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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 15, 2009 14:54:22 GMT
There's plenty more to come.
[Cue dramatic music here]
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Post by coffers on Jan 15, 2009 15:46:02 GMT
I'm sick of the that music already.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 15, 2009 15:52:08 GMT
Whatever the small unit of Embers were doing to the north, whether it was aimless scouting or a very clever feint to draw my forces that way, the end result was that when the second large army the Embers had sent appeared east of Udenarat the place was essentially defenceless. Galak had been caught too far north by his autonomous decision to go kill people and while Kimble was in range to reach the town in time to defend it, I wasn't ready to risk my best unit side by side with a scrawny fella against four stacks of Embers with others possible behind the area I couldn't see any more because Galak had moved away. So I was left to make the hard decision of pulling scrawny out of Udenarat and just leaving the town to its fate, while repositioning in an attempt to retake it. A new warrior unit was about to be conscripted in Cevedes, so I sent the rookie warriors already loafing about there south down the road to follow an earlier example and die bravely at the hands of the Embers, weakening them just enough that Kimble and Galak could have an easier fight. The Warriors moved down the great south road, passed by Kimble in his defensive positions and bore down on our former town which was now burning extensively. the original four Ember units were inside, but reinforcements that had come along the coast had been intercepted by Galak moving south and while his lack of control was annoying, the strength he had gained from almost always being in a fight with something had turned him into a lethal power and he and his men crushed the Barbars there, sealing off those in Udenarat. Then it became a matter of timing, as I tried to allow Galak time to recover from his battle without giving him enough time to become bored and go and shout at trees and then send in the sacrificial warrior unit at the right time so that the concerted attack from Galak and Kimble went in directly afterwards. The Warriors spent several nights parked outside of Udenarat watching the place burn before finally getting their orders to go in and through good fortune they fell on a unit of Goblins rather than Orcs and defeated them before the Orcs massed and slaughtered our soldiers. The Orcish victory party was cut short though when Galak and his guys appeared from the east, smashing skulls and then Kimble pushed in from the north west along the road, catching the Embers in a pincer. The victory was swift and complete with no enemy escaping the confines of the town and soon we had turned the flags flying over what was left of Udenarat back from ugly orange to gay pink, the way they should be. The bad guys weren't going to let us get away with it that easily though and more and more Barbar units pushed down the coast to attack from the east. Fortunately, the Barbar leadership doesn't have tight control over what are essentially roving bands of armed men, so rather than mass and move, they attacked "off the march" and were dealt with piecemeal. By the time they were done, Galak and Kimble had repelled eleven Barbar units, but everything was a nice rosey pink again, with palisades around both of our towns. The only problem now was how far had we fallen behind the other civilisations after being forced by the war to concentrate on turning out several warrior units instead of better technologies. And would the Embers be back again with more troops?
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Post by Moo on Jan 15, 2009 15:59:21 GMT
...more troops and those laser shark thingies. Unlucky on your impending doom.
Still, on a plus note, you can use this as a training mission for when the real game is started.
:thumb:
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Post by coffers on Jan 15, 2009 16:29:29 GMT
Galak needs to learn to hug trees more.
I think the barbars, orcs & goblins will be a spent force, go find therir HQ and stuff it.
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Post by Sonic on Jan 16, 2009 1:41:23 GMT
Though stealing their tech first before the stuffing.
I bet Galak would be fun to go on a night out with. Surviving it would be another thing entirely.
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Post by Moo on Jan 16, 2009 8:55:07 GMT
You: "Galak, do you want a pint?" Galak: "Aye go on then, pint of Boddies."
...5 seconds later...
Galak: "Actually, can you make it Goblin blood instead? I've had a twinge." You: "Is that a cask ale? I can't see it....."
