GR2 - Sherman's War (C3C AW).

[Greebley]

Roster:
Greebley (JUST PLAYED)
Handy900 (UP)
BarbSlinger (ON DECK)
TMcC

Map: standard, continents, 70% water
Condition: wet, temperate, 4 billion years
Civ: Mayans
Difficulty: Monarch
Opponents: 7 random
Barbarians: sedentary
Rules: all victory conditions enabled (including wonder), AI respawn is off.

The game is an Always War game. We are playing the more "tactless" variant. No trades are allowed, but you are not obligated to tell them they are at war unless they contact you, in which case just declare war (diplomats slaughtered). Players are also encouraged to attack units of other civs when they appear. Dialing them up to declare war is allowed.

You have 24 hours for an "I got it" and 48 total to play. If you need a days extension, then mention this before the 48 hours are up and it is yours. If you can't play within 72 total, I would prefer players switch places, or you can ask for a skip (you can also play fewer turns, if you can't finish them).

Discuss any move that seems exploitive before doing it with the team. I would like to play an "exploit free" game.

Variant:
One of the purposes of this game is to see how strong the new army pillaging abilities are.
1) The first great leader must become an army and sent out to pillage. If at any point we don't have a pillaging army in the field, the next great leader must also become a pillaging army.
2) If at least one army is pillaging, then the player may choose to use a Great Leader to rush a build at his own discretion. It is however preferred that the player make another army whenever he can. If it is turned into an army then it should be sent out to pillage.
3) An army's primary purpose is pillaging. They may attack enemy units if the odds are greatly in their favor. They shouldn't be spending most of their time on the side-lines healing.
4) They can be used on defense on a temporary basis if an emergency arises. Use your own discretion on this.
5) Having extra units travelling with the army is allowed (and encouraged, if they don't slow down the army and we can spare them). The idea is to break the backs of the AI civ by demolishing his improvements. Anything to further this is good.
6) Non-army units may also pillage if we want.
7) When taking towns you may either choose to raze it, or to sell all the improvements on the turn it is captured, and starve it to size 1 before letting it grow again.
8) As an alternative, you ARE allowed to initially keep a city; move a settler to the same spot as the city, and then abandon and immediately resettle. This is actually considered an exploit in by strict RBCiv rules in certain cases. I feel it fits into the general theme of this SG to do this however (the one case you shouldn't do is to build the city one square deeper into enemy territory)

Just some notes and observations on pillaging:
1) The AI seems to take into account the defensive terrain when determining when to attack. A spearman can sneak into enemy territory by sticking to mountains and hills. Once our armies get out-dated, they may need to do this as well.
2) Cutting off the capitol will eliminate his abilty to trade, so the capitol is a good target.
3) Remember that in Conquests an army can pillage as a free move, and gets +1 movement over the base units used.
4) I noticed that bombardment will be concentrated on our armies in Conquests. Beware of stopping on the coast if the AI has a fleet nearby.

Here is our start after the first turn:



The Save (end of 4000 BC)

Link to Gingerbread Man's post on Sherman

 

[barbslinger]

I guess from prior posts we are assuming/hoping that the southern end is unoccupied and we will backfill after settling north.
I'm at work so if I'm calculating right since depotism gives no food bonus on grass mining/roading the cow for a 4.2.1 tile would be my first move and then mining roading the NE BG for a 2.2.1 on expansion. The forest will give a 1.2.0 until roads are there and I would probably time a chop on one for granary build. The incense hills are 1.3.2 with road/mine. At pop 4 the mined cow, mined BG's and mined incense will give a +3fpt, 10spt. We can only get to +4fpt max so a 5 turn settler factory is all in depotism. Hopefully some plains are N. How many turns to 1st expansion? there is probably enough time to mine road incense before mine/road BG.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn/4000 BC: Science to max, set research to warrior code.
3950 BC(1): Worker irrigates, roads cow.
3900 BC(2):
3850 BC(3):
3800 BC(4):
IBT:
Chichen Izta: Warrior->Warrior.
3750 BC(5):
Warrior heads West to start (water seen to the east so it is less likely to lead anywhere).
Start mine/road on a bonus grassland (NE) that will come into use after our first culture expansion.
3700 BC(6): We will have a lot of incense.
3650 BC(7):
3600 BC(8):
IBT: Chichen Itza: Warrior->Walls
3550 BC(9): 20% lux. The new warrior will explore a short way east.
3500 BC(10): Hut seen to W. There is one near our capitol unvisited as we are not ready for barbarians yet.
3450 BC(11): More water to the E it is becoming less likely to go anywhere.
3400 BC(12): Pop hut and get a warrior. My regular warrior may head back.
3350 BC(13): It is one turn to walls. Since granary-wall is better than wall granary if we are not attacked, I switch to granary. Lux raised to handle size 4 (40%)
3300 BC(14):
3250 BC(15):
3200 BC(16):
3150 BV(17):Two warriors in our city now, but it grew. Its growth is slowed and granary sped to make things work out right.
3100 BC(18): Incense hooked up. Lux to 0.
3050 BC(19):
IBT: Chichen Izta: Granary->Worker
3000 BC(20):

Noone encountered yet. I have a warrior watchiing the approach to spot intruders. We really could use a worker or two, so we can get our production up quickly. For building the walls and Barracks, you can MM our town to 10 shields and slow growth temporarily (so we can get walls up in 2). Note that the water below the guardian warrior is salty. This means that the NW is very likely the only way into our lands.

Note that I chose the worker next, but maybe walls or barracks are better/safer. The worker first gets us the advantage of extra worker turns if we can get away with it. Handy, one idea would be MM barracks in 4 and then wait on the walls since we can get them up before we were attacked.



The Save

Barbslinger, I played before reading your post. I did start as you mention. I didn't think of the forest chop, so didn't do it. I think a forest chop is now 4 (3 ind?) turns so I really need to start considering it.

I don't think the insense helps the shields at all. An incense hill gets us the normal +2 shields in despot as it only adds to the square's gold.

 

[barbslinger]

Looks like a lot of grassland that as mentioned before gives no food bonus with irrigation. We will need to get irrigation to other cities in preparation for gov't transition of course, but workers have more value right now for us roading/mining. Once we get up and running a couple spare workers can set up irrigation network. I can't double-check on despotism penalty because I am at work. Is the cow tile only giving 4 food right now? If it is I would mine over it now and then re-irrigate timed with government change.
Looks like we have a penisular start and can put cities W and then N to start with and backfill later. Hopefully we can find a nice kill zone for our first victim! Jeez, what if we're alone on an island.
The insense will give the other shield after mining. The other BG should be mined first of course.

 

[Greebley]

The beauty of the Agricultural trait is that if you are on a river, then you get +1 food in the central square. This puts us at +5 for growing every 2 turns.

Hills and forest are the same in despotism. I don't think we will be mining hills until we get closer to monarchy. We just have to keep as many forests as we will need.

 

[handy900]

Got it Should play & post by midnight tonight. Kind of a busy Saturday here. Keep posting thought & ideas.

Handy's first wrong guess of the game was that attacks would come from the NE. The NW looks more like our war zone. No contact in 20 turns is a little scary, I hope we are not on an "Australia" island continent.

Greebley Good move switching to Granary. With no AI's in sight, the walls & barracks can be built a little later.

Gosh I hope there is iron somewhere on those hills & mountains.

 

[T_McC]

Second the hope we are not on an island.

Away from my Civ computer, so I can't look at the save (and the pictures aren't really displaying clearly anyway ...)

So, here are a few thoughts:

The cow stays irrigated, even after a gov't change, until the Capital is locked in at size 12 (no more workers and settlers)and needs the extra shield. We can hold off mining the hills until we have seen the need to chop all the forests, but we should prioritize putting a road on one of the incense.

