AU208: Total Eternal Forever War - Reports and Comments

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Keep in mind that killing off an AI counts as ending the war for demobilization purposes.

Really? That's awesome news! You had better be right about this...


Dominae

[vmxa1]

I went with China to avoid the early GA and to have a 3 move unit. I suppose an ancient GA could be useful, if you had a fair number of cities. I think most ancient UU woul dhave to be used too soon, especially if they had 2 move like impi.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae


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.

I'm four mandatory techs short of the industrial era, and the AIs are five short (although they have some optional ones I don't - the diplomacy interface can be useful for spying even when you can't actually sign a peace treaty). Keep in mind that I'm playing on Monarch, so I don't have as tough a challenge as you do. I have no idea how my entry into the industrial era will compare with the AIs'; I just entered anarchy to switch to Monarchy, which will slow me down in the short term but speed me up once the government changes. And there's no way of knowing how good a job the AIs will do pursuing different paths and swapping.

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?).

That depends on how big a tech advantage winning the home continent earlier carries, and on the exact timing of the initial extrahemispheric attacks. The situation that would make the Ottomans look best is if Persia would be unable to invade before enemy riflemen show up, but the Ottomans would still have plenty of time to use their Sipahi against riflemen before enemy infantry appear. The situations where Persia looks best by comparison would be if it gets a significant amount of time to attack with cavalry while the AIs are still stuck with musketmen instead of riflemen (which I'm convinced is possible on Monarch, although I'm skeptical as to whether I'll pull it off), or if Persia's time advantage means that Persia can rip into AIs while they're stuck with riflemen while the Ottomans have little or no time to use their sipahi before infantry show up.

Also note that Alex threw in an additional nasty surprise for the Ottomans: the need to conquer at least part of England in order to get saltpeter. Stronger late-ancient and medieval research and the availability of immortals make conquering part or all of England (and holding the captured territory if England remains reasonably intact) easier for Persia.

[Theseus]

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

Not even remotely up to this stage yet, but...

[Theseus]

Bear with me, both in terms of playing the game out and also doing AARs, but Scandinavia also, obviously, has similar timing attractions.

In other words, Lizzie... BUH-BYE!!!

[vmxa1]

nbarclay I am not sure you can count on using the open talks to figure out what they have. The list you see under tech is not always all they have.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I went with China to avoid the early GA and to have a 3 move unit. I suppose an ancient GA could be useful, if you had a fair number of cities. I think most ancient UU woul dhave to be used too soon, especially if they had 2 move like impi.

It's not just the GA. It's the combination of the GA and the power advantage of the UU over its conventional counterpart. Suppose Persia gets an effective 50% production boost in its GA (since some tiles are helped and some aren't in an ancient GA). Couple that with a UU that has 4/3 the striking power of a swordsman and you get effectively double the striking power that you would with a civ building swordsmen not in a GA.

Unfortunately, free unit support limits tend to put a damper on taking full advantage of that. If I were playing a civ not in a GA, I would have kept disconnecting and reconnecting my road to my iron colony to use warrior upgrades to keep up my sword production. But as it was, I would have faced unit support cost problems if I'd done that. (Then again, I likely should have done it anyhow to make the war go even faster. After all, with "always war," you can't start making any real use of captured cities until their parent civ is dead - a huge disadvantage to dragging out wars in an effort to troll for leaders.)

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by vmxa1
nbarclay I am not sure you can count on using the open talks to figure out what they have. The list you see under tech is not always all they have.

It only shows techs you have the prerequisites for, since those are the only ones you can negotiate for at the moment. But I've never noticed so much as a hint that it shows any techs a civ doesn't have or omits any techs a civ does have that you have all the prerequisites for. For example, if an AI has Engineering and Feudalism and you don't have both of them, there's no way of knowing how far along the bottom of the tech tree the AI is. The fact that you're missing at least one prerequisite prevents Invention and its descendants from showing up. But if the AI is missing either Engineering or Feudalism, it can't have Invention or any of its descendants yet either, so the negotiation screen can be of immense value in determining what an AI doesn't have as long as you aren't seriously behind. (Or have you seen cases where apparent inaccuracies in the list of techs available for trade can't be explained by the trading rules I noted above?)

[MrWhereItsAt]

I'm pretty sure that it's cut and dried: in the negotiations screen you can see all techs that an AI has that

1. you don't have and
2. that you have the prereqs for.

So if an AI has any of the techs that you could start researching that very turn, you can see it is available to make offers for.

The same wors the other way. You can only offer techs that the AI hasn't got that it has the prereqs for.

Nothing more.

