Set up everything. Double- and triple-check to make sure I have everything set up right. Always War. Maze map. 3 wide is fine for this one, though different widths could be ultra-cool. We're Napeleon. Prince level. Etc. Start the game.

Here's what we got...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/lotr20-4000bc.JPG

Clams. Probably the worst food resource, giving only +1 food. YUCK! And a lux resource we can't use until Calendar. I strongly debate moving, but I'm not sure where. Warrior one south reveals a little river, but nothing too exciting. I grumble but settle in place.

I start barracks (I want all our units to be experienced), as we don't have anything good to do with a worker. I also start Sailing as the first tech. Working water squares might be critical for commerce, even early on.

Warrior explores and gets 105 gold from a hut in 3880. He's still exploring (close to home) in 3720 when Fishing comes in. We go for Mining next. Still exploring in 3440 when both Mining and the barracks complete. Bronze Working and warrior planned.

In 3360, a bear in the north attacks our warrior. He was on a hill with jungle/forest. We won but will wait to heal before exploring further. 3360 sees the founding of Buddhism and Hinduism follows in 3280.

By 3240, our first barracks-improved warrior appears. He fortifies in Paris. Another warrior ordered. In 3080, Paris hits size 3, but I wait one more turn before starting a worker, to let the warrior finish.

In 2880, we pop another hut. Measly 37 gold. Why couldn't it have been Iron Working or something really useful?

We also find that up north, the land bends east and then quits. Our one starting non-barb front will be south. And we need to go south first, as that's where the copper is. But the scouting warrior down there (Combat II, fortified in jungle (+50%) with a bonus against barb animals) died to a bear. Not much else I could do with him.

After the worker, we'll need another 2-4 warriors and then a few settlers. After exploring more, I hate the location of Paris, but it's too late to change now. At least we can get copper with city #2. I'm working on moving towards Archery now, as some archers might be good, too, but that can be vetoed.

Here's the immediate south.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/lotr20-2800bc.JPG

Roster:
Arathorn
Jaffa Tamarin -- UP NOW
Arizona_Steve -- on deck
Greebley
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

Arathorn

One thing I feel we should discuss is whether we want to search out another civilization to attack and if so then when.

I think the answer is that we would like to find one other civ if we can (not 2 or more) especially since we have copper. With us rushing for copper, an early war could really cripple an AI before he is ready.

Such a plan should wait for a few Axemen. Perhaps we could start exploring once we have the Copper hooked up as it may take time to find the enemy. At that point we will have Axmen that we can gain experience with rather than dying and we can also prevent pillaging.

Before we have the ability to build axmen, I don't think we should explore.

Aha, already! I should be able to play after work tomorrow.

How many turns should I do?

Jaffa will play 20. Arizona_Steve will play 15. Then 10 for everybody.

I think I've changed my mind on hunting and archery. With axemen, our need for archers won't be critical early. I'd switch off and work towards Pottery to get some cottages up and going relatively early. The earlier you can get cottages, the more they pay off. Another option would be Sailing for Lighthouse, which would make the lake and the clams 3 food sites. For the clams, that's just as good as a workboat (minus the health bonus).

Arathorn

0) 2800BC - warriors from Paris head south to deal with the barbarian bear.

Why is there a half-square of delta visible in the fog way to the south?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/c00.jpg

2) 2720BC - our warriors kill the bear! Cheer!

3) 2680BC - a hastily scrawled note from previous leader is discovered down the back of the sofa. Research belatedly swapped from hunting to pottery.

Paris: worker -> warrior.

4) 2640BC - workers ordered to build a farm on the dyes square. We might as well make best use of it until we can get a plantation there.

7) 2520BC - scouts from the Persian empire are spotted on the land to the east. Nasty non-monkeyish infidels. Clearly they must be destroyed. We are at war!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/c01.jpg

Paris: warrior -> warrior.

10) 2400BC - orders are given for a second farm (and forest chop) west of Paris.

11) 2360BC - pottery research complete, start on sailing.

Paris: warrior -> warrior.

12) 2320BC - Japanese forces spotted to the south.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/c02.jpg

13) 2280BC - warriors promoted (Woodsman I) and fortify in the forest.

Japanese forces move NE.

14) 2240BC - our warriors move NE.

Japanese move W into forest.

15) 2200BC - we have a second warrior group heading south to assist.

A new forest grows south of Paris!

Japanese move N into grassland. Aha!

16) 2160BC our second warrior group gets the Shock promotion (+25% vs melee) and attacks the Japanese. A momentous struggle ensues. Tiny sprites swing clubs all over the place!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/c03.jpg

We win, down to 0.6 of 2 strength.

Our other warrior group moves to protect the injured group, and spots barbarians further south.

IT: Paris: warrior -> settler.

Barbarians attack our warrior group (the ones with Woodsman I promotion, and in forest), and are defeated, but bring our group down to 0.0 of 2 strength. :dubious:

17) 2120BC Injured warriors fortify in forest, and hope to be undisturbed until healed. Woodsman group gets the Medic I promotion.

IT: Cyrus adopts slavery civic.

20) 2000BC - workers start a forest chop, which can go on to become either farm or cottage at the discretion of the next leader.

Does the team have any grand strategies for plans for thwarting war weariness? Do you implement all of the WW reducers (Jails, Mt. Rushmore, Police State)? Do you just keep cranking up the culture slider and make it all go away? Focus on getting many religions, building lots of temples, and declare Free Religion? Seems like an issue that is going to require consistency and diligence to overcome. Beeline for happiness increasers, or beeline for WW reducers, or neither?

Perhaps just kill everyone so quickly that it never matters. :D

Got it for tomorrow.

@Vol: I think we can fight limited wars on a narrow front and keep war weariness under control. It's mostly fighting outside your cultural borders that cause war weariness, as I understand it. Semi-defensive fronts except with one foe. Expanding at the "right" rate, whatever that may be (still TBD, I think) against one foe at a time will hopefully help. It's my first AW game, so I'm taking a bit of a wait-and-see attitude. But I'm not going to be afraid to hole up and NOT attack for an entire turnset, if it will help with weariness. The LotR17 game showed some things about ww, as we did have reductions in time. I think we can get some similar stuff this game, if we're careful about how/when/who we attack.

0.0 of 2 strength.
Yeah, the display just always rounds strengths. Our warrior had 1 or 2 hps left, which means a strength of 0.2 or 0.4, which rounds to 0.0. Very silly, no? We were probably taking 14 points of damage and got hit 7 times. Extremely unlucky, but we did survive. That's two bad bouts of luck already in this game (I was a huge favorite against the bear, too). Hopefully, it's not an omen of things to come.

All-in-all, we need axes ASAP. That'll turn the odds way far in our favor.

BTW, when chopping, it's almost always better to chop and then improve. You never spend more turns but you get the chop hammers earlier.

Arathorn

One thing I recently learned: The AI will not always send units at you. However, if you drop off a unit and pillage, the AI will react by sending its armies at you.

Its like kicking a hornets next. We may be better off leaving some AI alone while we concentrate on another one. We can also pillage and then defend. When their attack peters out we go on the offensive. Given how strong defense is, this might work well.

It's like kicking a hornets nest.

:lol: :rotfl: :lol:

Cool, eh? :cool:

(0) 2000BC:
Quickly check Paris. Not a lot to be done.
Main objective is to get a second city up and connect the copper.

IT:
We are the least advanced civilization.

(2) 1920BC:
A third warrior joins two others in the forest south of our capital. I'll leave him unpromoted until I see what is heading our way.

IT:
Settler completes. There's no indication as to what else to build, so I start on a second worker. He'll improve the capital while our current worker roads out to the copper.

(4) 1840BC:
Sailing comes in. I see no immediate use for any tech other than Iron Working, so I start that. A second city should reduce the research time substantially.

(5) 1800BC:
Orleans is founded on a hill next to the copper. It starts on a barracks.

(11) 1560BC:
Second worker completed at Paris. Some indecision as to what to build here. Warriors will be pretty much obsolete at this point with copper about to be connected. Work boats are vulnerable to pillaging, so I start a galley which will protect the work boats to come.
Our copper gets a mine. Road started.
Move our warrior group down one tile and find some wines available.

(13) 1480BC:
OK. Pick another forest to chop. I go for the one on the hill, which can then be mined for extra production.
Copper is connected to our cities.

