FM01 Team Barbarian OCC (Prince)

[rddc05]

The highlights:

Built Monastery, whipped Theatre, started GT. Improved remaining tiles, starter road to southern Barb City. We researched Alpha, Drama and IW, Iron is underneath our oldest Village. We are tech leaders.

Delhi fell to Monty, but there is another Barb city just north of there.

Screenies attached.

 

[friskymike]

Iron is underneath our oldest Village. We are tech leaders.

Delhi fell to Monty, but there is another Barb city just north of there.

Cool, cool, **** and cool, repsectively . Iron will give us a nice production bonus and we need it for maces etc. so I think we have to mine it.

Sucks about Delhi, that was a great barb city. Monty looks like he could be a problem but we'll need to knock out Peter on the way to him.
(posting from mz hostel off to bed now... good luck JH)

Btw, do we have any observations about how the barbs behave, what they produce in their cities etc, we should be obxerving and commencting on this. ps iäm not drunk just funnz kezboard for touch tzping see?

 

[rddc05]

My main observation about barbs is that they don't know how to improve their tiles and grow their cities very efficiently. To be more blunt, they suck at it. Perhaps this is coded into their AI to keep them down. If we could get one worker to each barb city, they would do MUCH better.

 

[friskymike]

JHs previous observations were that they build infrastructure when left alone, and when an enemy is near military units which they send out one at a time. We should try and work out the exact rules for this behaviour by observation.

Now we have the tech lead and the globe on the way, we should target a few techs that will aid the barbs inbetween stuff we need (iron working then metal casting primarily). e.g. feudalism for longbows, then later gunpowder, such that any barb cities that pop up will have better defence.

JH you got it? (I swapped with rddc05 in case you missed it so you're up)

edit: just seen the patch is out, I'm planning on patching when I get home. Before we decide to run the game on v1.61 is anyone *not* planning on patching ASAP?

 

[rddc05]

I've patched already (but after my turnset).

When you say that they build infrastructure, do you mean buildings like granary/forge etc. or tile improvements?

 

[JerichoHill]

I am patched, and Ill see what I can do for our barbarian friends.

Barbs pull their workers into their cities and build military units when unfriendlies are nearby. Near as in, they can see their units or their culture on their active map.

If left alone, the do a good job of building

 

[JerichoHill]

Okay.

We're a bit wonder happy with the globe theatre. In the meantime, our barbarian allies lost their city next to Delhi.

I'm heretofor going to say that we need to focus on preventing any further AI incursion into our barbarian terrority. The barb outpost near Egypt is probably a lost cause.

However, we have 3 spawned cities around us. One city and our city form a line. I switched out of globe theater and built a lighthouse to improve growth, then produced a few axes, which are just now getting to the barb city closest to Peter. We have two workers there helping improve their city. I sent the missionary to this city as well so that its cultural borders can expand.

2 other workers are two our south helping develop the barb cities there.
Once we got the ability to produce horse archers, the barbs are producing them. They got our tech, yay.

Support the barbs! I think we could use an axemen or sword more to our barbs near Peter.

 

[rddc05]

See, here is what I mean about the barbs tile improvements: In their Egyptian city (Memphis?) they are losing one food per turn from poor health, but they have two workers farming two different floodplains instead of hooking up the wheat. Gah!

Anyhow, who is up next? Publius? And are we switching to fewer turns per set?

 

[JerichoHill]

Yeah, that's bogus, but that's the AI.

 

[Pvblivs]

Hi,

most likely I can play on Thursday. So you may swap me if you like.

 

[friskymike]

most likely I can play on Thursday. So you may swap me if you like.

Well, rddc05 just played due to swapping with me, but if he can play before you thats cool to keep the game moving. So...

Roster:
Friskymike
JerichoHill - just played
Pvblivs - swap with rddc05 so on deck!
rddc05 - up now
open slot - still happy to take a lurker on if any want to join!

As for the number of turns, are people still happy with 20? I think given we only have one city its a pretty good amount, provided we have plenty of strategy discussion in between turns so that we are all on the same page. At any stage if people think its too much just sing out.

 

[rddc05]

K, I'll see if I can play tonight.

 

[friskymike]

We're a bit wonder happy with the globe theatre.

True, but we still need it before we can really grow London to a large city. I think with the patch representation is only worth +2 happies rather than +3 happies so that makes it even harder for us to control the WW and makes Globe a higher priority again.

However, we have 3 spawned cities around us. One city and our city form a line. I switched out of globe theater and built a lighthouse to improve growth, then produced a few axes, which are just now getting to the barb city closest to Peter. We have two workers there helping improve their city. I sent the missionary to this city as well so that its cultural borders can expand.

Awesome stuff! This is when the game gets fun, now we have some barbs to support. Of course it will be even funner when we no longer have to worry about WW, so its up to rddc05 to balance supporting the barbs with putting some hammers towards Globe...

