HNDY03 - AWDG - We Are Your Overlords

handy900

Deity
Joined
Jun 5, 2003
Messages
2,411
Location
Tennessee, USA
HNDY03 - AWDG C3C – Tiny map as the Overlords.

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
How soft your fields so green, can whisper tales of gore,
Of how we calmed the tides of war. We Are Your Overlords

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing.


The ever changing rotation as of 6-3-04

Slinger
T_McC
Greebley
Handy

YOM - C3C down again.

HNDY03_BC4000a.JPG


HNDY03_BC4000b.JPG


Level: Demigod
Variant: Always War
Civilization: Overlords. Who knew Ivory was indigenous to the land of ice and snow. :lol:
Continents: 70% Water
Size: Tiny
Age: 5 Billion
Temperature: Temperate
Climate: Normal
Barbarians: Sedentary
Rivals: 3 Randomly Selected (Byzantines, Mongols, Arabs)
AI Aggression: Normal
Victory Condition: All are enabled.
Culturally linked starts: Off
Respawn: Off
Preserve Random Seed: On
Cultural Conversion: On
Patch: 1.15 C3C

Always War as described by Greebley (minor edits 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. If you see a new AI unit, you must make contact & declare war that turn. Absolutely no GPT trades allowed. If you see a new face on F4, you are obligated to declare war that turn (after trading). Players must declare war if they are exploring and see AI units, but are not required to actually attack the units they come in contact with. No peace treaties, ever. You may check F4 as often as you like to spy on the AI's tech, resources, luxuries & city count. We are not allowed to build embassies.

Discuss any move that seems exploitive before doing it with the team. Although there are not too many exploits available in AW, we’ll follow the forbidden blatant exploits banned by GOTM and RBCiv such as no "Free Wealth". Other 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 RBCiv rules, but is okay in this AWE game. In addition if you need to build a city one square deeper into enemy territory just to move borders to steal a resource, go for it. We may keep or raze cities, and can keep slaves. You may whip captured cities or cities where all citizens are unhappy. This is not a popularity contest, this is war.

SG Stuff
This is a low pressure SG, so you have 24 hours for an "I got it" and 72 to play. If you need a one day extension, then mention this before the 72 hours are up. Players can work out skips between themselves, just post a message to the thread. 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.

Tips & Tricks for Lurkers interested in AW
In earlier games we learned how strong the new army pillaging abilities are. Pillage early & often. At least one pillage army per Continent will be the key to victory on a tiny map. Bigger maps require more pillaging armies.
Major game priorities (The higher the level, the more important these tips are):
1. Build the GL if you can.
2. Get a pillaging army to the other continent ASAP to cripple their production.
3. Pillage AI Iron & horses so your team faces a steady stream of archers & later longbows for leader fishing.
3. Build cities on hills whenever you can. The defense bonus of cities on hills helps out spears immensely. When you settle, try to use rivers to your advantage for the defensive bonus. Also be aware of the movement penalty caused by rivers before engineering. This can really impact your ability to reinforce. Spears on a city on a hill with walls supported by cats can kill a lot of AI units. We are likely to wind up with an ICS type build outside our core ring on this teeny tiny map. Corrupt cites are useful as “specialist farms” and to increase your city count so you can have many armies in the field.
4. Build walls in all front line cities. Build barracks in any city you plan to build military units in. Build cats in a city without barracks.
5. Try not to build a city more than 2 moves from the nearest city. If a city is 3 tiles away, it cannot be reinforced on the same turn. Two tiles between cities also allows you to "chain" units built in productive cities to the front lines on the turn they are built, without leaving any cities exposed or short of police. If you are unable to shuffle units & reinforce, it's a killer for front line cities. You want a dense build anyway for the free unit support offered by despotism & monarchy. The exception to the 2 tiles between cities rule is late in the game you are going for domination.
6. The kill ratio goal is 10 to 1. This is done early on playing mostly defense using spears, cats, hills and keeping your cities tightly packed. Avoid attacking unless you have bombarded your opponent down first. You can't afford to waste units on offense on AWM or especially AWE.
7. Don’t attack the last unit in an AI stack if it means you will be exposed to counter attack by another AI unit on the IBT.
8. Don't underestimate archer armies. They work fine early on against size 6 & under cities guarded by spears.
9. If you want to win, pillage first & expand second. If you fail to pillage, you'll face the AI's strongest units (swords in stead of archers) and the AI numbers will overwhelm you. You can deal with 6 archers, 6 swords or 6 MDI is another story.
10. Set up a kill zone. Induce the AI to attack you from land where he has no defensive bonus to offset your counter attack (flat lands with no forest or jungle).
11. Build a lot of cats, trebs, cannon.
12. Avoid building regular units. They lose too easy. Build barracks & veterans.
13. Learn how to leader fish if you don't already know.
14. There is a big difference between AWM & AWE.
15. Learn to play on a continents map. Pangaea maps are much harder since you'll be fighting everyone all game long at the same time.

