Aelf's thread reloaded

[Zanttu]

The other option would be to build a food poor city as your next city (which normally isn't really recommendable) just to hook up the stone and go after pyramids. Given the amount of forests around your capital the 'mids could be completed pretty fast.. And if you're going to SE heavy economy, then 'mids are even more attractive. But as for the land we can see right now, it doesn't really favor SE type economy. But I believe there's some better city sites in your west (though the AI's may beat you to those locations while you grab the stone and chop the 'mids). If you end up using a lot of specialists, then hooking up the stone now and getting pyramids will pay off in long run.

 

[dragomaster]

i will be wery interesting to see where you put your next city. fith turn mean darius is maximum 12 squares from you, not good. whod expanding towards him be a good id?

 

[The Rook]

See what you have to the west before seetling in the east. You may have a nice place to block off Darius.

I agree, normally expanding towards the AI is a good rule of thumb. I would be interested to see where that river goes. Is there anything interesting near the pig? If there is a rival immediately to the west, I would still be tempted to rush them! Perhaps not kill them completely, so that tech trades would remain possible.

Unfortunately it seems that there is very little irrigable land to the east, not great for running a SE. If forced to choose a location there, I would probably pick the plains 2 east of the lake, to absorb the stone and the corn.

 

[shyuhe]

I would skip the stone for city #2. IT's not a very strong city location otherwise (too many plains and needs a border pop to be effective) and I think yo'ull grab more land by heading west towards the pig. Unfortunately there's a lot of backyards for barbs to come out of so that's also a concern. Unless you're going to build the GW (and even then), I would save the stone for city #3 at earliest. If you can't get the pigs, NW along the river may be an option as well.

And don't play your sets too fast You need to give people time to respond!

 

[r_rolo1]

I really miss Aelf's threads ( maybe he'll come back to them soon.. he's still around ) and surely learned a lot with them. But knowing ungy's play first hand, I think that this will be as enlightining as aelf's ones ( especialy if ppl flock here... this kind of threads live as much of the host's skill as from lurker's input )

Sitting bull is a tough leader to handle, and surely one of the weakest of the Phi civs ( IMHO... just compare with Liz or Pericles ). The best way to maximize him is to play as he was only Phi until gunpowder and smash the world with Pro rifles... but that is not for now

I do not like your start.... yeah ,lots of woods and stone for the Mids, but the land looks dry and until now you haven't discovered any clear GP farm site... That only would urge you to explore the west, because settling in the east doesn't look a priority.

Dog warrior rush can be a good idea too ( if you don't finish the victim ), but that requires to know where the AI are.

Keep it rolling , ungy !

 

[futurehermit]

I'm really looking forward to this thread. I think it could be worthwhile to settle toward Darius, although that would mean delaying the stone which could cost you the pyramids, especially on immortal. If Darius is close enough, which it sounds like he might be, I think the better move would be taking him out and using his capital as your gpfarm getting the GL/NE going there with CastSys and Pac. Then you could expand at your leisure and build a bunch of cities peacefully.

The downside would mean that if you don't have any more neighbours then you have no tech trading. However, with proper lightbulbing or otherwise you could go after optics fairly early and trade with those civs overseas. That would lead to Freddy being quite backwards, which means you could overtake him pretty easily in the Renaissance era.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Hereditary Rule]

You really should check them out.

They were the only threads that have come close to matching Sisiutil's in terms of popularity, depth/breadth of discussion, and the quality of their reports. aelf's detailed descriptions of his quite brilliant diplomatic maneuverings were a particular highlight.

I'll never forget lurking in that Churchill Game - several times I thought it was over and his play showed me that I was a mere axeman to his rifleman.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I haven't played the Native Americans yet, but I can say as one who has Praet rushed Sitting Bull, that Native America is the ultimate anti-Prat rush. In the open field, Dog Warrior vs Praet is a massacre and the Uber Archers make him nearly impossible to kill without cats.

This is the AI, though. I have no clue how to effectivley use these tools as a human.

 

[ungy]

Thanks for the reminder on playing too quick--I'm definately going to wait a bit to play more--I started it out because after I moved the warrior settling seemed pretty clear and it's all a bit more interesting now.

I agree with the advice to settle city 2 towards Darius--we definately need to claim some more land and good land. A possibility would be city 2 to the W, city 3 with the stone, and take a late shot at the mids--we know 2 AI are not industrious.

I don't think much of the dog soldier rush on immortal. As it's been pointed out, unless we have more than 2 other AI we will end up hopelessly behind in tech since we'll kill tech trading. I'm not a big fan of rushing at immortal w/o a (good) uu anyway--not so easy(or I'm just not good at it). While we can build them easier than axes, we need quite a few more due to their lower strength. In terms of hammers invested, they really are incredibly poor vs. the early AI archers.

