RBE5 - The Sea is a Harsh Mistress (PTW)

Map settings will be:

Civ: Vikings
Map: Standard, Pelago, 80% Water,
Climate: Wet, Temperate, 4 billion years,
Opponents: Carthage, Ottomans, Spanish, Mongols, Koreans, Celts, Arabs
Victory: Any
Barbarians: Restless
Cultural Linked Start and Respawn AI Players OFF
Rules: Regular Deity rules

Roster:
Architect
Charis
JaxomCA
Arathorn
Falsfire
Iteean

I took the very first start as is tradition and this is what we got.



4000BC I move our scout and decide to found Tronheim where we started. I begin construction of a second scout. I start 40 turns to alphabet in case we are alone and need Map Mapking fast.

3950BC I find two more cows, a game, and a whale

3850BC Still no sign of anyone nor any luxuries.

3800BC Our second scout is built and explores Mount Trondheim and discovers Arabia.



Here's the great Abu Bakr



I trade Warrior code for Ceremonial Burial and 10gp. It looks like we are on a very small island isolated from others with no luxuries. I start construction of a granary as we won't need anymore scouts.

3750BC We discover gold in 3 mountains on our northern coast. We are definitly on a small island. We have no fresh water.

3300BC Arabia develops Bronze working but won't trade it for anything.

3100BC Our granary completes and I start a warrior for MP duty.

3000BC Our warrior completes and we will have a settler in 6 turns, growing in 5. Looks like Arabia is also isolated as they still just have bronze working.

2710BC Our first settler completes. We are going to have to do a pretty dense build to get a decent amount of core cities.

2670BC Arabia has Masonry now.

2630BC Bergen is founded.

2550BC Well this start couldn't have worked out better for those who wanted to really test the vikings. Some important points to remember:

1. You can't upgrade to a Berserk. We will have to build all of them from scratch.
2. We need mapmaking and fast and even trying to pre-build the lighthouse might be possible.
3. We could easily over-build and strain our economy.

I would suggest with this slow of a start that Charis and JaxomCA take 20 turns and then we start the 10 turn hand off after that.

Here's a dotmap. Opinions please.



And here's the save:

2550BC

Ohhhhh! This looks like fun

I am not sure how many cities are needed to be FP eligible on a standard map. If it is 7, then we might have to sacrifice the N wheat near the blue dot to put a city on it and put another on the hill SW of the blue dot.

We definitely want mapmaking ASAP. The Great Lighthouse would be a definite asset in this setup, Bergen should get on it after 1 or 2 warriors.

We cannot wait until the Berserker to expand, specially if FP needs more than 7 cities, so I believe an early war against Arabia is in order. We are Viking after all, once we have a couple of thatch up we will WANT blood

This truly is a *Viking* start! I'm glad at least our little island is fertile, not a frozen tundra!

I like the dense build in this case, especially since we have no fresh water! The only change I would make to the dot map would be to move the red square near the capital one square SE onto the plain. That eliminates sitting *in* Bergen's tiles directly, avoids wasting the grassland the red dot is on, and still catches the fish and can borrow the hill or cattle if it needs to.

The problem Jaxom is that on standard we need *8* cities for a FP. I can see a time where we find a continent with more room and more than one civ, where we find a good central and productive city, get a great leader, and rush the FP there. I would be more prone to found on the hill in the NW than the NE wheat, but 7 cities won't matter, so don't go THAT dense until we've got a look at Arab lands and/or captured them. The question is - do we have any iron or horses? If not, our only early offense would be archers.

On the plus side, city defense and barb camps will very quickly become non-issues.

Good start, I should be able to get it tonight.
Charis

At 8 city for FP then yeah, let's not waste the wheat. That makes it even more urgent to conquer Arabia early. I don't think we should wait on Iron working to prepare. Archers can upgrade to guerilla eventually, so that is what I would build from the start. If it turns out we have iron, then it will still be possible to deal with it.

Can you tell I am looking for blood? Just to set the record straight, this is not my play style. I am more of a builder. But in this case an early rush seems appropriate.

And let's not forget, we are Viking!

That Red dot is actually an error. I had intended to use the plains. I always do a much more cluttered "border" dotmap for myself and I just translated my dots poorly.

Good catch Charis.

Agreed on moving red dot one SE. I would also leave light dot where it is and still build a city on the hills by the gold mountains. We're gonna be commerce poor for quite a while and being able to work an extra gold mountain is worth 3 gpt under despotism, 4 gpt roaded under despotism and 5 gpt roaded under any other govt. A city on the hills won't have to steal squares to be very useful and we're gonna need every cent we can squeeze out of this land.

