Cornflakes Goes Classical ... or Quantum?!

[Old Harry]

Wow! I was sure you were done for a month ago! Great work!

[Tarkeel]

Well played! I also thought turning on scooter (and by partial extension, me) was the wrong move, but you made it work. Kudos!

[Qgqqqqq]

Congratulations, very well done!

[yuris125]

well played, gg!

[scooter]

Well done!

[Cornflakes]

Thanks everyone! This was an incredibly fun game, even while in the midst of fending off the double team. At one point I'm pretty sure that Yuri came within 1 healthy unit of eliminating me.

I'll post some more thoughts on key decisions and turning points from my perspective later. For now, many thanks are due to Commodore for turning on Scooter at the exact moment of Scooter's greatest vulnerability on the turn that Yuri was eliminated, and for following through with the elimination to get us into the duel. The 10 turn enforced peace gave just just enough time to complete the kill and reposition back into a defensive posture for the subsequent duel.

Overall I was surprised at how aggressive the game turned out in the middle ages. I was expecting a more peaceful builder game. I expected that the vulnerability to backstab while invading would act as a greater deterrent, to avoid the exact sequence that played out in the game: Scooter hits Yuri while off to war, and then gets hit from behind while also off to war. Obviously my ill-advised Spices city that Yuri razed was the flash point that set it in motion. And Commodore's piling on to the leader in a time of vulnerability makes complete sense.

[Cornflakes]

Some key points and decisions that I want to highlight:

Classic plains cow/wines start

I had to laugh when I saw the starting screenshot. Plains cow/wines could be a meme start for a random map. But they were very powerful. I love the base production from plains cows, especially when there is another food resource to provide for growth. In this case, there were 2 additional food resources! On a classic era start, the wines make an excellent early commerce tile with a bonus hammer. Add in HR available on the same tech that unlocks the Winery, and I was immediately drawn to Spiritual for a quick civics swap. I feel like Philosophical was a miss here. I ended up with front loaded GPP without a good use. I built a 2nd academy in a mixed commerce/production city which was not ideal. Even the capital's academy although nice with Bureaucracy was still not game changing. Don't get me wrong, I did get high value from the Golden Age when I launched it and the Engineering bulb ... but I could have achieved both of those anyway by skipping the academies (which did nothing for the last 50 turns of the game while my slider was at 0% research).

In the end I settled on Greece, because of the Phalanx’s longevity. Phalanx soundly beat Knights, and can make do against Cuirassier. Enough at least to “outrun your friends, not the bear”. An extra happiness on the UU makes the colosseum situationally valuable, and the artist slots might be valuable, on a mainline defensive tech instead of researching up to Drama. (Discounted though since I’m SPI and can more easily run Caste). I value the UU highly though for the land grab.

Greece is not broken in an absolute sense, but for defensive purposes in the Medieval era their Phalanxes are wonderful. I'm thoroughly pleased with that choice. I would likely be dead to the Commodore/Yuri attack without Phalanxes, and they certainly made the final duel vs. Commodore in their era of maximum efficiency a much more manageable task.

   

Here are the graphs with Scooter and Commodore. I'm still 4-5 turns from getting Yuri's graphs. The main takeaways are that Scooter is prioritizing commerce over production, and I have several extra military units compared to the competition ... probably due to my higher natural production, but also Commodore has Forges in the two cities that I have vision on, and Scooter's culture rate suggests that he has Carnegie Libraries online.

However, my largest-in-the-world-by 18,000 soldiers army (aka, +2 chariots AND +2 axes more than the nearest rival) is none too large! ...

   

... because I have 3 axes, 2 archers, a spear, and a warrior incoming! And I can't switch to slavery for another 2 turns due to recent swap to Serfdom. Thankfully with my high military I'm completely safe here.

All-in-all I'm pleased to have the large military on hand. This would have been very uncomfortable if I'd been sitting at the rival best military. I wonder how the other players are doing with respect to barbs.

I feel like I managed the barb thread well this game. I read the tundra/ice as a real threat in the turn 40-50 timeframe, and responded by pre-emptively building up military. This in turn let me continue vertical growth and maintain Serfdom instead of requiring slavery. I also feel that barbs did a good job of balancing the roomier southern starts vs. the more cramped but less barb-infested northern starts.

Slight change of plans with my research: I paused research for 3 turns after Currency in order to finish the Great Scientist for an academy (worth 18 bpt now, and 30 bpt by the time I reach Bureaucracy). I decided to skip Code of Laws in order to hit Civil Service via Feudalism for a couple reasons:
• I'm not planning to run Caste System any time soon
• CoL is not on the line to Guilds or Rifles, which I'm prioritizing, and which will therefore save me 500 beakers.
• Skipping CoL blocks Philosophy on the GScientist bulb tree, thus opening up Paper and Chemistry [and later Astronomy and Electricity].

