zyxy01: Russian Polar Expedition

First random Deity start, standard mapsize, default rules (but no respawn). Vanilla.

We're Russia, and we started on the South Pole. Will the sturdy Russian people be able to survive in the frosty desert? Or will they wander to better places? Only one way to find out: join the expedition!

Members of the expedition:

Tone
McLMan
nerovats
Smart
Beorn-eL-Feared
tupaclives
zyxy

If you want another place in the roster, just let me know. I suggest 10 turns per set, but this is not strict.

Please
- don't use any exploits.
- keep our rep clean unless discussed with the team.
- keep it moving: 24 hrs for "got it", 48 hrs to play, or ask for extension.

I played 20 to kick it off.

Turn 0, 4000BC: If I draw a random start, I never get the 2 cows + 4 bg's + river + lux that some people seem to get all the time, but this one is bad even by my standards:


Scout marches north and then east to see if we can get out of this hell-hole. Hey, things are looking up:


Forget the gathering, we'll be hunters . I immediately have a tough decision to make. I want the settler on the coast, for commerce. NW will give 4 game, but N preserves the hill, and keeps a game in range for the first 10 turns. I choose N.


Turn 1, 3950BC: scout keeps moving north and spots bg's:


Hm, a few more settler moves? I don't like to wander for so long, but the terrain up there is much better, so we get our backpacks and walk. No hunting today, sorry.

Turn 2, 3900BC: our scout oes north again and spots the English. That's not good, too close. England has Alpha, CB, and Pottery. We can trade BW for CB, but I'll hold off for now.

Turn 3, 3850BC: We spot the english border. No food bonusses, so we'll have to go for early war I think. Moving north still.

Turn 4, 3800BC: English scout has gone south. Our scout heads east and spots a cow. A few more turns to walk there, it seems worth it.

Turn 7, 3650BC: Moscow is finally settled. Research to WC at 100%, we need a quick knockout.


Turn 8, 3600BC: Our scout reports that the English have 2 cows, and several spices. Not fair!

Turn 9, 3550BC: The english have WC now, but we cannot buy. We seem to be stuck here just with the 2 of us.

Turn 11, 3450BC: To top it all off, London has fresh water:


IT: Moscow warrior -> warrior.

Turn 12, 3400BC: The english now have BW as well. No more trade opportunities, not even for CB . Our entire economy will not buy WC .

Turn 15, 3250BC: spot an English settler.

IT: Moscow warrior -> spear.

Turn 16, 3200BC: England has a huge amount of warriors:


Turn 17, 3150BC: An english settler appeared E of Moscow, we'll not get a single city this way.

Turn 19, 3050BC: A barb appears from the south. That's why England sent half a dozen warriors our way?

Turn 20, 3000BC: Our scout valiantly heads south and ends up near the barb camp. I switch the spear build to settler, it should finish in 2.

I hope I didn't lose this already. We probably need to kill England before they completely surround us. There's a barb at the gates of Moscow, there's an English settler pair somewhere to our SE.


The save.

I'd join.

I'm really looking forward to this.

I can't play until tomorrow so if someone else wants to pick it up and swap the roster around that's fine by me if it's OK with zyxy. I think that Beorn is keen to join us as well. I've just PM'd him with a link to this thread.

If the English settler has gone eastwards then we could get two more decent sites 4SW and 4NE of our capital. We could even squeeze London lol: ) with a third in the NW. The ones North of us might be left free by England for a while. If so a tight core with barracks will give us a fighting chance. You're right to go for WC-this start will surely lead to an early war whether we like it or not.

This is a vanilla game, isn't it?

London isn't coastal ... Sorry, vanilla. So england is what, COM/EXP ?

Having great confidence in Tone, and seeing that he believes I won't be harmful, I'll ask to join up.

Now onto the real things: We might be able to plant 2 or 3 towns early, probably not much more. Worker-Barracks-Archers in all of them is what I'd probably think about doing. Archers in great enough numbers can work pretty well, especially if England is slow on researching WC and BW.

However, we need to be careful about where we settle, and in what order, because Betty will take everything around ASAP. The hot spots for us are dyes, fishes and games. She probably will attempt for Dyes early on, so although it's not the shizzle for a location, it might be safer that way - and she'll pay a dear price for he robes to be pink.

I'd like to see what everyone thinks about those first cities though. We might have a 3CC conquest to run for a while there, so it's best if we think it ahead.

Agree with Tone's city placement, just get 2 settlers, barracks, walls, 2 spears and loads of archers. Need to take care of those English fast. Might even be better to just settle 1 of those cities so england can still go around us. Otherwise they are more likely to attack.

Welcome Smart and Beorn!

Yes, it's vanilla, I'll update the first post. English are COM+EXP, we are SCI+EXP. Our UU is better though . Unfortunately England already has acquired WC and BW.

Our main asset seems to be a lot of bg's, that should help a bit with production. I'm hoping we'll get some Dyes as they are close to our capital. In any case, an English tundra town there should be easy to raze. Though I hate settling on bg's, it does look like ring 4 is best, with 3-4 reasonable spots: 4 NE, 4 SW, S-S-SW and perhaps 4 NW. Ring 3 has just 2 reasonable spots (E-NE-NE and W-NW-NW). Ring 5 is too wide.

