My thinking that Hungary was stoppable was built on a couple of flawed assumptions:
1)I assumed that in the early going, city-states would be distant enough and their armies small enough that they wouldn't be a threat to a "real" civ until we hit the Classical Era or so. Alhambram combining the forces of multiple city-states using the enhanced movement, getting them upgraded to swords, and flinging the whole mass at scooter before we could even reach HBR was not something I thought possible.
2)I thought it would take a LOT more gold than it did to levy and upgrade units. I assumed Hungary would have to save gold for quite a while to be able to afford a CS army, AND I didn't realize it would be so cheap to upgrade them - I was thinking of previous games' gold generation where players were desperately scrabbling for every penny (crab harvests!) to be able to afford their upgrades.
In essence I thought the CS levy ability was meant to be used as a supporting ability for a more traditional military push from Hungary - Hungary's UUs backed up by a levied and upgraded CS army sandwiching or overwhelming an opponent. I didn't think Alhambram would be able to conjure up an army essentially from nowhere and fling it at us so soon.
Yes, he got a bit of help from the map - lots of gold-generating resources, that killer campus spot, lots of fairly close CS; however, I don't blame Woden for that. It's hard as hell to balance a map and you can't comb through every single potential tile to make sure there's no killer adjacencies. And the CS placement was pretty traditional, as well.
But it's also important to note that Alhambram really played his hand to the fullest. He was ruthless in scouting out CS for the specific purposes of destroying his enemies - very good scouting from him. Skipping Amani -> levy -> Amani -> levy around let him snowball an army much more quickly than I think the designers anticipated and was a great play. And his civ-development was top-notch, too. It's important to note that his massive yields aren't even mostly from China - which of course was pretty undeveloped when he attacked - but his own builds. He did a really good job prioritizing science (getting to Iron Working so early was part of what doomed scooter) and gold generation. And his operational strategy was good - he had a levied army already upgraded an en route before he even met China. He did a great job anticipating needs ahead of time, coming up with a clear plan to win, and executing that to the fullest.
Overall, congratulations and very WP to Alhambram!
1)I assumed that in the early going, city-states would be distant enough and their armies small enough that they wouldn't be a threat to a "real" civ until we hit the Classical Era or so. Alhambram combining the forces of multiple city-states using the enhanced movement, getting them upgraded to swords, and flinging the whole mass at scooter before we could even reach HBR was not something I thought possible.
2)I thought it would take a LOT more gold than it did to levy and upgrade units. I assumed Hungary would have to save gold for quite a while to be able to afford a CS army, AND I didn't realize it would be so cheap to upgrade them - I was thinking of previous games' gold generation where players were desperately scrabbling for every penny (crab harvests!) to be able to afford their upgrades.
In essence I thought the CS levy ability was meant to be used as a supporting ability for a more traditional military push from Hungary - Hungary's UUs backed up by a levied and upgraded CS army sandwiching or overwhelming an opponent. I didn't think Alhambram would be able to conjure up an army essentially from nowhere and fling it at us so soon.
Yes, he got a bit of help from the map - lots of gold-generating resources, that killer campus spot, lots of fairly close CS; however, I don't blame Woden for that. It's hard as hell to balance a map and you can't comb through every single potential tile to make sure there's no killer adjacencies. And the CS placement was pretty traditional, as well.
But it's also important to note that Alhambram really played his hand to the fullest. He was ruthless in scouting out CS for the specific purposes of destroying his enemies - very good scouting from him. Skipping Amani -> levy -> Amani -> levy around let him snowball an army much more quickly than I think the designers anticipated and was a great play. And his civ-development was top-notch, too. It's important to note that his massive yields aren't even mostly from China - which of course was pretty undeveloped when he attacked - but his own builds. He did a really good job prioritizing science (getting to Iron Working so early was part of what doomed scooter) and gold generation. And his operational strategy was good - he had a levied army already upgraded an en route before he even met China. He did a great job anticipating needs ahead of time, coming up with a clear plan to win, and executing that to the fullest.
Overall, congratulations and very WP to Alhambram!
I Think I'm Gwangju Like It Here
A blog about my adventures in Korea, and whatever else I feel like writing about.
A blog about my adventures in Korea, and whatever else I feel like writing about.
and 42.7
per turn with conquered China and settling next coffee tile.