Marx picked Chinese, which get 25% cheaper science tech, all their cities start as large, citizens, merchants and caravans built instantly, as well as the herbal lore line for free at the granary. An interesting combination of civs here, two boomers! The Chinese also gets those fire lancers that wound up hurting me plenty! Marx actually hits classical about 3:13, which panics me because I think maybe he’s going to rush. Turns out that watching the replay he actually went classical instead of getting Mil 1. As the Chinese he is actually pretty rush proof, so that’s a good move (plus he’s not facing a good rushing civ). As I expanded I realized that on arena, space is precious, so I went for Civic 2 before going classical, and setup my 3rd city right in the middle of the map. Unfortunately for me, about 2 seconds before my city completed, Marx had completed a stables witch wound up being After his stable is gone, I realize I’ve made a horrible error. I forgot to build a temple at my forward city, what with all the raiding. In the meanwhile, Marx has thrown up his 3rd city almost a stones throw from my own! I get my metal income going a bit at my 3rd city, but his borders have pushed the mountain back now so I can only fit 3 miners on there. Woe is me for I Then Marx decides to attack at around 14 minutes. He uses two trebuchets to take out my tower, meanwhile we’re both building castles semi-behind our cities (couldn’t build them forward). At the same time I sent a catapult after his tower, and his cavalry charge hit the rest of my guys. I took out 1-2 of his cav and he got my catapult. This seemed to be enough to keep him back. He had a bunch of fire lancers and heavy cav, and I only had some archers and a few light horse. His temporary retreat was very good for me, as it gave me time to build some more heavy cav and light infantry. Here’s a picture at While I was destroying his castle he’d gathered his own infantry up behind it for a counter-attack. I charged in my reinforced brigade of Royal Stratoitai into him along with a few spies to grab his cannons. This worked well and you can see the result here at Unfortunately for me, he’s pumped all his resources into Manchu musketeers and comes out with a swarm of them. I take some heavy losses and retreat, accepting the loss of the city. I decide to try one of my favorite tricks and I send my battered army far around to another direction, while reinforcing my city with stockades and reinforcing my army. Here’s the retreat to the west at To be continued... Lets recap. So far I’ve won a few temporary victories and even captured one of his cities for a time, but no matter how well I play strategically, he was out-producing me for a good amount of time due to his wonders and my stupidity. His mass units are able to reduce my army to shambles time and time again. His cheap Manchu line certainly helps, as he’s mass producing them like clockwork. He’s got a better grasp on territory than me, but I still hold the technology advantage. My Greek tech advantages have allowed me to consistently age ahead of him and hold a higher commerce cap. Now that we’re up to speed, there’s about a 5 minute break in the fighting. Each of us are improving our oil income and rebuilding our armies. I am still well ahead in resource production, being at commerce level 6 while he is at comm. Level 4 (which is misleading, because he has +50 cap to food and wood, and +100 or so to wealth thanks to the wonders). During the industrial attack I’d also built the Colosseum to help out with my territory problem (and to even up the wonder points, because wonder victory is on). I figure he’s going to attack in the center again, so I go ahead and build up a few more towers (cheaper thanks to Colosseum) back behind so even if he did attack he’d have to take out many of my towers in order to capture the city. Any towers I tried to build in front he’d destroy with his cannons, so I built them back. I then started my attack on the western flank one more time. My 2 cannon took out his temple and then advanced on his city. Unfortunately I left my cannon out to dry as my army was a bit farther back and unable to help them when a tank blitz came in. I wasn’t expecting this, as up to this point he’d rarely used massed Cavalry. I wasn’t really prepared with many anti-tank troops, but started building a few when I saw his 10-11 tanks. His tank blitz is short lived, as he retreats when my army shows up. Here’s a shot of that at The ensuing battle is conducted with me elsewhere, doing god knows what. I look back now and realize that I’d hardly micromanaged anything at all. I had units sitting behind the lines not fighting at all, machine guns marching into