TheArchduke tries his best not to be overrun again as Pericles

[Bacchus]

Also, no reason not to run some trade routes between Dorium and Aachen now that we have peace. Or whichever city of Germany has the most districts.

[TheArchduke]

Best thing about playing Russia, borders.

I bought, which I shouldn´t have Niter.

I admit, I did not expect 8 knights to swarm my southern coastal borders.

[TheArchduke]

Also, no reason not to run some trade routes between Dorium and Aachen now that we have peace. Or whichever city of Germany has the most districts.

Already done.

3 trade routes running.

If Woden is smart he will give me 1 of his 2 niter to prolong my survival.


He probably isn´t.

[TheArchduke]

Come on, get me, don´t be cautious.

Woden won´t help us with niter, we could defend that way a little bit longer.

Alhambram and Oledavy may be smart enough to wait for my death until they attack Woden or each other.

   

[Bacchus]

Him being cautious is not too bad, it lets the knight heal up. I would rotate the crossbows south a little, where they can strike out against that field cannon. In general, field cannons are the things we should be trying to kill.

[TheArchduke]

One field cannon dead, at the risk of a crossbow, I take it.

   

I am flabbergasted what Alhambram thought here.

Killing a roadblock for Oledavy (allied to Woden) for two tundracrap cities and one half decent city?

Thereby enabling Oledavy to truly take a commanding position.

Does Singaboy know that I am the only thing standing between him and Oledavy eating him up?

And I am not even converted to Russias religion thereby preventing a religious victory so far.

   

Singaboy has been a victim of the situation, but Alhambram just needed to kill Woden and kill him hard a LONG time ago. And ensure that in the east, all three of us stay weak and small.

[TheArchduke]

I expect this to be my last turn, it has been fun. See you in the lurker's thread.

   

[Bacchus]

Daaamn. Well played, you very close to a breakthrough a couple of times, but with a large military opening, if you don't successfully convert it into expansion, the end is pretty certain. And expansionary wars at parity are pretty difficult. I'll go check out what others have written.

[TheArchduke]

So what went wrong. Basically I spent too much time this game playing catchup. How did this happen?

Some are clear mistakes on the part of me, some are just plain old bad luck.

First of all the initial phase.


Mistake #1:



The decision to SIP. My first and quite a big mistake to boot. Moving 1E would have given me the benefit of a good look over the neighbourhood and enabled a turn 2 settle on a culture tile. Also there is no 4 yield tile in my first ring. A bad call right there and Bacchus rightly called me out for it.

Bad luck #1:



Initial scouting by the warrior, I promptly moved SW, the only direction which was no priority and got bogged down by rough terrain. Scouting North would have given me +2 production envoy and east would have given me a quicker grasp of the situation around Kilimanjaro.



A barb scout and unconsciously I move to the south instead of once again going for the hills in the east.



Yeah, still not going north..

And this is where Bad Luck #1 devolves into

Mistake #2:



By now I knew that I was in the tundra, the smart thing, especially with a builder on the way would have been to pull back and between us, something I did several turns later with a slinger. It is amazing how barbarian sightings managed to put me on a bad track which I did not correct in time.




So a lot later then Singaboy I recognize that the main prize of contention over there is Kilimanjaro and several turns later Buenos Aires. I never managed to scout Oledavy´s forward settling towards me.

Now once again, we hit a bit of bad luck. Not as bad as Singaboy with his barbarian horseman start. Wow..

But once again a slight nudge leads to a bad call. Whilst Singaboy and Oledavy settle in my direction, I settle towards my "safe" hinterland.
2 turns until my settler, just about the same timing as Singaboys but my warriors are wounded and my slinger can´t keep a settler safe from barbarians, or Singaboy's troops.



So my slinger gets chased off and not to waste anymore time I decide on a decent spot in the west.



By this time I have managed to box myself in and this will dictate the rest of my game, trying to break free out of the box I locked myself into.

The end result is glaringly obvious, without a single battle I have ceded the area NE and E of my capital.

[TheArchduke]

After screwing up the start pretty decisively, my early rush to the GG prevented a total loss.

Mistake #3

As Oledavy rightly pointed out my dow only served to alert him to my aggressive opening. Whilst a GG build was a clear indicator. I think I got talked into this a bit by Bacchus as he pointed out a quick good plunder, but the follow up needs to be super-aggressive.



Woden or Singaboy could have easily been targets in Oledavy eyes. Also an attack with a GG on Singaboy instead of Oledavy would have been a lot more successful as it was, but only after I wasted time with Oledavy I switched targets.

So what do I do after I dow Oledavy? I built a 3rd settler instead of going all out on the war path, Oledavy was flabbergasted an rightly so.



So when I finally get into war modus, Oledavy is off conquering Hong Kong, instead of pressing on Shuyler, I go for Buenos Aires.



As soon as I hit the CS Oledavy can harras me, only my GG and some nicely positioned farms that I can pillage enable a quick victory.



Bad luck #2

Hoplites are not boostable by Agoge thanks to being Anti-Cavalry and NOT boostable by a GG due to being ancient units. Wow. Would have been nice to fall into that trap.
Anywho..



Now this is the time where both sides should have seen that this is a useless war of attrition.

Both sides have HIGHLY defensive territory, hills to shoot from and a river to hide behind. Not until a tech advantage and a 3vs1 Oledavy manages to push through.

But do I offer peace? No. We try it.

A quick push is out of the question, so whilst others build up, both Oledavy and me pour ressources into this. An encampment by Oledavy ensures that we can not have peace.

Tactically there are no real mistakes here, I just do not have enough troops and the strategic decision here should have been to move on a lot earlier.



After long turns of maneuvring I try to conquer Lafayette,



And decide that I can not proceed.



Much too late I go after Singaboy.



And instead of going after Aachen, my stupid war, a long wait and a non existing ram forces me back north.

In my opinion this is about the time I exit as a serious contendor for the game finally. Instead of a knockout blow to Singaboy or Oledavy I end up on the wrong end of a war with each of them as soon as the DoFs end each time the end comes around.