ALC Game #23: America/Lincoln

I was going to say, you should put a warrior south to fogbust. A rampaging archer forces you to whip, and even worse, if a city pops up, you have to divert so many resources.

Also, I've found an early 2nd workboat is a huge drain on hammers. With charismatic it's not as much of an issue, but you already have corn, 2 hills, and a clam. Your economy is also really hurting from not having an early 2nd worker to speed everything up (the aforementioned 2 mines).

I haven't looked at the map thoroughly enough yet, but I'd consider getting up your 3rd city and setting up those 2 warrior fogbusters to prevent montezuma from expanding to your 3rd and 4th city sites. Also, without mines you or chopping you don't have enough production to axe rush anytime soon.

You can pull off an axe rush if you're willing to whip washington into extreme unhappiness. You'll need a granary though.
 
I think it's worth rushing out a bunch more axes and taking out HC, or at the very least, take his capitol. Monty is too far away to take them there, and grabbing a holy city and locking off the rest of the continent would be huge.

My guess is that he has a peak in his BFC because he moved his settler...
 
Three of the 4 civs you've met have been to the east. 5 civs ought to be all this continent has. I wouldn't have expected only one west of you. If there are more civs on your continent, they should be west of you.

If you do plan to attack Huanya, check how friendly he is with Monty. Attack HC and you may get Monty as well. Now Hatty is in the area, Hunting and spears would ensure you're not top of her list. Getting that southern horse (city 1E) hooked up for chariots will end the threat of barbarian axemen. A settler and a couple of workers whipped and chopped from Washington, whilst New York produces axemen and spearmen.

I'd prefer that you just churn out settlers to settle the stone and a backfill city, one to settle 2SW of the northern horse-7 hills, one forest to chop for a monument and clam, a city to close off your peninsula to barbarians and one to secure the northenr source of copper.

Researching IW not only enables the gems to be activated in New York, reveals iron and enables swordsmen, it means tht you cn found a city right up against Monty with rice. You'll want a city that uses all that green -10 cites spread out over quite an area might mean you rely on libraries running specialists and monasteries. A library, soon, in NY running 2 scientists leverages the philiosophical trait is important, I think.A WB for that third clam for Washington

Using the warrior to explore east is going to show you exactly how closely packed the 3 civs you've found there are. HC may even DoW you. You are the same size, after all.

It may be that you'll need the Inca wealth to support a REX and will have to gamble that the barbarians/Monty won't be able to do irreparable harm whilst you take Incaland.

Sharing the same religion as Hatty and Hammy should give you the time to take the west.
 
Hello, first post here.

I second to the Validator's advice not to axerush HC. If you wouldn't follow it, I strongly suggest to raze his second city, holy or not. Cuzco can break even with its gold, but this second city won't allow you to found any more cities for too long. Monty will box you.
If you don't rush HC, than you will need to expand to the north quickly. It makes IW a priority because jungles are there (and you also need to hook up your gems). My dotmap is attached (It is VERY untidy, sorry, but I really really suck at Paint).

1 - Will be your main commerce city early. Lategame, with watermills, workshopped plains, levee and Ironworks it will become a very strong production city.
2 - With farmed floolpains it can be a decent production city early (14 hummers at size 8). Later you may want to cottage flooplains and turn it into mediocre hybrid.
3 - It is a very good city, I think. Your second GPF early in the game (caste system is a priority on this map and with philosophical leader, I think), it may be turned into a good commerce city later - by cottaging everything, what is possible to cottage, excluding recources, but including plains hills. Tundra hills, plains and horses will give an acceptable production.
And you don't want to waste a settler on spices, I think - the land is very bad there.
4 - May be this one should be found really fast to block Monty (though it means, he will DoW very soon). It also may be moved 1E to lose silk and rice but to take banana.
The problem with this city is that it will be really bad early on. If I read the map correctly, there are even no forest nearby to chop monument (and no early food to whip it). And even after expansion you won't be able to hook up any resource but rice before calendar. And rice is a poor food resource, especially unirregated. Of course, with IW you may just cottage it, but possibly we should leave this land fot Monty to settle.
5. It should be 1S, of course, to hook up copper. I've put it there by mistake, don't know, how to remove. Good city short term, very worth settling.
You will want to squeeze one more city between 4 and 5 to hook up both bananas. It can become a good commerce city later. And I'm sure there must be some more resources to the north of Nubian. But it is on the hill and will be very hard to take.
(As for the east - land there doesn't worth expanding)
The main problem with the northen land is that it is (except city 5) rather useless short-term. It means that during inevitable early war with Monty northen cities will rather be a liability, than an asset. May be it would be wise to leave it to Monty to settle it and improve and then (immediately then!) take. But too much a gamble, I think, especially on Immortal.
 

