Welcome to your C_IV Warlords SGOTM 6 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

The Game

Gyathaar is playing this one close to his chest. Here's all the intelligence I've been able to wring out of him:


Prince difficulty
Epic speed
You play as the Charismatic, Protective Churchill of the English Empire.
You start with Fishing and Mining.
Your unique unit is the Redcoat, replacing the Rifleman.
Your Unique building is the Stock Exchange, replacing the Bank.
The map is a highly modified Cylindrical Big And Small map, using the BtS map script. It is Standard, Temperate, Medium sea level.
Always war. All VCs are enabled. I think the barbs are at default setting.

Here's the start - click the picture for one a bit bigger.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/SGOTM06small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/SGOTM06.jpg)

Versions
This game will be played in Warlords Version 2.13, on Windows only, with the DLLs as installed with BtS.

It will be played using the current version of the HoF Mod. This is version 2.13.002 for Windows. You will need to ensure that you can run the Asset Checker v2 before you attempt to load this game. Typlically, players who have upgraded to Beyond the Sword will have the right assets. Alternatively, you should be able to make your installation compliant by installing the new .DLLs released for WOTM 15 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=251044). If you have a Steam installation then you will need to look at this post by ArcadicGamer for inspiration.

If later versions of Warlords or the HoF Mod are released they cannot be used for this game, and you will need to maintain a copy of your installed software at these versions to complete the game.

Timetable
The game will start on December 14th. I recommend you plan for a 4 month deadline for completion.

You will be able to download your start save from the SGOTM Progress and Results Page (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) on December 14th, at midnight local server time.

Notes

Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439) to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.

Warlords v.2.13 is supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with the same version throughout the game.

Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher. The number of awards may be reduced, depending on the number of teams who sign up.

Awards will be given to teams who win in the least turns.

All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.


Enjoy your mystery tour of the World of Warlords.

First!

Hopefully we can get everyone to check in quickly. This one starts soon!

Index of Fifth Element turnset reports for SGotM6:
The linked post has a link to the thread which opens the entire page.

SGotM6 results

turn _00- 21 (greatbeyond 12/16)

turn _21- 40 (blubmuz12/17)

turn _40- 60 (civicide 12/18)

turn _60- 81 (merum 12/20)

turn _81- 95 (greatbeyond 12/21)

turn _95-113 (blubmuz 12/22) :band:

turn 113-130 (civicide 12/29)

turn 130-143 (sweetacshon 01/05)

turn 143-162 (merum 01/06)

turn 162-177 (greatbeyond 01/08)

turn 177-193 (blubmuz 01/10)

turn 193-208 (civicide 01/13)

turn 208-223 (sweetacshon 01/16)

turn 223-236 (merum 01/17)

turn 236-252 (greatbeyond 01/20)

turn 252-267 (blubmuz 01/25)

turn 267-284 (civicide 01/26)

turn 284-298 (sweetacshon 01/31)

turn 298-313 (greatbeyond 02/07)

turn 313-323 (blubmuz 02/11)

turn 323- 333 (civicide 02/26)

turn 333- 345 (sweetacshon 02/28)

turn 345- 356 (greatbeyond 03/07)

Continues in next post

Continues from previous post

turn 356- 363 (blubmuz 03/10)

turn 363- 376 (sweetacshon 03/17)

turn 376- 387 (greatbeyond 03/21)

turn 387- 410 (blubmuz 03/28)

turn 410- 4xx (sweetacshon? 03/xx)

turn 4xx- 4xx (greatbeyond? 03/xx)

Hi all
welcome back to the old members
and welcome on board to greatbeyond and Strauss

please let us know something about you, including your game experience.

We'll start to discuss about the game after all the members have posted here.

I reserved the 2 posts above (1 of them is my #800, wow!)
for some kind of index, to keep track of the reports and the key decisions without have to bother to look in 20 or + pages.
Hopefully we will NOT be wiped in the first TS!!!

dutchfire checking in to watch you win a laurel!

Checking in... I think it would be a good idea for us to play up to 1000AD or so in a test game, before we get started. I don't have a lot of experience with AW, but in the couple test games I started thus far, I got my ass handed to me rather efficiently. Thankfully we're on Prince, the test games I played were on Monarch.

Anybody want to put together a save in WB and post up for testing?

Initial thoughts: As much as I hate to research it, I feel archery will be an early must in this game. With Churchill, they come out of the gate with Drill 1 and CG 1, which will at least make them effective defenders. Other thoughts on this starting location are that we might strongly consider worker first, while researching BW, hoping for metal in the FC. Once the worker comes online, maybe we consider mining the cow for food+hammers until we can get AH, and chop-manage a settler while putting the between chop turns into a barracks. We're going to need more than one military production city for sure to keep up.

We may also want to consider moving 1W to settle the hill, for the defensive bonus plus the extra hammer on the city square.

So, tech order: BW, Hunting, Archery, IW if no copper pops, wheel if it does.
Build order: Worker, Barracks/Settler, archer, archer, Axeman (hopefully)

Those are initial thoughts, at least.

I sent a PM to BrianS to see if he has any interest. Hopefully he'll show up.

EDIT: Disregard what I said about mining the cow, because it's on grassland, and therefore, I am stupid. :smoke:

I'll try to put together a test game, with the assets unlocked, so we'll can edit it to see what happens around.
Of course much will depend from the location of strategic resources and the neighbors.

I've played only 2 games with AW, both were GotM:
- the one with Rome was a nightmare, i was been toasted after some 200 turns; IIRC it was monarch, with raging barbs;
- the one with Stalin was on warlord, and i managed a SS win (not submitted, IIRC i was in late).

The difficulty is raised of at least 1 level, in addiction we'll have to research anything. I don't remember if the vassal thing works, i'll try a second WB game to test this.

This time we must know all the mechanics of the game e.g. if we managed to play a test game we can have researched BW in SG5 :mad: , but there was the problems with those strange configurations.

What is sure is that the warrior will explore only for no more than 8 turns: a lot of players (some good) was toasted with Rome undefended in that GotM.

Thanks Dutch, i was hoping you signed as an official lurker, your comments would be appreciated.
If you want i guess you'll be in time to do so.

edit
Well, here is the test game.
The settings are the same, i used a Continents map.
I've tried to reproduce the same map, for what we can see from the SS.
I gave us copper in the capital FC.
I've tried to settle on dyes, it gives +1:commerce:
we can consider this, of course is an help for the very beginning, but after Calendar is a loss of 5 :commerce: plus we'll have 3 jungle in the FC. On the other hand, the SE gold gives +1:commerce:
The AI starts with 1 Settler+2 warriors or 1 Settler+2scouts.

In this level the bonus the AI has is small, but after Alpha they will trade techs like crazy, and they will have the "mutual military ..." to improve their relations.
The nice thing is that they do NOT have a big discount on the units upgrades.

I made the test with an advanced start, edited with WB: simply you can't talk with your rivals, thus the vassal thing doesn't work for us (i suppose it does for the AI).
In other words we'll need to wipe them, or they will be a danger.

Great Beyond is in the building, but Elvis has left.

I have played Civ 4 warlords since the start of the competitions but have not been very successful til lately. Having been a Civ 3 player for many years, it was hard to get used to Civ4 and then Warlords.
When I saw the announcement, I went out and created a test game, modified the start area to match, and have played 2 games through to about 1500 AD. The one I played, had all but 2 of the Civs on the same continent as us.

If we are on one of the islands, I expect it to be a different kind of game. One thing that was surprising was barbarians seem to spawn like crazy.

If anyone is interested in the test game, I can post it. I'm going to play Blubmuz's test, hopefully tonight

With always war, you can't even talk to the AI to get them to become a vassal.

Checking in. I'm away from home for another 5 days or so, so am unsure of availability, but I should be able to keep in touch. I need a bit of time to think about the position, but thanks for the test, Blub, I'll take a look at it.

Questions I have about the start,which should be answered by the test game:
1. Where to move the warrior? SW to the jungle hill I think, TP should stop here, take a s/s, and we'll discuss it again.
2. Where to settle? The warrior move will help, but at a glance, in place looks ok. I like the option of the 2x 2gpt tiles (we have fishing) if we need early science.
3. What to build/research? BW first, with a worker. As for archery, etc, it'll depend on the tests :)

Dutch, if you want to lurk and comment on the game (I hope you do), you'd better tell Alan, so you're official.

OK, I played the test game up to 1484 AD. One very important lesson I learned is this: We are going to have to fight in multiple directions at once. I managed to kill two of the civs, and bring another to its knees, but in doing so, another got far too powerful and large for me to handle, and eventually overwhelmed me with knights and maces vs my axemen, spears, and cats.

Research is going to be a serious problem. Soon before the attack that ended my game, I ran out of money, and ended up on strike. I had to disband some weak units to keep from losing my stronger ones.

I actually managed to build the great wall, in an attempt to generate a GE to get the mids. I eventually ended up with the mids too, but not by building them. :mischief: However, taking and keeping the city with the mids was probably a financial mistake given the distance from my capitol and the military resources I had to leave tied up there to protect it.

Vassaling civs is out, because they won't even talk to you with AW checked.

One nice thing that I forgot about from playing BTS all the time is that cats are fatal again. :cool:

The common thread here is a crippling lack of money that we're going to have to find a way to deal with. This has been my primary issue in all of my AW "test games" that I've tried to this point. I simply had no money to keep up in research, and eventually end up getting pasted by stacks of vastly superior units. It was 1200AD by the time I actually got CoL for courthouses, and they weren't really useful because I didn't have that many cities, and I had to keep building military in them anyway to stay alive. A steady diet of razing money seems to be key, but as I said previously, we have to spread that razing around so nobody gets too big for us to deal with.

Given that this is a big and small map, we're going to need to get at least Astronomy to win most likely. Right now, I simply don't see how we're going to manage that unless we get a quick kill and lots of space to expand on our continent.

Important techs: BW, AH, Pottery, IW, Construction, Currency
Techs I wish I had gotten: Metal Casting, Machinery, CS (Could it be worth a try at an oracle slingshot???) Military techs would have to suffer to pull it off.

I agree that the warrior should be moved SW.

The starting save is upon the progress and results page now, I suggest we have our first TPer grab it, move the warrior SW, and post a screenshot. Tradition on the team has been to have a new player go first, and I see that greatbeyond has checked in. There's my nomination.

Has anyone PM'd Strauss (our other new member) to make sure he's in the fold?

