Suboptimal's Epic (4) Fail

[suboptimal]

Suboptimal's Epic (4) Fail

Summary Results

Victory: Nope, Turn 381 Loss, Japan launched the spaceship (hey, Emperor has me out of my element  )

Honorable Mentions

First Enemy City Taken: Lisbon, Turn 33
First Civ Eliminated: France, Turn 121
City Count, Turn 200: 12
Best Promoted Unit: Field Cannon, Level 9, 540/540 XP, not promotable.  Found the hard ceiling on XP gain for a unit.

A question for the readers: A lot of people (here and elsewhere) seem to use an archer rush to take cities early on.  However, at least on my installation of the game archers are at -17 strength against city fortifications even when no walls are present (I can get a screenshot out of an SP game as an example).  Has this penalty always been the case against cities without walls and I never noticed it or do I have a bug on my hands?  

The Details

Started out settling in place and I crank out a bunch of slingers while going Animal Husbandry → Archery on techs and Code of Laws → Craftmanship on civics.  Despite completing Archery on Turn 17 I went after Lisbon to the north with three promoted slingers and a warrior or two.  It fell on Turn 33:



This was a tactical error as I then had to take the units, upgrade & heal them, bring them back through the capital and then go south into French territory.  I founded my first settled city just north of Paris and La Rochelle, intending on using it as a jump point for invading France.  At Turn 50 the situation in Germany and France:





I took out La Rochelle on Turn 53 and was going to try to attack Paris without battering rams, but got stagnated by French troops.  Instead I went around Paris and took out Tolouse on Turn 76.  I get a ram down there and take Paris on Turn 91 with two more French cities yet to fall.  Marseilles is captured on Turn 105 and capture the last French city on Turn 121.  



Unfortunately for me, while this was going on in the south, Japan showed up around Frankfurt in the north with three knights and a swordsman against...an archer and no walls.  On Turn 108 Frankfurt falls:




At this point in time there are a couple of things that are evident:

- I'm way behind in techs and civics, as expected on this difficulty
- The AI is very disorganized in its unit movements, Frankfurt excepted.

I get a pantheon on Turn 132 and take God of Craftsman.  Frankfurt is returned to the German Empire on Turn 150 after an assault with knights, a siege tower and Joan D'Arc.  Feeling giddy I make an attempt on Sao Paulo with the same units and get my ass handed to me.  Their city strength was too high because they have field cannon out and about.

Around this time I realize that the only way that I'll be able to make any further progress is to figure out which civ is the weakest and target that one as best I can while attempting to build campuses, hansas and commercial hubs to keep my production, tech rate and economy afloat.  This only sort of works.  I make an attempt of Valladolid on Turn 182 with 7 knights and a battering ram.  Four turns later:



So close but yet so far!  Back to teching and trying to catch up.  

The revolts start on Turn 194:



I make another attempt at Spain on Turn 215 but find out that rams are useless because Spain has finished Steel.  I finally capture the city on Turn 222 and move south for Preslav, which was previously conquered by Spain.  That falls on Turn 230.  The game continues up through the 200's and into the 300's.  My economy is in reasonable shape but I'm only pulling in about 125 science per turn as I started running amenity-giving policies in the wildcard slots to reduce the revolts.  Despite this being a pangea Lisbon had not much to do so I built the Venetian Arsenal, which actually came in handy as I was able to build a few pairs of Battleships in the city which I then formed into fleets and used to capture Larak from the Sumerians and Madrid from Spain (on Turn 377).  



Four turns later:



Generally speaking, I lasted a lot longer than I expected given that this is only my second game (more than 60-70 turns) on Emperor and I've also never done an Always War variant.  The AI did use aerodromes and air units (Aachen was being attacked by jet fighters on occasion).  However, after about Turn 120 or so the AI was sending units in drips and drabs rather than as any sort of “force”.  The AI also didn't really make any effort to attack cities or pillage significantly, which leads me to this unit:



It started life as an archer and got a few promotions.  After upgrading to crossbowman this unit spent a good 200 turns parked in Nuremburg on my western front.  Here it is after 5 promotions, with my second most promoted unit to the east in Heidelberg.



Spain and Sumeria were both sending units through this corridor and with walls up there were no attacks on the city.  
As a result the crossbowman would take a pot shot at any unit in range, do maybe 5-10 damage and gain 5 or so XP.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  On Turn 223 this unit was at 315 XP and had taken the Expert Marksman promotion and was pulling down 10 XP per turn just by potshotting units it had no business attacking.  On Turn 259 is was a strength 82 field cannon when firing out of a city center or district.  Around Turn 330 the trickle of forces from the west dried up so I relocated the unit to Aachen, where the Brazilians seemed intent on roaming through with helicopters, tanks and eventually mobile artillery.  The unit got up to 540 XP where it earned its Level 9 promotion.  With no promotions available, though, the unit could gain no more experience.  Therefore, it looks like 540 XP is the “hard cap”.

[Athmos]

Suboptimal's Epic (4) Fail

Summary Results

Victory: Nope, Turn 381 Loss, Japan launched the spaceship (hey, Emperor has me out of my element  )

Honorable Mentions

First Enemy City Taken: Lisbon, Turn 33
(...)

Hey, it only took me 30 more turns !

A question for the readers: A lot of people (here and elsewhere) seem to use an archer rush to take cities early on.  However, at least on my installation of the game archers are at -17 strength against city fortifications even when no walls are present (I can get a screenshot out of an SP game as an example).  Has this penalty always been the case against cities without walls and I never noticed it or do I have a bug on my hands?  

(...)

Archers (and all other unit of their promotion/upgrade line) always suffered this -17 malus against cities (fortified or not). They are still pretty good at slowly taking down cities, specially when you can siege them to prevent healing between turns. Even with the penalty, inflicting damage without retaliation is still absolutely great. You can do a lot by using warriors to simply siege a city without attacking it, and taking down its HP with archers. If there are walls and you have a battering ram of course, it is usually a good idea to take damage on a warrior or two at first, to take down the wall and prevent city strikes.

[timmy827]

Interesting as you did almost exact opposite of me.  The long travel times are killer for fighting on multiple fronts without big superiority; condolences!

What happened at the great battle of Valladoid - did a lot of spanish units show up and tear you apart?  Even if the city is very strong compared to your units, with it being that close and 4 move knights would have thought you might be able to rotate guys back to your land for healing while keeping a siege active and gradually wearing it down.

[suboptimal]

Interesting as you did almost exact opposite of me.  The long travel times are killer for fighting on multiple fronts without big superiority; condolences!

What happened at the great battle of Valladoid - did a lot of spanish units show up and tear you apart?  Even if the city is very strong compared to your units, with it being that close and 4 move knights would have thought you might be able to rotate guys back to your land for healing while keeping a siege active and gradually wearing it down.

One or two turned up and did a bit of damage, but it was mainly just the strength difference with the city. Despite having a siege engine on the scene the knights were taking damage faster than they could deal it.  My other issue is that in SP games I tend not to be as focused on the minutiae as I should be when playing at higher difficulties or trying to go for fast victories.  As a result I never even considered backing off wounded units for healing while maintaining a siege on the city.  Eventually I'll learn.