2nd Apolyton C3C MULTIPLAYER TOURNAMENT

[akulla]

In the Game between Swishy and Akulla. Akulla won, not by virtue of skill but by a lucky starting position. Swishy was a worthy advisary and probably would have kicked by b^tt if he had a better position.

[Swissy]

I conceded top Akulla due to time constraints, he hadn't the time to complete the game and Mark wanted it done tonight. While he hadn't won, my start area was so horride in comparison to his I figured he would send a lagre attcking stack at me soon, if he had it. He had rivers and forests and iron at two of his cities, I had jungle desert, no fresh water within 7 squares, and no iron until I took Egypt's.

I was ahead on tech and about to kill off the Egyptians and had the Germans believing Akulla was evil incarnate. But they had no iron either so didn't want war. I may have changed the Germans mind soon as I had Invention in 5 turns and would have gladly given it to Otto for an alliance. But we will never really know.

[MarkG]

thank you for the results!

waiting for krasny vs nye

round ii games: BigFree vs Snotty
Shogun Gunner vs akulla


if the game could be played during the weekend it would be great

[Snotty]

Whew! Beta really made me work for that one!

After getting the essential techs I beelined for monarchy so I could make the most of my GA and have a few shots at a SGL. Beta had Liz declare war on me and I beat her back with archers to save my GA. As it turns out I had the worst GA ever after as I revolted, moved an immortal onto a mountain next to my land only to find a sneaky stack of Betas swords. My immortal won in defense which meant I lost ~8 turns of my GA

I knocked Liz down to one city taking the Oracle in the process and started to swarm towards Beta with my immortals. It was a hell of a long walk and by the time I had got there Beta had aged up and his citys had walls. There was jungle in the way so I had to build roads for my cats. I built two long connected roads the length of the continent but I had to predict what units I needed many more turns in advance.

We had a great series of bloody seige battles, I attacked with a stack of 16 immortals, 6 cats and a few pikes but due to Betas strong defense he repulsed it. I flanked with 8 immortals at the same time and burnt a city down before they got picked off. Large stack feudal warfare is a very bloody affair.

I broke my ROP and grabbed Entremont as it had just built the temple of artemis. I started researching up the gunpowder path with the end goal of getting to cav. I built a strategic city (Zohak) and Beta seiged it. My free temple pushed the borders so he couldnt heal and that proved vital to my defense.

Beta had got a MGL somewhere and made a 3x M inf army with it. There really was nothing I could do about it. It would charge in, kill a pike and then pull back to heal. It was going to prove expensive to keep replacing them. Beta got Zeus up after taking ivory from the celts

I moved a regular galley to explore Betas coast and it saw off two vet galleys! I blew all my gold on buying two more and landed 2 pikes, 2 immortals and 2 knights on a mountain next to a back field city. I guess it must have been poorly defended as Beta rushed his wounded army back only to have it die on my pikes!

After that Beta threw the towel in as it was obvious I would get him eventually. My hat goes off to him for managing to hold me back for so long. I was in the lead for a long time but I just couldn't make anything of it. I should have launched a galley assault earlier but it tends to be the last thing on my mind on a pangea map.

[Snotty]

My land. There used to be more jungle.

[Snotty]

The temple of artemis had a stunning effect on my culture. Combined with the Oracle, up to 3 Military Police, and a few lux I had non-core citys in WLTKD which helped greatly with their waste. They were not fantastic producers but definatly added to my war effort.

[Shogun Gunner]

What an epic battle!!!! Great game Snotty and Beta!

Snotty, you are on a roll!

[alva]

Yep, looks like a great game.
Good AAR too.

Snotty, King of apolyton MP.

[notyoueither]

Krasny, I sent you an email an hour ago. I am in Apolyton chat right now. I am in the Civ lobby. I'll pay attention for the next few minutes. After that please send me an email or PM to get my attention.

[Beta]

I just spent 45 minutes typing up a detailed AAR, and then I attached an image - which I forgot to reduce in size - and of course - you get the notice - your image is too large - and then when you hit back - everything is gone. AAAArghhhhh!!

So here is the very much abridged version.

Great game Snotty! Well played!

As a first MP experience, I enjoyed it immensely. It took me several turns of the start to figure things out - because the auto-next-unit-to-moove-thingie was not checked. I was waiting for the white circle to show up - and with my settler sitting there - just kept hitting enter.

Also - combat takes some getting used to. Especially the timing of unit moves. It would also appear that it helps to be quick on the draw, if two units are facing off against each other - or as was my situation - where one is trying to run away.

As Snotty has indicaated, we had some large battles. A lot of the fighting took place around Canton and Tientsin, and the Persian city of Zohak when it was built.

After Snotty's initial siege was repulsed - he pulled back to the hill where Zohak is now built. Ther was only one pike protecting a stack of Immortals and Catapults. I was within two turns of being able to attack - and hopefully take out that stack - when more Persian pikes arrived. The opportunity was lost - and probably the game as well at that point.

Another stack of Immortals did some dmamage on th east side of my empire, but without pikes around they got chewed up by MI's and horsemen.

Snotty is correct in that the expansion of the cultural border around Zohak was key. I then got into a rut of cycling my pikes from Canton to the front - and back again to heal. Every third or fourth turn, my healed MI army would come out and smack a pikeman - then go back and heal. This was trench warfare at its finest. Snotty had trebuchets near the end, so hell was raining down on everyone.

I was hoping that riders and ancient cavalry would turn the tide. I had to delay research to keep up with the attrition, so I was just starting chivalry when his landing occured. I had also just built the Temple of Zeus, but it had not had a chance to produce any cavalry yet.

When the landing did occur - there was little in my backfield to stop them. I surrendered.

I was aware of Snotty's cultural and economic lead at this point - and that I was fighting an uphill battle - the landing was the final straw.

It was a great game. The AI's played interesting roles. And the shape of the continent with a narrow isthmus - which Brennus quickly settled - also made things interesting.

Once again - congrats to Snotty, and good luck to all in the next round.

And IN THE NEXT POST , you will see a pic of the main battle area - and my pike and catapult stack duking it out with the defenders of Zohak.

[Beta]

The main theatre of the war - Canton-Tientsin and Zohak.

[Beta]

This is a pic of my besieged empire at the end of the game. You can see the Canton-Tientsin-Zohac triangle of death near the top and Snotty's decisive landing on my west coast. There is a settler underneath the Pike at the head of the bay to the east - where the destroyed city is - but as was the case in the latter stages of this game - it was too little, too late.

[Shogun Gunner]

Akulla vs Shogun Gunner game beginning now!

[Shogun Gunner]

First update....

Shogun Gunner is Byzantine
Akulla is Zulu
Rome and Germany for the two AI

Akulla and my starting locations are not close to each other...

[Shogun Gunner]

After a few hours, akulla and I have agreed to save and finish the game later. (it's 2 AM!) The game has been saved as of 310 BC.

So far no military or diplomatic contact between our two civs. It's an interesting game so far!