ALC Game #4: Egypt/Hatshepsut

[KrikkitTwo]

It's the pure 8 strength, that's it (combined with a Combat 1 that's 8.8)

For test, assuming you have Cats, and are hitting a CG Archer in London (hills) 0% cultural from Cats,
Combat Elephant v. Archer 25% fort+50% city+25% Terrain+25% Hill+20% CG
8.8 v. 7.35
about 1.2 ratio

Raider Sword v. Archer (archer gets -30%)
6 v. 6.45
about 0.9 ratio

Longbows would be
13.2 (0.66 ratio)
and
11.4 (0.52 ratio)

so the Elephant would be better than the Sword against all but Spears, which should hopefully be gone by the time you get the Elephants

Now the Elephants Are more expensive, and for a London Assault you may figue on just throwing units away, but you still need to cut down barbs, and the Units will be good. For Longbows, Cheaper makes more sense, because you will need 2-3 units for each one... If Longbows appear, Flanking WCs might make sense, Cats that do no Collateral damage, but have a good chance of survival and are cheap. so build a Whole Lot and pair with a good group of swords/Elephants, suicide all the WCs then hit with Swords then the Elephants.

didn't know about the Mids getting built, in that case building CI (if you get Confucianism,) isn't such a bad idea..once you have stone.

 

[Eggolas]

If you're not going to take the prime city spots right away (SW of Heliopolis and Due West and East of Vandal), then by all means, harrass and take out Vicky because she's going to head for them. Her terrain is terrible and the AI should be able to see the power of the coastal city spot SW of Heliopolis. English galley north ... that's a superb spot.

She has horses S of Nottingham by the way. In games past, she's has built Horse Archers (hence, war elephants make some sense), but she doesn't have horseback riding yet.

I would definitely take the dyes though and both city spots SW and SE of Heliopolis. North of Thebes on the hill won't increase your distance cost, but will count towards numbers. Marble will be nice to build the Sophia if memory serves.

The only city site she has that's really good is London, and I suspect that she's trying to build great people in it.

If you pursue the war approach right now, then you may want to adopt caste system after you whip the courthouses in Memphis, Barcelona and Madrid for scientists and prophets.

You can always switch back to whip a courthouse in London. I love spiritual.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I like the idea of taking it to Victoria now. As you've said before, that's really what the original War Chariot strategy was from the beginning. The conquering just sort of happened as a convenient coincidence.

The main thing you want to be careful about, as Hans indicated, is that you need to make her spearmen pay if they attack you. If she loses a spearman every time she takes out one of your chariots, I don't think she can win that kind of war of attrition. On the other hand, if you let her just pick your guys off one at a time, she loses nothing and gains a bunch of nicely promoted spearmen.

Whether you do this with axemen, swordsmen, careful chariot maneuvering, or some other approach is mostly irrelevant. Any of those would work. Just make sure she pays for her insolence if she attacks.

 

[Sisiutil]

I have enough cities now, and my economy getting back on its feet, that I should be able to have at least one city devoted to civilian builds. So yes, I can see myself building another Settler or two. Depending on where the slider is once I have units in Vicky's territory, I may hold them in reserve until I can handle the initial maintenance costs.

One nice thing about Vandal's location, by the way, is that Vicky's troops have to cross the open terrain of that desert to get to it. It's much more likely that she'll counter-attack Madrid, if at all. I don't intend to give her that option.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

didn't know about the Mids getting built, in that case building CI (if you get Confucianism,) isn't such a bad idea..once you have stone.

Isn't Chichen Itza the one that increases the defense of your cities? Who are you planning on defending against?

Victoria? She should be crippled by the time the wonder is built. Besides, it would be easier to just build walls and archers in a few border cities.

Barbarians? If barbarians are attacking your cities, then you aren't defending properly. A barbarian should be dead long before he gets near any city.

Or do you want to build it just for the prophet points? I guess that makes sense given the number of holy cities that will eventually be in the empire.

 

[Nares]

Isn't Chichen Itza the one that increases the defense of your cities? Who are you planning on defending against?

Well, he could be going for the Great Prophet Points it generates, or he could be building it partway, leaving it in the queue, and collecting on the gold when someone does finally complete, so as to maintain/improve his research rate while expanding to some of the less than profitable Jungle locations he should grab before Victoria does.

 

[Sisiutil]

Wonders are not a big priority to me at the moment.

Regarding Chichen Itza: If I build all the temples I can in Barcelona, run as many priest specialists as possible, and eventually build National Epic there, I should be able to generate Great Prophets without diverting production to an expensive and useless wonder.

