aCK-2 Seeing Red

[S.ilver]

Well, after an easy ride on ForeverREX brought us to the logical Domination Victory in aCK-1, we're going to try something else. After having a whopping total of FOUR XP towards our Great General for most of the game (from Boudica's chariot no less...), we're going to try to push a game with a more aggressive stance and less peaceful REXing. Plenty more opportunities for Questionable Play (TM) when engaging in hostilities (as demonstrated by some other SGs), so expect hilarity and hopefully some rare gems of insight .

So, on to our leader for this wild ride. A leader that we all know and despise for his irrationality, xenophobia, and general distrust towards anyone and everyone!

Widely regarded as vying for the title of worst leader (along with Genghis, and everyone's favourite Burger King!) Toku has absolutely NOTHING going for him in the economic department. Aggressive wins him Combat 1 on most of the core army units throughout the game, but for buildings he wins... a cheap barracks and drydock? Ok bud... Meanwhile he is ALSO protective, winning himself a pair of fairly lousy promotions on the weaker archery lineup (and cheap walls and castles... snooze...). His two traits do dovetail nicely when you get to gunpowder units, for some seriously flexible forces, but the challenge is surviving to get there.

The UB is the Shale Plant, which is a Coal Plant that doesn't need coal. It also provides a +10% boost to production, and this is all at the same cost of a Coal Plant. Quite a nice improvement on the otherwise derided Coal Plant. Unfortunately... it's... well... a Coal Plant... It comes LATE in the game. There is a reason why people think Germany, America, and Russia are fairly lousy in this regard. Because the game is usually decided by then.

The UU in the fan-favourite Samurai. This is a maceman that specifically requires Iron (copper won't do for those shiny samurai swords!). He also wins two first strikes (innate) and Drill 1 for another first strike. Also allows us to go down the Drill pathway unlike other Melee units. A first glance this doesn't seem wonderful, but those extra first strikes will seriously cut down on the damage dealt to these guys. Meanwhile, it is still a melee unit, and therefore retains the flexibility of promotions (especially since Toku gets free Combat 1 on them). It definitely screams Medieval War!

Starting techs for Japan are Fishing and The Wheel. Fishing is situational to start with. Wheel ensures your workers will not be standing around doing nothing, but roads don't do much to improve your output. It does allow us a short track to Pottery, but Japan is usually more interested in finding metal or horses to cause some damage.

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The customary 5 starts are below. Settings are a standard sized Pangaea Map, with all other settings left default.

Start A

Spoiler :

Start B

Spoiler :

Start C

Spoiler :

Start D

Spoiler :

Start E

Spoiler :

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So far, we have everyone back, except Petey who is out of town and therefore hasn't had a chance to reply yet. I'm holding his spot until we get a chance to hear from him. Since we (tentatively) have everyone back, this game has been boosted to Monarch level, as we pretty much rolled over the last game very quickly.

I'll arrange the roster after we've picked a start. We'll mix the order up so that everyone can play behind someone different, to get a wider sense of playstyles.

 

[Liquidated]

Ok Liq can never resist the 5 start thing, just too entertaining hehe. Will spoil it on account this is a learning SG and well you guys look at the maps before looking at liq's ramblings.

Spoiler :

B and C are 4 food starts which means they are isolated on a sliver of land or packed in next to an AI... or both. lets skip those. lots of water both and your pick of desert or tundra.... bleh skip.

The remaining three are interesting so spend some time on them.

D is a classic example of the map script plunking down an effing lake for fresh water when all it had to do is run the river north one tile... least it's all land unlike the first two maps.

About the resources... marble in the BFC is a mixed blessing (less chance for metal/horses), non irritated corn is annoying considering the river close by and plains cows are a poor excuse for food as we saw in ack1. Plains wine in the bfc is meh even after monarchy. All sorts of borderline useless resources around means prolly not much hiding in the fog. Sheep in the north mean tundra that way lies plus there's a desert to the west. Lets just forget they exist.

Moving the settler south makes a lot of sense in that it places the Capital on the river and drops 2x plains tiles in the north. I would actually settle on top of the marble actually since that boosts the hammers on the city tile and doesn't drag good down hehe. Looks like a nice hammer town that way plus it irrigates the corn instantly with civil.


A is fascinating if only it Wasn't a pang haha. Nearly a psychotic two tile coastal town (has 3 coasts) with massed grass hills, 6 river tiles from the fresh water supplying river stump. The hills we can see btw are:

• 3x forested grass hills
• 2x "mysteriously blank" grass hills
• 1x forested plains hill diagonal to the river.

The Corn is the only resource seen so far but needs civil to irrigate this is nice as no frilly useless resources so far and there's at least 1x other food tile in the fog, hopefully north where they are on the river. 5 fogged tiles total and very few plains seen. Very high likelyhood this town has copper or iron in the bfc.

Really nice starting location especially if the coastal access was required.


