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

The Game

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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


Enjoy your mystery tour of the World of Warlords.

Welcome to the Real Ms. Beyond team thread for SGOTM6!

Current rotation: :
Compromise
TheArchduke
SwissPauli
LKendter
Kodii
sunrise089

Ruff_Hi -- lurking

General guidelines for play:

Philosophy: We want to be competitive, but it's more important to enjoy this. Respect your teammates and the other competitors. Share your thoughts and opinions and let others do the same. There are some stupid questions, but it's better to hear those than to let good ones go unasked for fear of the stupid label. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but we always play the hand we're dealt (or stuck with!).

Turnsets: When playing, please be aware of the discussion leading up to your turnset. We're not in a rush (yet!), so let the team come to consensus on the goals for the turnset. And if while playing you don't know what to do, stop and we'll discuss it. Generally, a turnset will run about 10-20 turns once the game is well underway. We're more interested in stopping at strategic decision points--next tech, where city, major tactical shifts--than strict turn counts.

Keeping it rolling: While discussion is important, we do need to keep things moving to complete the game in a reasonable amount of time. As of the Dec 15 start, April 14th is the anticipated must-finish date. To help, please keep everyone informed of your availability. If we're ready to go, we want the turnset played within about 24 hours. If you can't play then, that's fine, just ask for a swap or a skip. When you're up, please post an "I got it" after you download and open the save. If you have known time constraints, please let us know at that time. It might focus our discussion or prepare the player after you for a possible swap.

Reporting: Please include strategic and representative tactical information in your turnset report. New map info is best presented visually. Pay attention to in-game announcements for notices about wonders, religions, great people, etc.

Signs: Use of in-game signs is encouraged. But don't let obsolete signs clutter the landscape: delete the useless, redundant or irritating with impunity!

Options: I like seeing the tile grid (Ctrl-T) and the resources (Ctrl-R) both in-game and in screenshots. The Hall of Fame mod has some useful features. Some that I like are the "tile grid is on by default", the turn count as the clock text, and the alerts that let you know when cities are growing, expanding, etc. I'd also suggest turning on "Enemy moves", but later that might get oppressive. Ruff_hi has compiled a post with many of the HoF options (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6269822&postcount=92), some of which include his code! Feel free to experiment. [Anyone else have suggestions for option settings?]

Leave 'em happy: Humor is always encouraged (well good humor anyway). I'd put more in, but since looks don't count, I'm not funny. [Captain action--Warning: see point about good humor...!]


Other issues that just clutter a post if they're not hidden in spoiler tags:


I would like to get feedback on this proposal: Usually in SGs I've played, everyone takes a look at the game and offers thoughts on every aspect of the game, e.g. city tile assignments, AI diplomacy/trades/relations/etc, dotmap plans, tech plan, overall strategy, etc.

I am wondering if there is interest in forming a few "advisory committees" (ACs) of 2-3 players each who will try to give each major area of the game some good attention after each turnset. Then, someone from each AC can post between each turnset so that the next player knows clearly what is planned and expected. Everyone can, of course, post opinions on any or all subjects, but the responsibility for compiling a list for the player will fall to someone on each AC.

My first thoughts for this game are for 3 ACs:

1) Strategic AC will try to ensure that we are not getting lost in the details (tech priority is IW; next offensive is SW; wait, we can win diplo faster than domination; Great person planning)

2) Tactical AC will make suggestions about troop movements, needs and AI considerations (Put defenders x,y,z on hill x; build 3 more spears; raze this city and keep these two).

3) Micro AC will give micromanagement suggestions (have city A work tiles x,y,z; whip library on 3rd turn; place sentry on this hill; add or delete the following in-game signs). Micro will take into account Strategy and Tactical input.

Initially, the known game area will be small enough that we won't need this, but eventually, it will probably get overwhelming for us each to look at the game individually and for a single person to combine all suggestions in all areas. Thoughts?

And these ACs should not substitute for active examination by everyone. It's just that many good suggestions get lost or forgotten when the player actually plays.

The Real Ms. Beyond SGOTM6 game summary:
Turnset Player Post Comments
1: 4000BC - 3130BC Compromise 45 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6255491&postcount=45) Settled in place. Agri->AH. Mined gold
2: 3130BC - 2650BC TheArchduke 63 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6259696&postcount=63) Teched BW. Imp'd cows, banana. Scouted Athens.
3: 2650BC - 2220BC Swiss Pauli 119 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6336525&postcount=119) Tech Wheel, Pottery Scouting. Whipped 1st Settler
4: 2220BC - 1870BC LKendter 135 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6347288&postcount=135) Settled York. 2 axes out. Found Mansa
5: 1870BC - 1390BC Compromise 160 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6366654&postcount=160) Scouting (found Hannibal). Tech IW. 1st Chariot.
6: 1390BC - 1270BC TheArchduke 186 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6380172&postcount=186) (1st part) Scout Carthage; pillage its Copper
7: 1270BC - 850BC TheArchduke 199 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6385521&postcount=199) (2nd part) Buildup for assault on Athens
8: 850BC - 700BC Swiss Pauli 202 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6393929&postcount=202) Buildup and start moving toward Athens
9: 700BC - 580BC LKendter 217 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6393929&postcount=202) Reach Athens. Start attack. Bad RNG luck
10: 580BC - 565BC LKendter 225 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6393929&postcount=202) After consulting team, continue attack at 50/50 odds
11: 565BC - 550BC Ruff_hi 247 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6393929&postcount=202) Last unit v. last unit in Athens. We weep.
12: 550BC - 400BC Kodii 257 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6393929&postcount=202), 267 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6393929&postcount=202) Reconsolidation. Prep for pillaging parties.
12: 400BC - 175BC Compromise 283 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6446022&postcount=283) Take Corinth (elephants) and Thebes (Iron) from Alex.
13: 175BC - 5AD TheArchduke 300 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6451301&postcount=300) Consolidation. First cats and elephants trained.
[After this point, it became clear that we wouldn't be competitive and the unlikelihood of anyone actually referring to our efforts ended Compromise's motivation to continue updating this page. My apologies.]


Posts with nice maps in them:
Near capital, early contacts (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6255491&postcount=45)
Ragnar(?)'s location (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6256644&postcount=51)
Near-capital bronze, horses, region (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6259696&postcount=63)
Athens (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6269617&postcount=90)
Athenian copper; Continent-wide iron; Timbuktu's west side (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6269617&postcount=160)

Links to threads with good AW advice:
(Help!)

Our continuing saga:
With Christmas coming soon, the Real Ms. Beyond team agreed to run a few turnsets to discover Animal Husbandry and Bronzeworking and then take a break for the holidays. This might allow those with time to run some practice games--not on the actual game save, of course!--to help us better understand the AI's behavior on Always War Prince.

We moved the starting warrior SW and figured we were near the coast, but decided against moving toward the coast and so settled in place. Our starting warrior did some limited exploring and got himself promoted to Woodsman II--and named "Woody"--by killing two of Hannibal's scouts who foolishly ended their turns on flatlands near Woody.

A bit of a mistake: we started worker first who mined the gold, and went Agri->AH so as to improve the cow. But we should have gone Hunting->AH so as to work the cows sooner. We also met Mansa and were able to fog gaze to see Ragnar's borders W and S across the water of our start.

Initially, we thought there might be no strategic resources, but on the second turnset, exploration revealed Horses not too far away and copper in the capital's BFC. Nice.

With another warrior built in the capital, Woody found Athens for us: a nice built-on-stone coastal capital with two seafood resources. We salivated a bit and coveted the site. Sadly Woody--our Woodsman II scouting warrior--died to animals while trying to scout Athens.

In our quest for death or glory, we whipped our first settler even before preparing an axe to defend the new city. The intent was to have it be hammer-productive even at size 2, so we plan to place it 1NW of horses, 1SE of cows so that it can work those 2 improved tiles without any border expansions. No other site seemed as useful for quick hammers and low worker activity.

York was settled so that it could work cows and horses without a border expansion. Our only worker was sent along to improve it. A couple quick axes were built/whipped for defense.

With a few axes around, we sent out most warriors for scouting duty. One looked north and ended up parking on a hill overlooking Mansa's capital Timbuktu (on a hill, defended by skirmishers...yikes). One found the east coast of the continent, then found Hannibal sending a settler north out of his capital far to the southeast. Another decided to scout Athens a bit and found a mined, but unconnected copper mine near Athens, but he died by Greek archerfire before he could get to the mine entrance.

The discovery of the copper mine caused much distress our English warplanners. The lone London axe garrison was promptly dispatched south to investigate the situation. Will he get there to close down the mine before Aggressive Shock Greek Axes can be whipped out of Athens?

Yes! Our lone axe is able to pillage the Greek copper mine before it is connected. A stack of 9 axes and 3 chariots heads down to claim Athens for the British Empire.

In an epic battle, the battle for Athens comes down to one chariot who loses against a 0.2 health archer. The next turn, our last mortally wounded chariot attempts to take on the same archer, now at 0.9 health. He, he...

...fails. Our axe-and-chariot rush fails and all we have to show for it are 3 fewer Greek archers and a somewhat less populated Athens.

We strive to generate a plan B....

Let's begin!

I ran a quick test in a game set up in WB to simulate the start position. I assumed we'd start in place since I couldn't see a compelling reason to do otherwise (in the real game, I'd move the warrior first, of course). I built a warrior while working a forested grass hill (8T) and then a worker (22T with 2H overflow from the warrior). I researched Agriculture then Animal Husbandry which completed on T29. I think our first two tile improvements will be the Cow and the gold mine in that order. We probably want to work those two all the time.