(15) 1400BC:
Orleans completed a barracks last turn, starts an axeman.
Paris will grow next turn, which will bring it up to it's happy limit. The worker there is chopping the forest on a hill there, and a mine can be built afterwards to pump up production (and stagnate growth). A galley will allow clams to be connected via fishing boat for extra health.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_BC-1400.jpg

LotR20 Wild War - 1400BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_BC-1400.zip)

Clams. Probably the worst food resource, giving only +1 food. YUCK!

Are you being facetious?

ALL food resources only provide +1 food at the beginning (heck EVERY resource only provides +1 ANYTHING to start). You have to IMPROVE them to get more than that (and clams provide +2 with fishing boats which is the same as crabs and better than rice - the REAL worst food resource).

Req

:lol: :rotfl: :lol:

Cool, eh? :cool:

Ya, I like. :D It certainly has intersesting ramifications for AW.

I got it. I will probably play tomorrow night.

I think I will work on getting some cottages up and running.

I would also kick out another settler or two, Greebley. We'll want to claim the north relatively soon. If not for the fact that the copper is exposed, I'd say Orleans would make a good frontline city (being on a hill and all). As it is, we NEED to keep that copper, so we'll probably need another city further south to be the lightning rod for aggressive AIs, just to protect the copper.

Research-wise, I think going for Metal Casting and Forges relatively soon will be key. We'll need a ton of production. As an Industrious civ, we get forges cheaply. Plus, we have gold in the north (and a bit east), which provides two happies with a forge instead of just one.

Roster:
Arathorn -- on deck
Jaffa Tamarin
Arizona_Steve
Greebley -- UP NOW
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

Arathorn

Thinking about it, I'd be inclined to add Animal Husbandry to the list of "essential" techs to see if we have horses. Fast units would be helpful.

Maze is one of those "interesting" maps that likes to fool the eye. You get very different flavors with the different widths, too. For instance, Widths 4 and 5 cannot cross the water with galleys. Widths 1 and 2 can. Width 1 means ships can cross through cities, too. Width 3 means galleys can cross where the borders extend in to the ocean.

With a Width 3 layout, I would be surprised if you only have to worry about "two fronts". :lol:


- Sirian

Sorry but I dont understand that comment :

A galley will allow clams to be connected via fishing boat for extra health.

Can you enlighten me ?

Sure. We need the galleys to guard our fishing nets (work boats) from being pillaged by enemy ships. I could've phrased that better.

Preturn: No changes.

1320 AD: The forest chop gets us the Galley. Start on a work boat.
Go for shields over food as growing doesn't help us at all (max happiness).

1160 AD: Spot and instantly declare war on Alexander. I do like that feature of Civ4. You can't forget to declare war.

1120 AD: Get an Axman and a Workboat.

1080 AD: Go for Animal Husbandry next to find horses.

There is iron to the north. We can place a town to grab the cows, rice and iron.

1040 AD: Spot a Barb Town we could go for

1000 AD: Move the Axman and warriors next to the Barbarian town.

I accidentally hit enter so the year is 975BC. I moved no units however.

The two workers were going to both build roads - to the iron and to the Barbarian city if we want to keep it. It would mean that there is one less settler we need to produce, however, I am unsure how good the spot is. I wouldn't want to place the town on the floodplains. It could go where our stack is standing now assuming that is on the river.

Here is a picture of the barbarian camp. It is not far outside our borders.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/LotR20_BC975.jpg

I also made a dot map for the northern part. I see two towns.

For the gold I like the idea of planting the town right on the gold (unless this doesn't act like civ3 and we need a mine). That way it won't be pillaged and the town has better defense. It can also reach the cows and the single grasslands. Note that we cannot get irrigation up there until biology.

The other town, I chose on the river, but also gets the iron right away.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/LotR20_BC975a.jpg

The two workers were going to both build roads - to the iron and to the Barbarian city if we want to keep it. It would mean that there is one less settler we need to produce, however, I am unsure how good the spot is. I wouldn't want to place the town on the floodplains. It could go where our stack is standing now assuming that is on the river.

Roster:
Arathorn -- UP NOW
Jaffa Tamarin -- on deck
Arizona_Steve
Greebley
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

I guess I'm the one to decide on the barb city. With this maze map, I tend to think cities "in the middle" are going to be of low value. They'll have 6 non-workable squares, not get trade route benefits, and not really even have any extra land squares to work. As much as I like saving settlers, I think razing is the best option. Other thoughts/opinions?

Planting a city on a resource does instantly connect it, yes. It does significantly cut down on the fhc of the improved tile, but it's a trade-off worth making occasionally. What I don't like about the north plan is that it wastes a TON of squares. While working every square every turn isn't quite as significant as in Civ3, it's still not a good idea to waste a large number of tiles. I think four cities belong up there. South of the rice (claims a fish, too, if memory serves), the tundra square 4 north of that city, west of the cows, and then one more in the far northeast (either the tundra hill or the grassland) makes more sense to me.

I don't think we need to be in a huge hurry to connect iron. Axes are very good general troops and swordsmen, while better, aren't critical. You need some source of metal, but it's rarely critical to have both hooked up immediately. I'd be willing to wait with the iron to get better city placements in the north.

I don't know if I'll have time/energy tonight, but I would like to hear others' thoughts on these issues.

Arathorn

I'd move both cities (red dots) one tile to the west. One then gets a river, and the other gets the gold hill to mine. I'm pretty sure that settling on a resource loses that resource. Sirian, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Raze and replace the barbarian city for the reason Arathorn mentioned.

So the red dot is not on the river? I would definitely move it then.

If we lose the commerce by settling on the gold, then definitely move the city.

Note that what we really want is to connect up the gold but it is far away. Our capitol is stuck at a mere size 5 until we get other resources. We may also want to prioritize Monarchy so we both get the wines for an extra happiness and the ability to use MP. We could then grow to size 10 or so which is much better.

Lurker's comment:

You don't lose a resource when you settle on top of it. You do lose the amount of food/commerce/production that is added when you build the improvement (mine/plantation/camp/etc) to connect that resource. For the case of the gold, gold only gives +1 commerce unimproved. So that desert hill is only 1 hammer and 1 commerce, therefore the city square will provide the normal 2 food, 1 hammer, 1 commerce. Meanwhile, adding a mine to a gold tile will generate +1 hammer and +6 commerce. So by founding on the gold you'd be losing 6 commerce. There are times when founding on a resource is good, though. For instance, I like to found cities on plains ivory. Ivory gives +1 production unimproved. So if you found on plains ivory the city square is 2 food, 2 production, 1 commerce like founding on a plains hill. Building a camp on ivory only gives +1 production and +1 commerce. So by founding on the plains ivory you change the tile to 2/2/1 instead of 1/3/1. That's a good tradeoff in my book.

Thanks for the info Shillen. That is good to know.

I continued trying to expand at a reasonable pace. We do need to get to the gold in the north before too long. But I settled by the rice (and fish) instead, as I think not reaching TOO far is the better plan. After the lighthouse, Paris can crank a few more settlers. Lyons is the new city.

Razing the barb city was easy. We had plenty of troops. No losses. I have them healing and/or positioned in the south to keep visibility high. They're in pretty defensible terrain and getting fortification bonii. But we do need to keep expansion going. I've been building a few Axemen for our empire out of Orleans, but we might want to try a quick wonder or something at some point.

Tech-wise, I don't think we need Horseback Riding right away. Axemen will be fine for a while. I went to Writing -- libraries are very good for both research improvement and culture. We may want to skip Alphabet all-together, but Literature is off Alphabet and the Epics are kind of nice. We may want to push to Monarchy after Writing.

We're looking SAD in demographics.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/lotr20-demographics.JPG

Roster:
Arathorn
Jaffa Tamarin -- UP NOW
Arizona_Steve -- on deck
Greebley
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

Arathorn

I'd move both cities (red dots) one tile to the west.

Yep. I'd do that, too. Also some room for two half-cities up there, depending on how things go later.


- Sirian

I got it for sometime this weekend.

0) 750BC - nothing to do.

1) 725BC - warriors pillage city ruins.

IT: research: Writing -> Monarchy (well, Mysticism).

2) 700BC - time passes.

IT: barbarian warriors spotted approaching from the north.

