GOTM 27 First Spoiler

[Jimmy Thunder]

There is some luck involved in surviving the early game with only warriors. Jesusin, Niklas and Bart_Civ all had a difficult time even though they were doing all the right things. (Jesusin with early axe spawn and Niklas with unfavourable combat RNG, and Bart_Civ with rambo? )

You need to make the most of every unit you have. In the beginning this can mean not using city garrisons at all but instead having a small fogbusting perimeter formed with units fortified on forested hills or on forests with possible river protection.

As you get more warriors you can slowly move your perimeter outwards. You should also have a way to pull second and third warriors together to defend in case a barb archer gets through.

I think at the beginning when you have very few warriors the focus is 50%-50% between fogbusting and holding defensible spots like forested hills. However, once you get more units you should be trying to fogbust 100% since you will be close to being able to remove the barb threat permanently.

Certainly in vanilla and warlords you can manoeuvre onto a square next to barb with +% defense and rely on them attacking you rather than moving past you to pillage. I think an exception may be if you have an undefended city they might ignore the unit right next to them and move towards the city instead.

Niklas: Cool that you got the CS sling ! I didn’t think you would be able to trade for alphabet and get some better barb defences that way

I think you will get your victory! in 1850AD?

 

[Erkon]

...
(1) How do you garrison your cities? A single warrior? Two warriors? What do you do if a pair (or triplet) of barb archers show up? What promotions do you use? Combat I -> Cover or ... ?

(2) Do you use the minimum number of warriors to bust the fog, or do you station additional warriors as "barb magnets" even if they're not needed to bust fog?

(3) Do you use rovers to prevent pillaging? If so, how? Do you just move a warrior into the woods next to a barb archer, or are you more aggressive? Do you use warriors in pairs to actively try to kill barb archers, or do you wait for them to attack you?

(4) Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

1. I use one warrior and then the rest for fog busting. Preferably on hills for the view. Or in the forest for the defense. Barb warriors are typically active between 2500 BC and 2000 BC, and they normally attack your sentry warriors. If there is lots of forest, I pick the Robin Hood promotion. Very rarely I pick combat since that is useless against barb archers. Barb archers normally don't appear before 2000 BC, and by that time you need Archery unless you have horses or bronze.

2. I use the minimum number. If I have more warriors, I expand the perimeter. One thing you need to consider is the location of improvements. If you have the choice, build them where they are not exposed. Or station a warrior on them.

3. If I need to sacrifice units, I try to avoid attacking an undamaged barb archer with warriors. Instead I sacrifice a warrior in the open, and then counter attack with a warrior next to it.

4. The trick is to setup the fog busters *before* they are needed. You want the 25% fortification bonus. And you want to pick the site yourself. And the earlier you know there's a barb that has breached your perimeter, the quicker you can move a back up unit to block the path.

5. Never, NEVER, build barracks unless you plan a long military campaign. Typical build order in your start city is worker-warrior-warrior-settler. Barracks comes much later.

 

[jesusin]

This game didn't really turn out the way I had planned. Have I ever said before that I hate barbies?
...
Did I make it? If yes, in what year? I'm taking bets.

I am sure you did.

Pity of the barbs, your game won't be exactly comparable. Anyway, the research pace your single city got is amazing. Aren't you worried about popping tons of GProphets since you built so many non-artist WW?

 

[jesusin]

Barbs: I am not expert at all, as the difficulties in my game show. In the pregame spoiler I talked against fogbusting. I am still against fogbusting, but in a situation like this one, with no strategic resources, I think it is the best way to handle barbs.

Maybe I should have built warriors to fogbust instead of that barracks, maybe researched archery, maybe IW before alphabet,...
I don't know. Is emperor level that much harder than monarch?
Forget about wonders and go for the basics??

Yes, it is, the most important factor for me being the disappareance of the happyness bonus.

Yes, I think you should, until you manage to win 50%-80% on the games. Then you can be fancy again and built one early WW per game, the one that best suits your strategy. I only built Parthenon this game and suffered barb problems. Nicklas paid a high price for his two WW. Most good players didn't build any WW this game.

 

[Niklas]

Aren't you worried about popping tons of GProphets since you built so many non-artist WW?

Yes. Or rather, in The Plan (tm), I wanted and counted on getting a few GP early on in the game, for popping a few religions and building a shrine or two. And later on I would run a separate GA farm that would outpace the capitol. After all, those two wonders only give +4 gppt. That was The Plan (tm) anyway, things didn't quite turn out that way...

 

[erikthecelt]

I decided to try a diplo game as I haven't done that in long time. At 500 AD I was 8 turns from finishing Education and had 8/9 cities going. I haven't played many Emporer games so I went AH, no horses, hunting and archery because the bears had been eating my warriors. Worse still, I would get sandwiched between a bear and a lion, beat the bear and lose to the lion. it felt more like raging barbs for me. After that it was beeline Alpha, CS and then Lit.

Anyway, I settled the stone city second, the pig/gems third, hill by the start position 4th, across the river 5th and the seaside iron 6th. I built the mids and the great library and had 1 GE which I'm saving to rush the UN.

A jewish block formed with everyone but HC and myself (I haven't been able to catch it despite trading freely with all of the block). HC is everyone's worst enemy as he's Hindu. I have not adopted any religion as I am trying to stay out of wars for a change.

I miscalculated the troops required to take out a barb city by the north river gold, I was one unit short and it fell to Monty. That was my only real error in the early game. Peter and I are swapping the lead between us and trading techs has been good. I an running close to 100% most of the time now, as I'm selling off techs to the rest of the AI.

 

[Htadus]

Going to Space or something else.

Settled next to the gold and went Worker, War, War, War Settler route. But when in need, indeed built more warriors just to stay alive. Ability to build roads and cottages came before chopping. Then it was off to CS sling. First settler found the stone city. A warrir was fortified there for approximately 6 turns and killed several warriors. So he had the anti archer promo. Then that city built a war, monument, war and the Mids. As more warriors were getting killed due to poor luck, more were built and in pairs they would draw archers to attack them on forrested hills. If one die the other finished the archer.

Too bad I stopped researching iron on my own a while back, otherwise the early game would have been easy. However, I may not have been able to pulloff the sling. Even had to build a warrior while building the Oracle to save the capitol from a stealthy barb. Chopping a forest both sped the first settler and the Oracle.

Barbes settled two cities during this time. Both on ideal locations, one in southeast with iron and 2 food sources and one to north on PH with gems in the fat cross. We ended up capturing both later with swords. cho-ku-nu's and cats. The thired city was a desaster. It was founded right after the sling in the northeast coast with two food sources and 1 FP east of the barb city. Unfortunately a single archer killed the fortified and promoted warrior w/o any problem . I too hate barbs.

Fortunately another settler and a warrior heading to another location got sent back to the same hill with a backup warrior and that city is about to complete the Colosus at the time I stopped the game at 680 AD.

In the meanwhile we built the HG and GLib in second and capitol cities and captured both barb towns. Founded another City next to some of our future Aztec cities. Monty is pleased since we gave in and brokeoff trading with England and gave tech tribute. (Yes I stopped saying up yours when I only have a lowly warrior militar) Unfortunately Peter is way ahead of techs and may be heading toward Liberalism and elizabeth is only a little behind. All others are not doing Emperor level AI proud. Us Chinese have manage to Tech at 100% all this time thanks to trading and getting Currency from Peter. He is the weakest at the moment. So may be a quick visit to his capitoal with a diverse and able army might work but I need him to keep the tech speed going. So who knows what I will do. Monty is history for sure. Even Vicky just dowed on him. Incas are so weak, we can take them down very easily but they can catch up on techs and become a great trading partner.

We still have not explored most of the world but there are 4 fortified warriors doing nothing. We do not have religion or founded the GP farm to the south but cap and second city is doing a good job. Got 1 GPro and about to get a GE. We will switch to pacifism as soon as possible. There must be an isolated civ out there and we are about to build a caravel to go looking for another trading partner. Hope it is Mansa. BTW did I say I hate Barbs if I do not have resources?

 

[Vynd]

I have some questions for the good players about dealing with barbs when you only have warriors. As I mentioned above, I went for early archery when there was no source of horses/copper nearby, which is what I've taken to doing in emperor-level games. But it's clear that good players can survive the "archer barbarian" era with only warriors. How do you do it? In particular:

I went for Archery in this game as well, but I've had success in other games relying on Warriors. In this game there was a lot of empty land out there in several directions and a high difficulty level, meaning lots of barbs. So it didn't seem like a safe play.

(1) How do you garrison your cities? A single warrior? Two warriors? What do you do if a pair (or triplet) of barb archers show up? What promotions do you use? Combat I -> Cover or ... ?

Generally I don't garrison the cities at all until they get the "we fear for our safety" unhappiness. I take terrain based defensive promotions if they're at all likely to be helpful. Otherwise it's Combat I and hope they get enough additional xp to take another promotion like Cover. Aggressive civs that start with Combat I Warriors are a lot better at the Warriors-only strategy, by the way.

(2) Do you use the minimum number of warriors to bust the fog, or do you station additional warriors as "barb magnets" even if they're not needed to bust fog?

I typically build enough to fogbust the surrounding area plus some reserves to move around toward wherever the biggest threats are. It's important to plan for the fact that you will take losses.

(3) Do you use rovers to prevent pillaging? If so, how? Do you just move a warrior into the woods next to a barb archer, or are you more aggressive? Do you use warriors in pairs to actively try to kill barb archers, or do you wait for them to attack you?

I generally try and get them to attack me first, but if I have two or three Warriors available and there's a valuable improvement at risk I'll attack.

(4) Any other suggestions?

Build roads that will allow you to move your troops to trouble spots faster than the barbs.

Recognize that if barb Axemen come after you up you'll be in serious trouble, meaning that you must prioritize one or more of: fogbusting well out from your territory in every direction; developing Iron Working (and find some in your borders); getting Copper through expansion or trade.

 

[Erkon]

No CS? Really? Going for Music before Bureaucracy looks like a waste.
When I read your first post I thought you were ahead. Nopw I am not so sure. You don't mention CoL or CS, but I am sure you had one of those already, didn't you?


You must be joking. Liberalism can easily be got in 200AD in such a cottageable land. Liberalism must be got before 500AD. The sooner you go 100% culture, the sooner you win.

Machinery???? What for??? Trade Education for Machinery when you have already got Liberalism. I only trade for it when I am at 0% research, in the hopes of trading up to Banking or PP.
...
Well, you stated that your strategy was to "more or less ignore" GA and concentrate on cottages and cathedrals.
...
Beakers? What beakers? Nationalism comes for free with Liberalism. Liberalism is worth the beakers because of FR.

Come on, keep the spirit high. We have chosen the best two possible strategies (9+ cities and 3 cottage cities with 4 religions versus 6+ cities and the GPFarm is bombed all the way to Legendary). This is not simply Erkon versus jesusin, we are the paladins of the best two possible cultural strategies.

Thanks for the comments. No CS. Since I had so many cities, I didn't consider Bureaucracy to contribute that much relatively speaking. CoL? For caste? No, I built a theater instead. Slavery is much too powerful.

Going for Liberalism that early prevents other techs such as... erm, Drama, Music, Metal Casting and Machinery. Hmm, now that you mention it, these are pretty useless. I wanted the forges for the +2 happiness, Drama for the theaters, Music for the ability to build culture in my religion free cities (and to expand to 40% quicker, Machinery for the Chukunuts. MC is also a good trade tech. Is it better to beeline to Lib? I'm not used to such narrow minded tech pursuit. Actually, I'm not used to Cultural Victories at all

I won't get that many Artist, but of course I want a couple. I will grabb Printing Press as Free Tech, since it gives an instant reward.

I wish I could represent the +9 cities paladin. I'm afraid the warmonger inside me took over i.e. building too many cities with production capability. My main problem will be how I will sustain 100% culture. I am thinking of running merchants, but I don't know if that will be enough. Which means I have to know how much gold I need to accumulate before switching to 100% culture.

The conflict I see is how to balance growth i.e. the non-legendary cities with the progress of the three Legendary cities.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I decided to try a diplo game as I haven't done that in long time. At 500 AD I was 8 turns from finishing Education and had 8/9 cities going.

Sounds like you got off to a good start, it will be fun to compare results.

Pyramids is a great boost, and you got your GE out of it too :good job:

My only advantage might have been that I had a group of swords/chokus that were giving Inca some smackdown giving me 11 cities at 500AD. But sometimes there is no need to go to war at all if you handle the diplo relations well...

I enjoyed balancing expansion, war, research and AI relations in this game.

 

[jesusin]

Yes. Or rather, in The Plan (tm), I wanted and counted on getting a few GP early on in the game, for popping a few religions and building a shrine or two. And later on I would run a separate GA farm that would outpace the capitol. After all, those two wonders only give +4 gppt. That was The Plan (tm) anyway, things didn't quite turn out that way...

Shrines??? And weren't you worried about popping even more GPro out of the shrines?

 

[Niklas]

No, I wasn't. The shrines would not be in the GA farm, of course, and the GPP from the shrines could never outpace GA farm. On the other hand a shrine would help me run 100% culture for much longer near the end of the game. I would definitely say that a shrine is worth it, and I'm surprised you seem to disagree. Too bad I won't get to prove it during this game. Next time, Gadget...

 

[jesusin]

No, I wasn't. The shrines would not be in the GA farm, of course, and the GPP from the shrines could never outpace GA farm. On the other hand a shrine would help me run 100% culture for much longer near the end of the game. I would definitely say that a shrine is worth it, and I'm surprised you seem to disagree. Too bad I won't get to prove it during this game. Next time, Gadget...

Hmmm. Let's try to prove it theoretically then.

Late Shrine: 10gpt during 50 turns =500g that can be transformed into (consider 3 religions and GPFarm is Legendary) 500*3,75= 1875 culture. Maybe you had a bank in the Shrine city, -> 3000culture.

Late GA: 4000 culture.



Early Shrine: 10gpt during 180 turns, better "first to Liberalism" probability, worse GA probability, bank, market etc are got at the end, not at the beggining, can be transformed into culture at a worst rate... 10*1.5*1.25= 3375 culture

Early GA: settled in the city that will later have the Hermitage, helps getting access to more resources sooner, 1 beaker?, cathedrals, FS and Hermit at the end, not at the beggining, 12cpt without Sistine's during 180 turns... 12*2,25*180= 4860 culture



I would definitely say that a shrine is not worth it when compared to a GA.
Any mistakes in the analysis?

 

[Niklas]

Any mistakes in the analysis?

Yes, two.

First, you forget to count the 4 cpt that the shrine itself gives.

A late shrine in a town with (say) three cathedrals and FS would give 4*3.5=14 cpt, over 50 turns that's another 700 culture.

An early shrine gives double culture after 1000 years, so would yield a lot more over time. A conservative estimate would be 80*4 + 100*8*2.5= 2240 culture.

Second, 10 towns with your shrine religion is IMO a low estimate. It might be true if you don't have a shrine, but closer to the end you will have lots of secondary towns that have nothing to build but missionaries. And if you have the shrine, each town counts. And I always strive to get my religion over to at least one of my allies early on, to make them help me spread the faith among their towns.


I would always strive for an early shrine, which would most likely be the Confucian shrine in my second town. In this game that was the plan, though it of course didn't work. I ended up founding the religion in my capitol, which was not where i wanted the shrine.

 

[jesusin]

Yes, two.

First, you forget to count the 4 cpt that the shrine itself gives.

A late shrine in a town with (say) three cathedrals and FS would give 4*3.5=14 cpt, over 50 turns that's another 700 culture.

An early shrine gives double culture after 1000 years, so would yield a lot more over time. A conservative estimate would be 80*4 + 100*8*2.5= 2240 culture.

Second, 10 towns with your shrine religion is IMO a low estimate. It might be true if you don't have a shrine, but closer to the end you will have lots of secondary towns that have nothing to build but missionaries. And if you have the shrine, each town counts. And I always strive to get my religion over to at least one of my allies early on, to make them help me spread the faith among their towns.


I would always strive for an early shrine, which would most likely be the Confucian shrine in my second town. In this game that was the plan, though it of course didn't work. I ended up founding the religion in my capitol, which was not where i wanted the shrine.

I see, thank you for the corrections.

I would argue two moot points:
-when there are only some 50 turns left a missionary doesn't pay off and you prefer building wealth in the auxiliary cities.
-10 cities with the religion is too high an estimate for the first turns.

I have learnt that the benefits of an early shrine are comparable (too many variables to say one has a definite advantage over the other) to the benefits of an early GA. I never thought it was possible, so thank you very much



Irrelevant note: Now, I am too much of a fanatic of GP generation pool purity to use this info. In my games, I make a deliverate effort (through starvation) to get a GA popped in every single city at the end of the game. I would hate to receive a GPro in such a situation. But hey, that's just me.

 

[Erkon]

...
Irrelevant note: Now, I am too much of a fanatic of GP generation pool purity to use this info. In my games, I make a deliverate effort (through starvation) to get a GA popped in every single city at the end of the game. I would hate to receive a GPro in such a situation. But hey, that's just me.

What? Can you pop more than 1 Great People on one turn? Doesn't the needed GPP increase with 150 between each city?

 

[jesusin]

What? Can you pop more than 1 Great People on one turn? Doesn't the needed GPP increase with 150 between each city?

That is not what I meant.
I meant to say that in the final 15 turns I try to get 5-6 GA popped, each in a different city (maybe the first and the last one are both from the main GPFarm). The ordering of the cities is crucial. The point I was making was that in my games there are no cities that never pop a GA.


Now that you mention it, I have had ocurrences of 2 GA popping in the same turn. It is quite easy:
Normal speed. You are working towards a 1600GPP GA. The following one will cost 1800GPP. Your capital and your GPFarm are at 1599GPP. Your capital is adding 30 GPP a turn, while your GPFarm is adding 250GPP a turn. You press enter, the capital pops the 1600GPP GA, the GPFarm pops the 1800 GPP GA.
It doesn't work if it is between your GPFarm and your latest founded city, though. In that case the GPFarm pops the 1600GPP GA with a lot of overflow and the late city is 1629/1800. If that is what is going to happen in your game, you should try to accelerate the latest city and/or delay the GPFarm so that the latest pops the 1600 GPP GA the turn that the GPFarm gets to 1599, so that you get the 2 GA in 2 consecutive turns. That's why ordering of GL births is so important.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Judging from my own game, enforcing purity of genes for the GPersons is indeed a sensible strategy, even for those not going for a cultural victory. I learned this the hard way.

My goal was a fast diplo (contender). At first I considered going for the CS sling. Started AH/Wri then reli techs. However, I must have failed to fogbust properly as I was swarmed by barbs very early on. My 1st settler was out T50 (work/war/war/set) but while going northbound an archer showed up, killed my warrior escort (settler was behind) and a barb city spawned there really quick. I had to settle to the E instead(cow/wheat?), a low food mediocre place.

