ALC Game 11: Carthage/Hannibal

A little off topic: what happens if you go extremly coastal?

Before
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After
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Notice it was the same turn. Poor Hannibal. :D
 
Not so bad, I think - you run an irrigation line north from the jungle tile along the river NE of Carthage, past the gold mine.
Good catch! :goodjob: That would indeed help a bunch.
That's the right long term play, but I would give serious consideration to placing the city one north of the copper. Carthage has plenty of sugar cubes; I'd be tempted to let Coppertino share the corn (which it can use before the first border pop, thanks to overlap.

Putting Coppertino on the coast also gives you a chance to throw a workboat together there for the clams.
Did you not notice that the tile 1S of the sugar is also coastal? Yet it minimizes the number of water tiles, which I also prefer. And it would have sugar and wheat to feed its citizens, and not have to share those with another city. By mid-game when I approach the health cap I'll be very glad to have all three cereal resources. Are you suggesting going for that location because of its proximity to the capital, to get the copper on-line ASAP?

On sugar plantations vs. cots on sugar: river commerce + sugar plantation commerce = 2c, kicking in the financial coin for 3c. Non-river sugar plantation is 1c, no financial boost. Riverside cot is 1+1=3c for Fin, but the cot will mature to hamlet for 2c kicking in the financial coin there even if not riverside. So I would definitelly plantate riverside sugar and cot non-river sugar instead. It's just one coint we're talking about, but hey - each coin counts.
Another good catch, and I was wonder which was better myself. I feel better now about farming the two riverside sugar tiles, especially since I was so close to Pottery for cottages. With this advice in hand, however, I'll leave them farmed until Calendar and cottage the other sugar tiles.

Regarding horse city... the city's primary purpose is to grab horses. It might not be a great city like Carthage will (that food surplus + cottability leads to Oxford for sure), but working plains horse + oasis + rice (not irrigated) + two grass hills will bring in hammers. And hammers with horses means Numidian Cavalry. That city should be just fine early on, and even if it'll never be a great city, it has a role to play.

I very much dislike horse city. Grabs 3 resources, no argument there, but even if you were to irrigate every single tile you'd still only have 8 food surplus (excluding the resource & hill tiles for a moment) until the advent of Biology. Moreover, it would have only 6 semi-valuable tiles: the horse, the incense, the oasis, 2 grassland hills and 1 yucky desert hill.
It'd be next to worthless early on - a definite no-no for one of the first cities IMO - and can grow into a drag on your economy later on at best (keeping the cost of city maintenance and civics in mind) Even production would be mediocre.

I think you're trying to hard to take advantage of the UU. While i understand that you want to leverage the numidain cavalry i think you'd have more success founding copper city, one south of sugar as u suggested and switch research to mysticism 4 the border pop... you should found the copper city and axe rush someone.

An interesting variety of opinions there (and I didn't quote KMad's distaste for the horse city site, but I'll acknowledge it here).

Please don't forget, folks, that horses are a priority in Warlords for Chariots, who are now the best anti-barb unit early on for a number of reasons: 2 moves, +100% attack against Axemen, and they're dirt cheap. They do an even better job than Axemen of defending your early, vital, hard-earned tile improvements. Which is why I would tend to side with Elendal here. The Barbs are coming--I expect them from the seemingly-empty area to my north and from the inhospitable jungle to my west. If I can get chariots and axes, I'll be able to deal with them.

I am still inclined to go for horse city first because, as I mentioned, it will have horses in the first ring, so I can have a decent anti-barb unit ASAP. I do indeed have long-term plans for copper city--I'd like it to become, as I said, the HE/WP military city, so I want it in the best position possible. Since building a monument and popping its borders will delay making copper available for Axemen, I'd prefer to get Chariots on-line first.

However, we can obviously discuss this further, and so far I have one person siding with me in favour of horse city and at least 2 against, 2 others doubtful. Granted, this ain't a democracy, but the majority vote of the group mind has swayed me in the past.

In other words... convince me. ;)

This will have an impact on research, potentially. I'll need to switch to Mysticism if I send the Settler south for copper but to my preferred spot, so I can build a Monument ASAP. Then again, given the cost of HBR right now, and the fact that copper city will at least be city #3, I should probably switch to Mysticism right now anyway. Whaddya think?

Carl Corey: you're a real stinker, ain't ya? :lol:
 
Oh, don't get me wrong, I understand the value of the horses, I merely wouldn't be inclined to settle my second city there. The copper one is definitely worthwhile and gives you something to fend off barbarians for a bit as well as potentially attack a neighbour, and it's a decent all-round location.

I agree that chariots are the better barb-counter in warlords and horses are the step-up to your UU. However, seeing how crowded your continent is I'd be more inclined to try and secure the more valuable locations first. Moreover, barbarians will not be trouble for long as the land is bound to be settled quickly.

