Enders Game 1: The Training Game Competition - Team 2

[Shaesha]

Well I hope I did ok with no comments from Sirp!

1275BC(1) - I moved the settler one tile west. It was going to overlap the
Scandanavians. Got some workers mining and did a bit of exploring. Odessa
built a warrior.

1250BC(2) - Sevastopol built a warrior. St Petersburg builds a spearman. Minsk
builds a spearman. Moscow spearman > Worker. Founded Sverdiovsk.

1225BC(3) - Keiv Barracks > Spearman. Tbilsi warrior > Granary.

1200BC(4) - Discover Code of Law. Reasearching Map Making. Moscow builds a
worker.

1175BC(5) - Trade Code of Law for Map Making, World Map, and Territory map from
China. England, Egypt, Scandanavia, Celts & Ottomans we're up Code of Law
plus map making on the Celts and Ottomans. noone has anything to offer us.
Switch research to philosophy.

1150BC(6) - Moscow builds another worker.

1125BC(7) - ACK St. Petersburg is rioting! I didn't pay enough attention!

1100BC(8) - St Petersburg spearman > worker. Moscow worker > barracks.

1075BC(9) - Kiev builds a spearman.

1050BC(10) We've learned Philosophy. Started Researching Literature. We are 31
turns from republic. We can get Literature in 9. I am hoping that we might have
more money to set towards research in 9 turns. St Petersburg builds a worker.



The Save

 

[Sirp]

Originally posted by Rubberjello
1550 Take a look around...3 settlers wandering around?! Change Currency to Code of Laws. Played with the slider to optimize tech research (due in 15) Hopefully can use it when Liz (I'm guessing) gets Mapmaking way before us.

Good work on choice of research.

1525 (1) Position settlers for builds. *Crosses fingers and hopes these sites are not too far off from what everybody else was thinking* A little nervous about settling close to the Vikings, but hopefully they've been bought off long enough for use to get some defenders up there.

Hmmm....Tblisi is on fresh water, that's good. It is rather close to the Viking city of Birka though, which isn't great. It could definitely be a provocation to war, which we don't want, but it might be worth being in that spot.

Sevastapol is likewise near China, but we probably wanted a city there to get a source of dyes.

Odessa on the other hand....I specifically said to put a city north-west of the wheat. It would have no city radius overlap with Beijing, and would be a good coastal city. Your placing is not terrible, but it does cause more overlap with Kiev, and just isn't quite as good as my proposed placement.

1450 (4) We get the "Forbidden Palace" Message. Moscow builds its last Settler and set to workers.

There is still another city that we want to get that you didn't: south-east of Moscow there are three coastal tiles that are out of range of any city. We're not going to waste land so near our capital, especially considering we're a little cramped already. That land will fit a nice fishing city.

1425 (5) We have Iron connected!

You say this like it's a good thing

Why did you connect the iron? I don't recall us discussing building any swordsmen in the near future. It's alot of effort to connect iron, and it removes access to warriors, which we still want to build since they're a nice cheap 10 shield unit which provides military police and basic defense.

It is a common mistake to prioritize connecting iron this early. Unless we have plans to go to a very early war it's a mistake. We can connect it in a little while, when we actually plan to use it.

You are even connecting our *second* source of iron in the save, while the floodplains by St Petersburg go unirrigated! Maximizing food production is MUCH more important than hooking up iron at this stage!

1350 (8) Minsk wants to be unhappy, even with the slider bar at 20%. Temporarily give them a clown until some workers can help them out.

Probably a good idea to use a clown instead of the slider here.

Moscow temporarily switched to a military unit so that we can be building workers on 5-6 pop rather than 3-4.

Good decision, but I have to question, how did Moscow get down that low in population in the first place? We had it going nicely 6-4 for a while there, which is exactly what it should do.

Spice addicts build a Spear. Set to Worker because I don't know what else to build up there. Please change if stupid decision.