the river to die to tanks, etc. My only guess is that I was trying to improve my economy somewhere. Here’s the result at I send my artillery forward to hit his western city, and then the rest of my army. I’m a little more wary this time and set my 5-6 planes to patrol over the river where he will be attacking. At Now Marx hit’s the modern age and upgrades his troops and the battle comes to a close. I’ve lost my army yet again, but my air force is in top shape and continues to destroy Marx’s tanks. At the end of this battle neither of us have a land army, he retains his city, and I retain control of the skies. He even built some helicopters during the battle but they were turned into Swiss cheese by my P-38s (least that’s what those modern age fighters look like). Now both of us begin to build silos and nuclear missiles. Somewhere In here I’ve also built Versailles, which will help me in future battles. At this point I’ve researched all the smelter/granary upgrades, but Marx hasn’t even researched a single Construction or Forage upgrade. What this means is that when his units walk into my (level 3) attrition (aided by Colosseum) he gets pounded by it! He’s literally loosing 2hp/second at least in my territory. His units loose a good 25% of their health before he finally gets a truck in there. Meanwhile my planes are also bombing them and I’m rebuilding my army (slowly). He backs his attack off once he’s lost most of his infantry and half his tanks. At this point I’ve also started the Eiffel Tower wonder to improve my oil situation. Now he’s got 3 silos with nukes building, and I’ve build one with a nuke. Mine finishes first, but he launches first, and it crashes down right on top of my new military production center (including my airbases). Where there used to stand 2 auto-plants and 2 barracks, now stands nothing but rubble! Here’s the explosion at What’s interesting to note here is that he’s only researched 5 civic techs, while I’ve researched 7 (and the accompanying temple techs). This has pushed my borders (along with the Colosseum) out and actually wrapped around his city and behind his territory. Units traveling between his 2 cities now take attrition! Oh, and by the way, the Armageddon timer is now at 7 (eek!). He sends out his attack force into my western city now (which holds Versailles). It again meets my fighters and heavy attrition (until his low tech supply wagons finally catch up). Here’s his attack at Alright that’s it, this guys got me. There’s nothing much else I can do now. My army is gone, he’s probably going to take over my very important mining city with Versailles. I kind of sat there in a daze for about 30 seconds, reflecting on the game I’d just played, anticipating hitting the resign button. Then something inside me clicked. I felt resolve building, and determination. I would not go quietly into that dark night! This is a rated game damnit! I’ve got to give it all I got! And what I have is a kickass economy and fighters sitting un-used in the hanger! I released 8 fighters from my airfields to rain death and destruction upon mine enemy! His anti-aircraft batteries were gone by this point, and he could do nothing but wither and die! I released 2 bombers to take out some more infantry headed towards the front (who were also being hit with attrition). Instantly my barracks and auto-factories started pumping out units. Everything that 3,000 food, wood, and metal could buy! Come and get me Marx! He launches another nuke headed for my center city and it takes out a granary, a farm, a tower, and a few bunkers. But what’s left of his army? Well, Now his army moves to attack again, but this time I’ve got more units. Suddenly the alarms start blaring as another nuke is launched at my army! Oh, and my nuke at his army as well. My nuke hits direct on and catches the end of his army, killing his machine gunners and a tank, and maybe a few modern infantry. His nuke I was able to run away from only loosing a few modern infantry units. Here’s the battle at Now I’m on the way to information, the Kremlin is getting close to finished, and I’ve recaptured his western city. Suddenly, out comes the “gg” and….. Well sir, I call that a very good game J Interesting that he chose not to nuke to Armageddon (he could have I’d guess). Very noble of him. Recorded Game: [This message has been edited by Bridger (edited 07-24-2003 @ 00:51 AM).]
I wanted to improve my (extremely poor) ratings on the rated section, so I hopped in a 1v1 with a guy named Marx. Can’t remember his rating but think it might have been 1700 or so? Anyway, we used standard settings, 8 wonder points, 70% territory, etc. The map was Arena/Old World so it would prove pretty interesting.
