AZ-07: A Tale of Not That Many Cities

[azaris]

You mean moving to the east side of the river? If we move one tile SE we are closer to the hills and don't loose a turn.

But food is much worse, which will be the bottleneck when we want to grow big juicy cities.

Which brings up the question what we intend to do policy wise? I usually go for Liberty (faster workers, +1 happiness/city) first, but if we intend to make a big production capital Tradition might be worth it.

I almost never pick Liberty. It's situational, though. If there is a strong neighbor you absolutely need to eliminate then Honor is the way to go. Otherwise, I usually hold off until Piety. But that might not be our chosen strategy because Rationalism is tempting when you have not so much pop. So I would decide between Honor and Tradition based on what scouting reveals.

As for the victory condition; even cultural on pangaea requires you to bonk heads, there is no option to remain in peace for 300 or so turns. But if we do choose that approach then Piety + Patronage + Freedom are the standard picks.

 

[Habanerius]

I get the feeling we are miss communicating:

You wanted to move E? Moving SE would save one turn and from the viewable terrain it looks about the same to me? Why would E be better for food?

WSW would probably be better for food, but have less production. Depending on whats on the other side of the river. Or we could stay right where we are.

I don't really care btw, feel free to get us started where you want I usually don't move around much since you don't see the entire terrain and resources (iron, horses ...) you can never make a perfect decision at this point.


If we want a big capital Tradition is most likely not a bad choice. Honor is nice but the AI performs so poorly in wartime i never felt the need for it.

 

[jammerjun]

Disregard my E move comment, I meant SE as it's silly to cross the river.

 

[azaris]

Turn 0: Founded Delhi 1 SE as suggested. Research set to Animal Husbandry. Scout first.

Turn 1: There is gold in the BFC of Delhi.

Turn 3: We meet Hanoi = Militaristic, Neutral, Pearls.

Turn 6: Wu comes to call. I don't make PoC with her since she's known to backstab.

Turn 7: Scout -> Monument. I figured we could use the early culture for border pops. We meet Kuala Lumpur = Cultured, Irrational, Gold. Meh.



Turn 9: Animal Husbandry -> Mining. There are only two horses nearby.

Turn 10: Wu comes to insult us. She's hostile. I wonder if the AI still thinks it can take our city with a lone archer. To counter her I pop a hut that upgrades our scout to archer. Bummer. Meet Rio de Janeiro = Maritime, Neutral, Furs. Our first gold sink.

Turn 14: Warrior attacks a barb camp and razes it next turn.

Turn 16: We meet both Alexander and Ramkhamhaeng. I make PoS against Wu with Alexander. I have a feeling we're going to get an early war.



Turn 17: Mining -> The Wheel, to unlock our UU. Feel free to switch if you want. Ramkhamhaeng offers a PoC, which I gladly accept.

Turn 20: Delhi will pop a citizen and the monument next turn. We have two friends and one enemy. A horseman rush is probably out of the picture, though. Here is our situation:



WARNING: There is a barb camp and a brute up north, don't wander in with the archer or it will get eaten.

UP: TexasTiger for 20 turns.

 

[TexasTiger]

Got it, I will play later this afternoon. I should have my report up within six or so hours. I would however like some feedback on general strategy for my turn. We will probably want to expand in my 20 turns, right? Or will the aggressive diplomacy from Wu force us into making a few military units? Either way I will try to make a dotmap for possible second city sites.

 

[Habanerius]

Turn 6: Wu comes to call. I don't make PoC with her since she's known to backstab.

Um, can you explain that? Has anyone figured out yet what PoC actually does? And i still have not been able to make out any leader personalities. Their all the same backstabbing psychos. Close borders usually leads to an attack, the only chance to be friends is a lot of space between you and them.

In my experience alot will depend on who's close to whom in a couple of turns. I'm not too concerned about Wu so far, but she's close by. Did we meet her north or south?


Delhi will grow next turn and finish the monument, i guess a settler is next to take control of the spices and incense in the south. We'll also need a worker and tech to connect some luxuries.

 

[azaris]

Um, can you explain that? Has anyone figured out yet what PoC actually does? And i still have not been able to make out any leader personalities. Their all the same backstabbing psychos. Close borders usually leads to an attack, the only chance to be friends is a lot of space between you and them.

Wu has a 7 in the PoS ratings (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=15459), which I take to mean she likes to make PoS with other AIs against the player. What this means is she can appear to be friendly towards you, then suddenly declare war.

Having common enemies helps in having friendly relations. PoC makes them less likely to attack you, I believe.

 

[TexasTiger]

Alright before I play I just want to be sure I handle the whole DLC thing correctly. I HAVE both DLC's, what do I need to do in order to make sure others can play the save after me?

