Napoleon, Alexandre and their friends

[La Fayette]

There are a few months left before civ3.
What shall we do meanwhile?
Many strong players have chosen to play MP long ago. I suppose they will go on, 'sly as a fox' against 'wise as a Sphinx'. OK.
Most of us will probably go on playing SP, and I suppose that many of us will be willing to go on learning, but also having FUN.
Some play OCC: hat down, they have brought us a whole bunch of precious results about how this game works. OK.
Some play records (high scores, a long time ago = so boring, earliest landing = hat down to solo and samson, earliest conquest = hat down to DaveV, our headlight in the field of bloodthirsty 4legged units). OK.
Here is my proposal to the others:
(this proposal is derived from experience with ww2 and Rome scenarios during the last 3 months; and it is a proposal, which means it is open to criticism and improvement).
Every friday, from today on, I shall name a scenario that I shall be playing next week. Those willing to play will play (the others will do what they want to do = this is a free world).
Next thursday I shall post my results, and those willing to post theirs will do it (the others...).
I don't think I shall send any detailed log (we are not strong OCCers and this is no tournament), but I shall try to explain precisely what kind of strategy I tried to use, and all those posting results will be invited to do the same.
Then we shall play scenario #2 during week #2, and meanwhile shall be free to discuss on this forum the strategies used when playing scenario #1. Then, during week #3, I shall play again scenario #1, trying to take advantage of what has been discussed
(and anyone willing will do the same).
The pattern will be as follows:
Week #1: Playing scenario #1, discussing this post
Week #2: Playing scenario #2, discussing strategy #1
Week #3: Playing scenario #1, discussing strategy #2
Week #4: Playing scenario #2, discussing on topic
Week #5: Playing scenario #3, discussing on topic
...and so on.

In other words, this might be some kind of 'strategy seminar' (but also great FUN: ask EOL, DrFell, Marquis de Sodaq, Fire Dragon, DaveV or anyone of those who have had a try at ww2 or Rome recently).

The first scenario on my list is named 'Alexandre'.
I shall be playing 'Alexandre' next week

[Marquis de Sodaq]

A fine idea. I presume you have chosen Alexandre that comes with CiC. Do you plan to play only the old scenarios that came with the game, or any others that the masses desire?

Unless my succession game turn comes this weekend, The Marquis of Macedon will rein his horse...

[Hermann the Lombard]

Is there a version of "Alexandre" available for 2.42?

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Marquis de Sodaq
I presume you have chosen Alexandre that comes with CiC. Do you plan to play only the old scenarios that came with the game, or any others that the masses desire?

Are there several Alexandre?
(I have been playing with a very ancient version; named 1.024, up to a few days ago, when I felt compelled to buy a MP game since there was a gauntlet lying on the ground, close to my left foot).
The game I bought is called Ultimate Classic (French). It includes a MP version 5.3.0f, and a number of scenarios, named Conflicts in Civilization or Fantastic Worlds.
I haven't planned to play 'old scenarios'.
What I would like is make it simple for most people, without too much patching, downloading and the like.
I chose Alexandre because it was number 1 on my computer (and perhaps also since I knew YOU would like it ).
The civ is coloured white and owns 3 cities (Athens, Thebes and Pella) in the North West corner of the map.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Hermann the Lombard
Is there a version of "Alexandre" available for 2.42?

Sorry, I don't know, but I am quite sure someone on this forum knows the answer... and perhaps also the answer to my question:
Apart from ww2 and Rome (which I think are available to anybody), which are the most common? CiC? FW ?

My purpose is to have fun and discuss strategy with people interested. I think any scenario might serve that purpose (and I have had lots of fun playing Rome with strong advice from DaveV and Xin Yu, or playing ww2 with smaller civs that very few people considered possible to play with before I started).

Scenarios bring some kind of poetry (very far from counting beakers to the last one, hello samson ), and also some kind of lessening the luck factor, hut tipping, mighty wonders and tortured tech tree.
They give us an opportunity to discuss strategy otherwise than 'which is your favorite wonder #2?' or 'how many huts do you tip before founding your city #3?'

I think this purpose would be best served by scenarios 'that go with the game', but this is wide open to discussing.

[Hermann the Lombard]

<>

I have enjoyed reading the discussion of the minor powers in the wwii scenario, even though I've never figured out how to play the major powers. Well, I haven't tried (yet). The only scenarios that I have are the rome & wwii scenarios (and various OCC scenarios). We'll have to see what's available for download.

