[SPOILERS]A new adventure of Vanrober always guided by chumchu

[chumchu]

I love the Thijs van Leer avatar, chumchu!

Thanks!

I first saw him in Focus. What an amazing beard =) His work with Ayreon is also very cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5IitoFXc7E

[vanrober]

Turn 139

AS i said he atacked and destroyed us so hard, we won just 3 or 4 battles after wining vs all catapults. We got a GG and put it on the archer, still the experience wasnt enought to promo any unit so a bit useless.

I gave 31 gold to Noble, but it seems that noble is not going to see it before we die so the gold is going to be lost. Sad.

               


GG I hope you enjoyed this thread. Ill think about the game this days and then try to make some thoughts about. Not sure if i shoudl spoil myself with the rest of the players threads before that or not. What do you think?

[Kaiser]

If you want to write an unbiased summary of your game, then you should only spoil yourself after you have written it. You could make it a two part piece, first your impression and then your thoughts after spoilering yourself.

Thank you for the great reporting and I hope you had fun this game, even though it went obviously different than you had hoped.

[chumchu]

GG. I enjoyed this thread a lot.

Kaiser has a good suggestion. Do as you see fit, though.

I will chime in with my thoughts as well, but after you have written yours to avoid influencing them.

[vanrober]

Okey, thanks both. Ill try to make a resume of the game saying what i think i should have done diferently.

Then i ll read the rest of the threads and chumchu opinions and i ll writte something else!.

[vanrober]

Finished work today and i want to writte this asap. Beacause i need to writte to mjmd that he did crap atacking us. I need to say it. Also to amica.

So the resume of this game is the following:

The initial plan was to get the second city asap to make the economy of PRO work asap. And i think it was a really good idea. We were the first on 2 cities of anyone. Then we saw Ruff going really slow on his development and we had a huge city for 3 city that could be compromised by a second city of Ruff so we moved the warriors towards him to slow his settler and getting that spot. That move was a crazy agresion to him (i guess) and he tried to destroy us with 2 archers, having him 1 city and we 3. So it hasnt no sense at all. But i think my first mistake were there. I didnt think he could think that would work out anyhow and i tech agriculture and i couldnt make a damn farm for 15 turns, so really wasted beakers there, i should have taken archery instead to be able to settle agressively and really safe with just 1 archer. I should have read better his double move in the tech thread and act more carefully in that tech.

Then Mjmd took the oportunity of pink dot us and take 3 cities really nice from us. Not only took them on "our land" he destroyed our settling plan, of planing really good cities on hills. That would have been cruzial in this war. In this moment i was really frustrated and hysterical, probably the thread become a bit too salty. Sorry for that, if that bothered any of you. It was while mig was winning on PB54 and i was frustrated for that too, so both emotions were on my mind and i might whin and rant a bit too much. Well, for being honest Ruff being a dick and not following the rules playing clock games for 50 turns and lurkers not doing anything about didnt help either for my mental sanity xD

In this moment i think Chumchu were cruzial for my game, he managed to chill me and cheer me and then i tried to play to win again. The alternative would have been make axes and destroy mjmd, something that would destroy both of our games (something that he choosed to do afterwards xD, but with praets). I think i did the best i could to win in that moment so i dont regret that at all. I might have won that fight with mjmd since i had more power, more production and more or less the same food as him, but he is agr so... Not sure.

The dicision was to make diplo with mjmd and kill ruff that was far behind while having a nice border with mjmd. It worked for 10 turns of enforced peace. He told us to kill amica and Ruff and he would take care of civac and CAiro. Then chumchu taught me how to make an army in 3 turns and how to whip it, and i did pretty decently i think. Ruff had almost nothing, but he still managed to kill several of our units, having just the island city left. In that moment Mjmd took IW and started whiping crazy, I wot worried on a first moment and started making some axes to lightly defend our border. 

That moment required a hard decision, should we keep playing to win or trying to last more but throwing our chances of wining away? We choosed the first one and tried to make TGLH that has a great sinergy with PRO, it would help us teching better because there were 2 FIN goign crazy on that matter (Amica and Noble). The option number 2 would have been chop all the forest into axes and have 10 axes per city. That would have destroy absolutely our economy and also would ahve make us force a fight between Mjmd and us, because we would have need to take something for those chops and axes builds, and that would be against the diplo we did with mjmd, also i think mjmd would have read that like an hostile act against him, and we didnt want that. To avoid it we decided to go infra and make some wonders while getting xbow and grant the peacefull border. Instead we got baited by him atacking Cairo while he was with the intention of atacking us.

In that moment our only chance was getting in a perpetual war limping to construction to then start the recapture  (in spain we know about recaptures xD) We needed him to be tight on gold so he could not aford to whip everythign hard. Remember he has no economical trait, so he is just workign cottages to survive economically. Thats why we asked our best friend Amica, the one that we gave OB first giving him money for free, we didnt atack him while having more than 3 times his power and we were giving him stone to get moai and all that stuff. So we asked him to stop trading with mjmd (he was having fur to give him wine, and amica had already fur on his land so he was giving mjmd wine for nothing) That happy was cruzial for mjmd since he needed to work the cottages to have some gold and also to be able to whip some units out. But amica didnt want to help us for some reason. We asked for money some times to get to construction and recapture the cities he took from us, and he didnt help at all. We tried to make civac work with us and he was just asking gold from us when we were already limping to construction, we needed gold and he needed mjmd holded. I dont understand why he didnt want to atack mjmd or to help us with resources he had doubled or anything.

