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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.

Checking In !!!

Checking in. :)

Turn 1a: 4000BC - 3580 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6256954&postcount=91) - Settle London & meet Mansa & Hannibal
Turn 1b: 3580 BC - 3100 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6259772&postcount=117) - Meet Alex
Turn 2: 3100 BC - 2500 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=9#161) - Find horses
Turn 3: 2500 BC - 2170 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=11#213) - Discover copper to SW of London.
Turn 4: 2140 BC - 1570 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=12#233) - General exploration and build of first settler.
Turn 5a: 1570 BC - 1390 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=13#255) - Alex settles nearby as do the barbs.
Turn 5b: 1390 BC - 1030 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=14#261) - Discover iron to S of London.
Turn 6: 1030 BC - 850 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=14#279) - Preparing for horse city, Alex scouting/pillaging group.
Turn 7a: 850 BC - 790 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=15#295) - Mansa settler appears.
Turn 7b: 790 BC - 745 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=15#300) - Mansa settles near horses.
Turn 8: 745 BC - 550 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=16#316) - Found Nottingham and scout the enemy.
Turn 9: 550 BC - 385 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=19#365) - Corinth razed and sighting of Hannibal's lands.
Turn 10: 385 BC - 235 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=19#378) - Demise of Mansa skirmishers and further scouting.
Turn 11: 235 BC - 85 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=21#406) - Take Kumbi Saleh, Hannibal gets Numidians.
Turn 12: 85 BC - 50 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=22#433) - Amphibious attack by Alex.
Turn 13: 50 AD - 185 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=24#461) - Iron city founded.
Turn 14: 185 AD - 350 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=25#482) - Iron city defends valiantly against greek HAs.
Turn 15: 350 AD - 500 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=26#503) - Knossos razed.
Turn 16: 500 AD - 650 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=26#519) - Lots of defence, lots of AI casualties.
Turn 17a: 650 AD - 740 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=27#531) - Bits and pieces.
Turn 17b: 740 AD - 815 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=27#537) - Defence of Iron city and bombardment of Thebes.
Turn 18: 815 AD - 950 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=28#554) - Demise of Thebes.
Turn 19: 950 AD - 1055 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=29#572) - Discover location of Athens.
Turn 20: 1055 AD - 1160 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=32#626) - Capture Athens & Pharsalos

Turn 21: 1160 AD - 1208 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=33#642) - Beat off multiple attacks.
Turn 22a: 1208 AD - 1238 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=33#653) - Continue defending.
Turn 22b: 1238 AD - 1274 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=34#663) - Take stack into Hanny's lands.
Turn 23a: 1274 AD - 1304 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=34#668) - Hadrumetum razed.
Turn 23b: 1304 AD - 1334 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=35#695) - Take Hippo & Kerkouane.
Turn 24: 1334 AD - 1394 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=36#701) - Take Carthage, spill the blood of many of our units.
Turn 25a: 1394 AD - 1418 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=36#716) - General fighting.
Turn 25b: 1418 AD - 1466 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=37#730) - Take Djenne
Turn 26: 1466 AD - 1520 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=38#746) - Raze Eritrea, Discover Utica.
Turn 27: 1520 AD - 1550 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=38#758) - Take Utica.
Turn 28: 1550 AD - 1574 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=39#763) - Raze Gao
Turn 29: 1574 AD - 1610 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=39#775) - Take Timbuktu
Turn 30: 1610 AD - 1643 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=39#780) - Demise of Mansa.
Turn 31: 1643 AD - 1673 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=40#790) - Zhou, Cherokee, and Khoisan all razed.
Turn 32: 1673 AD - 1700 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=40#798) - Hannibal comes to a sticky end.
Turn 33: 1700 AD - 1706 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254430&page=41#805) - Sally puts a dampener on proceedings.

Hiya. I'm checking in, and hoping to play more part in this than I did in the practice session.

Hi guys. On to a new one. :)

Did anybody check the AW SGs that have been played ? If not I will post some links to some of them. Obviously there is pretty useful stuff in them.

What about practice games ? I know eric played some. What about the others ? I also played 2 practice games and I will start another one today.

Another very useful thread is here. It is not concerning AW, but it is for a general approach to games. I implemented some of the advice in my gameplay for GOTM25 and found it very easy.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=248435

I have shown up and found my way here. I think practice is essential for success here.

We need to do something DIFFERENT from our previous games (i.e. win).

There must be a trick here somewhere. It is Prince level with Gold in the capital zone. All War can't be the only negative. Maybe we are on a tiny island or something.

I do not think there is a trick. AW Monarch can be pretty hard. Obviously quite discouraging for playing AW in a SGOTM the first time. AW anyway in Civ 4 is very different to Civ 3 for example. Even AW Prince on a difficult map can be quite tricky.;)

I will check in BTS what "cylindrical big and small" means. I have not played something like this before IIRC.

Good luck Geezers. I wanted to join this game since I will be getting a newer computer. But my company reassigned me to a office that require a longer commute. So, sadly not enough time to commit to play a SGOTM game. Good luck and kick butt while having fun.

Good luck Geezers. I wanted to join this game since I will be getting a newer computer. But my company reassigned me to a office that require a longer commute. So, sadly not enough time to commit to play a SGOTM game. Good luck and kick butt while having fun.

Hi Htadus. Good to hear from you again. It would have been nice to have you with us.

I have shown up and found my way here. I think practice is essential for success here.

We need to do something DIFFERENT from our previous games (i.e. win).

There must be a trick here somewhere. It is Prince level with Gold in the capital zone. All War can't be the only negative. Maybe we are on a tiny island or something.

We have to do all the teching ourselves, no tech trading so once the AI get Alpha they get a real advantage. It also means no foreign trade routes, so there's no :commerce: from trade. In the practice game we were getting a lot of :commerce: from foreign trade.

Discussion topics:

Scouting - I think the scout should circle the area clockwise, there is jungle S & E of our starting location so are second city is likely to be N, W or NW of the current location.

Settler: Either settle in place or move settler to NW gold hill to scout. The current site is good but a little more food would be helpful. It might be useful to know if there is a food supply to NW for working that other gold.

Early Tactics: If we have neighbours, I'm expecting leaders like Mansa and Shaka with early UU. I've tried a game with an early Great Wall and leaving the capital empty. This generates an early engineer (for GL or Pyr) and an early general. With barracks we can have drill 3 archers or CR2 axes very quickly.

Early tech: Ag, Ah, Wheel, Pott, BW, Masonry - we need the cottages out early otherwise we can fall behind quickly after the Ai gets Alpha. More emphasis on early REX and economy this game will help us.

Builds: Warrior, Warrior, Worker, Warrior, Worker, Settler. We will be able to grow to size 7 before Calendar just on what we can see now.

Scouting : I guess you mean our warrior being our scouter as we do not have a real scout. In the S you can see the river ending, so obviously there is coast. I would move the warrior 1E on the gold hill. South is just jungle. The settler I would move 1 NW if the warrior does not reveal anything really convincing.

I am not that sure on the build order. I would make this a bit dependable on our settling. The same is valid for the tech path.

IMO we have to get the cows and the gold online asap, so most likely I would build a worker first. The AI does not have any additional units on prince IIRC, so we do not need to be afraid of some archers appearing to take us out. Furthermore I do not think that we will have any too close neighbours.

Tech order : I would have a look at hunting -> ah. We cannot see any corn or wheat now. Hunting leads to ah and archery. If we have a close neighbour we can research archery pretty quickly to get some decent defenders. Still this depends on how our surroundings look like.

One more thing we should consider is founding religions as this will give us happyness. We do not have to worry about relations, so adopting a religion early is good.

In my test games I was able to get either buddhism or hinduism and build stonehenge and pyramids. These two wonders would be nice to have. Prophets are very nice to have for the gold and production (if settled).

If we go more of "The-Hawk"-way and steamroll the AI this might not be that important, though.;)

I generated a game last night and then edited the WB file to mostly resemble the start screen. Just haven't worked out how to get 2f1h on the hill S of the lake. :confused: The game is here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/79775/SGOTM06TestGame_BC-4000.CivWarlordsSave).

Disclaimer: I don't know whether we are isolated or which AI are in the game. After an unfortunate experience in a test game with no metal :eek: I did check that there is some metal somewhere around.

As far as the actual game is concerned I did note the comment of "highly modified Cylindrical Big And Small map" in the description. The " plan for four months" is also interesting. It could just mean that Alan's decided that four months should be long enough for everyone to finish or more likely that Alan & Gyathaar expect the game to take a while. Perhaps we'll need Astro to get to some of the AI or alternatively that we can use galleys but we'll have to keep building cities and waiting for the borders to pop.

It's possible that the reason for the gold is to speed our research in which case we may well need to get Astro. Whilst experimenting with AW I did notice that the AI has a nasty habit of spamming my land with units. In the end I found that early archery was a good way of getting rid of them. However I suspect that we will have at most one AI near us. Quite possibly none to nerf early rushes.

I would favour sending the warrior 1E and the settler 1NW.

EDIT: I found a small glitch with the original save so I've replaced it.

I would favour sending the warrior 1E and the settler 1NW.

That was my plan, too. :crazyeye: Corrected that in my post.

That was my plan, too. :crazyeye: Corrected that in my post.
I see no point in going 1 E with the warrior. It only exposes 2 tiles if there is jungle there which is very likely. Moving 1 SE or better 1 SW will expose more tiles.

