Immortal, Augustus: Axe Rush? Praetorian Rush?

[Todelotti]

I'm trying my first Immortal game, oh, oh... Started with Pangaea map, standard size and speed and random civ/leader and got Roman Empire/Augustus Caesar (IND/IMP traits).

Rome starts with Fishing and Mining. I have researched Agriculture (to get at least a 4 food tile for my capital, see screenshot), then Bronze Working.

I don't have a long-term plan for the game yet but wanted to ask for a bit of advice for the very next steps and short-term strategy.

My plan is to take out Sitting Bull. Looking at the map I guess that I don't have any other choice. He is my only neighbour and blocking access to the main part of the continent. The question is what is the way to go? I have no real grasp for the right timing. Regarding research my ideas are:

- Either research Animal Husbandry (as the more solid approach) to improve the Cow tile in the capital. I'm also considering the tile 1W of the central Cow for my second city. Then AH would be valuable as well. On the other hand the improved Cow tiles are only 3-food tile. I could achieve the same by farming a riverside grassland. And for the hammers I have the gold mines.

- Or research Iron Working to reveal Iron and get Praetorians soon. Normally I would never go Iron Working at this point but I'm wondering if Rome is an exception due to their UU.

I think I can afford to delay Pottery a bit because I have the 2 gold mines for early commerce.

Now, as you can see on the map, I have Copper in my capital's BFC. Does it make sense to already start to build Axes and use them as a kind of first attacking wave until I have Praetorians? Or is that a waste of hammers (and especially forests)? (Of course I could still have the bad luck of no close Iron, then... I don't know...)

I'm mainly unsure how fast I need to build a Praetorian army before Sitting Bull has grown too big. Also can I afford to wait until I have Math for better chopping yield? Or do I have to chop my forests without Math to build an army quickly enough?

How would you play the next steps?



EDIT: I've attached a save from the current turn where I am and an initial save if someone wants to experiment.

 

[Tatran]

Well, that's a really nasty situation.
Very poor land, almost no food resouces and a close neighbour you do not want. (You can forget an early rush.)
Good luck with this one.

 

[Izuul]

I think maybe you could've skipped BW here. Tech Ag > AH > Writing > Alpha. Farm the FPs and use the gold commerce to tech to Alpha. Trade for BW and IW, settle iron, chop out praets with capitol forests, kill people. The land here definitely is not very good though.

 

[Todelotti]

...a close neighbour you do not want. (You can forget an early rush.)

I don't want him because the neighbour is close or because the neighbour is Sitting Bull?

 

[FlyingSwan]

axe rush against sitting bull is pretty suicidal on immortal,PRO archer and dog soldiers will massacre your axes,and even if you did win the losses would cripple your game.Even pratorians vs dogs the odds will be even/against you.To fight this war I would want construction.Augustus is IND,you have a marble resource,it may be possible to oracle it if you bulbed maths.If you take Izzuls recomended tech route you could pick up myst and a poly/med.Some AIs will also trade you masonry-pericles/WvO for example.good luck.

I think Id get 3 good citys up and then concentrate on taking SB out.dont forget to put all your ESP on him,should be enough to cause 1 city revolt when you attack-if not just put your gold into the slider for a few turns before you attack.

 

[Seraiel]

Taking out SB with Praets is no problem. Just build enough of them and attack his strong cities first and if possible 2 or 3 simultaniously. Dog Soldiers are the strongest opponents you can get as Rome, PRO-Archers don't matter much against Praets. I'd also go IW now that you already got BW. You got good and missing an Iron-spot to settle could be the greatest problem. If there's no Iron for you, it really does look bad though, no Elephants either. I agree that Axe-rush against SB is somehow suicide or simply costs too many resources.

 

[Gumbolt]

Axes vs dog soldiers and protective archers. Remember the Ai does not need metal for his dog soldiers. 1 cow food resource at start is horrible. Even with the gold not much better. Early alphabet looks good here.

