. I'm hoping the AI used espionage, but their treasuries before and after the flips didn't reflect that they did, at least not at the same cost I would have had to pay.

At any rate, I was able to wipe Persia off the map next. They didn't have many MI, and my MAs did some pretty efficient pillaging. I pillaged everything up around their capitol, even about 4 tiles deeper into their territory. I didn't want reinforcements making it to the front with any degree of regularity, and it was much easier taking down the occassional MI on an open grassland than fortified in a metropolis. I had Persia down to three cities on the far southeast Tundra, when...

China dropped a nuke on my Iron Works city, out of nowhere.

That impressed me. The Babs declared war on them, Aztecs were already at war with them, but neither of these civs could do much against them. This was the first well-placed nuke attack I've seen from the AI. It would have been better, had they had a tansport of marines nearby to claim the city (and its wonders), but I was able to fortify it again very quickly. It never was quite the same, but I didn't really spend too much effort directing the workers up that way. The game was nearing its end.

I finished off Persia with the troops already down there, and turned my wrath on China. I didn’t have any ICBMs built up, but by the time I was ready to mount an offensive, I had a few. Beijing wnt down in flames, and my MA quickly razed the city. I razed several of their cities, not caring at all about rep at this point, and eventually broke down their cultural barriers. I sent in 3 settlers, planted cities to link up culturally, and in 1959 I achieved my first Domination victory. Typically, I’m more of an early warmonger/late SS builder. This was a nice change.

Things I learned.

1. I probably should try this on Emperor. I’ve yet to try that difficulty, but this should have been tougher than it was. A large part was the Chinese/Persian disdain for each other, and my ability to exploit that through diplomacy.
2. Unless your goal is to disrupt trade, pillaging in modern warfare isn’t really worth it. My goal was, mainly, to cut off reinforcements, or slow them so I could pick them off in killing grounds. While this worked, it didn’t work as often as I would have liked. As others have noted, after RRs, the AI sends all of its offense to the front immediately. Once these are gone, their cities are usually sitting ducks, and the bulk of their reinforcements will come via drafting, anyway.
3. The AI doesn’t used RRs efficiently, not at all. Sure, they get plenty of troops to the front, but it doesn’t move around its defensive forces that well. Humans, if under siege, will cycle out their redlined defenders to a backwater city, and move the healthy defenders to the city in question. Also, the AI won’t underdefend its civs deep in its territory to fortify the border cities better, which is disappointing. Not a whole lot we can do about that, from a mod perspective, I don’t believe.
4. Rushing, in Communism, has a decidedly different flavor than goldrushing. Poprushing isn’t that efficient in the late game, namely because post-industrial improvements cost so many shields, poprushing them is prohibitive. It’s much, much better to disband units. Also, you get 20 shields for each pop. In gold rushing, this would cost you 80 gold. A pop point is worth so much more than 80 gold, and toss in 20 turns of unhappiness, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. However, not being able to spend gold on rushing leads me to…
5. I like the fact that I’m able to amass an obscene treasury, and utilize the Elite spies more frequently. I took cities, tech, and troop locations from the enemy a number of times. However, the AI didn’t take advantage of this, because they were constantly low on cash once they went to communism. I built up 30,000 in gold in no time, once I stopped researching. I knew I didn’t want any SS techs I didn’t need, but the AI was still researching as much as it could, despite the fact that more techs were, in essence, a moot point. So, leaving poprush in place gives new opportunities for the human, but the AI doesn’t build up a treasury like humans can. It would behoove us to change Communism to gold-rush, as much as it would change the flavor. If the Espionage screen wasn’t so clunky, I would have bought more cities than I did, and the AI probably doesn’t try that often.

All in all, this was a fun, fun game. The major drawback was the length of each turn once you got into a modern-day warfare. I logged 39 hours on this one, though 8-10 of those can be knocked off the top due to the game being on, but I was of doing something else.

