Raliuven SG3 AWE Persia

Raliuven SG3 – AWE Persia

Xerxes awakes one morning with cows trampling though his house. Unfortunately he awakes on the wrong side of the bed and things only get worse from there!



Game settings

Size: Standard
Barbarians: None (per creamcheese’s request)
LM & Water: Continents, 70% water
Climate: Wet
Temperature: Warm
Age: 3 Billion Years
Civ: Persia [Scientific/Industrious] Masonry, Bronze Working.
UU: Immortal: 4/2/1 30 shields, requires Iron resource, available with Ironworking

Seven Random Civs (Spoiler is enemies according to F10)

All victories enabled (except wonder)
Normal Aggression
Difficulty: Emperor
Rules: Always War – do we need any clarifications? Can we make any trades the round we meet before DOW or are we going to disallow this?
**If the AI does not initiate contact, we will contact any AI civ that appears in the F4 and instantly DOW.**
**We will not trade with any of the unworthy AI Civs before we DOW**
**We may answer the AI's calls for peace to taunt them and spy but we will never make peace.**

Start looks somewhat promising. We are on top of a cow but no sign of fresh water – the coast to our west looks to be ocean to me rather than a fresh water lake, but you never know! Position should be good, we are starting in a corner.

I’ve started out every game, so does someone else want to have a go this time? If so, the first ‘got it’ gets top billing in the Roster this time. Otherwise I will start tomorrow and play the first 10 turns (unless there is discussion).

Roster
Raliuven
CKS
Elephantium
creamcheese
TheOverseer714
Aabraxan
Toxicman007

In addition if there are any lurkers that want to play I think we could add one or two to the roster. **Roster is currently full**

Checking in.
I'd move the Settler 1NW to the coast (or maybe lake, if we're reaaallly lucky!) and start mining the cow. City should build a couple of Warriors.
For rules, I vote insta-declare on everyone we meet.

Xerxes awakes one morning with cows trampling though his house.

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My parents live out in the country, and they have neighbors with a small dairy farm. When I was a kid, we woke up one morning to about 20 cows, all with their noses pressed up against our windows, watching us sleep. Our goats were clever enough to sneak into the house regularly, but luckily the cows weren't.

Well, the start doesn't look too bad. We have a corner, a cow, and some BG. The lack of water isn't great, but at least we are surrounded by green, not brown or wetlands.

Spoiler for opponent discussion.

Yes, I'd like clarification on the always war rules. I'd prefer no trades allowed, but it is a mild preference. Do we need to declare when we see someone or when they show up as a potential contact, or can we wait until they actually contact us? That is, if a scout walks by, and we see them during the IBT, but they don't show up on the F4 screen or the ^D list, do we make contact and declare (assuming we have a unit that can move to see them)? If we see them and they do show up on the ^D list or the F4 screen, but they don't initiate contact, do we make contact and declare immediately?

Are we looking for a military victory, or are we open to something else? On a continents map, we may have many options, though we probably won't know for a while. It'd be rather anticlimactic to be alone on our continent, wouldn't it?

Elephantium said:

I'd move the Settler 1NW to the coast (or maybe lake, if we're reaaallly lucky!) and start mining the cow. City should build a couple of Warriors.

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I agree with this plan.

I'm lousy at fog-gazing, but it looks like their might be something interesting in the fog north of the proposed settling spot. It could be coastline or my imagination, though.

Checking in.

As long as we aren't hemmed in by the carthaginians, greeks, or aztecs early on, we are probably good on opponents. Those Aztec Jaguars will be a pain at move two if we find them early; and the 3 defense is still a pain, even assuming we find iron. They start with some of those units I think on Emperor. Swiss mercs and ansars are no fun later on, but we should hopefully have some arty and an army by that time. Hwatch'a and F-15s are a joke in the AI's hands.

I agree with the settler plan, coast or fresh water are both good.

I have no preference about trading at contact. Might as well go it alone with no trading if that's what people want. I think if we see a scout like CKS suggested we should not pursue. Only declare when they show up on our diplo screen.

I assumed we would go for a military victory, can't get diplo in AW, just did space, and culture won't turn out well in an AW game.

Well, we could do diplo if we allowed making peace the turn we built the UN, or the year elections were held if we captured the UN, but it does make for a strange and very difficult pairing, one I would not be interested in trying.

With a big continent and a near neighbor who builds ToA, 100k culture might not be that hard, though 20k would be a stretch, unless we are isolated.

Domination or conquest?

It seems we have a few choices to make:

It sounds like everyone is good with Instant-DOW upon contact. No horse (or cow or goat) trading. We may, of course, behead messangers, boil them in oil, and make liberal use of tar and feathers. Let me know if we need further discussion on this point.

Question:

What defines 'contact' and what are our obligations? Basically, how agressive will we be in making contact. Are we required to contact them as soon as we able? Or do we DOW only when they call us up the first time?

Are we allowed to answer the phone to taunt the AI and look at what resources, luxuries, cities and techs they possess?

VC:

I think Diplo is probably off the table even if we agreed to make peace on the final turn. I don't think there is any way to get the AI to vote for us after beating on them for 300+ turns, particularly because we'll be DOW on them.

