Josh's Civ 4 memoir. Chapter 2

[joshybravo963]

Well either way I moved first this turn.

Day 157.

So yea no more peaceful bird chirping in my roman lands, but instead the sounds of drums getting my men ready for war.

Little stack of knights are out of sight I believe? will need to wait 3 more turns for the cats to get in position to take primrose, also in range of protecting berlin when needed.  Since my border is so long, and my cities so close to the border, I basically need 2 stacks to protect the whole border, so if vanrober concentrates his forces then ill be getting devided and conquered so no fun. I guess vanrober has the same problem.

   

Bellarchs stack, if vanrober concentrates his forces to attack Berlin then he will get hit in the back, if he attacks bellarch then I will hit him in the back, so im interested in what he will do next, I would probably defend, hes at war with all the players and even bing has a pretty stack so we will see what happens. For now no real aggresion for at least 3 turns until the cats arrive. 

   

My work boat that was scouting the only strait to vanrober has been killed instantly, so vanrober knew it was there and im suspecting some sort of a landing force? That means I need a third stack to protect the north

   

Bellarch went for optics, interestingly, I guess for more trade? but I feel like trade isnt so big this game. And someone ( most likely vanrober has got gunpowder) which tells me he will be pooping out curassiers at any moment. I see no scenario where he doesnt attack me first.
Feeling scared, nervous, theres vomit on my sweater already about what will happen next, I cannot protect all fronts.

Josh out.

[Amicalola]

What I would do differently is hard to say because I felt I played a very good game with very few mistakes. By biggest mistake was losing GemCity twice , but apart from that I haven't realised any big mistakes. Possibly going for code of laws instead of metal casting to not lose so much money after defeating JesseL?

Definitely not here to be the 'criticize Joshy club,' because ultimately we play for fun, but I wanted to say I don't think this is a very productive mindset. Regardless of how well (or not) you play, there are always going to be mistakes. I'm sure TBS and Mackoti make hundreds in a won game, let alone mortals like the rest of us. The problem is, when you're new, it's harder to identify those mistakes. If you're trying to improve, for now I'd try to focus on looking at key decisions you made, and whether or not you think they were correct. 

One that comes to mind is splitting up the stacks in the Jesse war, after you came back from your trip. It looked to me as though we ended up getting little with either of them, and losing a lot more units, compared to if we'd just consolidated our army into one stack. In particular it lost our uber-praet, and let Vanrober get Hamburg without us being able to contest, or at least that's my impression. I'd guess that we'd have gotten a better outcome if the stack had been kept together. 

Tech choices are another good point, which you already mentioned. Maybe we could have gone for Civil Service earlier, for a quicker GA+Bureaucracy? Finally, one other critique I'd make is the castles. We don't have any trade routes anymore thanks to the war with Bellarch, so those are only 1 commerce per turn. I think they would have been anyway, once war with Vanrober started. That is 67 turns to be better than wealth (and wealth is also front-loaded), so almost certainly not worth it, even with the defensive boosts, excluding vulnerable cities. 

Really all I'm saying is that everyone makes a lot of mistakes. Also, if vanrober does come for us, we'll have to make it as painful as possible. From PB58, longbows and pikes on hills are probably our best bet against cuirs, out of what we currently have. That or whipping a shitload of knights+catapults while playing for time, and trying to wipe a stack of his.

[superdeath]

What I would do differently is hard to say because I felt I played a very good game with very few mistakes. By biggest mistake was losing GemCity twice , but apart from that I haven't realised any big mistakes. Possibly going for code of laws instead of metal casting to not lose so much money after defeating JesseL?

Definitely not here to be the 'criticize Joshy club,' because ultimately we play for fun, but I wanted to say I don't think this is a very productive mindset. Regardless of how well (or not) you play, there are always going to be mistakes. I'm sure TBS and Mackoti make hundreds in a won game, let alone mortals like the rest of us. The problem is, when you're new, it's harder to identify those mistakes. If you're trying to improve, for now I'd try to focus on looking at key decisions you made, and whether or not you think they were correct. 

