Askoa Greets You - next move?

[SittinDown]

Been playing Emperor games, and got caught in a conversation where I found myself asking about a good date to get construction for an axe + catapult rush. ....while I waited for a reply, I decided to see how early I could get it on a first-try.

Settings: Emperor Difficulty, Pangea, Standard Map Size, Normal Speed, No Events or Huts.
Random leader ....... Askoa.... (Spi, Org, Fast Worker).

Initial site: corn and gold and green rivers. This should go well.
Initial Save posted.

Spoiler played until I got construction.... :

Got Construction in 900 BC, on turn 79.

This seems like a good date - but how good?

In my last game - I got Construction in 150 AD (same settings, with Ramses), which seems painfully late. (I focused on a War Chariot rush and currency).



Not so thrilled about the city up North. I panicked with the settler when a barb archer showed up, and settled there. It's going to take a while to hook up the Ivory, so I think an Axepult might be a good move here - against Greece (Pericles, Cre, Phi), and he has a .9 military ratio on me. Also - I didn't chop much yet.

 

[sampsa]

T79 construction is very good. I like your chosen city sites (except northern one should be 1W, next to the cow. I guess that is where you panicked?) and your tile improvements seem fine too (Bombay needs 4th good tile though, mine that forested hill asap). The gold tile doesn't need to be connected via road, it's already connected by the river. I think those two grass hills S of capital should be mined asap too, but for now you can also work scientists there. You will need hammers soon, too, to produce units as fast as possible. The academy (or a bulb) is not so important for your chosen strategy.

I don't think you need another settler/city right now, you need to pump catapults and axes. What is the point of rushing to construction if you don't then rush units asap?

You have lots of forests to chop, so maybe you are low on workers. You are miles ahead of the AI in tech right now and don't need any backfilling, so I don't think Alpha is the best choice. I'd research HBR now, to get them elephants online soon after the initial attack. HBR is also good for HA's as you can use them as "snipers" or simply as a fast mop up unit, that is much stronger than a chariot.

I can't see Greek borders, but I'm assuming he is in the north. You could also just take out Vikings, no emperor AI has any chance against T79 construction and that amount of forests.

 

[pigswill]

Two choices for construction beeline. Go for writing, build library, run 2GS, bulb maths while researching masonry and collecting cash to rush construction at 100% research. I went for the second option:

Spoiler :

went agric, BH, wheel, (fishing), pots, writing, maths, masonry, construction. Cottages in capital. Built second city for copper and fish, which got a library for GS, prechopped forests and slowbuilt axes while waiting for construction. Got construction 925bc. Chopped forests, stomped vikings, got peace for alphabet 450bc after taking capital..

 

[Fippy]

2 golds in nice spots help, not sure how much this date tells tbh.

Axepult would be pointless on this map thou, Bombay has horsies and with very good early commerce HAs are much much better than waiting for Construction.
Also plenty food resis available for settling cities yourself (fish + copper, wheat + Jumbos, another wheat and all rather close).

Cats are in between better rush units and strong peaceful buildup here.

916 Yup

 

[NineOneSix]

Good example of construction rush as a pre-determined focus. But you must have gone with AH fairly early if you chose Bombay as second city and therefore discovered horses there.

At that point in the game and having use of two gold hills I would have beelined HBR immediately for a HA rush, if we purely look to play the map. Could have owned one neighbour entirely by HAs while continuing toward construction and grabbing ivory with second settler, chopped and/or whipped during your conquest. This would set up an elepult attack for the next nearest neighbour (economy allowing). I'm not sure Vijayanagara does anything useful for you early game even if it had been settled on the preferred tile.

Haha Fippy, beat me to it by a few seconds. Yep, screams HA rush doesn't it?

 

[Anysense]

Usually I'm not tempted by early rushes with such rich land around my capital. I would expand to 5 cities then elepult Ragnar and probably another AI (must be easy on emperor).

 

[elmurcis]

With that kind of non-boxed and wide open land, going for HA for 1st war, using capture gold to fuel economy up to Construction and transition to Elepults would feel better... Monty seems to be only real trouble here (because can get Jaguars always.. but they are worst vs HA than regular Sword..),

 

[pigswill]

Axepult rush will last you until AI longbows, for sure it starts later but once it gets rolling its much harder to stop (fewer casualties means fewer replacement hammers and more experienced units). Axepult also transitions naturally to elepult , the same can't be said for HA rush.