I favor Conquest but only because if I've gone through the trouble to get to the domination limit I feel behooved to whip the other AI in the quest for the fair treatmetnt of dumb civs. But if the game goes long I have no problem detouring to Domination.

I have no object to 20k with two points: 1) I've never successfuly won an AW let alone at Emperor. 2) I've never played a 20k victory. I always seem to derail myself before I get to the finish line.

lurker's comment: Subscribing.

I'm good with conquest. (But I want to revisit this decision if we find there are cities on 1-tile islands. With AW, we can't get them without marines, which might be a big pain.)

AW+Diplo win is possible, but I'm confident I couldn't pull it off even at chieftain. I am not in SirPleb's league. 20k AW might work okay in PTW, but not conquests.

I'm in favor of declaring when AI show up on F4, not when they contact us nor when they show up on screen or in the ^D listing. I'm okay with checking in on the AI every so often, so long as we don't make peace.

Let's go with conquest.

AW + Diplo is easy. You leave your victims alive as OCCs instead of killing them off normally, and then you make peace + MA vs. your chief rival with everyone else. An AI civ won't vote for another civ while they're at war.

That's the exploit version though.

Elephantium said:

Let's go with conquest.

AW + Diplo is easy. You leave your victims alive as OCCs instead of killing them off normally, and then you make peace + MA vs. your chief rival with everyone else. An AI civ won't vote for another civ while they're at war.

That's the exploit version though.

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But they need to be at least polite to vote for you? How do you get there after being AW for that long? I suppose it would definately mandate only limited razing/auto razing, which would be an extra handicap. A quick conquest to limit loses - prolonged warfare is not good for that.

Alright, I'm back to the task at hand. Current VC is conquest with Dom as a fall back to avoid a prolonged end game.

There's been no takers on the first 10 turns (everyone must LOVE the way I start a game ), so I've got the save.

Roster
Raliuven (Playing)
CKS (on deck)
Elephantium
creamcheese

Turn 0 (4000 BC)

By group consensus we move the settler NW. And we get a wheat! If we’ve got water anywhere near we may have a SF here. The water is coast, not fresh water.



Worker starts mine on the cow.

Turn 1 (3950 BC)
Found Persepolis. The picture changes again.



That's pretty nice - 5 will get you 10 that there is no fresh water ANYWHERE near us!

I stopped becaue I realized we didn't discuss somethings I'm looking for guidance here. What tech do we go for to begin? Normally I would go for the slingshot realizing I could trade for everything on up the tree. Clearly that won't be happening. And with no GH for the AI, they will be slower as well. Without jumping to WC or IW the best we'll have are warrirors and spears. What is the best course of action here?

lurker's comment: As a veteran of a few AWs, I recommend WC or BW, you need better troops ASAP. AW doctrine is limit exploration to limit contacts, best to fight as few enemies at a time. This looks like fun, if you need an extra player, I'd be happy to join

You realize that without freshwater we could still get +5fpt right? Dang, Moving that settler was a good idea. Hopefully that corner position will pay off as much as the rest of our start.

Conquest is fine with me, with the same caveat as CKS; one tile islands are a pain unless you are scandinavia.

Raliuven said:

Are we allowed to answer the phone to taunt the AI and look at what resources, luxuries, cities and techs they possess?

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Yes. I will be using Civassist as usual and it will show me this, so for the sake of convenience...

EDIT: tech path should probably go for archers first and possibly ironworking or math, then up the middle to philo and literature. We will need either the GL or a bunch of libraries (cheap for us) since we cannot trade at contact. We start with bronze working, don't we?

Double EDIT: We are probably safe exploring to the south in those mounains, otherwise be careful about where our warriors go.

TheOverseer714 said:

lurker's comment: As a veteran of a few AWs, I recommend WC or BW, you need better troops ASAP. AW doctrine is limit exploration to limit contacts, best to fight as few enemies at a time. This looks like fun, if you need an extra player, I'd be happy to join

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Hello Overseer! It would be great to have you in the game! I'll add you to the Roster. The more veteran AW players on board the easier to mitigate the damage I'm going to do.

creamcheese You realize that without freshwater we could still get +5fpt right?

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True, but water would make it so that those other two wheat could be used by the next city to make settlers/workers too. No fresh water and we've got a SF but the other wheat will primarily feed us workers. Which is good too. I'm not complaining or anything. I mean jeez, just four bonus food source? Whatever.

Dang, Moving that settler was a good idea. Hopefully that corner position will pay off as much as the rest of our start.

Click to expand...

Good job team!

Roster
Raliuven (Playing)
CKS (on deck)
Elephantium
creamcheese
TheOverseer714

Welcome on board Overseer!

Raliuven said:

Which is good too. I'm not complaining or anything. I mean jeez, just four bonus food source? Whatever.

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I know, and three of them wheat! Better reload until we get five cows and a floodplain wheat!

Raliuven, I think it's traditional for the host to play the first turnset (usually 20 because so little happens in the first ten!)

For tech, I'm not sure between IW, WC, and The Wheel. IW at min research might be worthwhile, but max research on one of the others might give us more of a safety margin.

lurker's comment: Here's my subscription spam. Good luck!

Are you sure you wouldn't like to join us, Aabraxan?

lurker's comment: Is there still room in the roster?