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.

Reserved for future use

Welcome back team!! :D

And welcome to Jimmy Thunder and ShannonCT. If you would post a quick introduction for the others, I would appreciate it. Just where , roughly, you're from and your Civ experience? Something like that?

If you have any questions about how we work, please ask.

I had planned to have some trial saves ready, but I haven't had time to make them. I hope to complete that this evening.

I reserved the first post in case we want to index our thread. Hopefully, we'll finish so fast that will be unnecessary. :mischief:

EDIT - Please check your installations with the test file to be sure you have the proper .dll's and HoF Mod. Thanks.

Hello XTeam. It's my pleasure to be going to war with you all. I am a math/economics teacher from Connecticut, near New York City. I guess that would put me at GMT-5.

I am a former member of Memphis Blues from SGOTM2 & 3 and I have played a good number of GOTMs (mostly last year). I would rate myself competent at Emperor level games in Warlords and BTS.

I generally am pretty free to discuss strategy and play turnsets, although I will be out of town December 19-31. During this time, I will not have access to the game, but I will still be able to go online.

I'll get the ball rolling with a practice game I created to match the opening screenshot (using a modified Continents map, rather than Big and Small):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SGOTM6-Test.CivWarlordsSave

Hello XTeam. It's my pleasure to be going to war with you all. I am a math/economics teacher from Connecticut, near New York City. I guess that would put me at GMT-5.
Welcome! Thank you for joining us. :goodjob:

I generally am pretty free to discuss strategy and play turnsets, although I will be out of town December 19-31. During this time, I will not have access to the game, but I will still be able to go online.
I think this is a good start to our first discussion. I have heard from several team members that they will be in and out from now through some part of the Holiday period. I am thinking that we should use this time for some game testing. For those who have some time that is. And we can use this time to talk about some of the things we find. Then we can look at our first turn set at some time after Christmas, or later, whenever we think we are ready?

I'll get the ball rolling with a practice game I created to match the opening screenshot (using a modified Continents map, rather than Big and Small):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SGOTM6-Test.CivWarlordsSave
:goodjob: I'll try to give it a shot tomorrow... :thumbsup:

Checking in :)

I'll need to download the files and mods as I haven't done that yet.

The things I noted on the test games as problems were: getting dogpiled, not having horses, iron or copper in one game (hopefully he's not that cruel!!), and the economy crashing due to WW and whipping and not getting courthouses because of building military units.

As far as the start goes, I'd like to recommend moving the warrior SW to the wood hills. I'm not sure I'd go for either gold hill (The one to the NW because we couldn't scout other around it before having to commit and the one to the SE because it would take 2 turns to settle) Or the grass hill (2 turns and can't scout to look to see if it was better before committing). As it is, I think settling in place would give us a very strong capital. 2 food, 2 luxuries, ok on hammers and hopefully one of those hills has copper in it.

Hi XTeam!

This is my first SGOTM, so I want to add plenty of value to the group and perform well on my turnsets. I've read through XTeam's last game and see that there is a high level of discussion, everyone is very capable, and there is a good atmosphere in the team.

Here's my intro I posted a few weeks ago at the end of the SGOTM5 thread:

I've been playing Civ4 since about April this year and got hooked on the GOTM series. I enjoy playing to win, and have generally done pretty well in the Games of the Month, often getting close to the fastest award categories. Anything I know about Civ I have learned from these great forums, so I enjoy contributing wherever I can in the GOTM and HOF subforums (that's where I crossed paths with DJMGator). My strength is probably in understanding the main strategies and mechanics for a particular game. I'm not the best at continually micromanaging and prioritising every worker movement and city tile! (Although I do pay plenty of attention to micromangement in the early BC years to squeeze those last drops out of my fledgling civilization )

I live in New Zealand GMT +13, so am a similar timezone to the Mad Professor (2 hours ahead of Australia).

I don't have heaps of time to play Civ, usually limited to a couple of evenings a week, but I check the forums most days during breaks at work. I am a Civil Engineer working in the water and wastewater industry, just a few years out of college/university.

Bring on the always war!!
I've only played 2 always war games, both from Games of The Month -won them both so that's a good start, right?

I'll be able to play most days during the Christmas/New Year period, however I'm away for a long weekend 14-16th Dec (1 year wedding anniversary :king: :queen: )

Checking in :)

I'll need to download the files and mods as I haven't done that yet.
Welcome back rrau. :beer:
Hope the file downloads go easier than last game. ;)

Hi XTeam!

This is my first SGOTM, so I want to add plenty of value to the group and perform well on my turnsets. I've read through XTeam's last game and see that there is a high level of discussion, everyone is very capable, and there is a good atmosphere in the team.
Welcome and thanks for joining us! :thanx:
I'm sure you'll do just fine. I appreciate your checking our thread and I hope we can maintain that level of discussion and play.

I'll be able to play most days during the Christmas/New Year period, however I'm away for a long weekend 14-16th Dec (1 year wedding anniversary :king: :queen: )
Congratulations on your first year. Hope you have a GREAT time!! :)
We'll allow your absence for a few days, I guess... :mischief:

Some initial comments about the game:

Conquest or Domination seems to be far and away the best victory conditions to pursue - unless the map prevents it.

We don't have any info on the number of AI's yet.

One key to AW is sending out 1-2 unit raiding parties to all the civs on your continent very early on. They can park up on forest hills and stop the AI workers and stagnate their growth. In Vanilla CIV the AI will just suicide on your fortified units, but I think in Warlords they will build a couple of archers and attack in succession. This will be a good area to try out in practice games. Also, in Warlords the AI won't go after worker bait but I've found that scouts work very well instead. This can be another cat n mouse way to stagnate the AI early on and lure out units from their cities leaving only the minimum number of defenders. Try it in your practice games.

We want to know about as many of the stupid AI military practices as we can.

In AW games you also want to fight at high combat odds more than usual, because your opposition grossly outnumber you in hammer production and they will come to you. This can mean having a "magnet" city on hill on your border frontier to block off your more productive core land. Also using mixed stacks and making the use of terrain bonusses really makes a difference.

How about the use of Catapults, and other siege weapons, to break down enemy stacks and increase our odds with our attackers? Better yet, Trebs to take their cities... :hammer:

One key to AW is sending out 1-2 unit raiding parties to all the civs on your continent very early on. They can park up on forest hills and stop the AI workers and stagnate their growth. In Vanilla CIV the AI will just suicide on your fortified units, but I think in Warlords they will build a couple of archers and attack in succession. This will be a good area to try out in practice games. Also, in Warlords the AI won't go after worker bait but I've found that scouts work very well instead. This can be another cat n mouse way to stagnate the AI early on and lure out units from their cities leaving only the minimum number of defenders. Try it in your practice games.

We want to know about as many of the stupid AI military practices as we can.


I noticed this a lot in my practice games: Parking a single warrior in a good defensive position next to a city causes the AI to bring in its workers, and it wont attack until it has 4-5 archers (even though it usually only loses 1 archer in killing the warrior). Pinning an AI capital between the sea and a warrior or two is a great way to keep it stagnant.

I also noticed what you say about worker bait. Sometimes, I'd have an undefended worker in my borders but the AI wouldn't go after it when my warriors were within attack range (not that I'm recommending leaving workers vulnerable).

My full write-up to follow...

Yep, seige weapons are always good. In AW games you do tend to fight more defensive wars and in the open field where seige is less useful (as opposed to normal games when you walk your stack right up to a peaceful civ's capital and take over all of their cities in 10 turns with your catapults :))

I should also add that at the start of the game, once you have met a civ, they somehow know if your capital is undefended and any scouting warrior/archer they have will make a direct line towards it. There were many embarassing defeats in GOTM22 in the first 15 turns due to this.

Leader and Civ:

English UU and UB probably aren't going to come into play. Hopefully, the game will be over by then. Churchill's Charismatic trait means that along with a monument and gold, we have a happiness cap of 8 in the capital and 7 in other cities. Happiness won't be a limiting factor in the early game. The Charismatic XP bonus should help our early warriors get a second promotion more quickly. Killing an enemy scouts gives 2 XPs, defending against a beast gives 1, and attacking a beast gives 2. Desirable promotions would be Woodsman I/II or Combat I/Shock. The protective trait is pretty useless at this level. If horses or copper is nearby, we can probably skip archery altogether. The only interesting thing to do with the Protective trait is to use the 100% bonus for building walls along with the additional 100% bonus from stone to turn overflow hammers from chopping and whipping walls into gold at a 1:3 ratio (see Hammer Overflow article in the War Academy).

Always War:

This setting is going to affect our opening strategy. On Prince, the AI starts with two scouts if Hunting is known, and two warriors otherwise. Our initial warrior is going to have to stay close enough to home to race back in case an enemy warrior breaks for our capital. AI warriors wont attack a city if there is a full-strength warrior defending. At the beginning, when we can at best produce 3 hammers per turn, a warrior takes 8 turns, too slow to protect an empty capital. Our initial warrior may need to just circle around our starting location (to find a potential spot for our second city) and then come back home. Once we have a few additional warriors, we can look for good opportunities to earn XPs and start using them to kill the AI warriors that might harass our workers, and to fortify on defensible terrain next to enemy capitals. The AI is overly cautious about sending out workers and settlers when there is an enemy sitting next to their city. As long as we're at war with everyone, we should use the opportunity to prevent anyone from hooking up resources.

Map and Opening Screenshot:

Big and Small, medium sea level maps that aren't "highly modified" are usually such that one can reach every AI (but not necessarily circumnavigate) by galleys. The highly modified map may invalidate this point. It's probably more reasonable to assume that we will need Astronomy to win by conquest or domination. From the opening screenshot, my best guess is that we are on the Big continent, about halfway down, near the west coast (there appear to be two lake/ocean tiles visible on the western edge of the fog). Jungles and rivers generally don't appear together except on the Big continent. Assuming we're starting on a Big continent with several AIs, we should be looking to rush someone with axes or chariots.