 

[sampsa]

Pretty sure you can conquer the whole map with HAs in this case. I don't think having a predetermined strategy is that bad for learning purposes, OP wants to learn catapult rushes and that is what he is doing. Let's not suffocate his enthusiasm by insisting on strategies that would work better on this map.

 

[SittinDown]

Thanks all!

2 golds in nice spots help, not sure how much this date tells tbh.

Axepult would be pointless on this map thou, Bombay has horsies and with very good early commerce HAs are much much better than waiting for Construction.

Totally agree - I was disappointed that I rolled such a good map, since it makes for a poor experiment. I was purely going for 'how fast could I research Construction', and not thinking of how I would play the map in general. That said, I missed how obvious a HA rush would be - makes sense, and thanks for the input! That 2nd gold mine was probably worth about 400 beakers.

916 Yup

I don't understand what you mean.

You have lots of forests to chop, so maybe you are low on workers.

Yeah - I'm a bad chopper. I gotta work on that. I only have 2 workers. My reasoning on building the settler is to connect the Ivory so I could build elephants. I decided to do alpha first, since I need to wait about 15 turns before I can found that city anyway, so I might as well get Alpha before HBR. may be better to just Axepult. but I plan on abandoning this game, just an experiment to see how fast I could get Construction.

Got construction 925bc. Chopped forests, stomped vikings, got peace for alphabet 450bc after taking capital..

Nice - you managed to take out the Vikings, get a GP, and get construction 1 turn before I did, without the other gold mine. I doubt in my position I'd be able to take out the Vikings by 450 BC. ... in my game he has a walled, hill capital with an even mix of spears, axes, and archers.

With that kind of non-boxed and wide open land, going for HA for 1st war, using capture gold to fuel economy up to Construction and transition to Elepults would feel better...

Good point - thanks. This really is a good bit of land, huh?

 

[SittinDown]

I'm not sure Vijayanagara does anything useful for you early game even if it had been settled on the preferred tile.

Thanks for the input. Yeah, I agree, Vijayangara was a mistake. The archers were on the East penninsula, I had wanted to grab the wheat / ivory city, but there were too many barbs, and I punted. I should have gone for the copper / fish site instead and started axe building. ...but i was on a plan to get construction ASAP, and didn't want to tech fishing.

Everyone said this screamed HA - and I didn't even see it. So I clearly have a ways to go on reading a map.

 

[sampsa]

I'm not sure Vijayanagara does anything useful for you early game even if it had been settled on the preferred tile.

I disagree with this, and I'd prefer it by a lot when compared to fish/copper-site. Doesn't require fishing+30 for the boat, doesn't require border pop (again 30+10 turns wait before getting any food). Grass cow+ farmed floodplain, decent amount of chops and it's a great 4->2 whipper spot for the chosen strategy.

 

[SittinDown]

I'd prefer it by a lot when compared to fish/copper-site. Doesn't require fishing+30 for the boat, doesn't require border pop (again 30+10 turns wait before getting any food). Grass cow+ farmed floodplain, decent amount of chops and it's a great 4->2 whipper spot for the chosen strategy.

I'm not sure about this one. I had the same reasoning when I played, hence why I went up North - plus I was land-grabbing, since the South was 100% going to be mine. The FPs, river, and green cow looked good, plus instant hook-up to the trade network saved me some worker turns.

On the other hand - the other site lets us get copper hooked up much earlier. The fish + green copper isn't so bad, and it can help grow cottages for the capital. Plus I had to use the worker turns to connect the copper anyway. I had to wait forever for an extra border pop from the capital to get it going - and it was all warriors and chariots until turn 60+, which left a lot of work to do later.

 

[sampsa]

I'm not sure about this one. I had the same reasoning when I played, hence why I went up North - plus I was land-grabbing, since the South was 100% going to be mine. The FPs, river, and green cow looked good, plus instant hook-up to the trade network saved me some worker turns.

Yes. It is good, for the reasons you give and for the reasons I gave in my last post.

On the other hand - the other site lets us get copper hooked up much earlier.

Fair point, and IMO the only real benefit of choosing fish+copper -site. Still, I don't understand how T51 (T50 cap pops 3rd ring without a library, 2 workers improve it by T51) is not enough. You need many workers (3-4) for chopping and you could argue going for barracks in cow+horse+gold. 2nd city is founded ~T35 and 3rd ~T45. T51 doesn't seem late at all to me. If you got copper connected only T60, it's because you just didn't do it asap.

