Kraz01- The Totally Mad Scientists

Research for AW, especially with no trading or the GLib, had better be maximum sustainable. We'll want to build science farms in a safe area when it becomes possible. When going on the offensive, we'll want to target rich countries to get more money when razing their towns:evil: Military techs will of course be top priority, followed by knowledge based techs. Other techs will be as needed for advancement.
 
Spoiler :


This is what our start looks like after I moved the first units. We have 6 BG's in our capital region, a very good sign. Worker will begin watering the cow next turn. Scout will head east instead of north due to slowed movement, but that mountainious region has high hopes of iron. Hopefully it is not too big, however, or we will have to deal with stunted amount of food in our area. Research is at 100%, build order is currently Warrior->Warrior.

Suggestions are welcome before I fully dive into this turnset.

I am still hoping for Phant to join and at least another person for a 5th.
 
From what is shown the second city needs to be on that hill 2E-SE of K-grad, and it's first build should be a wall. Since you will at war early (and often), you need cities on places where you can defend them well. Hills and walls are a great defensvie combination. Having a river helps for growth, too.

Don't let your explorer go too far. You don't want war too soon. If he stayed at two tiles out from your border you should be okay. You do want to see the land around you so that you can place your cities wisely.

With a worker and scout already on the payroll, you can make two more units before unit support becomes an issue. In Despotism, city support is 4/4/4. Once the scout has completed his rounds, I would move him back into K-grad and disband him to help build the settler. I would keep both Warriors in the city for crowd control but send one of them with the settler as protection on the way and in the new city.

The worker should road towards the first city site. Roading to the east from the capital will take 14 turns. (Move + road a forest = 1 + 6 = 7, do it twice for two tiles equals 14).

I am cautious, so I would not build to the SE just yet. Too much open ground and no defensive bonus for a city. I would put 1 or 2 cities on the hills to the NE. It would be better if the hills were isolated, so that enemy units could not get the hill/mountain defensive bonus, but, well, we did not get that.
 
CBob, unfortunately, we don't have Masonry, so Walls are not buildable as of yet.

I feel like a hypocrite asking for your advice but not heeding it thoroughly, but I do feel you are a bit too cautious. This is a large map and "just" Monarch, so there is at least a little bit of breathing room before ramming headfirst into another civ.

I agree with you on the first city site as of now, but it will be a bit of time before the first settler is up and running and the scout still has a bit of time to explore his immediate surroundings until then.

I will of course take caution and not blaze a path specifically one way with him into another civ. :p
 
Man I suck at MM'ing beginnings of games.

Anyway, here is the turn log:

Turn Log:

4000 BC:

Found Kraznayagrad, to boost my ego
Move Worker to Cow
Scout goes east in search of fertile pastures

3950 BC:

Nothing

3900 BC:

Nothing

3850 BC:

Scout pops a goody hut, its a city
Tassleburg is thus founded.

3800 BC:

Scout stops one way movement and heads back

3750 BC:

Warrior is built in Kraznayagrad, goes off north to see immediate surroundings

3700 BC:

Nothing

3650 BC:

Nothing

3600 BC:

Nothing

3550 BC:

Warrior is built in Kraznayagrad, fortifies for MP duty

3500 BC:

Nothing

3450 BC:

Scout is disbanded for Settler shields

3400 BC:

Warrior is built in Tassleburg

3350 BC:

Nothing

3300 BC:

Nothing

3250 BC:

Nothing

3200 BC:

Settler is built in Kraznayagrad

3150 BC:

Nothing

3100 BC:

Overseerpolis is founded on Hill location

3050 BC:

Nothing

A photo-op of the empire:

Spoiler :


The Good:

Great land
No Contacts
Free City on a Hill
IVORY!!

