MM2: Aggressive Athenians-AWM-OCC

[TimBentley]

lurker's comment: The worker finished the road, which for some reason increased science and luxury income by 1, and reduced tax income by 1. Then your income became negative, and the warrior was disbanded (since the gold calculation occurs before the food calculation). Then your income increased when the city grew.

You'll notice this in the 1990 save by switching to the coast.

 

[bed_head7]

Huh. Strange that I have never run into this before.1990 BC (4) - Lower science 10%, get 1gpt.

1950 BC (5) - We don't get the 1g. What is going on here? (well, I know now) It still reports 1gpt as our income, but we don't get it.

We meet a Mongol scout. They have a worker! But we can't afford it. Sell Masonry for CB and 16g. Declare war. Kill their scout.

1830 BC (8) - Get exactly 200s to Colossus this turn. Start hoplite.

1750 BC (10) - Didn't cut science back all the way, but we are getting a couple gpt. Borders will expand in three turns, so we'll be able to get the wines hooked up. A hoplite and archer are headed towards America, I guess. Or at least where we met the scout. They can join up with the archer and warrior over there and maybe wreak some havoc.

 

[Aggie]

Good job bed_head7!

What are the victory conditions by the way?

Victory, conquest of course but all will be enabled. I don;t think it will go long enough for us to reach 20K and I don't see us building that many wonders anyway besides the colossus of course and maybe the GL or HG.

So, you want it to be Conquests?

I was thinking mostly of 20K still...

IMO, we can go either way now, just have to decide which one. The problem is that the sooner we get Philo + MoM, the better we are off in terms of cash and unit support and unit build consequentally. And now we are safe and don't have to worry about anything. So, I'm still thinking MoM is a way to go both for Conquest and 20K and the sooner we get it the better.

I thought that we already decided to go for conquest

 

[microbe]

We shouldn't underestimate the AI on monarch. If we allow them to grow they will get a lot stronger.

The start of an OCC is always the easy part as you outgrow the AI (in population, income and production). Things will get a lot harder later.

 

[akots]

...I thought that we already decided to go for conquest

We can try conquest certainly but we may fail. With choke and hoplites we might be able to survive safely to Cavalry in our little corner. It is always good to have some backup.

I don't think seriously we can raze many cities, not with hoplites, horsemen are needed and in numbers. On Monarch, there will be 2 spears guarding each city. No doubt, we should be able to seriously cripple the AI however, at least those which are the closest to us. May be even eliminate one or two really early.

Is it Pangea? I mean true Pangea without any subcontinent?

 

[akots]

Regarding the lost warrior: Tim is probably right. If a worker finished road and this unroaded tile has been worked, we have lost this 1 g due to rounding towards science from tax apparently. Worker jobs finish first, before the income is calculated. After the income was calculated, warrior was disbanded. Then, the city grew in size and rounding error backfired and has brought us +2gpt.

 

[Aggie]

Yes, we can fail. I don't see this as a problem at all. I vote for any wonder that will not get us of the conquest path. Great Library, MoM both are extremely valuable for conquest as well.

About pangaea: I assume that we won't know until later in the game. But we must expect islands at least. Little islands shouldn't be an issue. A subcontinet would be disaster for a OCC conquest AW game though.

 

[akots]

How's about SoZ? There is ivory within reach, we may very well build colony there aslo. Might be hard to defend it though.

 

[Aggie]

Of course! Forgot about that one! We can always try. AC's would be awesome for us, allowing to go for improvements instead of military.

If guess that we'd need to guard the ivory with a decent amount of troops. Killing everyone close and razing cities of needed.

 

[Mark1031]

Greebly UP

Mark On Deck

I think you guys give the AI too much credit. We can do Swords in 2 and Hops/Archers in 1 eventually. The key is to get out and take it to them early. Pillage and take cities when possible. I think each civ should get 2 Hops for pillaging/worker supression. Stay in forests and on mountains. Then stacks of 4 swords/1 archer and 2 Hops would be my choice (or maybe just archers when we can do 1/turn). These stacks should be very good on defence and able to take cities NP. If this gets to knights we are in trouble. Conquest baby!!