No a worker is exactly what we want. It has a spear and a warrior in the save, it should just have a warrior and then have gone straight onto building workers. Smurf had the right idea to get it to build workers, he should have just build one defender first.

1300 (10) Code of Laws due in 4. For next person, please evaluate Clown situation in Minsk and Odessa. Last settler got edged out of spot by the Vikings

I hope you weren't planning to settle on the spot where the settler stands. It's farrrrr to near the Vikings and likely to infuriate them.

A good turn overall. Some mistakes which I have pointed out, but we are on track!

-Sirp.

 

[Sirp]

Originally posted by Shaesha
Well I hope I did ok with no comments from Sirp!

You did ok

A few mistakes, but ok.

1275BC(1) - I moved the settler one tile west. It was going to overlap the
Scandanavians.

Overlap them? It was going to be in their territory. That would have been an act of war!

You founded a little too near them. There's a good chance the city will flip, and there's a good chance it will make them angry at us.

Moscow spearman > Worker.

Good, we want lots of workers!

1225BC(3) - Keiv Barracks > Spearman. Tbilsi warrior > Granary.

Good work, let's get us some veteran spearmen.

1200BC(4) - Discover Code of Law. Reasearching Map Making.

You started *researching* Map Making? On Rubberjello's turn he said that two other civs have map making. You should trade it to them and research Philosophy so we can get Republic!

1175BC(5) - Trade Code of Law for Map Making, World Map, and Territory map from
China. England, Egypt, Scandanavia, Celts & Ottomans we're up Code of Law
plus map making on the Celts and Ottomans. noone has anything to offer us.
Switch research to philosophy.

Whew! Much better You did waste one turn research though.

1125BC(7) - ACK St. Petersburg is rioting! I didn't pay enough attention!

Tsk tsk...still only one riot this turn which isn't too bad.

Moscow worker > barracks.

Huh? We want Moscow to build lots of workers! Also, I noticed at the end of turn that Moscow is not working on the wheat. It looks like it's been doing this alot. We have to make sure that Moscow is ALWAYS producing a 5 food surplus. This is crucial!

1050BC(10) We've learned Philosophy. Started Researching Literature. We are 31
turns from republic. We can get Literature in 9. I am hoping that we might have
more money to set towards research in 9 turns.

The reason that Literature is so cheap is that several other civilizations have it!

We should research something else and trade it for Literature. I'm going to go straight for Republic on my turn.

Also some comments on worker jobs:

We have workers mining hills while there is floodplain unirrigated? We want to maximize food, and then production here. Mining hills has almost no value until we're out of despotism.

Also Tblisi and Sevastapol should both be building workers. They are surrounded by jungle and need to chop their ways out.

We're going along pretty well here guys, I know I'm pointing out lots of mistakes, but most of them are relatively minor.

Ok I got it now

-Sirp.

 

[Sirp]

(IT) 1050BC: I'll finish the barracks in Moscow I guess. Sevastapol and Tblisi switched to workers. Kiev is switched to a swordsman, we're going to have to go to an ancient age war here.

I make some money trading world maps.

Research -> Republic.

(1) 1025BC: ...

(2) 1000BC: Minsk spearman -> barracks. Moscow has reached size 5 and is optimized for food. Hopefully it will stay that way.

(3) 975BC: Moscow barracks -> settler.

(4) 950BC: The Vikings threaten us for 20 gold + territory map. We cave to them. Lux -> 30% as Moscow reaches size 6.

(5) 925BC: ...

(6) 900BC: The English have now got Construction. That's good, waste your time on a nice useless (for the moment) tech like that.

Moscow settler -> sword. When it gets to size six we'll get another worker out of it. lux -> 20%.

(7) 875BC: The Ottomans build the Oracle, and a whole heap of civs cascade to the Great Library. Two swords produced, two more ordered.

(8) 850BC: Luxuries back up as Moscow grows to size 6. The English are holding onto Construction and now have communications with the Greeks. We can't afford to buy contacts yet, but will look at doing so once we have Republic if it's still necessary.

