GR13 - AWE on LK's world map

[M60A3TTS]

Absolutely wait. We're religious so we won't have to deal with extended anarchy.

My bad on the choke, I used it to lure in the Babs which actually generated MGL #2.

I'm afraid the iron town of Ashur will fall sooner or later, for sure once knights show up. But the Zulu town of Mpondo can provide us with another source.

I would not recommend going any further south than Mpondo. We're extending our western flank too far. I'd shift the armies west/southwest. Until they connect up an iron source, the Songhai towns are easy prey with spears and archers.

Ultimately, Alexandria has to be turned into a fortress. It's a safe bet we're going to get a growing wave of units there. With enough cats to clip them, we should be ok, until knights appear in quantity.

 

[ThERat]

good work, Greebley.

Wait for monarchy to trigger our GA. It will provide the chance for us to get some infra up. We surely need libraries and such.

As for expansion, Obormot has taught me how to expand like mad and have very thin defense. We should try and go after Zulu as their land is more promising I guess.

As I cannot load the game. could someone post a nice screenie of the situation?

As for techs I would go poly, monarchy, curreny, const, then the rest...

and I guess markh or NP are up, I am skipped

 

[markh]

Yes, I am up then. I do not know whether I will manage today, but tomorrow I can play for sure.

 

[vmxa]

You sure that Currency should go ahead of Construction? The places that do not have rivers need an aqua and I am not to sure that we can put up many markets rights away.

 

[Greebley]

This screenie scared me, until I realized it was 1000BC. Yes GLB is worth a shot at this level with this many civs, but you have to have a credible chance or you waste shields that you could use to make troops.

Gah! Thats what I get for not double checking that the picture uploaded correctly. Apologies.

Edit: Ok, now I have it pointing to the right picture and nothing is showing up. I am going to attach it below.

 

[vmxa]

Hum some decent land is in the offing. Too bad it so far from home.

 

[vmxa]

As for techs I would go poly, monarchy, curreny, const, then the rest...

What about squeezing in HBR before either currency or construction? It would be nice to be able to finish off some of those redline units and get back inside a town.

I also wonder if we should not swap currency and construction, but I am not fanatical about it.

I get the prior owner of those horses did not get them hooked up as none have been seen afaik.

 

[Greebley]

I don't think HBR gives us anything because our UU is already 212

I would go for that last.

I am not as worried about the length of our front as I think we can kill off the south and close off to the west giving us a shorter front in the end. The best thing to me seems to be to use the armies to hurt the zulu and Songhai enough and then we don't care how long the front is.

Owning all africa ASAP I think is the best goal. Then we only need worry about coastal landings and we have lots of cities for support and production. I do not want Songhai or Zulu to become established.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

I don't think HBR gives us anything because our UU is already 212

Yes but it saves your GA for when you have all that continent claimed or when you have a crowned king. EDIT: I am now realizing that this would be good only if HBR could be sneaked -fast-, before monarchy, so probably disregard that comment.

GJ pressing on, btw. I told you you were better of with M60

 

[Greebley]

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

 

[vmxa]

That is sort of what I was thinking. We can put off the GA and use those horses with no fear. I also agree it would be best if we want to do that to do the HBR next and wait on Monarchy.

 

[markh]

1) 260AD : we kill 2 bab spears and a sword (3-0)
1 songhai archer (4-0)

IBT : Hammi asks for an audience, sorry no time for that
a bab mace leaves Akkad
We can build a second palace

Alexandria : settler -> sword

Hammi starts Sun Tzu

2) 270AD : kill a songhai spear, 2 archers (7-0)
kill 2 impis and raze Mpondo (9-0)

IBT : 2 impis are dropped off at undefended Heliopolis

Memphis : spear -> spear
Giza : catapult -> catapult

3) 280AD : kill 2 songhai archers, 1 spear and raze Sokoto, some more horses are in that area (12-0)
1 zulu sword (13-0)
1 bab sword (14-0)