I have 7 lumbermills now and more on the way, so Machinery is actually an economic tech (I'll have 8 at Aether which will get Bureaucracy + Academy boost).

The decision to skip CoL turned out to be far more impactful than I imagined at the time. The trade off was essentially a couple turns slower to Bureaucracy through the more expensive Feudalism, and losing out on Caste System (except that I was running Serfdom already and had no Workshops to boost). The 500 saved beakers means that I was able to get Engineering at a critical point in the Yuri/Commodore war, and then squeeze out guilds on a horribly whipped down and exhausted economy. If I'd picked up CoL I'd be dead now, I'm 100% confident in that assessment.

Machinery spiked us up to 118 max tax from 88, so net +30. Breakeven research is now a 150bpt.

Also the fact that I'd focused on Lumbermills early on made Machinery a nice tech target, which had the follow-up consequence of putting me just 1 tech short of both Engineering and Guilds. That was an unplanned synergy with my strategy this game. Overall the CtH Lumbermill changes are great. Machinery gave me more of an economic boost than Currency

Commodore bulbed Machinery which neatly counters my Maces. He then chopped MoM in his tundra border city. Overall I concur with his choice. He is commerce constrained due to his lack of rivers so it makes sense that he would convert the Great Engineer to 1000 beakers and then spend the hammers for the wonder.

This was a nice move by Commodore

We founded Christianity and I carried a full turn of overflow into Apostolic Palace making it a 6-turn build. Meanwhile I’ve now completed HBR and Iron Working which gave a nice boost to the power graph, along with a couple more Phalanxes a dna longbow for the newest border cities. Unit expenses have climbed in recent turns along with supply for the garrisons of the newest cities, but that is temporary and just means when the two new cities are settled they will be net positive for the economy.

Paper is scheduled to complete on the same turn as I finish the AP in the capital, so it can roll right into UoS. I will have enough time to pick up Construction before Paper. Got to keep up with the neighbors in military tech and not just get lost in economy! I’ll have my first HA completed next turn which both Commodore and Yuri will be able to see.

Here is where things started going south. I had build up a great MFG and GNP engine in the early game, but Scooter also played to his FIN strengths and had now equalized his economic output and beat me to Hanging Gardens by a turn while jumping up to 11 cities. I was feeling pressure on the economic front and the expansion front. I tried going for both at the same time, only to provoke ...

   

Oops, I upset Yuri. I upgraded an archer to a longbow so I have 1 archer, 1 LB, and 2 Phalanx on defense (across a river and on a hill). With 3 catapults he can definitely capture although it should cost all the catapults and hopefully a sword or two. But I also offered peace for 84 gold + 30 gpt. It's a lot, but he is really behind in tech and will only fall further behind with a hot war. And I have a very healthy economy. And that location will make an excellent border fortress for the long term.

I also swapped into Slavery and whipped 9 pop (mostly unimproved tiles waiting for watermills, or specialists). 7 HA completed EOT, and another 7 units can be completed next turn off of overflow.

Wavelength was an unnecessary provocation, and an example of not being flexible to the game state. I recognized early on that Yuri was squeezed for land and decided to give him the entire jungle belt uncontested, and I had planned that Wavelength location as my northernmost border city. But I didn't adjust my plan when he popped the border there. At the very least I should have sent a scout into a few turns in advance to sniff for units. But really I should have adjusted my border city to one of the hills on the west side of that mountain range. I still would have claimed Spices, and I would have had a comfortable culture cushion along with the mountain vision deep into Yuri's territory. Wavelength was an unforced err on my part, no question about it.

Out of time for today so I'll have to cover the Long War debrief later.

[scooter]

Overall I was surprised at how aggressive the game turned out in the middle ages. I was expecting a more peaceful builder game. I expected that the vulnerability to backstab while invading would act as a greater deterrent, to avoid the exact sequence that played out in the game: Scooter hits Yuri while off to war, and then gets hit from behind while also off to war. Obviously my ill-advised Spices city that Yuri razed was the flash point that set it in motion. And Commodore's piling on to the leader in a time of vulnerability makes complete sense.

Yeah, strongly agreed here. I thought this game would be quiet peaceful. I think one thing I underestimated was the "blood in the waters" effect. When you or Yuris lost a city, suddenly the incentive to take another one rises significantly. Also, a lot of conflict was kicked off by the same thing that kicks it off in any other game - border disputes.

[shallow_thought]

Belated congratulations. Very, very nicely handled - you managed to stay so calm as everything, everywhere caught fire, and then you changed mindset to focus on patiently waiting for that game-ending chance.

