AUSG101 - Opportunist Team DAR2

[GodKing]

Originally posted by alexman
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.

I agree.
I hate RCP. I understand it, even the FP bug. Just doesn't mean that I like it. I prefer to follow the lay of the land, and that is what I did. If I miss out on a few shields and gp, so be it. With conquest, this should be fixed anyways (I know they were working on it). So as it wasn't until recently that I understood all the stuff about RCP, and why change my normal pattern to only have to change it back in a couple of months anyways.

To be honest, I would have prefered to have around 20+ horse units prior to going to war, and a gradual build up is what I was preparing for. Right now I only have 8 chariots and japan just moved a warrior into my territory. Oops. Bad AI. Bad. Go to your room. Anyways, my goal was to take all these horses, wipe out japan if they still have anything worth giving me else jut take them out, the do the same to America. Once done with both of them, I should just be entering the middle ages, and ready to take on carthage. I was debating about actually attacking carthage now, triggering their GA to help them out in their rex and a wonder or two, then making peace with them ASAP. So that by the time I was ready to deal with them with pikes, ansars, and cats, they wouldn't be getting their GA and make my life that much harder.

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.

I agree. However, I would be playing different if going for culture. Right now, I am probably going to go domination, and efficiency be damned... . I say that our unofficial goal is to get to any kind of a victory ASAP.

Oh ya, I am playing with 1.21 not 1.27, so that probably accounts for the different RNG's I am getting.

[korn469]

did any of you pop rush in this set of turns? maybe that's what my problem was

[Nor Me]

That you did or didn't?

I pop rushed one temple. I think I should have pop-rushed the granaries but didn't. I was going to point this out as one of my mistakes.

[Dominae]

I'm still hazy on when is a good time to poprush a Granary. I guess it's when you've got way too much Food on your hands (Flood Plains start and few Forests).

I poprushed three times in my game, all for Temples. Other cities were either producing 2+ Shields per turn and/or were going to benefit from a Forest Chop, so there was no need to poprush in those.

The only things I like to poprush are Temples and Harbors (if Religious or Militaristic, respectively), unless I'm in some sort of immediate military trouble (quite rare as I play the diplomacy game). But again, I have very little experience in poprushing for a Granary.


Dominae

[korn469]

I didn't poprush at all

I haven't poprushed in a while, early on before PtW came out pop rushing seemed like a great thing to do especially if you were on a conquering streak, but then it seemed like it wasn't something good to do after some patches, so I've avoided it, maybe a little bit too much

[Tarquinius]

alright: voting time

From the great position Dominae had put you guys it is no suprise all the games have good positions
So it is quite tough to choose.

I agree with Alexman about Godking's game, it's just too loose, and the game also lacks temples (the luxury slider needs to be upped because of it)

Arrian: You had a very interesting game It is not your fault your final result is worse than the others, just a stroke of bad luck

Korn: Wow, you sure do like workers It did slow your expansion though, and you don't have many improvements up. Still very nice game though.

Nor Me: Well, you plan is clear-cut The super tight spacing is just not my taste though, but you are in a great position to stomp the other civs soon

Dominae and BRC: I like these games the best, because of the balanced expanding. They got a healthy number of cities and temples up. I don't agree with you Alexman BRC's game is inferior to Dominae's. Dominae indeed has more workers and culture up, but BRC has three more settlers running around and has three granaries built - against two of Dominae. I think these games are about equal, and for variety's sake I pick BRC (next time do write a report though! BTW, thanks Defcon for the screenies!)

My Vote: BRC

[BRC]

Defcon: First, thank you for posting that. I'm sorry guys, the last few days have been hell. No time for anything but school. It should get better after this weekend.

As for the game, I tried to just keep the expansion going. That last settler up top is for the furs. I figure that with those secure, (along with the iron and horses), pounding Japan and America will not be too hard. Our production should also skyrocket, as we really only need to pump out workers now. I haven't even glanced at what the others on my team have done, so I can't tell you what part of my game falls behind theirs. I'm sure something is, but that's the way it should be...

Thanks Defcon.

[vmxa1]

Another fine kettle of fish you got me into. How to cast a vote here? Several of these are very similar and all are good. I have only a few comments (mild ones to be sure) or questions. Korn's game has a town (Fuskot?) that has a barb right next to it and no defender. I am way to cowardly for that, but it seems the barb chose to move on and ignore the free pillage. I would never have that kind of luck (altough I did get four deuces in my first four cards at the casino last night). Your game looks very good and has the highest score (293). I was not fond of the iron colony, as it required lots of roading and the loss of a worker.