[Arrian]

I'm kinda annoyed now that I didn't go all-out on making gpt deals upon first contact. I would be a lot closer in tech if I had.

But the mobilization tidbit is gonna be important. I had forgotten about that, but now that Nathan mentioned it, I remember - he's right. Sweet.

-Arrian

[badman]

Damn this is so tough, I'll give it one last try before switching to Monarch.
I already lost several times as the Germans and the Chinese.
Last time I was able to capture Rome (which I abandoned soon after because there was no way I was going to keep it).
I was able to move a settler there and actually build a road (through the hills near the mountains) and some cities along it but then the MW's just kept coming and even though my units did a great job fighting them, I couldn't resist them very long.

[Dominae]

I had originally posted this part of my report, but lost it somehow. I hope I'll not forget all the details.

If you'll recall from my last report (yeah right), in ~200AD, I had finished with the Iroquois and Romans, the former being taken care of early with a rush and the latter offering little resistance once their Legionary forces had smashed themselves against my Walls for a few hundred years.

My only problem at that point was that I had spent a Great Leader on the Great Library, but contacts with other civilizations were in short supply. I decided to spare the Romans one city, so that they could eventually team up with some other civ to teach me a bunch of technological secrets (in spite of the perpetual state of war between us...did you ever notice how the Great Library sounds great in theory but makes no realistic sense in actual gameplay?).

Sure enough, in 300AD opportunity came a-knockin' when an English Galley popped into view. England was actually behind in tech, which lead me to the conclusion that they were an isolated civ. Here's how the negotiations went:

Round 1:

England offers Math., World Map, 15 Gold
China offers Polytheism

Round 2:

England offers Currency, Construction and 44 Gold
China offers Monarchy, Literature and 10 Gold per turn

Round 3:

England asks if there will be anything else.
China gives Lizzie the finger and declares war.

Fun fun. Seeing the size of the English lands, I felt I could conquer them without too much extra military buildup, so my core cities went into super-builer mode. As I mentioned earlier, it feels like Total War is more of a Builder scenario than a Warmonger one; since you're forced to do most of your own research, getting all the economic and scientfic improvements in your main cities is a must, not to mention the fact that the entire home continent contained but two Luxuries, making Temples and Cathedrals a must too. But, even with all this building, the wars raged on.

Shortly after meeting England, the Babylonians appeared, courtesy of that Great Lighthouse they kept talking about. I exploited them for a round of negotiations, then gave Hammurabi the finger (I had heard enough of their "Wonders"), triggering another war. Hammurabi told the rest of the world about China's manners, and soon I became known as the "evil civ" on the world stage. To support this reputation, I wiped out the poor Romans, since their thinkers were not needed anymore in the Great Library.

Looking at the maps I got from the Babs, I muttered an audible "uh-oh". Seems like we've got a lot of lot of land mass, but disconnected continents: a perfect recipe for at least three Killer AIs I was not going to be able to trade with. Sure enough, the rest of the world ganged up on me immediately. I doubt there was ever even a war among the Indians, Babs, Egyptians or Americans in the entire game prior to contact.

Back to the action. I sent over a rag-tag crew of units (Medieval Infantry, Longbowmen, Pikemen, Elite Archers and Horsemen, you name it, I had it) across the Convenient Sea Lanes to Great Britain, unsure of where to strike since the English had just obtained Feudalism and Pikemen. Since the English refused to go easily, I also sent over a few Riders, unwilling to delay my Golden Age any longer.

Below is a screenshot of the fall of Britain. I struck at Oxford first with all my bad units, then braced myself for the English counter-attack which ended up being disappointingly weak. With most of the English standing army gone, I proceeded to Newcastle, then (as you can see) Dover and Brighton. I actually got to use Riders effectively (my first time!): landing units at Newcastle, I was able to conquer Dover and Brighton in one turn!

[Arrian]

Good decision re: Newcastle - you took out their saltpeter before it became an issue. Well done.

I should've attacked the English too. Mistake - I went straight builder (and my GA was all done).

Don't Riders rock? Though in this particular scenario I might prefer Samurai. They make great invasion troops.

-Arrian

[jshelr]

This game is really interesting. As an early game report, one thing that seems to work is an immediate archer rush of Rome. If you use workers to chop forests to boost growth you can build build barracks, asap. You will need those to beat the Legions with archers. Three cities tops before first rush seems to work.

We took out Rome this time at least. Now I need some walls to the West to keep the MWs from routing us while we finish off the Red Men.

Also having fun watching the market rise.

[Nor Me]

Originally posted by jshelr
This game is really interesting. As an early game report, one thing that seems to work is an immediate archer rush of Rome. If you use workers to chop forests to boost growth you can build build barracks, asap. You will need those to beat the Legions with archers. Three cities tops before first rush seems to work.