Remember, this is AW, so VERY minimal exploration with the first warrior. I would have to have this game end on the first turnset :)

Research path? I'm tempted to suggest Hunting > Archery > BW, but much might depend on what contact we make with other civs. With Churchill being protective (my least favorite trait as it happens) we might as well make use of it from the start. If we don't have nearby metal, Archer Rushes with a protective leader can show some promise.

Barring discovering something extraordinary, I think settling in place will be a fine option. The capital should make for a good production city, with the gold mine providing a nice boost to early research.

I'll warn that I've been traditionally pretty terrible at Always War, but I'll give it my best shot.

I pm-ed yesterday to both our new members, and about a week ago to Brian, who's last activity on CFC was 11/27, so i think he's in travel.

As you pointed out, much will depend from the map: if we are with 1 or 2 AI in our continent it can be pretty easy, with more it can be more problematic.

Research:
i think our protective archers are enough to deal with any rival, so i propose
hunting-AH-archery-wheel-BW.

I'll motivate this path when you surely disagree with it: please, try to figure my reasons before to do it.

Welcome (again) GB!
You seem an experieced player and a good addiction to our team.
Please, would you like tell us something about your location?
And perhaps explain your sentence about Elvis?
Please, never forget i'm not an english mother-language.

edit
i noticed few moments ago the save was on line.

I agree with Civ, greatbeyond will open the game, to continue our tradition.
Before to decide where to move the warrior, and SW can be OK, please consider the blue circle over the gold, and eventually to move the warrior over there, then go SW in a half-circle to be back in London.

I appreciate the fact that so many people with different languages gather here and use English. I would struggle with having to communicate in a different language. Does Hello and goodbye in a different language count as communicating? :blush: Never hesitate to ask me to explain

Background
Live and work in upstate New York, USA, wish I could spend the winter at the beach!

I have played better the last couple of Warlord competitions but I still feel like I'm taking too many risks, as I usually play conservatively. However I have actually won.

How many turns will we be taking, are we sticking with 20 or 10?
Do we want to pause after every 5 turns or so and review what has been done or to assess what is revealed? This is my first SGOTM so I appreciate guidance on the mechanics of game play and etiquette
I will try to not disappoint on my turn.
Thoughts:
MOVES - First move Warrior to SW, unless something important is revealed,
I think settling in place is best. I propose to start with a warrior build first as that allows 1 warrior to go exploring and perhaps pop a Goody Hut. I will keep him within a short distance of the capital.
Scouts can not attack our city or steal our workers

TACTICS - After reading descriptions of other's games I have changed my tactics and have had success going for a worker steal where possible. One concern with this is you should steal them when they are more than two road squares from their city or where you are on a hill or woodland tile, as the AI doesn't seem to want to take the risk attacking.
The other trick I have used is posting a warrior or archer outside their city on a good defensive tile. I then got at least two archers to keep there. This tended to keep the AI in it's city and when it did send a settler out it never had an escort of more than 2 warriors or 2 archers. With the bonuses our archers get they usually defeat the AI archers on grassland tiles.

RESEARCH - I agree with Hunting first as it can lead to AH or Archery. Going with BW first can be a big waste if there isn't any Bronze nearby. I am more in favor of going Archery then AH or Bronze. The key decision here would be how quickly do we build a worker. Where I have not been able to steal one, I have waited until I got to Size 3 to 5 to build one, then If I had BW I could always rush it. If we don't have a worker, he can mine but only bare hills, until we get BW

BUILDS - I propose warrior then maybe another warrior?

reference to Elvis is, that when he died, it was said he "left the building"

Lastly I Will grab the Initial Save and post the screen shot, but not make any movements for at least 10 hours from this post, unless someone feels we should give it longer. I am in Eastern Standard Time 3 hours behind GMT

Here is another screenshot of the starting position (warrior not moved yet). If you look at the tile 1N and 3W it looks like coastline, other than that I don't see any initial surprises.

A few notes:

BLubmuz is constantly apologizing for his English, which to me is always funny because frankly it's much better than many native English speakers that I know. He's also pretty good about asking for clarification when a piece of slang eludes him.

As for the game:

There's likely not going to be any goodie huts to pop, at least in our general vicinity. I think Gythaar has been systematically removing them ever since SGOTM3 or so, since an early tech pop or early barbarian pop can make or break the whole game with too much randomness.

Looking at the starting spot, assuming we settle in place:

This sould be a good production spot and a likely spot for the Heroic Epic. Once terrain is improved and we have sufficient health+happiness, I count 17 base hammers, not including the grassland forests (which we will likely want to chop at some point), spread out amongst 4 grassland hills and 1 plains hill (which also obviously has the gold mine), the plains and the cows. The hills will give a food deficit of 6, and we'll get +2 from the cows, +2 from the capital, and +3 from the bananas (post-Calendar). So we should be able to grow (albeit slowly) while at full production. We will probably want to irrigate around the fresh water lake to retain growth while cranking out an army.

I'm fine with an exploration of E first. If we don't think we'd be able to see anything in a move SW that would change our settling in place, then it doesn't matter much. Something like E, SW, SW, NW, NW, NE, NE to get back into the city would be fine and quite conservative enough.

Traditionally we have played 15 turns during peacetime, 10 turns during wartime; since this is an Always War game we'll have to use a judgment call as far as when we're actively engaged in a conflict or not. For the first turnset, 20 turns would probably be fine, since they go so quickly.

Well, I speak three languages, English, Mandarin, and Spanish, and can mangle some German, French, and Italian as well, but my mother tongue is English (The proper kind, not the kind Sweetacshon speaks ;)). Blubmuz thinks his English is worse than it is, and Dutchfire is quite fluent as well, so we really haven't ever had any communication problems on this team. (At least none that are language related :mischief:)

Where in Upstate NY, greatbeyond? I was borned and grew up in Rochester. They have a beach, you can spend your winter vacation there! :D

So I've been thinking about my AW results, and wondering if I haven't been overextending my self with offensive warfare, and that's what's been hurting my economy so badly. With the exception of Washington and the mids last night, I almost exclusively raze, and my field stacks haven't been huge, so I'm not sure that's really the answer to the problem. It's going to be dicey finding the balance between commerce and war to keep our economy going, but for sure we have to keep the AIs that we can reach on the hurt, or they're going to blow by us in tech and military as a result.

This makes me think that in the early game, a couple of stacks of 3-4 of our toughest units should go out in diverging directions, looking to harass our neighbors, mug settler stacks, and pin/occupy production squares near capitols, occupying and throttling as much production as we can, until we can build a SoD and do some serious razing.

In Blub's test game, I got lucky and found a civ nearby that had an undefended capitol. I was able to raze and knock him out within the first 15 turns of the game. We should be on the lookout for these opportunities.

I agree that the warrior should circle the city scouting, not really moving more than 2 turns from our borders, so he can hustle it back there if we meet a neighbor. The start spot is probably going to be settle in place, although I wish it were a hill. Oh well, we can't always get what we want.

Greatbeyond, you're the man to start us off, so how about moving that settler, and posting up your screenie? Per AlanH in the last SGOTM, he doesn't want people posting additional 4000BC saves on the progress page, so just save it locally and wait for us to have the discussion once you make the move.

Other notes regarding SGOTM play for 5E:

We use autolog with forum tags, and post the log for the turn in spoilers somewhere near the end of the message.
We don't usually post the log you get when you upload the game, but you're free to do so if you like. Use spoiler tags for this, too.
Screenshots are appreciated for players who may be traveling or at work, but don't stretch the forum page (pet peeve of mine :D)
Please remember to post an updated roster at the end of your post
Post a "Got it" within 24 hours of the last save going up, or be auto-skipped! We've been lax on this in the past, I think we should enforce it better, personally.
We're here to have fun, but we'd also like to win something other than the prize we've already won. :D
Major decisions should be consulted with the team, but we don't need three days of discussion for minor stuff.
Civicide rivals Tolstoy in the length of his posts, but they're almost always worth reading all the way through. ;)

Oh, Merum said everything about our "customs", so i've nothing to add, but that i agree with the 24/72 rule to be enforced, of course with exceptions for holydays (approaching, dangerously approaching). And that if anyone needs to skip or swap, better he informes us before his TS, so we can plan.
Usually we play 15 turns in peace and 10 in war, with the exception of the first round that we kept in 20 turns.
Since this game is AW, i propose ALWAYS 15 turns, unless there's some big fight and we can reduce to 10/12.

Please never use "automated workers" or long "go to" orders for any unit.
Another thing: leave the fresh-build units without promotions until they are at the front, so we can choose the appropriate promotion from case to case.

About my english: i make good use of the translator for the few(?) words i don't know (or remember), what is scare is the conditional/past/future forms, which i probably miss @80%. The fact is that my italian is rich and cultured, and that i find difficult to communicate properly using a language at a low level.

GMT +3 in NY? i was sure it was +5 :(

About the game
1) fogbusting: i'm not that great, surely there's water W of the N gold, but it can be both a river or a coastline.
have you noticed how the river W of warrior enlarges? i can bet there's coast S of jungle.
2) research: hunting first, AH, archery
3) build: warrior/worker or viceversa: if we decide to start with a warrior, we can probably research archery/AH, if we start with a worker viceversa (BTW this word is exactly the same in italian) delay too much the worker with that gold is a sacrilege.
4) exploring:In Blub's test game, I got lucky and found a civ nearby that had an undefended capitol. I was able to raze and knock him out within the first 15 turns of the game. We should be on the lookout for these opportunities.We can try this, sending the warrior straight E: in this case, warrior first is mandatory, otherwise i'm fine with E-SW-and a short path home.
5) settle: i can bet nothing will be revealed to change the options in-place/dyes. I think in-place is better, especially if there's coast in the near S: a city in the river's mouth can be nice.

Sorry for the Civicide-style of this post, and for haven't expressed a definite opinion, but i think it's more important to put all the possible (decent?) options on the table. IMHO it's worth to discuss the very first moves "who well begins made an half of the work" (free traslation of an italian saying "chi ben comincia è a metà dell'opera").

Roster:
greatbeyond - please wait until we've been decided on the above
(strictly alphabetical order)
Blubmuz
Civicide
Merum
Sweetacshon

Strauss ??? if he gives a sign he will play after Merum, but i suppose he's composing some waltz.
and let's see if Brian gives a sign.
for now we're 5.

...

GMT +3 in NY? i was sure it was +5 :(

..

What a maroon I am! I 've left the page up for hours on end and when I went to check the time difference, I forgot to refresh the page first. :hammer2:

You're right, Eastern Standard is GMT-5. I'm in GMT-6 but my hours are very strange at the moment (I am, once again, not working, unless you count playing 2000-3000 poker hands a day "work").

