[SPOILERS] Lewwyn Battles

[NobleHelium]

Yeah I posted that in the wrong thread actually. Sorry about that.

[Mist]

Okaay, map finally done.

As I told you already, it's hand mirrored Tectonic ( Lakes ), but I made it more green because Tectonics usually come out terribly dry. Bob said you wanted to play Prince, so Prince it is.

Your start :

Bob goes first.

[Lewwyn]

Don't have any pics right now, but Bob and I played an online session today. He's Agg,Spi ottoman. Obviously wanted to go drafting jans at me. Well thats pretty impossible. The map is huge. The game has turned into a builders game rather than a duel.

No chance it could have been smaller Mist? Looks like a small map. not a duel map.

And folks best thing about this map is That I picked IMP. So I'll have a huge advantage placing cities. We're so far apart I've rush built Notre Dame, Sankore and slow built Spiral minaret. I'm building temples and monasteries. That's how far apart we are.

Bob built a monument.

[Mist]

I rolled it at Tiny, that's the same declared size as all the others previously. I can make it smaller if you don't mind restarting.

[Lewwyn]

I rolled it at Tiny, that's the same declared size as all the others previously. I can make it smaller if you don't mind restarting.

We're getting close to finished at this point.

I settled forward a bit farther than Bob. And while I didn't cross the mirror line I was next to it. He had a larger military than me for most of the game. I caught up just as he was bringing a stack to settle in the center. He moved his stack to a south hill before moving his scouting LB west. Next to my city, if he had he may not have moved to that hill:



I have 4 cats there with double barrage and he only has 2 LB 2 pikes in that stack. I attacked.



Lost the cats and about 3 other units, but everything else won. He was left with an LB, a missionary and a settler. Too bad I didn't have one more units. Or was it? Bob then figured he'd settle anyway since I'd just chase him down. Then the city would autoraze. Too bad he forgot this was Ren start so the city started with 2 pop. I was going to settle on that site anyway, now I got it for free.

Bob thought about conceding at this point given I now had command of the middle, more military, more cities, better economy, better production. Also he can only draft 2 units a turn on this map size, which effectively cuts down on his ability to churn jans out. So it looks like he's going to build a big army and throw it at me in our next session.

Tech wise I've got Edu, Lib, Econ and I'm 2 turns from PP. Bob has nationalism, Constitution and Education. AT this point I'm starting to tech faster because I built Versailles in the center and have unis in a bunch of my cities. Will start Oxford soon. I also have 3 Great people sitting around ready to kick off 2 GAs whenever I need them. I'm saving them in case I get surprised and need a civic change or a quick boost in production. I'm curious to see if Bob will go for Emancipation after gunpowder. I'm likely going to grab gunpowder after PP then grab military tradition/curis on my way towards rifles/cav. And of course I'm still teching faster.

IMP and PHI win the day. PHI was especially good here with mercantilism... Early GEs for rushing Notre dame and Sankore and versailles. Reserve GPs for utility GAs. Cheap unis. IMP because we have a lot of ground to cover. We will end it in our last session, maybe tomorrow.

[Lewwyn]

Bob conceded.

We ended up doing a bunch of turns by pbem instead of another session. Basically only 13-14 more turns but it took a while since we were doing it very relaxed like.

In the end Bob drafted up a crap load of Jans and came at me. During that time though I teched gunpowder, PP, bulbed Replaceable Parts and started a GA to tech Rifling in 3 turns. My GNP was ~750 his was ~150 so at that point it was a done deal. He attacked with alot of jans though 17 in fact. 8 cats, 3 knights, 3 pikes, 3 maces. It was a nice stack. I had a lot of cats ready though and Camel archers and a few muskets. I had just teched rifling so I didn't have a chance to bring any into combat. Make or break for him. Luckily my city forced him to walk over 2 hills to reach me. I was ready. Here's the combat:



I cut off a bunch of cat sacs, no withdraws.



And the rest + what was left of his army.

Basically at this point he would sack his army into my city which had 2 rifles and 2 CG2 LBs, 1 cg2 musket, plus all those camels and 5 pikes on a hill at max fortify. From there it was 3-4 turns till I got miltrad and cavs.

So GG. Onto Scooter.

[Lewwyn]

Started my duel with Scooter today.

SPOILER ALERT:

He conceded today, as well.

SO let's look at the game, fleeting though it was.

Picks:

ME: Nap(ORG/CHA) of Monglia
SCOOTER: Some1(IND/CHA) of Byz
Classical Age start

We started in an area with no visible food. I saw a PH to the south and moved my settler on it. I found a plains cow+grass horses and grasshill copper in range. I didn't have any other foodstuffs. I decided... "OK I"m going to take the PH plant with horses and rush a chariot out ASAP. I can probably surprise him. Even if people think I rush..."

I sent my scout north around the top of the lake, and my archer straight at Scooter. After my first turn I realized I hadn't switched into slavery and OR on the first turn an felt stupid. Scooter said he did the same so I felt less so, but he also said he went west with his cap. I immediately knew he had copper first ring, but no horses.

I went HBR first tech. Math second tech. I toyed with the idea of going math first, but I realized I could probably 2-3T Keshiks out of this cap with plains cow, horse and copper tiles + a mine or two. So I went HBR first.

T23: My land and first Keshik:



At this point my archer had reached Scooters lands, BUT he had not built a single military unit during this time. Thus his startign archer was racing my archer to his capital and if he hadn't built a couple roads I might have kiled him before that picture. As it was he had no reinforcements to try and stop my archer so my archer went straight to the copper mine to pillage and fortify:



Here you can see I also got a chariot on the mine. The chariot was seen upon its building by Scooters scout some 8 turns before this, so he knew it was coming. He built a spear, too late. The mine was pillaged and the choke begun.

In the next 6-7 turns Scooter built a few more archers and was able to kill both of these units at the price of another 2 archers. But again this slowed his growth and his improvements.

I had the above Keshik moving in. On the way to Scooter's land it killed a scout and got to 4xp. I promoted to sentry and saw Scooter's spear when I closed in.



At home 7 XP keshiks had begun running off the line:



Demos and top cities:

He had whipped out the settler and built his second city just south of the first. Still needed more workers since he went WB first. Overflow from settler into worker remine the copper but my Keshik was already there.

Scooter kept his promoted spear between the cities but that left his capital wit only an archer for protection. When I saw this after a night out drinking I promptly said to myself. 35% odds on the cap and likely to end the game? :



Okay with me. Cap razed. Scooter conceded.

So I escaped with pretty throwaway traits and 4 forests to spare in my capital. Fun game. I woke up at 6 AM and was planning this after playing T0 last night. Couldn't sleep got up at 6:45 and started blitzing with Scooter. It went better than I planned.

GG Scooter. Mist says not to mention it till 3rd round of Euro brackets ends. I'm sure tongues will wag though.

[Lewwyn]

Yuris is next. I have FIN/CRE/SPI/PRO/IND left. I want to see what age we choose before I decide, but I'm leaning towards using CRE/SPI versus Mackoti.

[Ichabod]

Yuris is next. I have FIN/CRE/SPI/PRO/IND left. I want to see what age we choose before I decide, but I'm leaning towards using CRE/SPI versus Mackoti.

Poor scooter.

[Lewwyn]

I went with Qin (Pro/Ind) of Mali.

Yuri went with Sury of Egypt

So basically I'm looking to play a long game and Yuri is looking to end it quick. Looks like I'm gonna need BW and archery quick, which sucks a bit. I was hoping to rush straight at the Oracle grab MC and whip out some cheap Mints.