3) 675BC - workers start a farm on Lyon's rice.

IT: barbarians suicide against our northern warrior group, fortified on hill.

4) 650BC - time passes.

IT: Paris: lighthouse -> settler.

5) 625BC - workers start forest chop outside Paris (which will be the last if we want to keep 3 forests for the health bonus).

IT: research: Mysticism -> hmmmm .. Masonry would let us go for Pyramids, which would give us all the government civics without any of that inconvenient researching (can you say "police state" :) ). We don't have any stone though, so no production boost.

*ponders*

Masonry is cheap. I'll do masonry, and let the team decide if we want to go after Pyramids, as they wouldn't get started on my turn anyway.

Orleans: axeman -> axeman.

6) 600BC - time passes.

7) 575BC - a couple of axemen are loaded on our galley and shipped over to the east to explore (and, of course, strike fear into the hearts of our enemies).

8) 550BC - time passes.

IT: research: Masonry -> Polytheism (which gives us the option of going for Monotheism and organized religion).

Greek archers sneak into the jungle (and on a hill, and they are woodsmen (edit: not woodsmen, whatever the promotion is that gives bonus to hills defense)) beside our axemen.

9) 525BC - one group of axemen gets the Cover promotion for +25% vs archery units.

IT: Greek archers move off hill into forest.

10) 500BC - ..

http://dailyanimals.net/images/c04.jpg

http://dailyanimals.net/images/c05.jpg

Our glorious axemen achieve a glorious victory against the evil Greeks!

Paris will finish settler this turn. If we want to go for pyramids, it should probably start on them immediately.

Monarchy does have the advantage of the +1 happiness for wine, so it is still of use even if we go for Pyramids.

We are Industrious, as I recall. So we do get some bonus for wonders. If we can take the ~20 turn hit in military/settlers/workers, I'd say go for it. I tend to think it would have a good chance of success, and be very worthwhile (not only do you get them, the Great Engineer points will often lead to another wonder).

Roster:
Arathorn
Jaffa Tamarin
Arizona_Steve -- UP NOW
Greebley -- on deck
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

We need to keep settling the north, though. City #3 (Lyon) can probably start doing its part to fill the north. Another worker probably and then a settler.

Arathorn

(0) 500BC:
Switch Paris over to automated, and eke out an extra food in addition to the eight hammers/turn.
Orleans needs a worker out there to max out efficiency when it has to stop growing. It's at size four and at it's happy and health limits.
Lyons is fine for now.

IT:
Paris - Settler -> Pyramids (going along with what appears to be team concensus).

(1) 475BC:
A barbarian warrior appeared in the North. We have a warrior on a hill, who moves to a hill/forest tile next to the barbarian. The extra defence should keep him safe. If not, we have no troops in Lyons and could have a problem there.
A worker has finished a mine/road next to Orleans. I want a road to the rice so that the (non-existant) city garrison in Lyons can beat up pillagers there and return to the city that same turn.
I'm not sure where to put the settler. The plan calls for "somewhere North", but Greebley's dotmap is out of date since Lyons was founded. OK, I'll stick him between the cattle and the gold, seeing as Orleans is both happiness and health constrained.

IT:
We win vs the barbarian warrior.
Orleans - Axeman -> Axeman.

(2) 450BC:
Our newest recruit is sent up North to Lyons.
Slow growth in Paris to speed up Pyramids.
I'll do something contraversial and drop science to 50% for a few turns for a warrior->axeman upgrade. The receipent will be the barbarian busting warrior up north who will become a defender for the gold/cow city.

IT:
Alexander moves two archers and a settler next to the healing axement near his borders.

(3) 425BC:
Not a lot I can do about the settler entourage, seeing that one of our axes is at 2.6 health (covered by a second at full strength). An extra worker would've been nice right now.

IT:
Barbarian axeman runs up next to our settler. Not good.

(4) 400BC:
Our settler can run away, fortunately. He reaches the cows. The leading warrior reaches the city site, which will be settled next turn.

IT:
Could... Get... Ugly...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_BC-0250A.jpg

(5) 375BC:
Settler moves across one and Rheims is founded. I took the step last turn of reducing science to 40%, allowing the warrior there to be upgraded to an axeman. I also give him a shock promotion while I'm at it.
Science is raised to 80%.
Things look a little better now.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_BC-0250B.jpg

IT:
We win easily vs the first barbarian axeman. Second barbarian axe heads towards Lyon.

This is not encouraging though...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_BC-0250C.jpg

(6) 350BC:
Shock-promote axeman in Lyon and fortify him on the rice.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_BC-0250D.jpg

IT:
In a tense, nail-biting fight, we are victorious against the barbarian axeman.
Polytheism comes in. Priesthood and Monarchy selected. Guess you have to have a high priest to be a king.

(7) 325BC:
Breathe a deep sigh of relief at having got through the last couple of turns without losses.

IT:
Orleans - Axeman -> Axeman.

(8) 300BC:
Our axes across the sea have healed and move towards Greek territory.

IT:
Nada.

(9) 275BC:
Our pair of axes move up next to Thermopylae and spot a phalanx and an archer in the city. There's a copper mine and an elephant camp just watiting to be pillaged.

IT:
Lyons - Granary -> Worker.

(10) 250BC:
Axemen move onto Greek copper mine, to pillage next turn.

More hassle from barbarians than our enemies - 250BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_BC-0250.zip)

Ok, I got it. I will probably play tomorrow.

Preturn: I decide to put an Obelisk in Lyons to grab the Iron. I think it will really help to have swords and an Obelisk is pretty cheap. (we can also gain back the shields by working the iron square).

225 BC: We get priesthood and start Monarchy. Pillaged the copper.

200 BC: Our Pyramids build gets turned into 197 gold. We were miles away.

175 BC: Just one word: Praetorians (yup, we meet Rome).

50 BC:One of our Axmen is attacked in the forest. We win.

25 BC: I retreat back to the Hill/Jungle which appears to be safe from attacks.

1 AD: Start Healing Axman.

Notes:
We may want to check on the Copper again to see if the Greeks reconnected it yet.

Not a single Barbarian.

I started the road to our town in the North.

I mostly built Axmen.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/LotR20_AD1.jpg

Roster:
Arathorn -- UP NOW
Jaffa Tamarin -- on deck
Arizona_Steve
Greebley
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

I see it. But I don't have time/energy to do it right tonight. Will have to be tomorrow.

Arathorn

So, it's 1 AD and we have 4 ciites and two workers. That seems really bad, whether we're playing AW or not. What happened to our expansion? What happened to our tech? Is trading that critical? I dunno, but I feel we're very far behind, and that's a hard place to be at any time, doubly so in AW.

The early turns aren't too exciting -- Confucianism is founded elsewhere (Japan, as I find out later) -- we've missed out on nearly all the religions. We'll need to conquer one. All we need is about 10X the troops we have and we could maybe do that!

I start Paris on the Great Lighthouse when its axe completes. If we get it, great, as it's more cash flow with trade routes. If not, that's fine, too, as we get more cash with a failed wonder (because the 50% hammer bonus still applies) than we could possibly get any other way.

And I start the freshly-healed axes in Greece towards Thermopylae again. We might as well pillage everything we can. It's a bit of cash for us and slows them down. We won't be conquering the cities anytime soon, so we may as well stone-age-ify them.

Hatty is "discovered", but I have no idea where. We just declare war on her. Boy, I wish the UI showed things like that. You know, enemies appearing is something I would think to be a relatively major event. <Shrug> What do I know?

Decision time in 125. We have two axes by Thermopylae. One is Combat II with Cover. The other Combat I with Cover. An archer and a phalanx defend the city, with a 20% culture bonus. We'd have 6.0 vs. 5.1 for the first attack. Worth it?

------------------------After watching my son play a few turns in his game, I realize there's no way it's worth it. While we might have a >60% chance of winning each battle, that's still almost assuredly less than a 40% chance of winning both. Not a risk I'm willing to take. So I pillage the camp and move on. BTW, these axe offed one attacking archer already.

Iron is in our borders in 150. So I start mining it. A four-pack of swords could probably raze a few cities across the channel. Might be something to consider. Heck, we might even want to capture. Those Greek lands are just past Japan and along our land route out.

