When did I lose this game?

[uberjz]

Hi all, I'm a bit confused about this game I just played.

Quick Summary:
I'm China vs Germany on Wabakimi. I know my opponent will FF mercs, so I do an age 2 timing that hits right when he ages. I'm quite careless with my unit control and all of his vils escape, although I take out his TC. My opponent manages to train a frigate, which neutralizes my entire 40+ unit colonial army. Now he has better eco, map control, and a tech advantage; all I have is a mass of useless age 2 units. From this point on, strange as it may seem, I really felt like I was in a lost position, and there was nothing I could have done.

I didn't know what to do, so I just walled up and tried to be annoying. However I had less eco and could never engage his army. Luckily my opponent disconnected because of bad internet, but this game was his win.

My question is, was I really lost after my opponent got the frigate out?
Scores were still even at that point, and my opponent's eco wasn't that much better. I didn't see what I could do from that position, but my perspective is limited and maybe someone can help broaden it.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I'll watch this game this weekend if noone answers before.

[Rohbrot]

I'll watch this game this weekend if noone answers before.

Nobody at ur lvl will watch it anyways, ur great!

[oxaloacetate]

Total nub and I haven't watched the recording, but given your presumptions are correct, you are answering your own question.

You claim he has:
- Economical advantage (vills)
- Military advantage (what mercs were available?)
- Tech (age advantage)
- Map advantage (due to the frig, which also is huge considering it's floating, uncounterable cannon in age 2, which is in the center of the map)

Seems his position is solid even without the frig, after a few batches of decent mercs and a merc shipment vs 40 pop of paper. The paper units vs mercs, after he gets a mass to stabilize, are basically just inflating your score, so it probably isn't so even in score, as the numbers make it out to be.
I can't see how this isn't over, unless you seriously outplay him or he allows you to age/outeco by being extremely passive. Neither of which should realistically happen.

[deleted_user]

[n0el]

If you see ollie9999
time to resign
He eats the seed
Then he types ez

[CuCkO0]

I've viewed it quickly and honestly I don't think it was actually over yet.

[deleted_user]

I've viewed it quickly and honestly I don't think it was actually over yet.

gonna have to disagree with you on this one bud

[fightinfrenchman]

I didn't watch and I'm not a good player, but I can safely say that I don't really have an opinion one way or another

[rsy]

Hey! Great rec thanks for posting.

I would say picking a water deck on that map would be very beneficial.
If you had found the SWs that were mining coin in the back that could've been good enough damage to end the game right there too.
During the first push that killed the TC, you could've macro'd the age up in the back a bit better, like you transitioned to food/coin perfectly but I think the sentries popping were maybe a bit of an overkill.

Tiny detail on the pikes vs uhlans, base pikes do 35 damage to uhlans each hit, so 175 on the 5th hit and colonial uhlans have 180 HP (so overall needing a sixth hit. So splitting the bows for one shot on each uhlan would net u one less hit from the pikes being needed.

For the ending I think it was pretty close. U had killed a factory, could've killed the other. I think everything depended on how well u defended that last push.

[deleted_user]

not close

[uberjz]

Hey! Great rec thanks for posting.

I would say picking a water deck on that map would be very beneficial.
If you had found the SWs that were mining coin in the back that could've been good enough damage to end the game right there too.
During the first push that killed the TC, you could've macro'd the age up in the back a bit better, like you transitioned to food/coin perfectly but I think the sentries popping were maybe a bit of an overkill.

Tiny detail on the pikes vs uhlans, base pikes do 35 damage to uhlans each hit, so 175 on the 5th hit and colonial uhlans have 180 HP (so overall needing a sixth hit. So splitting the bows for one shot on each uhlan would net u one less hit from the pikes being needed.

For the ending I think it was pretty close. U had killed a factory, could've killed the other. I think everything depended on how well u defended that last push.

The thing is, most of those things are just details; even if I had aged a bit faster, or killed his uhlans more efficiently, it wouldn't have changed the overall picture of the game. Finding the SW's mining coin in the back would have been nice, but that's mostly luck and I can't rely on that to win a game.

Taking a water deck would have helped for sure; but if my opponent builds an outpost on the island (i think he did?), even the Fuchuan shipment would not be enough to contest the pond, and I'm once again in the same situation where opponent has full map control due to his central frigate.

