LotR13 Schizo SGers

As far as how many troops we lose on newly-found cities, we'll just have to see how prophetic Arathorn's comment of "Army-Settler pairs" is.
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Well, I have no experience with AW passive aggressive games obviously, but I do have played the "normal" passive aggressive RB Epic game way back when, and I remember founding *a lot* of aggressive settlements to flip enemy cities - more than I suspect we will have armies for here, at least in the beginning. But we will see.

Regarding in which city to build the wonder in, T-hawk could use the bonus grasslands from Skyfish as well, and while Skyfish is a border city to the enemies from the west and the south, I believed T-hawk to be safe - but looking at the map again, now I see that it's a border city as well, to the Ottomans, and maybe all that will have changed once we start to build the wonder anyway. ;)

-Kylearan
 
Wow. On-topic and off-topic conversation.

"Got it". Definitely agree that the Great Library is the way to go.

Settler/army pairs WILL become the primary way of founding cities, believe me, if we make it that long. Doing some testing of the minimal mod on regeant (I had no faith in my ability to use the editor and not do something dumb), I was having settlers defended by multiple riflemen dying to hordes of longbows and keshiks. Army/settler pairs will become, if not the norm, at least an occasional occurrence.

And I'm all for founding some aggressive cities soon. I'm still thinking one of the spices up north should be ours and will hope to get some troops and a settler in that direction, eventually, to make that come true.

But, boy, our luck in getting two of the five civs with 3-move UUs is a bit unfortunate.

Arathorn
 
It's odd. I have no fear of Panzers or Sipahi, because unless we really have awful leader luck, there is no way we are going to allow those civs to have the resources to build those units. I also feel it is much better to have the post-AA UU civs on our continent. Invading the other continent and seeing a swarm of Sipahi is a lot more troubling than running into a slew of Numidian Mercs. [The other continent (assuming a 4-4 split) has Korea, Carthage, Sumer, and the Mongols.]

My experience in C3C AWM is that so long as we get a couple of Armies before Chivalry, we'll be the only ones who can build Knights. The problem I see us having will be keeping the Civs on our continent from trading for resources from the other continent. We'd need a lot of armies to keep the AI capitals permanently disconnected, and if any are coastal, we can't even do that.

My attitude is shaped by how I envision us winning this game. I think this sets up as a Spaceship victory. We have a nice-looking core already, and it appears that we can get out to almost all of our 2nd ring sites comfortably. If we are going for Space we don't need much more than 20 cities. Our armies can then focus on pillaging, keeping the AI economies (at least on our continent) permanently circling the bowl. The biggest challenge would be researching all the way to Space while in Monarchy (or more likely, Communism), never being able to trade for a tech. It may be very close to the time limits.

If our preferred victory condition is Domination, then the picture is quite different. We may need to build 100 cities, and our armies may be more needed for defense than for pillaging.

I'm also not sure how the "front" will develop. If aggressive settlement means we have to actively defend more cities, we are really going to struggle with unit costs. But if it only means we have to defend different cities than in traditional AW, we should eventually be able to overwhelm the AI with our size.

Something odd on my turns: I didn't see even one Impi, and this was during the Zulu GA. Maybe they are already throwing down with the Ottomans, as the Ottomans are behind both the Germans and Zulu in tech.

And one last thing. Since it is now likely we have met all of our continent-mates, we can probably start to poke around the fog at our borders to reveal more of the map. Knowing where the resources are will be very helpful in determining which AI gets the first visit from our initial Army.
 
(0) 1250 - Little to do. Decide to put the settler out past Skyfish and Speaker, to give Skyfish a bit of a more background appearance. One of the next two or three cities will have to go on the horses, to get them hooked up and to start spreading us south. The horses are in a good defensive position and then can't be pillaged.

(1) 1225 - Skyfish/Arathorn MM to get more growth in my town, while letting Skyfish wait a bit. It has to be done this way, to keep things growing as fast as possible.

(2) 1200 - First combat for me. An archer kills an Ottoman warrior.

(3) 1175 - Boring. Up the lux tax for a couple turns, for Arathorn's benefit.

Skyfish debates starting a G. Lib prebuild, but I think we're more turns from the discovery of Literature than Skyfish is from building the thing. We don't even know Alphabet, for heaven's sake!