I also found Tours in 150 in the south, by the wine. It's not on fresh water, but I think it's the best spot. Continuing to zig along the coasts is my opinion on how to do these 3-wide maze maps. One more in the south will get us pigs. We have two cities to found in the north yet, too.

By 175, our brave workers have finally reach the gold mountain. That happiness will be nice. Our axe pair is attacked by a horse archer and a phalanx. The horse archer nearly wins. The phalanx doesn't even scratch the axe. Both promote (one to heal) and we move into a forest square, where they should both heal fully before moving on. NOTE: The healthy one is fortified. Keep them together when moving, though!

In 200, we get 98 gold out of Paris. Not bad coin. No Great Lighthouse, though. A settler is begun. Let's found our next three cities.

When Monarchy comes in, I start us on Metal Casting. Forges are cheap for us. They'll double the happies from the gold. And Colossus might potentially still have a prayer of being ours, which would be good for our commerce, I believe.

Cities allowed to grow again, and I revolt to Hereditary Rule and Slavery. That anarchy is still going on in the inherited turn, as I wanted to do both for one turn of anarchy. Wine is being connected, too. Soon we'll be able to nearly double our cities in size!

Tremendous uphill battle still ahead, though, methinks.

One more thing -- I think we should chop ALL our forests. It's not so much for the immediate hammer bonuses (though those will help, too). It's more that I'm concerned about landings. We'll want to meet them on good ground for us. Forests (and jungles) give +50% to the defending unit. We just don't want our foes to have that, methinks. We have cows and fish coming online very soon. Pigs and crabs will follow not too long after. And we'll probably starting getting WW soon, so happy will probably continue to limit more than health. I think we just need to chop indiscriminately -- and get another worker or two out doing it.

Roster:
Arathorn
Jaffa Tamarin -- UP NOW
Arizona_Steve -- on deck
Greebley
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

A tour(s) of the south.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/lotr20-tour-south.JPG

Arathorn

Good thought on the forests. I concur on removing at least the coastal ones.

0) 250AD - what's going on? Ah, right, anarchy. That's why all our builds are slated to complete sometime the next millenium.

IT: our people celebrate the introduction of slavery! And hereditary rule!

1) 275AD - commence fishing in sea west of Lyons, move a citizen there, and another citizen to the new mine on iron.

We are losing money. 100% research is -15gpt, we'd have to go down to 60% to achieve +ve cash flow. I leave it at 90% for -8gpt.

IT: Orleans: lighthouse -> library

2) 300AD - ignoring protests from environmentally-minded citizens the new king authorises the destruction of protected coastal forest outside Paris. "There's a war on," the king explains. Environmentally-minded citizens mysteriously not heard from again.

In unrelated news, the new slave trade is doing well.

3) 325AD - time passes, some citizens moved to new tasks around Paris.

4) 350AD - forest chopped, settler due in 2 turns.

IT: our axemen over to the east are approaced by a Persian swordsman and axeman.

5) 375AD - time passes.

IT: Persian axeman attacks our axeman. We win!

Paris: settler -> worker.

6) 400AD - settler heads south.

Persian swordsman has retreated. Our axemen move to coastal forest.

More forest chops authorised. Protests by environmentally-minded citizens are strangely muted. Slave camps doing brisk trade.

7) 425AD - time passes.

8) 450AD - time passes.

IT: Paris: worker -> swordsman.

A pair of Japanese chariots appear from the southern icelands.

9) 475AD - axeman promoted (Combat II) and attacks chariot. Chariot kills our axeman. Ack!

Marseilles founded, starts lighthouse.

Another squad of 4 Japanese chariots invades our southern border.

http://dailyanimals.net/images/c06.jpg

10) 500AD - axemen on the eastern lands are loaded onto a galley to be brought back to help in defence of our homeland.

We are at -15gpt on 90% science. More cottages may be indicated.

(0) 500AD:
Well Jaffa left me with some thinking to do here. I would've liked to have seen a few spears by now, but there are none.
Marseilles is not looking too good. I'll leave the axe there in the hope that these Japanese troops are there only for pillaging.
Rheims will grow next turn, but that will remove the ability to benefit from the gold mine. I figure one citizen working that tile will be more effective than two working crappy one-food tiles. switch to the gold mine until I can get a lighthouse for the city.
That's about all I can do. Let's hope that axeman in Marseilles can kill a few Japanese horses.
Press enter...

IT:
We lose Marseilles. Nothing I could do there. One Japanese horseman is killed. Four stand on the spot where Marseilles was.
One more moves next to Tours.

(1) 520AD
Science is turned off. We need upgrades fast.
Lyons has an angry. Hmm. It didn't grow last turn and there's no mention of war weariness.
Our worker at Rheims is set to build a road to the gold mine to connect it to the rest of our cities. The cottage can wait for now.

IT:
Wines next to Tours are pillaged. But it looks like the mere fact that the Japanese chariot was standing on the wines was enough to effectively disconnect them. Our unhappiness did not increase when they were pillaged.
Christianity is founded in a distant land.

Paris - Swordsman -> Swordsman.
Orleans - Library -> Swordsman.

(2) 540AD:
Upgrade warrior in Tours to Axeman.

IT:
Tours is spared from attack. Instead four Japanese chariots have parked themselves on our copper. There is nothing I can do. Fortunately our iron is a little harder to reach.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-0700A.jpg

(3) 560AD:
Our swordsman reaches Orleans and is given a combat II promotion. There is nothing on the list that will help us vs horse units.

IT:
The copper mine is pillaged, and the Japanese throw four chariots at Orleans. Our swordsman fights off three of them successfully, then a warrior defends successfully against the fourth. Cool!

Lyons - Library -> Swordsman.

(4) 580AD:
Our swordsman gets a formation promotion (+25% vs horse). I notice that the last Japanese chariot sitting on our cottage is at 0.5 health, and he is sliced apart with extreme prejudice by our 4.1 health sword.
Only one Japanese chariot remains.
Science is returned to 90%.

IT:
The lone Japanese chariot moves up to the copper next to Orleans.
A Greek archer/warrior pair moves next to Orleans. Move along now, nothing to pillage here!

(5) 600AD:
I move the swordsman from Orleans onto the cottage to prevent it from being pillaged.
Two axemen (from the galley) are moved into Orleans to reinforce.

IT:
Greek archer suicides against axeman in Tours. Warrior turns around and flees.
Our swordsman on the cottage is ignored, and the Japanese charior continues North.

(6) 620AD:
Worker completes road to gold hill, and Lyons is happy once more. I shove a scientist there to stall growth without losing commerce until the wines can be reconnected.
Our Greek-archer-beating axeman is eligible for promotion, but I leave that for now.
The Greeks are bringing more troops. Not much to worry about right now.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-0700B.jpg

I send a combat II promoted axemen against the final Japanese chariot. Odds are 6.0 vs 4.4, and we win.
Next available worker can start some repairs.

IT:
Greeks move next to Tours. I give a cover promotion to one of the axes defending there (the same one that offed the Greek archer a turn or so ago).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-0700C.jpg

(7) 640AD:
Not much. Moving troops towards Tours. Healing others.

IT:
Alexander loses two archers in a suicide attack on Tours. The warriors run away (is there a pattern emerging here?).

(8) 660AD:
A fresh swordsman gets a shock promotion and beats down a Greek warrior who is cowering in a forest. 6.6 vs 2.7 was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
Workers move to reconnect copper.

IT:
Paris - Swordsman -> Library.
Lyons - Swordsman -> Settler. We should be able to resettle Marseilles with much better defence.
Rheims - Library -> Lighthouse. Food desperately needed there.
Tours - Library -> Granary. This city will get two floodplains once it's borders expand.

(9) 680AD:
Optimize Lyons for settler production.
Plop one sword on our iron in case of naval attack. Others are heading to Tours.

IT:
Seemed a long time coming, but..

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-0700D.jpg

I select Feudalism for Vassalage and Longbows. This can be vetoed by the next player without penalty. We might need Mathermatics/Construction/Currency more.
Alexander moves two horse archers into our sight.

(10) 700AD:
A couple more swords reach Tours. A settler is being trained in Lyons. He should go to Tours and pick up an axeman and two swords for defence at the minimum. Then refound Marseilles.
Watch out though as Alexander is bringing in horse archers now. These'll be harder to kill than Chariots.
Science will need to drop in a turn or so. We're at 15 gold, running a deficit of 12.

