ALC Game #23: America/Lincoln

if you change the focus to Monty, why risk an axe rush? Monty is pretty far away, by the time you get axes to him he'll have a lot of land chunked off and probably be well into the classical techs as immortal ais normally are given their head start and bonuses. you don't seem (at least from what i see in the screenies, i haven't checked the actual save) to have many axemen out yet, so gear yourself towards swords and catapults, get your infrastructure down and build a couple more cities and kill Monty properly. you may even get to keep a prime city or two this way.
 
Sis, concerning the coming pwning of Cuzco:

1) cuzco being on flatland is good of course.

2) But...as I worried about earlier, Cuzco is already at the third ring. As you are aware this means that with axe, once you declare war and move into HC's territory, he will rush pop an archer for each square your stack moves. Since he is at the third ring that means an extra 3 archer, plus a possible fourth archer on the turn you prepare the attack. So what looked like an initial 2 archer protection force turns into a 4 - 6 archer protective force. This will require a larger attack force.

3) Might it make more sense to attack with chariots? They can move into attack position in two turns, possibly cutting in half the numebr of protective arches in Cuzco. However the downside is this requires establishing another city. Not sure this is the optimal way to capture Cuzco, just wanted to throw it out there.

4) Looking down the road...Monty is a bit of concern for me long term. AS a matter of fact the way you manage Monty over the next 100 - 200 turns could decide the game. He has a lot of room to expand, the terrain looks fairly good, plus he's a psycho! With Monty I typically deny all religions, only adopting the religon he takes. This might buy you the time necessary to take him out. Honestly however I would like to hear from others on this.

Good luck Sis.
 
As Validator's pointed out, Monty is more of a long-term concern on this map than Huayna. However, he's quite a long way off and tends to build a lot of units early, which makes him much tougher to rush. Hatty is, however, already worst enemy of both Monty and Huayna, which should help to distract him initially despite geography. One of them will likely ask you to stop trading with her soon, so you need to think about how you'll react when they do so.

Despite the fact that Monty may enjoy an unfettered REX to the west, I think I'd still go for Huayna now. With that aim in mind, I'd poprush granaries in both cities and get 2-pop whipping axes. If you were going to be chopping them, I'd skip the granaries, but relying on the whip with the food surplus you've got, this way seems better.Cuzco and Twiankwu both being on the flat is a boon since they'll largely be defended by archers, so avoiding the hills bonus will help greatly.

Both of those holy cities are keepers, and you should plan on running NSR for some time afterwards to gain cultural supremacy in the area from Hatty.

EDIT: If you're sending the warrior back west to scout out Monty, uncover the coastal tiles as you go to open up trade between the two of you.

The main thing I'd change from your current approach would be to swap research to hunting (spears) and IW rather than alphabet. Having 2 gems at New York is huge and you want to be working them sooner rather than later. Those 2 tiles alone will boost your current commerce by > 50%!
 
I'm already fascinated by this map. It seems that there are plenty of opportunities and I liked your idea of axe-rushing HC to knock him out early but..

Validator has a really good point. If you can seal off HC then you should definitely focus on taking care of Monty and freeing yourself up for westward and northward expansion.

And here's a thought.. Maybe getting Hatty to wage war on HC could help if you're worried about him getting too far ahead of you tech-wise while you deal with Monty? I doubt an early rush is going to work on him so it may take some time to build up an appropriate force. I dunno how Monty would feel about Hatty vs. HC (I'm assuming he doesn't care for HC and we've already established he doesn't like Hatty) but it might be worth considering.

Also, I agree with researching IW as soon as you can if you decide to go after Montezuma. Chances are good you'll need a more superior force than axemen to take him down and the earlier you can start building it, the better.

Then again I'm still a novice at all this. I haven't moved past Warlord level yet so I may not have it all together here. :lol:
 
I think the axe rush is going rather slow. The capital is rather low on production. I would have farmed one flood plain and mined a plains hill, and not started working cottages until after the last axeman was done. Fortunately Huyana also seems slow. trying to get Montezuma with an axerush seems impossible tough.

I played a shadow from the starting save, settling New York 1 NE of the copper, and lost it to 2 barb spearmen in 1825 BC. Settling on the copper didn't occur to me.
 
Alright then, let's try this again...
Now, I'll be interested to see your dotmaps. In some ways the map generator has been extraordinarily kind, as if it was throwing me a few bones for this, my first immortal game. There's a nice variety of both happy and healthy resources in the immediate vicinity and certainly enough food for some good specialist economy cities. With all that desert to the west, I don't see a good commerce/alternative capital city over there (all the more reason to capture someone else's). But definitely some spots for good cities, I think. I should have scouted onto the southern tip of the peninsula where the deer is to see if there's any seafood or whales hiding in the fog 2 tiles from the coast, but then again, I might have missed out on that jungle-based goody hut. So I'll have to swing by there again before making a final decision.

