MPSG2 - Hittites Ancient World Conquest

Civ: Hittites
Map: Middle East
Difficulty: Emperor

Opponents:
Egypt
Greece
Babylon
Persia
Arabia
Sumeria
Byzantines

Must win by conquest.

Roster:
MeteorPunch
Hawklord
Mad-Bax
Lullaby

I would personally like to go last. We begin close to the Byzantines, and I'd prefer some pros start off.

Starting Pic:

I'd be in. But I'm neither experienced at Emperor level nor at the ancient world scenario.

Lullaby said:

I'd be in. But I'm neither experienced at Emperor level nor at the ancient world scenario.

Click to expand...

This is based on a custom map, not the Conquest scenario - they are very similar though . I'll add you to the roster.

Looks like a pretty good start. I'll give it a go too.

Hawklord said:

Looks like a pretty good start. I'll give it a go too.

Click to expand...

Cool. We need 1-2 more. We can start with 1 more but there's still 5 max. I'm going last. If anyone wants to go first please request.

Is the starting player going for 20 turns and the rest 10 as per usual. Cos' nothing usually happens in the first 10 turns anyway? I'll don't mind starting, unless anyone is adamant that they the privelage.
p.s. I have won at Emperor level, it's the ones after that I find more difficult. You need to get a good start at emperor and keep an eye on the trading if your going to keep up.

Hawklord said:

Is the starting player going for 20 turns and the rest 10 as per usual. Cos' nothing usually happens in the first 10 turns anyway? I'll don't mind starting, unless anyone is adamant that they the privelage.

Click to expand...

Nice, a volunteer. We'll go by the standard 20,10,10 format.

Here is the save. Keep in mind Conquest is our victory condition. You may start whenever you want, but the roster isn't complete. We can strategize some more after the first play I imagine. Hopefully we can get a fourth or fifth player soon.

Save: (removed)

Damn I spelled privilege wrong and now you have quoted it so I can't sneak in and edit it before anyone notices.

Hawklord said:

Damn I spelled privilege wrong and now you have quoted it so I can't sneak in and edit it before anyone notices.

Click to expand...

Haha, people will mock you in the public square!!

Turn 1 4000BC
Scout spots wheat tile. Settler moves 1 SW to bring Wheat tile within range.
Turn 2 3950BC
Hattusas founded on river.
Turn 3 3900BC
Bronze working undertaken
Turn 4 3850BC
Discovered the Byzantines to the North West. They don't want to trade. They have a bigger army than us already.
Turn 5 3800BC
Scout heads of South.
Turn 6 3750BC
Warrior built. Changed to another scout. Warrior fortified in Hattusas. The Byzantines are very close.
Turn 7 3700BC
Lots of mountains to the south west.
Turn 8 3650BC
More hills and mountains. But dye found on coast and wine on an offshore island.
Turn 9 3600BC
More dyes inland
Turn 10 3550BC
Scout produced changed to granary. Scout off to north east.
Turn 11 3500BC
Lake or sea to the south of Hattusas
Turn 12 3450BC
Definately a lake to the south. Good fresh water.
Turn 13 3400BC
More dyes to the east on the coast.
Turn 14 3350BC
It looks like we may have trouble with the Byzantines soon as they will be expanding into the same area as us to our West.
Turn 15 3300BC
Maybe we should hedge them in if we can.
Turn 16 3520BC
Turn 17 3200BC
There are some cows and rivers to the south east that would be good setling country.
Turn 18 3150BC
Definateley limited space to the north.
Turn 19 3100BC
The Byzantines are ahead of us. Traded Ceremonial burrial for Pottery and 16 gold. They won't trade anything else other than BW which we nearly have ourselves.
Turn 20 3050BC
Byzantine settler heading our way. They are going to settle in our prime area. Byzantines must be a number 1 target when we are strong enough.

OK, We will have a granary in about 2 turns with the wheat and cow worked we should be able to get some sort of a warrior settler factory going. We have never been big enough to grow a settler yet, so the granary is a must if we are going to push out settlers. I have marked possible sites on the map. I think we should try and seal of the land to Byzantines if we can by settling that way first (white dots) the red dots are where there are some good sites that will help seal of the Byzantines. I don't suppose we will be able to contain them though. There are some good places to the east with rivers and cows and stuff. No signs of anybody else yet.
There was no signs of any goody huts anywhere. It looks like there are none to be had or else I would have found them by now. This is a major dissadvantage to us as an expansionist civ as we lose much of the advantage of being expansionist.
Did you have no barbs selected? I think that gets rid of goody huts too, but I'm not sure.