Here is a random sample of Big and Small minimaps for those who don't have BTS:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/Big_and_Small.JPG

Our starting location is decent in terms of growth oppportunity. Pastured cows and farmed bananas each give 4 food, enough to work a gold hill and 4 grass hills. Plus there are 5 mystery tiles in our current fat cross that might reveal another resource. Moving our warrior 1 west will reveal whether there is any compelling reason to move our settler south. Settling on the dyes would give us an early research boost and still give us access to cows, gold, and bananas, but we might want to know what the two mystery tiles to the north contain before committing to settling south.

Tech Path:

Generally I would beeline for animal husbandry when grassland cows are present. Settling on the dyes and opening with hunting and animal husbandry allows a worker to start improving the cows as soon as he is built. Opening with agriculture and animal husbandry would give us a more useful tech but delay the cow pasture by a few turns, in which case, our worker could build a mine or banana farm first if there are no grains around. BW first would be a better tech for whipping/chopping a few early warriors to secure our area against AI warriors.

My intention is to create three or four saves to test different availability of resources. I've completed the first and will attach it. I imported the map script from :bts: into Warlords to create the save. The settings are:
Map- Big and Small
Size - Standard
Climate - Temperate
Sea Level - Medium
Speed - Epic
and then Normal Continents, Islands and Islands mixed in.

You can tell me what resource conditions I tried to create... :mischief:
The saves were created in Warlords with HoF Mod 2.13.002 and the :bts: .dll's. If you can play them, you should be set for the game save when it appears... ;)

EDIT - Please note the added saves.

EDIT2 - I just found a minor error in the first test game. The Gold Hill to the west is a grass hill instead of a plains hill. :blush:

The saves:

Before trying any of the saves, how is this AW played? Where you start at war with the first civ you meet and as soon as they're gone, then you DOW on the second civ you met? Or is it always war with everyone? I haven't played an AW game in a LONG time.......probably a civ3 sgotm.

In CIV, when you meet another civ, the game automatically declares war on them for you. Then you can never make peace. :rolleyes:
No negotiations either, so diplomacy is removed from the game. :p

So, you are always at war with everyone else... :hammer:
And it is do unto others before they can do unto you... :mischief:

Welcome to the two new guys on the team - well actually I already know ShannonCT from the "Memphis Blues" team that ceased to exist after SGOTM3.

I think it's a good idea to start with some test games and then start the real game after New Year when people get back from their holydays.

In the last SGOTM we came in 6th after CRF, CRC, Murky Waters, OSS and Smurkz. CFR are not participating this time so in order to improve we should aim for 4th place or better. What can be done to achieve this? In the previous game we made a couple of strategic mistakes. One was to under estimate the impact of WW and not reacting to solve this. Another was attacking too late. I hope that the test games will give us a better grasp of which strategic areas are important and how they are best handled. We also made some mistakes in the execution of the strategy. In this particular SGOTM the common errors were to build improvements that were not really useful like Courthouses and Lighthouses and forgetting to improve important resources. In some cases good MM'ing advice was lost because of the large number of posts before each turn set. Could we do something to prevent this? Maybe by writing MM'ing suggestions (like "improve these tiles next", "hire a scientist", "build a Courthouse") with a different color or in a separate section?

I'm sure that the addition of Jimmy Thunder and ShannonCT to the team is not going to make the number of posts go down!


One key to AW is sending out 1-2 unit raiding parties to all the civs on your continent very early on. They can park up on forest hills and stop the AI workers and stagnate their growth. In Vanilla CIV the AI will just suicide on your fortified units, but I think in Warlords they will build a couple of archers and attack in succession. This will be a good area to try out in practice games. Also, in Warlords the AI won't go after worker bait but I've found that scouts work very well instead. This can be another cat n mouse way to stagnate the AI early on and lure out units from their cities leaving only the minimum number of defenders. Try it in your practice games.

We want to know about as many of the stupid AI military practices as we can.


I agree that raiding parties is a key thing to keep the AI backwards. I guess it's also the only way to scout. In the previous SGOTM some teams used a trick were they left captured enemy cities undefended to trick enemy archers out of nearby cities.

Big and Small, medium sea level maps that aren't "highly modified" are usually such that one can reach every AI (but not necessarily circumnavigate) by galleys. The highly modified map may invalidate this point. It's probably more reasonable to assume that we will need Astronomy to win by conquest or domination.

This is a key issue. Do we need Astronomy to achieve domination or conquest? I suspect this might be the case since this SGOTM would otherwise be somewhat similar to the previous one. In any case we can't rule out this possibility. It means that we need to balance the early war effort and the research speed. Information gathering will be important so maybe we'd better get those raiding parties out fast.

This is a key issue. Do we need Astronomy to achieve domination or conquest? I suspect this might be the case since this SGOTM would otherwise be somewhat similar to the previous one. In any case we can't rule out this possibility. It means that we need to balance the early war effort and the research speed. Information gathering will be important so maybe we'd better get those raiding parties out fast.
I know one thing I don't do well in my games, and I think our team could use some work on, is better management of Great People. I read one of the succession game threads in which Great Scientists were used to speed the path to Astronomy (one for Compass, one for Optics and two for Astronomy). If we think we need this, then I think we should try and plan for it early in order to maximize the timing and availability of Great Scientists to support the effort.

That said, there are other things we can use Great People for as well and, during test gaming, keep that in mind and see what can be accomplished.

On Astronomy, I think an aggressive scouting plan may be useful as well, in case we need some culture bridge cities, easier than Astronomy if that is all we need? :rolleyes:

Information gathering will be important so maybe we'd better get those raiding parties out fast.

This is a key aspect. The game is called Gyathaar's Mystery game so anything could be thrown at us. Normally you know largely what to expect from a map and can pretty much create your strategy for fast victory before you even play the first turn. But for us, with this mystery game, gathering information early and processing it appropriately will have a huge bearing on our result. It makes every early unit we have a valuable tool that we need to squeeze the most out of.

We should give our starting warrior a name and then see how many daring and heroic missions he can accomplish in his lifetime. :)

On the lightbulbing strategy - if you are completely tied into it you need to plan your GP's with 100% chances and work out the fastest way to get the required number you need (e.g. Which is fastest?: 1st, 3rd and 4th person from the GPfarm and 2nd from auxillary city OR 2nd and 4th from the GPfarm and 1st and 3rd from auxillary cities...)

Also, it's important to not open up unwanted techs on the GP tech preference list (does everyone know about this hard-coded order of preference?).

EDIT:
And I agree with test games and start in the new year.

Also, it's important to not open up unwanted techs on the GP tech preference list (does everyone know about this hard-coded order of preference?).


I use this reference: Great People Tech Preferences (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_tech_pref.php)

The only interesting thing to do with the Protective trait is to use the 100% bonus for building walls along with the additional 100% bonus from stone to turn overflow hammers from chopping and whipping walls into gold at a 1:3 ratio (see Hammer Overflow article in the War Academy).

I suppose this is the one: Hammer Overflow (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=218272)

Very interesting that you can actually generate gold this way.

I use this reference: Great People Tech Preferences (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_tech_pref.php)

This one is more up to date: Great People Tech Preferences (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952). It includes a key change: Masonry is now higher on the Great Prophet preference list than Civil Service, so it is not feasible to bulb Civil Service anymore.

I suppose this is the one: Hammer Overflow (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=218272)

Very interesting that you can actually generate gold this way.

In one practice game in which I hooked up stone, I built walls until there was one turn remaining. I chopped 5 forests all at once AND whipped one population. I received 700+ gold the next turn. 44 hammers from a forest (with Math) + 200% bonus (with Protective and Stone) = 132 gold per forest. Other production bonuses like a forge or Organized Religion would make the bonus even higher. If we're at a point in the game where we need cash for research more than we need troops, this is going to be a great help. Build a city in a tundra forest, hook it up to stone, chop 5 forests into walls, and then abandon it to the barbs :mischief:.

Nice trick indeed! And it might be possible to combine this with using the whip heavily in far away captured cities that we plan to abandon to the barbs (or enemies) after whipping it down to pop 1.

I find this War Academy article interesting as well: The Whip (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193659)

Actually I thought that the trick of letting overflow hammers from whipping go into wonders had been fixed. I wonder if we should use the "worker whip" trick in this game should we decide to go for BW first....

Sorry to be late for the thoughtful discussion. Did not know about the overflow gold trick (exploit?), and it may be critical to success in this game. I'm not sure that I remember exactly how an AW game plays. There is no tech trading. Is it not also the case that you can't extort tech for peace (since there's no peace), and that the AI's do trade among themselves?

I'm thinking that research may be a primary concern [which is why we're given 2 gold resources] and that getting a gold hill mined quickly may be our top initial priority -- which suggests we start building a worker, improve the gold, delay AH, rearch BW first so that our worker will be able to chop (a second worker, a warrior, a settler -- in an order to be determined) while we research to AH (aided by a gold mine), and then get a second gold city up and running. At least we need to test this tactic. I should have time to try one of leif's games tomorrow.

Agree with Frederiksberg that some discussions in our last game were so lengthy that the man with the mouse sometimes failed to execute useful suggestions that were posted early. Highlighting in red may prove helpful, but I'd suggest we also establish the expectation that the player re-reads the thread before posting his plan, waiting for feedback, and proceeding with his turn.

I find this War Academy article interesting as well: The Whip (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193659)

Actually I thought that the trick of letting overflow hammers from whipping go into wonders had been fixed. I wonder if we should use the "worker whip" trick in this game should we decide to go for BW first....

The bug was that one used to be able to let whip overflows go into wonders without the 50% penalty usually leveled against whipping wonders. As I understand it, the article you linked to is talking about storing overflowed hammers in a wonder but not cashing them in until one has a resource that will give a 100% bonus to those stored hammers.

But I like the worker whip suggestion in the article. It actually works out perfectly if one works a grass forest before the border expansion and the bananas after the border expansion. The warrior comes on the same turn as Pop2. Switch to building a worker, revolt to slavery after BW is done, and whip the worker with 45 hammers remaining. The delay in getting the worker is only 2 turns (plus you've already revolted to slavery) and you've got a warrior out of the deal. The 33 food stored for the whip converts to 45 hammers. And the early warrior can go find an AI capital to harass before it can send out a settler.

