nero03 SID

[Obormot]

I'd prefer 15 horsemen and 2 numidians
Does Theodoara have iron? In any case she doesn't know feudalism and attack rating of 2 is enough against spears. Try war chariots on a tiny sid pangaea .

But i still think that if we manage not to get into a tech hole before chivalry we should use knights. And we should go for that: chivalry is the key tech.

I agree on everything Own said about workers: having lots of workers and then joining them is my favourite way to go in the early game. Thus you can have 10 productive (10-15spt) cities by 1000BC. I think we can even try to outproduce them if they waste shields on colosseums, cathedrals and wonders.

 

[Own]

Maybe we'll leave leaderfishing numidians and cats on defense while the horses attack?

 

[Own]

One question SW, are we monopolizing lit? Is there any civ that doesn't know it?

 

[soul_warrior]

i dont remember ANY civ that has LIT, nor WRITE,
but im a bit wobbly, so id check the save to make sure

 

[Own]

We might have a monopoly on writing? Groovy! Maybe researching philo might not be a bad thing. Researching philo has a considerable risk. If we win, we get two monopolies, if we lose, we get no monopolies.

 

[nerovats]

We might have a monopoly with the civs we met. This does not mean a lot. When it would really be a monopoly we could not trade it get philo at max and trade it around and get most expensive tech for free. But have we met all civs? Being on continents most likely not. Do we want to risk getting 1 tech monopoly for (almost) sure, are keep fingers crossed and hope for 2?

I personally never liked numidians, as they are quite expensive. Could send just a couple along with our forces for defense. Cats also never seem to work for me, maybe 1 in 5 or 6 succes rate? You need at least 20 of them to get 2 defenders down to 1 hitpoint, and that´s really the least, in my experiance. We do need to choose our cities (maybe rename them to their purpose), which will build cats (no baracks) and which ones will build units. First target should be an easy prai. Might be the red, they are close so their cities should be somewhat productive for us. Get blue and pink into an MA, that way they´ll have a huge frontline and should fall.

I suggest to let Cartage just build settlers, until we got a couple in reserve to fill in gaps the ai will leave by razing (and replace the red cities?). These cities might be useless for production, but can be used to increase unit support and for scientists (irrigate everything).

 

[soul_warrior]

agree with keeping carthage as settler pump.

disagree about cats. we need atleast HALF of our army to be cats. those are what will save us.
numedians? quite expensive, but very useful if we need a last resort attacker. we should pack or SoD with them.

 

[Pentium]

Sorry, I didn't play before, but it was too late last night. So I'll do it now.

We need cats, we can't sacrifice our Horses nor Merc's, and cats do wonders in great numbers.

 

[Whomp]

I agree that we need cats with plenty of defense units. I have made two attempts at landings in SGOTM7 (pikes) and my SP deity game (Mercs) that were met with enormous force even though the AI came at them with AA units. We can expect even greater numbers at Sid. Though numidians are not the cheapest they need to be there in numbers. Better to prepare a large invasion force than not enough and lose all the cats.

I agree with Nerovats. The path should go after a highly likely monopoly rather than take the risk of philo.


I will need a skip till Saturday since I have 2 f-ball drafts and the annual Purple Pier party on Friday.

 

[Obormot]

I think we should go for literature. If we new every civ and none had writing we could go for philo, but now we should not risk. We should also trade writing now before it is discovered by somebody, we can get literature first for sure anyway because AI will be researching MapMaking and Philo.

As for the attack force - SGOTM7 is abad example, as you remember the fastest teams won it with knights only. Remember that the sooner we attack the less units we have to kill. While we are building cats the AI will be building spears and pikes.

 

[Pentium]

I agree with Nerovats. The path should go after a highly likely monopoly rather than take the risk of philo.

You were right! Just too late....

Pre-flight [1750BC]:
we have only 1 curragh. We need some more, change Hippo to it.
We don't have Writing monopoly, so I sell it to America and Otomans, getting Poly, IW, Math and 20g.
I decided to take the risk and continue Philo. 18 turns is better than 30
We don't have Iron, but Byzantines have it right next to our border.

Turn 2 [1700BC]: Rusicade founded, starts Worker.

Turn 3: Carthage Settler->Settler, sent to NE.

Turn 5 [1625BC]: Utica Barracks -> NuMerc.
Byzantines get Philo , ten turns ahead of us. They got Monarchy as the free tech. Good to know our continent is the fastest.
I sold Math to France for 300g, and bought Philo for Math and 220 gold. Some more trading gets us HBR and 230 total gold (we had less than 100 before this turn)
Started Lit, due in 24 with a scientist in Leptis Magna.