IBT : Thebes : sword -> sword
Elephantine : spear -> spear
Pi Ramesses : sword -> sword

4) 290AD : kill 1 songhai spear (15-0)
kill a bab sword and get a leader (16-0)
kill an impi (17-0)

IBT : a redlined mace suicides on an exposed esword (18-0)

Byblos : catapult -> catapult

5) 300AD : kill 1 songhai archer, 1 spear and raze Agadez (20-0)
1 bab sword (21-0)
2 zulu swords (23-0)

IBT : nothing

6) 310AD : kill 1 songhai spear, 2 archers (26-0)
1 bowman, 1 mace (28-0)
1 zulu sword (29-0)
2 Greek archers (31-0)
lose an esword on a Greek archer, damn (31-1)

IBT : Zulu request an audience, I decline
a wounded bab mace suicides on a fortified spear (32-1)

Polytheism -> monarchy

Thebes : sword -> sword
Elephantine : spear -> sword
Alexandria : sword
Giza : catapult -> catapult
Avaris : catapult -> catapult

7) 320AD : kill 1 songhai archer (33-1)
2 bab maces (35-1)

IBT : Pi Ramesses : sword -> worker
El-Armana : catapult -> barracks

8) 330AD : found Edfu -> walls
lose sword on a bowman (35-2)
kill 1 bowman, 1 mace (37-2)
1 songhai archers (38-2)
1 impi, 1 sword (40-2)

IBT : Memphis : spear -> rax

9) 340AD : found Pithom -> walls and we have a fourth army, but not enough units to fill it yet
kill a Greek archer (41-2)
1 bab mace (42-2)
4 songhai archers (46-2)
2 zulu swords (48-2)

IBT : kill a Greek archer on defense (49-2)

Thebes : sword -> settler
Byblos : catapult -> catapult
Pi Ramesses : worker -> sword
El-Armana : settler -> catapult

10) 350AD : found Busiris -> walls
kill 2 zulu swords (51-2)
2 songhai archers, 1 spear (54-2)
1 bowman (55-2)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/47099/GR13-350AD.zip

 

[M60A3TTS]

A couple things. There is a Persian worker in plain sight in the south. Are we not obligated to declare? Also if we go southwest against the Songhai, there is a gem town that could provide a needed lux. IIRC there are a lot of jungle tiles in Zululand and it would be nice to let their workers improve the land before we move in.

I agree HBR buys us very little. If the horses had been found early on, there might have been a case for it. After monarchy, I'd put currency and lit before construction.

 

[vmxa]

What about the FP with a leader? May get us some help out on the fringes, especially if one comes up before we can get the extra towns planted.

Ok, can someone explain to me why currency is so important at this point? Markets are not going to come in quickly and with 1 lux and low taxes are barely going to pay for themselves or am I missing something?

As to HBR, I am fine either way, but consider it will be 23 turns before we get Monarchy. We surely do not want a GA before then, so no fast movers, until after the revolt. HBR gets us some to use as we please as the armies cannot be everywhere. Just a thought.

 

[Greebley]

Sounds like another good turn. We have 4 armies now? Did I read that correctly? I would like to send it west into Songhai if the choke is holding ok. That will keep them from getting strong enough to be a problem.

I would like to start the GA as soon as we can and still be in Monarchy. The reason is it will help us most now by more quickly allowing us to grab all of Africa. If we do that sooner we could gain more than by having a later GA as our entire civ will be much larger.

For the same reason I would like to build armies as much as we can and build the FP only if we are at army limit and it will be a while before we have enough towns.

Once we have only one front and lots of land to work we will be golden. I think we can do this by being agressive. This is how we started winning AW games on the higher difficulties - push back the AI in the early game.

And this game has the perfect one choke front making this strategy stronger. Boats will still require coastal defense, but often they all come in at one or two spots we can lure them to.

Note that once we have control of the AI, I would keep cities. Building less settlers will help us. So we raze when keeping a city would slow us down. When that isn't the case and the city placement is ok, then keep.