Hopefully we can get back on track now - 700AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-0700.zip)

I got it and will play tomorrow.

So, Arizona_Steve, you complain about our lack of spears and then you build ZERO of them? :boggle: We need to have some good units against mounted guys, and spears are the best option. We'll want to have all kinds of different troops, to match what the AI throws at us.

Too bad about Marseilles. We apparently didn't have enough military. I'll take at least some of the blame for that. I put us on a lot of infra builds, since I didn't see any incoming troops and thought the AI was calling us a psuedowar. We should keep the troops flowing now, though, for certain. When refounding Marseilles, though, I'd put it one square further south. Less overlap with Tours, on a hill for defensibility, leaves the grassland for growth, still gets both crabs/lobsters/whatever those are, same reinforce time.

I would not build many swords until we're ready to attack cities. Swords are city-sacking specialists. They're not as strong in other roles. Spears, axes, and even archers are generally stronger in many situations.

We had good luck at Orleans. Let's try not to depend that much on luck again, though. It will desert us.

Roster:
Arathorn -- on deck
Jaffa Tamarin
Arizona_Steve
Greebley -- UP NOW
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

Arathorn

So, Arizona_Steve, you complain about our lack of spears and then you build ZERO of them?
That thought did cross my mind after I'd posted my turns.

Preturn: Well I see why we didn't build Spears - we don't have the tech for them. We need archery for longbow anyway, so I will take the 2 turns to learn hunting and archery first.

We get Hunting, Archery, and I go for Horseback Riding next. Decent speed 2 units makes sense to me. We can go for feudalism next.

I built some Archers for defense. They are quick and we can use the MP.

I also built a Spear and am building another. Both our frontline forests will want one for Mounted units.

Our settler is going back to settle the city again. I was planning on the same spot.

Our wine is almost hooked up.

Keep our units in the forest. The AI have to go by us or attack us in the forest. This is better defense than the city is for example.

I am building barracks, but expect we may want to build 2 more settlers soonish. Feel free to put the settler in front of the barracks if you feel it is more important.

Make sure the Archer isn't on auto-move. Not sure if I did that.

Picture shows our forest forces and front line.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/LotR20_AD900.jpg

In case no-one has noticed, Firaxis has realeased a new patch, version 1.52 (!). It can be downloaded using the advanced menu option in the game.

I'm already running the patch. Amongst other things, there's a "no cheat" option (disables worldbuilder etc), and a new "Marathon" game mode that is even longer than "Epic".

Why the same spot instead of the tundra hill, Greebley?

As for patching? I'm going to wait a day and make sure no 1.08 bugs creep up. But if not, I'll be patching. Looks like I'm going to have to redo my combat article. A couple notes in the changes (firepower not affected by hps or something like that) might be huge. Might mean a lot of rethinking in a lot of ways.

Anyway, I want to give it a day of vetting before requiring the change-over. There's no way I'd get to this game tonight anyway.

Arathorn

I was thinking that the town behind the forest is less likely to get captured. The forest squared defends the town as long as we keep units in it.

The tundra hill is probably the stronger square for the long term, so maybe it is better to place it there. I could go either way.

A quick note: I have Civ4, and patched to 1.52, but haven't tried it out yet. I will be in town and available to play a turn until the 28th. Then I'll be gone for a few days, back for a few days, then gone for a week. After that I expect to be around until the game's conclusion.

(0) We start with 0 gold, running -11 gpt. Ummm....that's not gonna work. Science down to 30% to balance the budget. That ain't real good.

So, when HBR comes in, I start us on Mathematics. We need Currency in the worst way to support our cities. Math moves us in that direction. Currecy makes CoL cheaper, too, so I think our next researches should be Currency, CoL, and then Calendar or Construction.

(1) 920 - Persian sword and archer approaching. I can handle that.

(2) 940 - I go ahead and found Chartres on the tundra hill, unfortunately wasting the forest. And move science down to 20%. YIKES!

Chartres starts a library. I think a cultural expansion to own roads, for visibility, and to claim the second food resource is the way to go. An obelisk would be faster, true, but a library gives value beyone culture, and we need science everywhere.

Axe kills sword. One less incoming troop. Archer will escape briefly. I want maximum healing time instead of maximum kills. Not sure if that's right or not, but it's my approach.

(3) 960 - MM cities to cottages. We need the commerce boon ASAP.

(4) 980 - Spot 10+ incoming Persian/Greek troops. Their flags are too similar in color for me to tell apart. And it's not like it really matters which it is. Mostly Greeks.

(5) 1000 - Major combat south of Chartres. I can attack them on flat ground and mostly choose the combats. Better than trying to defend multiple squares, I believe.

Axe (69%) loses to axe.
Spear (99%) kills horse archer.
Sword (72%) kills sword.
Sword (67%) kills sword.
Sword (83%) kills axe.
Sword (99%) kills archer.

One loss to kill 5. Yeah, the odds were in our favor every time, but the overall chance of at least one loss was pretty high.

When Paris completes its (cheap) Forge, I start us on Colossus. We need some commerce coming in at least as much as units. We can die fast and/or we can die slow. Let's try to prevent both. Extra commerce from the sea will hopefully help limit the chance of dying slow.

(6) 1010 - I retreat back to the hill and start healing. Lots more incoming.

(7) 1020 - Still healing and fortifying. Time to absorb some blows.

(I) [Our troop always listed first]
Sword kills horse archer
Axe kills sword
Spear kills horse archer
Sword loses to horse archer
Archer loses to horse archer

Lose 2 to kill 3 -- not so good. I didn't check odds, but we had to be the favorites for at least the first 4 combats. Not sure about the archer/horse archer last one.

(8) 1030 - My counterattack turn.

Sword (93%) kills phalanx
Spear (97%) loses to horse archer (!!!)
Sword (92%) kills horse archer
Sword (99%) kills horse archer

So another 1 to kill 3. Should've won all three [pissed] but what can you do? Reinforcements (but few) are en route. I slowed troops a bit to build some forges to give us more troops in a few turns.

(9-10) No more combats. Sending troops south. I haven't promoted, leaving that to the next leader. We need more of everything but swords. Swords are OK general-purpose troops, but their main role is to attack cities, which we're not going to be doing anytime soon, judging by the stacks of size 12+ I saw shifting across the bay, not to mention the two galley-loads of troops Persia has in the water.

I have a few troops on "GO TO" to Chartres. From Chartres, they can be sent to the appropriate locations. I would continue to push the workers south, to help road up Chartres (and the hill south of it -- a fort, even?) and to get those sheep down there pastured sooner rather than later. I also built a work boat in the north and sent it south to Chartres's crab.

The next turns will continue to be very interesting, as evidenced by the screenshot. The times are interesting! The troops too few.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/lotr20-1050ad.JPG

As for turn order, this is not a good beginner's spot, Zed. But do you want it?

Roster:
Arathorn -- just played
Jaffa Tamarin -- on deck (UP if Zed wants some time to learn the game)
Arizona_Steve
Greebley
Zed-F -- UP NOW (??)

Arathorn

P.S. 1.52 patch.

Is there going to be a good beginner's spot? ;) Somehow I doubt it. I can get it tomorrow.

OK, Zed. Good luck.

And :xmassign: to all! Especially those who got Civ4 under the :xmastree: .

Arathorn

:eek: :eek: :eek:

:help:

Inherited Turn: Our armed forces seem awful thin, with a stack of elephants and horse archers incoming. Our economy sucks too. I'll try to improve both of those. I think we can hold off on more settlers until we can afford more cities. Actually the thing I'm most concerned about starting my turn is I'm not sure what the plan for our workers is. But I'll work something out. Make no changes & hit next turn.

1060 AD: Hatshephut enters Vasselage. Tokugawa moves his stack of elephants and horse archers up, as does the Greek Sword/Horse Archer pair. Our units are mostly (but not quite) healed.

1070 AD: Tokugawa retreats a catapult and suicides two war elephants on our stack, causing no casualties. Another war elephant moves in, and Alex's Horse Archer/Sword duo move north to one side of our stack. We complete a Spear at Orleans, start another. We complete a Forge at Rheims, start a Granary. I move up a sword from Tours, leaving it with only an axe for a defender, but I need that sword down south.

