LotR20 Wild War

Set up everything. Double- and triple-check to make sure I have everything set up right. Always War. Maze map. 3 wide is fine for this one, though different widths could be ultra-cool. We're Napeleon. Prince level. Etc. Start the game.

Here's what we got...


Clams. Probably the worst food resource, giving only +1 food. YUCK! And a lux resource we can't use until Calendar. I strongly debate moving, but I'm not sure where. Warrior one south reveals a little river, but nothing too exciting. I grumble but settle in place.

I start barracks (I want all our units to be experienced), as we don't have anything good to do with a worker. I also start Sailing as the first tech. Working water squares might be critical for commerce, even early on.

Warrior explores and gets 105 gold from a hut in 3880. He's still exploring (close to home) in 3720 when Fishing comes in. We go for Mining next. Still exploring in 3440 when both Mining and the barracks complete. Bronze Working and warrior planned.

In 3360, a bear in the north attacks our warrior. He was on a hill with jungle/forest. We won but will wait to heal before exploring further. 3360 sees the founding of Buddhism and Hinduism follows in 3280.

By 3240, our first barracks-improved warrior appears. He fortifies in Paris. Another warrior ordered. In 3080, Paris hits size 3, but I wait one more turn before starting a worker, to let the warrior finish.

In 2880, we pop another hut. Measly 37 gold. Why couldn't it have been Iron Working or something really useful?

We also find that up north, the land bends east and then quits. Our one starting non-barb front will be south. And we need to go south first, as that's where the copper is. But the scouting warrior down there (Combat II, fortified in jungle (+50%) with a bonus against barb animals) died to a bear. Not much else I could do with him.

After the worker, we'll need another 2-4 warriors and then a few settlers. After exploring more, I hate the location of Paris, but it's too late to change now. At least we can get copper with city #2. I'm working on moving towards Archery now, as some archers might be good, too, but that can be vetoed.

Here's the immediate south.


Roster:
Arathorn
Jaffa Tamarin -- UP NOW
Arizona_Steve -- on deck
Greebley
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

Arathorn

One thing I feel we should discuss is whether we want to search out another civilization to attack and if so then when.

I think the answer is that we would like to find one other civ if we can (not 2 or more) especially since we have copper. With us rushing for copper, an early war could really cripple an AI before he is ready.

Such a plan should wait for a few Axemen. Perhaps we could start exploring once we have the Copper hooked up as it may take time to find the enemy. At that point we will have Axmen that we can gain experience with rather than dying and we can also prevent pillaging.

Before we have the ability to build axmen, I don't think we should explore.

Aha, already! I should be able to play after work tomorrow.

How many turns should I do?

Jaffa will play 20. Arizona_Steve will play 15. Then 10 for everybody.

I think I've changed my mind on hunting and archery. With axemen, our need for archers won't be critical early. I'd switch off and work towards Pottery to get some cottages up and going relatively early. The earlier you can get cottages, the more they pay off. Another option would be Sailing for Lighthouse, which would make the lake and the clams 3 food sites. For the clams, that's just as good as a workboat (minus the health bonus).

Arathorn

0) 2800BC - warriors from Paris head south to deal with the barbarian bear.

Why is there a half-square of delta visible in the fog way to the south?



2) 2720BC - our warriors kill the bear! Cheer!

3) 2680BC - a hastily scrawled note from previous leader is discovered down the back of the sofa. Research belatedly swapped from hunting to pottery.

Paris: worker -> warrior.

4) 2640BC - workers ordered to build a farm on the dyes square. We might as well make best use of it until we can get a plantation there.

7) 2520BC - scouts from the Persian empire are spotted on the land to the east. Nasty non-monkeyish infidels. Clearly they must be destroyed. We are at war!



Paris: warrior -> warrior.

10) 2400BC - orders are given for a second farm (and forest chop) west of Paris.

11) 2360BC - pottery research complete, start on sailing.

Paris: warrior -> warrior.

12) 2320BC - Japanese forces spotted to the south.



13) 2280BC - warriors promoted (Woodsman I) and fortify in the forest.

Japanese forces move NE.

14) 2240BC - our warriors move NE.

Japanese move W into forest.

15) 2200BC - we have a second warrior group heading south to assist.

A new forest grows south of Paris!

Japanese move N into grassland. Aha!

16) 2160BC our second warrior group gets the Shock promotion (+25% vs melee) and attacks the Japanese. A momentous struggle ensues. Tiny sprites swing clubs all over the place!



We win, down to 0.6 of 2 strength.