(9) 825BC: Ouch. Unit costs are starting to bite us. They go away temporarily as we found Yakutsk, but not a good thing to have. Moscow sword -> worker.

(10) 800BC: Moscow worker -> worker.

Ok, the Ottomans have gotten their hands on Construction but do not have Philosophy or Map Making. I think it's time to make a trade. We're not going to get Republic in much less than the 40 turn course, so I take research down to 10%, and strike a deal with Osman: Construction for Map Making + Philosophy + World Map + 10 gold per turn (small ouch).

Then we trade Construction to Ragnar for Literature + 36 gold. Then sell Construction to China for 58 gold and Egypt for 31 gold. Literature goes back to Osman for 9 gold + 3 gold per turn.

So we got construction + literature + 103 gold with an outlay of 7 gpt. 7 gpt is worth less than 140 gold, so we got construction + literature for only 37 gold!

There is no big hurry to build libraries immediately, since we're going to go the 40 turn course, but we should think about them in our major cities at some point.

I'm normally a builder-type player, but in this game we're cramped, and so we're going to have to come at Ragnar, and soon. Swords will be best for now, since hores will only be slowed in the jungle. Ten swords should be enough to take Birka and Copenhagen.

We are going to hook up our spices shortly, which will increase our cash flow substantially.

Smurf is up now, good luck!

-Sirp.

The Game

 

[Rubberjello]

I concur. Normally with a Scientific Civ, now (or soon) would be the time to build cheap Libraries and get both culture and extra beakers. But the Vikings are NOT going to leave us alone. (They've extorted us twice already, right?) Hurt them lots with swordsmen now. Get control of the gem areas at least.

Good trading on your turn there!

About working the iron tiles...well I know you are only making a point so I am not trying to personalize the criticism...but I'm compelled to point out that both workers were already there working when I inherited the turn. I would agree with you about hooking up both as not a priority, but I personally think hooking up one is a fairly decent move, considering the temperment and location of our neighbors (and the fact that you are building swordsmen less than 20 turns later).

Sorry about the Odessa city placement. I actually played the turns before you posted your reply to my message, so I did not see your intentions there. (sic... I wasn't ignoring your advice)

 

[Matt_G]

A request;

Could the next player post a screenshot for us lurkers?

 

[Bam-Bam]

lurker's comment:

Originally posted by Sirp

I'm normally a builder-type player

Of course--that is why you crushed everyone with an unbelievable AW game in Epic 27.

Anyway--good looking game so far, folks!

 

[Sirp]

@Rubberjello: Yup, we need to go at the Vikings, and soon. We're almost at the stage where we could reject tribute demands, except perhaps for our cities in the jungle, but I have been moving spearmen into them. Three swordsmen will easily hold off any attack they try to launch at this stage.

I understand that it's hard to accept even constructive criticism that is misdirected No problem, let me know if I misaim my critques.

Matt: Yup we need a screenshot. I didn't post one because I've overrun my bandwidth limit for the month and my ISP has cut down my normally cable bandwidth to below-dialup for the rest of the month <sigh>. It'd be great if you posted a screenie, Smurf...oh and you are up now...are you out there?

We need to decide where to put our forbidden palace soon. We only just have a core, so it's going to be hard to select a spot. Where do people think it should go?

Oh and Rubberjello, I forgot to say that Stuck as a Mac's choice to research currency wasn't so bad that it should have been vetoed. Switching science mid-stream is expensive and wasteful. It's got to be a pretty bad decision to warrant doing it.

@Bam-Bam: Welllll I played the AW game as a builder-type game, as much as you can play Always War as a builder game. I turtled up in my territory, and built until I had overwhelming force before attacking my enemies. A more warmongering player may have attacked much earlier, as early as archers, intending to build less and inflict pain on the enemy more.

Still I can see how it doesn't exactly seem like a 'builder' game

-Sirp.

 

[Smurf]

ok... kill vikings.. check! will play within 2 hrs.

 

[Smurf]

IT: Veto a warrior in a jungle town with a spear for a worker. Gotta lose the jungle somehow. We have 3 swords and 9 warriors. I worry about culture, b/c Scandinavia has more then us. Targets include birka, copen(first priority) then trondheim. We seem to have many many many regulars. Warrior à sword is expensive, so I will upgrade only vet warriors.. of which we have nil. Moscow is interesting, because it has 11spt @ 6. Spices in 4, so I let worker go. Whats with Odessa? Non coastal ****esite with m4d overlap. Prolly already touched on, but I want to add my complaint to the pile ^_^
1) Celts demand.. construction. Hellz no! I’d pay gold or whatever, but not a valuable tech. They are far away, and peace will be made with minimal pain. They didn’t declare. I had you going there! The ai gov hates that stupid wheat. Placing the worker there gets us 9spt and growth in 1. I disband a useless scout. +1 gpt. Lizzy has contact /w Greece, wants 9gpt, treasury(160) and wmap. No thanks.However, I buy her wmap for 23 g and ours.
2)a nothing turn!
3)contact with greeks is now down to just treasury! I haggle down, and buy. We can sell Greece tech out the wazoo! I first sell constuction to brenny for 16g and tresurey at last, then sell wmaps for a few spare points. Osman has contact, so I use renegotiating peace to pull a few gp off the price. 110g net for contact.
4)Alex is predictably behind. I trade our wmap for his + 10g
5)Athens makes pyramids( WE SOOOO COULDA HAD THOSE GDIT!!)
6)England snags colossus and library. A viker archer pops up near our swords forted on a hill. I dare him to attack. We have 6 swords in that stack; when we hit 7 next turn, its time to roxxor. Reinforcements will be nessecary, but we have massive warrior supplies to upgrade if need be. I will declare in 3 turns due to a worker working beside border.
7)Major cascade takes lighthouse.
8)The worker is done; war is declared next turn
9)WAR! 7 swords will kill birka next turn. Eggies are up poly and currency, lizzy the same, as well as ottos. Republic in 20, letting next leader trade. Remember to reneg peace when we’re higher on the power scale to knock off a few golds.
10)grr ozzy demands tmap+25. I say no. He declares war. He must go thru china to kill us, and we’ll get peace soon enough.
ATTACK!
Sword one promotes a reg spear to vet, 2 hp remaining on the vet. Next dies, doing 1hp but promoting. Next one wins with 2hp left. Next also wins with 2hp, unforted archer remaining. NOT A SCRATCH AND WE HAVE BIRKA. We capture, b;/c I have a spear moving in next turn. I leave rest up to next man
Having upload probs. Next guy, whats ur email? I can attach it there.

 

[Smurf]

update: look in the uploads folder for EGT1 7xxBC. Not sure why its goin so slow, but i got the confirm now.

 

[Rubberjello]

Hahaha Vikings! Extort money from us Russians, will ya? Why don't you go pick on your usual patsies....the English!
Great turn, Smurf!

As to your F.P. question, Sirp: I would vote continuing the war on the Vikings and hurt them really, really badly, claiming land along the east cost of the continent, elongating our base and making a good F.P. site in say.....Trondheim! (Leader-fishing along the way) This, of course, depends on how well the war goes. But it will be a shame to only have a limited war, claim only jungle, and let our investment in swordsmen rot while we try to catch up on infrastructure.


I was kind of wondering whether we should get an embassy with Egypt and see what Cleo wants for an alliance with us against Ragnor? She's to the North of him and could really put the squeeze on.

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

this is a 24/48, right?
if so, Smurf, sir_saam@yahoo.com

I will not be able to play it tonight. Look for it around friday (with nothing to do, my life has suddenly decided to kill me for killing it)

 

[Sirp]

I haven't been able to look at the save yet, but Smurf's turn looks pretty good.

I wasn't planning to attack the Vikings *that* early, but if we have the troops to take it to them, why not eh?