I'd still suggest: settle copper first while exploring further south and west. With some luck a more suitable horses spot will show up. If not, you can still claim the horses with your third city.
Should a sneaky competitor decide to claim them in the mean time, well, that's what those axes would be good for then, isn't it? As you said yourself: war looks unavoidable with such neighbours anyhow. Why not take it to them first, and for a good reason ;)
 
The funny thing is, in vanilla Civ there would have been no debate whatsoever. COPPER COPPER COPPER!!!! :lol:

Well, Axes are still good as anti-barb units as they ever were, especially since I've never seen a barb Chariot. And once the barbs start throwing Swordsmen at you, Axes are definitely necessary.

So let's say I go south to copper city first. Should it be 1S of the sugar for the best long-term prospect, or 1N of the copper, as VoU suggested, to get the resource on-line ASAP? It will take the Settler 3 turns to reach either location, with the city founded on the 4th turn, and then Mysticism completed 2 turns later (6 turns of research total)--so 2 turns after city founding before a Monument can be started. Mind you, the monument will be a low priority, maybe even unnecessary, at the 1N of Copper site.
 
My vote is for copper site, research myst, then writing, whip a library in capitol...which then makes all future techs cheaper including your beloved HBR. Copper site will take 10 turns to expand, but once it does, itll be your military pump while your capitol builds Oracle?...lol
 
OK, just some quick reactions:

If you find Copper to the north, you might be able to expand toward Kublai and nail down one end of your continent early. For my money, water is the best fog buster there is, and if the coast is only 3-4 tiles away from what you can see now, you could do some serious Barb farming in the south. OTOH, it could just lead to a big expanse of tundra-- which will determine how Kublai acts toward you too. The AI is far more sensitive about being hemmed in in Warlords, from what I've seen, and if he's got nowhere to plant a good third city, your choice of early target will be clear. Just a thought.

The pessimist in me can't help but wonder who's on the other continent. If you're lucky, it's a psycho like Izzy or Monty. If it's Gandhi or Asoka . . . well, you might have Caravels landing on your coastline the turn you finish Optics. Not a criticism, just someone looking at a half empty glass.

Tokugawa founding Buddhism isn't as unusual in Warlords, IME. He beat Isabella to it once in Great Plains map I played: she declared war ten turns later, probably out of sheer frustration :lol: The chances of either Kublai or Shaka founding a religion soon is fairly low, though, so quick action to defuse the love fest sounds like a good idea. (Taoism or Islam, maybe, but that's a long, long way away.)
 
Oracle in the capitol that's going to be a great science city is extremely annoying GP polluter. I'm expecting Carthage to get a GS or few in the time to come, and a GP instead of GS at the wrong time would be a bit annoying.

So, copper city first. Definitelly go for long term placement there, and get a second settler out ASAP for horses. It's enough to have one city (the horse city) to be a short term / mid term one - better have the copper city to be good producer throughout the whole game.

I don't think the horses are on AI priority list, but as I'm not sure what all is in the south, the copper city might actually be.
 
"An interesting variety of opinions there (and I didn't quote KMad's distaste for the horse city site, but I'll acknowledge it here)."

i may not have been clear, i'm sorry. i don't think settling it is a mistake, you want horses, and you want them early, and i agree with you there. and i've settled totally crap cities just to get a resource, if the point of a city is just to grab something then that's how it is and life goes on and it serves its purpose.

but i do have a preference for 1W of the rice rather than 1E of the horses, based on something you'd not said and in fact you implied a misunderstanding of the BFC difference. you'd stated 1W of the rice as your initial choice, and maybe changing it to 1E of the horses for the rice to be auto-irrigated at CS. i just meant to point out that in saying what you'd lose if you did that, you didn't figure the BFCs right. you'd actually keep the 3 tiles you thought you'd lose, they'll be the southern 3 in your BFC even up north.

1W of the rice, the 'southern outer pop' you'd get there and not get at 1 further north is 2 grasslands, 2 plains, 1 forested plains. those two grassland plains could support themselves, put cottages on them, make it a bit more useful of a city after it pops to the full cross.

if you go one north, to place it 1E of the horses, for the easier irrigation of the rice postCS, you lose those 5 outer pop tiles in the paragraph above. instead, you get 4 peaks and a desert in your northen outer pop, none of which are useable ever, regardless of how many turns you'd be willing to spend on micromanaging workers.

in both cases you get the horses and rice right away, and the same 3 hills.