In the actual game, we might consider Hunting instead of Agri as the prereq for AH in anticipation of going for Archery. I'm really hoping, though, that we have Horses and/or Copper and won't need Archery. With a gold mine, we should be able to research it quickly if needed.

Especially given that we are Charismatic, we might want to build Stonehenge for quick BFC expansions and a happy-monument. Also, if the second gold mine doesn't get covered in jungle, we'll probably want a second city near it to work it asap.

Suggested goals for the first turnset (~25-30T): Settle London (in place?). Discover AH (via Hunting or Agri?). Build warrior, start (and finish?) worker. Priorities with starting warrior: 1) Choke nearby AI capital if found. 2) Pop huts. 3) Live (meaning try to end turns on defensive-bonus terrain. 4) Explore (determine locations of AIs and lay of the land and coast).

Short term goals: Grow empire. Work good tiles. Find strategic resources.

Checking in! (I hope you're done reserving posts)

I'm glad Compromise doesn't have to watch this thread every two seconds anymore. :lol:

Firstly, I like your idea for ACs, although I can imagine it becoming tedious. We'll have to see how that all pans out.

Secondly, how do you set up a game with the identical start as displayed by AlanH? I'd like to start up a test game, but I don't know how to make it as accurate as possible.

We won't worry about AC's until we have more than about 4-5 cities. Before that, it's easy enough for a couple people to check everything (if we want to be so retentive). We'll have to see how they turn out in practice, but the goal is just to divide the responsibility of looking things over in detail among several people, rather than just dumping everything on the current player.

As for the practice game, there is a file called "Big_and_Small_BtS.py" in <BtS installation directory>/Public Maps. If you copy that to the <Warlords install directory>/Public Maps, then "Big and Small" becomes a Custom Game map-type selection. I whipped one up for Churchill, then opened Worldbuilder to edit the starting fat cross to look like the we've seen for this event.

I regenerated the map about a dozen times trying to get a non-coastal start, but every single time, I was on the coast. I gave up trying to roll an interior start and had to put grasslands over all those nice fishies....

checking in - I will have to locate my copy of warlords and see if I have the right assets.

Checking in. The advisory committees seem like a good idea. Will we be assigned to one, or will we rotate between them?

I think the early turns are clear - as said, settle in place, research AH, warrior than worker. The only thing that would really matter is the initial warrior move.

Checking in, I will make sure my copy works with the save as well. Then we can start planning a strategy and talk about our start.

Reporting for duty :salute:

Holidays: 19-22 December visiting family, so I'll be online but Civless. 23-30 December: based at home, but a few day trips planned and working a couple of days. 31 Dec - 2 Jan away from Civ and unlikely to have much, if any, internet access.

General Ideas

- Risk: how much will we take, and from how early. Death or Glory would be my proposal. As such, I'll be advocating a worker first start :p

Test-game ideas
- I know the map is heavily edited, but let's look at some Cylindrical Big & Small in WB to see the how they look (esp for AI/Landmass distribution).

- Different openings should be tried: e.g. worker first, warrior first, barracks first, and maybe even Settler first, and also different tech orders.

- Each player should run an extended test game to test some approaches: e.g. choke start, early rush, rolling conquest, rush and hold, turtle til Redcoats, etc.

- Risk: how much will we take, and from how early. Death or Glory would be my proposal. As such, I'll be advocating a worker first start :p
If we have the needed techs for the worker to do something, I agree. We can send the warrior on a limited search around the capitol. Scouting AI units won't enter our territory except if the capitol is empty.


Unlike Epic14, we have NO early restrictions. We want to park some archers or better near some AI capitols to kill their production.

We need to decide on the high level win goal. IMHO with this being AW a military win is the only reasonable plan. Until I can study the map type some, I can't determine if domination or conquest is more viable.

Almost forgot about holidays - Dec 21 / 22 and Dec 31 / early Jan 1 I can't play. In between those dates, my availablilty may get chaotic.

Checking in. The advisory committees seem like a good idea. Will we be assigned to one, or will we rotate between them?

I think the early turns are clear - as said, settle in place, research AH, warrior than worker. The only thing that would really matter is the initial warrior move.

I expect that we'll generally stick with one AC, but if it turns out not to be your cup of tea, we can always change things up a bit. This is very experimental, so we'll have to find what works (if anything).

General Ideas

- Risk: how much will we take, and from how early. Death or Glory would be my proposal. As such, I'll be advocating a worker first start :p

Test-game ideas
- I know the map is heavily edited, but let's look at some Cylindrical Big & Small in WB to see the how they look (esp for AI/Landmass distribution).

- Different openings should be tried: e.g. worker first, warrior first, barracks first, and maybe even Settler first, and also different tech orders.

- Each player should run an extended test game to test some approaches: e.g. choke start, early rush, rolling conquest, rush and hold, turtle til Redcoats, etc.

Death or glory...I'm liking your thinking. In general, I think that if you want to win these types of competitions, you've got to go for a few big gambles. Since the starting warrior would take 8T, a worker first would give us 8T more of improved tile working. We've got mining, so the gold hill can be improved immediately. The one thing I'd like to check is if a passing AI warrior will pillage our mine if our capital has a troop in it.

A downside of worker-first is that a single hut could bring more booty that 8 extra turns of working an improved tile. Or at least deny that booty to an AI. (Of course, a hostile hut pop could also doom us too!)

I think we can try some different practice openings. I'd like to get the first two turnsets--which I see as (1) get AH and (2) get Bronzeworking--run before Christmas. That way, we have a good idea of the layout of the land and our early resources to set up decent practice games that we can run over the holiday break as each of us find time.

If we have the needed techs for the worker to do something, I agree. We can send the warrior on a limited search around the capitol. Scouting AI units won't enter our territory except if the capitol is empty.

Unlike Epic14, we have NO early restrictions. We want to park some archers or better near some AI capitols to kill their production.

We need to decide on the high level win goal. IMHO with this being AW a military win is the only reasonable plan. Until I can study the map type some, I can't determine if domination or conquest is more viable.

Agree with everything said here. I expect Conquest will be the fastest victory. The map script seems to generate one big continent and then a whole bunch of small islands. Almost like one side of a pangea continent just gets fractured. From our start, I'd guess we're on the big continent, but beware that when Gyathaar says "highly edited," you know he's not kidding!

Another note: in none of the maps that I looked at was there a coastal route around the world. (Except maybe if two cities with expanded borders were placed at edges of the world. Maybe.)

Edit: Since everyone's checked in, I've updated the first reference post and included vacation plans. Right now, it looks like after Dec 20 (+/- a day), we won't plan to run any game turnsets until the new year.

Vacation:

I am in Egypt from 3rd to 10th of January. Apart from that, no problems, even in Xmas time.

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


I think we can try some different practice openings. I'd like to get the first two turnsets--which I see as (1) get AH and (2) get Bronze working--run before Christmas. That way, we have a good idea of the layout of the land and our early resources to set up decent practice games that we can run over the holiday break as each of us find time.

Edit: Since everyone's checked in, I've updated the first reference post and included vacation plans. Right now, it looks like after Dec 20 (+/- a day), we won't plan to run any game turnsets until the new year.


Don't forget about the target deadline. I don't want to suffer another rushed ending like SGOTM#5. Wrapping up that game was pure torture for me with the panic at the end, and too few players available.

One thing did work well in SGOTM#5 was removing fixed number of turns, and trying to encourage people to break a logic point. If going to turn 16 will let us see the new GP, shows where iron is, etc then that extra turn is worth it. Playing a turn short is also good if that is how to hit the breaking point.

@TheArchduke: You can be our designated test-game runner over the holidays! Then we'll put your findings to the test, but you won't be able to see what happens until you return from the Land of the Nile. :D

LKendter is right about turnsets. We want to keep things running as fast as possible. Later in the game, I can easily imagine a situation where we will play fast and loose with the roster so that we can get a turnset run every 48hrs or so.

In these very early stages, however, I don't mind taking our time. If we get a good idea of the lay of the local land by running a couple turnsets, I'm hopeful that many of us can use our "break" to get some practice games in.

I *really* like running turnsets to a natural/strategic breakpoint and then stopping. This helps decisions get made by the team, rather than by an individual. If you ever feel like you don't know how to proceed. Please post and ask so that we can come to a consensus.


On another note: Anyone want to do some metagaming and guess at the type of world Gyathaar has made for us? With my guesstimated confidence in parentheses: I'm guessing that Astronomy *will* be required to get to all the civs (60%). I'm also guessing that the capital has all three early strategic resources: Horses, Copper and Iron (50%, 80% for at least 2). That way, it doesn't matter which route people go first. If it's only one, then too many teams might be wiped out by an early unforeseeable strategic misguess. And finally, I'm guessing that there are 2 AIs on the big continent with us, with the rest on their own little islands (60%).

One of our big advantages is a lot of the typical game issues are meaningless. Who care about diplomacy? Adopting a religion is clear, as we want theology for extra experience to keep our troops alive. We don't have to worry about another civ being offended by our gods. Trading is meaningless.

This game will be won by kill ratios, shutting down the AIs (parked units by there cities), and not falling hopelessly behind in tech.


With the holidays coming up, I would like to suggest everyone at least confirm then get open the game. I will try to do tonight.

