ALC Game #26: Willem van Oranje/Dutch

Just a note on the whipping thing, in Hereditary rule, and whipping warriors with either Charismatic or Protective, or maybe any civ. You get a gold over flow from the whipping.

In the Current Lonely hearts, Churchill game, I was able to whip MULTIPLE Warriors, for the gold over flow for deficit research.

Now granted, it killed my economy, but I had 1 or 2 high food/hammer cities, with 8/9 pop, that just screamed, "we fear for our safety, with only 9 warriors guarding us"..:lol:

don't know if it works for all, but great Exploit.
 
Yes I get that getting the resource is chance, we know that it's been covered. Maybe I just misread his statement, but it sounded to me like he meant the UNITS rely on chance.
 
One thing I noticed recently is that you can get a city to build "nothing", only better because it banks the hammers! Using the governor to select your build...if it runs out of buildings some governor settings will make it just turn "black bar"...the city accrues hammers that can be changed into anything instantly! Haha!

You should make a post about it, sounds like a bug. :)
 
This could be simply a leftover from my marathon speed thinking. I rarely whip as it never seams efficient at that speed, but here on epic it's much more useful.

What I mean is your population will max out at which point you will be avoiding city growth. Of course if you whip, then my comments do not matter.

How can you advocate not whipping??? Speed really doesn't matter much. Whipping is the best way to convert food into hammers for most of the early game. I know it might be possible to win for example immortal without whipping, but not advocating it is severly limiting yourself...

@ collecting hammers, this is contrary to my experience, when you set a city to build nothing(it really isn't all that hard), the hammers just disapear...
 
Alright, I'm finally ready to post round 1! Sorry for the lateness of this update, but I hope it's been worth the wait. :D

(By the way, I'm a little tired today, so if it doesn't quite make sense in some parts or gets overly silly, blame that. :lol: )
 
Early Days: 4000 BC to 2825 BC (47 turns)

The first decision to make this round was regarding our tech choice: we began researching Animal Husbandry. I decided to do this rather than taking the detour of Hunting first because we want to get to Bronze Working as soon as we can. Revealing Copper, having Slavery available, and chopping forests are all things too useful to delay!

Our Warrior began to explore into uncharted territories, and our capital had its first border expansion. (By the way, does anyone know how to get rid of that message at the bottom of the screen about Ctrl + Alt + O? It's getting a bit tiresome already...)



That same turn, we met our first rival nation. Only 3900 BC / turn 4... impressive! Someone posted earlier about suspicions that we had close company - turns out they were right. ;)



Spoiler :
Willem cast an appreciative eye over the figure of this young red-head. Rather a firey temper, he thought, but certainly attractive. A sly grin hinted at his lips, and she eyed him suspiciously.

"A pleasure to meet you, m'lady!" he said, taking a slow and deliberate bow.

"Hrmph," was the unimpressed reply.

She was rather disdainful, but there was perhaps some potential. He smiled and bowed again, taking the chance to eye her figure up once more.

Yes, he thought, it could well be a worthwhile investment to get friendlier with this young lady...

Our Warrior continued to explore, discovering a nice Gems location (albeit a fair distance away from our capital). Notice Liz has 2 Scouts already! I actually can't remember if the AI's start with 2 Scouts on Immortal, or if she must have got one from a hut.



Amsterdam completed its Work Boat, and began on a Worker. I decided this was the preferable course of action since we'd get our four food tiles hooked up the quickest this way.

The Work Boat improved the Clams as opposed to the Fish. This gets the maximum use out of our Financial trait, and also shortens the wait until Bronze Working.

We switched to working the 4 :food: 3 :commerce: Clams at this point.



Buddhism was founded in 3675 BC by an unknown nation.

We discovered another decent future city spot...



Then we discovered English borders. We can tell that their capital isn't on a hill, so it might make it an attractive target if we want to go for an early rush... :mischief:



We finished researching Animal Husbandry... and guess what? We have Horses! :D



In fact, they're even within easy reach of our capital - we'll get them on the next border expansion. Hmm, it might be worth considering going for the Wheel and building a few Chariots to do a super-early rush with... ;)

We soon met another nation:



Spoiler :
He was a fairly handsome young man, although for some obscure reason he seemed to have an obsession with wearing leaves in his hair. Willem put it down to some sort of personal quirk... perhaps an attempt to try to camoflauge himself as a bush? (Not a particularly successful attempt though, he thought privately.)

"Nice to meet you, dear boy." He smiled and held out his hand.

