Grs against akots ***SPOILER***

[akots]

Tiny pangea map, no AI and no barbarians, Emperor level, no choke point. We are free to kill each other and as early as posible! Me - Sumeria, Grs - Maya. Map made by Kingreno. First promised to be a hangover map but looks OK at a first glance. At least should be balanced but you never know these mapmakers!

There is a settler factory on start but since Sumeria is not Industrious, I decided to make a second worker. Plan is to build settlers from the capital while other cities go to granaries, workers, and E-Warriors. Would not mind a despotic GA since apparently would be very difficult to avoid it for me. Planning on sending a few E-guys to harass the Maya and may be even pillage some improvements if possible. The problem though might be to find them.

First thing to research was Wheel but no horses spotted yet. Hopefully, there are some around. Next goal - Alphabet and may be Philo gambit depending on the situation whether I can get Writing first or Grs will get it first. If he gets it first, there would be little hope for me. Still Industrious trait should enable faster initial development for him. But my UU is better, cheap and reliable.

Here is a pic after first 19 turns of the game around my core:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/20051933453_grs-vs-ak-t19a.JPG
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And a very peculiar landscape revealed by the scouting E-guy:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/20051933618_grs-vs-ak-t19b.JPG
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[Grille]

Nice cap, a 3/1 settler/enkidu-pump! :)

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by Grille

Nice cap, a 3/1 settler/enkidu-pump! :)


I'm not sure I can afford it since this would need a bit too many worker turns to achieve. It is a rather remote perspective for now. If I survive that long, it might be certainly worth the effort especially after rushing barracks.

I plan on rather tight build at radius 2.5-3 of rather many cities (as many as possible) and this should produce as many E-guys as possible. Speaking of choking the Maya with cheap cannon ball meat. This would mean a huge war weariness in the perspective, so the ultimate goal is Monarchy.

[Socrates]

quote:Originally posted by Grille

Nice cap, a 3/1 settler/enkidu-pump! :)



You stole my line !! [cry] [cry] I wanted to say it, and now it's ruined... You should sleep at that time, man ! ;) akots, I urge you to get this super-wonderful factory running (note : "super" because Enkidu). With 2 workers it's entirely feasible. grs won't be able to harrass you like you will able to, since enkidus are stronger than javelin throwers on the whole... and you'll get plenty of those with the factory. [goodjob] I place my bet on you in this game (because I know your skills a little at least), but I expect grs to deliver a strong game too.

[akots]

In general and off-topic. IMO, the combo factories are nice-looking but deliver little benefit. However, on this particular tuny map it might be worth considering. But in general, I prefer to share tiles with surrounding cities and deprive capital of a few shields thus keeping it highly specialized on commerce and settlers. It might be the only city with Granary after all unless there is more forest around for chopping. All other cities will go for shields even neglecting commerce to make as many E-guys as possible in the shortest time possible. I'm not sure of how it would work regarding corruption but we are playing as Emperor level, so should not be that tough apparently. Hence, if there is a choice of giving some city with rax this bonus grassland tile to get to 5 shields/turn making E-soldier in 2 but depriving the capital from its shields, I would definitely go for it. And I need only veteran guys and there is no forest around to chop for rax. Two forests went for granary and the one left is for shields during growth.

I know Grs has moved his settler to a gold hill though. And he is having 2 cows in the radius of the capital which begs for Mausoleum in this case. So, looks like his empire will be more centralized with less tight build and somewhat higher corruption but with a large city in the center. Once this large city will be pillaged or razed/captured, the game can be won. I'm not that of a gambler and will try to keep the power distributed more evenly between the cities in the core. He might even consider not building granary since he will have +7 food in the radius or building but sharing the second cow or both with some other city.

