Aaaarmy Training, Sir!

I think I'm favoring HA rushing Bismark. The areas to expand into are south to the double gold, towards the jungle and Izzy, or north towards Biz, also known as attacking him. Of the three options, I favor attacking Biz. Cyrus can beat us to the double gold site, since he's imp. Plus there's little food in the area. We could settle on the plains tile S of the gold and farm the fp, but that's quite a distance away. That would be a good city, grabbing the Cu, but its far and Cyrus can steal it from us. Towards the jungle and Izzy, is, well, towards the jungle and any city in the area will take a while to get online, even more so since we don't have IW. That leaves attacking Biz as the last solution. He's relatively close to us and as Izuul pointed out, only has archers.

With that in mind,

Aksum: worker, into rax? some c1 HAs would be good I think. or maybe another settler for the fish/cow or a gold site? Gold site would be a good site with double gold, Cu, and fp. or maybe warriors for spawn busting? Perhaps something like chariot or rax to size 3, then settler and take back hill gems. I'm thinking settler atm.
Gondar: finish worker, worker or rax? Could whip worker and capital can retake gems upon growth, chariots as well
Horse city: worker?

Workers: pasture horse, prechop forests, mine green hills, farm the rice

HBR+archer are 16 turns away. Do we want to whip stables during the 3 turns we tech archery?

warriors: spawn bust gold site
Scout: scout Biz's cities

Packers5280 said:

I think I'm favoring HA rushing Bismark. The areas to expand into are south to the double gold, towards the jungle and Izzy, or north towards Biz, also known as attacking him. Of the three options, I favor attacking Biz. Cyrus can beat us to the double gold site, since he's imp. Plus there's little food in the area. We could settle on the plains tile S of the gold and farm the fp, but that's quite a distance away. That would be a good city, grabbing the Cu, but its far and Cyrus can steal it from us. Towards the jungle and Izzy, is, well, towards the jungle and any city in the area will take a while to get online, even more so since we don't have IW. That leaves attacking Biz as the last solution. He's relatively close to us and as Izuul pointed out, only has archers.

Click to expand...

From what we can see currently I'd have to agree that Bismark is our best rush target. We'll have a lot better idea what his land looks like once scout explores more thoroughly but at least the rivers look promising for future development. Having said that, I don't think we have to necessarily commit to targeting Bismark just yet...but it's probably unavoidable. While there is a lot of land for us to settle on this map, many of the closest sites are calendar-dependent and settling those before calendar do us no good.

The Au/Cu site you pointed out, Packers, would be nice-it could work with farmed fps. I bet Cyrus beats us there but even if he does we could still claim single gold/corn/incense by settling in desert area. I'd definitely like to pick up a gold city however we have to.

Aksum: worker, into rax? some c1 HAs would be good I think. or maybe another settler for the fish/cow or a gold site? Gold site would be a good site with double gold, Cu, and fp. or maybe warriors for spawn busting? Perhaps something like chariot or rax to size 3, then settler and take back hill gems. I'm thinking settler atm.
Gondar: finish worker, worker or rax? Could whip worker and capital can retake gems upon growth, chariots as well
Horse city: worker?

Click to expand...

Askum is our best settler-producing city and we could certainly do as you say here. Especially if we're selling all out to settle that dbl-Au/Cu tile you mentioned.
Gondar is probably best slow building the worker I suppose although I hate that. We need the worker and we need to also keep working the gold....bleh. If we run into barb trouble west of Gondar it could switch to warrior.
Horse-city should get out a chariot as soon as possible I think. One of the workers can go 1N of the city and chop once pasture is complete.
The map is filling up quite a bit so our barb pressure may not last long. I'd think two chariots can probably handle it (famous last words!). We'll definitely need a chariot to escort a settler towards gold site. Side note-we might actually consider switching to archery at start of your set since we'll need both HbR and archery. One unlucky barb spear could really mess up our southern plans so archery first might help us.

I'd think that the rush would be based off four cities. I'm a little worried about defending the Au/Cu city not so much from barbs as from Cyrus or possibly Izzy. Settling that far south almost necessitates a fifth filler city. If Cyrus beats us to that site it may work to our benefit somewhat if we settle the corn/gold site instead--we may not need the filler city then.
The cow/fish site--I dunno. May be best to let our German friend settle it for us. This could change should our northern warrior reveal another workable seafood resource that a single city could work there.

Workers: pasture horse, prechop forests, mine green hills, farm the rice

Click to expand...