Guess at a build-order for the capital: worker, chop-assisted barracks, warrior (or spear, depending on how the shields shake out), settler. Pair sent to hill 3 tiles W of capital. One problem we are facing is that the "front" will be across the river from the capital, hence we won't have one-turn troop movement. This would allow us to put that first city one more tile away, but it's hard to pass up a defensive bonus. Handy will figure it out based on the lay of the land ahead of the scout.

I don't know what our settling strategy should be. If we have a lot of room, we have the option of settling hard at the AI to try to grab as much land as quickly as possible. Settling it would be easier than fighting for it. This strategy runs the risk of giving us a harder line to defend, which is probably the most important consideration. The second option is to "draw a line in the sand", and just decide where we want the front (likely two rings from the capital), and then concentrate on settling behind those lines. This seems like a better idea, especially if the island is narrow enough to allow a two-city front. Advantage is easier defense, and we can get some unthreatened cities out there early to boost our production.

Since they changed the rules for MGLs, I think we are going to need a dedicated wonder city. Ideally it would be on a river (or lake)and coastal, to keep our cascade options open. I can't see the picture clearly enough to tell if such a site exists in our first ring. It would be great if this could be our 3rd city, but let the situations on the ground dictate. If we have our chouce of wonders, I have to figure the G. Library is best, but if we get a coastal location, the G. Lighthouse would be very useful. Being first to have contact with all Civs will be a huge advantage in this game. We may also need to use the sea to make contacts on our continent, or else we may be reliant on armies to find civs after the first.

 

[handy900]

Originally posted by Greebley
The beauty of the Agricultural trait is that if you are on a river, then you get +1 food in the central square. This puts us at +5 for growing every 2 turns.

We will soon have a 4 turn settler factory! Five extra food per turn means we grow from 5 to 7 pop in 4 turns.

After we mine the BG to the SE, and mine the other 2 grasslands, we will have 8 shields at pop 5. 8x4 = 32 shileds and a 4 turn factory. If we MM, we may even be able to 3 settlers + 1 warrior every 12 or 13 turns. I'll work on that math later.

 

[Greebley]

The hardest thing with a warrior+settler when you don't have 6 food, is that you have to build the warrior in one turn while maintaining 5 food at size 5. So you need 4 bonus grassland to do it. I don't think we had that. It is easier if you have 6 food - you go to 10 shields with +4 food, then do 6 food the next turn.

The smallest you can do it is 6 shields at size 5 and 7 shields at size 6 with at least one forest square in addition.

You get six shields the first turn, grow the second gives you 8, you then MM back to 5 food, 7 shields for the next turn. The final turn you again get the forest for 9 shields 6+8+7+9=30.

This is because you get the shields bonus for the larger size on the turn you grow.

Perhaps we should send the watching warrior out to discover another civilization if it exists. I think our play will be very different if we are all alone.

 

[handy900]

GR2- 3000 BC (pre turn)
Before enter.
Leave build as a worker. Then I plan a couple of warriors (to scout) while the workers improve the Grass tiles, after which it should be settlers every 4 turns. We can build walls in 4 turns if we make contact. If we are on an island, walls are a wasted build at this point. Leave slider at 90/0 to get warrior code in 2 and keep the citizens happy.
I thought about moving the warrior out to scout, but that would require moving the slider to 80/20 and warrior code would come in 3 turns. I want warrior code ASAP so we can beeline to Iron working and see where the iron is.

Current plans for the next warrior (scout) is to send him S to make sure there are no luxuries down there in the dark. That happened to me in an AW game, luxury was 1 tile in the dark for 1500 years. It’s a long shot for sure, but…
Pre flight
F1 – slider is 90/0 warrior code due in 2 12 gold in bank losing 1 GPT.
Bummer, the utility program I installed to show Smiley Faces on the F1 screen is gone. I’ll need to reinstall that. Atari / Firaxis should make it part of the canned program.
Our capital will revolt if it hits size 6 @ zero happy slider.
F2 – 1 incense hooked up already by Greebley
F3 – 2 warriors in capital needed for police duty.
F10 we are playing America, Aztecs, Iroquois, Inca, Ottomans, Rome, and Carthage.

