AKSG-01 First Try at Prince

[Grover22]

Optics?? You want to wait for Optics?? I don't think I've ever made it that far into a game without venting a little anger on at least one of my neighbors.

Please explain the "research boost" that comes from knowing at least one neighbor. I wasn't aware there was one. Got a reference?

Our defense is fine against Monty. He didn't have horses, you say? Did he have ivory? If not, then axes will be fine for defense, and we won't need spears.

Maybe, just maybe, the fact that we're now at war means we should prioritize Construction over Code of Laws? We could build cats while we research COL and whip courthouses afterwards before going on the offensive.

 

[S.ilver]

Hmmm... I'm slightly mistaken on the research boost. It only applies if you know people who know the tech.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=276914

So if we want to kill Monty, that's fine. But we have him boxed in very nicely right now. His land also doesn't appear to be stellar, so the investment of resources into killing him could be better spent on REXing our southern lands.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a warmonger. I love slaughtering Civs. However, I don't usually go after someone without a reason. Monty, ATM, is ZERO competition for the southern lands.

He has all the reason to go after us, because he has nowhere left to expand, while we have no reason to go after him, because the south is open and ripe for the picking.

If we want to kill him because he's a psycho, fine, that's a good reason. But at the moment, he is seriously gimped. That stack is pathetic, and won't even dent our defenses. Bombay probably outproduces Monty at the moment.

CoL will probably net us Confucianism, allowing us to run more temples, which is always good for growth. Also, the obvious courthouses are good. In this case, I would still favour CoL, as it helps our southern expansion. If Monty is bouncing troops off Vijay, then he is not expanding there.

 

[Liquidated]

Honestly SCREW construction

There's no point NOT to just fill out our continent while keeping monty bottled up like a worm in a bottle of that crap mexico dares call booze. Seriously, if monty is stalled we can keep him around as a sort of feathered pet while we expand and turn that jungle into disneyland. Jungle is great land after the workers get done with it

A really good example of just how powerful keeping people around btw is RB 6 A and B, finally ready for noble. No worker actions other than chopping; no roads no tile improvements, nothing, on an ice age map. Sulla's team A blocked off the entire southern continent (much like how we stalled monty) and slowly expanded every possible crap coastal tile they could barely subsist on. This sealed off the two civs in the north til around optics and then, after taking them out immediately with drafted muskets, drafted a transcontinental army of galleoned rifles and hit domination before 1800.

Team B on the other hand, wiped out both civs to the north with a single dog soldier leaving them alone on the entire continent unable to trade. From there they stalled with fewer cities planted and unable to take advantage of drafting like Team A did.

I was so happy to see those two SG's because as a builder type I loathe the mandatory axe rush and was glad to see the peaceful team win faster. Just as too many builders play only industrial with bfc marble or broken financial civs on floodplains , too many warmongers roll balanced fractal maps and pangeas, only choosing civs with an excellent rusher UU.

It honestly pays to stay out of early wars if you have room to expand and alex chooses someone else to attack. It's when you are trapped on one of those 5 seafood starts where you MUST take the war to the civ 3 tiles south. See the ill fated boffo1 for what a 5 seafood start is all about.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[AkK47]

im a bit stuck... after musing over what you guys said about the tech shortlist, i seem to get the idea that the group has decided on CoL, but does that mean CoL after mono or before, as without it I cannot switch to the 25% bonus, so do i research mono and then CoL?

 

[S.ilver]

Mono is definitely before CoL, as we wanted OR to cut down on the number of forests we need to destroy. Ghandi's free civic changes makes that fine and feasible.

 

[Grover22]

Alright. We'll play defense. This will be a new approach for me. I never rush with axes, but I almost always plan to attack with cats and swords, mixing in maces once I get them. It's almost always the case that when I find myself playing defense, I'm losing. Maybe this game will be an exception, though. And maybe I'll learn a trick or two.

I'd still like to know whether Monty had ivory. Does anyone recall?

 

[S.ilver]

If you open up the foreign advisor, you'll see what resources the AI has. Horses aren't listed there (only clams were when I checked, but his rice should be hooked up by now).

 

[Grover22]

I tried that, but it said that Monty wasn't hooked up to a trade route, and it gave me no further information. What's the secret to pry the info out?

And, more to the point, was ivory listed when you checked?

 

[S.ilver]

Hmmm... Well, that would be because we're at war with him and we can't trade. So we have limited data right now, especially since he has more EPs than us.

However, the only resource I saw him as having about 15 turns ago was clams. He has probably hooked up his iron and rice by now though (although Jags are resourceless).

Since Ivory is harvested through camps, unlocked by the cheap hunting tech, I highly doubt he has ivory. He is most likely far away from Construction at any rate, even if he has Ivory.

