ALC Game 17: Russia/Peter

[jerVL/kg]

I don't know that a switch by Ragnar to HR is going to be that important.

HR by itself isn't a problem -- it just means that Raggy will be one tech away from LBs.

Even if Raggy does get Feudalism early, it won't be a disaster. We'll just have to hunker down and research like crazy until we can take him out with swords & cats. LOTS of swords & cats. Raggy's going to be a tech monster, but without metal or horses he can't build any offensive troops, and we'll have Construction long before he gets Gunpowder.

 

[Baldas]

Raggy's going to be a tech monster, but without metal or horses he can't build any offensive troops

Except catapults?

and we'll have Construction long before he gets Gunpowder.

But will he have construction before we have construction?

 

[Tyrael]

^^ Cats shouldn't be too much of a problem if all he can follow them up with is archers. Not sure if the BetterAI is better with building and using them, though. And I do understand cats can kill axes and spears, but if he's not in wartime production we (Yes, we. I feel part of the ALC family now )shouldn't have to worry about there being too many for us to handle. Could slow us down a bit, though, and if BetterAI knows how to whip then that couple turns spend healing might be a huge loss.

 

[Validator]

I think it's a little too early to conclude that Ragnar won't have horses or access to a metal. There's still a lot of land to the south of Nidaros that hasn't been explored. There could be horses or copper there and Ragnar could claim it with his third city. Also we have no idea where iron is going to pop up.

 

[thresh74]

I think it's a little too early to conclude that Ragnar won't have horses or access to a metal. There's still a lot of land to the south of Nidaros that hasn't been explored. There could be horses or copper there and Ragnar could claim it with his third city. Also we have no idea where iron is going to pop up.

Actually you can tell where the iron is even you don't know iron working. A mine on the flatbed is obvious. For the mine on the hill, if you move your mouse over that tile, the yield of that tile will appear around the left bottom corner (on top the unit pic). If a mine has two more hammers than it supposes to be, you know what it means. I think you need to get the most updated map info for this to work.

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 3: 1300 BC to 565 BC

I finished building the Settler in Moscow, then switched to a barracks in anticipation of the Axe rush buildup:

Meanwhile, my Scout kept exploring and met another neighbour:

Well, I suppose I should count my blessings and be thankful he wasn't next door. Protective archery units are a pain, and I've noticed that the BetterAI just loves them to pieces.

I decided to found the wheat/cow/fish city between my two existing ones:

My economy slowly started to recover a bit after this. Maybe it was being able to start pulling in my fog-busters.

At any rate, shortly after this I was able to start building Axemen:

And I received some news about rankings. It turns out that in terms of population size, I'm not the most pathetic, which is something of a relief.

And in 970 BC I finally finished researching Mysticism:

So I quickly chopped monuments in Novgorod and St. Petersburg.

Around this time, Hinduism was becoming all the rage, and all the cool kids were converting. I gotta admit, there is something about an elephant-headed god that's kind of nifty. However, it means that everyone also thinks that Ragnar is the bee's knees, which is going to complicate matters when I attack him:

Oh well, you can't make an omelet without breaking someone's eggs. (Hey, why isn't there a chickens food resource in the game, anyway?)

Speaking of food, with the economy on the mend I managed to finish researching my next tech a little more quickly:

This was pretty good timing--it meant I could start on workboats in my 2 coastal cities and have them ready in time for the borders to pop. Meanwhile, I was building Axemen (and a couple more Workers) and rushing them along with a few forest chops.

As for my next tech, I had a difficult choice to make. Backfill Pottery? Off to Alphabet for tech trades? Or Iron Working for military? Several of you had been recommending IW, so that tipped the scales, though it's going to take a while:

Then things started to get worrisome. No surprise, I received news that a certain wonder had been completed in Nidaros:

Shortly thereafter, Ragnar made a civics change we'd been dreading...

So I then sent one of my Warriors to check out his territory. Guess what's protecting his cities now?

Well, that can't be good. He doesn't have many of them, mind you, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that change over the next few turns. Ragnar also changed civics to Vassalage, which makes me expect that he'll be focusing on military units now that the Oracle is out of the way. Oh, and I fully expect to see city walls go up soon. And me with all of 3 Axemen built. Sheesh.

Here's a look at the map of Russia at the end of this round:

And the rest of the continent as explored thus far:

So what now? Keep building Axes and hope Ragar doesn't go Longbow crazy? Regroup and go after Construction? I'll be totally honest here and state that if this was an off-line game I'd be punting right about now, and that's an option too, but if the majority vote is to stick with it, that's what I'll do. It might be interesting to play this out and see if I can recover.

Really, though... Ragnar in the way of any decent land, and with 3 gem tiles and marble? Sometimes this game really doesn't like me.