[Scouse Gits]

MGE & UCC both contain all the CiC and FW scenarios so are generally available to the MP fraternity as well as to those SP people who have purchased either or both of the add ons.

It should be noted that most people will be playing these scenarios using the MP version of the game - the actual CiC and FW executables have a number of subtle distinctions from both 2.42 & MP - in particular if the appropriate scenario flag is set - it is impossible to change government in FW whilst in both 2.42 & MP there is a small window of opportunity on the move when a new government is discovered or acquired. There are similar (IMO too literal) restrictions on the actions of Diplos and spies in some scenarios.

I don't know whether i will be able to find any more time, but Alexandre here I come ...

[DrFell]

Sounds good fun, if I can find the time ill give it a go (busy time of year).

[La Fayette]

I played FW (I suppose), Deity level (of course) and stopped after having conquered all objective cities (10 of these IIRC).

3 stages.
Stage 1 = conquest
Starting with 3 cities (Athens, Thebes and Pella), I conquered Sparta and Military Camp swiftly, then built a new city on an island close to Rhodes, then conquered 3 more cities nearby. Total: 9 cities.
Stage 2 = peaceful growth (I thought it might be a good idea to build elephants and/or frigates before going on conquering new cities).
Stage 3 = conquest of the remaining objective cities.
I post some more details tonight or tomorrow.

[DrFell]

I tried it a couple days ago, I had no peaceful growth stage Can I post the details now?

[Marquis de Sodaq]

In MGE, only 9 objectives are listed, but the scoring shows 30+. Can somebody with an older version post the full list of objectives so that we MGEers know where to go? Thanks.

My first start was disastrous, so I abandoned it to retry. Sparta was a deathtrap - their catapult killed everybody I sent. Better to wait until the Greeks sail him to anatolia. I went after Ephesos? by dropping an infantry and catapult on the adjacent mountain. Both got blasted away immediately. Alexander died trying to kill an inferior unit. Enough of that...

I restarted by sailing a veteran infantry and catapult to capture poorly defended Rhodes. I waited on the Thracian military camp until it grew a size and I could capture it instead of destroying it. From there I entered anatolia and sacked all the cities there. The Greeks are poorly defended and can't counter attack after you kill their catapults. After Sidon (on Cyprus) grew, I captured it; I disbanded it and moved it one square west to the 3 whale site.

The Phoenecians were easy to pummel with heavy cavalry bored from the easy Greek conquest. I've built up a force with eyes turned to Tyre, my next target. They had built a city to the north, which was easy to capture. This turned out to be a boon, as the Persians have sent a few units after it. Each has been easy to kill in the open fields outside the city.

How big a force do we need to march on mesopotamia? I plan to keep a few extra heavy cavalry around to pick off any reinforcements moving in from the south.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by DrFell
Can I post the details now?

You post when you will, DrFell.
My idea is that this is not a challenge (unless we decide otherwise later on). It is some can of 'strategy seminar' where we can compare the results obtained with the different ideas we had in mind and try to learn from the others.

Here are some details about the game I played:
End of stage 1 (9 cities = 3 from the start + 1 built + 5 conquered): october 334
End of stage 2 (conquest of Ancyra, after 3 years of 'peaceful' growth): october 331
End of stage 3 (conquest of Susa = 9th objective city): august 329

My opinion about my game:
The period of 'peaceful' growth (by 'peaceful ' I mean fighting defensive wars against anyone attacking me,... which means almost anyone) might be much shorter (I did a lot of unneeded research and earned so much money that when I started conquering Ancyra and the remaining objective cities, I decided almost any time to buy them ).

[DrFell]

Objectives:
Miletus
Ephesus
Gaza
Susa
Ecbatana
Sardis
Ancyra
Bactra
Thebes

Objectivesx3:
Pella
Halicarnassus
Persepolis
Sagala
Memphis
Tyre
Athens

Total: 30 objectives

[Scouse Gits]

Thanks very much - I thought I was losing it see http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=20615 despite what everyone else was saying I could only find 9 or 10 objectives!!!

[La Fayette]

The game I play (UCC or FW?) does not mention any of the x3 objectives (bug?). Only the 9 x1 objectives appear in the 'find city' list, and that is what I played last week.
Thank you very much to you DrFell for giving us the complete list. If anyone agrees, we shall play in accordance with your list when we play this 'Alexandre' scenario again, after having discussed our first game.
Meanwhile I shall play the scenario named XCom next week. There are 3 XCom bases to start with and 8 alien objectives to conquer (hope it is the same for anyone of us ).
I shall play that scenario with special pleasure, since UFO was THE game that made me love computer strategy games. ...and those aliens are tough nuts to crack .