Good points. I don't think the game is scheduled to start--so no saves available--until tomorrow. That may be delayed depending on whether Gyathaar's recent trip set back his schedule much.

I know I had some type of "CRC Missing" issue when I made my practice game with the HoF download. It didn't matter since I created the game and could play it, but I might need to do some DLL downloading to run the actual SGOTM. We'll want to verify this. I expect the Maintenance Thread will address these issues when the game opens.

metagaming:
astronomy will not be required, but a suitably placed city with border pop to get over ocean tile will be required.
copper will not be found close, iron will, horses at a middle distance - thus the reason for the gold near by (ie research to iron required)


Other ...

conquest should be our preferred victory condition
but we should look closely at the domination limit - I am fairly sure that the large island will not be large enough
anyone got views on the best way to play AW? ... my 2c - turtle is not an option

I think we can try some different practice openings. I'd like to get the first two turnsets--which I see as (1) get AH and (2) get Bronzeworking--run before Christmas. That way, we have a good idea of the layout of the land and our early resources to set up decent practice games that we can run over the holiday break as each of us find time.
I'm not sure this would be allowed as practice games should only be started based on info available on turn zero (I think).

I'm not sure this would be allowed as practice games should only be started based on info available on turn zero (I think).

Do you mean not allowed as in "this violates SGOTM rules" or not allowed as in "we don't know this before we start, so our practice game would be invalid"? I don't think there's a rule about the former, and want to be clear what I mean by "practice games" with the following:

I guess I was thinking that before the first couple turnsets, we could run some quick tests to see what a good opening strategy would be. This would answer questions like: timing of techs, what tiles get worked, whether the worker gets bored or has plenty to do, whether AI warriors will pillage our mine, etc.

After that, we'd run the first couple turnsets.

After that, we'd know where Horses and Copper are, then we could do actual test games where we have whatever resources we actually do have. (This would fill everyone's Christmas vacation :lol: !) That way, we're not planning an axe-based defense when we only have access to Horses.

Edit: I agree with Ruff...turtling won't be our approach to AW. I'm hoping some practice games, and some research on existing SGs or RB events, will help us know how to proceed.

FYI: We have six AI opponents in this game.

Do you mean not allowed as in "this violates SGOTM rules" or not allowed as in "we don't know this before we start, so our practice game would be invalid"?
It's the former, although it's not spelled out explicitly. Murky Waters are pretty thorough and from reading their SGOTM5 thread, the only test games they ran were based on their T0 info (though they ran some WB tests for things like gifting Settlers to barbs, etc). I think you should get this clarified by AanH. If permitted, it's certainly the way to go.

Metagaming:

- Its Prince level, so it's possible for there to be another AI nearby without the chance of a bad luck loss.

- Astro wasn't needed for SGOTM5, so will it be needed in this game?

- We don't want to meet AIs too soon.

- Verify tech trading situation (on/off).

Test Game Strategies

- We should think about these once the start file is available, but a Feudalism sling with Churchill is always appealing :hammer:

Our starting save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG006_BC4000_01.CivWarlordsSave ) is now available. I can open it.

I'll ask about the practice games in the Maintenance Thread.

Start:
The question indeed is if we want to play it safe by building a 2nd warrior, or tempted by the gold build a worker and keep our initial warrior close at hand.

On the starting position. I am very, very tempted to establish our city on a hill. In BTS the AI does not suicide run against fortified cities. But with warlords, this could very well be.

One tile SE there is a hill with another gold in the BFC and the cows in it as well.

Metagaming:

In my opinion we can only discuss this after our first 30-40 turns when we establish if we are isloated or not and how near the AI is. If we got some friends nearby, we should definetly choke them early on.

Warlords AI doesn't suicide against hill cities. I'll check the save loads OK sometime at the weekend.

well this sucks ... my warlords install will not start the BtS version. I've got a few old vanilla PBEM games going so I've had to maintain a pre-BtS version of vanilla. The pre-BtS version of warlords starts but it will not open the save (no surprise there).

I've been thinking of doing a wipe and reinstall of civ4 but I am nervous of losing access to my PBEM games ... are there any guides to the correct order of how to do these things out there?

The other option is that I uninstall warlords (and only warlords) and reinstall it - is that an option?

The other option is that I uninstall warlords (and only warlords) and reinstall it - is that an option?

Unfortunately, Warlords software sum-checks both the DLLs, even though neither will be used when running the HoF Mod!

The "correct" way to update your Civ4+Warlords to run this game is to swap both vanilla and Warlords DLL files. If you do that, and ensure that you have the HOF-2.13.002 Mod installed, you should be able to open this game. To revert in order to play your older vanilla PBEM games, all you need to do is to reverse the vanilla DLL swap.

I hope you can work out the DLLs Ruff. If you need screenshots, let me know. Though I know nothing replaces the ability to look at the game on one's own.

I'd like to move the initial warrior to uncover a few more tiles before we decide whether or not to settle in place.

NW and N won't reveal new tiles to us. SW seems superior to W since both are hills, but SW will reveal more new tiles. S won't reveal non-forest/jungle tiles
My favorite is SW since there's a possibility it will reveal tiles that might have a food bonus worth moving toward. E seems preferable to NE or SE.

Given that, it seems like the decision is between E and SW. I prefer SW because it'll reveal more tiles and has the highest possibility of revealing more food tiles. 1SW of the settler may even be coast.

Doing a little fog gazing, I think there's water W of the NW gold hill and it looks like the western river dumps into the sea SW of us. We might be on the SW part of a peninsula.

Any opposition to moving the starting warrior 1SW and then posting a screenshot?

I support the aggressive play of worker first. I also think all of our other cities should go on a hill. If we play this like a multiplayer game (which it sort of is with the AW), hill cities are crucial, but only where you expect an attack.

EDIT: Definitely do the SW warrior move.

Save loads OK. Maybe the water feature to the SW is a lake, but that's definitely shoreline to the west of the gold. The move SW seems to be best, as there's jungle to the east which doesn't make it a very attractive place to settle, even if a special is revealed.

Since I can't imagine a compelling reason to move other than SW, I'm going to take the responses so far as a quorum. Here's what the warrior reveals to the SW:

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9199/civ4screenshot0000pf9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We are one tile away from the ocean, but with no specials, I think we should probably still settle in place.

With this being AW, the big question is do we want to be on a hill. We can move the settler 1 SE. We still get a gold tile. We are still fresh water. We lose one banana tile.

Settle in place gets my vote: if the AI is coming at the capital with any sort of decent force we're going to be way off the pace. We have good enough food here with cows, banana-farm, and cottage-banana. I've been playing lots of BtS, so it'll be good to run some test games with Warlords (e.g. Calendar obsoleting our über-monuments).

I'm hoping that our practice games will help us determine how the AI reacts to cities on hills vs plains. But I agree with Swiss for the capital: If that's in the fray, a hill will only delay the inevitable.

What are our tech plans? I think AH is the first priority, but am undecided about Agri vs. Hunting as the prereq. I lean Agri since we can farm the banana for an early +2F tile. Thoughts?

Also, I'll go worker first and keep the warrior nearby.

I'm curious to know why the game suggests founding on gold :crazyeye:

I will confirm whether or not I can open the game when I have access to my regular CIV computer.

I bet there's some seafood over there. Probably south too given the blue circle SW if the warrior's new position. I'm sure we can come up with a better settling location that the AI algorithm!

The save works for me.

I think we'd be best off to settle in place. I'll see if I can whip up some sort of test game to see whether or not a Warlord AI will go for a hill city.

I plan to run the rest of the opening turnset in 4 or 5 hours. It may not get posted until the morning, though.

My plan is to settle in place, go worker first, research Agri then AH. Barring something unexpected, I'll stop either when AH comes in or when the worker completes, whichever seems more obvious.

If you object or think there needs to be more discussion, post asap!

Go for it!

If it's not too late, then pausing after Agri to calculate whether Hunting could be squeezed in without much delay to AH & cows improvement, for the discount to AH and to open up Archery. I think the direct route will be better, but it can't hurt to check.

I can report after a quick different settings BTS always war Prince game, that my turtling skills were NOT up to the task. I can also report BTS AW longbows by 400AD.

As planned, I plopped London in the starting spot. (For local land layout, see pics at end of post.)

Tech plan was Agri -> AH while building a warrior. (No time for hunting; didn't want to delay the beef harvest. Plus, I'd already played.)

I sent the warrior in a counterclockwise loop starting south a bit. Didn't let him get too far from home. Only encountered AI scouts, starting with this one:

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/6880/firstcontactzr5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

So, I think Hannibal is south of us.

I later killed this scout up north. He wandered onto a neighboring flatland and I had 99.1% odds on him. 2xp for our warrior but down to 0.9 health. I brought the warrior inside our borders and gave him Woodsman I to reduce his heal time to 2T. On the turn that he healed, another Hannibal scout appeared on the *same exact flatland tile* that his buddy died on!

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/4576/secondkillzs5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I should've left a sign marking Hannibal's graveyard, but there are too many for TheArchduke as it is. Second time around, no loss in HPs, so I gave him Woodsman II so he can serve as a scout through forest and jungle for us. His first assignment was to verify that there's no quick land route anywhere off to the west.

Mansa's scout shows up on T23, coming from the NE. He may have been eaten by a panther that's roaming off to the east. I saw the panther later, but not Mansa's man.

Also on T23, our worker completes and I send him to dig for gold. I work the river banana while building a warrior because I think we want to get the capital's size up asap.

On T29, AH is in...no horses anywhere. :( So much for my metagame prediction.