Whatever the reason, Willem decided it would probably be impolite of him to ask. If this young man wanted to dress up as a tree, that was his business. No sense in being rude - the boy might be mildly deranged, but he seemed nice enough.

"Yeah, cool." The young man shook his hand impatiently, then suddenly brightened. "So, want to go crush some armies together?"

Conversations about crushing armies were apparently the other obsession of this young chap. For the next few hours, he talked excitedly of little else. Finally, Willem could bear no more and politely excused himself.

"What an odd young lad," he mumbled quietly to himself as he left.

We switched our espionage over to Alexander at this point, since we could already see Elizabeth's demographics.

Meanwhile, our exploring Warrior uncovered some Horses near England...



Soon afterwards, we met another nation: China.



Spoiler :
Willem found Mao to be a bit of a puzzle. He was a funny old man, rather quiet and soft spoken, yet with a very penetrating gaze. He clearly held considerable power amongst his people.

They shook hands and exchanged formalities, and Mao proceeded to offer him a red book. Willem politely refused, but the old man insisted, so he took the book and opened it randomly. There was nothing in it.

"The pages are blank," Willem said, confused.

"Of course. We have not yet discovered how to write," Mao replied.

"Hang on. So you just have an empty book with a red cover?"

"It is a work in progress."

Willem raised his eyebrows and nodded slowly. Clearly, the old man had a few marbles loose.

A few turns later we got some rather interesting news: Elizabeth had founded Hinduism! Looks like she's trying to make herself a more attractive early rush target... :p

Barbarian animals were starting to crop up fairly frequently now, so we had to be more careful with our exploring Warrior - making sure he ended turns on forests and hills as often as possible.



We finished Mining, and continued on to Bronze Working.

Our Worker was completed, and we set him on his first task: to build a pasture on the southern Cows. Amsterdam settled on a Work Boat for its next build.



Our Warrior had explored all he could to the west, short of declaring war on the English, so started to head back to the east. He had to pass by a ferocious lion on his way, but by placing him on a forest we made sure our odds were good...



...and he survived!



The first Cow pasture was finished, and our Worker began on the second Cow pasture. Our borders expanded again, and now the Horses were inside our territory!

Amsterdam grew to size 2, and we set the new citizen to work the obvious tile...



After the second Cow pasture was finished, the Worker was moved up to spend a few turns pre-pasturizing the Horses before Bronze Working came. I figured we'd probably need those Horses ASAP if we want Chariots, so the pre-pasturizing will be valuable.

We switched espionage to Mao, after having obtained Alexander's demographics. (Actually I forgot about this and switched a few turns later than I should have, but never mind.) We've lost demographics on Elizabeth for the time being, because she seems to be putting all her espionage into us. Seems she hasn't met anyone else yet due to this, although there's an unusual circumstance with her EP towards us being an odd number... anyone know of any way this could have come about?

Incidentally, it seems that all of the AI's are obsessed with their Archers at the moment:







Not to worry, we should have Chariots to deal with these "mighty" Archers soon. :mischief:

Amsterdam grew to size 3, picking the obvious second Cow tile to work. Our Worker stopped pre-pasturizing the Horse a turn before Bronze Working, in preparation for chopping. I figured we may want another Settler fairly soon, depending on where resources turn up. We finished building our second Work Boat.



England founded its second city - the first nation we know of to do so.

Bronze Working was finished. Checking the world map, we don't see a single source! Then again, we haven't explored much to the east yet.



Ah well, at least we have Horses already in our territory.

So, the situation: we've met half of our AI rivals, one to our west and two (probably) somewhere to our east/north/south. We have Horses, but no Copper nearby (although we haven't explored much east yet). Points for discussion right now:
  • What should the Warrior do? I'm thinking he should head in a SE/SW pattern as required to reveal the territory to our immediate east ASAP, in search of Copper. Then again, if we want to build a Warrior or two in Amsterdam, those guys could explore to the immediate east, and our existing Warrior could continue to head NE.
  • What should the Worker do? Should he chop the forest he's on, or move to a hill to chop/mine? Bear in mind that if we're researching The Wheel next, we want to keep him near the Horses.
  • What to build next in Amsterdam? A Warrior or two seems the most sensible at the moment to me, but other people might have different ideas. Perhaps another Worker, or even a Settler?
  • What to research next? I believe there's a very strong case for The Wheel, which will enable us to (a) hook up the Horses, and (b) build Chariots. What about after that? Perhaps Sailing/Masonry to allow us to start thinking about the Great Lighthouse? Or (more questionably) Iron Working to try for a shot at metal? Share your thoughts!
  • What general strategy should we adopt? Right now I think rushing Elizabeth could be feasible, although tricky. We'd have to be fairly quick about it, and even then it'll be fairly costly with Chariots. Maybe we should focus on expanding a bit, and try to conquer Liz a little later on in the game? Once again, any thoughts you have are appreciated!
Save file as at 2725 BC is attached below. :)
 