(BTW Marquis, it seems that your first try at 'Alexandre' also was quite painful )

[DrFell]

I played on FW, and conquered all the objectives by Sept 331. I went for non-stop conquest and ended up selling almost all the improvement I captured (apart from a few temples). Annoyingly the Persians got pikemen late on, but by then I'd taken almost all their objective cities so it wasn't a problem. Although I took heavy losses, especially in the attack on Susa, Alexander himself and his companions were still alive when I finished (which was a little 'objective' I thought of when I attempted it).

[La Fayette]

XCom was great fun and hard fighting, as expected. I post my results on thursday, as stated previously.
(in fact, my main problem was not fighting, but travelling quickly, though facing some very nasty surprises)



(the guy to the left is solo, the one to the right is samson, the one in the middle is La Fayette, trying to improve his beaker counts)

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Let's talk strategies! In the Alexander scenario, it looks like we didn't get far in talking about what approaches to use, where trouble spots were found, or what it took to sack such-and-such city. Some of these scenarios might be easy, others might require better planning - and thus lead to more discussion than others. I still need to load up Xcom, so I might be a bit premature with my comments...

[DrFell]

Well, in my try of the Alexandre scenario, I went for rapid conquest without any building except at the end, when i built and sold off barracks in some of my old cities to help pay for bribing costs (I did this in Rome scenario too), and built caravans and sent them to Rhodes. Tried to keep my army going, only briefly resting in certain cities to recouperate, and build catapults to add to the conquest.

I ignored the Thracians and they played virtually no part in the game, apart from giving me a bit of help attacking the Persians (their chariots got as far as Ecbatana). Sparta was also ignored, until near the end when they nearly captured Athens - I never took the city, but it forced me to build an army in Greece to defend.

My first actions were to bribe the Greek cities in Turkey, and attack Sardis and Ancyra with my large army, my main goal being to get on the 'main road' to speed up conquest a bit. I split my army in two just before Nisibus, one half was sent to the west, the other half went east.

In the west, things were pretty simple, with me attacking each city one by one with catapults and archers and walking in, accepting a cease-fire then attacking the next city. Things were a bit more interesting in the east, after regrouping my army in Nisibus I continued conquering objectives, ignoring Babylon (too much of a detour and not an objective), all the way to Susa and Persepolis. Susa was difficult to take, and I lost most of my cavalry taking out the final couple infantry (Alexandre almost got killed too..). After taking Persepolis with newly built catapults, I decided to use diplos to bribe the small cities the Persians had on the road to India (Bactra and a new city, Antioch) and Bombay and Delhi (new cities in India, expensive to bribe). After that it was just a matter of sending Alexandre and his few remaining vet cavalry up to india to join forces with catapults build in India for the final attack on Sagala (Built a Diplo to investigate Sagala so Alexandre would have the 'honour' of killing the last unit ). By the end of the conquest the only improvement I had in my cities was a temple in Thebes...

I think in general for a fast conquest you should buy a few catapults in your Greek cities, split your army up into two forces, one to conquer the Greek cities in Turkey, then travel down to attack the Phoenicians and finally the Egyptians (send your slow moving units as there's less distance to travel), and another to take out Persia and India (use cavalry and a few catapults and infantry - the cavalry can be used to scout for enemy attacks while your moving your main army, the catapults are used to attack the cities, and infantry are used to defend the catapults and as city defence). After taking Susa build diplos to bribe all the further east cities, except Sagala which takes a few catapults. To fund the bribing sell all improvements and build caravans in your cities and send them to Rhodes when it builds the Colossus. It can probably be done a lot quicker than I managed it.

[La Fayette]

DrFell
Thank you for this long and clea

[La Fayette]

DrFell
Thank you for this long and clear post about your choices. It might help us a lot when having our second try at Alexandre next week.

[La Fayette]

1) Strategical choices
All the aliens (except the sectoids) can move very quickly, making it impossible to protect X-Com units by scouting around them. That is why I decided to send away all my scouting units, hoping to find all 8 alien bases before having lost all scouts (it worked: I discovered the last alien base after less than 4 years, with 3 scouts still alive).
Balance between attack and defence: I decided to have a strong defence (more than 10 units/vessel) in the early game, then lighten it regularly (no more than 3 units/vessel in the end game).
This can certainly be improved (lighter defence all the way), but I didn't wish to take too many chances.
I meant to build ONE strong attacking force around my 3 strongest units (BAU?) but the Aliens managed to block one of them quite a while(I conquered the first Alien base with only 2 BAUs).
Path: I conquered in following order:
Sierra 3, S4, S6, S7, S2, Motherload, S1, Sierra 5
(this is probably far from optimal, but scouting is far from finished when one starts conquering, and that doesn't make it easy).