Monty is a non-issue.

 

[Grover22]

Okie-doke. Thanks.

 

[Liquidated]

We aren;t playing defensive btw haha.

Recall the title "Beyond the Sword" for this flavor of CIV4. We took the fight to Monty from the get go, beelining metal to secure our military and then placing a very aggressive blocking town in the form of Vijay. The offensive weapon we used for this war was not in by military action, it was our cultural borders that did it.

Notice that we fired the first shot in that with our first two towns, we sealed the land path , hemming Monty in. That we flooded metal based defenses, axes and spears, served as the anvil to culture's hammer, both key to our peaceful war.

In effect we bullied Monty into attacking us before he was ready. Even that psychopath didn;t take the chance and now he's never going to catch up.

Lets rewind a bit. Vijay, being our main offensive front, should have pumped out culture from the get go. Monolith was first and then a library, not for it's science, but it's culture. Spreading hinduism to vijay would have doubled it's current culture but until we revolt to organized religion, it's not feasible to pop out a missionary. Then again, having power parity stalled monty's hostilities so gg! Who's to say which was the correct move?

By this point we prolly will not get that rice tile back any time soon since monty's culture is just too established, our race for it was lost as soon as it was double whipping military.

This btw is the real power of the creative trait. The moment you spam a crap town right on a border, it's continuously pumping out a library's worth of culture even if it cannot work an effing tile. With the new flexibility in how you can drop off towns you no longer want (as a colony) or just gift them to someone far away.. really destructive creative tactics just got a shot in the arm.

Had we been creative and spammed culture buildings, that fight for the rice would be very ugly for monty.

Anyway The war isn;t over. To seal the coastline vijay needs it's 3rd border pop (too late) or plunk down yellow. Since the fault was on Vijay, it's fitting to make them spam out an 8ish turn settler since the garrison is all set to go.

If monty does finally attack.. bust his "killer stack" and then raze the pos town stealing Vijay's rice.

Btw for abusing creative peruse
http://www.garath.net/Sullla/pahatty_1.html

Sulla might not be the bestest Civ4 player ever but he's certainly the among best teachers of Civ4:bow:

Oh hell monty did finally declare haha that stack is Hilarious. Let me read the save, man this flu is killing me.

Rofl, combat 1 archer rush.. hell archers don;t even get it free from aggressive so he wasted their barracks promotion.

Yeah really hope he attacks vijay, if he just moves it out of that forest... time to pown him

Stall that Delhi forest chop on the grasshill with one turn left btw and road the hill. Go organized religion after maths. Promote a few axes anti archer (cover) I guess when they get 2 more exp and hold onto any great general you find. If you manage to exp a chariot, please promote one to medic and keep it alive hehe. Also can sacrifice one of the chariots to scout monty's territory, can be careful and only move it once space a turn so you can run from any stacks of offensive archers

he has to move out of the forest to raze anything so good deal.

oh that effing warrior has 5 exp and combat one turn him into a medic and leave him in vijay haha. This is why you leave promotions alone btw.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[S.ilver]

Okay, so Liq bashed my dotmap skills . So I decided to figure out a way to make making dotmaps easier. Hunted around for tutorials for Photoshop online, and figured out how to make my own custom shapes.

So I went and figured out about paths, and then traced out the path on a flat grid, with the dot. Saved to it's own shape library (Civ 4), and zipped up here, for anyone who wants to use it.

 

[Liquidated]

meh that dot is annoying crap. I miss the flexibility of having the BFC set and being able to move it around, since where the grid is on these jpgs is not always easy to tell. that and it's not one of those square inside a square things that clutter up the screen.

There a way to force it to only expand with even sides?

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[S.ilver]

lol. I could make one without a dot. I couldn't really understand your instructions, and I thought that custom shapes would be easier to use (and less work to set up).

Hold down shift to keep it to the native conformations.

EDIT: Here it is with both a dot and a non-dot version. I personally like the dot, but yeah, Liq likes it dotless

 

[Liquidated]

what in tarnations is the point of calling it a dot map if it has dots.. that's like calling a dog with spots on it, Spot. Not sure what you are

Funny thing about monty is that he saw our garrison in vijay and decidded to attack with the best match up... archer hahahahaha.