Edit: also the ending has to be lost for me. Even if he deletes the factory and his land army, I just have no way to contest the pond vs his monitors. Eventually he will win

[uberjz]

Total nub and I haven't watched the recording, but given your presumptions are correct, you are answering your own question.

You claim he has:
- Economical advantage (vills)
- Military advantage (what mercs were available?)
- Tech (age advantage)
- Map advantage (due to the frig, which also is huge considering it's floating, uncounterable cannon in age 2, which is in the center of the map)

Seems his position is solid even without the frig, after a few batches of decent mercs and a merc shipment vs 40 pop of paper. The paper units vs mercs, after he gets a mass to stabilize, are basically just inflating your score, so it probably isn't so even in score, as the numbers make it out to be.
I can't see how this isn't over, unless you seriously outplay him or he allows you to age/outeco by being extremely passive. Neither of which should realistically happen.

IDK if the position is as bad as I made it sound, you should really check the rec. I was almost up, and I destroyed most of his infrastructure, and he didn't have many res. Without the frig he would've been lost for sure.

The frig was just really strong. 1200 res investment shuts down an entire age 2 army

[deleted_user]

So you lost because you sent 700w and 300e and 9 pikes just to kill a 500w building and 2 houses and 1 market. I sent 3 sw 700w 2 sw with two trading posts. You killed all of one villager while they ran from the TC to the frigate, meanwhile I killed 8 of your own vills with shipment uhlans. And after shipping jaegers and making a few black riders your entire military investment can be picked off for free, yes. And I would've picked them off for free if you didn't immediately research bastion and hole up prolonging the inevitable until my game crashed.

You lost because warships are OP on Wabakimi and you didn't have warships in deck (nor did I) and because you didn't castle on the water (nor did I) and because you didn't build a dock and train a warship (I did). You lost because a frigate killed your Summer Palace wonder and a monitor killed your Porcelain Tower and multiple frigates and multiple monitors killed all of your units later.

You lost because after killing 800w worth of buildings, you took the TP route and upgraded stagecoach only for me to take the route back immediately, and hold it until my game crashed.

You lost because you made 158 units and killed 39 and because you gathered 49900 res and I gathered 62400 res.

[uberjz]

Hey Callen,

Thanks for the writeup.

You listed many reasons why I lost, all of them valid. However, I find that every defeat has a primary cause; e.g a critical mistake or misunderstanding that has disproportionate weight, and matters more than the rest of the mistakes combined. This heuristic has served me well in the past.

I think the primary reason for this loss was me not appreciating the strength of warships in general. I've always been more comfortable on land, and never familiarized myself with water play and water combat. Because of this, when I took out your shipment point and sent your vils running, I assumed I had already won. Indeed on a land map I doubt you would have been able to mass up any kind of army before I hunted down the vils. Unfortunately the map had a central pond, and I didn't recognize that a single warship would be enough to stop my entire army. In hindsight, that early timing was much riskier than I thought. I really had to be precise with my unit control, and kill as many vils as possible. But because I thought it didn't matter anyways, I was sloppy and let them get away.

I guess the game really was lost after that. gg. Sorry about the crash.

[Challenger_Marco]

Oh smurf revealed didn't know woodpusher was you.Anyways China should win german mercs ,if you know he goes mercs then you can safely FF and mass at base & win.I'm criticizing your strategy here,so far i was successfull with std china ff 1 win vs poca & another win vs vardar(both ger merc build).I tried rushing Riotcoke once but it failed ,it was slow rush so didn't work,not sure how good rush is but FF feels better option because you can expand eco as well ,while rush limits eco ,try it next time & tell me how it goes,but i didn't watch this game to answer sorry,prolly someone with better mechanics can.

[DoctorSulla]

There were a quite a few mistakes but I think the biggest thing I saw was no market until 13 minutes in. Your eco would have been much more solid and the hp upgrade for your villagers is almost always a good investment vs German.

[harcha]

you clicked in vs china LOL

[Riotcoke]

German mercs aren't good, just deny the mines and you win.

[harcha]

German mercs aren't good, just deny the mines and you win.

yes and no. in this mu you don't really wander out of your base early fortress as china

[Riotcoke]

German mercs aren't good, just deny the mines and you win.

yes and no. in this mu you don't really wander out of your base early fortress as china

Yea but if you scout the saloon you can just go forward, also china tends to be one of the best civs vs mercs as you have so many different types of units.