02-10-2003 06:39									#31
	Inflate your Upload Space

Well all bets are off with the recent "discovery" that early Classical and delayed Classical are nearly identical in economic terms given generic starting conditions. Kudos to O4B, he knows squat about early attacks, but at least he has the good sense to question the status quo. I guess we should pay attention when a cryptic 3 sentence blurb on TWC forums in mid-July alerts us to new discoveries.

Here's a link to the ongoing discussion at MFO:

http://www.mrfixitonline.com/readTo...stingId=1438523

Everything regarding the boom/build up phase for this strategy is up in the air at this point. The only thing I can say for certain about a Medieval attack is that you should get about 3 siege units, a supply wagon, and a decent sized army that can handle cavalry and ranged units. Sorry that's the best I can do on short notice.

Because of bonus German production and early granary, it might still be best to go delayed Classical. I may provide a less strict BO and allow you to factor in different kinds of rares (ie-wood/food vs metal/knowledge).

I'm also going to test researching the first granary upgrade while building fewer farms, this may allow me to save quite alot of timber. Stay tuned for a new and improved Medieval Attack!

	02-10-2003 13:39									#32
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I'm a perfectionist, so I never attack before industrial.

	03-10-2003 03:46									#33
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: I'm also going to test ...

Hooray!!
I knew I could suck you in man!

	03-10-2003 11:23									#34
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

There's several things I want to experiment with, but I'm having too much fun with fast raiding and rushing to do much testing.

	03-10-2003 18:34									#35
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: I'm a perfectionist ...

quote: ... so I never attack before industrial

How are those two related?

I could easily say, "I am a perfectionist, so I always rush in ancient."

	04-10-2003 14:30									#36
	Increase Your PM Length

Building up perfectionist then, getting everything on max levels or at least on nice looking units before attacking.

I need all the resources to expand in ages earlier than industrial.

	06-10-2003 01:26									#37
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I see what you're saying, there's lots of folks who like to play that way. 25 minutes of pure building isnt my thing though. I'd prefer to attack early or least raid while still expanding my economy.

I started doing this attack precisely because everyone on gamespy booms to gunpowder or later before they attack. I've lost only once with it, and that was to a playtester. I wonder if a boomer to Industrial Age could stop this attack. Me thinks not.

	06-10-2003 01:40									#38
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

True... I don't attack before Gunpowder, usually. But again, RoN is the game where I first take my time with building. If I want a really fast paced attacking game, I play AoM - where the fighting starts at 5:30-6:30 with decent players involved, and before 7:30 at any rate.

	06-10-2003 02:16									#39
	Remove this text

Almost all of my games involve fighting starting at anywhere from the 2:00 mark to the 4:00 mark - even against Mayans - D'OH! Of course, these have all been pick up games and the player quality is suspect. However, today I bumped into _RU_Raven who fell victim to my resource equalization attack in this game

	06-10-2003 03:39									#40
	Support Apolyton

Yeah I played alot of warcraft 3, and its like AoM with the fast pace and all. The beauty of RoN is that you can win with almost strategy as you long as you carry it out smartly and efficiently. Thanks for posting that game O4B, I'm quite interested to see it.

	06-10-2003 04:31									#41
	Suffering from ads?

here it is

Attachment: o4b_v_raven.zip.zip
This has been downloaded 22 time(s).

	06-10-2003 09:00									#42
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Ah thanks, I couldnt find it on Carch's site (havent looked lately tho). I think I'll grab a snack for this one. =)

	07-10-2003 12:12									#43
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Here's another game on Mediterranean. I want to reiterate that this is the greatest map ever created for an RTS game, ever.

This match isn't very competitive but illustrates a different way of carrying out a Medieval attack. I go Sci 1, Comm 1, Sci 2, Comm 2 and get a nice little boom going. My second city was on the center island. I wasn't planning a Medieval attack from the start as I wanted to try this new tech order, but when I found myself swimming in resources around the 7-8 minute mark, I knew what had to be done. You should know well by now too.

He had no naval presence so I escorted my army from the middle island to the front doorstep of his capitol. Athens fell without a fight, and his military buildings were so far away (at our land border) he could not get an army there before the capitol timer ran out. Not sure why so many people wait until the 12 minute mark to start building military, but they will learn. Oh yes, they will learn.

