Grumpy Old Men AWP Hub

[knupp715]

I have to agree that the highest priority right now is the choke point cities and improving our lands. The Oracle and Great Library are very attractive not only because we have marble and our industrious, but also because it will help us tech-wise. If you fall behind in tech in AW you are doomed. I'm going to play right now and post tonight.

 

[Sirian]

No I didn't realize that. Good to know. I guess if I think about what "hub" means it makes sense

Nope, sorry. Now I'm the one getting confused!

There will be only one choke. It's Ring that has two.

My bad.


Note to self: "Engage brain, then type."


- Sirian

 

[knupp715]

Nope, sorry. Now I'm the one getting confused!

There will be only one choke. It's Ring that has two.

My bad.


Note to self: "Engage brain, then type."


- Sirian

I was just about to ask you what you were talking about

 

[knupp715]

Well I was up in 3 different SG's all on the same day (yesterday). And figuring that this one would be the most exiting seeing how it is AW I figured I'd play it first. But they were pretty boring and quick which is probably good since I need to play the other 2 tonight also

(0) I switch our research to agriculture. Our worker in Munich was going to be built the next turn and it would be nice to get some farms up to boost growth. I move our archer into a good defensive position in the jungle hoping it will attack and lose.

(1) Of course the Quechua has to be difficult and doesn't attack. Munich builds a worker and starts on a barracks at 89 turns. No worries though, that will go down with some improvements.

(2&3)

(4) We discover the secrets of Agriculture and direct our scienctists to start researching Writing. Writing leads to the Mathematics which lead to the secrets of Construction so we can start on some mighty phants.

(5) Grab an apple from the kitchen, come back to the computer, take a big bite out of it, and press enter.

(6) Our warrior (that I sent exploring on the first turn) discovers all of the North.


(7) Two of our archers have been moving into strategically defensive positions hoping that the quechua would attack but it never did. Our chances to kill it were only 33.3% The AI really has improved, only going on suicide missions during desperate situations if at all.

However, this turn it moved upon our ivory and I didn't want it to pillage it so I took a chance. I had 3 archers nearby for backup but I used the shock promoted one to attack and we......WON at only 33.3%

Fortune favors the bold!

(8) Berlin finishes constructing a lighthouse and starts an axeman.

(9&10) (in this case the coffee is an apple)

(11) Research on writing in completed and instead of Math I take a detour to HBR so we can make use of those horses I just hooked up.

(12) Berlin builds and axe and starts on a settler.

(13&14) ...

(15) Hamburg builds a spearman and starts on a barracks. Some people may say I'm addicted to barracks but I think they are one of the most important things to build, no matter whether you are playing a warmongering or a peaceful game.

(16-20) Yawn

Overview: A warrior, archer, and axe are all on barb/scouting out AI patrol. A settler will be complete in 1 turn and I suggest that a city be built here.....


The spot will have 1 unworkable desert tile as opposed to 3 desert tiles at my original spot (where the spear currently is).

After that I think Berlin should work on another unit and then a settler immediately to grab that choke point. Two more cities should be able to be built after the choke point, in the north west and south east.

And the Save:

 

[T_McC]

I would probably consider a cheap Granary before Barracks in Hamburg, especially as we will vaguely soon have Rice. The sooner Hamburg starts working Cottages the better.

Can't comment fully on the proposed city location since I can't open the save right now. Since we won't be able to trade for happy resources and likely won't want to leave a lot of units around as MP, we can probably tolerate overlap better than in a normal game. As a first guess I might go one south of the jungle (hill?) and burn the plains upon founding. Means we can't use the cow for the first 15 turns but also creates a canal city. Might also leave room for a real city that can work the Iron to the north of the canal.

Actually ... that city can't work the cow, but the city north of it could work the cow and the iron. The canal city is also the back-up choke. Hmmm ... me thinks we need a view of the entire W of Berlin to figure out where the 2 cities north of the choke will have to be placed. We'll probably have to accept a mediocre city in the area, we don't want to make it two.

The NW looks like a complete mess. Maybe 1 E of the cow and accept the overlap, and a fishing village (Desert SW of Incense) to claim the rice?

Let's try not to let the # of cities get too far ahead of the # of workers.

 

[Greebley]

Why not just go S of the cows and get all 3 resources? There are some junk squares, but only at largest sizes that we won't reach for a very long time.

 

[ThERat]

got it, play tonight,

how about this dot map.
The southwestern blue dot could be shifted south, but I can't open the save now

 

[T_McC]

Boy, do I have dotmaps

My pick for the choke point.