Of course we didn't have any veteran warriors - we hooked up iron before we had any barracks. That's one of the reasons I was saying that hooking up iron so early isn't a good idea

We do want to continue prosecuting war against the Vikings, as long as we have swordsmen to fuel it. Five or six swordsmen will be enough to take most of their cities, however eight will be required for an almost certain win if we want to take Trondheim.

Building our forbidden palace in Trondheim is all very well if we get a great leader, but if we don't it will take too long; in that case we will just build it near our capital. Better an early forbidden palace than a perfectly placed one.

Good luck Saam!

-Sirp.

 

[Rubberjello]

Did someone say they wanted screenshots?

Mother Russia:

The center of action:

Histograph

All points North - - - Note the "bottleneck of death" the Celts have!

BTW. THe save game from Smurf is EG1T2 570 BC.SAV

The save (end of Smurf's turn)

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

SaaMs Turns Redux (No Settlers this time, I prommise!)
IT: War time v the vikings... okay. AND the Ottoman. V Otto we're fine, But Ragnar has come to die. A note: Cleo, Celts and Liz are Middle Ages. Hopefully.. We will be able to get there soon to grab a free tech and barter it before Otto and Greek do. Moved the units closer to destinations. End
T1: And here come the vikings w/ horsemen! To do: Cut off horses. Vet Sword v Fort. Archer. Sword Wins, 2 dammage. Troops arrive at Birka to heal.
Between: Vik War attacks Svestapol, wins w/ 2 dammage to it. Second warrior still stands. Archer attacks our sword, wins.
T2: Birka resistance over, Spear fortifed in city. Moscow builds sword. Kiev builds sword. 4/4 sword attacks 3/3 warrior. Wins, 2 dammage. I move some more swords into Birka to hold off for upcoming attack by vikings.
Between: Warrior attacks sword, looses. Sword goes elite. 2 warriors fall to elite promoted sword. 1st elite sword dies at hand of horse.
T3: Birkan Swords head N to advance on Copenhagen.
Between: I do a WM gambit on all the civs to rake in some cash. We make a quick 37g and we now see both islands in full.
T4: St. Pete's builds sword. Vet Sword v Reg Spear. Sword loose.
Between: I trade Cleo WM, 182g and 4gpt for Currency. I feel this is an important tech, for now. Meanwhile, we have NO infastructure. IMO, after this war, we go on a building spree and get some Libraries and Markets.
T5: Moscow builds sword. Swords ready for the Siege of Copenhagen.
Between: Archer v Vet Sword. Sword wins, promoted.
T6: Kiev builds sword. Vikings approach Spice. I pray it will hold out... Vet Sword v 1/3 spear. Sword wins, no promo.
Siege of Copenhagen and the Gems:
Sword v Reg Spear- Sword wins, 2 dammage, no promo.
Elite 2/5 sword v 1/3 horse. Wins, No GL, BUT it takes the city. 2 workers captured. And it has 3 connected Gems. To be connected! I send 2 swords to go pillage the horses.
Between: Spice addicts holds out to 3 attacks with the loss of a warrior. People spontaniously improve our palace. We need a place to sit, so I upgrade the floor and the facade of the palace.
T7: Spice and Tiblis build workers. Swords are positioned to cut the cord on the horses. I put a vet sword as guard of Copenhagen.
Between: AI moves AWAY from spice
T8: Odessa builds worker. Starts spear. *SNIP* I play Moil and get rid of the horses. Moscow builds sword. I trade Cleo WM, 3gpt and 118g for 'Poly. We are now middle aged.We drew Mono. Wo0t! None of them have it! Wait.. Liz does. Who else has it? Osaman, thats who. And he's willing to do Peace for Peace, which I accept. I pit a 4/5 elite sword v a 3/3 horse. It takes one damage, horse retreats.
Between: Crap. On my forgetful watch, Moscow riots. I kick up lux due to general unrest.
T9: St. Petes builds sword, Minsk builds sword.
Between: 3/3 horse slays sword. 3/3 archer redlines sword.
T10: Kiev builds sword. Dyes are online! Vikings will talk, but not yet. To the next player: Oslo and perhaps Hareid are ready to be sieged next turn. A note: If the Vikings get to Invention before we wipe them out/declare peace, it might be adviseable to do peace.
Well, there are my turns. I hope I got minimal s.

