I don't think we should be too hard on Kuro, their starting position might have been even worse than ours considering their isolation. Maybe the only reasonable approach they should've taken was to rush us....
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[SPOILERS] WillPlunder as Mehmed of Arabia: Noobs meet world
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(October 21st, 2013, 04:57)Plunder Wrote: I don't think we should be too hard on Kuro, their starting position might have been even worse than ours considering their isolation. Maybe the only reasonable approach they should've taken was to rush us.... I have absolutely no problem with him and would happily play a game with him again, but he does have to learn some basic fundamentals. Not using seafood in his capital is revealing of some large things missing in his picture of the game. And RB is full of some of the most brilliant and analytical (and ruthless) people anywhere, so the bar is pretty high to be competitive. Having him as our neighbor to the north has swung the balance of this game a lot. I'm virtually sure a more experienced player would have played it very differently, and the geography was predestined for him to go to war with us to have a chance. Him having no horse and very little good land around his amazing (much better than ours) capital. Is this balance swing more than, say, the advantage Retep has developing basically in isolation? Probably not. My personal take is that it's quite ok if the best micromanager doesn't win every game and there are some large factors beyond players' control like how geography starts getting divided, which way people will settle first, and so on.  Retep started his third Golden Age (I think), including the one from Taj. His research is scary, he's going to be at rifles in no time. Boldly took a city from Kuro, it is the iceball site in the screenshot.  I convinced myself in a sim that Kuro suiciding 8 cats and attacking out with longbows isn't a disaster for us, so onward we go. We can hope that Kuro decides to use his cats and attack while we're on the hill instead of waiting a turn - honestly this wouldn't surprise me at this point. Standard Oil is by far the greatest prize here - I think it's one of the best city locations in this whole game, much better than our capital. John Dodge is his main production center, and will need to be taken out, but I can't imagine that will be hard if the siege of SO succeeds. Maybe Boldly will beat us to it, which I think I'm totally fine with as long as the culture goes away. Overview of the north part of the world:  Note the massive snaking peninsula that includes Kuro, all of Retep's land, and a bit of stake that Boldly took from Kuro much earlier. Overall this map is really cool, but if I were going to balance it: - Put a land connection to Retep somewhere like SE of No Deliverance, so at least he doesn't just get to sit and play Sim City for the first 150 turns. - Kuro's land to the NE should be less terrible, and he should get horses, imo.  Ok, this is starting to get a little beyond what's necessary to take out Sisub... We really need Riflemen ASAP. The good news: - We're not the obvious leader. - We're not the easiest target. - Boldytyrant can actually win the game, so they're going to be trying to improve their own empire, not play king-maker. - We've had as good a relationship as it's possible to have in an AI diplo game.
October 23rd, 2013, 10:15
(This post was last modified: October 23rd, 2013, 10:32 by WilliamLP.)
  Boldly took a city from Sisub and Kuro in the same turn! Sisub got a general at least, meaning Boldly lost something. I don't think he has many turns left. Kuro's loss with the almost literally useless silver fort site shown. Boldly scored an engineer. I think the next key game-breaking wonder is SoL, which I don't know if anyone can compete with Retep for. Molach got Notre Dame which is great. We get the fail gold, and I was building it for denial value anyway, and Molach isn't a contender to win the game, imo. (To be honest, I'm not sure we are either, given my poor knowledge of midgame Civ play.  )I'm working on establishing a navy, enough that Retep can't easily swing over with 3-4 galleons and boat all our growing new cities. The way he's going he'll have chemistry fairly soon though.  So here we go - the siege of Standard Oil is on! There are more camels behind that will participate in this. This is Kuro's turn to suicide his 8 cats and see if he can weaken the stack enough to do any damage. Honestly I think we win this but it's a bit of a skin-of-our-teeth victory. Playing this game over again I think I'd do something more like Boldy is doing - immediately whip up a decisive army as soon as we get the tech. We could have done this either at maces or at knights.  Retep is owning the GNP stat. I should have noticed that we lost foreign trade routes with Boldly, since he's in Mercantilism. I offered open borders to a few people - sugar bribes (literally) to Oxy and Sutt. And I offered it straight up to wetbandit - when he cancelled borders before we were looking like leaders but now maybe he'll see the trade routes as a win-win against Retep.
Kuro chose the armageddon option, attacking with everything, which was probably his best alternative.