I agree that an immeadiate archer rush on Rome is a good thing (and that is why I'd take China over the Ottomans on this any day). I'm just not sure about your idea of immeadiate.

The whole point of an early archer rush is to avoid ever meeting legions. I've not seen anyone comment on whether my barracks, worker, 7 archers and a spearman before any settlers or granary was sensible. I think that it might be but I don't know.

[Dominae]

England was wiped out in ~900AD.

In the meantime the Great Library had done very well for me: the foreign thinkers I held captive there were making great progress, probably believing the lie that they could go home if they just discovered "one more tech". They actually came up with Chemistry, before the advent of "Education" made them realise that death was preferable to doing research for the Chinese (you may ask "why did education bring this about", and I'll reply "yes, my little fiction breaks down here, but the whole point was to demonstrate how unrealistic this game is sometimes").

The rest of China was in pure Builder more, as I knew how many troops I needed to defeat England, and so there was no point in producing more just yet. The only annoyance was that I only had access to two Luxuries. To combat this, I went for Sistine, but lost it to the Americans, which vexed me greatly. Then I went for Bach's, but lost this one too, which vexed me even more because I had had to research Music Theory all by myself. I was terribly vexed.

It became clear very soon that it was a war between West (me) and East (all the remaining AIs): the "Coalition of Peace" went about trading technologies and started pulling ahead, but the proud Chinese refused to get in bed with all of them (forget that advances overseas made the development of technology at home easier, the Chinese wanted to figure things out for themselves). I knew I would need to do something quick, because there was no way I could keep up with the efficiency of four peaceful Emperor-level AI civs.

So I obviously decided to fight fight fight, and looked for my next target. Ah, India: the weakest of the bunch, and with two new Luxuries to hook up. The only problem was that India was over Ocean tiles, and which my poor Caravels could not travel over safely! I sighed and continued building up my forces.

What did I build? Did go for Cavalry and upgrade masses of Riders? No! I turned to the Great Equalizer: bombardment. Nothing cheeses out the AI so bad that you can compete even when seriously behind in tech and have a production disadvantage. So I built up masses of Cannons and beelined for Magnetism. Falling behind in tech, there was no way I was going to resarch the optional Navigation in favor of the required Magnetism in order to cross Ocean (which makes me think about an old debate concerning the AU mod...).

The AIs hit the Industrial age about two required techs ahead of me, plus all the optional ones, apart from Economics and (sigh) Music Theory. I finished Newton's and Smith's in the same turn, which was really the only thing keeping me alive economically at this point.

With the advent of Magnetism, Chinese Caravel captains were able to use compasses to traverse the scary ocean and ferry troops that would kick some major Indian butt. Below is a screenshot of the invasion. My forces consist of about 20 Cannon, 6 Elite Riders enough Musketmen to fill up two Armies, plus a few left over (apparently an entire Army could not fit within a single Caravel, nor could it split up between boats for the voyage, so the Armies had to be assembled overseas). My Caravels then proceeded to scout the coasts for reinforcements; Galleons were being produced back home to transport the second wave. Notice the Indian Riflemen, and the beginning of a Railroad network.

[Dominae]

Landing my troops in Indian lands apparently got the Americans really really angry, and they proceeded to send over 20 Frigates (that's a lot) to bombard the western mainland China coast. Over the next thirty or so turns, they destroyed all improvements within firing distance, starting up north and making their way southward. To make things worse, the Babylonians and Egyptians joined in too, although with fewer units than the Americans. In all, I would sit through over 30 bombardments in that area alone every turn! I guess the AI likes bombardment after all, in its own special way.

At first I thought I was okay, so I continued building improvements in my coastal cities. Plus, I dislike the the odds of attacking Frigates with Frigates, especially when they outnumber you 5 to 1 (at least initially). By the time they had razed halfway down the coast, I knew something had to be done, so I switched some production to Ironclads. These, along with bombardments from shore with Cannon, made short work of the Frigate Offensive, but that damage had been done.

Here's a screenshot of the Frigate Offensive at its peak. There are many more boats hidden in the darkness offscreen, since the AI loves to hit and run with naval bombardment (Magellan's helped the Americans with this, frustrating me even more). Notice the bare tiles alone the coast.

[Dominae]

Back in India, I conquered Punjab without too much difficulty: only two turns of bombardment, followed up by some Rider mop-up operations. Nationalism came along and I got to upgrade my poor Musketmen, although many were already "wasted" in Armies (I could have waited, but I had decided waiting was bad in this game).

