AU207: Big Planet - Strategy, Spoilers and Comments

[Arrian]

Some interesting things I learned from the replay:

GA's:

Aztecs - 2590 BC (with 1 city!)
Babs - I missed it, but it was roughly 400BC
Egypt (me) - 410 AD
Celts - 590 AD
India - 780 AD
Japan - 780 AD
Mongols - 780 AD
Zulu - 780 AD
Arabs - 1380 AD

Great Leaders:

Arabs - 1
French - 1
Mongols - 1 (which I killed)
England - 2
Japan - 4
Ottomans - 1
Zulu - 1
Korea - 1
Egypt - 10

Clearly, the ultra-early Aztec GA wrecked them. They were worthless & weak, though they did outlive the Babs, Germans, Mongols, Americans, Japanese, Vikings and English. The Arabs were saved by the bell: I would have captured their last city in 2 more turns.

I will have more to say tomorrow, but for now I leave you with one last screenshot, one that makes me proud:
I had just hit the Modern Age when I won.

[Arrian]

BD,

I just couldn't come up with a reason to kill them. When I finished Japan, I really needed to a period of peace (the Viking war hardly counted... it lasted ~5 turns) and development in Democracy. Once I was ready to rumble again, I had other fish to fry.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Certain things are easier on a huge map, and certain things are harder.

It's easier, I think, to keep up in tech & find trading partners. I think that generating Great Leaders is also easier, because of the sheer number of units involved in warfare. I got ten with a non-militaristic civ and I had only just begun using Tanks the turn before I won. Ten leaders would be a good/great game as a militaristic civ on a standard map. The counterbalance to that effect, however, is the scale of wars has a tendency to slow them down unless you have overwhelming force. I think it is also easier, once you have established yourself as a world power by taking our a couple of neighbors, to sit back and watch the rest of the world go to hell in a handbasket post-nationalism (MPPs).

On the other hand, it is harder to gain control of all the luxuries. That means you have to trade for them. Then again, since there are so many more civs, and often the smaller ones fall behind in tech, you can often trade outdated tech for the luxury you want. So it's not that bad. Strategic resources could be an issue as well, though I did not encounter that problem

Wonder building... well, if anything it might have been easier, though I'm not sure why.

I built: Great Library, Hanging Gardens, Sistine, Sun Tzu, Leos, Copernicus, Newton, ToE

I rushed: Bachs, Smiths, Universal Suffrage, Hoover

I captured: Pyramids (Mongol), Oracle (Babs)

Other civs built: Colossus (French), Great Lighthouse (Korean), Magellan (French), Shakespeare (Korean)

Speaking of the Koreans... once I crushed Mongolia & Japan (who both got awesome land, and hence managed to trip, fall, and be powerful), they were the "big dog" of the AI civs. I didn't look closely to see if they had a big terrain advantage over the English, but I get the sense that they didn't. Granted, the English suck, and the Aztecs were hamstrung in 2590BC, but from the replay it is not apparent that the Koreans had the advantage from the get go. They fought a pretty tough war vs. the English and eventually prevailed, and that's pretty much it. I have long held the opinion that the AI does better with certain trait combos, namely Comm/Ind and Comm/Sci. In my games, I very often find a strong Greece or Korea. That suprises me, since I view that trait combo as poor (I totally understand the Comm/Ind combo - that one is pretty strong). I think the common denominator is the Commercial trait and the extra money & corruption reduction it provides. The AI is utterly incapable of dealing with the Forbidden Palace. It is also normally strapped for cash. The Commercial trait helps with those problems.

I have a feeling if one were to create a Comm/Sci civ and give it a badass medieval UU and a "3" aggression rating, you would see more "killer AIs."

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Korea was destined to prevail on the England/Korea/Random island. It had a better starting position terrain-wise, and was had a more central capital than either of the other two civs.

Good game Arrian, and thanks for the closing thoughts (the best part, for me at least!).


Dominae

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Good lord Arrian, you blow my mind. You played Diety, right? Sheesh! I'd be happy with what you got on Regent!

Without rereading this whole thread, how many "modern units" on the average did you use in each significant offensive, if you can remember? By "modern" I mean "up to date"... War Chariots in the ancient era, Knights further on, etc.

As for Korea: I've noticed that on Huge Maps, unless they're wiped out, Korea tends to be the only civ that ever gives me a run for the money, tech/prosperity wise, consistently, irregardless of start position.

[Arrian]

No, no, no. I played Monarch! That's a far cry from Diety! Nathan, IIRC, played Emperor and did as well if not better than I did on Monarch.

As for unit counts... I used ~10 swordsmen on Babylon, ~50 Knights on Germany, ~50-60 Knights on Mongolia (depending on casualties & reinforcements), ~60 Cavalry to finish Mongolia, take America and take Japan. The attack on the Vikings used a few galleon loads of Cavalry with some muskets, so call that 20. The attack on Arabia started with Cavalry, Infantry & Artillery. I really don't have a sense for how many... maybe 35 Cavalry, 10 infantry, 8 artillery (all guesses). A turn before the end, I brought 4 shiny new Tanks to bear, and had several transport loads on the way, plus airports being completed all over the place. I actually had about 125 Tanks at the time.

