T_McC03 - Guns and Bowses (Vanilla C4, Emperor)

[T_McC]

Ok, Mutineer is a definite and that rounds out the roster.

We haven't given up on the Oracle. If we wanted to take Feudalism we need Monarchy and Writing. Pottery is part of the or gate for Writing, and I'll assume we want to build Cottages and Granaries sooner rather than later.

Timbuktu will stagnate at size 5 with the Gems connected, working three mined grassland hills, the Gems, and the Wheat. That's 12 hpt, so if we claim the Marble we can build the Oracle in 7 turns. The hard part will be getting the tech lined up.

Our closest neighbor appears to be N. That argues that we head for the Marble with our first settler. I'm thinking the desert hill S of the lake for the city site as there isn't enough food to work the Marble, plains hill, and desert hill otherwise. It'll be a decent 2nd military city with a little bit of commerce from the lake and Marble. Wouldn't be a bad idea to send the 1st Skirmisher ahead to scout for a better location that still claims the Marble (we can build Obelisks).

The plains tile 2W of the Silks (S of Timbuktu) is a good commerce site. It can borrow the Corn whenenver Timbuktu hits its happy limit and doesn't need to grow, so it can also be a good source of workers/settlers. Otherwise it's cottages and whip for infrastructure.

I'm not optimistic about claiming the Wines. I don't think we have a close neighbor on that side but I think their 4th/5th city will beat us to our 4th/5th city. The sites in the East will suffer until we research IW, which may be a while if we are pulling off the Feudalism Slingshot.

For tech: Either of the two suggested city sites would benefit from Fishing, and the Marble requires Masonry. BW is most useful to us for Slavery, so it goes well with the southern city location, but it may be able to wait. IW can wait. So other than Fishing/Masonry we may be able to push straight for Monarchy/Writing.

I was questioning the targeting of Feudalism, but I suspect bolstering the Longbow rush with Vassalage is going to be real useful. We can then double back for the tech to build the only 4 Accuracy Cats we'll ever need.

 

[Mutineer]

Actially I tryed just to check posibility of getting Feodalism on oracle on Immortal with saladin and I did manage it. I did have confortable start of gold and 2 clams. I actially was surprised, as I got it with first attempt. hmm...

 

[uberfish]

Actually, we can get writing through priesthood, but since we started pottery I finish it and will follow through to get an early library. This means we will have a late settler though.

The marble is a red herring, it would require us to found a crappy 2nd city with no food and waste too much time researching masonry. Research is our bottleneck since we've gone through 4 off-path techs for the slingshot already.

Finish pottery in 2640; continue to writing

First skirmisher finishes, I train a second one instead of the barracks that was queued. Barracks would take too long, and delay library

2400, spot Cyrus (founder of Hinduism) to our east and an ivory resource. This would be a good second city site, if it hadn't been immediately grabbed by HC. Writing -> Meditation, begin a library as research is our bottleneck for completing any slingshot now. Settler can wait. Our worker is so busy at the capital that I had no time to even build cottages or connect health resources, so it wouldn't have time to improve 2nd city either.

This is the east.



2160, sign OB with Isabella at her request. Judaism FIDL. Set Timbuktu to avoid growth for now so we can use max stored food at size 5 to run scientists

2080, Meditation -> Priesthood

2000, priesthood due in 2, library in 4. There has been no barbarian activity.

I think two players playing the opening has already noticably weakened it from one player playing 50 turns, so I propose that the next player plays 20 or however long it takes to resolve the Oracle situation, before we drop down to 10 turns. We could take CoL safely from oracle, feudalism would involve a bit of risk and fiddling around with specialists. I think it is worth the risk as monarchy is an important tech for us anyway, and CoL isn't right now.

Good luck.

save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/T_McC03_BC-2000.Civ4SavedGame

 

[T_McC]

Roster:
T_McC
uberfish (just played)
Mark1031 (Up!)
ThERat
Mutineer (???)

