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Chevalier Absolutely Knows What He's Doing as Best Korea

I'm the 2nd guard going "....hey...."
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Oh, poor Chevalier. What an excellent game on your end (ignore that CS raze, you were clearly shellshocked by that point).

First of, awesome entry picture.

Second, your reporting was by the far the most interesting, consistent and analytical (better then mine, I go with pictures over words any time of the day.)

Yeah, play Scythia like Behren. What a different game this would have been. You would have crushed Japper probably as quick as I did and with his cities eliminated Alhambram and then we would have eastern horde against western horde.

I would have payed good money for that game. But builder at heart it seems, you went with Korea and boy they are nasty.

Your analysis of the civ choices, was spot on in most points, you neatly deduced that my choices were more limited then it looked at a first glance.

Yeah, the developers have no idea how their own game works. They think throwing down Campuses in superb places (like +2 and +3) is the way to go about science and disliked that population was competitive (boom, nerfed). They boosted science adjacency Civs like Korea, Netherlands and Australia that way, without knowing or getting it.

Bad luck with Antioch. And I like your reporting style.

I also appreciate the effort you are putting into reports. I tend to hide most of my builder information and city placements unintentionally. Your Hexmap of the area? Wow.

Explains your bigger audience as well.

Please do keep up your reports. I find them very entertaining and funny ("he said with a confident smirk,"). Priceless.:D

Fraps for screenshots? I recommend irfanview (google it, TU Vienna) for opening and working with the default Steam Screens or just screencapture (copy and paste). Works like a charm and it is free.

A nice, naming sheme! Love it, actually.

I actually think that most of your analysis from the governments to the buildings and other stuff should be quoted outside of your PBEM thread. Great Stuff.

Yeah, I agree that God of the Harvest is great. But with the jungle I had, Oral Tradition was a VERY reliable source of culture. And you need religion or Valetta to use Faith (which suprisingly you never focused on suzeraining).

Phew, what a gamble on that warrior and the barb camp clear.

Nice job on Stonehenge, although with such peaceful neighbours, I think I would have gone with +2 gold instead of DotF. But then again +10 is insanely strong.

Anyway, if you are in another game where I do not play, I will dedlurk for sure. Most entertaining.

Sorry about Sam.frown Beautiful piece! Love Calvin and Hobbes, one of the most intelligent cartoons out there.


The analysis as always spot on. Emperor K was "just" two free cities but lots of settling space. Him alone would not have been enough to compete with your managerial skills.

Not sure what you could have done for a golden age. The golden age stuff is balanced around village huts in the early SP game. I only managed a golden age by murdering my neighbour, something one should not rely upon.

At turn 56 now, absolutely beautiful play. Faith purchased libraries, stonehenge chops.

Now coming up to your Colloseum plan I am starting to feel really bad that I smashed your building bonanza to pieces. You deserve better.

Really scary stuff. You not only analyzed my army composition, my thought processes and my attacks before they happen. I mean it is kinda possible to deduce, but, well, get out of my head.wink

Damn, that settler race.

What is even more interesting if you had been 1 turn early, that city would perhaps been in a more defensible position against Valetta.

Japper not being my real target, is of course a question of supply lines. Check my thread for that. 1-2 turns reinforcements or 10 turn reinforcements are a HUGE difference.

Pen, Brush and Voice it was.

Turn 66 I got suzerainity of Valetta. In retrospect, you could have waited to dow me until I got at least to Alhambram or Japper, not before.

And turn 69 is why you do not sign a DoF prematurely, it always bites you in the behind. Cockblocked by units is the worst possible thing that can happen and will not just happen without a DoF..

Hmm, you will soon read my thread, but at least I looked at your science score all the time. And pretty much every turn.

I think your decision to attack Japper was great. But you did with not way enough overwhelming force. Conquering another human player is a punishing and cruel affair and by all means you do not want to get Bogged down. You want to totally overrun if possible, leaving nothing to chance. Much easier said and done and if you check PBEM 6, conquering suboptimal was a slow, grueling affair.

From what I see you did not dedicate enough energy to kill Japper. A lot more chariots and those into knights would do the trick. But this needs to sacrifice a lot of the building you still did at that time.

The geography of the inland sea dictates a close to 2 continents approach. Alhambram dividing up Rowain or even supporting him? No chance.