Agree with Frederiksberg that some discussions in our last game were so lengthy that the man with the mouse sometimes failed to execute useful suggestions that were posted early. Highlighting in red may prove helpful, but I'd suggest we also establish the expectation that the player re-reads the thread before posting his plan, waiting for feedback, and proceeding with his turn.
Perhaps a way to ensure everything is considered is to make MM'ing part of the turn set plan we agreed to put together before each turn set.

For our new team mates, the process follows:
24 hours to post a "Got it". During this time, team members may express their opinions on the current state of the save and actions we think should occur during the turn set.
24 hours to post a turn set plan, what the mouse holder plans to do.
24 hours to make comments on the plan.
48 hours to complete the turn set.

It actually took less time as we got better at it as things happened continuously, more or less. The reason for 24 hours, really, is the diversity of locations of the team members. Last game we finished in plenty of time, so the extra time for discussion is worth it, imho.

We can always adjust as we play, as we always seem to do.

Comments/suggestions? :)

I lurk, therefore I am. :)

I should also add that at the start of the game, once you have met a civ, they somehow know if your capital is undefended and any scouting warrior/archer they have will make a direct line towards it. There were many embarassing defeats in GOTM22 in the first 15 turns due to this.

Yes - one of those embarrassing very early defeats in GOTM22 was mine. This is critical. The english archer that took Rome in that game could not possibly have seen Rome from outside my culture area yet made a beeline for it, whereas in several tests I played with a unit defending Rome, the enemy didn't bother to enter my cultural area. It just knows.

This was on Vanilla of course, not warlords, but I wouldn't expect the AI to be nicer in this one. We need to consider this if we don't want a very early exit.

Gator checking in. I'm located in Central Florida area, so I'm GMT -5. I've been looking forward to this game and helped lure Jimmy Thunder to the team. Now for the bad news - I'm having disk surgery on my neck on the 19th and will be offline for an unknown time period as I recover. I'm hoping it will only be a short time so the January start should be good. The doctor surprised me Tuesday when he told me the surgery date. The overall recovery period is 4 to 6 weeks but they say the first 2 are the worst.

I should have some time to try some of the test games over the weekend. Being that this is an Epic Prince level game and they are suggesting a 4 month deadline are we safe to assume that troop transport will indeed be required?

Being that this is an Epic Prince level game and they are suggesting a 4 month deadline are we safe to assume that troop transport will indeed be required?

That's the obvious implication. Suggest we proceed on that premise until contrary information arises.

Sure hope the surgery is successful and puts an end to your ongoing agony.

4 months is just an arbitrary deadline based on past experience. It's there to concentrate teams' minds on making progress, and in no way reflects any prescience on my part as to how long you might actually need. Fact is, we tend to get through about three games a year.

Well . . . Nevermind.

I'm not sure that I remember exactly how an AW game plays. There is no tech trading. Is it not also the case that you can't extort tech for peace (since there's no peace), and that the AI's do trade among themselves?

We can make no deals with the AI at all and that means no vassals either. The AI will in general be pleased with each other because they share a war for the whole game and that means that they are more likely to trade techs than in a normal game.

I'm thinking that research may be a primary concern [which is why we're given 2 gold resources] and that getting a gold hill mined quickly may be our top initial priority -- which suggests we start building a worker, improve the gold, delay AH, rearch BW first so that our worker will be able to chop (a second worker, a warrior, a settler -- in an order to be determined) while we research to AH (aided by a gold mine), and then get a second gold city up and running. At least we need to test this tactic. I should have time to try one of leif's games tomorrow.

But I like the worker whip suggestion in the article. It actually works out perfectly if one works a grass forest before the border expansion and the bananas after the border expansion. The warrior comes on the same turn as Pop2. Switch to building a worker, revolt to slavery after BW is done, and whip the worker with 45 hammers remaining. The delay in getting the worker is only 2 turns (plus you've already revolted to slavery) and you've got a warrior out of the deal. The 33 food stored for the whip converts to 45 hammers. And the early warrior can go find an AI capital to harass before it can send out a settler.

I think these two suggestions are essentially the same but using the whip will yield some extra hammers we can use for another warrior or for speeding up the first settler. It's clearly an opening I will try in a test game or two. Getting BW early might also enable us to hook up copper with our 2nd city.

Agree with Frederiksberg that some discussions in our last game were so lengthy that the man with the mouse sometimes failed to execute useful suggestions that were posted early. Highlighting in red may prove helpful, but I'd suggest we also establish the expectation that the player re-reads the thread before posting his plan, waiting for feedback, and proceeding with his turn.

Perhaps a way to ensure everything is considered is to make MM'ing part of the turn set plan we agreed to put together before each turn set.

If we agree to highlight MM'ing stuff it will be easier for the mouse holder to collect (copy paste) and post this as a part of the turn set plan. I think we need to make this fairly easy for people to do.

I should have some time to try some of the test games over the weekend. Being that this is an Epic Prince level game and they are suggesting a 4 month deadline are we safe to assume that troop transport will indeed be required?

Don't be fooled by the low difficulty level. This is AW and we will be fighting all AI at the same time and we will no be able to do any tech trade thus making the real difficulty much higher.

I do agree that Astronomy is likely to be required - at least that would make the game more interesting IMO.

Good luck with the surgery!

As I know what is in the maps I made, I decided to try another exercise. I have been staring at all the blue circles on the starting save screenie and the thought occurred to me that there have to be some pretty good resources around those Gold Hills to make them happen. I have been messing around in World Builder for a while and I don't seem to be able to replicate those circles in that pattern. In fact, I have been unable to make any blue circle on the map move and further, unable to make any new one appear. Even with all the tiles around those gold hills as bonus tiles, nothing will change for me???? :confused:

Does anyone know what it takes to make the programming re-evaluate the locations of the blue circles? Is there a setting somewhere that I am missing? :hmm:

Does anyone else think there is any significance to the locations of those blue circles? Implications? :crazyeye:

EDIT - My mind may be a bit goofy today anyway. We got about a foot (0.3 meters) of snow last night and I spent my morning clearing it off our 300 foot (100 meter) long driveway. :sleep:

As I know what is in the maps I made, I decided to try another exercise. I have been staring at all the blue circles on the starting save screenie and the thought occurred to me that there have to be some pretty good resources around those Gold Hills to make them happen. I have been messing around in World Builder for a while and I don't seem to be able to replicate those circles in that pattern. In fact, I have been unable to make any blue circle on the map move and further, unable to make any new one appear. Even with all the tiles around those gold hills as bonus tiles, nothing will change for me???? :confused:

I tried to make the blue circles change as well. They seem completely unaffected by anything you do in WorldBuilder. I assume they are decided based on the initial random map. If Gyathaar made any WorldBuilder modifications to our starting area, the blue circles may be meaningless. I am at least highly opposed to settling on top of a gold hill. My first preference would be to settle on top of the dyes (Calender is far off) and second preference is to settle in place, given what we know now. The grass hill with the blue circle is also a possibility, but it would cost 2 turns to get there for an unknown benefit.

I would be in favor of the first player moving the warrior W or SW in the next few days so that we don't have a two week discussion based on speculation about what lies to the south. If there is something like corn to the south, it will make our decision a lot easier. If other people are also entertaining the idea of settling on the dyes, we might also want to move the settler NW first to reveal what we would miss by not settling in place. This would of course cost us 1 turn.

I would be in favor of the first player moving the warrior W or SW in the next few days so that we don't have a two week discussion based on speculation about what lies to the south. Certainly support this suggestion. Further, I propose that ShannonCT play first. I've tried the whip worker tactic that he advocated in an earlier post, and it works nicely in this set up. If there is something like corn to the south, it will make our decision a lot easier. If other people are also entertaining the idea of settling on the dyes, we might also want to move the settler NW first to reveal what we would miss by not settling in place. This would of course cost us 1 turn.

I've tried settling on the dyes as well, and I think (didn't actually calculate) that it speeds research to BW and eventually to AH by at least three turns, which seems worth the trade off of not being able to build a plantation there later. This figures to be a game very strongly weighted towards early success. My question is: What could the warrior move tell us to make us want to settle differently? What could he find out by moving where that would alter the settlement on the dyes?

I have no idea what's behind the blue circle placement.

What could he find out by moving where that would alter the settlement on the dyes?
Yes, this is a very good question. :hmm:

My fog gazing skills are far from legendary, but I think I see either Jungle or Forest east of the southern Gold Hill, a Grass tile to its SE and more jungle to the south of the Warrior. Moving the Warrior SW looks to me like it will reveal the most tiles and in a direction we may wish to see, even if it doesn't affect where we settle. The western river widens out near the bottom of the screenie, wonder if there is salt water nearby? :scan:

Settling on the Dyes, seems to me makes a lot of sense for our purposes. I think that makes recon around the northern Gold Hill important, perhaps for a second city to use that hill. That will also depend upon whether we find Copper, or not? The second Gold Hill would help get us to Iron Working faster if we need that.

Ramblings... ;)

Having played leif's test games 2 and 3, I'd like to compare notes with others who have played them. Test 2 was much trickier, because both Izzie and Hanibal attacked London and I had to build extra warriors to defend. I regretted sending my initial warrior exploring so far from home. I'm thinking that warrior exploration beyond potential future city sites might be counterproductive in the beginning, as it introduces us to more AI's sooner. Test 3, on the other hand, only provided Gandhi to deal with (up to 2000BC), and (having decided to keep the initial warrior around) I was able to build second city (and defend it and my improved tiles) in a much more timely manner. The tactic of sending warriors out to keep AI workers from working doesn't seem so well suited to AW games.

I produced a warrior and whipped the first worker in both games, then mined the gold and produced a second worker with the aid of a chop (two excess turns were used to begin farming bananas), getting him as AH was researched so I got cows pastured quickly, then I began another warrior as London expanded to size 2. Next, produced settler as soon as I was able, depending on defensive necessities as mentioned above. Like to hear about others' experiences.

I will try Test 1 as soon as I can.

