EMW

Yesterday we played a very exciting 3v3 emw game. Tobacco was no doubt the most valuable rare in the game in my opinion. We also had marble and diamonds, a perfect combo for wonder spamming. The other team had 3 library rares. Navy rares were distributed evenly, we had copper, they had citrus.
We had many land and sea battles and close wonder races.

Last edited by Petek on Sun Dec 25, 2011 2:58 am; edited 2 times in total

SPOILER dont read this,if you dont wanna know the outcome!
Yea,it was a gg,from IV i thought we were gonna lose it,but nice teamwork has won us the game
SPOILER END

2 thing ,

1) Raider , you were late to rsearch knowledge in age VI , else your knowledge woulda been +999 like 2-3 mins before before(+860 at that time)..

2) Cock_Rocket speaks alot!!

1) Even worse than that, I forgot to advance to modern age.

2) 1 And I didn't notice that he was talking during the game, thought it was Dave. And I missed like half of the messages during the game.

Yea,was funny,Raider kept answering Cock's questions to me

I watched this one and really gg, i dont know what to notice, but red should do a better performance in no-noob game well, really good job, and good recovering after failed invasion. !

How come every game Raider plays he has Copper? Stop Haxing Raider! 113

Anyways it was a 2v3 since the beginning Red had Bantu but he didn't do much with them. He didn't boom or give you guys a hand. Reminds me of Papi haha!

I don't think the invasion failed. It forced the opponents to focus on army instead of booming, especially important that Greeks didn't boom. We lost the city because I left with my army, so we lost a city but destroyed a wonder and sacked a cap. When I watched the rec I think it was good that we lost it, because Dave didn't have a university there (destroyed by artilery).

Last edited by Petek on Fri Dec 30, 2011 4:33 pm; edited 1 time in total

2 more good emw games.

Some thoughts on emw games. Besides rares and nation powers influencing the outcome of the game, I think that the team with a plan and cooperative play usually wins. Even though these games last several ages, they are usually decided in ancient and classical eras.
Here is why:
- Raiding fishermen is important early, later in the game it is almost pointless. Later in the game caravans, taxation, markets and merchants provide more than enough wealth income, but early loss will result in slower knowledge gathering. This is especially devastating for the player that constructed the pyramids, who wants to boom with extra university, but can't afford the scholars. It can also decide a wonder race, the raided player will not have enough resources for the wonder when he ages and will start construction later than opponent. Losing food income also hurts less later in the game. Players who researched com2 and lost fishermen will be very late to age.
- Early wonders are extremely powerful. Almsot always players that constructed them have the highest score. And later wonders are usually constructed by the owners of first ones. Wonder points victory is common on this map.
- Raiding land in ancient is crippling to ones economy, but if done well it slows down the whole opponent team. Merchants are costly and rare bonuses are important. This will force opponents to build barracks and units while your allies can take control of the sea and build wonders. The best nations for it are Bantu(speed, li uu), Aztecs(plunder, free li, li uu) and Spain(see all the rares, bonus from ruins if any are still left). Lakota is a menace of special caliber.
- Colonization is not as effective as it used to be, because we learned how to deal with it. But it is still a good strategy if you have fighting rares and your oppoents have booming ones(easier to raid them). And it makes the game more fun Don't forget to tower your cap back on home continent!
- Not scouting an important rare can decide the game!
- Classical rush: attacking by crossing the sea with army. Hard to do, need enough navy support for it, maning some teamwork. The best for this are Turks. Destroying a wonder can decide the game. Capturing a cap and defending if after quick assimilation can slow down the entire oppponent team.

Conclusion:
Players need to specialize: navy, land raid, colonization, fast age for wonder and/or fire ships and/or classical rush. Another option is booming by researching extra techs in ancient age, but even when doing this you should make some ships(especially if they are raiding your fishermen), you need mil to get eco to 150 anyway and you need to pile up food for those techs, not wood. If you just research the level 1 techs and cover the coast and then "boom" in classical you are making it 3v4(2v3) for your team in the most crucial stages of the game.
I am not saying that the outcome is set in stone in age II, you can still turn the game around with some good moves(like momo did in one of the games posted above^^), but only if you are not losing too badly.

What do the rest of you sailors think?

You pretty much summed it up in that Huge Paragraph.

Very nice post, and its all truth. But the game (especial EmW) is many times decided by such a stupid things which you cant predict ... 98

Good post Raider,i agree with most of your points.My personal opinion is raiding can be very good,but its also a risky strategy(on land i mean) because if you dont cause enough damage and lose your raiders you will be way behind.Thats why i prefer big sea battles and raiding land with few units only,like i did in a yesterday emw game when opponent team had copper and i raided if effectively 3 times

Btw,a lot of players dont research commerce even with silk because they rather get more knowledge than resources.When i can,i research com to get more resources(esp with col,cos otherwise u cant fit pop bonus),my favorite tactic is dutch com3 in ancient,with which u can have 300 eco in GP(200 commerce limit+senator 50+keeping all resource over 1k-->+50) and rule the sea while others can boom.