I suggest no military at all until we're ready to start building up for an assault on Arabia -- two scouts and our cities can keep the barbs away. We might want to "squeeze in" a barracks build or two, however.

As for an assault, here are some of my battle experiences in PTW:

Game 1:
Assaulted Iroquois with a horsemen stack in the ancient ages. First city I took was their capital. Defended by 6 spearmen (not too unusual to see a capital well-defended). Second city I took was defended by 5 spearmen and was NOT their new capital. Third city defended by 4 spearmen. Fourth city, I never got. I killed 5 spearmen and a warrior in there but they reinforced before I did. That was on emperor.

I fought more in the emperor game (a lot more actually) but was either fighting as part of a team and so couldn't get a feel for the actual fighting power of the opponent or was so far ahead that it didn't matter.

Game 2:
Allied against America during my ancient age. Took 3 cities, defended by 2 pikes/1 spear, 3 pikes, and 1 musket/2 pikes/1 spear/1 warrior (no capital).
Allied against America early in my middle age. Took 4 cities, defended by 1 musket/3 spears, 2 muskets/1 longbow, 6 muskets (capital), and 1 cavalry (recently captured).
Both of these times, I entered after most of the American offensive might had been spent elsewhere. I also know that some of their cities on the other front were defended by 5+ units (I got to see some of the battles occurring).
This was on deity (still going, but I just nationalism sling-shotted, along with a cheating the cheater to get myself into a very good situation).

I think we can expect to see at least 4 units defending each Arabian city, with 6 likely in their capital. My intuition says that 9-10 vet archers will give us a good chance of success against one city with 4 regular spearmen. That means 5 boatloads, plus another boatload for spears. For one city.

We might be better off questing for other lands (suicide galleys *20) and playing the trader role (sell at monopoly prices on both ends). 10 ships for an assault + 11 units @20 shields each is 520 shields. That would give us 17 ships, which might well do more good than even a successful assault.

As for the Great Lighthouse, anybody have pre-build suggestions? I have noticed (sample size 2) that the AI is a bit less aggressive about ancient wonders, so we might snag it, if we plan very carefully, but it's also very possible it will be built before we get the tech for it. We're about 90 turns out from map-making. If we had some prebuild in Trondheim, we'd need to start it in (90 - 300/9) 57 turns, assuming Trondheim is up to full size and cranking 9 spt. Maybe we can get Masonry from Abu by that time. But, that's an awfully big gamble.

Dunno, but I do like the initial dot-map (with the one addition and one change suggested above). DEFINITELY an interesting start.

Arathorn

Wow you've seen some nasty defense - were you playing "Elimination" mode or what??

The three PtW games I've seen, ancient era anyway, showed no such special defense. I only saw the 'usual' two defender for size 1-6, three for 7-12, with at best one more in the capital. These were on emperor. Dataset is too small to tell, but if the AI likes 4-6 defenders that would make a *huge* difference in the game.

In every case I was seeing 'regulars' unless there had been barb activity in the area to promote them.

As far as archers needed to take a city, I would say around 4 vets to take 2 regs, or 7-8 vets to take 4 regs. Nine would be overkill unless they had a rax or vets. But that's not strictly for 'one' city, as you'll have 5 survivors to go for the next one.

As for archers becoming guerillas - are you sure? I read that as well, but in game, could NOT upgrade Longbows to Med.Inf. Nor have I seen this in any game or Firaxis documentation, just as a rumor. (If no upgrade path, Med.Inf truly do make Longbows obsolete unless you're stuck with no iron)

For current plans, less units and more infrastructure now does sound good, until we are getting ready to invade. Two barracks for sure - we don't want to load transport with regulars! By the time we get zerkers I would think four cities with rax and decent shield production.

While going to be trade masters is a viable route (maybe even the smart route?!) I must say that playing RBD9 and seeing invasions postponed one after the other, and then winning a non-military victory, was HIGHLY dissatisfying for "Vikings". My own druthers (and take just as that) would be a bloodthristy domination game where the *bulk* of the action was with berzerkers and amphib invasions, slaughtering several civs before they even reached muskets.

That also means owning the seas, and wiping any 'colony' not on a foes mainland whenever we sea such insolence.
Still, exploration and a suicide galley are good, for making contacts and perhaps being sole middlemen for techs and trades.

Charis

Well, my dataset is also too small to consider definitive. I was playing with the standard set of win conditions, so it's not that which is influencing things.

At the very least, I think we must be leery.

Of course, we don't have to make any decisions for the next 40 turns other than how to most quickly colonize our island and get it productive. And, in that time, things may change to change our mind.