The Bad:

I forget to keep the turn log every couple of turns ><
I need to work on opening moves.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/62725/Kraz01_3000_BC.SAV

Roster:

Roster-
Kraznaya - Just played
Tasslehoff - UP
TheOverseer714 - Warming Up
?
Elephantium ( (?) perhaps next week)
 
CBob, unfortunately, we don't have Masonry, so Walls are not buildable as of yet.
:shake:
I just can't seem to keep the Ancient Age Techs in any sense of order. Sorry.

I feel like a hypocrite asking for your advice but not heeding it thoroughly, but I do feel you are a bit too cautious. This is a large map and "just" Monarch, so there is at least a little bit of breathing room before ramming headfirst into another civ.

I agree with you on the first city site as of now, but it will be a bit of time before the first settler is up and running and the scout still has a bit of time to explore his immediate surroundings until then.

I will of course take caution and not blaze a path specifically one way with him into another civ. :p
First, don't feel like a hypocrite. I offered advice, but you have good reasons for not following my advice. I'm not offended.

Second, I am cautious, early in an AW game. In a 'normal' game I would send the explorer far and wide to meet civs and be a tech broker between different civs. In an AW game, I want to have enough defenders to withstand the first and second wave of AI attacks, and have some offensive units to do damage to stacks. Attacking single units is fine, if we cannot be attacked on the IBT. The AI will go after single units and small stacks. So, since the first part of the game is mostly defensive, I look for good defensive city sites and tend to ignore, at least for a while, more traditional city sites.

Ideally, we could plant a settler pump somewhere SE of K-grad and ring it with cities on hills.

The SE does look more fertile than anything to the north or northeast, so I would suggest exploring that direction first. The hills and mountains to the north and northeast suggest a rather large mountain range and they may serve as a natural defensive barrier.
 
Cbob, is that by any chance an x-post?

I admit, I am not that experienced with prepping for AW, so it could be my fault that we are overextended from my current play and we get crushed by the first enemy stack.

With the current situation, the southern "bay" cities will be the core of the empire while the cities north of the current ones would be hilltowns with a killzone set up on the plain north of them. I think.

I'm not sure if I want K-grad to be a rax town or a settler town, I guess Tasslehoff and Overseer will decide that with their turns.
 
Not too shabby for the first 20 turns of an AW game. A free city, another city on a hill and no AIs to worry with.

Tasselburg is a bit far from Overseerpolis, but that can't be helped. It was free!

I think that K-grad might be better off building a barracks than a granary. We will need Veteran units to make our defenses stronger. We'll be attacked by a lot of Regular units, so if we have vets we'll have better chances to survive the attacks. And we'll heal quicker, since we won't take as much damage.

Having said that, Tasselburg needs to concentrate on just having a bunch (4 or more) defenders, even if they are only Regular units. Until we can get it connected, and drop a city between it and Overseerpolis, it will just have to fend for itself.

After this Spear, Overseerpolis might need to build a worker or settler. We could hurry that build by chopping the forest NW of the city. We will need more workers for sure, but we need to claim the Ivory also. Plopping a city on one of the Ivories is the fastest. Building on the SW Ivory gives us a city 3MP from Overseerpolis and only 2MP from Tasselburg. The hill SW of that is a better defensive postion, but then we have to road the forest the Ivory is in. Here I would build on the Ivory.

We truly do need to chop the forest NW of Overseerpolis and then road it. The reason is movement. If this tile is cleared and roaded, then units can get from K-grad to Overseerpolis in one turn (E, E and SE, crossing the river, ending turn in Overseerpolis). The current road will take them two turns (E, SE, crossing river, ending turn; next turn E into Overseerpolis).

If the 4th city claims the Ivory, I think that the next few cities need to define some of our boundaries. One city needs to be SW-S of Tasslehoff, next to the river. That will protect all those BGs between our cities and the coast and let us expand into there. City 6 and 7 should be on the hills N/NE of K-grad, both on the northern end of the hills and in the middle of the hill ridge.

These cities would give us some secure borders while we filled in towards the coast. Then we could start to expand to some of our neighbors.