1080 AD: Tokugawa's stack loses the wounded catapult and 3 horse archers against our stack, leaving one wounded war elephant. We lose an axe in the deal. All our guys are hurt fairly badly, but the current threat seems to be thinning a bit.

1090 AD: Our spearman does really poorly versus a wounded war elephant but eventually prevails. Cyrus lands 4 Immortals and a Sword next to Paris! Rheims completes a Granary, I start it on a Galley.

1100 AD: We successfully defend at Paris, killing a sword and an Immortal. We defend at Chartres, killing a Chariot and a Horse Archer with a Spear. Immortals pillage 2 farms near Paris. We kill the two pillagers with an axe and a newly-built spear out of Orleans. Ceasar also has a galley nearby, but it contains a settler pair.

1110 AD: We complete the Colossus in Paris, and a lighthouse in Lyons. Start on more Axemen.

1120 AD: More fighting in the south, we win a couple battles but more troops are incoming, as ever. I spot another pair of galleys that might be enroute. for a landing at Paris. We discover Mathematics, but someone else has built the Hanging Gardens. I start research on Currency. Science up to 40%.

1130 AD: More fighting. Kill some Persian spears near Chartres.

1140 AD: Kill more stuff on defense, lose an axe to a Praetorian.

1150 AD: Had a landing near Rheims that I didn't notice coming. Our defenders successfully defend the city, but we lose an archer. Fortunately I had a second axe in the area to clear out the pillagers, but we lost our gold mine near Rheims. We should think about directing some more reinforcements to the north eastern part of our lands. Having some more ships to deter landings would be good too.

Most of our workers are in the south being combat engineers, so keep them safe. I've been mostly fighting defensively, which has given good kill ratios, but sometimes the AI will try to slip by our hill position, in which case you may have to take the fight to them before they make it to any forests. I didn't start on any settlers this turn, favouring military builds instead. We have a good amount of forces in the south, but another large stack of Persian, Greek, and Japanese units is incoming.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Civ4ScreenShot00006.JPG

The save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1150.Civ4SavedGame

(Lurker)

This Always-War looks insane, I've got to try a game of that. But it looks like you guys are holding your own so far. I'm going to guess and say that the key to holding out in an AW game is skillful choice of promotions and preservation and upgrade of highly-promoted units, since you'll never have a numerical advantage over your enemies in combination.

Also, why not build a fort on that hill?

We don't have the requisite tech yet. :crazyeye:

EDIT: Actually we just got it -- Math. So might be an option for the next leader.

I look at all those move 2 units there and wonder if we shouldn't evac those 2 workers before they finish that road they just started working on (no turns invested yet.) Guess we'll see where the enemy forces go on the IT, but you should probably at least wake the workers up first before you hit End Turn.

That's a whole lotta troops killed and incoming! I'm glad we had the force on hand to take care of them. The next stack doesn't have war elephants or catapults, so it's not nearly as scary, IMO.

Good things:
- We got Colossus! That alone should help our economy some. 3 commerce instead of 2 from the coast is very nice.
- Great kill ratio. We have to keep that up, though. Hopefully, more promotions will help with that goal.

"Bad" News:
- Landings. According to the Civilopedia, galleys can't enter ocean squares. There's ocean all around our set of land, except in the south. Apparently, the Civilopedia is wrong. Galleys can enter oceans. Under what conditions? Maybe that it's ocean under your cultural control? Bah -- I wish they'd document things clearly.
- It's 1150 AD and we don't even know Currency. We're gonna be WAY behind in tech soon.
- Needing to defend our entire set of land instead of just the south is going to stretch us even more. That's gonna be really rough.
- We have no religion and so we have no happiness. We need our cities to grow, but.... As I recall, Japan founded a religion, so if we can go conquer them (HAHAHAHA!!!), we can start spreading that around a bit, to get the benefits of that. No religion can help with diplomatic relations, but we don't have diplomatic relations to worry about in this game, so we need/want a religion a while ago.

Roster:
Arathorn
Jaffa Tamarin -- on deck
Arizona_Steve -- UP NOW
Greebley
Zed-F

Anybody around? Jaffa or Steve? I'm actually back at work right now (BOO!!!), but I know some people are taking the whole week off.

Arathorn

The much maligned civilopedia is wrong. Galleys can enter ocean tiles if they are within your cultural borders. At least that has been my gameplay experience.
Good luck guys. Always war is nuts. :P

I'm around, and can play this evening. Since it's officially Jaffa's turn, I want to give him the opportunity to post a "got it" first...

You're not the only one back at work, so you have my sympathy. I'm back at work today after doing a partial house move yesterday (one full 17-foot U-haul, and only Mrs_Arizona_Steve and Arizona_Steve_Junior to help).

Jaffa did play his turns in RB7 (on the 25th, no less), so he was around, at least. Let's be sure to give him his full 24 hours (so about another 8 from my posting this). 24 hours from Zed's post, Arizona_Steve, you can play.

BTW, is Mrs_Arizona_Steve the originator of this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=261992&postcount=10)? That seems not-so-long ago.

Arathorn

That's the one. We've been together four and a half years. Sometimes I wonder how she puts up with me... :D

I thought that ships could cross ocean as long as they can do so in a single turn (i.e. they cannot stop on an ocean square, but they cross them).

Sounds like a lot of forces coming at us. I wonder why. AI's do not always attack in Civ4.

Galleys can only cross ocean within one's cultural borders. Otherwise they are restricted to coastal waters.

I'm around, but going to be gone from tomorrow until the 3rd, so will have to skip next time if it gets back to me before then.

0) 1150AD - Paris is unhappy, turn on avoid growth. Lyons is very unhappy, gets put on starvation to boost production.

IT: Lyons: galley -> horse archer.

1) 1160AD - in the south, we have two Japanese horse archers, one Egyption horse archer, a Roman galley, and a huge stack of miscellaneous Greek and Persian units. Spearman attacks Japanese horse archer. Spearman then promotes twice (Cover, Combat II), bringing him back to 3.2/4 strength. Swordsman attacks and kills second Japanese horse archer (which is probably a mistake, since that moves him to the target square and leaves him undefended and out in the open. Ooops). Our other troops in the area fortify and wait.

Our new galley parks on the fish. Workers start a fort on the hill.

Up north, a pair of Persian galleys are spotted near Rheims. Our axeman from the northwest corner square head in the direction of Rheims to help defend.

IT: Persian and Greek forces attack our troops in the south. As expected, we lose our exposed swordsman. We kill a Persian spearman, a Greek phalanx, a Greek swordsman, and a Greek horse archer for the loss of two spearman (one on the hill, one in Chartres).

Paris: axeman -> archer.

Tours: forge -> spearman.

2) 1170AD

IT: A Greek horse archer attacks Chartres and is killed by our spearman. Egyptian forces pillage our pasture.

3) 1180AD

IT: we lose control of the southern hill. Foreign troops continue to pillage, not a lot we can do about it.

Paris: archer -> spearman.

Lyons: horse archer -> archer.

4) 1190AD Chartres is surrounded by foreign troops, abandons its library and starts building walls.

http://dailyanimals.net/images/c10.jpg

IT: our galley outside Paris is attacked by two Persian galleys, defeats one and dies to the other.

Chartres is attacked, kills four greek horse archers, and loses two of its three defenders.

Orleans: spearman -> archer.

Rheims: galley -> archer.

5) 1200AD Chartres whips walls for the cost of two population (I figure its a lost cause anyway).

IT: Chartres destroyed by Egyptians. We lose a galley and the workers at Rheims.

6) 1210AD Start building walls in Tours.

IT: A Greek archer and catapult attack Rheims, archer is killed.

Our axeman parked in a forest down south kills a Greek swordsman and phalanx before dying to an archer.

7) 1220AD Foreign troops pillage around Tours.

IT: Greek catapult attacks Rheims, dies.

Research: Currency -> Code of Laws.

Paris: spearman -> horse archer.

Lyons: spearman -> spearman.

Rheims: archer -> galley.

8) 1230AD

IT: Egyptian horse archer attacks and kills our horse archer (in forest).

Lyons: spearman -> spearman.

9) 1240AD Tours (which is starving anyway) whips walls.

IT: Orleans: spearman -> walls.

Foreign troops moving north towards Orleans.