Our other warrior group moves to protect the injured group, and spots barbarians further south.

IT: Paris: warrior -> settler.

Barbarians attack our warrior group (the ones with Woodsman I promotion, and in forest), and are defeated, but bring our group down to 0.0 of 2 strength.

17) 2120BC Injured warriors fortify in forest, and hope to be undisturbed until healed. Woodsman group gets the Medic I promotion.

IT: Cyrus adopts slavery civic.

20) 2000BC - workers start a forest chop, which can go on to become either farm or cottage at the discretion of the next leader.

lurker's comment: Does the team have any grand strategies for plans for thwarting war weariness? Do you implement all of the WW reducers (Jails, Mt. Rushmore, Police State)? Do you just keep cranking up the culture slider and make it all go away? Focus on getting many religions, building lots of temples, and declare Free Religion? Seems like an issue that is going to require consistency and diligence to overcome. Beeline for happiness increasers, or beeline for WW reducers, or neither?

Perhaps just kill everyone so quickly that it never matters.

Got it for tomorrow.

@Vol: I think we can fight limited wars on a narrow front and keep war weariness under control. It's mostly fighting outside your cultural borders that cause war weariness, as I understand it. Semi-defensive fronts except with one foe. Expanding at the "right" rate, whatever that may be (still TBD, I think) against one foe at a time will hopefully help. It's my first AW game, so I'm taking a bit of a wait-and-see attitude. But I'm not going to be afraid to hole up and NOT attack for an entire turnset, if it will help with weariness. The LotR17 game showed some things about ww, as we did have reductions in time. I think we can get some similar stuff this game, if we're careful about how/when/who we attack.

0.0 of 2 strength.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the display just always rounds strengths. Our warrior had 1 or 2 hps left, which means a strength of 0.2 or 0.4, which rounds to 0.0. Very silly, no? We were probably taking 14 points of damage and got hit 7 times. Extremely unlucky, but we did survive. That's two bad bouts of luck already in this game (I was a huge favorite against the bear, too). Hopefully, it's not an omen of things to come.

All-in-all, we need axes ASAP. That'll turn the odds way far in our favor.

BTW, when chopping, it's almost always better to chop and then improve. You never spend more turns but you get the chop hammers earlier.

Arathorn

One thing I recently learned: The AI will not always send units at you. However, if you drop off a unit and pillage, the AI will react by sending its armies at you.

Its like kicking a hornets next. We may be better off leaving some AI alone while we concentrate on another one. We can also pillage and then defend. When their attack peters out we go on the offensive. Given how strong defense is, this might work well.

Greebley said:

It's like kicking a hornets nest.

Click to expand...

Cool, eh?

(0) 2000BC:
Quickly check Paris. Not a lot to be done.
Main objective is to get a second city up and connect the copper.

IT:
We are the least advanced civilization.

(2) 1920BC:
A third warrior joins two others in the forest south of our capital. I'll leave him unpromoted until I see what is heading our way.

IT:
Settler completes. There's no indication as to what else to build, so I start on a second worker. He'll improve the capital while our current worker roads out to the copper.

(4) 1840BC:
Sailing comes in. I see no immediate use for any tech other than Iron Working, so I start that. A second city should reduce the research time substantially.

(5) 1800BC:
Orleans is founded on a hill next to the copper. It starts on a barracks.

(11) 1560BC:
Second worker completed at Paris. Some indecision as to what to build here. Warriors will be pretty much obsolete at this point with copper about to be connected. Work boats are vulnerable to pillaging, so I start a galley which will protect the work boats to come.
Our copper gets a mine. Road started.
Move our warrior group down one tile and find some wines available.

(13) 1480BC:
OK. Pick another forest to chop. I go for the one on the hill, which can then be mined for extra production.
Copper is connected to our cities.

(15) 1400BC:
Orleans completed a barracks last turn, starts an axeman.
Paris will grow next turn, which will bring it up to it's happy limit. The worker there is chopping the forest on a hill there, and a mine can be built afterwards to pump up production (and stagnate growth). A galley will allow clams to be connected via fishing boat for extra health.



LotR20 Wild War - 1400BC

Arathorn said:

Clams. Probably the worst food resource, giving only +1 food. YUCK!

Click to expand...

Are you being facetious?

ALL food resources only provide +1 food at the beginning (heck EVERY resource only provides +1 ANYTHING to start). You have to IMPROVE them to get more than that (and clams provide +2 with fishing boats which is the same as crabs and better than rice - the REAL worst food resource).

Req

Sirian said:

Cool, eh?

