Carthage PTBS Spoiler

[AutomatedTeller]

This is the spoiler thread for Carthage in the Pitboss game.

If you are one of my opponents (azzaman33, memphus, ronnie1 or civplayah), hie away!! I have booby-trapped this thread to spread purple dye on your fingers. it will show up in your posts!!!













ok - if you are still reading, no worries. I was bluffing about the purple dye


I am Carthage - Financial and Charismatic. Gets promotions for 25% less, one extra happy per city, 1 happy for a monument and broadcast tower, plus the financial bonus. I get no (zero, nada, zilch) cheap buildings, so I'll have to be smart about builds (and probably just build a lot of units

My UU is the Numidian Cavalry, a 5 strength horse archer that starts with flanking I AND gets a 50% boost vs. melee units. So it sucks vs. archers, but is dangerous vs. spears and has a base 30% chance to withdraw. With barracks and stables, I can get to sentry or shock or even formation. I get promotions at 2, 4, 8, 13, 20, 28 and 37 (and up, of course)

My UB is the Cothon, which is an amped up harbor (+1 trade route), but is a litttle more expensive.

Basic Strategy: Coastal towns will get commerce bonuses, inland towns will make military. Get to HBR and make a stack and go out and kill someone - or, at least, just have a lot of mobile war - flanking II and mobility is nice.

Our start is nice: First question is:

Settle in place (lose 2 gold from the camp, but get an extra shield for the ivory in the capitol. I think I'll settle in place)

We have fish, wheat and an FP, so a ton of food - first build will be a workboat with a forest plain hill, then work the fish and build a 2nd warrior.

Question is: what is a good tech plan after that? Monuments are useful, but not yet. BW is good and we start with mining, so it seems to me that that is the right first step.

BW, Hunting, agri, AH, Wheel, Pottery, HBR sounds like a tech path. We'll see what surprises there are out there.

Dunno if there are huts or not - if there are, then getting a warrior out faster is a good thing. Also, finding people with hunting would be useful, to get a bonus on that.

This should be a bloody game!!!

 

[dutchfire]

Nice river, that'll give you lots of early commerce with cottages. Cottage economy is probably the way to go for you.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

ok - settled in place, research to BW, build a workboat, work the plainshill with forest - workboat in 6 and will get my worker in 15. I'll send the warrior around to see what is up.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

btw - this is a nice start for me, Krill!! fish, lots of wood, a nice bonus for my city.

As long as I have horsies nearby, I'll be good!!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

1 hut, 1 tech. Nice start I popped agri from my first hut.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Ok - my opponents:

Gandhi
Phil
Spiritual
Fast worker
Mausoleum (jail)
Mysticism
Mining


Louis
Industrious
Creative
Wheel
Agri
Salon (observatory)
Musketeer (fast musket)


Kublai
Aggressive
Creative
Wheel
Hunting
Keshik (horse archer, no terrain costs)
Ger


Gilgamesh
Creative
protective
Vulture (strong axe)
Ziggurat

Two big early threats in Sumeria and Kublai. Vulture's are tough and the Ziggurat is available early, is cheap and gives a big bonus to espionage. The mongols are set up for conquest - aggressive gives bonuses to slow units and the barracks/ger sets them up for starting with 7 exp units!! Theocracy and a GG gives them 11!!

3 creative opponents means only gandhi will go for stonehenge, if he wants it. He might beeline oracle, too - i dunno.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

These restarts are killing me. I just realized that I neglected to set my research path this time, so I lose a turn on BW. GRRR!!!!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

1 hut, 1 tech. Nice start I popped agri from my first hut.

This time, I got Mysticism. Still useful, as Stonehenge might be good for me and not having to research for monuments for culture is useful in any case.

Plus, if I get marble, a run for oracle is useful.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

looking at the demographics, I notice something funny:

three of my rivals have an 83% approval and 1 has an 85%, like me.

I get 1 from being charismatic, so I have 6 happy/1 unhappy, at 85%.
none of my opponents are charismatic, though!!