It would be interesting to see more games with similar settings, see if they all devolve into bloodbaths. Certainly a new spice.

[Cornflakes]

After the initial border city raze by Yuri, my eastern front was mostly stabilized. I had maces and Phalanxes defending against Swords and Horse Archers. On attacks out, my maces were getting positive odds on Yuri's stack even on defensive hill+forest terrain. The main issues was that I had to keep troops there while Commodore was pressing hard in the west:

I think Commodore is going to get me. I couldn’t quite withdraw my troops from the Yuri front quick enough.

   

Despite the gloomy outlook in this post, this was the turning point in the war. I had just bulbed Engineering, and did manage to just barely withdraw those maces and catapults from the Yuri front in time. I also completed walls at Frequency which bought me just enough time for the maces to arrive while Commodore stopped to bombard. What I didn't realize at the time, was that the Great Engineer for the Engineering bulb was only a 30% dice roll I was focused so much on the war that when the Engineer was born I didn't realize that it was a lucky roll. I just took the engineer when it popped up, and decided that bulbing Engineering would be a good use of it (I was saving gold for Guilds at the time).

I'm alive! We survived this wave of Tower Defense Mode and now we're 5 turns from Guilds.

Commodore decided not to roll the dice. If I'd thrown my catapults at him he could have captured. Save your catapults as defender, folks! Sometimes all you need is enough warm bodies!

I quote this, to point out that I often see people attack out with their catapults when sometimes it is better to hold them back and use as warm bodies and collateral sponges. In the final turns of the game, Commodore attacked out at least twice with 2-3 catapults which would have been much more scary combined into one larger sortie ... or simply left on defense to discourage/prevent me from splitting my stack.

[Turn 119] So where do we go from here. Do we still have a path to victory? I mentioned that we're 5 turns from Guilds now. I think that we have to band together in order to knock out Scooter ASAP, and then I have a shot at sticking with Commodore and Yuri. But my position is extremely fragile now that I am down to 1 city elimination sudden death

I still have the best city in the world

I've been 1-turning HA for a few turns and will continue until Guilds. Then will 2-turn Knights. I think for me my path to victory is to just max MFG and go full military with Knights/cats/pikes. If I can swing an alliance vs. GNP leader Scooter, then eliminate Commodore 1v1, and wheel over to Yuri this might just be salvageable.

This was Turn 119, aka 10 turns into the war. Despite getting battered down to just single city elimination I was still playing for the win. I identified the path to victory (finish guilds, then max MFG after Guilds) and an approximate plan (i.e. flip the war vs. me into cooperation vs. Scooter, then duel it out with the others).

I started gently prodding Scooter to join vs. Commodore. My ultimate goal with that was not necessarily to damage Commodore, but rather to prompt war between them, that I could then leverage into an alliance vs. Scooter. I would obviously have welcomed the burning of Tin, but I figured that would be enough to secure a peace treaty with Commodore for a joint war vs. Scooter. I also began prodding Commodore with "peace treaty + declare war against Scooter" offers ... the first was at least 10 turns before Yuri was eliminated, when we finally sealed the treaty. So that wasn't just a spur-of-the moment decision to unite, but rather a planed and cultivated alliance.

I did not want to sign a white peace with Commodore. Since my path to victory lay through maximizing my military at the total expense of economy, I gained nothing by peace in the short term. And since I was down to single city elimination, the only way that I would feel secure enough to invade Scooter was behind the safety of a 10-turn enforced peace treaty with Commodore. If I signed peace early, I was just burning precious time on the expiration date of the treaty.

I'll start off with the best news of the turn (not that anything bad happened ): Meet our shiny new Knight! First in the world This was a queue upgrade out of the capital after ending turn. 4 more knights complete EOT, and 2 the following turn.

After reading Scooter's thread, I found that this statement was correct but barely! Scooter actually completed guilds before me on T123 but didn't have any queue upgrades lined up. Then I completed Guilds T124 ahead of him in turn order with the first completed Knight in the world via queue upgrade, and Scooter got his first knights at the end of T124.

A Great Prophet was born thanks to the Apostolic Palace and the engineer that I've been running to squeeze out 1T horse archers from the Aether. As the GPP counter has ticked down I’ve been pondering what to do with it. My conclusion is that in the long game I’m lost and must therefore maximize the short term.

Aether in GA working max production I’ll be able to get 3 knights back-to-back, then 4 more on the last 5 turns of the GA. Meanwhile the rest of the empire will put out about 10 more. This will at least ensure security of my own borders, and may be enough to strong-arm Commodore into flipping on Scooter for a peace treaty.

This Golden Age was such a critical component to the game outcome that I couldn't miss it in this debrief. The production from the GA enabled me to field the stack which ultimately was able to absorb Scooter's attack out and seal his elimination. Since I'd given up on the next generation of military tech, it only made sense to maximize production to squeeze out as much military as I could now.