Turn 6: Theveste Cat -> Cat.
Worker finished mining BG next to Carthage, now it can be a 4-turn again.

Turn 7: Hippo Curragh -> Worker, PINK Worker -> Worker,
The city with the most beautiful name, Oea, founded in the tundra.

Turn 8 [1550]: Carthage Settler -> Settler.
Met Iroquios, they have Construction and lack Philosophy, but won't trade.

Turn 10: Hippo riots. Not so bad, one scientist will also help our research.

Notes:
Trading situation is very interesting, but noone wants to trade.
Abe has Const, lacks Philo and HBR
Osman is equal to us
Theo has MM and Monarchy
Iros have Const, lack Philo
Joan has Monarhy, lacks Philo.

It would be ideal if Abe traded Const, but I think we'll have to wait untill Lit for that.

I'd settle on the blue dot, it and the red one are the only places in our vicinity with 9 available tiles.

The save

 

[Pentium]

Our cities are very weak in terms of production. Now that we have a scientist in Hippo, we might raise the lux slider and relieve Utica. Also, Carthage will soon stop producing settlers and start building military.

BTW, we have 1 catapult and 0 NM's.

 

[Obormot]

Well, i don't think that we lost much by researching philo, we didn't invest many beakers and still managed to buy it and make some trades. The trading situation is interesting indeed. Have you tried turning off research and offering gpt? If we do everything right we can get it back.

I thought everybody agreed about setting up a worker factory in the wheat city and that was a long time ago. Instead we are wasting food by building workers in cities without a granary and still have a low number of workers (judjing from the picture. And the wheat is still not irrigated? That is something that i just don't understand. I would say that our worker management is terrible. Most of our cities are on plains and cannot even grow without workers (For now we should employ scientists there. +1 fpt is not worth 3 beakers).

I'm sorry that i'm talking so much about micromanagement, in an SG only strategic decisions are supposed to be discussed, but remember that this is sid and we have to think about every worker action if we want to win.

 

[soul_warrior]

Obormot
nerovats
Own
soul_warrior
Pentium-
Bigfoot- UP NOW. finish settleing
Whomp - ON DECK. start amassing those cats and mercs.

 

[Bigfoot]

Got it. Plenty to review here, I plan on playing tonight.

 

[nerovats]

Is taht a stack of workers near Leptis Magna? It's a lot mor effecient not to stack them when building roads. Roadings should be done by single workers then a stack could come in and irrigate/mine in one turn. This way we'll reduce production loss by movement. We need a lot more workers fast, even before units.
Must make good trades now, every tech accept currency is already on the table. So within a couple of turns all AI will have all AA techs accept Lit, CoL and Republic. I think we should stick with lot, in some game I played the AI didn't learn it until after entering the MA. We need that luck here, but have no other choice. When possible get those techs now, as changes of monopoly have reduced significantly.
Obormot, MM is a must in this game, so keep dicsussing it. Leptis Manga doesn't need a baracks, it should build wokers putting that food to use. Utica could also put in a workers after the NM. Hippo and Theveste could do with barracs for units the rest can build cats. Maybe Pink could be a worker farm too? We really need a lot more of those.

 

[Whomp]

Easy for me to say since I haven't played a turn but I concur with all Obormot and Nerovats have said here. A worker pump, worker movements and mm'ing are absolutely critical.

I will admit I may be gunshy after experiencing a unsucessful knight army landing in SGOTM7 but I still believe a SoD of force is better than not having enough. Unless there's a good unroaded "bikini babe" spot for distractions.

 

[Bigfoot]

Comments duly noted (and appreciated, I might add). Agree that MM and careful worker management are critical here, as is the correct specialization of cities. So we want to build a rax in Hippo and Theveste (giving us 3 unit-producing cities), while Leptis Magna and PINK pump out workers and the rest build cats. Is that correct? I haven't looked at the save, does Leptis Magna have a granary already?

BTW Whomp, what is a bikini babe spot?

 

[Obormot]

Leptis Magna should build a granary of course and then 3-turn workers. I think that more productive cities should build barracks and horses, other should build cats. If everybody wants to use cats, then it's ok, though i still think that it can be won with only fast offensive units. A compromise offensive strategy can be something like moving a stack of cats protected by 3-4 numidians and later by an army to major cities with many defenders and high defense bonus while fast units should clear small cities on their own and big cities with artileery support.

 

[Whomp]

"Bikini babe" is a trick Handy900 used very effectively in his AW Sid game.

The idea is to use, say, a warrior who is dropped off to attract all the AI's forces to a spot. Generally the best spot can not be reached within two turns by the AI. You then plant your SoD where it will do its damage and the warrior is removed from the spot when he's at risk. He jumps on a galley and rinse and repeat.