HNDY01 Babylonian Rampage (AWE C3C)

HNDY01 - Babylonian Rampage (AWE, C3C)

Always War Emperor

It's not about the culture anymore

Hammurabi is tired of being the culture king. He wants people to yell “you da man” as he strolls by. He wants to be the top dog, the big cheese, head honcho, numero uno, king of the hill. He wants people to say "there goes THE MAN" as he srtolls by. Can Babylon's military leaders gain great glory or will they suffer a public humiliation?

Level: Emperor
Variant: Always War
Civilization: Babylon
Continents: 70% Water
Size: Standard size Map
Age: 5 Billion
Temperature: Temperate
Climate: Normal
Barbarians: Sedentary
Rivals: Seven randomly chosen that turned out to be Portugal, Spain, Hittities, Zulu, Carthage, China, Arabs.
AI Aggression: Normal (not that this matters)
Victory Condition: All on including Diplo, so we’ll need to get the UN if it goes that far. We’ll take a win any way we can get it, but we prefer conquest or domination.
Culturally linked starts: Off
Respawn: Off
Preserve Random Seed: On
Cultural Conversion: On
Patch: 1.15 C3C

After this rather easy AWM game...

And this more challenging one...

And this very challenging one

The team has become confident, dare I say cocky?
The question before us is, can AWE be beaten without the important militaristic and industrious traits by a civ also lacking lacking an uber UU such as the Otto's Sipahi?

Always War as described by Greebley and edited by handy
The game is an Always War game. You may only trade when you first meet a civilization, and must declare war on the same turn after trading is complete. This means no GPT trades allowed. You should frequently check F4, and if you see a new face, you are obligated to declare war that turn (after trading). Players must declare war if they are exploring and see AI units or borders, but are not required to attack the units they come in contact with. No peace treaties, ever. You may check F4 to spy on the AI's tech, resources & luxuries & city count.

You have 24 hours for an "I got it" and 48 total to play. If you need a one days extension, then mention this before the 48 hours are up and it is yours. If you can't play within 72 total, the team players can switch places, or you can ask for a skip. We will play 10 turns at first, and possibly fewer later (5) if the turns begin to take too long. Discuss any move that seems exploitive before doing it with the team. Although there are not too many exploits available in AW, we’ll try to follow the applicable GOTM and RBCiv rules such as no "Free Wealth". Some normal game exploits such as "Baiting the AI" with an empty city to create a kill zone are an AW tradition and are allowed. Also, you ARE allowed to initially keep a city, move a settler to the same spot as the city, and then abandon and immediately resettle. This is considered an exploit in strict RBCiv rules, but is okay in this AWE game. However, the one thing you shouldn't do is to build the city one square deeper into enemy territory just to move borders. We may keep or raze cities, and can keep slaves.

RBciv rules & exploits

In earlier games we learned how strong the new army pillaging abilities are. We will pillage early & often.

Just some notes and observations on pillaging:
1) The AI seems to take into account the defensive terrain when determining when to attack. A spearman can sneak into enemy territory by sticking to mountains and hills. Once our armies get out-dated, they may need to do this as well.
2) Cutting off the capitol will eliminate his ability to trade, so the capitol is a good target.
3) Remember that in Conquests an army can pillage as a free move, and gets +1 movement over the base units used.



Roster:
Handy900
Greebley
Barbslinger
T_McC
Ted_Jackson

I expect this to be a tough game despite our rather excellent start.

>> 4000 BC <<

The start. It's a good one for AW. Nice corner spot.

This will be an interesting sg. I will be lurking here for sure. A little out of my league methinks.

Walls. I need walls and forts for my gems!

I am here as well.

We start with Bronze working - that will be nice to have.

Very nice bonuses, though no irrigation visible. Looking at the save it looks like there is land to the North. I think we do want to be on the coast so we can build a harbor. The best spot so far seems to be the square NW of the cow. Hopefully, moving the worker onto the cow will give you enough info to decide where to settle Handy.

