AUSG101 - Opportunist Team DAR2 - Page 2

alexman · September 23, 2003, 10:32

I don't blame Arrian; he's traditionally had particularly bad luck with thin defenses. I remember that no-military AU game (All we're sayin' is give peace a chance) where the AI invaded a couple of turns before he would have won...

PS. Are we all on 1.27f? That would explain different RNG results from the same save.

Dominae · September 23, 2003, 10:38

Another thought:

A big part of accepting the RNG is anticipating the bad results and figuring out how you're going to minimize their effect, or how you're going to cope with them. If you start thinking of the worst-case scenarios, you also start thinking of cost-benefit.

What if that Barb enters my city and steals 25 Gold? Is that worse than spending a lot of time building an extra military unit? Personally I would rather lose the 25 Gold, in favor of getting an extra production center up early.

What if that Barb moves West instead of SW? Am I prepared to move my Worker who is 2 turns from finishing a Mine to avoid the hit? Ideally I would want a defensive unit there, but sometimes they're just one turn away. I'll gladly move the Worker in such circumstances.

What if I do lose my Warrior in attempting a Settler bop? Can I survive the counter-attack? Should I be more cautious and wait until another unit arrives? I think this is an example where we can all agree that the potential cost is dwarfed by the benefit.

The great thing about this (if you're following, and not puking in disgust) is that sometimes the RNG does favor you, and sometimes the AI is really stupid. By expecting the worse-case and accepting the consequences, everything that goes your way feels like a free lunch.

It's this kind of reasoning that lies at the heart of my "paper-thin" defense idea. I'm not saying this is the "new thing", just trying to describe my playstyle.

Dominae

Arrian · September 23, 2003, 11:02

I understand, Dominae. And you're right - I don't normally play this way, and therefore I stuggled with it (well, that and the RN rolls I got).

I see things differently, and play accordingly. I don't want to have to move that worker that is 2 turns away from completing his work (when I've got cities growing like weeds, the last thing I want is to slow down my terrain development). I don't want to risk the 25g hit (or, as happened to me, loss of production on a nearly complete archer, plus 1 pop point in Mecca... which I didn't even mention in my DAR) or anything else. Therefore I will build more units than you will. I'll build spearmen, so those barb horsies have almost no shot at sacking cities.

The results of my block of turns served to remind me why I stopped using paper-thin defense a long time ago.

-Arrian

p.s. "Give peace a chance" was particularly awful, yeah, because everything went so well right up until the Egyptians gutted my empire a handful of turns before I would have won. I admit, however, that my own complacency (failure to adequately prebuild the UN) cost me. If I had started a prebuild earlier, I would have won prior to the Egyptian attack.

p.p.s. I'm upgraded to 1.27, yeah.

Dominae · September 23, 2003, 12:55

Ok, I was a bit more sloppy with this round because I really wanted to make the deadline. So this report is not going to be as comprehensive, and my play was not as well thought-out.

Since this was more or less a boring stage of the game, I'm going to do something different with this DAR. I'm going to write three sections:

1. Description of my game plan for this block.
2. List of cities and their build queues (suprinsingly simple).
3. Defense of my "paper-thin" method.

I'll include a screenshot of 2150BC here to start things off. First, here are the stats from my game at that date:

Cities: 12
Population: 30
Settlers: 2
Workers: 13

Military: 3 Chariot, 3 Warrior, 1 Spearman, 2 Scout

Temples: 8
Granaries: 2
Barracks: 2

Tech: Polytheism, Writing, 3 turns from Monarchy

Gold: 617, -8gpt at max research

Dominae · September 23, 2003, 13:19

My plan with this block was basically to continue what I had started with the first 40 turns: focus almost purely on economy and grab as much land as possible. I figured an opportunity to do something more interesting would present itself at some point.

Since I wanted to deny the AI a lot of land, I sent my Settlers off to a distance 8 ring before completing the distance 3 and 5 rings. In these outkirt cities I poprushed Temples if they were only producing 1 Shield per turn, or would benefit from a timely Forest chop. I also avoided settling the inner rings right away because I wanted to leave that decision up to the rest of the team, assuming my save gets picked again. If you study the map above carefully you can see that there are a lot of city-sites available in the distance 3 and 5 rings, but settling them all would result in some pretty tight spacing. Normally I would place the inner cities first (unless rushing for a resource), but in this game I wanted to try just grabbing a lot of land. I feel the safe enough on this map and at this difficulty to attempt this. In short, my "opportunism" in this block was to claim all the land the AI was leaving open, as quickly as possible.

