Ok, I will start now my first SG, and it will be on SID level :crazyeye:

Settings

Version: [c3c] v1.22
Variant: Always War :hammer:
Difficulty: SID :eek:
Civilization: Sumeria

Landmass: Tiny 70% Continents
Climate: Normal, Temperate, 4 Billion
Barbarians: Random
Opponents: Random


Rules

Six players roster, 24h for "got it" and 48h for play.
When you meet civ, you can trade, and then must declare war on the same turn. No peace treaties or gpt deals are allowed.
Don't use any exploits.

Starting position:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/00000213.jpg

Roster:

Smart
Beorn-eL-Feared
Own
nerovats
zerksees
Whomp

:salute:

Holy crap, to move or not to move :wow:

I'd try moving 1NW, if nothing better than a lone cow shows, start mining on the spot. It saves a BG, costs a forest, puts us on river for more commerce.

I´d join. Seems like the water could be a lake. Am not to fond of moving. City won´t grow over 6 for a long time anyway.

Geez man you dont want an easy game do you?? Sid AND AW, good luck I'd actually sign up... if i had C3C... :rolleyes:

Sid always war? Sid is hard enough as it is. Always war is hard enough as it is. Tiny map means there is a chance to be on your own continent though - so I guess there is a chance.

Sign me up for this one, and I recommend that we do not move the settler. The starting spot is good and there is no time for that. I think the UU is the enkidu warrior right? 10 shields and defends at two. I think we will need a lot of those, catapults, barracks.

How are we going to avoid the initial stack of 24 warriors from the first AI? What techs to start with - probably mathematics and warrior code.

Don't bother building workers until we know we're alone.

There is BG under settler, and I'd like to save it.
After moving worker to cow, I saw this:

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

I think we should move settler NE to grab 5 BG's and cow. Also hut will be poped immediatly, and we cant get barbs from it.
After cultural expanding, city will get 2 river tiles, so it will grow to size 7 or higher.
I'd suggest to research Masonry first fot early Walls, they will help alot, because we have very cheap defenders - Enkidu warrior (1.2.1) costs 10 shields.

@zerksees
Tiny map means that there is only one AI in our continent. If we are alone, I'll roll new start, because it will be too easy ;)
"Space advisor" said, that our opponents are Persians, Americans and Germans. If we are unlucky to start with Germans on our continent, we will have higher chances to lose, because they have free archers

Roster:
Smart
Beorn-eL-Feared
nerovats
zerksees
Open

How big will this city get? The forest will provide shields if we need them and you will still have 4 BG. I am thinking that early survival is the most important and a turn wasted moving may cost us. Use the worker to pop the hut before going to work. There won't be any techs but maybe a map or gold.

Masonry is a good idea. I think you need that for mathematics anyway.

Have you beaten Sid before?

Also random comment: If all 3 AI are on the same continent tech pace will move really fast - not so sure that would be "too easy".

Have you beaten Sid before?
No, it's my first Sid game :crazyeye:. I hadn't time for Sid-COTM19 yet, but i will play it later. Did somebody here had won it?
If all 3 AI are on the same continent tech pace will move really fast - not so sure that would be "too easy"
Using some tricks like building city on AI continent with army, or landing many muskets or riflemans to mountain, we can win even if AI have infantry and tanks, and we only cavlary armyes.

Holy cow Smart. Simple Sid is rough enough.
I've been itching to play C3C again so why not join this one with the father of all comebacks Zerksees on our team!

We should spam enkidus the to absorb the attacks with archers underneath.

However is there any way to win AW Sid without the Glib?

Seeing those BG's seriously makes me think about moving NE indeed. We should "select" CB, hope the hut gives us WC, and start on masonry right after in full. We'll need catapults, archers, and TGL. Swordsmen are too long a research trek, we can't afford them right now, esp. since we have spears.

IMHO the BG's are well worth the move turn. I wouldn't mine the cow right away though, it's just one tile from being irrigated. Road it though, at any rate.

Also hut will be poped immediatly, and we cant get barbs from it.

Lurker:I don't think you can get barbs from a hut if you pop it with your worker, before any military. And if you have settled your first city and the Sid ai have 2 or 3 cities, you might get a settler.

@Takeo, Beorn
We cant get tech or settler from hut on Sid level.
Probabilities of Goody Huts:
http://civfanatics.com/images/civ3/goody.jpg

@Takeo, Beorn
We cant get tech or settler from hut on Sid level.

Thanks for the info, did not know that. No Sid experiance.:(

X-post, disregard, and thanks for the chart :)

As much as I hate to plant on a BG the extra movement against the Sid AI could be deathly.

As far as the hut goes we don't need to pop it with a worker since it will pop on border expansion without barbs. Maps and a warrior are the outcomes IIRC.

it will pop on border expansion without barbs.
It will give barbs if we will have at least one city and one military unit. First warrior will be completed before border expancion (10 turns) anyway.
We should lose two worker moves and BG, or one settler move :rolleyes:

Hey I was forgetting: if we move anywhere but NW we lose a very precious food every turn. So let's just sit on that BG, irrigate the cow, chop a barracks and wait 10 turns for Enkidus. Starting by the barracks removes the barb problematics.

Starting by the barracks removes the barb problematics.
It's very risky, because we are playing on tiny map, and AI may meet us in few turns.

After cultural expanding, city will get 2 river tiles, so it will grow to size 7 or higher.


I thought that a city had to actually be ON a river to not need an aqueduct?

You don't need an aqueduct on a lake. I think that's a lake.
Smart--barbs will not pop from that hut on border expansion.

Turn 1
Ok, because most of players decide to settle in place, I did it.
Fortress of Stupidity founded :crazyeye:
Building rax. Masonry in 50 turns...
Move worker to cow.

Turn 2
Worker irrigates cow. That water S from starting position is fresh

Turn 5
FoS grows, rax in 10 turns
Worker roads cow

Turn 8
Move worker to N BG.

Turn 9
FoS grows, rax in 3 turns
Mining BG

Turn 10
Cultural expansion, hut gives the map.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/SM1_Screen_3500BC.JPG
There are green borders in south - Persia, but no contact. They start with BW, so they have only 6 free warriors, other 12 free units are spears. It's good, because AI don't like to attack with defensive units.

Turn 12
FoS rax>EW.
MM for 5 spt, we can build EW every 2 turns.

Turn 14
I have built my first SID Enkidu warrior :)

Turn 15
Worker builds road on BG.

Turn 16
Second EW comes to our world, lower lux to 20%. -1 gpt

Turn 18
Great Fortress of Stupidity grows to size 5. After MM it will produce Enkidu warrior every turn!
Masonry in 17 turns
Move worker to Spices.

Turn 19
Worker builds road to Spices.

Turn 20
Now we have to pay for unit support :(
Lower Science to 50%
Masonry in 23 turns

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/SM1_Screen_3000BC.JPG

Should we found second city? We build EW's too fast, and we must pay more and more gpt every turn. Moving two citizens from forest to BG we can get settler and growth in 4 turns.

Save attached

Fortress of Stupidity! You've learned the ways of idiocy quickly Smart. :D
A 2nd city is a must. Our river tiles don't seem highly productive. :( What about 1N1NE on the hill? Chops, BG and away from the Persians.

Should we send an enkidu on a Persian pillaging mission?

What about 1N1NE on the hill?
Did you mean 2N1NE? City on that hill will grow slowly, because there is only one grassland tile in radius. I'd suggest to settle on 3NE hill - 2 BG in radius, and Spices forest.

Did you mean 2N1NE? City on that hill will grow slowly, because there is only one grassland tile in radius. I'd suggest to settle on 3NE hill - 2 BG in radius, and Spices forest.
Yep much better spot.

This might be a bit taunting the devil, but what about hill 3SW? We have a productive food town now, we might as well want another one to be our bait - and we have a hill nearby for that purpose.

SW-W looks good too, if a bit close, as it is rivered and it would allow for a 3rd ICS'd city 2S from it, hill too.

Keep in mind we might need several tries for a decent start on SID. We also will want early boats out to get other AI's into war mode.

We must be very carefull on this difficulty level. We can get contact immediatly, when moving to 3SW hill. Town on SWW hill will hurt FoS growth and production. 3NE hill is most safe way.
I have written some suggestions for next player:

TODO things:
1. MM in FoS - move two citizens from forest tiles to BG tiles, change production to settler - it will be completed after 4 turns, when city grows.
2. Found second city on 3NE hill, start working on rax.
3. After roading spices, move worker NE, and chop forest for barraks.
All is right?

Roster:
Smart - just played
Beorn - UP
nerovats - on deck
zerksees
Whomp

Sounds good. Will probably play tonight, since this won't take hours.

I say definite yes for second city. Either of those hills to the north look good. I agree 2N1NE for starters, we could then go to the hill on the coast for the third city.

And stay away from the green as long as possible. I would think in the next 10-20 turns they will come.

I am going to look at the save.

Pre-Turn: Correct MM for settler in 4, Masonry cost increases with loss of gold.

T2.
MM BG's to the lake for gold, Masonry back to acceptable rate

T4.
Settler is in, next onwards an Enkidu @5fpt, 5spt.

T5.
Settler reaches hill, spices connected after the IBT, worker moved to spices #2 for barracks chop in Stronghold of Idiocy.

T6.
Since we've got many Enkidus, I assign one to defend spices.

EW >> Worker

IT: Knock knock, who's that ?

http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/~fbolduc/B/SM1-1.jpg

http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/~fbolduc/B/SM1-2.jpg

T7.
Do the trade, start on WC full.

IT: Both fortify

T8.
Worker >> EW

T9.
Another warrior/spearman pair shows.

T10.
Chop done, moved worker 1W (simply because it was rather close to the persians if it stayed put)

For the while to come, we'll have the opportunity of 4fpt @ 10spt, sizes 5 and 6, which shouldn't be overlooked: on top of that, just mine one grass, road the BG's, and we get 2-2-2 tiles all over for the GA: 5fpt 10spt.
FoS is MM'ed to catch the 2 missing shields (4+4+'2') on growth, no worries there. Keep the cash flow in.

They have a lot of defenders in our territory, so I'd advise leaving all roaded tiles covered. They want to pillage, and we can't afford it.

http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/~fbolduc/B/SM1-3.jpg

Roster:
Smart -
Beorn - Met Xerxes
nerovats - Will meet his men
zerksees - Might have something left :p
Whomp

Xman wouldn't do anything else in the trades, even with us selling him a worker, so I took it. Talking about a worker, I might not have built it had I met Xman a turn earlier, but hey, life is life.
I ran my turns on 5fpt mostly, taking advantage of the window we had where it was possible not to max shields. I think right now covering our worked tiles is more important than walling the cities (EW are tough defenders, they say it in the civilopedia ;)) so it's EW rather than walls in FoS.

All is nice, except MM - why FoS waste 2 shields every 3 turns? You had to move one citizen from lake to BG, to produce 5spt and building EW's every 2 turns. Anytime FoS should produce 5 or 10 spt to minimize wastage.

@Smart: on growth, you "gain" 2 shields. Try it. The game counts happiness first, food growth second, assigns the "new" citizen, and THEN counts the shields (and beakers IIRC, but I'm 100% positive for shields). That means we do get an extra 2 shields on growth. First EW in my set, on a "granary shift", was 5-5, then it's 4-4 "+2" for 10. Setting governer to "maximize shields" ensures you gain the most possible, which is 2 here.