What is the point of moving the settler 1 NW are you thinking of settling there or is it just to expose more tiles?

I generated a game last night and then edited the WB file to mostly resemble the start screen.

I've been playing GOTM25 and conspicuously not practising the right kind of game. I'll have a go with this one - tonight if I can get the computer-time that isn't always possible, especially in the run-up to xmas.

Talking of playing time, what are we thinking of as our actual start schedule?
We'll obviously not be diving in as soon as the save's available. Spend a while discussing the early game. Someone presumably will play a turn or three to get us settled. I'm guessing we'll be seriously under way just in the middle of the holiday period. And that's both good and bad for getting everyone together. :D:rolleyes:

I see no point in going 1 E with the warrior. It only exposes 2 tiles if there is jungle there which is very likely. Moving 1 SE or better 1 SW will expose more tiles.

What is the point of moving the settler 1 NW are you thinking of settling there or is it just to expose more tiles?

Warrior 1E is on a hill, so should reveal some tiles. 1SW is just coast. 1SE gets too far away from the settler. Usually in SGOTMs it is enough to move the settler just a bit if at all.

The settler is just for revealing more tiles, although I would be fine settling in place.

@Aged One - I'm ready to strart any time but I hope we start until we are ready.

@markh - I can't tell for sure if 2 S is coast or not but if it is coast that's a good reason to check it out. We have fishing and if there is seafood there then I would consider moving the settler to the mouth of the river. Moving the warrior 1 SW would expose all of the coast between the two rivers, we could have a capital with the gold, bananas and dye as well as seafood 1S of the warrior with a harbour. If we do have to get Astronomy to win this game a capital with a harbour would be very heful. It would also leave room for a second city to have the cows and gold.

The current site is excellent, it has lots of production and river tiles but it's a little short on food. If we settle in place I would farm the banana's, pasture the cows and then mine the gold. If we pasture the cows and then mine the gold we will only have +1 :food: and our capital will not grow. Farming the banana's and working the cows will give +5 :food:, so we can grow to a size 3 city 5 times faster. That will save us a ton of turns in our development. We need food. I would not look E for food, I would look S & W.
I would also cottage the dye for the fourth tile to be worked by London.

I would move the warrior 1SW. Then stopping to assess whether or not we want to move the settler at all, either to settle somewhere S, or to explore to the N or W.

At least there is water 2S , 1SW as the river ends there. IIRC riverends as shown in the pic always end in the sea or a lake.

I am not a big fan of coastal capitols. Many useless tiles that cannot be developed. At prince we have a fairly high happy cap, so the capitol will be able to work many tiles. However I am fine moving the warrior 1SW. If there is seafood we can still discuss what to do with the settler.

I think we should move the warrior first then we should discuss what to do with the settler. It would be shame to settle before we have at least moved the warrior to check the surroundings.

AgedOne : Obviously we have to agree what to do with the warrior before actually starting. If no one objects I will move the warrior 1SW later today and post what we got.

I opened the save, I can see water to the W of the gold hill. I looks like forest 1 S, 1 SW of the warrior. 2 SW of warrior looks like water as well. I am good with the warrior move but do we want to wait and see if The-Hawk has an opinion?

I think we will wait for Sam, AgedOne and The-Hawk to state their opinions on the warrior move. If nobody of them objects by tomorrow morning I will move the warrior 1SW to get this started.

You are right about the water 1W of the gold hill and forest 1S, 1SW of the warrior. Looks like the settler is on a tongue of land.

Playing around with the test game shows 1 SW as a good direction to see several tiles especially if there is water to the SW as seems likely.

EDIT: Assuming we see nothing more than the coast to the SW is there any other reason to move?

I agree that (in the test game) moving warrior 1SW is the option that reveals most tiles.
If I was going for maximum tile-revelation, assuming that was all I was interested in, then settler moves N & NE to the forest hill or NW & W to the gold seem to do quite nicely.
However, what are we hoping to find that will tempt us away from where we are, at the cost of a move or two? Staying by the cattle looks more or less essential. Then ensure we also have a gold, some forests and hills, a few river tiles and we have the makings of a reasonable capital.

Are we likely to risk falling victim to an early attack by wasting a couple of moves at the start? I would doubt it, though that would certainly rank among the most embarrassing SGOTMs if any harm came to us :eek:

I think it would be worth us moving the settler after the warrior, to enable us to start forming a plan for another city catching the resources that the capital misses.

I agree that (in the test game) moving warrior 1SW is the option that reveals most tiles.
If I was going for maximum tile-revelation, assuming that was all I was interested in, then settler moves N & NE to the forest hill or NW & W to the gold seem to do quite nicely.
However, what are we hoping to find that will tempt us away from where we are, at the cost of a move or two? Staying by the cattle looks more or less essential. Then ensure we also have a gold, some forests and hills, a few river tiles and we have the makings of a reasonable capital.

Are we likely to risk falling victim to an early attack by wasting a couple of moves at the start? I would doubt it, though that would certainly rank among the most embarrassing SGOTMs if any harm came to us :eek:

I think it would be worth us moving the settler after the warrior, to enable us to start forming a plan for another city catching the resources that the capital misses.

The current position is good. I would take it every time in a SP, but Gyathaar likes to give surprises if you do not move. Look at GOTM25. Players settling in place had a much more difficult game than the ones moving the settler.

In my test games the AI never attacked me early. They seemed to be much more interested in barb hunting. :mischief:

Movng the settler after the warrior is set. I will do it within the next few minutes, so we have somthing to talk about over the weekend.:)

Here is what we got :

Fascinatingly close to the test game :lol:

The only resource revealed are the bananas. Nothing to tempt us over to the coast.

Where to with the settler? Gold hill or northern hill seems the main choices.
I'd have a fractional preference towards the northern hill by the cattle, just because it might show a bit more of the map than the gold hill vantage point would. I'm happy with either, tho.

If I was going for maximum tile-revelation, assuming that was all I was interested in, then settler moves N & NE to the forest hill or NW & W to the gold seem to do quite nicely.
However, what are we hoping to find that will tempt us away from where we are, at the cost of a move or two? Staying by the cattle looks more or less essential. Then ensure we also have a gold, some forests and hills, a few river tiles and we have the makings of a reasonable capital.


I don't necessarily expect to see anything that would make us move in that direction. However it's possible that we might see wheat or multiple sea resources. Unlikely I know but given that it doesn't slow us down to move the warrior first I see no reason not to do it. I'm actually more curious about why the hill to the east has a blue circle but we would have to move onto the gold to see that area.


I think it would be worth us moving the settler after the warrior, to enable us to start forming a plan for another city catching the resources that the capital misses.

Depending on how good a capital we want there could be an argument for settling 1E or 1SE to net the bananas, cows, dye and gold which is in the opposite direction. Just as round the world sailors are looking to go as fast as possible from the start I think there is a lot to be said for minimising moves that may well be superfluous. It may well be that we end up doing what you suggest but I would like to see the results of the warrior move first. The time delay should not be significant.

EDIT: :hmm: crosspost with mark & AgedOne. I know erik wasn't too happy in our trial game when the settler was moved. In fact he specifically asked me to make a rule about not moving the settler unless the team agreed. I think we should wait for our team members across the water to comment before making any further moves.

I thought about it and I would not like to waste a move with the settler, but settle in place. This is a great site. Much food, much production, gold, forrests for chopping. What more do we want ? Gems ? Fish ? Rice ? Wheat ? :rolleyes:

We are four guys being online. Does anybody of you use ICQ ?

Checking in, sorry for the delay.

I would not move warrior SW. My thought process... I am mostly interested in answering the question "where do I settle?". I did a dot map so we can look at some options. You'll notice my dots are all south or east (white and grey are not settlement options, just identifying some tiles). I'm assuming all would agree we want one of the gold mines in our BFC. I'd prefer the gold mine to the SE (one extra gold for river). Therefore, I think the NW gold is a future city and my first city dots include the SE gold.

165745

Erik, I think you were talking about yellow dot as a possibility if there are fish. This would be a reason to move the warrior SW. However, even if we find a fish, I think I'd prefer the cows over the fish. I prefer cows because of the hammers. With your plan on farming the bananas, we will have plenty of food. So, even fish won't entice me to yellow. As a result, I prefer red, blue, or green. Also, as Mark points out, these allow more cottages than a coastal capital.

So, between red, blue, and green, which is best? Given what we see, the are all very similar (same resources). So, we need to open up eastern fog. My thoughts:

Turn 1, I'd move warrior to the NE (to bananas) and open up the grey and white dots. If grey dot is jungle as expected, then settler moves to red dot. If grey dot is something yummy (like gems in jungle), then settler moves to green dot.

Turn 2, Warrior moves NE to white dot. If that reveals something yummy to the east, then maybe settler goes on to blue dot and founds our capital on turn 3. If not, we found our capital where the settler stands (either red or green).

I think I'll try some test games tonight... :)

/edit: cross post... nope not an ICQ user.
/edit 2: more than a cross post... posted too late... never mind all of the above.

Fascinatingly close to the test game :lol:


:smug:


Where to with the settler? Gold hill or northern hill seems the main choices.
I'd have a fractional preference towards the northern hill by the cattle, just because it might show a bit more of the map than the gold hill vantage point would. I'm happy with either, tho.

See my comments in the previous post.

