For a forum that prides itself on trying new things, for the love of all that is novel and interesting, please can we have a new QotM? - Krill

Create an account  

 
[SPOILERS] Kurumi & wetbandit serve you Hannibal's Breakfast Cocktail (of Persia)

wetbandit Wrote:2. Should have Sent the Cav at Fortitude North

But that wouldn't have worked either. All of Molach's cities are connected by railroads, so it doesn't matter if he's showing Praetorians or whatever in a city. Wherever you move your stack, he'll be able to move his own stack 10 tiles to counter your move. Attacking is hard. alright

It's really nice that this Pitboss has reached such a late portion of the tech tree, letting everyone see some of the lategame combat dynamics in more detail. Wetbandit, I think you were tripped up on unfamiliarity with some of the issues in Modern era warfare. You've actually picked a terrible time to fight here; once infantry and machine guns appear, it's nearly impossible to go on the offensive. (The Civ4 gameplay mimics World War I dynamics extremely well here.) You need air power and/or tanks to break this stalemate, and then the advantage shifts over to the attacker again. For anyone curious reading this, Civ4's gameplay shifts advantage between offense and defense roughly like this:

Starting warriors (Defensive era)
Axe/chariots before opponent connects resources (Offensive era)
Everyone has axes/spear (Defensive era)
Horse archers/catapults/elephants (Offensive era)
Longbows arrive (Defensive era)
Knights/cuirassiers/cavalry/you have drafting and they don't (Offensive era)
Everyone has drafted rifles/machine guns (Defensive era)
Tanks/airplanes (Offensive era)
Modern armor/stealth bombers/nukes (Super Offensive era, HUGE advantage to attacker, completely unlike all other eras of combat)

Unless you have a huge tech lead, always try to pick one of the offensive eras to fight wars. Note that the late medieval and early Renaissance era is a long period that's useful for fighting, which is a major reason why we see so many wars and so many games decided in that part of the tech tree. Unfortunately, you were caught in a highly defensive period here, sorry about that. We just don't see this part of the tree reached very often.

In any case, it's been a fun game to read, still enjoying this one. smile
Follow Sullla: Website | YouTube | Livestream | Twitter | Discord
Reply

Thanks for the input, Sullla, I appreciate your thoughts and agree this is a defensive era. I overestimated the strength of artillery for sure.

My contention that I should have struck Fortitude North may be primarily based on hindsight. I seriously underestimated the malus imposed by lack of mobility on my army. I realize that he could have reinforced Fortitude North beyond the three praets, however, I think I should have made it a strategic priority simply to remove his culture and allow freer movement for my forces. This also would have potentially allowed me to use my WLP defense force in the Northeast as a threat. Whether this plan could have been feasible given the number of my forces is another argument, but it's definitely something that I did not think about but may have given more time.

Alternatively, it may have been a better idea simply to group all of my forces to hit Fortitude North first as that would allow rail redeployment of my own troops to Fortitude. In this way, I would have been able to keep my entire stack together, with Artillery and Machine Guns protecting the stack from collateral exposure. Raze FN, and then proceed south.

Aside from my lack of tactical acumen, I also had faith in a bandwagon on Molach which was misplaced. I really thought Oxy would attempt something, I'm not really sure why he backed off. I suppose he calculated that having a buffer state to his west would be better for his long term interests, which may be a reasonable position. Certainly, WLP has enough Camel Archers somewhere in his land to capture the border city in one turn and reinforce with Infantry/Machine Guns with no problem.
Reply

So what's the next plan?
Reply

I've fallen to first among the also-rans. In response to my decline, or perhaps in an act of pity, WLP has moved a significant amount of his army and navy away from my border, presumably to the Northeast to balance against retep. I'll pick up that story after this interlude.

After feigning an attack against Molach, Oxy turned around and declared on Suttree, which triggered the defensive pact with retep to protect his satellite. Oxy made a feint into suttree's northwest with his 100 knights, but encountered rifles, cavalry, and presumptive bombardment from retep's bombers (scared). I'm sure the bomber pilots got a kick out of seeing the Persian Dirigibles.

In any case, WLP and retep have battleships and tanks moving about their territory. I'm not in a position to do much to either, though I could make life really annoying for WLP, via a boat attack on his capital and core cities, each of whose defenders are one or two Ancient Era trash units. I'm shifting some forces around to defend my islands better with destroyers. In case of a war between the two top dogs, I may be able to make some inroads on retep's islands, even though they are relatively well-defended.

I think that retep will make a play for space as he enjoys a tech lead and his land mass is incredibly defensible, given that his capital is at the end of a long finger of land extending from the main pangaea. I would hope that Xenu would have made a good effort at culture to distract retep.

Where does that leave me? Tech wise, just finished Electricity and heading for Industrialism. I have a longshot at getting back into the tech race by making a play for the Internet, which could actually mean something if the game goes long enough. I need Industrialism->Radio->Plastics->Computers which is all at least 20 turns, plus the 2000 unmodified hammers to build the damn thing. Copper+Powered Factory+Forge+SP is +210% towards it, which means I need 645 unmodified hammers. Could also add Ironworks. Best potential hammer city is Azza's old capital with windmills reconfigured to mines, will need to plan it out to time it best.

Even assuming I win the Internet, I'm still in third place.
Reply

And now retep wants to concede. eek
Reply

I haven't read much any of your thread yet, just the last page.

(January 23rd, 2014, 16:48)wetbandit Wrote: Aside from my lack of tactical acumen, I also had faith in a bandwagon on Molach which was misplaced. I really thought Oxy would attempt something, I'm not really sure why he backed off. I suppose he calculated that having a buffer state to his west would be better for his long term interests, which may be a reasonable position. Certainly, WLP has enough Camel Archers somewhere in his land to capture the border city in one turn and reinforce with Infantry/Machine Guns with no problem.

As soon as you declared on Molach I offered him Fish for Fish to signal that he was free to commit fully to defending, and I wouldn't bother his borders. It was kind of a dirty trick toward you but he took the message. I thought the scenario where you might get bogged down seemed better for me than trying to split his land. (Molach sure had a lot of units.)

With Oxy, yeah I could have taken his border city at any time in the late game but there's the dilemma of how long you actually have to hold a city before it pays off, especially since I claimed the tiles on my side anyway. And I was suspecting either you or Retep could be a hair-trigger away from making a move if I committed to anything. If the game had gone on much longer I might have attacked Oxy with tanks and bombers though.
Reply

With diplo, I imagine we could have reached an amicable parcel of Molach and Oxy. AI diplo prevents detailed agreements like that. It doesn't really matter in any case as your tech lead would have meant that you could have enforced whatever parcel most suitable to you.
Reply

(November 26th, 2013, 21:07)NobleHelium Wrote: 400g for being the partner in a trade mission is definitely the highest fee ever received on RB.

IIRC it was a matter of timing. I needed to play the turn back to back(I was last to play) or I would need a lengthy pause. I knew I was more or less out of it, so I didn't feel like holding up the game for everyone else. I made up for it by refusing to pay anything to bandit on my next mission.
Reply



Forum Jump: