GR29 - AWM vs 30 civs, Pangea

[Northern Pike]

I'm leaving a delicate position on the Persepolis-Pasadena front because we have so few units, and we may have to permit some pillaging, but I'm sure Greebley can hang on until Immortals arrive. I didn't want to commit you to any particular defensive plan, so you may want to think about shifting units around before you hit Enter.

With careful play it may be possible to avoid Immortal victories and so delay our GA for a bit. A lot depends on whether our enemies continue to throw their units away attacking our cities or start to infiltrate.

The Ottomans are behaving just as we'd like, heading straight for Pasadena and attacking our elite spearman behind walls there.

The screenshot shows my idea of how we can fit five cities onto the river eventually.

 

[Northern Pike]

The iron dream:

 

[Daeron]

That placement is a lot tighter than I'm used to, but I understand the reasoning behind it and assume they can still all grow to size 7.

We can't complain about luck so far, apart from facing the Ottomans again. I'm running into them in my own games time and time again and I'm getting sick of meeting them.

 

[Matt_G]

Subscribing.
Take it to 'em guys.

 

[Northern Pike]

We can't complain about luck so far, apart from facing the Ottomans again.

I don't think of the Ottomans as a particularly bad early opponent. We'll never see Sipahis, since long before MilTrad we'll have either wiped out the Ottomen or lost.

 

[ThERat]

wow, that's a tight spacing. I suggest we would later on raze on of those towns when we have grown to city limits. This tight the cities won't be able to be very productive.

Anyway, great turns and this time we are lucky with iron

Btw, the warrior we face might just pillage our road to iron, no good.

 

[Northern Pike]

If the team generally doesn't like so tight a pack we can just not found 2, with no waste of tiles.

So far enemy units have been on that road without pillaging it. To some extent we'll just have to trust to the AI's stupidity until we get Immortals built.

 

[Daeron]

I don't think of the Ottomans as a particularly bad early opponent. We'll never see Sipahis, since long before MilTrad we'll have either wiped out the Ottomen or lost.

It's just personal experience. In my games Ottomans always have the tendency to annoy me. It's like I why I still hate the Germans for humiliating me in my very first Civ game. They killed the pacifist in me on that day.

 

[Daeron]

Concerning defense, the best we can do is only keep two spears in a city and hope they attack instead of pillage.

Maybe it's also a good idea to mine one of the plains north of Persepolis and tell the governor to focus on productivity. Right now with 4 turns, we get 28 shields +1 from the new citizen. One shield short of an immortal.

 

[Greebley]

Looking good so far.

I got it.

 

[goodsmell]

Hello fellas, goodluck in this SG, looks interesting .

Greebley, Is there any chance you post the map itself ( not the save ) ?

 

[darski]

Signing in for another great game. I love reading this team's efforts?

 

[Greebley]

I going to need a skip. Someone in my family took the civ disk out and its not in its case. I tried an alternative method to the cd, but my attempts are failing. I need to track down the disk or get something else that will work.

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

Have you tried the the no raze version in AoI? It does not need the CD and at this stage razing is not likely to be a big deal. I cannot say, if it actually works myslef, but the reports seem to say it does.

 

[CommandoBob]

Got it.

Random Thoughts
Immortals are online, first one in 3 turns. So our Golden Age will start during my turnset; I don't see any way to avoid it. We don't have a lot of infrastructure options, so we'll build a lot of Immortals, with maybe (maybe) a settler or two.

One of first Immortals goes to Arbela, currently undefended.

GA will shorten our research time on Alphabet. What is the next tech? Mathematics (for Catapults) or Writing (leading to the Great Library)?

Just have had time for a quick look-see; hope to have better insights tomorrow.

 

[Daeron]

Got it.

Random Thoughts
Immortals are online, first one in 3 turns. So our Golden Age will start during my turnset; I don't see any way to avoid it. We don't have a lot of infrastructure options, so we'll build a lot of Immortals, with maybe (maybe) a settler or two.

One of first Immortals goes to Arbela, currently undefended.