HOWEVER, i did miss that the oasis would need a culture pop in the spot i like better, and would not if you place it 1E of the horses for the auto-rice irrigation postCS. it comes down to how much do you want that city to do for you long term (just getting horses and incense and rice for health is good enough, i'm not saying it's not), and how long you think it'll take you to get the culture pop.

probably you'll get the culture by building a monument, i'm guessing by whipping citizens, and it might be impossible to get enough of them to whip without the oasis eh? my calculation is that it will stagnate at 5 without the oasis, and it would take forever to get to 5, and that's assuming you've had a worker irrigate the rice and also road it back to the corn for the +2 health. the game does count the 2nd forest in the BFC to get the +1 health bonus, even before your culture has popped, i'm sure (and happy) about that. so you may have had your culture pop math wrong but your reasoning right in the first place *giggle*.

oh bah and you can't even build them until you get mysticism can you? we could pray that religion spread to it, under paganism and no state religion, having a religion in a city gives 1 culture i think? but that's totally luck dependent. it's your call, i completely admit that i don't know how to efficiently whip so i trust you, go for which one is best.
 
If Numidians get 50%v melee then they're significantly better barb-busters than axes. Might be worth upgrading some of you chariots to NC when you get the cash.
One point that may be worth mentioning is that there's no guarantee you'd be first to both horse city and copper city so you might end up having to capture one of them from a neighbour.
 
Chariots don't upgrade to HAs, so not to NCs either. They go directly to Knights. Any NCs to be had have to be built.

I almost never build HAs. HBR isn't a cheap tech early on, and I haven't really found HAs to be that good. However, playing Hannibal I do build NCs - the +50% against melee is IMHO a big deal. Although I still grimace at the HBR beaker cost, but maybe some can be recovered in tech trading (non-cheap miltech - AIs will usually pay the premium for it).

Oh yes - I like the free Flanking I as well. One promotion to Sentry, and when I get my first GG (which I almost always turn into a mobile field hospital) I find that very nice. With Charismatic the Medic3 NC can have eg. Flanking I, Sentry, and Tactics (or Flanking II), or if you have a unit without sentry then both Flanking II and Tactics - that makes actually using it to attack something a bit easier, with around 90% withdraw chance.
 
MAN... Your Capital would of made a really good GP Farm once you had Calander.

I just have a Feeling that the other continent is peaceful... what are the chances that they have someone willing to attack over there... I'd say quite low... lets just hope they have religious difference over there and we have One Religion over here.

OR else the AI on the other continent will Tech Rate will fly bye before you even get optics... a long term goal will be to get optics early.

Question about how Toku got an Early Religion?

I've got a couple theories...

A)he poped a goody Hut with Myst Tech early

B) There are zero or only 1 Civ who starts with Myst Tech in this game, the other Civ would of gone for the Hindu Religion.
 
Briefly --

Yes, good idea to REX to 4, I'd go 1S of sugar, then 2S of horse, then 1S of gold. This turn whip a warrior escort for 1S of now and send the current worker along to chop the grass forests and do the roads immediately.

I wouldn't rush to HBR if you're going to need cats by then anyway, but remember you need Archery for NCs. Research it now because you need it eventually, and it's better to research the cheapest techs yourself, and short-term barb insurance is useful to you now, and there aren't any other techs you need to settle the 4 cities (you have other stuff to build before a Library anyway.)

Hunting/Archery/Writing, 4 cities, then see.
 
MAN... Your Capital would of made a really good GP Farm once you had Calander....

B) There are zero or only 1 Civ who starts with Myst Tech in this game, the other Civ would of gone for the Hindu Religion.
AARRGGHHH!! It's "would have" or "would've". BAD kniteowl, BAD!! Go sit in the corner like I just smacked your nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

Er... sorry for the grammar police attack. Leftover pet peeve from my days as an English teacher. :blush:

Well, this capital will likely be my GP farm--for Great Scientists, which is what I do in most games. So I won't build the Oracle there to avoid GPP pollution, in fact we may give the Oracle a miss, but I will do my darndest to claim that marble site and get the Great Library built in the capital this time.

pigswill makes a good point (as usual) about having to capture one of my planned cities. What would I rather have on hand to take an enemy city--Axemen or mounted units? Yeah. No-brainer. South to Coppertino (I love the names VoU comes up with for things) it is.

Okay, so: switch research to Mysticism. Send the Settler to 1S of Sugar. Whip a Warrior for escort first though--why not, we have a 2-turn delay before we can start on a monument anyway. Any overflow hammers go to the 2nd Worker. Then start on 2nd Settler for horse city in north, 1W of rice as KMad suggests (I see what you mean--I forgot about the FC's "corners"). Jet, I prefer 1SE of the horses to make use of one of the desert tiles. Then Carthage builds our fourth Settler for gold city (1S of gold), then a Library.

After Mysticism--what does everyone think of Jet's Hunting -> Archery -> Writing tech path? As the GL is a target, I need to get Polytheism somehow (trade for it after Alphabet?).