I'm never going to reach the next generation of military tech in time to make a difference on the battlefield. I have unlocked Engineering roads, pikes, knights, catapults/trebuchets, and Maces. The next military unit at Gunpowder is a marginal increase over Maces ... and after that it's Rifles or Cannon or Cuirassier, each about 8-10k beakers away (with no overlap in the tech requirements for either). Given the 3-city elimination game mode, I'm choosing to play to the strengths that I can muster at this point:
- Production (fleeting advantage, as everyone has more cities than I, and can whip production)
- EP Vision (counterable but only at the cost of slowing down the research of my rivals)
- Tactics ... I only need 3 city kills each (2 on Yuri), and all my rivals have more targets than I.
- Politics ... I could list this as weekness given I was on the wrong side of a 2v1. But Scooter just sent that iron/horse for iron/horse so maybe I can get him to draw some Arabian defenders away from my front, and provide me an opening to strike at Commodore's underbelly from the ice.

Play to your strengths! I feel like I executed each of these well. In reading back through the thread it looks like everything important was reported at the time so I won't go into great detail in the recap, but I will point this one decision out as the real turning points:

Sharp lurkers may have noticed the Phalanx in production at Frequency. I pillaged my Iron last turn and built a road on the Iron tile. I now have a mine 1 turn short of completion for when I am ready to re-connect. My reasoning is that Phalanx are half the cost of Pikes, and hold up just as well defending hill cities. In either a stack battle or mounted raiding parties into Scooter's/Yuri's land the outcome is going to come down to a numbers game. I'm also taking advantage of cheaper Horse Archers to get a couple sentries that will help with barb busting and raiding party alerts.

I can get 2 phalanx for every Pike, 2.5 Phalanx for every Camel Archer, and 2 HA for every Camel Archer. Once Catapults work their magic and my 15 knights do their work against the top defenders, I’ll need more numbers for the cleanup. For perspective if I'd had just 2 more HA in my mega-stack-attack it would have resulted in 8 more units killed (2 redlined units directly attacked, plus 6 siege flanked away).

In the east, I'm beginning my play for the win. Two cities will be founded as indicated at YELLOW and BLUE dots. Their positioning is not strictly optimal for the long term, but they can share the Banana between them for efficiency and they have enough production between them to support deeper pushes to the north. I have 3 knights as the advanced guard clearing the barbarian hordes. I'll have 2 sentry HA screening in front, and at least 3 pikes and 2 Phalanx between the two cities. That will be sufficient to fend off a mounted raid from Commodore in combination with my sentry net.

After our mutual mass stack slaughter, I came out with a stack of 14 knights vs. Commodore's 8 Camel Archers ... and that's pretty much it for both of us. Commodore had an advantage in city count for whip capacity, and I had Phalanxes as my UU as an option but blocked by having to research Engineering for the unit movement. From a production standpoint, Phalanxes massively outperform Camel Archers when posturing defensively. And so I pillaged my iron. Giving up my ability to produce Knights in exchange for building Phalanxes. Just 10 turns later I was fielding 30 Phalanxes to half that number of units from Commodore. From a power graph perspective we were equals, but from a numbers perspective I was now able to cover all fronts from Camel Archers, and push expansion aggressively into Yuri's lands. I think by this time the odds were something like 2:1 in my favor.

   

By the time of this screenshot on T167, my expansion was self-sufficient. These first three cities into Yuri's land would now be able to whip the settlers that would blanket the landscape. Upon founding BLUE dot, I would have been able to consolidate my defensive forces into a single fortress city in the north. This would enable me to settle as many as 8 or even 10 backlines cities without exposing another weakness for Commodore to reach. I was aiming to maximize build queues for whips and the Monk trifecta AP/UoS/SM on cheap Temples and cheap Monasteries.

Ultimately Commodore chose to try and end things quickly which turned out into my favor.

This game was a lot of fun, and I liked the 3-city elimination format overall. The only negative I felt was the treasure trove of pillage gold in the empty towns and villages. One change that I would make if I could is reduce or eliminate pillage gold from neutral territory. Commodore and I probably each pillaged 1000 gold. It isn't entirely negative to gameplay though. I had to make the conscious decision to initially forego pillaging after killing Scooter, in order to return my army home and heal in time for the peace treaty expiration. This in turn gave Commodore free reign to pillage uncontested. I simply could not peel off any forces into the neutral territory because Commodore would be able to land a stack next to Frequency at any time.

If there is one big miss that I could point out in Commodore's play, I would say it was trying to press hard for the kill immediately rather than using his advantage to pillage Scooter's and Yuri's lands.