Once we got the ability to produce horse archers, the barbs are producing them. They got our tech, yay.

This will be even better when we get military tradition In the short term though it will be useful if we can get a bit of a tech lead so the barbs will have longbows, maces, knights, etc. against ancient age units.

 

[rddc05]

Sorry I didn't get to it last night. Should be able to do it tonight and then I'm out of town til Saturday.

 

[JerichoHill]

YES, a military tech lead is key here. I think that if we keep the barbs cities safe (and developed~!) that they'll be a military force to be reckoned with. We're almost at that stage too.

Peter is going to be our first victim. I recommend as a plan of attack to have catty's escorted by axemen. Use catty's to attack , and the collateral will weaken him enough for our barb friends to attack and take.

Then we just move our stacks onwards...and move the workers to the next city...rinse and repeat all the way down the continent in a slow tide of death!

 

[rddc05]

Couple of questions:

How soon are we looking at going after Peter? Right after Globe Theater is done and we can crank the Cats?

About JH's proposed strategy, is there some concern that using suicide cats will give the best defender a promotion before the barbs get to it? Will be interesting to see how this works out.

Still 20 turns per set? Or just 10 now?

 

[friskymike]

Good questions! Just checked the save quickly...
We are at the happiness limit, Globe is due in 16 (think we could MM for quicker Globe but slower growth) so I think its probably worth letting it grow into unhappiness until then. We have two axes over near Cuman which is enough to defend it from Peter, and it also has horses hooked up. JerichoHill has done an excellent job!

I noticed that Cuman is producing a worker, does this mean that Peter is too far from them to be a threat, otherwise they would be producing military? We may have to wait for them to get a border expansion before they start sending military units (one at a time ) towards Peter.

When Globe finishes we should run some scientist specialists to boost our great person production for adding to London, national epic will also help this when lit completes but again needs to balanced with military builds. (if we can generate some Great Merchants later too it would be awesome as they get +1 food) But yes, we should definitely start going after Peter before he grows any bigger. We may need to raze some of his further cities and hope the barbs take the closer one, use some HAs for pillaging resources too.

Great point about the suicide cats, I hadn't considered that. I think we can work around the possibility of giving the AI free promotions. If we suicide one less cats than they have units, then follow up with attacking units we might destroy the units that would otherwise be promoted. Maybe.

20 turns with once city is good as mentioned previously, feel free to play less at need but in multiples of 5 preferably.

Btw Berlin was fantastic, so much history, culture and just vibrancy to the place, could easily have stayed a couple of weeks without getting bored! One of my favourite European cities. (replied to your PM Pvblivs )

 

[rddc05]

Hi folks,

Well, we got the Theatre built, whipped it with about 4 turns left in my set (extra unhappy from WW had lengthened the time to build). I didn't hire specialists right away as I wanted to get the population back up a bit and London is growing rapidly. Maybe my only mistake in retrospect was not starting on National Epic right away (built 2/3 of a Horse Archer that will finish in two turns), but the HA will come in handy pillaging Petey.

We got a Great Prophet which I added as a super-priest for 5 coin, 2 hammers (and 3 beakers with Rep). I figured it was more coin than the shrine for the forseeable future, plus the hammers came in handy in building GT. I thought about saving him for discovering Theology, but figured the long term benefits of the super priest were much better. We can upgrade units with that coin.

Discovered Math, Monotheism and Literature. Construction started, but no hammers in it as yet. Revolted to Org. Religion.

Sacrificed an axeman on a City Defense 3 Archer so that a barb sword could take Yaroslav, but the dummy razed it! Hooked up resources and started building a road from the western barb city to the southeastern pair. Memphis is still going strong. It seemed like they spent most of my turns building workers and units. I guess they just don't like infrastructure.

That's about it. I'm gone til Saturday, so I'm on skip until then. Good luck guys.

Glad you had a good time in Berlin, FM, I'm envious!

 

[Pvblivs]

I believe Florida is much nicer (warmer) this time around than Berlin. Later when those nasty Hurricanes are approaching your white beaches, Berlin might be a much more pleasant stay

So dont envy him, he should have come in June or September!

 

[friskymike]

I know! Had some friends who just came back from the 'Winter' Music Conference in Miami, said it was lovely and warm. Bastards. As for Berlin I can see with all the cafes/beer gardens/parks it has the potential to be awesome in full summer, it was pretty miserable on the weekend apart from Saturday. Flights were cheap though

Anyway... without looking at the save I think you made some good choices rddc. The HA will definitely be useful for pillaging, although National Epic is essential in an OCC we don't want to build it at the cost of Peter getting too powerful or our anarchist friends losing any more cities. The Great Prophet will add a lot of value over the game as a super specialist, and we definitely need to grow London a lot with Globe now so specialists can wait a little bit.

I haven't seen Barbs raze cities before, unless it was a size one city. Do you have any before/after screenshots? We should try and remember to take a few, they add a lot to a thread.