 

[azaris]

It should work correctly with the latest patch, I had no problems.

 

[Habanerius]

Interesting spreadsheet, didn't know that. Hard to interpret tho, according to this Wu is also likely to be friendly and defensive. I guess we'll have to see.

With some luck Alexander is close to Wu and the PoS we signed with him causes a war between them.

 

[TexasTiger]

Alright before I do anything I always like to get my bearings, which this being turn 20 won’t take long. I see we’re doing basic scouting which as of yet hasn’t shown any other civs to be uncomfortably close. Looking at the resource layout I decided it is in our best interest to try to rush a settler out to claim the incense/spices.

Turn 21- Given how I am opting to build a settler before a worker (which I hope isn’t too aggressive of me), there is no particular rush to research calendar so I leave the research on wheel.

Turn 22 – Micro the new citizens about for production as we are making a settler

Turn 23 – I can adopt a new policy now but opt instead to wait until further discussion. Normally I would go liberty here to get a quicker settler, but that doesn’t seem to be the consensus at all so I hold off. I think I would like to either piety personally.

Turn 24 – Scouting

Turn 25 – The world’s busiest people report comes out and we’re right in the middle. Not bad.

Turn 26 – Scouting. I am beginning to think we are either on the eastern edge of the continent or maybe close to the thin connecting point on the inverted U pangeas I have played on

Turn 27 – Here come the barbarians. The camp to the north has begun to spawn barbarians and send them to Dehli. That can be a huge problem when settlers/workers start coming out, so I abort scouting in the south to take care of the problem. I’m sorry if this is the wrong move, I’ve just had some games really derailed (like my last gotm) by ignoring barbarians.

Turn 28 – We found the Chinese, they are due west. Finished Writing, I decide to knock out pottery as we will need to hook up our sugar/spices/incense soon.

Turn 29 – Further shoot at the barbarian roaming the countryside. Our warrior will be there soon.

Turn 30 – Alex entered the classical era as well as Stonehenge was built in a far away land. China has 3 warriors around Beijing in addition whatever her scouting force is. Finished off that pesky Brute but am keeping the warrior heading back so he can escort our settler due in 3 turns. Our borders got the cattle this turn so I could shave off an additional turn on the settler. Delhi is going to be a nice city.

Turn 31 – Our warrior heading back to escort discover a new barbarian encampment SSW of Delhi. But more unsettling is a Greek warrior/settler combo headed right for our spices. Looks like Alex, not Wu might be the first to get the hammer. We’ll see what he does.

Turn 32 – And Alex founds Sparta FIVE hexes from Dehli. What a tool. I’m going to pause here and talk to the team about what to do with this settler (due in 1). We can’t settle him too close to Alex and risk too early of a war. We are not prepared. I’m thinking maybe west of Sparta for gems/spices? Alex has to be in the east so that shouldn’t anger him TOO much.

First up, a look at where Alex decided to settle.




Next a quick glance at China, the only neighbor we have found yet




Here is our eastern front.


Although there are some nice looking hills/forests, I don't think it's wise to head east at the moment as that might anger Alex. He has to be in the east somewhere so I think we should settle west


Somewhere in here. I'll look it over and try to make a dotmap, I would very much appreciate your feedback. I know it's a bit far from our capital and would be quite hard to defend, but Sparta is in our first ring and at this point I'm assuming it will either be ours our razed and replaced quite soon.

No matter what though I believe Alex will undoubtedly get the , sooner rather than later.

 

[TexasTiger]

Here's my initial though on where to plop down the second city



It gets one of the gems immediately and the spices in a little while. It could potentially be a production mammoth and hopefully is far enough away from where Athens presumably is to not cause a DoW. I am very open to suggestions though

 

[jammerjun]

Meh, meeting Alex so close is always an annoyance. Seems to be a pattern for me as he's always my neighbour in my games.
As he's usually a pain in the neck sending him the hammer before he's a too much menace is ok with me. But not prepared yet as you said TT.

Settling in the mountain is ok with me if it doesn't create border pressure. And even if it's so, what the heck, it's a potential unit delivery center and we'll see bad guys coming from far away.

On the policy topic I'd say either Piety or Patronage. Liberty is a no go for me and I feel Tradition is a bit far fetched in this configuration.

 

[TexasTiger]

Well I decided to head SW to the mountains. Hopefully that won’t make Alex *too* mad, but you know how the ai is.

Turn 33 – I debated long and hard about what to build next, but decided we need a worker to improve our horsies and cows. We can hold our own if we get double DoW’d and always buy units if absolutely necessary

Turn 34 – Scouting. I’m thinking we are on the eastern tip. Hopefully Wu will expand west and we can knock out Alex and hold a good bit of the eastern continent.