But still, as always, right on. You need to conquer Japper. Rowain will most likely 2 to 1 in milpower fall.
Your criticism of his city placements is also absolutely right, but he need to read and digest your criticism. I learned a lot by Bacchus comments on the blunders I made.

"But I can't have nice things so we all know that's not going to happen."

I laughed out loud about this. I feel terribly sorry now.

And as Rowain cities fall, I see Holy Sites, arenas and other stuff and talk about conquering Japper. You would need to harvest crabs, copper, built units and shoot for a tech edge right about now.

"At first, I thought I was lucky in that I was as far away from Mongolia as possible - now I see that, in fact, it was the opposite."

Nod. DotF on my nearest neighbour. Problem.

Anyway, onto your offensive. I have no idea where all your gold went into, but that is not an impressive force by all means. At this point I sported 8 horseman and about 8 knights and a warrior and an archer, a ram, a kesqik.

Now you do not need that many troops, but Swordsman by turn 95 are actually outdated units. Granted Japper was in bad shape as well, but some panic chops and upgrades and your offensive would stall. I mean you even got a warrior in the mix and a spearman.

At this point I was VERY worried that you would conquer Japper and Alhambram would stall me, the absolute opposite happened.

The thing is, war experience in CIV VI and against human opponents is a very different affair. SP spoils one to the brutal efficiency which you can be overrun (PBEM 1 Sullla case in point) or the dogged defense one can put up if pressed to the wall (Emperor K in PBEM 6 or Japper here).

What you can not afford at all is dividing up your force. A human opponent will kill you if you do, the defender has the advantage of sight and the attacker always pushes into the unknown which can be quite challenging.

Bad luck on Valetta. The only consolation you have is that Japper stopped your attack and I was breaking through totally in the Netherlands, so not loosing your city which crippled you, would not have saved you.

Chevalier, my sincere condolences to ruining your day. Your thread was an absolute pleasure to read through. I think you were the main threat to my Mongols this game, but 1 city less and a bigger army and quicker murdering of Japper would have made this game a lot more equal. And a bit less luck on my part perhaps. Both opponents (Emperor K and Rowain) fell quickly.
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Well, this game ended in a hurry. It was a pleasure to DL Chevalier even if the result wasn't what we were looking for! Sorry for the lack of replies at various points - it felt like the plan was pretty much set from the midgame and without R&F it's hard to provide feedback on the specific chopping tactics etc.

Need to read the other threads to see, but it seems per Archduke like Korea had a shot and just got out-snowballed.

Thanks again for your great reporting and willingness to listen to my (usually) terrible suggestions!
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(May 28th, 2018, 08:34)TheArchduke Wrote: Yeah, I agree that God of the Harvest is great. But with the jungle I had, Oral Tradition was a VERY reliable source of culture. And you need religion or Valetta to use Faith (which suprisingly you never focused on suzeraining).

Here's the thing: I did. Every single envoy I generated or researched I dumped into Valetta! But you always had another one up your sleeve, and at a critical moment you had TWO more envoys than me in the city-state, keeping me from making peace with them to send Amani and lock it down (I did do that on the last turn, one turn too late). I generated 2 or 3 envoys naturally, researched 2 or 3, and got 1 from a quest. At the end of the game I had 6 envoys in Valetta, tying you.

Honestly, I think your envoy game is in danger of being underappreciated here, but really it was the fatal blow to me. It cut off my planned barracks -> armory purchase, and it razed my third city. Before that, I still thought I could compete - if I could eat Japper and use DotF + Victor + a GG + hwacha/muskets to hold off anything short of tanks on your end, I could use seowons and JE to tech ahead even with smaller land area. 

Quote:Nice job on Stonehenge, although with such peaceful neighbours, I think I would have gone with +2 gold instead of DotF. But then again +10 is insanely strong.

It wasn't for my peaceful neighbors, it was for you. wink But actually you may be right - My tech edge was useless because I couldn't afford to upgrade my classical units to their Medieval counterparts, so I really needed the gold, and if Rowain had gotten DotF instead, he might have had a chance. But you conquered him before he got a GP so it was a moot point anyway. 

Quote:Sorry about Sam.frown Beautiful piece! Love Calvin and Hobbes, one of the most intelligent cartoons out there.
 