In other news, I lost using this strat vs a Mongol on Medit. I ran off his raiders, but left several miners in a TC (the "auto all clear" option unchecks itself periodically) My army made good headway into his empire, but I wasnt able to fund enough reinforcements to take a city. I didn't recover from the raiding as well as I should have.

I told him we should rematch when patch3 comes out and mongols are nerfed, and he said "Raiders are only a decoy." Whatever that means.

Here's Germany vs Greece on Medit with Sci, Comm, Sci, Comm:

Attachment: germanvsgreece.zip
This has been downloaded 8 time(s).

Last edited by HalfLotus on 07-10-2003 at 12:31

	07-10-2003 18:51									#44
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

"Raiders are only a decoy"

What he should have said was a "feint." And by this, it means that the player will react to the raiders when in reality they are there only to cause him to react, not to do any real damage. He'll do the same strategy with patch 3 mongols, and it will be surprisingly effective. Not as devastating, but people will still lose micromanagement bandwidth dealing with it.

As for attacking early, you are right.

It's so hard to find decent players. One game I was booming along and made some hops, attacking an expansion city at the 12:30 mark. The player says, "I hate rushing! Bye" and quits. 12:30 is rushing?!?!

	07-10-2003 23:42									#45
	Suffering from ads?

I gathered his meaning, I made a joke because he was full of it. He abused Mongols the same way every player does. He gets military 2, builds 2 stables and makes Heavy Cav. to counter my light cav. He spent a ton of early resources on military, and went straight for my villies. Clearly his intent was destruction. Had he made only one stables and no HC, I might consider that a feint. Either way I didn't have to react, I was already making lots of cavalry for my medieval attack.

In patch 3, he'll have 4 HAs instead of 6, a significant difference. And while it'll still be effective, it stopped being surprising 3 months ago. Picking overpowered civs every time is lame.

	08-10-2003 02:56									#46
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

What I meant by "surprisingly" is that people expect the 3 -> 2 nerf to make Mongols weaker. IMO, it'll only have a slight effect. In the end, the Mongol player kills maybe 2 villagers less...

	08-10-2003 13:14									#47
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I've played against mongols in patch 3, and while they are still powerful, it is not blatantly overpowered the way patch 2 is. At the 4-6 minute mark, the difference between defending 4 HAs and 6 HAs is quite pronounced. Seemingly small changes make a larger impact on game balance than one might think.

Though it would be nearly impossible to accurately quantify how many fewer villagers they will kill, as that is strongly dependant on micro ability (or inability) and terrain.

	08-10-2003 18:42									#48
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

You're basically talking about a difference of 160 wood. I make ONE more stable and I've got 6 HA again. Or I could train those HAs. If having 6 HAs at an early point in time is what wins it, then you can still do that. If it is harassing folsk that wins it - you can still do that with 4.

IMO, the reason Mongols do so well (against certain folks) is that the civ bonus forces you to play a raiding game. Raiding is very effective, but most people don't do it. People who play Mongols do it a LOT and they learn to do it well.

	08-10-2003 20:13									#49
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

At higher levels of play, HA raiding loses alot of it's effectiveness. It is countered by a lower tech and cheaper unit, and provided you can micro at least a little(most good players can), you arent going to lose alot of villies. Heavy Cav raiding is another story, but Mongols don't get any of those for free.

In my experience, Mongols do well because they get so many free HA which I have to spend a good bit of food and timber very early in the game to counter (or food and wealth for archers, which is even worse). Even if he kills 0 villies he is still likely ahead in the resrouce department.

It's not a huge nerf to Mongol like I said, but it was noticeable when I _played the game_. Once again, I speak from experience, and you speak from hypotheticals. I'm glad you finally got on the MP train, but you might wanna ride a little longer before making so many judgments.

	08-10-2003 21:55									#50
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

There's no need to be so condescending.

I've played RON since it was released. I've played MP since it was released, although certainly not as much as I'd prefer, and perhaps not as much as you have - since I've been traveling out of the country quite a bit. But, I've played literally 10,000 games of various RTS games online the past several years, and during that time I've even helped game companies design and balance their games. And let me give you an insight from that experience. RTS games aren't all that different. Once you understand the mechanics of a particular game engine, you can extrapolate larger strategic possibilites. That's what I do.

