sims vs cap -- entrench/defend + india strat in 1 game

We played a few games today, but this is the best one to watch.

AU_sims (R-Indians) vs. El_Capitan (R-Nubians) @ Old World

In this game, Cap draw Nubs with obsidian/bison/diamonds/amber vs. my Indians with spice and tobacco. Cap goes for a 1 archer start, presumably to get some ruins, but I am able to econ fast enough to put up a rax without too much delay. This buys me some time and I start raiding Cap with 2 eles and 1 lc while building a 3rd city and researching republic--my standard Indian strat now. However, my noob micro results in me losing both elephants and the lc, and I get raided very very hard in classic. My econ is getting pwned in classic. Cap has the upper hand.

In III the tide turns a bit. He goes for a bit attack on my 3rd city, but I entrench and use my eles to fight off melee units. Note that when cap starts attacking I have only 1 ele and 2 archers to defend a small city. That should tell you a little about how powerful entrenching is. I gain the advantage but mess up because my econ is out of whack. When I finally go IV I have 1300 knowledge in the bank. Oops.

Cap booms back into the game and it looks like he has the advantage. But he makes a critical mistake in not spamming scouts or at the least entrenching his 15 LIs while going VI. Without commandos or entrenchment there's no real way to stop a hoard of eles. Doing either would probably win him the game. As a result, I stomp his army while he's still in the process of upgrading to riflemen and tanks and it's GG time.

Interesting game!
Some observations

1. I don't think any amount of micro was going to save those 2 eles who were trapped (across river, no Senator) deep in Cap's territory from his 2 HC+2CA attacking them.

2. Cap's attack was vs a large city with a tower and his troops finally attempted to capture the reduced city when u had 5 eles+5 Crossbows, although the few bows entrenched might have helped a little.

3. Why was Cap army raiding with despot AND wagon?

4. I liked when you changed the angle of attack of ur V army against his city away from that river crossing which was killing you.

5. Things really turned your way only once u had the V eles attacking (V eles, not IV!)

6. Devastating use of commandos as ur "siege units", once again. Is this a problem in RoN? Unless u micro troops to target commandos, other units are targetted first (riflemen, tanks, etc) so commandos seem to get a bit of a free ride when incorporated into large attacking armies.

Nice demonstration of your ele strats, Sims, although I think this is just a defensive Indian boom and that the ele raiding in II is inneffectual and probably only detracts from the strategy - it's certainly unnerving, though..

Yeah, the river screwed those eles. What I meant by micro was I would normally retreat them, but I was too busy dealing with cap's raid at home so I didn't notice what was going on til I saw they're almost dead.

And when he started sieging, it was only a small city.

The damn river pwned me, but luckily cap didn't have commandos himself so I was able to break through (finally).

Another damn good game. lol

AU_sims is a madman I tell you, a maaad maaan! =p

Another new strategy foiled by an AU. =(

Lol cappy has competition ;)

And I enjoy obsing it. lol

lol u luv observing everything,but your favourite is pron.

Good one Rune! lol