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If people are worried about the maintenance for Tiwanaku, but don't want to raze a holy city... how about just taking the capital and leaving it at that? HC will still cease to be a power, you can come back and take Tiwanaku later, and he might even eke out the odd wonder or too beforehand.

I only suggest this because he's hemmed in, so there'd be no prospect of him re-expanding and becoming a problem later. Keeping him around (& weak) would also give Monty someone else to go after.
 
Tiwanaku has floodplains that can be cottaged, Cuzco has the gold. You won't have maintainance problems with those. And come on, you also have two gems, and already have a cottage in the capital, plus three clam tiles with two commerce each (ok, once you build the third boat). You'll live. I don't get why people are suddenly so negative about this game... :confused:
 
Feel The Rush!
oooooh!
Feel It In The Air!
Keep On Movin' It Forward ...

Good Luck! :D
 
I haven't thought this through, but what the hell...

Forget the rush, but don't skimp on units. Alternate between military builds and settlers/workers (using the whip as appropriate). Get IW asap, and bring the gems into play. Settle as many good sites as possible, spamming cottages everywhere except Washington (which will become your GP Farm) and Wineville (unit pump). After IW either (a) tech to Monarchy, or (b) go for techs you can trade for Monarchy. Watch your back.
 
I haven't thought this through, but what the hell...

Forget the rush, but don't skimp on units. Alternate between military builds and settlers/workers (using the whip as appropriate). Get IW asap, and bring the gems into play. Settle as many good sites as possible, spamming cottages everywhere except Washington (which will become your GP Farm) and Wineville (unit pump). After IW either (a) tech to Monarchy, or (b) go for techs you can trade for Monarchy. Watch your back.


Really, this seems to be the way to go.

But I'd beeline Alphabet and backfill on the way to Monarchy. Make sure to get good defenses ASAP... That'll keep Monty away for a little, if you can out-espionage him once that gets going.
 
Somewhat off-topic/jumping ahead but: Starting with the tile 1S of New York and going 1NW a few times you can build a canal through the continent.

I'm curious whether leaving a jungle area to the AI for improvement for later military take-over is a feasible strategy (i.e., does having lots of jungle slow the AI development down)? If so that makes Monty, while crazy, less of a real threat. Just settle a city near the jungle to house the defensive force to oppose Monty. The land and holy cities of HC should be the first target. I like going for Alphabet but how likely is it that we'll actually have anything to offer the Immortal AI this early? Early war is going to be tough but the payoff will be high. The map helps here since we are only going to have a city on each front the can readily be targeted by the AI and thus that needs stationary defenses. High-Risk/High-Reward. We also get no significant early economic help aside from happy which is best-used (in this case) via liberal use of the whip. Get some early XP for our charismatic units so when Monty attacks us we'll be somewhat close to his aggressive (combat I) units.
 
I also am with the 'keep HC alive' group. HC might not trade easily, but his favourite civic is hereditary rule. Combine that with shared religion and he'll start trading with you easily. He might have minimal land but with all the bonuses he gets and starting with a gold tile and a holy city that's going to make him a capable techer but not to the point where he'll blast ahead of everyone else like he usually does.

HC seems more of an equal at this stage and not a true threat to win the game (as he usually is) where as Hatty, Hammurabi and others could become sizeable threats, and I think its better to cripple/eliminate Monty and swallow him later. Then you can update on HC's status and decide everything again.
 
:agree: I agree 100% with Validator. Validator, why are you posting here and not making your own series? I'd love to check one out. You're very good at explaining things! :)

I agree - Validator, make your own series. Sisutil follows your advice every time, it's getting too predictable here. :mischief:
 
Really, this seems to be the way to go.

But I'd beeline Alphabet and backfill on the way to Monarchy. Make sure to get good defenses ASAP... That'll keep Monty away for a little, if you can out-espionage him once that gets going.
If we leave HC alive, monarchy will be useful to keep him happy, but it's not a high priority for a Cha leader who's already got access to gems and therefore a happy cap of 7-8 already.

On Immortal, the AIs also tend to get alphabet quicker than the human player. It's generally better to use aesthetics to back-fill, although you'll have to sink 1-2 turns of self-research into alphabet before the AI will part with it.

