AW Shucks

[lymond]

I tested the same spot as you Pigs originally, and the Carib access is nice, but I think it more important to get that Gold online asap....very important. And the gold will be up in a turn or two. Far more important than a Panama canal, which we can still create with a Fort. (The Tiwanaku corn is irrelevant)

The problem with Santiago vs. Venezuela/Guyana area is we kinda stretch ourselves in two directions. Santiago is nice for the extra health at least and it is a decent city, but it seems we should keep our focus toward the North for now so we can focus production on stuff to knock out those crazy Aztecs and Americanos.

I do think we need Copper though and would like to know from Tachy why she would not settle it sooner rather than later. Certainly a corn/clams first but copper has to come online fairly soon to attack Monty and barb defense.

 

[vanatteveldt]

There actually is a decent (longish term) Panama city with fish and lots of grassland jungle and some hills (including the shared silver mine) between Colombia and the Aztec Yucatan city around where panama/costa rica is IRL, so don't worry about that. A galley in the carribean could be nice, but is not needed short term (and can be whipped in our first Venezuelan city if needed).

I think we need to make a choice now whether to capture Mexico before making real work of settling South America. I don't think we can do both now. Santiago/Montevideo are very productive but not economically, so they won't help with the war effort. Northern SA will take long to develop so is a resource sink initially as well.

IF we think we can beet Monty with the narrow productive base we have now, I think that would at least be the more interesting way to dye... ;-)

BTW bad luck on the jungle :-(. Fortunately we have IW now, but Ecuador would have been more productive sooner without it.

 

[nocho]

I think we should settle the copper next.

I'm also wondering about tech path after pottery. Is Oracle still in the books, or do we just go straight to construction?

Once we have pottery, do we want granaries everywhere asap, or do we keep on pumping Qs? Where/when do barracks fit in?

 

[astre]

straight to construction for me.
oracle is not doable (expected time for construction by IA : around -1400 to -1300)

 

[pigswill]

I'm guessing that we may not have a consensus about the grand strategy for this game.

One approach is to settle South America completly and then think about winning starting with North America.

The other grand strategy is partly settle South America, settle North America annihilating the Aztecs and Yankees in the process then think about winning.

I had assumed we were going for option#1. It appears that others are working towards option#2. It would be good to agree which option we're pursuing before going much further.

 

[vanatteveldt]

I agree with pigswill.

As stated above, my preference is for #1 (kill monty). #2 has been done in non-AW inca games with only the end-game different, so is much more boring.

 

[Manco Capac]

I think we can hold off copper until T100. Perhaps a bit later. Monty is not a threat at all given his non coastal capital and thanks to the cute panama blockade.

As for now, I'm not sure for beating Monty on his capital. We would need to invest 100% of our resources on it from now on.

I wish Construction beeline as collateral units are gonna be the saviors.
I do think beating up the northen AI's a great deal of reward. Good lands, free workers, new resources, some improvements and buildings.

While most of south requires lots lots of work.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Hmm for some reason I thought we were further in the tech tree. I agree that attacking the cap with anything else than axemen + catapults is suicide.

So, what can we do to get our tech pace up?

1. Improve gems+northern gold
2. get libraries in gold towns

Options that might contribute science before we reach construction:

3. settle the Venezuelan crab+corn city
4. settle Santiago crap+deer+hills city

Options that will probably take too much time:

5. steal more workers and build riverside cottages in the middle of the jungle
6. capture the aztec silver town, get culture, improve silver mine
7. capture the aztec silver town, build a new "Panama" city next to the silver mine, and improve silver mine
8. build the crab+gems city in Guyana
9. settle montevideo

We will need to build copper before we build up for the attack, but as the city will be a net drain we might as well wait a bit.

So, for the immediate future it seems best to build infra? We can research pottery in 5 turns, build/whip some granaries plus lighthouses while researching writing (which will probably take around 10 more turns), and build some libraries. Most of our cities can support two scientists at size 4 or 5, so science output can go up quite a bit.

By the time we get construction, which will be quite a number of turns from now, we will want to have our navy and axemen ready. So, we will have to settle copper city quite a while before then, probably after the libraries are built. We should presumably capture the Yucatan silver city with axemen before we get construction as well to server as a launching pad.

After writing, we could save up money at 100% tax, research masonry, bulb mathematics, and 100% tech construction. It will take 17 turns to farm a scientist, which is probably more than researching math will cost without losing money, so it might not be worth it. An academy in the capital would also be nice, with silver+gold+palace commerce...

 

[nocho]

Ok, so construction beeline seems the most favoured option and the Grand Idea seems to be to hassle Monty until we have more proper forces (axe+cat)? Meanwhile getting some infra out seems logical then.

Next city is far from clear, there are voices for copper, Santiago and Venezuela. Should we vote on this? I don't quite get why tachy wants to postpone bronze as much as possible, maintenance? Are we going to settle something else soon?