EDIT: crosspost with The-Hawk.

If we do not settle in place we have to walk at least 2E to give us a workable city on the West coast. That would make The-Hawks blue dot an option.

Hey! A busy time on the forum tonight.
These are crucial decision times, that set the seed for what happens in the rest of the game. We should not rush. Let everyone have a say. Only settle when we are all convinced.

ICQ? Not really... I used to use it almost 10 years ago, but drifted away. My kids all on the ubiquitous MSN, and I have an account. Being tempted towards Google Talk by some acquaintances, but haven't jumped yet.

I may be crazy . . . but I was wondering about running settler up to the northern hill. This exposes a lot of the tiles we need to know about. Then we can run back south and head for any of the suggested 'dots'. Downside is the loss of probably 2 turns.

If we do not settle in place we have to walk at least 2E to give us a workable city on the West coast. That would make The-Hawks blue dot an option.

:confused: I don't entirely understand your logic there. There's actually a lot to be said for overlapping BFCs in the early game. Cities can't work all their tiles anyway, it minimises distance and allows cities to alternate working resources such as cottages.

I don't particularly like blue dot. Red or green dot strike me as better. Red would have the advantage of being able to work both the cows and bananas to grow quickly.

I thought about ICQ for faster communication. I just used it to stay in contact with some old friends and thought it may be possible. I even don't know whether it is possible to talk to various people at the same time. :crazyeye:

Moving the settler would affect our immediate strategy I think. If we sttle in place we will have a shot at a religion. If we move we might not, so this will be a nice topic to discuss on.:p

BTW, cheers guys. :beer:

:confused: I don't entirely understand your logic there. There's actually a lot to be said for overlapping BFCs in the early game. Cities can't work all their tiles anyway, it minimises distance and allows cities to alternate working resources such as cottages.

I don't particularly like blue dot. Red or green dot strike me as better. Red would have the advantage of being able to work both the cows and bananas to grow quickly.

I do not like that much overlapping especially at prince where the happy cap is rather high and cities can work a lot of tiles, so there should be at least three tiles between cities IMO.

I do not like that much overlapping especially at prince where the happy cap is rather high and cities can work a lot of tiles, so there should be at least three tiles between cities IMO.

Well 1E or 1SE would probably meet your criteria depending on where the next city goes. It's possible it might go 1SW of the west gold.

Given the washup on the trial game identified early research as a factor in our performance we need to start thinking what our early builds and research should be. I certainly think we should be looking to get an early city to the west to work that gold to speed up our research.

@mark - Oddly enough I've just poured myself a pint of beer. :D

:cheers: Hi Guys - funny thing - most of this team on at the same time so :beer:

We have a lot of options, settle in place has good food (2 banana's, cows), good production and early commerce. It also leaves room in the south for a costal city that can work the gold and hopefully some seafood.

The cost of moving to the blue dot is 2 turns before we can settle - not big in regular Prince games. It does leave room for 1 city west and 1 city south so it's more efficient from a maint cost. We can get there by going N to the hill Aged One likes and then S again to expose more tiles.

I am not much of a betting man though, so I would probably settle in place.

edit: Just home from the office Xmas party so none to sober :cheers: Please discount any advice appropriately. :crazyeye:

What are we missing that would give us a better capital? Stone?

As the computer still suggests a city on the NW gold hill I am quite sure that there is seafood in the West, but still this does not convince me to move the settler. The current site leaves all options. Even as it is prince I do not like to walk around much.

Hmm... an empty wine glass sits beside me. Not beer tonight. I'm obviously out of tune with the Team. (Better not switch now. Grape and grain etc)

To move or stay put?
In place obviously has several good resources, and doesn't waste any time. Good if we feel that a religion will help our overall game plan (I don't know. If we're just going to smack all their heads it won't help a lot. If we're going to use it to pull some income, generate some GP,then more useful).

Will moving actually give us more in terms of :commerce: :hammers: :food: ?
Probably not much. I suppose there's the chance of metals, horses, stone, but there's just as much chance that moving away from where we are will lose something we were going to get.

Looking at it psychologically, I'm worried because this is a Gyaathar map, and recently in XOTMs those who didn't move were penalised. But he might have reversed his previous trend. We just don't know.

I'm still tempted to move, look, and still get a good :commerce: -heavy start to snatch a shot at Hinduism or Buddhism.

We have 5 resources in the BFC. What else can we look for ? We will not have any metal surprises West and South as there is just water, so I do not see much use in moving the settler and waste a turn on settling.

I have to admit, I'm disappointed that we moved the warrior before I even checked in. Especially when I read that I had until morning... I took my time thinking through the first moves because I thought I had time.

Oh well, enough said, I'm happy to drown my disappointment in our kickoff toast... :cheers: Off we go! :)

I am reluctant to settle in place. It is definitely a good site, but it most likely will prohibit getting both gold mines up quickly. If we settle in place, the NW gold is in the cross, the SE gold will need to be included in city 2. However, with all of the jungle down there, we may not find a suitable city 2 site until we have IW to chop jungle.

If we settle red or green dots, we nip the SE gold mine into our fat cross with plenty of non-jungle tiles to get our city going. A second city with the NW gold can be productive immediately. I would pick red, just because it seems more likely that the FOW N of the white dot is better than the FOW S of the grey dot. I think moving on to blue dot is too risky since we didn't bust that fog. If we move to blue dot and find a bunch of desert, we lose two turns returning to red.

I hear the concerns about overlap, but if this is a small island or a peninsula, we might want to jam a few cities in. Bottom line, imho two early golds offsets the overlap penalty. Besides, maybe the best site for city 2 will be north of the NW mine, minimizing overlap.

I have to admit, I'm disappointed that we moved the warrior before I even checked in. Especially when I read that I had until morning...

I have to admit that this was my mistake as I was the one stating that I would not do something until tomorrow morning.:(

To add a little fuel to the debate, I just tried a few alternative starts of the trial game. I found that I managed to get Hinduism whether I settled in place or settled on 'red dot' via the northern hill. The 2 turns wasted at the start actually were not made up by the commerce gain from the new site, but we still founded Hinduism exactly 2 turns later than if we settled in place.

Now, I know we're missing out some important info here. There might be a religious civ in the real game who wasn't in our trial game who nips in and beats us to our early religion. We'd be unlucky to lose out because of the 2 turn difference (but I've been unlucky before since I took up civ ;) )

I think moving and getting an early religion are not incompatible.

No problem Mark... Geezers don't dwell, they drink ;) .

The early religion question is a big one. If we decide to go this route, we need to get right at it. Normally I am not a big fan of early religion (because of the diplo impact if your neighbors are different religions), but as Mark pointed out, AW makes this moot. The problem with early religion is it means we don't go for early agri and AH, which could stunt our REX.

Here is another (albeit risky) thought... maybe we research the food techs and then make a run at CS slingshot. We will miss Hindu and Buddh, but can pick up Confus as our religion. Whether we settle the capital in place or on red dot, it is gonna rock... which means early Bureau would be nice. A little risky given given Warlords requires Math, but it is only prince and the gold will boost our research.

Urgh... almost forgot AW. We might not want to wait too long for archery. Lots of conflicting priorities, the early decisions are going to be huge... :crazyeye: . I think very critical we get the gold on-line to get ahead in research (both if possible).

By the way, my bet is we are on a relatively small island and astronomy is needed. I'm betting this is set up so early military rush will not win. Maybe this is a game to consider diplo as a condition... time will tell.

What about settling 1NW which will give us gold, cows, bananas, dyes. The second city can go at Hawk's southern white dot which will get bananas and gold ?

I tried settling in place in the test game and noticed a couple of things. The worker needs two turns to get to the bananas to farm them and then needs an additional turn to get back to mine the western gold. Settling on red loses us a turn in settling but the worker can get to the bananas in one turn and start farming immediately. The worker can then move to the eastern gold immediately. Red also allows us to work the bananas immediately for a extra :commerce: from the start. The same would no doubt apply to the green spot but I would prefer to leave that hill for a mine.

@AgedOne - I'm not that convinced about getting a religion. Whether or not we should gamble on getting the Oracle for a possible CoL or MC slingshot is another matter. If we're isolated and can determine this quickly then I would be quite tempted by this route.

What about settling 1NW which will give us gold, cows, bananas, dyes. The second city can go at Hawk's southern white dot which will get bananas and gold ?

I think you must mean 1SW. Wouldn't that second city be surrounded by jungle?

Diplo is not much of an option in AW - Our worst case scenario is smallish island and we need astro. For that we need Math and Calendar, both of which help us out. I would rather REX than get a religion - we will be first to COL on Prince when the happy cap will get us.

I don't think archery is needed - in my test games I have never had any trouble just using warriors - even rushed a couple of cities with them. We only need archers if we are surrounded by AI with early UU. Not very likely and we will know soon enough. I like Agri, AH, Wheel, Pottery, BW, IW and let's get a really fast economy going. IF we have horses and metal, archery will be a waste of time and beakers. We need a really good growth rate and economy, then we can run away from the AI.

What about settling 1NW which will give us gold, cows, bananas, dyes. The second city can go at Hawk's southern white dot which will get bananas and gold ?

That's fine, but the downside (imo) is moving away from the river commerce tiles and also some of the forests.

My favourite is red dot. Cattle, bananas, gold, forest-hills, rivers, lake.

