MoR vs WH and KRG

Here are this week's Master's of Rise of Nations League games vs WH and KRG.

[bdc5ddcb2de]Game 1 AU (Home) vs. WH (Away) @ Australian Outback[/bdc5ddcb2de]

AU_sims (Persians) Rush-proof, great on water.
AU_tl (Dutch) No explanation needed.
AU_bird (Japanese) Probably 2nd-best on Outback after Dutch.

vs. WH_LordAOF (Bantu), WH_Georgie_CHN (Romans), WH_Auchinek (Japanese)

Game starts and AU suspects a rush from the civs. tl comes to help sims against the rush when lord stops sims 2nd city. But tl guesses wrong as WH double rushes bird instead, sacking his cap. However, bird soon regains his cap with minimal econ damage, other than giving up a cap sack to Georgie. Watching this part of the game is a good way to see how a great defender like bird can hold off a double rush. Lord's harassment slows down sims a little bit, but he is chased away by sims and tl's archers.

Even with the cap sack, going with an ancient raid on Outback is just too costly for the attackers. Forgoing early fishing wealth puts WH in a huge econ hole--every minute Lord and Auchinek aren't on the water, Bird and Sims are gaining an extra +100 or so wealth over them. We boom to gunpowder and gain the upper hand militarily, then finish WH off in V. An interesting game that shows why you probably shouldn't rush on Outback. Too big of a gamble.

[bdc5ddcb2de]Game 2 KRG (Home) vs. AU (Away)[/bdc5ddcb2de]

KRG_Sebi (Nubians), KRG_Faris (Lakota), KRG_4Stars (Egyptians) vs.

AU_sims (Greek) Big advantage with the ancient-age knowledge gathering.
AU_tl (Japanese) Cheaper ships that work harder.
AU_bird (Egyptians) Wonders and more wonders--important since most EMW games finish in a wonder race.

KRG picks the ultimate boom map and tries to beat AU at their own game. Their strategy is to slingshot resources from feeder to boomer--in this case, Sebi is feeding resources to 4Stars to help build wonders and further his boom. Sims already knows this is what KRG will try from previous KRG EMW games, so AU prepares to counter the strategy by attacking "early" (in EMW terms, that means before Info).

The game starts normally (though not without a dispute regarding whether or not AU_wolf could watch) and both teams proceed to boom. KRG has a big advantage on booming rares, with silver, papy, and relics--perfect for Nubians and Egyptians on this map, since Nubians get the extra resources from rares, and Egyptians can build a fast Porcelain Tower.

4Stars starts the wonder war with a fast Colossus. In response, tl makes a few infantry to harass 4Stars in ancient (though by the time they get there, everyone's already classical). While the harassment didn't do a whole lot it, it at least forced him to spend a bit on defense away from his uber-boom (fueled by donations from his teammates).

Faris begins raiding in classic by building a rax and a stable on AU land, although both are soon gobbled up by sims' and birds' borders. Faris' raid is extremely annoying and breaks AU's concentration from booming a bit (sims forgot taxation and later on a university upgrade because of the raid), but eventually AU chases Faris off the island. Once Faris is chased off the island, sims lands at his capital with 4 cannons and a moderate-sized army in V and takes Faris' cap. He is chased away by Sebi, but manages to save almost all his army from being demolished.

Meanwhile, everyone is booming. Amazingly, no one is really building a navy except bird (who can spam navy with Angkor Wat) and 4Stars (who has a very unbalanced heavy-ship only navy). This allows AU to attack KRG more or less at will. Sebi and 4Stars reach Industrial first and KRG continues wonder spamming when Sebi builds Taj Mahal. Because of Porcelain Tower, 4Stars is up 1/2-1 age and reaches VII first, allowing him to start Supercollider. tl army raids the supercollider workers to buy time for AU to build more wonders and prevent a wonder victory. 4Stars eventually finishes his SC and researches World Government.