What's everyone's availability going to be over the holiday? I should be able to play, as I'll be taking my laptop to visit my family.

Why hunting first? I disagree with this strategy. We need to find out if we have copper. We have a warrior that we intend to keep close to home for defense, so why build another off the bat? I think worker first while researching BW is the way to go. If we do manage to pop copper, we're straight off to the races with axes, and won't need to build another warrior. Otherwise, it's plan B, and hunting/archery. That's my 2 cents.

A few reasons:

a) With that many resources around us, I think our chances of starting with copper in our FC are minimal

b) Even if we do have copper in our FC, we have to wait for a worker, and The Wheel, to hook it up. We can have archery before then and get a few archers out, which we're going to need anyway.

c) Hunting opens up AH, which allows us to hook up our cows earlier.

That said, BW first is a good option as well. I guess I don't have a strong preference.

Oh, well i reversed the -
Hey Civ, a bit unlucky it isn't? you migrated in Iowa less than one year ago IIRC. Well i'm not in a wonderful position with my consultant activity ...still i insist.

Merum, BW first is a waste: as Civ pointed out, we need the wheel to hook it, and we need some unit to protect our worker and improvements, and archers are cheap and powerful, especially if promoted to drill2.
We got cows and gold to improve and PROTECT, and AH reveals HORSES, and i prefer a chariot rush instead of an axe rush: chariots are cheaper, and twice fast.

BUT, since we can't know if we got
a) copper
b) horses
c) a damn
it's better research surely useful techs first.

My guess is that Gyathaar has put something in the FC... my 2 cents.

A different thing is send the warrior East, or wherever to try to find an undefended capital: is a bet, and we MUST have full consensus on this (i mean unanimity).

Well, given that my current tries at BW first seem to work well in the beginning, but then I get bogged down due to lack of finances, maybe hunting/archery/ah first is a way to go. If we're going to do this tech path, we can build warrior first, and our starting warrior can maybe have some more freedom to seek an undefended capitol. I can be convinced that this is a path to take.

Seems like tis the season for unemployment. I'm still looking as well. Sucks during the holidays. :(

PS: Pray that Gyathaar didn't throw Rome into the mix. Julius just handed me my head in the sword of a Praetorian.

I've played some test games, only for 60-80 turns to experiment (it's the reason we make tests it isn't?).

I propose this for our first TS:

1) settle in place
2) move the warrior E, explore a bit, then keep him inside our borders to catch some eventual pray, or to defend if needed and keep it safe from beasts
3) research: wheel, BW, hunting-AH, archery
4) first build worker-warrior

I think the worker build will ask more than a TS, then we can discuss after this first TS.
Given my tests, i suggest 20 turns for the first TS, it's not much more than hit 20 times "enter", then 15, starting from my TS.

Please, let's vote for this, so GB can start play.

My reasons:
- wheel first because copper or not, we need to connect the resources, and it's a job done
- worker first because with that gold - as i already said - is a sacrilege not improve it ASAP

please note:
after the first borders expansion, we can work bananas, that give 3f+1c
also, don't forget that, as charismatic, we need only 4XP to reach level3, and if we are lucky, our free warrior can reach medic2 killing some scout (if any).

@Merum
so, no more China? i could bet you are a brilliant manager, but often to be brilliant is not enough, as i know well.

So can I lurk here? I never purchased Warlords though maybe I might have something interesting to add at some point perhaps.

I propose starting shortly, making turns and stopping temporarily if something important comes up. By my estimation, I need to upload by Sunday Afternoon, if not earlier, at the 20th turn.

Here are my thoughts on the tech order: Wheel first makes no sense, as we don't really need to hook up cows til later to benefit from them. My assumption is that we'll be whipping heavily, and therefore won't hit the health limit any time soon. So, if we're going to go down this path, we should do hunting/archery THEN wheel, not the other way 'round.

Additionally, if we're going to be taking this tech path, worker first makes no sense. We can let the city grow some while either building another warrior for extra defense, or putting hammers into barracks. We'll end up getting the worker in less turns when we do build it, and it will just about even out.

I still wonder if BW first isn't the way to go, because with slavery, we can whip things we need. Even if we don't go worker first, we can whip the worker after some city growth?

In more test games I've played, I've successfully pulled off an oracle slingshot to metal casting in three games, which is 100% of the time I've tried it. I think a slingshot to some tech is worth seriously considering. The last game I played, I did stonehenge, then oracle. I had no stone, but I did have marble, which sped the oracle considerably. I then used the GP generated to grab theology and christianity, which helped considerably. I was also able to get the parthenon in this game, which sped up GP growth a bit.

I survived until 1758, at which time Louis landed a stack of rifles for me to try to fight with my axemen, and I gave up.

Important note: Remember in Warlords that cats are wildly overpowered. We're going to end up building a buttload of those bad boys, so construction is a high priority tech. I had stacks where cats outnumbered axes because of this.

Money is still an issue. I narrowly averted strikes a couple of times, and was just beginning to pull into an area where I could hang on a bit longer when the rifles landed. I had to resort to using a hybrid of SE and cottaging the hell out of every available tile (As well as pillaging the crap out of Kublai as I killed him off) to keep from units being disbanded by strikes, but I was slowly getting the slider back up. It was at 40% when the rifles landed, and if I had had just a bit more time, it might have been a different story.

Bottom line is, if we can't figure out a way to make the economy work, we will very quickly find ourselves in deep trouble.

@Blubmuz: No more China for now. :( I'm looking for a new job that will still have me travel to there often, as it seems a waste to have learned Mandarin and then not use it. Hopefully I'll find something sooner rather than later.

@Culdeus: You can lurk, but you have to declare to Alan in the signup thread. On the other hand, I bet you can pick up Warlords for 20 bucks. (hint, hint) ;) We could use another experienced hand in what appears to be a wild ride here.

I need to look at this closer to make sure I'm not missing something, but in the AW games I've attempted over the year or so wheel is invaluable for being able to build chariots. This buys you some time and some flexibility to really harass the ai, worker steal, pillage etc.

Whether it needs to roll out first is not sure, but mounted units are THE thing to focus on in AW. Mounted units and pillaging. Lots of pillaging. Really you want the AI to build up a bunch of cities and you go around and cut them off and put them in just as bad a financial situation as you. Allowing an AI civ to run away unchecked and you are toast by the time anything that goes BANG gets up and running.

True about the Chariots, but wheel does us no good unless we have horses, so researching it before we have AH seems like wasted beakers to me.

Also, this isn't the Murky Waters thread. :smoke:

At this point I'm inclined to start the research with Hunting, this should take 9 turns by working the cows. Is it worth giving up the faster growth by working the water tile, which should speed up our tech rate?
Hunting would take 8 turns versus 9, it doesn't seem worth it.
After Hunting, allows us to go AH, Archery, or BW if there doesn't appear to be any nearby neighbors.
I suggest re evaluating at that point what's next.

:crazyeye: Soo much written already.. I can't keep up. ;)

Welcome, GB!! btw, Elvis...building was also said after his concerts so the crazy fans would go home.

I think I'm leaning toward BW first (no point in wheel first, as the worker still has to mine the bronze before roading), but can see the benefit of archery. I would prefer to get a worker out asap, as the gold and cows will be super powerful (huh?) early on. That being said, I am not one to get shifty early with warriors, and would love to be taught something by the team here :D The worker steal... will they really let you get close enough with AW?

OK... so let's get the warrior moved and check out the city site.

Ok. I took the plunge, Warrior 1E, Settler in-place. coastline revealed to the west. See attached screen shot.

Screen shot was taken by using shift-Print Screen. Is there a better way of doing it that any has used?

Enhanced screen shot shows we only have to worry about attacks by land from 3 directions :D, West is all coast,

Fantastic news - I just checked the progress graph and we are ahead of CRC at turn 1, 37 points to their 34!
Should I upload the Turn 1 save?, Does anyone want to see every turn or just after an important event?

you're not supposed to upload 4000BC saves to the progress site, unless something has changed. So, just hold onto it, and make sure you play from the save.

So far, we have cow, two banana, dye, and gold in our FC. By the looks of the jungle, we are just north of the equatorial region, and there's a potential city site south of us with rice and more gold. It looks like the city has extended a road to the river, which bodes well for intercity commerce if we choose to follow that river S. We won't be able to make much of that until we have IW, however.

So now the grand debate begins. Do we continue with hunting and the warrior? Do we switch tech path to wheel, or to BW? Do we switch build to worker (This only really makes sense if we decide to go BW).

Taking the example of past laurel winning teams, let's not move too quickly on this. I'm not a huge fan of boring micromanagement, but this AW game is going to require nearly flawless play to even come out with a win, let alone a laurel. Our one set of wooden dinnerware is enough for me. :D

As it is time to go to bed, I will leave things at the end of this first turn, and check back in about ten hours, then move again.

True about the Chariots, but wheel does us no good unless we have horses, so researching it before we have AH seems like wasted beakers to me.

Also, this isn't the Murky Waters thread. :smoke:

lol, you actually saw that. :mischief: whoops

Great, more bananas. Looks like plenty of food for us in our capital. We should be able to cottage up the river tiles at the very least, and should be able to make judicious use of the whip. Calendar should be a priority. We'll be beelining to catapults anyway, I'm sure, Calendar is not far off.

We definitely need to scout out a potential southern city site. The rice, gold, and river definitely make for a spot we should be looking to take. Hopefully will be a good commerce city.

This time is a nice spot, i'd like to see what Gyathaar invented to complicate our life.

Why the wheel before BW?
first we can't know what we have in our FC (see my #23 for details)
the worker will be ready before BW is researched, but after the wheel, if this will be our first tech
worker's first job: mine the gold and when we reach size 2 our research will jump

Why a worker first?
we need 8 turns to grow at 2
at size 1 we put 3f in the worker, at 2, 4f
so we need only 3 turns more at s.1, but the worker will be ready at turn 19, otherwise at turn 24 and still the warrior has to complete.

Thus, the worker can have roaded and mined the gold when we reach size 2, ready to any other job, but our research will jump around turn 27.

Resuming the 1st TS goals:
research the wheel, start BW
build a worker
keep the warrior ON our borders (preferably around NE) to intercept some pray.

@Culdeus
Nice to see you like to contribute.
As i already said @Dutch, better if you do it officially.
edit (after check the subscriptions thread)
Welcome back, Culdeus, your suggestion will be appreciated!
end edit

I agree about chariots, i like fast units, of course we must know if we have horses, or at least if they're close enough.
Also, worker steal in AW is only possible with fast units.