Turn 1 – 2950 BC
Change the name of our warrior scout to “Blazer” in honor of the Yankee civil war scout Richard Blazer Richard Blazer of the 91st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Great name for a scout. Kind of ironic we are playing as a northern General in the civil war and our UU will be enslaving captured enemy units.
Worker moves to BG to mine & road. Then he will return to the tiles where he just built a road to mine. We lose a turn moving the worker, but get a extra shield from the BG, so it’s worth the turn to move I think.
Blazer heads toward mountain.

Turn 2 – 2900 BC
We get Warrior Code. Set to Bronze working due in 12. Slider is 90/0 losing 1 GPT and we only have 10 gold. I’ll watch the bank to make sure we do not lose any units.
Chichen- worker – warrior due in 1. (he’s a regular, but good enough for a scout.
Blazer moves onto the mountain. Green Border! YES!! :jump: If we are on an island, it’s big enough for two. Probably this is a continent, two on an island has never happened to me in a continent game. I’m guessing Aztecs or Inca.

F1 slider is 80/0 BW in 14 turns, losing 0 GPT.

Turn 3 – 2850 BC
Chichen – warrior – barracks
Switch city build to barracks. By moving MM the tiles, we can get 10 SPT, building a barracks in 4 turns with zero waste. Our growth is slowed to every 5 turns (was 2) but we will need the barracks ASAP to survive the next few sets of turns. The green border is big enough to know that they have at least 2 cities. Not sure of we will be able to settle the hill to the west before the first wave attacks. More likely we will back settle 1 city, kill their first wave, then settle the hill as our 3rd city
Workers will mine (4) and road the BG, then move to mine the Grass
We are losing 2 GPT, and have 9 in the bank.
Move warrior (renamed “Tonto”) to the south.
Blazer moves towards a hut.


Turn 4 – 2800 BC
Good news, Blazer pops a hut & gets a map of nearby territory. I can’t see a unit so no contact & no war yet. In the spirit of AW I would have made contact & declared war if I could have seen a unit. We will be at war soon enough.

Turn 5 – 2750 BC
BG is mined. MM to move citizen from a forest to the BG. Workers will road in 1 turn.
I’m not changing the barracks build. There is a pig patch of shadow to the west of our capital. We could see a couple of warriors come from the shadow on any turn near our capital. If we get fancy & pop a settler & the new city gets razed because of a light garrison, we will have dug a deep hole.
Chichen will grow in 3 turns when the barracks is finished. Probably will build a javelin, then a settler.
Still no contact. I hope they are at war with a civ up north. J
F1 Drop slider to 80/0 BW due in 9. losing 1 GPT, 6 in the bank..

Turn 6 – 2710 BC
Turn on “color blind” help to see who the enemy is. It’s the Aztecs. You can turn it off in the “Preferences” section if it bothers you.
Scouting. Blazer spots at least 2 silks near the Aztec city of Teotihuscan. Tonto finds grass & the coast (surprise!)

Turn 7 – 2670 BC
Chichen – barracks – javelin (due in 3 we grow to size 7 in 4)
Building a javelin, then a settler so we can turn happy the slider back down. We need to be careful on each settlement. If we over settle we will get razed. Better safe than sorry.
Still no contact. Aztecs must be at war up north. Is so, it’s great news for us.
Welcome to AW. Slider is now 40/10 so we don’t riot. We are broke. (4 gold)
I’m building a road to the hill NW of the capital for the first city site. It’s across a river, which is a major bummer for movement, but we need to grab it while we can.

Turn 8 – 2630 BC
Explore.
The turn year #’s are really weird. Is it supposed to be this way?
Javelin due in 2, grow to size 7 in 3.

Turn 9 – 2590 BC
Tonto pops hut, gets 2 barbs

IBT
Tonto defends against a barb.

