LK83 - AWE Invitational, Random Civ, Emperor

[LKendter]

Meldor hit it dead on. I don't want a leader sitting around for a standby army in case we lose one or waiting 5 turns for another city to be built.

Having the leader wait one turn for a building to complete is fine. In the last AWE with no armies I often delayed a leader a turn to rush the buildings waiting for a city with no shields in the bin. An early leader is allowed to travel until he reaches the target city.

By building I may using the hurry improvement option. Wall Street, Military Academy, Pentagon, Heroic Epic (if not military), and FP are all valid uses.

 

[LKendter]

My first attempt to start was Portugal whom suffered a humiliating conquest defeat in 2900BC. The game didn't even get far enough to post. I hate meeting another Civ to early, even if we did have ivory. It may have been just as good as the replay showed the Vikings as the next closest neighbor.


Attempt #2 is China. Can we ride our way to victory? We are military for faster promotes, more leaders, walls and archers to start. I am surprised I never used China for AW before.

4000 BC
The start is in a corner with no visible water. I will move 1 southeast for the capitol.


3000 BC
We already have contact with the Maya. Oh goody, I want to face an early GA civ.
They are up by 3 techs, and no deals happen.


2850 BC
Shanghai is formed 3 tiles south of Beijing.


2670 BC
(IT) The Wheel is completed, and Bronze Working is the next target.


2350 BC
We finally see the first attack units from the Maya.


2270 BC
(IT) Our gold hill warning warrior kills all 3 warriors and goes elite. [dance]


Summary:
After the pair of settlers we really need more workers.

The below is the initial dot map. 3 volcanoes and a ton of mountains make things ugly. Shanghai will have to be the great library source by stealing bonus grasslands from Beijing.

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/LK83-2150BC.zip

 

[Greebley]

Ok, I got it.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: China is the traditional "Best Civ" for AW (may not be true since conquests though) I have played AW with it more than once. Definitely one of the strongest.

Our chances look good for Iron. We don't see horses. We should probably discuss if we want to do exploring to find some (and when).

The mountains are a mixed blessing. We can use the them to funnel the enemy for example, or get favorable odds.


2110 BC: Raise science. BW in 3 at even gold.

IBT: Two more Regular Warriors show up.

2070 BC: Wait for the 3 Mayan Warriors.

IBT: They are closer.

2030 BC: I move 2 stacks next to them in the mountains. One stack has 2 archers (and a warrior) to shoot at them when they move forward. The second stack (elite and reg warrior) is to block them from heading north. I have my Worker and Settler there. The mountains work in our favor here - The warriors are unlikely to attack like they would on flat so we get first shot.

IBT: As guessed the 3 warriors move forward. We get Bronze Working and start on Iron Working

1990 BC: First Archer kills a Warrior and is now Elite (no hp lost). The second Archer loses vs the Warrior who is now Vet with 2 HP. (1-1)

IBT: The Uninjured Warrior advances and the Injured one Fortifies. This is good.

1950 BC: The Elite Archer kills the injured Warrior. Our last Archer in the town attacks the healthy one and also become Elite. We are really using our Military trait here. No Mayan units in sight.

(3-1)

The Dark Blue Hill site is settled (Canton). Canton starts walls of course.

1910 BC: All quiet on the Mayan Front.

1870 BC: Still Quiet.

1830 BC: The red dot is founded (Nanking).

Two spears on those two southern Mountains and I bet we won't see a single unit coming from the south. I am going to put an Archer and 2 reg Warriors on them. That should block during the Archer era. I was considering Walls but I don't think they are needed for the above reason. Nanking will go straight for Barracks. It will get a Forest chop to help.

1790 BC:

1750 BC:
Final: (3-1)

Notes:
There is a Warrior that trying to spy if there are Horses near the Cow. It is not his intent to explore far. It will help though if we know a short push (and which direction) will get us to Horses and worth the risk of contact, IMO. Do not send him far. Only nearby horses help us.

The two Elite archers and a Spear are in the center of our empire rather than in a town. This is so they can reach any town and (except Nanking) and still have movement left to attack.

My plan for our current worker was to finish the road and then chop the forest N of Nanking (and connect Nanking by road).

We have one other worker that is also being built. Our capitol could also be switched, but I would rather allow it to grow a bit.

No sign of the Mayans.

Happy New Year Everyone. May the next two players recieve the gift of Nearby Iron.

 

[Greebley]

Here is a current map of our Empire:

 

[meldor]

I have it but it will most likely be tomorrow.

 

[LKendter]

My plan for our current worker was to finish the road and then chop the forest N of Nanking (and connect Nanking by road).

I agree 100% with the road. The 3 apart spaces doesn't do much without a road net.

If the expansion keeps going well I will do another dot map after Meldor's turn. I know I want the 2 first ring cities before looking again.

I just realize blue dot would be better one tile NE to get the lake bases fish without border expansion.

I think Shanghai should be the first temple to make sure the GL site has the maximum number of Bonus Grasslands.

Do we want to wait for border expansions or build a gem colony?

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.

 

[LKendter]

Ignore my blue dot comment. I just loaded the game and realized I forget about the whale to claim on the other side.