It might be too late to build the Pyramids; hooking up that stone at Nova Roma is not high on the list of priorities. The Marble north of Thebes is more important for the GL.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

When you see a settlement-stack walking around, that is a good time to declare war. Easy kill, free worker.

Oh, and Vicky does have horses, so expect that there will be some Chariots harassing you.

Elephants are expensive, but what is the price of out-strengthing your opponent? Not that Construction is really a priority for you.

Code of Laws is your priority before you can even think about Construction. You can save about 8-9 Commerce by building courthouses in Barcelona and Madrid, which is about equivalent to an extra gold-deposit.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

One thing I tried with War Elephants was giving them Combat I and Medic I. Then I sent them out with my stack. Save them for later in the siege, and they can help your units heal faster. Eventually, they'll get exp from mop up operations and get Medic II or even March...

Also, when a stack is attacked, unless they attack with spears, the elephant will likely be the first attacked. This saves your better offensive units for the actual offensive ahead...

 

[pigswill]

It's worth remembering that pillaging Vicky and capturing a few smaller cities will certainly slow her down and may enable you to catch up in relative terms but you'll lose some units in the process which means building replacements. This adds up to continuing military production and unit maintenance expenses. I would imagine that unit maintenance and cost have been major factors in your economy. You aren't actually improving your empire in the process. There are three other civs out there.
When did you last play a game where you were 11 turns from CoL at 1AD and running research at 40%.

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 7: to 720 AD

The war of attrition began in this round, but began to heat up to a real war by its end.

I started by building my next city, Elephantine, near the two gold sources on the northeast coast:

Another advantage of this city is that it will protect Memphis and its horses from barbarians coming from the fog to the south. These barbs will have to cross the open terrain of the desert, where they're easy pickin's for the War Chariot stationed in Elephantine.

In 50 AD, with Vicky's Settler stack in the middle of the southwestern desert, I declared war:

The stack's protective Archer (City Garrison II, useless in the open field) died, the Settler became another stolen worker, and another WC reached Level 4 as a result.

My main goal for this offensive was to do as much damage to Vicky's economy as I could. Hey, misery loves company. My first target was her copper mine, so she could no longer build Spearmen and Axemen. Well, it turned out one of the latter was on guard duty, and my Combat II WC wasn't getting very good odds:

Several other resources were too close to cities with Spearmen for me to even consider pillaging them. The road network, however, was quite another matter, and I set about denying Vicky access to her wine and stone, for starters.

I also jacked up the research slider for a few turns and achived some success:

Bizarre how my best production cities keep winding up as holy cities. I suppose I should have done some more careful manipulation of which city would become a holy one, but I had other priorities. Missionaries aren't cheap. Something to remember for next time, though.

Several of my WCs neared that copper mine, some from the north, some coming from Madrid and Barcelona, sneaking across the tundra:

The odds weren't great, but they were better than before. I lost that unit, but it weakened the Axeman enough for the next one to finish him off. Then a third WC raced in to pillage the mine. Mission accomplished! Time to head out of there and heal.

Not a moment too soon, either, as Vicky sent a stack of three Axemen and a Spearman out to punish me for my temerity:

I was tempted to retreat...but remembered Hans' assertion that in the open field, the War Chariots rule. I might never get a better chance to get rid of these copper-based units, which I had just denied my opponent the ability to rebuild.

So I threw my best, still-healthy units at the stack. I didn't lose a single one, and the unit you see directly north of the Axes swooped in for the final kill and achieved Level 5 status! He now has the Combat IV promotion and the nickname "2 Fast". (Next Level 5 WC will be "2 Furious", of course. I've never seen the film, I just like the title.) I'm hoping to get him to Level 6 so I can give him the Commando promotion. If 2 Fast can use enemy roads (the few I've left intact, at any rate), he'll be a pillaging nightmare.

Vicky was getting fed up with this damage-and-dash war, and came to me with a peace offering:

I was kind of tempted, seeing how--as Pigswill pointed out--my research is floundering. But what, I wondered, is Sailing going to do for me right now? And 10 turns is enough for her to rebuild that mine. I asked for some other techs, but to no avail. Fine then, get lost. I've got a war to run.

A barb city also appeared at the other side of the continent, just northwest of Barcelona. This gave my chariots a chance to earn some more XPs and win some gold for the treasury--though I did lose a WC in the process:

A few turns later, after some more pillaging and some counter-attacks, I lost another WC that had pillaged the stone quarry near Canterbury. He survived an attack from Canterbury's Spearmen, but fell to another from York. But Canterbury was now weak: though on a hill, it was defended by a single archer and had only a 20% cultural defense. And I had a few Swordsmen, looking to upgrade their City Raider promotions. Heh heh heh...

