King of the World #15: Ragnar

[CHEESE!]

Looking through the save, this will be the easiest game ever. The start locations, man. The start locations. I give it 40 turns before the AIs start dropping like flies.[/SPOILER]

I'm gonna pick on BTA, and say:

 

[The Dark One]

OOPS Double post, sorry, please ignore.

 

[The Dark One]

I aslo shadowed.

Spoiler :

Sorry for no screenshots. I went Mining -> Masonry and then BW. Which was a good move got the greatwall up early and I could slowly start to crawl back into the game. Was however stuck with 2 cities more or less.
It looked okey, until I got DOW'ed by russian just before I was ready to kill off England with swords and catapults. The tech rate where okey, but when I finally finished the war with russian (Me standing in the capital and defending), england had mace and I gave up there, I might return to this one, and will do are more detailed shadow.

Anyways a really really hard map!

Spoiler :

Me too - just the same. Built the wall, then found myself stuck with just two cities. Pumped out units, settled a couple of GPs, took three cities from Vicky, then saw that I was Cathy's worst enemy, she had twelve cities and was WHEOOHRNing all over the place. At which point, I quit. Ho hum.

@Neal - you are going to try again, right? After all,

Spoiler :

if Cathy can do so well with no wall, it must be possible.

 

[BakingTheArt]

Rhye's and Fall... Rhye's and Fall...

And to Cheese - I was assuming he would make it past the first round. I guess that's my lack of raging barbs experience talking.

 

[bestsss]

delete

 

[Jehoshua]

From the evidence i think its fairly obvious that neal is going to need to focus on early military over anything else. Europes a bigger place with all the tundra and the barbarians from the north are clearly going to come sooner rather then later.

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Basically this would rule out any early wonders in favour of a more surefire defence, military might. Perhaps focussing on settling south in ice age italia, in Iberia (if theres room with Cathy around) and in other choke points or safe areas until the military comes online allowing you to stick it to the barbs in the icy North.

Great wall (or other early wonder) construction is possible i suppose, but i see it as of neglible long term benefit as its construction would only stunt your growth and give the AI's an advantage(despite the barbs). From my experience on the ice age map europe is rather cramped thanks to all the ice, and your going to need to get a good foothold if you want to win. this would entail more growth than would be possible with an early wonder build since your cramped between two AI's, the mediterranean, and a sea of barbarian infested ice..

---

Perhaps if you survive you'll start seeing the AI's dropping like flies instead of the other way round.

 

[bestsss]

>>Maybe the Settler was a mistake...
So early definitely was. If you dont go archery the position is a ritual suicide w/o ample amount of warriors.

And even if you have settled, most likely you'd lose the city, plus there was not enough escorts anyways.

 

[Rubbaduck]

IMO Archery->AH->BW would be the best tech order here, and keeping the scout around until an archer or two are built wouldn't hurt either. I don't think you can afford to build the big wall here, nor will it be necessary if you get a proper fortress set up in eastern Europe. Another anti-barb idea would be moving to Iberia with the initial settler for an easily defendable chokepoint.

The round also confirmed that the starting points aren't 'true' random: In my semi-shadow as Babylon I started where you found Cathy, Sal was in your starting point and Brennus was in Victoria's place. I don't know how big of a problem that is, bu I at least found some AI's that were in really horrible places(Alone in the middle of Siberia for example.

 

[bestsss]

^ I can post a shadow defending w/ warriors only and getting the great wall. Settler at 5, just before the great wall.

Starting positions cannot be truly random since the game evaluates them.

 

[Camikaze]

I vote for a replay from the original save. Try building another warrior or two before starting on the settler.

 

[Rubbaduck]

@bestsss: Just because it can be done doesn't mean it's the best way, though I'm not saying it's not. Still, warriors don't quite cut it once them axemen start showing up, while archers most certainly do.

Still another idea would be playing the Celts instead, to abuse the hill bonuses, and Boudica's traits obviously help.

 

[bestsss]

@bestsss: Just because it can be done doesn't mean it's the best way, though I'm not saying it's not. Still, warriors don't quite cut it once them axemen start showing up, while archers most certainly do.

Axeman shows up after the Great Wall is completed, so no problems. So they only annoy the neighbors.

I can try and replay the start but I doubt researching archery will give me any benefit in terms of development.
One of the downsides of archery is the barbs go for pillage if they have too bad odds to attack.

 

[Rubbaduck]

The thing that concerns me about making the first settler at size 5, then going for the wall, while defending with just warriors is that it makes the expansion phase start really late, when good sites might've been lost already, and considering we have Catherine and Victoria as our neighbors a foreign invasion is not out of the question. It might put us in a position where we don't have to worry about barbs when they aren't really a problem anymore.

While defending with archers and then going for copper one could easily keep expanding within Europe until all barbs would have to come from the steppes to east, ideally through one heavily garrisoned hilltop city with walls.

 

[IAM]

Well it's good to see I'm not the only one that Fate extinguished early. I think you have to send the scout out scouting. I popped AH and gold before he was killed and that's too good a haul to let go. I would also say build worker, archer, archer will allow you to survive in the short run but the barbs pillaged everything I had and were swarming so my worker became useless. My plan with the settler was to found a city in a safe area and improve it while using the capitol as a front line fort. Obviously that didn't work but the Great Wall on this map looks like it will ****** growth beyond rrepair. Good writeup. Still enjoyed the game.

 

[RyanZ]

Too bad! I hope you play again, it's too bad that stone is forested. If you do play again I'd like to point out the original starting position results in a river crossing penalty for any barbarians coming from the north

 

[vanatteveldt]

I vote for replay from the 4000BC save, and go archery. A couple archers in the forests and/or hills can do wonders with those barbarians.

Copper would have been too late to save you anyway...

 

[Fleme]

I vote for replay from the 4000BC save, and go archery. A couple archers in the forests and/or hills can do wonders with those barbarians.

Copper would have been too late to save you anyway...

Looks to me like he never made it anywhere near 4000BC.

Anyhow, hoping for that Deity Romans game now.

 

[Airefuego]

I vote for a replay if you can bear it... this map is a very interesting challenge - take two!

 

[madscientist]

NEAL! Fantastic game! What a nail biter and strategic skill, kudos to the King of the World!!!!

NOW, restarting I suggest keeping the same map and researching archery first.

 

[mfie]

I vote for replay. Just prioritize the great wall en you'll be fine