These are good plans, or at least, good staring places for plans. Let's see what happens to those plans once we meet then enemy. :D
 
I admit- on the path of the road and the choice to build a granary- I wasn't sure what I was doing. Fortunately, the granary still has plenty of time to be switched to a rax and the road+mine won't lead to any permanent damage.

I like the idea of quickly securing the ivory, but such a city would be CxC spacing from Tass. Is that a good idea?

I'm thinking of making a tentative dotmap based on your ideas and my own ramblings...

Cbob, I noticed you kept referring to the team as "we." Does that mean we can expect you to play at some point in this SG? *runs from Mrs. Commandobob* ;)
 
I admit- on the path of the road and the choice to build a granary- I wasn't sure what I was doing. Fortunately, the granary still has plenty of time to be switched to a rax and the road+mine won't lead to any permanent damage.
I don't think any major damage was done, either. In a 'normal' game it won't matter. In an AW, it could, sometimes.
I like the idea of quickly securing the ivory, but such a city would be CxC spacing from Tass. Is that a good idea?
Sadly, both Ivories are CxC from Tasselburg. For a Luxury or a Strategic Resource, yeah, it should be okay. CxxC is a good guideline, especially in AWs, but sometimes the map does not cooperate.
I'm thinking of making a tentative dotmap based on your ideas and my own ramblings...
Dot Maps are good; they help to think and plan out.
Cbob, I noticed you kept referring to the team as "we." Does that mean we can expect you to play at some point in this SG? *runs from Mrs. Commandobob* ;)
Maybe, depending on how long the honey-do list is. Timing is the real key.

More than anything else though, that is more of the style of how I write. To say 'you' and 'your game' sounds (to me) like an accusation. 'You did this and you did that and how could even think of doing those things!' By using 'we' I feel more like I am instructing, teaching and maybe helping to correct. Instead of me hearing me give condemnation, I hear myself trying to give constructive criticism.

I really don't know at this point if I will be able to play any turns.
 
Dot Map:
Spoiler :


Argh, I accidentally it as a gif, now it looks ugly. :(

Black dot is the easiest spot to choose imo, it should be built soon (although probably not first) and is something of a northern gate to the capital.

Yellow is a good defensive position, but it does make the area a bit crowded.

Beige is far off, I don't even know why I put that there. :crazyeye:

Blue is CommandoBob's preferred spot for the ivory city. It does have the aforementioned problem of CxC spacing, and the forest will turn into a defense-light grassland when it is transformed into a city. On the other hand, it does get the ivory much quicker.

Purple is the other choice. It is on a hill and retains CxxC spacing, but on the other hand it will take a while to connect all of this and the city will remain unproductive for a while.

The light brown dots are the proposed southern gate city locations. The southernmost dot has coast, but loses the Portugeuse side of the river and the defensive bonuses.

The lime dot is a fishing city and doesn't have any shields to start with. Low priority.

The red dot will eventually get the whale and has quite a few BG's next to it. However, it won't have food bonuses nor a river.
 
Alright, I'll play tomorrow night. Personally, I prefer using purple dot for the ivory city, but I go with the group's decision.

What build order should I head for? Blue/Purple first, then Black? Orange?
 
What will the worker do?

If our one worker is going to road to Tasselburg, it can do that in three grassland tiles (Overseerpolis E, NE and E again) in about 12 turns. In that case, I would build a new city along that road.

In general terms, we need cities along our roads but we also need roads to our cities. We don't want to build a city and then have to walk three turns to reinforce it. We will need the ability to move units quickly from one city to another to meet the various threats we will face when the AI discovers that we unfriendly and anti-social geeks.