GodKing and BRC are in very strong position as well.

Maki's game, my first thought was about the research for Republic. I have not played religous civs much, but I would think spending time to get to Rep first is not optimal. You have to learn too many techs that you can't use right away, such as courts. You could get to Monarchy sooner and the swithces are painless for you and you get the boost from Monarchy quicker. I could be missing something here, but that is what I thought.
I really think Najran is too far out and misses spice and fish in the early going. It is vulnerable.

Now I came down to Nor Me and Dom's games as the finalist. This was hard and I will say I may be flying in the face of some very good logic here.
In many ways Dom's game is extra strong. It has lots of cities and more coming, it has lots of temples. If this was to be a culture win, I have to go with this one.
Why I actually picked Nor Me is that I just know I would not be comfortable playing with so thin a military presence. I know Dom can handle it and will do it with great adroitness, I would be like a fish out of water.
Two civs are at cautious and I know I would soon be at war with at least one, like it or not. With two more settlers in play and more coming, I would be paniced. I would normally be wanting to do some damage about this time to one civ or the other.
Dom's 2150 game gave you a great start and I think a lot was done with by the team.

[alexman]

Since my vote seems to be counted for Nor Me in the first post, does this mean that the opportunist team is NOT necessarily aiming for a cultural win, as suggested by Dominae in the main thread?

Just curious...

[Arrian]

I'm not really in favor of it. I thought the whole point of the opportunist team was that we didn't have 1 particular victory condition. But it's up to the team.

-Arrian

[korn469]

i'm not really in favor of it either, I think we should be the victory ASAP team

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by alexman
Since my vote seems to be counted for Nor Me in the first post, does this mean that the opportunist team is NOT necessarily aiming for a cultural win, as suggested by Dominae in the main thread?

Just curious...

Oops, I had some text about that in the first post and then deleted it when I added vmxa1's vote. Sorry alexman. Assuming the goal of the opportunist team doesn't change I will leave your vote the way it is though.

[Nor Me]

Dominae appears to be the only person going for culture. I'd assume the rest of us have voted with our saves.

I'd be tempted to rule out Diplomatic victory and go for the fastest win by any other condition. That way we'd either be comparing with one of the other teams or be at a disadvantage.

[Dominae]

Actually, I tried to leave my game open to either goal we finally agree upon. True, I do have a large Culture presence, but I'm not exactly committed to a Culture victory (yet). From my save at 1250BC, any course of action is still readily available (although this may have to do with the relative strength of our position on the continent): for instance, I had plans to wipe out the Americans when/if they complete the Pyramids.

I admit that a Culture win would probably be pretty boring here. So I'm changing my vote back to remaining the Opportunist team (instead of switching to Cultural).


Dominae

[Rhothaerill]

I think that was the general consensus of the rest of the team as well, so the opportunist team will remain opportunistic.

[Theseus]

Very opportune.

[G'Kar]

My Vote: Dominae

The number one reason is that I simply find his growth to be the best and the most flexible, to either a warfighting or builder plan of action. Also, the tech progress has been comendable. Being three turns from Monarchy, with all of that gold for deficit research spending, will be a plus. And of course I love the eight temples. And Dominae is still in position to hold the chokepoint (as long as that Carth warrior doens't bonk that scout in the haed).

But really they are all fine games and this team could dominate the world with any of them.

[Beta]

Dominae.

For comparison purposes to my quick and dirty analysis in the spaceship team thread:

12 cities and 2 settlers
Poly and 3 turns from Monarchy
617 gold in the treasury
Very solid city improvements
13 workers
3 warriors
1 spear
3 chariots

(Hey - where is Vox when you need them??!! )

Awesome round, Dom!

[Rhothaerill]

The voting for the second turn block is finished and Dominae is the choice. Congratulations Dominae. The third turn block will be posted in a new DAR thread. Everyone will have 5 days to complete the third turn block. That means the DARs will need to be posted by 23:59 EST Tuesday the 30th.

Per prior discussion, Dominae’s third turn block will not be a part of the voting process, but I fully urge him to play the turn and post anyway. Thanks.

[Dominae]

I'll play the next block nonetheless.

I quite look foward to playing from someone else's save. I bet you guys are getting tired of playing from mine!


Dominae

[Dominae]

As promised here is the final section of my report for this block. It concerns the "paper-thin defense" strategy.

