Dave's Not Throwing Away His Shot

[oledavy]

Hey Alhambram! I'm glad you enjoyed my thread. 

There's a lot to respond to here, I'm not sure if I can do your essay length thoughts justice. 

First off, that's interesting about how you converted Hamilton. Feels like one of those bugs that will probably never get fixed. Does it only work when the missionary/apostle has one charge, do you know? 

Thank you for blocking Archduke from getting musketmen! I didn't realize you did that. That made my conquest that much easier. Did you encounter many units when you were taking his western cities? Archduke doesn't really detail it in his thread and I can't see his pictures. 

I'm glad my vacation worked out for you, and that you were able to bounce back in a big way! I was genuinely super impressed to see your religious attempt come so close and ultimately win. I think, with the benefit of hindsight, the western two player setup was perfect for Russia. Two player setups are innately more stable, and you desperately wanted to farm with a heavy religious game plan - which you got to do for ~160 turns. 

I would actually love to see a dialogue between you and Woden discussing your thoughts at the time and your thoughts now on your three DoFs. My ability to really estimate who would come out ahead at the each one was not very on point, and I'm curious what was going through your heads. 

From my point of view, I think the first DoF benefitted Woden more, and my opinion has not changed after the game. I thought the second DoF would benefit Woden more as well, but I think you did a good job in your 'exit strategy' from it and used the time to grow your religion and undercut Woden's economy by taking 3 city-states. Then there was the third one.....I realize that it was what allowed you to win the game, and I think you had valid reasons for wanting the extension. Were I in that situation though, I would have declared war, no questions asked. I think you effectively shoved the same ability to conquer 2-3 cities down the road by 30 turns, and the primary reason the cossack swarm worked was Woden's selection of Colonialism over Civil Engineering. If he had not made that error, I think you probably would have been able to conquer 2-3 cities, similar to what I believed you might be able to take on t120. It worked out well for you though, so regardless of what was 'optimal' you still won.   Well done there!

Great job grabbing the Mahabouti, that was a really slick play. I honestly thought it was a bit of a waste at the time, but it paid off in a big way. I really wish I had not accepted our second DoF, but you caught me at an emotionally vulnerable moment. That was my big mistake that contributed to your religious victory. 

I posted quite a few thoughts on playing against cossacks above and my notion that you probably would have done well against Woden regardless of having an OP UU in play. Do you have any thoughts on that?

I'm almost a little sad we didn't get into a fight amidst the ruins of Greece - it would have been interesting to say the least! I'm also a little bummed we didn't get to fight a modern war, I was really looking forward to planes. 

Nice move on escorting that final missionary with a knight. I had thought of that possibility, and had a scout in position to kill the missionary, but didn't think of it being escorted   Granted at that point I didn't have much military to spare...

At any rate, I'll leave it there for now and get your thoughts on what I have inquired about. I will post more once I have looked at your thread. Great game man and congratulations on the win!

[Alhambram]

First off, that's interesting about how you converted Hamilton. Feels like one of those bugs that will probably never get fixed. Does it only work when the missionary/apostle has one charge, do you know? 

I don't know that, I didn't tried or test it.

Thank you for blocking Archduke from getting musketmen! I didn't realize you did that. That made my conquest that much easier. Did you encounter many units when you were taking his western cities? Archduke doesn't really detail it in his thread and I can't see his pictures. 

TheArchduke did throw almost his entire army to conquer Aachen and I knew that because I was busy spreading my religion around Aachen at same moment that TheArchduke invaded Singaboy, also missionary on route to Zaycnthus and Troy(Frankfurt 2) showed me totally empty cities of Abydos and Zayncthus without walls and units. So I was able to stage naval invasion and took that two cities without any encounter of TheArchduke's units except that builder that was running toward niter tile. At Helice I encountered 2 knights and walled city, due difficult terrain and my bit aggressive push TheArchduke was able to kill one of my knight and I immediately killed one of his knight at next turn. Remaining knight in city did suddenly flee Helice short afterwards, I suspect due TheArchduke seeing your army incoming and wanted protect his capital. And I was surprised to see TheArchduke's builder with 5 charges walking around near Helice after I conquered it. I suspect that TheArchduke just completed it in Helice and wanted bring him in safety, but my knight managed to catch it and I put 5 charge builder naturally at good use in my empire. 

So in total I only encountered 2 knights and one walled city in my conquest of TheArchduke and captured 2 buiilders (1 with one charge for niter and one with 5 charges).

By the way I can see his pictures, you not? Maybe find out why and in my thread I did comment about it.

I would actually love to see a dialogue between you and Woden discussing your thoughts at the time and your thoughts now on your three DoFs. My ability to really estimate who would come out ahead at the each one was not very on point, and I'm curious what was going through your heads. 