I stop here but have tentatively set the next tech to Bronzeworking. An alternative is the Wheel, but without horses, I prefer Bronze to know if we need Archery asap.

Note that at size 1, the city governor will *not* work the gold mine with all 3 emphasize buttons on. I think we want to work the gold every single turn except for a brief bit when we work the cows to grow from size 1 to 2 as soon as a pasture can be completed there. This is something we'll have to check frequently.

Here's a shot of our immediate environs:

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/8534/nearbyat2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

And a zoomed out shot that shows everything we know about the world right now:

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/7595/zoomoutnk3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I haven't thought about the next build after the warrior too much. Maybe start a settler? The gold mine completed this turn, so the worker needs to be sent to the pasture right away. Then farm the river banana, I think.

I'd like to run just one more turnset before we take a break for the holidays. I want to at least discover if/where copper is. Then, we have enough info to set up practice games. I know I need more experience at AW, and I don't want to make some crucial early error that sets us back from the start.

All those signs on the map are just to record what happened during this turnset and to serve as a visual record for this post. Please feel free to delete them before playing on.

The first save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG006_BC3130_01.CivWarlordsSave )

My thoughts:

- Tech trading enabled.
- Two FIN AIs :eek:, one of whom is the biggest tech whore.
- Looks like Carthage has a strong capital, maybe coastal fish looking at his pop size already.
- Both Carthage and Mali should start with warriors: I wonder whether they were deleted by Gyathaar, or the scouts added, or maybe it was some (planned?) hut luck?
- BW will take 13 at current reseach levels, Hunting=>Archery 12, but these will stretch out as we grow to ~15 turns.

Save loads fine, so I can play the next round and I got the save.

In any case, I am a big believer of growing the town before working the gold, even if it means going for the bananas before the cows are hooked up (5 turns later the gold will be worked again by our 2nd citizien.) But I let the team decide that.

As soon as our 2nd warrior is in, I would suggest an exploration south and perhaps harrasing/scouting out the first AI capital that we can find.

Techwise, I don´t think BW warrants any discussion, as we got no horses we need to establish if we get bronze else we have to hurry for Archery asap.

I don´t see any nice terrain for a 2nd city so far, apart from a fish/cow combination, but as we have no Maoi Statues in Warlords, those cities would be quite weak industrywise.

After having checked out surroundings a bit more and established if bronze is elusive as well, a break for the holidays and gametesting sounds like a good plan.

Good points.

You've got me thinking now Archduke: I tend to strongly prefer improved tiles to unimproved ones, but a river banana is kind of halfway there. I'd like a little time to think about the tradeoff between earlier growth vs. earlier warrior production and later quicker (4T instead of 5T) growth from size 1 to size 2.

I didn't think about looking at AI demographic info, Swiss. Could you elaborate on what you're looking at?

Archduke, I wouldn't expect you to run your turnset before Sunday; Monday might be preferable to me.

Good points.

You've got me thinking now Archduke: I tend to strongly prefer improved tiles to unimproved ones, but a river banana is kind of halfway there. I'd like a little time to think about the tradeoff between earlier growth vs. earlier warrior production and later quicker (4T instead of 5T) growth from size 1 to size 2.

I didn't think about looking at AI demographic info, Swiss. Could you elaborate on what you're looking at?

Archduke, I wouldn't expect you to run your turnset before Sunday; Monday might be preferable to me.

I am in no haste to play my turn.

The first turns were nicely played, and I doubt that the scenario didn´t provide the AI with 1-2 defenders making an early warrior visit a bad idea.

But under no circumstances I would work a gold tile with 1 citizien. I think that growth to the happ cap, always pays off longterm, so the quicker we get there, the better. But I stand to be corrected.

Hmmm. If we're not going to work the gold mine early, I think I should have gone Hunting -> AH with the worker first opening. That way, the cows could have been improved sooner.

I did some pen and paper calculations. I think you are right that there is a slight growth improvement by working the food first. By working the gold mine for a bit, we can get the warrior off exploring earlier (so earlier geographical intel) and maybe knock a turn off the Bronzeworking discovery (this because working pastured cows to grow would allow us to grow in 4T rather than 5T).

I think it's a judgment call which is more valuable. Since it's only a matter of a few turns and since 3 AI scouts have already found our borders, I don't have a strong opinion either way.

Anyone else?

I would just keep working the gold.

Ding dong, Ragnar (?) at 8 o'clock! (all Financial AIs?)

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b29/Kodi_87/SGOTM6/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

If so, our AIs are: Hannibal, Mansa, Ragnar, HC, Wang and ? (the other Financial leaders are English)

I personally hate gold tiles. I tend not to work them except close to max size. The growth penalty is brutal.

I love gold tiles - the early commerce boost is huge. And not every tile can be grassland gems :)

I'm going to change my vote. I did a quick pen and paper test out to T40. Looks like we'd work 10 improved-tile turns and 7-unimproved tile turns by emphasizing growth versus 11 improved-tile turns by working the gold until the pasture completes. (That's the most reasonable, quantifiable comparison I could think of. It's also subject to error!) I should have gone Hunting->AH and got the pasture out sooner. My mistake.

But given that you can generate a defensive warrior in 4T (less as time passes) by working the gold, you might consider sending the warrior off exploring before the warrior in the queue completes. Note that he can get back to the capital twice as fast as any AI warrior with his stealthy woods/jungle skills if he stays among the trees.

I think I'd just generate warriors for now. A passing warrior might try to encroach on our improvements before too long.

Forgot to mention earlier: Nice work on the cultural fog gazing, Kodii! It does seem like there's a financial AI theme going. Maybe it's a no-strategic-resources map too? On these Gyathaar-special maps, knowledge can be power.

How about if you work the gold hill for one or two turns, TheArchduke, then grow with the banana. That way, the worker investment isn't totally wasted, and the initial warrior is able to go see the world because in a pinch--like if an AI warrior appears near the capital--a new warrior can be generated in 2 or 3 turns.

I don't see a reason to build anything other than warriors during your turnset. Except maybe start a settler at size 4? Not sure.

For worker actions, I'm thinking pasturize the cows, then farms the bananas, then starts mining hills, beginning with ones next to rivers for the bonus commerce. I don't know what to apply the forest chop to yet.

After BW, I think we'll want The Wheel if we have copper nearby, but Hunting->Archery if not.

The discovery of BW would seem to be a logical end to the next turnset, though I guess if things are obvious, a bit more would be fine too.

We should also think about our steady-state capital tile assignments. At size 6 (i.e., without whip unhappiness), we can work the cows (+2F), the farmed banana (+2F), the gold (-2F), and either 3 grass hill mines or 3 river cottages. That gives the worker plenty to accomplish.

I'm not sure when to start our first settler. Do we want to grow to max size first, or do we want to have a settler ready (or nearly ready) when Copper is revealed?

Thoughts?

I will try to play the next turnset somewhen today. I will finish the warrior whilst working the gold and then switch over to finally get some growth in as a compromise.

Financial civs, no horses, and if you ask me, no bronze.:D Seems like we are in for a tough ride regardless of the prince difficulty. I will try to pause if something important comes up (like bronze) in any case.

I decided to calculate the options of Gold or Banana. I decided that we can afford to delay the warrior for as long as possible in each scenario: according to my calculcations Banana til size 2 is slightly superior but it's pretty close (3 extra food in the basket by T38).

Cows come online in T37.

- Hannibal has 16% pop from VC screen.

- Looks like we'll need to found 'Ragnargate' on the Cows or Spices to deny him access to us but allow us to get at him.

- I'm guessing there's no Copper nearby, but Iron in our BFC.

- Grow as much as we can until BW, but maybe work the Gold again at size 3 if the banana farm isn't ready.

- On BW we can decide between a Settler or another worker.

- Send warriors to fogbust: Current one should roam the forests to the SE/E but not stray too far, the next one on the jungle hill S of the two peaks, after that up to the north on the plains hill by those cows, then another for the plains hill 1E of the Mansa scout sign.

- Remember to turn on the autologger!

- Remember to turn on the autologger!

Autologger?

part of the HOF mod - either hit Alt-L when you start the game or use the 'start silent' option under the HOF option screen.

I guess I know what the autologger is, but I never use it. How does it help you?

I will play my turn now up to the possible discovery of bronze, as I don´t expect too much going awry and if no early strategic ressource is avaiable, I will stop asap.

All bets are off, we got Bronze in the BFC and Horses nearby.

After the calculations I decide to work the bananas till the cows are online. The warrior goes exploring

T 3
A bear encounters Woody to the south, he heals up in a nearby jungle.

T 4
We grow to size 2 and I work the gold to get a 2nd warrior asap.

T 6
The warrior is finished and we encounter Alexander to the south. He has a scout and Woody kills him without any loss of health.

T 10
I scout Athens, 2 warriors, 1 fish, 1 crab and one gold. Built on Stone for 3 hammers. What a nice capital..

Save is at http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG006_BC2650_01.CivWarlordsSave

T 11
We got Horses nearby! In a possible cow/horses citysite right to the NE.

As soon as BW comes in, I stop immeaditly.

Thoughts:

- We got Bronze, Alexander got an awesome capital. I think an axe rush would be most prudent, especially as his capital is a damn nice catch.

- Expansionwise I would advocate to build a cow/fish city or a horses/cow city and leave the rest to aggressive expansion.

- I expect quite a rethinking of our strategy with axes as well as horses avaiable.

- Please revolt to slavery.