Sounds reasonable for Mark to play 20ish, since we likely will still only have one city.

 

[Mark1031]

OK I will get to this tonight. I am worried about Oracle but will give it a try. If we get Feud. I am thinking that it might be best to forgo settler and just go on the warpath and take nearby cities. We will have very few good sites left by that time with all the AI's around.

 

[ThERat]

once we have done feudalism, I suggest we go for construction. We need a LB cat combo to get anywhere here

 

[Mark1031]

Well It is 2000 BC and we have 2 turns on Priesthood and then have to do Monarchy. I am not sure about this but I Will give it a try.

I notice we are connected to Huayna some how so I open boarders with him. Also want to scout him out for possible military action. It does not give us a trade route, maybe it takes to end of turn. Also switch from corn to river grass for 1 extra gold and we are stagnant.

1960: We are 5th in tech. I don't understand, we can trade gems to Huayna but we don't get a trade route with open boarders. Oh well



1920: Priesthood in. Monarchy currently in 20 but that will drop with library and scientists/cottage.

1880:zzz

1840: Monarchy in 16. Oracle in 13 with 1 starvation. It is a difficult balance between research and shields. I am building a river cottage and hope we can get both in about 13-14 turns but I'm not sure that will be enough.

1800: Machu Pichu which has the phants is a foodless crap spot. I was thinking it might be a good caputre spot but it is worthless except for the elephants.

1760: Izzy adopts slavery.

1720: Oracle and Monarchy in 11 but we can't maintain the starvation for more than 9 turns. Will see, it might be 12 turns. I think that is the best I can do.



1680 exploring

1640-1560: Building and scouting Huayan's and Izzy's territory.

1520: Stonehinge BIADL.

1480: 5-turns. It will be close. Roading health resources to cut starvation.

1440:zzz

1400: 3-turns. It will fall any minute.

1360: Come on Baby...

1320: WE WILL GET IT. 1 TURN TO Both Monarchy and Oracle. Reconfigure for growth and we still get it in 1.



1280: Feudalism->Bronze for the whip. I think I will stop here (18 turns I think) as We have to decide what way to go and I will leave that up to the team and the next player. I would really have to think hard about this myself. The land available ATM is pretty crappy. We might consider going after Izzy. LBs are 2x as expensive as skirmishers and I don;t know how effective they will be at taking cities. I've never tried this before. Anyway I guess I would advocate doing a 1CC using conquest for our cities. Maybe Izzy. For research BW for whip then beeline to construction. We can crank out LB's and when construction comes in 1-2 cats and then move. Both Izzy and Huayan are prett weakly defended for now. The LB advantage will not last long and we need 5-6 nice cities before the next move at chemistry. We can possibly pick off some cities even once the AI has LBs with enough cats.

Our future lands:

 

[uberfish]

Yay, we got it! I was almost afraid to open the thread

I agree that we should just play with one city for now and invade someone. Combat 1 + cover longbows are 8.1 strength against archers, which is better than a CR2 axe.

With monarchy, we are probably going to be health capped at our capital until we can clear the jungle. Although construction has to be the highest priority, if we research alphabet after bronze we might be able to trade for maths+IW+masonry+fishing+sailing and save ourselves some time, and we should also be able to get an academy to speed things up.

 

[SpriteSODA]

I should act fast, and its going to be problematic when playing with only one city.

 

[ThERat]

save

played until alpha to get decision making for next player
Cyrus asked for OB.
got BW, revolted, but no copper anywhere
got a rax, then went for LB's and alphabet

build a cottage and then started to irrigate so the wheat gets water

we have 2 LB's and a third soon
we have alpha monopoly now and can surely get IW and AH from France for feudalism
but we should try and not give up that nice monopoly

no screenie as nothing changed, but we are basically sourrounded by the enemy

 

[Tatran]

build a cottage and then started to irrigate so the wheat gets water

Guess,Singapore is facing a heatwave too.

