RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[banshee]

I agree, nice to have you here Jovy
Don't be too harsh on yourself, I guess most of us really enjoyed your thread and the effort you've put into it.

[Jowy]

@ Page 151 atm.

Me planting Thebes has been critizised alot throughout it's life span. I only beat India's settler by a few turns I believe (haven't read their thread yet). If I hadn't planted that, we would have had another city between us and Chancelorsville when we attack. Rejecting that spot from India and having it as kind of a front city to keep the core safer sounded good back then. I see some mistakes I've done.. Didn't get the monument up in time, didn't cut down the forests and roaded there etc. But why was it "a really bad move that never should have been made"?

[Jowy]

It's just a game!

That you've been playing every day for half a year.
And I'm not talking about 5 minutes a day.

You'd be pretty sucked in too!

[darrelljs]

That you've been playing every day for half a year.
And I'm not talking about 5 minutes a day.

You'd be pretty sucked in too!

Heh-heh...yeah. I feel like an idiot at my age getting so involved in a game that I have actual nightmares about it, but there it is .

Darrell

[Jowy]

Alright, to clear up some of my endgame actions.

I had basically two choices. I could rape my economy further by massing even more units, then STILL get eventually rolled over by India. If they didn't attack, then I would have loads of units with nothing to do with them and a broken economy that will never allow me to catch up. Now, the other choice was to improve my economy and hope that India keeps their word (they told me several times that they're not going to attack me). If they did attack, which was the most logical choice, then I was doomed. But there was a slim chance in the horizon that they wouldn't attack. It was a massive gambit, and obviously didn't work out, but what else could I have done? I was pretty much doomed at that point anyway, took the route I thought had the most potential.

Now, what I'm really not proud of, is the way I played the last few turns. I should have put up a fight instead of just folding over, even knowing I was doomed. Would it have made a big difference? No. But you should never give up nevertheless.

Yet, when you're actually playing the game, having played it for half a year and spent countless of hours on it, at that point when you know it's over you probably will feel pretty bad, like I did. We saw this when Mortius got rushed, he completely disappeared. Rego's team apparently got very depressed and negative towards the end. At that point it might feel justified to just give up. You shouldn't do it though, you'll regret it after you've cooled down.

[sunrise089]

Jowy, I think you can be quite proud of your performance considering your lack of experience compared most of the other players. On top of that you already talk about having learned a lot, which on top of it also sounding like you enjoyed the game just puts icing on the cake

I agree, I think in general Jowy played fine (didn't die early like 2 teams, not reduced to living on islands, kept up in tech for a while...). I think you made two big mistakes Jowy, neither of which involve civ skill:

1) (Along with everyone else in CoW) You didn't put the same effort into moving your units well as you did with the diplo side of the alliance. I don't remember if any units under your control were moved wrong, and I know not everyone has war experience against humans, but every member of the alliance should have been asking "Remind me what turn you move in and what your stack is like" pretty much every turn leading up to the war.

2) You gave in too quickly at the end.

[Jowy]

I agree, I think in general Jowy played fine (didn't die early like 2 teams, not reduced to living on islands, kept up in tech for a while...). I think you made two big mistakes Jowy, neither of which involve civ skill:

1) (Along with everyone else in CoW) You didn't put the same effort into moving your units well as you did with the diplo side of the alliance. I don't remember if any units under your control were moved wrong, and I know not everyone has war experience against humans, but every member of the alliance should have been asking "Remind me what turn you move in and what your stack is like" pretty much every turn leading up to the war.

2) You gave in too quickly at the end.

Not sure what you mean with 1). Kalin was pretty much the mastermind behind our attack. I shared all vital knowledge with him about tha battlefield, unit locations etc. and suggested a thing or two, but in the end he lead us imo. and I thought he did a good job with what we had. Definately agreed with 2). I wish I could go back in time. Don't we all. I really relied too much on the gambit. Should have whipped some archers and defended to the end. Hell, should have even asked some archers from Athlete.

[Selrahc]

Not sure what you mean with 1). Kalin was pretty much the mastermind behind our attack. I shared all vital knowledge with him about tha battlefield, unit locations etc. and suggested a thing or two, but in the end he lead us imo. and I thought he did a good job with what we had.

The first attack wasn't really done well. It was spread out and arrived piecemeal. Given the intense mobility advantage of the defenders they were able to move a mobile defence force wherever it was needed leaving cities not threatened. You also put far too much importance on pillaging. When the horses were pillaged the talk amongst your teams was as though that was a decisive victory. Sullla and Speaker had it reroaded in short order due to their workers. Pillaging a strategic resource would have required permanent control over the area to avoid Indian repair teams negating the damage. That was never achieved.

When Sullla and Speaker gained catapults it was clear that they would be able to survive. Dantskis withdrawal merely hastened the process of clearing their territory.

Overall you guys needed better coordination(you may have been sharing the info, but there wasn't enough acting on it. Staggered attacks probably saved India), and a better overall attack plan.

[Sir Bruce]

In my opinion, this is crossing the line. He is pillaging the tiles that clearly belong to our cities, simply because of crappy game mechanic allows it. In my opinion, it is outside the spirit of our non-aggression pact, and just a jerk move overall, to pillage the tiles of someone's city just because their borders haven't popped yet right after capture.

Perhaps this is unfair to Speaker, but am I the only one who wouldn't be surprised that if the tables were turned and India had a chance to pillage improvements in neutral territory of a rival, they would take the opportunity in a heartbeat, even if they had a NAP?

[sunrise089]

[stuff]

Well said.

Jowy, my sense on your attack was like this:

There are a lot of things you could have done differently in hindsight...
-->More spears in your stacks....but attacking with spears sucks
-->Not splitting up your stacks...this is pretty bad, but understandable as not all humans will attack out of cities to hit exposed stacks.
-->Mismanaging some promotions...but this is also a subtle thing and kind of a learning experience.

But there were three ENORMOUS errors...
-->The Ottoman stack got spotted my India in Greek land and tipped them off about the attack...unit visibility is another thing I'm willing to cut slack on when it comes from cultural tiles or in neutral land or whatever, but not when the future enemy walks a unit into your land. I know it was tough because it was your land and Kathalete's stack, but not relaying the movement of the India scouting unit was a critical error. This could be solved by just telling the Ottomans every turn where every Indian unit you could see was.
-->The attacks coming in from too many different directions and at different times...this was the result of different NAP expiration dates, but again the COW made the critical error of not coordinating NAP ends dates, and then much worse not adapting the attack plan to accommodate them. Again this could have been fixed by regular emails specifying when everyone was free to move in, and confirming you would all go in in a very narrow window.
-->The Roman mis-move...hardly your fault, but again it's possible if Rome had talked through its attempt to be clever with its attack someone would have pointed out the OB issue and then the teleporting issue that made the problem much worse.

I don't know if you've read this thread's comments during the war turns, but despite how angry S+S got a lot of us here didn't view the attack as having much chance the change the course of the game pretty early, and totally wrote it off one the Roman Praets mis-moved. I think you will find some of your allies still view the attack as a partial success, but the hammer numbers really don't bare that out. The tough thing is that you guys succeeded in achieving strategic surprise and building solid stacks. That's the hard part! If after having done that you all had just picked a single tile to end up on in a single turn (let the Praets come later since they were so far away) and used the power of the enforced turn split to move between cities and deny the enemy the power of control-a, a lot more than 1 city would have been lost.

I know almost none of that is exclusively your fault, but as a member of COW for better or for worse you get lumped into the general criticism.