- With Bronze in our BFC, we might consider postponing Hunting/Archery for TheWheel.

Well, we're in business then, so it's time to set up the test map. Any volunteers? Looking at the Victory screen, the other AIs we know are all coastal to a greater or lesser degree (we have the most land). Given the speed we encoutered the AIs, we can assume a pretty thin island (they've all met each other). I'd stick Mali a dozen tiles east of the rice, and Carthage half a dozen east of the Jumbos. Give them supercharged capitals, with Iron for Mali, Copper for Greece and Horses for Hannibal.

Dunno what to do about Raggy: maybe stick him with a likely religion founder (preferably one who can share HR as favourite civic if such an AI exists) in order that they get all pally and push each other forward. Stick the last AI on some islands.

(I thought the autologger needed to be on for log extration on save uploads?)

Great news about the strategic resources. I agree with the axe rush ASAP - the only are only going to get harder to take out.

Nice!

Okay, it'll take me a while to digest the map. I'll try to whip up a practice game some time this week, but no promises when it will be ready. It might be nice if we had another one too. That way, we could practice each other's without too much spoiler info (if that's a concern).

Not much time for me for the next few days. Are we agreed to postpone the next real turnset until the new year?

Edit: I'm happy to hear that Woody survived the bear attack. :)

A swift and hard rush seems the best option. Imo, the excellent capital site of Athens (stone as well) would be a great idea. The last time I looked Alexander had 2 warriors there, but it won´t stay that way.

So when do we plan to continue, who wants to play testgames?

I can play a test game over the Christmas break.

I've uninstalled all Civ4 games and reinstalled them all with the correct patches. I also kept the required DLLs so that I can still play my PBEM games ... but most importantly, I have managed to load up the save. I will have a look at it later this week. Test games seem to be the order of the day so I will see if I can get one going.

Yay for bronze! [party]

Assuming that Wang and HC are also in this game, its funny how Gyathaar gave the only non-financial AI a nice capital, perhaps with the intent on us taking it? ;)

I'll play some test games, if someone can set one up for me. I'm not sure if I have the expertise to make one myself.

Dunno what to do about Raggy: maybe stick him with a likely religion founder (preferably one who can share HR as favourite civic if such an AI exists) in order that they get all pally and push each other forward.
Huayna Capac

Expansionwise I would advocate to build a cow/fish city or a horses/cow city and leave the rest to aggressive expansion.
I vote against fish. Keeping seafood online require a fortune in investment in navy and isn't worth it IMHO. Take one look back at SGOTM#4 and the headache we had with seafood at the capitol.

Can someone post a link to the right HOF module?

I just checked, and I can't load the game.

I'm pretty sure I downloaded the HoF mod from here (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php#warlords_download). Good luck!

I vote against fish. Keeping seafood online require a fortune in investment in navy and isn't worth it IMHO. Take one look back at SGOTM#4 and the headache we had with seafood at the capitol.
But that was coastal seafood, and this would be ocean seafood, and therefore safe until caravels (blockade) and galleons (pillage). I think it would make an interesting comparison for the test games.

I'm away from Wednesday til Sunday, so I can't help with setting up the test games :sad:.

We should find out if ocean seafood can be pillaged. In any case, I think it is worth it longterm and especially if we want to keep Athens if we conquer it (we should do both), we need some sort of navy sooner or later.

I can load the game now. :)

How much more do we want to explore? We've already gone further the I would like as to many civs are aware of us with just one warrior. I've seen the AI come with a warrior stack.

I can load the game now. :)

How much more do we want to explore? We've already gone further the I would like as to many civs are aware of us with just one warrior. I've seen the AI come with a warrior stack.

The only AI we could have avoided for some time longer was Alexander, the others brought their scouts right to our doorstep. Imo, a bit of exploration is always justified, as only by that the horses could be found and we know what we are up against (Alexander´s nasty capital for instance.)

I'm happy with the exploration; knowledge is power. If the AI sends warrior stacks at us, that's fine. I think it's better to have them pumping energy into ineffective mini-assaults than building for later assaults. Unlike most games, we won't be neglecting our military early on.

I'm going to try to set up a couple of practice games, but given pre-holiday time constraints, it may take me a week or so. So, if you have time this week, you may have to set up your own game (just use Worldbuilder to get our capital roughly right). And no guarantees: I might just not have enough time, but I'll try.

Regarding the map, I would like people to post some opinions:

1) What AIs do you think we'll have on this map? (So I can set up the proper civs)
2) Roughly where do you think the AIs will be? And with what connectivity (land, coast, ocean) to us? (So I can place AI capitals somewhat reasonably.)
3) What questions are we trying to answer with our test games? (E.g.: do AI stacks attack cities on hills? Will forts help us? What unit combinations work well for pillage parties? Etc. Anything you can think of.)

And I guess a zero-order question: do we want to run another turnset soon? I tend to think no. I think we have enough information to move forward with some testing.

(I thought the autologger needed to be on for log extration on save uploads?)

There are no restrictions on what HoF Mod settings you use. The save records all the information needed for results analysis and presentation. The Autologger just gives you a more detailed listing for your own purposes than the one provided by the standard game software.

See above for my answers to 1 & 2.


3) What questions are we trying to answer with our test games? (E.g.: do AI stacks attack cities on hills? Will forts help us? What unit combinations work well for pillage parties? Etc. Anything you can think of.)

I think that's the kind of tactical info we'll need to provide from each game, but I think we can try out a few different strategies:

1. Rush and Raze - kill em all

2. Rush and keep (the alpha sites)

3. All attack, all the time (no wonders, only military pumps)

4. Kill, then build [repeat] (a wonder here, a commerce city there, etc)

5. Oracle-Feudalism gambit (gotta try it with Winnie)

I may be able to get a map together tonight or tomorrow evening as a couple of appointments got cancelled, but I'm not 100% sure I'll have the time.

I am definetly in favour of #2, rush and keep the best sites (probably capitals). Apart from our awesome capital there is not much great land around London.

Swiss - I'm not sure there are really that many distinct options. I think #'s 1 and 3 are essentially the same, as are 2 and 4. Even then, I'm sure some degree of combining constant pressure on an AI and buildup of our empire will be required. Option 5 is the most intriguing though - that actually would have a real affect on things.

6. Suppress to AIs as much as possible. We aren't stuck with RB epic rules of no attack before 1000 BC. If possible, we want to at least cripple as many AIs as possible. If that succeeds, then an early win is possible.
If we aren't aggressive, then we are going to have the AIs jump ahead of us in tech. At that point an early win is impossible.


I won't agree to pure military pumps, but we do want to limit the wonders. I never finished Epic14, but even with very limited wonders I was struggling. I wouldn't be upset if we never build a wonder.

Errrm...those are ideas to try out in the practice games then we try to knit the better threads together for the real thing; I think it's important that we try to follow different paths in the test games (even if doomed to failure).

Ooooh, I didn't check which victory conditions are enabled...but I guess we're going for Conquest.

I offer my services for coming up with the ideal pillage party - someone give me a game to start from (with WB enabled) and I will try different unit mixes.

I finally got a chance to briefly (about two minutes) look at the latest save.

It's turn 45 and according to the in-game log, no religion has been founded yet. That might affect thoughts of an Oracle slingshot since it seems likely that no AI has a head start down the tech route to Priesthood yet.

I think Swiss' list is a good start. And he's right, we want to try different high-level strategies as well as investigate different tactics. This is the time to do some brainstorming...the more ideas the better.

Edit: Xposted with Ruff. I hope we can get a game to you soon. Even if not, just whip up a Continents or Pangea Prince map with all the AIs we already know and just start experimenting.

Also, I checked in-game and it looks like all victory types are on the table. I can't imagine anything being faster than Conquest.

Also, I checked in-game and it looks like all victory types are on the table. I can't imagine anything being faster than Conquest.
I think the only remote possibility would be domination. There is a possibility we have one or two civs separated by too much water needing ocean going ships to get there.

True. But even so, if there are only a couple civs left, we can probably just spam cities with Caste Artists and grow to domination quickly after wiping out the other AIs. That's essentially conquest with a surprise ending.

I tried some test maps this morning and the attached is about the best fit to our island (I gave up on Ragnarland). The geography is tilted 180 degrees (Alex to North) but the basic map feels reasonable. Ragnar should be replaced by Hannibal and Rameses by Mansa.

Some resource changes are needed: we have no Copper, Alex should be moved South a bit, etc. I'll try to put work in tonight on it, but can't guarantee anything.

Here's what we know of Athens right now (Note that it's on a hill, which will make it a bit more difficult to wrest from Alexander, but then easier to retain later):

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/5240/athensra7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


Also, I've made some major edits to posts 2 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6247052&postcount=2) and 3 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6247052&postcount=3). Let me know if you have ideas for making them more informative or useful to us. I want to have a go-to place for both our team and for anyone interested in skimming the thread to see what we've done.

OK here's my final effort at map-making. Decided to move Hannibal onto a promotory as he was a bit close (still is prolly) and gave his capital horses. Improved Alex's capital to make it more like the one we know. I think we should run two practice scenarios: one giving Alex copper and the other Iron in his BFC to see how we get on with our rushes.

Options: I like seeing the tile grid (Ctrl-T) and the resources (Ctrl-R) both in-game and in screenshots. The Hall of Fame mod has some useful features. Some that I like are the "tile grid is on by default", the turn count as the clock text, and the alerts that let you know when cities are growing, expanding, etc. I'd also suggest turning on "Enemy moves", but later that might get oppressive. [Anyone else have suggestions for option settings?]I've had a fair amount of experience with the HOF mod mainly because I lifted a lot of the code for my Ruffmod. I'll review what is currently there and post a summary of how to use it, what is useful and when.