 

[uberfish]

We forgot to revolt into Vassalage, next player please do this before the next longbow comes out. The 2nd promotion is very important.

HC has ivory which will make him difficult to invade pre-gunpowder once he connects it up, but he buffers us against Cyrus and Toku. I think Isa is a more attractive target because it's very easy for us to defend her lands which are geographically similar to the real world Spain, unless HC should build the pyramids in the next few turns. I expect Louis will demand tribute that we are unwilling to give, and thus be our medium term enemy.

I think we might as well hold on to alphabet for now to slow the AI down as mathematics is not available and we don't need to rush for Iron, and instead trade priesthood to Cyrus for fishing and monarchy to Isa for her other three.

So I reckon we either go Maths -> Construction ourselves, or play for something with more trade value like CoL since we most likely would be able to get maths in trade soon.

 

[T_McC]

The tech plan sounds fine, as does attacking Izzy. Iron Working would be nice to give us more varied tiles at the capital, maybe a 2nd trade will open up after the first round. It very likely is not worth researching ourselves.

We aren't that health-crunched at the Capital since we can build a Granary for +2 health, but watch the happiness when our attack force moves out. One nice thing about not having a metal at the capital is that we can still build 15-hammer warm bodies.

Glad Mark's turn went better than my shadow. I strongly suspect we won a tie for the Oracle with an AI ... and Huyana didn't declare war on us here.

For civics, unless we plan on whipping something soon we should also use Serfdom with Vassalage. Once we capture a few of Izzy's cities we can slide back into Slavery and whip infrastructure.

Heh. Izzy may also be playing our variant. Of course, she hasn't planned ahead for that eventuality.

Didn't realize that we could still build Skirmishers. Makes it a fairly easy choice to promote the LBs for offense (and against Izzy, Combat I/Cover is correct. For others we may have to also include Combat I/Shock) and Skirmishers for city defense.

Mutineer is up!

 

[Mutineer]

Ok,
Turn 0
I look on situation and Cyrus dislike everyone and worce enemy of everyone.

So, I did not trade with Cyrus.

I did not trade alphavit no Feodalism. I believe we need to keep monopoly on that as long as posible.
Set research to Col, due in 2 turns. We should be able to trade all the rest we need for it, even Louis beat as to it.

Revolted to Vassalage, 2 promotion the is must.
Notice we -2 health, grow city with out granary.

Whiped granary and after that start to whipe LB.

We need to use our advantage as fast as posible.
So, my advice to continue to whipe LB and when needed use oferflow to produce warrior and Skirmirsher next turn for happiness.

WE probably can take over all spanish empire just with cover LB, exept capital.

Notice lsa build setler and left only one archer in border city on hill, declared and took it with lost of one cover LB, second LB promoted with first strike finished the job.
Isa build new city on near by hill and start to stuff it with archers.
Recomend to ignore and strike after here core cities, included one with Stanehedge, thought culture pressure from her capital could be a problem.


Kill one chariot, creating medic LB in process.
WE poused to take one more Iso city.

 

[Mutineer]

Forgot about thades.

For monarchy, writing, Meditation got:
Fishing, Animal husbentry, Politheism, Masonry, sailing

 

[T_McC]

Ok, now I'm up.

I'll wait for at least a couple of hours for comments.

 

[uberfish]

Looks good, I agree we should just ignore Salamanca as it is no threat and go for Seville and Madrid.

Having access to cheap military police via warriors is a nice unexpected bonus for us, since we will be in hereditary rule for a long time.

 

[Mark1031]

Wow what fast play. I wake up and find 3 turns almost done. You must have the time zones coordinated. I think we should take out all/ most of Spain in the LB Era. Possibly in 2 wars with tech concessions. With the Religious hodge-podge there should be other battles soon We can try to pick at civs in the other direction (Cy/Hua) as the opportunity arises.

 

[T_McC]

375 BC (0)
Lots o' whip unhappies in Timbuktu (3 already). May just have to let it be unwhipped this round as we are starting to hit the point of diminishing returns.