2) Results obtained
Sierra 5 conquered in march 2013 (game over). This can certainly be improved (especially since I didn't plan my reinforcements very carefully in the end game).



(the guy in the middle is La Fayette receiving good advice from speedy warmongers).

[Floris O]

(this is only a test post. Reply didn't work over here. Just ignore this post)

[La Fayette]

Losses
(if they are too heavy, you lose this game, since the building capacity is very low)
I chose not to care about losing scouts (but did care about losing other units). I lost:
BAU: 1
Alpha: 10
MOUT: 7
Heavy: 5
Scouts: 19



(the guy in the middle is La Fayette trying to learn how to avoid losses under heavy alien attack)

[La Fayette]

As previously stated, I shall be playing Alexandre from now on, making use of experience acquired during my previous attempt and good advice from Marquis de Sodaq and DrFell.
16 objective cities to conquer (or destroy), according to DrFell's listing.
Results next thursday.
Anyone willing to have a try (even without previous experience) is welcome (no one compells you to publish your results, if you feel shy or disappointed).
Nach Indus!



(the guy to the right is SG(1) back from the crusade, getting advice from DrFell, just before having a try at beating his record)

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Those pesky short people in the house have demanded later bedtimes, cramping my civ time! My Alexander has yet to march on Tyre since my last post. This weekend we will mount up and see what it takes to sack those objectives...

[La Fayette]

Very ugly mistake: La Fayette forgets the Nile

DrFell, you are safe.
I was planning to win in October 331 (1 turn from your record).
2 cities left: Sagala and Memphis. I take Sagala. The walls of Memphis are down. My first elephant attacks the first of 3 archers inside the city... and dies.
The Nile, my friends. I forgot the Nile

Nevertheless, here is a short log (cities conquered):
March 334: Ephesus (bribe)
April 334: Military camp
May 334: Sardis
July 334: Miletus (bribe)
December 334: Ancyra
July 333: Nisibus
October 333: Ecbatana
March 332: Susa
June 332: Aradus
July 332: Bactra
October 332: Tyre
November 332: Elephantine (close to Sagala)
December 332: Persepolis
February 331: Gaza, Halicarnassus
July 331:Rhodes, Pelusium
October 331: Sagala
February 330: Memphis

Of course, I should have beaten you, DrFell, since this was a second try, but I didn't; mostly due to some nasty mistakes in the endgame.
Main differences between what you did and what I tried to do :
1) Selling improvements (I did not sell anything before quite late in the game; I don't say I'm right; I say it breaks my heart)
2) Caravans (I had promised myself not to be such a trademonger this time, and I delivered only 4 caravans to Rhodes)
3) Diplomats (I built dozens of them and had a look at each city before each attack)
4) Losses (really not so heavy, mostly as a consequence of having a look before fighting)
5) Bribing (I had promised myself not to be such a city briber, and in fact I bribed only 3 cities)
6) Splitting the army (DrFell split after Nisibis, one army eastbound, one southbound; I chose to let Halicarnassus and Rhodes live at peace (for a while ), then same with Persepolis; this means I was fighting 4 different fights in the end game).

Have a nice time, guys (I stated previously that this is not a challenge, especially because of the slight differences between versions, but all records are to be beaten, even if our main aim is discussing strategy)

[La Fayette]

I lost 29 units (7 chariots, 6 elephants, ...)
The AI lost 104.

[La Fayette]

DrFell
It seems that no one (apart from poor me who forgot the Nile )had anything to post mentioning results close to or better than what you achieved with Alexandre.
I grant you the golden crown of Emperor of the Macedonian Greeks ( cheers!: there is a bottle of Gaillac ready in my cellar).

It also seems that no one had anything to post mentioning results close to or better than what I achieved with X-Com.
But no medals are going to be granted now, because of the previously stated pattern: week #1, first try, week #2, discussion and second try.
Therefore, I shall have my second try at X-Com from tomorrow on.

(if someone has a good idea about what might be played after that, please let us know; SG(1) suggested that Napoleon or the crusades might be interesting, but we have got one week left to decide)


(those guys are Apolytoners who haven't tried the scenario challenge yet)

[Fubla]

Not to appear impertinent or incompetent or anything in between, but where might a person get a copy of the Alexandre scenario?