PBEM5o: Tatan doesn't get protective Skirmishers!

[Tatan]

Well, well, well, what have we here?

[Tatan]

AT got Horse Archers... a smart move given my heavy reliance on slow-moving catapult stacks. Fortunately, I actually managed to anticipate something successfully for once, and have four spears guarding my army.

I'm hoping this campaign can end the game, but the exact logistics are somewhat challenging:



The dilemma I face is whether to stop and raze this city or not. The problem is that for each turn I dither in AT's borderlands, he gets to crank out a few more units. However, my stacks were already divided because of the attack on that mini-stack of his. I didn't want to advance on AT's capital with two different stacks, because my main advantage right now is in having a force so massive it simply cannot be attacked. So I moved all of my units onto the tile 1SW of the city. Hopefully this means I can destroy the city next turn with little fuss, and then move into those hills in the NE for cover the turn after that.

[Tatan]

Annnnd he concedes.

[AutomatedTeller]

yeah - you had more units in that stack than I had IN MY ENTIRE CIV.

A well deserved victory, btw! At that point, you coudl see EVERY UNIT I had, between Shangri-la and Valinor.

I have a bad habit of not watching power ratings

I learned a lot from this game and would be happy to duel you again should you wish congrats!!!

[Tatan]

Things I did right:
-The aggressive expansion to either side, claiming more land for me to fill in later if the game dragged on
-Not half-assing the rush in the late game--except for a few workers, settlers, and barracks, I built nothing but military the entire game. And it paid off, as I was never on the defensive again after the warrior choke.
-Building a crapton of mines. There was not a lot of happiness in this game, so after a point I just stopped whipping a lot of cities and worked 1-2 foods + 3-4 mines. It allowed me to crank units like no tomorrow, and still allowed for stop-gap wealth building when necessary (like when I was pushing for Construction).

Things I did wrong:
-The early vulture probes were pretty stupid in retrospect. Taking the time to build an additional vulture/spear to go with each of those early scouts would have made them function much better at actually choking.
-My early plants were a little *too* conservative. Settling on the copper, for instance, was unnecessary, though it didn't end up hurting me too much.


Comments on the map and set-up:
The map was very fun to play on, Commodore! And I'm sure there was a lot more to it that I never got to see. My one criticism might be that happiness was in short supply for me the whole time. Even though there were several calender resources, and a few jungle-locked gems, I simply never had the leeway in my tech path to actually unlock those resources. Duel games just go so slowly in tech that I believe having a few more nearby early-game happiness resources is pretty critical (that said, there was an ivory, a gold, and religion, so maybe I'm just full of crap ).

Also, I believe that the leader/civ combinations were actually pretty balanced. Agg Vultures are absolutely fantastic, yes--but Pro Skirmishers are pretty good as well. It's true that barring a super-early choke/rush, skirmishers don't have the same offensive powers. But they're cheap, and can kill just about anything that moves when behind walls. Notice how my successful attacks on Baba Yaga's Hut and the Labyrinth both relied heavily on surprise, whereas Shangri-La, where AT saw me coming and had time to prepare a fortified stack, never even came close to falling. And Org-boosted Zigs, while nice, have no synergy whatsoever with a Vulture rush.

yeah - you had more units in that stack than I had IN MY ENTIRE CIV.

A well deserved victory, btw! At that point, you coudl see EVERY UNIT I had, between Shangri-la and Valinor.

I have a bad habit of not watching power ratings

I learned a lot from this game and would be happy to duel you again should you wish congrats!!!

Mwa-ha-ha... blatant disregard for any sort of economy FTW!

I'd be happy to duel you again. Got any other good ideas, Commodore?

[Commodore]

I'd be happy to duel you again. Got any other good ideas, Commodore?

Sure thing! If you'd like a slightly larger map with a builder focus, I have [SIZE="4"]Turtle-Techer Wang Kon of Babylon[/SIZE] vs. [SIZE="4"]Sexy-REXy Catherine of Aztecs[/SIZE].

If you'd like to explore more obscure leaders, how about [SIZE="4"]Some People Like Playing Restricted: Qin of China vs. Cyrus of Persia [/SIZE]

And of course, in a more normal flat duel map I have the good-but-not-great [SIZE="4"]Blue on Blue: Peter of Korea vs. Hatty of Maya[/SIZE].

Any sound interesting?

[AutomatedTeller]

I'd be down with any of those, Tatan. is one of those very interesting to you? I picked the leader last time, so go ahead and pick one yourself.

[Tatan]

I'd be up for playing the first one as Catherine, as long as you don't mind playing a Pro leader with an archer UU again.

[AutomatedTeller]

sure, why not? at least jaguars are killable on hills, if not in forest...

[Commodore]

Cool, coinflip has Tatan first, email..?