The fish + green copper isn't so bad, and it can help grow cottages for the capital. Plus I had to use the worker turns to connect the copper anyway. I had to wait forever for an extra border pop from the capital to get it going - and it was all warriors and chariots until turn 60+, which left a lot of work to do later.

Don't get me wrong, the city is not bad per se. 52 and 24 are very good tiles. It's just that especially when you are going for an early attack, you need to put maximal focus on SPEED. This site is much slower to set up than the northern one (needs 60 to be set up), hence it is worse. What matters is how many can the site contribute towards the first wave of attack. Growing cottages for capital is completely moot at this point.

 

[sampsa]

So I tried to play it, and couldn't resist the urge to go for a swift 2-city HA-rush.

Spoiler :

Agri-AH-wheel-huntz-arch-HBR-(BW). It's rare for me to take such beeline to HBR but here we can skip pottery as we have enough without cottages and neither city needs granaries/whipping. Went with a single worker (fast worker saved me 8 turns already if I counted right, i.e. 20% boost!) and soon can start chopping. I'm not usually in love with them barrackses, but here both cities grow kinda slow and had plenty of pre-HBR, so I spent my in barracks.

After BW-writing-(math). T66 ready to attack with 5 HA + 2 chariots. Bah, would have had time to route many more of them to the north where you can attack without crossing the river. Turned out to be cocky, as 4 archers with a promo isn't fun. Walls give that extra 10% defense, too. So, had to get a bit lucky and captured Nidaros (with the Great Wall) anyway.

Managed to lure some of his archers out of Uppsala with my chariot and after 3 turns of healing in Nidaros my horsies were ready to charge. Without significant losses Rags is gone. Gifted useless Haithabu to Willem, hoping he builds a road towards it. With math incoming, I don't think I need to bother with cottages/granaries/libraries, just units non-stop and stomp the world in BCs.

 

[sampsa]

T100

Spoiler :

Next up was Willem, who had no metal units at all, so it was easy. After maths I decided that I might be able to oracle feudalism. Being able to capitulate AIs would make the end much swifter. Alas, lost it to Monty by one turn... Now I have the more or less useless monarchy and I don't even have alpha. No worries though, horsies will plow through everything eventually.

It's amazing how many forests there are to chop on this map, I mean I have 15 workers and haven't ran out of forests yet. Both Pericles and SB are gone soon, but no way I can win it in the BCs now. Would have been different with feudalism I think.

Save attached for those interested in details.

 

[NineOneSix]

I agree with you Sampsa that Vijayjay actually is a good city site, but I was trying to point out that it was not needed for the HA rush. As you have shown in your shadow game.

Also you showed that continuing conquest with horsies was a good strategy. I tend to play epic speed, large maps on immortal where early rushing the whole map is too unaffordable due to distance maintenance. For emperor, standard size normal speed pangaea that kind of thinking with elepult follow up was too conservative.

 

[sampsa]

I agree with you Sampsa that Vijayjay actually is a good city site, but I was trying to point out that it was not needed for the HA rush. As you have shown in your shadow game.

Also you showed that continuing conquest with horsies was a good strategy. I tend to play epic speed, large maps on immortal where early rushing the whole map is too unaffordable due to distance maintenance. For emperor, standard size normal speed pangaea that kind of thinking with elepult follow up was too conservative.

Yes, I guess here you need to choose the correct amount of cities and the correct sites that suit best for whatever strategy you choose. I think HA-conquest could be done on large/epic/immortal too, if given a great start like this one.

To the end:

Spoiler :

So, took out Pericles and SB (kept only Cahokia). Chopped a library in Nidaros (GW city) and popped out a great person that started golden age 100BC to keep me from going bankrupt. I'm so close to the end that I stopped working -tiles in many cities, preferring and . Forests chopped, also deleted most of my workers as they cost unit upkeep. Should have laid down a few cottages, but no big deal.

Some screens about my "economy". Finally getting feudalism that I should have gotten like 800BC had I optimized oracle.

I had +30 HAs, so the rest was easy. Capped Monty as soon as I got feud, gifted him some cities back just because I'm a good guy. Took 5 cities from Justinian and he capitulated 225AD, leading to conquest 250AD.

Save after conquest attached.