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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:20
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quote:
Originally posted by vondrack
And BTW... to better illustrate what kind of an oversight, or mistake, we lost this unfortunate war so instantly for... what looked like a 2/4 battleship destroyed in Quanto Mechanico when GS took it was in fact not just one 2/4 BB.
It was two 2/4 BBs and one 1/4 DD... had we left them at Q.M. 4... it drives one almost to tears - the whole 2-year game now looks so very absurd to us. |
I do not know if it is time yet to discuss tactics. If you're interested, just answer this post, and I'll continue. Otherwise I'll do this in a week or so.
Vondrack, I personally, and I know that many more in GS share this opinion, do not think of this as a mistake. Knowing that there were 2 more ships is painful, I agree... because just one 2/4 BB more would swing the odds in your favour, but would still make it possible to break through using transports if the RNG gods smiled on us. 3 extra ships makes it impossible... you can't defeat 5 BBs and a DD with 11 transports.
However, it was no mistake, but at most a wrong judgement. You needed to heal your ships, you can't keep on using them when they are getting this badly damaged, certainly when you can expect some reinforcements from us arriving shortly. However, it looked to us, that you blockaded the wrong point. We could get through the blockade at Abilene relatively easy in comparison with the one near Quanto Mechanico, and so we could use our marines on Abilene too. I know you hoped Abilene was just to be attacked by tanks. This meant, we could possibly take Abilene... at the expense of our entire inasion fleet, marines, tanks, and MI. The counter attack would have driven us off the continent for sure, if we had anything left. So Abilene was out of the question... even without blockade.
To me, the whole difference lays in approach. You were so busy foreseeing all possibilities, trying all combinations, and working from that on, that you did not take enough margins. True, if you count transports as 0/4/5, instead of 1/4/5, your defense was perfect. Nobody disputes that. And so, you worked from that assumption, gambling everything on those points you foresaw, and put every single unit where it was used best, in that specific scenario. You have done that last turn as well, and also near perfectly (the transport-attack strategy was known from last turn, where we would have gotten 9.7% chance of breaking through the blockade of Sandonorico with 7 transports, enabling us to take out the whole of Legoland, not just half of it. But we considered it too much a risk)
This is a difference with the strategy we as GS in general take. Nobody can foresee all possibilities. What you can foresee is the implications one 'mistake', or one lucky RNG can have. We would never have put all our land units in 4 cities (Abilene, Jackson, Dye fields and Fort Stanwix), without at least a token force in cities a bit farther from the front. This would mean we could not have defended all our territory, and would have lost a couple of cities for sure... but it also keeps the effects of an oversight to the minimum.
I have read a couple of times before that you can not defend against settler blitzing... while it is hard, it can be done. I agree, it is a cheesy tactic, but railroads are a double edged sword in this respect. You get the ability to place your defenders anywhere in your empire, attacking everywhere within one turn, but you have to take the added risk as well. If this would have been fought on just roaded Legoland, the blitz would have failed for sure, but you would not have been able to put your defenses down at will, requiring you to turtle, make this a more 'strategic' war, and generally keep on harrassing our army until we were forced to leave. We would have taken territory in the first turns, but I think that everybody agrees that the way you were playing, in the end we had to give up.
Nobody says you are forced to completely railroad your territory, and use their ability to leave all your cities undefended. Think about that, before pointing any fingers at us for using settler blitzing, please.
DeepO
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vondrack
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Praha, Czech Republic
Jan 2002
time: 06:20
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quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
I do not know if it is time yet to discuss tactics. If you're interested, just answer this post, and I'll continue. Otherwise I'll do this in a week or so. |
I do not think it's time yet, so I will only comment where possible.
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
Vondrack, I personally, and I know that many more in GS share this opinion, do not think of this as a mistake. Knowing that there were 2 more ships is painful, I agree... because just one 2/4 BB more would swing the odds in your favour, but would still make it possible to break through using transports if the RNG gods smiled on us. 3 extra ships makes it impossible... you can't defeat 5 BBs and a DD with 11 transports. |
I believe you misunderstood me. The mistake we did was that it didn't occur to us you could have artillery hidden in your still loaded transports (as it would have been logical to unload it on the previous turn, using it to improve the defense of the stack). That was the smart play I have always been referring to.
