[Spoilers] RFS-81 - Anubis? More like A-noob-is!

[RFS-81]

Turn 51:

I built a second mine at Barrayar. Suboptimal is poking around here, and I send two of my slingers back. No sign of any barb camps nearby, so far.



The barb in the desert is unusually clever and just fortifies in place. I decide instead of fighting, I'll explore the western side of the lake and see what good city spots there are.



In the South, I stomp over a barb scout. My next plan is to follow the other river upstream. With any luck, the source is not too far away from my capital.

[RFS-81]

It's very much looking like Suboptimal is preparing for war against me. But one thing after the other.

Turn 52:

My third settler is completed and links up with the warrior. I switch to working the farms again to regrow the lost pop point and start working on a trader next.



In the East, I find a jungle-banana-plains-hill, that's 3 2 !



Scores:



Turn 53:

I wonder what these guys are up to?



Suboptimal has finished PP and switched to Oligarchy. I request a DoF, but I don't expect that he agrees. I upgrade my slingers to archers and call the barb-hunting warrior and slinger back. The settler escort is also heading back. I'm going to need him, and I can't let the settler run around alone. Beta Colony switches to high-production and starts on a chariot archer (6 turns). Barrayar starts on another warrior. I thought I was going to crunch some numbers related to wonder-building today, and instead this happens

[shallow_thought]

It's very much looking like Suboptimal is preparing for war against me. But one thing after the other.


I wonder what these guys are up to?

I thought I was going to crunch some numbers related to wonder-building today, and instead this happens

Great, now the hotel wifi kicks back in. Not that I could have said anything much useful. One actual error, the other continent being the "wrong" way, barb issues and no good mineable resource near early city sites; you're running a bit slow and suboptimal is feeling frisky (understandable after his last few games). Sorry, all I can do is wish you luck. If yoiu can get walls any time soon I see no ram...

[RFS-81]

Without Limes policy, it's going to take forever to build walls.

My plan for the next turn is to move the slinger across the river and then into my territory to upgrade. I guess I'll move the warrior next to it into the forest. Do you think I should stick with PP, or should I research Military Tradition to unlock flanking and support bonuses? MT would take about 7 turns IIRC.

[RFS-81]

Turn 54:

Suboptimal hit my garrison-archer with one of his own archers and an eagle warrior. I move the garrison-archer into the city and the volley-archer to the other side of the river. Both of them fire on the archer in the marsh to exploit his terrain defense penalty. The eagle warrior west of the city is promoted with tortoise



My own warrior in the forest North-West of the city has been injured by a barb archer. Maybe he keeps following me and locks onto suboptimal. My warrior by the lake in the East is followed by the barb warrior from before. That makes it tricky to get him back to my land. He'll have to walk through rough terrain to avoid getting beaten up.



Masonry completes next turn. Walls are pretty much my only hope, even though I doubt I can get them up in time. I'm sure that Barrayar is a lost cause. The eagle warriors have a > 20 strength lead over my city. A lead of 17 doubles the damage, so they're doing on average 60 damage to my city, which has 200 hp and can heal 20 per turn if it's not under siege.

[RFS-81]

Alright, I'm not going to bother with screenshots anymore. Suboptimal took Barrayar in one turn, attacking with the two healthy eagle warriors and then finishing up with the redlined one in the marsh. Walls at Barrayar take 6 turns. Even getting in the four remaining turns for the chariot archer seems somewhat doubtful at the moment, so I don't switch production.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Rough luck, starting next to the Aztecs. 

You didn't make any obvious mistakes that I could see, for what it's worth.

[RFS-81]

I don't know, building settlers instead of soldiers when my neighbour's military score is skyrocketing seems like a mistake. Sure, chariot archers instead of settlers would have put a dent in my growth curve, but so does losing all my cities. Having both cities at 25 strength, 35 ranged attack could maybe have stopped him.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Even if you'd built nothing but warriors, suboptimal's eagle warriors are damn near swordsmen in their strength between oligarchy and luxuries, so that wouldn't have worked. Archers might have slowed him up a bit, but I think he still would have ultimately pushed through.

The one thing that miiiight have saved you would have been walls, but you would have had to beeline for those as soon as you saw that you were next to the Aztecs, and between that and building the units you would have crippled long-term growth. Gambling that suboptimal was just after local city states and maintaining your own growth curve was a sensible decision, under the circumstances.

[shallow_thought]

I'm very glad to have my opinion - I can't quite see where it went so wrong - matched by someone who's played a  bit more than I have. I think that going military rather than third settler would have been enough of a setback as to condemn you to a slow death anyway. I'd have to hunt back over the reports to see if there were openings for a more aggressive chopping strategy that might have got the snowball rolling, but you've had two builders out, which seems normal for this point in the game to me. Also, it's not been a tree-dominated start, and stone only became available to harvest too late.

I suspect suboptimal has been a little lucky. To have this much in the field, I'm guessing he focused on warriors, got good rolls grabbing builders and used them to chop out still more troops. It will be interesting to read his thread. I do think he has made good use of his civ, troops and any luck he was given. His timing - getting his strike in just before chariots became available - was excellent. As I said, the resource distribution was a bit poor for Egypt, and unfortunate scouting / barbs delayed any push for PP.

Personally, I grossly underestimated the threat of eagle warriors and misread the meta-game. Your chariots were clearly seen as a threat to be crushed in the bud rather than a deterrent. If nothing else, it's been interested to see a rush, unspoiled, from the target's perspective. I have a little more sympathy now for other players who have suffered - seeing them coming is a little harder than I thought.