Druid's hideout

[druidravi]

Settings

Warlords v2.08
Always war
OCC
Deity
Agressive AI
No AI trading
Raging barbarians
No goody huts
pangea standard setting

civilization --India (Gandhi)

varaint -- this will be a custom map setting where we will be surounded completely by MOUNTAINS except for 1 square which would be a forested hill and 1 coastal tile which can defended by a tireme.

Our flat cross will contain all these food resources
corn,wheat,rice,fish,crab,clam,banana,wine,spices,sugar,cow,deer,pig,sheep,

and following strategic resources
stone,marble,copper,horse,iron,ivory,coal,oil,uranium,aluminum,

24 resources . Fat cross has 21 squares and with 4 corners we will have 25 squares so enough space for all. We will be left open to attack by one land square and one sea square. Land square will have forested hill which will later be added a fort. Sea square we need to mass tiremes . I will post the map shortly . I suggest 5 players 20 turns each since it mostly will be a fast and builder game.


Roster
1. Druidravi ( currently playing)
2. Greyfox ( on deck)
3. ruff-hi
4. nengyvenketto
5. Sweetacshon

 

[Sweetacshon]

OK, I'm up for something different, count me in.

 

[druidravi]

Ok here is the save and our starting position.

 

[druidravi]

Victory conditions we can rule out are domination , cultural

Diplomatic is theorotically possible if we nuke out everyone to low population and vote ourselves with a gigantic city of ours,but very difficult

Conquest -- Beating up all 6 Deity AI's is all but impossible ,only theorotically possible

Time -- Ensuring no launches or diplomatic or cultural victories --- again all but impossible

Space -- Most likely victory condition


Threats we face are Ai diplomatic victory , military defeat, domination, space

 

[druidravi]

Sweetacschon ,you are in. We will wait for 2 others to join and then we can start.



The research path I suggest is agriculture, masonary ,bronze working, animal husbandry,meditation,priesthood ,writing.

Buildorder worker, great wall, start pyramids, oracle to code of laws finish pyramids with a warrior/axe thrown in between.

Advantage is with early caste system we can start running lot of scientists helping us pump up research . And Philosophy can be bulbed for early pacifism . Other than an acedemy I think joining GG would be better as we can't trade for techs from ai 's by light bulbing.

A couple of axes fortified on the forested hill should do fine in the ancient age. For sea defence we need a couple of tiremes asap to prevent naval landings. After code of laws hiring representation scientists to research fishing sailing asap could be done. Hopefully our tiremes will come just in time to prevent coastal invasions. However it would be a risky strategy. Even if we are late by 1 turn , 1 galley drop of archers or chariots could screw us.

1 point in favor of oracle gamble is raging barbarians. Hopefully the Barbarians will keep the Ai busy till we have our defences in place. Another point is relegion . Since it is AW we will have to find a relegion by ourselves for running pacifism. The best chance of it is the oracle gamble or a Philosophy light bulb. We have a small chance of getting hinduism or buddhism straight off bat by working the wine square for commerce. But that would be a very slender chance in deity and will push back us huge when it fails.

I leave the decision to the team if we should take the oracle gamble.

 

[GreyFox]

I always have a thing for OCC-AW ... sign me up.

Curious why you go for a philo-spiritual trait ... For OCC, I almost always go for expansive, but since we have all health resources, that is not needed. The second trait I almost always go for is industrious, esp for an OCC-AW where AI is busy pumping out troops, giving us a chance to monopolize all wonders. (This, admittedly, results in most OCC game played with Bismark). However, seeing you want philosophical, that would exclude industrious.

--

 

[ruff_hi]

Hi All - if there is a spot still open, I would like to participate. A couple of comments ... did you run a dummy game to test if the AIs would actually attack a forested hill guarded by a unit. There was a 'challenge' game a few months ago where it was discovered that if the AIs only had 1 route to you, and it was blocked but a unit (say, on a forested hill), then it would never attack.

 

[druidravi]

Yes Greyfox I took spiritual since there was no matching trait with philosophical. Expansive as you say is useless since we have all health resources. And industrious is not required since we have stone and marble anyways. The big thing here would be research which I think would be done by joined GP's which makes Philosophical necessary.

And more to the point our UU fast worker is useless, as is our UB mausoleum when we will get the Globe Theatre. There should really be more philosphical leaders. I would have chosen Philo Charismatic leader if exists for the early +2 happiness in cities.

 

[druidravi]

Hi All - if there is a spot still open, I would like to participate. A couple of comments ... did you run a dummy game to test if the AIs would actually attack a forested hill guarded by a unit. There was a 'challenge' game a few months ago where it was discovered that if the AIs only had 1 route to you, and it was blocked but a unit (say, on a forested hill), then it would never attack.

You are in. Long ago i ran a similar game and found AI didn't attack. I have a feeling this is more because they haven't scouted our city and don't know where to attack . So I went to world builder and made our big cross as scouted for all the Ai's since they can't scout by themselves. Even if they don't attack keeping up in space race with deity ai's won't be easy particuarly when it is occ. And during space race copters can be a problem since they can move through mountains, same issue with nukes, bombers etc.