I think you must mean 1SW. Wouldn't that second city be surrounded by jungle?

1 SW is not bad, it allows a harbour for better trade and health but it will have 6 costal tiles. I don't expect we will run into a pop issue unless we opt for a space victory. Frankly I prefer to kill 'em all :ar15: :sniper: . Shall we rank each of the individual sites and then consider the most popular 2?

I made the same experience as erik. I did not need archery at this level.

I read some of the AW SGs and some founded religions, some did not. We have all options here. At prince we already have a rather high happy cap, so it might be ok to go without it.

After some thinking I would neglect the religion and would research the necessary techs to develop the tiles around the capitol and wreak havoc asap.

I like Agri, AH, Wheel, Pottery, BW, IW and let's get a really fast economy going.

We get +1 :) per city for Charismatic but won't we need Myst for monuments somewhere in there? What should we be building? Normally I would build worker, warrior first with this type of start.

I think you must mean 1SW. Wouldn't that second city be surrounded by jungle?

No, I mean 1NW. IIRC thre are bananas SW, too.

Shall we rank each of the individual sites and then consider the most popular 2?


Red
Green
In place.
1SW
Blue
1NW

1 SW is not bad, it allows a harbour for better trade and health but it will have 6 costal tiles. I don't expect we will run into a pop issue unless we opt for a space victory. Frankly I prefer to kill 'em all :ar15: :sniper: . Shall we rank each of the individual sites and then consider the most popular 2?

Hm, I expect that we do not need any harbours.

Diplo is not much of an option in AW

Yeesh, I need to play a practice game and get my head into AW :lol: .

RE: Settling 1 NW... I've been playing lots of immortal and deity lately. At those levels, I discount any non-fresh water start because of the health. However, with the health handicap at Prince, maybe this is not an issue? What would our starting health be? If we don't need the fresh water, this could be a good option to consider.

Looking at the screenie I posted there are now three sites recommended by the PC. 1 directly on the NW gold which could mean that there is more food (like seafood) around. For sure the Southern recommended site has seafood. There is nothing else around it as we can see. This makes me think that health will not be a big problem.

Shall we rank each of the individual sites and then consider the most popular 2?

I'd go for:

Red
In place
Green
All the others

(I'll rejoin this discussion in the morning - having trouble keeping eyes open - a bad fault for a civ player)

Playing Sam's test start... researched Ag and AH, built a settler for a second city, then beeline to CS slingshot in 865 BC. This was with a pretty crappy 2nd city (did not settle the gold). If we get two cities up on the two gold mines, I think CS slingshot is possible. Maybe I'll try again and see if I do better with the 2nd gold site.

955 BC CS slingshot going for 2nd gold city. I played the second city pretty dumb since it is different than the real game (worked the gold mine only so it stayed at size 1). In our game, the second city would have farmed bananas and could grow faster.

Built a library in the capital and 8 warriors along the way. Certainly could have built a lib in the second city as well.

By the way, I settled 1 NW to see the health situation. Base health is 2 (for prince). We can see 3 trees in the fat cross, but can't see the northernmost 3 tile. If none of these are trees, then our population will be limited to 3. If 1 of them is trees, then we have pop 4, if all three are trees, then pop 5. I think this is too risky. Three pop this early will be limiting. Even if we detour for wheel to hook the cows, we might be stuck on 4. So, I think I'm back to red or green dot.

I have to admit, I'm disappointed that we moved the warrior before I even checked in.

Me too. But I can't believe there have been three pages of discussions since yesterday. I'm already lost and we've only made one move.

Can someone summarise precisely in one post the pros and cons of each capital city location?

Oops, another cross post... I was editing my previous to add more comments about settling NW. Let me capture here.

I think our options are as follows:

Settle in place:

Pros: Five resources in capital (although 2 bananas may be overkill). Doesn't waste a forest. Saves a turn of movement.
Cons: Uses the weaker gold mine in the capital (non river). Might ruin the 2nd gold site because of the jungles to the south. No room for coastal city to West.

Red Dot:

Pros: Has a better gold in fat cross (river). Insures two gold cities (takes the southern jungles out of it, we know we can settle a good city on the NW gold).
Cons: Loses a forest. One turn to move. Overlaps the city on the NW gold.

Green Dot:

Same as red, simply a matter of which FOW tile you want in the BFC. Odds seem better that the red dot city FOW tile (1 N of white) is better (since we can see jungle in tile 1 S of grey).

1 tile NW (not on the dot map):

Pros: Settle same turn. Doesn't waste a forest. Four resources at least (might be more under FOW). Allows better use of SE gold for second city than settling in place (we can settle a second city at or near the grey dot).
Cons: Might be junk under the FOW as well. Uses the weaker gold mine in the capital (non river). Not fresh water, so it might have health limitations. At best limited to 5, at worst 3 (one more when the cows are hooked up). The second city might have health issue since its not on a river and there is jungle.

Blue dot:

Pros: Four resources at least, maybe more under FOW. Has a better gold in fat cross (river). Insures two gold cities. Does not overlap the 2nd city on the NW gold. Doesn't waste a forest.
Cons: Two moves to get there, and big risk if there is crap under the FOW (would need another turn to go back to red).

I think my order is red, green, 1 NW, blue, in place.

Hawk - my concern with the red and green dots is the limits they place on future city sites. I can't see how we would be able to place a good city to use both the bananas and gold on the west coast if we settle in either spot. The green dot also puts restrictions on a city in the south. The blue dot is more appealling to me. Would you consider moving the settler 1 N, 1 NE and then 1 SE - while the warriors move 1 SE and 1 NE. This would give us a better picture of where we are. We could then chose between the red and blue dots without losing another turn as we would pause mid move for the settler and it could finish on either blue or red. It would rule out in place and green.

I really don't appreciate the difference between the one extra commerce at the expense of a better second city. If you could elaborate on that point, i would appreciate it.

Thanks Erik

edit: another cross post so I've rephrased the questions.

Wow. Such dilemmas. How will we ever decide?

Good questions. Maybe I am too quick to downplay the overlap. Here is a fat cross map that shows the overlap. I took red dot, and made my 2nd city a new yellow dot. If we get lucky with FOW to the NW, we might end up on one of the two new green dots, but we really can't count on that.

I've only been thinking about early game... when we will be limited to 5-6 citizens due to health/happiness. I think there are more than enough tiles for both cities (marked with x's). This is especially true if the capital works the FOW tiles.

(By the way, when I study this screen cap really closely, it looks like there might be some resources under the FOW to the east. However, maybe that is just my geezer eyes playing tricks. Come to think of it, the one looks strangely like a horse, how can that be? Do we start with AH??? Who knows, probably just wishful thinking.)

165765

Later in the game, once the capital can expand past 5-6, it will want some of the yellow tiles back. This may not be a problem, in fact, if yellow city has been working cottages for the capital, that would be a good thing. However, maybe this makes yellow too weak (unless there is food at sea in which case it might be a good GP farm).

My only issue with blue dot is the risk of junk to the east. However, you have hit on an interesting option :goodjob: . By going around the lake, we can open up the FOW on turn two, but still get back to red on turn two if it is bad news. Only one extra turn than settling directly on red. It would give us a ton of information, including about the north. Meanwhile, warrior opens up the old grey dot tile. I can certainly buy into investing an extra turn so that we optimize our capital placement.

If we find good news under the eastern FOW, then blue dot moves to the top of my list. Bad news to the east leaves me on red.

By the way, speaking of ocean food resources. I would think these are less valuable in an AW game. Bound to be pillaged on a regular basis unless we invest in protection (which I hate to do).

I agree about the reduced value of sea resources. They are a pain to defend.

I understand better now, thank you for the dot map. Credit for the settler moves belongs to Aged One :xmastree: , he first suggested it and I mearly embelished with the pause. My preference would be to go for the walk around the lake and then decide where to settle but I now am willing to go with the red dot.

Would you consider moving the settler 1 N, 1 NE and then 1 SE - while the warriors move 1 SE and 1 NE. This would give us a better picture of where we are. We could then chose between the red and blue dots without losing another turn as we would pause mid move for the settler and it could finish on either blue or red. It would rule out in place and green.


I'm happy with the suggested moves by the settler. However the one warrior has already moved 1SW so it can only make one move next turn which presumably will be 1SE.

I am fine with the walk around the lake.

But I can't believe there have been three pages of discussions since yesterday.

Well, we're doing quite well I suppose, but we're on 71 posts right now and that is not 1st place! Gypsy Kings are just holding the early lead with 80 posts.

All other teams are well behind on day 1. You sleep. You lose! :D


(By the way, when I study this screen cap really closely, it looks like there might be some resources under the FOW to the east. However, maybe that is just my geezer eyes playing tricks. Come to think of it, the one looks strangely like a horse, how can that be? Do we start with AH??? Who knows, probably just wishful thinking.)

And that's cattle just to the north, too!!
Darn. Geezer eyes.

I am fine with the walk around the lake.

I think the most important thing is to pick the best location for our capital. We can afford to waste a turn or two on an early morning walk around our lake. Prime placement will conceivably allow us to make up the lost production/research etc.

Ok, this is what we got so far. Should I move the settler 1SE ? Where should the warrior go ?

Ok, this is what we got so far. Should I move the settler 1SE ? Where should the warrior go ?

1SE sounds good for the settler and then pause. It's what the original suggestion stated. I would move the warrior 1SE as well and then post a SS which the whole team can use to decide where to settle.