Save is here. It is C3C with patch.

This is a custom map and there *should* be good huts, but maybe not . Cutting off the Byzantines might be a good idea - they will be a strong rival. The red dots you put were way too far away. We need to build up our core+distant cities that have strategic resources. Were you going for dyes with one of those red dot cities, because we are already close to dyes in Hattusus. Lulluby is up next. I'll go after Lullaby if we don't have a fourth player by then.

Red dots. There is a cow next to one and dyes next to the other. There are no other resources that I can see (as yet) next to us. There is a wine on a little island of the coast to the west. (not shown on the map) but nobody can get to it without galleys. I think the Byzantines will start settling our lands further. If we can block them by settling across to the west it might help or it may make them attack us before we are ready
There are a lot of mountains around our starting spot so the land is not good for growing settlers, the next city should have been where the Byzantines have pinched
Maybe the lake and coastal sites will allow us to grow OK. In the longer term there are some good places to the south east. It's up to the next player but the core area is not the best for quick growth. It will be good for productive cities with lots of shields about, but not too good for population growth.
More of a challenge this way

I like how you put the granary in hattusus - it can be our single massive sttler factory. I still disagree with those red dots. I didn't see the cow, but the corruption will take away any gains at that distance. I think we should build close and expand out until we see a horse or Iron, some quality stuff .

If we want to block in the Byzantines we need to settle Westward. If you concentrate on the core you will not be able to block them in. Probably this is a moot point as they will be crowding us out before we get anywhere near those red dots. They would probably attack us anyway if we managed to block them in, unless thay have land west of them that we can't see. They were just a suggestion as to where some decent city sites were situated. We don't have many really good sites close in to us for growth. Still if we can get settlers pumped out of the capitol and troops out of some high shield cities close to the capitol. Maybe we can let the Byzantines build cities and take them over later

Hawklord said:

Maybe we can let the Byzantines build cities and take them over later

Click to expand...

Good plan!

Red dots are definitely too far away to settle early. White dots are ok but not ideal. I will post a dot map for discussion before doing my turns. At this stage of the game decisions should be made on sort of a democratic basis.

We should settle at least two or three productive city sites and get some military production running. Settling west is obvious, but should get the Byzantines angry.

Another point: as expansionist and commercial we start with the all important pottery and with alphabet, the most valuable trading tech as well as the starting tech for the philo slingshot. research on BW was in three ways not the optimal choice. First, as our scouts are supposed to pop goody huts (which didn't happen) you usually research the cheapest tech around if you don't have a plan to research a special tech (like philo for example). Goody huts that pop a tech will alway pop the cheapest tech that we don't actually research ourselves. So a goody hut would have popped CB, while it would pop BW if we researched CB ourselves. Second, with alphabet as starting tech you have a really good chance to reach philo first to get a free tech even if you go for writing on min. Third, the wheel would have given us access to our UU and horses, which we need for our UU.

I don't like the 3MC too much, it is an all in one unit, fast, with extra att and def, but imho too expensive If we are going to use it, we should build it early.

BTW, the game goal is conquest. Is this meant to be as early as possible? Or do we want to build a strong infrastructure and culture too?

Unfortunately, there seems to be less goodie huts on this map than a "real" map, so we will just have to make do . For cities, as stated before, I like building out from a core. This seems to be a good option as we can surround Hattusus with 6 good cities. There are lots of hills and plains though, so cities should be made with irrigating plains in mind.

Conquest is however we can get it done . We are very close to 2 powerful civs - Byzantine and Greece, the other civs are far to the south. Right now, I think we should build defence (Swords & Spears) and start expanding. Once we have a few cities, reevaluate whether we can take on the Byzantines. Greece we probably won't be able to eliminate in the Ancient Age due to their Hoplites.

I agree that the white dots are not ideal but I was looking at creating a ring as there are no really ideal spots around us. The red dots were just to show the nearest decent areas for city building that I had found to the West.
I found no goody huts at all, that's why I wondered if there were any. I would have expected to find some in the area explored, nobody else has been there to pop them, so where are they?
I don't think I found any horses anywhere near us, so we will have a problem building the UU unless we can trade for them. I think horses show on the map straight away (or do you need the wheel?). I hadn't thought about the UU, in fact I haven't played the Hittites so wasn't aware of it.