 

[MangleMeElmo]

This is not looking good. The only solution I see is to hopefully get a source of iron to make swords, then bee-line Construction for catapults. A combination of swords and cats is enough to take non-protective longbow cities. You'll just need a large stack of 12-15 units to take the first few cities, then a steady stream of reinforcements to finish off dear old Boogerlips (I hate how he's always wiping his friggin nose).

 

[pigswill]

Feudalism before 500bc, that's impressive . Time to rex first, sort out economy later. You may have poor land but you've got enough food tiles to support specialists. Moscow is a potentially decent city so the game isn't over yet. You'll just have to try a game without an early rush and see what happens.

Edit: You learn more from the hard games than the easy ones so don't give up .

 

[EEE_BOY]

i can't believe u went iron working again!! u can trade it using alphabet and also trade maths. u have copper so iron is not that important right now. anyway its monachy so small mistake won't kill u the whole game.

I suggest getting the GL quickly and lightbulb to libralism is the way to go. forget about war until your UU appears. there will be no calvary beeline when the BTS xp comes out, so at least we could see its last action in this ALC. The geography also makes u very hard to keep your empire if u went early war.

either Mao or Peter is highly likely to found their own religion. so the relationship will favor u later.

 

[jerVL/kg]

Shortly thereafter, Ragnar made a civics change we'd been dreading...

No WAY!!! No freakin' WAY!!!!!

I guess the BetterAI really is Better after all, huh? But like I said, if this happened, there's no way you could have stopped him.

All is not lost. Whip a settler NOW and found that canal city. That'll keep Ragnar hemmed in since he's got no more room to expand. Get a second settler out quickly to claim the furs & deer. The other two backfill cities can wait.

I thought the plan was to research Pottery after Fishing? No matter, it's always good to know where the iron is. After Pottery, head for alphabet while running 2 science specialists in Moscow -- that'll get you a great scientist in 13 turns, which you can bulb for Math if you can't trade for it.

After that...Construction. You know what to do next.

This is just a minor setback. Ragnar's cities will be yours someday, even if you need to beeline Cossacks. Oh, and keep an eye on that unclaimed stone/copper down south...if Raggy founds a city there, that will seriously complicate things!

 

[kniteowl]

I also Suggest to researching Alphabet and using it to trade for maths for Construction Beeline and Iron-working for Swords and attack Ragnar with Cats and Swords. Also remember to research/trade Pottery to Cottage you're Capital. Use one of you're food surplus cities to build a Library and assign Scientist for an early GS to Either a Phil Slingshot of build an academy in you're Capital for early research boost, whatever you believe is more beneficial.

I still build an Academy in my capital regardless of Economy type because I've also never run my SE at 0% research until I Capture Pyramids or research Constitution for Representation and Constitution is a long long away

After Alphabet it's s difficult decision between Literature for GL, or go down Currency and COL to sustain economy when you're capturing Ragnar's Cities, it's possible that you could get both, while you're building Cats you could research Literature and once your Captured Cities go out of resistance you should be able to finish currency or be part way through COLs.

I haven't checked the saved game but I wonder if better AI forced Ragnar to do such a smart move, I Dunno if he 's researched IW yet but from the looks of it he doesn't have any nearby strategic resources and made a beeline to Feud for defense. LOL.

 

[stuge]

Punt the axe-buildup, research alpha, trade (fingers crossed) for IW, masonry and math, research construction, whip&chop your lands dry for cats and swords,
(hopefully iron shows up), pray that Ragnar keeps only two LBs in Nidaros.

Getting libraries and scientists and that fur city ASAP will help greatly with accomplishing all of the above. Except for the iron. If it doesn't show up, you're royally screwed.

 

[EEE_BOY]

(hopefully iron shows up), pray that Ragnar keeps only two LBs in Nidaros.

This won't happen.

beeline to cossack is the way to go. otherwise we are not playing russia, but another agressive leader

remember: Peter of Russia == SE + cossack

 

[Yushal]

BUM DEAL! Oh well, nothing you could have done differently would have prevented this state of affairs, I think.

I'd say you have two options right now. Switch to horsemen and commence punitive raiding upon the evil Hindi Viking, which is not only fraught with danger when he does get Berserkers, but will make everyone else despise you as well, but which will both help your economy and hopefully prevent the Viking from getting his Berserkers soon...

OR

take a page from EEE BOY's book. Chop a settler for the canal city ASAP, then whip a library(s) and start lightbulbing. Certainly you need to settle the canals and the furs ASAP. I would suggest cancelling OB with Ragnar, but you are going to want Hinduism unless and until another viable religion pops up nearby.

Whatever you do, I would suggest making horses or chariots instead of melee units for your deterrent force from this point onward, for the obvious reason of upgradeability when the time comes.

[But this is troublesome as well, since you will pay dearly to trade for HBR, meaning you likely need to research it yourself. And it will take twice as many chariots laying around in order to convince the evil ones not to invade you as it will horsemen, thereby draining your economy greatly...]

At any rate, I empathize and have been enjoying these posts very much. Thanks.