As for upgrade paths, I *believe* (which means that I've seen reasonably convincing testimonies but have not verified) that the upgrade paths are:
archer -> longbow -> guerilla
warrior -> swordsman -> medieval infantry -> guerilla
berserk -> guerilla (?)
with the exact details of how they implement that unknown. The last is the one I feel least comfortable with.

What's your take on the city on a hill?

Arathorn

Archer upgrade to longbow upgrade to guerilla
Warrior upgrade to swordsman upgrade to med. inf. upgrade to guerilla. Or so I think.

I think Bergen is better to build the lighthouse. I will get 9spt after corruption maybe 10 at food deficit, but it has the option of prebuild via palace. And I think it should be started as soon as possible, it will be posible to slow down the build later via coast or unmined grassland.

My experience in deity PTW showed the same as you Arathorn. This simply means you can't aim to take a whole civ in 20 turns. In this case I see this scenario: 2 galleys, 5 spears and a settler, declare war, land on Mt Arabia and settle on incense. No matter what, from that point on that incense is ours. Next turn galleys returns to Trondheim. Next turn they bring back 6 archers, 6 more 2 turns later. Capture or raze the city we can see and hole up in there, making as much damage to his attacking troops as possible. When Abu is ready to talk, get whatever tech he managed to grab. Rinse and repeat 20 turns later, propably with swords or horseman.

Looking back at the map, I think an outpost should be established on Mt. Trondheim and another on the far north mountain. This might give us a contact before Abu get it for the cost of 2 pop. This is not urgent but it should be kept in mind.

Suicide galleys are a nice tool, but they depend too much on luck. I'd rather we make our own luck. If we sit there and wait until Berserker, they will be obsolete before seeing any action.

In any case, these are simply my thoughts on seeing the start position, I'll go along with whatever the team feels is best.

edit: oh and the city on the hill looks like a good idea, it will give a bit more commerce to play with.

Galleys hold 2 units, not 3, unless they changed this in PtW...

oops then make it 3 galleys

I like Bergen for the wonder due to the Palace placeholder as well.

As far as the city on the hill, my initial impression was that with so few shields around, it would be a poor choice to have a tiny village and use up the only hill. But on closer inspection, the food supply for the blue dot is grass, wheat and water. Long term that means an even amount of food and the ability to support one or both mountains easily, in 'production' mode. A single hill would be 'unstable' for food, one too much or one too little for steady size, and it's no better than the mountains, to be working. So we won't miss using the hill that badly, compared to having another size 12 good commerce city.

That whale is the key to being able to have an extra mountain tile in production, by adding the other city, and for a good chunk of the early game, that bonus commerce will be nice. Can we get Colossus there?! It would be a stretch, but quite a commerceful city. The downside - the yellow dot will be using the whale.

For priorities, it seems like: blue, yellow, red, green, optional hill.
The blue is at top because of the bonus food and because having visibility up there will do away with the barbarian threat quickly. Scouts do NOT count for scaring away barbs btw, unless that's a recent change. (Nor workers or settlers, just military units)

With decent food and no fresh water, and the need to settle-out quickly, I'm not particularly in favor of more granaries besides our settler-capital, and think workers will be more useful than MP-nonvet warriors.

Charis

Just reading along here, but wanted to comment (sorry for the intrusion).

Charis: RBD9 should have had an amphib attacker like now, that special "galley" seemed great at the time but doesn't seem to suit the vikings now as well as the Berserk. I played that game in Shadow and conquered the whole world after we failed to do it in the SG version.

Also scouts don't scare barbs away once they have formed but scouts can see quite a ways so one perchec on top of a mountain might keep them from even forming.

Question about the city placement. If the second city (forget the name) had bee moved one N (NE?) it would have gotten the whale and both cattle. What is the benefit of it being where it is now as opposed to being moved up? Other than having another city, that is.

Ozy,

One N doesn't do that. One NE ruins the game in the square there and makes the cows take longer to get into radius. Definitely a nice spot for city 2, IMO.

Arathorn

I would not settle the red spot until we have secured (or vetoed) the lighthouse. Bergen one E would have catch the whale and 2 cows eventually but would have removed the possibility of a city on the red spot. I like Bergen, I think I will make it my own little kingdom, if nobody objects

Wow, this one looks interesting. The dot map (with the red dot moved) looks good, I'd also add in the city on the hill as Arathorn suggested.

With regard to a military buildup: we only have 4 mountains and 2 hills (and 3 mountains are gold), so isn't there an excellent chance we will be without iron? I'll cross my fingers, but ...