I haven't had time for any test games yet but I have downloaded the starting save to take a closer look. It seems logical to move south with the settler. Not only can we settle on the dye and gain an extra gold in the city tile but we also get more river tiles inside the fat cross. Only drawback I can see is that we loose one forest. By moving north we loose both banana, dye and river tiles so I don't really consider that an option. Maybe we should move the warrior to the banana tile to find out if it's better to settle 1E or 1SE. Together with the dye tile and the start tile those are the only tiles that give us 4 of the visible resources in the fat cross.

I think it's a good idea if ShannonCT starts us off by moving the warrior. I suggest we move him NE and if nothing shows up we settle on the dyes. Maybe the best sequence is to first move the settler 1S and then move the warrior 1NE or 1W depending on what the settler reveals. I agree with leif that the river is widening to the SW indicating that we are near the ocean. I think I see ocean 1W of the northern gold hill as well.

Btw. if you don't have the HOF mod installed you can find it here: HOF Mod (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mods/HOF-2.13.002.exe)

I think it's a good idea if ShannonCT starts us off by moving the warrior.
I believe that whoever will lead us off should be the one to move the Warrior. As I understand the upload system, we cannot upload another 4000 BC save. Therefore, whoever moves the Warrior should also play the first turn set.

I was thinking about asking you if you wished the first turn set Frederiksberg?

My question is: What could the warrior move tell us to make us want to settle differently? What could he find out by moving where that would alter the settlement on the dyes?

Good point. If people think that settling on the dyes is the best choice given what we know, then we should probably move the warrior somewhere that would reveal something to change our minds. As Fredericksburg suggested, we could move the warrior NE instead to see if something like pigs or corn is revealed.

Having played leif's test games 2 and 3, I'd like to compare notes with others who have played them. Test 2 was much trickier, because both Izzie and Hanibal attacked London and I had to build extra warriors to defend. I regretted sending my initial warrior exploring so far from home. I'm thinking that warrior exploration beyond potential future city sites might be counterproductive in the beginning, as it introduces us to more AI's sooner. Test 3, on the other hand, only provided Gandhi to deal with (up to 2000BC), and (having decided to keep the initial warrior around) I was able to build second city (and defend it and my improved tiles) in a much more timely manner. The tactic of sending warriors out to keep AI workers from working doesn't seem so well suited to AW games.

I agree it is probably better to keep the second warrior near home for exploration of potential 2nd city sites and for defending the worker. I see your point about the disadvantage of attracting attention in the early game. But I still have been having great success in sending out warriors to park next to AI capitals. The AI pattern after I park two warriors together is usually 1) bring worker back into city, 2) build 3-4 archers and a settler, 3) send out 2 archers and settler to found 2nd city, and 4) never send out workers while enemy is in fat cross. We need to know the optimal window for sending out harrassing warriors: too early, and we can't defend our own borders, too late, and our warriors are staring down axemen.

I produced a warrior and whipped the first worker in both games, then mined the gold and produced a second worker with the aid of a chop (two excess turns were used to begin farming bananas), getting him as AH was researched so I got cows pastured quickly, then I began another warrior as London expanded to size 2. Next, produced settler as soon as I was able, depending on defensive necessities as mentioned above. Like to hear about others' experiences.

My results from Test 2:

(Note: I avoided popping any huts and avoided working the stone as it would give 1 extra GPT that we probably wont really have.)

Turn 0: Settle on dyes. Start BW and warrior, work 2f1h tile
Turn 8: Borders pop, begin working bananas for 3f1c
Turn 14: warrior->worker, Pop2, work additional 3 yield tile. Warrior explores near fat cross.
Turn 19: BW->Agriculture, revolt to slavery
Turn 24: whip worker
Turn 25: worker->worker, move worker to mine gold
Turn 31: Agri->AH
Turn 32: begin working gold mine
Turn 34: begin chopping
Turn 39: worker->warrior, worker spends 1 turn farming bananas
Turn 41: AH->Wheel, both workers building cow pasture
Turn 43: begin working cow pasture

At this point workers can finish bananas and chop warriors. Could then build settler at Pop2, working cows and gold (net yield = 8) or build warriors until Pop3 and then build settler while working cows gold and banana farm (net yield = 10)

I think it's a good idea if ShannonCT starts us off by moving the warrior. I suggest we move him NE and if nothing shows up we settle on the dyes. Maybe the best sequence is to first move the settler 1S and then move the warrior 1NE or 1W depending on what the settler reveals. I agree with leif that the river is widening to the SW indicating that we are near the ocean. I think I see ocean 1W of the northern gold hill as well.

These move suggestions make good sense.

CRC has submitted a save from 3640BC. It looks like from their culture and score that they delayed settling for 1 turn and have researched hunting or agriculture. Maybe they found something to the east.

CRC has submitted a save from 3640BC. It looks like from their culture and score that they delayed settling for 1 turn and have researched hunting or agriculture. Maybe they found something to the east.

Or perhaps they've decided to go Hunting>Archery>AH, thinking that even if horses don't show up, they will be in good position to protect themselves as they rapidly expand -- a conservative srategy that I've become less interested in after playing test games, because the AI units often choose not to fight or even capture an available worker (that I offered as a sacrifice to save a city). Is this a Prince level phenomenon?

Turn 39: worker->warrior, worker spends 1 turn farming bananas

Done this three times now, and each time I have two turns to farm the bananas before I move onto the forests and finish chop just as AH comes in. (I presume you're chopping the forest closest to cows.) Either your're losing a turn somewhere, or you're getting to AH a turn sooner than I. If the latter, I'd sure like to know how you're doing it.

Played leif's Test1, and AI's (all 4 of them) were not at all agressive (stopped at 1930BC after I'd founded a second city and gotten chariot protection). I'd really like to know if others have been able to get a second city founded and an advanced unit produced successfully with only warriors as defenders on all three tests.

Turn 39: worker->warrior, worker spends 1 turn farming bananas

Done this three times now, and each time I have two turns to farm the bananas before I move onto the forests and finish chop just as AH comes in. (I presume you're chopping the forest closest to cows.) Either your're losing a turn somewhere, or you're getting to AH a turn sooner than I. If the latter, I'd sure like to know how you're doing it.

I'd have to know what turn you're getting AH to know why we're off by one. I did start working the gold the turn it was finished, rather than the turn it was announced as being finished. And I only work on a banana farm for one turn because it takes both of the worker's moves to get over to the cows. My second worker actually comes 1 turn earlier than it needs to be, and wastes one turn sitting on the cows. Does yours as well?

Played leif's Test1, and AI's (all 4 of them) were not at all agressive (stopped at 1930BC after I'd founded a second city and gotten chariot protection). I'd really like to know if others have been able to get a second city founded and an advanced unit produced successfully with only warriors as defenders on all three tests.

I have been getting 2nd cities up with only warrior defenders. Usually 3 warriors does the trick: One for the capital, one stakes out a place for a second city, one sits near the improved tiles or near the worker. If a single AI warrior wanders in, I'll usually converge on it with two warriors. Best case, you kill it without a loss. Worst case, you trade one warrior for his.

I believe that whoever will lead us off should be the one to move the Warrior. As I understand the upload system, we cannot upload another 4000 BC save. Therefore, whoever moves the Warrior should also play the first turn set.

I was thinking about asking you if you wished the first turn set Frederiksberg?

Well, thanks leif. I guess that means that you trust my abilities as a micro manager :D. Anyway I know that CP and Shannon are also very competent in this department and since they have already started the investigation of the options I suggest that one of them plays the first turn set. CP suggested that Shannon plays and I'm happy with that. Maybe I could play 2nd set? MM'ing is very important in the opening of the game and then it's effect gradually decreases.

MM'ing is very important in the opening of the game and then it's effect gradually decreases.
Good, I fit right in playing last! ;)

Not sure of people's schedules, so I want to propose a roster order.

Roster:
ShannonCT
Frederiksberg
rrau
Cactus Pete
Jimmy Thunder
Leif
Gator - Temporarily on hold.

If anyone wishes to shift in the order, please post and it can be easily changed.

Now the question of where to move the Warrior.
My view is that I think I hear that settling on the Dyes is a good opening. The only advantage, at this point, to settling east one tile is that we would be on a hill, for defense of our capital. But that requires two turns and we would lose some early commerce that will help speed research a bit. So, I'm not sure what our purpose in moving the Warrior NE would be?

The next consideration is then how do we want to break the fog. A SW move will reveal the most tiles, I think. Might help us to decide where to go from there?

Once this question is resolved, then ShannonCT should open the game, make the move, take a screenie, save the game and post for us all to see. :drool:

I'd have to know what turn you're getting AH to know why we're off by one. I did start working the gold the turn it was finished, rather than the turn it was announced as being finished. So did I. And I only work on a banana farm for one turn because it takes both of the worker's moves to get over to the cows. Possibly this is the difference. I work the bananas for two turns immediately after I mine the gold, and only then do I move onto the forest near the cow. I finish chop, which completes second worker, just in time for both to move onto cow as soon as AH is available. My second worker actually comes 1 turn earlier than it needs to be, and wastes one turn sitting on the cows. Does yours as well?No (see above), my chopped worker moves onto the cow the first turn AH is available but is not able to aid the first worker in pasturing until the next turn.

I did not have a turn counter operating, but it was on 2770BC that AH is finished, and I am able to move both workers onto the cow. Do you know what turn number 2770 is?


I have been getting 2nd cities up with only warrior defenders. Usually 3 warriors does the trick: One for the capital, one stakes out a place for a second city, one sits near the improved tiles or near the worker. If a single AI warrior wanders in, I'll usually converge on it with two warriors. Best case, you kill it without a loss. Worst case, you trade one warrior for his.

That's been my basic approach as well. By returning original warrior to London, I have been able to protect workers and eventually pasture and delay production of the third warrior until the cow is pastured. Then I immediately move off the gold mine and onto the pasture for the eight turns (not counting turns interrupted to allow chops to go for a settler) it takes to both produce the third warrior and expand London back to size two.


BTW, I normally go for jungle/forest defense warrior promotion(s) if I can get animals to attack me on a defensive-bonus tile (very reluctant to risk loss of warrior at less than 85% odds), but because I'm going to use my original warrior to protect improvements against roving AI warriors -- who (in my experience with the test games) will not attack him if he is on a forest or jungle tile but go around him to attempt their mischief -- I prefer promoting to star and then fist.