For tech I was trying to decide if Masonry-Pottery or Pottery-Masonry was better. I think those are the two techs I would go for first. I guess we also really want warrior code to get our Bowmen. The bowmen will be a big boon in the early game. Fortunately, we can trade this game

.... Perseopolus a$$holes. They have to die!!. I saw, that we have another competition. Let's get it on!

Sorrry, the GOTM14 is upsetting me. I am extremely busy with Tomohawk2 Midbody, tailcone and the wings of what us Americans call the technological , 4 trn, advantage.. Any hoo, have too be ready for Raytheon soon nd the Abe Lincoln advantage will rule this time around.

2nd thought - Never mind. I guess I shouldn't post when I've been

Mystery Guest signing in

My initial reaction to the start position is to settle where we are. The Wheat and Cattle in the 9 radius will get us off to a good start and overides the normal "If 1 tile from the coast then move" rule IMHO.

An aternative could be to move West, onto the hill, bringing the Gems into play immediately and hopefully hitting the coast at the same time. Although this move brings in an extra Mountain it loses the Cattle which makes it less attractive in my book.

Not being on a river is going to hurt our growth, income (and indirectly our research capability) so we'll need to scout out our surroundings quickly to determine the best sites for our settlers.


Ted

Originally posted by TedJackson
Mystery Guest signing in

Ted

Click to expand...

[dance] Ted the hammer is in the house.

Welcome aboard.

I'm back.

I like 1 NW. It is coastal, but Babylon will still have access to the Cow from turn 1, and (at least) 14 land tiles. Can also share the wheat with another city, if necessary. [A coastal location also makes this a terrific 20K candidate, as there are plenty of shields available in the terrain].

A corner, coastal capital (alliteration ) is one case where a Palace jump makes sense in C3C. Just something to keep in mind when we choose an FP location, and when we have a spare leader.

Settling thoughts:

Where we are: Pros

If we move 1 tile NW, we will have a coast spot, the wheat in our immediate radius, and the gems & cow in the city radius when the cultural borders expand.

OTOH, if we move 1 tile NE to the Bonus grass, we lose the three tiles to the SE which look like 2 forest and 1 grass tiles.

If we move to the hill, we lose the cow in our radius, but would pick it up in a ring 1 city.

Too bad there is no river near by, we could make a four-turn settler factory if we had fresh water.

There is water next to the hill to the W, but odds are it is not a lake. It looks like the gem hill is surrounded by coast, so it's probably all ocean around the gems, and land lies to the north as Greebley said earlier.

I think I'm leaning towards moving 1 tile NW to the BG next to the coast, but I'm not playing until tonight, so speak now if you feel strongly we should settle on the spot.

Research: We are R & S and have BW & CB
We need warrior code for our UU
AI:
Portugal is E & S and have P & A
Spain is S & R and have A & CB
Hittities are E & C and have P & A
Zulu are E & M and have P & WC
Carthage is S & I and have M & A
Chinese are M & I and have M & WC
Arabs are E & R and have P & CB

No AI has BW, and only 1 has CB so this should help with our trades.

That's 4 that have P already & only 2 with M. Odds are somewhat better we can do a trade for P over M. Hopefully we trade for both.

Masonry – Pottery, or Pottery – Masonry. The odds favor researching Masonry & trading for Pottery. BUT, if we think we can quickly plop a city to the north of the capital to take the brunt of attacks, we may be able to delay or skip walls in the capital, arguing for researching Pottery first. It's relatively safe I think to go for pottery first with the intent to build / chop a granary & hope for a trade for masonry. We need both P & M, plus IW so we can grab iron and Wheel to grab some horses. The early part of AW is just too fun! If we want to get the GL, we need to decide how much research we can do start on a drive to lit. We missed the GL in T_McC01 by quite a few turns.

A bit of a gambit would be to hope to trade for P & M and research the Wheel first to see where the horses are. Any thoughts on this approach? .Do you feel lucky?

Exploration. I guess I’m in favor of building dinky boats as soon as feasible to meet civs and get them in war mode to slow the tech pace. OTOH, Greebley posted in another thread

We tried exploring last game. I was thinking of not exploring this game so we can compare. I would like to figure out which is the better strategy in AW because I really do not know (though the diff level may affect this - I wouldn't want to explore in deity or Sid).