One that comes to mind is splitting up the stacks in the Jesse war, after you came back from your trip. It looked to me as though we ended up getting little with either of them, and losing a lot more units, compared to if we'd just consolidated our army into one stack. In particular it lost our uber-praet, and let Vanrober get Hamburg without us being able to contest, or at least that's my impression. I'd guess that we'd have gotten a better outcome if the stack had been kept together. 

Tech choices are another good point, which you already mentioned. Maybe we could have gone for Civil Service earlier, for a quicker GA+Bureaucracy? Finally, one other critique I'd make is the castles. We don't have any trade routes anymore thanks to the war with Bellarch, so those are only 1 commerce per turn. I think they would have been anyway, once war with Vanrober started. That is 67 turns to be better than wealth (and wealth is also front-loaded), so almost certainly not worth it, even with the defensive boosts, excluding vulnerable cities. 

Really all I'm saying is that everyone makes a lot of mistakes. Also, if vanrober does come for us, we'll have to make it as painful as possible. From PB58, longbows and pikes on hills are probably our best bet against cuirs, out of what we currently have. That or whipping a shitload of knights+catapults while playing for time, and trying to wipe a stack of his.

[Charriu]

Remember the old acting wisdom. It's only a mistake if the audience notice it's a mistake.

[joshybravo963]

What I would do differently is hard to say because I felt I played a very good game with very few mistakes. By biggest mistake was losing GemCity twice , but apart from that I haven't realised any big mistakes. Possibly going for code of laws instead of metal casting to not lose so much money after defeating JesseL?

Definitely not here to be the 'criticize Joshy club,' because ultimately we play for fun, but I wanted to say I don't think this is a very productive mindset. Regardless of how well (or not) you play, there are always going to be mistakes. I'm sure TBS and Mackoti make hundreds in a won game, let alone mortals like the rest of us. The problem is, when you're new, it's harder to identify those mistakes. If you're trying to improve, for now I'd try to focus on looking at key decisions you made, and whether or not you think they were correct. 

One that comes to mind is splitting up the stacks in the Jesse war, after you came back from your trip. It looked to me as though we ended up getting little with either of them, and losing a lot more units, compared to if we'd just consolidated our army into one stack. In particular it lost our uber-praet, and let Vanrober get Hamburg without us being able to contest, or at least that's my impression. I'd guess that we'd have gotten a better outcome if the stack had been kept together. 

Tech choices are another good point, which you already mentioned. Maybe we could have gone for Civil Service earlier, for a quicker GA+Bureaucracy? Finally, one other critique I'd make is the castles. We don't have any trade routes anymore thanks to the war with Bellarch, so those are only 1 commerce per turn. I think they would have been anyway, once war with Vanrober started. That is 67 turns to be better than wealth (and wealth is also front-loaded), so almost certainly not worth it, even with the defensive boosts, excluding vulnerable cities. 

Really all I'm saying is that everyone makes a lot of mistakes. Also, if vanrober does come for us, we'll have to make it as painful as possible. From PB58, longbows and pikes on hills are probably our best bet against cuirs, out of what we currently have. That or whipping a shitload of knights+catapults while playing for time, and trying to wipe a stack of his.

Oh I dont think i have nothing to learn, I just think apart from losing GemCity ive played good not great, atm i dont see any game changing mistakes, castles or not, different tech priorities or not, i would still be more or less in this position. Hamburg was impossible for me to take, if i waited 1 more turn to consolidate army then vanrober would have taken the city either way. So i guess not losing the ultra praet would allow me to take berlin 1/2 turns quicker but id still be in the same position. Im sure all my small mistakes would probably add up to change the game however compared to my first game im very happy how i played. I think the map and player positions probably had a bigger impact rather than me playing poorly or the small mistakes ive made. Id say all the players played well and the skill was pretty even, maybe only vanrober was slightly ahead due to his experience.

[joshybravo963]

Day 163

Let me get you guys up to speed. 