(4) 1150 - 6thGenTexan founded to protect Skyfish and maybe distract from Speaker. Walls begun, though we might want to think about a quick temple. Polytheism completes and we start Alphabet. 6thGenTexan attracts a couple of impi and it only has a spear defender. Could be interesting.

(5) 1125 - Vet sword dies attacking a regular Ottoman warrior. Archer tries to clean up...and is successful with no damage. Exploring warrior in open defends against two impi attacks and promotes to elite! 6thGenTexan is safe for the moment. Zulu archers are on the way, though.

(6) 1100 - Stuff happens.

(7) 1075 - Situation by 6thGenTexan is interesting. The Zulu have an impi and an archer on a hill near the city. Two more archers are not far away. We have a sword, a wounded warrior, and a spear defending the city, with a worker in harm's way, due to the impi's speed.

Sword attacks, kills the impi and promotes. The archer will probably get a chance to attack.

(8) 1050 - Jaffa Tamarin founded on the horses. Three archers on a hill near 6thGenTexan now. Still no walls, but a 4/5 sword and a 5/5 warrior in the city. Fortify or attack? Hmmm...with the archers first-shot bombard now, it's a tough call, but the chance of leaders is greater on the attack. ATTACK! Both win, very wounded, no leaders. Hmmph.

Charis feels the whip to complete a temple. It's not just happiness and culture for later flips -- it's visibility of approaching attackers that is valuable. Plus, Charis barely has one adequate square to work, let alone two or three.

Archer at 6thGen fortifies.

(9) 1025 - Healing and workers.

(10) 1000 - Fully healed elite sword takes out Zulu archer on the gold hill by 6thGen, but he's now exposed (to an impi) on a hill. We could move our spear from 6thGen to cover, leaving a 4/4 sword and a 3/5 warrior to defend the city. That might be best. Up to the next leader, however.

The settler/spear pair are headed for the desert one NE of their current position. I think that will give us a good view of the Ottomans and maybe serve as a stepping stone to getting some spices under our control.

Workers are desperately trying to clear land so that cities have something to work.

Speaker might think about taking a double-whip to build a granary. With a fp wheat, it can recover quickly. If the whip's not done, be sure to MM Speaker on turn 3 to the fp from the forest, to get growth one turn earlier and keep the build going at top speed.

I must have messed up Arathorn a bit (the city), as it's going to waste a lot of shields on its current settler build. I'd been keeping it under pretty tight rein, so I'm not sure what happened. Jaffa's grab of the forest might be the problem.

We need a slew more workers and settlers to claim at least one gem source. While we can expand semi-safely, we should do so, because expansion later will be very difficult.

Alphabet will be discovered on the interturn. I would go for either Math or Writing before Monarchy, myself. The tile penalties are hurting some, yes, but the despotism support is very nice. AND Monarchy is expensive. Writing leads to Lit for the GLib and mathematics gives us catapults to help with casualty rates. Discussion might be good at this point....

I would irrigate the plains north of Arathorn. That area is getting under protection, a bit, and if Arathorn has two-food tiles in the north, it can cede some of its use in the south to Jaffa and/or Charis, so that those towns can grow, too.

Should be fun!!!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/lotr13-1000bc.zip

Arathorn
 
A picture of our burgeoning empire:



Always nice to reach the point where we have to zoom-out to fit all the cities in the picture.

Couple of notes on the map, the little speck of water SW of Skyfish is fresh, and there is a barb camp east of Gothmog. (So sayeth the military advisor)
 
Since I didn't shrink the picture, I'll blabber here.

I wanted to say this it in my turn-log and forgot, but I had the feeling we had "caught-up" on troops by the end of my turn and were ready for another settler push. Good to see that's how it worked out. By the sound (read?) of Arathorn's log, the Zulu are starting to show up again, and the next leader may have to use Arathorn city to produce some troops.

Alternatively, it may be a good time for a worker push. We appear to have claimed all the "easy" sites for cities, and pretty much everything else in our immediate area is green and leafy. There is a site south of Jaffa that can claim a banana and some gems, and have multiple 2-food tiles in its original 8, although we'll have to build a road through the jungle to get there.