Not convinced Madrid is do-able without Cats. Holy City + Shrine + Capital = 60% cultural defense already, and I don't want to blow our OCC army just by being impatient. I'll probably go Seville -> Cordoba and hope to let the cats rendezvous on the road to Madrid. I also think we'll end up taking a 10-turn break in here somewhere to extort tech and consolidate. She's not getting Feudalism before we kill her off.

Lots of different religions out there so we should be able to make trouble soon. Our CoL research should be parlayable into IW and Math, but we'll see how it breaks.

<return>

350 BC (1)
The AI really founds cities in stupid locations. Seville should have gone 1 N to be coastal. I mean, we'll keep it, but ... (win with 2 LBs, no losses). Gain 94 gold and the city has nothing intact.

325 BC (2)
Kill growth at Timbuktu to build a 2-turn Skirmisher that will be used to garrison our newer conquest. Izzy has a Chariot threatening Toledo. It'll get a <5% attack but I can't do anything about it at the moment.

Give Toku Priesthood. Doesn't work, he still won't trade with us. So I can only trade CoL to Huyana for Math. Maybe the gift point will kick in next turn ...

300 BC (3)
Win the Chariot battle, now Izzy will attack with an unpromoted Archer. My LB and 6 XP Skirmisher just pass right on by ...

275 BC (4)
Nothing much besides moving ...

250 BC (5)
Izzy has a Chariot N of Timbuktu so I whip an LB and move a Skirmisher out of the city to intercept.

225 BC (6)
Moving on Cordoba. Win another battle at Toledo and promote the Skirmisher to CG I.

200 BC (7)
Kill that Spanish Chariot.

125 BC (10)
Eventful turn. Meet Saladin and sign OB. Then Huyana wants us to convert to Buddhism. I say no because we will get more points for adopting it later than we lose by declining now. Plus, I really don't want to deal with "brothers of the faith" unhappiness.

Then we find out why we met Saladin as Judaism spreads to our lands.

Then Huyana founds Christianity and he'll probably be converting to that soon.

Spanish Chariot pillages a farm.

Attack Cordoba, which has City Walls. Lead with the two green LBs, and each loses as expected. Then the Cover LB loses at 84%, the Drill III wins, and the Medic LB attacks across a river to secure the city. I would say we are pretty well gassed now. We score 95 gold with the capture.

Use a Combat II Skirmisher to off the pillaging Chariot. Then the Skirmisher I intended to garrison Cordoba takes a detour and whack the Archer covering Izzy's Horses.

Final Notes:
I think I've forced uberfish into a builder's round. We can still muster a 4-LB attack stack, but without Cats I seriously doubt we can take another culturally mature city. Izzy has four cities, one of which we can't see but can guess the location of.

uberfish does get the interesting task of optimizing the trades on the IT and peace negotiation. We have a couple of techs that Saladin doesn't, and it appears as though he has already broken our Alphabet monopoly. At one point a pop-up indicated that Izzy was the most advanced civ, so I must have read that wrong. If Saladin can't trade with anyone else, we can make peace with Izzy for tech and see if he has anything better to offer.

We have a hell of a consolidation coming after Spain is dismissed. We have four cities and one worker, and are still essentially OCC'ing. We may need to focus on diplomacy soon as we don't have the production to fight anyone else quickly after Izzy. I think we want to consolidate after killing Izzy, as we don't want her to research to Longbows.

We'll get a Great Prophet in 7 turns, for whatever good that will do us. It appears as though we'll be first to Construction.

The Granary in Seville isn't a useful build now. I was expecting us to gain control of the Bananas tile and have it connected to the rest of our empire.

 

[ThERat]

good fighting here

well, what will Izzy give us for peace at the moment? It is clear that we need to take Madrid, only then will our new cities become useful.

I think catapults alone will be very powerful. (I ever thought of a variant of only using cat/cannon/arty to fight) and we should be able to take the capital.