11 transports and a 2/4 DD had virtually zero chance to sink 4/4, 4/5, and 5/5 BB. Even if both fighters we assumed to be around tried their luck, it was still as safe as you can get in Civ3. There was margin more than enough. We did know you could throw your empty transports at our blockading ships. But we assumed our BBs would be 3/x to 4/x.
Had we realized the possibility of artillery being able to bombard our BBs, be sure you would find all our ships stuffed at Q.M. 4, no matter how low health. We were aiming for healthy margins.
I can only say you have your post wrong about Abilene.
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
This is a difference with the strategy we as GS in general take. Nobody can foresee all possibilities. What you can foresee is the implications one 'mistake', or one lucky RNG can have. We would never have put all our land units in 4 cities (Abilene, Jackson, Dye fields and Fort Stanwix), without at least a token force in cities a bit farther from the front. This would mean we could not have defended all our territory, and would have lost a couple of cities for sure... but it also keeps the effects of an oversight to the minimum. |
You are perhaps forgetting that "leaving a token force in cities a bit farther from the front" would weaken our defenses in the cities directly threatened. We did not really have an abundance of infantry, no matter what you may think. In order to have some margin where it was necessary, we had to use every single infantry right where it was.
quote:
Originally posted by DeepO
Nobody says you are forced to completely railroad your territory, and use their ability to leave all your cities undefended. Think about that, before pointing any fingers at us for using settler blitzing, please. |
Nobody pointed any fingers at anyone. Extreme combat settling is ugly as hell (that's what Tiberius meant), but is deadly effective, and was completely valid tactics. We knew it and we were setting our defenses exactly with the threat of extreme combat settling in mind. Nobody said it was impossible to defend against it. It's just difficult.
Again - the mistake or oversight that made it possible for you to break through our defenses this turn was that we failed to realize you could have artillery hidden in those transports.
That's it. Let's leave the rest for the AAR.
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Theseus
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The warmonger formerly known as rpodos. Gathering Storm! Apolyton Spirit!!
Apr 2002
time: 00:20
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Great attitude all around, guys. 
I'd just like to chime in that winning in Civ, whether SP or MP, takes a combination of building, strategy, diplomacy, etc. (obviously), and that part of that is in fact all about leveraging an understanding of game mechanics (again, obviously).
GS would not be effectively in the game at all without two great builderish episodes (at the beginning and post-Bob): the best application of an understanding of game mechanics I perhaps have ever seen.
And GS would much less be where we currently stand without strong strategy as well: Vondrack, my hat is off to you and your team, in that your defense was masterful up until the breakthrough. 
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Hot_Enamel
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Melbourne, Australia
Aug 2002
time: 14:20
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Just wanted to put in my 2c.
I been reading this thread 4-5 times a day, but never got the chance to respond.
Congratulations to GS. Very well played.
Commiserations to Lego. Brilliant play by your team. That fort city to stop our settler was an excellent move.
Well played by MZ as well, who has been carrying GoW by himself for such a long time.
I'd say a lot of our GoW members still checked the forums (I know I did) but have pretty much stayed silent since the Roleplay war finished.
(And to vote in the "Who should we invade next poll?")
Just back on the 4 city "Spearhead" thingy.
I think even GS has underestimated how powerful a foothold like that is.
As I understand it, GS only wanted 4 cities on Bob, as a safeguard to stop any Bobian team from invading them.
It reminded me, that GoW did enter discussions with GS about letting them have 4 cities.
Our only condition was that GoW be allowed to have 4 cities on their continent.
This offer was quickly knocked back by GS though. (iirc, ND wasn't happy about it either)
Basically, we refused to allow GS any territory on Bob, for the exact same reason they refused to allow us any territory on their continent.
- Way too much trust is required to believe that they wouldn't be used as an invasion point.
Extreme combat settling.
I had the absolute guilts for weeks after I used that tactic in the DON PBEM.
It's nasty. Overpowering. But unfortunately... a valid tactic.