We are average in Military to the GA-ing Zulu, and strong compared to the Germans and Ottomans. The Ottos lack Horses and Iron (but do have Ivory), Shaka lacks Iron, and Biz lacks Iron. We are first in population, income, and productivity. We are still the only ones on our continent with non-Palace culture. Now all we need are a couple of Armies. :)
 
Might be nice to send a spare unit south along the Mountain range to see what Biz is up to. It sounded like Arathorn didn't see any Germans, so we may have a nice chunk of land to expand southward.

Not sure why Arathorn was concerned about wasting shields on the settler, it'll either be 32 or 33 shields depending on which tile the governor picks.

I know it's a shock, but the sliders can be adjusted and Alphabet still discovered in 1.

As far as Math vs. Writing ... I'd probably go with Math first, as it's likely to be cheaper, and we know we want Cats before Literature. So let's get the Cats first, before we go Writing/Lit. I also think we need Skyfish for some more military if we want to keep Arathorn building Settlers.

May also be worth considering a Worker or Settler out of Skyfish in the next 10. I don't think Skyfish can work a tile that generates a shield at size 7, and any additional trade will be wiped out by having to raise the lux tax. We aren't letting our capital grow to size 7 while we're producing settlers, so it seems counter-productive to raise the lux tax just for Skyfish if it's not going to speed the production of something. An additional worker now is worth much more to us than a specialist.
 
I had to replay the last turn from the autosave, because I forgot to save at the end of 1000 BC. I'd done the sliders right the first time but apparently forgot the second... Oy. Maybe I was tireder than I thought last night.

I saw ZERO Germans. I wanted to get units out to explore, but it seemed very difficult to even defend our cities, let alone have excess explorers. The archer/warrior pair in the north we trying to scout out some Ottoman land, but they kept getting interrupted.

There is a border in the extreme south of our lands. It almost looks like the color of the Ottomans, but I wasn't sure enough. I was originally more interested in defending settlers and wasn't sure about the southern front. Later, the Zulus were requiring all my available units.

On the tech front, 3 techs make some sense...
- Horseback Riding -- so we have a good two-move attacker, to kill impis and to kill and retreat from others, when necessary.
- Writing -- on the way to Literature
- Mathematics -- catapults

I like T_McC's thinking -- we're definitely going to want Mathematics and very soon. HBR is very nice, too, but I think 'pults are the way to start helping our casualty rate. I only lost one or two units, I think, and that's just too many.

Of course, the thing I really want is a leader, but you can't do more than fish for them....

Things aren't looking too bad. Green and leafy is a pain, but can be dealt with. Some workers and units are probably as important (or more important) for a few turns than settlers, though.

Arathorn
 
Man, I'm usually the most talkative guy in my SGs, but I think Mr. McClure has me beat this time... :D

I agree on Mathematics. Catapults really are THE way to reduce unit losses in the medium term.

We do have to get started on a Palace prebuild fairly soon if we want to get the Great Library. Who knows what the other continent is doing by now...
 
(I) I lower science to still get alphabet next turn, and move the spear out of 6thGenTexan to cover the wounded swordman - I value offensive units very high, especially when it's an elite one.
Some tiles between Arathorn and Jaffa are shuffled so that Jaffa grows faster and Arathorn still growing/building a settler in 2/2. I switch Skyfish (6spt) from chariot in 4 to swordman in 5 - sorry, I don't like chariots, and it will need a while before we could upgrade it to a horseman.
Charis is at 1spt after corruption and won't be able to work any useful tiles even after its borders expand, so I change it from barracks to a worker instead.

I end the turn, and the impi fortifies while the two archers move towards our cities, seperate of course in good :smoke: AI fashion. An Ottoman archer appears near Gothmog. We get a message that Sumeria has completed the Oracle.

(1) 975BC: Alphabet comes in, and I choose mathematics in 8@-1 next. No discussion from my side about that. :)
I investigate the path the Ottoman archer could take towards Gothmog and decide our wounded archer can afford to heal this turn. As much as I would like to send a unit south to see what Germany is up to, I cannot - we have way too few units. Jaffa is undefended, and to protect the settler from Arathorn next turn, I will probably have to empty another city.

(I) The impi remains fortified while the two archer advance. The Ottoman archer kills the barb warrior on the mountain, remaining unscratched. The Ottomans start/cascade to the Temple of Artemis.

(2) 950BC: Arathorn settler -> spearman. Jaffa walls -> barracks. A Space Oddity is founded.
At 6thGenTexan, our elite warrior attacks a regular archer and wins, losing 1hp. The spear moves out to cover him. The other archer near Speaker is left alone for the turn - either he will attack our fortified, walled, archer-protected spearman on the hill, or he can be attacked by our healed elite sword next turn.