We will need markets, but that can wait until after Monarchy. Since I want the earliest GA possible, the HBR solution is not one I would choose. I think markh made the correct call by going for Monarchy next. We start producing more units in Monarchy which means more risk of hurting our science with too many units (als unit support goes down) - to counteract that, we should buld markets - I usually have 1-3 cities building markets at a given time after getting currency (rather than building them all at once or waiting).

NP, you are up.

 

[vmxa]

Greebly I do not disagree with what you are saying, except the part about holding cities. We have no culture and they will. Until we get a given civ down to the last couple of towns, flips are going to occur.

Even the lost of 1 unit from a flip will be painful right now. Since most we be right on the front they will be under pressure. With all the flood plains and being out of despotism we should be ale to make replacement settlers.

Ok, I also am not very strong on the markets either. They seem like they will just be a drain for some time as we do not have engineers to speed them up and will pay off how? I would think aquas would be better and currency could wait.

Can you explain to me why markets are good right now? Worth giving up the units for. I could see the scales tipping if we have 4 luxs or they were on the horizon, but we have 1 last I knew. Are probably running 80 or 90% in lux and research and at time 100%, so little taxes to get the 50%.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Ok, can someone explain to me why currency is so important at this point?

I don't think it is vital, or anything like that, but an aqueduct isn't a clear winner over a market because with one luxury, our towns that need an aqueduct pretty much top out at pop 6 with a specialist anyways. Our lack of luxes is one reason I suggested we push on the Songhai and get their gem town.

 

[Northern Pike]

I've got it.

 

[Greebley]

I am not so sure on the Culture. We built our temples pretty early this game being religious and the Zulu have been at war with us a long time and are more likely to put off building their own temples. So far the cities have not had an expansion. I would have to load the game, but I am guessing that we are not doing badly in the Culture department vs them.

I do think a flip chance that is low can be worth a risk (or you can simply not put a unit in). Small towns don't seem a problem to me. Saving a settler is much bigger than a flip that loses a unit. Settler = 30 shields and 2 pop. Spear is 20 shields. Additionally the settler we know we have to make while we may only have a small chance of a flip that would lose it.

The only benefit of razing is you don't have to build the city right away but can leave empty land. This has the drawbacks of costing us 2 or 4 gold per turn for lack of unit support not to mention the loss of the gold the city produces (we are still close enough that production may not be 1) plus you lose all the shields the town can make - or a scientist if the town is totally corrupt.

It does depend on how long we think until we kill the Zulu, though starving to size 1 also works.

All in all I am a big believer in keeping cities. I know others have other opinions. Above is why I would keep cities in this game. In part because I keep cities, I know better on how to do it so a flip doesn't cost. I mean if the Zulu don't have horses, they cannot take a city in a single turn, so there is no reason the defender actually has to be in the city. It can be next to the city and only risk a flip if the attacks can't be killed off and we need to defend the city. The cost can be as low as the bother of going back and taking the city again (not hard with an army).

------------------------
On tech.
Actually we need code of laws too, don't we. I think it is close between CoL, construction, and currency. I don't feel currency is the clear winner. I just feel we will need markets more once we are a Monarchy than we do now.

I do think that our first priority is clearing the continent so in the very near future all those techs keep us from building more units so none is really useful and it doesn't really matter.

Note also I think razing cities makes aquaducts even lower priority because cities can make settlers rather than an expensive aquaduct and then slow growth past size 6.

 

[markh]

@M60 : Did not notice that Persian worker. I think then we have to declare war according to the rules

@Greebley : Yes we have a fourth army, although it is filled with 2 units at the moment. It is in Alexandria which will complete a sword next IBT, so it will be a 3 man army then.

The choke can be held quite easily as long as the cats hit, but a few more swords cannot hurt as the Greeks send more units, too. The babs were well under control during my set.

Markets are still some way to go. By that time it may be useful to build some. The Songhai have some gems which will be ours soon.

We need 4 more cities to build another army, so the next leader could rush the FP if he appears soon. IIRC two settler are on the way south.