Turn 10 –2550 BC (a “normal” year ending in a “50”)
Chichen – javelin – settler (I MM’d to get the settler in 3 turns. We grow in 1 turn.)
Send javelin to cover the worker building a road to the hill for the second city placement.
Tonto kills barb no more barbs.
Blazer has scouted west as far as possible.

Next player.
1. Slider is 30/10 making 0 GPT. Chichen will grow next turn, so you will need to move the slider to 20/20 before you end your first turn. When the settler pops (in 3 turns) you can move adjust the sliders.
2. Currently Chichen is set to produce 3 extra FPT and 10 SPT to get a settler in 3 turns. After this settler pops out, set Chichen to get 5 extra FPT and you will have a 4-turn settler factory.
3. First build in the new city must be walls. That is where they are likely to attack first.

Team Discussion
A dot map is in the next post below with possible city sites.

1. Red circle with yellow middle is the next city build.
2. The red circles with blue middle are river sites.
3. The hollow red circles are not on a river, but are the same distance from the capital in RCP terms as the first city build. Not that we are slaves to an RCP build, but that’s their distance and low corruption is a big plus. Once you “learn RCP” it is hard to “unlearn” it.
4. The green circle with a red middle is a good site to establish a “ 2-front” barrier for the AI. It’s not on a hill, but you can’t have everything.
5. AW is a war of attrition & efficiency. We need low corruption cities near the capital at first. Expanding too far out where we cannot reinforce is sure death in AW. We are looking for a 10 to 1 kill ratio. Slow steady expansion is the Key. Make sure you can hold a city before you build or conquer it.

STILL NOT AT WAR YET I never did see an aztec unit to declare war on.


smoke 2550 BC not zipped save

 

[handy900]

The pic is from 3000BC (before I played my turns. Still it is big enough to see the potential build sites.

1. Red circle with yellow middle is the next city build.
2. The red circles with blue middle are river sites. I checked by seeing if the tile produces 1 gold "as is". If it does, it's on the river.
3. The hollow red circles are not on a river, but are the same distance from the capital in RCP terms as the first city build. Not that we are slaves to an RCP build, but that’s their distance and low corruption is a big plus. Once you “learn RCP” it is hard to “unlearn” it.
4. The green circle with a red middle is a good site to establish a “ 2-front” barrier for the AI. It’s not on a hill, but you can’t have everything.
5. AW is a war of attrition & efficiency. We need low corruption cities near the capital at first. Expanding too far out where we cannot reinforce is sure death in AW. We are looking for a 10 to 1 kill ratio. Slow steady expansion is the Key. Make sure you can hold a city before you build or conquer it.

 

[handy900]

The western world at 2550 BC including Aztec borders.

 

[T_McC]

Things seem to be coming along smoothly, although there are better opponents to have than the Aztecs. Move 2 units can be a PITA. At least they're no real threat on offense.

Have a couple of comments on the dot-map.

If the green circle/red dot moves one S, it would be on a hill and on fresh water. It would still be within 3 tiles of the red circle/yellow dot city. Either spot is three turns from the capital (due to the river) and one from the second city. The new placement gets the defensive bonus and doesn't require an aqueduct.

Eliminate the western-most red circle/blue dot, and move the southern red circle/blue dot 1 tile NW, to the forest SE of the mountain. This site is still on fresh water (regardless of whether it is considered to be on the river), is one turn from the capital, and would also be one turn from the new green circle/red dot site. Founding both of these cities would therefore put the new green circle/red dot city within two turns of the capital, as units could go around the river.

I can't see the SE portion of the map well enough to comment on the rest of the dot-map. Not terribly important, as founding three cities is going to take some time.

 

[handy900]

T_McC,

I totally agree with your comments on the dot map. I should have seen those placements were superior. Thanks for pointing it out.
Too late tonight, but I'll fix a new map tomorrow.

 

[Matt_G]

Originally posted by handy900
3. The hollow red circles are not on a river, but are the same distance from the capital in RCP terms as the first city build. Not that we are slaves to an RCP build, but that’s their distance and low corruption is a big plus. Once you “learn RCP” it is hard to “unlearn” it.