10) 1250AD ..

http://dailyanimals.net/images/c11.jpg

Galleys can only cross ocean within one's cultural borders. Otherwise they are restricted to coastal waters.

OK, that's one lesson learned from this game. Thanks. Wish that was documented somewhere (besides this game, I mean).

And, beyond that...this is not looking good. While we could hold the line in the south (at Tours), there was always hope for us, if only marginal. Since that line was broken and the forces are pouring northwards...I think it's only a matter of time before we're wiped off the face of the maze. I'll want to do a post-mortem to see if we can figure out why....

Roster:
Arathorn
Jaffa Tamarin (skip until ~ Jan. 3)
Arizona_Steve -- UP NOW
Greebley -- on deck
Zed-F

Arathorn

With hindsight, I should at the beginning of my turn have abandoned Chartres and all points south, and brought all our troops back to defend Tours and the north. Too late now :P

Maybe it's not even possible to survive an AW game on Prince+ on a decent-sized map with multiple AIs within easy reach. With ultra-superior tactics you might be able to squeak out a tech lead if the AIs decide to continue building units like crazy, but with so many opponents perhaps it's just too easy to get overwhelmed.

(0) 1250AD:
"It's a beautiful sunny day in France. Bunny rabbits are hopping around our lands, birds are singing and there is a wonderful procession of people in brighly colored uniforms, some on horses and elephants, waving pretty flags and spreading flowers wherever they go" - The Iraqi Information Minister, 12/27/2005.

Umm...

Legions of foreign troops have moved deep into our territory. Tours is at risk, but a spearman will complete this turn. Orleans will be under some pressure too.

I go through our cities and switch tiles to maximize commerce. Cottages be damned we need commerce now, and those three-gold coastal tiles are the best bet at the moment. Code of Laws will come in in seven turns if we survive, and then I'll be switching to military techs.

Units in range of Tours include a Greek archer, swordsman and chariot, three Egyption horse archers and a chariot. For our part, Tours contains two spears and an axeman.

Let's see what happens.

IT:
Only one attack. Greek swordsman vs our axeman in Tours. We win. Other troops head North towards Orleans.

Tours - Spearman -> Spearman.

(1) 1260AD:
Some rather intimidating stacks were brought up during the interturn...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1300A.jpg

I go ahead and shock-promote the three spearmen inside Tours. If we're going to lose the city, we may as well take down as many enemy troops as we can.
We have a warrior in Orleans who gets a medic promotion. Another warrior gets combat II, then formation, and is upgraded to a spearman. That should take down a few horsies.
Complete a few other promotions in Orleans.

Some battles.
Spearman (Orleans) vs Horse Archer - we win.
Spearman (On hill next to Orleans) Vs Chariot - we win without taking any damage.

Science raised to 60% for a couple of turns.

IT:
The fall of Tours. Our RNG luck is atrocious. Attacker listed first.

Swordsman vs Spear - we lose.
War elephant vs Spear - we lose.
Praetorian vs Spear - we lose.
Praetorian vs Axeman - you guessed it, we lose.

Tours is captured by the Romans. For a city with walls and promotions to give +25% vs melee units, this was pretty bad.

Lyons - Spearman -> Axeman.

(2) 1270AD:
More trouble...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1300B.jpg

That's actually a pile of four Greek galleys at the bottom right.

Our new spearman in Lyons isn't going to make any difference to the fate of Rheims. We will lose the city if the "Luck of Tours" (tm) holds out. He heads south to face the horse and jumbo stacks.

More battles.
Spearman vs Horse Archer - we win.
Spearman (Orleans) vs Horse Archer - we win.
Spearman (Orleans) vs Chariot - we win.
Axeman (Orleans) vs Chariot - we win, and the axeman retreats back into Orleans. No exposed troops, and nothing will get pillaged at Orleans.

No sign of any other troops. Hit enter and hope for Rheims...

IT:
We keep Rheims. Attacker listed first.

Jumbo vs Axeman - we lose.
Horse Archer vs Axeman - we win.
Horse Archer vs Archer - we win.

A third horse archer pillages a hamlet. A jumbo is also landed next to Rheims.

Rheims - Galley -> Spearman.

(3) 1280AD:
I leave our new galley in port, as Alexander has three of his sitting outside.
A spearman is whipped in Rheims at the cost of two population.

Talk about open borders. This is insane. Caesar even has open borders with Japan. How often does that happen?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1300C.jpg

I guess the three dots at the end indicates that there are an unspecified number of unlisted troops there. Scary.
Our spearman takes out a Greek archer sitting on a hamlet. There are no troops left in our territory.
The two units in Rheims are promotable, and I promote the axeman with combat II and formation. The archer gets city garrison I and II.

IT:
Spearman completes at Rheims and defends successfully vs the Japanese jumbo.
Our pasture is pillaged by the Japanese horse archer.

Paris - Horse Archer -> Marketplace
Rheims - Spearman -> Spearman.

(4) 1290AD:
With no other troops around Rheims, I send our formation axeman out to kill the Japanese horse archer. Odds are 70%, and we win.
Our galley will do more on defence than on attack. I fortify it outside Rheims where it'll hopefully take out a foreign ship or two before sinking.
Promote our victorious spearman at Rheims up to formation via combat II.

Foreign troops are on the move again...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1300D.jpg

I place two spears on each of our forward hamlets to see if they will take them on.

IT:
Foreign troops completely bypass our spears. Our galley sinks a Persian galley before being sunk by a second one.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1300E.jpg

Feudalism selected as our next research target. A few longbows would be useful right now.

Rheims - Spearman -> Walls.

(5) 1300AD:
Three Greek horse archers next to Orleans are speared at no cost to us. Our spearmen retreat to the city.

There's another two waves heading our way...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1300F.jpg

These are some of the most time-consuming turns I've played and written up in a succession game. I'm going to stop after five turns and do the rest tomorrow evening. No sense in rushing this.

Lurker's comment:

Ouch, you sure you didn't set this one to immortal by accident? :lol: I'm thinking you should try the next one on a map with at least 3 continents so you aren't fighting 5 AI's so early in the game.

hope you don't mind my lurking comments:

You people are very brave to fight this out :goodjob:

I have played a few maze maps on AW myself. The problem here is that those galleys will eventually be able to land troops on your land once their borders expand into the sea. This makes the maze a very tricky business as you need to more or less defend a whole stretch of land which can be very tough.
I was successful when the AI send the major streams via land and I was able to build a fort on hill and absorbed huge amounts of AI units while getting a lot of promotions (one unit was at exp 70). Meanwhile I was building up my cities and then able to strike back with a huge stack myself slowly grinding down the enemy.

Maybe someone could mod the game so naval passages are impossible via the ocean.

Took a quick break, then decided to continue.

IT:
No attacks this turn. A hamlet next to Orleans is pillaged though.

(6) 1310AD:
Walls can be rushed at Orleans at a cost of one population. I do it. All available units are moved into Orleans to protect the city.
I also rush the market at Paris for four population. Paris is suffering greatly from unhappiness and poor health (-4 at the last count).
Big stack outside Orleans. We need all the defence we can get.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1350A.jpg

IT:
Mrs_Arizona_Steve interrupts me and I don't see who kills what around Orleans.

Paris - Marketplace -> Spearman.
Orleans - Walls -> Worker.
Lyons - Axeman -> Marketplace.

(7) 1320AD:
I recheck Orleans, and we have lost an axeman (to a praetorian I think). I can say for certain that someone lost a jumbo. It looks like the foreign war parties are content to pillage instead of taking cities, which is more than a pain than anything else.
We are getting overrun...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1350B.jpg

There is little I can do except try to defend Orleans.

IT:
It's a bloodbath around Orleans. I lose count after the seventh or eighth attack. We lose one spear and one horse archer, both to praetorians. They lose praetorians, horse archers, immortals, and at least one longbow. My guess is around ten units lost by the enemy.

Paris - Spearman -> Walls.

(8) 1330AD:
There is little I can do. The enemy is bringing in mixed stacks of units. Before I could use spearmen to pick off the horse archer and chariot groups, but these are mixed in with axemen and praetorians now.
There are two stacks next to Orleans containing five units each.

IT:
Orleans is toast. Our defenders are all injured. We lose two more spears to praetorians. Nearly all tiles around Orleans are pillaged.