==========

The main reason to be concerned about leaving a cornered HC alive is that he'll have nothing to build apart from units and will tech quickly due to gold/financial. He's also 1 border pop away from having copper and will get that fairly quickly thanks to the terrace. Logic dictates that if he goes to war, it should be against Hatty (worst enemy), but unless you keep your power comparable to hers, he may decide America looks like a more juicy target. This means needing to juggle REX with defending the east from a potential Incan invasion and the west from an inevitable Aztec one.

For that alone, I'd still be inclined to eliminate HC early, buddy up to Hatty and Hammy (which generally isn't too hard) and focus all your energies towards dealing with Monty. If you can take out the Incans and Aztecs, the game's won.
 
All the civs so far encountered have early UU (all foot) and UBs. other civs with early UUs are India, Greece, Sumeria, Zulu, Maya, Carthage, Persia, Celtia, Mongolia, Vikings, Rome and possibly Khmer and Korea. I know who I'd like not to see.

A tech path of Hunting. Ironworking, Aesthetics, Priesthood (Oracle) opens up the prospect of the SP and Pacifism. Huanya might offer Meditation (SP) and Polytheism (Parthenon) for peace. It would not surprise me to find Monty has marble. Masonry is still unknown in America.

Once Monty has IW, his jaguars will come out of the jungle to attack America. Estimated time frame 20-40 turns. He'll beeline the capital. Raze it once you retake. You'll need a settler to refound Washington ISW and can leave its orignal site ruins- unless it turns out that Washington was founded on iron.
 
Build a bunch of axemen and take Cuzco. HCs capital position will suit you fine.
Then there's time and place for the American Empire to expand to the west - history repeats itself ;)
 
I suggest to let HC enter wonder-mode and deal with Monty first. But even before that go for barb cities as this trains military (excellent with charismatic) saves Settlers and gives cash. Then when you decide HC is ripe (maybe after he completes Pyramids for you, he has stone nearby) go pick him.
 
I agree - Validator, make your own series. Sisutil follows your advice every time, it's getting too predictable here. :mischief:

I never noticed but a lot of the time, yeah Sisutil does listen to Validator's well thought out points. I'd be interested to see Validator's own series :).

Perhaps Validator could cut Sisutil's work in half, I don't honestly see Sisutil getting through it all before civ 5 but what do I know :lol: and who's to say Sisutil won't continue doing this even when civ 5 is released.
 
Round 3: 1675 BC to 275 BC (62 turns), Part 1

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
- Abraham Lincoln
I decided to persevere with our original decision to go after Huayna Capac. His land and cities are just too good to pass up, especially if I can generate a Great Prophet or two, which Philosophical should make relatively easy. He's the closest target nearby so his cities' maintenance won't be crippling. Besides, both cities are prime for cottages or running specialists, rather than being marginal, so they'll pay for themselves before too long.

And experience has proven to me that the Incan is an opponent who's always worth attacking, if it's possible. I'm also looking upon him they way I often look upon barbarians and their cities: as XP farms. This round convinced me that war with Montezuma is, as usual, something that is inevitable and therefore it would be good to have a horde of promoted units ready when than conflict inevitably arises.

And after everyone saying how I always do what Validator tells me to, I was feeling contrary. :p So there.

To that end, I decided to postpone Alphabet for a while and go after a couple of military techs, starting with Hunting for Spearmen.



In addition, it would be nice to have Scouts available, as my military units are going to be tied up for a while and there is a substantial amount of land to be scouted.

Hunting didn't take long.



In the meantime, I was whipping and chopping away. I whipped another Worker almost immediately in NY and whipped several Axes out of both my cities. Lincoln is probably turning over in his grave, but it's the only way to get a good-sized army built this early.

As I mentioned, I look upon barbarians as XP huts.



This is why I usually don't build the Great Wall.

The power rankings were as to be expected, but as you'll see, this changed by the end of the round.



Hatshepsut came by with a demand that fit right in with my plans, so I acceded:



And sure enough, there are other civs around.



I think Gilgamesh might be further east of Hammurabi, but at this point, of course, I can't be sure. And he wasn't the only other leader I met this round, as you'll see.

Meanwhile, I had a substantial stack of 8 Axemen on Incan borders, so it was time to declare war:



You can see that Huayna manged to get a third city plunked down next to the stone. He got beaten to that eastern copper by Hatty--so much the better for me.

Having this city here wasn't such a bad thing. Because of the way the map was set up, I think it provided me with a feint. Because my units moved next to it as part of the declaration of war, Huayna probably calculated that I would be attacking that city. In fact, I was using it as a pass-through point to get to the capital--specifically, to the forested hill 1S of Cuzco. If I'd marched from a location due west, I would have had four turns of travelling to do, because the closest tiles were all across a river from Cuzco. This way, I was able to fake Huayna out, then march three tiles to the capital.