Don't forget that there is a penalty for RCP in Conquests.
Their 'fix' is worse than the disease. Also the FP is broken. This is going to have a major impact on your game.
The details are in this thread.

Matt

 

[handy900]

Originally posted by Matt_G


Don't forget that there is a penalty for RCP in Conquests.
Their 'fix' is worse than the disease. Also the FP is broken. This is going to have a major impact on your game.
The details are in this thread.

Matt

Yikes, guess I need to read that . FP is a key to winning an AWM game.

Thanks very much for the tip and the link.

Greebley -

The best build IMHO in the capital is to MM to get a jav every 3 turns then a setler every 3 turns. This is the safe path, and probably the one we should take. Unescorted settlers in AW with an aztec 2 move unit is a major risk.

 

[handy900]

Capital city build for a jav + settler every 6 turns. If you want a copy of this excel spreadsheet, let me know. It's in test mode big time and not user friendly at all.

 

[Greebley]

[Edit: Gingerbread Man, you are up. Give us an "I got it" to let us know you are aware of this fact. Because it is thanksgiving weekend you will have thru tuesday for your "48".

Here are my own thoughts on the front line. The green line is likely the only way by land to get into our lands. I think it makes an ideal bottleneck to kill enemy troops. I think we will want to settle all lands behind it.

The yellow cities were based primarily on TMcC's suggestions.

The red cities seem worth building as forward bases in the Catapult era. They can shoot down approaching and passing enemy troops. The yellow towns have the hill defense (so may be better initially, but allow the enemies onto the hills making them more difficult to dislodge.

It might be possible to use this time before the Aztecs spot us to crank out some settlers. We may even want to send our exploring warrior back for now and build as many towns as we can before the onslaught starts (with some troops too of course).
Perhaps a combination of 4 turn settlers, and Handy's 6 turn pattern.

Here is my picture:

 

[handy900]

Greebley, very nice catch on the ocean. Should have done a city dot map at the end of my turn, not the beginning.

Would moving the northern most red dot 1 tile NW be a good idea?

A few unescorted 4 turn settlers to our rear after we build & hold the western front is a good idea too I think. Barbs are not roaming, and the Ai can't send a galley back there for a while. Aztecs apparent war to their north has give us some breathing room one does not usually get in an AW game. Let's use it.

 

[Greebley]

The only problem with moving the northern red dot 1 square NW would be that it is possible for the enemy to then move troops to the yellow dot towns without going within 1 square of either red dot towns (go east from the tabacco/leaves). It would mean more defense was needed in the yellow towns and therefore not available in the red dot towns.

I put a question mark for the southern dot because of the forests. Though come to think of it, the forests are easier to cut now.

One final thing on the FP. It should be noted that it is not entirely useless for the following reason:

As I understand it, the problem is that it doesn't make the OCN any better. Instead of the least corrupt cities all being clustered around the capitol, they alternate back and forth in some manner - essentially you have moved around which cities are corrupt, but not reduced corruption with this. This can even be bad as your FP cities may not have markets and such so you lose money in the short term with the move (until the new cities have been built up). So the rank corruption is not improved by the FP.

However there is the distance corruption component as well. This IS improved by the building of your FP, since the distances become shorter for cities near the FP. Based on the game I played (where the FP did actually help - my gold went up), I believe this is a true statement. (Matt_G, if you are reading this thread, I would be curious if you think my analysis is correct - Thanks for the pointer BTW).

So the rules of the unpatched FP builds become:
1) The FP will strengthen certain cities at the cost of making other worse. Be aware of this affect when you build the FP. You can lose cash if the cities made worse have improvements, but the others do not.
2) The FP will improve distance corruption. It should be placed strategically for this affect (and this affect alone).

As for the reverse RCP, I think we should place our buildings entirely based on location. Yes, there is a hit for making the cities the same distance, but it is not a game breaker to my mind. By placing the cities in their best locations you are partially negating the bad effects. Additionally, you are training yourselves for when the whole corruption mess is finally fixed.