And I'm planning on some whipping of barracks whenever happiness will permit. There is too much food on this map to my taste. :)

[Grille]

Agree with Krys, IMVHO the 3/1 option is really worth it.
I mean you possibly want to start settlers at size 5 anyways, so once enough BGs are mined, you could then just 'dynamically' switch to 3/1-ordering sequence.
Since you have E-guys and them being vets is nice (def-odds theoretically on your side against Javs), I'd even slot in a rax once reaching 10spt.
(a possible scenario: start rax at 5, accumulate 20 shields while growing to 6 and pop-rush the missing shields, then re-start 3/1-ordering at shrinked size of 5 with the rax - if you'd accept the happiness penalty)

@corruption: the map is tiny, a palace-near city would have more waste than 'usual' before reaching pure 5spt - which btw makes a 10spt cap even more important in relative terms.

And yes, muchos food there.
During map creation, KR must have smoked some wheat.:)

[akots]

Short update. We are on turn 73. And I finally figured out why I was unable to download pictures to CDZ.

So, thanks for the advice of a combo factory, I got it up and running. Not sure what grs was doing meanwhile since he got his Chicken Pizza to size 11 without any wonders apparently on temple and military police and 2 or 3 luxuries and started to build some military there. He then attacked me with 3 javeliners and 3 horsemen but considering I was ready and accumulated about 12 E-guys at the closest to Maya city, that was not a big surprize and the invasion force has impaled themselves onto the spears of mighty E. The only bad thing is that all his javeliners lost and he did not get the Golden Age whereas I got one and it is Despotic. Also, I have won Philo race and expanded a lot due to settler factory. Actually, Despotic GA is not completely bad. However, revolt to Monarchy is not an option and I cannot revolt to Republic since there are only 3 luxuries around and I'm afraid war weariness will skyrocket due to border skirmishes. E-guys are good since they are cheap but they get killed in numbers. So, Sumerian people won't like that apparently.

Here is my little empire:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/200521062117_GrsvsAK-73.JPG
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and F8 stats which clearly shows I have 50% more land and almost twice pop. My military is slightly stronger and I'm preparing for chariot upgrade to assemble E-Horse SOD of 30-40 units may be more to harrass the Maya while building a few libraries as well. Not that they are much needed, it is just good to be ... cultural.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/200521062322_GrsvsAK-73-F8.JPG
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/200521062358_GrsvsAK-73-F3.JPG
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And the power graph looks really unpleasant for grs. I'm just completely ignorant of how is he planning to catch up.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/200521062530_GrsvsAK-73-power.JPG
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[akots]

Time for update. We are on turn 109 now.

While being in Golden Age, I have launched a stack of horsemen and E-guys to Maya and razed one of the core cities. Sure it hurt a lot, but my stack has been eliminated in the process and grs was first to revolt to Monarchy. I've got a bunch of E-guys and a few horsemen around his borders on a mountain range, tried to break through a few times but had heavy losses and gave up. Meanwhile, grs was building up, apparently many warriors for upgrade to swords. Being Sumerian as I am, this was impossible to accomplish, so I went full throttle to research and am now in the Middle Ages with Feudalism. I have just finished revolting from painful 6-turn Anarchy to happy Monarchy.

Needless to say, grs did catch up and rather substantially in terms of military. However, my core cities are really well improved. Before revolting, I have rushed ToA with SGL and hand-built Hanging Gardens. Also having 4 luxuries online and preparing to connect 5th one, but the loaction is not very safe.

So, now, grs is advancing with a decent size force of about 12-15 horsemen and a few swords. I still keep a small stack of E-guys and about 10 horsemen near his border on a mountain so that he does not feel too relaxed. Now, the plan is to build up a force of horsemen and defend against his stack. I doubt he will send horses uncovered since they will get slaughtered and I have about 7-8 turns of build up before his stack arrives. Heroic Shumerians will meet them with pikemen, horsemen and a few macemen. Need to shut down research atm for get extra cash for upgrades of E-guys and part-rushing horses.

All the core cities are at 10spt making horsemen every 2 turns and capital is at 20 spt making MDI.

Here is the central mountain/flood plain region with moving troops:


http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/200533131934_GrsvsAK-108a.JPG
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This is my modest bugging force near Quir. Must admit that lately RNG was on his side since he efficiently broke through by E-line on the mountains with very few losses and I could not take over his swordsmen group near Quir. But I hope for the better outcome, it'll straighten out with time.