OK, might not be a best case scenario thing, but it's what we've got. We have several hills we'll have to use to our advantage, and most importantly to their detriment. We can't allow them to sit on trees, hills or mountains when they come for a hit, but that's an everlasting problematic.

Facts are, we have a desert tile we can profit from. If we block the east shore with a town and 2 EW (2x2 when we can afford), they'll start sending units Westwards. This is where the desert comes into play: best tile to attack on, 0% bonus (normal flatland is 10 IIRC). We settler the S hill (not letting them walk on it, supposing we settled 1N) and stack cats/archers in there. Let the fools walk around onto the desert and go boom.

Other unveiled tiles are FP, except the N-most and, perhaps, one to the SW of Purple-Dot.

I think that turn was well played. I like your SW city idea - I came to the same conclusion after looking at the save, too bad I did not get back in time to suggest it.

Obviously Xerxes is already out of land to the south or he would not be trying to put cities up north? Any thought to trying to stop it? EW defend well but they are also 10-shield warriors and all we have to attack with right now.

Looks like I might have my hands full when it gets to me - but that is just Sid now isn't it?

Any ideas on how we are going to keep up in tech long term? I would think a GLib steal might be in order. After warrior code we need mathematics, alphabet and writing. Maybe we can do min research on lit and build the GLib ourselves. Any thoughts?

I think priority will be on keeping cities. Will cover improvements as much as possible. I have had a couple early meetings with a single Sid AI, both had chokepoints, one worked and one did not. This is going to be interesting.

Veteran immortals vs. fortified veteran EW in a walled town on a hill will still win 43.6% of the time. If we can take off one hit point they will still win 29.0%. Lets hope Xerxes has no iron.

this game plays like a giant chess game. Every move counts.

Edit due to cross post: See what you mean about the MM, and the like desert kill zone.

On techs (all assuming we hold the fort against Xman): a GLib capture is risky business. A GLib build is also risky business. Oh my. We need to at least try, though. With the terrain we have, I'd be more hopeful to get iron than horses, but neither are a given. With cheap libs, we definitely want to get literature anyways and research ourselves some of the way. We'll also need to pick well what we want, and I think that means
a) get cats, then either horses or swords - no hurry on horses if we do get swords
b) go for already researched, cheaper techs if we can
c) declare early on everyone so that their unit costs get out of hands
d) get muskets ASAP: knights iffff we have both iron and horses close-by.

D is considering we miss the GLib/they ignore the bottom tree. I've never played Sid, so I can't tell how fast we'll sink into that hole, though I think it should compare to Own7, but a bit worse. With different choices, it could be not so bad.

Is there still room for me :( ? I've been gone for a while and just got brief internet access.

c) declare early on everyone so that their unit costs get out of hands

I have only played a few Sid games but in my experience the unit counts will get out of hand fast. In my current epic attempt all the AI have been at 0 gold for a lonnng time. Egypt had some for a while but I did a little banking with them and took care of that. ;) I think keeping them out of war may be a better way to go because they have all these units they don't know what to do with. The AI way over irrigates so if we can get them to hold onto those low shield units they produce initially it will be better. Then again I'm playing archipelago.

I know the Glib strategy is risky but if we can get alphabet and writing soon we can go min lit and hope it works out. If possible pre-build in non-capital city and we can convert to forbidden palace if it does not work out, assuming we can get that many cities. A 10 spt city can build the Glib in 60 turns right? Well when we get closer we can decide about that.

Also, don't techs cost more on Sid level? I hope the libraries help but I have had very little luck getting research above minimum after about halfway through ancient age.

You guys have any objections to giving gpt for gold or tech at the initial meeting before declaring war? Money for nothing and chicks for free...

Final thought: Looks like the north section is not going to be much bigger than what we can see. Maybe we are on a smallish landmass and we can hem Persia into the south end. At least any settlers that get through will be building distance corrupted cities.

I like the blocking strategy and forcing them onto the desert funnel.

I don't know how the wonders will cascade at Sid but it's really important in any AW game I've seen to get it.

I would be against gpt since it's not in the spirit of the AW rules.

Idem against gpt. I think we need to pre-build upon settling, when we get there, for TGL. Getting them into war-mode will help too because of their research speed towards lit, and since it's a tech they often research pretty late.

For us, the techs will cost more, but we'll have to deal with it. If you think running above min is somewhat of a waste I'll take your word for it though, I've never played an actual game of sid.

Got it, will play later today.

@zerksees
A 10 spt city can build the Glib in 60 turns right? Well when we get closer we can decide about that.
I think, GL can be built only on archipelago map. We wouldn't have more then 3-4 cities for long time, and so we can't switch prebuild to FP. Also, we cant waste time building GL when we have only two cities. Btw, AI on SID level have 2,5x accelerated production, and GL for them will cost only 240 shields.
If persians will build GL we could stop research and capture it with all free techs.
Also, don't techs cost more on Sid level?
On Sid techs cost 2.5x more breakers, then "base" regent cost. But also on tiny and small maps tech cost is lowered. On Sid standart map you cant move up research slider to 20% or higher. On tiny you can ;)
You guys have any objections to giving gpt for gold or tech at the initial meeting before declaring war?
Please, read rules in the first post - it is prohibited.

Is there still room for me :( ? I've been gone for a while and just got brief internet access.
Ok, I will open extra slot for you. Lets beat cheating Sid together :crazyeye:
Roster is closed now, thanks all, who had been signed up :goodjob:

Roster:
Smart
Beorn
nerovats - gots it already
zerksees - on deck
Whomp
Own

Please, read rules in the first post - it is prohibited.
I can play Civ but apparently I can't read - sorry about that.

So what is the priority on city builds? Purple then yellow?

I think first we should settle on purple hill, and then on red - to build curraghs, meet AI's and force them to build military units

Yellow is on the coast, and can build curraghs. It is not on a hill though. Is that why you prefer red over yellow?

Regarding Glib - I am aware of the AI production advantage. In fact I count on it. Usually the ancient age wonder cascade is over before any AI gets literature. I am guessing I get beat when the AI gets a scientific leader. Since the AI over irrigates and does not do palace prebuilds I think it is very possible. My plan usually starts with an alphabet civ though.

I think purple first is a no brainer because of the hill and the fact we can start with walls first hand. After that, before we can complete the blocade at yellow, red looks good. Problem with yellow is that it needs the blocade to really shine, and we can't afford it atm.

Pre-turn
move EK's from road towards intruders
2510BC
Persians move north, block the forest for them
worker to forrest to chop
2470BC
Persians move in more units, just 1 archer though
FoS EW->settler
2430BC
First settler pair appears moving north
Up lux to 10% WC now in 6
2390BC
just blocking the Persians
2350BC
Persians Settle Sardis, ruins our block plans
Persians now send their first immoratals and first warriros outside FoS
2310BC
Persians attack, 2 warriors suicide
We enter golden age
FoS Settler->walls
Not sure what to do now, when to settle hill 3NE, or hill 3SW seem best to me.
Probably NE as I see no option option how to get SW.
Might be better to change walls to EW for now, then start wall after that.
Won't have time to play for 2 or 3 days so Zerksees can take it from here.

108761

108760

3SW hill is very important, and we must settler here, before persians will do it. You can bring worker to that town, join, and immediatly pop-rush walls. Fortified EW in walled town on hill have defence of 5. Create wall of EW's, and SW persians forces will attack that town on hill and die.

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

Acknowledging. Plan to pull some EW off some of the improvements to escort the settler to 3 SW. How many would be needed and any objections? I don't have time to investigate now - plan to play tonight (about 7 hours from now). So I'll take any advice I can get before then. Fitting this in around Christmas will be a challenge.

I think it would be best to stall the settler for as long as that immortal is around. Once we can pull 3 EW I'd say go go go, but it looks risky atm.

Dont leave all EW's from any improvement - spearmans will immediatly pillage it.
My option is sending 3 EW's with settler, and one worker. Join it to city, and pop-rush walls after one turn. City will get defence of 5.

-- Edit --
X-post. Sure, wait 2 turns, and send settler if immortal will die.

I have some experiance in this, and the best way to go is build our second city (already done), then just build mil for a long time, while slowly getting to four cities for an army. Enkidu armies are bad.

2310 BC - preflight

Yikes this looks bad already. Can't panic though it is only a game - right?

Move EW from forest tile NE of FoS into Fos
Worker under EW SE of Fos in jeopardy. He is pulled off assignment as he will take 2 to finish and immortals will be there in 1.
Worker then disbanded for shields and walls pop rushed. I will not put my EW against immortal without walls if possible.
WC in 3 @ -3 gpt science.

IBT - warrior dies to EW, one EW lost to archer [1-1)

1) 2270 BC
Now I see why EW was in the woods as units to north are now at doorstep of FoS: 5 warrior, 2 archer, 1 immortal at doors of FoS. I empty SoI of all units.

IBT - one archer and four warriors die at the walls of FoS. 2 EW promoted to elite. Immortal attacks fortified EW on grassland and kills it. [6-2]

2) 2230 BC - nothing

IBT - Immortal takes fortified EW on cow losing only one HP. [6-3] Spear pillages road SE of FoS. 3 spears on cow tile.
Germans complete the pyramids
Warrior code done, going to alphabet next. (Either to get mathematics or writing next is my thought)
FoS EW -> archer

3) 2190 BC - Worker finishes road and heads to FoS. Science @ 80%. I move Ews out of SoI.

IBT - Immortal heads to Sardis to heal. 3 spear now on cow tile head north

4) 2150 BC - Leave SoI open again.

IBT - 3 spears head north again, 1 archer dies attacking FoS [7-3]

5) 2110 BC - Have to refortify SoI as spears are knockin'

IBT - another immortal approaches, spears go south again, archer redlines elite EW but loses [8-3]

6) 2070 BC - Sent one EW from SoI on a short trip north to look from the hilltop, reopen SoI. Science at 70%

IBT - regular immortal now on door of FoS.

7) 2030 BC - refortify SoI.

IBT - immortal dies @FoS [9-3], offensive Persians heading north
SoI - EW -> EW
Persia completes Colossus

8) 1990 BC spot a clearing to west of FoS, send out 3 EW and settler to 3SW.
SoI left open again

IBT - FoS - EW -> EW

9) 1950 BC - Science at 50%. Sent worker toward new city. Pop rush walls in SoI, refortify EW in there again. Put two EW (one elite) and archer fortified in woods as veteran immortal is next door.
Settler and support move 1 west on a hill.
IBT - Elite EW loses to immortal, archer did not help and immortal is now 2/5 elite [9-4].

10) 1910BC - Worker catches up with settler. Can't move settler as Persian settler pair is now at 3SW.

The settler and escort all have their movement point left. We should decide if current location is good enough or should we hope the Persian settler pair is headed north? (I am guessing they would not build on our border with all that free land to the north yet.)

Not sure how long we can hold our improvments with immortals out there as the odds are against the EW when it is not fortified behind walls.

Good luck.

My first turn ever in a SG - thoughts?

This is what I call an overrun. Not surprised, nor really disappointed - can you blame the rabbit for being eaten by the wolves? It really got down to a smack in the face when I saw the 3rd hill underneath the 2nd one we are to settle. It dismantles all hopes of getting somewhere with a killzone hill town.