Good, I fit right in playing last! ;)

Not sure of people's schedules, so I want to propose a roster order.

Roster:
ShannonCT
Frederiksberg
rrau
Cactus Pete
Jimmy Thunder
Leif
Gator - Temporarily on hold.

I'm fine with taking the first turn. Just remember that I will be away from the game from evening of the 19th-31st, so I need to finish in the next few days or delay until the new year.

Now the question of where to move the Warrior.
My view is that I think I hear that settling on the Dyes is a good opening. The only advantage, at this point, to settling east one tile is that we would be on a hill, for defense of our capital. But that requires two turns and we would lose some early commerce that will help speed research a bit. So, I'm not sure what our purpose in moving the Warrior NE would be?

The next consideration is then how do we want to break the fog. A SW move will reveal the most tiles, I think. Might help us to decide where to go from there?

Once this question is resolved, then ShannonCT should open the game, make the move, take a screenie, save the game and post for us all to see. :drool:

I agree that settling east is inferior to settling on the dyes based on what we know now. If moving the warrior 1NE revealed corn and pigs ... then we might change our minds. Unless moving the warrior SW would reveal something that would discourage us from settling on the dyes (I dont know what this could be), then I think we can just let London's border pop to bust the fog that would be busted by the warrior moving SW. So my vote is to move the warrior 1NE and the settler 1S, save, and discuss.

BTW, I normally go for jungle/forest defense warrior promotion(s) if I can get animals to attack me on a defensive-bonus tile (very reluctant to risk loss of warrior at less than 85% odds), but because I'm going to use my original warrior to protect improvements against roving AI warriors -- who (in my experience with the test games) will not attack him if he is on a forest or jungle tile but go around him to attempt their mischief -- I prefer promoting to star and then fist.

Agree here. Combat and Shock promos for warriors staying home. WoodsmanI/II promos for warriors who are going to fortify in forests near AI capitals.

As far as the discrepancy in our opening turns, I'll try again and try to replicate your results.

For now, what says everyone about our opening warrior move? 1SW or 1NE?

I say 1SW because it could reveal tiles that might lead us to settle 1W of the dyes: a resource tile 2SW of the dyes and/or multiple forests to chop revealed in the western fog.

Also, how about ShannonCT [need to shorten that, like CP] playing to AH, with a pause and screen shot if copper shows up with BW.

I think the warrior SW is the stronger direction. If he goes NE he only exposes the tile NE of the bananas. If he goes SW he exposes the 5 tiles around the hill, but more importantly this will give us a view of 19 of the 21 Fat Cross tiles for a city founded on the dyes prior to moving the settler (only the 2 tiles due south of the northern gold hill will be covered by fog).

I'm fine with taking the first turn. Just remember that I will be away from the game from evening of the 19th-31st, so I need to finish in the next few days or delay until the new year.


Also, how about ShannonCT [need to shorten that, like CP] playing to AH, with a pause and screen shot if copper shows up with BW.
We had talked about waiting to start until after the holidays. However, you have been diligent and played several versions of test games faster than I thought. ShannonCT (is there something you would prefer us to use that is a bit shorter to type? btw, same question for Jimmy Thunder, like JT?) needs to play by Monday. I do not want to rush anyone, so I'll ask, "Are we ready to start?" If so, do we need Shannon to move the warrior and post a screenie or can he play through Animal Husbandry (which is about 40 turns, btw)?

Just to note, what we have done on this team is that, during your turn set, if you run into something you wish to ask the team about, you may save the game, post a screenie and questions, and then resume when your questions has been answered. Please don't feel that you must play through something that gives you pause to ponder... :)

If the Warrior move is SW, I am ready to unleash ShannonCT. If the Warrior finds something that substantially changes where we settle or there is a source a Copper, then I would like to see those things so we can rethink what we want to do. :scan:

I think the warrior move and screenie post for today, then only a slight pause for our overseas friends to comment also. Then I'd say game on.

I like warrior SW.

I think the warrior move and screenie post for today, then only a slight pause for our overseas friends to comment also. Then I'd say game on.

YES, we need to establish that protocol.

I say 1SW because it could reveal tiles that might lead us to settle 1W of the dyes: a resource tile 2SW of the dyes and/or multiple forests to chop revealed in the western fog.

Moving the warrior SW will reveal 3 or more land tiles depending on how close the ocean is while moving NE will reveal only two land tiles. Settling SW does, however, mean that we loose the bananas while settling E or SE means that we keep 4 of the visible resources in the fat cross plus anything we might see to the east. So anything we see to the SW must be better than bananas and also compensate for not settling on the dyes in order to justify moving SW with the settler. What could that be?

Moving the warrior SW will reveal 3 or more land tiles depending on how close the ocean is while moving NE will reveal only two land tiles. Settling SW does, however, mean that we loose the bananas while settling E or SE means that we keep 4 of the visible resources in the fat cross plus anything we might see to the east. So anything we see to the SW must be better than bananas and also compensate for not settling on the dyes in order to justify moving SW with the settler. What could that be?
A Gem resource tile on grass? :mischief: That would be mighty generous! :)

I think we are all asking the same question, in which direction is the Warrior move most likely to reveal something that would make us alter the plan to settle on the Dyes tile? I can't think of many things that would change that...

@ShannonCT - Looks to me like you are cleared to move the Warrior SW, save the game, take a screen shot and post it for discussion. The only other question I have is whether you would have time to play through to Animal Husbandry prior to you departure on the 17th? If not, please post because it looks like the horses want out of the corral... ;)

EDIT - Just thought that maybe the Warrior move isn't settled yet? :eek:

A Gem resource tile on grass? :mischief: That would be mighty generous! :)

I think we are all asking the same question, in which direction is the Warrior move most likely to reveal something that would make us alter the plan to settle on the Dyes tile? I can't think of many things that would change that...



Any resource to the east would make moving 1E or 1SE the better option because we only loose 1 forest and 1 gold from not settling on dyes. In order to move SW we would need a resource that compensates for both the 1 gold and the lost bananas. Thus my vote is still for warrior NE. Also note that the gold hill next to the river gives 1 more gold than the gold hill to the north. So we loose yet another gold by moving SW. I strongly doubt that settling SW is a good option and thus it seem more relevant to clarify if there is some hidden resource to the east.

Any resource to the east would make moving 1E or 1SE the better option because we only loose 1 forest and 1 gold from not settling on dyes. In order to move SW we would need a resource that compensates for both the 1 gold and the lost bananas. Thus my vote is still for warrior NE. Also note that the gold hill next to the river gives 1 more gold than the gold hill to the north. So we loose yet another gold by moving SW. I strongly doubt that settling SW is a good option and thus it seem more relevant to clarify if there is some hidden resource to the east.
If I understand you, what you are saying is that there is no resource that would compensate for a move to the SW. So, a move to the NE may reveal something that would cause us to move east?

That would have to be a pretty sweet resource as well as settling east would consume a forest and cost us a turn? Don't know that that would be any better. :hmm:

Moving the warrior SW will reveal 3 or more land tiles depending on how close the ocean is while moving NE will reveal only two land tiles. Settling SW does, however, mean that we loose the bananas while settling E or SE means that we keep 4 of the visible resources in the fat cross plus anything we might see to the east. So anything we see to the SW must be better than bananas and also compensate for not settling on the dyes in order to justify moving SW with the settler. What could that be?

It could be that there is a food resource tile 2SW of the dyes and a couple of forests (very helpful) that could appear at the edge of the fog to the west after moving the warrior. Highly unlikely, but I think it would argue for settling W of the dyes. Still, you may be able to argue that moving the warrior NE could reveal something that we would be more pained to miss out on (without losing the bananas but losing a turn perhaps?). What could that be?

If I understand you, what you are saying is that there is no resource that would compensate for a move to the SW. So, a move to the NE may reveal something that would cause us to move east?

That would have to be a pretty sweet resource as well as settling east would consume a forest and cost us a turn? Don't know that that would be any better. :hmm:

Yes, you understand me correctly. Moving SW will cost us 2 gpt and the bananas. Maybe gems would be worth moving for but hardly anything else.

I would move east if any food resource or gems/ivory is there. A resource that needs Calendar may not be worth the trouble.

A Gem resource tile on grass? :mischief: That would be mighty generous! :)

I think we are all asking the same question, in which direction is the Warrior move most likely to reveal something that would make us alter the plan to settle on the Dyes tile? I can't think of many things that would change that...

I think there would need to be a high food resource elsewhere for us to change our settling on the dyes. That would mean we'd be looking for pigs, sheep, or corn. We might find this to the 2SW of the dyes, or to the 1NE of the bananas, so either move could reveal something to change our settle. I have no problem with moving the warrior SW.

@ShannonCT - Looks to me like you are cleared to move the Warrior SW, save the game, take a screen shot and post it for discussion. The only other question I have is whether you would have time to play through to Animal Husbandry prior to you departure on the 17th? If not, please post because it looks like the horses want out of the corral... ;)

EDIT - Just thought that maybe the Warrior move isn't settled yet? :eek:

I should have plenty of time to play in the next few days as long as we have reached a consensus.

It could be that there is a food resource tile 2SW of the dyes and a couple of forests (very helpful) that could appear at the edge of the fog to the west after moving the warrior. Highly unlikely, but I think it would argue for settling W of the dyes. Still, you may be able to argue that moving the warrior NE could reveal something that we would be more pained to miss out on (without losing the bananas but losing a turn perhaps?). What could that be?

I should point out that moving the warrior SW will only reveal one tile that wouldn't already be in our fat cross if we settle on the dyes (the tile 2SW of the dyes) and that moving the warrior NE would probably only reveal one non-jungle tile (the tile SE of the bananas is jungle). I don't know whether either tile is more likely to contain a resource (can another resource actually appear adjacent to bananas?). Of course there could be pigs or sheep on a hilltop farther to the east that could be revealed by moving the warrior NE, but we'd lose two turns moving the settler 2E, as well as the 1 GPT from the dyes. Each turn of delay in settling costs 4 food/hammers and 9(?) commerce. Settling 1E costs 34 food/hammers, 9 commerce, and 1 commerce per turn. Settling 1SW costs 2-3 commerce per turn (the warrior first, worker whip strategy depends on working a 3food tile after border pop, and this can still be done with the cows but the cow is 0 commerce) and banana access. I think it is highly unlikely that moving the warrior in either direction will change the optimal decision.