Looking at what we can see so far I suspect the decision will be red dot but let's wait for a consensus.

Btw can you enable the grid for the SS shot as it makes dot mapping easier.

Here it is :

Good morning gents - I say blue dot is better long term and see no reason not to settle there. We can work the bananas as Sam suggested while the city grows and and there's lot of green space where horses or metal can show up.
My tech choice is still Ag, AH. Build warrior,worker. He can farm B, mine G and then pasture C.
@markh - can we have a roster please.

Can the warrior make a move 1 NE this turn - it looks to me like he hasn't moved yet?

The warrior is moved. We can just move the settler.

As I have begun I will play the first set.

For the roster I would like to know the timezones again. Especially from our American members. Sam, AgedOne and me are in Europe, so we will begin and then we go over to America, so a first roster could look like this :

Mark
Sam
AgedOne
The-Hawk
Harbourboy
Erik

Please post whether this is suitable.

Yes, at this point, I think I'd take blue dot. The last few FOW tiles are probably jungle, but that is not a terrible thing. If they were mountains, I'd rethink red. Since all of the western red dot tiles that we give up are in our second cities BFC, I think this is best. No reason to overlap more than we need.

I agree with Ag followed by AH. Even if we decide to slingshot, these should be first.

However, I think my first build is a worker. He is built as Ag researches. When we are done Ag, we farm the bananas first, then mine the gold. As soon as pop goes to two, we work bananas and gold to zoom our research. Worker's third act is to pasture the cows, third citizen goes there.

From there it is all downhill ;) .

I am east coast USA (near Philadelphia), 5 hours behind London.

Roster looks good, seems that (once again) it will fall on Harbourboy to clean up after me :) .

Looking at the 3 likely locations, I have counted up the :food: :hammers: :commerce: before any improvements.

Red
Cattle, silk, banana, gold
:food: 27
:hammers: 12
:commerce: 9

Green
Cattle, silk, banana, gold
:food: 30
:hammers: 7
:commerce: 10

Blue
Cattle, silk, banana, gold
:food: 27
:hammers: 12
:commerce: 7

I might have miscounted, as I was looking at the screenshot and couldn't zoom in.

I would prefer red, fractionally, out of the three.

Of course, there is a benefit in going blue in that the overlap with a western city is reduced, but it was already mentioned that this isn't a big deal.

I am the same time zone as Hawk. You might want to insert a european in between HB and myself to shorten the delay between turns if we ever have to go into hurry up mode :lol:

I am all for blu, too.

Tech path is fine with me and I like to have a worker first, too.

So, have 3 for blue and 1 for red.

I'll wait what Harbourboy and Sam will say and play in about 4 - 5 hours if we got a consensus.

I'm with AgedOne in preferring red dot but I'll go with blue dot if that's what the majority want.

The plan as I understand it is:

Settle blue/red dot and work the bananas.
Initial builds are worker, warrior.
Research Ag, AH.
Worker farms bananas, mines gold and then pastures cows in that order.
City works bananas first, then bananas & gold followed by bananas, gold and cows?


How many turns does mark play? Do we need to decide the third build and research target as well? Where do we want to build the second city and when?

I'm fine with being moved down the roster if necessary.

Have we played more moves then? There seem to be a whole lot more tiles revealed now. How many moves have we done already then?

Have we played more moves then? There seem to be a whole lot more tiles revealed now. How many moves have we done already then?


We are partway through turn 3.

We are partway through turn 3.

Turn 2 I believe.

Turn 2 I believe.
Ah, that explains why the warrior could not move. My bad.

OK. I'm almost as happy on blue as on red, so will be swayed by the majority view.
Out of interest, what is convincing those of us who say blue rather than red?
Is it the opportunity to fit a west city in more easily? Apart from that, I can't see anything.
(I'd be happier knowing we were making this decision through facts, and less happy if it was just gut feel.)

We will have more space for a city West. That is the main reason.

I will play something about 20 - 30 turns.

Moved the settler on blue dot and reveal another dye NE and spices SW in the bfc.

3940BC : found London on blue dot
warrior reveals rice S of London

Build to a worker

Research to agriculture

IBT : ha, ha we are at war. A Malinese scout appears NE.

3700BC : London's cultural boundaries expand

3580BC : agriculture comes in

a Carthaginian scout appears from the South and we have another enemy

Stop here for discussion. I am not sure whether we should change our research plan to hunting -> archery as we have two near neighbours.

Save is uploaded.

Good thinking markh!

It's nice to know we are not isolated. Did they both come from S or SE?

I would stay with AH. It will be a while before we can rush Mansa. BW after AH. I don't think we have to worry about any rush from the AI soon. I would like to know what resources we have or don't have :confused:

I have just come off 14 attempts at the Always War G Major 19. About 8 of those attempts ended within 30 turns due to the arrival of one or more enemy archers that easily took my only city.

My unscientific advice is that we need to err on the side of military caution to avoid this game ending really quickly with that many near neighbours.

Mansa's scout appeared between the mountain range E, SE. Mansa should be quite near obviously. Hanni's scout must have wandered a bit as he just appeared.

I have just come off 14 attempts at the Always War G Major 19. About 8 of those attempts ended within 30 turns due to the arrival of one or more enemy archers that easily took my only city.

My unscientific advice is that we need to err on the side of military caution to avoid this game ending really quickly with that many near neighbours.

What you saw was the free archer from Monarch HB. if you keep a warrior in your capital, they will stay out of your cultural zone.

This is prince - Mansa will just be building his first warrior. Lucky teams will find Mansa capital empty :mad: on Prince. If he has a 3 :food: square the AI will work it to grow while the warrior takes 22 turns to build. We have lots of time. 3 chariots might we be able to take out our first victum. :cool:

:( My experience with test always war games was that the AI started spamming my BFC with warriors which made it difficult for the worker to improve resources not to mention the likelihood of them being pillaged. I must admit that I did find archers useful to kill them off.

That said, Hunting & Archery will take 20 turns as against 16 turns for AH. However even if we have horses we'll need to connect them which means researching Wheel unless they're conveniently located on a river which is unlikely.

Perhaps it might be worth interrupting the worker build to start a warrior whilst continuing to research AH? We can build a warrior in 8 turns if we stagnate London and work the gold.

EDIT: As a bonus working the gold knocks a turn off AH.

EDIT 2: The power graph is interesting.

I left my capital open and used warriors to take care of the AI. I agree with building a warrior before finishing the worker now but I would like the city to grow.

I agree with building a warrior before finishing the worker now but I would like the city to grow.

Well we can work the 1f2h forest 1SW of London instead of the gold but it will slow AH to 18 turns.

We can continue to work the banana's for 11 turns until the city grows to size 2 and then work the gold and banana's for 4 turns to finish the warrior. Then complete the worker. AH will then be in before the worker is complete, giving us the option of pasturing the cows first for the 2 hammers + 4 food or posting the warrior on the gold and mining the gold first to speed up our next tech.

We can continue to work the banana's for 11 turns until the city grows to size 2 and then work the gold and banana's for 4 turns to finish the warrior. Then complete the worker.

Yes that was my original thought. I was just trying to minimise the time the worker was suspended to avoid hammer degradation.

Out of interest, what is convincing those of us who say blue rather than red?
Is it the opportunity to fit a west city in more easily? Apart from that, I can't see anything.

I was going to say... Reason 1: Minimize overlap of the western city. Reason 2: Given we could see jungle under the FOW on the uncovered blue tiles, worse case was we'd have to chop some jungle. However, there was always a chance we'd find some more resources on blue dot, and we knew there were no more on red dot. Looks like this turned out to be the case, this capital is going to rock once we research calendars.

a Carthaginian scout appears from the South and we have another enemy

I guess CS slingshot is out of the question, looks like early war is the name of the game.

I'm not real clear on AI bonuses, but if Erik has this right (no archers), then we definitely should stay on AH. We build a second warrior and our capital is safe. Then finish the worker, then another warrior or two to protect the worker and his improvements.

Assuming there are no horses nearby, the BW next. If we get axes or chariots, then time to see what kind of cities Mansa and Hannibal have built for us...

OK guys, I need to stop you all right here and remind you of what we have been doing wrong in our last few games. Before we do anything else, we simply must set out in plain English what our current strategy is and what our short term tactics are to get there, based on the information we have at the moment. And then I want everyone to agree on it.

The game has only just started so we shouldn't be in too much of a rush.

I want to make sure there are no misunderstandings in what we are trying to do with this game. The impact of every move made in these early stages is magnified many times over in downstream consequences in future years.

What we know:

1. We are not isolated.
2. We are at war.
3. The devil is in the details

What we don't know:

1. Where the key resources are.
2. Where the AI is located.

What we can plan for:
An empty city draws AI like flies to honey, a garrisoned city will keep them circling and pillaging.
Mansa's skirmishers are a . .. .. .. .. . to dig out of cities.
Calendar will make us strong.
Too early a build up of troops will get us into trouble. Too slow a build up of troops will get us in to trouble. We have to seek a balance of economy and military.
Conquest is good and so is domination.

So first off, we need to get our economy going, second we need to locate the enemy, third we need to invite them to the dance.

The next person needs to copy erikthecelt's summary and insert their additional comments into an updated version. Eventually we should end up with a comprehensive statement of intent that we can live by for a while.