I guess the terrorist/commando strategy is the best: keep the AI inside its cities, pillage everything in sight, and when a good stack is ready, conquer one by one, in a McArthur way.

a nice sig from a CFC member:
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour!"
-Sir Winston Churchill

i can bet this guy is English!

Hi guys,

I've been having a bit of a cold lately (damned Dutch climate), but here I am. I've signed up as lurker too.

We're playing version 2.13, but I could only find reference charts for 2.08, have any important things been changed?

I think we should play this game slowly and carefully, Murky Waters have shown that that's the way to go.

On the game:

Churchill of England
+1 happin./city, -25% XP for promotion, +1 happiness from Monument, Broadcast Tower. free Drill 1 + City Garrison 1 archery + gunpowder, 2x prodution speed walls, castle
I personally love Charismatic, it gives 1 free happiness point, and another easy point by building a monument. As we've seen last game, happiness is mightily important.
Protective is less attractive in general, but cheaper walls and a better gunpowder units might come in handy in this AW game.
We start with fishing (:() and mining (:)).
The protective redcoats will be very strong, if we make it there.

I think the most important thing to do early in the game is breaking the exponential growth of the AI. Harassing the AI's, either by trying to steal their workers, or by knocking out settlers on the move will be crucial to slow them down. For that, we could use either chariots or axes. Both require resources though.


By the way, a nice read about this game might be: The Immortal Challenge 3 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=219422)

And Lanzelot's post in GOTM 22 Romans GOTM (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5977371&postcount=23)

Short term:

I think our warrior should move SE, NE, NE and circle around our core a bit. I think we should start building a warrior, we'll need it. Research should probably aim for archery to be save.

Welcome back to you too, dutchfire.

BTW i noticed over 5000 posts... wwwwowww

Thanks for resuming some info about our settings and, yes the redcoat is powerful, if we arrive there.
I always forget the monument thing, but i think they obsolete too soon.
Still, if we have happiness problems this can be a good hint.

Remember, we are on prince, the warrior is not a priority. The Rome game was another thing, be sure.

My strong (in terms that if i have the game, i will surely follow that path) opinion is the one in the last post of the previous page, and i motivate it there.

What do you want to do with the worker?
We only have mining and fishing. We could mine the gold, but we can't build roads, so there's hardly a point in doing so. And besides, being charismatic, we don't need happiness that early. I think we should be working the cows and the plantation in the beginning to stimulate growth. Working the gold mine, while giving lots of commerce and hammers, will halt growth.
I think we should have our worker finished when we've got agriculture, to irrigate the banana's.

So I'd say: Hunting-Archery-Agriculture-Animal Husbandry
Building warriors/archers and then a worker ready in time for agriculture (have him ready a turn earlier, so he can move towards the banana's).

What do you want to do with the worker?Here is the answer:

Resuming the 1st TS goals:
research the wheel, start BW
build a worker
keep the warrior ON our borders (preferably around NE) to intercept some pray.
Please, read all the post quoted above, it's quite long.

I don't remember seeing any consensus that we were going to research wheel first. In fact, I'm fairly certain that only one person seems to be in favor of this approach. I'm fine with hunting/archery first, but the wheel is a no-go for me. It makes no sense to put us backwards for techs we don't need when some form of military technology should have such a clear priority.

No, my was a proposal, as i clearly posted.

But i see no good arguments against it.
I repeat:
in case we have copper, how do you think to connect it?

Wheel is researched faster, and the worker will have something useful to do.

My "goals for the first turn" are divided in points to be voted, if the majority chooses different goals, let's go that way.

(on your head)

Food for thought. Let me know what you think, I'll probably make moves in a couple of hours or in the morning. (9 hrs) I was not convinced to build a worker first. I did two tests comparing building a worker first, then emphasizing growth and Research,
versus
Building a warrior first, emphasizing growth and research until at lest size 3 or 4.

Both methods used the same research path, Wheel, BW, Hunting, AH Warrior first stats are in parentheses

Worker First: (Warrior First:)
3610 learn WHEEL pop 1 (same, pop 2)
3400 (pop 3)
3340 (complete warrior)
3310 worker produced
3100 (pop 4)
3070 (finish BW, Start Hunting, here is
where we could start a worker (13T) then when it gets to 6 turns left we sacrifice 1 pop for a worker, using this method, worker is created at 2830)
2980 pop 2
2950 Learn BW, worker has mined gold and completed road to London
2860 Warrior built
2830 (Learn HUNTING)
2800 Learn HUNTING
2680 copper and gold both mined and roaded
2590 First axeman
2290 (copper and gold mined and roaded)

It appears there are benefits to both methods.
Faster research appears to take place with the 2nd method while it is a quicker build of infrastructure with the first method
Sorry for the text running together, had it separated in 2 columns but when posted it takes out the spaces.

How do you know where the bronze is?

How do you know where the bronze is?

These were test games done with the test save Blubmuz posted.

In the real game we may not have Copper anywhere close. Which is one of the concerns with researching BW. There are no guarantees. The only Military tech that doesn't require a resource is Archery.
The same holds true for The Wheel. if there aren't any horses nearby, I wouldn't say the Tech is wasted but it certainly isn't a must do right away. On top of this, horses won't be revealed until we research AH.
One positive aspect of building roads would be that connecting the gold gives us 1 happiness. This isn't quite so important right away, as in this game, we don't get a happiness problem until size 7.

I'll wait until Sunday morning and see what the consensus is before conducting any moves. Blubmuz, if you want to post a vote or survey to see which to research first?

My vote is for Hunting first as we can then do AH, to see if we have horses, or BW to see if we have Copper. Either of these would then make building a worker an immediate priority. Which if we have been growing all along we could sacrifice 1 or 2 pop to rush the worker if we wanted to once we have BW.

I am sure we'll do alright any way we choose. It just may require adjustments to tactics a little later.

GB, your post is very interesting
I made a quick test:
warrior first, while researching BW
turn 1-7 work cows 3f
turn 8, borders expand, work banana 3f+1g
turn 10 grow 2, continue with warrior and BW, work banana and cow 6f+1g
then is enough to work a grassland forest for 1 turn (2f+1h)to:
turn 21: size 3, warrior completed, BW learned,
revolt to slavery, start worker, start the wheel
in my test game we have grassland copper, and working this gives another +1g, worker due in 15, wheel in 10.

Perhaps this one is the way to go, my previous proposal delayed too much growth, and we can know if we have copper (or, at least see it).
Then i prosecute this: the worker can be whipped at 7 turns to go, for 1 pop.
If we do so, the worker is ready at turn 31 (3070 BC) and, working cows and banana, we can grow back in 9 turns, while producing barracks.

Thus, since worker/wheel first was not a good idea i propose:
let's follow this, and close your TS after BW is in (t21), so we can decide what to do, also if we want to whip or not the worker in my TS.
Why i reversed to BW? the whip, man, the whip, copper or not.
good luck

We will need some kind of military soon. There are basically three options, archers, chariots and axemen.

Chariots require horses, the wheel and animal husbandry, and are in my opinion the biggest gamble.
Axemen are a gamble too, but I think we can take that gamble, since bronze working will allow slavery, which will be important too.
Archers are the back up in case we don't have copper.

So I'd say:
Bronze Working
if Copper-> the wheel
if no Copper->hunting+archery

So I basically agree with BLubmuz' latest plan (post #51)

There is another part of BW we are forgetting... the chop! We have so many resources, I'd like to see 2 workers asap.Let's not forget what level we're on here, the AI doesn't have all that much to throw at us.

I'd prefer worker>worker(chop)>warrior etc
with BW>[hunting/arch]/[wheel]/[agriculture] depending on where resources lie. A caveat is that I am away from civ, and can't test it, so I suppose I can be as cavalier as I want. :)

I just did some testing on BtS, Big & Small, standard, Churchill.

Of course, I popped hunting from a hut immediately :p
The Prince AI didn't give me many problems early on, it didn't attack at all.
I researched Bronze Working (no copper)->Hunting (popped)->Archery->Animal Husbandry (no horses)-> Agriculture

Getting an archer into someones land early can really destroy them. I pillaged Bismarck's corn and a plains hill, and his empire wasn't much of a problem after that. It's good to bring archers in pairs later on though, as the AI is likely to take a single archer out. Then again, that's the BtS AI, I don't know about Warlords.


edit: Another random thought, what if we're alone on an island?

Graph gazing:

CRC did NOT build a warrior first, so they probably did a worker first.

Their power:
After TC 1: 3 (mining + 1 warrior)
After TC 2: 5 (mining + 2 warriors + 2/3 pop city)
After TC 3: 16 (!) (mining + 2/3 pop city + bronze working + 5 warriors?)


Geezers: Looks like they didn't settle immediately, less than 26 culture after 14 turns.

Blubmuz, it looked to me like your proposal was more like "This is what the team agreed on, so let's do this". This is my mistake so I apologize for sounding harsh. :)

Yesterday, I played another test, on a random map, since I already know too much about the test game, and I had great success with the following:

Tech order: Hunting/Archery/AH/BW/Wheel/Mysticism/Agriculture/Meditation/Priesthood/Pottery
Build Order: Warrior/Worker/Archer/Barracks/Archer(W)/Archer/Archer/etc

In this game, I found myself with NO metal and NO horses after both the enabliing techs were researched! However, because I was able to raise an archer force, I sent them out pillaging, and was able to take a horse city. After grabbing the horses, I made a run a HBR and was able to absolutely raise hell with horse archers, taking cities and going on pillaging runs almost at will.

I built stonehenge in this game, but missed the oracle. The prophet was parked until I finished monotheism, so I could spend him on theology and get the upgrade bonuses. If I had varied my tech path a bit, I probably could have gotten the oracle as well and used it for a MC slingshot. However, with the money problems a CoL slingshot might be preferable. Alternately, the prophet could be spent on CoL rather than theology, but the promotions from theocracy are nice. Stonehenge also helps a lot in popping cities after the capitol without having to spend hammers on a monument.

I built the stonehenge and lots of other building susing whip overflows, so that I could keep producing archers in the early game. This allowed me to keep the military coming while still building infrastructure.

Money is still a problem as the game goes on. Pillaging helps, but the tech rate still drops. Razing is the key.

A stack of 2-3 Drill 2 archers makes for a formidable pillaging stack, and can harass the AIs while more military can be built.

As I've said before, construction is a must, as catapults in warlords are absolutely murder, especially when promoted combat 1/drill 1.