Unless there is a strong objection from Fred or JT, I will plan on moving the warrior SW later tonight (5-6 hours) as per the majority vote, without moving the settler, and I'll post a screenshot afterwards.

Unless there is a strong objection from Fred or JT, I will plan on moving the warrior SW later tonight (5-6 hours) as per the majority vote, without moving the settler, and I'll post a screenshot afterwards.

No strong objection since moving E or SE is almost as bad as moving SW. I think we will end up settling on the dyes anyway.

Btw. did you consider that moving SW will also mean that we work a gold hill that is not on a river bank thus costing an additional 1 gpt.

Btw. did you consider that moving SW will also mean that we work a gold hill that is not on a river bank thus costing an additional 1 gpt.

I did. 1 lost on dyes, 1 on gold hill, and one on bananas. Not a happy prospect.

OK, my vote is still for warrior NE but as far as I'm concerned you can go ahead and move SW unless some of the others change their mind and vote for NE instead.

Been slow in replying as I have been play testing.

Should there be something enticing enough for us to move east, it would have to make up for 10 lost commerce (8 for the Palace +1 for the city +1 for working the Banana tile) for settling a turn later plus a +1 lost from not settling on the Dye tile, plus the hammers lost by settling on a forest tile. If we find something that good, the pay-off does appear to me to be greater, in the short run, than settling to the SW of the start.

Settling to the SW, we would have to make up +2 GPT (one from settling the Dye tile and one from the Gold Hill being on a river) and the loss of the Banana tile and its +1 GPT.

I can now see the benefit of the initial move of the Warrior to the Banana tile. In the end, it seems that it comes down to a flip of the coin to me. :crazyeye: The only other thing that entices me to move to the Banana tile is those darn blue circles. :huh: Still make me think there has to be an additional resource there, even though the testing showed me it doesn't matter. :rolleyes:

Seems we have :deadhorse:. In my mind, ShannonCT, as the mouse holder, knows what we all think the pro's and con's are and so I put it in his hand to do what he sees fit. I will not be upset with either decision. :)

If anyone feels really strongly about one way or another, please speak up now or forever.... :mischief:

Has anyone tested past the first few moves? I can't get research for advanced units or economy to give me adequate units. I'm attacking longbows with axes. We won't win the game that way.

Has anyone tested past the first few moves? I can't get research for advanced units or economy to give me adequate units. I'm attacking longbows with axes. We won't win the game that way.
Yes, I beat them to Construction and used Cats and War Elephants against them. I also beat them to Maces. Haven't gone much beyond that though... :D

Should my installs be okay if Asset Checker 2.0 passes for everything except the old van. HOF1.74 SGOTM5 mod? My Warlords version was only modded to 2.13.001 so I had to update it and it then I had to redo the BTS mod again.

I'll open up one of the test games.

Should my installs be okay if Asset Checker 2.0 passes for everything except the old van. HOF1.74 SGOTM5 mod? My Warlords version was only modded to 2.13.001 so I had to update it and it then I had to redo the BTS mod again.

I'll open up one of the test games.
Yes, the test games will tell you if you configuration is working. The actual save is available, so you could try loading that as well. :thumbsup:

The HoF 1.74 SGOTM05 Mod shouldn't work because it uses the .dll's that came with Vanilla, not the ones installed by :bts: . So that is a good thing... :mischief:

Yes, you understand me correctly. Moving SW will cost us 2 gpt and the bananas. Maybe gems would be worth moving for but hardly anything else.

I would move east if any food resource or gems/ivory is there. A resource that needs Calendar may not be worth the trouble.

This is likely much ado about nothing. Moving east would also cost 2gpt, plus a forest and a turn. So you're arguing that having another food resource is worth losing a forest and a turn and 2gpt. Probably so. It seems to come down, then, to the unlikely prospect of gaining a food resource at the price of losing a turn and a forest vs. the even less likely prospect of replacing the bananas with another probably slightly better food resource that is not on a river and gaining a couple of western forests. Like to get SCT's thoughts (and anyone else who has played a test) before we decide.

My initial thoughts were: Option 1) Settle on dye on first move or Option 2) Move settler NW on first move for the hope of a strong resource (2nd gold or food resource). If he sees nothing, then return him to original spot and settle on dyes on turn 2.

My preference is Option 1 (less risk and it makes use of the strong visible start we have). You can count my vote for settling on dyes.

Option 2 is wishing for an additional resource gift to an already generous starting spot. Losing a turn is a big risk in a game where early turns can make all the difference in shutting down an opposing AI.

For moving the warrior, I think finding food NE is more rewarding than the move W or SW scenario. So my vote for moving warrior NE.

I just had the opportunity to run thru leif's #2 test game. I stayed on course with SCT details from earlier post. Then I founded a second city by the ivory and a 3rd city by the horses. I created a stack of chariots and went on the offenses, razing 3 CART cities until I lost 11 chariots on their walled capital defended by 3 archers and a spear. Spain had axes and archers but nobody had sent anything more than 1 pillaging warrior inside my border.

I whipped the first worker, chopped the second one, then used 1 chop on a settler and one chop on a barrack. This is the one major drawback of the dye city - only 4 forest, so any movement that loses one of them is bad. But a move that possibly adds forest is good and that may only occur by going east.

I'm starting to think the better warrior move is actually the NE move. It has the greater potential gain because we are pretty sure we are going to settle on the dyes. If he sees nothing new then the settler proceeds as normal.

BTW, at one point I had an injured warrior (1.6) on a grassland tile and the AI did not attack him.

I see the consensus has shifted to moving the warrior NE. I will now move the warrior in that direction and move the settler onto the dyes to make up for the warrior not moving SW. If there is a hill or mountain 2SW of the dyes, the settler move will reveal it. And if there are any pigs or sheep on hills to the east, our warrior will reveal them. Screenshot coming soon...

I see the consensus has shifted to moving the warrior NE. I will now move the warrior in that direction and move the settler onto the dyes to make up for the warrior not moving SW. If there is a hill or mountain 2SW of the dyes, the settler move will reveal it. And if there are any pigs or sheep on hills to the east, our warrior will reveal them. Screenshot coming soon...
If you spot something interesting with the Warrior, please do not move the Settler yet! :eek:
If nothing shows, then ... ;)

Turn 0 (4000BC): Moved warrior 1NE. No new resources revealed. Forested hill in the distance. Moved settler 1S. No new resources revealed. The tile 2SW of the dyes is water, likely ocean. We appear to be on the West coast of a continent. Settler still has 1 movement point left to settle on dyes or move.

Fat cross if settling on dyes would contain two coastal tiles. Moving settler 1W would reveal one or two additional coastal tiles. Settling on dyes still seems optimal.

Discuss.




http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SG6-1.JPG

Looks like a no brainer: settle on the dyes. Did you ever work out our minor differences in timing to AH and the initiation of cow pasturing?

Looks like a no brainer: settle on the dyes. Did you ever work out our minor differences in timing to AH and the initiation of cow pasturing?
Agreed, ready to rock and roll!! [party]

Looks like a no brainer: settle on the dyes. Did you ever work out our minor differences in timing to AH and the initiation of cow pasturing?

OK, I went through the Test 2 again, and I think I've figured out where the difference was coming from. After the worker is finished mining the gold, he can be sent directly to the forest between the banana and cow for immediate chopping. If he does this, the second worker arrives on the cow early, and has to sit on them for 1 turn. Instead, if after mining the gold, the worker goes to the bananas and works on the farm for two turns, and then moves over to chop the forest, the second worker arrives on the same turn as AH and spends 1 turn just moving there, but the first worker wastes no moves and can begin pasturizing the cows on the same turn as AH finishes. The third option is that after the worker finishes mining the gold, he spends 1 turn farming the bananas, and then moves to the forest. In this case, the second worker arrives on the cows at just the right time, but the first worker ends up sitting on the cows for 1 turn.

In either case where a worker is sitting on the cows for 1 turn waiting for AH to finish, the pasture is done on Turn 43. In the case where the first worker farms the bananas for 2 turns before moving to the forest, the pasture is done on Turn 44.

I think we should act in favor of finishing the pasture at the earliest possible date.

I noticed in the settings that goody huts have not been turned off. Does anyone know under what conditions it is and isn't possible to get barbs from a hut? If our second warrior finds a hut, I dont want to do something disasterous.

If no one objects to settling on the dyes, I will play play 40 turns tomorrow, in no less than 12 hours, following the moves of the practice game I posted.

OK, I went through the Test 2 again, and I think I've figured out where the difference was coming from. After the worker is finished mining the gold, he can be sent directly to the forest between the banana and cow for immediate chopping. If he does this, the second worker arrives on the cow early, and has to sit on them for 1 turn. Instead, if after mining the gold, the worker goes to the bananas and works on the farm for two turns, and then moves over to chop the forest, the second worker arrives on the same turn as AH and spends 1 turn just moving there, but the first worker wastes no moves and can begin pasturizing the cows on the same turn as AH finishes. The third option is that after the worker finishes mining the gold, he spends 1 turn farming the bananas, and then moves to the forest. In this case, the second worker arrives on the cows at just the right time, but the first worker ends up sitting on the cows for 1 turn.

In either case where a worker is sitting on the cows for 1 turn waiting for AH to finish, the pasture is done on Turn 43. In the case where the first worker farms the bananas for 2 turns before moving to the forest, the pasture is done on Turn 44. That makes perfect sense to me. The turn wasted in your methods is spent farming the bananas in mine, but you're probably right that this efficiency is not as important as getting the cow pastured ASAP.

I think we should act in favor of finishing the pasture at the earliest possible date.