Last but not least is map E with more effing plains cows. What really annoys a liq about plains cows is that the map script considers that trash as a food tile. Meh.

Mad phat river the settler is on and which kisses the marginal rice (rice is ok irrigated) and sugar which are both 4 food farmed. 4 hills present nd there's desert in the BFC to the north.. probably flood plains. Looking closer at the map see a glimmer of water in the SE meaning the river prolly loops back north or there's another river altogether as the game never gives you a one tile off the coast. hard to see with silver crappy screen tho!

Settle in place and that's 9 tiles worth of fog surrounding E. The warrior is in the wrong place to scout of course... quite a gamble as that's a lot of potential plains!




Overall, I'd give the nod to A or D. I'd vote A just from an irrational love rolling green hills and near certainty of metal in the BFC.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Diamondeye]

B or E, on account that A and C are dung and D is too much a peacemonger start (Marble and lots of food? Pleeease... Can we have IRON now?).

I actually like the one where we can almost see the jungle (E); we have plenty of rivers and a reason to go IW early, which is with Toku. I am already looking forward to war

EDIT: On A, I don't mean dung-dung. I just mean, like, boring. Probably isolated aswell.

 

[sturick]

Okay...A would look alot better if it had a second visible resource...could be one in the 5ish fogged over. The numerous forests would be great for later chopping but our first worker will struggle for things to do until BW with only the corn to farm.

B is a good early start with plenty of good food and three hills. 11 water tiles in the BFC is worrisome for the late game however...gold is nice bonus.
Possible isolated start though.

C would be okay if we settled on the marble picking up the grassland pigs and three clams.
But this looks even more isolated than B to me.

D looks too plainsy for me...a risky play might be to settle one to the SE. It picks up all the resources adds plenty of hills and we have the mystery of whatever is revealed.

E could have the scout jump on that southern hill and get a good look at the surroundings.
We have three resources, a couple of hills, plenty of grassland and a river for the commerce.
Plus nine fogged over tiles that could give us more pretty resources!

In order of preference

E>B>A>D>C

 

[goblinmarine]

My preference would be
A-E-D-B-C
for reasons already mentioned above.
A wins for shear production. I mean seriously, how many hills is that? and how many tiles are forested? you mean i can mine a few hills and still save chops for useful things? and my capital is coastal but only has three coast tiles? YES PLEASE
would have put the water starts higher but they're probably peninsulas which are bad news for REXing outward (i believe the exact reasons were mentioned in aCK-1)

 

[Liquidated]

ok so split over A and E... silver gets to flip a coin or something.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[sturick]

Could Silver perhaps move the scout in each save and we can see what pops out of the fog???

 

[S.ilver]

No problem. Where do you think I should move our warrior (it's a warrior not a scout No hunting. Toku's starting techs suck and are useless in either case).

 

[sturick]

Dang it...don't know why I assumed they are scouts.

I suppose 1N for A and 1 SE for E (really want to go 2S1E with a scout but that will have to do)

That would make 2 BFC tiles uncovered in A and 1 in B.
Not as informative as I would have hoped but oh well.

EDIT: Wait a minute...would moving the warrior in A 1NE give us the tile 2E of our settler?
If so then do that instead.

 

[S.ilver]

First to answer sturick's question about moving the A warrior NE. You can only see tiles that are 2 squares away in any direction if they are a higher elevation than you (or if you're a higher elevation than them and there isn't something obstructing your view like forests or other high elevation tiles). So unless it is a hill, we won't be able to see it.

Now, my screenshots are lousy because S.ilver forgot to enable FRAPs before taking them. But it is possible to do fog gazing in your games (and if you have the save, I should've been courteous and uploaded them all, but S.ilver is too lazy). So here are the screens with the warriors moved. I've also filled in my guesses from fog gazing.

Start A

For A, I knew from fog gazing that the tile 2N of the settler was a forested grass hill. I also knew the mystery tile next to it (which now has rice) was flat and had no forest. So I moved the warrior 1NW to get a better view, and it paid off even more, as you can see we spotted two hills far away, and one has a hut on it.


Start E

Not much to say here, as the warrior was in a really bad place to take a peek at any surroundings. There appears to be coast to the north, and the river dumps out in a direction not facing the coast that we can fog gaze. So there's either a short peninsula, or a lake to the north.

 

[Liquidated]

Wow A looking sexy. That's a ton of hammers to push around and just enough food to keep it afloat before civil. Also, the River to the NW is real most likely so it could go a ways.

Since we have no useless cows nor the need to dumpster dive AH just for basic worker techs....

Agril -> mining -> BW then see from there. We are protective so Hunting -> Archery if no copper in the bfc.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[goblinmarine]

Definitely want A now.

 

[Conqistador]

Is start A pretty much guaranteed to get a strategic resource in the BFC, assuming you settle in place?