Click to expand...

Any more thoughts on this? I would typically go with an opening build sequence of at least 2 warriors to scout. First one goes to the gem mountain to verify it's all ocean to the west, then he moves due north. I think the second warrior goes south just to make sure there is not 6 goody huts, incense, furs & ivory down there. I don’t think we can afford to back too far off of exploration until we know where the iron & horses are. In Space01 we were not sure where the iron was for several centuries, and that was a drag

PS: nice new avatar Barbslinger, and T_McC is only 4 posts shy of his own avatar,

On settling:
The primary advantages to settling where we stand are; get started building one turn earlier, have (potentially) 19 land tiles in the city radius. We would also grow to size 3 about 2 turns earlier, due to having the wheat to use on turn 5 instead of turn 10.

The biggest con I see to settling immediately is that it could strongly affect the quality of our 2nd and 3rd cities. I like having the option to "loan" the wheat to a second city to get growth a turn or two faster.

The tile to the NE is not a BG, it is a regular grassland. This would give us a little more room to play with for a city SW of the capital, and being coastal allows us to be more aggressive with trying to build a Wonder in Babylon, as we have more cascade options. Whatever you do, don't move to a spot where the cow is not available immediately.

On exploration:
There seems to be a bit of confusion over what is meant by "exploration". Greebley is not suggesting that we don't scout out our immediate area, what he means is "maybe we shouldn't aggressively search for our neighbors." One strategy would be to reveal all territory within 5-7 tiles of the capital, and further explore only in directions we believe are away from the other AI.

I would also be interested in trying to push contact with the civs on our continent off as long as possible. Oddly, since we are on a continents map, I have no qualms about trying to find the civs on the other continent as early as possible. In the extreme of this strategy we would be in contact with 4-5 civs, but only having to actively defend ourselves against 1.

So my preference would be to conservatively scout our continent, and try to find the other continent as soon as possible. These goals may be mutually exclusive, but could argue to keep an open mind about a run at the Great Lighthouse in Babylon. One caveat with this: There are 3 Seafaring civs in this game, so we will not have the only coastal capital (if Handy chooses to move the settler).

On research: The easiest way to keep up in this game is to get cities founded. I would not plan on being able to trade for anything. (Nor do I believe the G.Lib is essential, cheap libraries have their purpose). This argues for Pottery first, then Masonry.

In an ideal case, we would be able to build swords or horsemen before we are heavily involved in war. Spears on defense and non-Bowmen on offense would allow us to postpone our GA until we are in a Monarchy. This is very likely a longshot, but something to keep in mind if the attack pace is slow.

No use making long-term plans. We'll make decisions as events on the ground warrant.

Ok. 1 tile NW of the cow, 1 tile NE of the settler it is. On the regular grassland next to the coast. This gives us the cow + 2 BG's in the immediate radius. The worker goes to the mine then road the cow, and will likely reveal 2 forest tiles to the south. After cow worker will mine & road the BG, then mine & road the wheat. Warriors head N (but not too far) and South.

I agree with your assessment of Greebley's thinking, explore but don't aggressively seek the AI.

Like you said, no reason to make a bunch of long term plans.

Pottery it is.

Max research right off? or save & hope for a trade? We may get at least 1 trade off the first civ we meet. After that I agree it's less likely. If we go 10% and can't trade we can always run a deficit with our bank to catch back up later.

EDIT I researched @ max the whole time. The first 20 turns are below.

HNDY01

First 20 turns. We’ll play 10 apiece from now on.

SUMMARY We pop Masonry from a goody hut, our units bring good news about choke points and 2 luxuries in our lands, and we can’t find anyone to fight with. Our little isolated land mass is really narrow.

Turn 1 4000 BC
Move settler 1 tile NE to the coast
Move worker to cow
Start warrior
Can’t research because we have no city yet.

