LotR14 -- RAW (and uncut?)

Now that I've got confirmation that I'm up now, and have taken a look at the image, let's discuss future plans.

- We've got 3 jags, but it'll be a few turns before we can get a 4th. If we find an enemy capital defended by only a warrior (likely two warriors), should we hit it with the 3 jags or wait for a 4th?

- When do we build a barracks? I'd suggest right now, or after the 4th jag if we decide to wait for that before attacking. After one more city attack, the AIs will have spears on defense and it'll take more military to make an attack.
 
At this point, I'm not sure we'll be able to get another capital, at least not easily. Since they will see us coming (unless we can road up to a direct compass direction of their capital), they will whip a spear as soon as we're in range. The Greeks already whipped a hoplite out of Athens, and while that slows them down a LOT in the long run, it doesn't make it any easier for us to acquire a second city. If/when we see a warrior-defended capital which can't whip, I would assault with as few as two jags, if we had them in the area. Definitely would with 3. You might try sending everybody NW towards the purple border and hit them with the 3 jags....might work if they didn't start with BW.
- Alternatively, we could try to found a second city (probably about where London was) and send our jags out on a jag...send them cross-country, pillaging, capturing slaves (who might make it home or might be disbanded), putting people into war mode (maybe even whipping their capital), and generally causing as slow a start as possible for as many civs as possible. As I think about this, I like this idea, to be implemented either immediately or after a try at one more capital. Send our jags to the 3 winds (coast to the east).
- Barracks need to come soon. As I think about it, I'd probably do it even before the fourth jag warrior. The time for extreme speed is pretty much past and we need to focus a bit on quality as well now. Once we can get a stack of 6-8 vet jags, we can start taking a few capitals for real.

My $.02,
Arathorn
 
Given an enemy capital defended only by warriors, I'd vote for attacking it right away and not wait for a fourth jag. Delaying the attack might ruin the opportunity as the AI could build/whip a spear. If we fail to capture the city, we still will be able to defend alright, but if we win, the captured city would be huge. The possible gain clearly outweighs the risk IMHO, and fortune favors the bold. :p

I agree on the ASAP barracks issue; although if we attack and lose all jags, we might be forced to build one or more jags for defense...
 
Inherited turn: Nothing to do just yet, will see what develops.

Hit enter, and a Greek warrior from Athens attacks one of our jaguars, knocking 2 HP off it before it retreats.

3450 BC: Retreat damaged jag into our territory. Other jag moves onto Greece's mountain (the safest spot available) and contacts the Inca in purple. They have Alphabet and Masonry but we have nothing to trade them. We declare war.

3400 BC: The Greek warrior is at 2 HP and is chasing our damaged jag. No choice but to attack it with our healthy jag... and that starts the Golden Age.

A Mongol scout showed up. We sell him Bronze for his 10g, and declare war.

There's also an Ottoman warrior incoming. I need to build one more jag this turn before the barracks to defend against him.

3350 BC: Meet a Portuguese scout, and trade Warrior Code + 10g for Alphabet, and declare war.

Max research started on Writing. We can quite possibly get it first with our Golden Age, and follow up with the Philosophy free tech.

Have to attack the Ottoman warrior with our new jag.. and we reduce it to 1 HP but lose. :cry: Workers have to evacuate the irrigated flood-plain tile.


3300 BC: First turn of mine with no new contacts. No combat either. Chase the 1HP Otto warrior with a 2HP jag of ours. Tenochtitlan now at size 3.


3250 BC: Damaged jag knocks off redlined Otto warrior. There's incoming warriors from both Inca and Russia, though. I hate to do it but I need to delay the barracks again to build an archer.


3200 BC: Tenochtitlan finished archer, starts barracks. Newly minted archer attacks Inca warrior but LOSES and promotes the opponent. :cry:


3150 BC: Damaged Incan warrior retreated. Russian warrior now in a forest next to Tenochtitlan; I'd rather fight it on defense with a fortification bonus than on offense.

Between turns, the RNG finally swings our way; our jag promotes in beating the Russian attacker.


3100 BC: We have a stack of three fully healed jags and no impending threats. I decide it's now or never to attempt a capital capture and send all three towards the Inca capital.


3050 BC: Another Incan warrior shows up, in a place where our jags can't reach it this turn. I *hate* to do this, but the barracks gets delayed yet again by building another archer...


3000 BC: Get up next to Cuzco to find out the city does have a spear on defense. Not a percentage play to try attacking. I split up the jags, sending the two regulars out exploring while the vet will stay at home for combat and defense.