The yellow forests come down and we get a Woodsman II Axe in the remaining forest to close all access. The green dots are coastal tiles that form a naval blockade, and conveniently enough allow a Medic II unit in the choke city to also heal Galleys.

Moving back towards the core:

The red dot isn't a great production site, but if we can keep the Crabs the city can do pretty well economically. The dark blue dot is better seen on another map.

In the South:

Red dot is from previous map. Blue dot is a sneaky good production site if we can keep the seafood (hence the Naval blockade at the choke). The irrigable flood plains + Crabs should allow all three hills and both forests to be worked. Hmm ... now that I'm looking at it the choke city could go 1 W and be a canal, which may also allow a single tile naval blockade on that side.

The yellow/blue dot is a middling production city that will shine after Replaceable Parts when we can build Lumbermills. If we don't want to be patient with it, it could be a chopped Galley factory.

 

[T_McC]

And a couple more ...

Dark blue works the Iron and fish, picks up a river grass we missed, and has a couple of hills to work. Should be a good production site with enough commerce to pay for itself.

Red dot is really sneaky. The Rice will provide enough food to work three of the hills, and once we get Civil Service an irrigated grass opens up the 4th hill. It may also be able to take the grassland forest from Hamburg.

Blue dot is probably a worker/settler source. Plenty of food and decent production. There are 4 tiles of overlap between blue and red, but red dot would only want to work one of those tiles before Biology.

And just for Greebley I'll point out every city I've dotmapped is coastal, we're industrious, and we have Copper and cheap Forges.

 

[ThERat]

T_McC, this is what I was looking for.

I am inclined to settler the choke city before any other any other city so we can start developing it. It will need walls etc so to build up defenses. If the choke town will work out well, we can get our units promoted to very high values. I had a maze game before and for once built a fort on a hill choke. Units got up to 50 exp and then slaugthered the enemy when I started to advance.

 

[Greebley]

You avoided putting a city that will allow us to shift from one side of the choke to the other. I think this is important.

I would move the pink choke city to the west one square. This square is pretty much identical -we get the same forest can move the forest with the woodsman over 1 west as well. A flexible navy that can switch sides when the AI cannot can be pretty powerful

 

[ThERat]

save

Pre-Turn
MM Berlin, actually we need to be a bit careful. We are working 2 tiles that give 3food+hammer
but we could work 2 other tiles with same amount of f/h but 2 more commerce (one is a cottage)
chnage Hamburg to granary and set for growth

1. 360BC
Berlin finishes settler and goes for a chick granary, it can grow to pop 8 also since we soon have the
gems hooked up
send settler towards pink dot

2. 340BC
settler moving south

3. 320BC
zzz

4. 300BC
copper mine done

5. 280BC
Cologne founded west of pink dot to provide the passage
starts walls
have to reduce science to 80% but that's not an issue

6. 260BC
Berlin finishes granary, axe next for additional military
gems hooked up now

7. 240BC
move worker to remove forest near Cologne for easier defense

8. 220BC
HBR is in, meditation next so we can get the Oracle soon

9. 200BC
3 core cities grow in the IT

10. 180BC
axe in Berlin done, go for another settler to get us marble

see that we have 529turns left, go for another 4 to even things a little

11. 160BC
chop speeds upthe walls a little

12. 140BC
meditation is in, priesthood next
finally some action here, an Egypt archer+ warrior turn up
defeat archer with axe

13. 120BC
Egypt warrior runs off?
Munich finishes rax, go for horse archer
promote axe and beat up warrior as well

14. 100BC
well, the pyramids have been built somewhere already

we will have another settler in 5 turns to settle on red dot so we can grab the marble
priesthood will be in next turn, suggest to go for mathematics then

we have 4 workers currently, but maybe could use 1 more
the axe is going back into our territory to occupy the forest next to our city
one archer is also heading towards Cologne

 

[ThERat]

Roster
ThERat
grs - up. please play 15 turns to even things out
Greebley
T_McC
knupp715


after grs, suggest to play 10 turns each, things should get 'hotter' soon

 

[grs]

Got it....

 

[T_McC]

We'll be getting a Great Prophet from Berlin in no more than 36 turns (depends on where we build the Oracle). What should we plan to do with him?

