May 16th, 2017, 06:20
(This post was last modified: May 16th, 2017, 06:59 by chumchu.)
Posts: 1,176
Threads: 12
Joined: Apr 2016
The game is over. Some brief thoughts.
First of all, it was fun most of the way. In the end when the tempo slowed to a halt and I knew that I would be rolled by Cairo it felt more like a chore.
Secondly, I accomplished all of my goals but one. I survived until turn 100. I did not fall behind hopelessly. I got to use my specials. What I did not get to do was to go on the offensive.
Thirdly, I made a lot of mistakes. 6 of them stand out.
1) I over expanded before currency/CoL. I wanted to max out on my traits but I was too greedy because of the lower maintenance promised being used to immortal. Open borders only on Alphabet mattered a lot as I limped my way there. The troops to defend against Zulu cost a lot and so did not cottaging the capital more than I did
2) Going for caste too early and getting attacked for it. I wanted to use it to get to nationalism faster but it was not that necessary. Further it was way too dangerous with the Korean build up. I switched when he had marched his stack all the way to Elkads border. Switching also denied me the possibility to go on the offensive if there was an opportunity. In summary it was a really bad move for many reasons.
3) Underestimating elephants and Hwachas. I thought that my maces and spears would deal with them but spears lose to hwachas and maces are too expensive. Him being (cha/spi) made it a real problem. As I had no better counter to shock elephants than x-bows.
4) Going for Cuirassiers before rifles. My plan was to get to cossacks to counter Cairo's cavs that I foresaw. However, If I commited to that plan then I could not go into slavery as that would have wrecked my science which depended on merc/caste, which meant I had to slow build Cuirassiers. Then it would just be better to get rifles 4 turns earlier.
5) Neglecting my fixed defenses against Cairo even though war was coming. I had city visibility and tech visibility so I knew what I would be facing and when he increased his espionage on me it was blatant. What I did was draft the border cities to the max and getting them to 60% culture while building catapults there. I should have built castles instead as Cairo had virtually no trebs and did not yet have frigates. Even if he could ignore the castles he could not ignore the 60% and together with fortify bonus and hills it would have made him waste 2 extra turns of siege per city. That combined with more cats from my other cities could have made a difference. As a result of the long war a lot of my cities were still building courthouses/forges and a few barracks/research institutes were appropriate. I should have skipped a few of those for 10 more cats to deter Cairo better.
6) Not noticing that my main stack was exposed from a tile flip =( and then flipping out myself in a bad counter-attack. Before that the situation was possible for me to stalemate with rifles and cossacks. After that I would inevitably lose my core on the donut.
The summary is that Cairo played better than me when it counted.