Click to expand...

Ya, I like. It certainly has intersesting ramifications for AW.

I got it. I will probably play tomorrow night.

I think I will work on getting some cottages up and running.

I would also kick out another settler or two, Greebley. We'll want to claim the north relatively soon. If not for the fact that the copper is exposed, I'd say Orleans would make a good frontline city (being on a hill and all). As it is, we NEED to keep that copper, so we'll probably need another city further south to be the lightning rod for aggressive AIs, just to protect the copper.

Research-wise, I think going for Metal Casting and Forges relatively soon will be key. We'll need a ton of production. As an Industrious civ, we get forges cheaply. Plus, we have gold in the north (and a bit east), which provides two happies with a forge instead of just one.

Roster:
Arathorn -- on deck
Jaffa Tamarin
Arizona_Steve
Greebley -- UP NOW
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

Arathorn

Thinking about it, I'd be inclined to add Animal Husbandry to the list of "essential" techs to see if we have horses. Fast units would be helpful.

Maze is one of those "interesting" maps that likes to fool the eye. You get very different flavors with the different widths, too. For instance, Widths 4 and 5 cannot cross the water with galleys. Widths 1 and 2 can. Width 1 means ships can cross through cities, too. Width 3 means galleys can cross where the borders extend in to the ocean.

With a Width 3 layout, I would be surprised if you only have to worry about "two fronts".


- Sirian

Sorry but I dont understand that comment :

Steve said:

A galley will allow clams to be connected via fishing boat for extra health.

Click to expand...

Can you enlighten me ?

Sure. We need the galleys to guard our fishing nets (work boats) from being pillaged by enemy ships. I could've phrased that better.

Preturn: No changes.

1320 AD: The forest chop gets us the Galley. Start on a work boat.
Go for shields over food as growing doesn't help us at all (max happiness).

1160 AD: Spot and instantly declare war on Alexander. I do like that feature of Civ4. You can't forget to declare war.

1120 AD: Get an Axman and a Workboat.

1080 AD: Go for Animal Husbandry next to find horses.

There is iron to the north. We can place a town to grab the cows, rice and iron.

1040 AD: Spot a Barb Town we could go for

1000 AD: Move the Axman and warriors next to the Barbarian town.

I accidentally hit enter so the year is 975BC. I moved no units however.

The two workers were going to both build roads - to the iron and to the Barbarian city if we want to keep it. It would mean that there is one less settler we need to produce, however, I am unsure how good the spot is. I wouldn't want to place the town on the floodplains. It could go where our stack is standing now assuming that is on the river.

Here is a picture of the barbarian camp. It is not far outside our borders.



I also made a dot map for the northern part. I see two towns.

For the gold I like the idea of planting the town right on the gold (unless this doesn't act like civ3 and we need a mine). That way it won't be pillaged and the town has better defense. It can also reach the cows and the single grasslands. Note that we cannot get irrigation up there until biology.

The other town, I chose on the river, but also gets the iron right away.



The two workers were going to both build roads - to the iron and to the Barbarian city if we want to keep it. It would mean that there is one less settler we need to produce, however, I am unsure how good the spot is. I wouldn't want to place the town on the floodplains. It could go where our stack is standing now assuming that is on the river.

Roster:
Arathorn -- UP NOW
Jaffa Tamarin -- on deck
Arizona_Steve
Greebley
Zed-F (skip until 12/26 or so)

I guess I'm the one to decide on the barb city. With this maze map, I tend to think cities "in the middle" are going to be of low value. They'll have 6 non-workable squares, not get trade route benefits, and not really even have any extra land squares to work. As much as I like saving settlers, I think razing is the best option. Other thoughts/opinions?

Planting a city on a resource does instantly connect it, yes. It does significantly cut down on the fhc of the improved tile, but it's a trade-off worth making occasionally. What I don't like about the north plan is that it wastes a TON of squares. While working every square every turn isn't quite as significant as in Civ3, it's still not a good idea to waste a large number of tiles. I think four cities belong up there. South of the rice (claims a fish, too, if memory serves), the tundra square 4 north of that city, west of the cows, and then one more in the far northeast (either the tundra hill or the grassland) makes more sense to me.

I don't think we need to be in a huge hurry to connect iron. Axes are very good general troops and swordsmen, while better, aren't critical. You need some source of metal, but it's rarely critical to have both hooked up immediately. I'd be willing to wait with the iron to get better city placements in the north.

I don't know if I'll have time/energy tonight, but I would like to hear others' thoughts on these issues.

Arathorn