MM2: Aggressive Athenians-AWM-OCC

[akots]

@Greebley: MoM is free and needs no maintenance but brings cash in 1000 years as tourist attraction which is not that far away. And it is less than temple and cathedral together but with same benefit. And we actually benefit from having it since we can decrease the luxury rate down to zero. With market this would mean size 12 city with zero luxury rate. The bigger city means more units, more gold, and more production.

So, I guess it is option number 2 that wins the poll. I'll play in a few hours.

 

[Greebley]

Looking at the game we are going to have to dump a lot of sheilds to get SoZ first. We will be well over 200 before we can get math (10 turns at max). We may need to go for the GLib after all.

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As for MoM, you have already complained about us not having units and you want to add yet another wonder to the list before we do anything? I will pay 10% lux to be able to have 7 swords rampaging through my enemies cities.

Sure if we are max unit support and nothing else to build, then MoM is great We may even be able to to this. But putting off our attack for 12+ more turns is not a good idea, IMO.

 

[Mark1031]

I agree with Greebley. Also if we would waste sheilds I would definately not go Math SoZ (we would be wasting both $$ and shields which I find very painfull). It is definately not worth it IMO. Let's just complete TGL build some troops and then do SoZ we really must start wacking the AIs. Note this makes my vote option 1.

 

[bed_head7]

I'm afraid my vote switches to #1 too if shields are wasted.

 

[akots]

How the shields can be wasted? The cannot be wasted! I've already posted that it is possible.

Preturn check. Research to Math at 90% in 5 losing 14 gpt. 200 shields will be ready in 7 with growth in 4 turns and looks like we can make it without losing anything. Warrior sent scouting.

[1] Colony on ivory founded. Math in 4.

[2] Attacking stack healed and moved into French lands. Will go to Orleans or Paris depending on circumstances. Both cities are size 1.

[3] Math in 2, 200 shields in 4.

[4] Elite archer dies to spear in Orleans but the spear is redlined, so vet archer attacks and we raze the city gaining a slave. Slave runs for life back to ivory. Athens hits size 10, Math in 1 at +7gpt and 200 shields in 3.

[5] Math come up, research to zero. Build switched to SoZ ready in 2 turns. Meet English spear/sword combo. They don’t have Math but are up on us with Wheel, Mysticism and Pottery. Pottery would be nice, if we get MGL, he can rush a granary. Trade Pottery + 24 g for Math and declare war.

[6] Kill Mongol archer with sword.

[7] Athens builds SoZ, goes to hoplite. Archer attacks French settler/spear pair, redlines but wins and we gain 2 slaves. Slaves run to ivory. Sword kills another Mongol archer.

[8] Hoplite-hoplite.

[9] Another hoplite to build.

[10] And another. Lose warrior to Mongol warrior which is redlined and finished by hoplite which promotes to elite. Sword redlines but kills Enligh spear. Glorious city of Athens needs 14 food to grow to size 11 (2 turns on grassland and one on plains. But next turn our GA should end.

The glorious city makes 17gpt (2gpt from Colossus as attraction) and 20 spt and we have 213g in treasury so for the next 40 turns we can build only units. Considering there will be some losses, AC from SoZ should not break our budget. After hitting size 12 we need to hire a scientist apparently to make it on minimal run to Currency or have increase the luxury rate.


Screenie with Athens:

And the battleground:

SAVE

 

[akots]

The upload server does not seem to function normally, so the save is attached here as well.

 

[bed_head7]

Got it, but can't play it just yet. I am up in a few places. Nice turns akots.

 

[Aggie]

We are average vs Mongols and strong vs the rest. Sounds good, doesn't it?

We now have a lot of hoplites but almost no offensive troops. This means that we can go pillaging, but we want to kill troops coming south too. We will get attackers from SoZ, but I think that we need a couple of swords too. I'd go for 4 swords now and then TGL.

EDIT: We make 20 spt and 17 gpt, but next turn our Golden Age will be gone. So in fact we are already doing less than 20 spt. We won't finish the hoplite in 1.

 

[Mark1031]

Good job Akots. Let's now take it to them now. Could we do 1 scientist on currency as it may be a long time before we get it and market is quite important IMO. If those military reports are correct we should finish this soon with swords and AC can catch up as they become available.

 

[Aggie]

I'd prefer 10% research over the scientist. We need to grow and produce shield.

Other way to make money: tourism.

 

[Mark1031]

Agree on growth but as long as we pull 15 shields we are OK there. We cannot do 30 and we probably need more offensive units. Form the sound of the military report I think we can start to just roll over the AIs.

 

[Aggie]

@Mark: when you say 15 spt is enough you are referring to building units alone? OK, we can delay TGL. But I would really have liked horses in our little SoD's.