[ducki]

Originally posted by Dominae


IMO, this is one of the best moves you can do in AU203, and is not a bad plan in any game with the AU mod. I'm still undecided as to which is better: Cavalry, or Industrialization. If I feel like I can survive long enough, I tend to research only the required techs and hit the Industrial corridor as quickly as possible. This sets up an huge advantage against the AI. On the other hand, a dedicated beeline to Cavalry usually seals the game in short order. I would venture that in games where the game is already in hand (i.e. you know you're going to win), Cavalry is the best bet, while in the ones where further work is required, skipping Military Tradition is better.


Dominae

Well, I'm sure I've won, and I could have been shoring up my forces with Cavs instead of Infantry(only replacements after the first round of Conscriptions, just to see it work), but since Cavs are dead end and I knew I wouldn't be making a huge Cav offensive, it seemed a waste of shields.

I did beeline Mil. Trad. until Education was discovered and it got me a few extra techs by giving away a few.

I'm sure I'll win, but I can either make Cavs or more Infantry/Arty that I can upgrade/keep to the end. With Rails, I don't need 3-moves, I need better defense until I attack.

[Dominae]

We're agreeing on the same points ducki. I'm talking about beelines to MT or the Industrial age, not a preference of Infantry over Cavalry (although that does play a part). Given that you still need to seal things up, Cavalry are not a valid option anymore.


Dominae

[Catt]

@ducki - nice game - very creative. The "support some punching bags for China and Persia" tactic was excellent. Now you've got to finish it though!

I finished mine early this morning. Almost 50 hours, probably 1/3 of which was "game on - not playing" time, but modern warfare takes time. MA proved (as expected) to be the key to a quicker win. I eliminated both Persia and China before they had MI or before they had a chance to upgrade much infantry (I ran into a few conscripts, but suspect they didn't have cash for upgrades anyway). In the meantime, Babylon took the Russian territories in the Narrows. I eliminated Russia (rather, put Catherine out of her misery) by taking Kaifeng -- a city more or less due south of Berlin between the SW and SE legs of the German empire. That da*n city had been bothering me the whole game, as it clearly needed to be German, but I had resisted taking it earlier out of respect for Russia -- Germany and Russia had enjoyed millenia of good relations and trade agreements, but unfortunately the diplomatic and military agreements, while a huge blessing for Germany, were the ultimate undoing of Russia. A shame

I had to enter into an RoP with Babylon to get to Chinese cities in former Azteca -- I did not want to spend a bunch of time building transports (I had lost most in trips to R.I., and used leaders to rush a couple for Persian island hopping, but they were a long ways off. With 13 turns to go on the RoP and only Germany and Babylon remaining, I attacked without RoP raping but of course breaking a deal (reputation soiled? perish the thought ) and took all but 2 size 1 Babylonian cities on my continent - I simply couldn't reach the other two cities on the first-turn attack. Taking the 5 Babylonian cities that I did resulted in a domination victory (finally).

One more post to come later (probably this weekend) to highlight a few things (if I can find them) that I did well, and to highlight a bunch of things I did very poorly indeed. Below is the winning histograph screen with the replay minimap superimposed. I'll ask the same question Dominae asked -- can you spot when Germany discovered Communism?

Catt

[Dominae]

Bluefrog, we seem to have learned essentially the same things from this game! I just have to say: good work, and move up to Emperor!

Catt, well done as well, especially the bit with R.I. Looking forward to your post-game reflections.


Dominae

[laissez-faire]

Great games, ducki and Catt.

ducki, you seem to be in the most control pre-Revolution than any of the games reported here. I say chalk it up to your Peaceful Expansion. Nice job.

Catt, just recently I picked myself up off the floor after reading your account of R.I. Invasion several days ago. Unbelieveable.

[ducki]

I think my biggest advantage is that I'm still a builder at heart. Warmongering is still something to experiment with, not a way of life.

That gave me a big advantage when being forced to play the builder for 2 full ages.