The first three religions have been founded. Since we have Priesthood it looks like we could get him to discover Code of Laws, but we'd have to research Monotheism first. I suspect Mono will be his first offer. CoL is a very good tech as we need Courthouses anyway, so that plus a religion would be a good use of the GP. He may offer Theology after Monotheism, though. I haven't had enough experience with Prophets to know what order the techs are offered.

Alternatively we could try to research CoL ourselves within the 36 turns and use the Prophet on (hopefully) a Shrine. That would be the best use of the GP, since after that we could any subsequent Prophets as superspecialists. If we use the Prophet for a religion we would want a 2nd for the shrine.

I don't see how we would benefit from more than one religion. In fact, it would probably be best for us if each of the other civs discovered a religion of their own. Religious strife to counterbalance the "Common Struggle" harmony.

 

[Sirian]

It's a bummer that there aren't any hills on those landbridges.

You may ultimately want your anchor position to be a city on a hill down on the hub... on a Hills plot, if you can find a good one there.


- Sirian

 

[Bezhukov]

What's the tech that allows castles? I've never built one before. And I wouldn't count on getting Oracle unless you build it yesterday.

 

[T_McC]

Peeked at the save ...

The Settler can be sped up by tile swapping at Berlin. Would cost a little trade, but well worth it.

When we have the Marble hooked up, a forest chop towards a Marble-based wonder produces 112 Hammers (i.e., 1/2 an Oracle).

I still argue for prepping Hamburg for a chopped Great Library. That would suggest a Library instead of Barracks after the Granary. Of course, we may not be researching Lit anytime soon, so it wouldn't be too bad if we went Barracks/troops before a Library. Depends on what the other cities are doing at the time. We should probably always be building military somewhere (or two or three) even while we are building infra/Wonders/Settlers/Workers elsewhere.

Hattie's UU is Horse-based, so we may want to prioritize a 4-XP Spear over a 4-XP Axe as part of the mix at the choke. Probably don't need to have too many, since they should only defend/attack vs. mounted units.

Besides the two-tile wide coastal lane on either side of the choke there is a single-tile crossing in the SE. Didn't put it on the dotmap (and its hard to see the coastal/sea tile difference in the graphics) but we will have to close that off as well. I don't think the AI will attack if their Galley is carrying units, so we may be able to force just about every AI unit into the choke city, where they should soon be facing our triply- or quadruply-promotion units.

 

[grs]

I do not switch Berlin to work the forest since, we need a lot of time to connect the new city and the marble anyways and - more important - the cottage will grow next turn and yield 2 gold.

80BC Priesthood - code of laws (16 turns).

60BC War with Louis XIV starts, kill his exploring warrior with an axe. Hamburg granary - barracks.

40BC Cologne walls - granary.

20BC --

1AD Berlin settler - spear; Cologne granary - barracks.

20AD Munich horse - horse.

40AD Frankfurt founded (claiming marble, cows and crabs) - worker.

60AD Berlin spear - axe

80AD Switch Berlin to The Great Lighthouse (it will be completed till marble is connected). Moses is born and an Incan galley is spotted near Berlin. We know what that means for our fishing boat there

100AD --

120AD Munic horse - galley.

140AD Temple of Solomon is built somewhere. Kill an Egyptian warrior with our axplorer.

160AD Hamburg barracks - axe. Horse kills Egyptian archer near Cologne.

180AD Incans destroy our fishing boats next to Berlin.

200AD --

Leave Berlin on starvation, the chop will complete The Great Lighthouse, marble will be connected and we should take The Oracle and metal casting. Berlin will be able to work the clam once the Incan boat moves again (that may be a long time though).

We should easily defeat the Egyptian stack near Cologne (2 spears, 1 horse, 1 archer and another horse near).

Code of Laws will complete next turn, we will found Confucianism.

The Rat will kill me, because it is somehow 210 AD and I played an uneven number or turns again...

Edit: btw, let the Prophet (asuming we get it) build the Kong Miao please.

 

[T_McC]

Not too sure about the Great Lighthouse. Since we can't trade with other civs, those extra trade routes will be only worth 2-4 gpt for each city (can't imagine us getting more than 2 gpt on an internal trade route). I guess it works for denial. On the other hand, the Colossus could be terrific. And we have Copper.

Since we'll found a religion next turn, we should only need 1 Great Prophet so the Merchant points aren't likely to screw that up.

We'll need to build a lot of Galleys since the seafood resources are critical to our health. We only have to block 3 tiles in the S/E and 2 tiles in the W to keep our fishing nets safe. I also think most of our offense is going to come via landings. Our troops may be much safer at sea, and much faster to the front by boat.