Lessons on Epics: Washington

[Zherak_Khan]

Monotheism is sure sexy, but what about Axes or similar to ward off Barbarians?

 

[uncarved block]

I'll chime in and say settle on the spot. The bonus for settling on the Silk will be nothing compared to what you'll get Cottaging both squares. Production is always an issue on Lakes- at least in my games- so having two Forests to chop ahead of the rest in your fat cross will save some headache choices down the line. And do my eyes decieve me, or does the ground one square NW of the Rice look like a hill? Lacking an early UU, I'd argue you're going to have to leverage your traits to the max, and that means money.

The other reason to settle there is to take full advantage of the fog busting. From the looks of it, you're very close to the bottom edge, and being able to use the extra sight over water will come in handy in another 30-50 turns. I hate to sound like a broken record, but that Ice to the south could be a huge headache, drawing troops the opposite direction from your expansion.

To sound a paranoid note, I don't think Archery is going to be an optional tech on this map, at this level. Warriors aren't going to cut it for very long, and wasting Axemen to bust fog rather than take out your neighbors just doesn't feel right. Archers take a lot of abuse around here, but this is one of those niches where they're the perfect fit for the job. Throw a Guerrilla promotion or two on 'em and they'll last your for a good long time.

As far as stealing workers goes, my timid advice is to pick the right enemy, and only one. To natter on about the map some more, the chances a Worker will make the trip all the way home are slim IMHO, meaning you're stealing one more to damage the enemy than help yourself. In such a claustrophobic envirnonment, having enemies on two sides doesn't seem the best strategy. Unlike a map filled with more water, you're going to have to defend all four directions, all the time, and having one peaceful neighbor will be worth more than even three free workers, in the long run. Just my two cents.

Enough advice-- let's see some play!

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Enough advice-- let's see some play!

I'm embarassed to show it. OK, here we go...

I started play moving the warrior to the stone, which identified the oasis among other things. I then settled Washington in place - the primary consideration in my mind being the quality of the tiles. My judgment of the tiles to the west: two grasslands and a plains hill. Moving as recommended would give up three grasslands, a plains, and a plains hill for a grassland hill, the stone, two coastal tiles, and a forrest on terrain I couldn't identify, but it was adjascent to the tundra hill, so I didn't have high hopes.

I was made very happy when the settlement revealed that one of the grasslands had Cows! I'm a big fan of +3 improvements in the Ancient era.

Research started with Mining. When further exploration showed that the stone was near pigs, Animal Husbandry climbed way up the priority list.

A hutmap in 3790 BC gave me a target....

I had renamed my first warrior, to I would remember his role in life. A short hike later, he fulfilled his destiny....

Note the number of pips on the Beijing mast? So there's another archer scouting somehere. The animals haven't been terribly obvious yet, so I decide to try to sprint the worker home. He promptly finds the other Chinese archer for me, and gets destroyed. Warrior I had been sending NW now has to hustle back to Washingon (lest the Chinese take the city unmolested). I try to intercept the worker on it's way back to China, but it's just gone. ?!

Pressgang posts up in the forrest, to prevent a chinese worker from reaching the pigs or ivory (lost to the left side of the picture). He manages to defend himself against one archer, but is killed by a second. A Woodsman II warrior arrives too late to help, but takes over stifling duty.

Animal Husbandry comes in, and I have horses in Washington's fat cross. The wheel comes next, as I get a worker (built myself :frown to work putting the horses on line.

BronzeWorking comes in - there's copper to the west, but not near any food. So I start thinking eastwards, towards the stone. I'll need a border pop to pull in the pigs (Washington should catch the stone), so I turn toward Mysticism.

(Those of you wondering why I'm not looking towards Horse Archers? I'm right there with you :smoke).

From here, things founder. I manage to get a team of chariots up to China, but not enough to outgun the city garrison. Qin sneaks out a settler (revealing that I had put my mini stack on the wrong tile, since I couldn't immediately intercept); a few turns later, I've traded a chariot for two archers, some promotions, and a worker, who makes it home alive.

Alas, I'm not doing much better.

I've settled New York, but don't blink. I had thought my fog busting warrior would be adequate until I could shore things up a bit. Ah, no. I needed to bust the fog further out, and get a heavy hitter over there. And get archery going (why am I so about that tech - at least I'm consistent).