Turn 2 3950 BC
Found Babylon
Worker begins to mine cow
Set research to Pottery @ 90% 0 GPT due in 20 turns

Turn 3 3900 BC
Z

Turn 4 3850 BC
Z

Turn 5 3800 BC
Z

Turn 6 3750 BC
Z

Turn 7 3700 BC
Babylon – warrior – warrior
Try not to think about what China’s workers have already done
Warrior renamed Mr. T heads due North.
Grow in 2 and worker in 5. Pottery in 15 and 0 GPT

Turn 8 3650 BC
Worker starts road, Mr. T moves N & spots forest plains.

Turn 9 3600 BC
We grow. Slider is 80/20 Pottery dues in 20, zero GPT.
Set Babylon to work cow and the BG we are mining.

Turn 10 3550 BC
Babylon warrior (Christened “LC” for Lewis & Clark) moves due W -> warrior due in 3.
LC confirms West is a dead end. I was hoping the gem mountain was connected via a narrow land bridge to the west since the north is getting narrow and is now “smelling” like a dead end. Forgot to report there is a goody hut SW of Babylon.

Turn 10 3500 BC
Worker moves to BG
Now I fear we may on a island, or the northern land bridge is very narrow. A narrow defensible choke point is good news. An island is the worst possible news.

Turn 11 3450 BC
Worker starts mine
Borders expand
Goody Hut gives us Masonry! and reveals a good city location.
Just wondering, is that preset, or if we were researching Masonry would it have given us Pottery?
Incense spotted up north. Six road tiles from Babylon. I saw the happy face last turn but I expected it to be more gems.
I can see a little land up north, but I’m still concerned it’s an island.
Pottery due in 11, zero GPT , and warrior due in 1.

Turn 12 3400 BC
Babylon – Warrior – warrior (due in 2 working the forest). Next I’ll start a barracks as a place-holder for a Granary which should complete soon after we get pottery. We can use the warrior for MP duty. We can complete the barracks if we go to war in the next few turns.
Warrior stays in Babylon as MP, Slider goes to 90% with Pottery due in 7 but will have to be adjusted down when we grow.
We grow in 4 since we are working the forest for 1 turn to get a warrior in 2.
There is a 1 tile wide land bridge up north that leads into Jungle. Looks like we are not on a island after all [dance] .
Excellent choke spot where we can block the AI. We’ll need to chop the jungle to remove any AI defensive bonus for our counterattacks.
Since we are a religious civ, daily prayer meetings are ordered by THE MAN that we find both iron & horses south of the choke point.

Turn 13 3350 BC
LC reveals more land than I expected to the south, including BG’s and forest tiles. No ice yet.

Turn 14 3300 BC
Babylon – warrior – barracks (granary)
Slider is 80/0 with pottery due in 7.
Even more land to the south, the island expands to the west about 6 tiles south of Babylon.
Mr. T spots lots of Jungle.
No sign of the Ai yet. If they are North of the Jungle they will settle the Jungle last.
I am now 7 tiles due north of the capital and have hit the jungle. I will explore a little more, then retreat to the choke point.

Turn 15 3250 BC
Finally see some ice in the south, but there was more good land down here than I expected.
No sign of the Ai in the north. The jungle is at least 3-tiles thick north of the choke point.
Dare I go 1 tile more north?
We grow to 3 citizens next turn. Slider still 80/20 since we have 2 MP’s in Babylon.
Pottery in 6 turns and barracks (granary) in 9 turns. Soon we’ll have the BG mined so we’ll get an extra shield. I’m working the mined cow, and two un-mined BG’s for a total of 5 shields.

Turn 16 3200 BC
Spot a good hut to the south.
Explore a little North, still jungles.
We grow to 3 citizens, working the cow & 2 BG’s (un-mined).
Pottery is due in 5 @ zero GPT and the barracks (granary) is due in 7.