 

[ungy]

If Darius is close enough, which it sounds like he might be, I think the better move would be taking him out and using his capital as your gpfarm getting the GL/NE going there with CastSys and Pac. Then you could expand at your leisure and build a bunch of cities peacefully.

The downside would mean that if you don't have any more neighbours then you have no tech trading. However, with proper lightbulbing or otherwise you could go after optics fairly early and trade with those civs overseas. That would lead to Freddy being quite backwards, which means you could overtake him pretty easily in the Renaissance era.

We might be able to run for optics pretty quick with lightbulbing. However, my experience with rushes is that just getting to COL is a challenge. You're talking about lit, phil (which kills the optics track). I've never done a dog soldier rush but seems like we need a lot. Assuming he's not on a hill, and I build a barracks, the dog soldiers are only 4.4 and cost 35h. Unpromoted archers will be 40% culture+ 50% city+25% fort= 2.15*3=6.45
We'll need at a minimum 2.5/1 and a lot can go wrong. So would I build 10 dog soldiers? By then Darius could easily have horse and 4 cities--and we might not be able to even get to writing. Not only is it all or nothing but the weakness of the UU means that taking the capital is not necessarily game over for D.
I think the dog soldier rush is for lower levels --at prince you can hurry one out and maybe catch the AI pre-archers and walk in.

 

[oyzar]

I imagine that the UU would be pretty outstanding for a rush. Ok, it is weaker than an Axeman against Archers, but it requires no resources! No requirement to build settlers, no requirement to settle dubious cities for copper (if you can find copper), no requirement to connect the city with roads, no requirement to mine the copper, no requirement to connect the copper mine with a road etc etc. And all this before you have even started building Axemen!. What the Dog Soldier lacks against Archers, it makes up for in sheer numbers (the hammers saved on that resource settler). Not to mention the fact that it has no fear of Axemen/Swordsmen, so if the AI connects copper early it isn't the end of the world. If the AI connects horses, the Dog Soldier avoids the Chariot penalty. Pretty invincible really. Not to mention, as shyuhe says, it isn't a bad anti-barb unit too.

In the context of this game, I would expect a Dog Soldier rush would be viable. Looking at all the forests that want chopping, combined with the corn for the 2 pop whip, you could knock out an army in no time.

EDIT: Having said that, if you only have 2 neghbours it might not be a good idea taking out one, as tech trading becomes impossible.

They don't avoid the chariot penalty and it would take forever to produce enough dog soldiers with just one city(he needs 3 per archer and with at least 3 archers that means 10+ dog soldiers or the same as pyramids + a city.. Maybe taking one enemy city and not having trading partners in the early game or getting mids and starting expanding, hmm i wonder what is best...

Blocking the AI is also a good idea, chop the mids after you hook up the stone and you should be fine with 3 or 4 cities.

 

[vicawoo]

I don't think you can spawn horses on forest tiles.

 

[The Rook]

They don't avoid the chariot penalty and it would take forever to produce enough dog soldiers with just one city(he needs 3 per archer and with at least 3 archers that means 10+ dog soldiers or the same as pyramids + a city.. Maybe taking one enemy city and not having trading partners in the early game or getting mids and starting expanding, hmm i wonder what is best...

I've just done my research, and you are absolutely right, I had no idea a "Dog Soldier" would count as an "Axeman". With the lower strength of the Dog Soldier, I suppose this makes them doubly vulnerable against chariots. This reduces my confidence in the Dog Soldier rush to a degree.

You can't simply compare the hammers used for a rush versus the hammers used for the mids. For a start, many of the units created for the rush would be produced through whipping, and the Dog Soldier costs 35 hammers which makes it an eligible candidate for the 2 pop whip. Not to mention there are plenty of forests that can be potentially chopped. You say you need 10 Dog Soldiers to take a city, but that is a very worst case scenario, it is most likely that you will have survivors, and very likely you could take two with that quantity. At the same time, you would cripple one AI to the point that they no longer represent a threat. With shared religion, open borders, fair trades etc, you could easily raise Darius to pleased in the long term, and cautious in the short term, even with the -3 declaration penalty, and since he would always be weak, it is unlikely he would ever represent a real threat to you. So you wouldn't lose a trading partner, and you might still have an ally.

I have never tried the Dog Soldier rush on any level before. But I have had several successful rushes on Immortal, so whilst I am not suggesting it is the only viable strategy, I certainly wouldn't eliminate it as an option with the sarcastic vigour that you do.

 

[The Rook]

I think the dog soldier rush is for lower levels --at prince you can hurry one out and maybe catch the AI pre-archers and walk in.