SaaM

The Save

 

[Rubberjello]

Great turns there, SaaM! Sounds like a lot going on there. I hope a don't blow it and pull another "Odessa"!

"Got it"...but may wait for Sirp to post comments. What is the exact protocol in Training Games in this situation?

 

[Sirp]

I'm waiting until I can see the save to comment on SaaM's turn -- I'm at work at the moment.

You may proceed Rubberjello, I'd actually prefer you to play 'naturally' rather than rely on comments from me.

-Sirp.

 

[Rubberjello]

Pre-turn - Take a look around and assess the situation. Republic in 9 turns at 5.1.4 settings, +7gpt, and 67 treasury. We have 14 Swordsmen with 4 more building. We are +11 over the Despotism unit limit, but some captured cities may help with that factor. Good thing we made peace with Ottos - I was worried some armies would show up and threaten our Dye city.
Celts are Polite and we are up Monotheism over them.
Ottomans are Annoyed and are up Monarchy on us (and are fairly rich)
Greeks are Annoyed and we are up Currency, Polytheism and Monotheism on them (and they are broke)
English are Annoyed and are up Monarcy on us (and are fairly poor)
Egytians are Annoyed and are up Monarcy, but no Monotheism. I look for a trade there, but she wants a whole lot more than Monotheism for it. I get the feeling we are gunning for Republic and could care less about Monarchy, so not a high priority, right?
Chinese are Cautious and we are up Currency and Polytheism on them, but they have no real money.
Vikings are Furious with us for some completely unfathomable reason!

We have 4 workers hiding in Spice city? SaaM must have just put them there because of some Viking warriors approaching. Will send them off from the war zone temporarily. There is a Viking Galley hanging off of Yakutsk...There are our Swordsmen around so I assume we still think there could be military units on it? I send a Spearman from the heartland to help out with defense of Spice City where 2 Viking warriors are approaching and only 1 Reg spear is defending.
IT - 3/3 Horseman attacks 3/4 Swordsmen in the North, red-lines, and retreats. Another 3/3 Horseman attacks in the north, takes Swordsmen to 2/4, and then retreats. 3/3 Archer attacks. Kills sword Another 3/3 Archer attacks and kills another 2/4 Swordsmen It seems Ragnor is not going to go quietly.

350 BC (1) Attack 3/3 Archer outside of Copenhagen with 4/4 Sword and win easily. Attack Hadian (sword vs spear) and win easily but the city auto-razes. We do gain a slave worker though. We capture Oslo with a 5/5 and 3/4 sword vs 2 3/3 spears.
3 wounded swordsmen huddle in the city to recover health against a very hostile background. Happines to 30%, hire a clown for Moscow.

IT 3/3 Archer attacks 4/4 Sword near Copenhagen and loses and sword promotes to Elite. 3/3 Archer attacks our 4/5 Elite at Oslo and loses(but takes him to two)

330 BC (2) Positioning. Sevastapol starts Library for upcoming cultural battle with China.

IT 3/3 Horseman attacks Oslo and kills our 3/4 swordsmen Oslo is now "besieged" and things look bad for our Northern expitionary force. Reinforcements are on the way but are fighting through the jungle. Celts build Lighthouse

310 BC (3) Positioning. A whole lot of jungle-clearing going on.

IT Too many battles to mention...Oslo holds with no losses against two horseman (1 dead, 1 redlined) We lose 1 Sword against 4 different Archer attacks, but the other sword goes Elite. Vikings are swarming! Where are they all coming from?
The Ottomans start the Hanging Gardens.