Turn 17 3150 BC
BG is finally mined. Worker begins a road.
Turn slider up to get pottery in 3 (barracks now comes in 4) losing 1 GPT.
Avoid hit to continue to explore. I though about this for a while. I guess my gut feeling was we’d get barbs this time, so yeah, I was chicken.
Move to a hill up north and see miles of jungle.
Slider goes 90/0 to get pottery in 3 turns losing 1 GPT. The barracks (granary) is due in 4 turns now since the mine is done.
Three content citizens with 2 MP’s in Babylon.

Turn 18 3100 BC
Explore a little more north and see marsh. Really crappy land to the north.
We should easily be able to settle the choke point.
Still have not reached the southern end of the island. At least we have room for a lot of cities to get our city count up so we can have lots of armies.
Pottery in 2, barracks (granary) in 3.

Turn 19 3050 BC
Spot game & a goody hut buried deep in the marsh. Are we going to be at war with Louisiana?
Slider goes 70/0 to still get pottery in 1 and granary in 2.
We get pottery. What next.
Our choices at 80/0 losing 0 GPT are:
Alphabet in 38
IW in 45
Wheel in 30
WC in 23
We want to save our GA for a little later, so no WC
GL is probably a pipe dream, so no Alphabet
Wheel & IW reveal resources we need to win.
I selected IW. Can't win without it.
Well, if this is stupid it’s changeable by the next play.

Turn 20 3000 BC
Slider @ 70/0 for IW in 45.
Worker finished road and moves to the next BG
Switch barracks to a Granary due in 5.

Check Babylon every turn For some reason, the game sometimes tried moved the tiles worked from BG to the forest. I would move them back to BG and next turn have to do it again. Governors are off, so that’s not it.

State of the Union.
2 luxuries in reach.
Isolated area with decent development potential.
Very defensible choke point.
Check F4 just to be sure. No contacts.

I did not pop the goody hut in the north (or south). I decided we may need the northern warrior to go and fortify on the choke point, or explore a little more. You all can debate the merits of popping or not popping the huts in our north and south. The reason I popped the first one was the proximity to the capital. Few explorations turn would have been wasted if that one had held barbarians.

The land setup is unusual. We have a very defensible choke point, but our strip of land is very narrow. There are actually two connected 1-tile choke points we can choose from. If we take the southern most choke (just N of the mountain), we don’t have to chop, and there is only 1 tile the AI can attack from. This means the AI have to wait in line to attack. This may prompt the AI to get in boats and come around to less easily defended areas. If we select the northern most choke we have 2 jungles tiles we will need to chop to remove the defensive bonus.

Greebley is up

>> Save 3000 BC <<

Ok. I got it and think I will play right away.

I don't know about the rest of the gang but I am grateful that we have not met AI. I would just as soon lie back and get our core and choke up and running and go to war a little later. As soon as we do meet the AI then its decision time. If there is only two of us we go after him to secure continent I would presume. Looks like a lot of fun coming up though. Can we make some spears for the choke. Two spears in a fortress on the mountain would do nicely. It would be more defensive bonus than a walled city. 175%. We can build the city on the incense then and have more land to work. It would be six tiles from Babylon and we could then get a city in between the two. The dotmap choices look crummy though on 1st inspection. Mountains and BG's in all the wrong spots.

Preturn: The only problem with the granary plan is that we grow before we make the granary. I move the 1 shield grassland citizen to a forest, so that we grow in 4 and build granary in 4. On a later turn I will purposefully slow that down to Granary in 4, growth in 5. With the 1/2 full granary, we will actually gain food (on turn 5 we will have 10 food instead of 6 I think it would be).

Hmm... No irrigation until electricity. That will be rough.

2850 AD: We welcome our first opponent: Spain. We can get either Alphabet or Warrior Code but not both. Decide on Alphabet, mostly because we have a mountain in the single square choke and can thus hold off spain with spear. In a different setup I might have gone for the WC. So Pottery + Masonry for Alphabet and 8 gold. I declare war.

IBT: Spain's warrior attacks ours. We have 1 hp left but win.
Babylon: Granary->Spear

2800 AD: Order one of the warriors in the capitol to the mountain. 1 1hp warrior might have difficulties with the hordes. Raise Lux to 10% to compensate.