I yet have start reading his thread in deep parts, since I knew that we have longest contact, I wanted to save the best for last to say it. I shall comment my thoughts in Woden's thread.

I posted quite a few thoughts on playing against cossacks above and my notion that you probably would have done well against Woden regardless of having an OP UU in play. Do you have any thoughts on that?

I shall firstly comment upon your claim that I also would do same with Cavalry instead Cossacks.

I agree with your comment that I would have taken Jungle Cruise and Nan Madol if I only had Cavalry instead Cossacks, although I suspect that it would take handful turns longer, just enough for Woden to have his capital Monsanto defended by infantry. After that things likely would went differently, because Cavalry don't have movement points after attacking, so hit and run tactics that I almost always used with Cossacks don't apply with Cavalry. War between me and Woden would likely end with peace after 10 turns with me gaining Jungle Cruise and Nan Madol or Woden refusing accepting it and keep trying to retake that two cities dragging both us down and you would be big winner of war.

Point 1: yes I got GG, that would made big difference with Cavalry too.
Point 2: I was surprised to see Woden just built one encampment, as result after dealing with his only encampment all that I needed to deal with was his cities which also mean more room for my units to stay out range of city/encampment bombardment. It would be different story if Woden or you tried invade my land, I got quite number of them tossed down.
Point 3: same could be said about me: difficult to defend, a lot places where Woden could hit me. That is why I initially have many knights and later Cossacks, they can move from one to other place quickly with many movement points where need arises most and also for that reason I did add logistics (and discover quickly that logistics is impressive combination with Russian civilization). 
Point 4: I need to delve in Woden's thread myself more for answer of that.
Point 5: now I disagree with you here, with Cavalry it was more likely that more of my units would be killed, thus increasing my war weariness which likely forced me sign peace after 10 turns with just Jungle Cruise as conquests. Cossack's ability to move after attacking almost ensured that I don't got my units killed by Woden, that played very huge role in limiting war weariness. 

Then your idea's to counter Cossacks.

1: yes this would be most effective tactic to deal with Cossacks, just hit Russia hard before they reaches industrial age. Eliminate them or just have them weakened to extent that when Russia got his first Cossack out gate, you already got infantry corps or AT Crew (Cossack suffer -10 penalty against AT Crew). 

About remark about Divine Right, well a Russia players would likely always go for Divine Right for faster producing of Cossacks and Reformed Church afterwards to able mass purchase Cossacks with faith which I did in this PBEM. I never researched exploration since Merchant Republic although in my opinion strongest medieval/renaissance government, didn't suit Russian (or my religious) game play.

I agree that Cossacks are very good single target destruction, indeed they can do little without proper siege support. With logistics and roads and Russian extra tiles upon conquest I was able to move siege support around quickly and always attempted to one shot city to deny any possibility of counter attack to kill siege support. At turn 160 with normal Cossack I would have problem with taking cities with civil engineering, Woden not researching it till too late made big difference. When Woden finally got it, I already got Cossack Corps which could take down even cities with 200 fortification (civil engineering) with one shot which happened with Dwarfs. I wasn't able to take Angelica in one shot due choke point, no road at hill west of Angelica and river crossing penalty resulting in insufficient room for Cossacks to retreat to make more room for other Cossacks. Here you might see a little weakness of Cossacks: don't give them room to retreat, limit their room as many as possible.

I indeed got some back up battering ram behind my hand in case that Woden manages to rid of battering ram, it would slow down my advance likely with two turns. In turns that I couldn't attack or one shot city, I mostly used it to heal my turns in that period and then remount attack or mop up wandering enemy units.

Yes when we would war it was indeed critical for you to not lose a city, that would boost my chances to win greatly. Indeed easier said than done. I planned to purchase tiles east of Angelica and Thunder to creep closer towards your cities and maximize use of logistics so my ram (or apostle with proselytizer in case that you got defender of faith), could reach your city gates in one jump. Pillaging road is actually great idea to limit range of my units, that would certainly made things more difficult.

Last remark about make sure assign tiles of cities, well in Woden's case some of this tiles happened to be districts tiles that can't be swapped to other cities (commercial district of Jungle Cruise happened to be two tiles away of center of Nan Madol, the result is that I could attack Nan Madol with adjacent bonus. So you could say that having adjacent districts of different cities together to make them stronger could backfire badly in case when Russia attacks you with Cossacks! same can be said about wonders which can't swapped to other cities and we know that Woden got many of them).

[Zero_1627]

congratulations to the winner - well played, Alhambram! Also, a non-military win in a MP game is always good to see!

Good game, Davy! I enjoyed reading this! Your "rebounce" plans were well thought out and with a chance of success after suffering a major setback - and repeatedly. I salute You!