-Arrian

edit: I also had lots of defenders (as noted earlier in the thread), since I really like to be able to move at least 1 defender into a captured city the turn I take it. If I didn't have enough, I would often rushbuy defenders in cities near the front (recently captured towns). The line of defenders would keep moving, rolling in behind the attackers. This meant that eventually, when I consolidated my gains, I had enough defenders to put 1 each in every coastal town, 2 each in towns bordering Zululand, have a line of 5 on the mountains between Zululand & I in the south, and stll have a fair number left over that I could use in intercontinental invasions.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Dominae
Korea was destined to prevail on the England/Korea/Random island. It had a better starting position terrain-wise, and was had a more central capital than either of the other two civs.

Ah, I should have checked. Still, I really do think that the Commercial trait, particularly in combo with Scientific, really helps the AI.

Good game Arrian, and thanks for the closing thoughts (the best part, for me at least!).

Dominae

Thanks, and no problem. I wish I had more insightful things to say, but that's the best I could do.

-Arrian

[badams52]

Arrian: Great game. Lovely to look at your map and warmongering ways, and I love Grog in his tank.

BigD: Your war with Japan is very typical when attacking and AI with outdated units. Hell send his whole offensive army to try and destroy/retake cities, but once that army (70+ you say?) is dead, he's just getting what he builds each turn. So if you can defeat the 70+ SOD (and if it's Cavalry v. infantry or course you can) then it's just a matter of rolling over his units with tanks.

Once when Persia made it to the later rounds against me, they had maybe 50-60 infantry that invaded my terriroy heading for one my my weaker cities (I had MAs). I surrounded his troops at the chokepoint so that he couldn't retreat or move forward (his infantry didn't want to try and attack my MIs) and pounded them with 50+ artillery and finished them off with MAs. Took a long time, but after that, Persia no longer posed a threat.

[Arrian]

Thanks, badams! I was pleased to finally give Grog his Tank. He's been waiting for it for so long.

I was also happy to pull off another "first" for me: the 4x elite* Cavalry army. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Cavaliers (who generated leaders 7-10) were brought together as 20hp of 3-move hell-on-hooves. Muwahahaha!

-Arrian

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well my war against the Mongols is just about to start up. I accidentally renewed a deal for another 20 turns with them instead of cancelling it. Oops! So now I'm gonna try to use some espionage to have them declare war on me instead. Probably better that way anyways.

I've tried to make the attached screenshot as helpful as possible to show you my planned war. Okay now:

#1-39 MA. I'm using my RoP with the English as a staging point to advance into Mongol territory.

#2-1 transport loaded with tanks/MA, 6 battleships, 2 destroyers. It's my northern fleet. I'm gonna use it to take out the island cities. You'll also notice part of my southern fleet I pulled up for the war. I'm gonna send them north once the war begins to pick of Mongol ships.

#3-2 MI guarding 7 artillery each. I'm gonna bombard the crap out of the two isolated Mongol cities and then take them with my cavalry if possible. I'm hoping using the art to redline defenders will give my cav something to do. And because most of my leftover cav is elite I'm hoping for a leader or two.

#4-My re-enforcements. 10 MA and a like number of elite tanks. Once I take Munich from the Mongols they are gonna spill in and take out straglers.

I also have a force of MI ready to rush in to a)stop the counter-offensive and b)hold the taken cities.

As for the arrows. Pretty simple. Yellow is stage 1. Blue is stage 2. Green is stage 3.

Well that's about it. I'll keep everyone up to date.

BigD

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well hopefully this is a good sign the Civ Gods are with me today. First try at putting a spy in.

BigD

[Arrian]

Looks like it's time to kick ass, BD.

One thing: it sounds like you have ~45 MA total. Why so few? You have 10,000 gold in the bank! You can easily afford a bigger military... hell, you could rush a large number of units with that much money! More attacking power = shorter war & lower casualties.

You're gonna win, it's just that with more units you'd win easier, and be able to then take on Japan.

-Arrian

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well here's a screen from the first turn. I managed to take 4 cities pretty quickly. I'm poised to take another as well. Ta-tu was a pain in the butt to take. It had to pour a lot of units into it to take it. I could have waited for my artillery to come up or reposition my planes but I wanted it now! I only lost 2 MA and had about 6 or 7 retreat. I guess that's not too bad considering I was attacking a size 23 city heavily defended.

My casualties so far are 3 MA, 2 MI, and 4 cavalry. I also have gained 2 artillery pieces from the Mongols. That was nice of them to leave me presents when the fled the city. The Mongols have lost 11 infantry, 5 riflemen, 3 cavalry, and 2 artillery.

My big fear is that Tokugawa is gonna sneak attack me while I'm at war with the Mongols. He now has tanks and that kind of scares me. I'm hoping that I hit him hard enough in our last war to keep him on his side of our borders. My next goal after this war is taking Japans last source of oil. I managed to take 2 away from him in the last war. Thought I had them all but I overlooked one.

BigD

[BigDork]

Arrian...

Actually I'm about to spend a large chunk of that change. I still have a lot of my captured cities from the Japan war that don't even have courthouses, temples, libraries, and stuff yet. Gonna spend some money on getting them a little bit productive.

I probably could have built up a little more but I wanted to hit them now. I just feel a little bit of a bloodlust today. I am turning out about 5 or 6 MA a turn from my core cities. I'm still a very novice warmonger. I have much to learn yet. To me 45 MA is a lot. I couldn't imagine having 100+ at my disposal. Actually that sounds like fun.

BigD

[Arrian]

BD,

You will learn, grasshopper. I once had 225 MA... on a STANDARD MAP. Silly thing is, I never unleashed that force (I did use MA in that game briefly, but it was a small number against a very weak foe... fighting me with riflemen).

-Arrian