So mjmd was getting free land while we were making huge defenses, there was a point in which we had construction and more axes than him having Praets, right in that moment Amica backstabbed us and took 3 cities form us that were 5cats on 2 turns In that moment we knew we had no chance of doing anything but dying. In that moment Noble apeared after no diploa t all and started helping us Knowing that it was best for him us holding the most time as possible Amica and Mjmd, i just dont understand why Civac didnt want to help us at all. He should have the same interest than Noble in slowing Mjmd.

So the only thing i regret of this last part, is having chopped 3 forest ad some OF into the great wall instead of axes, it would have been 3 axes more, that would have mean to stop mjmd atack for several turns more on Lemon, once lemon falled it was done the postion. It was a really nice city.

Another mistake has been not making any scouting unit to see what was people doing after noble killed our scout. We had OB with amica and we had nothing there to see if he was bringing units. Also we dont even know how is the capitol of Mjmd, or civac or any of them, that intel might have been good.

[vanrober]

Please ask me whatever you feel its missing on the resume or anywhere

[chumchu]

Reflections

1) Readings of other player´s intentions

Here I think I gave you bad advice. I fell into the trap of assuming that Ruff would behave in a similar way as I would. He threw his entire game over a few warriors standing outside his borders. I think you were correct in saying that your previous game played into it. Needless to say, it is not a good strategy and can easily be exploited. If we had been certain about that we could have played better, baiting him into destroying his game without breaking too much of a sweat in defence (going archery before Agri for sure). He was an easy conquest in the end but threw us of our plans too much.

I also misread mjmd’s expansion plans towards us. I thought we could establish a safe border if we gave way a little so that we could concentrate on Ruff. He was much closer to Cairo than to us so I thought he would be more occupied on that front like we were with Ruff. I also thought he would settle the close spots first as he had no economy in his combo. He settled super-aggressively towards us instead, before filling in his backlines. You were right about seeing Lemon as threatened.

This hurt his eco a lot, but with Rome he just needed to get to Iron Working. He also did not have to pay as much as us for units early, did not put many hammers into culture buildings and avoided distractions like mysticism, archery, HBR, masonry. A solid start from mjmd, balancing close to the edge of collapse with his rapid expansion without falling due to being focused and frugal.

I also did not think he would attack us later as we were much stronger than Cairo. I would have attacked the weak player. Attacking PRO Celts without catapults is really hard and he paid for it in time and economy trying to take us down. He also whipped too little and spread his forces too thin. Without Amica it would have been even harder, so he lucked out there.

2) Opening

The early second city worked great! It took advantage of our excellent unimproved tiles and our PRO. Pome did so much for us this game. The worst part of our opening was the tech path. It was indecisive. We did not get military fast enough while also not getting economy fast enough. We also prioritised masonry too high and sailing too low leading to an early economy crunch. Celts starting with mysticism did not help us here either. I think it was a case of being seduced by our UB. The correct path should probably have been Mining, BW, Wheel, Archery, Agri, AH, Fishing, Sailing, Pottery, Masonry.

3) War

I think the early warrior by Ruff was a misplayed this game. If you are choking the opponent, do it thoroughly or not at all. With how slow his start was we might have gotten Grapes just by surprising settling that spot without showing our intentions with the warrior. The blitzkrieg went incredibly well. We should be proud of that invasion. We ripped him apart in three turns =) In MP surprise and speed is essential to a profitable conquest.

Mjmd achieved surprise but not speed. Our defence also was much better than one would expect from the circumstances. Our calls when to defend and when to retreat was mostly correct. We managed to delay him very successfully. That strategy works when you have backlines and reinforcements.

4) Empire management

Micro was mostly good. You improved your whip micro during the game.

I agree with GLH as a good target. We needed it to expand and tech in order to win. Playing to win is much more fun for everybody than playing not to lose or to make someone else lose.

I think you tend to overinvest in culture and culture struggles for individual tiles. Mjmd did very well by mostly ignoring that. Those hammers could have been put to better uses.

The empire had too few workers by midgame. Having a dedicated worker pump like lingonberry or a whip schedule to double whip workers and
regrow on units is better.

[vanrober]

Reflections

1) Readings of other player´s intentions

Here I think I gave you bad advice. I fell into the trap of assuming that Ruff would behave in a similar way as I would. He threw his entire game over a few warriors standing outside his borders. I think you were correct in saying that your previous game played into it. Needless to say, it is not a good strategy and can easily be exploited. If we had been certain about that we could have played better, baiting him into destroying his game without breaking too much of a sweat in defence (going archery before Agri for sure). He was an easy conquest in the end but threw us of our plans too much.