Since Hammurabi and Ghandi were "in bed", Bablyon brought the bulk of its forces through Indian lands to assault me. Although the Indians went from "Average" to "Weak" compared to me militarily after only a few turns, the Babs were the bigger dog and never went below "Strong". All this fighting (mostly bombardment, actually) produced many many Leaders, which I used to rush improvements in Punjab to secure my foothold on the continent. Among Walls, Barracks, Harbor, Library, University and Coastal Fortress, only the first was actually rush-built with Gold, the rest produced quickly via Leaders.

Upgrades to Riflemen and some reinforcements (more Cannon, Riflemen and Riders, with some Workers) allowed me to advance one tile onto the Spices, providing access to a third Luxury. Having to fend off 6 Cavalry per turn from Babylon and 3 for India (along with a bunch of Riflemen) made this the most hard-fought and well-earned Luxury in all my time playing Civ3.

The Bab forces kept pouring in, turning into Infantry eventually, which made bombardment defense easier and more difficult at the same time: easier because I would not need to chase down Cavalry anymore, more difficult because Riders versus Infantry is pretty tough, even when the Infantry is down to its last HP (after bombardment). Still, I decided to push on into Indian territory.

Below is a screenshot of my slow offensive deeper into Indian lands. The plan was to: 1) disconnect their Spices, 2) head for the Hills just south of Karachi, 3) bombard the hell of that city while messing up Bab troop movement further north. Workers tagged along to establish a Fortress at my final destination.

[Dominae]

Just a screenshot here to show how my super plan actually came to fruition. The Rider is about to disconnect the Roads that help the Babs and Indians assault my base at Punjab. After this attacks on Punjab still occurred, but were a lot less intense, allowing my Cannon to beat up the attackers quite decisively. The AI would send up healthy troops, have them bombarded down to 1HP, then call them back to heal. Normally this "stupid" behaviour would annoy me, but here it was a lot of fun to watch.

As you can see from all the colors around Punjab, everyone wants a piece of China.

You'll notice that I'm researching Espionage. Yep, that was a colossal waste of time, and a big mistake. Trying to "think outside of the box" to find a solution to my tech problem, I figured I could steal techs from the AIs. Unfortunately, I only realised once I built the Intelligence Agency that it was more efficient Commerce-wise to just research the techs, mainly because the research costs were heavily discounted.

At this point, I'm about 5 techs behind, maybe more due to the Theory of Evolution in America, which was finished long before I even thought of researching Medicine. I think the Egyptians had just finished the Hoover Dam.

[Dominae]

And then, in 1515AD, I gave up.

Now, you might be saying: "Why give up? You're situation is not hopeless: you're making ground on India, and your home continent is full of awesome cities that have been micromanaged so much that they're collectively twice as efficient as any AI core". Ok, maybe you would not say all that, but you get the picture.

Consider the tech situation in the Industrial age at 1515AD. I'm behind the following techs (maybe more): Medicine, Sanitation, Scientific Method, Atomic Theory, Electronics, Steel, Combustion, Flight, Communism. That's pretty disconcerting. I told myself that I would wait for either planes or Tanks to show up, and in 15010AD American started bombarding my lands from their northern outposts, and that was that.

I was really trying to hold on to any glimmer of hope in this game; what was keeping me going was the idea that I could win by score when time ran out. But I decided to give up when I saw that there was no way I could prevent the AIs from either building the UN or even completing the SS. Therefore, in order to save time in my life, I decided to quit while I was still "ahead" (i.e. the game was still even remotely fun).

I wanted to play until my score was the highest among all civs, but it would take too much time to fight through the Indians and Babs to grab enough land. It would definitely have been doable. When I quit, I was at 2582 to Egypt's 2769.

I've attached a save of my final turn (Play the World version 1.21): does anyone want to try and salvage a victory from this one!?

More thoughts on the map and the Total War rules later.

[Dominae]

Oh, I almost forgot: I finally made good use of Riders! And I mean really goo use; here are the units that were taken down by Riders in this game:

Settler
Worker
Warrior
Spearmen
Archer
Pikemen
Medieval Infantry
Longbowmen
War Elephant
Musketmen
Cannon (re-captured)
Cavalry
Musketmen
Riflemen (!)
Infantry (!!)

Missing are plain old Swordsmen and Knight. I got 15 Great Leaders in this game, all from Riders. Had I ever researched Military Tradition, I probably would have refused to upgrade any of my Riders. They were just that cool (to me).


Dominae

[jshelr]

Nor Me

I felt guilty about knowing the map on try #2 and did not rush Rome before I could justify to myself that I might have in a first-try effort. But you are surely right. When all the cards are on the table, the sooner you get to Rome the better.

