GR14 - AWDG on an Ultra Big Map (31 Civs)

Parameters:
Patch: 1.22 C3C
Level: Demigod
Variant: Always War (No initial trading)
Civilization: Celts
Map Type: 362 x 362
Barbarians: Sedentary
Rivals: 30
AI Aggression: Normal
Victory Condition: Any
Culturally linked starts: OFF
Respawn: Off
Preserve Random Seed: On
Cultural Conversion: On

I decided against hidden diplomacy for this game. We must immediately declare war (no trading first) upon contact, but can see if we are ahead or behind, look at graphs, etc.

Here is the picture of the start I got:


Roster (changed the order in a semi-random manner):
Greebley
markh
Northern Pike
vmxa
M60A3TTS
ThERat

lurker's comment: All I can say is good luck and hope that Caesar or X-man doesn't next to you.
*subscription post*

lurker's comment: I don't think my computer will support this.

I hope this is not another massive plot of desert tiles. That was ugly, I am kind of partial to having some shields in the early towns.

we might be in the middle of some desert or dry land, looking at the position overall on the map. better than some jungle stuff

settle on the spot, game can support shields while flood plains give food

Probably settle on the spot, but may as well move the worker and get a bit more of a view first.

lurker's comment: You're agricultural, and you have freshwater next to you. Why would a desert field annoy you? It's basically a plains field (except with Oil and/or Saltpeter!).

Anyways, just dropping by to wish you all good luck and hope your computers can handle it. Dont know how tough 362 x 362 is on a computer.

You either irrigate desert and get zero shields or you mine it and get zero food. I prefer to get some of both. That not with standing we saw miles of deset in the last game, so it would not be bad to get some grass and the apparently rare BG tile.

It would have been nice to see some Celtic green, but it must be out there somewhere. Let's hope there's iron out there within a reasonable distance.

vmxa said:

You either irrigate desert and get zero shields or you mine it and get zero food. I prefer to get some of both.

Click to expand...

lurker's comment: An unimproved desert tile is 1 food 1 shield for agricultural civs. With irrigation it's the same as an irrigated plains tile (until you get railroads).

Edit: come to think of it wasn't it actually 0 food 1 shield for unimproved desert but irrigating it would give 2 food for agr civs. It's been a long time since I last played an agr civ on a map with many desert tiles

Good luck guys! Should prove to be another classic

Checking in. Good ol' Dino would say : Let's have a little fun, folks.

What are the changes to the map, if any? Do we have increase movement of ships, I hope not, or planes? What is the cost factor for this map?

The reason I hope no ship movement increase is I don't care how long it takes to move transports, but I do care abot how quickly they can get frigates do bombard us.

If was some what painful in the AWM31, is what annoying in the AWE and it will probably be worse in this one, if they get extra movement.

Salarakas said:

lurker's comment: An unimproved desert tile is 1 food 1 shield for agricultural civs. With irrigation it's the same as an irrigated plains tile (until you get railroads).

Edit: come to think of it wasn't it actually 0 food 1 shield for unimproved desert but irrigating it would give 2 food for agr civs. It's been a long time since I last played an agr civ on a map with many desert tiles

Click to expand...

I know Ags get some food on a desert tile. All I was really saying was I saw enough desert tiles in the last one to suit me for a very long time.

We had scores, if not 100's of desert tile right on the start location. If was depressing. Two food tiles with no shields will not do much for the city.

Checking in.

I hope this isn't another start on the Nile. We're at the right latitude for it.

vmxa said:

I know Ags get some food on a desert tile. All I was really saying was I saw enough desert tiles in the last one to suit me for a very long time.

We had scores, if not 100's of desert tile right on the start location. If was depressing. Two food tiles with no shields will not do much for the city.

Click to expand...

lurker's comment: Base desert tile produces 0 food and 1 shield
Agr irrigated desert produces 2 food and 1 shields
Agr, railed, irrigated desrt produces 3 food and 1 shields
From irrigating to rails desert behaves exactly like plains...

The settings for this game are identical for the 250x250 map that we played earlier. Tech will be a bit slow, boats have some bonus to movement.