 

[Mark1031]

I actually think this will be over before we need to build the GL. Maybe I'm too optimistic but I’m used to being able to overrun civs that are strong compared by using massed forces and better tactics. With 2 spears/town I think 15-20 swords should do the trick with AC doing clean up in the back lines. We shall see how it unfolds but I think military for the next 30 turns is in order.

 

[Greebley]

We need to calculate our shields and gold for when we are not in a GA. We will probably be right around 15 shields when the GA ends with a Max of 16 or 17.

I am also guessing we may not be able to afford 11-15 swords in which case we should just choose the maximum. We will want do disband reg warriors too. We will see when the GA ends.

 

[Aggie]

This team is split into two camps I feel. One the one hand we have players who think that we can overrun the AI before the time of knights. On the other hand we have players who probably think that it will take a bit longer, which makes TGL needed. I'd say that TGL is only needed in a knights scenario.

I think that we have to make a choice on which way to go.

Mark1031 is starting to convince me that we need nothing more than swords, AC's, hoplites (and I'd say horses) to conquer the world. That would mean NO MoM and NO TGL.

The rush option has a possible escape, being the TGL. When we see that we will fail we can always start TGL to advance towards knights. That could go worng. The AI could get SGL's!

 

[Greebley]

I think we should maximize the number of swords (0 gpt) and then build the GLib. SoZ will replace lost units. This essentially follows both ideas. If the swords fail we have the GLib. We also have as many swords as we can.

My opinion is that we will need the GLib, but want to do as much damage now as we can.

 

[Mark1031]

I second Greebley. I'm not saying we ignore TGL if needed. We will at some point max out troop numbers and that will be a good time for the GL, I wouldn't advocate wealth or anything at that point. It's just that from the sound of things we may end up not needing it that much. I'm not too worried about loosing TGL. If someone else gets lit I'd say we switch and I think we can beat them to it on Monarch. The only thing to fear is a SGL which is low probability.

 

[akots]

Yes, let's go kill them! But we need hoplites for cover and pillage and they better be elite and fully healed before going into the enemy territory. Elite hoplites will not be attacked especially on defensive bonus terrain.

The worst problem as I see it is delivering the troops to the AI. It might be worth to set two defensive groups NW and NE of France and try to build road north from ivory as far as possible. Watch also for AIs getting literature. They might cascade to TGL as well and it can be rather unpleasant but for 30 turns IMO, we are safe. And definitely I'd go for horsemen over swords if only we had the techs just because of higher survival rate. I'm sure AI has them, so we can try to research them since the price will be very low. Or may be currency.

We have a few hoplites for advance and scouting and they then can be followed by offensive troops. In the current situation TGL can certainly wait. We will gain only a handful of techs from it anyhow.

The game will not last to knights hopefully. However, England has iron and it might be a good idea to find their source and pillage it. Don't know if any of them have horses. AI usually does not build chariots and may be we will see horsemen and then can decide where to go first. For now, England may be an important adversary. France is certainly crippled. Seems a good idea to dispatch a hoplite/sword pair to watch for their settlers which will be probably covered by spear and kill them as soon as they move out of Paris. But during my turns, Paris did not grow. Apparently Joanne was pop-rushing spears or archers.

 

[Coffee]

A really interesting game. I like your decision to get Zeuss. Its interesting that you can generate cavalry while not actually having horses or I assume, having learned horeback riding. Which begs the question have you learned the wheel. Never mind that, its just that I don't see any horses. I was actually thinking about trying this variant myself. From what I've have I seen I think speed is the answer. That makes AC and horsemen an interesting combination if you tring to tie it with an ML and/or GA. I ramble..good luck

 

[bed_head7]

750 BC (0) - Switch Hoplite to Sword. Start on Currency at 10%.

730 BC (1) - Kill English spearman, swordsman, and archer, losing our archer. MM in Athens to get sworsman in one turn.

710 BC (2) - Get our first AC, in addition to the sword. MM back to growth in one.

650 BC (5) - Lost a sword, killed an English sword.

630 BC (6) - Lose our elite sword to a spearman on flatlands, then kill it with our AC.

590 BC (8) - Two veteran swords beat two French archers and promote.

570 BC (9) - Kill various units of various nationalities. No losses, but an AC retreats to an archer.

550 BC (10) - Not much.

There are a couple of Mongol horses headed south. Actually, might only be one. I killed the other. Anyway, there are fast units out there. Our road network is improving slowly. Been pillage Paris. Athens shows swordsman in three, but will built it in two turns with growth. All I did was build swords during my turns, as I didn't see the need to do much else.