Russ

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Nor Me
The whole point of an early archer rush is to avoid ever meeting legions. I've not seen anyone comment on whether my barracks, worker, 7 archers and a spearman before any settlers or granary was sensible. I think that it might be but I don't know.

I'll comment.

The main reason your game is going so well and that your "super-rush" decision worked was that you guessed correctly that alexman would put a couple of civs within striking distance in this scenario. Otherwise, I imagine you would have felt pretty foolish with your Barracks and all those units if alexman had instead decided to give us a lot of breathing room (another way to have set up the map). You were also "lucky" to have spotted the Romans and rushed them right away (to great success); I'm my game I was committed to the Iroquois many turns before I knew the Romans were an option (i.e. I realised the proximity of their capitol). Finally, had there been, say, a third or fourth AI civ on the continent, building all those units before a Settler or Granary would made things a lot more difficult, as you would have needed a strong economic base to withstand the onslaught of that many AIs on Emperor.

In my SP games I tend to "take a chance" more often than I would in MP, spreading myself a little more thin by rushing a nearby civ. You took this idea even further in this game, and it worked. But it could very well have not (i.e. you might have "guessed" wrong). In the Celts AU game, I took a chance by attacking India's capital very early. It worked, and I coasted to an easy victory. Although I'm sure you're a great player, I cannot attribute this to your success in this game. Like my India game, you took a chance, and it worked.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Dominae, do you think you might try replaying, perhaps stepping down to Monarch? Nice going to get as far as you did on Emperor.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Dominae, do you think you might try replaying, perhaps stepping down to Monarch? Nice going to get as far as you did on Emperor.

Thanks Nathan. I doubt I'll try this game again, even though it would be cool to compare with you and Arrian (among others who picked Monarch). Most of the fun for me is discovering the map and civs, and I would probably not be able to play again with feeling that I was exploiting my prior knowledge. Plus, I've got that sick disgusted feeling that often washes over me when I've spent way too much time on one single Civ3 game.

I think I'll fire up a Deity game and see how "easy" Civ3 is when you're allowed trading and peace.


Dominae

[vmxa1]

I am in total agreement Dom. Great run and wise to stop before it was really boring. In fact waiting for 30 frigate would have been hard for me to take.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Nor Me
The whole point of an early archer rush is to avoid ever meeting legions. I've not seen anyone comment on whether my barracks, worker, 7 archers and a spearman before any settlers or granary was sensible. I think that it might be but I don't know.

I do not have the answer, but I would think it would work.
I did not rush Rome, even though I knew it had Iron adn I needed it. I let them toss lots of units at me and cut them down in the open. Then squeezed the city down to 1 or 2 size and took it down with few troops as it had very little to defend with.
This took more time, though, but was very sure to work.

[Arrian]

I'm throwing in the towel, folks.

It is 1340 AD. It's all I can do to fight off the landings & repair the bombardment damage (I count 15 American Frigates, 6 Men-O-War, 1 Egyptian Frigate, and 1 English Ironclad on my coastline, banging away). I discovered Steam Power this turn.



Thanks, Alexman, I should've known. I really should have. But noooo, I held out hope that I'd have some coal.

No coal. No territory off my island. I'm using catapults & knights to kill off riflemen, cavalry, and assorted inferior AI units. I can research Industrialization in 8 turns at a -2gpt loss (when I know for sure that 2-3 AIs have it). And, here is the kicker:

Ready for it? Ready?

EVERY SINGLE AI CIV IS A DEMOCRACY.

*throws towel* **** it.

Here is my 1340 save for any who want it.

-Arrian out.

[vmxa1]

BTW I should have mentioned I am being BB now by destroyers, ugh.
I think you mentioned the big key for us to have any chance. You must move on England right away and get the saltpeter. Dom did a great job off getting off the island. I was mistaken in trying to avoid that and further contact. It shows my weakness in game with lots of islands. I tend not play with the least amount of water.
If we had either saltpeter or coal in the starting land mass, I think it would be a reasonable map. I should look to see what we have been given, anything beyond Iron? Only two luxs is rough for a no peace game.
I did not even consider a switch to republic, figuring that would lead to disorder for sure.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
No coal. No territory off my island. I'm using catapults & knights to kill off riflemen, cavalry, and assorted inferior AI units.

Heh, nice to see you kept telling yourself you were "the best" until the very end. Sometimes positive reinforcement like that changes things. Sometimes not...



Nice try, Arrian. In my game I managed to get the Babs, Indians and Americans into Communism, but I still could not compete with their collective research capacity.


Dominae