CO-2 Monarch Early Conquest

[Doc TK]

Do you want the bad news or the bad news or maybe the bad news.

Turn 35 (2600 BC)

Turn 36 (2560 BC)
Contact made: Roman Empire
Doc TK: Found greeks
Contact made: Indian Empire
Doc TK: Sal has settler coming in at wheat on left

Turn 37 (2520 BC)

Turn 38 (2480 BC)

Turn 39 (2440 BC)
Doc TK: Sal just took the wheat + ivory

Turn 40 (2400 BC)
Doc TK: argh, mansa took gold + cows

Turn 41 (2360 BC)
Research begun: Agriculture
Doc TK: starting ag

Turn 42 (2320 BC)
Kyoto finishes: Settler

Turn 43 (2280 BC)
Kyoto begins: Settler

Turn 44 (2240 BC)

Turn 45 (2200 BC)
Scout defeats (0.37/1): Barbarian Warrior

Turn 46 (2160 BC)
Research begun: Animal Husbandry
Osaka founded
Osaka begins: Obelisk
Scout promoted: Woodsman I

Turn 47 (2120 BC)

Turn 48 (2080 BC)

Turn 49 (2040 BC)

Turn 50 (2000 BC)
Kyoto's borders expand

I debated whether to put the city down to grab the iron or to go after HAs. I figure that since we've already spent the time to get IW, we should go for the iron. Of course, the city location sucks, but I didn't see a lot of choices.

Clearly we still need to grab out, but Mansa is going to be an early target to grab a city and hopefully help us Tech Up.

We've got Ag, will have AH in about 3 turns.







Save File: Attachment 126141

[rddc05]

Good job given the circumstances. I suspected the wheat/ivory/sugar/banana site would be gone quickly.

The second city site really isn't all that bad. Rice and two flood plains give us plenty of food. I suggest getting a granary up and farming the floodplains to 2 pop whip axes and grow back pop quickly. More happiness resources would be nice though. That wine (and the NE gold) will be ours when we're through with Mansa.

I wonder if we should quickly take Sal's sweet city quickly before it is well defended and then take out Mansa. I should be able to play tonight, unless you guys want to take an extra day to discuss next moves.

[mike p]

Looks like all good news to me. We have iron. Once it's hooked up we can get started on the conquest, which is what we're here for anyway, right?

One more settler to claim the gems, then it's all swords and axes for a while, I'd say.

[Grogs]

Yikes! We've got no defender in Osaka and Saladin's warrior is standing at the border (next to our worker.) He's pretty good natured and probably won't take advantage of that situation, but I don't think it's a temptation we should encourage.

As for the iron city, I agree with mike and rddc's sentiments. Once we've got the iron hooked up, we can build up an army and go take the cities sites we like. I would say Saladin is probably a good choice for a victim, but we'll see if he still looks that way after we've gotten a few mitary units built.

[Doc TK]

rddc - since we don't have copper, probably will need to wait for iron hookup to go after Sal's city, but I agree that city and Mansa are early targets. I'm thinking swords right now instead of Axes. I agree on the pop-rush for the rice/two floods city.

Oh, I forgot to check - did we go to Slavery already. I didn't change it.

Only issue is that its going to take a while for the Oblesik and Granary and Swords.

Also, we've only got one worker right now so its going to take a while.

Given that, I'd say that I'm fine with going ahead for the next turn or two based on this general strategy. Seems like everyone else is too, except we haven't heard from Colony.

Oh, I almost forgot, there's a Barb archer up near our Scout. So be careful (not that losing a Scout at this point is a biggy).

[colony]

Originally Posted by Doc TK

Given that, I'd say that I'm fine with going ahead for the next turn or two based on this general strategy. Seems like everyone else is too, except we haven't heard from Colony.

We have Iron now, and after we've got the Gems we should be able to take a few cities before Catapults appear. I prefer Swordsmen too, the AI doesn't build many Axemen anyway, so we can get away with using mostly Swordsmen. I doubt we'll be able to take Mansa's capital without Catapults though, so I think Saladin might be a better choice here.

Maybe we should build another Worker now, before the Iron's connected, then we can use Kyoto purely for Swords/Axes after the Gems city is founded to get everything sped up a bit.

[Doc TK]

Wow, that's some amazing response time. I posted at 5:38AM and we had responses from everyone and general consensus by 8:32AM. Pretty dang good.

[rddc05]

Barbs stole the stone from us, but we got a decent alternate site. Researched AH, Hunting (to hook up ivory) and now one turn from Writing. Kyoto Settler->Worker->Barracks (2 turns), Osaka Obelisk->Barracks (2 turns). Horses hooked up in Kyoto's fat cross.