If he had chariots btw, we'd be in trouble with such a lopsided axe force. As it is, they work fine for this of leet stack of attack archers HAHAH.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[AkK47]

sooo... finally i continue with my set of turns below:


IT

our warrior kills a barbarian archer and promotes

monty's stacks decide to turn back and head for home... (surprise surprise), sit on the rice

turn 103

warrior promoted to medic

start prechops in VJ

math comes in, started on mono due in 5

treasury at 6 with -2 per turn... i hire a priest in bombay to turn this into a -1 deficit (running at 60% would have mono at 6 turns, so no can do)

move a chariot into monty's territory and commence exploration

ddnt move the axemen to get monty, waiting until they move one further in so they cannot hide in the woods after we go after them

IT

another archer sighted by our (healing) warrior right next to him due to attack next turn

warrior remains fortified but i give him woodsman 1 promotion

monty's stacks move back in again... i sense undecisiveness

turn 104

finish prechop in delhi, started roading the area

if monty's archers retreat again, im going after them

IT

we get a great scientist, let him sleep for now

at -2 again with 4 gold in treasury

monty retreats again

we kill the barb archer

turn 105

bombay spearman----->axeman

turn science a notch down to 60%, breaking even now, mono not affected

i move our axemen to get monty on open ground as well as the medic warrior

IT

monty moves one tile S of our stack... i won't attack on forests so i move back (grrrr lost 25% fortification bonus)

turn 106

prechop done in delhi, mono in 2

stupidly i forgot to stop the worker in VJ, and we get +30 hammers from the chop (really really sorry)

move workers in delhi ready to chop the forests after we convert

exploring chariot reveals the first aztec city we will raze: teotihuacan

IT

our exploring chariot gets killed by jaguar, so we go to +1 and i fire the priest in bombay

turn 107

mono comes in... convert to organized religion

have started cashing in prechops into the capitol

attack an axeman with chariot (and win) but hoping that the archer stack will attack so they get in open ground and i can annihilate them

start settler and warrior to yellow spot for settling

IT

archers move into open ground after killing the chariot

turn 108

science down to 30% (am i doing something wrong??) so we don't go bankrupt

cornered the archers and will kill them all next turn

IT

turn 109

cashing in chops continues; mids due in at 9 by now

wiped out the archers without a single casualty

research up to 40%

IT

confucianism founded (ah well)

no attacks from monty

turn 110

VJ starts library

bombay starts hindu missionary (gave the axemen a break due to cost) for VJ

founded varanassi, need to bring research down to 20%... i dont know if i was supposed to found now, but i hope it wasnt a big blunder

IT

barbarian sighted under pataliputra

turn 111

havent really played this far, but did the chops and pyriamids due in next turn

will stop here so the team can evaluate the moves and plan on what to do next

Below, the known world, notice monty's city on the east:

if im not mistaken, liqs up to try and revive the economy (that i totally shattered) and have the glory of seeing the completed pyramids

heres the save:

View attachment AKSG-01 BC-0100.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[S.ilver]

Nice set AK, and good tactics in taking out Monty's stack.

Sleeping the scientist was a bit of , but that was collectively our fault for not discussing what to do with him, because we knew one would pop (small chance of a GP). At this point in the game, it would be best to plop down an academy in Delhi. We have tonnes of food there, running 2 specs right now (switch off the mine BTW onto the floodplain, and put down a cottage or something on the cleared river, so we can work that to stagnant at 8/8 happiness with 2 specs), and with rep, our two scientists make 12 beakers, which 50% of is already 6 beakers, so the academy will beat a settled GS.

He bulbs Alphabet, which I GUESS we could grab to extort techs from Monty for peace, but an academy or GS spec for the rest of the game is worth more than 429 beakers.

Don't worry about our economy just yet. We are doing fine with specs, and Rep will really boost them, so we have a bit of time yet to get CoL.

 

[Grover22]

Should we use the GS to build an academy in our capital? That's likely going to specialize towards science, right?

Is it better to settle the first GS and build the academy with the second one?

Edit follows...

never mind

 

[Grover22]

Ok...I think I can answer my own question...

Regardless of the research rate, if we build the academy, we'll be getting at least as big a plus as we would by settling the GS, as soon as we're in representation.

Currently, the two hired scientists are producing 6 beakers total, and the 50% bonus from the academy would amount to 3 beakers.

But next turn, when we're running Rep, the two hired scientists will produce 12 beakers total, and the bonus from the academy would amount to 6 beakers.

That's equal to the number of beakers we'd get by settling the scientist, so we might as well build the academy. Any beakers from the research slider would receive the bonus as well, so the academy is at least as good right now.

 

[AkK47]

been looking at the dates and it seems that this is a 20 turn round, not 10 turn as posted by liq up a few posts ago as were still in BC... idk, shall i play the rest as well?

anyways, its about time to say that i won't be here from tuesday all the way till friday and im gonna be without internet, so if im up or anything, then i won't be able to play until saturday, therefore skip me til i post again

as for the rest of the turns, ive decided that ill play them (up to the 20th) now since this is still BC, so wait for updates on the current game

[edit]: i vote on academy as well

[edit#2]: i won't be able to play anyway, pressured on time, so liq should takeover my 10 turns anyway