Exeunt.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 18, 2009 18:36:30 GMT
War. War never changes. Sorry, wrong game. It’s a pretty accurate statement for the next billion years of this game though, because I’ve never seen an AI with such a hard on for a particular target in any game before. Certainly in previous incarnations of Civ having an enemy declare war on you usually resulted in opposing forces marching somewhere in your direction before being distracted by something shiny and just loitering about without any semblance of a coherent plan. Not so here, where the Clan of Embers push toward Udenarat and when they get beaten back they pause for breath and then launch another wave toward it. Galak and Kimble are kept in reserve behind a screen of weak rookie units and push into the line when appropriate after we’ve identified where the strong and weak points are. This tactic causes a high churn in the rookie units however and when Udenarat changes hands twice more because too many enemy can push through our screening forces I’m forced to change tack and put Galak and Kimble in the front line, with the weaker forces behind. This limits my tactical flexibility as I can’t choose where to insert the stronger units into battle, but it also means that I’m spending less time replacing the weaker forces because they don’t get into battle as often. This switch allows things to stabilise behind the front line and we’re able to push research on now that we don’t have to rebuild base-level warriors every few turns. It also leads to a ramping up in Caln of Embers’ war production and the death of Kimble the Quick. At first the attack seemed to be the same old armies coming on in the same old way ready to be sent home in the same old way, but after we engage the front line a long tail of further forces becomes apparent and while Galak and Kimble fight hard in the front lines, waves of Clan forces flow either side of them and Udenarat is quickly back in their hands for the fourth time. Between the powerful front units and the screen of weaker men in the second line we’ve thinned out the Ember forces so that it’s only a small collection that make it into Udenarat, but by the time I’m able to clear up the sweep of enemy around the countryside they’re well entrenched within the city walls. As per we send in a weak unit first to take the edge off the Orcs and Goblins inside and then Galak and Kimble put on their ass-kicking boots to finish things off. They almost pulled it off too... almost... Down to the last Orc unit inside Udenarat Kimble finally ran out of luck. The Orcs won't be celebrating too much though, as that nice Mr Galak had a word with them afterwards. So on recapturing the town for 97th time, my curiosity was finally piqued about what exactly was going on with Udenarat. I'd noticed the little recycling-esque arrows on the town information screen, but had figured out that they meant that they had a road link to our capital city. However, next to the arrows was this : I'd never figured out what it meant. My capital had a shiny metal-looking shield next to it, so I figured that this wooden looking thing was just an indication of tech level or something. Thinking it couldn't be that important, I just ignored it. I mean, I could look in the manual, but how tedious would that be? It turns out it's stone, not wood and it's called the "Rune of Kilmorph" Goddess of the underworld. What that means is that at some point about a thousand years ago when the Clan first captured Udenarat, they founded a religion there, which was eventually adopted as their state religion which in turn means that they identify Udenarat as their "Holy Land"; the birthplace of their religion. We have some fairly clear examples in real life of how well everything works out when someone's holiest city is inside someone else's territory, held by someone else. So these repeated attacks on my territory are less aimless war and more, say.... a crusade.
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Post by Narcizo on Jan 18, 2009 19:40:52 GMT
Loathe as I am to admit it, that actually sounds pretty cool. Wish I had a decent enough computer to play Civ 4 on and etc.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 18, 2009 21:24:42 GMT
Ouch.
There's a particular term for what happens next, a military term, but I can't remember it.
Essentially when two forces face off against each other, for a while nothing seems to change - people are fighting and everything looks evenly balanced, but at a lower level if you look more closely you'll see a series of small losses for one side... a man down here, a piece of critical land gone there.... Over time, those small loses mount and combine until eventually a tipping point is reached and the battle instantly transfers from seemingly balanced to very clearly one-sided and over.
I don't remember the term, so we'll just call it a dry humping with added sawdust and move on.
By somewhere in the region of turn 500 we've balanced out the front line thanks to Galak and some new units we've made available called Hunters which are, essentially, some bloke and his dog. We've also got our first Adepts out and while they can't use magic offensively yet, their ability to add large defence bonuses to any town they inhabit and to cast observation spells that allow us to see the enemy coming and prepare for them before they arrive.
We've also added a third town, called Nimarail which is east of Cevedes, north east of Udanarat and this leads to the discovery of a Barbarian town called Straacus which we quickly capture and convert to extend our empire to four towns.
Then the Hippus arrive.
The cavalry-based clan of FFH have been building way east of us for a while and our relations have been generally good despite the neutral alignment, but now they decide that the pair of Amurite towns to our east, closer to their borders are an infringement on their territory and just as we're repulsing yet another large Clan army in the south, the Hippus crash through our eastern border.
For a while we hang in there. Rather than wait within our defences at Udenarat, we push everything we have east to deal quickly with the Clan, fighting a major battle there and sending the Clan to yet another defeat. Then we have to cherry pick our healthiest units from that army and march them north toward Nimirail because there's no way the Straacus garrison is going to hold out long enough to make marching there worthwhile.
Of course, the thing about being a cavalry clan is that you have a huge advantage in mobility. The army that marches north, lead by Galak is met half way by a strong screening force of horse borne soldiers in the open. We win the battle there, but it's a disturbingly smart move from the AI because it both slows and weakens the army, making an attack on Straacus completely unachievable, allowing the Hippus free reign, (ho ho), to turn the town to their side and use it as a base against us.