On the desired comments: I really dislike pop-rushing with so little actual population, and knowing we were a few population point below 10 spt. I guess it goes into playstyles; besides that, nothing to say: good tech and build choices, you did the moves you saw fittest and the RNG took its toll.

Good progress and RNG luck, open/close town trick works well :goodjob:
I'm agreed with zerksees pop-rushing - walls are very important in AW game ;)
I think, we should settle on current hill - we can't wait 2 turns, because persians could take up that place before us.

Whomp, come out from Stronghold of Idiocy, you is up next :)

I really dislike pop-rushing with so little actual population, and knowing we were a few population point below 10 spt.
I am not a big fan of pop rush either but obviously felt it was necessary at this time. I saw what the immortals can do to fortified EW without walls. Thanks for the input.

I think, we should settle on current hill - we can't wait 2 turns, because persians could take up that place before us.
I am on the fence about this. Founding where we are gets us going with city3 faster. Waiting gets a little more distance between the cities and maybe chance for better tiles to work.

I really don't know how well it will work because immortals can cut right through the EW wall. However, maybe if there is no improvement underneath they won't attack the EW. If that is the case then the wall should be expanded from shore to shore (looks like 9 tiles could do it), and we could force the attack at the city in the wall, end the overrun, and then go and get Sardis. Expanding up north would be way easier once we knock out the units that are already up there.

Good progress and RNG luck, open/close town trick works well :goodjob:
It actually might be worth putting a town up north to open/close - they would pass right by the core on the way there (until our EW great wall is up anyway). In our current situation, this was the only way I could use some of the well known tricks to keep the AI at bay. Until the AI get horses we might be able to use city 3 the same way.

double post.

OK I got it and will play it after a little X-Mas clean up.

I agree to settle on the spot (and it gives a fresh water bonus, too) with plans to settle the hill 2S of it eventually, for the wished killzone. With the traffic it'll get, it could be named something like "Wish I were a back-bencher" :)

I think, persians will settle near 2S hill before we could build next settler.
We should found next town on hill 2E from SoI ASAP, to contact with civs on second continent.

And one tip, zerksees: rename your saves before attaching - usually [SG_Name]_[Date], for example SM1_1910BC ;)

About the coastal town: wouldn't be better to found it on grass to the NW ? It'd be closer to everything, there.

About the coastal town: wouldn't be better to found it on grass to the NW ? It'd be closer to everything, there.
Once we get containment of the Persians we can optimize this way. In the meantime I would sacrifice the distance for a hill location. Just my 2 cents.

found it on grass
We must use hills first of all, 50% defence bonuce is big advantage

If you think they'll attack that far, fine ;)

Maybe... But noone knows, what way is more fast and safe ;)

In general the AI algorithm will look for the weakest link and attack that. I don't know all the variables but clearly an empty city is a target. Time and time again I see the AI walk past well defended border towns and go after empty towns in the center. The problem is their units never actually make it to their target. I assume that if all things were equal, the AI would go after the city on grassland before the city on a hill. I am sure distance is a factor, but weighted much less than strength of defense. I think the only reason they would not go that far is if there was a weaker target nearby. If nothing else it means we don't have to stack quite so many units in the back towns to get the AI to attack the towns at the front. I am hopeful the great EWall will convince them to attack the towns in the wall - where we can be ready for them.

Pre-turn: Decide we can crank up science and lux up a bit since cash doesn't do us much good. Turn science to 90% and lux to 10%. Alpha in 8 and growth in FoS in 3 with EW in 1 plus SoI gets EW in 4. Establish Screen Door County on the hill and start an archer. Move a couple EW's towards FoS since there's 4 immortals headed that way. Scream Ikes and hit enter.

IT EW's defend at SoI and one promotes on archer attacks (2-0). 2/4 immortal attacks our fortified EW on the spices, redlines and wins (2-1). A spear pillages our cow. FoS EW --> archer

1870 --Decide to get a little offensive up north. Take an archer with elite EW and whack the 1/4 immortal with a vet (4-1). Lucky :mischief: Move an archer to FoS for some bombard against the upcoming onslaught.

IT Nice. EW flawless with archer help vs. vet immortal (5-1)
1830 Prepare troops for a barrage at FoS. Protect our roads too.

IT Weewho. 3 immortals attack FoS and all 3 lose (8-1) and we get an elite EW too. Then a reg warrior attacks our 2/4 EW and loses (9-1)
1790 Re mm. This needs to be done every turn since the persians are always stepping in the wrong spot.

IT 2 more immortals get a archer arrow and we get another elite (11-1). Archers under EW's are a big help. FoS archer --> archer SoI EW--> EW
1750 Archer promotes taking out a warrior then a 2nd archer whacks a archer and the east coast is clear. (13-1) It seems Screen Door County will be the new focus. Re mm again.

IT At Screen Door Elite EW wins but a vet loses but redlines a immortal. (14-2)
1725 nada mucho

IT Phew...nothing
1700 Fortify for next onslaught.

IT weird no attacks. SoI EW -->EW
1675 Elite archer knocks out a roaming archer and a vet archer is flawless against another (16-2). Change FoS to settler.

IT hmmm...seems they're shifting back towards FoS.
1650 MM and feign attack at Sardis to see if they'll follow.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/sid1.JPG

IT Immortals chase me at Sardis. Alpha comes in and set it to writing. Not sure if this or IW is better. Immortals are everwhere. I leave it to Lil Grasshoppah to decide. Oracle finished by the Germans.
1625 Play hide n seek with the immortals

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/sid2.JPG

Well done, very good kill ratio for this level :thumbsup:
Are we still survive? :cool:

And few comments. Since we aren't going for GLib or Philosophy free tech, we could research Writing later. Current goals are Math and IW. We have high chances to get iron, because there are many hills around, and i suggest to research IW first.
IIRC Own currently is out, so I'm next...

:hatsoff:

On techs: I'd be more tempted by catapults right now. The offensive bombard against slow movers can really make a difference. Plus, we're 100% certain we have woods and rocks at hand, not so with iron, even if it is likely. Last time I said to myself "there can't be no iron in a 3 tiles thick mountain chain", I had to whack a whole civilisation to get some ore. Not counting the pillage it can receive.

I'm wondering, mr Whomper, why TF are those perses going N-NE?

Barely surving but hopefully with all the elites we can get a MGL soon. IW sounds like a good plan. :thumbsup:

Nice action Whomp! I forgot putting a unit in their territory is a good way to get their attention. I wonder if you step back out if the immortals will head toward our cities. Maybe invade/retreat can work the same as the city open/close.

I like researching writing in hopes to get Great Library though I am apparently outnumbered. Problem is we may need catapults to survive that long, but I still think the Glib run is the way to go. Archers, hills and walls can help EW defend.

If you choose a war tech over writing, I would go with mathematics over iron working since the benefit is a sure thing.

I'm wondering, mr Whomper, why TF are those perses going N-NE?
Check out our EW just north of Sardis.

Don't think we can build GLib anymore, better to capture it.

Got it....

Pre-turn
MM in FoS to save 3 shields
Starting research of Math (32 turns)

IT
6 Immortals follow to our EW.
GA is ended. Math in 38 now

Turn 1
MM in FoS for archer in 3 turns after GA ends.
MM in SoI, worker in 1 turn.
MM in SDC, rax in 20.
Move EW N out of immortals. Will they follow him?
Settler will wait one turn to see if immortalls will come back to Sardis. If they will, I'll build next town on 3NW hill from SoI.

IT
Immortals were moved back to FoS.
SoI worker>EW

Turn 2
Lower science to 50% because of unit support, math in 43... We need 4th town.
Move Settler and EW to 3NW hill. Move new worker to BG NWW from SoI.
Move elite EW S with hope that immortals will come back and follow him again.
Combat calc said, that elite EW in FoS will win vs veteran Immortal in 59,3% cases. Attacking archer will win only in 44,8%. So it's better to hit Enter and wait...

IT
Two immortals were died attacking FoS. [2-0] Others were moved to elite EW near Sardis :)

Turn 3
Worker builds road to the next town.
Move EW back to hill.
MM in FoS because of moving persian units.

IT
Immortals again were moved to FoS.
FoS Archer>EW.

Turn 4
There are 5 immortals near FoS.
See immortal and archer 2 tiles from SDC. Pop-rush walls...
Rename elite EW near Sardis to "The distracting idiot", and move him to forest again
Port Arthur has been founded. Starting curragh
Science up to 90%, Math in 19 turns.

IT
Persians asked for peace! On Sid! But I have to say "NO"
Kill 4 immortals, got elite EW. Lose one EW [7-1]
SDC walls>rax.


Turn 5
What we can see now? 2hp-spear is ready to pillage FoS-SoI road, 2hp-immortal want to leave to Sardis. Archer and immorlal are near SDC.
Kill spear, archer and immortal [10-1]
Move archer to SDC for def bombardment.
TDI was moved to Sardis.

IT
Immortal was killed in SDC, but redlines EW [11-1]

Turn 6
Worker roads BG near SoI, other worker mines BG in Port Arthur.
Move TDI out of Sardis.

IT
Persians attacks SDC. [12-1]
Archer loses to elite EW, and....

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

Turn 7
Use leader to build army. If we have iron, we will fill it with swordsmans
Move TDI to FoS, because there are many immortals near Sardis and they can kill our EW.
We must pay for unit support again, lower science to 70%.

IT
3 Immortals moved to SoI, and 5 to FoS
Settler pair appears from a fog

Turn 8
Have to move worker, that builds road, to SoI.
Move TDI to FoS. MM in FoS and SoI.

IT
Persians attacked FoS and SoI, got elite EW [18-3].
Settler pair was moved back.

Turn 9
Regular immortal is near FoS. Attacking with Elite archer and win. Kill redlined immortal with archer, promote it to elite. Kill archer by vet archer [21-3]
Open SoI.

IT
5 Immortals and archer were moved to SDC.
Oops, SoI riots...

Turn 10
Move few units from FoS to SDC because of persians SOD.


Screen of our empire, 1375BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/SM1_1375BC.JPG

Roster:
Smart
Beorn-eL-Feared - UP
nerovats - on deck
zerksees
Whomp
Own - skips till futher notice

SAVE: SM1_1375_BC.SAV (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/SM1_1375_BC.SAV)

Great ratios Smart! Screen Door County will be quite a fortress to attack since it's on a hill and has walls!
I think we should consider a EW army since IW won't come in for a long time. I know they're not the greatest armies but we need to press the persians by pillaging their improvements.

EW pillaging army - sounds good... We have many elite EW's, and we will get second leader soon. But for second army we need 8 cities, and so we should disband EW army after pillaging mission, to build army of swordsmans :rolleyes:

Wow.
EW pillage army is what I had in mind as well. We just need to get them back to stone age if we want to win, and especially their iron. Once we get a 2nd leader, I'd rather have the HE rushed in a border town to prevent flips and increase MGL odds. We'll need it.

Got it.

Nice kill ratio - you make this look easy! :goodjob:

I'd rather have the HE rushed in a border town to prevent flips and increase MGL odds.
I agree with this completely. If a third comes quickly we can figure out what to do with it but we should be able to get up to eight towns fairly quickly, particularly if we take out Sardis.