Once my Barracks cities were up, I began building Chariots because I'm preparing for an eventual Horseman offensive against America. Why America? Well, they're currently building both the Pyramids and the Oracle. If I give them enough time to complete those, I should be able to grab them without too much resistance (that's 2 out of their 5 cities pouring Shields into Wonders instead of units). Both Wonders would be great to have: Pyramids, obviously, but the Oracle should be nice since I'm making a point of putting a Temple in every city. This makes me think of a tip!

Tip #1: If the AI is of no immediate threat to you (they're not buzzing around with military units, denying you Strategic resources, etc.), it's a good idea to delay attack until they begin construction of a Wonder, or even let them complete it then attack. If there is enough land to expand into, you gain little form taking out an AI civ (at Monarch level), because you can only REX so fast. Time the completion of your army to occur near the time the AIs are focusing on Wonders. Then the spoils of war will be the greatest.

The Chariots that I built stayed in the core cities as MP, because a central location and their fast movement allows for good response times to Barb attacks from anywhere. All my slow military units are stationed on the outskirts of my empire, on high ground to spot potential danger (see below).

Once I researched Polytheism at 10%, I cranked up Science as far as it would go and started on Monarchy. With the Luxury slider hovering between 20% and 30%, this caused a deficit of ~6gpt throughout the entire research period, but I think it's well worth it. I still have a bunch of Gold for upgrades, and Monarchy should give me the tools to really pull ahead of the AI.

I've avoided trading for Horseback Riding for now, because it's more efficient to build Chariots then upgrade.

America and Japan have Horseback Riding and Polytheism, while Carthage has Writing (which I traded for). Surprisingly, even though Carthage has a Warrior one my side of the isthmus, they still want to trade for Contacts with Japan and America! That lone Warrior really wants to get home, I guess (see screenshot), but my Scout has other ideas. I think I'll let the Warrior through then block the passage again, to ensure Carthage's isolation.

Dominae · September 23, 2003, 13:32

Here's a brief listing of my cities and their production queues for this block (it's probably not 100% correct, but you get the idea):

Mecca: Settler every 4 turns, plus 1 Warrior early on to fight Barbs.

Medina: Worker every 3 turns, plus 1 Settler to grab Spices.

Damascus: 1 Warrior to fight Barbs, Granary then Settlers.

Baghdad and Najran: Barracks, Settler, then Chariots.

Other; Basra, Yamama, Kufah, Anjar, Aden, Khurasan: Temple (either poprush or Forest Chop) then Workers, eventually switch to Barracks and/or Settlers.

Pretty simple. The idea is: focus on REX as much as possible, even producing Settlers in Barracks cities. With this setup, it should not take too long to mount an army to clear the continent. I have no plans for Wonders yet. With Map Making I'll produce a couple of Galleys, of course, but Harbors can wait for now.

The main problem with my game is that I've let myself fall behind slightly on Workers and tile improvements. Poprushing has made this less of a factor, but if I continue playing this save I may very well take Mecca and Damascus off Settlers for a while and pop out 2-turn Workes. The annoying thing about this would be that Mecca is producing around 8 Shields per turn at minimum Shield output, meaning a big waste in Shields when building Workers.

Tip #2: Make sure your 5 or so core cities are always working improved tiles. It's less critical that every other city be fully improved (although still important). Those 5 main cities can support your entire empire in the early-game.

Dominae · September 23, 2003, 13:34

I'll post the last part (and the save+log) tonight sometime.

Dominae

Dominae · September 23, 2003, 23:08

Sorry again for the sloppy report. I have no time to write up the last part I mentioned. I try to get it done tomorrow. For now, here's an archive containing my 1250BC save and a sparse log.

Dominae

Theseus · September 23, 2003, 23:13

Damn, you are good.

I mistakenly credited alexman with being the closest to Monarchy in another thread. Verrrry impressive, Dominae.

Dominae · September 23, 2003, 23:40

Well, it cost a bunch of Gold, that's for sure, especially considering that I did not follow your advice and had almost no MP for the first two blocks (forcing a cycle of 2 turns at 20% Luxs, 2 turns at 30%). I'm actually quite surprised to see that I still have that much Gold.

