LK83 - AWE Invitational, Random Civ, Emperor

[Northern Pike]

1250 (0): Our worker completes the iron road and I switch two archer builds to swordsmen.


1225 (1): Alphabet due in one turn, but I'm not able to reduce the science rate.

Alphabet --> Writing, due in twelve turns at -1 gpt. I think we might as well profit by the fact that we aren't under much military pressure yet to do it this way.


1200 (2): Tsingtao walls --> worker.


1175 (3): Not much.


1150 (4): We shoot down two French warriors outside Canton (2-0).

Nanking swordsman --> swordsman.


1125 (5): Beijing swordsman --> swordsman.


1100 (6): The completion of a forest chop near Nanking reveals BG.


1075 (7): One of our new swordsmen cuts down a Byzantine warrior near Xinjian (3-0).

The Byzantines helpfully attack Xinjian twice with warriors (5-0).

We get two palace expansions.


1050 (8): Xinjian walls --> barracks.


1025 (9): We destroy the last unit of the Byzantine invasion force, a conscript warrior (6-0).

Canton settler --> swordsman.


1000 (10): Well, a very quiet round, which I suppose is good news.

Three elite victories didn't produce a Great Leader.

 

[LKendter]

1000 BC, end of turn

Edit - never mind. I just found the report on the next page. That was confusing.


Signed up:
LKendter (currently playing)
Greebley (on deck)
Meldor
Grs
Northern Pike

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.
It will drop to 5 to 10 turns in the industrial age.

Variant restrictions:
1) Homeland defense armies only. The armies are prohibited from leaving our borders for even a millisecond. This includes attacking a stack outside borders and moving between 2 cities if there is a border gap.

2) Leader hording is prohibited. If we get a leader, and can't build an army it must be used to rush a building. We can delay using the leader to get it moved to an optimal city and waiting a turn for the shield bin to get empty.

 

[Northern Pike]

We'll discover Writing in three turns, and then we can make an informed decision as to whether we can afford to research Mathematics before Literature.

I'd use our new settler to found a city on the site northwest of Beijing indicated by a white blob in the screenshot. Following the dotmap would require us to settle on two BG tiles, which seems wasteful.

Shanghai will need a second military policeman soon.

I didn't get any workers built this round, but Tsingtao is about to complete one. Beijing should probably build a worker next, unless we'd rather start another settler there. Switching to a worker build in Xinjian would also be a possibility.

 

[Northern Pike]

Quiet times:

 

[LKendter]

950 BC
The first tough issue is city placement. Do I waste 2 bonus grasslands, or give up another low distance city? I go with Northern Pike suggestions, but to me it was a split-decision at 51 vs. 49.


925 BC
Chengdu is formed. This is the white dot city.
We need 26 turns for math and literature with 40 turns of palace. With city grow this will be tight. We may need to slow down the pre-build near the end.
(IT) We get an elite sword defending against a barb.


900 BC
(IT) The Byzantines complete the Colossus.


875 BC
(IT) Two JT die at Tsingtao and promote our spear to elite. (2-0)
The Celts complete the Oracle.


800 BC
I hate to lose the worker, but I form a gems colony. The trouble in this game is that there is no good spot for a city to lock the borders. We need the colony to get to size 4 cities including our GL city.


775 BC
I kill a French warrior. (3-0)
The Mayans are really close I just spotted borders that look their color.
(IT) We barely beat a Byzantine swordsman. The archer defense shot saved us. (4-0)
We also kill a barb horseman.


750 BC
I kill a Byzantine warrior. I barely kill a Mayan JT. (5-0)
I can't wait for some catapults.


Summary:
Literature MUST be next after math. After that we should head toward burial and other cheap techs. I don't want to assume we get the GL. Make sure when the GL city grows that it gets another bonus grassland. That may be the difference of us getting it.

Red dot includes the fish on a lake for a three food tile. It also opens up the critical blue line for water to the core. With the obscene amount of mountains and hills in the game the core will need irrigation to hit maximum shields.
Green dot is the long-term front line.
Yellow dot simply claims territory. It does give purple another support point.
Grey dot claims the wines. I put it ON the wines as that makes it immune to late game with bombardment.
Black dot is simply the end of the defense line.

Red - Green - Black is the nest target line for the defense. After that we can figure out the next growth pattern.

Moving a single city affects the whole chain, so if you disagree lets discuss before a city is placed.

I would leave Tsingtao on workers for now. We are still really short.

Signed up:
LKendter
Greebley (currently playing)
Meldor (on deck)
Grs
Northern Pike

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.
It will drop to 5 to 10 turns in the industrial age.

Variant restrictions:
1) Homeland defense armies only. The armies are prohibited from leaving our borders for even a millisecond. This includes attacking a stack outside borders and moving between 2 cities if there is a border gap.

2) Leader hording is prohibited. If we get a leader, and can't build an army it must be used to rush a building. We can delay using the leader to get it moved to an optimal city and waiting a turn for the shield bin to get empty.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/LK83-750BC.zip

 

[grs]

I would not settle on a hill with wines - it is a waste and the whole region is so food poor. The spot does not look like it will be a victim to pillaging soon and thinking of bombers already...hmm...seems a bit too soon to worry about them.

 

[LKendter]

and thinking of bombers already...