Almost immediately after researching WG, 4Stars is invaded by sims, with tl following a minute later. With no temple and no navy (bird's subs and sim's planes killed it before the invasion), KRG can't stop the invasion and 4Stars loses his capital to sims (which has Colossus and Porcelain Tower), swaying the wonder advantage towards AU. By the time Sebi and 4Stars kick Sims out, tl is there with a large army. A key part of this battle is the air both teams fly all their planes into the capital zone, but sims brought 6 anti-air vehicles with his army in the invasion. That helps out a lot in the ensuing air war.

bird continues building up his navy and finishes Space Program, starting the wonder timer. Not much after, sims finishes researching World Government for the wonder victory.

The key factors in this game were the lack of a real naval battle or even a real navy for much of the game (allowing land raids by both teams on each other) and the fact that AU has 3 players to each age more or less simultaneously, while KRG has one player ahead one age (4Stars), one player at the same age (Sebi) as the AUs, and one player behind one age (Faris). When info rolls around, it's 3v2 as Faris is still in Modern, letting AU win the land and naval battles pretty easily in the late game. Faris's raids slow down the AUs a bit, but they slowed him down more (also because he failed to spend wealth quickly enough--at one point in classic he has 900+ wealth lying around and zero scholars).

An interesting game--more action than in most EMW games, but with a familiar result--a World Government instant victory in mid-info.

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One thing that KRG did wrong is that they tried to use bombers to destroy my Kremlin. But my wonder is deep in the continent enough that the bombers were only able to hit it once and had to leave for refuel. KRG lost 20+ bombers there without any achievement.

Another thing is that I should destroy Hanging Gardens after I got all economic upgrades, so I can build wonders cheaper. wink

One other thing In the WH game I sent a civie to both wing capitals early (b/c from civs I suspected the rush). I then built a rax at both wings to help w/ the rushes. I later razed my rax on sim's side as the double was on bird's (and sims side didn't get a cap sack in the initial rush). I think bird would have taken his cap back w/o me but it woulda had a nastier effect on his econ /. An ancient rush on outback is a bad idea unless you're sure you can eliminate one wing. Of course eliminating a wing is really hard even with a double unless the pocket doesn't help (or that wing only has 1 city?). I think WH would have been much better off ancient rushing w/ japs, then following with a strong classical attack w/ romans. That or the regular classical attack they usually do.

gj, ggs

Nice reviews and comments. GG AU!

Couple other things

- In the KRG game, Faris having his stable/rax in the backyard was a pain in the ass. I ended up building a tower and a small army to kill his stuff in GP which slowed my boom (the army later turned out to be a good idea though as I used it to raid the supercollider). I know building across & raiding hurt Faris but he actually hurt all three of us as we each had to build raid defense so I still wonder if it was a good idea. If he'd sacked one of our caps in III (perhaps with a bit of slingshot help?) he could've really hurt us.
- In the WH game I didn't scout relics near my city (it wasn't my cap rare but about a city length away). 49.

this lakota thing what faris tried to do on bird wasnt really smart ^^ 3vs1 and vs bird, ugh..

After watching the record, Faris building rax stable is not that bad (maybe even be a good idea). The thing that's bad, as sims has said, is that Faris didn't build scholars early in classical. This is what really makes Faris behind.

For the bombers, if Sebi had built the airports close to the coast, there would have been chance that he could destroy Kremlin or Eiffel Tower.

Yeah, it was a pain in the ass for sure. We were scouting for him but it's hard to find that little villie. No scholars hurt him badly. And there's no chance he can sack a cap. He'd be fighting 3v1 and if his despot goes his units will fight with no armor and get attrition (since the supply line for the despot is from the other coast).

I think if they'd slingshot him he might've stood a chance in taking a cap if we were all surprised. I dunno though, might not be realistic (be interesting to sandbox). Of course, he wouldn't have kept a cap had he taken it anyway but the +500 resources would have helped him boom. The thing is farms are pretty minimally important on that map so the razing ability would only cost the victim 3 farms/1-2 woodcamps so probably 300 resources or so. In any case, I had no mil buildings when I first saw his army in II or so so might've been susceptible to getting sacked had he ambushed.