And the glorious shining core with markets and libraries almost all over the place:


http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/200533132016_GrsvsAK-108b.JPG
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This is F11 screen. It is good to be powerful and have large cities, just need to transform this power into military advantage.


http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/200533132246_GrsvsAK-108c.JPG
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Research plan (once the enemy troops are neutralized so to speak) is for Mono and Chivalry visiting Engineering and then killing grs with knights. If he will manage to take over a few cities, no big deal, no threat to survival. May be, I'm playing a bit too relaxed, don't know. May be there would be need to research to Cavalries to take over. Still prognosis seems to be rather good as it stands now.

[akots]

The game is now on turn 121. Grs has tried to advance with an army of swordsmen (he got MGL earlier) and catapults and about a dozen swords plus few horses to my beloved ivory village of Kuara on the flood plains in between our lands. Me ain't some AI and this did not work. His stack had been completely slaughtered and now his military is apparently substantially weaker than mine. Considering I'm 5 turns away from Chivalry and still making decent gpt (about 80 or so), started a Leo's prebuild for massive horsemen upgrade to knights, game should be essentially over within 25 turns or so. Even if he gets pikemen by that time, Shumerian army might have about 40 knights and 30 pikemen plus occasional macemen.

Here is the battle ground of Kuara after the battle:



http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/200541843346_grsvsakt121.JPG
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Just to get an idea of the scale of the battle, this is the battle report sent to grs:

Mountain S-3SE of Kua:
eH dies to vH 3/4
vH dies to vH 3/5

@Kuara:

vH dies to army 7/12
vH dies to army 5/12
vH dies to army 3/13
vH dies to vS (2/4)
eH dies to vS (1/4)
vH retr from vS (2/4)
vH retr from vS (4/4)
vH 2/4 kills vS
vH 4/4 kills vS
vH 3/4 kills vS
vH 1/4 kills vS
vH dies to vS (1/4)
vH dies to vS (1/4)
vH 2/4 kills vS
vH 4/4 kills vS
eH 2/5 kills vS
vH dies to army 3/14
vH dies to army 2/14
vH 3/4 kills vH
vH 2/4 kills vH
vH 4/4 kills vH
rE dies to vH (2/4)
rE dies to vH (1/4)
rE dies to army 2/14
rE 1/3 kills army
vE 1/4 kills S (was 2/4)
vE 2/4 kills S (was 2/4)
vE 3/4 retreats vH
vE 3/4 retreats vH
vE 4/4 kills vS (was 1/4)
vE 3/4 kills vS (was 1/4)
vE 3/4 kills vS (was 1/4)
rPike 3/3 kills vH (was 1/4) and 4 cats captured


I lost 9 horsemen and 3 regular E-guys for total 300 shields, he lost army (3 swords), 12 swords, 4 horsemen and 4 cats for total 650 shields not counting the army (100 shields more if disbanded but it was free for grs. Even considering 2 my horsemen lost in the north, still seems like a decisive victory.

Here are F11 stats:



http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/akots/200541844848_grsvsakt121a.JPG
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[akots]

Just received an e-mail from grs and he surrenders the game.

[grs]

quote:I lost 9 horsemen and 3 regular E-guys for total 300 shields, he lost army (3 swords), 12 swords, 4 horsemen and 4 cats for total 650 shields not counting the army (100 shields more if disbanded but it was free for grs. Even considering 2 my horsemen lost in the north, still seems like a decisive victory. Yes, I thought the same when I openened the battlelog. I did fail in building a decent core at the start, partly because I felt very threatened by your single EW dancing around my cities.

A clearly deserved win for you; even a good portion of battle luck, which enabled me to get you out the mountain range, did not help me.

[Puwen]

Congrats [thumbsup]

[akots]

Well, my poor E-guy did not even enter your cultural borders. And it would have been extremely unpleasant to get Golden Age that early with only a single city. If you would have cought me or cornered, I would have just disbanded the E-guy.