The only defence, is to pillage roads or build a bunch of well defended fort cities I guess...
Either way.. everyone knew about it's use, so no-one can begrudge GS for using it.
Not that I think anyone really is...
We should be allowed to express our feeling about a manoeuvre without it being taken as an attack on another teams tactics.
I hate it as well, but definately also brought it up as a tactic in the GoW in our forums.
And finally, like Vondrack, I have also stopped entering into PBEM's.
There are too many flaws in this game....valid game mechanic exploits ???
And it's disheartening to see everything crumble around you after putting so much effort into it.
And this isn't limited to seeing your civ destroyed in one turn.
The map generator gives me the absolute sh1ts as well. (No uranium ??!!!??? - wtf)
Giving Lego that huge continent at turn one was what painted a huge red cross on them before anything else.
After the fiasco of the DON PBEM, I lost all interest in playing any more multiplayer civ.
I was spending 2-3 hours each turn in DON.
Vondrack was spending double that.
And in the end, it came to me using a cheesy... Pre-turn change production to marine, transport chain, combat settler combo to hook up a uranium deposit in the middle of Vondracks territory pull off a magical space ship win.
So... congrats to all players on all sides of the conflict.
It's awesome to see first hand to read what goes through the elite players mind as they formulate strategies.
I refuse to learn to micromanage at that level, and thus why I will never play better than emperor.
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DeepO
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supporting Candle'Bre
Jan 2002
time: 06:20
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quote:
Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
Just back on the 4 city "Spearhead" thingy.
I think even GS has underestimated how powerful a foothold like that is.
As I understand it, GS only wanted 4 cities on Bob, as a safeguard to stop any Bobian team from invading them.
It reminded me, that GoW did enter discussions with GS about letting them have 4 cities.
Our only condition was that GoW be allowed to have 4 cities on their continent.
This offer was quickly knocked back by GS though. (iirc, ND wasn't happy about it either)
Basically, we refused to allow GS any territory on Bob, for the exact same reason they refused to allow us any territory on their continent.
- Way too much trust is required to believe that they wouldn't be used as an invasion point. |
Well... only partly right. You see, we couldn't give you our territory, when we were so obviously short in territory. However, we were fully prepared to attack RP, and as the talks progressed and we knew war was imminent, everything was prepared for an invasion. 4 cities was a gift from us, as we could have taken more of RPs cities than you and ND combined... which was what pissed us of. Also, to avoid them being looked at as offensive, we were prepared to show them empty, without defenders (I'm not sure if that was ever told to you, I think it was in that massive chat we had).
In the end, the two things that ticked us of, was from one side your comment of "hey, this negotiation is not finished, we've got several weeks to discuss this", when we were days from invading RP as we believed you were going to welcome our help. But the second thing was an emotional plea from nye, that it wasn't nice to gangbang on a team, where we had the biggest army by far, while both ND and GoW were going to have the best units. Even if RP was believed to be the best defensive empire, a 3-way gangbang didn't seemed right. So, in spite of our previous differences, we tried to feel out RP, who welcomed us as their saviours (something we didn't understand, as they were supposed to be able to handle at least one of the other Bobians with ease). Less than an hour later, I contacted Vondrack to ask if they wanted to help RP, as it seems they were at the brink of getting destroyed.
At a certain point, everyone was in chat. I was still talking to Vondrack, while the discussions with GoW and ND continue to rage. nye was talking to Togas (or Arnelos, I'm not sure anymore). GS was talking amongst each other, and I'm sure both GoW and ND did the same. In a few hours, we decided to do 'the right thing' (there was talk of taking out RP before ND or GoW came near, and fending you off, but that seemed impossible), and Lego couldn't commit at such short notice. 1 or 2 days later, we received the turn from RP, together with a couple of cities, unloaded the first bunch of knights, and off we went. Head first into a disaster. It was also one of the last times when we held an official chat.
Those 3 or 4, empty lux cities would have been such a good deal for us... oh well 
DeepO
PS: this is how I remember it. It might have become a bit coloured over time... the PTWDG seems to do that to someone.
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