I'm still a bit indecisive on the Lighthouse. If this were SP I probably wouldn't try for it, unless I were doing it just for the challenge. I would absolutely love for us to pull it off though!

Another thing we may want to keep in mind is that civs will now sell contact with you, so we might not have to go out and find them, or pay through the nose to talk to them. (edit: of course you don't get to broker either) This happened in my first PTW game and I couldn't figure out how in the world I could talk to Rome when I had no idea where it was.

Thanks for including me Architect, this is gonna be fun!


Iteean

[0] 2550 BC - We have a good position, lacking in fresh water, contact other
than Arabs, and a strong posibility of a lack of key resources (Iron??!)
The dotmap looks good with a red dot shift, and folks are looking for a
solid island settling, with an eye toward possibly the Lighthouse. We're
heading in research to Map Making.

At present Bergen is working towards a Barracks, and Trondheim toward Warrior.
The only thing I see I don't like is the worker building a road in the forest.
We want the forest cleared to get 3 food anyway, and it takes longer to build
road before clearing. The road in progress will take 4 turns to finish, but
only 3 to build from scratch. I stop him (sorry) and shift him to chopping.
I also retract my earlier comment about not needing granaries - not remembering
we have NO fresh water, and hence no irrigation until much much later in the game.
I also switch Trondheim to Settler.

[1-4] 2510, 2470, 2430, 2390

[5] 2350 BC - We notice that now on Diplo we can talk to the Celts, which means the
Arabs are NOT alone! They sold contact with us to the Celts. The two of them both
have Bronze Working and Masonry. Our Alphabet is due in 5, maybe we can sell that
for those two.

[6] 2310 BC - The settler is done and heads for Blue dot up North. Midturn is the
message the Arabs are building the Colossus.

[8] 2230 BC - The Celts are building the Pyramids.

[10] 2150 BC - Alphabet arrives, the forest is gone, and our worker starts to mine
the game spot he is on. Granary now due in just 5. Trondheim expects another settler
in two. The Celts are ahead of Arabia on the histogram, and will be sought to pay
the high price on Alphabet. On F11, Carthage, Madrid and Seoul are top three cities,
followed by our glorious capital, then Karakorum.

We get both Masonry and Bronze and 28 gold for our Alphabet, then see both have
Iron Working. We buy it from Arabia for Alphabet and have to pay 68 gold.
Three techs for 40 gold, a good round.

WOO!!! We *DO* have iron! It's right on the hill next to Trondheim!
We might get a warrior or two built before hooking up, but that's SUPER!

[12] 2070 BC - Celts start Colossus too. Our next settler arrives and heads to Yellow.

[13] 2030 BC - Arabs have Mysticism, but best not to come in @2nd civ.
Copenhagen is founded at blue and starts a worker. No barbs and until they have
a boat we need zero military.

[15] 1950 BC - Celts are building the Oracle. We have no need for the tech at present,
maybe we'll make more contacts and see the price drop.

[16] 1910 BC - They both have the wheel. Now that's one I would like, for option to make
Chariots and to see if we actually have horses or not! Besides, growing cash too high
would just make them jealous

Alas, it's not cheap at all, 109g+1gpt. GOOD NEWS!! We got horses!! It's on the
grass "errant red" spot, right near Bergen. When we DO get boats, boys, we'll have
some premium combined arms attack units!

Reykjavik is founded at Yellow dot, but won't pull in the whale until it has
a temple. We start a temple, and can whip it to finish if needed. An early temple will
be good, both for culture and the whale. The Arabs already have a temple somewhere,
the Celts (despite being religious) do not.

[18] 1830 BC - Lack of MP making its presence felt, needing to run lux slider. But I would
rather pay a few pennies than slow down the settling curve (for now).

[19] 1790 BC - The worker heads up to start connecting our cities by road.
Trondheim is due to finish shields for settler next turn, but not grow to 3 until
two turns, and there would be wasted shields on top of that. Instead of throwing away
ten shields I insert the temple now.

[20] 1750 BC - Settler due from Bergen in 2 - after it comes out you can put back lux a
tad, stopping our small deficit, and do a temple in Bergen, followed by either a rax
or prebuild for wonder. Reykjavik may want to move a tile worker from grass to forest,
and consider temple whip. My, that was a fast 20 turns

JaxomCA <-- Up, 20 turns
Arathorn <-- On deck, 10 turns

Save game 1750BC

Charis

Roster Change:

Architect
Charis
JaxomCA <--UP
Arathorn
Falsfire
Iteean <--Added

Note: With this many players I will skip people who don't respond within 24 hours with a got it. If you get skipped, you can just pick up next time around.

nt