A complication arose, however. On the very next turn, Montezuma declared war on me!



I think Huayna may have bribed him, because, much to my surprise, Monty did not show up suddenly the way he usually does, with an immense early-era stack. His war effort was, in fact, remarkably pathetic, which is why I didn't turn my stack around and run home.

My stack arrived at Cuzco and found it poorly defended. Hence, as I said, I think the map and location of Huayna's cities provided me with that feint opportunity, and I think it worked.



I attacked with my first few Axemen and, despite the flat terrain of the capital, I thoroughly expected them to die--which they did.



I lost three Axes in quick succession. But they did their job, weakening the defenders so their surviving compatriots had much better odds and weaker opposition to face.





Despite the mountain in the fat cross, Cuzco will be an excellent city, what with the gold, several riverside tiles, and adequate food from the clams. It's not the best capital I've ever captured, but it's pretty good. Should it be cottaged or farmed?

I finished my next tech:



And I continue to benefit from an unusually kind map generator this time around; iron appeared within Washington's fat cross, on the plains hill 2S1W of the capital--a hill which already had a mine. So I was able to start building Swordsmen immediately.

I was also able to start raising the happy cap, courtesy of my friendly neighbourhood Egyptian:



Isn't she sweet? I might let her live.

As I said, I think Monty must have been bribed into war, because he didn't seem ready for it. I kept expecting an Aztec stack to appear, but it never did. So I settled for picking off a few stray units like this Jaguar, stupidly standing around on flat terrain right next to a shock Axe. :rolleyes:



Oh, well, I think we can all agree that as annoying as he is, Monty is always at least good for a few XPs. Thanks to Charismatic's reduced promotion level, this Axe earned Combat II, so I moved him north to help protect the new city I was about to found.

Before I did that, however, I first met another nearby civ.



Ah, Zara Yaqob, my old nemesis from the Saladin game... we meet again!

At least this time he's not nearby so his Creative border-popping can annoy me. (I have Hatty to fulfil that role in this game.) I'm pretty sure that Zara is, in fact, on another land mass separated by water from mine, probably to Monty's west and/or north. My trade route income is highest with Zara, which leads me to this conclusion, intercontinental trade routes always being the more lucrative ones.

Montezume continued to be stupid. He sent two Archers and a Settler (!) out into an area where I had two Axemen and a Spear on the way, since I planned to settle it myself.



And as if that wasn't idiotic enough, on the next turn he moved the entire stack, Settler included, away from the 25% defensive bonus (plus another 25% for each Archer) the hill provided down onto flat terrain, right in between my two Axemen.

Monty, you do remember that you declared war on me, don't you?



Thanks for the free Worker, moron. I think we can consider this proof of what we already knew, that the AI does not, indeed, get smarter as you move up the difficulty levels.

To be continued...
 
Round 3: 1675 BC to 275 BC (62 turns), Part 2

After losing a few units and a Settler, the fight seemed to go out of Monty.



Which convinced me even more that he was bribed into war with me rather than it being his own idea. He never did show up with anything resembling a stack of doom. I think he's set his sights on the barb cities that have popped up to our north for the time being.

And to help shore up relations, the dominant religion on the continent spread to New York and I adopted it immediately as my state creed.



I also founded my fourth city, next to the river and the horses. Since Monty already had a city claiming the sugar, it justified this change to my original dot map even more.



Boston will be a commerce site and the capital may be moved there. The Kennedys would be pleased, no doubt. ;)

I had my Woodsman II Warrior return to American territory and upgraded him:



I hope to get him to Woodsy III before too long.

I sent my diminished stack over to Tiwanaku, but the opposition there was going to be too substantial for me to consider attacking.



I settled for killing a couple of units Huayna had stupidly sent milling about nearby (really, what is up with the AI doing that?). I then sent the stack back to Cuzco to await the arrival of several Swordsmen.

Speaking of whom, I continued to use the barbs as XP granters for my units.



The barbs have shown up earlier, but they also settled down into cities earlier. Maybe it's a combination of the map and having copper early, but the barbarians haven't been as troublesome as I've seen them be in other games.

Monty came by to make a demand that I could not give in to.



Thanks to the shared religion, Hatshepsut is currently my best ally. By the end of the round, she was also trading not one, but two :) resources to me. And as I said, I believe war with Monty is inevitable. In his defense, geography is forcing him to it. He simply has no other target for his usual wrath. If the map was different, I would have considered making him a pet dog, but it isn't, so he has to die. I'm kind of hoping I can hold him off until Catapults are available, but I'm not going to rely on it.