 

[meldor]

1750 BC (0)
I wake up the warrior in the capital and send him north. Looking at the map and looking at wherer the Maya are coming from I don't think there is anyone to the north. Could we be on a Pennisula? At any rate, he will grab the goodie hut and get us a settle. I like the archers, may nne a few spears soon though. It would be nice to have a little better settler building city. This looks like an interesting start. If it follows the last two AWE games, the horses will all be on the other side of the world. Do we want to try for the Great Wall or would that trigger our GA too early?
(I) Nada

1725 BC (1)
Worker finishes road and moves to forest. Warriors move. Move the spear into Beijing to prevent riots, there are no Mayans seen.
(I) I see Barbs! Shanghai Archer->Spear

1700 BC (2)
The archer stays at Shanghai for MP until we see which way it needs to go. The worker starts forest chop.
(I) Barb attacks our warrior but no promotion. 25g would allow us to up research.

1675 BC (3)
Warriors move.
(I) Beijing Archer->Spear

1650 BC (4)
There are wines to the north.
(I) Canton worker->Rax

1625 BC (5)
Finish forest chop, start road. The Byzantines wander in from the east, I pop the hut first hoping for some cash, but no deal. No deals can be done and we are at war. BTW, the goodie hut just gave us a single Barb. I kill the Barb and spot a northern shore, is it just a move in or does the shoreline go west? Will know next turn.
(I) Shanghai Spear->settler.

1600 BC (6)
The Byzantine warrior move off.
(I)

1575 BC (7)
The forest chop revealed a BG so the worker pauses to mine before starting roads through the mountains. The Spear stays in Shanghai and the archer moves out to join the mountain crew. It looks like the next line of Civs behind the Mayans are showing up as the French come knocking. We are down 5 techs and no deals can be made.
(I) Beijing Spear->Settler. Nanking Rax->Spear.

1550 AD (8)
Teh French warrior fortifies to heal (maybe it generated the Barb).
(I)

1525 AD (9)
Move the archer from Beijing to be a lookout outside of Canton.
(I) The French wander off as well.

1500 AD (10)
Spot dues in the northwest. The two warriors should move towards each other and then return to the fold.

Interesting turns, no Mayans seen, but two more contacts. We are at least 5 techs behind already and most likely have no shot at the GL. Ironworking is due in 2 and we should probably head for Math next.

OH yeah, no horses to be seen anywhere...

They jpg has the world as we know it. Hopefully the warriors will spot some horses in the north, otherwise this could be interesting.

 

[LKendter]

We are at least 5 techs behind already and most likely have no shot at the GL.

Well I am praying your gut feeling is wrong. We will be painfully behind in tech the whole game without it.


OUCH - 2 more contacts already. This sucks big time. We need to RECALL the exploring warriors NOW. Screw trying to find horses for now. We need an empire big enough to handle 3 civs coming at us. 4 cities fighting 3 civs isn't a good situation. As long as we have iron we are OK for a while.


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

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.

 

[LKendter]

The below is an expansion to my previous dot-map. Based on what we know the northern blue dot makes sense. What we need most of all right now is some more workers. 2 workers for 4 cities just don't cut it.

 

[meldor]

You might want to do the dotmap on the current set-up. We have 5 cities and the red and blue dots are settled. We have two settlers coming up next turn, so I would suggest we do the purple dot and southern blue dot.

 

[Greebley]

I agree on bringing the warriors home. If there are Horses, they are likely beyond our current means to reach.

There is always a chance for the GLib until the AI's have it. When the AI researches lit is very random and often late, sometime they don't get it until the AD's. We should start the Prebuild right away though to maximize our chance. Next player should switch Nanking to it now.

We don't have Ceremonial Burial yet. Do we want to make that our next tech followed by writing? We need math too. We may be able to get all 3 techs before the prebuild requires us start lit (if we do writing second, we can choose between math then lit vs lit then math).

 

[LKendter]

Shanghai can get 5 bonus grasslands by stealing from other nearby cities. That will be our bet best for the GL. By that time we need to have a gems colony to let more citizens work tiles. A prebuild doesn't make sense until we are at least in writing research.

I think techs need to be IW (i/p), Alaphbet!, Math, Writing and Literature. Our challenge is to get more cities to supply research quickly. I don't think we can afford a side show for burial at this point.

 

[Greebley]

I got my city locations confused. I meant Shanghai for the reasons you state.

I forgot we don't have alphabet. Agree on waiting on CB. I also agree with your order. We need math too much to wait until after writing and lit with 3 contacts.

The lack of Mayan units makes me optimistic. Two of our enemies are very likely at war.

 

[grs]

Got it and will play today.

 

[grs]

Pre: Change some weired governor settings (emphasise food?)

1475BC: Nanking to worker. Iron working - alphabet. We have iron near Nanking.

1450BC: Spot a barb camp. Beijing completes setter, Canton barracks. Start archer and spear.

...

1400BC: 25gold from barbs and warrior promotes to veteran. Shanghai settler - palace.

...

1325BC: Tsingtao founded - walls.

1300BC: Spot a Majan javelin/warrior pair.

1275BC: Xinjian founded - walls. American scout spots us in the nw, can't trade anything and declare.

1250BC: Archers kill javelin and warrior, no promo.

There are barbs somewhere near Xinjian (probably w).

 

[LKendter]

Shanghai settler - palace.

I really don't know if that pre-build will last until writing, math and literature is complete. After writing is complete we will need to see if we can still afford math before literature. I don't want to waste the pre-build.


We now have 6 cities and just 3 workers. We need more workers NOW. In addition we need a "spare" to get the gems colony going.

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

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.

 

[grs]

I got a fourth worker from Canton. The pre-build will be rather too late than too soon, I'd say, but time will tell.

 

[Northern Pike]

1000 BC, end of turn