This is a much better start than I'd previously been able to manage with a BW/Worker first start, and so, my current proposal and vote is for the Hunting/Archery/AH path.

EDIT: If we happen to find ivory, it is a MUST HAVE. A stack of War Elephants and Cats is simply overwhelming.

Not a problem, Merum, sometimes are my language limits, or my hurry in posting.

But i'm VERY convinced of what i proposed in my previous post:
too perfect, in 21 turns we'll know if we have metal, we can chop, whip and have the worker ready 10 turns later.

Then, if we got copper, wheel, otherwise your path is OK.
But we'll can discuss after we'll have knowledge.Graph gazing:

After TC 3: 16 (!) (mining + 2/3 pop city + bronze working + 5 warriors?)
or 2 axes?

The Heralds are shouting the news from the towers of London, We have Copper! See attached screen shot. Uploading save next. Nothing to report, we haven't met anyone else. I have attached my own narrative log (Wordpad text format) and the Autolog.

Save has been uploaded to the progress page.

Next person in line should note that I temporarily set research to Wheel, and production to worker, in addition, we are working the cows, bananas, and a forest. Both warriors are ready to move

The copper is wonderful news! It's on the river, so it will auto-hook, I think. This will make the wheel unnecessary for now.

Just as a note, Greatbeyond, it's better to paste the autolog into the post with spoiler tags around it, as the color tags and formatting make it a lot easier to read, like this:

London founded
London begins: Warrior (22 turns)
Research begun: Hunting (9 Turns)
Research begun: Bronze Working (22 Turns)

IBT:

Turn 1/660 (3970 BC) [16-Dec-2007 10:58:06]

IBT:

Turn 2/660 (3940 BC) [16-Dec-2007 11:07:44]

IBT:

Turn 3/660 (3910 BC) [16-Dec-2007 11:19:22]

IBT:

Turn 4/660 (3880 BC) [16-Dec-2007 11:24:50]

IBT:

Turn 5/660 (3850 BC) [16-Dec-2007 11:28:01]

IBT:

Turn 6/660 (3820 BC) [16-Dec-2007 11:30:19]

IBT:

Turn 7/660 (3790 BC) [16-Dec-2007 11:32:10]
London's borders expand

IBT:

Turn 8/660 (3760 BC) [16-Dec-2007 11:34:48]

IBT:

Turn 9/660 (3730 BC) [16-Dec-2007 12:31:42]

IBT:

Turn 10/660 (3700 BC) [16-Dec-2007 12:33:00]
London grows: 2

IBT:

Turn 11/660 (3670 BC) [16-Dec-2007 12:41:46]

IBT:

Turn 12/660 (3640 BC) [16-Dec-2007 12:45:27]

IBT:

Turn 13/660 (3610 BC) [16-Dec-2007 12:49:33]

IBT:

Turn 14/660 (3580 BC) [16-Dec-2007 12:53:35]

IBT:

Turn 15/660 (3550 BC) [16-Dec-2007 12:55:41]

IBT:

Turn 16/660 (3520 BC) [16-Dec-2007 13:02:29]

IBT:

Turn 17/660 (3490 BC) [16-Dec-2007 13:03:45]

IBT:

Turn 18/660 (3460 BC) [16-Dec-2007 13:06:51]

IBT:
While defending in the wild near London, Warrior defeats (1.74/2): Barbarian Lion (Prob Victory: 99.3%)

Turn 19/660 (3430 BC) [16-Dec-2007 13:09:34]
London grows: 3

IBT:

Turn 20/660 (3400 BC) [16-Dec-2007 13:14:09]
Tech learned: Bronze Working
London finishes: Warrior

IBT:

Turn 21/660 (3370 BC) [16-Dec-2007 13:19:31]
Research begun: The Wheel (11 Turns)
London begins: Worker (15 turns)

It's also customary to provide a link to the save like this:

Here is the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/Fifth_Element_SG006_BC3370_01.CivWarlordsSave)

And finally, we like to post the roster, so there's no confusion as to who's up, like this:

Roster

Civicide - UP
Blubmuz - On Deck
Merum
Sweetacshon - roaming the wilds
Greatbeyond - Resting

Strauss - MIA

I just made this turn order up, but it seems as good as any. Anybody who cares to comment on the order is welcome.

Next player: If the worker build is continued, move from the forest to the copper. We pick up an extra gold for research.

Tech: I think Ag should be next now, so we can grow faster for whipping. If not Ag, then hunting/AH.

great news, greatbeyond, beyond my wildest dreams. ehm...

I suppose now no one has to complain about the wheel as our first next tech, and a worker as our next, immediate build.
No contacts with any AI?

And, since the next one will be my TS, i post a plan:

1) build queue: Worker-barracks
2) research: wheel - hunting - AH - archery
3) it's OK to whip the worker ASAP?
4) mine copper or gold first?

my votes:
1) yes, eventually switch to a 2nd worker when back at size 3 (not on my TS)
2) of course, YES, in this order
3) yes!!!
4) not so determined... perhaps gold is better, let's wait.

Greatbeyond, if you want to edit your Report, just copy/paste the content of the 2 txts in your post, just use the "spoil" function.
This way the "forum tags" will display in the right color, and both will be easier to read... BTW a fun report, keep it up!

I got the save
If there's clear consensus on the above i will play in some 18-20 hours, otherwise i'll wait until we agree.
Let's keep 20 (19) turns or down to 15?

edit:
crossposted with Merum
hey, i posted a roster eons ago, hands down
no problem, just i fear you're growing old: or it's memory, or it's sight...

sorry guys, we're NOT on a river... our fresh water is from the lake!
just modify my test game to try, but i'm sure 99%

edit: SCRATCH THAT. I just tested it in the world builder. Our city is not on the river, so it will NOT auto-hook. Therefore wheel next is absolutely mandatory.

I agree with everything BLubmuz just posted. Wheel next, whip the worker, and I think we should hook up the Copper first.

edit again: actually, since we have copper, we might want to think about going Wheel -> Agriculture -> AH instead of Wheel -> Hunting -> AH. Hunting doesn't do much for us at the moment. Axemen immediately and find some cities to destroy! Agriculture will help us work our gold, copper, and hills immediately.

edit yet again: considering the possibility that we are alone on an island, we should reserve judgment on what to mine first (the copper or the gold) based on whether or not we have any AI contact by the time our Worker is done. If we make contact, mine the copper. If we don't, mine the gold.

he ehe

don't forget that pasturing cows gives 4f+2h, absolutely invaluable while working the gold! in addiction, we have no good tiles to farm, if you don't consider we can farm banana and/or dyes: but those are wasted worker turns, we can discuss them later.
Working the mined copper gives 1f+5h+1g, wonderful! London will be a powerhouse.

If it's not clear, i'm strongly for the path i proposed.
Good idea the contacts for decide what prioritize for mining:
if anyone shows, i'll mine the gold, otherwise the copper.

Let's try to simulate:
when the first mine will be done, wheel will be on line, so:
7 turns for the mine (including the lost one) 3 + 3 for the road...
in any case, the worker needs 13 turns for mine and connect each resource, and:
1) if we go for gold first, we can research archery/AH after wheel/hunting, the barracks will complete before the worker finishes to connect the copper, so AH is useless (by the improvement point of view), but we can start an archer to protect the copper. AH will be online on turn 54, archery on t45 (barracks done t52)
2) goin' for copper first, gives small boost in production (barracks done t49), but we'll suffer in research: archery t48, AHt59

since we cannot have the barracks completed, i prefere gold first, in any case.
We'll need a bit of MM.
Then a bunch of archers, cost 37 against 52 for an axe, and after we'll have protect our resources, we can start to explore aggressively.
But let me do another test...
bah i've tried to put the wheel after H/AH/Ar, but not a great improvement in growth, and a 3 workers turns lost... forget it.

edit
Thanks Merum, i don't know if the "c" was a typo or a true mistake.
of course you're right, even on the translation :eek: :goodjob:
and i confirm the wheel thing: only after the road is completed you got the message "con... you gained access bla bla"

perhaps you didn't notice my question 'cause the above-mentioned problems ;) :what about your chinese sojourns?

If you look at our city, there's clearly a road hooking it to the river. Why would it be there if it wasn't hooked? If it's really not, then we're going to have to go with wheel next.

Regarding the roster, it's definitely old age. :old: :D

English tip for Blubmuz: Substitute "addition" for "addiction" in this context... "addiction" I believe translates to something like "dipendenza" in Italian? ;)

Edit: I replied to the China question earlier, Blub. I don't have that job anymore... looking for a new one. I suppose I should change my location info for the time being. :(

Too bad about the wheel thing. If we're going to mine gold first, then I'd go for archery. If we're going after copper and axes first, then I'd go for wheel.

My TS plan (edited):
1) build queue: Worker-barracks
2) research: wheel - hunting - archery - AH
3) whip the worker ASAP
4) mine gold first unless we are threatened

my reasons are explained in my tests reports, see my #63.

@Merum:
perhaps i can suffer of the same problems... i completely missed that part of your post :( !

what about send an email to Brian? his last activity is still at 11/27!

Graph gazing:
first, a good sign: our color is yellow, my favorite! :)
second: power graph
it seems we are the only team not started with a worker,
and 2 teams wandered with the settler for some 4-5 turns
strange the trash team graph, they seem in half-way, but i can't figure how!

Addressing the points as indicated by Blubmuz

1 - Definitely worker next, follow worker with a Barracks or warrior.
The benefit of a warrior is that we send two warriors out to scout and keep the AI pinned in or steal a worker. If we follow up with an Axeman, he will gain experience by killing Barbarians.

2 - Whip the worker as soon as we can with a sacrifice of 1 pop

3 - Research Wheel. Looking at the original screen shot, the tile we settled on only showed 2 food. If it was on a river it would also show a gold.
Follow Wheel with AH, as this lets us build a pasture for the cows, then Pottery or Farming

4 - I think mining the copper first gives the most benefit. I will try another test game. Then I think we should move to the forest 1S of the Lake and chop it to rush something. Once AH is complete , build a pasture for the cows.In my previous ones if we cottage the dyes we don't get as much gold as mining the gold would, but we can get close and not sacrifice growth, and faster growth allows us to pop rush. (if we research pottery after AH) otherwise mine gold.

As you can see from the number of my posts, I was mainly a reader of the forums and not a contributor. It took me a little bit to figure out how to post the results like Merum suggested.

Thanks for the opportunity to start first, though I was afraid I would send us to our doom with one wrong move. I anticipate that when it comes back around to me, I will have to be even more careful.