Well, here's mine. With all that desert to the west, it's going to be a bit tighter than I prefer, but then again I play on Prince level, which is quite a bit more forgiving. It also makes more sense in the short term, since limited happiness won't allow you to work all those food resources, and you can respond to threats more quickly. I also agree that settling on the Copper is your best choice.

The city immediately to the east of your capital is very preliminary, since we haven't completely scouted that region. If there's more seafood over there, it would definately be worth moving it to the east some more.
 

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I believe Montezuma's too far away for an effective attack. He's also aggressive with a resourceless UU, which means you'll need to bring more troops to the fray for longer. If you take the time to smack down the Incans, the situation will be essentially unchanged with regards to Montezuma, except that you'll have a couple of extra holy cities and some gold, etc. I'm not sure leaving an AI alive when you have the opportunity to take them out is a good idea, so I'd continue the plan to take out the Incans and then start focusing on Montezuma.
 
This is what I get for not finishing the thread before posting my two cents. Now that I know where the horses are, in my dot map above, I'd definitely move blue one north adjacent to the horses. With no seafood resources to the east, there's no need for an eastern city at all. I'd just place a fogbuster in that area to make sure there are no problems with barbs.
 
I don't like the way this conversation is headed...

You have early Copper: don't just stand there, kill something! :)

Ignoring HC and going after Monty: 1) he's too far away 2) you should have taken his Workers, that could perhaps have slowed him down a bit (you don't need to fear his UU)

The conclusion shouldn't be "okay, no axe rush" but to attack HC and do it now!

You'll gain a Holy City, he's not on a hill, Hatty is normally manageable (just accept her religion, and she'll find someone else to play with), and by taking the very nice capital, you've done all the blocking you need.

In short HC is ripe fruit that's your's for the taking. Just don't build anything at all except Axemen, and whip/chop everything as fast as you can. An axe rush means speed, and nothing but speed. You know this already, of course...

If you wish to go after Monty (who doesn't?) , why not steal his Workers, never make peace and let him come to you instead. He's probably all alone with lots of land, you're his only target anyway, and that will shift away his priorities from REXing which is always good. More XP and less WW for you. You know you win wars easily, and if you can maintain a war at one hammer lost for every ten won against him, you will easily bleed him dry. Besides, that makes Monty predictable in a way he's never going to be otherwise. ;) (No buildups, no backstabs, just a steady stream of Aztec blood... okay, I'm gonna stop now)

Besides, you wanted some barbarian action, right? What's the difference they're green instead of black? :lol:
 
I don't like the way this conversation is headed...

You have early Copper: don't just stand there, kill something! :)

QUOTE]

Agreed. Now is thew time to take out HC. We are still talking at least 25 turns to build an army, move into position, declare war and take 1 or more cities from him. My concern is that on Immortal the other civs rex and build units too quickly and this opportunity to take HC will pass. The copper city was settled on turn 53 I believe and it is now turn 93. 40 turns should have us at least with several units produced and in the build-queue.

The good news is that Sis is a master in these situations and things don't look good for HC at the moment.:)
 
Nice round, Sisiutil.

re: Sailing -- never a bad choice with seafood. It's worth it for the lighthouse alone. Just whip one in there while you're building your axe stack for quick food regen.

re: Dotmap -- agreed re: the plains city site to get the FP and NW horses. Of course, that site was my original suggestion. :king: That site should be built before the axe rush so Monty doesn't get it.

There's room for three cities to the south of Washington: (1) for deer/spice, (2) on the desert hill for FP, clams, and wine and (3) on the southwest of the island for the horses/pigs/wheat. I don't think any of these take priority over an axe rush, though.

re: Target -- Huayna is still the best axe rush target. Even if you don't conquer him completely, you've taken a holy capitol. And sealed your eastern border, for the most part, from Hammy and Hatty.

I think Monty is going to require a long, traditional campaign with siege and combined arms.
 
Now that Sisiutil has moved to Immortal, I feel even less able to make suggestions, but thought there was room for a few observations:

1) If the goal is conservative game play, does or doesn't this include an early ax rush? While I've read that it's possible to play peacefully all the way up to Deity, the safer strategy on the highest levels is war, and lots of it. Going after a hemmed in HC nets one more good city, and probably takes a competitor out of the game.