I don't think we will get many more cities on this map than on the 250x250 since we hit the city limit there as well.

One difference will be that we will be unable to build more cities. I think we want to grab cities quickly at the start to "reserve" as many cities as we can. We will also not be able to wait a turn to replace a razed city. Some far off civ will build it and we will lose the opportunity forever.

In other words a major difference is that we should NEVER raze a city if we don't have a settler available.

How many we get will depend on our start and the actions of the others, I would be happy if we get 16 before the limit.

What I wanted to know is exactly what the movement changes are and the cost factor, if anyone knows. It is hard to figure things out without some info.

Tech cost is 650. This means tech will be somewhat slower.
OCN is 28 which is actually lower than Huge maps.
Ship movement is the same as Lee's map - the one we just played.

I checked GR7 and the following was listed:

Format is standard game moves first, LK's moves next and then the rate of change() will be the last number.

Unit:
Curragh - 2 - 2 no change
Galley - 3 - 3 no change
Dromon - 3 - 3 no change
Carrack - 4 - 5 (+1)
Caravel - 4 - 5 (+1)
Galleon - 4 - 5 (+1)
Frigate - 5 - 6 (+1)
Man-O-War - 5 - 6 (+1)
Privateer - 5 - 7 (+2)
Ironclad - 3 - 5 (+2)
Destroyer - 8 - 9 (+1)
Cruiser - 6 - 7 (+1)
Battleship - 5 - 7 (+2)
Carrier - 7 - 7 no change
Transport - 6 - 7 (+1)
Submarine - 4 - 5 (+1)
Nuclear Sub - 5 - 7 (+2)
Aegis Cruiser - 7 - 9 (+2)

I am starting to play. I will settle in place unless moving onto the deer (for road) indicates a better choice.

As mentioned we don't care about desert - it being pretty much the same as plains - the only downside is if you don't irrigate it has no food (instead of 1 food).

Edit: Settled in place and we have not one but four deer near our capitol. We got a very strong start. Note that this will be common - larger clusters of resources like cows, deer, wheat, etc.

Preturn: Move worker and it shows another available deer upon expansion. Settle in place and we have 4 deer total.
Science at 100% on Warrior Code. It is still 50 turns but this will go down when we grow and build roads.

Early: Build Warrior, Warrior, Warrior, Warrior
Popped Hut and got 2 Barbarians.
Find some coast to the West.
We have Fur near our capitol.
Pop another hut near our capitol and got 3 Barbarians.

Mid:
Kill 2 of the 5 nearby Barbs - no promotion.
Popped Hut give another Barb (farther away).
Building a Granary.

Late:
Barb attacks us on a mountain and we Promote to Vet.
Popped hut gives us more Barbs (closer again).
5th hut is also Barbs.

BTW, it occurs to me that an expansionist civ has a real advantage here - I believe demi-god level with expansionist civ has one of the greatest chances of giving a settler (for example). We however are not getting lucky. I think it is 5% for settler, tech, gold, etc. with the rest Barbs (so not really unlucky either).

Notes:
We have almost completed the Granary. We are shield heavy so it seemed a good bet.
We still need the 30 turns (50 total) for WC, but are lacking 2 roads for our size. I am thinking at this point we should just run min science and take the 50 turns. The next tech would hopefully be faster. I lowered science to 1 on the very last turn if you all feel I am incorrect we can raise it again, but I suspect I should have had it at 1 the whole time.
I was exploring for huts. There are random Barbs wandering about because of this. We have one some battles and gotten one promotion.
After the granary I would start our first settler - we cannot support more units without costing us more gold and a warrior can be built in 2 turns so we can replace the capitols warrior before we can be attacked (the warrior in the capitol should go with the settler).
Remember to get barbarians to see you and attack, then being NW or SE is the best bet. In the picture you can see that I am gambing our Warrior on the Hill can defeat the two Barbs next to it and promote to Vet.
The IBT pause is already noticable.



The Save

Greebley, I would have built 2 scouts, they do not pop barbs usually