As many of you predicted, several of the Immortal-level AI leaders beat me to Alphabet. I decided to make the best of it.



By the end of the round, Hatty had no iron, an interesting development. If she doesn't get any, I don't think she'll be a substantial threat, especially with the shared religion bonus I'm getting with her. I will get a close borders penalty before too long, but I think I can keep her at Pleased if not Friendly.

As I said, I was whipping a lot this round. Once I had my army mostly built, I started whipping infrastructure.



This was just about perfect for overflow--you get about 46 hammers per pop point on Epic speed, IIRC, without modifiers like OR and forges. This whip was done with about 48 hammers left to go in the build, so almost all of the overflow went to the next one. I was micromanaging heavily, checking each city on every turn to see when the :mad: from whipping lifted and even shifting tile assignments to ensure the most beneficial overflows would occur. Others may have been able to micromanage it down to an extra hammer or two, but this was good enough for me.

As I mentioned before, the power ratings were substantially different by the end of the round.



Though as you can see, my economy was suffering from the rising expense of all those units. This is why you can see New York building a library--I realized I had to get the specialist economy off the ground soon, or I'd be left in the tech race dirt once the war was done.

With eight Swordsmen and several Axes to boot, I was now ready to attack Tiwanaku.



As expected, I lost my first three Swordsmen (all fresh units with City Raider I) to weaken the defending Archers, but then all my remaining units won their battles. I finished the fight with the lone Chariot so I could give it Medic I, ready to be paired with my first Great General and become my MASH unit.



On the last turn of the round, I finished researching Alphabet.



The bad news: because I researched Hunting and Iron Working first, almost everyone else has Alphabet, so I can't really use it to backfill techs. However, there are other options open to me.

Monty is lagging a bit in techs--not behind me, as you can see, but behind everyone else. So he will make the following trade:



I haven't done it yet, I wanted to hear your thoughts first. I may earn a fair-and-forthright trade relations boost with him, which may also help stave off war until I'm ready. And Math would be very nice to have, especially as it leads to Construction and Catapults.

Meanwhile, Huyana is down to one city, and will offer the following in exchange for peace:



I am very tempted to take him up on it. No one seems to like him except Monty, so I could always declare war in a few turns and finish him off. Or I could just leave him alone to wallow in mediocrity for the rest of the game; I would imagine he'll become someone's vassal before too long.

Hatty already has currency, so I hit her up for some cash.



Yeah, I'm kind of the deadbeat boyfriend in this relationship. Thanks, babe, you know I'm good for it. ;) Love ya. No, really. Come on, you're the only woman on the map, who else would I want be with?

What? WHAT? Did I say something wrong? Look, is this about Isabella? 'Cause that thing between me and her, back in the Mansa game? That's so over and done... Oh, no, you're not going to lock yourself in the bathroom again, are you...?

Sheesh. Women.

Anyway, that's it for the round. The save is below. A state-of-the-world post will follow.
 

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23 turns to the Aztec DoW. Don't worry. That stack he usually sends will come.

Gilgamesh and Ethiopia are the next two, only one has an early UU. Could be worse, 20 praetorians bearing down on you.

You'd better have another half dozen axes ready to roll with a spear or two or you are not going to take HC's stone city and the second Incan Holy City. The five you have might just take city number three and hold Cuzco against counter-attack. You went with swords instead. As Monty has HBR a few spearmen would be prudent.

I hope you're going to come out of alphabet in a turn and go after Aesthetics. Is there a chance of any tech trades with one or more of the 4 civs you aren't currenlty at war with?

Equally, why didn't you build a scout and send him to scout out Monty's land duringthe peace so that you'd have some idea of just how powerful he is?

I'm curious to know why your warding western axemen aren't on hills. The extra visibility would help spot Monty coming.

Okay so you postred part two of the round. You're going to kill both Huayna and Monty so take the techs. You know that Monty will attack ou even if pleased. Monty's had 30 turns to prepare. 10 more whilst you're peace with HC and then the DoW.

In the time it took you to research Alphabet, you could have had aesthetics and maybe drama and traded for techs. Doing it the way you have will give you a shot at the SP.

You're short of money, wait til Tiwanaka comes out of revolt and pillage those flood plain towns and farm them instead. Get a granary in there and library running specialists and start whipping workers and settlers. New York has a hill that has no mine. It is supposed to be producing units.

At the rate you're going you're not going to get the southern city founded before Monty beats you to it. A scout could have explored Mony's land duringthe long peace. You still have little idea what Monty has. He has got the perfect launch pad for attacking your capital.
 
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