 

[Kallikrates]

I think for starting a new difficulty leaders with economic traits like FIN, PHI, ORG or some combination of those are easier than those with a particular powerful UU. Starting in the far edge of the map is just not conducive to any rush but the best traits help in all circumstances.
Also while a two gems + two pigs start might be masking the tougher difficulty a plains cow start might make it uncommonly hard.

 

[yyeah]

Early rush is only option here becouse this is just terrible land ...

I think oracle construcion is doable and this is good move here.
Unfortunatlyi think you need to self tech allway there, but you have 2 gold so it should be fine.
I would grow this capitol to size 6 asap, to work all this good tiles, and then start pomping setlers and workers ( maybe even bulid lib).

In order to this i would go AH-Writing-Math ( self tech) -mistycyzm-poli-preisthood-mansonry.

Its a bit risky becouse you dont know where your iron is witch is needed but well construcion has prio here imo, maybe u can trade like gold and marble for iron later ?.

 

[DanielTorrence]

SB has his UB, that makes his protective archers even stronger, so an Axe rush won't help. AC is imperialistic, so you should be able to get the marble city and one or two more, each with one of the food resources. I would like to try for a cow/rice/gold-city in the south, but the border pop would take too long. You could build the oracle using capitols copper and some chops, it will later connect the marble. Is there fish or seafood near the marble? Perhaps settle on it then.
Alternativly with soo much commerce from the gold, you might want to go for AH, perhaps an horse archer rush might be an option, since they ignore the first strike from the protective archers.


Don't forget to bring some axes to protect your praets.


I would tech alpha, trade for IW and oracle techs, perhaps fit in math earlier, since the AIs are reluctant to trade it until Hanging gardens are build.

Good luck.

 

[Anysense]

Masonry clearly does not worth it. When one is going to oracle something like construction one does not want to waste beakers on unnecessary techs. The Oracle costs 150 while settler costs 100 so it even does not help to build oracle faster. Moreover the marble city will be nearly useless.

 

[yyeah]

You need Mansonry to reserch Construction.

Getting alpha wont help him with oracle construcion becouse no1 will trade you math and mansonry in time ( only mansa i supose ).

Going alpha when you want to oracle construcion its a huge gamble.

Btw Izuul tech path is preety good if you want to rush with pretorians becouse you can bribe in Alex xD.

 

[sampsa]

A 3-city catapult+praetorian -rush should be unstoppable. Safer to forget about Oracle.

 

[oranje willem]

A 3-city catapult+praetorian -rush should be unstoppable. Safer to forget about Oracle.

This, catapults will do the job just fine, even without preatorian. Imo the map is not as bad as it looks on first sight, farmed flood plains + gold, settle 2 more cities: cow/gold city and rice city and go for some super fast catapults. You have plenty of forests to chop a good army.

 

[Izuul]

Do you have the original save file?

And regarding the Oracle, and Construction Oracle in particular...

-The bottleneck for nearly any Oracle attempt is research, not production. Researching Masonry and trying to hook up marble is actually counter-productive and will slow your Oracle attempt down! This is even more true here where you already have an IND leader. Edit: obvious exception with Construction Oracle since Masonry is a pre-req and cannot be avoided.

-A Construction Oracle is even more research intensive than many others (CoL, etc). You need to avoid any techs that are not absolutely crucial to the Math and PH tech paths. This includes BW - it should be skipped.

-Bulbing Math rarely helps at all. In order to attempt this you have to tech straight to Writing first and then try to build a library without whips or chops. This is easier with a Creative leader, but then it requires 17T of working 2 scientists which means you aren't working 2 tiles. If you do it with a Philo leader its only 9T, but the library is even more difficult to build and you don't really gain much time. IMO this is generally a complete waste of a great person and will only really help if your start is devoid of commerce. And if your start is devoid of commerce you really shouldn't be trying to Oracle Construction to begin with.

