Rise Of Nations game

[tweber]

Here is the NW part fo the map. This was an unfolding disaster. Most of the large island shown was controlled by the FC (my ally) for most of the game. The LL invaded and was well on the way of conquering the entire continent. The island on the NE was one of my big production areas (2 capitals and a city). It was not defended but would likely see action in the next 10 turns.

[tweber]

Here is the North Center part of the map. The situation here was not great either. The LL managed to get a foothood on an under defended FC island with a major capital. I would have a big fleet there by the mud turn, but I was worried that it is to little to late. The island to the north and center had one of my major capitals. The isthmus about 15 hexes NNE of the WT front had my central supply.

The initial encounter between the GS and the WT did not go well. My AF got trounced and I am scrambling to find fighters to get to that front. I foolishing approached the WT front and got hit hard by artillery. The WT has a powerful unit mix and I was not sure that I would hold this isthmus. With the campaign in the south winding down, I would probably send a lot of reinforcements here and would have predicted that the line would settle down about 5 -10 hexes to the north.

[tweber]

Here is the NE and the GS homeland. In the south and center of the map is the penisula that I originally invaded from the CC. George played this defense beautifully and it took 20 turns to capture these woods with overwhelming air and sea power. This 8x8 area held much better and much longer than the large continent to the south. I think the key was that he used the terrain so well and never let me get a foot hold. He through off several invasions. Once I did get established, he wisely retreated to a strong fall back position. He was very good at choosing his ground.

[tweber]

Here is the Central Western part of the map. The large continent was the LL homeland and Seille built a ton of factories here. Seille was masterful at optimizing production. I have not played with the standard unit set often and did not realize that factories were so cheap. He built a factory basically every 3 hexes and was able to turn around the production war.

The island to the NW just south of the FC was one of George's remaining strong holds. I figured that I would need to get 50 artillery ashore to win this island and it would be to difficult with the LL to the south so I bypassed this area. George posted on several occasions that he thought the end was near. But in fact, this island would have probably held out for quite a long time.

To the south, you can see the beginnings of the JI territory.

[tweber]

This is the center of the map and the homeland of the WT. I was really worried about the WT offensive in the north. I launch a raid in the south. I also launched a few air strikes along the east coast as a distraction. I am only hoping to hold here.

I am worried that the WT will also try to slip ships to the north. I had sent a fleet to the south but split it to send some ships back north.

[Arditi]

  Great game gents.  I highly enjoyed it.  I believe we will call Tom the winner; though it was still up in the air.  He had the initiative it appears.  It's going to be dificult to determine 2nd and 3rd place due to the game not finishing.  Perhaps I would have been second since I was loyal ally to Tom?  I'll leave it at that.  I guess third would have been Giacomo or George?  I did save one of his cities, but he had to decline further play due to a month of travel.  Enjoyable game all around.  I hope we can play again.
  Best to all, Russ[:)]

[tweber]

Here is the Central eastern part of the map. After I got past George's major capital on the isthmus south of the wooded penisula, I had 3 options - go east to the small fortified island held by the CC, head south vs the LL or go west to the large CC island. Based on the LL production and the lack of the need for an amphibious landing, I head south.

In the NE, I am building an arc of artillery around George's island. I am at the point were I can take out about 5000 pts of production a turn. George was able to repair this engineers. I think I would have needed about 4-5 more turns of artillery builds to be able to wipe out the major capital regularly. I think I could have had this island in about 6-8 turns, especially with the campaign in the south winding down.

A couple of factors lead to the success of the campaign:

- There was not great coordination between the CC and the LL. I was able to shield my units from the LL unit the CC was well clear.
- I found some key HQs that were not well protected and destroyed them with dive bomber attacks. This unhinged the line as the LL could not deploy any production to the front.
- Finally, the LL kept throwing defensive lines immediately to the front. My experienced troops with good artillery and air support were able to destroy most of the fresh troops.