In any case, alexman (and the other Spaceship people) did not have the start I did at 2150BC. The Opportunists had the good fortune of playing with two 4-turn Settler pumps...there's no beating that economically, no matter how hard you try. Credit it to my good fortune in the first block (now we see why alexman did not want to vote for my game...we're heading straight for UP!).

The funny thing now is that once we hit Monarchy all that work that went into getting smooth-running Settler pumps will have to be revised, due to the lifting of despotic penalties. I must admit I've not done a Monarchy beeline in a while. It will be a headache, but I really have nothing to complain about (more Food is good).

I look forward to "judging" the Domination team!

Dominae

Rhothaerill · September 23, 2003, 23:54

It is almost midnight EST so I'm going to go ahead and officially declare the second turn block over. Now we will start the process of deciding which saves will begin the next turn block. Per the suggestion of Defcon5 and Master Zen, the team decision will be shuffled around each turn block. Therefore for this turn block the opportunist team would choose for the domination team and in turn the spaceship team will choose for the opportunist team.

In the domination DAR 2 thread please post your preference for the next turn save for that team. It is also encouraged, though not mandatory, to discuss and critique the individual saves while posting your preference. The time period for discussing and posting your preference will last until 23:59 EST Thursday, and the next turn block will begin on Friday.

I will keep a running count of the voting updated in the first post of this thread. The choice for the next savegame will be posted in this thread and a brand new DAR 3 thread for the third turn block on Friday.

Please note that in the event of a tie by the end of the decision process either myself or Nuclear Master if I am not around on Thursday (unlikely) will break the tie.

BRC · September 24, 2003, 00:19

Sorry guys. NO time to talk. anyway here's the save. it's decent.

G'Kar · September 24, 2003, 00:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
Considering that even 3-tile is tough for me to stomach, I'm happy you don't want to go for the "optimal" culture-win strategy.

I still like the "opportunistic" concept, frankly. Take advantage of our opportunities and see what happens.

-Arrian

Just to be clear, when you guys say 2-tile or 3-tile for culture wins do you mean 2 and 3 tiles in between cities, respectively?

Rhothaerill · September 24, 2003, 00:23

BRC WILL be part of the team for the spaceship team to judge, just so everyone knows.

I'm not going to get into not accepting savegames, even if they are technically after the "deadline". That's not fun for anyone.

G'Kar · September 24, 2003, 00:36

A screenshot of BRC's game:

G'Kar · September 24, 2003, 00:40

and Korn's game:

Theseus · September 24, 2003, 00:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Defcon5
Just to be clear, when you guys say 2-tile or 3-tile for culture wins do you mean 2 and 3 tiles in between cities, respectively?

No, the now accepted convention is the number of tiles from city to city.

So:

cxxxc

is 4-tile placement.

Dominae · September 24, 2003, 01:00

2 tiles is as close as you can pack them (city-tile-city). It's great for when you want to generate a lot of Culture.

Dominae

Mountain Sage · September 24, 2003, 07:08

My turn to vote: Dominae (GodKing 2nd best). Well, Arrian, this time you were a bit unlucky.
As for the others, excellenet job but what impressed me most with Dominae's DAR were not only the achievements, of course, but also the strategy. I like to understand what the strategy for this round of playing is and what the strategy for the future will be. For this, Dominae is the most clear and coherent.
Generally, I am impressed by your number of cities. What did we of the Spaceship team do wrong to have so few???

Arrian · September 24, 2003, 10:04

As Dominae said, the other teams didn't get the settler pumps we did, due to Dominae's opening move to get the game tile in range of Mecca. That, plus practically ignoring defense, results in a REXplosion.

-Arrian

alexman · September 24, 2003, 10:08

And don't forget that Settler in 3850 BC, which almost doubled the size of your empire. Of course you need sound strategy to exploit these things, which you guys have displayed in abundance.

Arrian · September 24, 2003, 10:40

That too.

-Arrian

Makahlua · September 24, 2003, 11:05

I have to vote Dominae, too - kind of hard to beat Monarchy being thisclose!

Edit: moved comment below as it makes more sense I think

alexman · September 24, 2003, 11:19

Dominae's is a fine game (I will vote later, as I haven't examined the games closely enough yet), but Monarchy being 3 turns away is hardly a reason for getting voted.