I also misread mjmd’s expansion plans towards us. I thought we could establish a safe border if we gave way a little so that we could concentrate on Ruff. He was much closer to Cairo than to us so I thought he would be more occupied on that front like we were with Ruff. I also thought he would settle the close spots first as he had no economy in his combo. He settled super-aggressively towards us instead, before filling in his backlines. You were right about seeing Lemon as threatened.

This hurt his eco a lot, but with Rome he just needed to get to Iron Working. He also did not have to pay as much as us for units early, did not put many hammers into culture buildings and avoided distractions like mysticism, archery, HBR, masonry. A solid start from mjmd, balancing close to the edge of collapse with his rapid expansion without falling due to being focused and frugal.

I also did not think he would attack us later as we were much stronger than Cairo. I would have attacked the weak player. Attacking PRO Celts without catapults is really hard and he paid for it in time and economy trying to take us down. He also whipped too little and spread his forces too thin. Without Amica it would have been even harder, so he lucked out there.

2) Opening

The early second city worked great! It took advantage of our excellent unimproved tiles and our PRO. Pome did so much for us this game. The worst part of our opening was the tech path. It was indecisive. We did not get military fast enough while also not getting economy fast enough. We also prioritised masonry too high and sailing too low leading to an early economy crunch. Celts starting with mysticism did not help us here either. I think it was a case of being seduced by our UB. The correct path should probably have been Mining, BW, Wheel, Archery, Agri, AH, Fishing, Sailing, Pottery, Masonry.

3) War

I think the early warrior by Ruff was a misplayed this game. If you are choking the opponent, do it thoroughly or not at all. With how slow his start was we might have gotten Grapes just by surprising settling that spot without showing our intentions with the warrior. The blitzkrieg went incredibly well. We should be proud of that invasion. We ripped him apart in three turns =) In MP surprise and speed is essential to a profitable conquest.

Mjmd achieved surprise but not speed. Our defence also was much better than one would expect from the circumstances. Our calls when to defend and when to retreat was mostly correct. We managed to delay him very successfully. That strategy works when you have backlines and reinforcements.

4) Empire management

Micro was mostly good. You improved your whip micro during the game.

I agree with GLH as a good target. We needed it to expand and tech in order to win. Playing to win is much more fun for everybody than playing not to lose or to make someone else lose.

I think you tend to overinvest in culture and culture struggles for individual tiles. Mjmd did very well by mostly ignoring that. Those hammers could have been put to better uses.

The empire had too few workers by midgame. Having a dedicated worker pump like lingonberry or a whip schedule to double whip workers and
regrow on units is better.

Im unsure about the tech path, we had no agri resources and we had AH's im not sure if delaying AH for getting a prereq would have been worth.

The showing of warriors might be a mistake but i mean, was it as hard as making someone wanting to crus us with just his capitol? I doubt it. I still think that forcing him to get 2 warriors instead of a settler was worth. But of course i cant be sure, i have not the experience. I would like some vets more correct me if im wrong here. Grapes was one of the best cities of the map i think i thought it was really worth to make it happen.

I think i ve learned a lot from you, and micro was one of those things. Its true i need to find the time of making workers/whiping them, i have that on the list of improve things.

About the culture again im not that sure, having the culture predominance meant that we were seeing his cities because of the hills on the borders, and if he had that dominance he would see our cities almost empty, i think that if he knew how empties they were from before he would atacked us even faster, or harder. Its true we "lost" several hammers there, but i think those had a nice purpose. But again im really not in the experience and i might be wrong. I just think that 35h to get visivility for his cities and he dont have it on our cities. Its true that it was an axe, but 1 axe means more costs and we were lacking gold too. So im still unsure.

The lack of workers was a major mistake too. You are right, we had a nice amount and i didnt think enought of conquering 4 cities would mean the need of 6 workers more. And i didnt planned them well.

Thanks for your analisys chumchu, i ll think some more about. And also will start reading out threads to try to get some more thoughts about our game

[vanrober]

@Superdeath, I want to tell me my thoughts of the map after seeing mjmd and nobles thread, and the ruff land i knew on game. 

I feel pretty  unbalanced the copper situation. Noble had it as a great second city with horses and wet corn on first ring. That second city has 6 resources on his culture. I mean, the only city we had like that was Grapes and it was on a contested area.

Our copper had either fish on second ring (and caw on second ring) or sharing deer with capitol. Not really close.

Same on food, his capitol had wet rice like our deer but then pig with 6 food and fish first ring. 

Mjmd had worse food on the start i think but having the copper on the BFC i feel quite unfair. I guess you felt like giving that was balancing his lack of food, idk. He also got Fur as an extra happy.

Ruff had wet corn, sheep and first ring clams. He played it really bad starting with religion which is kind of weird having 3 tech food resources. But again he could have put a second city with wet corn and copper in first ring.

I would like you to see this opinions in a constructive way. I am not experienced at all and i might be wrong as usual. I know you did your best and balancing 11 starts is pretty hard if you dont want to mirror them.