The idea here is highly dependent on a good knowledge of the AI, and its capabilities in the early-game. Although harassment by Barbs and sometimes other civs is annoying, it's something that can be dealt with without putting too many resources into military units. The result is that almost everything goes to your economy.

By "dealt with" I do not mean that with only a couple of Warriors you will always kill all Barbs. Rather, I mean that you can minimize your losses (sometimes, they can in fact be zero) by just having a handful of units around. Obviously having no active defense is bad. But I think having too much is bad, too.

The cost/benefit tradeoff is thus: more units means slower expansion, or, fewer units means faster expansion. The point I'm trying to make here is that against the AI faster expansion easily compensates for any minor loss you may take along the way.

The first part of minimizing your losses is making sure your AI neighbors are not going to attack you until your military is nice and ready. Trade with them, give them gifts, whatever, just make sure they're always Polite or Gracious. Even if you do this, sometimes the AI just decides that your time is up (I'm thinking of the Germans here, where Bismarck can smile at you in the Diplo screen while having three Archers and a Spearmen at your borders). How do you cope with this?

Well, this is why I rarely use Military Police. Lookouts (i.e. units on high ground on the edges of your empire) are worth far more than static defense. If just a handful of units you can spot the AI marching toward your lands, and have that much more time to prepare your response. Maybe you'll have enough time to pop out a few Archers and meet them. Or maybe you'll be able to trade around for a tech, then trade it to the threatening civ, calming them down a little. In this game I used (I believe) five units as lookouts in this regard. None of the other civs attacked: Japan is the most aggressive of the bunch, but was also the weakest, so I was gambling that I would not be a target right away. Again, knowing the AI is key.

I used a couple of Scouts for lookout duty, which brings me to the point of Barbs. Barbs are annoying because they're always at war with you. You therefore always have to defend against them (and so Scouts are not so good as military units in this scheme). But Barbs are also really stupid: I'm quite certain there is some sort of randomness programmed into them since PTW. Do not play into the game's hands by giving Barbs more credit than they deserve. The "operating range" of Barbs is no more than 2-3 tiles (more for fast units), i.e., they will not make decisions on any feature outside this radius. So you can leave cities undefended and rest assured that those Horsemen will not beeline for them. This also means that you can trick Barbs by giving them juicy targets within this radius, such as Workers. When a Barb is threatening a city, make sure it will reach a Worker first: the Barb will detour for the Worker, hopefully giving your own Warrior enough time to come and help out. So what if you lose 2 Worker-turns, at least you've not lost 10 Shields and ~3 city-turns on building another Warrior "just in case".

Another trick is to never attack Barbs unless you're right next to one of their camps and your unit is Veteran or stronger. Yes, 25 Gold is useful, and the AI might steal it from you (in this game I would prefer giving the AI Gold so that I could trad with them!), but when you have so few units it's not a good idea to throw them away. This goes not only for camps, but also defense: try to position your units in the path of Barbs, using terrain features to get defensive bonuses. If the Barbs attack, you'll probably win; if not, you can just keep shadowing them until they do attack.

Obviously this strategy only works against the AI; please do not try this against human players in PBEMs unless you're really confident in your diplomatic skills!

I definitely took this strategy to the extreme in this game, but that was my goal: to demonstrate that, under certain circumstances, you can survive and thrive without a military. It can definitely backfire, as in Arrian's game, but even then I think the benefits outweigh the costs. Sacrifices must be made if you want to REX like a madman, and IMO it usually pays off.


Dominae

[vmxa1]

I agree with your points and have always been aware of the strategy. My problem is I dislike being diplomatic, so I take the hit. This means I will not get the most from a situation, but it is worth it to me, to not have to be nice or check in all the time with the AI.

[Arrian]

The "don't attack barbs unless your unit is a vet" advice is probably more of an emperor-level thing, wouldn't you say, Dom? I attack barb camps with regular warriors all the time on monarch, and win the vast majority of times (there is always the occasional 3-and-out loss, but that's just the RNG for ya).

Besides, my losses to the barbs in this round were *all* on defense.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

I'm giving that advice only in the context of my "paper-thin" defense idea. With so few military units, chasing Barbs around the map ends up not being worth the Gold. If there's a camp close to home that's producing Horsemen, it's a judgement call whether or not to take it out. Typically if you can stall long enough the AI takes care of it for you.

In general, yes, Barbs are tougher on Emperor though. Watch out.


Dominae