My next mistake was to go SH in city 2 while building Oracle in capitol. My tech rate was too low to get CoL in a decent time, so I chickened and went BW/pottery for a MC sling. I got both wonders, and tried to get forges up ASAP, but I got 2 prophets in the BC, so no Machinery (chokos)bulbing nor Pyramids, Vicky built this very early. To make matters worse, a 3rd one was born later! Bottomline, I gambled and lost due to a polluted gene pool.

Anyways, by 500AD I had CS and Paper, and was going for Edu on the route for Lib. However I had only 6 cities, 2 southwise, 1 upstream and 1 taken from barbs in the N shore, I was beaten to the other by Monte as I lost 2 swords to archers there with 67% odds.

The world as we knew it was a Jew block, except for us (founded Christian but didn't dare to convert) and buddhist Capac. Best scenario plans were to attack him later and maybe gift him UN in the endgame if we were 1st in pop. Of course, after such a lousy start, maybe I was just wishing too much.

 

[Tosti11]

Contender save, fastest culture as my VC.

I settled on the PH where jesusin did, settled GP farm in same spot, but the third city went north to grab the pigs, gold and gems and land. fourth city west to get corn (wheat?) and stone, fifth city SW from barbs with gold, corn (wheat?) and fish. I think that might be all by 500 A.D. but sixth city could not have been far behind.

I went Wheel pottery AH, farming two flood plains, mined gold, then went for the cows. Kind of a waste to go for pottery, then farm instead, but I ended up building settlers pretty quickly. Earlier than i usually get them out at least. Beeline alpha (not much to trade, i think my list was identical to jesusins), then Preisthood. I was thinking CS sling, but COL was over 20 turns away, and Oracle was only 12 or 13 out. Chop chop, CoL slingshot for confusionsim followed by the parthenon built from trees. I teched well, ahead of AI most of the game to this point. Judyism spread early to the GP farm, so i had to build a monasary there before the NE, all the forests made that a non issue.

Annoying slow set back: 2 barb achers take my second city away from 2 warriors, with a third and fourth one turn out, boo. resettled quickly, but could have used the food and hammers differently. Barbs were handled with warriors on forest hills just outside my boarders, and were never much of an issue besides the one lost city. I suppose they did build me a city to the SW.

first GP was a prophet, with some artist probability, from the Oracle/parth. I waited a few turns to get monotheism and popped theology for christianity, so i had three religions, but spreading them was a pain. I was late switching to CS so my second GP was a 50/50 prophet/ artist and it hit prophet. another boo from me. I sent him up to the third city to become a shrine. He won't be wasted with gold and eventually 8 culture, and it wont muddy up a later GP. I think Monty became confusion, so there is at least one civ adding to my coffers without me having to lift a finger.

Copper popped in the hill W, or SW of Beijing, so I have all the resources needed to build my cathedrals quickly. That was a nice production boost.

I am in a similar boat to jesusin, just on paper (researching, not the figure of speech), no music, no philo, but i can trade with almost everyone (cautios, but trading so they are onesided). I have a few more resources, but nothing to write home about. no state religion until i can run pacifism. With all the religions, i am getting a nice buffer around my land.

Again i must apologize to jesusin and erkon, and the others who add to these discussions for i do not have the intermediate stats that add so much to the discussion. I am a stats guy, so this really does pain me. I just dont have enough time, but i learn more each month.

 

[Harbourboy]

The Good News: My First Ever Emperor Level Civil Service Slingshot!!!!!!

The Bad News: Barbarians!! I have been trapped in my capital ever since building that damn Oracle. I've killed 37 barbarian units for the loss of about 3 of mine, but they've pillaged my land and I can't do anything!! The CS Slingshot was all for nothing.

Now Montezuma has declared on me so the end is nigh. Stupid CS slingshot......