Blubmuz, feel free to sprinkle your posts with Italian as I feel it would be interesting to learn some. I took almost 5 years of French (back in the dark ages) and without practice have lost most of it. C'est la vie

Copper! Nice one! Well done, GB.

Again, I have no way to test it, but I'd prefer to have worker 1 whipped, chop first off into worker 2 while building barracks (or archer) using MM. Possibly even whip out the second with overflow into barracks (or archer). 2 workers is a must here, imo.

If in fact we are alone on an island then I really think this makes things harder in the long run. I'd rather knock out one AI before they can get a big advantage.

Someone remind me if WW is different on AW. With an isolated island this could be huge.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but we seem to have consensus on my first 3 points.

Only the 4th (mine gold or copper) has to be decided.
I'm in favor of gold, unless we're threatened.

Then i made a mid-term proposal:
In our SGs we never went for Oracle, and we finished in the last positions.

If, after this "worker techs path" is completed we'll go for the religious path, i mean:
Myst-poly-priest-writing, then pottery, we can try to chop a settler, then the Oracle, after a good number of archers are send in exploring and eventually pillaging duties.
Remember, we're on prince, a safe date for Oracle can be around 1100-1000 BC and we GOT production.
Lemme do a test.... OK, done, highlights:
techs:
wheel t32 - hunting t39 - archery t45 - AH t54
myst t60 - poly t69 - priest t75 (1750BC)
writing t85 - pottery t93

builds:
barracks t57 - archer t58 (i started the archer right when the tech was online, to be safe)
archer #2 t66 - axe t70 - settler t80 (chopped) - founded York, start barracks
started Oracle t81, chopped/mined/roaded both grassland/forest/hills, Oracle done in t96 (1120BC)

note: Stonehenge not yet built!

if we go this way we can choose between CoL (750b) and MC (964b), the CS sling is doable, but too risky.
and i will prioritize CoL, for couthouses, for have our religion, and possibly our shrine.

TS played:
contact: Mansa (scout killed), mined gold

IBT:
While defending in the wild, Warrior defeats (1.80/2): Barbarian Wolf (Prob Victory: 100.0%)

Turn 22/660 (3340 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:12:09]

IBT:
Contact made: Malinese Empire

Turn 23/660 (3310 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:12:20]

IBT:

Turn 24/660 (3280 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:12:31]
While attacking in the wild near London, Warrior defeats (1.72/2): Malinese Scout (Prob Victory: 98.7%)

IBT:

Turn 25/660 (3250 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:13:01]

IBT:

Turn 26/660 (3220 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:13:37]

IBT:

Turn 27/660 (3190 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:13:47]

IBT:

Turn 28/660 (3160 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:14:00]

IBT:

Turn 29/660 (3130 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:14:07]

IBT:
Civics Change: Churchill(England) from 'Tribalism' to 'Slavery'

Turn 30/660 (3100 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:14:24]
London finishes: Worker

IBT:

Turn 31/660 (3070 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:14:49]
London begins: Barracks (75 turns)

IBT:

Turn 32/660 (3040 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:15:03]
Tech learned: The Wheel

IBT:

Turn 33/660 (3010 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:15:10]
Research begun: Hunting (8 Turns)

IBT:

Turn 34/660 (2980 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:15:24]

IBT:

Turn 35/660 (2950 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:15:30]
While attacking in the wild near London, Warrior defeats (1.68/2): Barbarian Lion (Prob Victory: 89.8%)

IBT:

Turn 36/660 (2920 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:15:48]

IBT:

Turn 37/660 (2890 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:16:00]
A Mine was built near London

IBT:

Turn 38/660 (2860 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:16:06]
London grows: 3

IBT:

Turn 39/660 (2830 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:16:14]
Tech learned: Hunting

IBT:

Turn 40/660 (2800 BC) [17-Dec-2007 15:16:31]
Research begun: Archery (6 Turns)
the road on the gold hill is done, we must connect it, then jump on the copper hill, please move the warriors to protect the copper.

I started archery, according to my plan, if you disagree, feel free to pass on my dead body and change it to AH.
I promoted the scout/lion killer to medic1, it can be useful.

For my thoughts on further strategy, see my previous post.

here is the save

and the updated roster:
Civicide - UP
Merum - On Deck
Sweetacshon - roaming the wilds
Greatbeyond
Blubmuz - Resting

Strauss - MIA

edit
ask and ye shall receive: here is the ss i took right before quit http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/51166/Civ4ScreenShot0000.JPGdutch, perhaps you missed from this post, i killed a malinese scout, and the land seems wide.
about speed: we're only 5 active players, everything was decided (if i'm not wrong) and i'm damn curious to know more about this map.
Tell us what do ya think about my post #69 (nice number, it isn't?).

Whow, that was fast. I still wanted to comment on our starting position and we're on turn 40 already :) It might be good to play a little slower, to give everyone more time to comment. But of course, there's also the problem of taking too long for the entire game. Well, we'll see how it goes.


Do you have some fancy pictures for the lurkers? :p How big is our city now, how long until growth, and how long until the barracks are completed?

I am now fairly positive that we are alone on our island, or very far from any AI. So I think Animal Husbandry (cows!) should have priority over Archery. (Maybe Hunting wasn't even needed, but what has been done, has been done). Agriculture could be an alternative to AH if we have enough important things to do for the worker, but I doubt that's the case. The cows really have a priority.
edit: Archery still doesn't seem necessary to me, I think axes will be better against Mali, since they have Skirmishers. Regular archers get killed easily by skirmishers, so we'll need something better. Where did the scout come from?

Copper in the initial big fat cross rocks! Hopefully the map maker hasn't balanced out our starting position with a small crappy continent.

The landbridge in the west is interesting, I think it'll be worth it getting an axe on there, exploring as far out as possible to check if it leads anywhere. We have a great capital city, and it will be important to prevent our resources to be pillaged. The west can be easily blocked by a single axe in a forest, or potentially a city on a hill with archers, if we can find a good hill. There are some nice mountains making our defence easier.

Any proposed city sites already? 4S1E of London seems decent, it has access to gold, rice a lot of forests (they're forests, not jungles, right?) and copper (shared with London). It's also on a hill. It will need a monument to function though, so it might have to wait. It could be our third or forth city.

@greatbeyond: Nice first turnset, and I like your report!

@Culdeus: War Weariness in AW is exactly the same as in a normal game, so we only get it when we fight someone. However the total amount of War Weariness we get is halved. So it'll probably be bad, but not as bad as last game. Especially not if we're alone

@Blubmuz: If we can get the Oracle for Code of Laws, that'd be great. Getting Civil Service would be even better, but might be too hard, and too risky (although Gold + Copper are strong tiles, perfect for a slingshot). No archery saves a couple of turns, and isn't meditation cheaper than polytheism?
I count 10 forests in the city I proposed, that'd be enough to chop a wonder (or some workers/settlers).

Dutchfire, please read CAREFULLY my # 69 and 70!!!

Yes, medi is about 1-2 turns cheaper, we can vary my path.
I usually research poly for literature, but this can be delayed.

If we can follow successfully this strategy, i think math-constuction comes next.

I can bet my underpants that we are at least 3 on this continent: it seems wide, with a number of rivers and mountains.

As i said, i'd like to try a CS sling, but it's always risky.
Anyway we can see from next TS if and how many other civs are on this continent.

edit after dutch #74 + 75
alright, finally
S/SE of London it's mainly jungle, but before to talk about a city site i think we MUST know where horses are, if any.
I think our 2 archers can be sent NE and SE to further scout and reveal those areas.
and the axe can be kept fot additional - and active - protection of our borders, eventually in pair with the medic1 warrior.

BTW which tool do you use to "erase" your text Especially not if we're alone? OK, now i've seen the code, not the tool.

Usually my research path for the CS sling is: wheel-pottery-writing if with floodplains + gold or gems or AH-writing if i got livestock: the first is preferable, the important is the research.
build worker-warrior probably something else break at s.3 for a settler
then Alpha if i have contact with enough civs, especially if one of them is MM.
then math, trade the hell, priest if anyone has it/would trade it and CoL.
The goal is to reach CoL before the safe date (which sometimes is not safe) while building the Oracle, possibly in city 2.

I don't think it's possible in this game to have all those researched before 1000 BC, probably 700BC, too late even for Prince.

I've edited one of the reserved posts @ p.1 with the links to the TS reports.... comments appreciated.

Okay, that changes things, I'll update my posts :)

Posts updated.


I think it will be very important to get a few border cities, on hills, with walls, where the fighting will take place, and other cities with develop tiles that will produce our units and give our commerce.

I am just not seeing a great second city site right now. There isn't really a no brainer one out there. 1S of the incense might serve as a quasi choke point and has rice+gold and later spices. Not sure on it's production content.

I am just not seeing a great second city site right now. 1S of the incense

incense?
anyway, youre right nothing particularly exciting.

I don't see any really juicy second city spots either at the moment.

Here's what I would do on the next turnset:

1. Switch research to Ag. More food = more whips!
2. Mine the copper first while researching Ag (Hammers before roads!)
3. IF the copper doesn't hook after it's mined, road it to the city, else goto 4.
4. Farm the river bananas
5. Farm the river dye while researching AH

@Blubmuz: You make strikethrough text by using the tag, [s]like this There's no button to do it.

EDIT: I also think that we should stop editing posts to add new information. We've had issues with this in the past. new information gets missed because people don't scroll back up and check old posts for new data. We don't have a limit on posts and we're making an index for turnset posts, so I see no reason not to just make a new post if you have something new to say.

Merum, 2 holes in your list:
first, delete the "IF".
i made lots of test it MUST be roaded!
second, to farm something we need the tech, and surely i prioritize AH.

but, since it will not be on line before the copper is mined and ROADED, and i don't like to waste a single worker turn, let's road the gold, the copper it's not workable until size 4, we must push our research.

and archery is almost mandatory, if we wanna have cheap and powerful units to scout and protect.

have carefully read my #69 and 70? IMHO they are the key to success.

Edit:
you're right about editing, from now on i'll edit my posts only if are the last in thread.

(exception)
thanks tor the strike thing, you confirmed what i discovered.

incense?
anyway, youre right nothing particularly exciting.

Sorry, what game was it with incense I got confused with? I meant spices. :hammer2:

Merum, 2 holes in your list:


have carefully read my #69 and 70? IMHO they are the key to success.


I think the CoL slingshot is the only safe play. It's just that there isn't a great place to plop it down at the moment. I'd like to find a good site to use it's extra culture before using all the chops that could be used for units.

Is there evidence that there is more land to the W through the narrow path or can you see the sea in the shadow?