 More red in there than I wanted! He loses: 7 Catapult (350) 6 Longbow (300) 2 Horse Archer (100) 2 Axe (70) 1 Spear (35) Total: 855 hammers We lose: 3 Catapult (150) 1 Camel (90) 4 Horse Archer (200) 4 Macemen (280) 2 Crossbows (120) 1 Axe (35) Total: 875 hammers So, it was basically a dead-even mass-trade! I think my inexperience with Civ shows here - I probably should have waited for a more decisive result with more reinforcements before moving in. Aftermath:  I took this shot after Kuro finished turn and logged out - he really left a Great General in the city?! Maybe it was one born in John Dodge and he thought he could move it and dump its XP in the same turn?
I'm not sure you had a choice. As long as you can attack and take the city next turn it should be worth it. When your opponent has that many cats and LBs, your only two options are to bring enough 2 movers to take the city before they attack out or enough superior units to absorb more of the hits. Sure you could have waited for some more Camels, but he would have added more units too. I think the thing you buy by pushing forward is time. Time to get Kuro's lands up and running and contriubtuting. And time is precious. You also only lost 1 camel. Maces hurt a bit, but the other stuff is expendable and antiquated soon enough. I would have pushed forward I think. Coming out even in hammers while advancing on the offensive is close to a win as long as you are still capable of capturing.
“The wind went mute and the trees in the forest stood still. It was time for the last tale.”
October 24th, 2013, 15:36
(This post was last modified: October 24th, 2013, 15:49 by WilliamLP.)
Well, I screwed up, played on tilt, and then screwed up some more...
I started by bombarding SO down to 23%, leaving 3 cats to suicide. Camel vs LB (82%): Win Unfortunately that was my only fresh camel in range... I thought I could break the back of the stack so I pressed... CR Cat vs LB (19%): Suicide CR Cat vs LB (20%): Suicide CR Cat vs LB (20%): Suicide CR Axe vs LB (14%): Lose (Wounded) Camel vs Spear (62%): Lose Axe vs LB (6%): Lose Axe vs LB (11%): Win Axe vs LB (26%): Lose Axe vs LB (25%): Win Axe vs Axe (10%): Lose Axe vs LB (59%): Win Axe vs LB (59%): Lose Mace vs Axe (56%): Lose Axe vs HA (26%): Lose Axe vs HA (23%): Win Axe vs LB (36%): Lose So there went all my ancient age trash. Those axes mostly had a bit of collateral damage, at 4.3/5 or so. And I'm not close to breaking through:  And the longbow coming in from the NW is a Medic 3. I thought about tactics to block it, but he could just promote another medic 3 anyway with the general in the city. I have 5 full health camels (or above 95%) that can strike next turn. I'm not sure this wave can take the city at this point. What I should have done I think, is sat tight, promoted a chariot to medic 3, and healed off all the collateral while bombarding the defenses to 0. In the big picture I screwed this pretty badly and I'm kind of embarrassed. Oh well, I guess it's a green game, right? I really should have stepped back and considered this a lot more carefully when I started feeling on tilt. (Edit: after writing, I realize I'm probably also maybe underestimating the damage he can do using promotions and attacking back... To be safe I moved the camels back to the hill protected by the fresh onein case of a total wipe. I did this after ending turn but Kuro had not logged in.) Lessons learned: - Aggression against even a backward opponent who is ready for it is much harder than I think. I severely underestimated what Kuro could muster up in a few turns. - The first half of the timer sucks ass for this kind of attack: he got to charge and then heal before I could move again. (Because units that attack but don't move in doing so still heal.) [EDIT: Wrong, I stand corrected] - Three suicide cats against a stack of that size defended at 23% did less than I was expecting, I need to revise my intuition for this a lot. Elsewhere in the world, things are looking pretty interesting - Suttree got a few cities off of Boldly, contesting the Sisub conquests. Sisub is down to only 1 city on the east coast now. Retep's research is insane now, he'll get Rifling in 1 in his GA. My attack is such a mess (and may end up being a complete failure) that the prospect of splitting the difference with Cataphracts may look interesting to Boldly, if it weren't for the distraction from Sutt. (October 24th, 2013, 15:36)WilliamLP Wrote: - The first half of the timer sucks ass for this kind of attack: he got to charge and then heal before I could move again. (Because units that attack but don't move in doing so still heal.) Just so you know, this is not correct. A unit that attacks will not heal on the same turn, even if it ends the turn on the same tile. Kuro may have been able to heal by via promotion if he picked up experience, but he didn't heal in the way that you wrote. |