GA will shorten our research time on Alphabet. What is the next tech? Mathematics (for Catapults) or Writing (leading to the Great Library)?

Just have had time for a quick look-see; hope to have better insights tomorrow.

Hard to make use of the GA in these conditions. I think we should try to get the SoZ, so mathematics. That way we get a boon from this early GA at least.

 

[ThERat]

Yes, I agree going for maths before trying to aim at GLib.

 

[Northern Pike]

On reflection, we definitely have to shift some units before hitting Enter to give ourselves greater defensive flexibility; otherwise we might lose a race to empty Arbela. The warrior should move from Mount Shiraz into Shiraz; Shiraz's spearman should move to the road tile south of Arbela; and the capital's warrior should cross the river onto the tile to the east, which will require us to increase the lux rate.

If our enemies vacate the necessary road tile, we may be able to pull one of the two spearmen on the iron colony back to Pasadena.

Remember that you have the option of switching Shiraz to a walls build, which would complete almost immediately, if you feel it would help you tactically.

It's hard to picture a situation in which it would be right to attack before Immortals arrive. With proper anticipation of the AI's moves we should be able to avoid that risk. Making 1-1 attacks just to avoid pillaging would be a bad error.

I agree that we can diverge to Mathematics after we discover Alphabet, although on a pangaea the Statue is far from a sure thing.

Even during our GA, every other unit out of Persepolis should still be a settler.

 

[CommandoBob]

Despotism
00% Tax
90% Science
10% Luxury

450 gold, -3 gpt

Alphabet in 11 turns.

City Builds

1. Persepolis (5) vImmortal in 4, grows in 3.
2. Pasadena (3) vImmortal in 3, grows in 3.
3. Arbela (2) vImmortal in 10, grows in 3.
4. Shiraz (1) barracks in 12, grows in 2.

Military

• 01 Worker
• 02 Warrior
• 06 Spear
• Support:
  • Current Units: 09
  • Allowed Units: 16
  • Support Costs: 0 gpt

Compared to Byzantiens we are Average.
Compared to Portugal we are Average.
Compared to Ottomans we are Average.

Plans
Next tech is Writing.
Golden Age is near, due to our Immortals coming on line.
We'll build a lot of units, but still alternate settlers from Persepolis.
Next settler heads towards the Ottomans, which will put the Iron Colony inside our borders. But that won't be until the next turnset.
Worker is free to move, will irrigate and road 1SW of Arbela.
Need to shuffle units around to "protect" Arbela while allowing it to be AI-bait. These move were detailed by Northern Pike in an earlier post.
Refrain from offensive attacks until we get Immortals.

Golden Age
Let us assume our GA kicks off on Turn 4, since we get our first Immortal on Turn 3. All our cities will have grown one in size by this time. During our GA our shield production will be:

1. Persepolis (6) 16 spt.
2. Pasadena (4) 10 spt.
3. Arbela (3) 8 spt.
4. Shiraz (2) 6 spt.

For our GA, I would rather have Arbela and Shiraz rotate settler production and keep Persepolis dedicated to training Immortals. We have no grassland around our capital and I'm not sure it will be able to grow from size 4 to size 6 in just 4 turns (Immortal in 2 followed by settler in 2). Just going from size 5 to size 6 will take three turns in itself. With Arbela and Shiraz sharing the settler making chore, each can build an Immortal and grow in size while the other is building the settler.

Over the 20 turns of our GAa, we should still be able to crank out 5 settlers

 

[Northern Pike]

Next tech is Writing.

No, there was unanimous agreement that we can afford to detour to Mathematics after Alphabet.

I believe your math on GA production is wrong, because the capital's plains cows will still only be worth two shields then, due to the despotism penalty. Thus I'd prefer to produce some settlers in the capital during the GA, but if you're not comfortable with that sacrifice of military production during your turns, that's quite all right. However, if you decide not to produce settlers in Persepolis, don't try to compensate by building them elsewhere. When we have a town at +4 food with a granary, producing settlers out of towns at +2 food without granaries is folly.