SGOTM 14 - Phoenix Rising

I guess we will not be isolated and will be land connected with the strip of land. Thus if we want to promote WE+cats warfare we need

Writing, TW, masonry, hunting, myst, math, construction, HBR.

I have put it in the order I think we should go with techs (TW, mas, hun, mys should give enough time to pop GS for math). I have an idea after the turns that lead to BW to test out.

Basically it's about:
chop settler 1, worker 3, settler 2 in capital, then capital grows to size 5 on mix of archers and library, at size 5 employs 2 scientists (we should sync the growth and library to no waste much hammers).

city 2 grows to size 3 with wheat, gems and works PH, at size 3 it starts on settlers/workers, once we have hunting it can grow to size 4 to work wheat, deer, gems, PH.

We obviously want fish+ivory city spot, pigs+clams west spot (since it's extremely strong). We should want stone+gold in the east, making it nice 5 city empire.

but I guess those 3 city spots have precedence over stone+gold, which will be slowest up.

I would skip wonders. I am not feeling like we have 250 (Mids) or 150 (Oracle) hammers to spare.

well that's my input on the situation ;-)

Early war will probably be good this game, but it's too early to judge. We need to continue to explore and find the closest enemy (continue this Warrior west, send the next Warrior to spawnbust/scout North, then send a workboat south?). From there, if an enemy is close enough, it only seems natural to war to gain land/infrastructure which in turn will help us out in the main goal of the game (Killing the Wizard of Oz; requires lots of exploration and production).

Like I said though, too early to judge. We need to continue to explore and get that first Settler out. Still no site looks better than 1SW of the Gems, and it will more likely than not be in the same direction as an enemy - excellent for roads.

OK so atm it looks like we're going to have a wheel with nine spokes, each spoke leading to a civ. Key questions is what's in the middle? It could hold valuable resources. Then of course do we rex hard to the middle or take advantage of the beautiful terrain nearby.

My guess is that the middle will have less food but hold the horse and copper resources we need as well as the strategic advantage. I think it's going to be a tough choice. Especially since if we control the whole centre by closing borders with other civs we can probably cut them off from eachother completely till astro. If we get a city on another civ's spoke then we could potentially choke them off as well.

I think we caught a break here as other teams may not have explored south as early as we have.

Okay tested to 950bc with no Oracle. Got mids around 1000bc. 4 cities all connected by road. 2 libraries. Built gems city on plains hill. The border pop on capital arrives In time. Overall this gives about 63BPT compared to 43. It also allows a great light house strategy.

In terms of cap builds. W/worker/chop settler. Worker and settler leave. Worker stays to chop worker and both chop second settler. Works a treat as each new city gets a worker.

Overall perhaps skip Oracle?

I would go Oracle only if we pop construction... if we plan early war...

I saw in some of forum games something like 1400 BC constr date, but I think there was some double gold start involved.

it is important to road the strip towards AI's btw! we shouldn't forget this and adjust worker turns in the not so far future. less micro and hammer intensive then hire big navy.

nice touch with settling gem city on PH!!

that W/worker/settler means warrior, worker, settler? I think you should be more specific with builds... you seem to confuse me all the time.

4 cities except capital, meaning 5 city empire?

what is expected date of HBR and constr?

we seem to be on same table for next ~20 turns to me (2nd worker, chop settler 1, chop worker 3, chop settler 2)

V to explain my expansion plan. The W was a worker. 4 cities includes the capital. I have not planned out the 5th city yet. (Ivory)

Thoughts on skipping Oracle and construction:



My rex plan!



Overall doing both the above means 4 cities around size3-6 by 1000bc. With the option to try for GLH. My gut feeling is Oracle will delaying mids by 10-20 turns. We also have enough forest to chop mids once stones connected. We could also build it pre stone being hooked up.

@ V try the test game skipping Oracle.

I think I already did test completely without wonders or something ;-).

I will test tomorrow if you update the test map earliest construction, roading towards AI and how many WE's+cats I will have at 500 BC.

There is logistic issue with this... if the AI's are too far away, then we can get the army in place when they start to get longbows.

I am crossing fingers for AI in next 10 tiles max!

V I suspect the Ai will be much slower on LB. They will not all reach it overly quickly unless given free techs. The main issue is castles/pikemen when they arrive if we choose phants. They can be upgraded to curs.