Skirmishers are tough nuts in the beginning. 50% city defense and 1 - 2 first strikes. As he is at war now I guess it will be Mansa's priority to research archery now. For us I am not that convinced to research BW after ah. :confused: I think we will need archery having two neighbours. We are protective, so our archers are decent defenders. If we do not have horses and it turns out that also copper is far away it will be difficult to keep the AI in check with just warriors. Doing archery after bw might be a little late.

I think the plan for the next set is set and agreed. Build a warrior then continue with the worker. Research : complete AH. I think this is the next stop for discussions. Our continuing will depend whether we have horses nearby or not.

An updated/revised version of erik's post:

What we know:

1. We are not isolated alone.
2. We are at war.
3. The devil is in the details.
4. We will have to research most techs ourselves. We may get some part researched techs from the AI in peace deals.

What we don't know:

1. Where the key resources are.
2. Where the AI is located.
3. Whether there are any more AI on our land.
4. Whether we will need Astro.

What we can plan for:
An empty city draws AI like flies to honey, a garrisoned city will keep them circling and pillaging.
Mansa's skirmishers are a . .. .. .. .. . to dig out of cities.
Calendar will make us strong.
Too early a build up of troops will get us into trouble. Too slow a build up of troops will get us in to trouble. We have to seek a balance of economy and military.
Conquest is good and so is domination.

So first off, we need to get our economy going, second we need to locate the enemy, third we need to invite them to the dance.

Overall Strategy

Conquer/capitulate sufficient AI to win a conquest/domination win.
Finish the game in as few turns as possible.


Supporting Strategy

To have a strong enough economy to research sufficiently fast.
To have a productive enough economy to build units/buildings at the required rate.
To have sufficient intelligence on the AI to know their capabilities before we attack them.


Short term Strategy

Build up our economy.
Fight a defensive war.
Acquire key resources.
Map the area and AIs around us.


I know the overall strategy sounds obvious but it helps us maintain focus. As I see it we need to determine how we accomplish the short term strategy.

Skirmishers are tough nuts in the beginning. 50% city defense and 1 - 2 first strikes. As he is at war now I guess it will be Mansa's priority to research archery now. For us I am not that convinced to research BW after ah. :confused: I think we will need archery having two neighbours. We are protective, so our archers are decent defenders. If we do not have horses and it turns out that also copper is far away it will be difficult to keep the AI in check with just warriors. Doing archery after bw might be a little late.


Good points mark. We need to review tech order after AH comes in.


I think the plan for the next set is set and agreed. Build a warrior then continue with the worker. Research : complete AH. I think this is the next stop for discussions. Our continuing will depend whether we have horses nearby or not.

Agreed.

4. We will have to research most techs ourselves. We may get some part researched techs from the AI in peace deals.

AW means no peace ever, so we have to tech ourselves. This makes it important to agree which techs we need and which ones we do not need.

It is difficult to set any strategies now. We have to see whether we have key resources for an offensive war. Before that we can discuss anything, but it may become moot after the required techs come in. We have to check first, then we can discuss on possibilities.

The main strategy in AW is easy. It is either us or them. Domination or conquest are the obvious victory conditions.

It would be nice to have horses as with chariots you can prevent the AIs from connecting metals easily.

Should I go on until ah comes in or does anybody else want to play ? I am fine both ways. My stop was obvious, so there is nothing much to change beside the buildorder.

We are:

Playing a Prince-level always-war game
On a (modified) Big & Small bts-style map
Neighboured by Mansa Musa and Hannibal. (There may be more.)


Mansa Musa:

Financial and Spiritual
Has Skirmisher as UU (strength 4 archer, poss extra 1st strikes)


Hannibal:

Financial and Charismatic
Has Numidian as UU (strength 5 horse-archer, +50% v melee, flanking I)


Strategic aims
Military domination
This continent first
Then the world

Actions towards Strategic Aims

Make sure no-one walks in and takes London :eek:
Build up our economy
Build up our force
Find out where the enemy are
Attack as soon as we have the appropriate force


Immediate Actions

Build warrior2 to act with warrior1 as deterrent force
Finish worker next
Research Agri (to give us growth), AH (for growth, and to find horses), BW (to find copper)
Build more warriors to act as scouts


Decisions to be made
Archery?
I think we can survive using warriors as a deterrent force.
However, if we find we have no horses or metals, we need archery, before Hannibal starts sending Numidians our way
Scouting?
We do need to map out the area and plot our attack routes. No chance of using OB in an AW game, so I think we use warriors and risk losing them
Appropriate Force?
Judging the right size of attack force is going to be a crucial decision.
Must not go in under-powered.
Must not delay too long.
But that decision lies a few years in the future.

Remember that this is Prince level, so with good planning and preparation, and the right level of violence, we should take these AI comfortably. However, make big mistakes and we could still be embarrassed (I know:rolleyes: )
One thing to watch out for - the two AI we know are both financial, which may offset the normal tech advantage we would gain at this level.

AW means no peace ever, so we have to tech ourselves. This makes it important to agree which techs we need and which ones we do not need.

:blush: I knew that. For some reason I was just thinking about the tech trading.


Should I go on until ah comes in or does anybody else want to play ? I am fine both ways. My stop was obvious, so there is nothing much to change beside the buildorder.

I think you should carry until AH. Are you going to build the warrior the way erik suggested?

Immediate Actions

Build warrior2 to act with warrior1 as deterrent force
Finish worker next
Research Agri (to give us growth), AH (for growth, and to find horses), BW (to find copper)
Build more warriors to act as scouts


By the time we have AH, 16 turns or so, we should have a better idea of what sort of forces the AI is sending against us and whether they're inhibiting our worker improvements. That's probably a good point to decide if we need Archery before BW.

Everything appears clear for the short term. I am good with markh finishing AH and then stopping.

Just a reminder, put a turn into the worker part way through the warrior to avoid the hammer melt down.

:)

Everything appears clear for the short term. I am good with markh finishing AH and then stopping.

Yep, I agree.

However, if we find we have no horses or metals, we need archery, before Hannibal starts sending Numidians our way

Thanks for the reminder about Numidians. These puppies could really suck in early game. If we don't have horses or metals, this is going to be a struggle.

We'll see what Mark learns until the pause after AH, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna vote for BW next. No way we survive with archers only (our protective trait will not stop Numidians from pillaging us back to the stone age). We are going to need some horse-stickers.

Good work guys. So our next strategic decision point comes at the end of Animal Husbandry?

Yep, I agree.



Thanks for the reminder about Numidians. These puppies could really suck in early game. If we don't have horses or metals, this is going to be a struggle.

We'll see what Mark learns until the pause after AH, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna vote for BW next. No way we survive with archers only (our protective trait will not stop Numidians from pillaging us back to the stone age). We are going to need some horse-stickers.

They will be a long time coming, the Numidian needs HBR which at prince will probably not come until after we have construction. ;)

Played until ah came in. No horses, so we have to decide whether we go the risky road or the safe one. I am sure we have metal, but the question is whether we have copper or iron.

I see Alex joined the party! My favorite AI to destroy! :D :D

Three AI's in the vicinity, all with early UUs. This is shaping up to be a real early brawl. I'd prefer to do my brawling with axes and spears. I'm still for BW next. If we find it (and survive until then ;) ), we can axe rush whoever is close. If we sidetrack for archery, maybe we lose this chance?

I'd finish the worker, followed a warrior to escort him. Then we might need a settler if there is no metal in our BFC, but that remains to be seen.

I would suggest we immediately move our spare warrior to one west of the cows to see what is under FOW near the 2nd gold. This most likely where we put our second city, unless metal makes us head elsewhere. Who knows, maybe there are horses. This should be no risk... from one west of the cow, the warrior can get back to the capital in time if an AI warrior shows up from the east.

I have an idea for creating a killing ground around the capital. I think we can mount a defense with 6 warriors and boost them up fairly quickly. it will also help to drain the AI of :hammers:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/106568/Killing_Ground.JPG

Warriors stationed on the blue crosses will have a killing ground in between each. If we leave the capital empty, the AI will send warriors to occupy our capital. In the meantime, we expand to fill in the territory N and W of London. We need BW to chop the trees for killing ground #2.

I see Alex joined the party! My favorite AI to destroy! :D :D


Down boy. :p


Three AI's in the vicinity, all with early UUs. This is shaping up to be a real early brawl. I'd prefer to do my brawling with axes and spears. I'm still for BW next. If we find it (and survive until then ;) ), we can axe rush whoever is close. If we sidetrack for archery, maybe we lose this chance?


I must admit I do feel a bit twitchy at the thought of waiting for BW especially since we'll then need to connect the copper, if we have any, which might prove difficult without roads.


I would suggest we immediately move our spare warrior to one west of the cows to see what is under FOW near the 2nd gold.


Might I suggest moving our warrior from London to the west and our new warrior into London? It saves a turn clearing the FOW.

On a brighter note I see Alex is annoyed at Mansa. :D OTOH Hanny seems to be making money.

I see Alex joined the party! My favorite AI to destroy! :D :D

Damn, I tried to keep that from you noticing.;)

Erik, my concern with your kill zone map is the tile directly SE from the capital (blue 2 on the attached). If the AI gets on it, we will have a problem getting him (jungle hill). I like the concept, but I think we need to funnel them into flat grassland to have the best shot at them (or hope they suicide on our warriors fortified on hills). Take a look at this (explanation to follow).