 

[Liquidated]

Nothing is 100% but getting iron or copper in the bfc is as close to 100% as this game gets. Actually I'd dare say copper/iron on one hill and coal on the other.

Nice location for sure.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Diamondeye]

I surrender - pick A then. Who starts out?

 

[S.ilver]

Alright, so A it is. Mixed up the roster so everyone is in a different spot and not following whoever they followed in aCK-1.

Roster
1. sturick
2. Diamondeye
3. goblinmarine
4. Liquidated
5. PeteyP (needs to confirm)
6. S.ilver

So sturick gets leadoff honours, and here is the save.

 

[Diamondeye]

Sturick, get the Toku ball rolling!

 

[sturick]

Gonna be gone this weekend so I will just play until Agriculture...I would hate to foul up the roster on the first day.
Never kicked off a SG before so the turns might just fly by.

Preturn

So I take a moment to survey our empire as usual...oh wait...can't really do that.

(0) 4000 BC

So I found Kyoto in place and Silver is spot on with his foggazing.
Unfortunately the tiles beyond the fog are lousy...three desert tiles. BOO!

The goodie hut hiding in the corn gives us 81 gold.

Never really sure what to build first so I refer to ACK-1 and Silver says:

So, in general, a worker first is usually the best build to get a city on it's feet faster, and able to spit out other sorts of things.

So the young padawan (sp?) starts a 23 turn worker.

Agri will take 14 turns.

Warrior already has moved so whack enter.

(1) 3975 BC

Move warrior towards the hillside goodie hut.

(2) 3950 BC

Still headed towards the hut...but I spy some gems.

Pic was taken post hut pop...oh well.

(3) 3925 BC

The hut gives us another 106 gold...were rich! Not Ruff-09 rich but not bad.
I would kindly request the knowledge of hunting or mining please!

(4) 3900 BC

Moving our warrior in a clockwise direction around our capital.
More hills and jungle to our west...potentially fertile land to our north.

(5) 3875 BC

Hills aren't providing the beautiful views that I like with all the trees around.

(6) 3850 BC

I really need to rid myself of the crutch of the scout. I rely on them too much by choosing civs that start with hunting. I change my mind. "I want a scout with the next hut" he says as I grab my crutches.

(7) 3825 BC

Since we have a warrior I am forced to leave the protection of hills and forests to make my clockwise turn to scout north of Kyoto.

Can someone remind me of the game mechanics regarding a free barb victory?
Is this urban legend? If not, does it apply to Monarch level?

(8) 3800 BC

Our borders pop in Kyoto and we meet our first neighbor.

I see his borders near our warrior. Thats a little close for comfort...oh wait we are warmongers this time around. Hopefully he is landlocked to negate his financial trait.
And hopefully his expansive trait will provide us with punkable workers.

I visit Kyoto to ensure we work the rice tile for the extra commerce. Stupid governor.
That shaves a turn off of Agri.

(9) 3775 BC

Pacals capital is on a hill...that blows.

(10) 3750 BC

Boring...

(11) 3725 BC

Still boring...

(12) 3700 BC

This is starting to feel a little like my Petey game.

He approached from the east btw.
He is scouting with an archer...should I be concerned with our unprotected capital?

(13) 3675 BC

Agriculture comes in and I queue mining.

And yes, after grueling war turns in Petey and not so grueling war turns in ACK-1, I forgot how quick early turns can be. I will play through mining which is done in 10 turns.

First barb sighting...

(14) 3650 BC

Brennus appears to the NE of Kyoto and the Petey deja vu wears off.

(15) 3625 BC

First barb defense upcoming...if there is a freebie I'm wasting it on the forested hill.

(16) 3600 BC

Tanaka is the first named unit! 3 turns to heal.

(17) 3575 BC
(18) 3550 BC
(19) 3525 BC

Spoiler :

Well it would appear that ACK is not Montyproof. He came from east.

(20) 3500 BC

Nothing big...

(21) 3475 BC

Another neighbor...that makes five now. Again from the east.

Buddhism founded this turn.

Partytime just south of Kyoto.

(22) 3450 BC

Jumboville

Elizabeth is the founder of Buddhism btw.

I find Sully's borders.

(24) 3425 BC

Mining arrives...BW up next.

Worker finally finishes...warrior up next.

Worker starts farming the corn.

The world as we know it...

Spoiler :

Wrapup

Not bad I guess...we'll see. Don't feel like I got a whole lot of scouting done but I did what I could.

My guess is that there might be room to the west to expand with all our neighbors coming from the right hand side of the screen.

I'll be out of town this weekend so I check you all on Monday.
Good luck!

 

[sturick]

Hopefully my biggest of the set is that I forgot to name the worker.
DE make sure to fix that for me.

 

[Diamondeye]

Don't worry, I will. Now, as to not have me mess things up again; can anyone tell me where we should settle next cities? I am thinking on the plains jumbo, or the riverside hill overlooking those gems to the west...?