I noticed in the settings that goody huts have not been turned off. Does anyone know under what conditions it is and isn't possible to get barbs from a hut? If our second warrior finds a hut, I dont want to do something disasterous. At Prince level I don't think barbs are very likely, probably worth the risk, but I don't know the probabilities -- quessing one of our teammates does.

If no one objects to settling on the dyes, I will play play 40 turns tomorrow, in no less than 12 hours, following the moves of the practice game I posted. No objection here.

Yes, settle on the dye and you are good to go :thumbsup:.

As far as I can see from your test game description playing 40 turns means that we have researched BW and AH before you stop. So we will know if copper or horses are nearby and can plan for the 2nd city in the discussion after your turn set.

Good luck!

:yup: Settle on the Dyes and we're off and running.

On Goody Huts - I found the post linked below. It was in the General Discussion thread...
Goody Hut Probabilities (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4034276&postcount=27)

From reading the thread, I believe these probabilities are for Warrior pops as they include the possibility of Barbarians. Popping huts with Scouts or Culture should never result in hostile Barbs. Hope it helps. :scan:

EDIT - My other request would be to see if we can Scout around our other Gold Hill to see what the possibilities are for a city site there. Hoping for Copper or Horses. Good luck! :thumbsup:

How is the storm in CT? Hope you keep your power up and running as the snow here is heavy and wet. Over 6 inches so far but it should turn to rain soon?

EDIT2 - Please go ahead and play through the discovery of Animal Husbandry as I think it may be 41 or 42 turns. Then we won't have to stop playing again to discuss Horses versus Copper, I hope! :mischief:

:yup: Settle on the Dyes and we're off and running.

On Goody Huts - I found the post linked below. It was in the General Discussion thread...
Goody Hut Probabilities (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4034276&postcount=27)

From reading the thread, I believe these probabilities are for Warrior pops as they include the possibility of Barbarians. Popping huts with Scouts or Culture should never result in hostile Barbs. Hope it helps. :scan:

EDIT - My other request would be to see if we can Scout around our other Gold Hill to see what the possibilities are for a city site there. Hoping for Copper or Horses. Good luck! :thumbsup:

Thanks, that was what I was looking for. I notice in the thread that there is a 5% chance of getting a lot of barbs, and that you dont get barbs if the hut is 8 tiles or less from your capital. I don't plan on sending our first warrior out any distance that would risk our capital. I'll scout with our second warrior far enough to look for copper or horse but not so far that he cant protect our workers.

How is the storm in CT? Hope you keep your power up and running as the snow here is heavy and wet. Over 6 inches so far but it should turn to rain soon?

It was a messy slush this morning and tough to drive in.

EDIT2 - Please go ahead and play through the discovery of Animal Husbandry as I think it may be 41 or 42 turns. Then we won't have to stop playing again to discuss Horses versus Copper, I hope! :mischief:

Will do.

Good luck. I hope there's either horses or copper!

I don't plan on sending our first warrior out any distance that would risk our capital. I'll scout with our second warrior far enough to look for copper or horse but not so far that he cant protect our workers.

Ok, so the plan for first warrior is scout land very close to capital but stay in range to return to capital if AI warrior appears? Sounds good.

Plan for second warrior is scout further, especially looking for city site number two, but stay in range of workers if barb warrior/archer appears? I am tempted to send the 2nd warrior out on our first enemy scout-and-aggravate mission. But I do see that returning him to guard our workers is prudent since the consequence of losing two early workers is unbearable. When will we have our 3rd warrior built? (around turn 47)? Maybe he will arrive early enough for worker protection and 2nd warrior can indeed scout-and-aggravate. I still haven't played a test game to check out the possible threats during the first 47 turns (haven't been free to play CIV the last 5-6 days).

I reviewed plans for Test 2. :goodjob: An excellent stategy that gets us quickly to 1 warrior 2 workers and has the tech speed to find horses and copper when settler is ready. I like it.

What are our early goals beyond the starting turns and 2nd city founding?

I suspect most aspects of our main strategy are still up in the air and will be decided upon as we gather more information about our home continent - this is fine. However, we must be prepared to take our time in the future to discuss and rediscuss our strategy as new information comes to light to ensure long term planning is not forgotten.

What are our early goals beyond the starting turns and 2nd city founding?

I suspect most aspects of our main strategy are still up in the air and will be decided upon as we gather more information about our home continent - this is fine. However, we must be prepared to take our time in the future to discuss and rediscuss our strategy as new information comes to light to ensure long term planning is not forgotten.
Yes, I think there will be much to discuss.

It is going to be tough to talk about much until we see what we have to work with. Let's see if any Copper or Horses are near enough to snag, or will we need Iron Working and Construction? :crazyeye: ;) :hmm:

It is going to be tough to talk about much until we see what we have to work with. Let's see if any Copper or Horses are near enough to snag, or will we need Iron Working and Construction? :crazyeye: ;) :hmm:

We will find out soon. Playing now...

OK folks, I've played through turn 25 and have stopped in order to allow for a discussion on a fortuitous discovery unearthed near London.

My report so far:

Turn 0: Settle on dyes. Start BW and warrior, work 2f1h tile. We didn't miss any resources to the SW or NE by settling on the dyes. There are more bananas in our fat cross, and there is a cow on a 1 tile island in the SW ocean/lake.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SG6-2.JPG

Turns 2-7: Nothing to do but hit enter.

Turn 8: Borders pop, begin working bananas for 3f1c. Rice is revealed to the SE.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SG6-3.JPG

Turn 9: enter.

Turn 10: Malinese scout appears from the north.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SG6-4.JPG

Turns 11-12: Enter, enter.

Turn 13: Carthagenian scout appears from south.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SG6-5.JPG

Turn 14: warrior->worker, Pop2, work additional 3 yield tile. Warrior begins exploring north.

Turns 15-18: Exploring, trying to catch a scout out in the open. They're tricky buggers.

Turn 19: BW->Agriculture, revolt to slavery. And we have copper in our fat cross! :woohoo: The mined copper will eventually be 1f5h1c.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SG6-6.JPG

Turn 20-23: Exploring south, no scouts killed yet.

Turn 24: whip worker

Turn 25: worker->worker

The northern lands:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SG6-7.JPG

The southern lands:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87280/SG6-8.JPG
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, I am sitting at the beginning of turn 25 thinking about whether our newly built worker should mine the gold first or the copper first. I am leaning toward copper, but we will have to run some tests.

One odd thing is that both Mali and Carthage met me with scouts, while neither actually starts with Hunting. Either their warriors popped scouts from huts or they were added in Worldbuilder (maybe replacing warriors?).

Copper! Great start. Thanks for the clear write-up and screenies.

Definitely worth testing copper vs gold mine. My hunch is that production is better than commerce in the early years of this game.

Copper is connected via river so we will lose the ability to build warriors as soon as it is done (not necessarily a bad thing).

For copper first, there is a possible gambit for moving first axeman straight to an AI capital. If he finds warriors, we are in business. I'm guessing this might be around turn 70. Carthage start with mining and fishing, we could run some tests on Prince with a bunch of Carthage civ's and see when they discovery archery and what their initial builds are. If the window of opportunity is open and the probabilites are with us it would be a great boost. Know thy enemy!

Without testing, my preference would be to get the Gold Hill up and running to boost research. In AW, we cannot trade and we need to get a research edge on the AI if possible. We also have a second city to get set up and running, precluding the production of Axes for a short period of time. During that time, we can be researching.

The other thing I ran into in testing was the emergence of both Chariots and Horse Archers. Do we need to research Hunting in order to produce Spears? Chariots eat Axes in Warlords... :eek:

Copper is connected via river so we will lose the ability to build warriors as soon as it is done (not necessarily a bad thing).

We can still build warriors after copper is hooked as long as we dont have hunting, since spearmen also replace warriors and spearmen require hunting.

For copper first, there is a possible gambit for moving first axeman straight to an AI capital. If he finds warriors, we are in business. I'm guessing this might be around turn 70. Carthage start with mining and fishing, we could run some tests on Prince with a bunch of Carthage civ's and see when they discovery archery and what their initial builds are. If the window of opportunity is open and the probabilites are with us it would be a great boost. Know thy enemy!

If we could pull this off against one of our neighbors, it would be huge, and would certainly offset any commerce lost. If we could pull it off against both, it would be gamebreaking.

Let me highlight what we know about our enemies so far. Malinese scout appeared from the north on Turn 10 (3700BC). Carthagenian scout appeared from the south on Turn 13 (3610BC). As of Turn 25, no AI warriors have appeared.

Without testing, my preference would be to get the Gold Hill up and running to boost research. In AW, we cannot trade and we need to get a research edge on the AI if possible. We also have a second city to get set up and running, precluding the production of Axes for a short period of time. During that time, we can be researching.

What better second city than an AI capital?

The other thing I ran into in testing was the emergence of both Chariots and Horse Archers. Do we need to research Hunting in order to produce Spears? Chariots eat Axes in Warlords... :eek:

We are now in a great position to deny our neighbors access to strategic resources and to take them out early. If Mali or Carthage ever hooks up horses, we've done something terribly wrong.

Two ideas involving mining copper first:

Idea 1: Worker mines copper immediately and we continue to produce second worker. First worker moves to forest after finishing mine and chops forest. When second worker finishes via said chop, begin producing axe and move each worker to a different forest. Chop two forests. Axe 1 is produced on turn 44, and axe 2 is produced on turn 45. Animal Husbandry also finishes on turn 45, and both workers go work on the cows. Both axes head either north or south and sweep the area looking for an AI capital. They converge on the capital as stealthily as possible and attack.

Idea 2: Everything the same except after second worker is produced, build warrior with the overflow. Warrior is completed on turn 39. A few turns before that (if no AI warriors are near), one of our existing warriors goes searching for an AI capital and new warrior replaces him as the worker/improvement defender. Axe 1 is produced on Turn 44 and axe 2 is produced on turn 47. Both axes go to attack AI capital.

One more...

Idea 3: Gyathaar is just screwing with us and there are no AI cities on our continent. The scouts were placed on our continent to screw with us.

So, I am sitting at the beginning of turn 25 thinking about whether our newly built worker should mine the gold first or the copper first. I am leaning toward copper, but we will have to run some tests.

