GR13 - AWE on LK's world map

[Salarakas]

So are you saying we have exactly 5 civs on this landmass in addition to us?

You start in Africa so you will have land contact with ALL civs except Australia and the ones starting in the Americas (USA, Aztecs, Brazil, Iroquois, Argentina and Venezuela). That leaves you with ten enemies starting in the same landmass as you.

However, as the African continent is connected to Eurasia (Europe+Asia) only by a very narrow piece of land you can block all but two (the Zulus and the Songhai) from entering the African continent by founding a city in that spot. This of course changes the minute the others discover map making and get some boats out.

Edit: It's also worth pointing out that as the European part is pretty crowded you will probably meet a whole lot of enemies early on but as they have very little room to freely expand to they will each be relatively weak on their own. Siberia is pretty much the only way for them to go to and it's nothing but tunda and forest there.

 

[Northern Pike]

Founding in place will put our capital at CxxC relative to the Suez canal city three tiles to the NE, so that sounds good.

Sorry to see you go, Beorn.

 

[M60A3TTS]

So are you saying we have exactly 5 civs on this landmass in addition to us?

IIRC, we should have the Songhai and Zulu with us in Africa. Songhai are SW and Zulu South. First contacts from the east I'm guessing would be Persia and Babylon. From a pure distance standpoint I think contact from the east will come first.

 

[Greebley]

Good Luck Beorn. Feel free to comment if you have any

I am going to start playing now. Shouldn't be too long.

 

[Greebley]

Ok, I played to 3150BC. I stopped there because I think we should consider placing our second city to the south and having that city build the workers and settlers. I stopped just before the settler built. Here is the picture.

I am passing the save on to the next player (ThERat) who can play 13 turns. I would like to keep it to 10 turns per player as I think we want the start to go well as this will be a tough game.

I like the Green dot better than the blue because it gets 3 wheat without expansion and is likely to have more plain squares.

Note that the choke still only allows 2 civs in at a time so even without a city it is still worthwhile. I don't think we need to rush for the canal city - number 3 is fine.

So my vote: 2nd City on Green dot. South city builds worker then settler. Capitol is Military all the way.

For the next tech I think I want BW. Archers don't do well vs Greeks UU. I would rather defend vs attacking Phalanx rather than try to attack them.

Iron is going to be an interesting problem I bet. The nearest hills are past the choke.



ThERat, wait a day to give player a chance to comment before playing.

Roster:
Greebley - Just Played
ThERat - Up
markh - On Deck
Northern Pike
vmxa
M60A3TTS

 

[ThERat]

how about founding 2 cities at those plains...leave blue dot but shift green dot N - NW
this way we can maintain the CxxC. I would go for green and then the choke city

 

[Greebley]

The spacing is much better, but then the town has lots of food but mostly desert for the rest. I would rather the early production - I think - even if the spacing is bad. We want to build some settlers, workers and then units. Harder to do with desert squares than with plains.

 

[Northern Pike]

I agree that we should go over to military production in the capital, since it's hard to see where else we can build units at a reasonable rate.

And since our second city is going to be our settler pump, I think it should go at the green dot, for explosive pre-expansion growth even without a granary. We may choose to pop-rush a couple of settlers.

 

[markh]

I would take the blue dot and move the green dot N,NW. Settle the green dot first and the blue one afterwards. This would be just my preference as all the cities are CxxC, on the river and easier to defend.
The other option of leaving the green dot there is well, too. It is a comfortable decision. Both ways are ok IMO.

 

[ThERat]

ok, so we're like 2:2. If we settle on the suggested spots, it MUST be green as we won't get any border expansion for ages...

we should decide which spot to settle for the choke as there are 2 choices. We also have to make up our mind as to what we are going to research. I agree we badly need BW after archers, but what do we do then? Someone should know where the resources are on this map.
Are we trying to get the GL?

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

lurker's comment: I think blue would be good as third or fourth city, going along with markh's idea of N-NW for green. The delay is for giving time to the palace to grow culture and make it possible for blue to have a mined plain and a mined desert. With 5 shields it should be able to make workers handily, whereas with 3 it will be dead in the water production-wise. It also makes green at CxxC with the capital.

 

[Greebley]

I think the GL is close to required. There are too many civs so the game will be MUCH more difficult if the AI can trade and pass us in tech.

After BW we could go look for where the horses are. They are powerful in our hands. I think I prefer making use of our UU even if it means an early GA. That early GA can be used for hurting the African civs and may make conquering Africa faster which in turn is worth it even if we lose the later GA. Another option would be getting walls (masonry) if we don't have it. I forget what we started with.

The resources are randomly placed I believe.

 

[vmxa]

Well in std game the Egyptians start with Mason and CB. They are Religious, my least fav trait, and industrious ( I like that one).

We may need to kick off a GA to get the GLB, but not till we have Lit. I hope we can wait that long. Usually I would expect to not need a GA to survive the ealry game below AWDG, but with the shield poor start and 18 civs, all near ones with early UU, we may not have that option.

 

[Northern Pike]

we should decide which spot to settle for the choke as there are 2 choices.

A difficult call, but there are two arguments for the site 3 NE of the capital (river, no adjacent hills to protect enemy units) and one for the site NE-NE-E (more shields), so probably the former.

I agree that we need the GLib.

 

[vmxa]

A difficult call, but there are two arguments for the site 3 NE of the capital (river, no adjacent hills to protect enemy units) and one for the site NE-NE-E (more shields), so probably the former.

I agree that we need the GLib.

A third one exist compared to some of the suggested choices and that is it is still CxxC.

 

[Greebley]

I think I prefer 3 NE for shields. I don't think we will be able to keep lands from being pillaged. Additionally, we are only attacked by 2 civs there. 2NE-E means another enemy can attack - they will attack the town since it is their only target.

 

[M60A3TTS]

It sucks that this website is now blocked at work. A couple things about settling east. First, I'm sure everyone noticed the border of a civ east of the cow, probably Babylon. So early contact from that direction very possible. Next, Thebes is on the west side of the Nile, so it will take two turns to reinforce a town there from the capital with foot troops until engineering. I like green dot to the south, and again don't expect we're going to see the Zulu or Songhai for a while. GL- agree, a necessity here. Chariots I wouldn't rush to commit to just yet as I'm not sure an early GA would be a big benefit.

 

[ThERat]

ok, can I summarize what we discussed and decided:

City placements:
next city: green spot -> worker and settler factory
choke city: 3 tiles NE as we can defend that easier with enemies on flat terrain

Research:
WC - BW - wheel?
or do we go alphabet, writing, maths literature?

Maths would be sure nice to defend the choke in the northeast with catapults
Knowing the horse location would be nice too...

Build order
settler (done in the IT), warrior for MP duty and minimum defense, rax -> archers/spears?

 

[ThERat]

By the way, Greebley, you said we should play 10 turns now. May I suggest that we play roughly 10 turns initially as I prefer to play until a decision has to be made.
Let's say I can foresee that 11 turns would come to a point where a decision has to be made, I rather play 11 turns and this early nothing much will happen.

 

[ThERat]

save

I played 13 turns as this is a good point to hand over.
I founded Memphis that went for high growth and a settler
it will grow to 4 in 2 turns and the settler can be whipped for 1 pop
I would go for a worker after that as we need more of them

Our capital finishes the rax in 6 and should then go for archers as we get WC next turn

where do we settle next? I suggest to shut off the choke and then settle towards the incense I spotted in the south (there are some hills south of the incense too)
The choke city should go walls -> rax and then churn our military as well

some suggested spots, be we should discuss this