For one thing, Nor Me is also 3 turns away. For another, had these guys gone all-out on research (instead of saving gold) they would already be in Monarchy a while ago.

Please take some time to go through all the games before you vote, otherwise the AUSG will not last.

GodKing · September 24, 2003, 13:36

Actually, I figured that most would go all out on research, which is why they are 3 turns away and I am something like 28. I decided to max gold instead to 'just be different'. I have an extra 250 gold. All around, probably would have been better to go max on research, but seeing different things is what this is about.

Dominae · September 24, 2003, 13:43

I went 40 turns for Polytheism, then max research for Monarchy. Big mistake, even though I'm pretty close to Monarchy now. Had I known the tech rate was so slow, I would have rushed to Monarchy as quickly as possible.

Dominae

alexman · September 24, 2003, 13:56

OK, I'm done going over the saves. First of all, it was a pleasure to see how well you're all doing!

So here's what I think:

Godking is closer than anyone for a Horseman attack. But his looser city spacing seems inconsistent with that goal. If you plan to destroy your neighbor immediately, you don't need to grab all that land by REX, as you will have it by force anyway. A tight city spacing would have been more effective as a production base for units.

Dominae continued his Culture/REX plan flawlessly, and should be in great position for a horseman offensive soon.

BRC's expansion is almost identical to Dominae's, but he's a bit behind in Workers, military, and culture.

Korn's game is also similarly light on military and heavy on REX, but he also went nuts with workers, and I like that a lot. However, he already has iron connected (why waste a worker for a colony, when you can pop-rush a temple to get iron in your borders, btw?), and knowledge of horseback riding, so his military buildup will be slower.

Nor me has a clear plan. His focus was to set up his 3-ring core and get in position to mount an early Swordsman attack as soon as possible. He's in the best position to have a second core set up by the next turn block.

Arrian did a great job of recovering from his bad luck. He's not far behind in expansion, and his almost 1000 gold gives lots of flexibility. The lack of RCP hurts the production in his outer cities though.

I'm at a loss to judge this game when there is no clear goal defined. It doesn't help that the number of turns in this block were too few to give a clear differentiation between strategies. You are all on your way to UP!

Overall, however, it's clear to me that the best games here are Dominae's and Nor Me's. Even though Nor Me is behind in land area, he will soon make up for it by whacking a neighbor. And he has an extra Granary to fill up the continent. The question is, what is closer to the goal for this team? If the victory goal is culture, I have to go with Dominae. If the goal is to win big, I have to go with Nor Me. Maybe it would be better if this team votes for a goal before the next save is chosen.

Makahlua · September 24, 2003, 14:39

Sorry I'm not expansive in my analysis, I should've included that settler pump which will help keep the REX'ing going even during conquest as well. I'm still kinda getting my footing in here; I'm a newbie in comparison to some of the folks playing, so I feel a bit under-qualified to totally take apart other folk's turn blocks

Rhothaerill · September 24, 2003, 14:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Makahlua
Sorry I'm not expansive in my analysis, I should've included that settler pump which will help keep the REX'ing going even during conquest as well. I'm still kinda getting my footing in here; I'm a newbie in comparison to some of the folks playing, so I feel a bit under-qualified to totally take apart other folk's turn blocks

Feel free to tear them all apart (in a nice way of course

). This is a learning process for everyone, even the "graybeards" of the strat forum.

Arrian · September 24, 2003, 15:20

Quote:

Arrian did a great job of recovering from his bad luck.

Thanks, but not really. My reaction to the *bam-bam-pow-bam!* rapid-fire battlefield losses was largely irrational... and at first, wasn't really a reaction at all - more like inert shock. The first thing I should have done was use Mecca to help out right away(I didn't because it didn't have a barracks and because it was the mongo settler pump). The second thing I should have done when things started to get real bad was to poprush. I could have prevented the temporary loss of Damascus, probably. Further, even if I hadn't, I should never have attacked the American warrior who took it with my vet spearman across the river. That was pure anger.

In other words, strategically speaking, my 30 turns were poor. I micromanaged relatively well (until losing Damscus, at least, since once that happened I lost control of the game tile temporarily), but screwed up some more important stuff.

Research? Heh, I didn't even think about it. I just left it at 10% for no real reason.

-Arrian