What to expect:
Your team will be way behind in tech. Higher levels means further behind. The GL, pillaging & specialists will help you catch up.
Don’t be surprised if at some point you are running 0/0/0 on the sliders with a lone scientist doing 50 turn research. Unit support will cost a lot of money.
Stay in despotism for a while until you get a decent city count for the lesser free unit support of monarchy, then bite the bullet & go to monarchy and stay there.
Notes and observations on pillaging:
1) It takes a long time for armies get out-dated, so 3 spear armies can pillage for centuries.
2) Cutting off the capitol will eliminate AI trade deals, so finding & isolating the capitol is always a good idea.
3) If you can, capture AI workers. Kill them if they can’t get back to your lands safely & quickly.
4) Remember that in Conquests an army can pillage as a free move, and gets +1 movement over the base units used.
5) If you get an army to each continent to pillage, you can usually win the game, so leader fishing is important
 
Ready to rumble. I'm thinking that if we get early contact we're hosed for both Zeus and GL. I'm almost hoping we're alone on this island.
 
Agreed on moving to the hill. We could be losing a trade by not having the city be coastal, but it looks like water to the west as well. Maybe set the worker to chopping the grassland forest to start with Barracks, then build nothing but vet troops. I think we start with Alphabet and WC, probably best to head for Bronze first, as Spears are better than Warriors behind Walls.

Oh, having that set of opponents could be tricky. Two expansionist civs (quick contact if we share the continent) who each have Iron-less Knights. A 2nd Seafaring civ to possibly bridge the continents. Oh, and hope we aren't sharing our continent with the Mongols. They get free Archers to start.
 
I would say definitely to the hill. The extra defense worth it at this level.

That ivory is from Mammoths (Can you guess what adventure game I have been playing?)

My two year old son wouldn't let me stop playing your viking link there. I think we saw it 7-10 times :lol: He is big into trains and boats at the moment (I can't tell you how many times he has seen the train starting up in the adventure game mentioned previously. The mind boggles. Fortunately, he has recently learned how to use a mouse and click on things...)
 
Checking in.

I don't see anything wrong with moving on the hill to settle. Starting tile is pretty good too, but maybe the hill will reveal some food bonuses.
 
T_McC said:
Agreed on moving to the hill...
Oh, having that set of opponents could be tricky. Two expansionist civs (quick contact if we share the continent) who each have Iron-less Knights. A 2nd Seafaring civ to possibly bridge the continents. Oh, and hope we aren't sharing our continent with the Mongols. They get free Archers to start.

The hill it is, and Bronze for Spears was my thinking too. Chop a barracks. We get Alphabet & WC to start.
Mongols -> Exp. & Mil. | WC & Pots |UU is 4.2.2 knight with no iron required, requires ponies
Arabs -> Exp. & Rel.| Pots & CB | UU is 4.2.3 knight requires iron + Horses
Byz -> Sea & Sci. | BW & Alpha | UU is Dromon fire boat - remember them from T_Mc01?