(9) 1340AD:
More units were brought up during the interturn. With a stack of eleven units outside Orleans, it is surely gone this turn.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1350C.jpg

IT:
A picture says a thousand words.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1350D.jpg

(10) 1350AD:
Troops south of Paris are pulled back towards that city.

I wonder if Soren is watching his AI in action here...

Well, our city maintenance costs aren't as high now - 1350AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LotR20_AD-1350.zip)

There's just a few of them, aren't they? :eek:

Looks like my turn was the height of the French empire, and that it won't come around to me again... :cry:

Well there's always next time! :ar15:

Roster:
Arathorn
Jaffa Tamarin (skip until ~ Jan. 3)
Arizona_Steve
Greebley -- UP NOW
Zed-F -- on deck (maybe)

Probably won't too long for the overrun to complete.

To have a shot, we needed to have the best civilization early. We didn't. I didn't like our starting surroundings much, and I also don't think we used them the best either. But we were 7th in demographics categories way early and that doesn't bode well in games in general. That's doubly true for an always war game. We need equivalent tech and better production or something.

Arathorn

I agree with your analysis. For whatever reason we were too far behind. I think the AI eventually saw us as "easy meat" and went for the kill.

In any case, I got it.

If we try maze again, maybe we should try maze size of 4 with the trait that adds +2 culture per city per turn. That way we can own 1/2 the ocean since our cities will expand to radius 2 quickly. We can then prevent the AI from crossing the ocean. It also gives us a slightly larger strip of land to settle on.

If I could suggest trying Ice Age with narrow continents next - you'll have better production and a more compact empire than mazes, but still have your choice of defendable chokepoints. Plus it's easier to control your coastline.

Guys, in the unlikely event that we survive to my turn, I'm going to have to take a skip (or a concede?) as I will be out of town for the next couple days.

Lurker's comment: This feels like Civ3 AW kekeke...

5 on 1 isn't good odds, but you all made a valiant effort to survive. :thumbsup:

Maybe someone could mod the game so naval passages are impossible via the ocean.

Or you could simply choose Width 4. :D

OK, that's one lesson learned from this game. Thanks. Wish that was documented somewhere (besides this game, I mean).

I mentioned it very prominently in my interview with Apolyton.

I assume it's in the manual, though I don't know that for sure.


- Sirian

I didn't get a chance to play tonight, but I should be good for tomorrow.

Apologies for the delay, but work got in the way.

This game is cannot be won. We lost Paris, costing them about 1/2 the units in the area. We are down to 2 towns size 9 and 2. The AI is pillaging everything and there isn't a thing we can do about it except sit in the town and wait for them to take us out. If we attack out we will simply lose sooner.

We also gained a new enemy - montezuma.

Here is a picture.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/Greebley/LotR20_AD1450.jpg

I will attach the save if anyone wants to check things out or play it out to the conquest loss.

Yeah, probably no point in really continuing this. I generally like to play losses out to the end, just for the formality of it. Sometimes things can be learned, but it's hard to see what else we can learn from this game. Still....

I'll be starting another AW game, with slots reserved for everybody in this game, when I get some more time. I'll probably also play this out, unless Zed-F wants to, just for the formality of it. But I don't have time for the next couple days. Not like I'd pay much attention to the rest of this game, but it might take a bit of time. Anybody who wants to play it out, feel free. As many turns as you like/it takes. I just want to get it done -- at least it's not a space/time loss.

What kind of parameters do we want for the next game? I intend to reject any strategy that depends on a specific unit or civilization, so no Persian Immortal suppression. I want "general" AW.

Arathorn

I intend to reject any strategy that depends on a specific unit or civilization, so no Persian Immortal suppression. I want "general" AW.

While not wanting to take what many would figure to be the "best" Civ/UU/Traits for a given map is understandable, I'm not sure there is such a thing as "general" AW. Every Civ is going to have strengths and weaknesses, and different paths and weightings in the opening.

Why not simply go with Random civ and play the hand you are dealt? It won't be general, but it's closer than anything else would be.


- Sirian

I am willing to try again. I will keep an eye out for such a game. Agree on not picking the Persians in particular.

I always like the random Civ concept.

The maze may be too regular for my liking in terms of an AW game, but we could try with distance 4. It might be interesting to try one of the other suggestions we had at the start.

I'm not sure that Prince level on any sort of pangea map will work - we will probably end up in the situation we found ourselves in in this game.

I'm more inclined to go for multiple continents or archipalago.

Not necessarily. If you are strong enough, the AI may not even attack you. We only got attacked by everyone because we appeared an easy kill. If the AI allows you to pick them off one at a time, then victory would be quite attainable.

I think the problem was that we were the 6th most powerful civ. From other prince games, I don't think this is how it has to be. We had a weak start and it cost us the game.

At least that is my best guess at how the AI works. I am still trying to understand when they attack and when they do not. Unlike civ3, it is much more complex - for civ3 being at war meant an attack. This is no longer true in Civ4.

We "lasted" until 1530 AD. I probably maintained a 4:1 kill ratio, but it didn't matter. Overwhelming force was brought, plenty enough to kill us over and over and over again. Not surprising to see...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/lotr20-loss.JPG

What went wrong? Well, you can see a bit of problem already in 2000 BC.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/lotr20-replay-2000bc.JPG

But it was magnified even more by the BC/AD break....OK, 25 AD, but it was the closest I could stop to the break.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/lotr20-replay-25ad.JPG

We didn't expand well enough. I think it was partly our start -- we had crappy food bonuses, nor did we take advantage of what we had very well. We generally have a bit more time before the foes come in Civ4 than in Civ3. SO, we'll know for next time. But when they come, they COME, and in numbers.

We actually did pretty well in terms of combat itself. Not like Civ3 kill ratios, of course, but awfully good for Civ4, I think.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/lotr20-casualties.JPG

For LotR21 Revenge, I suggest AWN, Random Civ, but map????????????? Any thoughts/discussions? I can also hope for a better start position.

Arathorn

As a lurker I'll suggest again Ice Age, Narrow Continents... you get fat bulges with chokepoints on either end that are easy to defend. Put your empire in the fat bulge, fill up the chokepoints with units. Coasts are far enough apart that you won't get sneaked by galleys; just defend the coast near the chokepoints.

Count me in for LotR21. Depending on when the game is started, I'll probably need to be placed last in the roster as we moved out of the apartment into a house this weekend. No internet there for obvious reasons, though I intend to rectify the situation as soon as possible (I'm writing this from work).

EDIT: Looks like I'll have internet tomorrow (1/4/2006).

I am up for LotR21, but will be available starting around mid-Jan. So I may need a skip or two again. After that no more absences (or at least, I don't have any planned!)

LotR21 Roster:
Arathorn
Greebley
Arizona_Steve
Zed-F

Jaffa -- you interested?

It's gonna be a week at least before I can start this. Too much going on and too little time. Map style thoughts? Merzbow suggested Ice Age, which I've not done yet. Highlands with lots of peaks is another possibility. Or we could go wild and do archipelago or something. What does everybody else think????

I like the concept of using a random civ. Might be extra-challenging, but that's OK. Noble for difficulty.

Arathorn

If you need someone else PLEASE count me in !
Thanks
:)

"So, it's 1 AD and we have 4 ciites and two workers. That seems really bad, whether we're playing AW or not. What happened to our expansion?"

Lurker comment:

Arathorn, I'd encourage you to replay the start building a workboat first, just for future reference...

I will second using a random civ.

The narrow continents sounds possible. What does the Ice Age part do though? I wouldn't want everything to be tundra.

I will second using a random civ.

The narrow continents sounds possible. What does the Ice Age part do though? I wouldn't want everything to be tundra.

I didn't find it made a huge amount of difference in the quality of land. There's some trundra north and south, but the game should give you a decent start. Sirian actually mentioned in a thread a ways up that Ice Age narrow continents is his favorite map type; I actually stumbled upon it independently and greatly enjoy it.

Paris has fallen! Vive La Revolution! Roll on Madame Guillotine!

Oh, umm, those are not *our* peasants? Ooops.

Anyway, yes, please keep me in the roster for LotR21.

I'm back, and expect to be available for LoTR21 when it starts up.

LotR21 Revenge started at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=3597664

Y'all have spots reserved, if you still want them.

Arathorn