Still no barracks yet, but the coast looks clear now to build one. Next turn, please MM Tenoch from the plains to a flood-plain to get growth to size 4 then.
 

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Roster:

Reagan -- UP NOW
T-hawk -- already played
Speaker -- ON DECK
Kylerean
Arathorn

Things are awfully tight right now. I hope for some breathing room before too long. At least the area is lush with luxuries, if we can capture some cities to get them for ourselves.

Arathorn
 
Things are awfully tight right now. I hope for some breathing room before too long.
With the number of first contacts you are making did you really expect it to be easy? You need a breather from new contacts.
 
I see it and should be able to play tonight or Sunday. I'll make a sacrifice to the pRNG gods and hope to use smilies other than the green crying ones in my report. My intent is to send our scouting jags on a straight line towards opposite sides of the map such that our future contacts will have a long way to go before reaching us. Please let me know if you have other thoughts before I play.
 
My intent is to send our scouting jags on a straight line towards opposite sides of the map such that our future contacts will have a long way to go before reaching us.

I am curious - is this mandatory per the variant rules? This goes so counter against the standard AW logic that contact is to be avoided.
 
I have to agree with Lee here; as I said earlier, I still don't see the value of early contacts. Why is putting the other civs into war-mode so important in this game? It's not that we have to slow down the tech pace (we will be the largest civ soon), nor do we have to stop other civs from amassing culture, so...?
 
In AW, whether you want contact depends on how well you can handle what's being thrown at you. If you're having trouble holding your ground and expanding, you do want to delay contacts. But if you're in a solid position, in the long run you do better to contact more civs and get them into war mode, building units for you to slaughter rather than building up their civs.

Arathorn's planning for fairly extreme aggression and optimism in this regard. I do think exploring and contacting right now is slightly premature, but not extremely so, and was going along with that plan. It could certainly be reversed and the jaguars brought back home - before exploring, perhaps we should focus on expanding ourselves to a few more cities.
 
Some of my rationale (besides just being extremely aggressive and optimistic):

- The biggest threat with any single civ is when you first meet them and they send their stocked-up horde of troops at you. If that horde consists of a single unit, who cares? Trickle mode is almost always easier to deal with.

- Getting them early DRAMATICALLY stunts their growth. A single jag next to a capital will very often make the AI whip a spear. That has a tremendous impact on their ability to generate units later. Beyond that, we're stealing workers as our slaves. Free workforce is good. No workforce for the AI is good. Now is about the only time we'll able to get those slave workers so easily. A whipped capital size 1 with no improved squares is no threat -- even 20 of them are no threat.

- It's not so much about war mode as it is about destroying their capacity to wage war. The fewer grown opponents we face in 50 turns, the easier it will be. Although some war mode and fewer swords to face doesn't break my heart either.

- If we can catch some civ building a wonder or a settler and they for-whatever-reason don't change to a defensive unit and whip, we might be able to grab a cheap city. With merciless whipping, it might be a strong focal point for other civs to come die on...or it might be a productive part of our empire. And it's one less city's production we have to face....

Of course, it's up to Reagan, as he's playing. But that's why I was thinking contacts and early oppression....

Arathorn
 
I was trying to take a compromise position by getting other civs into the act but making sure they were far enough away to not be able to hurt us early. I agree with Arathorn's more aggressive approach in this game because the Regent AIs won't be able to hurl a ton of troops at us like Emporer or higher level civs could. I won't play for another couple of hours (at least), so feel free to keep the discussion going.
 
2950 – Well, part of our discussions about early scouting are mooted when an Incan archer picks off our northern jag during the IT. Our vet jag wins 4-2 over the Incan warrior and promotes to elite.

2900 – We skirt around local borders in search of further off neighbors. Our elite jag returns home to rest.

2850 – nada

2800 – The rax completes and an archer is ordered.

2750 – There’s an archer and a warrior approaching, so (much as I hate to) I whip a spear. Sumeria gives us CB for Alphabet, then we steal their worker. I’m going to keep him alive and see if he can return to our territory safely. If he’s ever threatened, I’ll disband him.

2710 – Our elite jag loses to the Incan archer. The archer is dispatched with our archer, though.

2670 – Our spear takes out an attacking warrior and promotes to elite. We pillage Sumeria’s incense.

2630 – Writing comes in and Masonry is started at 90%.