To be fair, coordination is very difficult among allies. I tried to share the front vs the WT and it was a mess. I was also guilty of trying to guard every hex vs a strong WT unit mix. I think the only player who made wise choices about sacrificing territory was George.

[tweber]

The was the SW part of the map. This was the JI homeland. I found the LL for about 30 turns along the West map edge (mapped looped). Here is were Seille repeated crushed my airforce.

Along the northern water is where my one mega fleet was located. It had about 18 cruisers, 18 destroyers, 1 battleship and 3 cv and a few subs. It was very difficult to keep this fleet in supply and I had to withdraw from many good opportunities to stay fueled. I was supplied via sea and had alot of cargo ships in my main HQ. But, I was still tethered to a about a 10-15 hex radius to my base.

[tweber]

This is the South Central part of the map. I controlled the long island on the West side for most of the game except I was beseiging the lone town in the NE corner for about 30 turns. I had to build about 20 artillery to take the position. The only challenge is that I had no good options now to redeploy all the artillery.

To the north, you see the raid I launched on the WT island. It is in teh process of getting thrown off. To the center, is a very strong island that George gave to Seille about 30-40 turns ago. This island has a capital and a major capital and lots of other production. It would have been very difficult to overcome.

[tweber]

This is the South East part of the map. In the north, my GS is almost done with the campaign vs the LL. I actually moved a bit slower this turn as I would rather fight the LL here with all my artillery than somewhere else. I have about 80 artillery here and it is not going anywhere soon.

My JI to the South is fighting on two island vs the LL. I actually withdrew air support from the southern island to focus on the capital to the north. I had both air forces attack and lost alot of planes but reduced the position. I have loaded cargo ships ready to land next turn. I think I could have taken the island with the capital as it is very narrow. There is no defense in depth possible. It is also in fighter intercept range of the main continent to the north. This is more of a big river crossing than an invasion.

The island to the West would have been very difficult. I would probably need to get 50-60 guns across which means my beachhead would have been extremely vulnerable.

[tweber]

Overall, this map was so large and movement was slow so it is hard to say that the outcome was clear.  Seille was going to pick up alot of production from Arditti in the north.  I was going to pick up some production from him in the SE and from George in the CE.  I think in the next 10-15 turns, the map might have gotten very stable with each side having strong holds on some of the continents that would have been hard to overcome.  AT is usually a game that tilts quickly to one side or another.  But, with a map with slow ships and lots of big continents, I would not have been surprised if alot of the fronts became very stable.

[tweber]

You learn alot playing with good players, and Seille, Arditti, George and Giacomo did a great job.  Here are some tips I picked up.  I do not normally play with the standard unit set so here are some pointers:
 
- Keeping large stacks of planes anywhere but in a capital or major capital with lots of flak is risky.  A player can knock out your base and it can unhinge an air campaign.  I think the threat of bombing attacks will keep my stacks of planes in a single location lower.
- You do not want large stacks of ships, they cannot be kept in supply.  If an opponent has a mega stack, wait until you see him limping away 1 hex at a time and scoop up the stack.
- Keep important HQ's well protected.  A concerted dive bombing campaign can wipe out an HQ.
- If you have the DB and find and exposed HQ, attack with your largest groups first and work your way down.  I had a 17 plane group, a bunch of 10-12 plane groups and a few 5 plane groups.  You need these different sizes because the attacked troops will both die and retreat.  After a while, you are continually slicing the survivors in half.  Near the end, you can do this with smaller groups.
- I really like the Level Bomber II.  It has an extra hex of range.  This means it has 20% greater hex coverage that the LB.  Also, it does twice as much structural damage as the LB.  This is a huge increase in capability vs the base LB.  To put this in perspective, you only increase structural damage by 66% going from LB II to LB IV
- I think the fighter IV (which the LL, the JI and the FC invested in) may be too expensive.  For the price of the upgrade, you could have any additional 100 fighter III in the game (based on our research setting) or invest in 4 level 2 upgrades.  The JI might have done better with flak II, rifle III, and artillery II.
- Ships carry 20 rounds of supply by default.  Planes and infantry soak up alot of supply from carriers and cargoships.  I am not sure that the carriers were worth it.  I was the only player to invest in CVs (but I also had a good ship tally).
- No when to give ground.  Avoid the temptation to set up your defensive line next to the enemy.  You will do much worse off in the long run.
- The payback on factories is very low.  If you have this setting on, built as many factories as possible.
 