I think we have 4 players so we can start now.Others will join up in time. But first of all I would like the team to discuss their thoughts on opening strategy. I will play 30 turns, and next player onwards can play 20 turns in the 1st turnset. From the second round set we can play 10 turns each.

 

[sooooo]

Looks quite amusing - will be lurking.

 

[GreyFox]

Gandhi starts with Mysticism and Mining, so I would head for Masonry to hook up either stone or marble for opening up the Pyramids or Oracle gambit. Personally, I would have gone with Pyramids, I was never a fan for Oracle. But before that, I would go for agriculture to enable something for the worker to do first. After getting Masonry, I would try to get Archery for better protection, before heading towards Writing for scientists.

EDIT:

Summary: Agriculture > Masonry > Hunting > Archery > Animal Husbandry > Writing

Bronze Working for Slavery may be inserted somewhere.

--

 

[druidravi]

But don't you think axes are enough. Archery requires hunting as well. 2 early dead end techs. An fortified axe on a forested hill across a river is pretty invulnerable I think. The AI will have Baba problems as it is raging babas setting.
We won't since there is no fow in our territory. We have both stone and marble and good food and production.

I agree about agriculture first . Actually if you see in screen shot we are producing worker in 9 turns !! as we settled on a marble plain hill and will be working forested deer which gives 3food 1 shield. Agriculture takes 11 turns so 2 idle turns for worker. So maybe 1 turn mining that hill 1 N of warrior and irrigating corn next. Masonary next should be good as we have enough food and can generate shields from quarries and mines on plain hills and we can start on great wall immediately. We don't have much to produce early so better give it 2 the great wall . Next bronze working for a couple of axemen security , then animal husbandry ,writing. If we are lucky library scientists+Ge points from great wall can give us an engineer who can rush pyramids. Anyways after great wall we will build pyramids and will get it I think even if we sneaked in an oracle in between.
agriculture>Masonary>Bronze>Animal Husbandry>writing.

Till here I think it is safe we have 3 options from then.
1.Go fishing sailing for naval protection(maybe too early for that)
2. Meditation-priesthood oracle shouldn't take much time 2 produce with marble we can even chop that forested spice.
3. Forgot oracle go alphabet >literature>drama> we get great library,national epic, globe faster which will help use our massive food however no code of laws to run specialists. Then mathematics>mediatation will help light bulb philosophy. But problem is some Ai might take code of laws with oracle and use GS to light bulb philosophy leaving us with no relegion. I have seen this being done in emporer itself with trading on. No pacifism throughout game.

In all these alternatives we also have to take the naval threat seriously. Sailing has to be researched at a comfortable time and tiremes rushed asap.
If we see tiremes around the time better go to alternative 1. I am thinking of researching till writing before deciding which path to follow.

I'll wait for more consensus on opening in the team before starting .

 

[GreyFox]

Yeah, agreed on axes. No need Archery (I must remember we are guaranteed of metals ).

Just a reaffirmation I believe you mean "axe and spear" when you say axe

 

[ruff_hi]

I found that earlier game I was talking about above ... see post 196 onwards.

 

[negyvenketto]

I would like to join. Based on Ruff's experience, the naval defense is even more important.

 

[Jet]

Based on Ruff's experience, the AI will never attack in the proposed game.

I've found that if it has overwhelming force it will still skirmish, but not properly invade. But I don't think that's what you're looking for.

 

[ruff_hi]

I would suggest opening the game in WB, putting (say) 3 axes on the hill and (say) 8 enemy maces outside and see what happens. If the AI doesn't attack, then this set up looks like a non-starter.

 

[ThERat]

lurkers comment:

The AI won't attack ever if you close the choke. We played AW on a hub and once we closed the choke, the AI simply amassed troops but never attacked. Once we opened the choke, tons of uberstacks would come but as you close the choke, they would bugger off.

It's a bug in the programming

this is the relevant link
choke block

 

[druidravi]

I played 40 turns built the Great wall , pyramids is half finished . Research path so far was
agriculture> masonary>bronze working > hunting(for +1 from jumbos) > animal husbandry ( being reserched)

built worker>worker>warrior>great wall>axe>pyramids (being completed) ..


Here is the save.

 

[druidravi]

This is a bummer then if Ai won't attack .
I will create a new game then where we have 2 choke points . In the beginning both can be covered. Then once we are comfortable militarly we can open one choke point allow ai stacks crush them with cats ala , block the choke if overwhelming ai military is on way . Rinse and repeat. Our permanent choke wil be forested hill while temporary choke will be a grass land square , allowing us to counterattack with little penalty.

I will host a new save same map but slightly modified .
Same roster
1. Druidravi
2. Sweetacshon
3. Greyfox
4. ruff-hi
5. nengyvenketto