MM2: Aggressive Athenians-AWM-OCC

[Mark1031]

Oh Come on Bed if you beat diety you'll do fine. We have a great start and the most important thing will be strategy on what to research, how to balance finances and when we are secure enough to go for a wonder. Which we will hopefully decide together. I think we need the Colossus and the GL. Well that and you better never loose a unit in battle .

 

[akots]

All these plains, if only they were bonus grassland. But can be irrigated and in Golden Age we get the second shield. We can certainly try this one and see how it goes. If going for Colussus this implies we have to move settler to the coast losing wines.

 

[Aggie]

Colossus means moving settler W and losing the wines.

 

[Mark1031]

Yep I think the Colossus is worth it. The wines will come online after the second expansion. I would recommend we delay the Hoplites and go with warriors and archers for a while to get our GA once we are larger. The key will be to get to a situation where we can pull 15 and 20 shields at different times. One Hop/archer per turn will be useful and the shield and growth potential here is large, we can max out pop and then mine the plains for shields.

 

[bed_head7]

Fine, if you'll take me, I'll happily join.

As for starting spot. From what we can see now, it is all plains and a couple FP if we move west. Assuming that, at size 12 we can get

Center square: 2spt
Two cows: 4spt
Two floodplains: 0spt
Six mined plains/forests: 12spt
Two irrigated plains: 2spt

So 1/turn archers and 1/turn hoplites won't be a problem, but this starting spot isn't as cushy as I imagined it would be when Mark said the start would be good. There don't seem to be any defensible positions nearby to the east. And with this spot, our GA will be an utter waste, as 20spt jumps all the way to 22spt. Maybe that isn't terribly important, though. I've only ever done OCC and AW seperately.

Well, I guess GA could get to 24spt if we work two fewer mined plains and work irrigated plains instead of floodplains.

 

[Aggie]

I agree with bed_head7, especially with the fact that the start doesn't seem ultra great.

 

[Mark1031]

I'll tell you what. Why don't you start Aggie now that we have 4 and if you don't think it's reasonable after 20 turns we can generate some new starts. But I think you will like it from a number of standpoints once you found and explore a little, at least I did. By the way for strategy do we agree on the following. Research WC, it is AW so we will need some cheap early offense, usual minimal exploration, and I would say hold off doing Hoplites till we are larger and can benefit more from a GA.

STILL LOOKING FOR 1 MORE PLAYER

 

[Aggie]

Good idea Mark.

I can agree with WC at max, (almost) no exploring. No hoplites to start with. Should I start with warrior-warrior-barracks-archer-archer-Colossus?

Got it! (but awaiting comments).

EDIT: I see that we have three cows!

 

[Mark1031]

I'd say Colossus when we have maxed out our troop number for our finances. I would really rather wait until our golden age for this. It is only Monarch and pangea so I think we have plenty of time to get it.

3 cows and a choke .

 

[Aggie]

Turn 1 (3950 BC) We settle and start with a warrior. WC in 17 at 100%. Worker goes to cow in the south.

Turn 2-8 (3900 BC - 3600 BC)

IT: Warrior->warrior.

Turn 9-10 (3550-3500 BC) Athens is size 2.

IT: A yellow warrior shows up from the north! Culture expansion reveals...furs!! Warrior->warrior. We need more troops now that we see another tribe.

Turn 11 (3450 BC) Alphabet and 7 gold gives us Masonry. I then declare war on Egypt. One warrior from our city covers the worker.

IT: Egyptian warrior fortifies on a mountain two tiles N of our city.

Turn 12 (3400 BC)

IT: Warrior->warrior.

Turn 13 (3350 BC) We are losing money at 100% science and only have 3 gold. Therefore science goes to 70% (WC in 4, making no money).

Turn 14 (3300 BC)

IT: A 2nd Egyptian warrior appears. Warrior->barracks.

Turn 15 (3250 BC) We are losing money again. But science can get to 50% and WC is still in 2.

IT: Two Egyptian warriors enter our lands.

Turn 16 (3200 BC) Athens is size 3. Science to 10%, 3 gpt. I decide to fortify 4 warriors, which in theory would give me more chance to win vs two Egyptians than if I'd attack.

IT: One warrior loses 2 HP and promotes. Another warrior loses 1 HP and promotes We get WC.

Turn 17 (3150 BC) Next up is Iron Working at min science. We could only gain 5 turns if we'd go 60%. I hope that we can get The Wheel from another tribe. 3 warriors go north to climb the mountains.