Thanks. She was a great dog. smile  Her final illness was one of the reasons I missed a weekend. 
Quote:Now coming up to your Colloseum plan I am starting to feel really bad that I smashed your building bonanza to pieces. You deserve better.

Really scary stuff. You not only analyzed my army composition, my thought processes and my attacks before they happen. I mean it is kinda possible to deduce, but, well, get out of my head.  wink

Actually I'm second-guessing the Colosseum. Most of my early gold was spent on tile purchases - for Stonehenge, the Colosseum, and a couple of seowons. Around the time I did the math on when to conquer Japper (as the only way to keep up with you, if you'd not eaten Rowain I would ahve happily turtled away longer, as that gameplan obviously plays to Korea's strengths - so no one is surprised you went ahead and attacked Rowain), I realized how much gold I would need for upgrades, and realized how paltry my gold income was. 

I maybe should have swapped to building Commercial Hubs then, to get gold going faster. However, at the time, I was also very distraught by your massive lead in culture. The Colosseum would have bumped by culture by 14 points, which at the time I conceived it would have more than doubled my output. Once it became apparent I needed ot hit Japper sooner rather htan later, I'd sunk production into the Entertainment District and Arena and sunk cost fallacy or no, it seemed like I had to finish the wonder to make the investment worthwhile. 

And to be fair, Mongolia's gameplan is pretty straightforward, and you've played in more PBEMs than anyone, so I'm familiar with how you think. smile

Quote:I think your decision to attack Japper was great. But you did with not way enough overwhelming force. Conquering another human player is a punishing and cruel affair and by all means you do not want to get Bogged down. You want to totally overrun if possible, leaving nothing to chance. Much easier said and done and if you check PBEM 6, conquering suboptimal was a slow, grueling affair.

From what I see you did not dedicate enough energy to kill Japper. A lot more chariots and those into knights would do the trick. But this needs to sacrifice a lot of the building you still did at that time.

But still, as always, right on. You need to conquer Japper. Rowain will most likely 2 to 1 in milpower fall.
Your criticism of his city placements is also absolutely right, but he need to read and digest your criticism. I learned a lot by Bacchus comments on the blunders I made.

I attacked Japper before I was ready, no doubt. I saw that he had 37 milpower one turn, compared to my nearly 300, and that was my trigger to go. The initial plan, of course, was to go with knights, swords, and crossbows, but I wouldn't have had the gold for ages - in fact, we would be at muskets and field cannons by the time I did! Gold generation was my biggest weakness this game. Still, with Japper looking so weak, I thought I could get it done. 

Now, though, I realize that at 300 military power or so, that's just a handful of units difference. I didn't THINK Japper could scratch build horsemen or swordsmen that quickly, but he only needed a few to stall my advance against my handful of modern units, and then he just had literally endless horsemen. I fell back to my conquered city, converted it to DotF, and started massacring them until I could save up my upgrade gold, but it took too long - I maaaybe could have caught up to you? But I didn't want to keep playing for basically a 1% shot to win.

Quote:And as Rowain cities fall, I see Holy Sites, arenas and other stuff and talk about conquering Japper. You would need to harvest crabs, copper, built units and shoot for a tech edge right about now.

Anyway, onto your offensive. I have no idea where all your gold went into, but that is not an impressive force by all means. At this point I sported 8 horseman and about 8 knights and a warrior and an archer, a ram, a kesqik.

Now you do not need that many troops, but Swordsman by turn 95 are actually outdated units. Granted Japper was in bad shape as well, but some panic chops and upgrades and your offensive would stall. I mean you even got a warrior in the mix and a spearman.

At this point I was VERY worried that you would conquer Japper and Alhambram would stall me, the absolute opposite happened.

The thing is, war experience in CIV VI and against human opponents is a very different affair. SP spoils one to the brutal efficiency which you can be overrun (PBEM 1 Sullla case in point) or the dogged defense one can put up if pressed to the wall (Emperor K in PBEM 6 or Japper here).

What you can not afford at all is dividing up your force. A human opponent will kill you if you do, the defender has the advantage of sight and the attacker always pushes into the unknown which can be quite challenging.

Most of the building was aimed at that army, to be fair - Holy Sites -> Faith -> Missionaries to give my troops a +10 boost to face you. The arena was in the one city, just meant for the Colosseum, and like I said, I already regret that. 