I was thinking archer army but the EW army taking out their iron and getting a look at the rest of our landmass would be even better. How many iron do they have? If they have only one, then I say it would be worth our while to park it on their iron until they are no longer a factor (once the rest of their roads etc have been ripped up).

First of all :hatsoff:
Would a city with HE not just flip the same, netting us a lost leader?
Agree on a pillaging army.
@Smart what do you mean with disbanding an army??

I dont think that it will flip - persians capital is far away, and HE will give us 4 culture per turn.

About disbanding - we can support only one army per 4 cities. To build second army we should have 8 cities. So if we wouldn't get them, we must disband first army to build second.
Btw, disbanded army gives 100 shields. I'd suggest to not waste a leader for HE, just disband EW army to get half of requiered shields. In FoS (10 spt @ size 5-6) we can collect remaining shields just in 10 turns ;)

Of course they can always flip, but the chance of flipping is much lessened if we rush culture in them. And I was just speaking out of my hat there, we're neither at 8 cities nor do we have a 2nd leader just quite yet.

Pre-Turn: Make the army to defend SDC against the 8 invaders.

IT: 7 out of 8 attack, and we suffer a few bruises, scratches and next-morning type backpain.
Troops close in on both SoI and FoS

T1.[7-0]
Army down to 5/13, it heals.
Move an EW to defend FoS, take out the SoI spear.

IT: Archer suicides on the army. But wait a sec, can you spell "wtf" ?

http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/~fbolduc/B/SM1-5.jpg

Far-right is a settler pair. eArcher dispatched on the matter - we definitely can use slaves.

T2.[9-0]
SoI: EW > Archer (with a chop)

IT: another archer dies on the army. A spear reaches a road of ours.

T3.
Send an eArcher on the spear, it redlines, so I send a reg archer. Wins but doesn't promote.

Army has now healed and is sent south. SDC left with 4 EW 2 archers against 3 immortals + critters

IT: 0/2 def bombard, but EW's prevail and a critter promotes one of the vets to elite :rudolf:

T4.[16-1]

IT: more immos gather at our door, 2 galleys spotted, one on each side of the land.

T5.
Army reaches the door of Arbela. Pillage a wheat and find out that the immortal traffic comes from the SE. With that kind of info, they burn the road and head SE.

The settler that was going N has not reappeared so I conclude it's in the galley I saw E. 2 archers sent north to burn it.

IT: EW's rock, period.

T6.[18-2]
The road is blocked by immortals, so I'm left with the choice of attacking immortals with a 1 attack army, or losing a move. I lose the move and keep walking the mountain.

T7.
Same scenario for the army, and same result.

IT: less lucky defensive turn. I'm now at 2/8 in def bombard IIRC, but this time men died.

T8.[19-5]
Finally get an opening to pillageable stuff with the army: a forest.
FoS changed into a 10spt EW pump for a few turns.

IT: bad defensive turn. We lose 2 EW's (leaving it open for

T9.[21-7]
Start pillaging Arbela, their road to the core is officially dismantled.

We lose an archer in the north but
http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/~fbolduc/B/SM1-6.jpg

Too bad we didn't catch the settler for the slaves. And that town was founded on a game :crazyeye:

While not grand news, here's the blue on the other side of the blue:
http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/~fbolduc/B/SM1-7.jpg

IT: def bombard works and our last eEW survives the day.

T10.[22-7]
Curragh didn't sink !
Abe will take Alphabet for either 18g or CB. We need the gold but CB is more valuable, so I'll leave that to the next player.

Here's the army path, dots where pillage occured.
There's a total of 10 immos in those stacks, plus 3 wounded/3 spear covers. An archer in the north is threatening, but not quite more since we just wait for him to step down of the hill.
http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/~fbolduc/B/SM1-8.jpg

I kept the builds straightforward: archers as long as there were enough EW's, EW's otherwise, curraghs in the NW town.

Remember to trade and declare on Abe. I don't like his beard anyways.

Roster:
Smart
Beorn-eL-Feared -
nerovats - UP
zerksees - on deck
Whomp
Own - skips till futher notice

The further notice has happened! Spread the word! I'll play if you want.

If Own wants it he can take it , will have to do some gardning work first, so won't be able to play until this afternoon. Will play then if Own hasn't posted a got it.

Ok, good deal, got it. But, my radeon I got for christmas comes before all ;) . I'll play it relatively quick though, I got all day tomorrow.

Our research rate is 10 breakers per turn, and we can learn secrets of CB in 6 turns. So CB costs for us 60 gold, not 18 ;)
I'm sure that we should take CB from Abe, because we will need it anyway for Monarchy.

Edited roster:
Smart
Beorn
Own - UP
nerovats - on deck
zerksees
Whomp

Monarchy won't come for a long time I have the feeling. i'd rather go math and iron.

This is thinking rather far ahead, but what if we get swords and another leader? Do we disband the enkidu army?

The EW army is too far deep in their territory to be disbanded IMO. The pillage is too valuable right now. Getting iron next should be a priority so that we can tell for a fact that we've disconnected iron when we get there - wether we hope getting swords or not.

Nice job putting that EW army to good use!
This is thinking rather far ahead, but what if we get swords and another leader? Do we disband the enkidu army?Build more cities so we can support two.

Pre-turn- Trade alpha and a gold for CB at America, then declare.

IBT- Nothing


Pillage and move army on Persia’s only furs, ready to pillage next turn.
IBT- 10 immortals move into position to attack Screen Door County.


Pillage furs. Now I’m just pillaging around each city to keep the cores from makin immortals. Kill stray archer [1-0].
IBT- Lose Screen County [5-6]. The game is over now, our defenses are thin as tissue paper. A stack of 5 immortals or so is approaching our core, and I think it’s over.

You can look at the save if you want, but I'm sure it's over.

That was such a great map, with the lakes and backfill room, but having persia as a neighbor was a <insert profane noun>. I'd try again, and hopefully we'll get a good map without Persia next door. Turning Culture linked starts off will help that.

We definately would have had a chance, a very good one had our neighbor not been persia I truely believe. The battle at screen door would have been a slaughter if they had been swords.

OMG! How did you had allowed this? :wow:
With army and 10-shield EW's we couldn't loose this SG. I'll try to play from Beorn's save to see if it was winnable

Trade alpha and a gold for CB at America, then declare.
You could take off gold from table ;)

Actually I couldn't, it was shocking that one gold could make a difference.

How did I allow this? 10 immortals cannot be stopped, even by 4 enkidu's and 3 archers in walled city on a hill.

EDit: I've an idea. Since this is a tiny map, turnsets are short, so maybe we should try many of these exact games at once with different starts and maybe civs.

10 immortals cannot be stopped
Ok, here is my turnlog :D

Turn 2 - pillage furs
IT - SDC survive vs 10 immortals [8-4]
Turn 3 - kill redlined immortals [11-6]
IT - SDC again survive [12-8]
Turn 4 - nothing
IT - lose SDC, immortals are coming and coming :blush: [13-10]

Not too fast as Own's, but we lose. :mischief:
Our mistake was barraks in SDC - we had to pop-rush it. Healing troops in just one turn could make difference...

I will generate new start with pre-selected civs tomorrow :rolleyes:

@Own's edit:
About many games - i dont think it's a good idea: we should win using all our skills, but not because of perfect luck ;)

I do recall getting bad luck, but not too bad. The enkidu's in that town had an edge over the immortals, and on the first fight the elite died.

I whole-heartedly agree that this was a winnable battle, we've seen worse in this SG. However, the RNG giveth and the RNG taketh. Beyond pressing enter, there was no "lack of skill" involved in losing that battle. Whipping the barracks would have been wise indeed. I'm sorry it never occured to me.

And yeah, give us any other civ than X-man any day on that start and we were punching holes in them within 30 turns.

Ok, here are my suggestions for the next map:

Earth age: 3 billions - we need more hills for defencive bonuce, and will have more chances for iron
Climate: Wet - more grassland = more BG's = more shields.
Rivals: Pre-selected - no civs, which starts with WC (free archers), and with strong early UU. What about India, Inca and England?

Post-game analysis and thoughts:

Techs order: We are start with Pottery and BW, lets research Masonry (walls) => WC (archers) => IW (swords) => Writing => Math (catapults). Dont waste time researching writing first, like in this game.
Building order: Pop-rush walls and rax in every town ASAP. Dont worry about losing citizens - in this game we had wasted shields, because we had worked on walls or rax, and then pop-rush it anyway...
City placement: Build two towns first, and then build the next town if you are sure that we can defend it. Try to build all cities on hills, and as far as possible from AI. In this game SDC was the closest city to persians, and all immortal stacks were sent to that city...
Tricks: Use open/close town, and hide-n-seek tricks. Why Beorn hadn't used it in his turnset to attract those 10 immortals? :rolleyes:

Good thinking Smart, we need a plan like this. For research order, I would prefer to go for WC first so we can raze a couple AI cities. A tactic used in the only win of this variant so far was sending an elite enkidu warrior next to the capital on hills (thanks to 3 billion), and it won't get attacked, so it can scare workers away from working, and it doesn't pillage. Also baiting, and in baiting remember the AI can see everything.

This can be pulled off, though this type of game involves a bit of luck.

I don't think that we can raze any city, when AI starts with 18 free units.
The way to win is: build many EW's, get first leader on defence in walled town. Build EW army for pillage. Get second leader, and build army of swordsman. Then conquer our continent :)

A few things I would disagree

One is the use of the whip. When needed the whip can be useful but in AW those 20 turns are painful to overcome economically. You can see their direction before it happens and if necessary whip.

The research order is baffling to me. One the one hand I can't see beating the Sid AI without the GLib but without offensive weapons I can't see survival. With that said I'd think WC is critical....then things get fuzzy.

I admit that I've never (ever) explored the whip and the disturbing idiots, and it could've been one of the life/death decisions that made this loss. I take it you mean alpha when you say writing, and I agree that we need to think twice about the techs.

One point I don't agree on however is the importance of catapults, which you don't seem to stress enough. Defensive shot archers are semi-worthless, they'll hit about 1/3 shot and won't be used to the full offensive potential of their 2 attack one way or the other. Catapults are more reliable and can take offensive shots, making them MUCH more powerful.

An alternative to consider is the civ itself: Sumeria has gruesome EW's, and the AGR trait speaks for itself. However, picking the techs is also very important, and we don't have the luxury of building too many granaries.

That being said, venturing out of Sumeria, we need to think about Bronze first and foremost: SCI civ. Then, all of alpha (if we have it, cats are closer), masonry, WC and pots have potential: COM, SEA, IND, MIL, EXP & AGR. I'll flush EXP, Russia has no good early UU to save the trait. Greece, Korea, China, Germany and Sumeria left. Among these, EW's and Hops shine up from the pack.

So let me suggest greece. Not AGR, but that will only matter to on-river towns, since we won't build granaries. Alpha is a costy tech and we'll have it, so we're one step closer to catapults. IMO cats+warriors are as good, if not better, than archers for game-entry trench wars.

Oh and Chasquis are a PITA, so if we could get the rivals among England, Portugal, Spain, India, France ... it'd be awesome

On the tech order, Mas >> WC >> Math >> IW (3 billion makes iron more likely than horses, no? ), and then horses if we're ironless, literature if we're good.