IIRC the AI sent 8 warriors in the first wave on my solo AWDG. On the bright side, I got a leader on defense from promotion during the first wave of 8 warriors last time, but it took a few centuries to scrape together 4 cities & 3 spare units to build an army.

Greebley Glad you liked the link - I thought it was pretty funny too.

My 2nd post has a 4000bc save in case you missed it.
 
barbslinger said:
Ready to rumble. I'm thinking that if we get early contact we're hosed for both Zeus and GL. I'm almost hoping we're alone on this island.

I don't know. In the AWDG I never completed because of the PC problem I managed to build the GLib & Zeus (in that order) after contact while at war with only 1 civ. There may be no other Ivory on the tiny map.

Let's hope it's two equally size continents with 2 civs on each.
 
Where is the Water?

Turn 0 4000 BC
Settler moves to hill. We have a COW after border expansion
Geez I hope we have fresh water somewhere. In the excitement of seeing Ivory on the first roll I didn’t notice the lack of H2O. :(
Worker moves to FG to begin a chop.

Turn 1 3950
Build Trondheim. Work the forest to get barracks in and begin a chop due in 4.
BW due in 17, 0 GPT

Turn 2 3900
:sleep:

Turn 3 3850
:sleep:

Turn 4 3800
Move citizen to grassland. We need 11 shield for barracks & get chop + 1 shield from the City so rax should come in on the IBT.

IBT
Barracks - warrior

Turn 5 3750
We are working the grass with ivory now for the cash. Worker is building a mine on the ivory.

Turn 6 3700
:sleep:

Turn 7 3650
:sleep:

Turn 8 3600
:sleep:

Turn 9 3550
:sleep:
BW due in 4 losing 1 GPT with 5 in the bank.
Warrior due in 5 and we grow in 3.

Turn 10 3500
:sleep:
BW due in 4 losing 1 GPT with 5 in the bank.
Warrior due in 5 and we grow in 3.

Turn 11 3450
Border expansion. Working the cow now.

Turn 12 3400
:sleep:
IBT
Warrior – archer (spear pre-build)

Turn 13 3350
:sleep:

IBT – ivory hooked up.

Turn 14 3300
Move NE to the BG to mine them.

IBT
BW – Masonry

Turn 15 3250
Switch archer to spear
Warrior goes S for a stroll.
Worker begins mine.
The spear will complete before we need any MP duty.

Turn 16 3200
Warrior moving towards the southern mountain. No water. Ugh.

IBT
Spear – spear

Turn 17 3150
Spot gems on mountain to the south. We should control those by, oh say 100 AD.
See yellow border to the east. I’m turning around.
I’m of two minds here. The sooner we meet them, the smaller the initial stack they will send our way. Delaying ensures a larger stack to T_McC to deal with. We will have 2 spears minimum before they reach us.

OTOH, it would be nice to have some walls.
I decide to head east next turn, away from the yellow border.

Turn 18 3100
Spot 2 oasis tiles to the east.

Turn 19 3050
It appear there is a narrow 2-tile land bridge due S of the cow.

Turn 20 3000
Explore the mountains a little.

Notes:
Soon we will have to face the first wave. I hope they are regulars (and warriors).
The save is attached as a zip per Thunderfall's preference for us to use attachments in lieu of uploads for save file. You have to zip it first, you can't attach an .sav file.
A screen show one post below.
 
Wow! Early war a coming. Would archers be a viable option? Is it Mongols or Arabia? With my colorblindness I can't tell. That 1-tile land bridge looks good later for our ships, a town there. I would hope there is land further north too. It may be better to settle north until we can see what is happening with our first opponent. It looks like the AI may be straddled with some desert.
Does DG give 2 towns to start?
 
I got it.