Eventually, as expected the forces in Straacus start to sortie out, but they completely avoid the strong garrison at Nimarail and swing south to cut the roads between Cevedes and Udenarat.
Their extra mobility means that I'm not going to be able to bring the Hippus to battle at a place of my choosing and my force at Nimarail could be just cut off and left useless, so I make the decision now to move them back west along the road to our Capital.
From inside the walls of Cevedes Galak leads a brilliant victory against the assaulting Hippus, but then he has to sit and watch smoke on the horizon as first the Hippus move up from Straacus to the now undefended Nimarail and then the Clan return in the south, defeat the cut off garrison in Udenarat and capture their holy city.
Holed up inside our capital we're strong and it'll take years to force us out, but we're spent as a civilisation - with our backs to the sea and two armies posted to the east it's only a matter of time.
It's at this point that Galak's crazy mode kicks in again, (he was "mutated" with rage way back at the beginning which means any time he can see a bad guy he can kick off and refuse to accept my orders just heading out to crack skulls), and rather than send him out to face two different armies on his own I send everything else we've got too along with him.
For four glorious turns Galak swings his axe at the bad guys, chopping down horses and their riders, but his strength is waning and when he finally succumbs the rest of the army, filled with suddenly conscripted citizens who can only loosely be referred to as "warriors" collapses in roughly four seconds.
Amusingly the Clan of Embers push north in an attempt to spawn the now empty Cevedes for themselves, but the battered Hippus forces limp into the city one turn ahead and with that the Amurite Empire is consigned to history.
I'm annoyed at how suddenly that all went to shite, but also impressed by how aggressive the AI was when they sniffed an opportunity.
Now I have to have another go.
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Post by Sonic on Jan 19, 2009 2:38:54 GMT
Ouch. There's a particular term for what happens next, a military term, but I can't remember it. Essentially when two forces face off against each other, for a while nothing seems to change - people are fighting and everything looks evenly balanced, but at a lower level if you look more closely you'll see a series of small losses for one side... a man down here, a piece of critical land gone there.... Over time, those small loses mount and combine until eventually a tipping point is reached and the battle instantly transfers from seemingly balanced to very clearly one-sided and over. I don't remember the term, so we'll just call it a dry humping with added sawdust and move on. The first word was apt. Once Swifty left the building, a hole appeared and was never really plugged. Or could be. As to that word, the only two that came to mind where in order of though: threshold; and, overextended. The only other thing I can think of is Bort.
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Post by Moo on Jan 19, 2009 9:52:52 GMT
No, I think Stu is right (what?) thinking that there is a proper military word for it, but I'm damned if I know what it is. Google....
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Post by Moo on Jan 19, 2009 9:53:44 GMT
In other news, sounds like the training save game will stand you in good stead, now you know how aggressive the AI is. Damned fine effort, fella!
:thumb:
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Post by Boony on Jan 19, 2009 9:58:45 GMT
Unlucky s1ut. I hope you've learnt much from this, and will come back strongly next time... Sounds like it was an interesting experience. What level are you playing on?
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Post by Moo on Jan 19, 2009 10:09:24 GMT
I tried to Google, but these miltary-types take things far too seriously and so I couldn't be bothered to look any more.
We need Pops, he would know.
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Post by Sonic on Jan 19, 2009 10:11:13 GMT
No, I think Stu is right (what?) thinking that there is a proper military word for it, but I'm damned if I know what it is. Google.... I agree with you. Though I do think those words I used are right too. He did say earlier that the constant investment into his standing military was eating into his tech advancement. I think the last city was the one that did it in the end, though it did expose how aggressive the AI is. Hence it also not being what I said too, but other words. For example: bostord, too smart for pants, Cartman. Though having said all that, I really enjoyed Stu's right up. I'm looking forward to the next installment :thumb: When he has the time too
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Post by coffers on Jan 19, 2009 10:17:40 GMT
And Civilisation extinction.
Hard luck Stu, better luck next time.
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Post by Moo on Jan 19, 2009 10:44:52 GMT
I really enjoyed Stu's right up. :thumb:
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Post by coffers on Jan 19, 2009 11:41:15 GMT
I really enjoyed Stu's right up. Right up what? Do tell or are you sworn to secrecy?
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 19, 2009 12:51:23 GMT
I launched another game straight after, playing as the evil winter elves who wouldn't hand back the leadership of the elven kingdom when the Age of Ice appeared.
I quickly discovered I was on a medium sized island and immediately bumped into the Elohim - a bunch of white-wearing, beardy goody goodies who were clearly going to have to meet an unfortunate shaving accident because the island quite literally wasn't big enough for the both of us.