I also notice that everyone has 2 hammers and 5 food, so I'm thinking that Krill gave everyone an ivory that everyone settled on and Kublai (who starts with hunting) is getting a happy from that.

So, everyone has ivory, which is balancing.

btw - I just remembered that Charismatic leaders get a +1 happy for monuments, so Stonehenge is pretty good for me - with the ivory, all my cities can get to size 7 without a happiness problem.

Ronnie popped a tech, as well.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

44 Gold for my next hut.

I think Azzaman either popped a tech or researched fishing, not sure which.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Have met Ronnie - he is to the south of me.

Got my workboat, went for a worker - there is a risk, here, that a warrior will come and kill me, but it's worth it. Going for one more hut, then back to the cap.

It looks like this is a thin ring, which is interesting.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, I have copper right near my cap. Which means that, since this is balanced, everyone else does, too. Which means my numidian cavs will always face spears...

but that's ok. They start with flanking I, and I get 2 promotions with a barracks/stable.

So I give some flanking 1/combat 1, and hope that they retreat a lot, then give the rest combat 1/combat II or combat 1/shock.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I have met Ronnie and Viva.

Ronnie is south - his borders show up JUST at the edge of a map I popped from a hut.

Viva is NW of me - much closer. He's planning on pyramids and is apparently going to build it soon, which surprises me, but what the heck - I'm surprised he's not thinking of a religion.

He and I have come to an agreement about some land near us, which will be where my first city goes - I'm going to place a city right at the corner of that river, that gives the pig, fish and dyes. He's going to place one a little further north, to get the cow.

I'm building a settler and stonehenge, all at once. Healing my warrior and bringing the other around. I'll pop out a workboat to do some more exploration at sometime.

I have 2 workers.

Tech path has been:

BW
Pop Mysticism
Agri
Wheel
Pottery (due in 1)
Probably AH.

Then a decision - writing? Meditation/PH for a MC?

If I have horses, HBR? HBR is tough to ignore, especially since humans tend to ignore archery. Numidian Cavalry should rip apart axes.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

ok - that was fun.

I'll post more later.

Summary:

Viva (India) is going for Pyramids
Ronnie is going for Oracle.
I'm 2 turns from Stonehenge
Everyone is afraid of Memphus.

I'm going to get alpha and trade for sailing from Viva.

Lost a warrior to a bear (across river, on a forest hill, with a 10% fort bonus... well, that's why it's an RNG...)

Have 3 cities, so my research is crashed to 70%.

Plans:

Cap: (fish, wheat, dye, 1 fp, lots of hills) Commerce/production/workers
2nd city (pig, fish, 3 dyes, bunch of hills) - mainly commerce, with some production. Both the first two are coastal, for the cothon bonus. All dyes will get a cottage at first.
3rd city: military. That one is right in the middle of the land - will have copper, ivory, rice and bananas. if you look at the 2nd screen shot in the previous post, it's right south of the Bananas. There is rice in what is currently fogged.
4th city - north of the cap, to get horses/corn. That will probably be a production city, generally naval for barb protection.

After that, who knows?

 

[Krill]

General piece of advice: it isn't what % the slider is at, it's however many beakers per turn you are making that decides your science rate. So don;t let the slider worry you unless it is at 0 and you are losing gold, okay? You guys still playing atm?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

oh, I'm not worried about the science rate. That's what happens when you have 3 cities which arent' able to trade yet - 70% is about right.

It'll come back when I get my 2nd workboat and fish and start cottaging my 2nd city, as well, plus when borders expand plus when I can trade with Viva - I'm sending a warrior over there to find the open trade route, cause he's researching sailing.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, my warrior came back - there are barbs all over the place now!!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

we had another session.

I'm just got currency and am going for CoL. I've been trading a lot with memphus, which probably has to stop, since I out research everyone.

the map is fun.

Barbs are NOT - memphus killed a spear with a warrior (in a forest, of course, so it was 4 on 3) and I had to whack a barb axe with an axe.

Events are interesting - my melee units now have cover!! I lost a forge, though.