Nothing useful happens in China. I manage to get Boston settled on the ruins of New York, and chop a library there to get the pigs in play and to leverage the gold mine. Qin is able to whittle down my chariots (no reinforcements have been sent that way, as I've been dealing with Barbs), and I sell out for peace before he nicks the last one.

The state of the world

I've got a settler and escort loose in the west, originally I was heading towards the copper, but I think I had better go for the iron instead - let's not make things too easy for Qin. I also need to win the race to capture Burgundian. So the immediate research track needs to be military - I need Archery, and I might as well grab Construction too as I can.

Save

 

[Nares]

I know Zombie would roll over at the suggestion of whipping a Settler (it's extremely inefficient), but you need to chop/whip one out ASAP.

Bronze Working and Iron Working researched and you haven't settled near either?

I ended up settling the capital on the Plains Hill 1NE. I'm very much fond of Plains Hills, having been playing a lot of Marathon in the past couple of days. I was also aware that trying to grab the Stone with a second city would, invariably, result in poorer placement of that city (New York isn't in a bad position; that's just a general rule of thumb I've found).

The discovery of the Gold was what really sealed the deal. I intended on researching Mining early (after Hunting and Archery), so as to make some use of whatever Worker(s) I managed to steal (I had already ditched the Rice in moving, and hadn't yet discovered the loss of the Cows). Being Financial confirmed for me that going for the Gold was as strong an early move as I could possibly make. The fresh water lake and the Oasis also helped.

Back to your game. You got unlucky with stealing a Worker. It happens. I hadn't yet posted a more in-depth analysis of stealing workers, but a rogue element such as a wandering Archer can't really be planned for. At least you didn't lose your capital as a result. Don't let this discourage you from attempting it in the future.

Meanwhile, get that Copper and Iron settled as fast as possible. Alexander isn't going to wait for you to settle it, I can guarantee you that. Nor will Qin wait for you to settle the Iron SW of Bejing (not the strongest site, but it's probably the best site between you and Qin for the time being).

You must must must get those Axemen and Swordsmen up sooner rather than later. You want to kill Qin before he makes friends with anyone, lest you start the process of "-1 You delcared war on our friend!." It seems your builder tendencies are still too strong (Aqueduct? Who needs that...). As it is, you're aiming to lose too much land to the AI, and the only thing that will keep you near parity is your Financial trait (hence why it's considred a crutch).

PS: I still don't know how to embed links. You gotta let me know how.

 

[pigswill]

Chariots instead of aqueducts perhaps; settle near copper asap; chariot rush vs Burgundium to get near iron. If Qin's got ivory maybe sharpen some spears for cities and to escort axes. Copper city and Burgundium gets you four cities which is a start. I notice you haven't done anything with silk forests.
Being prince level rather than monarch means I don't actually know if I'm giving appropriate advice/comments.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I still don't know how to embed links. You gotta let me know how.

I'm copying the pictures to my own web server, then using the vB IMG tags, and vB URL tags for the links.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/misc.php?do=bbcode

If you look at the bottom left of the screen (posting rules), you'll find the links that tells you what codes are available and what they do.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Being prince level rather than monarch means I don't actually know if I'm giving appropriate advice/comments.

Neither do I, that's part of the point

 

[Sisiutil]

I'm with Nares. You're Organized and Financial...expand! You can afford it! You let Washington get up to 7 pop quickly, and what did that get you? These guys:

Give up on the Aqueducts and get the whip cracking. Units, Settlers, and go harass Qin some more. I think you did a good job of the latter early on and you need to keep it up. Chariots aren't War Chariots, but I'd still bet they can be effective in the open field, worker nabbing, and pillaging. I'd have used them for barb whomping early on too. Remember the key with Chariots is they're cheap: build a lot of them.

I agree on going after Burgundian. It's actually in a pretty good spot. You may want to let it grow to at least pop 2 before taking it so you can keep it and save on a Settler.

Opening positions are always debatable. Nares obviously did better that either one of us did/would have. I would have missed out on the horses by moving SE, you missed out on the gold by settling in spot. Luck is inevitably a factor.

And, to paraphrase one of your posts in my Hatty game...did you develop an allergy to cottages?

