AU208: Total Eternal Forever War - Reports and Comments

[CorpusScorpius]

Originally posted by Arrian


......The Americans have a huge fleet of frigates and are bombarding my West coast...........
The Americans and English are DEMOCRACIES! .......

-Arrian

The Americans(regent ptw) are the cream of the crop in every game I have played.(Manifest Destiny?) Are the Americans Frigates blasting everyone else?
The whole world seems to love Democracy!! I think that someone mentioned that in an earlier post. I pesonally believe that unless U are invading the other continents They will not switch Governements

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Aeson
Tried it on Deity with the Ottomans... even got a Settler from the second hut... but no dice.

Boy, does this make me feel better!!!

This thing is a bee-yatch!!

Funfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfu nfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunf unfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfun funfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfu nfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfunfun!

Got milk? Got Rome?

Finally!! 10 Archers and 2 Spears, and I think I squeaked through by a coupla hps.

This almost feels like a puzzle... now, how do I connect Rome to my core?

The map, whether intentionally or not, is intense... this time, I've used the forest between the starting location and the west coast as the basis for a Spear Maginot Line... seems to be working so far. It forces the MWs onto the hills / mountains, drastically slowing them down.

The southernmost hill, 889 of the start, is fabulous as a forward town... I've just realized how important the hills / mountains will be to move north and take on the Iroq with slowmovers.

If Rome flips, my monitor dies.

[BigDork]

Originally posted by Theseus
If Rome flips, my monitor dies.

I've lost Rome twice now. Damn thing is hard to hold on to.

BigD

[Theseus]

Nasty alexman, trying to entice us to WASTE TIME BUILDING COASTAL TOWNS AND TEMPLES TO GET TO THE WHALES!!!!!

I can't believe it took me so long to understand that Total War is for warmongering... warmongering ONLY!

[CorpusScorpius]

Originally posted by BigDork


I've lost Rome twice now. Damn thing is hard to hold on to.

BigD

BigD how many Attackers are U using to Capture Rome?

[vmxa1]

Theseus what the heck is that army? It has four units at this point in the game? It says 11/11, but 1 vet, 2 regs and whatever the legion is, is more than 11 points? What am I missing?

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Theseus
I can't believe it took me so long to understand that Total War is for warmongering... warmongering ONLY!

Yes I think this is a trap for any semi warmongers. I tried to be a part time war guy, that is I built some structures in the hope of getting better producton and hold down the disorder. This may be too slow to conquer.

[vmxa1]

Finally met the babs, while I was switching govs.
They landed a Calv and a settler, which I jumped on.
I was moving a settler and pike to fill in another coastal hole and found the babs had just founded a town with a galley in it and a Calv. Took it down and filled the hole.
I got no tech from them as I could not offer them enough. I see a RR where teh town, was a bad sign.
It has been a stream of 2-4 calv, which Rider armies can handle for now. The AI sends them to the same place and I can hit them which cats and then riders.
Rome is out of the game and I have not seen or heard from Iroq, but I know they are about.
Babs are twice my score in first, I am in second. Well only because I only know Babs, England, Iroq and defunct Romans. I am guessing the Americans are way ahead. They have an island city I can see, but no contact.
Not putting in much time today.

[nbarclay]

There's an old saying in Persia: If you're going to cheat a queen, cheat her royally. An English galley approached our shores in 170 AD. For 84 gpt and a world map, Persia procured a world map, 172 Gold, The Wheel, Philosophy, Code of Laws, Map Making, and Ceremonial Burial.

Then I really got greedy. The thought occurred to me that if I changed what tiles I worked, I could boost my income still higher for the fraction of a turn that Queen Elizabeth's auditors visited to see what I could afford to pay. I squeezed out an additional 16 gpt and traded that, plus 28 gold cash, for Horseback Riding and Mysticism. That leaves Currency as the only tech England has that I don't. And best of all, my gold reserves to fuel future research are now up to 1670; I almost caught up with England in tech without having to eat into my gold reserves.

Needless to say, poor Lizzy is not at all happy at being cheated out of 100 gpt. But if that's what it takes to get me back in the tech race...

And if I can invade England with my immortals before they get Feudalism and keep the rest of the world from ever finding out about Persia's, ah, "negotiating practices," so much the better.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by BigDork


I've lost Rome twice now. Damn thing is hard to hold on to.

BigD

I've razed Rome and settled the spot myself later on. No worries for flip back then! Defend it ith enough decent units, though.