2590 – I went a turn or two without checking the diplo screen, thinking “what’s the point?” Ooops, sorry. Now we know Korea, China, Rome, and the Dutchies. How can we know people without seeing their units? I extort 8 gp from the Dutch, 5 gp from Korea, nada from Rome, and give China Writing for Masonry, Wheel, and 45 gp. We have horses hooked up, but it appears everyone else has ‘em too. Start research on Philo.

2550 – Another archer completes. I saved without doing anything to/about the two archers and warrior next to Teno.

P.S. About the colors in my screenie -- I downloaded a team color mod, so the colors bear little resemblance to the stock colors.
 

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I'll give you really good odds that we don't have iron in our territory. :sad: We're going to need to get a second city settled in the near future, particularly if iron is available on one of the mountains/hills just outside our borders.
 
Yeah. I think resettling down towards where the English were is a good plan. Finding 30 shields to devote to a settler might be a problem, but it's probably better odds than sending two jags to go capture a second city (which is, of course, the other option).

Roster:
Kylerean -- UP AND PLAYING
Arathorn -- on deck
T-hawk
Reagan
Speaker - skipped until about 7/9

Arathorn
 
Inherited turn: We have an elite spear and two veteran archers in Teno, and two enemy regular archers and a regular warrior are outside the city, one in a forest and one across the river on the hill. I decide to let them attack instead of exposing our archers.

(I) First, the regular warror attacks our fortified elite spear across the river and eats a defensive bombardment from an archer...and manages to redline our spear! :aargh: Then, one of the regular archers attacks, eats the defensive bombardment from our other archer and kills our spear. :mad: And then, the other archer attacks and kills one of our archers. :gripe:
A warrior attacks our jag near Rome and dies without doing any damage, promoting our unit to veteran.

(1) 2510AD: Because we only have one archer left in Teno, the city riots. :wallbash: Oh that's just great: One lone archer of ours in a rioting city vs. one 1HP and one 2HP-archer. I raise the lux slider and will have to wait until next turn to whip another spear, hoping the archers won't attack and turn this into another short LotR game...

(2) 2470AD: Phew, both archers have retreated to heal. Additionally, two Ottoman warriors have appeared and will be able to attack Teno in five turns. I really don't want to whip Teno again, so I slow down growth a bit to get a new spear built faster.
Our Jag scout meets an Arabian warrior. We sell them the wheel for 9 gold and declare war.

(3) 2430AD: Our golden age has ended, and I have to rework tiles to complete the spear in 2.

(I) We get contacted by Persia! They get the wheel and ceremonial burial for iron working and 6g, then war is declared. Uh oh, let's hope they don't have iron connected...

(4) 2390AD: Well well, as expected we don't have iron, and the ex-London site doesn't have iron either. Athens and Istanbul have some, though, so we should try to capture Istanbul ASAP. But first things first, let's focus on surviving the next few turns.

(5) 2350AD: Yay, we now have a spear and an archer defending our capital against the two warriors and a 2HP archer who is moving towards us again, both able to attack in two turns. I would love to set Teno at deficit food and 10spt for walls in 1, but the enemy units most probably will move on the forests and ruin that plan, so I order up another archer instead.
Also, say hello to America and Babylon. Both have mysticism and Babylon lacks alphabet, so I make a straight tech deal before declaring war.

(6) 2310AD: Greece has whipped something in Athens or built a settler, as it is size 1 again. Our Jag captures and disbands a Babylonian worker. Our captured Sumerian worker on his valiant dash to Tenochtitlan has to enter Incan territory to avoid being recaptured.

(I) Cool, our Sumerian worker is a nice decoy for a Dutch warrior and the 2HP Incan archer and draws both away from our capital. The two Ottoman warriors attack, though, but only manage to promote our spear to elite.

(7) 2270AD: I have to disband the captured Sumerian worker. A Greek archer is on our incense hill now.

(8) 2230AD: The Greece archer is no more.

(9) 2190AD: Chinese and Korean warriors move towards us. We now have an elite spear and two archers again - uh...wait a moment, that's exactly what we had when I started my turns.:undecide:

(10) 2150AD: Believe it or not, nothing special happened this turn...

We've lost our Jag somewhere inbetween against a regular warrior; I forgot to note when. Too bad we lost him because I wanted to look for and pillage Persian iron.

When micromanaging Teno, try to anticipate where the enemy units will move to so they won't screw up our production.

lotr14-2150bc.jpg


Roster:
Kylerean
Arathorn <-- UP NOW
T-hawk <-- on deck
Reagan
Speaker - skipped until about 7/9

-Kylearan
 
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