Maybe once YOU'VE had more experience, you'll start to discuss things on the basis of facts instead of personal attacks.

	08-10-2003 22:30									#51
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

There's no personal attack, sorry if my post sounded gruff. I made an argument based on facts and my experience. I've played patch 3 while you're making educated guesses. With all your RTS experience you know that the only way to understand possible imbalances in a complex game is to play alot, not crunch numbers.

	09-10-2003 00:04									#52
	Remove this text

Actually that's not completely true.

You do work on paper and then you test hypotheses with a game engine. Much of work in balancing a game is done on paper. Then most of the fine tuning is done with the game engine.

A great example of this is all the arguing about early classical versus COM2 on land maps. On paper early classical looks better than COM2 when you consider all the factors. The conventional wisdom and all the "experts" said I was full of crap. But lo' and behold! It is faster.

There's also a point where general RTS experience plays a considerable role. The Mongol HA nerfing provides a great example. In RTS games, fast raiding units are deadlier than they appear on paper because the slower counter units can never close the gap. Also, players who can properly micro these units can make them even MORE powerful than the typical player. Distorting their advantage. So most hardcore players immediately knew that Mongols would be pretty deadly. Even against a Mayan.

Giving them 2 instead of 3 doesn't radically alter the balance. The defender will be forced to make light cav and to station his light cav at vulnerable locations. But the Mongol player can ALSO make light cav to tank for the HA. The Mongol player wins any engagement. Also, because he'll own the initiative the Mogol will be able to strike with his entire force anywhere. The defender will need to get lucky and guess where he's attacking or run the risk of not being to defend multiple locations.
In order to have an equivalent force the defender would need to spend a LOT of resources to make HAs.

This imbalance has been reduced, but it still exists.

That's my HYPOTHESIS. You are welcome to produce facts that prove me wrong, or just describe a compelling competing hypthesis.

	09-10-2003 01:45									#53
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Well if I have played against certain strategies and know how they work, I don't put much faith in hypotheses. But I think we basically agree on the Mongols current strength. And the early classical is not always better, but that's for another thread.

quote: In RTS games, fast raiding units are deadlier than they appear on paper because the slower counter units can never close the gap. Also, players who can properly micro these units can make them even MORE powerful than the typical player. Distorting their advantage.

The counter to Mongol HA is light cav. It's cheaper, faster, and lower tech. The free mongol HAs are chased down and killed quite often. This is why I think raiding is not _extremely_ powerful. Heavy Cav as I said, is another story.

I like the dynamic of early game raiding in RoN very much though, I wouldn't change a thing. Much like the ancient rush, it is deadly vs an unprepared opponent, yet very manageable if they invest in proper countermeasures.

	09-10-2003 02:54									#54
	Remove this text

quote: The free mongol HAs are chased down and killed quite often

This is because most players out there are stupid. All a Mongol player needs to do to stop this is make some light cav and set them to guard the HA. 2 light cav + 4 HA vs. 2 light cav = rout.

You're right that HA plus Heavy cav attack is better, but this is more expensive and the heavies can't chase down the light cav very easily.

An alternative is to have some HI come with. Set them out beyond enemy range and lure the chasing light cav back into them.


OT: when do you play? I'm looking for some decent players to play some team games with - I hate random teams. If we're on at the same time sometimes, maybe we could link up.

	09-10-2003 03:22									#55
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Yes, but the cav they send with the HA is not free. He must pay for it like I do. Most raiding takes place near a TC and/or Tower, and it will get few shots off and do good damage to the HA, LC. Also you have the power of garrison on your side and should not lose any military units. I haven't played any noob Mongols, most are pretty smart.

I need a good playing partner. I'm free to play on most weeknights from around 10pm-2am EST, and I usually play on the name neverlotus. My icq is 252686241, look me up.

Last edited by HalfLotus on 09-10-2003 at 03:35

	27-11-2003 22:05									#56
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Half_Lotus:

At the top of this page, click "edit" and then "Find on this page" and type in "alot".

I have nothing further.