Shaka

[vulture]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Theseus what the heck is that army? It has four units at this point in the game? It says 11/11, but 1 vet, 2 regs and whatever the legion is, is more than 11 points? What am I missing?

Look carefully and you'll notice that the spearman isn't in the army (it is the only one that has its hp and move listed, and doesn't have 'in army')

[Arrian]

Nor Me,

I am envious. Wow.

...

So GPT trades were deemed kosher in this one? I think I did one very early on for something like 6gpt, but never since I noticed Catt's comment about it in the other thread.

-Arrian

[lmtoops]

Originally posted by Arrian
Nor Me,

I am envious. Wow.

...

So GPT trades were deemed kosher in this one? I think I did one very early on for something like 6gpt, but never since I noticed Catt's comment about it in the other thread.

-Arrian

I'm all in favor of gpt trades. We need all the advantages we can get.

[lmtoops]

Originally posted by Theseus




... this time, I've used the forest between the starting location and the west coast as the basis for a Spear Maginot Line... seems to be working so far. It forces the MWs onto the hills / mountains, drastically slowing them down.

Great idea!!! I will steal this one.

[jshelr]

Good stories all.

I started this at work for something to do and it is fun. Playing emperor with Persia. Given the lux start, I decided to begin with a barracks and try to build a grid of nine cities with eight at the compass points three squares from the capital. I did not explore, since I wanted as little contact as possible until as much of the grid as possible was set up. Worked backward to stay out of contact and got five cities before the wars started.

popped hut for CB early

Hi shows up and we trade pot / wc for 70 gold and Masonry. Always pay my debts!

War with Hi

Vet archers and spears disposed of his warrior rush with no losses.

Rome -- Alpha for 100 gold / War

Forests became a pain in the posterior, but we had good battle luck. Should have chopped early, even if it required building an extra worker. Managed to hold off the first Legionaire.

At this point, I read the AARs to see what I did wrong. Basically, I think the approach is too conservative. Probably should have taken the battle to the enemy right away.

So, we are at war with Rome and Hi, able to build vet units just about fast enough to deal with the continuous rush. We are waiting for them to come to us and that lets us comfortably deal with the rushes. Actually winning is something else. Does not look good for the long run.

Neat scenario. We could have used this idea as the basis for a PBEM.

[Arrian]

Or a succession game. The intensity of it lends itself to short bursts of play.

-Arrian

[TheArsenal]

I've played this out until (about) 1040AD before stopping the game to give serious consideration as to how to approach this moving forward.

Quick overview. Again, my China-Regent game is at home, so my dates have a little wiggle room.

As noted, up until 220AD (or so) I had decided the best approach was to fortify and hold out defensively against the Iroquois while taking the battle to the Romans. This worked well, if not much slower than I would have liked. I sent swordsmen after the remaining Roman cities - in large teams if I could assemble them - and the Iroquois seemed content to throw away MW by moving one or two outside my northernmost city and letting me throw swordsmen at the stack from inside. Fine with me. The Romans were taken out of the picture around 540AD allowing me to turn full attention to my northwestern neighbors. Taking out the Iroquois was, admittedly, sloppy, extended, business. Inability to stop the war long enough to marshal a good offensive attacking force, I was made to attack with swordsmen teams of two, three and four, all the while under attack themselves. But it worked, and in this game I could see no other way, but it was wasteful.

A few good things went my way during this melee however.
(1) I captured the Oracle from the Iroquois. I was less grateful for the capturing the Wonder, than realizing the AI took a productive city out of the unit producing business to build it.
(2) With horses finally secured, and Chivalry obtained, clean up with Riders made the end of the war much easier.
(3) Finally obtained a GL which was used to Sun Tzu, which IIRC, was the only wonder available to me. I now have two total.

As I stand now, I own the entire continent, the two tile island north, and one tile island (settled earlier), southwest of the continent. When I stopped the game, the English were trolling around with three galleys, the Indians two.

At this point, the two choices (or a mix thereof) seem to me to be either: defend the island only, try to build infrastructure to gain on the tech race and move when I have a proper force on par with the rest of the world technically. I am so far behind in techs that this is probably not feasible.

or: build as many ships and Riders as my economy can stand, and go adventuring. This will be met, inevitably by the powers who have Cavalry, Muskets, and Riflemen.

I will go for the second option, although neither of these choices looks particularly appetizing.

[nbarclay]

I underestimated how much force I'd need to take England. At my peak, I held four English cities, but one of them flipped back to England for at least the second time. Two assaults on London have failed with heavy casualties, thanks mostly to England's Great Wall. England has pikes now, so I think I'll wait until I get cavalry to finish them off.

