murdilator |
Posted on 12/27/12 @ 05:03 PM
File Details |
# of Players: |
2 |
Map Type: |
Araucania |
Map Size: |
Normal |
Game Speed: |
Normal |
Starting Age: |
Discovery |
AI Difficulty: |
Expert |
Game Type: |
Supremacy |
Cheats Allowed: |
No |
Total Game Time: |
1:35:35 |
Player 1's Name: |
Justus_Pacificia |
Player 2's Name: |
TuRboxC404 |
Game Version: |
TAD |
For those of you who have seen my past Portuguese Water Turtle Games, I invite you also to take part in watching a rare No Rush 30 Game - one full of action, tactics, and trickery.
Now, from the start. Because I have a lower Homecity, I realize that I cannot dare to challange him in a head-up fight. Therefore I resort to a ruse - constantly splitting his forces. I end up winning the game because I control too much of the map, and he, seeing his loss and my finally pushing into his base, resigns.
However, before this summary can be understood, we ought to share the information of our booms.
It should be obvious that the boom I am doing is not 100% effective, namely because I do not yet have certain cards - I have neither Refrigeration, Royal Mint, German Town Farmers and Guild Artisans; and on the militaric side, I have neither Hand Infantry Combat, Long-Ranged Infantry Hitpoints, Improved Buildings or Lippazzar Cavalry.
For his part, he messes up by doing a full fish boom on a map where fish would not be so prevalent. I take advantage of an early trading post, but wait with the native post. He builds a trading post a bit later and a native post. We progress equally in score, though he has a higher homecity.
From Discovery, I place all of my villagers onto food, but begin taking off several to wood. Thus, I gain access to a Market, Trading Post, and the houses I need. I age up with the Naturalist Politician (4 Cows), and build a livestock pen while advancing to Colonial. I realize that I need this extra food to come to Imperial at a decent pace. Also, I build a dock because I find that I have extra wood and don't need it yet for town centers. A result is that I take 5 whale fishing gatherers from him (1 Whale and 1 Fishing boat on another whale, whereas he has 11 gatherers on whales, as there are only 4 whales on this map). This has a devastating turn on his economy indirectly.
While in Colonial I get as many treasures as I can, and order the Fencing School and Advanced Arsenal Cards. When I hit Fortress Age, I have my Explorer ready to build a Town Center and I order another from the homecity. I build my Town Centers by the outer resources while he builds his inside his base, significantly reducing his economic room and military base construction. Whereas he uses more mill/plantation resources, I try to stick to Livestock and Natural resources, and eventually mills and much later Plantations. I also get some economic cards early, helping me bolster my food and gold stockpiles before the treaty ends. After this I build the native post. I wait with the upgrades until I get to Imperial.
I purposely stay in Fortress a while longer to get more villagers - then I go to Industrial to get factories. I know that if I go to Industrial right away, I could not correctly keep up my boom. Rather, I order more economic shipments and save for the factories. I start building walls now, as I suspect he will be aggressive, and I want to be ready for him.
Once I am in Imperial (he arrives a bit before me, and foolishly does not get spies when he can; on a 1v1, it is a defenders must to have spies, especially when it is very cheap), I solidify my economy, upgrade the economic techs, and upgrade important military units. Note that I focus more on upgrading Skirmishers and War wagons, supporting with some Uhlans and the Dopplesoldners from the Church tech. This is because I know that Portugal will build Dragoons/Cassadors, and I want to be able to hold them at bay until my walsl are up. I upgrade my Natives steadily, slower than him, and take notice that I choose to eventually put my factories on gold and buy wood at the market when it is at a good price, in order to purchase wood-heavy upgrades, such that I have a good gold economy and decent wood economy. I upgrade Advanced Arsenal early enough for it to be effective, and begin my attack.
Note that I, at this point in the game, do not consider getting spies, because it would drain me too fast of any gold I had, and if I needed to spam units, I could not then do so.
I get knowledge by the trade route concerning his army, and I am afraid that he has upgraded both his Cassadors and Dragoons to Imperial status, but I turn out to be wrong - he has upgraded his Dragoons only, and Cassadors to Guard. I thus can beat his first army and push him back, enough for me to build up a forward base and plan out my next strategy. First I try cannons, Skirmishers, War Wagons, then Uhlans, but he counters me hard. I upgrade my Dopplesoldners, and go for his base, because his army is on the other half of the map.
This is where he should have pressed hard and attacked me, and defended his base with some 20-30 men. Instead, he does what I want him to do: he neglects his forward base and those troops, I use the natives to support my troops
in attacking his town, and eventually tear down his two factories, which had been giving him wood. Now he must find other ways to get wood, ways which I can easily cripple - trade routes and a market. These I begin to notice and take them out with mortars, as wood, not military might, will decide the game. I also put my trading posts onto wood, and he takes notice of it and tries to take them out. Overall, he attempts to adapt my tactics and beat me, and I, being afraid when I see his Musketeers, begin to buy time by countering them with skirmishers, moving about my forces so that I flank him in two directions, build Uhlans from Stables out of his sight and flank his Howitzers, build Uhlans when he brings his men close to the buildings, but I abandon my defensive efforts after 2-3 minute every time, constantly forcing him to move his forces to counter me.
We both gradually increase in resources - no one decreases - but I seize the ground. I build forward outposts, send 1 Infinite Settler Wagon, use the Pioneers Card, thereby making my Villagers nigh-invincible against his Cavalry, and destroy his forward bases. I acheive great success when I am able to neutralize his use of native warriors. Some 20 minutes after this point (then 1:15:00ish), I delete some 18 villagers so that I can overwhelm his troops.
I purposely keep on the offensive: 1) to force him to exhaust himself, and 2) to not need spies. My offensive tactics, however, work better when I will even pull my troops back and not engage his men directly - then he cannot fight me head up. However, I deem that it is best to get Spies now at this part in the game, because I have over 40k coin, and think that it doesn't hurt him to have it either; in fact, its my advantage, knowing where his units are more than knowing my positions are to him - I attack, he only defends, and he does not seize ground by building walls. I know that when I get spies, he will think about it and get it as well.
Thus now, by this time, I have found how he plays, I have decided how he will play into my game, and I am ready to beat him. But he frustrates my plans significantly when he starts building musketeers. Then I know that the tactics must include more artillery - something that he can no longer afford, because since I have destroyed and continually destroy his trading posts which gave him wood, and, reduced to buying wood at the market, finds it hard to truly combat me head up. I win 20 minutes later, having broken into his base and destroyed important buildings, which he knows he could never now buy back.
We part as friends, and for the most part we agree that it was a competitive game, although he miscalculated in the beginning, costing him greatly later in the game. Also, for my part, my unwillingness to fight him head-up causes him to grow weary of my attacks, become more sloppy in his play, and my unwillingness to engage his free units outside my main attack zone clogs up his population space so much that
he can only combat me with about half of his full troop power. Once he takes the free troops away, I seize the moment and destroy his forward bases where the units just then stood. He does not delete any units, which does lead to his downfall - even 20% of his units could have been sacrificed in order to fight me where he needed.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the game!
God Bless you all!
regards,
murdilator |