RB27 - Barbarian Tokugawa (No civics Immortal)

Hello all. Finally the sequel to RB23 is here. Hooray? Ive rolled up a start and like the other games in this series, discussion on opening moves is required. First the settings:



And the starting location:



I see 2 options here. First option is moving 1 NE. The benefits are we dont waste a turn, our city gets the fish and keeps the cows, and since we start with fishing, we can go workboat ASAP. The cons are that we lose the river health bonus, we lose 1 floodplains and possibly lose any strategic resources which may be in the capital radius.

Second options would be settling on spot. We retain river, cows and the spices, as well as both floodplains. We lose the fish however. It also looks like the initial spot will be the better city in the longrun, I can see some grassland hills in the west there, which are good tiles.

I didnt even mention moving 2 S to pick up the other fish because losing the cows seems pointless. If we didnt start with fishing, I would say the initial spot is better, but im stuck here, the fish look tasty but losing the river on immortal can be painful health wise later on.

Rooster:
Qwack
TheRat
Darelljs
Ozbenno
Atlas

also, for anyone who wants to check out the other games in this series.

No civics Emperor game - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184997

No civics Monarch game - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=180877

Reporting for duty.

Those two fish couldn't have been positioned worse . I favour settling in place for the reasons you mentioned.

Research-wise, I think Animal Husbandry is a big want, as we want the extra use of the cows as quickly as possible. If we have a near neighbour, Bronze Working would be good as well. Obviously, we want to get maximum use out of our UU (half price courthouses is on this path as well). I would abandon a Great Library strategy (risk to achieve this at Immortal) and head straight for Civil Service/Machinery. Would an Oracle - CoL/Metal Casing attempt be worthwhile?

checking in, I agree with settling in place as much as we would like the fish

we need to axe rush here initially, so BW is vital. No whipping will hurt is mighty

Checking in ... for lurking.

Put me as alternate in case someone decides to go on holiday ... or box up his computer for enother expatriate mission again

--

Checking in.

As for the intial move, I say settle in place.

The only problem there is we essentially sacrafice that southern fish, since the only city that could later claim it would terribly cramp Kyoto. Moving to claim is of course a mistake, since we would lose that cows (in the capital anyway) and would lose the river (since it does not look like that tile has a river on it.

The northern fish is easily claimed later with a city that won't cramp the capital at all.

Checking in...I'd favor moving to grab the Fish if we were going to able to use the whip, but as it stands settling in place looks to be the better move.

General strategy from watching the other Immortal threads seems to genberally be:

1. Worker tests and optimize capital growth curve.
2. Strategic resource revealing techs and a Settler to snag them.
3. Building up a force to take out nearest neighbor before they get rolling.
4. Writing/Alphabet beeline to allow backfilling old techs and Libraries.
5. Popping techs with Great Scientists for trading purposes to keep up in the race until size/economy catches up.

Well, I've tried the blueprint about a half dozen times so far and as long as you adjust the tactics to account for traits and starting location it seems to work pretty good (I only won one of them but I at least survived to see my opponent launch most times). I would say we drop the number of turns per turnset as well, as more discussion might help out.

Darrell

P.S. Oracle -> CoL would be great but I am not sure we can afford the Hammers unless we start with Marble nearby. We'll need every last one of them for our military in the early going.

darrelljs said:

1. Worker tests and optimize capital growth curve.
2. Strategic resource revealing techs and a Settler to snag them.
3. Building up a force to take out nearest neighbor before they get rolling.
4. Writing/Alphabet beeline to allow backfilling old techs and Libraries.
5. Popping techs with Great Scientists for trading purposes to keep up in the race until size/economy catches up

Click to expand...

This seems to be the way to win on immortal. Strategic resource tech first-then Beeline to Alphabet- while snuffing out one of the AI's, picking up a tech or two in the peace treaty, then going drama and lightbulbing Philosophy for trade bait.

Sound slike the agreement is to settle on spot. We will do 30-20-20-20-20 the first time around and then 10 or 15 turns depending on whatever the player wants afterwards.

I think we should go 10 each after first round as we will have to play this one very carefully. Much discussion will be needed!!

Thats fine with me. Ok, ill have this turnset played in about 18 hours.

Ok guys not looking like a good situation. We seem to be isolated on an island , which I think with our variant will be unwinnable. So lets vote, do we want to load up another start or continue with this game?



Save if anyone wants to check the situation: The island is good but I still think it will be difficult...

Not ideal is it?

Slightly leaning towards starting again but willing to go by the majority view.

I have a general dislike for isolated starts...and in immortal we would fall that far behind, that we can not catch up...try to roll a start where we start with others.

I think a reroll would probably be appropriate, too bad that is a nice island, we even have a city that could work both golds.

I actually like isolated starts in a normal Emperor game, but with our rules there isn't much point to trying. I vote restart.