I picked random and wound up with the Greeks (I can already hear the *sigh*’s, lol). Well let me tell you, this worked out quite well in the end. Greeks of course get 10% cheaper (non-knowledge) and 100% faster library research. Along with this they get cheaper libraries/universities, and they start out with a university from the beginning of the game. The Greek heavy cav UUs are pretty nice, as they are faster than normal heavy cav, so they can function almost as light cav in many situations.
Same old Same old right? Wrong! Both of us differed from the usual Science/Civic start slightly. As the Greeks, I had to make the most of my starting university, so instead of researching science, I used my gold to buy 3 scholars, so I had +25 knowledge from the beginning of the game! I went civic/commerce until I could get enough wealth to go science. Marx, as Chinese, insta-builds 5 villagers to get a 60/50 economy from about 10 seconds into the game (meanwhile I’m still slowly pumping out villies at a 40/40 econ). Using up all that food he doesn’t have enough to go civic right away, so he goes science and waits a bit and actually goes commerce before civic.
The instant my city was up I saw his stables and started to construct a barracks. I hit classical at 5:52. I built another villie to construct a tower, but his horse archers popped out before I could, so I had to garrison my barracks/tower builders. Fortunately he didn’t stick around, and instead rallied his 3 horse archers further in my territory. I realized he’d be going for my capitol, so I started a tower next to my capitol woodies as well. While this was happening my builders came back out, finished the barracks, built a stable and the tower. As soon as my barracks were up I queued up a bowman and his upgrade to archer. My bowman popped out just as he came to my capitol and I garrisoned my woodies (who hadn’t finished the tower yet). My bowman chased them to the capitol and finished them off one by one (meanwhile upgrading to archers). I also had a light horse being built in case he sent more. He finally moved his last horse archer away from my archer, and I chased him down with my light horse. He actually ran smack dab into my 2nd city which I had garrisoned waiting for him. His last Horse archer dead, I turned back just in time to see his stables crumble from attrition.
At 11:59 I hit Medieval and I’m finally getting my metal economy up. Here’s a shot of the resource graph at
Now there’s about 5 mins of prep time. The so-called, “Calm before the storm.” In this time I’m building 3 bombards and a supply wagon. I destroy the keep he was starting to build, then turn my bombards on his city and entrench my few infantry in front. He sends his bombards to fire at my entrenched infantry. The next move is his, and he ungarisons about 10 Heavy FireLancers, which start beating up on me. I only realize now what a stupid move I made at this point. He’s got heavy fire lancers, and I’ve got entrenched arquebusiers. His light infantry have 2 range greater than mine and mine aren’t moving forward to engage! Here’s the situation at
As I destroy the towers and upgrade my infantry, the city changes hands a few times. Finally I destroy his final castle and the city is now 1:00 away from assimilation. He had 5 farms and 4 miners in this city, so it’s capture set him back a bit. The problem is he had 20 farmers and 20 wood cutters and 18 miners! This guy was really being redundant! He had constructed pyramids and colossus earlier which gave him increased caps in food, wood, and wealth. This had allowed him to get the resource edge on me up until I captured his city. This is when I noticed that my food had only been 225/260 this whole time! I’d forgotten to build a granary in my 2nd city! I quickly remedied the problem and this put me ahead of him in resources.
I try to use speed and surprise to my advantage, but it works exactly the opposite. Waiting only about a minute to reinforce my troops, I didn’t even bother to wait to upgrade them, and went right for the enemies western city. The problem is that he still has a bigger army. While I’m off setting up my oil economy, he comes in to attack my army. I’ve targeted my army at his city, and so they don’t actually attack his army. I was hoping a blitz would work and he wouldn’t attack, or would hesitate, but he came right over. Here’s a shot of the situation at
*note: i'm off to work, but I’ll be back to finish it tonight, there's a lot more in store during this game!
While I’m rebuilding my army, Marx sends 3 spies and bribes 3 of my tanks! Blast! I quickly queue up a scout to join my army to prevent that from happening again. Now I’ve got 3-4 Modern Planes and Marx is still using two artillery units to reduce my center city. I use my planes to take out his artillery and a few of his villagers at his center city. Now it’s my turn to attack again.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Check out Tales of Legend, a Rise of Legends Community Show!