Edit: adding HOF info this evening - will be here. Not putting in detailed description of items. Interested parties can find info in this document (http://www.freewebs.com/ruff_hi/BtS Unaltered Gameplay Mod Approval Process.pdf) ... obviously this is a BUG document about BtS but it covers nearly all of the HOF features (and whole lot more). The information below is off the top of my head and could be wrong :D

The HOF settings can be changed via the option screen, either in-game or from the advanced menu. There are three screens ...

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/7903/civ4screenshot0005re3.jpg

This screen enables / disables the ...
autologger (the settings shown above will automatically start the logger and place the log file (game name.txt) into the autolog directory
alert system that us useful to watch unhappiness


http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/3392/civ4screenshot0006vf5.jpg

This screen enables / disables the ...
exotic foreign advisor
modified domestic advisor
unit icons (shows unit orders and units due promotion)


http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/1153/civ4screenshot0007rq1.jpg

This screen enables / disables the ...
map finder (we will not be using this feature for the SGOTM)
various other items including the REMINDER - very useful for whipping cities after whip unhappy wears off
graphic options - you will have to play with the slider to see if you like this feature - i haven't really used it much

Thanks ruff; I'll add your comments to our intro page after you post them.

Also, I noticed that Swiss' save didn't include a starting warrior and didn't use the HoF mod. So, I added those things, but didn't change anything else. That save is attached to this post.

I'd still like to generate my own (different) test map, but it may be a while. Swiss' is the best we have right now.

:bump:

There hasn't been any activity in over 2 days. Are we waiting until after the holidays at this point?

I think we are waiting. I'm still (slowly) working on getting another practice map up to run practice scenarios on. I'm hoping that at least a couple of us are running some practice turns on Swiss' map. (In fact, could someone post a save where the game has been run up to the present time in our actual game?)

I anticipate being back in the thick of everything starting around Jan 2. But please feel free to post ideas, insights, and discoveries here as you find them. I'll be doing a summary of what's recommended when we re-commence.

When I return to Civ-land, I plan to run a couple of rushes on Greece: one where Alex has Iron, and another where he has Copper. The second is highly likely to fail, obviously, but it should be instructive nonetheless.

Merry Christmas, team! :)

I had a quick go at rushing Alex last night. Some thoughts:

- If you try my save then you'll need to use WB to change the tile 1N of Athens into a regular grass tile (my attempt to WB out the FP ended up pasting grass on top of the FP for a 5-food yield).

- Decided to go with a 1 city rush. On reflection I don't think this is optimal.

- I used WB a lot to take out AI warriors and replace them with scouts, as per our game. I ignored huts. Got a woody 2 warrior from scout killing.

- Had to use WB to remove Bud & Hin from Al & Han. Al founded Judaism (which I let him keep).

- Took Sparta (to NE of London) in 1270 with a horde of 6 axes (versus 2 archers and 1 warrior).

- Athens was a different story: with 10 axes and a spear, I failed to defeat Al's 4 archers by going weakest attacker first. I replayed using elite units first and was just able to scrape in with the spear taking the city. Ouch!

- London was fully chopped to get the army, but not whipped much (see below).

- Tech-wise, I went for IW after the wheel, but I think Pottery would be better: London doesn't have so much food, so we need to get a Granary ASAP so we can whip when needed. Also, with Copper at the capital, I don't think we'll be so 'lucky' with Iron.

- I went for a quick dart at Mansa: his unpromoted Skirmishers are bastards! Lost five axes (some CG2) against 2 of them.

- No point in trying a rush against Alex if he has copper: a C1 Shock Axe in Athens will Chuck Norris our army!

- Merrry Christmas!

So, the question is if a an early rush feasible against Hannibal? We would need more exploration data for this.

So, perhaps the wiser idea is to strangle them economically with an axe/spear combo..

If you try my save then you'll need to use WB to change the tile 1N of Athens into a regular grass tile (my attempt to WB out the FP ended up pasting grass on top of the FP for a 5-food yield).WB is tricky. To delete the FP, select the tile edit tool, select FP on the list of things to edit and RIGHT click on the tile. Right-click is the general purpose delete key.

Looks like a skirmish party is the way to go ... will test the combinations.

Good to hear some practice game results! I've been worried about attacking archers defending capitals built on hills; I see this fear is well-founded.

Sooooo in his recent AW RB event report noted the importance of sending pillaging parties to stifle the AI. (This is what you're testing, right Ruff?) This is probably even more true if all the AIs are financial. Chariots are nice for pillaging parties too, since they can move and pillage flatland in one turn while being defended by other 1-move units.

I'm still working on getting a test game together, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to learn Perl to do what I'm hoping to do. (I want to edit a WB save of a randomly rolled simu-start so that the terrain closely matches the real game.) I doubt I'll get it together before we start playing again in earnest.

If there is interest, I'll try to edit a normal random start to something like what we've got (similar to what Swiss has done). Let me know if you'd use another map.

So, the question is if a an early rush feasible against Hannibal? We would need more exploration data for this.
Not really: it's still quite feasible against Alex, and would net us a great city in Athens; it's just going to be tough work. We can use Woody to scout for Copper at Athens and choke if he tries to hook it up (Athens or elsewhere).

So, perhaps the wiser idea is to strangle them economically with an axe/spear combo..
Doesn't really work on its own as the AI will sneak a settler out the backdoor of its capital. It'll also encourage unit spam if we leave them to choke, so maybe a pre-horde pillaging party to the capital? But in Alex's case, he's got seafood and a golmine that'll have an archer sitting on it (his key tiles). No magic grasslands for him in the real game :lol:

Hmm, it seems the next session should see scouting of the two other capitals and a preparation for an axe rush then.

I still dislike the idea of founding mediocre cities nearby.

I have to say (without much AW experience in SP) that an early rush seems much more attractive than a pillage/stifling group. We will not be able to effectively hold back each AI for long, so we need to ask what we're trying to accomplish while stifling them....and what could be as useful as grabbing a juicy AI capital. I think an ax rush on Athens is worth the bloodbath.

My holiday season is over, and back to the dreck of work tomorrow. I am ready to start talking about this game.

Still a challenge for a test game, as I have a lot of personal tasks backlogged from the week off.

:bump:

@Compromise - now that the holidays are over, what are the plans moving forward?

It looks like we may have been the only team to put things on hold. I will concede you can only guess so much based on thread activity.

Glad to be in the new year! My last houseguests leave tomorrow, so I'll be back in the groove again. (I gotta get that RB report done today too.)

Is everyone else back now? Let's ramp it up again. We want to finish this by tax time (in the USA anyway).

I haven't looked to see how the other teams are doing.

I think we want at least one more city, then start pumping troops to start taking AI cities, starting with Athens.

If we are going to pillage (which I suspect is in addition to early attacks, not instead of them), I think we'll want at least two axes, a spear and a horse in the pillage parties. The axe is for defense against axes and swords, the spear defends against horses, the horse attacks axes and does the pillaging. Ruff, any advice to the contrary on that?

I'll have to look again at the map to think about where to plant new cities.

re pillaging - how big a stack should I be testing? You mention 4 while I have been thinking / testing a larger group.

I was thinking the following:

axe - defense on the flat spear - defense against horses archer - defense on hills (give the axe some support) horse - pillage

Additional counts would be: axe, horse, spear, horse, axe, horse, spear, horse, etc in that order.

The horses (2 movements) do the pillaging and so you want to move the stack and pillage on the same turn - multiple pillage (road plus improvement or multiple cottage pillage).

I'm back in the saddle. Looking at the progress chart, only CFC are into the AD years and I assume they will break for Orthodox Christmas at the end of this week, so we're lagging a bit but not significantly.

I agree with Compromise on the second city. The question is where? As I see it, there the choice of fish/cows/rice towards Athens, or Horse/Cows/Spice to our north. I favour the latter as a bridge to Greece (though it does require Mysticism and a happy Monument to be useful). Before that, we need Woody to scout Greece for Copper.

Okay, let's get this baby back up to speed.

@ruff: I agree with your stack analysis. We might need more map info before deciding how many pillage parties to send out. I suspect the number will be greater than zero.

@swiss: I agree that Woody needs to scout Athens and environs for metal.

@ all: Tonight and tomorrow, I'm going to go through the old posts and compile a proposal for action for the next turnset or two. Any insights are welcome.

Guys - RL is on the hop again and I will need to convert to a lurker status - sorry and good luck.

I hope nothing's too bad, ruff :(

We'll always be happy to get some input along the way, so stop by when you can!

As for the game, I am back into the SGOTM groove and will (attempt to) offer some thoughts.

I was finally able to borrow a DVI->VGA adapter today, so as of tomorrow I can at least load up the save.

I've been staring at our map for a while to try to figure out where to play. One of the things I noticed about the winning team--CFC I think--in SGOTM5 was that they placed their cities so that they didn't need a border expansion to be effective.

With this in mind, I think our second city can't have too much (any?) jungle around it. I think we want horses asap too. So, I think the best spot for a city is either 1NW of the horses (which would have plains cows and plains horses in the first ring, or 1N of the horses which is much better long-term. The biggest problem with this location is that it's further from Alex. (But then, maybe it's closer to the other AIs.)