Here's my stab at it. Smarts game plan except I went WC first then masonry, but it didn't matter. I sent an elite EW to pillage furs, travelling along hills to avoid combat from archers and forests to avoid combat with warriors. He now should just fortify on the hill to scare workers from getting out of London to reconnect the furst and other stuff. I would suggest settler NW next by that jungly river, then build up archers, raze the SW city and build on the hill by the wheat.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/SM1b_21501.JPG


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/SM1b_21502.JPG

Noob question: if there was iron under the hill EW, would england have it connected ? Does our presence there disrupts ressources like it disrupts citizen work?

No, it does not. i wondered this a while ago, and tested it, and no, it doesn't. But we can pillage it, the EW still won't get attacked like an army if it's on a hill unfortified.

For the record, I've been lucky on start generation; I'll post some when I've got more time.

Good start, Own, but why you didn't moved the settler to hill :hmm:

I don't know, maybe I should have. I think for the better city locations.

Btw, the reason for the overly cautious play is I met them so early I had to build 4 EW before a settler.

Yikes game over already?

If we are picking a different civ we should start with alphabet and go for the Great Library. It would be a lot easier in the long run if we did not have to research all our own techs - if we survuve that long.

if we survuve that long.

big if there. Cheap enkidu's are much better than the hoplite for many reasons, also the sumers are agri.

Had a feeling this was gona happen. Immortals are, well, imortal.

Will try to find some time to roll some starts as well. Normally I don't like handpicking opponents as it seems like cheating, but a sid AW game will more then make up or the cheat.

We won't be building granaries early, so IMO AGR isn't such a big deal. And like zerksees pointed out, we can grab 3-4 techs and go TGL right then. And once TGL has expired, the AI is crumbling under unit costs (overseas) or is under control (home) (assuming we build TGL, we survived, so stuff should be decent).

I will generate a few starts tomorrow, because of handpicked opponents and Ur, which was founded on grassland instead of hill.
I hope that all "bad" opponents will start on other continent, and if I will see that somebody like Persia is our neighbour, I will try next start.

Good idea about pillager elite EW, Own. In what case AI will not attack him? As I see, you had pillaged wines near Nottingham, and they are on grassland :rolleyes:

Got a decent start already.
Greeks 70% continents, wet, temp, old, no barbs, facing Egypt, America and Japan.
Choose Greece for defence hoplite in walled city on hill is 6 defence.

109639

109640

Hmm... One hoplite (defence 6.75) isn't better then 3 EW's with defences 4.5*3 = 13,5 ;)
I'm sure, that we can't build GLib in non-archipelago map :rolleyes:

Hoplites cost 20 shields. I don't think you can add defensive points like that. There's also unit cost, and survival odds. EW will lose quite often to attackers with strength 4, hoplites will not.

@Smart- About pillaging the furs, it was a bit of a gamble, but nobody attacked me. I think maybe they still don't get attacked by archers on grassland and don't get attacked by swords on hills. Anyway, that guy should be there forever stopping fur connection. A luxuryless civ will hire lots of clowns, hurting their production and hampering research.

Edit: the hill didn't really matter. By the time they get swords (if they have iron) we'll have swords too, and maybe even math, and will no longer need to stay in Ur defending.

Is the plan to each give a start? I like the idea of hops and Nero's start looks good.

You guys can try anything you want - I'll play along for fun. But it seems to me that maybe we should figure out why we crashed on the Sumerian game and replay it to success. I would think we would like to learn the correct way out of this problem, and don't tell me there isn't one.

I am finally well on my way to my first Sid win and it has been quite a learning experience. I was rather particular about starting location and map setup to help me. I have already learned a few things about how important every move is on every turn from that game, and from this game too. I have a HOF agenda that probably won't allow me to play this game the right way by myself but that is an alternative I suggest.

I am no Sid expert but I certainly know a little about how to get better at Civ. Looking for a better map or a better UU certainly isn't going to prove anything. Having a plan upfront, as Smart suggested, certainly will help, and maybe that is enough.

Or maybe we should all go play the game starting before Beorn-el-Feared played it, and see who comes up with the best result. (No offense B, we just know that the 10 high immortal stack formed towards the end of those turns, and I think that is where the wheels came off. I am sure I would have fallen into the same trap. With the advantage of 20-20 hindsight, we could try pre-emptive measures to keep those stacks from forming, so next time we will be better prepared. Or maybe if we leave the EW army at home we can beat down the swarms, and that would be more benefit than pillaging. If we don't try we won't know. )

Smart - since it is your game I will go along with whatever you want to do.

I agree with zerksees that a new civ won't solve our problems, but a better map will. Handy900, the warmaster himself, has, with his team, the only AWS tiny continents win ever, said that continents requires all of the following: Great play, good map with big lakes, cow and river, iron, luxuries, and RNG luck. We do need to try lots and lots of maps to find "the good one."

Sumeria IMO is the best. Heres my take on strategy-

Builds:
1. Enkidu warrior
2. EW
3. Settler
4. EW
5. Rax
6. archers, ew's, whatever need be.

Research should be:
1. WC
2. Masonry
3. Iron working
4. Alpha
5. Math
6. Writing (maybe)
7. Lit (maybe)

Cashrushing raxes and walls is a tough issue. If we don't, we might risk shields by having to if theres a threat, but we also might waste pop and happiness if there never would be a threat. Pop is more important, but so is time, so I'd say pop rush. If we have a cow we'd grow fast.

Why does not being able to build granaries make agri useless? It still is very powerful.

@zerksees
We could prevent those stacks from forming, if we had used trick with attracting EW at Sardis. I'm agreed with your suggestion, and if nobody are against, we may continue this game from my last save at page 4 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3506225&postcount=75). We could lose this game later, because of Immortals (very early "Medival infantry" :crazyeye:), but let's give it a chance. Anyway we shall gain an experience, which we can use in the future games...
About the Army - I think it should stay at home while we are building EW's. When we will have enough EW's to defend our core, Army will start pillage.

@Own
I'm agreed with your research order, but build order have to be changed. Early settler is bad idea, because we need at least 5 EW's to survive vs first stack of free AI units without walls. What you think about early rax, like in this game?

I think an early rax is a bad idea, because the first wave will make everyone elite anyway. If our neighbor isn't insanely close, we'll have time for twe EW's, settler, then some more EW's.

Let's get this moving. How about trying nero's start and if it fails try mine. I think a new thread is a good idea.

Zerksees may play 20 turns from my save at page 4. Then we will know, what to do :rolleyes:

For some very odd reason I missed nero's start until now. It looks really good and I'd advocate trying it.

Got it. Will play tomorrow night (Eastern Standard Time)

I played this game last night – for about 3 hours.

Unfortunately I crashed after 16 turns, losing SoI. Through 15 turns I was able to keep an advantage in unit counts, taking 24 and losing only 8, but then the wheels came off. In turn 16 I lost two archers attacking immortals, costing them only one hit point. On the IBT, I lost two EW and 3 archer in SoI, as my bait move on Sardis did not work and they attacked SoI, costing them 0 units. Multiple Persian immortal stacks were forming and I moved the army to address one near FoS, and the other near SoI was to be baited. Oh well. Baiting had worked fairly well before then, as invading and leaving cities open left the enemy walking around chasing wild geese.

At 1200 BC I noticed Persia had 15 cities already. We have four. So in addition to overcoming the 60% production discount and the immortal, we also have to overcome the city count deficit of 4 to 1. In order to succeed at this we are required to succeed in with a ratio of at least 10-1. For them immortals cost 12 and for us EW cost 10

Obviously I was able to make about 3-1 until my tactical abilities failed. To do this properly I need to know how the AI decides what to attack, rather than going on vague generalities – such as leaving cities open or invading their territory. I need to know how to coax them to attack our EW army. Clearly they will attack it, but I could not get them to attack it when I wanted. I also failed to attack with it – I should have been able to whack about one unit a turn on attacks. Furthermore my baiting attempts failed at the end – somehow the program determined my city was a more viable target than the invader, which it had not decided before.

I can tell you that no yellow or redlined immortals escaped, and I put full strength archers to work on immortals any time they were standing on grass or desert. Clearly something else is missing.

I know a veteran archer vs. regular immortal (or spear) defending is only about 61% successful, assuming the defender is not fortified and on grassland. This ratio is not going to cut it for us.

On the IBT after 1375 BC, six Persians fell to the EW army and backup EWs with no losses. If you take this out of the equation, my kill ratio was only 3-1.

Of course all this analysis is in hindsight.

So if anyone has insight into getting the AI to attack the army I would appreciate it.

I also learned I need help with MM. Three times I lost a city for a turn because I did not MM properly. Too much effort on positioning and not enough on city management.

I might try this again but I don’t want to hold up the game. It is clear that I still have something to learn here about tactics, and might replay this a few times to see what I can learn.

unless it is in a city. Even then, they will bypass that city to head to another softer target. You can either A), take your army out for pillaging (if it gets yellowlined, it will possibly be attacked), or B), bait the AI to attack with slow one move units into a empty front line city, where you have multiple cats and archers and spearmen waiting on a road behind it, ready to move in and blast their stack. When (if ever) the stack is gone, pull forces back behind again and repeat. This of course only works if they don't have horses.

I would try this game but with picking your opponents. Always War Sid is IMO tough enough without the Persians. Maybe not as glorious, but a greater shot at pulling it off.

You are absoulutely right about the armies, they won't get attacked in a city unless there's no other target.

Are we going to attempt Nero's start? I think we should at least try.
If not, I agree with schadenfreude. Sid is tough enough without an offensive UU. I'd prefer to try Romans, Persians or Iroquois.

Romans may not be a bad idea. Persians sound good too. Lets try nero's first.

You are absoulutely right about the armies, they won't get attacked in a city unless there's no other target.
If I understand what you mean, this is not 100% correct. They did in fact attack the city with the army on the IBT before 1350BC. 5 immortals and an archer died trying to attack it. There were undefended cities further away that definitely were targets, and they did not move toward them.

What I need to know is how many units the other cities need to have in them so that the AI will decide "since it will take me 10 turns to get to city B, I will attack city A which is closer". I am hoping it is not just because the army was new (and the AI did not know better yet) that it was attacked.

Maybe they are not aware of the army for one turn. Maybe I can get them to approach the city and put the army in there just before the attack and they will go through with it.

Decoding the decision tree that the AI uses when attacking is an interesting task.

AI will not attack an army 100%, if it's outside the town and fully healed. If army is in city, there is chance, that AI will attack it (remember your last turnset in Own7 ;))

It's interesting to see the [c3c] AI algorithm, but to do this you need source codes :rolleyes:. We can also make maps in editor, and see the AI behaviour in different situations...

That army was wounded, but it wouldn't have been attacked had it been close to full strength. There was another empty city two tiles away.

Source codes aren't really needed, just testing. Some of my knowledge comes from my experiances, some from others.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3509381&postcount=83

Try the last save - AI will attack 100% healed army in the walled city on hill ;)

After playing my 20 turns in an improved manner, all I can say is "That EW army is da bomb!"

It just took three tries to figure out how to use it. It was really quite simple. All I did was load it up with 3 EW and put it in SDC with a couple EW and a couple archer backing it up. I put at least one or two EW on the other cities every turn, and stayed away from Sardis, so they would not be distracted. I also gave the workers a EW escort for good measure, up to the end when we acquired the slaves. Every turn immortals came and attacked the army, and every turn they all died! :p This avoids the large buildup of units and we can handle four or five at a time.

