GR28 - AWM vs 30 civs, Pangea

[Greebley]

Settings:
Map: 250x250 Archipelago
AI: All 30 opponents
Civ: Random (Mongols)
Pangea
60% water
No Barbs
Monarch
More Agressive AI.
AW: Must declare war as soon as we have contact with no trades, but we can look at our opponents, their techs, etc.

Ship chaining is allowed in this and all future games.

Roster:
Greebley
Commando Bob
ThERat
Daeron
Northern Pike

 

[Greebley]

No contacts in the first 20 turns.

Built a Warrior, Barracks, and Archer.

As can be seen there is no source of water, though we may be saved by the fact we have grassland and the bonus resources. Ancient Cavalry are a possibility with the elephant next door.

To discuss:
Do we want to build a Granary before a settler?

If we do the Granary our town will grow bigger before the first settler which gives more shields which is generally good in AW. However, we do have a good second site.

I am leaning toward granary after Archer. Perhaps even a worker slipped in somewhere.
So: Archer, Worker, Granary.

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

That is a lot jungle on one side and desert on the other. No water in sight, ouch.

 

[Greebley]

Ya, I agree. We are also in the center of the map.

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

Yeah that too, but it seems no one is real close at least. The saddest thing is that you will be hard pressed to use the hills for some time, with no food bonus and no water. Hope some water is just in the fog and you can get it back home, before the fit hits the shan.

 

[Northern Pike]

I am leaning toward granary after Archer.

If we're going to play an unpromising start, we might as well gamble a little. So definitely granary before settler, but I'd switch to the granary right now, with the settler immediately after that.

I'm not convinced that we'll ever get our time to BW much under fifty turns in this commerce-poor position, so I'd depart from orthodoxy and min-research it for the next thirty turns, banking some gold for later deficit research.

Our worker should chop the game forest before roading it, of course.

I'll mention once more that Sir Bugsy expressed some interest in playing in this game. Evidently he's not checking the board regularly, but it might be worth PM-ing him.

 

[Daeron]

At first sight that's one ugly starting location. But I actually like all that forestland. That's 400 shields worth of forest right there in one big patch.

I think our chances at Monarchy for getting the SoZ are pretty good. It does mean we'd have to consider a prebuild at some point (Masonry), since there are probably quite a lot of other civs with ivory on such a large map.

As for the granary question. I agree on building it now, since we won't see too many cities with decent growth in the near future.

I've never played the Mongols before, but you can't complain with being militaristic in AW. Keshik armies sounds like fun.

 

[ThERat]

interesting start, I would also go for min research here and accumulate some cash

 

[Aabraxan]

lurker's comment: Good luck, team! That start location is, erm, less than thrilling, so here's hoping there's iron & horses nearby.

 

[Sashie VII]

lurker's comment: I'll be following this game (regularly, I hope). Hope to see a good fight!

 

[Greebley]

I am fine with the gamble and going for Granary first. An enemy take some time to attack in any case and the number of units is smaller in Monarchy.

I have troubles estimating if we should go cash or science, so go with the consensus.
Anyone have civ assist to check how much science we need to get less than 50 turns?
I may be worth knowing.

 

[Northern Pike]

CivAssist has never worked for me--a long story I won't rehash here. So I'm going by instinct and experience in saying we should min-research BW, and yes, it would be good to have the hard numbers.

 

[Aabraxan]

I am fine with the gamble and going for Granary first. An enemy take some time to attack in any case and the number of units is smaller in Monarchy.

I have troubles estimating if we should go cash or science, so go with the consensus.
Anyone have civ assist to check how much science we need to get less than 50 turns?
I may be worth knowing.

lurker's comment: According to CA2, at 80% science, you're producing 4 beakers per turn. BW comes in at 216 beakers. That means 50 turns at 4 bpt and 43 turns at 5 bpt. By CA2's calculations, 90% science will get you 5 bpt, but put you at -1 gpt. That's just a static calculation, though, and doesn't account for growth.

For future reference, here's a breakdown of some AA tech costs:
BW: 216
Masonry: 288
Alphabet: 361
Wheel: 288
CB: 144
IW: 433
Math: 577

 

[Daeron]

Right now income is 5 gpt from 1 city with 3 citizens, with 1 going to maintenace, so 4 gpt for science.

We've gathered 77 beakers over 20 turns.

We still need 90 beakers, or 30 turns.

No idea how many turns we could do on full science, though 15 seems pretty reasonable since we'll probably have unit costs.

Edit: Aabraxan beat me to it. And I'm noticing a funny thing in CAII. The sum of the gathered and remaining beakers is different from the total amount of the tech,

 

[Northern Pike]

Thanks a lot to both of you--very helpful. Growth won't help much in the next thirty turns, given that newly founded cities will have no commerce except from their centre squares, so those numbers confirm that we should go to minimum research.

 

[CommandoBob]

Just one city, no contacts, no luxuries, no water; we got a whole lot of nothing at all.

Granary will complete in 9 turns at current levels, but we grow on the IBT and have a chop to figure in; I'd guess between 6 and 8 turns to build the granary.

The granary is followed with a settler, who will head for the Ivory.

Worker chops, then mines and then roads, about 13 turns worth of work.

Our scout heads to the mountains SW of the capital (to avoid meeting anyone while we build our granary).

Minimum science (which equals 0% on the smarty slider) for a while.

Mongols are EXP and MIL.

 

[Northern Pike]

Worker chops, then mines and then roads, about 13 turns worth of work.

Minimum science (which equals 0% on the smarty slider) for a while.

Try to estimate whether getting the mine three turns earlier will actually let us complete a build more quickly; and unless it will, build the road first for extra gold. As a default choice at this point in the game, if the player can't be bothered to work out the specifics, roads should come before mines.

"Minimum" science actually means 10% in this situation, since we can't hire a scientist and we have to make some show of activity or we won't even progress towards the fifty-turn limit.

 

[Greebley]

Thanks for the tech info Aabraxan.

I think we can assume if we don't start near a river, then min science is the way to go for further games, though we usually tend to go for warrior code first which might be cheaper??
This game we already have it.

 

[Sashie VII]

lurker's comment: Wouldn't BW>IW take priority in AW?

 

[Aabraxan]

lurker's comment: My pleasure to provide that info. I can't believe that I forgot to list WC! Unfortunately, I'm not at a computer where I can load up CA2 right now, so I can't get that info, either. It seems to me that even if WC is cheaper, you might want to go ahead and get IW. First, that'll tell you where the iron is. Second, I would suspect that swords will have a much better shelf life at AW.