As for gold, I generated it very slowly throughout the game. I only ever made 10 - 15 gold a turn, and as I finished units and buildings maintenance costs sapped that. Around the time I was attacking Japper, in fact, I was down to just 4 or 5 per turn. In the early game, I spent it on seowon tiles and a few other tile purchases (I never bought a unit with it). After turn 60 or so, though, you see my tile purchases stop - in fact, my seowon builds also stopped right around that time, which si my science sort of plateaued for a while. In many cases, I passed up building a seowon because the tile wasn't in my borders yet. I was saving all my gold for upgrades - then I saw Rowain crumple like a wet paper bag, and Japper was so weak, I tossed the scratch gold I had into some swordsman upgrades (mercenaries was a looong way off) and went for it. 

It was my first multiplayer war, and it showed. After I crossed the border, Japper still presented only a few weak units, and had a low domination score, so I thought I could grab both nearby cities and reconcentrate on the capital, which would basically have knocked him out of hte war in only a few turns. What happened, of course, was that he got out 3 horsemen and a heavy chariot in 4 turns, and hit my slow-moving northern arm and mauled it. I pulled back the eastern arm and used it to defend, along with my nest of archers, at which point Valetta slipped past my units (I was ignoring it because I thought it'd just go pillage some tile improvements, and I had builders coming out) and razed I Blame the Parents. 

Now, why was I building builders (god I hate that phrase) in the middle of a war? Two reasons. I underestimated Japper, although I WAS building military with at least half my cities at any one time, and 2, my most urgent military need was not more units - I could barely afford the units I had - but gold. It always comes back to gold. I needed it to upgrade and to maintain a higher tech base, and the only way to get there in any reasonable period of time was to chop out commercial hubs via Limes. I actually had 2 finished at the end of the game, and was starting markets for traders next. 


Quote:Chevalier, my sincere condolences to ruining your day. Your thread was an absolute pleasure to read through. I think you were the main threat to my Mongols this game, but 1 city less and a bigger army and quicker murdering of Japper would have made this game a lot more equal. And a bit less luck on my part perhaps. Both opponents (Emperor K and Rowain) fell quickly.

Thank you for the kind words! I learned a lot from this game, and it was a ton of fun. I need to do my own review post and thanks to skanar and aetryn, but I also look forward to digging through your thread - I love me a good war. Look forward to playing with you again in the future!
I Think I'm Gwangju Like It Here

A blog about my adventures in Korea, and whatever else I feel like writing about.
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(May 28th, 2018, 09:29)skanar Wrote: Well, this game ended in a hurry. It was a pleasure to DL Chevalier even if the result wasn't what we were looking for! Sorry for the lack of replies at various points - it felt like the plan was pretty much set from the midgame and without R&F it's hard to provide feedback on the specific chopping tactics etc.

Need to read the other threads to see, but it seems per Archduke like Korea had a shot and just got out-snowballed.

Thanks again for your great reporting and willingness to listen to my (usually) terrible suggestions!

What do you mean, "terrible"? You reminded me at least 3 times to check and make absolutely sure I could build the Colosseum using another city's Entertainment District. :lol Of course I knew better and pooh-poohed your concerns. 

And yeah, I wasn't expecting to lose a city basically out of the blue! That knocked my internal estimate of catching Mongolia from ~33% to <10%, so I went ahead and offered my own concession. Were we 100% certainly beat? No, I don't think so - we still had a lot of strengths of our own. But I don't think our slim chances were worth dragging this out much longer.
I Think I'm Gwangju Like It Here

A blog about my adventures in Korea, and whatever else I feel like writing about.
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Okay, yeah, go look at what was sweeping through Alhambram's lands in Archduke's thread. We never really had a chance after Sumeria fell, guys. 

Anyway, shorter review post. 

I think I did a lot of things right this game. For a while there, I was leading in city count, they seemed to be in good, productive sites, and I landed the first religion with awesome beliefs. I outpaced all my neighbors in every category, even catching up to Alhambram's riverside theater districts in culture by the end (thanks to the Colosseum). 

What didn't I do well? After turn 75, I think I did a poor job of development. I slacked off on settlers, and waited way too long to get commercial hubs down. Given the priorities, those probably should have preceded seowons - it was gold, not science, that killed me. Really not sure where to put my finger on what went wrong here, but I really don't feel like I got enough out of my cities, especially compared to the Archduke.