Once we have Iron, we may consider a city 1S-1SW of the plains hill gold that's 2SW of the capital. But by then, we may not want to be building any settlers.

The other cities seem like they'll take too long to become productive.

Another possibility is to settle directly on one of the elephants, but I think that's too far afield for our second city.

If the whole map is like this, we'll probably wish we had Stonehenge. Maybe we can capture it, though.

Thoughts?

If we want to go with cities with an ASAP pay-off then 1NW of the horses is the only logical choice. We need an axe up there to defend it, but once horses are connected then we can get them to the capital in three turns so we don't need to connect it by road to London, as the chariots will be able to catch up with the axes once on the road.

The capital can build a barracks and then train axes. Worker(s) road south towards Greece (at least part of the way). City two goes barracks, then chariots.

Research: Wheel - Pottery - IW. We may need to squeeze in Hunting before IW in case the AI have horses.

I think we've got enough of a plan to move forward. And I agree with Pottery before IW. We'll see about Hunting after we get more intel.

I wish 1NW of the horses had a little bit better long-term potential, but there's just no food there. I think we simply have to deal with it, though. It'll be a 9 hpt city at size 2, which should be good enough.

Swiss, I think you're up. Can you play late Sunday or sometime Monday? That should give time for other opinions and get us rolling again.

I'll play this tomorrow evening CET.

Some sad news for our team: sunrise089 has suffered a family bereavement, so he'll be concerning himself with more pressing matters over the coming days and weeks.

Sorry to hear about your loss, sunrise. We wish you the best.

Decided to move woody ASAP into Greece and ran into a couple of lions whilst trying to get there. The first took him down to 0.3 and, in trying to get out of range of a wolf, got eaten. Count 1 for Death in the Death or Glory stakes. A replacement warrior is heading to Greece - who has recently whipped out a Settler (I assume) - but is healing in the forest.

Learnt The Wheel and have just completed Pottery. Revolted to Slavery at size 4 and have just whipped the settler. Decided to sans axe (but that should be next up). Worker has cleared one tile of fog, and is ready to head to cow-horse.

Not Good:

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u113/Swiss_Pauli/Civ4ScreenShot0231.jpg


Hannibal got religion:

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u113/Swiss_Pauli/Civ4ScreenShot0236.jpg


Save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG006_BC2200_01.CivWarlordsSave

Okay, good to have some progress. I'll take a look at the save tonight to see about thoughts.

I want to throw out a suggestion to get some feedback. After Pottery, what if we aim for Construction (so, Writing, Math, Masonry, Construction) instead of Ironworking. If we settle or conquer a city near the elephants, we can be making cats and phants.

Construction is a long way off, and I really think we need Iron & Swords (and we want to know whether the AIs have Iron), so I'd say IW before the Construction beeline.

Also, I didn't train an axe before the settler (Death or Glory) so an axeshould be next. No AI units spotted, save for a Malian Scout who sniffing round London.

No garrison for the new settler/city on Always War...death or glory indeed! It should be okay, though; there are warriors nearby. I think the priority in the new city should be pure military: a barracks, then troops. It need horses (with road) asap, then the cows. After that, it's probably more important to build roads than anything else.

From what I see now, I think Athens is our next city. We'll need a fair number of troops since it's on a hill. Maybe 6 axes, a spear and a chariot? Does that seem about right? I agree that we need some scouting down there.

Eventually, I think our capital should become a commerce city with lots of cottages. We'll want to get troops to the front quickly, so those will probably want to come from the front lines.

What next for tech? Hunting will allow spears. Do we want to detour for Archery? I'd say no, and press on to Ironworking. Maybe a new city location will become obvious when Iron is revealed. After that, I think we should get to construction as quickly as possible.

Lee, I think you're up. How's your availability in a day or two?

Lee, I think you're up. How's your availability in a day or two?

Since you are running the show, can you confirm I am up rather then the unsure version above?
Can you post an updated roster? I've gone back several pages and can't find one.

I am pretty much back to my normal routine. Monday through Thursday always good, with Friday / Saturday good some weekends.

I will try and post turn ideas tonight.

Lee is confirmed up next. For future reference, the roster will always be in post #2 of this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6247052&postcount=2).

I think you can probably garrison the second city with one of the warriors who is fogbusting up N, NE of the capital.

As I see it now--everyone feel free to debate--the goal of that second city (to be located 1NW of the horses) is simply to acquire horses and to pump out troops. It will work the horses (the first thing to get improved) and the cows. It will grow slowly, but with two improvements, it can pump 9hpt at size 2, which isn't bad at this stage in the game. If it earns us an AI city or two early on, it will be worth it.

Ruff_Hi -- dropped outWhat is this? That is what I call a harsh social comment. I haven't dropped out ... just ... errr ... moved to lurker status ... yes, that is the ticket. Don't worry - I will be popping in with suitable comments on poor play (:D) and ideas regarding future direction occasionally.

:) Sorry ruff. I'll make the edit. Please feel free to sprinkle this thread with abuse or advice as appropriate!

I can tell the Christmas break was bad for me with this game. I really feel out of touch with it.

The question mark I see is hunting before iron working. At least we would have defense when AI mounted units arrive. I am in favor of hunting and plan to go that way tomorrow unless there are objections.

I will settler horse / cow city.

I will get an axe heading toward Alex to hopefully blockade his capitol.

How soon to we want another worker? We have no cottages at this time.

I don't see much else to plan for with this turn.

Comments:

- We will need about 10 'CR1 axe equivalents' based on my test game (if Alex has no melee units). We can fill out that number with chariots, so something like 6 axes, 6 chariots will do.

- Hunting is essentially a 'defensive' move, but it might be a necessary 'evil'. My heart says IW and my head Hunting.

- London can spam cottages post Calendar (banana plantations). My test game revealed that it's not too rich in food at this time, so farm it for now, as we want max growth possibility (and have the happy from CHM to whip a lot).

- 2nd worker? After a couple of axes, I'd say a Granary, then a Barracks in London. There's not so much forest to chop, so later rather than sooner for me. But I tend to train too few workers, so someone else should think about this point.

- Axe Blockade: I wouldn't do this because the AI will train military which is exactly what we don't want Alex to do. An ultra-early warrior choke can work, but it's too late for that. The axe should scout, pillage and withdraw; once the warrior heals, he can move along the forest tiles at Athens for a preliminery reccy.

- London can spam cottages post Calendar (banana plantations). My test game revealed that it's not too rich in food at this time, so farm it for now, as we want max growth possibility (and have the happy from CHM to whip a lot).

My single biggest problem in my personal AW games has been collapsing economy. Sustain a lot of military, especially outside our borders, is economy havoc. Calendar is a long way off. City #2 is planned for production. Where to we plan to get money from? This is a very critical question to answer.


I don't understand the CHM to whip a lot comment. As far as I know the anger doesn't go away sooner, so how does CHM help us?

My single biggest problem in my personal AW games has been collapsing economy. Sustain a lot of military, especially outside our borders, is economy havoc. Calendar is a long way off. City #2 is planned for production. Where to we plan to get money from? This is a very critical question to answer.
Athens has seafood and Gold, and London has a goldmine of course. Maintenance costs can't be ignored, but I don't think heavily cottaging London now is the answer. A banana cottage on the 'unfarmable' banana would be good, though.

I don't understand the CHM to whip a lot comment. As far as I know the anger doesn't go away sooner, so how does CHM help us?
Higher happy cap = more whipping. Letting all whip anger subside before whipping isn't very efficient, and we need to push the limits (though it is my default was of playing :blush:)

I've been thinking about the worker count and the economy too. I think we need another worker sooner rather than later. One of the (many!) things that helped CRC win fast in SGOTM5 was that they lay down roads quickly to expedite their assaults.

I also think we want to take Athens asap. This means troops, but each road we build on the way to Athens will basically save us about half of a turn by getting our troops there more quickly. But I wouldn't try to stifle Athens for the reasons Swiss pointed out. We don't want a stack of units piling up on the hills there.

I guess I'd suggest getting an axe out of London next. Mostly as defense for cow-horse city. Then a worker. (Though the worker could be whipped after we grow at max speed while building a barracks.)

I'd connect the two cities to maximize unit-build-choices and defense movement. Then, I'd road to Athens. As soon as practicable, we should send out a chariot or two to scout the non-Greek AIs.

I always wait too long to get the economy online. It will probably be best to get London on cottages as soon as we generate enough troops to take Athens.

Another thing that's likely to be a minor issue is barbs spawning in-between our cities. Instead of busting fog everywhere, I bet it will be more efficient to clearcut the roads and use chariots to take out barb troops who either wander onto our roads or our cottages.

Edit: Using death-or-glory reasoning, let's go for IW before Hunting, but Hunting for sure after IW. We're gambling that the AI won't send too many mounted units before we can get IW. I think this is reasonable. If disaster seems imminent, we can go full bore on Hunting (work the gold mine, etc.) and upgrade a warrior to a spear as soon as we discover it. A bit risky, but death or glory!

Edit: I said Horses before cows at the new city, but we'll probably want the cows first. More food that way.

Also, we're getting to the point where the AI might start sending out warrior/archer(/skirmisher from MM) parties to give us grief. Nothing an axe or two of ours can't handle, but we'd better have such either on hand or within whipping range.

Sorry for my apparent disappearance. I've been having some RL issues to deal with as well, but I will contribute to the discussion to the best of my ability.

Glad you haven't left us Kodii. Please feel free to contribute what and when you can.