Yep. The pre-chops will be really important for the HA rush. With this in mind I'd like to propose an alternative we may want to consider. The alternative virtually precludes settler production from the capital but it gets us math via bulb at about the same time that archery/HbR finishes (might need to tech pottery plus something while waiting on GS).
So, the alternative would be--whipping the worker in capital your first turn. This would give us 32x2 OF into a library--and a lot of unhappiness with a S1 cap. Grow back fast as possible building library. Once the horse pasture is finished a worker chops the gfh 1NE of capital to finish library. The aim is to work two scientists as quickly as possible in cap. We'd bulb math about 7-10? (a guesstimate) turns or so after archery/HbR completes (tech pottery in meantime).
This plan kills using the capital for anything but GS production however and risks our getting either gold site. Gives us a well-timed math with lots of pre-chops for HA rush though.

Which means Gondar would have to produce the settler for the gold city. I think it could still slow-build worker, grow on warrior, then whip and chop the settler asap.

I dunno about bulbing math as usually I think you want to time those to be close together so you can get your chop on. I don't think we'd want to delay our horses any longer; If freddy has metal than we're looking at a much more difficult operation than simply sweeping up archers. A 4th city will probably be worth more than the 2-3 extra HAs we get out of math chops.

I agree Math is not crucial for a HA rush. We've got happiness for whipping as well (especially if we get a gold city).

I rarely find Math bulbs to be worthwhile, particularly not when starting with good commerce.

Maths bulbs can be great actually, but usually only if Philo and only if you plan to make use of it early, i.e., choppity-chop kill-kill. In this case I don't think the bulb is optimal. The academy should be worthwhile with those gems. Philosophicles is particular good for the Maths bulb approach, if such an approach is warranted.

Alrighty...so scratch the library in cap idea for now. Which I suppose means we'd want the settler for 2Au/Cu site asap from Askum once it hits S3.
Askum: worker>warrior or rax until S3>takes back gems and switch to settler?
Gondar: slow build worker> chariot?
Horsecity: not sure about worker at S1, seems like we'd want to slow-grow (on rax?) until pasture completes then switch to chariot with chop??

Two questions:
Do we want to switch to archery?
Provided Bismark's land looks pretty good (which to me means greenish riverside sites, decent production sites, specials, etc.) are we pretty much committed to HA rush?

BTW-It's not my intention to derail thread with my nutty suggestions and I realize I tend to ramble. A big reason I initiated this game was to learn how to get better. Early wars are not something I generally go for, especially at immortal or that d-word.
To me this map is challenging in that the 'good' sites are a bit far away. The land immediately near start is either flat or jungle-y? or has calendar resources. Sure we could just peacefully expand to gain land, tech calendar, farm everything to run specialists. Which is probably what I'd end up doing were this just a single player game for me.
But...I kinda get the feeling this is one of those map situations where although there's land available to expand into peacefully, it's not really commerce or production friendly land. So, is this a situation where it's just better to go grab better land?...and the earlier the better?

Yeah, I'd rather not bulb math. Which means grabbing the Au/Cu site. Gondar should be able to build a couple of chariots after the worker. I think I'd rather have the horse city build a worker until it gets improved tiles to work, which could be a while, since the workers may have their hands full pre-chopping. I know I usually have a new city work on a worker, just to keep some balance between cities and workers. Not to mention the place where we will probably have barb trouble is the southern edge of our empire.

I think archery first makes some sense. We need both, and archery would be more useful first in case of barb spears.

16 turns in. Played 1 more in order to finish HBR. Settler is 1 turn from finishing. Looks like the Au/Cu site is ours. Cyrus is no where near it. Izzy spread Judiasm to us, and shortly demanded us to switch. As the religion situation is a bit difficult with the 3 earlies to 3 different AIs, I declined.

Met everyone's favorite joker:


Bizzy's land


His land looks so goooooooooood. Unfortunately, cry he teched IW and has Fe. I think he has it connected via TR through the ocean and the river. So it raises some questions, such as if sit the scout on it when/if we declare, does he still get the Fe? If not, probably need to run a chariot up to pillage it 1st run of the war, or a couple of HA's to take the city 1st turn.

6. Packers5280-turnset complete
7. pigswill (Up)
8. Quip (on deck)

@Walter Wolf--you called it!

Isabella didn't get Buddhism, so someone with mysticism is in the game (Monty? )

Click to expand...

So it appears the island is actually a peninsula with Monty east of Cyrus.

I did some repetitive diplo-clicking with Bismark and got the "fear our swordsman" brag. (Did same thing with the other AI's and none have metal units now except Biz. Didn't get fear our immortals from Cyrus either). Izzy is pleased with Biz currently but I don't see that Judaism has spread to Biz yet. The good news is all his cities except his cap are on flat land.
Frankfurt is just an annoying in-our-face city that needs to be razed.
Cologne-iron but no food...raze?
Munich & Hamburg-keep
Berlin-hill city and tons of food!

We have 15 full yield forests to chop plus 2 non-full yield forests. With the 2Au/Cu city pulling in another 2 full yield forests. So...360+ hammers for HA's/stable/barracks. I'm thinking we can only afford one stable (in cap). Not sure about how many barracks.