165902

I would place warriors on the blue numbers. Warriors 1,2,3, and 4 are the killers. They hold all the favorable terrain next to the capital, so the AI can only go to a red number. Each red number can be hit by two warriors. Half the time we will trade warrior for warrior, the other half, we kill his warrior with no loss.

Warrior 1 would not be needed, but I don't want to leave the gold undefended. I have to think an AI might try to pillage it, no reason to give him the hill.

Warriors 1,2, and 3 provide mutual support. So, if an AI attacks them on their hills (instead of passing by) and gets lucky, we can take revenge. Warrior 4 does not have someone covering him, so there is some risk. I would place a 6th warrior on the forest hill directly west of 4.

Red number four is a special case. It only has one warrior who can hit it. So, if an AI goes to the yellow circle tile (the only tile that can reach 4), we have to shift our warrior 3 to red three to make sure we have 2 against 1.

Warrior 5 is the reserve. His role in life is simple. If we ever lose both warriors to an attacking AI, then warrior 5 moves into the capital.

Having said all that, I am wondering if we will ever get this far along. If our capital has copper, we won't be doing much defending. Spam axes, kill AI's. If copper is not in the BFC, we will need to get a settler into the build order right away. Might be a while before we have 5 warriors...

Might I suggest moving our warrior from London to the west and our new warrior into London? It saves a turn clearing the FOW.

Yep, good idea...

I've been playing a few practice games - mainly to get my head around AW and what it means.

Apart from finding that the game can finish hilariously early if your first warrior goes exploring just one tile too far from your capital :lol: , I was watching for methods of keeping the AI out of our lands.

I don't think it's essential to form the kind of 'ring of fire' that we are discussing - not at Prince level. Well, not unless we find we have no metals and the game is getting on a bit, to the time when the AI begin to send larger contingents in our direction.

What I got used to was individual warriors (and soon archers) strolling up. Occasionally an archer from each of 2 AI simultaneously, which was annoying. They are not completely stupid. They dodge around our forces rather than attack them, aiming to pillage. Then we have to attack to get rid of them.
I was glad to get better units - chariots were nice - and then the problems melted away.

So, in brief, we probably need 5 warriors, but maybe not a close ring around London.

Having said all that, I am wondering if we will ever get this far along. If our capital has copper, we won't be doing much defending. Spam axes, kill AI's. If copper is not in the BFC, we will need to get a settler into the build order right away. Might be a while before we have 5 warriors...



I don't expect to get copper - I figure we should be expecting iron. The new map scripts make copper a very scarce commodity and I doubt Gyth would let us have it.

I was aware of the holes Hawk, but I expected to be shifting warriors around actively to cover approaching AI. They will be slow arriving and we should see them coming because we are on the hills. I would spam warriors until we grow to size 4 or 5, Then we can build a settler. That's why I took the forward position on the south. Generally we can expect to lose 1 warrior for each of the first 3 or 4 warriors we kill. We will want to promote the central warriors to be the stronger units.

This goes with my thinking that the economy should come first, not the military because we are doing all our tech work ourselves. It's an alternative to spending beakers on hunting & archery when we can put it to bw, wheel, pottery and iw.

Who's up Sam or Aged One?

Who's up Sam or Aged One?

Hmm. Thought it was Sam before me.
I know he mentioned it was OK to move him down the order if we wanted to zig and zag between time-zones a bit, but I didn't think anything official ever came of that.
Coach?

I have now had 18 attempts at G-Major 19 which is another Always War game. That is at Monarch, but the main theme seems to be that if you can find copper really close, you're fine, but if you can't, then archery is pretty useful because it's a long haul to Iron Working and you've got to protect your land from enemy archers (which warriors are hopeless at).

I'd like us to have a very clear plan as to what we do if there's no nearby Copper.

Sorry. Took me a while to track down the draft roster (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6256126&postcount=78) to work out I'm up. I'll post a draft plan this evening. Perhaps there might be some agreement on the defence plan by then.

I think I have never tried playing defense with warriors. :mischief: They keep dying too easily in my games. I often lose them to barbs, so usually I take the safe way through archery. However I am fine with trying this.

Currently I plan to play tomorrow evening. Draft plan for my turnset is:


Complete worker and then keep building warriors. For the time being I'll keep a warrior in London as there are not enough to use either erik's or The-Hawk's plans.
Clear FOW by second gold.
Research - I am uneasy about relying warriors for defence. I know we did it in SGOTM02 but then we had C1 promoted warriors. From what I can tell The-Hawk and erik are fully in favour of BW next, mark, and AgedOne (I think) are willing to give it a try and Harbourboy would really like Archery. When mark stopped mid turnset Hunting & Archery were 20 turns whereas now they are 15 turns. On reflection I'm willing to take a gamble on BW next. However if we get no copper within view then I intend to start researching towards Archery otherwise I'll research Wheel to connect the copper.


EDIT: I'm planning on 20 turns unless anyone thinks it should be 30.

Sam - what are the plans for the worker? First worker action should be to mine the gold as we seem to be more worried about techs than growth.

My plans, thoughts assume that we would not research archery until very late, probably after construction. I do not expect copper to show up. If we are going to research archery if there is no copper, then I would not research BW now. We might as well go with hunting - arch - masonary for the GW - BW, wheel, pottery, IW. Build another warrior, then a settler while researching archery.

Sam - what are the plans for the worker? First worker action should be to mine the gold as we seem to be more worried about techs than growth.


I was intending to farm the bananas as you had suggested initially and then do the gold. My bad, I should have mentioned this in the plan. :blush: Apart from the food the other advantage of doing it in that order was that it would be easier to defend it from pillaging with only two or three warriors. However the idea behind these plans is so that these things can be discussed by the team so perhaps I'll end up doing the gold first.


My plans, thoughts assume that we would not research archery until very late, probably after construction. I do not expect copper to show up. If we are going to research archery if there is no copper, then I would not research BW now. We might as well go with hunting - arch - masonary for the GW - BW, wheel, pottery, IW. Build another warrior, then a settler while researching archery.

I see going for Archery as a fallback plan if there's no copper. I really think that defending with warriors whilst we tech to IW is asking for disaster. Still, let's see what the rest of the team think.

BW First
We're currently at turn 30. Hunting will be in at turn 41.
We're building a worker - also due at turn 41 - and then we can grow while building warriors.
At current rate, BW will come in at turn 58. However, we can grow to work another tile around turn 50 if we farm the bananas. This may pull BW in by a turn or two.
If we build warriors after the worker, then we can have another 2 by turn 58.

So, to condense all that . . .
Research Hunting, then BW.
Build worker, then warriors.
Worker farms bananas, then mines gold.
By turn 28 we will have 4 warriors, one worker, and we'll know where the copper is.

Question is - is this good enough?

Archery first
If we go the other way, and research archery after hunting - and then BW.
Techs
Hunting - T41.
Archery - T50
BW - approx T63

Builds
Worker - T41
Warrior - T49
Archer - appox T62

Result - by turn 63 we'll have 1 worker, 3 warriors, 1 archer and we'll know where the copper is.


(Much of this reasoning may be severely flawed. It's one of the things I'm not too good at)

All told. I'm inclined to go for BW first, and then fall back on archery if no copper very nearby.

We're currently at turn 30. Hunting will be in at turn 41.


:confused: IIRC Hunting is 6 turns. :p

I think erik is suggesting BW (17 turns) now instead of Hunting .

:confused: IIRC Hunting is 6 turns. :p

I think erik is suggesting BW (17 turns) now instead of Hunting .

Oops. Nothing like starting off with the wrong figure. :hammer2:

Well, BW first still looks like the thing to do, since we should know where the copper is around turn 47. We should own a worker and 3 warriors by then. By turn 58, we ought to have 5 warriors.

Going the other route, we should get Archery about turn 45, and BW around turn 58. By that time, we might have our worker, 3 warriors and an archer.

Good discussion. I am not fanatic about the archery idea if we can avoid it. It does take a while for the AI to ramp up offensive units on Prince level so I now think we can survive with warriors for long enough to find Copper, but maybe not long enough to find Iron. So I support Bronze Working ahead of Archery.

:confused: IIRC Hunting is 6 turns. :p

I think erik is suggesting BW (17 turns) now instead of Hunting .

No, I am suggesting hunting and archery before BW and wheel, pottery before IW because I don't expect to find copper close enough to be useful. I just don't think that Gyth would give us an easy axe rush start.

If we go hunting/archery we will have 1 warrior and 3 archers about T +38.

I have run numbers assuming we would create pasture, then mine gold then farm banana's. I also calculated switching from the gold to cows to speed up the worker. This would have us at size 5 by the time we have the 3rd archer and know BW. It also produces 1 additional archer.

The other option is mine gold first, then build pasture, then farm the bananas. I have not crunched numbers on this but it will give us BW earlier at the probable cost of 1 citizen and 1 archer.

Do we want to tech faster or grow faster?

If we only had pop 1, I would improve a food tile first. But with 2 pop, I believe we should mine gold first. That is the most productive tile in our capital, the sooner we are using it, the better. Our population will continue to creep up as we build the mine. We really need to zoom our research early.

I am still inclined to research BW next, the sooner we get on the offensive, the better. However, we seem to be swinging to more of a cautious approach (which is OK by me if that is consensus). If we do go this route, then all the more reason to mine gold first. If we aren't going to beeline to an offensive unit, then we need to zoom zoom our research ;) .