Why? I am not sure, but it may be the mountain and hill approach that they like - as you know they like to travel places where they feel safe.

Final kill ratio: 47-5. I lost an archer taking down Zohak, lost an EW at Port Arthur, lost three other archers on pillaging spearmen. We need mathmatics to get catapults. It will be here soon.

I built two cities (you guys can rename Umma if you like).

It started as an experiment on whether they would attack the armies and it just kept going.

Two more cities and we can get another army.

Other highlights:
- Our army made it to red three times, once down to only one hit point, but it lived. Only one of the EW in the army got promoted.
- I used the army once near the end to take out a spear when a 2-stack of spears came by SDC.
- Persia did drop an immortal near Port Arthur, but I was able to get archer there so only one EW was lost.
- Persia dropped a settler off with an archer escort right next to our elite archer. A gift from Xerxes - how thoughtful.
- No pop rushing
- Lost one turn in FoS to disorder

Sorry if you don't like the city locations. This was a quasi-experiment that went real well. Umma was put on a hill like the others, and Really Bad-tibira was put on the ruins of Zohak to try to monopolize the space up there. It seems like a bad choice but I did not want to waste another turn moving it again. Someone with better MM skills than me should be able to make this little empire rock!

I hope you will want to pick this up again. It may take a couple tries but we can definitely learn how to beat Sid this way.

Other:
- That is a settler pair S of Sardis. Move the EW off the hill 2 SW of Umma and they might start to go north again and get us more free workers.
- Having the two archers up north will be handy in case any more settlers land until we own all of it.
- I suggest we should get up to eight cities ASAP, and build a second EW army to hide our offensive under. Then take Sardis, then start moving south...

That should put Whomp up, and I think it's a clever way of thinking outside the box - that is, to neither hurry our arses to pillage nor to build an offensive army. With catapults, we should be able to slowly gain terrain - the Persians won't get bigger and badder will they? :mischief:

Very, very nice work Zerksees. I will pick this up and play it tomorrow.

Thanks guys.

We all know where the name immortal came from - right? It was because the Persians kept replacing their troops as fast as they lost them, making them appear immortal. So I am fairly sure that Xerxes would not be happy unless he has a place to send those troops to die right? So I found one for him. ;)

The really good news is that it won't be until military tradition (maybe Knights Templar) that the Persians have a unit that attacks above 4. By then we should have their iron, and maybe a few cities.

I did not check their city count but I am guessing they have maxed out this landmass and their flow of immortals should not increase much. We do need to focus more on getting more leaders though since there could be trouble if we lose the army. Building catapults to help take out the pillaging spears and building heroic epic should be in order.

Yeah, I wanted the immortals to be attack three but cost twenthy shields, because they were lightly armed.

Good job zerksees. My only problem is will this count as a "real" win if we do win because of the many reloads? or is this just a learning thing?

My only problem is will this count as a "real" win if we do win because of the many reloads?
AWS tiny continents has been done earlier, so it will not be a record. If we will win in this SG, I could start the next Sid SG, but with harder conditions.

AWS tiny continents has been done earlier, so it will not be a record. If we will win in this SG, I could start the next Sid SG, but with harder conditions.
I know it's been done before, but I still want to play honorably. I'm not as big on honor as most players for exploits like Rop rape and such, but reloading is extreme cheating. I'd prefer to use this as a learning experiance to not send the army out until we have built enough EW's to make up for it. We can get another start this good hopefully, and no persians will make it 10 times easier.

Sure, I don't like reloading too, but let's give it a chance. If we will continue playing in this SG, we may learn something more later.
Anyway, we can play from nero's start then...

My only problem is will this count as a "real" win if we do win because of the many reloads?
I would not call this a "real" win, since reloads were needed. However I think the completing this training mission will be of immense value. If we make any more mistakes we can get through them also. If we had quit right there we would have learned little. Not to mention gaining the know-how to beat the Persian Sid AI!

Then once we complete this one we can start a new game with our improved strategies and win that one without reloading. I hope everyone agrees with this approach.

It's not like we used any of the info learned from the reload to gain advantage (like pre-learned knowledge of resource locations). It was just a change in tactics.

If we will win in this SG, I could start the next Sid SG, but with harder conditions. Harder conditions?! :eek: :eek:

Ok, agree to that.

Edit on x post with zerk: Ok, sounds good. If we ever get overruned, let's replay the turn or some of the previous turns to see if we could change our strategy and still survive. If we do eventually win like this, we'll try again and play smart and carefully, thinking about our past mistakes.

Harder conditions :eek: :eek:
What about Sid, standart, continents? I think, it's winnable by Diplomacy, if we could capture the United Nations :rolleyes:
But if we will try this, it will be only after our first "true" win on Tiny map :)

If we ever get overruned, let's replay the turn or some of the previous turns to see if we could change our strategy and still survive.
But try to play carefully and don't overdo this ;)

Sid standard continents would be extremely hard (that's already an understatement). Preventing UN or cultural loss would be near impossible. I don't know if it's even possible, it might be possible, but so hard no human could do it.

I won't be able to play till tomorrow if someone wants to play the save tonight.

:salute: reporting for general spammage and useless comments. I have to catch up on the past and then I'll be in the future to present myself as slightly knowledgable.

Making it just small, rather than tiny, could be a worthy challenge for people who beat this. And I suppose we just are those people, in the becoming. Jumping to standard size sounds extreme though.

Did you mean Small size, and AW? It's 100% impossible, because we will have to defend against twice more units (5 opponents on the small map, and two of them starts on our continent).
Jumping to the larger size means, that we should choise the less agression level, and pick targers ourselves.

Sid standard continents would be extremely hard (that's already an understatement). ... it might be possible, but so hard no human could do it.
I assume you mean Always War and max# opponents. Without the added problem of Always War and max opponents I know it is possible. Think Panagea would be harder? Check out this screenshot. Its a domination victory but can conquest be far behind?

It's in the high score HOF right now so I know it was against at least 4 opponents.

5 cows Entremont ... nothing else to add ;)
No clue why he OCP'ed so much though, he could have had 3 towns working on those cows.

When i said about standart continents, I mean no always war, but all 7 opponents will be in game. So we will be with three Sid AI on our continent. AI agression must be lowest to don't lose this game early, if somebody will choise to attack us.

About the HOF game - 4 opponents made that game like on tiny map. And 5 cows on the start :crazyeye:

I thought you meant AW, standard continents with 7 opponents is definately possible, so is pangaea. In an SG some others and I attempted sid standard conitnents as Carthage. Funny you bring that game up, I've downloaded that save before.

Actually AI aggression on max is better, because the AI will pick targets that are more of a threat than you (taking this from a guy who won standard sid continents no military).

taking this from a guy who won standard sid continents no military
Could you post the link to the thread where it had been done?

Btw, there was an experiment on other forum - standart sid continents, agression +1. Around 50 players have played (solo, like GOTM), and nobody have won that game.
I don't think that it's too easy, of course without many cows and resources ;)

I played the save till 670 without a lot of success. Too many things for the army to cover. My ratios were only 2:1. Immortals are just too much for our poor EW's. If you want I can post the save but I didn't feel like I made any progess whatsoever.

I'm getting a bit lost. Are we gona continue the original game, my game a new game? Doesn't seem fair to just keep trying the original until we succede, altough that could teach us some valuable leasons.

Í'm surprised that save is in HoF, seems very odd playing to me. But turnsing a start like that into a victory doesn't seem like much of a challange, not only the cows, but loads of other stuff as well.

Ok, we are officially lose this game :shakehead
Whomp, you can post the save, but we will play from nero's start.
I think we don't need a new thread, so I will post game settings here.

Settings:

Version: [c3c] v1.22
Variant: Always War :hammer:
Difficulty: SID :eek:
Civilization: Greece

Size: Tiny
Landmass: Continents, 70% water
Climate: Wet, Temperate
Age: 3 Billions
Barbarians: Disabled
Opponents: Egypt, America and Japan


Starting position:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/SM1_greeks_3000BC.JPG


Save:

SM1b_3000 BC.SAV (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=109640&d=1136023957)


Roster:
Smart
Beorn-eL-Feared
Own
nerovats - started the game
zerksees - UP
Whomp - on deck

Please skip me this time guys. I am going to recommend a city 3NW of Athens on the hill. If I learned anything from attempt #1, the AI likes a safe approach to attack our city, and those mountains look safe for them. I am not sure if it will work if they come from the east. With hoplites we are going to win on defense anyway, so let them come.

It may be possible that the AI may not attack our hoplites in the open until they get swords. They will attack them in the cities.

Whomp, at what point did the immortals start attacking someplace other than SDC? It will be real helpful to know what changed their program. I suspect there may have been some encroachment on Sardis. I believe the AI will feel threatened by moving any unit into a tile on the border of Sardis, not just into their territory. If there was some other trigger I would like to know it so we can avoid it in the next game.

Sometime I will play 10 more of the old game to see if I get the same results.

Whomp up, and indeed it's agood Q: when did the start/stop attacking SDC ...

First of all, I reloaded after the first IT. The army was killed. So after reloading I moved the army to the capital to heel but SDC took its lumps from there. I did make the mistake of moving towards Sardis due to the numbers headed towards SDC. I will try again tomorrow without doing this and it will probably help as Zerksees has pointed out.

The army was killed.:eek: I was afraid of this. Since I saw the army redline twice I thought this was a distinct possibility. Short of realoading, the only contingency plan I can think of is to build as many EW as possible, put them in SDC and try to get another one.

Since a lot of them are coming from the east, any incursion on Sardis will cause them to come north, shortening their trip, and basically doubling the amount of immortals coming at us for a short time. The path to winning on Sid AW is very narrow indeed.

There may be another reason for the problem. I probably should not have attacked that spear with the army. If I had not it would have been up to 100% at the start of the turn, no? (SDC has a barracks)

Thanks for the reply.

Yes Zerksees attacking with the army was a critical piece of that. EW's are not good at much of anything other than defending or pillaging.

Even the few times where the odds were even and I attacked immortals stacks on a desert tile with archers the RNG was not very kind and I wasn't attacking individual ones where I was uncovered for a counter.

IW may have been the better tech route, in the short run, versus maths. Cats helped to pling the immortals but ultimately they didn't help too against massive stacks. The only way to combat this would be to get swords. At least, tactically swords would bring the advantage of a counterattack, at least until the persians upgraded to pikes. Even still cranking out 20 (cats) or 30 shields (swords) would be difficult. This is a big "if" since our workers would likely have to link up iron unless we were so lucky to have it under SDC.

In our situation at SDC swords would be bad since we would be attacking on a hill. The swords would definitely help cut down the supply of pillaging spears though. And what the immortals would do once we had iron hooked up is anoyone's guess.

I attacked with the army since I was getting beat up on the spears, and knew I would not have enough cats to make a difference for several turns. Since there were two spears I knew I would still be in SDC and fortified for the IBT, there were not many Persians near SDC and figured the army would get healed up in time and finally there were some EWs with it too and thought they would carry the weight. Just got a bad draw with RNG.