 

[Pantastic]

Aqueducts are something to build in the ADs, there's just no reason to waste time with them in the BCs. Lose a food or two; by the time you're at your health limit, you're probably near your happy limit anyway and should break out the whip. Look at washington, unhappy but not a even a little unhealthiness yet, so really no need for an aqueduct. Granaries are far better early on, increasing growth rate helps a lot, plus you should be able to trade for 2 granary health resources fairly early on so it's probably as good for your health as an aqueduct.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Look at washington, unhappy but not a even a little unhealthiness yet, so really no need for an aqueduct.

This is the inner builder thinking about HG. It will be vetoed with extreme prejudice.

Keep that abuse coming folks, it's all good.

 

[Nares]

And, to paraphrase one of your posts in my Hatty game...did you develop an allergy to cottages?

EDIT:

I'll second that comment about cottages, too.

Gold Mine, Gold Mine, Gold Mine.

This is the inner builder thinking about HG. It will be vetoed with extreme prejudice.

Bah, HG. The first thing you need to do is abandon any thoughts of early-mid game wonders. You might be able to get them if you beeline for them, but that leaves you having not built a solid foundation. Stonehenge seems to be left alone unreasonably long (unlike The Oracle). Even then, you only were able to build it because Stone was so darn close.

...go harass Qin some more.

Heh, I nabbed three Workers trying to hook up that Copper of his before an Archer finally killed my Warrior, the same Warrior who had nabbed the first and second Warriors. That's what making fast peace can do (though I did accumulate a "-3 You have declared war on our friend!" with Alex, and some more minor ones with others in the process).

I wish I had taken more screenshots of that. I only got the one when I grabbed the second Worker. Forgot to take any others.

PS: You still owe us the Kormus Bell referrence. It's gotta be really obscure if no one here knows it (unless not that many people are reading this thread...).

 

[uncarved block]

The only thing I'm curious about is the allocation in Boston-- is the extra growth worth giving up on all that $$ from the gold mine? If your goal is military expansion, hammers now are worth a lot more, especially with a nice cheap unit like Chariots.

I don't know if this is a spoiler or not, but in the save, I noted that Alex is to your west. I don't think you can pick and choose between Copper or Iron right now. Hooking up that Copper is your first priority, IMHO, and every five turns (or so) you don't have it is another Phalanx on the way. Alex has the counter to your strongest unit right now, and I can only see bad things in the future if this doesn't change. Fast.

I'll second that comment about cottages, too.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Play until you reach what seems like a critical decision point regardless of whether it was 2, 15, or 38 turns.

I think I need to revise this idea....

And, to paraphrase one of your posts in my Hatty game...did you develop an allergy to cottages?

Wrong question. Better to ask "Did I develop an allergy to planning?". Um, apparently. sigh

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the winner of the First Annual Drunkards Walk
Research Competition.

• Mining
• Animal Husbandry
• The Wheel
• Bronze Working
• Mysticism
• Masonry
• Writing
• Mathematics
• Iron Working

That's a lot of turns of research going nowhere. The first three I'm reasonably happy with (given the timing of the first worker, the order doesn't matter much).

Bronzeworking I'm not so sure of, but I can live with it - it's part of figuring out where second city is going to go. If I was committed to the New York location, maybe I could put this off.

The rest of that research tree is junk. There are some justifications for it (except perhaps Mathematics), but the justifications are all local - ohh shiny! - and have nothing to do with winning. I'm not going to try to defend them.

I do, however, need to play the position I'm in, and take what advantages I've got. That probably means putting both cities into commerce mode, to maximize the returns on the libraries, while getting what units I can into the field. I think the notion of getting another settler out is a good one - it fits well with the idea of chopping those luxuries free and putting a cottage onto each of them.

Archery gets deferred, in the expectations that I'll have axes for defense in a moment. So my instinct (which has served me so well up to this point ) is Pottery then Construction - I have to get to Beijing before anyone else does.

Coppertino goes where - the hill north of the copper, so that it can share the sugar when it needs to grow?

 

[Sisiutil]

I do, however, need to play the position I'm in, and take what advantages I've got. That probably means putting both cities into commerce mode, to maximize the returns on the libraries, while getting what units I can into the field. I think the notion of getting another settler out is a good one - it fits well with the idea of chopping those luxuries free and putting a cottage onto each of them.

Archery gets deferred, in the expectations that I'll have axes for defense in a moment. So my instinct (which has served me so well up to this point ) is Pottery then Construction - I have to get to Beijing before anyone else does.