2) Just because Monty is far away doesn't mean he won't send a stack this way, especially as it looks as if he'll have Horses soon, if not now. Hatty is on the other side of Sisiutil, and in my experience the AI will send troops off for one reason, then use them for another once they arrive-- a stack of 4-6 Chariots may not take any cities, but they'd sure put a damper on the rest of the game. This may be a reason not to attack HC, but that's a matter for more discussion. OTOH, Monty could just play whack-a-mole with Barb cities for the next 50+ turns. Sounds like a calculated gamble . . and a good reason to keep some kind of unit out to the west to see if there's a "fleet" headed your way.

3) Hatty seems very likely to DOW HC soon. Building for war now leaves Sisiutil ready to exploit the situation. Even if all he does is raze cities for her to rebuild, at least Hatty isn't getting more developed cities for her efforts.

4) This is the reason I usually restart if Monty is close, but too far away to take out quickly. It's not that I couldn't take him out, but that it takes a whole lot of options away from the game play. After several years of Civ4, some challenges are no longer appealing, and this would be one of them. YMMV.
 
After looking at the save I'm not very optimistic that an axe rush is even possible. Currently the American military consists of 4 axes and the scouting warrior. :( A fifth axe is under construction, but at a paltry 5 :hammers:/turn. :cry:

To make matters worse the 4 existing axes represents the force that would need to be left behind for "homeland security" duty during the rush. So in reality none of the rushing force has been built to date. With no granaries in place whipping doesn't seem to be much of an option at the moment. And with so few improved tiles (and even fewer workers to improve the rest) I don't see a large number of axes being built anytime soon.

Does it still count as an axe rush if it's launched after 1000 BC? :mischief:


Even if a sufficient force of axes can be conjured from somewhere I just don't see how rushing Huayna is going to really help win the game. Just because you can kill him doesn't mean you should.

If an axe rush against Huayna does happen what would you plan to do with Tiwanaku? It's much further away than Cuzco (5 tiles) and doesn't have any high commerce tiles to support it. If it wasn't a holy city razing it would be the logical choice. But would you really want to destroy a holy city? If you keep it how do you prevent its distance maintenance from killing your economy? If you do raze it doesn't it just open up more land for Hattie to expand into?

According to the trade negotiation screens Huayna only has two cities while the other 3 AIs already have 4 each. So he's already boxed in. I'll say again that I'm just not seeing how Huayna is a long term threat in this game.

If Huayna is killed off you've removed Hattie's worst enemy from the game. Will that make you her new worst enemy, considering that there will be significant close border issues?

And most importantly what is Monty going to be doing while you're focused on the east?


The question at this point I would think is whether it's worth trying to interfere with Monty's expansion, or whether it's better to forego early military action and just go for peaceful expansion.

Even if enough axes can't be built to take Monty out entirely a few axes (with spear support) should be able to stifle Aztec development. Pillage all his resources, keep his workers hiding in his cities. Monty's UU may be resourceless, but it's not very effective against axes. :D

There will be a hit to the American economy from the supply of a choking force, but in the end it may be well worth it to prevent Monty from becoming a huge problem in later ages.


I think the decisions to be made in the next round will probably decide the outcome of the game. Good luck. ;)

It means I should steer my Warrior back west ASAP to check on Monty's land. Maybe I should research Hunting before Alphabet in case Monty has Chariots, which can ruin an Axeman's day?

You may have already been planning this but you should definitely upgrade the warrior to an axe before sending it to the explore the west. Barb axes show up pretty early in 3.17 and an encounter with one would mean certain death for a warrior. If you don't want to spend the gold on the upgrade just keep the warrior exploring in the safety of other civ's borders and send one of your newly built axes west.

Regarding hunting, one thing to keep in mind is that w/o hunting you can still build warriors even with copper hooked up. You'll need some sort of unit to leave behind in your cities to keep the people happy. Unless you plan on researching archery as well it seems a waste of :hammers:s to leave axes sitting in unthreatened cities.
 
: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! :)
 
:lol:

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I'd say you need more axes, obtained with the whip, then attack. The AI will often build archers only to send them with the settlers. You probably won't face too many in the capital anyway. But if you want to attack someone Huayna is the one. Monty will cost you too much in maintenance for the military units being outside your borders, and then the city being too far. Too bad it's not Monty near you and Huayna farther away, but that's the way it is. Take Huayna now, worry about who's building the wonders after you have another capital site with GOLD in it. Come on, you know you want to. :)
 
As a monarch player I'm not able to make good observations I think. But it looks to me like this game is going tougher then expected at first. As validator explained very well, an axe rush is going to be difficult. Plus there isn't an awful lot of room to expand and make top cities and monty is your neighbor (but that's a no brainer :p)
 
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