Remember sea will always be quickest option for war. I did update test save for the western part of empire but as i can't confirm what is out there it is tough.

For now I think I should play till BW and pause. I think we are all agreed on this.

I could do that tonight in next 2-3 hours. Then we can test Oracle/GLH and mid strategies. I do need to eat first.

One thing I did note all the Ai had a size 3 city pretty early on this game. On test game most still had size 2 cities before we started last turnset.

Gumbolt said:

I could do that tonight in next 2-3 hours.

Click to expand...

gogogo

Hard to make war plans so early, we need to see where they are
If our Jumbos/Cats would have to go a very long distance and the AIs are spread out, it might not even be worth it.
A possible advantage of the Oracle, you get to choose the tech you want most later.
But usually it is less valuable with good land, Oracle shines with bad to average. Last sgotm it was island hopping, with much lower teching possibilities.

Okay turnset complete.

Went pretty much to plan. BW complete. second warrior guarding city 2 location.

First warrior is alive and has double movement in forest now. Needs to heal a bit. Do note it has a wolf 1-2 tiles north and is at 1.5 strength.

Found a copper/horse site on journey west. There is no copper near capital although we need to scout the marble area. Await border pop? A HA rush could be possible.

I met no AI and I could see no Ai on my travel. There is a lot of ice near our exploring warrior. Strangely also land below him too. The land also heads further north and west. The Ai must be somewhere!!

There is a barb lion hidden in fog below our capital too.

I will upload a few pics in a bit of the land.



More land west



Vranasm is up next!!

Now here is the interesting thing. If we build an exploring workboat from the gems site it map be trapped in a small area of the map no Ai can reach. If this is a wheel map then perhaps workboats are not the answer? Hmmmm tough call. I think Neil has thought through this map pretty well.

There is map that sets up very similar to this one. I think it may be the wheel map or hub. (Have to pat myself on the back for guessing this map after my turnset) Basically this map type always as a central area covered by tundra and ice. Spokes go from the center area to each major land mass with an AI, but each land mass connects to another landmass with a small strip of land (2 or 3 tiles wide). So something like:

AIxxxxxAIxxxxxPR
x.x.......x......x.x
x...x.....x....x...x
x.....x.ccc.x.....x
AIxxxxcccxxxxxAI
x.....x.ccc.x.....x
x...x.....x....x...x
x.x.......x......x.x
AIxxxxxAIxxxxxAI

x = spokes
c = center
. = water
AI = AI (duh)
PR = like you don't know

I've played this type of map type before. Our map looks a little odd though, but it is probably heavily modified.

Naval stuff will be very limited on this map due to access. However, there should be a small strip of water surrounding the enter map that would make naval surprise attacks possible. If sending a WB scout it should be built from the stone city on that side of our land. In my opinion, we should rexx out as fast as possible our little land mass, the SW/NW spoke, and center area and launch attacks in all directions.

however.....
Although the center of the map may be poor land, although you usually find seafood, it may be best on this map to settle toward the center area as it provides better/faster accessibility to the rest of the map for land units.

Anyway, I think I have a better idea on the map now to formulate a test map which I will work on in the next few days.

whats our plan for exploring to the north? I'm starting to wonder if a good or wicked witch lives up there. We clearly have plenty of time to settle to the south

Jaybone said:

whats our plan for exploring to the north? I'm starting to wonder if a good or wicked witch lives up there. We clearly have plenty of time to settle to the south

Click to expand...

I'm a little surprised that we have not met anyone. It this is the wheel map though, expect AI settlers eventually on the southern and northern spokes.

Here's are some images of the wheel map that I copied over from the War academy. 1st map is 6 players, second is 12, and third is 16, so our map is probably somewhere in between map 1 and map 2 and obviously modified to fit 8 AIs and the human.

Okay, so the ice is the middle part, we're in the North East corner, and all the AI are South and West?

GLH is epic on this map and needs to be prioritized.

Hmm if it is that map type, that would be awefully long ways for 1 movement troops?
And we also haven't met an AI yet, they must be a "bit" away
Not sure, when i compare my early rush/GLH games to Cur/Cav ones, the horses usually win faster.
In the end what matters is not when we kill the first AI(s), but the Wiz + all.

We do have horse now...

True, but late date for HAs till we get down there?
Was just thinking Phants/Cats would be rough, off to bed! ~~