(But wait, aren't all geeks unfriendly and anti-social? Isn't that part of geekiness? :D)
 
I think make blue dot a temporary town, just to tie in the Ivory ASAP. We could later on settler-abandon and settle purple, as it might be a key defensive location. A hill town with a wall is stronger defensively than a grass town. I have noticed that the AI loves mountain ranges to deliver troops, and a town on purple dot and a spear on the mountain to its' north would seal off that approach. The Ivory might also work as bait for a kill-zone, the AI also loves to pillage luxes. I like Black dot, but if it is settled, yellow dot can't be. The pale yellow dot looks like another potential kill-zone if the adjacent mountain gets a spear. Orange dot by the sea looks good as our settler factory, just make sure the wheat is in its first 9 tiles. The forests could be chopped towards a granary. It also has plenty of BG's. I would go blue, orange dot by the sea, and black as our next 3 builds. We have an opportunity here to build first with no close contacts yet. Kraz, what techs did you do? There's no mention in your turn-log. As far as learning AW, maybe you could read some of the Rat series and GR series, TheRat and Greebley are our current AW experts, I've learned tons from playing in the last 3 Rat games with them. Anyway, good job:goodjob: with your first AW turn-set.
 
What will the worker do?

If our one worker is going to road to Tasselburg, it can do that in three grassland tiles (Overseerpolis E, NE and E again) in about 12 turns. In that case, I would build a new city along that road.

In general terms, we need cities along our roads but we also need roads to our cities. We don't want to build a city and then have to walk three turns to reinforce it. We will need the ability to move units quickly from one city to another to meet the various threats we will face when the AI discovers that we unfriendly and anti-social geeks.

(But wait, aren't all geeks unfriendly and anti-social? Isn't that part of geekiness? :D)

I think make blue dot a temporary town, just to tie in the Ivory ASAP. We could later on settler-abandon and settle purple, as it might be a key defensive location. A hill town with a wall is stronger defensively than a grass town. I have noticed that the AI loves mountain ranges to deliver troops, and a town on purple dot and a spear on the mountain to its' north would seal off that approach. The Ivory might also work as bait for a kill-zone, the AI also loves to pillage luxes.

I think the worker should road to Tassleburg. And no town with CxCxC spacing, especially since the center town will be on grass.

What the worker does after that depends on whether Tasslehoff decides to settle on blue or purple dot. I think it depends on if he meets a contact before then or not. If yes, purple for defense. If not, blue for insta-Ivory.

I like Black dot, but if it is settled, yellow dot can't be.

I think Cbob, when he mentioned that location first, meant it to be a "fort" city to set up a grasslands north of it. It does make it crazy crowded, though.

The pale yellow dot looks like another potential kill-zone if the adjacent mountain gets a spear. I would go blue, orange, black as our next 3 builds.

I think it depends if the settler after blue/purp dot is built in K-grad or O-polis.

I would send O-polis at burnt orange and K-grad to black.

Kraz, what techs did you do? There's no mention in your turn-log.

I got bronze (at 90-100% research with some MMing at the end), and according to the screen we are working on iron. No other techs due to our only goody hut in the vicinity giving us a city (I'm not complaining!)

Anyway, good job with your first AW turn-set.

Thanks :goodjob:
 
Right. Black and Yellow are both fort cities, meant for defense first and offense second. Of the two, Black is better first choice, since it is further north and gives more warning of bad guys. But it needs a road, too. Yellow can be roaded faster, so if it was built first we could use it to road to Black. So Yellow, then Black, might be the wiser choice.

A lot to do with just one worker.

(Even in an AW game, we still need to have plenty of workers. It also means we have to protect them, too.)
 
Alright, so here's the gameplan: Build Blue/Purple (depending on contacts), then Yellow. Pop off a worker or two, and build spears and raxes. Try to get Math (?), then Construction for Ye Olde Walle. Got it, playing now.

EDIT: Masonry, not Construction
 
We only need Masonry for walls, not Construction. We're already somewhere into IW so I'm not sure diverting research would be that smart... we need Masonry for Math anyway.

Ah well, you already have it.

EDIT: Okay, okay you scared me there. :p
 
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