Turn 35 – Pottery finishes, I elect to go for horseback riding. I thought about iron working to reveal iron for catas, but we *shouldn’t* need them with an early war. Feel free to change the tech choice.

Turn 36 – We meet Harun and the Siamese guy, they appear to be up to no good. They are a good bit NW of us.


Also, Alex is ASKING for it. He settled Corinth FOUR hexes from Delhi. Athens must be on the SE coast of the continent which is causing him to expand NW right onto our doorstep.



Turn 37 – Scouting and moving the settler into place

Turn 38 – I found Siam!



Turn 39 – Settled Mumbai, immediately set it to produce a warrior. I know we have those fancy elephants, but they have an awful upgrade path and warriors are much cheaper. We need at least a few to hand the hoplites. Also now that our settler has safely landed I send our escort to scout out the southern portion of the continent.

Turn 40 – Well, looks like Hiawatha is to our south. Two of his cities now flank Mumbai. We will definitely need to get some western cities up ASAP to solidify our fronts and not let the ai swarm us with cities, though they will all make nice puppets soon enough! Here's how it looks at the end of my turn.



With Mumbai settled we have dipped into unhappiness… that must change asap. We might should build a second worker in lieu of a warrior in Mumbai to quickly hook up the gems. We also need another settler to get our sugar city up and going and maybe a fourth for some territory claims, but we probably won’t have that luxury. Once we get our third city up and running and our empire growing and happy, I say we turn our attention to Alex and lay down the law.

Hopefully I didn’t screw the pooch with my turns!

 

[TexasTiger]

And here's the save. I have to do it in separate posts because I take notes on my laptop and play on my desktop.

 

[Habanerius]

Looks like Wu is going to be the least of our concerns. She's quite far away considering we met her in turn 6.

I would have preferred to fight Alexander later than sooner, he has some serious early UU, but that war is coming. Athens is just SE btw, you can see the borders on the tile of incense.

Mumbai is not where I would have placed it, but considering Hawa-hatschi popped up there it might turn out to be a good move. However the river between Delhi and Mumbai is unused, i intend to get a city in there. We need that territory as a strategic point against Alexander, and if we don't claim it he will.

I intend to go for iron working after riding is complete, we're going to be needing swords and catapults.

We also need to decide what to do with our Policies. I'll play my turns this evening (UTC+1) so there's some time to discuss.

 

[azaris]

I agree to beeline swords and catapults, as well as the 3rd city in between Mumbai and Delhi. I would also look at getting other AIs to PoS against Alex.

Habanerius, you can take 20 turns or stop earlier if something major happens (like Alex curbstomping us with CCav).

 

[Habanerius]

Turn40: After looking around a bit i decide to send our warrior towards Greece, let's see what Alexander is doing. I also start moving the archer back into our territories, we dont have much from seeing far away lands and civilizations at this point. Hiaw-hatschi and Wu dont want to sign a PoS against Alexander.

Turn 45: After some uneventful Turns our worker is complete. I send him to connect the horses and start a settler.

Turn 46: Ramesses and a barb spearman pop up at Mumbai. Alexander and Wu both ask for PoS against Hiaw-hatschi, i decline. I also meet Genoa, maritime with silver.

Turn 48: Our warrior gets a good look at Greece




Turn 52: Horseback riding is complete.

Turn 55: Arg! Barbarians pillage my freshly connected horses.

Turn 56: Hiaw-hatchi declares war on us! Wu asks again for PoS gainst Hiaw-hatschi, considering he just declared war on us i accept. Rama-whatever also declares war against Ramesses.

Turn 57: Hiaw-hatschi starts moveing in with 2 warriors and a chariot archer. I rush by an war elephant. I also change production in Mumbai to another warrior.

Turn 58:

Ok this is bad, so i stopped for some discussion.

Our warrior is half dead from clearing the barb camp before the war and some arrows from the chariots, but one has a healing promotion available. Our archer is close but still some turns away. And our settler is complete.

I guess first of all we should adopt Honor, we're going to need every advantage on this one. Holding Mumbai will be tricky.
My plan would be to sacrifice the warrior on the hill for chariot on the wheat. Take out the almost dead one with the other and then instant heal. And fire the ranged at a chariot on the hills. Any comments or ideas?

 

[azaris]

We don't have enough for two SP, do we? I fear those chariots will finish off our two warriors no matter what you do, so the only chance seems to be to attack with them and try to get them to promote-heal.

Failing that, I think jammerjun can just roll yet another start. Sometimes this happens on Immortal, I guess we had time for a monument or a settler, but not both.

 

[Habanerius]

We should just have enough for 2, the game prompted me to adopt one 2 or 3 turns ago.

But i guess you're right, there's not too much we can do about it. I'll give it a try and see what happens.