One other thing I remembered I scouted KRG's continent in ancient (I sent my scout right after I built a dock) and got quite a few ruins out of it. This left Bird/Sims with all our continents ruins & me stealing some of KRG's D.

Oh, and about the bombers. I don't think he'd have killed a wonder. I saw his bombers coming across and rallied my fighters to guard the wonder he was targeting. This killed a few planes but not that many (considering he flew back before my fighters had much chance to shoot them down) /.

I like the thought behind what KRG did. They might not have got the win but it was an excellent effort trying something new in order to dislodge us.

I wrote an article about drawing defenders in on this type map but no idea where it is.

A timely sack on Egypt right before a wonder is completed could of hurt even more. 7 farms, an incomplete wonder, a granary.....

My theory on causing havoc in enemy territory is to get a cap sack and pump units off it using this and your initial force to slow at least two defenders down who have to retrieve cap. This hopefully causes two defenders to fall behind with only one attacker being drained.

Sound strategy with some details to iron out imo.

gg's.

Well, that would probably only work with Lakota as your supply lines would be very long and there's no guarantee you can keep supplying new troops even with a cap sack (you have to cross the water, and almost every EMW game has more naval action than this one). And plus you are fighting 1v3, even with 2 people invading the supply line is so long that an invasion with 2 forces is hard to sustain. (See my invasion of Faris in V I am happy just to get in, get the cap sack, and get the hell out while I can still save my 4 siege weapons.) If you are Lakota you had better do it early, cuz by Medieval age you'll probably have nowhere else to build (territory gobbles up your buildings, causes massive attrition and they die within 2 mins--only hope is a fort early on). If you are Japanese, you may succeed, but most likely your opponent will have some sort of military when you attack (see tl raiding the Egyptian in classical--by the time he got there, 4Stars already had some army--and tl build those troops in ancient!). In short, the shaky and long supply lines make invasions pretty risky unless there is no naval action (like in this game) or you are Lakota (in which case you should attack fast before the building attrition kills you).

Yes, lakota is ideal for this. And agreed, age III is best to attack for this.

I'd never try reinforce from other side of water it's too risky and slow.

When Cereal Killa was around (he smurfing about, anyone?) we jumped water a couple times in EMW with roman/maya combo in 4 vs 4's. This drew 3 defenders in leaving us 2 to boom. Yes we would eventually get kicked off land but by that stage had completely screwed up 3 of the enemies booms. Games then were won by our superior teched up side. (couple icbm's for enemy navy and invade with world govt)

Every strat is risky, the one KRG employed had you worried, it's a good'n.

Both myself and Faris send our scouts to AU island. Meanwhile we let 4stars gobble up all the ruins on our own island to propel the egyptian boom. Sims had same idea though so this slowed the tactic down a little bit p

Bastards. Keep your scouts on your own island next time P .

Sims, is it always a good idead to have ele and HC armies? or did u just not feels like building any other kind of units?

Well, at some point it probably starts paying to build infantry (look in my rax at the end of the game--i have 7 HIs and more coming, but they're all garrisoned) but in the beginning another ele (with 16 armor fully upgraded) is generally worth more than even 2 musketeers, so I just build the eles. Also I didn't get the upgrades for muskets and HIs yet.

pwnage game, bird recovered very quickly from that rush. Sims, great work with those eles, they smashed clear through lord's army and his city D

Ya, sims remember your game with my germans vs your perians or indians dun remember, i had a WAY larger army... You had elephants and hc and you just pwnd my army like 3 times =)

Too bad my knowledge was noobie. banghead

Lawl you wheren't sposed to say who won =P
Well i think i had teh pwnage rares... Even though those ellie raiders where so fucking anoying @_@