I decided to put the "10 axe" estimate to the test by putting an AI city on a hill and putting a bunch of my troops nearby. I won 3 of 4 assaults, so the estimate is probably good.

What I'm more concerned about, however, is that this really put a strain on the no-cottages, place a gold mine at the capital and work it economy that I was running during the test. I think Lee's concerns about the no-cottage economy are quite valid.

I didn't even take the time to move the units, and my economy just about came to a standstill, especially when I noticed this and plopped a second city on the map. I'm not sure that Athens is such an incredible site that it's worth completely sacrificing our early expansion to get it.

Having whipped out a settler already, we're sort of on the REX path already. Perhaps we should at least consider doing more settling of our own cities before we go on a rampage against the AIs.

On a somewhat related note, when we look at the game map, doesn't it sorta look like there's a nice mountain "shield" with only a few (choke?) points for the AI to come through at us? That would be a nice gift from Gyathaar!

2200 BC
The city review overwhelms me. ;) ;)

I don't like it, but I go with the team and stick with iron working. However, with our weak economy it will take a very long time.


2170 BC
We drop to 90% science by putting the settler outside our borders. We really need some income.


2110 BC
York is founded at the cow and horse location. This drops our science rate to 80%.
Our worker starts to improve the cows.


2080 BC
(IT) Our warrior laughs at an attacking lion (0 damage).


1990 BC
Alex has a second city.
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8517/lak1418tb6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


New Updates

I played long enough to get 1 axe to York, and to whip a second in London.

We now need to start talking about how we plan to improve the economy along with what are our mid-term goals are.

Nice work Lee. Both cities have an axe to protect them. I think you picked a good stopping point, with some hammer overflow in London.

I'm going to suggest that we build a worker in London soon. It would take 10T from now, but I think the optimal way to do it would be to grow first grow to size 3 (in 4T) then build the worker while working the copper mine. Just connecting the two cities will be worth +2gpt.

In the meantime, I'd probably put hammers into an axe rather than a barracks in London. If we need the troop, we'll have it ready. If we have time for a barracks first, we can do pause the axe build and get the barracks done first.

And look! You found Mansa (I think it's him, not Hannibal):
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/5294/civ4screenshot0002vc1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

You can see I was doing a little tile calculation for domination purposes. With our 29 land tiles, we have 2.38% of the total land area. For domination, we'd need 780 land tiles. Conquest is likely to be faster, unless the starting continent here has all that land. From what we can see now, it looks like we have at least 500 tiles (very rough estimate!) unless there are some weird contours on the map.

The upload server is working again, so I made my save official.


http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG006_BC1870_01.CivWarlordsSave


Turn 60, 2200 BC: You have trained a Settler in London. Work has now begun on a Axeman.

Turn 62, 2140 BC: Judaism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 63, 2110 BC: York has been founded.
Turn 63, 2110 BC: Hannibal adopts Organized Religion!

Turn 64, 2080 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Churchill's Warrior (4.20)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Combat Odds: 0.7%
Turn 64, 2080 BC: (Animal Combat: +30%)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: (Barbarian Combat: +5%)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: (Plot Defense: +75%)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 28 (72/100HP)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 28 (44/100HP)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 28 (16/100HP)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 28 (0/100HP)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Churchill's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Kodii, you mentioned some RL distractions. I'll plan to run the next turnset tomorrow unless I hear from you. So, you can play, swap or skip as RL permits.

I'll plan to run the next turnset tomorrow unless I hear from you.

I am getting a bit worried how little discussion has been going on.

We haven't even talked about the basic of how soon we still building cottages and how we are going to avoid economic stagnation.
The do or die philosphy is so totally foriegn to me that I don't feel I can add much. :(

Hmmm. Yes. I'll hold off until we can discuss this a bit.

So let's talk economy and defense. I do think we should pump out a worker quickly to connect our cities. One of the primary benefits of being the defender is that you can use your own roads to mobilize defense. But that's just if those roads exist.

Also, I think our economy will come to a standstill if we just pump out units to take Athens. We can't see all of the tiles in his cities, and with two cities, it seems fairly likely that Alex will have Copper or Iron by the time we get to him, even if we get a road all the way down there to expedite our troops.

Is this stifled economy okay? What about getting one more city ready just as IW comes in. We can use it to grab Iron, generate commerce, or build troops depending on what's needed.

City plans:
London: I think we want to avoid whipping London as much as possible. It has some pretty good tiles to work, and can have more if we get some cottages and/or hill mines going. I think it should be a hybrid based on what we need. Until we have a reasonable defense force and network, I think it should pump troops. Once we feel secure, I think it should generate mostly commerce.

York: At size 3, York can work plains cows, plains horses and a plains hill mine. This will stagnate its growth, but it will have something like 12hpt which is what it's designed for. I think it should just pump troops with no whipping.

Third city: I suggest we have this ready to go just as we discover IW. We can grab Iron if needed. At worst, we will be able to clear jungle and can plant it so that it can work a gold mine 2SE of London and pay for itself while we clear the jungle for it to become a commerce city. If we wait until we get IW, we won't need to worry about maintenance costs dragging down our research rate since IW is the last tech we'll need before our initial assault.

I like the idea of having a settler with escort ready, or at least close by the time we are aware of iron. Since copper is so close the odds are iron isn't.

London has a river, gold mine, and food. I like the idea of having at least one commerce city, and looks like it. I agree with York at production only. AW requires at least one military pump.

How soon do we want to get a pillaging party out? We need to start hurting the AI quickly. By the time this is ready we will need to end the exploring warriors to pay for it.

It looks like there's a lot of jungle around Mansa. Maybe we can find some trees to park an axe near his capital? A spear later would make that ideal.

What I don't know is whether it would be good to try to stifle Alex or let him expand. Will he just stockpile troops down there if we sit on that forested hill 2E of Athens? Regardless, our warrior probably won't cut it for stifling him. But maybe it can scout his lands a bit, starting with the other side of Sparta.

Seeing as we need some more discussion, I'll try to get myself re-familiarized with the game before jumping back into it.

While I think Lee and I are on the same page, I'd like to get some more feedback before running the next turnset. I think TheArchduke returned yesterday from Egypt, so maybe he'll be online by this weekend. Swiss, I'd also like your thoughts. And Kodii, we'll plan to skip you this round to let you get back up to speed. If, by the time I play (probably over the weekend), you feel like you're up to date, let me know and we can make it a swap rather than a skip.

Hmm, I am not of the general opinion of the team at all.

I think we should hit Alex (Mansa is nearer but we haven´t even scouted him and he got strength 4 archers, no?) early and hit him hard. Who cares if he has a second city, if his capital falls, it will be easy to hit and he will only be more distracted.

I don´t think we should wait on IW or improve our economy. Improve our economy? This is AW. Shall we sit on a third mediocre jungle city whilst the AI forces descend on us? Does our land justify sitting around? Because I don´t think so at all.

We should work the copper, the gold next whilst we grow to size 4, finish our barracks, get on an axe and produce 7-8 axes and hit alex now and hit him hard. Our "economy" will do fine as long as we got that nice goldmine near London, but we got to work it.

Build a second worker? I am not sure for what, let´s capture one.


The big issue I had with SGOTM 5 is that we don´t wage determinded and early war. We are waiting for another few units, for another tech to hit him. Our 3rd city is already on the map! It is Athens. Please don´t play the next round before we have decided on war or on building a 3rd city. We can´t play this game peacefully, we will loose that way.

Ah yes, hi everyone, I am back from Egypt.:)

Ah good, sounds like the voice of AW experience!

So, is the basis of the AW economy the gold from captured cities? Also, what are we looking for in cities we keep vs. cities we let slide? Do we postpone cities on hills because that enhances archer garrisons so much?

We should work the copper, the gold next whilst we grow to size 4, finish our barracks, get on an axe and produce 7-8 axes and hit alex now and hit him hard. Our "economy" will do fine as long as we got that nice goldmine near London, but we got to work it.

Before I could agree to your ideas how to you propose to not fall massively behind in tech. I've suffered from that often playing around with AI. I had times I even took out a couple of civs, and it didn't matter. Next thing I new I had maces fighting rifles.

10 axes this early will result in 0% science at best IMHO.

10 axes this early will result in 0% science at best IMHO.
It will hurt our economy, but only for a very short while: most will die in the assault on Athens, thus removing the upkeep.

But all that is of no import if we don't get a look at Athens soon. In my test game, Alex settled a city for Copper (which was handily en route to Athens) so he never got it hooked up.

If Alex gets up to speed (and that means melee), he's going to be a complete nightmare: AGG, 40% troop training in peacetime, a huge capital, and PHI to spam GMen. If we can cut off his head ASAP, we'll be in a great position. If not, then how do we deal with him dow the line?

I FINALLY got a chance to look at the game and I think that we should take Athens. According to what we know, the entire south appears empty besides Alex, which could potentially allow him expand tremendously. If we don't take the risk now, when we are unsure whether or not he has metal, he will get it later.

The warrior in the south could probably explore Athens a bit, but if Alex has enough defenders, he'll probably attack with one or two. In the best case scenario, our warrior can pillage and park on his metal.

Before I could agree to your ideas how to you propose to not fall massively behind in tech. I've suffered from that often playing around with AI. I had times I even took out a couple of civs, and it didn't matter. Next thing I new I had maces fighting rifles.

10 axes this early will result in 0% science at best IMHO.

First of all, it won´t result in zero tech... We want to get rid of one opponent and do it