King of the World #2: Frederick

Quornix said:

1SE (since you took the free move to the west). Copper is in the small square there, so you can make Rome your second city. You start with mining, so go Worker/Worker/Axeman.

I just checked the map, and I think you'll need a road to use the copper, so tech Wheel/BW and road up your resources and battle path before picking up the copper. You will want to use the Mine command rather than chopping then mining the copper -- the chopped hammers can then go to an axe rather than something else.

Perhaps Worker/Worker/Barracks/Axeman for your build order.

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What the heck!!! How do YOU know where copper is??????

Cheers.

manu-fan said:

What the heck!!! How do YOU know where copper is??????

Cheers.

Click to expand...

I've played on Earth before? Knowledge of the map is one of the benefits of playing on the Earth map. Last game, we knew the Aztecs wouldn't have any access to metals, and that the Americans would likely only have Iron, (copper was up in New England/Canada) so we went with a fast Jaguar rush.

I'll go back and spoiler it, though. Neal didn't seem to care either way.

EDIT: Although you might want to do the same in your quote of me.

You guys are jerks Yeah, it's a little ridiculous pretending not to know what we saw clear as day in the previous game. If someone takes offense at seeing the EARTH map spoiled, they're kind of missing the point. So say what you will.

edit: Oh, I should be playing the first round tonight.

In this round, we took a bit of a short-term disadvantage for a long-term advantage.

First off, since we're no longer going to pretend that we don't know what the map looks like, I took back that scout move and sent him west. It's our only way to nab that hut in Denmark. My apologies to the purists out there.

We founded Berlin in the consensus site to the south:



As you can see, we started on a warrior (to grow the city) and Bronze Working (for obvious reasons).

Our scout did indeed beat ol' Louis to the hut:



As you can see, the French warrior is two spaces away (two spaces we wouldn't have had with the original scout move). We received a little bit of gold. Nothing special, but I'll take it. It's better than a map.

We then sent that scout rocketing into the icy north and, somehow, beat the Russkies to a hut in Sweden:



As you can see from the screenshot, yes, we went Settler over Worker for the second build. Unfortunately, if you go Worker first, it's almost impossible not to get beaten to your second city site. I don't like it (it results in an awful lot of raw tiles being worked), but I don't see an easy alternative.

That hut was a gem:



I'll take free Agriculture any day.

We then sent the scout east, to meet as many people as possible before being eaten by a bear (a pretty grim job description, I'll be the first to admit). He won a couple of fights against wolves, taking Combat I in the hopes of maybe seeing service as a medic. Then, improbably, he found this east of Moscow:



Yowza! Getting three huts as a Eurasian civ is quite a coup on this map!

What was in that hut, you ask?



The newly christened Dr. Scout beelined back home. He was now far too valuable to risk in the dark woods of eastern Europe.

Berlin completed its settler and immediately started on the long-delayed worker. The settler immediately founded city #2:



After a couple of turns, Berlin whipped its worker to completion. I want to get a barracks completed before starting on axes, and Berlin's back down to a single pop, so I started the worker on farming the wheat before mining the copper. Maybe a mistake, maybe not. Hamburg started on a Warrior, both for growth and to give it that all-important early protection (I trust Cathy about as far as I can throw her- even a single club guy is better than nothing).

So here's the map as far as we know it in 2600 B.C.:



We're going to be a little late to the rush party, but not horribly so. Worse comes to worst, we can always crush Caesar's mine first if he's got his Iron hooked up. At this point, how many Axes do you all think we'll need? 5? 10?

Oh, and the save (I can post saves again! At least until they start getting huge):

5 axes to get it going while continuously pumping out more via chops and whips. quick striking is of the essence. I can't believe that not only does louis have masonry, but he's already managed to build 2 quarries in his spare time!! Oh, and chop the forest on that copper to rush the barracks (i'm sure you were going to anyway)

Well, this being Monarch, I do believe the AIs start with a worker. And you know how much Louis loves his wonders, so it makes sense that Masonry would be a priority for him.

Well, lookey there. You have copper

Sorry about that. I forgot this was an earth map.

Axe Rush all the way!

Cheers.

I'd say 6 or 7 axes and see if you cann't preposition to steal a worker quickly.

Started an 18 civ monty game yesterday after reading some of the post. Hadn't played vanilla in so long I'd forgotten about the map.

Who to hit first? France

King of the Castle Hayne

I just replayed freddy on earth just to get some insight for this game. You want to axe rush ASAP, with your initial 5-6 axes you can take out france and spain easily, a few more and you have Rome and greece, and a few galleys and you've got England. BetterAI fixes this though, annoying as fast landgrabs early on are key to all of my tactics

After seeing that you built a settler, rather than going straight for the axe rush, I decided to play my own. I finished my first CR axe at ~2450 BC, and by ~2000 [EDIT: 1650, actually. I just exited the game to install BTS and wanted to double check], I had wiped out the Romans, and moved in on Greece. And my scout got a map rolleyes from the first hut, and eaten by something or other before reaching the second.