IBT: We grow to size 4

2750 AD: Decide to gamble with the 1 hp warrior and pop the hut. If we get barbs then it might slow the spanish by a turn. If not we deprive them of it... and we do get 3 barbarians. Lux raised to 20%

IBT: The barbs kills the 1 hp warrior.

2710 AD: We have a third lux! A fur is in the tundra. That means the chances are high there is another civ on our continent. Don't want to meet them yet.

IBT: Spear->Spear (One spear heads N, One for defense and MP

2670 AD: Spear heads N.

IBT: Babylon grows to size 5.

2630 AD: Babylon needs 50 Lux (2 turns to spear)

IBT:

2590 AD: Warrior on Mountain.

IBT: Spear->Settler

2550 AD: Spear is an MP for Babylon and we can reduce Lux to 30%

Notes:
We are running a deficit. We need another town badly for unit support. We will probably have to slow IW until we get that second town.

We need a barracks. We need walls.

Soon we will have a spear and a warrior fortified on the mountain at the choke.

The southern hut is not yet gone.

I think the hardest part of this game will be the complete lack of irrigation.



>> The Save <<


{Edit: I just realized that I didn't save after reducing so the uploading imaga is too big. Sorry about that.

[Edit: Barbslinger, I learned this from Nad: Three Lux pretty much guarantees that there is another AI on the island. I do not want to meet this player right away. I think we do not want to explore and meet this third AI yet. Lets get some towns down first.

This kinda crappy with soooooo much jungle up there.

Moutain choke is a good idea. I did not see it.

Do you think we explore to get all the AI's heading toward the mountain choke meat grinder?

I agree with Greebley that we need barracks, but probably can hold off on a little walls in Babylon since the AI can't get to us through the Mountain.

We can't park on the mountain forever, but yeah it's a good idea to get some towns down asap as Greebley said.

Granary just seemed the better first build over barracks given the start we had after exploring a little. If we were right next to an AI, I'd have gone to walls & barracks for sure.

We can kill alot of AI from the mountain.

Handy900
Greebley <- Just played
Barbslinger <-- is up
T_McC <- on deck
Ted_Jackson

I am thinking we do not want to send any units N of the mountains until we have the land to the S settled. They are unlikely to survive until we can send a well defended force. I have tried sending lone pillagers for example and it just wasted units.

In other words, my vote is for just holding the mountain (we will want another spear - preferably veteran). Once we have enouch spear to protect it, and several towns, I would then build the town to the N of the mountain and start thinking of towns further North.

Until then, the mountain is better defense than any town will be.

Note that we also want to get a road to the mountain so we can have catapults up there too.

Until then, the mountain is better defense than any town will be.

Note that we also want to get a road to the mountain so we can have catapults up there too.

Click to expand...

I totally agree on both points. Eventually cats (roads) + fortress on the mountain. The mountain is a great kill zone since the AI will be on flats. We have a decent chance to spring a leader from an elite archer or sword there. While we are killing the AI 10 to 1 we can build cities with fewer than normal defenses. AI can't get around the mountain until they get galleys.

If the AI quits attacking the mountain, we'll just move units back a tile to bait them into the mountain. Better yet, an empty city on the incense behind the mountain is sure to attract alot of AI.

Three luxs for us is almost too good to be true. I hope that does not mean we have no Iron & no horses.

3 lux all to ourselves. Great! No water. I cocur with the get the town up and running. That mountain with a vet spear will hold the fort for a while. Looks like I'll be on getting a Brax and some settlers going. If any one has any ideas on a dotmap I'm listening. I hate wasting the BG but the grass between the gems and hill looks like about the only spot. then again the mountains south of there can't be settled on so it looks like maybe the hill 1S 2SE may be the preferred spot and then colonize the gems. Babylon 1N would have opened up better possibilities but as it is we either have a city going in 2 tiles from Babylon or 4 tiles. I won't play until later tonight. It's valentine dinner and romping as soon as my honey comes home. Perhaps around 11pm I can get at it. Until then I would like the opinions of the others on settling strategy.

BTW, welcome aboard Ted!