I don't play Prince, and I have never tried Sitting Bull, but Holkan rushes are certainly viable at Immortal level (same settings), and that isn't a massively dissimilar unit. Darius seems very nearby, I think the Immortal would be the most fearsome potential obstacle. I'm not trying to suggest the rush is the only viable option. If it doesn't feel right to you, don't do it, I wouldn't want to ruin your game.

I also notice that it is at least turn 23, and you are building a warrior, so you might be running a little late for the rush now anyway.

 

[ungy]

I don't play Prince, and I have never tried Sitting Bull, but Holkan rushes are certainly viable at Immortal level (same settings), and that isn't a massively dissimilar unit.

That is good to hear--I've never done a holkan rush and I would think they would be fairly similar--the holkan immune to FS and needs hunting as well.
How did you do it--one city or 2?
As for being late--to be honest I really wasn't thinking about a rush--just took the normal path of worker-war and I only have one tile to improve so it seemed obvious.

 

[ungy]

You can't simply compare the hammers used for a rush versus the hammers used for the mids. For a start, many of the units created for the rush would be produced through whipping, and the Dog Soldier costs 35 hammers which makes it an eligible candidate for the 2 pop whip. Not to mention there are plenty of forests that can be potentially chopped. You say you need 10 Dog Soldiers to take a city, but that is a very worst case scenario, it is most likely that you will have survivors, and very likely you could take two with that quantity.

How would we do 2 pop whips?
We only have one major food tile here.
I don't at all think that is a worst case scenario--put his capital on a hill with 3 archers and have him whip another and 10 is not necessarily a favorite.

Anyway we really don't know the layout of the land--there could easily be another AI (or more). Darius could be as far as 13 away.

My gut feeling is that we have an opportunity to leverage our strength (phil) with the 'mids (stone, forest) and that is the better plan. Additionally we have peaceful neighbors, so we can most likely get away w/o much military until the AD (another requirement IMHO for building wonders--I've lost a couple of games recently where I build wonders and then got DOW'd early and lost.

 

[ungy]

Blocking the AI is also a good idea, chop the mids after you hook up the stone and you should be fine with 3 or 4 cities.

That would be the general plan--then fill out to 6 for the all important nat wonders.

 

[ungy]

I would skip the stone for city #2. IT's not a very strong city location otherwise (too many plains and needs a border pop to be effective) and I think yo'ull grab more land by heading west towards the pig. Unfortunately there's a lot of backyards for barbs to come out of so that's also a concern. Unless you're going to build the GW (and even then), I would save the stone for city #3 at earliest. If you can't get the pigs, NW along the river may be an option as well.

I agree--city 2 definately needs to block. However the stone city most likely will need a border pop for the stone--that is starting to get a little late but I think still doable.

 

[futurehermit]

We might be able to run for optics pretty quick with lightbulbing. However, my experience with rushes is that just getting to COL is a challenge. You're talking about lit, phil (which kills the optics track). I've never done a dog soldier rush but seems like we need a lot. Assuming he's not on a hill, and I build a barracks, the dog soldiers are only 4.4 and cost 35h. Unpromoted archers will be 40% culture+ 50% city+25% fort= 2.15*3=6.45
We'll need at a minimum 2.5/1 and a lot can go wrong. So would I build 10 dog soldiers? By then Darius could easily have horse and 4 cities--and we might not be able to even get to writing. Not only is it all or nothing but the weakness of the UU means that taking the capital is not necessarily game over for D.
I think the dog soldier rush is for lower levels --at prince you can hurry one out and maybe catch the AI pre-archers and walk in.

I'm not saying you have to use dog soldiers. I've seen Aelf and others chariot rush on immortal if you happen to get horses. Alternatively, you could use swords if you get iron.

Also, philosophy doesn't kill the optics track, it just delays it a bit. However, you could delay philosophy and go for optics first then come back and go for philosophy and liberalism, which could allow you to take astronomy off of liberalism, which could be a powerful move in the position you are in.

I just think you don't have a visible good gpfarm yet and chances are Darius is close and his capital could make a good gpfarm. To me, that means you'll want to hit Darius early. That means, though, that you would have no tech trading, which means you would need optics, which can be lightbulbed. That would leave Germany isolated and easy pickings a bit later.

That's how I would proceed, but I look forward to seeing how this game plays out

 

[ungy]

What do you guys think about chopping SH?
It looks like we'll have need for early totems.
That strategy would be I think switch research to myst, build a worker after warrior, then chop it out.
Researching AH seems not critical here--we're gambling a bit that there may be horse on the plains tile in the BFC.
I rarely get SH as it seems like it's basically a tradeoff with an early settler.
I think we could get it around 2500 which should be OK but I'm inclined against. Just seems like we really need to get hustling on blocking.