-What kind of start lends itself to a Construction Oracle? One like this with double gold! Don't try to get cute here, just use the huge gold commerce to tech to PH and then Math. Start slow-building the Oracle while you tech to Math and with IND you will have absolutely no trouble finishing it in time (by "in time" i mean before you finish Math).

That said, on Immortal just early Praets alone can kill SB without catapult support.

 

[Tatran]

I don't want him because the neighbour is close or because the neighbour is Sitting Bull?

Both. Very hard to rush early (He blocks your path to expand your empire) and spy terror (You don't want a cautious or worse Sitting Bull at your continent).

 

[elitetroops]

Researching Masonry and trying to hook up marble is actually counter-productive and will slow your Oracle attempt down! This is even more true here where you already have an IND leader.

Construction requires masonry...

Whether to settle marble or not would depend on if there is seafood in my opinion. If there is a fish, then I'd plop a city down on the marble. With IND+marble oracle is only 2 math chops, so building it in one turn once math is in is no problem. And all your cities could focus on other stuff until then. Unless of course skip BW, like Izu suggested. Might be even faster here, especially if you find reason to settle on the marble.

In general this start screams that Sitting Bull must die one way or another. Once he is dead, you'll have a double gold capital, another capital with strong foor and most likely both stone and marble, coupled with your IND trait. That should be a pretty strong position to go on and win the game.

 

[Izuul]

Yeah, good point. My first comment was in regards to Oracle attempts in general, but you will need Masonry for Construction Oracle obviously. Not for the resource bonus though, that's still really unnecessary unless you just have marble in your BFC and no reason not to hook it up. The issue with a Construction Oracle is definitely not the time required to build the Oracle... it's the time required to tech everything. You will have plenty of time to build the Oracle while researching Math.

After a lot of testing a couple of years ago i found the Construction Oracle to be totally unreliable on Deity because it's just really difficult to finish it fast enough barring a HOF-like start. It is possible quite often on Immortal though.

Just looking at this game for an example, he's already 24T in and i assume all he has researched is Ag and BW. You really want to finish the Oracle somewhere in the T60-65 (1400-1600 BC) range even on immortal so that's just 36-41T away and he will still need to research AH, Writing, Myst, Med, PH, Math, and Masonry. Maybe possible here, but *only* because of the double gold.

That is why skipping things like BW is necessary, and also why good starting techs like Ag help so much. Replace Fishing with Ag here the Oracle date is significantly better.

 

[Fippy]

I would build a settler at size 3 here, for 1 helper city that works 1 gold (maybe seafood east? not scouted yet ph might be okay either way).
That city can work only gold at start and build the iron city settler (still fast enuf with Imp i guess) while your Cap has less "pressure" on those golds and can grow a bit.
If i rush anyways i would not bother with the desert gold city too soon.

 

[Seraiel]

I still don't know why this map needs Oracle Construction. Praets against Dogs are at least 50% chance and they eat PRO-Archers alive. It's not easy, but it's definitely possible to outproduce an AI, especially if it's Immortal. I have done so in my latest Gauntlet-try, where I Axe-rushed an opponent with about 10 Axes. Same should be possible here. I find Oracle Construction is a move when Mansa goes Currency, otherwise I'd prefer Currency to it, and oracling Currency is already very difficult and requires (as Izuul already wrote) to skip everything that's possible. I'd not go that route in this game, because oracling Currency delays the buildup for a long time. Rushes are best if done earlier, so get up a Granary at most, and chop all those trees in Praets for something like a 1500 BC 10 Praet rush. As long as Sitting Bull is in the expansion phase, his troop-count will be low anyhow, like 2 Archers / city, maybe even less. I'd probably even skip a Barracks in the capital, unless the Barracks can be constructed before connecting Iron.

As I think about it, going Construction early imo seems to be the best option if Iron is not available.