 

[akots]

@Mark: First civ can be certainly disposed of in this manner. I doubt though that it might be possible to advance further only with archers since we might be facing cities on hills and size over 6. However, if we were Persians, this would be the best choice with spear/archer/Immortal combo. For city on a hill defended by 2 spears, we need at least 7 archers in full health or 6 swords. Considering that the AI will whip additional spears at our approach. It might be better to go for horsemen instead of swordsmen if there are horses around. Especially if we want to save on unit upkeep.

@Aggie: It is possible to switch production to wealth to provide for unit support if we go way over the reasonable unit? With SOD of +15 units we can certainly succeed.

 

[Aggie]

@Aggie: It is possible to switch production to wealth to provide for unit support if we go way over the reasonable unit? With SOD of +15 units we can certainly succeed.

That would give us 2 gpt extra, would it not? Looks to be an option only if we get SoZ...

 

[Greebley]

I got it. My SG games all came up at once, so I have only glanced through the posts so far. I will take more time to read tomorrow and play tomorrow night.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: No changes

IBT: Pink unit shows up

1725 AD: Declare War on France No trades.

Early: Kill the French Warrior.

Mid: Build a temple. Get Writing, start Philosophy at full.

Late: Roading to Iron

Notes:
We have 3 workers:
One to go to the Iron and build a Colony for swords to take out France.
One to start a road toward the Ivory.
One to improve our lands.

After the next Hopolite we can start building swords.

BTW, I think min research is a waste in AW. You can't afford to wait 50 turns for a tech.

I think we want to be very agressive at the start. Build swords and go for France. Once Unit costs is high then start the GLib.

 

[Mark1031]

Pre turn. Looks good except we cannot support our research. Crazy as it seems I switch to wealth. Philo in 8 at –3gpt

1475: zzz

1450: Wack French warrior flawlessly

1425 Iron is online. Move up to Orleans

1400: French draft in Orleans . Wack Archer . 2 archers and warrior not enough to take Orleans so move on to start more trouble. Back to Hop production. Philo in 5.

1375: Wines on line wack French archer loose 1 hp. They won’t attack the Hop with archers, as I expected.

1350: zzz

1325: Pillage French tile.

1300: Philo in 1

1275: Philo in take lit. Research OFF. No SGL as I hoped. Oh well. Hoplites on the choke.

We can do Hops in 2 now and swords in 2 on the next expansion. I’d say we max out our Army and then do TGL.


Agggie UP

Akots On Deck

 

[Aggie]

Got it. But it will not be before Wednesday I think. Why aren't we going for Math and AC? And shouldn't we build MoM now, which we might switch to Seuz when this opportunity comes?

 

[akots]

Got it. But it will not be before Wednesday I think. Why aren't we going for Math and AC? And shouldn't we build MoM now, which we might switch to Seuz when this opportunity comes?

Why not indeed? A couple of units and go to MoM. I wish there were a prebuild instead of a temple.

 

[Mark1031]

We will get math from the GL. I don't think it is worth doing any more research, we can't afford it. Better to use the $$ for military. Max out Military, Start GL. Use up military, rebuild military and start SoZ. Repeat again for MoM if desired.

 

[Aggie]

I think that my approach will work as well. I believe that we can grab SoZ, TGL AND MoM. I really don't see why we can't afford to go for one more tech which will give us the strongest unit in the Ancient Age.

I'd go Math at max, securing SoZ and then switch to MoM/TGL. We are sure to get TGL anyway, so why not first build SoZ and MoM (along with the military)?

We now need military first. I will probably be building 4 swords and 2 hoplites in my ten. But still I'd like a decision on on whether or not Math at max. EDIT: Not max research, but research in a pace to get Math at the exact time that we would be able to finish SoZ.

PS. Won't we be in a GA very very soon? And won't this change things? We would get more income and a faster path to Math/SoZ.

 

[bed_head7]

I like going for math now, as SoZ is unit producting. We'll get 3-4 AC during production of the great library, depending on whether we are in GA or not, then 1-2 more during MoM. It seems too valuable a wonder to wait for the AI to research. This is Monarch, after all, so it could take them awhile.