It's a slow start, but we have decent prospects now that we are closer to getting some hammers going. Could definitely use another worker right now. Might consider whipping one. Granaries would be nice too, but I guess we need to pump some units.

Good luck with it, here's the save:

[mike p]

Got it. Looked at the game, will be going to sleep now and will play after work tomorrow.

I'll probably switch the barracks in Osaka to a worker. It will take 7 turns for our worker to finish the pasture and move to the iron, so a second worker will get us swords much quicker. We can finish the barracks once the worker is done and still have it done before the iron is hooked up.

For the capital, a library would be nice, since writing is up next turn, but our military is pitiful. Should I push out some units, or build a library while we wait for iron to come along? Could go either way.

Not sure if the obelisk is really necessary in the new city, (Tokyo?) - gems and ivory are already within our borders, but it will be a while before we have workers to spare anyway. Obelisk just means that we have more territory we can't use in our borders. Granary and barracks should be priorities or possibly another worker to get the gems within our borders on line, and a road to connect the rivers.

Let me know what you guys think. I'll play my 15 turns tomorrow.

[rddc05]

There is already a second worker west of Kyoto that has no task. Worker after the Rax finishes would be a good idea though.

Maybe the obelisk could have waited til after a worker, but given our lack of commerce figured that the sack of gold that second gem would bring would be worth it to minr sooner rather than later.

[Grogs]

I'd say our most immediate short term goal is to get some military rolling, not only for taking other civs, but also for defense. I'd like to get a couple of swords built as soon as possible. The barb city is actually nice. We can send our first couple of swords up there to get some promotions and CR2 or cover+CR1 promotions.

After we've got a fair sized military force, say 4-5 swords, we can designate 1 or 2 of our cities to build strictly military and then focus on libraries and such in our other cities. Once we feel we're ready to go on the offensive, we can use Hun as a proving ground and then select the AI of our choice and go after them.

[Doc TK]

Since I can't look at the map (at work), I'm not sure where the third city is exactly, but sounds like its near the gems. Which means its going to take some work to have it produce much and even then its primarily a commerce city.

I'm torn on the capital. I'd like to see us get a Library going in the capital as soon as we can to help us move along Alpha. I'm assuming we are going to make that city a commerce city primarly, so would like us to move on that. At the same time, given our city placements it doesn't seem like we've got much of a chance to pump out swords in the near term and we really need another production city. Do we think we can take the barb city in a reasonable amount of time to get it as a second production city without having the capital build swords?

If not, then I'd say that we should have the capital build a sword or two to augment what we are going to get from Osaka (the unit pumper) in order to grab the barb city as our 2nd production city pretty quickly.

[rddc05]

My bad, I should have posted a screenie. It is one tile NE of the eastern-most gems.

As you can see, there are plenty of hammers to be had at that and the other city sites, we just need to get the jungle cleared and the rivers farmed/hills mined. That is why I believe the fastest way to a military is with at least one more (possibly two) whipped workers.

[mike p]

Very Bad Things.

Saladin has an axeman on our borders. We need to keep him happy.

Mansa built the Oracle and grabbed Code of Laws.

Tokyo is about to be razed by barbarians.

Iron is hooked up, but this turn set pretty much sucked.

1400BC: Things look good. Hit <Enter>.

1360BC: Alexander and Saladin both want Open Borders. I agree to both. Writing is done, I start Alphabet.

1320BC: Kyoto and Osaka finish barracks, and start granaries.

1280BC: Barbarian moves towards our fortified archer on the forested hill outside of Tokyo. Our worker south of Osaka builds a road on the iron tile, which will be inside our border by the time he finishes.

1240BC: Crap. Barbarian doesn't attack our warrior and instead moves on Tokyo, bypassing him. Tokyo has only one fortified warrior as a garrison. So I send the warrior outside of town in on a bonzai charge, weakening the archer.

1200BC: Our warrior defeats the barbarian archer.

1160BC: Start mining the iron. The other worker is building roads from the river to Osaka to hook up Tokyo.

1120BC: Whip granary in Kyoto.

1080BC: Excess production from whip gives us a chariot in 1 turn for repelling the barbs. Stonehenge is built far away.

1040BC: Tokyo starts a barracks, having completed the obelisk. The Oracle is built in a distant land, and Confucianism is founded.

1000BC: Mansa converts to Confucianism. Our Iron is hooked up.



975BC: Kyoto starts a swordsman, abandoning work on a library. (Probably should have built another chariot instead of starting library.)

