Ruff02 - Concurrent Succession Game

lurker's comment:
I think Pholk's save is best with Ruff's right behind. No early religion is a bad thing with Ghandi, but having Khan without his second city outweights that. Get Copper connected and take him out. That's the only reasonable thing to do with him, ever.

Without Khan, Ruff's start is sure better, but Khan is unfortunately not just a bad dream.

We have no idea what's south of Khaaaaan's capital, only that Pholk prevented the second city the rest of us saw form up. That could either mean he settled south or turned his production into war preparedness (I forget what advantages the AI starts with at Monarch level).

If Khaaaan has a much better defense due to Pholks aggresive settling, then we might almost be better off with Ruff's save *if* we can race our settler over to steal the copper away. The tech advantage weighs on my mind. (Course with Sailing from Pholk we can get out Galleys and grow that much faster!)

The only prob with my city is the pressure from Khan's capital...and yeah, it looks like there might be enough land S of Khan that his second city may have went there...also, we very well may have iron on our side of the island, but...

I had to rush to get over there, and was going to settle on the copper, but I, too, had no idea what sort of extras the AI gets @ King and so had no idea if i'd see a settler just sneak right on in and steal it

I agree w/the tech choice. in my mind, i was going for the wherewithal to expand away from Khan, but i tink wheel would've been an infinitely wiser choice...

Vote Results to date ...
Cut & Paste w/your vote.

Ruff_Hi -
bobrath -
knupp715 -
chriseay -
T_Raccoon -
pholkhero - Knupp
Spinoza -
Mutineer -

Our capital is naturally shield poor. Whiping is the only way to get any army going. For whipping one need happiness = religion and granary.
pholkhero start would be good with city at cooper, if it followed what this city implies - early war. That mean well.

This city would be lost to culture after next mongolian border expance.
And Khan would not tollerate it. It will come with stack of Archers very soon.
Ever see stack of 4-6 archers of doom? I did and this city with 2 warriors will be lost. So, sailing actially not that bad choise. Saling will connect this city to our capital so we do not need to waster worker time making road right now. Desert takes 3 turns for road to be build. But the only way we can get disent army is whipping, so we would need well, pottery. To be able to do 2 pop whipes and fast grow back we would need agriculture.
After that we would have 3 whipes for 2 population giving as 6 axes with some shields in between. After that capital would be size 2 could be put to naturally produce worker/setler working 2 food rich ties. So, this plan need
Finish saling, pottery, (whipe granary), whell, agriculture, wait untill granary whipe unhappiness ends and city rich max size with allmost full food storage.
Whipe, wait for second finish, whipe, wait, whipe, wait = 6 axes.

I am afraid it would not work. Khan would probaby have4 archers in. He likes to stuff his defences up.
Now Ruff situation. Well is allmost in, but he would need to road up to town.
And there still question, Khan might make a setler himself and sneak it in befor we put our in. In addition city would not be even on hill, but capital could produce 3 warriors with barracka and garnison this city.
Again army could be created only with whipping. So, tech needed:
Pottery, fishing. One more happiness avalible. so, it is posible to do more 2 pop whipping and from higher starting population, so, it is probably posible to get fast 7 Axes out. Probably enogth to take Khan capital. So, at the end of day for military plan I think Ruff sityation is better.

pholkhero said:

Vote Results to date ...
Cut & Paste w/your vote.

Ruff_Hi - Mutineer
bobrath -
knupp715 -
chriseay -
T_Raccoon -
pholkhero - Knupp
Spinoza -
Mutineer -

Click to expand...

Ok, the voting has me confused. I took this ... "pholkhero - Knupp" ... as pholkhero voting for Knupp's save. I know that I didn't vote for Mutineer's save for two reasons, 1) I voted for pholkhero's and 2) Mutineer doesn't have a save.

Summary - the candidates
pholkhero
knupp
ruff
bobrath

The voting as I count it (correct me if I get it wrong)
Ruff_Hi votes for pholkhero
bobrath votes for ruff
knupp715 votes for ruff
chriseay votes for pholkhero
T_Raccoon ?
pholkhero votes for Knupp
Spinoza votes for ruff
Mutineer votes for ruff
Sina (lurker) votes for pholkhero
Mahatmajon (lurker) votes for pholkhero

The Tally Room
pholkhero - 8
knupp - 3
ruff - 12
bobrath - 0

Are their bonus points for write up, pictures, description (helps with learning), etc?

Soory, I mean My voite for Ruff, silly me

Arggghhh... I really like Pholks agression, but Mutineer has me all worried that we'll lose the town fast to Khan...

I vote Ruff - Religion is going to help us more then an agressive city placement.

My vote goes to ruff, for several reasons;
-religion is AWESOME!
-getting agri is good for fast whip action
-love having the worker out
-just like the solid start he has played

ruff_hi said:

Are their bonus points for write up, pictures, description (helps with learning), etc?

Click to expand...

Maybe we can all give each save a score out of 5 or 10, so that way we can judge not only the game situation, but the write up as well. Have 5 points for the game, and 5 for the writeup (all parts included), for example. That way the game situation is still of utmost importance, but how we explain it to each other matters too. I almost see it like a political campaign. My positions (game situation) are really important, but how I relate them to my voters (writeup) is almost as important.