Actually I was thinking of frigates. Also, having to worry about the AI landing there and being a pain to dislodge from the hill.

I would not settle on a hill with wines - it is a waste and the whole region is so food poor.

I disagree that settling on the wines is a waste. I do that routinely. Normally I don't think of 1 additional food being that critical.

However, I must agree with you of the horrid food situation on this map. This whole map sucks for food. I just hope the rest of the world is bad.

I will trade off gaining food for having to possibly commit troops to protect toward the end of the MA. The new dot map is below in the next post. I also have to move black dot.

 

[LKendter]

 

[Greebley]

I got it.

Hope to play this tomorrow.

 

[handy900]

Well I'm sorry I missed the sign up for this. Best of luck

Variant restrictions:
1) Homeland defense armies only. The armies are prohibited from leaving our borders for even a millisecond. This includes attacking a stack outside borders and moving between 2 cities.

2) Leader hording is prohibited. If we get a leader, and can't build an army it must be used to rush a building.

AWE just too easy for you guys. I like it! With any luck you will miss the Glib and earn the glory of adding wonderless to the variant. Hall of fame material indeed!

 

[LKendter]

With any luck you will miss the Glib and earn the glory of adding wonderless to the variant.

Are you wishing us bad luck?

I have already suffered the GL miss in a previous AWE game. I really don't want to repeat that.

 

[handy900]

Are you wishing us bad luck?

Well, think of it as wishing you an opportunity for greatness so that you can earn immortality in the AW variant HOF.

Seriously - good Luck.

 

[LKendter]

I think the last AWE game already earned the hall of fame. That game was almost lost by the AI building the UN! AW fighting Mechs and Tows with cavalry was plain crazy until tanks finally arrived to put the game away.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Things look good to me. By the way we don't need the red town to get water. That large lake is fresh. We just need to cut down the jungle. I still like the current dot map even so.

We seem to have finished Math much faster than the Previous estimate. I guess everyone got it. In any case we can get Lit in 15 and the prebuild is 32. Sounds like it will be a good idea to speed the palace completion. I can also go for Cer Burial first which will give us one more BG for Shanghai to work.

Early: Decide to join a worker into Shanghai. Science to 90% Lit in 12. Palace in 16.

Mid: Some units show up. Lose an Archer attacking another archer. Kill the archer with a sword.

Late: Kill 2 more Units.

Note:
Lit in 7, Palace in 11. Keep Science at max for 3 more turns. At that point the town will grow and we will need to raise lux (so science will slow and the palace speed up. It should match fairly closely. After that we have 8 or 9 more turns - so 18-20 turns total.

It has been fairly quiet. My southern Wall of 2 Spear has the Mayans going around the long way. I have seen troop on their way. Things will get exciting.

For builds I am concentrating on Catapults.

The Mayan boat dropped off the Mayan Javelin on the North side of our empire and should be empty

 

[LKendter]

Our worker forces looks better with 7 workers for 7 cities. What I don't understand is why 3 workers are mining a regular hill when a gold hill is already being used without mines.

Right know we need a bit of everything - workers, settlers units and new cities. It is typical AWE.

Signed up:
LKendter
Greebley
Meldor (currently playing)
Grs (on deck)
Northern Pike

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.
It will drop to 5 to 10 turns in the industrial age.

Variant restrictions:
1) Homeland defense armies only. The armies are prohibited from leaving our borders for even a millisecond. This includes attacking a stack outside borders and moving between 2 cities if there is a border gap.

2) Leader hording is prohibited. If we get a leader, and can't build an army it must be used to rush a building. We can delay using the leader to get it moved to an optimal city and waiting a turn for the shield bin to get empty.

 

[Greebley]

The gold hill had no road. While one worker was building the road the other 2 were building the mine on the non-gold square (when the road was complete, adding the 3rd worker reduced it a turn, IIRC). After they complete the non-gold square I was thinking of mining the gold square as well. I felt we needed more than one mine for the shields - Canton can use the non-gold square for example.

 

[Northern Pike]

Greebley, good call merging the worker into Shanghai.

Perhaps Beijing should switch to building a settler? None of our choices are good, but our settlers have to come from somewhere.

 

[LKendter]

Perhaps Beijing should switch to building a settler? None of our choices are good, but our settlers have to come from somewhere.

That is one of the big problems with have at the moment. We have NO good source of food. Xinjian has the only tile with a bonus food with the bananas. However, it is so shield poor that it can't help much.

 

[Greebley]

Maybe we should consider researching Pottery after Lit (I don't think we have it) and build some Granaries. This will help us grow if we build one in 2-3 towns. Otherwise our towns are all staying small and thus cannot build units quickly. We still have room to expand.

I was actually suprised that two spear not in the mountains would cause the AI to go around. This may be because they only have attack 2 units. In that case we need to be wary as they could get higher attack units and send them the southern route. (In which case the spear are better off in the town). The sword near Nanking was the one in that lower area, but it is Elite, so I don't think it should be the one down there. We may want to send a vet sword south-west in case the AI does decide to get uppity.

I would leave the two Spear in place for as long as it works. Having the Mayans going the long way around and being able to concentrate our attack force is very useful. Also if we can ever spare two more spear, they can reinforce the existing spear. Two spear (for each square) are even less likely to be attacked and may last until Cavalry.

 

[meldor]

I see it and will start on it when I finish LK81 tonight.