A couple of exploits were also found during this game:
 
- HQs with no units cannot be destroyed via air attack, HQs with unit can be destroyed by air attack.  Right now, it you want you reinforcements to get delivered to a front were you do not control the sky, have them delivered to an HQ with no units.  Just make sure the HQ is protected from ground assault.
- Ships can be blocked by empty enemy shells and cannot retreat if they lose a battle.  Hotfix 1.22 tries to fix a related issue by prevent the transfer of unit counters via sea.  This does not fix the problem as empty units still block retreat.  It just makes the exploit harder to set up.  There is also a bit downside to this fix.  You can no longer split ship units while at sea.  So, it is very important to have your fleet travel in a series of units to maintain operational flexibitility.  There is a similar problem on land combat.  Land units cannot retreat into a painted, but otherwise empty hex.  It would be nice if retreat was possible if there were no enemy power points in the hex.
- With wx, the first player does have an advantage (though you would not believe it looking at my casualty numbers).  He can build up for a few turns and then strike when the wx changes.  To defend, disperse you planes and keep them in bigger production centers with cruiser and / or flak protection.
 

[springer]

I understand why the game had to end. (Though, I'm sorry to see it go!)

I wanted to say, however, that I thoroughly enjoyed watching this game from the sidelines.  Before this game, I couldn't imagine  myself watching and kibitzing as player moved through a PBEM if I wasn't involved in it.  But it in my opinion, it was one of the best "as it happens" action reports a non-participant could experience.

It had all the ingredients: good game play, great well-matched players, plenty of fog of war, surprise diplomatic moves, and good banter

Besides the great game play, there were two additional things that I felt made this "During Action Action Report" superb:
1. Tweber's willingness to take the time and document the action regularly.  The extra effort that it took created a real sense of suspense us onlookers and gave a context for the ebb and flow of player's comments.  Without those reports, this would have been just another pbem report. Thanks also for the wrap up.

2. Arditi's role as "game master". I particularly appreciated his humor with his light-hearted posts and his sense of gamesmanship.  His sense of humor became most clear when the tide turned against him.  (I'm also impressed that he offered up prizes to winners!)


It'd be great to see another similar game with an "as it happens-action-report" in the future.

[Arditi]

  Thanks for the kind words gents!  This was a great bunch of guys.  Turns were quick and deadly...especially against me. [;)]  I learned quite a bit from them.  We must do another one soon.
  Best Regards, Arditi[:)]

[george1972]

All in all I learned a lot from this game and I want to thank everybody who participated. This was my first real game with shipping involved and my inexperience here led me to build my first transport in turn 8 or so, which was why my empires were very small compared to the others. Despite this I think I gave everyone who attacked me (that would be mostly Tom) a good challenge but ultimately in AT when you have less production, you're simply doomed.

Having thought about that, I think I would like to play a game with "hardcore logistics" turned on sometime in the future. Currently if you control a big empire with a huge production base, you cannot be strategically surprised by a smaller enemy and suffer greatly. If the enemy sneaks by somewhere and invades in a soft spot, you can simply divert all your production to the threatened area in a single turn and summon a huge army out of nowhere and ultimately contain the attack since you can always outproduce your opponent. I think hardcore logistics (or some other means where production/built units travel as fast as they can when in a unit) would give smaller, more agile armies a fighting chance against much bigger empires, where now I feel fighting is hopeless unless your opponent is less than competent (or knows fewer "tricks" than you do).

As Tom said, in AT usually the game "tilts" dramatically beyond a certain point and I think one of the main reasons is the current production logistics system. Nevertheless, it still is fun to play against other players and especially when there are multiple parties and lots of shifting in alliances.