925BC: A barb archer is moving in on Tokyo. Our chariot is 66% to win, but loses. Perhaps I should have let the archer come to me, so the warrior could polish of the archer if he beat us. I rush the barracks in Tokyo and figure we can use the overflow for a Cover promoted warrior.

900BC: Somehow Tokyo is hooked up to our trade network. I don't understand how. Which means that instead of a warrior in 1 turn, we have an axeman in several, and second barb archer is moving in to attack our single warrior, who I promote with Cover. Also means that I was building a wasted road to connect the two rivers.

875BC: Warrior beats barb archer, but is reduced to .6 health, with the second barb archer now adjacent to Tokyo.

UGLY!!

Attachment 126278

Sorry about that.

[colony]

Got it.

Eek, looks like we're about to lose a city.

I noticed Kyoto has an unhappy citizen, and will grow in a few turns. Whipping the Library will take 3 citizens, so when it grows I think I'll switch it back to the Library for a turn. I'll try to get a couple of units in fog-busting positions if there are units free too. I think I'll stick to building up some Swords/Axes for now, a Settler to replace Tokyo if it gets razed will have to wait I expect.

Does anyone have suggestions for research after Alphabet? The main option I think is Maths, and after that Currency then CoL. After that we'd only be 3 (expensive) techs away from Samurai. We don't have the ability to build more than a couple of Catapults, so I don't think we need Construction yet.

[Doc TK]

I would agree with Math, although sometimes based on trading I change my opinion on that.

I definitely like Construction for us for both Elephants (anti horse and good for neighbors who use Axes) and Cats. While we can't build Cats right now, we are going to need them in the near term for conquering neighbors.

[mike p]

Kyoto's unhappiness problems should be temporary. There is only one or two turns left of unhappiness from the last whip. The ivory should also make some happies and that will be hooked up shortly. What's the optimal amount of whipping?

[Grogs]

Yeah, looks like we're going to have to take our licks on this one. If we can manage to pull it together, our first military objective will be recapturing Tokyo. Also, we seem to have potential 'enemies' swarming, Saladin's axe and Mansa's skirmishers. I think we should focus on military units exclusively for the next few turns. Make sure we throw an axe or two in with those swords as well since we need something to counter enemy axes, which will otherwise chew up swords.

As for techs, let's see what's out there after we get Alphabet. The AI's usually go for the Math side of the tree first, so we may be able to get Math/Construction by trading some of the other techs. We really don't want to trade Alphabet until some of the other AI's start getting it. Having a monopoly on tech trading really helps.

[mike p]

Mansa & Saladin might also have been moving in on the barbs instead of threatening us. The AI tends to go after them.

Tokyo is size one since I whipped it and hasn't expanded its borders culturally, which means it gets autorazed if the barbs win, no? Next time in that situation I won't whip the population down to 1 - it's better to be able to recapture the city than have to rebuild it.

Things would have been quite different if our chariot beat that first archer.

[colony]

Sorry I took so long getting these turns done, I was a bit a busy this week.

As expected we lost Tokyo to the barbs, but apart from that it wasn't too bad.

Turn 80 (875 BC)
Warrior loses to: Barbarian Archer (3.00/3)
Tokyo lost

Turn 81 (850 BC)
Kyoto grows: 6
Osaka finishes: Swordsman

Turn 82 (825 BC)
Osaka begins: Swordsman

Turn 83 (800 BC)
Kyoto finishes: Swordsman
Alphabet finished

Turn 84 (775 BC)
Research begun: Mathematics
Kyoto begins: Swordsman
Kyoto grows: 7
Looking through the Relations screen there isn't too many trades available.
Trade Writing for Sailing with Caeser

Turn 85 (750 BC)
Osaka finishes: Swordsman
Trade Writing + Sailing for Archery + Masonry with Saladin

Turn 86 (725 BC)
Osaka begins: Swordsman

Turn 87 (700 BC)
Kyoto finishes: Swordsman

Turn 88 (675 BC)
Kyoto begins: Swordsman
Kyoto grows: 8

Turn 89 (650 BC)
Kyoto begins: Library
Kyoto begins: Swordsman
Osaka grows: 5
Osaka finishes: Swordsman

Turn 90 (625 BC)
Osaka begins: Axeman

The Library in Kyoto can be whipped now, for 3 citizens (there are 2 unhappy there ATM), if we want to (it'll give 5 extra BPT). Mansa's put another city down, 2 squares South of where Tokyo was. Hun, the barb city, shouldn't be too hard to take if we want to, but in some ways I'd prefer going for Mansa first now, he's starting to box us in, and while Axemen have a hard time against Skirmishers, Swordsmen cope a bit better.

Roster:
Colony - Just Played
Grogs - Up
Doc TK - On Deck
rdd05
mike p