I think it's a good idea to take a short break now before you play the remaining turns. Could you post the save so that we can all take a look?

I like the hyper aggressive approach proposed by JT and I think we should run some tests as suggested to see when the AI gets archers. The Malinese should be our top priority since they start with Wheel and we have to get to them before they can hook up horses.

We can still build warriors after copper is hooked as long as we dont have hunting, since spearmen also replace warriors and spearmen require hunting.

I didn't know this. It means that we may want to postpone research of Hunting until we have the warriors we want. They are cheap units to build and they can be useful as MP's, fog busters and scouts.

I have played test game 1 up to around 800 BC. I saw the same AI behavior as Shannon has already described: When I parked a warrior in a forest or forest hill near their city they would keep their workers idle in the city but they would still send out settlers accompanied by two archers and they would also send out small stacks of archers to pillage and attack my cities. I had some trouble with a woodsman 2 warrior (2 movement points in forests!) - don't forget to check the promotions of approaching enemy warriors. If we can take out an enemy civ super early it will be great because the game gets a bit rough when you have met 4-5 civs and they all start sending small stacks of archers against your cities. One main problem is then to protect strategic resources like copper, iron and horses against pillaging.

Two ideas involving mining copper first:

Idea 1: Worker mines copper immediately and we continue to produce second worker. First worker moves to forest after finishing mine and chops forest. When second worker finishes via said chop, begin producing axe and move each worker to a different forest. Chop two forests. Axe 1 is produced on turn 44, and axe 2 is produced on turn 45. Animal Husbandry also finishes on turn 45, and both workers go work on the cows. Both axes head either north or south and sweep the area looking for an AI capital. They converge on the capital as stealthily as possible and attack.

Idea 2: Everything the same except after second worker is produced, build warrior with the overflow. Warrior is completed on turn 39. A few turns before that (if no AI warriors are near), one of our existing warriors goes searching for an AI capital and new warrior replaces him as the worker/improvement defender. Axe 1 is produced on Turn 44 and axe 2 is produced on turn 47. Both axes go to attack AI capital.


2 unpromoted axes are probably not enough if the AI has more than 1 archer so I guess everything depends on the expected window of opportunity. How much faster would we get the first axe if we postpone the 2nd worker?

I like the hyper aggressive approach proposed by JT and I think we should run some tests as suggested to see when the AI gets archers. The Malinese should be our top priority since they start with Wheel and we have to get to them before they can hook up horses.

If we can take out an enemy civ super early it will be great because the game gets a bit rough when you have met 4-5 civs and they all start sending small stacks of archers against your cities. One main problem is then to protect strategic resources like copper, iron and horses against pillaging.


Idea 1: Worker mines copper immediately and we continue to produce second worker. First worker moves to forest after finishing mine and chops forest. When second worker finishes via said chop, begin producing axe and move each worker to a different forest. Chop two forests. Axe 1 is produced on turn 44, and axe 2 is produced on turn 45. Animal Husbandry also finishes on turn 45, and both workers go work on the cows. Both axes head either north or south and sweep the area looking for an AI capital. They converge on the capital as stealthily as possible and attack.
Thinking about this over dinner I am growing to like it as well. :thumbsup:

And I think I prefer idea 1. :)

What better second city than an AI capital?
I have some concerns over this strategy. In playing test games, I had a difficult time supporting this. As the cities were so far apart, the roads were constantly being pillaged and it required Axes posted on hills to keep it cleared. Distance maintenance also took a bite out of research rate. That depends upon how far away the cities are, of course. And, lastly, what the map looks like for bonuses, etc. in the civ's capital. They are generally pretty good, but the city needs to carry itself financially.

I think it's a good idea to take a short break now before you play the remaining turns. Could you post the save so that we can all take a look?
Yes, good idea. It is probably best to upload the save through that submission system. You can get there by clicking here. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm.php)

EDIT -
2 unpromoted axes are probably not enough if the AI has more than 1 archer so I guess everything depends on the expected window of opportunity. How much faster would we get the first axe if we postpone the 2nd worker?
In several of the test games I tried, there were still Warriors guarding cities after I had Axes. Anyone else experience this? If we get them out by turn 45 or so, I think we may find some Warriors. :drool:

EDIT2 - The power graph on the submission page looks interesting. Almost as though some teams are chopping Axes around turn 30? :hammer:

ShannonCT . . . Well played, outstanding report.

Agree this is a critical juncture and we should pause to plot.

A few initial thoughts:

Our capital is potentially an extremely powerful city, and we should strive to grow it to that potential.

Don't think any AI will have chariots before archers, so that's not a big concern right now, since we shouldn't put all our eggs in the basket of an attack vs. archers anyway. Rush only works for me if we can get there in time to deal with only warrior defenders, and it's not at all clear to me that we can. Great if someone will test this, although a bit hard without knowing what resources the AI city site contains.

If either AI has built a scout (as opposed to hut pop or some "mystery" effect), then their capital must be quite close. If we decide to go for an axe rush, then we need to think about how soon it will be safe (or reasonably safe -- getting to size 2 would help -- we need to push this envelope) to get our warriors out exploring. If we can't find a target to capture by the turn our second axe chop comes in, then we probably should put that chop into a settler instead.

An unsuccessful axe rush will significantly delay our research and thus our ability to take over the world quickly.

Save from Turn 25 has been posted.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/Xteam_SG006_BC3250_01.CivWarlordsSave

Just played four test games, two as Carthage and two as Mali, using the start I was given on a random map. In all cases, I beelined Hunting and then Archery, required about 18 or 19 turns. The first Archer was produced at about turn 40 using the dangerous approach of Worker and then Archer. I think we can expect Archers to be present anytime after turn 45 or so? :)

Don't think any AI will have chariots before archers, so that's not a big concern right now, since we shouldn't put all our eggs in the basket of an attack vs. archers anyway. Rush only works for me if we can get there in time to deal with only warrior defenders, and it's not at all clear to me that we can. Great if someone will test this, although a bit hard without knowing what resources the AI city site contains.


There is some redundancy in the early axe plan. It isn't a complete loss if we come across an AI capital we can't capture, we can still park an axe in the vacinity and lock them down and deny worker improvements.

I ran a quick test game with huge fractal map, Prince setting with 10 Hannibal opponents. I artifically made contact with them all (DoW with AW setting) around turn 13 to mimic our current game. The first AI archer was built on turn 39. 6/10 of the AI's had an archer by turn 59. For us, if we have 2 axes at turn 45 we would need luck on our side to find a capital with warriors only by turn 60. The reward is large so it is worth testing/discussing further.


get our warriors out exploring


Exploration from one of our current warriors would be very valuable if we are thinking of early axes. In test games is there ever an instance when an enemy unit has entered your territory before turn 45? If we can convince each other we are safe with only one warrior at home then we should locate the enemy capital straight away.

Side note - One interesting thing I found is that before I declared war the AI cities were happily building workers or workboats with only 1 warrior defending. After I made contact/declared war they ALL switched to building a second warrior for defence.


If either AI has built a scout (as opposed to hut pop or some "mystery" effect),

I think there is no chance the AI have built those scouts, they must be from hut or world builder. I dread the situation ShannonCT mentioned where Gyaathar is messing with us and Mali/Carthage aren't actually our neighbours:mad: .

Very good start. I like the rush idea - might even find a worker in that capital. Production and units are probably more crucial than than the commerce. We should gain gold from capturing the AI capital.

It would be nice to know which one was closer to us to minimize the distance cost. The assumption would be that the Mali capital is closer because their scout reached us 3 turns earlier. But looking at the terrain that may not be the case. The Mali scout appeared from the north which currently appears to give him both moves, while the Cart scout came from the south (more likely south east based on map) which looks like he only used 1mp for a good portion of his moves.

In my test game, I built an archer after the rax and he had +90% city defense (75 from the 2 promos and 15 from culture). So we may want to get Hunting and Archery if we find the other AIs have chariots and/or axes. But I'd much rather play this game on the offensive.

I just finished with WorldBuilder. The save attached below has all the information that has been revealed thus far built into it, terrain resources, etc. As I am still learning how to properly use WorldBuilder, the save has the Carthaginians nearby, the distance set by the random generation of the save. However, instead of Mali, the save placed Cyrus where I think Mansa should have gone. Mali is across the map and I couldn't get it to work right when I moved Mansa.

The save:

Since this Warlords game is using the BTS dlls would that have modified the starting units or is that controlled thru a different part of the programming? In BTS, AIs start with an extra scout. Otherwise I'd say Gyathaar did some playing in the Worldbuilder.

Just for fun, I went into WorldBuilder again on each of the saves I created. I looked for the AI start locations and counted the tiles that were between them and us. The ratio is relatively constant at 14 by 7 tiles. I think those distances are relatively consistant with Scouts appearing at turn 10 and 13?

I would apply that in our case by looking 14 tiles east and 7 north or south, more or less, from our starting location. That's my guess on where the AI Capitals may be. :mischief:

Agree that those scouts are not built (hadn't thought it through).

Wondering if you were using AW in your test games?

The more I ponder this, the more cautious I become.

"I would apply that in our case by looking 14 tiles east and 7 north or south, more or less, from our starting location. That's my guess on where the AI Capitals may be." I'm reluctant to rush across this distance with axes, especially given the quality of our capital. We should have little difficulty disposing of the AI on our continent before they get Alpha, much less longbows.

Since we are not likely to capture an enemy capital quickly, we should not do anything to greatly delay settling a second city, perhaps near the unimproved gold.

Do agree that having an axe wandering around an AI city is likely to retard his advancement (and add to our knowledge).

2 unpromoted axes are probably not enough if the AI has more than 1 archer so I guess everything depends on the expected window of opportunity. How much faster would we get the first axe if we postpone the 2nd worker?

If we switch to an axe as soon as copper is mined, We can have an axe on Turn 38. I agree that if we rushed with 2 axes and found two archers in the AI capital, we would have to refrain from attacking and wasting two axes. If we found an archer and a warrior ... that might be worth attacking with one and checking the odds for the second one if the firs