290 BC (4) Trade currency to China for 20 gold and WM. (They were not going to go any higher) Trade Currency also to Greece for same price. Trade WM around for a few extra gold. Nobody has learned anything new. Vikings still are not offering much more than a straight peace plan.

IT Nada. Viking hordes finally over?

270 BC (5) We really can't afford to keep this war up much longer. Our infrastructure is in pretty poor shape. Moscow switched to Settler to take over Hadian spot. Swordsman kills spear at Odense, but another defending there.

IT Archer attacks wounded swordsman, and loses. Warriors approach Copenhagen. Oslo appears to be out of danger.

250 BC (6) Scale back swordsman production over to Libraries. The war is going to have to be over soon, and the Republic is 3 turns away.

IT Archers approach Copenhagen where large stack of sWords are getting ready for the push on Trondheim.

230 BC (7) Galley drops off 2 Warriors near Odessa. Not too worried about it. Settler finished in Moscow->Library. Road complete from Copenhagen. Gems are available in all Russian cities! Kill two spearmen in Odense, but a third one appears! Both redline swords will have to retreat and heal. The rest of the world has learned Republic, we have 2 to go on it. Best deal was WM and 100 gold. Our Elite Sword kills an archer in a GL hope, but no luck.

IT Main Viking army of 4 archers and 1 horseman approach Copenhagen. The two Viking warriors near Odessa get killed attacking defending spear.

210 BC (8) More GL fishing when our stack of 10 Swordsmen in Copenhagen take on the above-mentioned Vikings. No losses.
Set up a lot of clowns in our big cities for our revolt next turn.

IT Vikings are trying to go around Copenhagen now.

190 BC (9) We learn Republic and go for Theology (Vetoable). We revolt! (Inter-turn) When turn starts we got lucky and only have 3 turns to go. I misjudged in Minsk and it went into riot mode. Sorry. Kill a few more Viking archers.

IT Nada.

170 BC (10) Approaching Trondheim with 8 Swordsmen. We should be able to take it, get Ragnor for everything he's got, and then be at peace when the dawn of our new republic happens. Ragnor is willing to give Monarchy to us now, and that is all that we are behind in the tech world right now. Kinda had bad luck trying to get a GL. I must have had 10 elite attacks and 6 elite defends. I know its a 16 to 1 shot on offense, but I was hoping to get better luck than that.


The Game (170BC)

Ragnor better start packing his bags!

 

[Sirp]

Originally posted by Stuck_As_a_Mac
A note: Cleo, Celts and Liz are Middle Ages. Hopefully.. We will be able to get there soon to grab a free tech and barter it before Otto and Greek do.

Good analysis here.

T1: And here come the vikings w/ horsemen! To do: Cut off horses.

At this stage in the game, it's *usually* just easier to go ahead and take the city - in this case their capital.

T2: Birka resistance over, Spear fortifed in city. Moscow builds sword. Kiev builds sword. 4/4 sword attacks 3/3 warrior. Wins, 2 dammage. I move some more swords into Birka to hold off for upcoming attack by vikings.

Good move in securing the city.

Between: I do a WM gambit on all the civs to rake in some cash. We make a quick 37g and we now see both islands in full.

Great move

Between: Archer v Vet Sword. Sword wins, promoted.
T6: Kiev builds sword. Vikings approach Spice. I pray it will hold out...

As of the end of turn, you have a road from Kiev to spice addicts, and three troops in Kiev. Kiev can easily afford to shed two of its garrison, including a veteran spear. On the second turn, they would arrive in spice addicts - easily enough time to get there from when you saw the attackers. Poor move not to move the garrison to defend it. That's exactly how you defend yourself against the AI: leverage your road network to move troops into position at the point of attack.

Siege of Copenhagen and the Gems:
Sword v Reg Spear- Sword wins, 2 dammage, no promo.
Elite 2/5 sword v 1/3 horse. Wins, No GL, BUT it takes the city. 2 workers captured. And it has 3 connected Gems. To be connected!

