Little bit of MP soon?

[Bobchillingworth]

Whee I finally died. Proudest moment was managing to sneak both the oracle (got machinery!) and stonehenge away in a barely defended size 2 city in the furthest SE area of the map.



I'm surprised how long I lasted, given how badly Athlete continually plastered me in my constant & ineffectual assaults on his cities. I also managed to launch two or three large-scale invasions of ShoottheMoon the did nothing but get my catapults flanked.


In my defense though, my start totally sucked :neenernee .... no horses, no copper, athlete to my West with one city's worth of land between us, ShoottheMoon above me, about 10 tiles north of my capital (if that). I was in the SE area of the map, so only was ever able to get 3 cities, until I tried to take what used to be athlete's horses; ShoottheMoon had an army in waiting, and that was that. He already had double my score and could probably have taken a domination victory, so it was either trying to steal the horses (I had to have flanking), or lose in the 15 turns remaining.


Ah well, GG! Very fun stuff =)

[Shoot the Moon]

I think Athlete pretty accurately summarized the beginning of the game, but I'll just throw in a little from my perspective: while Athlete and Bob were busy warring, I was able to expand peacefully for the most part. My tech path roughly went worker techs, Med., Horseback riding, math. I was blessed to have gold in my capital (got lucky moving the settler), so my tech pace was pretty fast. After HBR, I began to whip out some HAs, and then chopped heavily after math. As Athlete said, I got 8-9 (all out of cities with stables) and went in.

After killing Athlete with that stack, I had 5-6 HAs left and decided to see what Bob had in his border city. He had I think 2 spears and 2 archers, obviously with another spear able to whip out. So that didn't work. I didn't go in, but rather kept the HAs in the area so that Bob couldn't expand into Athlete's former lands.

Although I had twice as many cities, I could never get a major military advantage. That being said, I knew I could easily win a score race, so I was content to sit back militarily. Bob twice tried to attack my second city which was on his border. The first time I repelled him by flanking off his catapults (also got lucky in that a GG from the Athlete war was born in that city, so I was able to make a GG Axe to prevent his army of swords and axes). About 20-30 turns later he came again, this time with Crossbows. At that point I had 8 or so catas in the city, which I went in with followed by flanking HAs and then axes to mop up.

The game wound up ending when Bob tried to plant another city for horses. It was right next to a city I had planted in Athlete's former capital, and I went in with 4 HAs, 3-4 Catas, and 4 axes against what was it, 2 spears, an axe and a archer? Anyway, that was his second city eliminated.

I had a blast again. Thanks for the great game guys.

[Whosit]

Sounds like a great match. Maybe I'll catch the next one.

[Shoot the Moon]

Anyone up for a game today?

[sunrise089]

Sure. I'll be on gchat all day (sunrise089).

[sunrise089]

Regoarrarr and I are going to play a Direct IP game tonight at 8:00pm EST. Feel free to join us, especially if you're connecting to the internet without a router and are therefore an ideal host.

[Shoot the Moon]

That sounds good to me.

[sunrise089]

Quick report:

Most importantly we got direct IP working fine so I could be the host and we didn't need to worry about gamespy.

I rolled Agg/Phi HRE and was teamed with Shoot (Pro/Phi of Khmer). We played versus regoarrarr (Exp/Phi of the Netherlands) and Maniac (Pro/Spi of Carthage). We played on inland sea, and I was next to regoarrarr.

I had marble and stone in cap, plus a 2-hammer plant and a good food. I build Henge (beat them by 1t) and then Oracle and took Monarchy. During this time I had NO military (2 archers). Fortunately no units really entered my land early as regoarrarr decided to make a complete sentry net. That was a calculated bargain, and meant I couldn't send warriors at him at all and archers only with risk. Stronger units could get by but he'd see them coming and be prepared. Around while I was chopping out Oracle my team had half or less the power they did, and I was a bit worried. But I saw a single regoarrarr chariot (! he has horses hooked) between us, and also knew he had those two sentry archers. I figured surely he had at least one MP unit at home. So the guesswork was whether the 2-2.5x my power was accounted for in the chariot, 2 archers, and possibly extra MP units. If it wasn't and there were even 3 more chariots I'd loose a city. Fortunately there wern't chariots in the fog, I landed Oracle and built a few spears.

After that I build Gardens and we teched to Jumbos. Shoot had elephant, and he gifted me his horse. I had 5 cats done by the time HBR completed and then quickly slaved 6 HA. I gifted the cats, Shoot had self-built 5+ cats and 10+ Ballista Elephants, and he prepared to move in on Maniac. I put my 6HA on 3 galleys and sailed along the coast, planning on boating a back city while Shoot hit the front.

My attack was not to be sadly - Maniac had 2 spears plus other units in his backline cities. Shoot's main assault on the other hand was both luck and good. Lucky because with 1-2t before Shoot moved in Maniac moved his own offensive stack at Shoot. Every unit was quickly shredded even inside a forest, and then Shoot was able to move in on Maniac's now vulnerable empire. Despite a good number of defenders still at home Shoot took two cities in rapid succession and Maniac was knocked out. Regoarrarr then conceded.

One last note: Good tech pace for both teams. My side got our military techs out pretty quick, especially considering we detoured for Masonry and Sailing. The other side was behind at one point, but beat us to CoL by 1t at the end, so they had caught up nicely.
______________

Advice for regoarrarr: Consider the tradeoff implicit in a sentry net while playing AW. A sentry net is great, but if your opponent is not sending units at you they're probably expanding or making wonders, and you may want to loose visibility to impede that.

Advice for Maniac: Make more interior roads. Your cap and you second lost city weren't connected by a direct road, so even had your spears in your cap not been tied down they couldn't support you threatened city.

Advice for ShootTheMoon: Very GG but it wasn't necessary to hit Maniac's units in a forest. Your city was on a hill, so you needed to move your army 1t back from the threatened city, the wait for Maniac to move out of the forest. That way you loose 2 cats and nothing else.

Advice for sunrise: Watch your units - I lost a warrior and a scout because the turn was running fast and I wasn't checking their adjacent tiles.

Best thing regoarrarr did: Unit movement. We traded a warrior and a scout for a warrior and a chariot, but in the process you took visibility from the center of the map from me. Good job not letting me see your units before you hit me.

Best thing Maniac did: You built a lot of units for a short game. 10+ in your attacking stack, and at least 20 defenders that I saw. Had you not had bad luck those units would have made you tough to kill.

Best thing Shoot did: Made lots of units quickly. I asked you to make 10 Ballistas and you made 10+ and made ~5 cats.

Best thing sunrise did: Made Henge, Oracle, Gardens, and GLibrary.

[Shoot the Moon]

Advice for ShootTheMoon: Very GG but it wasn't necessary to hit Maniac's units in a forest. Your city was on a hill, so you needed to move your army 1t back from the threatened city, the wait for Maniac to move out of the forest. That way you loose 2 cats and nothing else.

Ah, backing out was the thing I missed. I realized once he moved into the forest that he had visibility on my city (and thus my stack) and was thus not going to attack but rather just sit in the forest while whipping spears in his core cities. Backing out would have indeed been the smart play. Thanks for the advice =)

And regorrar and Maniac, thanks for the GG. Your attack would probably have succeeded quite well about 10t earlier Maniac, you just got unlucky in attacking just as I had finished building my stack to attack you.

[athlete4life10]

Anybody up for a game now?

Athlete