I tried to rush them early on but just before my three-warrior army got to their capital they managed to build their second warrior unit and I didn't have enough strength to wedge them out of the city.
I'd killed their scout though and commenced to blockade their capital so that they couldn't see what I was doing in my capital. I also captured two of their work units and sent them back behind the lines to work on improving my capital city.
Eventually I had sent over eight warriors and they rolled the dice against the three warriors and two scouts defending the Elohim capital... and lost. With another bloody nose I contented myself with reinforcing the blockade so that the Elohim couldn't get out to my half two-thirds of the island and moved warriors around smashing roads and burning down farms to make things as awkward as possible for them.
Going back a step, the capture of their workers brings me to a really nice touch within the game, which is racial makeup (no, not blackface).
If you capture an enemy unit although it will work for you, it doesn't just automatically become yours. My lot are an elven race and both of the workers (and eventually all three of the workers) I stole from the Elohim were human and were clearly marked as such.
This looks like just a neat cosmetic touch, but it goes further.
Returning to the city of Udenarat from the last game, it started off life as 100% Amurite. When I recaptured it the first time it fell to the Clan of Embers, it was listed as 30% Amurite, 70% Clan, which means that any units conscripted there would have the same blended composition and so risking them in a fight against the Clan was not a good idea, because the 70% of the unit with Clan ancestry could have defected back to their brethren on the other side.
By the end of my game Udenarat was hovering around the 50/50 split in population makeup between Amurite and Clan, which meant that any units raised there were sent north east onto the border with the Hippus, where they wouldn't get all misty-eyed about killing their cousins. All units for the defence of Udenarat had to be raised in Cevedes, or later Nimarail, and then sent south.
When you bump into other civilisations in the game you can see who's been fighting whom by the racial mix in their cities, which is cool.
With this in mind I had my captured work units (literally) slaving away by my capital, building farms and, when we discovered gold, building the appropriate mines, but I couldn't have them build roads to the Elohim border to speed up my attacks because the sight of their hometown could have sent them over the edge.
Eventually there could be only one on our tiny island and that one was never going to be the Elohim. With their borders constrained, anything they tried to build smashed and any units they sent out alone either captured or killed they were doomed to fall, it was just a matter of when.
The when came when I found a source of copper to make bronze and could upgrade all my units from stone axes to metal weapons and even the odd siege tower.
First the Elohim capital fell and then we swung our forces to the south west corner, batted aside the political delegation who came to sue for peace now that the end was nigh, and crushed the remaining town, expanding our empire to four cities and clearled the island of everyone who doesn't have pointy ears.
So now we have five towns cramped onto the island and have no idea where anyone else is or how they're doing. We bumped into a barbarian unit in the south west which gave us political access to the Clan of Embers (CoE(now referred to as Church of England, for being both annoying and pointless)), but they like us this time because we're evil.
We have no religion yet, although other factions do, but we do have bronze weapons and armour, walled towns, access to cavalry units and, very shortly, our first frigate so that we can go and introduce ourselves to other people.
And take their stuff.
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Post by coffers on Jan 19, 2009 13:59:14 GMT
Nice work so far.
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Post by Moo on Jan 19, 2009 14:27:38 GMT
So is this a continuation with another race, or a brand new save? Just when you mentioned the CoE, I wasn't sure.
Any chance of a shiny picture showing your map? I like those.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 19, 2009 14:47:34 GMT
It's a brand new game, but the CoE have shown up again. They chose the other leader this time. Not the Chav Queen, but the one that looks like a green pig. (So still from Essex.) Each of the races has different leaders available to it, that can change the race's alignment, (Good/Neutral, or Neutral/Evil... I don't think there's a Good/Evil choice for any race, but there are some where it's a Good/Good or Evil/Evil choice), and has different abilities, but the base Civs are still the same. I think there's 11 to choose from, plus three that show up depending on world events. The three that show up are the Infernal who come through from hell when someone founds the most evil religion, the Mercurians who descend from heaven when someone founds the most good religion and the Underlords who come through when the Armageddon counter increases. The counter goes up when people go to war and down when peace is around and about and the Underlords are interested only in the planet and will kill absolutely everyone. You can see more details about the mod here : clicky. I'll get a map up in a bit because I have today off to celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 19, 2009 14:55:41 GMT
These are some of the Underlord people. They seem nice.
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Post by Moo on Jan 19, 2009 14:56:38 GMT
Is that someone who works with you?
Those Underlord dudes sound like people you want to send fruit baskets to on their birthday, just to keep on their good side.
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