Coppertino goes where - the hill north of the copper, so that it can share the sugar when it needs to grow?

Sounds like a reasonable at this point. (You built libraries already? Wow.)

I can't blame you for wandering around the tech tree in some respects. With America's UU coming so incredibly late, it makes it more challenging to focus on a tech goal early in the game. I mean, it's not like you're going to bee-line to Industrialism!

Uh...you're not, are you? Though I guess it would focus your research...

Your next city should be Coppertino--I'd put it one tile east of the hill, just to make it easier to thwack at anyone trying to invade down that peninsula, but that's me. It's a grassland hill, and I prefer to mine those rather than build on them. Also, your workers will be playing tourist--and risk-loving ones at that--trying to improve those tiles on the other side of the lake. Assuming another civ doesn't beat you to them.

And your other next city should be Burgundian. That will give you both metals. I always like having two sources of metal, just in case a barb or other civ pillages one. Oh, you thought that would stop me, did you? How foolish of you, Meesteer Bond...

 

[Lord Chambers]

People love these threads.

 

[Andraeianus I]

Sorry to say so: WHY did you start a war about a worker???? What did you win? An enemy. This is foolish! You don't know what the world looks like. Are there other civs on the continent? Because, while you fight a third civ might get a significant lead.

You have started a war while there is nothing to win.

 

[cabert]

strange start strat (2 cities (one size 7!) with organized is a waste!), but i think you already got sound advice to correct this coppertino and irony burgundia are next, but i would go for 6 cities asap.
For coppertino, i would settle south of the copper :
- coastal (i think ?),
- fresh water,
- immediate access to the copper
- no overlapping with washington
- after 1 border extension, you get gold
- if you fight off alex's culture (2nd border expansion + city razing ), you can get the incense too. No need to work the tile (not better than a full grown cottage for commerce, and no food)
+ it's going to block alex's expansion towards you

 

[Killroyan]

Who can blame us? Good discussions, different insights, the expectation of the update to see how it is going, etc...

Settling on the spot was a very good decision apparantly. Getting those extra cows makes it a very nice spot. I have to say I don't find the second city bad at all. 3 good resources and with enough food to work them all. Stealing the workers is something I really should do more.

So what is so special about the map anyway with the epic thing and everything?

 

[cabert]

epic = slow building, slow teching, and relatively fast moves (since the rest is so slow) = advantage to chop rushing, advantage to pop rushing, advantage to warmongering.
Epic makes things easier for an early REx with organized

 

[uncarved block]

Did I develop an allergy to planning?

Well, that is a good question, and one that hasn't come up so far-- how are you planning to win? I'm not going to criticize you too much on the point, because my games don't really take form until the AD turns either . . but I've also read on the forums here that that's one big difference between Noble and Monarch, picking a victory condition early and sticking with it. So what are the options?

--Space Ship. You're luck that one of your major competitors (Asoka) ended up right next door. The problem I can see is that Alexander is a likely target for Confucian conversion, meaning you might have to fight them both at the same time. Ugly, but doable.

--Domination/Conquest. Washington isn't the best warmonger, but at least you have the traits to fund a large empire for a long time. Alexander will be your top early threat, and you'll want to find out who's to the east and make nice with them. (Qin getting squashed is a given.) Alex is a huge backstabber, and that Copper mine being so close will be an inviting target. You migh find an easier victim to the east, but the amount of troops you'll need to keep Alex in check will be a real drag on the economy. Still, it will get easier as you go along, though I've heard Asoka is a decent tactician for an AI.

--Diplomacy. Qin won't vote for you, but he should be dust for thousands of years by then. Alex and Asoka will likely be one block, and getting Isabellaand Saladin to vote for you would be a challenge. This option gives you more time, as finding out who's where will require a lot of exploration. Early expansion will be a plus, though, and those resources to the east are looking mighty fine.

--Time. Is this even possible on Monarch?

Maybe it's premature to start a discussion like this, when most of the advice is on city placement and development. Having some kind of framework in place might help with these choices, though, so I don't feel bad about bringing it up.

PS. Have you seen any Barb Axemen yet? I noticed you're already got two Barb cities out there, and can't recall when they show up in relation to Axemen. If you haven't seen any yet, they'll probably be coming around soon, eh? There's a natural chokepoint to the southeast, which is a spot of good luck.