Worse, because of the war, I've been reluctant to change governments (especially since I'd hoped to finish England and then switch to Republic). It's 840 AD, and I'm only now starting a switch to Monarchy.

The one good thing about the war with England is that I got three leaders out of it. One rushed Sistine, the second Sun Tsu's, and the third built an immortal army. I also got Leo's through a palace prebuild.

Babylon made contact with me in 750 AD, and I found that they'd also sold contact with me to America. Fortunately, no one had met the English yet to learn of my "interesting" approach to trade, so I was able to do another nice round of negotiations. For 160 gpt, I bought Astronomy, Banking, Music Theory, Printing Press, Monarchy, and a world map. I also arranged a "loan" from America: 19 gpt for America's 322 gold and their version of the world map. That left Chivalry as the only tech other civs had that I didn't, and the reason I didn't get that is that I wanted to be able to build horsemen for upgrade to cavalry.

Will I be able to build up a sufficient strike force to upgrade to cavalry and hit America before they get Nationalism? Will I go after America with cavalry anyhow, in spite of their getting Nationalism, on the theory that odds aren't likely to be particularly better later? Stay tuned.

By the way, thanks to my gold reserve, I was actually doing 4- and 5-turn medieval research under Despotism for a while! Unfortunately, my gold reserve is essentially gone by now.

Nathan

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by vulture


Look carefully and you'll notice that the spearman isn't in the army (it is the only one that has its hp and move listed, and doesn't have 'in army')

I figured I was too bleary eyed to see clearly, thanks.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Arrian
So GPT trades were deemed kosher in this one? I think I did one very early on for something like 6gpt, but never since I noticed Catt's comment about it in the other thread.

-Arrian

I am not following this, help me out. What was the comment? What do you mean by trade. I thought we could not reload or make peace, but could make any deals we can at first contact. We have to declare war on the first contact, so we can do some type of deal, but have to end by going to war. Is that not correct?
I did not even bother to build embassies, since I can not have peace or trade (other than first contact).
You can't make any trade while at war anyway, unless it is part of a peace settlement.
Am I following rules or am I missing something again?

[TheArsenal]

I think what is being discussed is - upon first meeting - the practice of offering a certain amount of gpt to obtain techs/maps then declaring war.

[Nor Me]

I've seen Always War rules with no gpt allowed. But it's not in the spirit of AU to ban exploits. So we're playing under fairly liberal rules: war by the end of your first turn after meeting them and no peace.

When I met one of the other 4 civs, I traded contacts, maps, techs and gpt between them for the one turn. Even though I met Babylon first, I ended up trading them Chemistry which I'd got off another civ.

Of course I regularly start peace negotiations to find out what tech the AI has.

[Dominae]

Different people seem to have interpreted the "no peace" clause differently, even though it is clearly stated in the scenario description by alexman.

I myself did not know I could trade techs around freely during the turn of first contact, as long as the turn ended in declarations of war. This may have netted me a tech or two extra, as I refused to trade Contacts until I was good and ready to have everyone on my back. However, I did take liberties to use the "gpt exploit", just because it's so fun considering the nature of this game ("Sure, we'll give you all our income in exchange for your maps, heh-heh").

Whatever, this is all in good fun. Most people are starting over multiples times anyway, so this should give everyone a good chance to follow the "official rules".


Dominae

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Dominae
However, I did take liberties to use the "gpt exploit", just because it's so fun considering the nature of this game ("Sure, we'll give you all our income in exchange for your maps, heh-heh").
Dominae

By this do you mean the idea that they give you something in return for so much gold per turn, when in fact you are going to delcare war and not pay?
I figured it was not allowed so I did not do it, wish I knew I could have.
I doubt it would have saved me anyway. I expect to get back to the game tonight and have my lights turn off.
I am somewhere around the late 1300's and have been attacked by Calvs and the Americans will soon find me, I expect that to be the end, if they want it to be.
I wonder what others see as the best Civ to try to pull this off as?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by vmxa1
By this do you mean the idea that they give you something in return for so much gold per turn, when in fact you are going to delcare war and not pay?

Correct. I did this myself. What I do not know we could do is trade techs and Gold around in one big turn, declaring war on everybody at the end. Depending on the different levels of technology of the civs, this could turn out to be very profitable. In my game, I doubt I could have pulled something interesting with this trick, as most of the overseas civs (apart from the English) have been "in bed" the entire game.

I am somewhere around the late 1300's and have been attacked by Calvs and the Americans will soon find me, I expect that to be the end, if they want it to be.