Sid Without military (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=84619)

Here's that link

I think the swords would help with the wandering pillaging spears and flatland immortals. Of course, the additional cost of 30s vs. 10s would be an enormous opportunity cost and we would need to control the iron. However, if a sword promoted and made an army it would give us the greatest chance of turning the tide and countering their onslaught. Cats, afterwards, could help underneath a sword army.

@Own: very good story. But one point:
Cultural Victory is not allowed and cultural linked starting location is off.
And this screen:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/culture230bc.JPG

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

My point was about AI attacking with max aggression, that had nothing to do with not getting attacked. I agree that the game was a little unfair in his favor.

:bump: Whomp, do you know that you is UP?
If you can't play a turnset, I will do it tonight :whipped:

My fault everyone. I thought it was my turn to pick up the save from Zerksees not the Nero save. :blush:

Smart go ahead and play now since I'm up in another SG and I will pick up this one afterwards.

Zerksees was swapped, and it made you up ;)
Got it.

Turn 1
Athens grows to size 3.
Worker irrigates cow.

Turn 2
Hoplite > hoplite.

Turn 5
Worker roads cow.

Turn 8
Move worker to BG.

Turn 9
Athens grows to size 4 and completes hoplite. Start working on another one (3 turns).
Worker mines BG.

Turn 10
Check F3, we can support only four units. I put settler to the queue, and we should build it on growth, after fifth hoplite.

OK I will try to hit it tonight.

PS Smart did you get my pm?

Yes, but I was too late to grab the MTDG save, because Daghdha have posted a "Got it" one hour after post in Turn tracker thread :mischief:
I will play turn 87 when we will get the save...

After all swaps roster looks so:

Smart
Whomp - playing tonight
zerksees - on deck
Beorn
Own
nerovats

Pre-turn: Hit enter
2510 Switch a tile for extra commerce on the lake.

IT Hop--> settler
2470 Send out two hops to scout new city sites and see some wheat. :D Re mm to shield tiles.

IT
2430 Some tundra north

IT Egyptian warrior appears. They are building the Oracle (and Pyramids).
2390 Sheez....she's loaded.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/egypt.JPG

I can't see giving up alpha for any of these techs. She won't give up IW and the others I simply don't think we absolutely need with hops.

IT
2350

IT settler --> hop
2310 move Settler to mountain with hop that's there.

IT Americans finish Oracle
2270 move into place

IT
2230 Spartan Quarters established. Start a curragh which can be changed.

IT warrior/settler comes by. hop--> hop
2190 Warrior attacks Spartan Q. yeah right....(1-0)

IT
2150 Nice! We have a two tile choke!! We can expand and let them send in warriors when we please for farming.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/choke.JPG

Looks good, great map. We do need some archers though, and we need to send every elite hoplite we get to pillage them, because they're slow pillagers. If we get iron and an army, we have a chance.

Very nice piece of land. Right now I'd hurry for a settler SW of the wheat and make sure it's a barricaded fort ASAP. WC's would be what, 7, 8 shields for a sid AI?

I saw the map and realized, this is a very good map, but watch out...(I put it in a spoiler why you should watch out)

Egypt is going to box you in.You are in a peninsula.:sad:

Possibly so Ansar. However against a Sid AI I would rather cutoff their expansion and define their entry points. We can create 6-7 cities without much risk. Then break out Mr. Angry Sword. :hammer:

Peninsula's are good, we have room to expand without pushing the front, which exerts and weakens our forces.

It wasn't spoiler really, all maps like this with no northern or southern sea will be like that.

OK I think I am next. I have the save and will be playing tonight. Going to try to set up the chokepoint and start expanding.

Ansar: we'd be boxed in on a pangea, on sid :p

Let's not forget our gameplan, and remember the mistakes we made before-

Plan- Make an army of hoplites if we don't have IW yet. Keep it at home until we have the hoplites to take it's place.

Play cautiously, meaning don't overexpand, it's a small continent, we'll have plenty of time after our enemy is vanquished. Of course if our economy is crashing from too many units, that's fine, but military is important. Also by cautious, don't aggressively attack a stray unit, even if they threaten an improvement. We could get a string of bad luck, we can't risk it.

Try and stay on the offensive with archers, keep on the pressure.

Any comments?

2150 BC - Pre-flight. Put AW hat on. Change Spartan Quarters to hoplite.

IBT - warrior moving N, another appears at chokepoint

1) 2110 BC - send hoplite south. Pull a HL from Athens to block mountain pass

IBT - warrior attacks SQ and our golden age begins [1-0]. More warriors are coming.

2) 2070 BC - send third hoplite to chokepoint area. worker set to mine BG.

IBT - Americans finish Colossus

3) 2030 BC - southern hoplite trapped and can't close the gap. head south to explore. at this point four hoplites en route to block. up lux to 10%, and we now have two turn hoplite factory in Athens. Argh we need warrior code

IBT - Abydos appears to our east on our side of the chokepoint. wtf?!? I did not see a settler go by

4) 1990 BC - one hoplite investigating Abydos. has a warrior, but I choose not to attack it.

IBT - Cleo has 18 warriors and an archer headed toward SQ

5) 1950 BC - nothing

IBT - warriors continue north, looks like I can close the chokepoint in 1

6) 1910 BC - we have 10 units, one worker and 9 hoplite. both cities to finish HL in 2. I think there are 19 warrior and 1 archer in total

IBT - another warrior sinks on SQ [2-0]

7) 1870 BC - I close the choke, 2 hoplite on each tile

IBT - three warriors fall [5-0] and a hoplite is promoted to elite. both cities complete HL and start settler builds. the bulk of the force is near SQ. Egypt finishes Pyramids and starts TOA

8) 1830 BC - worker to road NW of SQ. moving an extra hoplite to

IBT - five warriors and an archer fall [11-0] to the hoplites and we have another elite. the archer attacked at chokepoint. one of our elite HL is redlined but lives. there are 8 warrior and an archer outside SQ now

9) 1790 BC - I move more hoplites to SQ - there are 5 in there. I do not want to lose any. Empty Athens so a HL can stay on the mountain and block. up lux to 20% to keep Athens happy

IBT - seven warriors and and archer fall at SQ [19-0], and another HL is now elite. sorry no great leaders.

10) 1750 BC - bring HL off hill to Athens as there are only three warriors left outside SQ. pull one from SQ to keep the block on.

next: put a hoplite in Athens and reduce lux to 10%. Figure out where to put the other settler.

What tech is next - warrior code, iron working or literature? With all those hills I want to believe we will get iron. I hope we can pay cash for a tech before declaring war as I have been accumulating gold.

We lost 0 units, and 0 improvements pillaged. Hoplites rock!

Beorn-el-Feared I think you are next.

Great idea zerksees, i never saw that coming.:)

:dance: Yeah buddy! 19-0 and the choke shut off.

It may make sense to have a swinging gate strategy at the choke for the egyptian warriors every so often. It could be a elite farm like none other. If we are not going for philo then WC makes all the sense to me since it's cheap bombard and counter.

19-0! :hatsoff:

I think we were researching writing with hope for GL... If so, I don't want to lose population in SQ. Set production to rax, as prebuild for palace, and research masonry with max tech rate - 9 turns.
Philosophy on Sid :crazyeye:? After masonry lets research Litereture.
If we will get GL, and will be still alive, we will win this game :)

So that's me up. Can't promise anything until tomorrow night, but I will catch on what happened by then, at least.

Philosphy can be had first on Sid, though for me the success rate is low. Maybe the standard map size gets the AI trading sooner.

Our research rate will drop when Athens pops a settler, though not sure how much it will affect the turns to complete. I do like the idea of going for literature and the Great Library. If we start on masonry maybe we can still meet someone and trade for it before research is done.

I have some regret about not putting out the curragh because a trade for masonry would be real useful right now. Maybe I was a little shell shocked form the first attempt. Enkidu Warrior defending against immortal should not be compared to hoplite defending against warriors and archers.

I think we could send one or two hoplites to pillage, maybe keep their iron disconnected, forcing them to build more archers, er great leader chances.

If we are only popping one city, should it go at the chokepoint? I vote that Athens go right to work on another settler.

I'd like iron. A sword army is good. I would want to contact the other continent to get them into war mode, making their chances of getting the GL less and not letting them get too advanced. It's worth occasional landings.

Let's focus here.
1. Pillaging any iron is big because hops can't be taken unless the Egyptians get swords.
2. Research path. We should get out a curragh. The curragh has the capability to make trades and if we beeline to lit there's a good possibility we can get some techs. I feel bad for not trading our alpha now but I still think it will help us make more trades if we get a curragh.
3. Glib--if we going this route we should do it now. So why wouldn't well fill in our space and focus on pillaging and defense until we are done? The Egyptians can take hops consistently till knights or Maces. Our continent can be taken care of if we go GLib.

I'm against second settler before we will start researching Literature. We should learn Masonry ASAP to get access to prebuild. Use barraks as a prebuild for Palace.

My suggestion on build queue:

Athens: Settler > Curragh > Settler
Spartan Quarters: Hoplite > Barraks (pre-build) > Palace (pre-build) > GLib

After two turns of Writing, research masonry at the max rate. If you see, that you will not complete rax in SQ before Masonry - don't build hoplite and switch from settler to rax immediatly

I'd like a scout down the hills and up the peninsula, just to look around. I'd also like to take advantage of our appearant isolation to just pop settlers like rabbits. I seem obsessed with that. And, prepare for a working leader valve?

I just shovelled a lot and I'm broken for tonight, perhaps tomorrow I'll get to this ... friday for sure.

friday for sure.
game status?

Thanks for the :bump:, I think Own can grab the save, because 48h were passed

Roster:
Smart
Whomp
zerksees
Beorn
Own
nerovats

Sure, I'll take it.

Indeed, sorry for that, I'm still working on Own's game. This was next, but I should've posted. That'll teach me ;)

Pre-turn- Looks good.

IBT- Egypt loses three warriors, and I get a leader! [3-0]. Athens Settler > hoplite.

1. Move settler with hoplite.

IBT- Archer appears. Writing > masonry, 12 turns at 80%.

2. Move settler pair.

IBT- Archer dies to hoplite [4-0].

3. Found Corinth. Start on worker. Lux 10%.

IBT- Archer appears. Athens hop > hop. We need some replacements when we get the army.

4. Nothing.

IBT- Archer advances

5. nada

IBT- Spartan Quarters settler > rax. Archer keeps going. Sword appears :(.

6. Move hoplites around to block the archer. We need some offense to stop these stray archeres.

IBT- Athens hop > hop. Lux up ten %age. Sword dies to hop on choke [5-0]. Archer seemed to have disappeared. Another apperas by choke.

7. move hop with settler.

IBT- Archer loses to hop on choke. Still no promotion [6-0]. Archer reapeers.

8. Nothing.

IBT- Archer loses to hop on choke [7-0]. Athens hop > settler.

9. Found Delphi. Load army with two hops. This is all that's necessary. We need the others.

IBT- Sword loses to hop on choke [8-0].

10. I'm really getting tired of that stray archer, but I stay conservative and do not attack. We need some offense.

Notes: We have sufficient hops to stop Egypt, so army can go and pillage. Those hop's down at the choke really need some promotions. An elite fortified on flatlands will not be attacked by swords.

Heres a pic of the mayhem.

One suggestion I just thought of: If we do get an elite, he has to heal, so the army could guard him while doing that.