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Nice writeup! I chuckled a couple of times :)

Building one settler doesnt seem wrong obviously, however I am tending towards either rushing Elizabeth or maybe agressively settling towards her.

The amount of luxury resources she has, and her being elizabeth can make for a very tough opponent in the later stages of the game Also having that land all for yourself, and as it seems the island stops at the west of Eli makes the rush even more attractive with dual cows and early horses.

It might be a bit tricky indeed, you can always go for expansion/lighthouse/construction and get phants/cata's out later in the game.

One of both seems just about right for an interesting game ;)
 
LP, when you link to a specific post, it's best to click the number in the top-right corner (i.e. for this post, it's #150), and then click the link prefixed by "Thread:" in the top-right again. This way, you end up with the normal thread view, instead of just the one post isolated from the rest.

For example, this link works better for the first writeup: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8126226#post8126226

(Also, thanks for reviving this series. :beer:)

edit:
(By the way, does anyone know how to get rid of that message at the bottom of the screen about Ctrl + Alt + O? It's getting a bit tiresome already...)
Press Ctrl + Alt + O to go to the BUG options, and on one of the later tabs, turn off the "Options Shortcut Reminder".
 
Fluxx:

Made a couple of minor edits... added a question about what to do with the Worker, if you didn't already see that one.

Glad you enjoyed the write-up. Hopefully I'll be more awake (and more coherent) the next time. ;)
 
LP, when you link to a specific post, it's best to click the number in the top-right corner (i.e. for this post, it's #150), and then click the link prefixed by "Thread:" in the top-right again. This way, you end up with the normal thread view, instead of just the one post isolated from the rest.

For example, this link works better for the first writeup: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8126226#post8126226
Cheers, had been wondering how I could reliably do that. Will fix it up now. :)

(Also, thanks for reviving this series. :beer:)
No problem! I'm enjoying it a lot. :D

edit:

Press Ctrl + Alt + O to go to the BUG options, and on one of the later tabs, turn off the "Options Shortcut Reminder".
Brilliant, thanks! I had some other questions too, but I've forgotten them for now... I'm sure I'll remember them later. Bedtime now, I think. :p
 
To give you my answer on your 4 questions

1. We should try to find copper, so I vote SE/SW, finding some copper (or finding out it's missing) seems te have a bigger priority then exploring the oriental.

2. I'd go 2 warriors, then barracks untill size 4 and then switsch over to a settler. (where to settle? I have no clue right now)

3. Techs, I'd say Wheel-> sailing-> masonry -> HBR(?) chances to me seem quite good that Lizzy has no copper, which would make a horsearcher rush seem like a walk in the park. I'm normally not playing on immortal so I don't know how fast everything is enveloping,

4. Think that's readable between my lines.
 
jamezzz6: Remember there's now a 5th question (about the Worker). I edited my post slightly after posting it... probably should have ironed it out before posting, will do that next time. ;)

I'll get to responding to your answers tomorrow. :)
 
I am trying to shadow the game off-line and I am only a littel ahead of you. However, I will offer some advice that is not a spoiler.

Liz is one of the more peaceful leaders and has already committed beakers to Hinduism, probably slowing her research of Military type techs. The warrior I would fogbust in the west to see what Liz is up to. Use another one for exploring to the east and restart some more discussion with Alexander about marching armies (preferably towards the guy with the empty red book!).

There is one perfect place to block Liz off in the west, on the river directly east of her horses. Being creative, your borders will pop leaving her with very little land (and no horses assuming there are none to her west), and completely cut off. If this is done Liz can sit idle there a long time before she tried to expand and will be content with a few cities, all the time letting her build an impressive city structure for you to claim post-construction (as well as perhaps the Hindu shrine).

Alternatively you can put everything into chariots and rush the blazes out of her, my guess is she may NOT have BW yet and not be able to whip defender. Also if she has a second city founded she has committed hammers to a settler, increasing the chances of a very successful rush. We also know that there are no leaders to the west due to the eps.