The AI has a hard time finishing the human player off, especially when it comes to overseas invasions. I suspect you'll quit long before the AI defeats you, which is a smart thing to do because who wants to play a truly hopeless game? In my game (still the first one), I can still see some hope, so I'm trudging along. I've lost all the Industrial age Wonders (yes, that one too...), but I still think I can compete. We'll see.

I wonder what others see as the best Civ to try to pull this off as?

With knowledge of the map, I think it is clear that a civ with a non-Ancient UU is preferred, simply because you'll need your GA to keep you alive once you contact the overseas civs and the real tech race begins. China therefore seems to be a very good choice for this reason, in addition to its other advantages. The Ottomans should also be good: Persia's traits without the disadvantage of an early GA, and, if timed right, a Sipahi offensive against India or America (probably the former) that could very well get the ball rolling towards victory.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae


Correct. I did this myself. What I do not know we could do is trade techs and Gold around in one big turn, declaring war on everybody at the end. Depending on the different levels of technology of the civs, this could turn out to be very profitable. In my game, I doubt I could have pulled something interesting with this trick, as most of the overseas civs (apart from the English) have been "in bed" the entire game.

Keep in mind that while we can make a killing buying techs with gpt, selling them for gpt is worthless. That greatly limits the ability to make additional profit selling to backward civs.

[Dominae]

True, Nathan. By "profitable", I meant in terms of techs and lump sums. You need to catch the AIs at a time where they're not all too far ahead, and that there are some techs "missing" between them. I'm not sure if this happens very often, but (like I said) on average you could net a tech or two, or perhaps a few hundred Gold. That's nothing to scoff at in a tough game like this.


Dominae


P.S: Two pointers:

1. Like Nathan said, never ask for gpt from an AI (I almost did this)!

2. Do not go into Mobilization until you're sure it's the right thing to do (think about it...).

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

With knowledge of the map, I think it is clear that a civ with a non-Ancient UU is preferred, simply because you'll need your GA to keep you alive once you contact the overseas civs and the real tech race begins. China therefore seems to be a very good choice for this reason, in addition to its other advantages. The Ottomans should also be good: Persia's traits without the disadvantage of an early GA, and, if timed right, a Sipahi offensive against India or America (probably the former) that could very well get the ball rolling towards victory.

Certainly, a medieval GA is far more valuable in absolute terms. On the other hand, a good ancient UU and accompanying GA can help conquer the enemy more quickly and cheaply so you can move on to other things sooner - especially if you don't do so hot with an early archer rush. Having more and better-developed cities earlier can produce an effect that, while perhaps not as great as a GA at any one time, lasts a way whole lot longer.

The reason China has so much potential in a game like this has less to do with its later GA than with the fact that it's a fantastic archer rush civ. If China can do enough damage with archers, it gets almost the same benefit as if it had an early UU. But if not, China doesn't get nearly as much bang for the shield on a sustained basis as Persia can (assuming it can obtain iron).

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

2. Do not go into Mobilization until you're sure it's the right thing to do (think about it...).

Keep in mind that killing off an AI counts as ending the war for demobilization purposes. The possibility of settlers on boats or on unmapped islands presents a little bit of a wild card, but mobilizing with the clear expectation of finishing a civ off completely is a viable option. Indeed, it would even be possible to delay a civ's final demise in order to stay mobilized a little longer.

Nathan

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Certainly, a medieval GA is far more valuable in absolute terms. On the other hand, a good ancient UU and accompanying GA can help conquer the enemy more quickly and cheaply so you can move on to other things sooner - especially if you don't do so hot with an early archer rush. Having more and better-developed cities earlier can produce an effect that, while perhaps not as great as a GA at any one time, lasts a way whole lot longer.

How far are you in the scenario, Nathan? I'm halfway through the Industrial, and I can safely say that the latter part of the game is a much tougher challenge than securing the home continent. I'm guessing this will be true of other people's games as well, although I could be wrong.

The reason China has so much potential in a game like this has less to do with its later GA than with the fact that it's a fantastic archer rush civ. If China can do enough damage with archers, it gets almost the same benefit as if it had an early UU. But if not, China doesn't get nearly as much bang for the shield on a sustained basis as Persia can (assuming it can obtain iron).

True. But, given knowledge of the map, I still believe the Ottomans to be superior in this scenario. Securing the home continent is important, sure, but getting a foothold on the other continents (beyond England) is equally important, and probably more difficult because the AIs would certainly pull ahead of you in tech eventually (how do you get them to go to war with one another before Espionage?).


Dominae