 

[Maydrock]

How about buddy up with Ragnar? Convert to Hinduism, and do what you can to get him to stop trading with Mehemed. Mehemed should found a religion and when he does get Ragnar to attack him. Escort his stacks with a few units of your on. Once he beats up a city of Mehemed's, try to take it from under his nose. While beelining to Cossacks, use the time to to build up your civilization south of Ragnar and build the Forbidden Palace down there. Once you have Cossacks, start a defensive attack on one of the fronts to pull his units, then Cossack rush him from the other front? After that Mao will be no problem just due to shear production.

 

[carl corey]

Hmm, I think you delayed the attack a bit too much. Knowing he'll soon have Feudalism I would have went Axemen only. Instead of Monuments & Workboats you would have had 3-4 more axes, more than enough to take a capital defended by two archers, don't you think? Anyway, what's done is done. I don't really see what Iron Working will do to help you now, you really need catapults if you want to take Nidaros.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Ahh what are you to do.....run a specialist Economy and see it power unfold before you...

War...well, its not an option, till Construction and Ironworking. But now you CAN install those Scientist babies...grow and nurture your crop and harvest a bumper crop of Beakers.

I've been on a bit of a Specialist Economy kick lately, its power is just dawnting..but its on Vanilla, prince level...so maybe I've skewered the results.

Knight owl, good to see I'm doing the same as you, but I run science at max so just make some money, 40-70% science for most of game, and as I'm tech leader, I don't get to trade much.

Sisutial, lets see you unleash its power, and cats/swords/Knights? Remember, they have to get into your lands, not you let them in

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, if you can't beat Ragnar ,why not join him? Go hindu ASAP and go after the Ottoman guy ( I really can't stand that guy: bad tech trader, backsttaber to the bone, too hard to diplo manouvering,... and here he has very decent land). Ragnar is somehow landlocked too, and he is quite a agressive dude, so with his powergraph skyrocketing ( thanks to LBs ), he will mungle someone. Better to be a complying friend of the horned guy ( no pun intended) than being in the wrong side of the berserks axe. And, like Maydrock said, if you play well, you can snap some cities out of under Raggie's nose. Of course all of this depends of being Hindu ( Ragnar is quite sensitive about religion things ).....

 

[Jet]

I agree that it has to be either Cats or Cossacks.

Maybe Cossacks. Between shared religion, resource trades, and favorite civic, it should be easy to get Ragnar to Friendly and keep him off your back. (Right now he has 3 gems to trade - I'd try to get one, and build forges everywhere.) You are in a good position to turtle, packing Moscow with maximum cottages and military police (Expansive) and running 2 scientists in 5 other cities while staying in Slavery for production, keeping your research slider high and your military light, and building Universities (Philosophical) on the way to Cossacks. You could prepare Horse Archers (serving double-duty as military police) and use the commerce in Moscow to upgrade them directly to Cossacks. It's possible that you could even micromanage your great people generation so that after you get your 5-6 scientists ([Academy], Philo, Paper, Education x 2, Liberalism), the next one could be a Merchant for a cash bomb. Research would have to be an aggressive beeline, skipping Machinery to lightbulb Liberalism directly. Seems like a longshot, but who knows? Between Ragnar's land and some of one of his neighbor's, you could probably take that to a space race. It would definitely leverage all of Peter's traits!

With Cats, it seems like you'd want to commit to whatever is fastest. My guess is the fastest way would be whip libraries and barracks in all 3 cities, grow to max size, then run max scientists while slowly building Axemen. Research Masonry, start Alpha, lightbulb Math, research Construction, finish Alpha. When you have Construction, whip cats in all cities down to size 1.

 

[Agent Cooper]

How about buddy up with Ragnar? Convert to Hinduism, and do what you can to get him to stop trading with Mehemed. Mehemed should found a religion and when he does get Ragnar to attack him. Escort his stacks with a few units of your on. Once he beats up a city of Mehemed's, try to take it from under his nose. While beelining to Cossacks, use the time to to build up your civilization south of Ragnar and build the Forbidden Palace down there. Once you have Cossacks, start a defensive attack on one of the fronts to pull his units, then Cossack rush him from the other front? After that Mao will be no problem just due to shear production.

Problem is, if Sisutil (and that's a big if) manages to pursuade Ragnar to attack Mehmed and take some of Mehmeds citys himself, the maintainance cost is going to kill Sisiutil in no time, not to mention that his research rate will be in the crapper. Then those Cossacks seem to be very far away.

The only option is to attack Ragnar - sooner or later. Preferable sooner. Only option as I see it is catapults and a boatload of them. Strike as soon as possible. We lost the pre-vasselage window in which to launch with axe-men, but hindsight is 20-20.

After Ragner it might be best to wait for maces+trebs or Cossacks until the next war is declared - impossible to tell at this time. We know too little about Mehmed amongst others.