Invading Japper hwen I did was the right choice. But splitting my army and pushing deeper was a mistake. I should have stayed concentrated, then, when I saw horsemen, gone over to the defensive a little sooner. I could have preserved more of my forces, and upgraded them when the time came. 

I should have been more aggressive with builders nad chops, instead of finicking with Magnus. The Colosseum screwup was a huge mistake that cost 10 turns of potential chops. That probably explains my dissatisfaction with development in the final 15 turns right there. 

lessons learned:

1)Human opponents are not AI opponents. Go in with even more overwhelming force, and consider how quickly they can build to meet you. I thought I HAD considered this, but I plainly underestimated Japper. 
2)If attacking with slow infantry, you really need a GG for movement boost. That or just use cavalry. 2 movement points is too slow in rough terrain. 
3)The Colosseum needs an arena in the same city. 
4)City-states can and will, in fact, attack and raze your cities if you let them. Maybe don't let them?
5)Most important, science/culture are not that much more important than gold generation. Being ahead in science means nothing if you can't afford modern troops. 

Overall, I think I did a much better job in this game than in PBEM7. I definitely improved, and if everyone else had been builders, I might even have won! My warfare game needs to be polished up a bunch, though. We'll focus on that in my next PBEM.

Anyway, I hope y'all had fun following me along - sorry I couldn't deliver a better result. aetryn, skanar, you guys were awesome and made my thread a lot less lonely. I'll miss having you both around, and please allow me to express my most profound gratitude to both of you. Seriously. I hope to see you both around in the future! 

Too bad the game had to end in the most embarrassing way possible for me. To be fair, though...I did warn you at the beginning:

[Image: 1ee.jpg]
I Think I'm Gwangju Like It Here

A blog about my adventures in Korea, and whatever else I feel like writing about.
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I had not even noticed the Valletta thing  , I was too much in "moar ponies" mode at that point lol . That must've sucked, I understand conceding after that, Jesus.  alright Here's how the horsemen worked btw:

-I started building a few while your army was milling at the border, so I had a head start.

-with Manoevre and Urban planning in place even crap cities*  can churn out a horse every 5-10 turns, so you get one on average every 2-3 turns. My capital working 7 mines could do it in 2. The cool thing is that units don't scale so the horses remain cheap untill Cavalry in the Industrial Era!

-Horses can get to the front really, really fast, my farthest city from the front was 15 tiles, just 3 turns for a newly built horse to get in position!

-If Ive proved one thing in these games it's that I take Macbeth as life advice: "I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked!  "

* Yes even the shitty desert one you rightly critisised. I thought I could get it operational with a few Mekewaps but this was of course not the kind off game where you can pull that.

Had a great time Chevalier, see you around for future gamestoast Also such a detailed and awesome thread thumbsup
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CMF I love your reporting! Also you did great; AD was concerned about keeping up with you (and Alhambram) the whole game.

Honestly idk if you can really blame yourself here. AD took out one civ with a chariot horde, one civ with a horseman horde, and was about to take down one more with a knight horde. He needed to have been stopped earlier for you to have had a shot at winning, and with the limited diplo and your start position this wasn't something you could control. Also it was fun to dedlurk him b/c we could discuss things like "send half your horde to the other side of the world" and it make actual sense b/c of the movement speed; it would have been impossible with infantry, like you're saying.
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I also like your reporting (laughing hard when you curses me for various reasons), your writing style is really pleasant to read, similar as oledavy.
And ouch about Valletta razing your city, I have seen that happen against AI in single player game. It seemingly only happen when enemy city is too close city state itself. Otherwise city state don't bother with more far away enemy cities.
I did consider to attack you before you properly spread your religion over your lands to not deal with DotF again similar in PBEM 5. But TheArchduke was bit faster.

You did well and probably noticed from war against Japper that battle/war against humans is whole different than against AI.
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Dammit Chev, for a moment there I thought this might be a game where the builder had a chance. You gave me hope. I shall treasure that.

Great naming theme. It made me go back to Look to Windward, and I laughed when I reached the page with all the names.

Above all, great reporting. It's a real talent. I look forward to your future games. Go back in time and try Civ IV! It's still fun.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
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