Turn 18 (3100 BC) We climb on two mountains in the north and see that the Egyptian capital is VERY close!! We should be able to archer-rush them.

Turn 19 (3050 BC)

IT: Two new Egyptian warrior show up.

Turn 20 (3000 BC) I take a laborer from the unworked cattle and put him on a grassland next to the river. We don't lose production speed but gain 1gpt. We are 1 turn from the barracks. We can get archers then and kill the Egyptians. That would then be nr 1 on our list I don't know if I did good, but I choose Iron Working, hoping that we can buy 1st level techs from other tribes. Unfortunately I had to go min science. Now we could increase the speed by 10 turns, only because of that extra gpt. I haven't done that yet! We probably shouldn't explore more than I did now.

300 BC save

 

[Mark1031]

Looks good Aggie. Way to get the rax in and hold off the Egyptains. We should be doing 10 shields very soon at size 5. It would seem an Archer rush is in order. As you can see already $$ support will be our main problem. I take it you are happy with our start. If so.

Akots ---UP
Bed Head7--On Deck

 

[Aggie]

I like the start. Not extremely good, but certainly OK.

 

[Mark1031]

3 cows and 2 nearby lux and a choke point only OK. You are a hard man to please . I would agree with IW. I actually say that with Hoplites for defence we are best off with sword/archer/Hoplite stacks. Horses will be secondary and less important than swords.

 

[Aggie]

I was thinking: where would the iron be? Not on top of the mountains in the north. Maybe in the east?

OK, IF we are on a peninsula with the Egyptians we can have our own piece of land for most of the game, once Cleo is gone! Then we are talking about a superb starting spot.

 

[Greebley]

I really probably shouldn't add another game to my roster, but I will play.

 

[Mark1031]

Great. Welcome Greebley. It shouldn't take too much time, well at least in city management.

 

[akots]

I'll try to play it today in the evening. Are we allowed to trade (no gpt deals) before declaring war or is it stirct AW?

And how many turns do I play? 10 or 20?

 

[Mark1031]

Why don't you take 20 and we can do 10/per after that. We can trade before declaring.

 

[akots]

OK, playing now, will post shortly,

 

[akots]

We are indeed in good shape.

[1] Athens goes to archer and warrior moves in for MP duty. We are at 7 spt and archer will be ready in 3 turns with growth in 5 turns. It is tough without Granary, so may be we should build one instead of Colossus?

[4] Egyptian warriors started to advance. The choice is limited, it was needed to attack them. We lose 2 warriors, they lose 3. Our military is down to 3 warriors. Luxuries increased in Athens to 30%.

[5] Archer ready but has to stay home for MP duty this turn.

[6] Warrior moves in, archer moves out. No activity from Egypt.

[7] Second archer ready and goes to reinforce our attacking force. Athens at +5fpt for growth every 4 turns.

[8] Thebes is in sight and has a spear as a defender. This would be a tough fight!

[9] Athens hits size 6. Newly built archers stays there for MP duty. We cannot build more units now, it is too early, hopefully we don’t need that many. Egypt has a worker coming to Thebes obviously willing to join the guy and whip another spear there. Starting on Colossus at 8 spt it will take 25 turns. Well, if something happens, there is always a possibility to switch to Granary or even walls.

[10] Archer attacks redlining Egyptian spear but dying. Regular warrior then attacks this redlined spear and we win. Thebes is razed and we gain a free worker. Egypt is dead then. A brutal game so far indeed. Slave and our military head back to Athens. We should not explore, not yet. I guess the slave might build a colony on furs apparently since we are not getting these into our cultural borders anytime soon. We also get some gold which certainly would help to feed our research.

Glorious battle in two fascinating scenes:

Act 1:

Act 2:

[11] American warrior shows up. We are certainly not interested in making a contact yet especially with all our military coming from the north. Apparently, Abe is more advanced since F6 guy tells we are backwards. No wonder, they have scouts. Anyhow, rules are rules and we dial Abe. He is up CB, Wheel and Pottery, not willing to trade anything for our pathetic 14g and has New York built. Not the best time but we declare war to him.

[12] Warrior fortifies on a hill, what a relief.

[15] Athens hits size 7 making 11 spt, Colossus ready in 14 turns.

[17] We move archer close to warrior, he attacks and loses, so much for the American warrior-scout.

[18] Furs hooked up, luxuries down to 20%.

[19] Scouting archer spots ivory. Not a bad location at all.

[20] IW ready next turn, Colossus in 9. Looks good:

And finally the SAVE