We have our wish, the Mongols and their starting Archers as neighbors.

@Slinger - Yes, DG gives a 2nd settler to the AI to begin.

I'm thinking about targeting the plains forest S of Trondheim for chopping. No defensive terrain for our opponents.
 
HNDY03 - Fine, Have it Norway!

3000 BC (0)
Well, thems be the Mongols. Don't think I can get us killed off in 10 turns, but you never know.

We are 1 under our support limit, nice that we do have a backline to expand into to keep our economy solvent.

We're good for another growth without raising the lux tax.

Working the proper tiles, so we're off ...

<Return>

2950 BC (1)
Nothing happens except mine finishing.

2900 BC (2)
Spear completes, I'll go for an Archer next.

2850 BC (3)
We'll be happy for another growth after this one as well. Start bringing Warrior back to cover worker on the forest chop.

2800 BC (4)
Well, the Mongols are in the house. Good news is that they are leading with a Scout, so we'll have a few more turns.

Trade Temu's ugly self Alphabet for Pottery and his 35 gold, then declare war.

2750 BC (5)
Build Archer, struggle with what to do with the forest chop. So I'll build a Warrior and use the 10 shields towards the next unit.

2710 BC (6)
Nothing happens.

2630 BC (8)
Warrior completes, move on to a 2nd Archer.

2590 BC (9)
Three regular Warriors come into view. Forest is chopped, worker heads north to build a path to our 2nd city.

2550 BC (10)
We have 2 Spears, 2 Archers, and 1 Warrior defending Trondheim. Set to build a Granary. Next leader gets the first combat, as I'm content to let the reg Warriors do the attacking.

Final Notes:
There is no way any of those Warriors should win a battle. :lol: Famous Last Words.

The worker is set to chop a forest to speed the Granary along. Actually, Masonry is due in 2, so one could switch Trondheim to Walls, then re-start the Granary and get the forest chop credit. Use the F1-"Look Ahead" trick to build the walls on the same turn that Masonry comes in, if you are so inclined.

Not sure where to go with research. Either Iron Working or Math, I guess. Also check to see if you can turn down science when Masonry is due in 1.
 
Fine, Have it Norway! :lol:

Not much hope for Iron anywhere we can claim it early in this game unless there are hills to the north, or the lone hill N of the oasis has iron. Perhaps Math over IW since the Acav are our best hope for an attack 3 unit.

Three archers is pretty good luck. Maybe we’ll get a spear promoted to elite out of that.

That was a very shrewd play to chop the forest next to our city. :goodjob:

This map is far more challenging than HNDY02.

What is the "F1 look ahead trick"? :confused:

Roster:
Handy
T_McC
Yom <- is UP
Greebley
Barbslinger
 
I would look at least a little bit north. There might be a lake up there.

I assume you mean when you are picking your next science tech, you use F1 to go to the town menu and switch the town to walls before going on to the builds? (and so can get town walls the same turn you get the tech?)

I wonder if we could sneak out and destroy that one Mongol town? That would destroy his free settler and put us on a more even footing.
 
handy900 said:
Perhaps Math over IW since the Acav are our best hope for an attack 3 unit.

Three archers is pretty good luck. Maybe we’ll get a spear promoted to elite out of that.

What is the "F1 look ahead trick"? :confused:

Agreed on Math, although we should get IW soon so we know where to pillage.

Actually, three Warriors. The Archers come next turn. (Not that I've played ahead 2-3 turns and gotten an 8-0 kill ratio, burning all of the Mongols starting units. :mischief: )

The "F1 look ahead trick" is as follows:
Masonry comes in, click on Big Picture from the Science Advisor pop-up. (so select from the tech tree screen, not the drop-down menu).
Click on the City Manager head from the tech tree screen.
Select Trondheim, change production to Walls.
Exit the city screen.

The walls then insta-complete, because you changed the build orders before the production cycle.
 
Back
Top Bottom