I just wonder what "heavily modified" means. Shouldn't be long to get a feel for that.

Signing in:mischief:. Will catch up on the game tomorrow.

Welcome on board, Strauss, we (at least me) thought you've lost interest.

You got a lot to read to catch, also to catch our "style" if any.

@Culdeus
yes, we agree, a CS sling is not accetptable to be tried with all those techs already researched. here we say "chi s'accontenta, gode" that can be "who is pleased (even for not much) takes delight".

Not actual evidence, just a sensation, given by the kind of land i can see and by the knowledge of Gyathaar: what kind of AW can it be with only 1 rival in your continent, and at Prince level, in addition.
No, i can bet we'll find an aggressive AI in this landmass, if not 2.

Try to imagine we alone with MM:
2 pillaging stacks (archer with drill 2+ axe c1) to harass his 2 cities until the actual stack is ready, then peacefully research til Astro and rifling (or chemistry) and conquest the other continent...
too easy.

It's for this reason i wanna push the research now that we're quiet.

and don't forget that with the cost of 2 axes (52*2=104) we build 3 archers (37*3=111) well, almost.

I have the save; looking at it now. Will play overnight most likely, I'm on a fairly nocturnal schedule.

I like researching archery right now. If we're going for the Oracle, we want it before we start on the tech push, and the 6 turns of research don't really slow us down at the moment. Hooking up our copper will be our next priority, and AH will still be in in time to grab our cows.

Agriculture can wait for the time being, at least until after AH. It should be useful for improving the tiles (particularly around our fresh water lake) but that's a lower priority at the moment. We'll want to reveal horses and start working our cows first.

Plan for my TS seems to be:

Worker plans: finish hooking up gold, mine copper, hook up copper. This should take 12 turns, if I'm not mistaken (building a mine is 7 turns, right?) so everything should be hooked up before AH is completed. I should be able to hook up the copper with a single road, on the dyes.

Going Archery -> AH, we should get there in 17 turns, so the 5 intermission turns will be spent putting a road on the cows and getting two turn in of pre-chopping on the grassland hill NE of the cows.

Research Plans: Archery (6 turns), then AH (11 turns), then ... Mysticism I suppose (6 turns). You can make an argument for Agriculture instead but our worker will be plenty busy pre-chopping.

London Plans: Continue on barracks until completion (14 turns), then archers until end of turnset. Although the whip will be ready in 5 turns, I do NOT plan on whipping, and I don't think we should be whipping London below pop4 once the copper and cows are improved.

Scouting Plans: I will do a little scouting to the E with the Med 1 warrior, but not wander him too far afield.

Any disagreement on any of these plans?

@ Civ
Your plans sounds good to me, just some adjustement, if i can:
Worker: unfortunately you'll need to complete the road (the one on copper + a 2nd one in the dyes or in the forested gl hill) this way you'll need: 3 turns to road the gold +1 to move on copper +6 for mine +3 road +3(4) for the last road for a total 16 (17) turns: the road on the forest hill is almost useless until construction, and you'll delay 1 turn to pasture cows, so, better road dyes.

Agree on research, archery-AH-Myst.

build: OK this one too, but start an archer right after the tech is online, then switch again to barracks and after that complete the archer: this will keep us safe if in need and we lost nothing.

scouting: Better bring the medic in London, swapping the other warrior on copper... you'll never know... just few turns and we can use the archer as scout.

Just to be clear, i've tried this sequence in my test, see report on my #69.
Agreed for whipping too, we need London at s.5 for the Oracle.

@ Civ
Your plans sounds good to me, just some adjustement, if i can:
Worker: unfortunately you'll need to complete the road (the one on copper + a 2nd one in the dyes or in the forested gl hill) this way you'll need: 3 turns to road the gold +1 to move on copper +6 for mine +3 road +3(4) for the last road for a total 16 (17) turns: the road on the forest hill is almost useless until construction, and you'll delay 1 turn to pasture cows, so, better road dyes.
I'll test this, but I'm pretty sure we won't need to put a road on the copper in order to connect it. IF we were connected to the river, we would have gotten the copper with no roads built, and a road on the dye will connect us to the river. So, I'm pretty sure I can squeeze a couple of extra worker turns out.

As I said, though, I'll test it.

build: OK this one too, but start an archer right after the tech is online, then switch again to barracks and after that complete the archer: this will keep us safe if in need and we lost nothing.
I thought about this, and the only thing we lose is actually the experience on the first archer. This is a good idea, though. That one archer's exp shouldn't be overly important, and it gets us out and scouting quicker.

scouting: Better bring the medic in London, swapping the other warrior on copper... you'll never know... just few turns and we can use the archer as scout.
Good point, no sense risking the medic warrior out on its own.

@Civ
We need the road on copper sooner or later (to move south), since the worker is there, better do it, IMHO.

We loose nothing if you switch barracks/archer, then again to barracks 1 turn before the archer completes, then complete the archer.

But if you prefere complete the archer to scout, n.p., there's plenty of prays to gain XP in the wild!

I didn't see the answer to where Mansa"s Scout came from. Could you mark it on your screen shot?

I am also inclined to think we are on the main landmass, with probably at least 1 other besides Mansa. The length of time it took for the scout to reach us, could indicate a long narrow, snaky continent, like the option for "Big and Small" maps. It could also be that he created the map to be like a hub world, but this time with us at the middle.

If it's going to be some time before we hookup the Bronze we could delay the Barracks, if all we are producing is archers, because they already start with the first promotion. I feel there will be plenty of barbarians to build up our units' experience.

I keep forgetting about pre chopping

@Civ
We loose nothing if you switch barracks/archer, then again to barracks 1 turn before the archer completes, then complete the archer.


Ah, I see what you're saying here. Kind of a contingency plan in case we're attacked. That makes sense. I think I'll do that. I can scout with the non-medic warrior.

Inside the spoiler tags is the only city location that's really jumping out at me so far. This would make a pretty good commerce city, I think: lots of river grassland, fresh water, quick trade connection to our capital (one road), the gold mine, 2 food resources, and 3 other hills for a decent amount of production. But, it also has 4 mountains, and will take a while to set up as it is surrounded in jungle for the moment. Still, it should be able to work the rice and the plains hill to start, which is decent enough for army production.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/gdshaffe/south0000.jpg

TS Played, 20 turns. HERE IS THE SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/Fifth_Element_SG006_BC2200_02.CivWarlordsSave)

Contact made with two more civs: Alexander and Hannibal. Hannibal was a scout that came through the pass to our East; he is currently scouting us out (I didn't get a good window to attack, he was on a jungle hill across from a river and I didn't want to risk it). Alexander was a work boat that came across our SW shore, looking like it was heading NW.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/gdshaffe/alex_wb0000.jpg

If I had to guess, I'd say that Alex is to our South and Hannibal is to our SE.

Found Timbuktu:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/gdshaffe/timbuktu0000.jpg
It's close, almost due east, and on a hill :(

Tacitus informs us we are the most powerful civ on the planet:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/gdshaffe/powerful0000.jpg

On the home front, everything went as expected, except that a jungle grew over the bananas we were working :( I switched over to the other bananas for now, but we're short one commerce. Archery is in, AH is in, Mysticism is close. An archer is one turn away, barracks are close, so London didn't actually build anything this TS.

No Horses in our FC, there are some to the NE, and over to the E.

Here are some overviews:

The South:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/gdshaffe/south_overview0000.jpg

The East:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/gdshaffe/east_overview0000.jpg

The North

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y29/gdshaffe/north_overview0000.jpg

The Autolog:

Turn 40/660 (2800 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:33:49]

Turn 41/660 (2770 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:33:58]
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Churchill(England), from 'Annoyed' to 'Furious'

Turn 42/660 (2740 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:34:22]
Buddhism founded in a distant land

Turn 43/660 (2710 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:34:53]
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Churchill(England), from 'Furious' to 'Annoyed'

Turn 44/660 (2680 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:35:31]

Turn 45/660 (2650 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:35:45]
Tech learned: Archery
Hinduism founded in a distant land
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Churchill(England), from 'Annoyed' to 'Furious'

Turn 46/660 (2620 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:35:56]
Research begun: Animal Husbandry (11 Turns)
London begins: Archer (10 turns)

Turn 47/660 (2590 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:37:05]

Turn 48/660 (2560 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:37:18]
Contact made: Carthaginian Empire
Attitude Change: Hannibal(Carthage) towards Churchill(England), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'

Turn 49/660 (2530 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:37:34]

Turn 50/660 (2500 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:37:58]
A Mine was built near London

Turn 51/660 (2470 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:38:30]
Contact made: Greek Empire
Attitude Change: Alexander(Greece) towards Churchill(England), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'

Turn 52/660 (2440 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:39:11]

Turn 53/660 (2410 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:40:04]

Turn 54/660 (2380 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:40:58]
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Alexander(Greece), from 'Cautious' to 'Annoyed'

Turn 55/660 (2350 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:41:21]
London begins: Archer (1 turns)
Tech learned: Animal Husbandry
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Alexander(Greece), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'

Turn 56/660 (2320 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:41:54]
Research begun: Mysticism (6 Turns)
Attitude Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) towards Hannibal(Carthage), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'
Civics Change: Mansa Musa(Mali) from 'Tribalism' to 'Slavery'

Turn 57/660 (2290 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:43:00]

Turn 58/660 (2260 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:44:01]

Turn 59/660 (2230 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:44:31]

Turn 60/660 (2200 BC) [17-Dec-2007 21:44:58]

except that a jungle grew over the bananas we were working :( I switched over to the other bananas for now, but we're short one commerce.

Hence the agriculture first. Jungle doesn't grow on improved tiles. But what do I know, I've only played about 50 AW test games. Now that commerce (and the extra food for farming the river bananas) is gone til IW.

Hence the agriculture first. Jungle doesn't grow on improved tiles. But what do I know, I've only played about 50 AW test games. Now that commerce (and the extra food for farming the river bananas) is gone til IW.

Woah, take it easy. Going agri before archery wouldn't have done anything in this case, and unless we put farming those bananas at the highest priority, there was probably no way to avoid this. Just bad luck.

I've got the save. Will play tomorrow sometime.

OK Civ, well done, pity for the banana.
But it's only bad luck, Merum: agri or not, our worker lacked the time to improve them, and lose 1 gold is not a big problem.

Now we have a better knowledge of our situation, and if we not move fast - and well - we can be toasted.

I think we can prosecute my plan, and now we got a spot for our 2nd city: where the warrior is in the first of the serie of 3 SS, or 1S of that.
Anyway, i'll try to open the save to try a dot map.