:worship: Thanks to RNG for the leader :worship:
I'm not sure about pillaging with the army, because stack of 4-5 swords will break the chokepoint easy, and then our situation will be like in the last game :rolleyes:

One thing that was a 'decisive' (even in the loss, it was worth that mention) in the last game was to plant an army in a town and soak attacks with it - I'm just unsure about planting right there (where city placement fits most) or going offensive. Hoplites can probably hold until the next leader, though, so whichever is fine - I just mean to say it shouldn't be picked lightly.

Roster:
Smart - On Deck
Whomp
zerksees
Beorn - :bump:
Own - Jusp played
nerovats - UP

I don't think swords will attack elite fortified hops on flatland. Or we could found a city there. Time to expand to the choke.

Edit: Btw, depending on the length of the prebuild time, we maybe should pursue archery.

I agree we need archers. Won't be long anymore before egypt will sial around our choke though.

Got it.

With archers to counter their archers, a properly fortified choke, and good use of the cow, we can spawn our peninsula before they effectively pose a threat on our side of the choke with their settlers.

@Own:
Swords will attack elite hops on chokepoint, because even archers have attacked them ;)
Our next or second city should be on choke to get defensive bonuce with walls. Then we may move army to pillage...

The Archers attacked vets. One HP is more valuable than an attack point usually.

We have won 27 straight folks if we lose 1 or 2 hops every 20-30 attempts or so I'd take those odds anyday. Let's build on the choke and it's all over for Egypt. I would send that army right into their core and wreck the joint. Iron as a priority. Hops are so much more powerful than EW's it's sick.

We will have this island soon enough. We should have time to knock out WC since our pre-build is still a long way away even if we get lit.

Whomp has a good point. As soon as we hit Abydos with archers, we can expand to the choke, walled city and maybe a fortress will stop all attackers. A sword army will seal the game, at least the first half which is the conquest of the continent.

What the combat calc said: Vet fortified hoplite wins vs vet archer 83% times; elite hop win vs vet sword in 78% times. You can see that one attack point adds more chances for enemy then extra hp for us ;)

X-post:
Yes, this map is very good, because of that 2-tile chokepoint. We can easy expand on our side of island while their units will suicide on the chokepoint.

Also at this point I would not expect large stacks of swords to come, since they send them as fast as they can make them.

You're right though we need to cut down those archers. I suspect if you put a hoplite in each city they will start attacking the nearest city.

Adds more chances? If they didn't have that extra chance we'd be dead already :crazyeye: . Ah well, maybe I'm wrong.

Pre-turn
change Delphi to rax
IBT
2 swords kill 2 hoplites 0-2
1475BC
army kills 1 HP swords 1-2
move hoplite in athen to make try and make archers attack
IBT
archers do not attack yet
1450BC
GA ends now masonry next turn in stead of this one
IBT
egypt send lots of units now 4 swords, spear, archer and settler from the south, 4 archer roaming behind the choke.
1425BC
Masonry->WC (10)
Athens settler->hoplite
Corinth worker->rax
IBT
hoplites seem useless against swords a 2HP sword defeats healthy vet 1-3
egypt sends even more swords, archers now appear to be on pillage duty
1400BC
nothing
IBT
Yeah right, reg archer defeats vet hoplite fortified in Athens which is on a hill->we lose athens 1-4
another reg archer takes our settler pair which was heading towards the choke 1-5
On the choke the swords break trough after killing 2 swords and an archer. Only the army is not attacked 4-6
1375BC
Stop playing as it's now useless to continue.

111740

Again!  :shakehead
I was afraid that they will break the choke, and it was happend :blush:. We must play more cautiously. Two swords vs two hoplites have almost equal chances. Instead of building settlers we had to build hoplites after settling three towns.
OK, this is the second thing which we have learned :crazyeye:. Also I think that we have no time for GL in AWS game, we should get walls and archers ASAP in the next game instead of researching Writing >> Literature ;)

another reg archer takes our settler pair which was heading towards the choke 1-5
Looks like the RNG got you this time. Wish I knew how they got that settler behind the choke.

The settler behind the choke is my fault. I saw it but couldn't do anything else about it. I will also take the hit for not trading alpha for WC. :(

What now?

GL is extremely hard to get. We should still try, but military comes first. When the GOMOAW beat this, they didn't start their prebuild for a very long time, and got lucky that there was no cascades.

Sumeria IMO is the best. Agricultural is powerful, more than commercial. Cheapies are good.

Looks like the RNG got you this time. Wish I knew how they got that settler behind the choke.
Galleys from Map Making...:(

Yeah, Ansar is right, they get MM a lot quicker than expected. I had a big island all to myself one sid game (had a four turner settler factory) and got outexpanded by an AI on another continent.

Helicopters from Advanced Transportation. ;) j/k

Madviking, they will come soon :lol:

I will generate some starts tomorrow. I think we should play as Sumerians, because as you see from the last game, we can't go for GL and fight with Sid AI at the same time. AGR trait will also help to expand more quickly.

Well, the hoplites are really good, but 2 Enkidus is better than 1 hoplite right? And with faster growth, if you have cities on rivers/hills, faster cities with a +50% defense bonus.:scan:

Yeah, Ansar is right. Only problem is higher support cost, but it's made up for by agriness and other stuff.

Having a higher survival rate should also improve leader succes. I still think hops are better. Just very bad luck streak during my turns. Vet fortified hop on hill defending against reg archer is really just bad luck. Anyway we'll see what comes up next.

Yes, it was just really, extremely bad RNG luck. But you should try Sumerians just to see how you would do with it.Also, it has been a pleasure to lurk in this game.:)

I have generated few starts, and on try 10 I got it:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/SM1c_Start.JPG

World settings are the same: Civilization - Sumeria; Climate - Wet, Temp, 3 Billions; Size - Tiny 70% continents. Three random rivals, F10 said that they are Maya, Arabs and Romans.

We have two cows, lake with fresh water, Ivory (SoZ :p) and we started on neck, which could be used as chokepoint. I will play first 20 turns tomorrow, after some discussion. I'd suggest to move settler NW, and found second town on hill 1S from cow on plain. Third town probably should be on hill 1S from Ivory.


Roster:
Smart - :wavey:
B - on deck
Own
nerovats
zerksees
Whomp

Good looking start.

Arent you guys looking for a freshwater start?, if not, then go towards Mathematics for SoZ, since Ivory is reachable.:)

We need Masonry and WC ASAP for good fighting and defence. What we will research next depends on prebuild timing - IW >> Alpha >> Math, or Alpha >> Mat >> IW

Btw, I haven't looked for Ivory on start, it is just nice RNG luck.

I'll have to request a bump out, school kicks in and I can't afford 5+ SG's. GG boys, :wavey:

Turn 0
Move settler to hill. Worker irrigates plain to be able to irrigate grassland cow, because water N from starting position isn't fresh.

Turn 1
Ur was founded, start EW.
Researching WC at max rate (40 turns)

Turn 4
Worker builds road.

Turn 6
Ur: EW >> EW.

Turn 7
Move worker to cow

Turn 8
Irrigate cow without access to fresh water :)

Turn 10
Ur: EW >> EW.

Turn 11
Ur have grown and got culture expansion. Found another cow and ivory :crazyeye:
Ur is now making 5 spt, which means EW production every 2 turns.
WC in 21 turns

Turn 12
Worker roads cow on grassland

Turn 13
Ur: EW >> EW.

Turn 15
Ur have built EW, starts settler, because we must pay for unit support now.
Meet Maya, they have Masonry and WC. I haven't anything to offer.
Declare war :hammer:
Move worker and two EW's to cow on plain.
MM Ur to get settler and growth in 5 turns
Lux to 10%, -1 gpt. WC in 7 turns

IT
Mayan warrior was fortified.

Turn 16
Worker builds road. One EW was moved to hill, other EW was fortified to guard worker.

IT
Mayan warrior don't attack EW on hill and was moved 1S.

Turn 17
Fortify EW on hill, where we will found next town.

Turn 19
Worker irrigate cow.

Turn 20
Ur: Settler >> EW.
Science to 60%, WC in 2 turns.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/SM1c_3000BC.JPG

'll have to request a bump out, school kicks in and I can't afford 5+ SG's. GG boys
SG forum is in massive dropping period :lol:


Roster:
Smart
Own - :bounce:
nerovats - on deck
zerksees
Whomp

Worker irrigates plain to be able to irrigate grassland cow, because water N from starting position isn't fresh.Towns act as irrigation bridges, so you could have done the cow directly ;)

Got it. Play soon, though I'm not on civ computer.

i'd go for ivory first for a lux, and hill spot. The wheat should be second.

Ivory is main goal.;) Also, the hill is a nice bonus.:D

Blue dot will be first of course ;). After WC we should research Masonry to get access to pre-build and walls.
Own, are you going to play? 48h were passed...

Oh, I've been busy with Own7. Should have played this first I guess. You can swap me.

Ok, Nerovats is up.

Roster:
Smart - played first turnset
nerovats - UP
Own - on deck <- ;)
zerksees - in the hole
Whomp

OK, play tomorrow.

Smart, did you forget to post the save, did you hide it, or do I need different glasses ;)

I forgot the save, sure :mischief:
Take it now: SM1c_3000_BC.SAV (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/SM1c_3000_BC1.SAV) ;)

Pre-turn
all ok
2950BC
Found Sumer->EW
2900BC
Ur EW->settler
WC->Masonry on max (20)
IBT
2 maya warrior come from ivory
2850BC
moving
IBT
now make it 10 warriors
2800BC
mine BG
IBT
Maya finishes colossus
now make it 17 warriors
2750BC
Sumer EW->EW
IBT
another 2 warriors appear
2710BC
Move EW from warrior to Sumer all others go to Ur
IBT
1st EW loses to warrior 0-1
2670BC
also move last EW to Ur
IBT
now things go better, 8 wins no loses, hit GA get 1 vet and 1 elite 8-1
2630BC
Ur settler->archer(3)
have to up lux to 30%
IBT
kill 7 warrior gain 1 elite 15-1
2590BC
Sumer EW->EW
lux down to 0%
IBT
kill 2 more warriors 17-1
2550BC
nothing

archer next turn, take out warrior and move settler and 3 EW (including elites) to hill between ivories. Masonry due in 6 so new town can start to prebuild walls on something. Sumers next EW should cover the worker again. Made small mistake of improving BG before cow. Ur won't need a wall as it will be surrounded by other cities. Think we should build 1 more city next to the wheat. Then just military.

112634

112635

17 stupid suicidal warriors - I love it :goodjob:
We must send one EW to explore, maybe we could setup a chokepoint like in the last game.
Build walls in Sumer and then start pre-build. Also, irrigate second cow after roading BG - Sumer have to grow to size 6+ to finish SoZ ASAP.
If we will build SoZ, we will win this game: army of AC's = death to everything :ar15:. Just don't let AI to capture any town - use open/close town trick to prevent pillaging, and distracting trick to prevent AI from forming large stacks.

Own - UP
zerksees - on deck

Remember - 24h to post "got it" and 48h to play. To keep it going notice if you need swap or skip before this time is over.

Got it. Hope I can play soon.

Since the Mayan's will come over the hills near the ivory they should suicide themselves onto the new city like in the first attempt.

One question, should the settler go SE or were there attacks from that direction?