   

So not exactly sure what happened here but I believe dread empire is bellarch? and he made a move, got a city, then vanrober came and raized bellarchs city, and then bellarch after losing his troops shat himself and immediately peaced out. Which is great for me since the only way we stood a chance against vanrober is if we all fight him so yea, doesn't leave much hope for my future. 

Now let me show you a screenshot. 

   

So as predicted vanrober gets cuirassiers. And lets play the guessing game what happens next. You get 3 guesses, oh you guessed I would lose my city in the first try? Well done you. 

   

For some reason I thought vanrober would need an extra turn to get to my city, how wrong I was. This is where I realised my other huge mistake, which was building the heroic epic in the a very good hammer city but a city that's on the border! my first city to fall and immediately lose the heroic epic, honestly what was I thinking?? Guys don't build your heroic epics near the border!

Came in with the knights since I knew I would get attacked in this area but realised how appalling my odds were so had to wait for some siege. 

This is the mess, sacrificed some trebuches and easily took back the city, however I didn't have enough knights to secure the city, but he doesn't have enough units to take it back and his cuirassiers are badly damaged, so should be able to hold out a couple more turns.

   
   

The thing is, vanrober has built the taj mahal so hes got yet another golden age and living the life. So now im at 18 cities to his 23, haven't seen bing do much so basically fighting him alone, with worse troops against someone whos in a golden age, so massively getting out produced here. 

Luckily I anticipated a sea attack and built some triremes, he took a different route than expected but was able to get some pikes in MarbleCity, and the triremes scared of the single galley and hes running away now, so hey taking the small victories. 

   

Also luckily there was no invation from the north, just a tireme guard, im sure he sees my fleet is bigger and also that ive got 2 galleys, hopefully this will hold vanrober off for longer and he will send some units and waste resources to fortify his cities in the back since I know they are basically empty, so I guess that's also good and will give some room to breath.

   

Overall my situation isn't great at all, obviously I will put up a good fight but im sure its only a matter of time before hes able to out produce me. The border between us doesn't help at all, Ive got rice and banana city to the left so ive got to protect 2 cities while he only has to protect 1, and to the right I have 3/4 cities that I need to protect while he only has maybe 2 cities that are within 2/3 tiles of the border so my forces are reeeeally  spread out while he can be concentrated, especially now that he has peace with bellarch. I didn't think about this problem when building cities, so I must take this into consideration next time. I need more knights to defend/push on the right but if I take these away then rice city and banana city will surely fall.


   
   

This is graph. Vanrober is far ahead in every category so not even worth shoing but heres the power, as you can see bellarch lost a lot of troops somehow, and im pretty sure vanrober only had knights at that point so im really curious what happened. From my earlier screenshots you can see the power ratios, I have about 20 knights and almost twice as powerful as bellarch so hes got literally nothing. He better not try and backstab me when our truce is over. I sided with him to help him with the vanrober attack and now hes left me in the dark, if he backstabbed then that would truly flip me off. 

   

So that's whats up. Sympathize for me and share your thoughts/suggestions. Also does anyone how whether I should build more longbows to defend or just all out pikes and some longbows incase of macemen and crossbows?

Josh out.

[superdeath]

I dont particularly like naming cities "bananacity" ect, as it gives the opponent too much info.

I, dont know if i can give actual defense advice even though i havent been reading threads much/at all since JackRB's death. All i can say is the best defense is offense. Siege>all generally. I wish you luck!

[joshybravo963]

I dont particularly like naming cities "bananacity" ect, as it gives the opponent too much info.

I, dont know if i can give actual defense advice even though i havent been reading threads much/at all since JackRB's death. All i can say is the best defense is offense. Siege>all generally. I wish you luck!

surely that offers no more information that they already would have since theyve scouted my area? I thought it helps lurkers know what I am talking about? I guess thats something else to chance in the next game. 

Ok more siege, thanks SD, catapults or trebuches?

[civac2]

Catapults. What SD is talking about presumably is that you should hit his stack with siege when he invades you not trying to invade him with siege. That would be suicidal against cuirassiers.

[superdeath]

Catapults. Trebs are for attacking cities. Having a defensive stack of siege + hitters to hit whatever gets thrown at you is the best defense.