The city will be settled, protected by 1 archer + 1 axe, while our second archer will stay around London's borders with the 2 warriors to protect London and the copper.
As Civ said, it should be connected along the river.
No improvements there, until we have enough forces to protect them, even aggressively.

As Merum said, if we got ivory, and can deny metals to our rivals, it's done:
WE+cats+some axe are a guarantee.

For now i'm still more convinced to exactly follow my plan.

Merum, i rarely tried to impose my points of view to the team, and do not played all those AW games.
But i found a path (for research and builds) that seems to be optimal in this situation, and i would like to follow it.
If (but i prefer when) it will be completed, and things will be driven also by the AI and the RNG, i'll stop to spam my convinctions. Until that point (Oracle completed in 1120 BC for CoL), please propose only slight variations, or try to find ways to improve it.
It's probably the first time we got a clear mid-time plan, that can work because not affected by random events.
Also, don't forget that the team drove me to this plan, since my initial thoughts were appreciably differents.

The proposed site near the ivory looks good. If we're going to take it, we could backfill a bit by building a city near the southern gold, rice and cow. This city will now be shielded, so it can have improvements (although not on the cow just yet, that tile is still on the border). Leaving a gold so close to our capital would be a waste.

Is there any space in our queues to build another city before the Oracle, or will we have to wait?

No Dutch, max we can afford an axe or an archer if in trouble.
In addition, a 3rd city will drop our research, even if close.

I was thinking to the hill on the coast for that, we need a coastal city, but let me make a dot map.

Your thoughts for the rest of my plan?

Okay, that will have to wait then.

I think the first city is indeed best placed where the warrior is standing in the first screenshot. That site is better than 1S of it IMO, as it saves a forest.

I only just noticed that Timbuktu is THAT close. And there's a lot of forests in between, fighting skirmishers there will be hard.


By the way, is there a way to display which tiles are forests and which are jungles better? I'm having a lot of trouble seeing the difference. Perhaps taking screenshots with a bare map only?

Dutch, the bare map can't help much, perhaps the yelds.
I use Blue Marble, the jungle is appreciably greener than the forest.

In a couple hours i'll be able to load the save, and ill'use those attentions in the dot map.

Blubmuz, I've posted very detailed plans as well, and they've been ignored. I've shown how it was possible to get Stonehenge AND the Oracle, without sacrificing military, by using whip overflows and strategic chops, and then use the Oracle for MC, while using the priest for CoL. This strategy also doubled our priest GPP, allowing us to also bulb theocracy when the second priest comes out.

However, I feel that all of my posts, if they were even read at all, were simply ignored due to a thing in the US that we call "Not Invented Here". I feel like I've simply wasted my time.

It's also not the first time the team has had a coherent plan. They've just never been followed.

Therefore, I will toss all the experience that I gained into the trash, and follow the "plan" exactly, whether I think it's the best course of action or not.

Dammit, Merum brake, stop, do something.

I noticed your post about SH, perhaps i missed the Oracle, and i remember the thing about Theo.

OK, i'm looking for consensus, not to impose something (not that i feel i can, anyway).

Now i go back to find and read with more care that post, or posts.

In the meantime, here is the save at turn 21 of my test game the copper is now in the right position.
Try to follow what we've done until now, then try your plan.

Please, try to realize your plan, post a report, and if it's better than mine, happy to change my mind.

edit
found, it's your # 56.
There you describe a test game where you built SH and NOT the Oracle, you show a tech/build path, but you never mentionded this can be used for THIS game.

So, please try to convince me with a research/build path with turns, like mine.
I repeat: if it's better than mine, welcome.
Or if in any case is useful to improve mine, well spent time.
Or if it's not better, and then you're convinced of mine, better this too.

And don't look at my avatar wishing to kill my cat, you're too far away, and she's sleeping on my legs.

Merum, i've read, and re-read your #56.
It seems to me a "food for thought" more than a plan.

I can be wrong, but i can't find an actual plan there.

First of all you're talkin' about a different map, and you proposed some ideas to be developed and adapted to our actual situation.

My simulation, even on a different map, reproduces exactly our starting situation, and it's detailed with which tech and which build in turns, to match exactly with this game.

I just think it's a good plan, not "the best plan ever", and that at the present there's NOT an alternative, so detailed plan to follow.

As i said in my above post, anything to improve it is welcome, but to persuade me you'll need to be as detailed as i was.

In this way, we'll have precise targets for any TS, and with a small amount of luck, we can follow and complete it or any alternative.

Dot map made.
Before you think i went crazy, please have a look at the resources and at the f... mountains.http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/51166/Immagine1.jpgI'd prefer the blue one with stone, but not food in that case.
If we think we can left fish and cows, we can shift the Green 1N, and consequently the Yellow.
The Red MUST be our first city, for the ivory. This location can be better than 1N, but much depends from what there's in the deep fog.
Probably the Blue can be the third.

deleted

Red site looks good. Perhaps 1E so no border pop and still on the river.

Guys, I've had a disaster happen tonight that has taken up the time I intended to be playing. A water pipe burst in my master bathroom, and flooded the entire bedroom and garage. What a mess. I can play in the morning, or take a skip. Sorry to hold up the game.

Also, please disregard my earlier tantrum. I'm under a lot of stress, and I shouldn't have taken it out on you guys. I'm sorry about that.

However, just for the record, I played this earlier:

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/3797/civ4screenshot0000lq1.th.jpg (http://img165.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0000lq1.jpg)

I'll attach the save to this post, for any who care to look. I also have a decent army, and a barracks is building. Copper, gold, and cows are up and hooked, forces are in place to harass Izzy and Shaka, and mass production of heavy duty military is ready to commence. I took Metal Casting with the Oracle, and a prophet is due in 21 to give me CoL.

I purposely did not use my foreknowledge of Shaka's location to raze him in 9 turns, as I was lucky enough to do the first time I played this map.

It's possible to do it faster, but I didn't do any chops. there are 90 hammers worth of chop there, which could have cut the Oracle build time considerably.

Regarding the dotmap: I think the blue spot is probably the best second city site. What I'm worried about is the spacing of the cities.I have two questions that I think we need to consider:

1. Do we need to put the cities closer together for better defense?
2. Will we want to put a city on the choke point to keep Hanni out (Assuming he's over there) or do it with a fort?

Merum, don't worry, i suppose i know well your situation, and if you add a water pipe to the equation... bah, back to the game.

No need to skip or else, we're not in a hurry.

I got your save opened while writing this, and i mainly note this:
- NO 2nd city
- You're still researching writing in turn 117, in my test it was done in turn 75 (i noticed you researched other techs, but...)
- Oracle in 760 BC is risky, highly, even for Prince (imagine if in the other continent we have an industrious civ, maybe with marble)
I noticed you didn't chopped, but perhaps we can consider to vary my plan with a 2nd worker chop, to help to quickly improve our second city.

No, better choose the safe way, in case we can try to chop SH in our second city.
But don't forget we got a lot of calendar resources, and that we'll need them.
If we can build a temple in London to add a priest we'll have more GP points than with SH: plus the benefits to run a specialist and the ones to have a temple which never obsoletes - we got enough food to do it.

I proposed the red city first to ensure us ivory, but it's not a great spot (btw, 1E as suggested by Culdeus can be better, but we need to scout the area).
I think the blue one can be better: horses ready, decent food and production, closer to the capital.
Last but not least, some early chariot for commando actions can be useful.

If we choose so, we MUST keep some unit to guard the ivory, to avoid anyone to settle there.

Also, remember that, to LB CoL with a GPr. we need to know both medi and poly, not know masonry and consequently Monotheism.
Lacking knowledge of masonry blocks construction, it's a prerequisite.

Choosing MC with the Oracle is highly tempting, but the benefits we can have from having a religion and mainly from the courthouses, will surpass the beakers earned in the "change" in the mid-term.

Another point:
Timbuktu is on a hill, and i can bet all the AI capitals are: catapults are mandatory!

All the above to say that my plan is better than yours and that i insist on that?
Well frankly, yes! :p

Not because it's mine, give me some credit of being humble (and smart) enough to admit my faults.
Please give some kind of feedback on this before play, and if you can find some way to improve it, the better.

Take it easy!

edit
i can do this, it's still the last post...
an idea comes in mind, let me make another test before play.

Made another test, trying SH in city2.
It was built IaFAL 4 turns before completion, in 805 BC.
York was founded in turn 82 (1540BC) 1E of horses (blue city).
This can be improved by road/chop first, then mine the hill NE of cows.

Then build a second worker in London, chop first, then mine the hill 1E of dyes.

After that, send the workers to connect/improve York.

I was short in units, 'cause SH, so better forget it, build barracks in York.
The Oracle is slightly dealyed (we build a worker before), but it comes in turn 98 (1060BC). I think we can take this risk.
It can come online faster if we chop the forest W, but i like to spare it for after Math.

I was not short in absolute, but for our plans to harass, i was.

So, better go for mathematics after writing, mainly to improve the chopping.
Then agri, pottery, masonry and construction.

Eventually, IW after agri, it can be useful to see iron.

In my sample game, I didn't build a second city because I planned to never build settlers, but take cities by conquest instead. :D

However, I agree that maybe this strategy is too risky for a competition game, and we should probably make Oracle the priority. I think we should try to grab Stonehenge after the oracle, if for no other reason than to get the gold from a failure, which will do well to keep us in research for quite some time. If we only put hammers into it from whip overflows (Those were the only hammers that went into the wonders I built) then we won't really have to sacrifice other production significantly to do it. Doing it in the same city that builds the Oracle would double the GP points there.

What do you think?

EDIT: Anyway, I will try to get some more sleep now, and play this afternoon.

What do i think?
First of all that we put in the SH hammers we can use for units.

If we choose to do this, you listed 2 possible targets:
1) Actually try to build it: in this case, better in London, for the reason you stated (2 more GP points). We can chop another forest, sending only 1 worker to York, and if you can figure how to creatively use the whip, can be acceptable.
2) Make money with it: start it in York, send both workers there.
and if we complete it?

Ça va sans dir: 1 archer in York + 1 axe around, archer on copper with medic1 warrior, the remaining warrior back home to guard London.

I'm in favor of 1, barracks in York.
But probably more in favor for units.

To you the choice, the main target is the Oracle for CoL.
Ah, and the strategy "settle by the axe" worked well in GotM 25 (to be more accurate: "settle by the chariot"), but even if it was Emperor, i was in a small map, and not AW. BTW, submitted a decent win.