I've been studing up on any war we have in the next turn set with Khan. Axe v Archers isn't that pretty in lots of situations (str 3, +50% city def, +25% hill def, + walls / city defense, 1 free promotion for Khan - gets them over our str 5 fairly quickly). Archers are really good defensive units in the early game. Also, Khan's capital is on a hill :sigh:. I'm actually starting to feel that we cannot win an early war without cat support (or a sick number of troops). If that is so, then we need to go defensive (archers, extra cities, get off this island so that we survive if we lose our capital, etc).

ruff_hi said:

I've been studing up on any war we have in the next turn set with Khan. Axe v Archers isn't that pretty in lots of situations (str 3, +50% city def, +25% hill def, + walls / city defense, 1 free promotion for Khan - gets them over our str 5 fairly quickly). Archers are really good defensive units in the early game. Also, Khan's capital is on a hill :sigh:. I'm actually starting to feel that we cannot win an early war without cat support (or a sick number of troops). If that is so, then we need to go defensive (archers, extra cities, get off this island so that we survive if we lose our capital, etc).

Click to expand...

You've got a point there. Another question is how many turns for Iron Working? Swordsmen would be much better for this. Of course, that means we would have to have iron which is by no means guaranteed (I never ever know if I am spelling that damn word right! ). It might be worth to find out, as we'll need iron sooner or later anyway, while working on defensively building up and trying to find another island to move to. With only seeing screenshots, I'm thinking we'll have to try to move west. The Germans are in the east. I seem to remember another civ met by someone too, maybe it was Cyrus? Where did they come from?

The other civ is a yellow border far sw of our island spotted by Knupp.

I agree that I don't think my 2nd city will a)hope to hold the copper (it really was a settlement of desparation, knowing i'd have the safety net of three other saves; concurrent rules!), and b)even if we do, as has been pointed out, the war won't be pretty.

More and more i'm coming to the conclusion that we grab what land we can here (3 cities? maybe settle on the desert hill at the beginning of that isthmus to Mongolia), and use sailing to set-up a stronger position on the islands nearby ~ then overwhelm mongolia!

It seems that Ruff is the Consensus Save (TM). No?

pholkhero said:

I agree that I don't think my 2nd city will a)hope to hold the copper (it really was a settlement of desparation, knowing i'd have the safety net of three other saves; concurrent rules

Click to expand...

So, the theory of parallel universes is correct?

lurker's comment Wow, I'm pretty surprised you didn't go with Pholk's start. The new copper city will be just fine in getting and keeping the copper in 12+ turns (-whip(s)) when SH comes in. Pholk's turnset was just about exactly what I would have done with this start except I would have manipulated the city growth/whips to settler a little bit more like Ruff did. Also, if you can take out Khan's second city relatively quickly with 3-4 axes and then siege his capital you may still have time to hook up stone and chop the Pyramids.

Great thread though and good turnsets by all. This start will definately get interesting.

Hey, T-Racoon has dropped otu of SG games...see the sticky thread. He had to sell the game!!! That sucks

Rats - what a shame. Any lurkers want to join this leaky boat for a thrill ride?

Well, I guess we have all voted and it looks like my save got the nod. It is attached to this post. The next round will be interesting. What are the goals and options? The way I see it, we have two possibilities ...

1) prep for immediate war with Khan (but see earlier posts)
2) solidify holding (defense, off island position, spread religion)

And the roster for this round ...
Mutineer
chriseay
Spinoza
T_Raccoon (retired so this slot is open)

Any other suggestions?

at this point, i think a little of column A and a little of column B

If I understand correctly, we have 30 turns (it is still early in game and strategy still could be different a lot).
Yes, we now have choice of 2 stances.

1) Defensive. Settle on the red spot, research archery, masonry and we will be safe until he get Construction and come with cats/elephants.
He does have Ivory and gold at his capital, He will get construction faster then we will, sure.
2) Offensive. Settle near bronze, probably on hill like Pholkhero. Build and garrison this town with 3 warriors, prepare economy, whip 7-8 axes.
We might or we might not be able to take his capital. What we should be able to do for sure is: Take and Raise his second town. Pillage him into Stone Age.
Probability to take his capital: His archer will not get free promotion, only melee and gunpowder troops do. So, we most likely face: 3 + 25% hill+25% archer on hill +50% + 40% cultural defense. Archer in town +20 barrack. = 7 str archer with 5 Axe + 20% city raider1 = 6 str. Archer will have first strike. My general rule, bring double amount of axes to defending archers. We might shift favor in our side by taking his second town first and promote couple of our axes to city raider 2. So, so chances, but I noticed that Mongols tend to put 6 defenders in there capital fast.

I would still go with offensive stance. It carry price in slowing our development, but it does guaranty keeping Khan in place.

I suggest everyone try plan they think best and we will see how it is going.
Or, about presentation of results. Some of as (point on himself) are not Native English speakers, we might have some problem be competitive in that area.