I razed it. One tile NE and it loses one desert and one peak in exchange for some grassland hills.

I also have an Archer and an Axeman who've snuck all the way down to Vicky's horses. They've defeated the Archer defending the tile, and if they survive a counterattack--assuming there is one--they'll pillage the pasture on the next turn. Then I want to find a nice forested hill within London's fat cross for them to hunker down upon.

Power-wise, it ain't even close:

Things are looking up a bit economically. I've built the much-needed courthouses in Madrid and Barcelona (and a few other cities, mostly with the help of the whip), and before I plunged several units into the fray outside my borders, I actually had the slider up to 50%. Yay me! I have Construction now and I'm building Cats and Elephants; the next tech practically leaped out at me, given my financial circumstances: Currency.

Here's what the map looks like. The entire continent is now pretty much revealed:

Boy, Vicky's terrain really does suck, doesn't it? I sent a workboat up the east coast, but I'll obviously need caravels to find the other civs. On his way back south, he spotted yet another barb city, this one near the former site of Rome. I have a few brand-new, 4/5 XP swordsmen headed there. The city will be razed as it is also in the wrong spot, based upon our dotmap. Why can't these barbarians be a little more cooperative?

My workers are continuing to cottage spam, and every now and then I have to use the whip, but my cities are growing, buildings are going up, and Vicky's ripe for a fall. I have a stack of veteran WCs and CR II Swords waiting on top of the hill where Canterbury used to be. Once the Cats arrive, I'm throwing the stack at her cities. I'm probably going to raze all of them except London, especially now that Vicky has built the Hindu shrine. I have built a couple of Hindu monasteries, and will continue to spread the good word in anticipation of the gold that captured shrine will render.

Expect the next round to focus on the fall of England. After that, it's barb-whomping, economics, expansion, and researching towards Optics and Caravels.

Wish me luck!

 

[pigswill]

At least Vicky's built a shrine for you; that'll help as you still have no GP points. I'm confident you'll have the continent to yourself by 1000ad or so. Still a lot of catching up to do. You're doing ok in terms of demographics, you still won't know how your doing tech-wise till you meet the neighbours (more likely that they'll visit you than you'll visit them). Calendar would help to unlock plantation resources.
I realise I've been a bit negative throughut the thread but I'm still awaiting the epiphany.
Edit: I like shrines in production cities because shrine gold is independent of commerce gold and you can run high research without nerfing the shrine. Production makes it quicker to build market,grocers and bank to optimise the shrine's income. Unless I'm running OR I prefer to build monastery in commerce city for the research boost and use shrine city to build units.
Ps Good Luck

 

[Hans Lemurson]

I had gotten luckier than you, and had Confucianism founded in Vandal. Good gold-synergy there you'll be hard-pressed to get in Memphis. This won't matter so much, since you're probably gonna go Hindu anyways, and London will be a wealthy city on its own.

Anyways, Here's some more dot-mapping (but no awesome picture):

City Location "S": On the north-western coast of England, on a Plains between the Cow and Crabs. Nottingham must die first, since it also attempts to claim the Crabs, and is stupid-close to London.

City Location "T": On a little pocket of grassland on the western coast near the mountains. It is just close enough to be able to work the Wheat on the other side of the mountains. With some decent food, ans some hills, this may become a minor naval-production city, but the 6 mountains will limit it's future. Low-priority city, but fits in just fine!

 

[Killroyan]

Why is everybody so keen on conquering Victoria so quickly? You have an enormous landmass at your disposal. You have a bigger army and you have now a chance to evolve a bit. I do think that buildings and expansion is priority number 1 now. Let Englands cities grow a bit. Once you have gotten enough control of the landmass you can concentrate again on warmongering. By then you won't have to raze any city and you can all implement them into your empire. In this case you will let Victoria do your job.

I would use 30 to 50 turns getting everything onto its feet first like resources, trading routes, land grab and blocking off England with some well defended border cities. But then again completely kicking somebody of the island is tempting.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Because that would be the peaceful route. Besides, the sooner she's dead, the sooner you can get to doing all that, and the earlier you kill, the easier it is.

Waiting longer means that her crappy city-locations get harder to uproot, and in 30-50 turns, you might not be able to rely on War Chariots to defeat her military.

If you have an army, and a target, the best time to attack it now. Waiting will not improve your odds or the efficacy of your forces.

Once she's dead, you have no more worries on the continent, just room to expand, and walking training dummies to fight.

 

[Killroyan]

But by letting her live you can blackmail her for some techs and money. You have more cities, a bigger army and propably a tech lead fast on her. Within 30-50 turns you get knights and still can take her cities with ease. I am only saying that if you have the empire online it won't be a lot harder to conquer her but you get an immediate boost of 4 big cities to your empire instead of 3 razed cities and 1 capitol and then you have to invest heavily again in workers/settlers/garrison/buildings.