So I think your choices are to A) Commit to letting Liz alone and block her off until a later date or B) commit to a chariot rush NOW without getting a second city.

As far as the immediate issues

1) Use the warrior as a fogbuster in the west.

2) Build a warrior or 2. Then either a barracks (if the rush path) or a settler (the blocking path)

3) TEchs, the Wheel and then sailing.

Good start!
 
Warrior: Look for copper SE/SW pattern

Worker: Chop chop chop

Amsterdam: Second worker, a warrior or 2, then a settler. A rush would work but she's kinda far. We don't know if she has copper in her BFC.

Techs: The Wheel, Either sailing or pottery/writing. Sailing for the 3-insta commerce coast tiles pottery for financial cottages or writing for creative libraries. GLH I'd avoid because it's too powerful on this kind of script imho.

What to do: Secure bronze if you fin any, otherwise try to expand towards Lizzy.
 
  • What should the Warrior do?

  • Depends on plans if you plan whip or grow capital to size five next warrior will sit for happiness. Will you build second is matter of long term plans... Probably scouting closer area is better.

    [*]What should the Worker do?
    I would plan second worker as soon as cap grows to size four. It will happen same times as warrior is finished if you switch one of cows to fish.
    Well, second worker is cause i would rush... So first one would mine hill, second guy should be ready near time wheel is opened leaving chance to build racks till horses are improved...

    [*]What to build next in Amsterdam?
    Worker. although if you plan rex maybe settler. After this warrior is finished of course.

    [*]What to research next?
    That is master plan? Great lighthouse? Rush? REX?
    most likely wheel... Although if you plan to settle that gem spot soonish it might be case of IW. double riverside gems while financial is so sweet...
    lighthouse probably needs sailing into masonry to grab it in time...
    Rush clearly needs the wheel...

    [*]What general strategy should we adopt?
Rush, although it eliminates chance of Great Lighthouse. This leaves nice land between you and England.
It also depends that is on southern shore... Clams+FP is already promise of good place.
 
ok, on the worker and warrior questions.

Go chop one forest with the worker. Wheel will take about 5-7 turns? so just enough to have it research and work on the horse afterwards.

Warrior I will keep at the west now indeed. Build 2 more warriors in your city, which will take 5 turns, and decide if you want to rush or expand.

Mind though that Elizabeth tends to rex quite rapidly on immortal, so stalling your settler for to long might bite yourself in your food.
As madscientist recommended use your first settler to block if you dont rush, its an alc game afterall and you are creative :)
 
Presumably there is quite a bit of territory to the east, as we have met two civs from that direction, so it might be worth getting at least one more scout (not an actual Scout of course) out in that direction soon so we get a better lay of the land, find where the other AIs are (if they are close - they arrived at 20 and 22 turns, so they could be fairly far off, especially if it was Scouts, couldn't see), depending on how direct a route they took. A second warrior to defend the city and avoid the Republican voters in the city being unhappy would also make sense.

As for the worker I would normally prefer to chop the hills first, so that when the worker has time he can put mines on them, as that increases our tile working options to switch to a higher production mix when we don't want as much food (i.e. in between whips). That is some turns away from chopping though, and with 4 good tiles and population capped at 5 (and probably 4 effectively while whip unhappiness is running) until HR/trading/new resources, maybe +1H +1C that we might not always be using isn't worth it. Still, we are likely to want to switch away from food a fair bit of the time, so at least chopping the plains/hill/river seems like it is worth the loss of 1 worker turn.

I would be tempted to get a worker soon after as we are likely to have plenty for them to do, especially as the Wheel seems a priority with the lack of copper in the known world. But I could see leaving this for later and rushing Liz to effectively carve off a fair chunk of land that can be settled at leisure (assuming that London is a dead end, which seems fairly likely), a nice new city (or two, depending whether York is worth keeping) and a religion to boot. Or another warrior and then a settler to start REXing. All have pro's and cons. Techs chosen obviously depends on the strategy selected.

//expertly hedging bets when not really decided on what the best move is
 
jamezzz6: Remember there's now a 5th question (about the Worker). I edited my post slightly after posting it... probably should have ironed it out before posting, will do that next time. ;)

I'll get to responding to your answers tomorrow. :)

for the 5th question, let the worker build a mine on the tile SW of it, this will get the city to grow right after the 2nd warrior, and then gets the chop in the Settler-build.

The mine is done one turn after the wheel is done, so then the worker can road to the horses and pasture them.
 
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