Hopefully Monty will keep Cyrus occupied in the south.

Does anyone see any way forward that doesn't involve rushing Biz?

I don't see any reason we can't attack Cyrus, given that we have 15-20 turns to get our army in order. We have chariots to scout him and we are settling towards him. I say if he lacks metals then we might as well go the path of least resistance then turn back on Bismark once we have siege.

As for infrastructure, we need pottery and granaries in every city ASAP.

I've got some thoughts on the micro for a few turns at least.

Slider at 100% for pottery (4 turns) then maybe Alpha, no one has it yet. While trading can get us into trouble with the diversity of state religions, I think getting Monty into a war with Cyrus as soon as possible benefits us. It's usually an organic thing but I'd rather not see them get into a Hindu lovefest.

I came up with some city micro thoughts, got it planned out to turn 70 for each one, though we would have to divert 2 workers from chopping duty for the numbers to work out. We get 3 granaries while making sure we use our tile sharing opportunities. Works some unimproved land but we don't have the workers right now.

1/26 Aksum - Turn 62 Finishes Settler working flatgem/corn/Gfhill.
Turn 63-64 corn/gem/gem working on barracks.
Turn 65-66 working gem/rice/corn.
Turn 67 Size 4 gem gem rice corn, Put Granary on queue.
Turn 68 Whip Granary, Size two working corn rice.
Turn 69 overflow to Barracks,
Turn 70 we have a barracks and overflows ~10 hammers into next build (Worker?).

10/22 lalibela - Turns 62-64 grows on rice.
Turn 65, finishes chariot on horses/Ghill mine (Can worker and worker #3 build a mine in time?).
Turns 66-70 Granary on horses/Ghillmine and then we whip.
Turn 71 Steal back rice?

25/26 Gondar - turn 62 grows, works cow/hillgem/plains forest to finish chariot.
Turns 63-64 working rice, cow, pforest and another forest on Horse archer.
Turn 65 drops a forest for Hillgem
Turn 66 with Granary at top of queue should be able to use a Ghill mine (Worker 1),
Turn 67 2 pop whip of granary. Hill gem returns to Aksum.
Turn 68 on- Grow/Whip HAs, nothing else in this world matters.

0/20 Au/Cu City - Turns 62-69 works flood plain, trading in granary as soon as it's available.
Turn 70 works Farmed flood plain thanks to worker 2.

We're settling one south of gold right? Also, this plan assumes we want to save our chops for HAs/ other war infrastructure.

I don't know if we want to go after Cyrus. Right now he is our buffer between us and Monty. Right now, Monty will attack Cyrus, so we can sick Monty on Cyrus while we work on controlling our half of the continent once we get alpha. I think Bizzy recently got IW and the Fe up, so if we pillage it right away the 1st turn of the war or so, we won't have to deal with many metal units, including spears. Worst comes to worst, there are ways to deal with spears and metal units. Shock, for example. Flanking 2 would also work, allowing I believe a 50% chance of retreating, which would soften up spears. We would probably just have to continue to scout Bizzy's core cities to see if/how many metal units he builds. I don't think he'll build too many spears, probably swords and axes. I thought AI typically build the strongest units available, ie swords instead of spears, but I could be wrong. But it wouldn't hurt to scout Cyrus out, either.

Yeah, the city site 1S of the southern gold, 1SW where the worker and chariot are now, I believe.

I keep thinking about that nice Capi being size 3 now and having no creative library, maybe somebody will arrest you for that crime
If you are not waiting for maths, and if you tech writing early (so far used for..?) why did you not support that great city better with some chops?

Got it.

Has anyone noticed that we haven't built a road on the gems? Happiness ? Who needs it .

We could definitely replace the barracks with a library in the aksum build. At this point though granaries have to be a priority, seeing as how our food situation is dismal. Road to gems doesn't really matter as all our cities are all below size four, though we can build one with worker #3 around turn ~68. Assuming we want to use my micro.

I don't think refusing the Judaism switch was a good idea. Eventually we will convert. So will Germany. Cyrus doesn't care too much about religion anyway. Actually - in the current set of civs Isabella is the only leader that puts emphasis on religion with regard to diplomacy. Why not please her?

On a side note - I will be unavailable 11.09 to 23.09. If my turn comes up feel free to skip me.

Played 13 turns to 1000bc. Pottery is in, 3 granaries built, capital has a library, goldcopper founded, resources connected, maths in 5, started on HAs. Time for some pre-chops?

I prechopped most of the northern forests inside Aksum's BFC. I can't remember which ones though.

Well, Bismarck has another source of Iron right on our border. I'll wait a day for suggestions before posting my plan, but suffice to say, it involves several two pop whips, chops and many more Horsemen.