(I) A second Ottoman archer appears, apparently heading for A Space Oddity.

(3) 925BC: As predicted, the Zulu archer is near 6gnTxn now, and our 4hp elite sword kills it, revealing another archer approaching.

(I) A second impi joins the first.

(4) 900BC: 6thGenTexan walls -> temple (to extend visibility; could be changed to barracks instead).
The Ottoman archer near A Space Oddity was foolish enough not to enter the woods and instead stepped on a plains, and gets terminally punished by our archer, who promotes to elite. The other archer near Gothmog is killed, too.

(I) One of the impis attacks 6thGenTexan and retreats. Then, the archer moves to spot adjacent to the wounded impi, and the other impi does not cover the wounded one as well. :smoke:

(5) 875BC: Arathorn spear -> settler. Gothmog barracks -> spear. Skyfish swordman -> worker. Disease striked T-hawk! :( I micromanage the city that it will both complete the spearman and grow again on the next turn when disease will hit a second time,
I accept the invitation at 6thGenTexan, and our elite sword kills the wounded impi - scoring Chieftess!



She immediately forms an army, then our elite warrior kills the archer.

(6) 850BC: T-hawk spear -> temple. Reagan is founded near the gems and the banana. This reveals two regular German horsemen who can attack the city next turn! :eek: It's protected by a spear and a sword.

(I) Indeed, both attack - and both lose, promoting our two units to elite! :dance: We get the FP message.

(7) 825BC: Skyfish worker -> granary.
The swordswoman is loaded into the army.

(I) Two German archers (one elite!) and a warrior appear.

(8) 800BC: Arathorn settler -> spear. Charis worker -> barracks.
Another sword is loaded into the army, and an impi is killed. A Zulu horseman can be seen.

(9) 775BC: Mathematics comes in, and writing is chosen next.
The German archer/warrior stack is heading for Jaffa, and the elite sword in Reagan kills their elite archer. A sword is moved into Jaffa to await the other two, and to accompany our settler/spear pair south.
Our army could kill a regular archer now, but decides to heal instead and leave the archer for our elite warrior next turn, to fish for more leaders.
(I)

(10) 750BC: Arathorn spear -> spear.
Ah crud, I forgot that the archer could move onto a hill, so after killing the horseman, the army kills the archer too instead of letting the warrior do it. Due to a streak of bad combat luck, it drops down to 3hp.
Our swordman kills the German warrior, and now only an archer is left. I leave some units there unmoved; the way they are positioned now, neither the city nor the settler can fall.


Note to next leader: You can whip the temple in 6thGentexan this turn. I haven't done so in case you think a barracks would be more important.
 
Our lands:



My apologies for voicing again a minority opinion, but I still think we should build the great library in T-hawk, not in Skyfish. Both cities have access to four bonus grass tiles, but beyond that, Skyfish needs to get jungle chopped or hills mined while T-hawk has potential for more easy-to-improve tiles. Plus, T-hawk grows faster thanks to the floodplains, and suffers from less corruption than Skyfish. The only downside of T-hawk is its current size because of the disease, but it's regrowing quickly. So I urge you all to rethink this! Both cities are on placeholders at the moment; one should definately begin a prebuild now.

I would also like to found our first aggressive settlement soon, at/near the Ottoman spices. We have an army now to actively defend it, and if we could get one or two swords to 6thGenTexan, that front seems to be manageable, although the horsemen could mean more trouble than before.

If we score a second leader, I would think about rushing the Heroic Epic with it instead of forming a second army - although this is debatable.


Have fun with our first army!


Roster:
Arathorn
Kylerean
T-hawk <-- UP NOW
Arizona_Steve <-- on deck
T_McC


-Kylearan
 
Great progress. Our first army! Good call on filling it immediately with swords. T-hawk gets to make lots of decisions....

What do we do with the army?
A. Send it off exploring/pillaging
B. Use it to defend an aggressive lux placement in the north
C. Keep it home for zone defense

My vote is, sadly enough, C. The key to AW always seems to be not losing. Winning comes later. An uber-unit at home will be extraordinarily valuable. Arguments for A are that we need to know where the other civs are, where we can expand to, etc. and to slow down the AI civs. Arguments for B are that we really need a lux and the army is the only truly safe way to do that. Plus, then the army can go north and pillage the Ottomans.