I guess one advantage of hunting first, if there are horses to our west, we are on our way to HA's (although HA vs. Phalanx could be messy).

Sam, one other suggestion. After you move the warrior to 1 W of the cows, take him NE and then NE again. This will open up a bunch of tiles to the north, but will always leave us within 3 tiles so we can return to the capital if an AI shows up.

I ran the numbers and I don't agree with mining the gold first. Here is the spreadsheet.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/106568/London.rar

If we mine first we will only be at size 3 when we complete all of the improvements. If we switch from the mine to the cows and do the pasture first we will be at size 5 when we complete the builds. In 38 turns we will be in a much better position to either expand or whip and not lose the gold production.

Mine first will also make it hard to build a settler or another worker for a long time after that. Our tech rate will be much better if we can get the city by the second gold up and running sooner. That's why we moved to the blue dot in the first place.

We chose not to spam warriors for a warrior rush so I think we should put our effort into establishing a solid base of operations.

Well I'm thoroughly confused now about tech path and worker priorities. I'll try and interpret erik's spreadsheet as well as trying to make sense of the various comments about techs and post a modified plan this evening.

Having copper in our bfc would be outstanding, but not very likely IMO. This would be just to good to be true. The good thing about researching BW now would be the possibility to chop and whip.

I do not think there will be much land left in the West. Both Mansa's and Hanni's scout circled our capital and none of them vanished in the West, but left to the North and South. Maybe the land continues NW, but directly West seems to be coast. However I would not move the warrior away too far. Just yesterday in a SP game my capital has been taken out by a barb warrior who beat my fortified C1 warrior in a hill capital.:blush:

I have no real preference on bw or archery first. Both have their advantages.

I am always for improving food tiles first, so I would build the pasture first, farm the bananas and then improve the gold.

Interpreting spreadsheet options
Looking at erik's spreadsheet. The three options considered:

(a) Work the gold + bananas
Improve cows - gold - bananas
Work bananas + cows once improved
research hunting - archery - BW

(b) Work cows + bananas
Improve cows - gold - bananas
research hunting - archery - BW

(c) Work gold + bananas
Improve gold - bananas - cows
research hunting - archery - BW

At the end of 38 turns:
Option (a) yields 100 :food: 115 :hammers: 512 :commerce: City size 4
Option (b) yields 128 :food: 177 :hammers: 504 :commerce: City size 5
Option (c) yields 47 :food: 107 :hammers: 576 :commerce: City size 3

So option (a) seems the most mediocre, and therefore worst choice.
Option (b) is very good for :food: and :hammers:, but not so good for :commerce:. London reaches size 5.
Option (c) is awful for :food: and :hammers:, and the best for :commerce:. London only reaches size 3.

Out of the 3, option (b) seems to win out. The shortfall in :commerce: outweighed by the good :food: and :hammers:, resulting in the greatest city growth.

Notice that BW comes in on T+36 in option (a), T+37 in option (b) and T+32 in option (c). So there is a 5-turn benefit in option (c) over (b) to consider.


My view
I really don't see a heavy enough assault from the AI coming in for a while yet to make us go for the cautious option of archery before BW.
As markh just said - the good thing about BW is not just the revelation of copper, but the ability to whip and chop.
My vote is BW first.

On the worker actions, I am convinced by the spreadsheets that we should switch to work the cows now, and that the worker should improve the cows first, followed by gold, and then farming the bananas.

@AgedOne - Thanks for your analysis work. :goodjob:

I must admit I'm still inclined to go for BW first with Wheel next if I can see any copper otherwise Hunting -> Archery -> Wheel. I can't see a need for Hunting at present unless we're after Archery.

The benefit of archery first is that we can we can send out the second and third archers to pillage Mansa and Hanni. With a little luck, they can earn a promotion to cover or melee from a barb animal. This would also give us a forward defense, maybe even a worker steal. BW first means we are sending out unpromoted warriors to do the same thing.
It all depends on whether you think there will be copper close by, my feeling is we will find it when we find Athens.

Sorry I didn't fully explain the spreadsheet, it was very late but I couldn't sleep :crazyeye:

A worker steal with archers in AW is pretty difficult. They see you coming and as we are at war already the AI will retreat the worker once our archer is getting near. I tried to pillage and keep them from developing their tiles with archers in some games, but they usually switch to building more archers and at the time they have 2 - 3 spare ones they take your archer out. Normally this does not take very long. What works well is stationing some troops on defensive tiles and keep them busy around their homes rather than sending their units in our territory.

:hmm: There seems to have been a change in sentiment. I'm quite prepared to go for Archery before BW if that's what the team wants. Earlier on I had the impression that a number of team members were pushing to skip Hunting & Archery in favour of BW. Was I wrong?

As I see it AgedOne, The-Hawk and your goodself stated that you like to go for BW. I am fine both ways as both ways have their advantages.

:hmm: There seems to have been a change in sentiment. I'm quite prepared to go for Archery before BW if that's what the team wants. Earlier on I had the impression that a number of team members were pushing to skip Hunting & Archery in favour of BW. Was I wrong?

Reading back, I think you and I are both happy to go for BW. Hawk is also inclined towards BW. markh has no preference. Erik started out talking about the killing grounds using warriors, so I guess was thinking of BW, but is now the main advocate of Archery. Harbourboy supports BW before Archery, but would definitely like Archery before IW.

So the main discussion seems to be over how persuasive Erik's arguments for Archery are. And they do look good, don't get me wrong. I could be convinced. However, I also think that the danger - and therefore the need for archers - is being slightly overestimated. Of course, I could be wrong! We could follow the BW route and get hammered by a sudden archer rush. That would be embarrassing.

Question is - should we be more conservative in our play than we would generally in a SP game? To some extent we are. You don't want a team game that is supposed to take up to 4 months to end suddenly due to a risk taken early on. If you are playing for yourself, even in a GOTM, you know you've only wasted your own time.

I am mostly for archery now because everyone has been saying if we don't get copper we have to get archery right away. My real preference would be to avoid archery altogether even if we don't have copper (which I really, really do not expect to see). If we have to learn archery I would rather get it first and build archers rather than build warriors and have to upgrade them later. The archers have the bonus promotions.

For me, the forgotten factor was the bonuses from the Protective trait. This makes an archer defensive rush (parking and pillaging) much more viable, and may well be the hidden intention of a map designed for Churchill.

For me, the forgotten factor was the bonuses from the Protective trait. This makes an archer defensive rush (parking and pillaging) much more viable, and may well be the hidden intention of a map designed for Churchill.

Charismatic also provides quick promotions at 2/4/8 xp. A city with a barracks and a GG can produce drill 3 archers with CG1 or drill, CG, cover and melee. These guys can be very effective offensive troops as well as defenders. XB's and LB's will be very strong. A GG can also produce two medics with drill1, CG1, combat, medic 1 & 2 or one medic with combat, med 1, 2 & 3, leadership, drill 1 and CG1. :cool:

I won't kick if we go BW first, I just think that if we go with option B. everything comes together at the same time to establish a really good base.

BTW I just had a look at the save again and noticed that we can speed up the worker by two turns if we work the cows instead of the gold. This will slow down research a bit, but I think it is worth it.

I'm still not 100% certain exactly what to do but here's the revised draft plan :


Switch to cows from gold on turn 0. Move warrior from London towards NW of cows. Move warrior NE London into London.
Turn 2 - warrior clears FOW by second gold.
Turn 3 - warrior -> NE.
Turn 4 - warrior -> E.
Turn 5 - warrior -> SE.
Turn 6 - warrior -> SE.
Turn 7 - Hunting in, start Archery.
The worker completes on turn 9. Start building warrior.
Turn 11 - Start pasture.
Turn 17 - Archery in, start BW. Pasture finished. (?) London grows to 3. Move warrior to gold. London works bananas, pasture & gold.
Turn 20 - Worker starts mining gold.


I'm not quite sure how long a pasture takes so I've taken a guess at that. I'm assuming that we build a warrior in London after the worker. I'll probably play tomorrow evening.

OK. I'm swayed by the bonus factors. Archery before BW.
I'm good with that. :)

I'm not quite sure how long a pasture takes so I've taken a guess at that. I'm assuming that we build a warrior in London after the worker. I'll probably play tomorrow evening.

Pasture and mine take 6 turns, farm takes 8 turns (that's what I used in the spreadsheet). That's option B. so I'm good with that.

OK, I won't :deadhorse: (always wanted to use that icon ;)). Consensus rules.

Given we didn't finish the last couple of games, maybe a conservative path is better for us. Of course, conservative means we most likely won't have the fastest finish. Then again, given our track record, maybe our fastest finish would be a conquest loss :lol: . Given the competition, maybe middle of the pack is a reasonable goal.

Charismatic also provides quick promotions at 2/4/8 xp.

Sorry, what is the connection between Charismatic and promotions :confused:?

Also, can someone tell me the mathematical impact of Drill? I've always considered Protective one of the worst traits (although I hate when an AI has it). I usually have no use for defensive units, a well promoted archer simply doesn't excite me. Maybe I don't fully appreciate what Drill buys us in attack probability? For example, is a Drill 3 archer an equivalent offensive unit to a City Raider 2 Axe?

:sheep: (always wanted to use this icon as well)