I do understand that wiping out the enemy as fast as possible is a very good thing but in this case with a staggering empire this might be a possible route too and I am just wondering how you guys think of that route.

 

[pigswill]

The good thing about this game and this thread is that it's starting to encapsulate the whole warrior/builder debate. I'm obviously on the builder side (use war to expand) and it seems Hans is on the warrior side (expand to war better).
On more careful reading of Hans's last post the difference is he advocates non-stop war followed by non-stop peace while I go war stages and peace stages with the same eventual goal.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

No, I'm actually more of a builder. It's just that I am very good at wars. I stand back until I have an advantage, then I kill ruthlessly. I only ever fight 1 war per civilization, because its the last one.

When you have a military advantage, you press it to its fullest. To do less is to squander a fortune. Our military advantage here was War-chariots, and the longer you wait, the less effective they become.

But by letting her live you can blackmail her for some techs and money.

Not really. You can't get money without currency, and the techs she'd give in tribute (if anything) would be paltry.

Within 30-50 turns you get knights and still can take her cities with ease.

With ease? You mean when she's defending with longbows and the cities all have at least a +20% defense bonus?

I am only saying that if you have the empire online it won't be a lot harder to conquer her but you get an immediate boost of 4 big cities to your empire instead of 3 razed cities and 1 capitol and then you have to invest heavily again in workers/settlers/garrison/buildings.

London is the only one of those cities worth keeping, and The Empire is online now that CoL is researched.

I do understand that wiping out the enemy as fast as possible is a very good thing but in this case with a staggering empire this might be a possible route too and I am just wondering how you guys think of that route.

In my personal game, I conquered London in 200 BC, after fighting 3 simultaneous wars while building Stonehenge and founding Judaism (and Confucianism). You'd be surprised how much you can do with a "staggering" empire. Really, you just have to wait about 20 turns before the cities you consumed are "digested", and become functional, and during that time you'll suffer a bit. Once the continent is unified, it doesn't matter how "staggering" the empire is, because it's all peaceful development from there.

I've been such a war advocate for these reasons: If you can strike your foes, you should strike immediately, strike swiftly, and strike to kill. Anything else is a waste of time and resources. If you cannot strike, grow in strength as quickly as possible in order to be able to strike.

Half-efforts result in failure, or a pyrrhic victory.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

Definitely time to stick it to Vicky. May I suggest a course of settling? Settle the coast, or at least so that as much coastline as possible is covered in your borders, and work your way inland. Maybe, if you have time, even plunk a city in the ice....just for the silver. This way, when the AIs have galleons, they only have, at best, a few crappy sites getting devoured by your culture, and you have that juicy interior to settle and have no need to worry about an AI sneaking in a settler into the desert and plopping it down....

 

[Eggolas]

Very nice game so far.

I would tweak Memphis a little for some more coin this turn and then get ready either to build a market there or to convert it's production to wealth ... or specialists. Also, moving the slider up one notch lowers the time to Currency by two turns, a reasonable trade off, allowing Thebes to build it's market sooner.

The intriguing question is when will you have enough troops and not need to build more so as to save maintenance costs. I suspect that you are very close once the cats strip the cultural defenses. Also, at some point after currency, you could be able to dedicate a production city to producing wealth for awhile if all the required buildings are completed and your military is sufficient.

I see that Victoria has indeed built her favorite horse archers. I'm not sure if you can get the war elephants there fast enough without engineering, but if the war lasts 20 turns more, they will prove invaluable.

With a production city producing wealth or merchant specialists in a food city and the money from capturing cities such as York and Nottingham, you should be able to move the slider back to 60% quite soon, even while maintaining an army in the field.

I really would settle that tile SW of Helio between the rice and gems, devote a few workers to getting the gem mine operational and let the thing grow. It's bound to be a nice science/commerce city. Ditto for the dyes. Once drama is researched, the benefit will be very nice.

You've already recognized that only London is worth keeping at this stage. It might be a good idea to start working on the expansion plan to close off the continent before the AI brings its settlers across the ocean.

Since you won't be keeping the cities other than London and you've already whipped the important courthouses, you might want to look at changing now to Caste civic and run some specialists, especially with those fish resources. I wouldn't build a war elephant there for 10 turns either. Switching to a temple gets you another happy face in three turns allowing you to grow to size 8, work another fish and then build a granary.

You can also run both merchant specialists and scientists right now, improving your cash flow and raising your research rate.

When the time comes to whip a courthouse in London, you can change back to slavery.