Darrell

Ok loaded up a new start and played 28 turns, because there is some discussion warranted here.

Here is our new start location . With no reason to move, I founded on spot and set research to hunting en route to Animal Husbandry. I picked hunting here instead of agriculture because we dont have any farmable resources in the capital and we may need to head towards archery if we dont find any horses with AH.



Overall the start looks decent, not as much production as I would have hoped for though.. On turn two I move our warrior onto a hut and this happens..



This is becoming a pattern isnt it? Man im lucky with these warriors popping technologies recently . And mining is the same tech we got last game but that one was with a scout . 3820 meet Monty the manaic, I was relieved we are not isolated but disgusted to see this face..



Next few turns were rather uneventful other than meeting the other AI's. I pop 51 gold from the second hut, which I basically consider to be 51 beakers in the early game, pretty much half a tech. I got hunting in 3700 after which I set research straight onto AH. Meet Peter in 3640 and Bismarck in 3610.. Looks like things might get a bit cramped here . My initial build in capital was workboat which was done in 3520, I set capital to growth after it while waiting for it to grow to size 2 to start a worker. Our warrior finds peter's capital soon afterwards.



Very closeby, we will be lucky to get a good spot to our south. Met cyrus in 3430 and started worker a turn after that. Also, notice my prediction on this screenshot



I am calling something to be on that spot, due to the poor production in capital and I rarely see a tile like that in capital. Hopefully its a horse Animal husbandry in 3160 reveals horse!



The only problem is it isnt in our capital . I decided to stop at this point since im stuck in terms of what to research next, next player can play 22 turns to even things out. Here is the territory near our capital.. I think we can pull in that horse city and the rice gold city in the south before being cramped in. Ofcourse we might not be able to get the southern city, but I think that horse city is ours.



The reason I stopped is because I am unsure of how to play this hereafter. I was thinking 2 possible routes. Either we play conservativee by going archery here and then rushing peter soon with some units, or the one im thinking which is:

Since we start with wheel, we automatically get chariots once we connect the horses, and chariots are cheap so we should be able to build a few of them before the barbs start thier harrasment. I dont think we will see many barbs from the south, just the northern jungle since hte south will be settled by Peter rather quickly. My suggested plan is like this: Go after oracle AND great lighthouse since we get cheap oracle with marble, and cheap lighthouse with organized. The oracle can be used for either an unorthodox horseback riding slingshot mischief: ) or a CoL slingshot to pick up religion. The great lighthouse is a very strong wonder on high levels. Our research path for this strat would probably go something like Mysticism first(which we will need for obilesks anyways) -> Masonry (Mys first to cut some cost off this) -> Meditation/Polytheism -> Preisthood and the tech we will need to pick up anytime in between which is agriculture for the corn and rice and farming some other tiles as well. This will basically kill 2 birds with one stone either way. Either we pick up CoL for our cheap courthouses early, or we pick up Horseback riding for a rush early while paving the way to CoL by researching down the religious path of the tech tree.

To make this work, we need to be quick with the first settler, I expect the first barb pressure around 2000-2200 BC. Thoughts? Another possibility is going after oracle and great lighthouse after Archery, which is a more safer route but ofcourse we have a higher chance of losing one of the wonders.. So ill let you guys decide.. go wonders first and a little later rush, or rush sooner but no wonders. Also, if we got the wonders path and decide to research archery, I would do it as the next tech.

Save: TheRat can play 22 turns

I think Oracle may be worth a shot BUT would suggest a different approach. Research Bronze Working first and then Oracle for Metal Casing. Colossus would be more achievable wonder than Lighthouse on this level and still just as good.

In any case I would get a settler out asap. If no copper settle the horsies and chariot rush. If copper nearby then settle there and axe rush.

I would honestly prefer the Great lighthouse. The GL basically equals as much commerce as the colussus without forcing us to work water tiles. And considering the fact that we are organized, lighthouse is only half price and since there are no bonuses which boost the GL other than industrious, I think we can aim for it around ~400 BC and still get it. If it comes to GL or colussus, I pick GL but ofcourse we can go neither which I dont mind depending on what the team says.

I dont really think it is possible to do both a rush and build oracle, but we can build the wonders and do the rush later which is what I was suggesting. And if we have no copper we need IW or Horseback riding because chariot rush isnt effective on immortal level .

Anyways, mayvbe we should go archery next and try to get that gold city first? Im pretty sure we can grab those horses as our third city, not so sure about hte gold though.

I would favor choosing one or the other wonder, the GL is essentially equal to 8 chariots/6 axes, the Oracle equal to 6 chariots/4 axes. Why not research archery and start choking Peter?

I think I like Ozbenno's suggestion with BW -> metal as freebie while getting a settler out for the potential horse/copper grab.
After that Peter has to suffer with our axes, the only way for us to survive I think