Great We take one of their core cities.

I send 2 swords to go pillage the horses.

Sending two swords out into harms way like this is not a good idea. Far better to just wait until we have eight or so swords and go and capture Trondheim. If you had a spear or two up there, then it would be fine to send them out, but it's not worth risking some of our attacking units like this.

Between: Spice addicts holds out to 3 attacks with the loss of a warrior.

If you had moved a veteran spear up there we probably wouldn't have lost any troops at all

T7: Spice and Tiblis build workers. Swords are positioned to cut the cord on the horses. I put a vet sword as guard of Copenhagen.

Hmm...leaving our offensive units as guards does limit our ability to attack. It would have been better to move Birka's spearman up to Copenhagen, and give Birka a new warrior or spearman to defend it from our core. Meanwhile you should be massing our substantial attack force for an assault on Trondheim.

I trade Cleo WM, 3gpt and 118g for 'Poly. We are now middle aged.We drew Mono. Wo0t! None of them have it! Wait.. Liz does. Who else has it? Osaman, thats who. And he's willing to do Peace for Peace, which I accept.

This was a rather expensive price to pay for Poly. We are not that far behind, you should have waited. Once we get Republic we'll be able to get caught up with little problem, and if we do have any problems, our free tech would have fixed that.

Both scientific civs drew Mono? Drat!

Between: Crap. On my forgetful watch, Moscow riots. I kick up lux due to general unrest.

Bad move on letting Moscow riot, obviously. At the end of your turn, lux was at (!!) 40%, when it needed only be at 30%

T10: Kiev builds sword. Dyes are online! Vikings will talk, but not yet. To the next player: Oslo and perhaps Hareid are ready to be sieged next turn.

Huh? You have just three swords outside of Oslo, and two of them are injured. You have two more swords one space away, but one of them is injured. That's a total of two uninjured swords to take a core city? Not good! Meanwhile, you have two swords outside of Hareid, which is a city on hills. If it only has one spearman in it, then sure we have 90% chance of taking it, but if it has two spears in it, which isn't unlikely, we only have 35% chance of taking it. Not the odds we want.

The way to attack in this game is to choose your primary target, mass enough troops to be almost certain of taking it, and sending them to attack. If you have more troops left over, you can choose secondary, tertiary, etc targets. Here you have our swordsmen scattered all over the place, and the ones in the north are vulnerable to counter-attacks by archers and horses.

You should have chosen a target - probably Trondheim, but cleaning up by going for Hareid would have been ok I suppose - and you could have a stack of about 9 swordsmen a couple of tiles away from it by now, ready for Rubberjello to take on his turn.

...

Workers: Almost all our workers are over improving Sevastapol, with a few hiding in spice addicts. Meanwhile, some core cities such as Minsk and Yakutsk are working unimproved tiles. Improving grassland near core cities is FAR more important than improving more distant jungle-ridden cities.

We built a fort next to Tblisi? Huh? What'd you do that for?

We need more workers over to the east to build roads to the Vikings to move our swordsmen along fast. You have a couple of Viking slaves and a couple of native workers doing the job and they will take forever to complete it! You also have some workers in spice addicts, which is...not a good idea, considering that is our most threatened city. What are they doing in there? You can move them south along the road safely and get them doing something productive in our core.

Also some of our citizen working locations are....suboptimal. Moscow is working an unimproved hill, which is dominated by the possibility of working on a grassland. That's slowing the growth of our capital! What's even more criminal is that with one more shield from one more citizen, Moscow could be up to 15 spt, and thus get a swordsman or horse every other turn!

A note: If the Vikings get to Invention before we wipe them out/declare peace, it might be adviseable to do peace.

We are not a bit scared of Beserkers Our knights (which we'd have by that stage), will easily outmaneuver them.

Well, there are my turns. I hope I got minimal s.

No really bad mistakes, but some mismanagement. The war certainly isn't going badly, but we could be doing a little better.

-Sirp.