Definitely try to take out Caeser before he gets praets! He had slavery up before I'd finished BW myself (wheel-BW-AH, worker/barracks/axes), so you may not have much time. And you still need the wheel to connect the copper, for both cities. It's on the wrong river, I think. Do you need a road for adjacent resources? I always assumed so, but wasn't sure.

Don't chop the forest over the copper. Mine it directly, and any overflow from the barracks can go into a axe, since you'll have copper when the chop hits.

6 axes should be fine for Rome, but the second city he'll found on the hill on Italy's toe could be rough going if you lose a few taking it.

I actually think Louis is better to pound into dirt first so you can mitigate London's culture-push on Paris - then Isabella - then Rome. So what if he has Praet's at that point? Axes plus axes plus axes (and maybe some axes) being cranked out by three capital cities and two settled cities *better* be able to lay the slapdown on some praetorians.

Remember that pre-catapult, the best weapon against a praetorian is multiple axemen, especially if you plan your promotions for a few +25% vs. melee axemen when you tank Isabella.

Either way, though, you should end up with Paris, Madrid, and Rome all pre-construction if you play your cards right, so I don't suppose it really matters.

In my game I had a Scout get picked up by Louis' cultural borders and spit out the other side between Spain and Rome. It was funny.

I can see why Germany and Italy seem to team up a lot IRL. They don't have access to one another due to the Alps but are able to coordinate against a third party well.

You should've built on copper so u can slave/chop rush axe army incredibly fast before europe has archers, on my earth game i just finished same settings as yours for my german domination win, i took paris madrid and athens with axes and waited for sword and cats for rome and russia (just make sure u camp or kill rome asap so he doesnt get prae's). you are best off running a specialist economy as a domination victory requires constant conquering/colonizing of new land so i would prioritize pyramids after the rush.

For long term you want to prioritize military units with speed (knights cavalry and panzers) taking the world with macemen rifles cannons and infantry is just way to time consuming. In my domination victory i had all of europe and russia by knights and had all of egypt and mid east with cavalry. Asia and africa got to suffer a stack of 50+ panzers.

In this round, I think the faults in my early gambit are revealed.

In the early round, we learned two very important things:



First, France has founded a Denmark city that we were going to want anyway. So that's a good thing.

Secondly, Caesar now possesses the secret of Bronze Working. That is not.

Nevertheless, the rush must go on. Julie doesn't have copper, so that just puts us on the clock for his research of Iron Working.

In 2360, we sent Dr. Scout down to peek across the borders, and...



Lovely. Two archers. Easy pickings, assuming we can get our axemen ready in time.

I think it took too long. Getting the copper hooked up, followed by 3 or so turns per axe, resulted in our forces finally being ready in 1120 B.C.:



I declared war and.... surprise!



Rome has Iron hooked up. Thankfully, it looks like it was just hooked up. The problem is, Rome is now staffed with five CGI bowmen and a spear. Behind a wall. Our eight axemen might be enough to break that city with a litle luck, but probably not. Especially since Rome will probably start rushing units now that hostilities have been initiated.

Honestly, if this were an offline game, this is where I'd learn from my mistakes and start over. I think the second city was a mistake. And I think that for a true rush we should've settled on the copper. As you could see, had we been able to field a force 1000 years earlier, Rome would have been woefully unprepared. Now it's bristling with defenses. We could've used Rome as city #2.

But, this is an online game, and I have the benefit of the hive mind. Can any of you see a way out of this? Here's the save:

Exactly how many Archers does Caeser have fortified in Rome? Does he have any other Praetorians than the one fortified on the hill? What promotions do they all have?

I had a similar experience. I went for Rome with like 6 Axes vs his 2 Archers. Declare War, and all of the sudden Rome is garrisoned with massive numbers of troops. This is with Vanilla, Better AI, and the Medieval Weapons mod.

If that Preat is the only one, march straigth to Rome. I doubt that it will reinforce the city ( or even attack you across the river ). Now that Rome has 4+ archers ,things can get ugly, but you can't go back or it can be even worse to you ( I don't think that you want to be Preat rushed, do you? )

P.S Romans have any other city?

Five City Garrison Archers and a Spearman. I could push for that fortified Praetorian and deny Rome her Iron, but those CG Archers will take 2 or 3 Axemen apiece to dislodge.

Neal said:

Five City Garrison Archers and a Spearman. I could push for that fortified Praetorian and deny Rome her Iron, but those CG Archers will take 2 or 3 Axemen apiece to dislodge.

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Nuts. You'll need at least a couple more Axes if you want to take Rome, then. You should either punt and start over again (Perhaps as a different leader) or go for the Praetorian and the Iron. Take that hill and hold it while you bring in some extra axes.

Is that Rome tile on a hill?

Either way, you could either pillage everything around Rome and block him from using any production tiles. Alternatively you could leave 1 or 2 Axes on the chokepoint forest hill and use the rest on France. You could even sort of do both, pillaging northern Italy on your way to France. In that case I wouldn't leave any axes on the chokepoint yet, just send them all through and defend the chokepoint with reinforcements.