What wonder to build?
A. None.
B. Great Library.
C. Heroic Epic.
D. Both.

I go for B, weakly. The none argument keeps our expansion going, keeps our military strong, and acknowledges that we can keep up in research on Monarch. Option B is the safe path that leads to tech parity and some cash for upgrades/purchases being available. Option C tries to get us as many armies as possible as early as possible. Option D is really reaching. Both Kylerean and I commented on how weak we felt militarily and trying up two cities on wonder builds would probably be a stretch. Getting both, though, would be incredibly nice.

Where to build?
A. Arathorn
B. T-hawk
C. Skyfish
D. Other

I like C. T-hawk could quite possibly get it done faster, but T-hawk is so ripe with micromanagement possibilities and can do SO many different things, I'd rather not tie it up. Skyfish is basically a grassland magnet, with few options (e.g. max food often equals max shields = max commerce), so it might as well be doing one thing for a long time. Kylerean raises a good point, however. I think Arathorn should be out, unless it's just for the Heroic Epic. But the capital is doing such a nice job with military and settlers that I think it should continue. No back-up (other than maybe Gardens or HE) is also a bit scary.

Forbidden Palace:
A. Wait until we see where we've got land.
B. Build ASAP in 6thGenTexan.
C. ASAP in Skyfish.
D. ASAP in T-hawk.
E. ASAP in Speaker.
F. ASAP somewhere else.
G. Wait for another leader.

Ummm....Hmmm...I guess I think A, as much as I hate delaying. It'd be nice to know how far we can build in each direction.... Plus, I'm scared of committing a city to the FP with our military thin and wanting another wonder, too.

Other notes:
- Speaker should probably whip its granary in a few turns, when it can do so for only one citizen.
- 6thGenTexan should either whip or change projects, probably.
- If you've played in the LotR series, you're in this game!
- While a worker or two should probably try to road up Reagan and get the gems connected, the important locations are still closer to home. We need more workers, though.
 
The rationale behind building the wonder in Skyfish instead of T-hawk isn't so much which city can get it done sooner, but opportunity cost as well and just general city specialization. T-hawk is a growth machine with the flood-plains; that growth can be put to good use in the form of workers and settlers. Skyfish doesn't have the capability to do much of anything besides accumulate shields, so accumulating shields is the best use for that city.

Edit: I crossposted with Arathorn, he explained the above much more elaborately than I did. :)

I see it; got LK67 to get through first but should be able to play both tonight. I'll make the call on the Library one way or the other.
 
What to do with the next leader:
A. Create a second army
B. Build the Forbidden Palace
C. Build the Heroic Epic.

What are the leader priorities. I'm leaning more towards the second army, and using a third leader to build HE.
 
Commenting further on Arathorn's points:

I agree that the army has to stay around for zone defense, for now at least.

Will the AIs refuse to attack a horseman army? If so, then our next leader could be well used for a horseman army to start exploring and pillaging. If they will attack that, then another sword army would be in order.

I'm still in favor of the Great Library in Skyfish. Too early to decide on an FP location, though I think Speaker will turn out to be the best spot.

The Heroic Epic should also wait a bit, at least until all the land is filled. With the passive rules on attacking cities, continuing to push the land-grab is a very high priority.
 
I don't know whether the AI will attack a horseman army with swords or not. It's based on some sort of win/loss percentage thing. So it depends on the defense ground of the horses, the hp of the attacker (e.g. they might attack with an elite sword but not a vet), the hps of the army, and maybe other factors. I've not seen a full survey and I honestly don't know. I would err on the side of caution and build another sword army, given an empty army...especially since we don't have HBR yet! Pillaging two instead of three is significant, but a sword army has quite a long life, even after pillaging, as it can attack stacks quite late into its life...I fear a horseman army wouldn't survive the early middle ages....

I have to agree that a second army would be the best use of a GL. We can semi-afford to trade one army now for two in 1000 years, and that's the HE rush trade-off. *IF* a spot crying out for the FP were found, that would get consideration, but since we're still undecided....T-hawk guesses on Speaker and my gut says Skyfish or even Reagan, it might well be worth waiting a bit, since an army is so powerful.

Arathorn
 
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