 

[astre]

next city should be monty one (city named chichen itza in E18_1000) and after that copper.

chichen can be taken by queshuas (number of archers inside must be checked)
chichen is not a good city for production, but whatever, it is free and a good starting point for mexico city. The invasion of north america will only begin when mexico city will be taken.

copper city is not a good one but will provide us copper. I don't see it produce anything but slow build buildings while exploit his 7 tiles of good water for commerce and slowly growing.
build it asap, it will very fast be self sufficient.

After that i would say stop and tech like crazy men.
If we can bulb math, all the better.
In the waiting time, gold is nice but part tech metal casting is also good. It will be needed in time (+3 happy face anyone? and lead to machinery, the next important tech)

my 2 cents

 

[pigswill]

Santiago only makes sense if we're planning on expanding east of the Andes and it seems the majority view is to take north america first.

I'd probably build Atacama before Venezuala. Its closer to the capital and will need time to grow enough to make a meaningful contribution (and have pop to whip away for the Big Push).

Do we need more than one quecha per galley if we're just worker stealing/pillaging? We don't really need Qs hanging around inside Aztec territory doing nothing.

 

[vanatteveldt]

1 Q on a galley should be fine.

Do we really want Atacama/copper to grow on coast? We will need to build a lighthouse and it will still take ages to grow. We can also let it grow to size 2 on the copper and then use the desert copper to slow build barracks+units...

 

[pigswill]

Coast gives +3c/tile.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Yeah I know, but requires building a lighthouse+terrace and slowly growing to a larger size. Long term, it is certainly better, the question is when do we need the resources... I guess since the research is what we need now it's probably wise, but I wanted to get a discussion going. If we will grow the city, we might as well found it immediately (or at least as soon as we can spare a worker).

 

[astre]

I have continue my experiment until turn 259. And i drop.
At the same time numberous forces come from all around the world debarqued on america.

I could repulse some before, but here, it seem too mutch.

I was not bad with all south america and central america (obviously) all the est and south of the US.
aztecs and america is cleaning job at this time but rest of the world...
I could repulse cyrus, asoka and the first wave of saldin but now, there is china in seatle, saladin in cusco and catherine in brazil.

If you want to see the save, I'll post it.
I'm sure i can fight a bit more are retake cusko and repulse catherine, but i will never win against china :/ (canon against longbow )


however, i hope we will do better here

 

[nocho]

Did you test with no tech trading on? Cannon vs lbow sounds a bit harsh indeed...

I think I may play some turns tonight until settler is finished to keep things going.

 

[astre]

yep it was no tech trading.
liberalism aroud 1400
btw hearding about kremelin is built when you ar teching ingenering is kind of strange. I already had had liberalism and printing press, but well, you realy feel depressed.

 

[nocho]

I played about 12 turns and hand it over. I hope I didn't somehow screw up too badly in the grander scheme of things. If I did, sorry.

I also have to admit to reloading. But please think of it as playtesting. The thing is that contrary to what I thought the quechuas were attacked and duly killed when in the open, for instance on the corn tile east of Tenochtitlan.

So basically the Qs followed a more westerly route pillaging a bunch of mines and a deer, which was a nice bonus to our research funding. We finished pottery, writing and have spent 1 turn on mathematics.

Near the end I managed to steal two workers within the space of a few turns. Both where constructing a road on the dye tile south of Tenochtitlan. Seems Monty is eager to build a road to his central american city, so likely this is a good farm. The first worker+Q where on the boat when I noticed with another Q that there was another worker again on the dye, so boat headed back and the Q from the boat struck again. That second worker joined the first on the boat back home. A second galley is on the way to help logistics and more worker steals. Make sure not to park Qs within striking distance from the dye tile, I'd say, and look if another pirate action is possible.

Settler is finished in the capital and has movement this turn. Didn't want to commit to any direction, but note no boat is available right now to move to Santiago. So copper or Venezuela I guess. My limited understanding of the game tells me copper. Started on terraces in the northern cities and queued a library in the capital, but could be changed of course. Oracle just BIADL btw.

 

[astre]

I have started a new game of inca vs the world keeping no tech trade but removing always war. I increased difficulty to compensate.

Well, that let me experiments some strategies:
- The strategy to tech writting bulb mathematic while slow teching masonery at 0% worked very well. The timing were perfect for me.

- to kill monty cap, the goal is to put one queshua on deer and one on grass corn and 1 axemen on plain corn.
with that, he is limmited to 1 food tiles and will not do anything but slow training archers at 2 hammer / turn (+ IA bonus production)
at this point, i had to wait until I get cats online to take this damned city.

in our game, next turn should move Q5 on grass corn, ravage the land and try to stay here until 2 archers are in position to attack him without malus.
the Q3 and Q6 should meet on dye and move togeter to the other corn. ravage the land and leave to position on dye and deer.

colombia must work on queshuas. 2 are needed to close the colombia fortress and more are needed to busy monty :/

settler for copper city

 

[pigswill]

An Alphabetical Roster

astre

lymond

nocho just played

pigswill UP

r_rolo1 aka rolo on deck

Tachywaxon

vanetteveldt aka van