I would make the 4 SW spot the priority. We'll probably get the others as well.

The roster was made up at random, so if anyone wants to swap with Tone that's fine with me.

I'd settle SW first as it sems to be the best location. I fear England will settle on the other sidfe befor we can. We could settle the 3th city on th dyes if taht happens, or not make a 3th city and just stck with 2.

Thanks for your kind words, Beorn though I'm beginning to wonder if I talk a better game than I actually play. It's good to be playing with you again.

Interestiing comments re cities, nero. It was the third city that I was unsure about, as the AI doesn't seem to like it when you settle close to their borders, so maybe we develop 2 cities and have a couple of spare workers to join to the third one asap. We are still 15 turns from getting archers and no roads=no commerce (without rivers) so maybe we could afford a second worker soon to help chop a rax in our second city.

Our saving grace is our potential production. With those bgs mined, we can get 10spt in our capital and 5/7 spt in the other two. That could be enough to knock the English back, pick up some techs and then hit them again at our leisure.

I'll join. This is gonna be really tough, with the huge delay and still a rather weak start, on top of it all it's deity. Like nerovats game, an early archer attack is the only way to go here.

lurker's comment: Gonna see if I can learn a thing or two on "Outdoor Survival Skills"( )Subscribed.

Lurkers Comment
Good luck guys i wouldnt be game enough to try out that start, will definately be following to see how you get on though

tupaclives said:

Lurkers Comment
Good luck guys i wouldnt be game enough to try out that start, will definately be following to see how you get on though

Click to expand...

Thanks! We'll need it.

@Own: sorry, the roster is full already. I'll put you on the reserve spot in case someone has to drop.

lurker's comment: If you guys can survive, this will probably be the most exciting game on the board. I'll definitely be watching!

lurker's comment:

I wouldn't build any settlers at all in such a situation. Just build barracks in the capital, then 10 archers and go take London.

Good luck!

Just saw that I haven't officially checked in.

So, Checking In.

I agree a 2nd worker would help the most with an attack on England. We need to improve as much as we can to get shields. I think the best way to go about it is to declare, then sit back and wait for the English to come to us & pick them off in the open. Once their 1st wave is repelled, we can move in and raze some English towns.

I somewhat disagree with only one city, but I guess Obormot has a point: the faster out, the better. I tend to be skeptical about lurker comments but you should see his AAC time records, it's heartstopping.

3000
Press enter

IT
the barb attacks Moscow and fails. English establish a city just outside the Dyes so that plan goes out the window. Palace extension. I can see 10 warriors.

2950 (1)
zzz

IT
Moscow: settler>warrior. England has CB-did they have it before? London has dropped to size 1 so expect another settler to come along.

2900 (2)
warrior and settler start moving SW-hopefully the English warriors will have done their work with the barb camp by the time we get there. We are running @-1gpt but it won't hurt for a couple of turns. worker moves to chop forest.

2850 (3)
worker starts chop

2800 (4)
settler and warrior will be in position next turn but an english warrior will block our path. English stack has moved south, presumably to deal with another barb camp.

2750 (5)
warrior and settler cannot move to desired site so they twiddle their thumbs for a turn. Scout end move beside a barb warrior-I guess that solves our unit upkeep costs.

IT
Scout is dead. Moscow: warrior>worker

2710 (6)
warrior/settler in position.

IT
The English also liked the look of the site 4 NE of Moscow as they've placed Canterbury there.

2670 (7)
Build St. Petersburg (rax)

2630 (8)
zzz (England has dealt with another barb camp)

IT
England have Iron Working. Moscow: worker>rax.

2590 (9)
New worker starts to mine bg.

2550 (10)
zzz



My comments for what they're worth:

WC in 3. Switch off research after this or 10%? IMO we cannot afford to research as we'll need the cash for unit support before we take on England.

Forest chop in 3 will aid the rax build in the capital. This build will take 7 more turns-I hope that we can wait that long! I thought that one worker could mine bgs for Moscow whilst the other links St. Petersburg to reduce corruption and waste there.

The war might come before we're ready but maybe England will build one or two more settlers before they run out of acceptable spots to settle if they like the look of those game spots. I suggest that we don't build another settler but just build units after the rax. Settling 4 NW of Moscow will piss them off and reduce our unit count when they come knocking at our door (assuming that we can get the rax out by then)

I think that there are 10 English warriors in the south unless more went that way before my turn started.

Save

McLMan (up next)
nerovats (on deck)
Smart
Beorn-eL-Feared
zyxy
Tone (just played)

that went fast, we're out of room already. I agree with stopping everything and go pull a jackass archer war ASAP. Perhaps 1 more worker if we can sneak one in, but I'm not quite sure we can afford the population. We'll have to see.

@Own: sorry, the roster is full already. I'll put you on the reserve spot in case someone has to drop.

Click to expand...

That's fine, I'll be happy lurking.