Below: a dotmap, based upon your suggested city sites. I have left out the marble city, since it's a ways off, and because we need to know more about the unexplored area to its south to make an informed decision. Currently, I'd place it 2W 1S of the rice. But we'll need iron working for that one, and the AI may beat us there.

ALC11_DotMap01.jpg
 
I love the city planings, wy not grab the chopper first, the outher civs south of you not grab it first. the horses is far away from any of the outher civs. maybe the marbel is in danger though. you could gamble and grab city three, 1x gold, 1x banana and 2x silks beside the river as a cottage city. full with money during calender, fouth city could be ether marble or horse as you chose.

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I love how these threads are both entertaining and didactic. However, this is my first time following one of these live, and it's like going from having a complete season of a show on DVD to watching it on regular TV...

An interesting idea about using the upcoming cities to expand E-W instead of N-S as most of the other suggested sites would do - if circumnavigation is a big deal to you, being able to launch a caravel from both coasts could make the difference. OTOH, it might be easier to grab the strategic resources and take any west coast cities you need later.
 
"However, this is my first time following one of these live, and it's like going from having a complete season of a show on DVD to watching it on regular TV..."

i know! i found them by reading an old one first, he had played hatty who i had just finished killing and i was interested in how he used her. i still haven't finished the old ones, but i followed the last one (maybe two?) live. this time tho, i've gone from talking to the tv to being one of the live callers i suppose haha.

"An interesting idea about using the upcoming cities to expand E-W instead of N-S as most of the other suggested sites would do - if circumnavigation is a big deal to you, being able to launch a caravel from both coasts could make the difference. OTOH, it might be easier to grab the strategic resources and take any west coast cities you need later."

true! i <3 circumnavigation bonus. i'd be nervous to rush that far west with that brown culture dude there (i can never remember which bad guy is which). of course i'm always more nervous to do nervy/aggressive things than S is.
 
Sisuitil,

without knowing the exact position of the other civs, I would agree that setting towards the copper first is a priority. but producing a 2nd settler and getting it up towards the horses would be NESSESSARY.. there are like no other horses within reach!!!

despite people complaining about its positioning, the spot you marked is perfect for that city. yeah it wont be rediculously good but it will give you your UU which you need to beeline for if you plan to abuse it. just you wait.. while the impis might hurt them bad he HAS to have copper to get them.. if you settle that copper first he might get screwed?? worth a shot atleast. if he doesnt get his impis you could steamroll him with the UU. everyone else nearby could potentially get pwnd by them as well. not to mention with charismatic you will hit promotion 2 very very quickly. if you go for flanking 2 your calv are very likely to survive a suicide attack against some impis.. then pillage his copper and go from there.

a great attacking stack is only 5-6 N.Calvary.. 4 with flanking 2 and 1 with medic.. rock and roll!

so my suggestion, settle your copper city first, beeline for a 2nd settler through chops, and get him up to horses. make some chariots for barb killing while you tech towards your UU, then use it to steamroll someone asap.

NaZ
 
Er... sorry for the grammar police attack. Leftover pet peeve from my days as an English teacher. :blush:

You were an english teacher???... learn something new every day LOL

I live in an english speaking country (New Zealand) ... and didn't like the english subject at school... was more of a maths person... and no worries apology accepted LOL.
 
You were an english teacher???... learn something new every day LOL

I live in an english speaking country (New Zealand) ... and didn't like the english subject at school... was more of a maths person... and no worries apology accepted LOL.
High school English and Social Studies, for three years. Loved the kids, couldn't stand the administrators.

I'm glad you weren't offended. Now don't ever do it again. ;)

Expanding east-west is tempting, but the problem is all that jungle. With copper close by and HBR needed for the UU, iron working is not as high a priority. Oh, it's up there, because I think once the 4 cities we've planned are plunked down, we won't have any choice but to go west, young man, especially to claim that marble. But to prioritize it now? I think early cities out that way would be very vulnerable. No, I'd rather claim these key resources, start pumping units out of three decent production cities while the capital focuses on commerce, and take everything else I need via big pointy sticks, preferably wielded by someone on horseback.

NaZdReG, I was thinking along the same lines for denying Shaka copper and his Impis. The only potential complication is the Blake-improved AI's newfound fondness for settling right on top of important resources.

I'll play and post the next round tomorrow.
 
I vote for copper city as next city. For your UU you need both horsebackriding and hunting->archery. That´s two dead end techs... The question is if it´s worth all the time invested to get the unit. Even if you get the horses in the fat cross you stil need some time invested to actually get the units out. Numidian get a -10 cityraider penelty. Your signature pretty much say it all :D

Settle copper city first, then gold/crab city for the gold.
 
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