News: WOTM 10 Pre-Game Discussion

[Infantry#14]

i just tried a test game, 17 rivals on a small map. As far as I can see, most civ can only have 2 cities, with a few can squeeze the third one. Unless there is bronze, iron, or horse next to the starting location, I fear any early war attempt will fail. I tried an archer rush and my archer army had only 1.3% winning against the enemy archers in the fortified city 40% cultural def. Perhaps, in the very beginning build 1 warrior and use him with your starting warrior to take out the ai only archer in the beginning. Or wait until the catapult era.

 

[Gnejs]

Ohmygod. I tried a test map and I got myself nicely spanked before the AD years. The AI kept sending wave upon wave of bad guys. DoW'ing (sorry Jenarie) all AI is not clever at all. It's actually madness and I can't imagine I will win this game.

I teched towards Construction and then towards feudalism. Perhaps the reverse path is better.

Lol! This IS going to be fun!

Kill'em! Kill'em all! They will all feel pain. They will all be crushed. They will not be spoken to, apart from the head-on-a-pole thing. No trade with non-vassals. Pure kill'em all style, yes?

Simple rules:
(a) First build: work boat. Send north-east (clock wise along coast) and DoW every AI. If boat is lost, build second and send north-west. Deliberately avoiding AIs not permitted.
(b) DoW AI at first contact. Capitulation ok (and trade with vassals ok). No peacy allowed without capitulation.
(c) Any start save allowed.

Competition: fastest victory. Anyone up for the challenge?

Perhaps we should amend the rules slightly:

Competition: fastest victory or if noone manages to win, latest defeat

Couple things to help (for the easy win)

RE: Challenging game - only remote challenge available to this one is to go for a peaceful diplomacy or cultural. Sorry Erkon, you know as well as I that no artificial hurdles are gonna make domination or conquest any less of a foregone conclusion on this map. Entirely the opposite as the crowded settings drastically enhance the military win, not restrict it.

I am not so sure of this. Erkon may have blundered totally in his practise game (most likely of course, but he does have his moments... ), but maybe this all-out war is a real challenge also for good players such as you. You sure you don't want to try it?

One immediate consequence of being at war with all AIs is that they get the mutual struggle bonus that soon will outweigh the aggressive AI modifiers. They will also be much less likely to declare war on each other. Erkon, did that happen at all in your test game?

 

[Lexad]

@Infantry#14
40%? Too late, move faster.

 

[Infantry#14]

@Infantry#14
40%? Too late, move faster.

I guess I was a bit late, but Gandhi found a religion. Maybe I shouldve picked another neighbor. I build up an army of 5 archers and 1 warrior. Gandhi already had 4 archers in his capital.

 

[Erkon]

...
Competition: fastest victory or if noone manages to win, latest defeat
...
I am not so sure of this. Erkon may have blundered totally in his practise game (most likely of course, but he does have his moments... ), but maybe this all-out war is a real challenge also for good players such as you. You sure you don't want to try it?

One immediate consequence of being at war with all AIs is that they get the mutual struggle bonus that soon will outweigh the aggressive AI modifiers. They will also be much less likely to declare war on each other. Erkon, did that happen at all in your test game?

Latest defeat too easy to manipulate. I suggest that we use the total number of military units defeated as a tie breaker.

I met most AI with my Ship of Doom (work boat) on one lap. They had +4/+5 mutual enemy bonus at 300 BC. They did not DoW each other as far as I know. Washington got alphabet around 700-500 BC and half of the AI had it in a few hundred years.

I made a lot of mistakes. The capital has lots of food so granary and lighthouse can be skipped. My invasion attracted attention so I plan to send two stacks of 2 archers, 1 spear and 1 axe to a forest hills and then attack in the middle. The timing is critical. I managed to capture one city and one capital, but lost both due to lack of defenders. I defeated 40 military units and was halfway to my second general.

It will take real skills to win this. I'm not at all confident that I will. DynamicSpirit - it's much harder than WOTM3

 

[nicknack]

Obviously there is a worry about Barbarians but...

Turn 1 - Move Warrior SW and put Settler on same spot
Turn 2 - Move Warrior NW and take a look, follow with Settler.

Hopefully, the square NW of the Fish is a beauty and settle London there....that way you are protecting a great region for City 2 and City 3 (where you just came from)

The alternative of settling in place means that you will very unlikely get a decent spot due west.......

of course it may be there is an AI Settler just out of sight

anyone else think an initial wander west is a good idea?

 

[cabert]

Obviously there is a worry about Barbarians but...

Turn 1 - Move Warrior SW and put Settler on same spot
Turn 2 - Move Warrior NW and take a look, follow with Settler.

Hopefully, the square NW of the Fish is a beauty and settle London there....that way you are protecting a great region for City 2 and City 3 (where you just came from)

The alternative of settling in place means that you will very unlikely get a decent spot due west.......

of course it may be there is an AI Settler just out of sight

anyone else think an initial wander west is a good idea?

yep.
it's not an optimal developpement move, but it may be the single best way to secure enough land.
I'm still going to settle in place and find a way to secure land later.

 

[da_Vinci]

i just tried a test game, 17 rivals on a small map. As far as I can see, most civ can only have 2 cities, with a few can squeeze the third one. Unless there is bronze, iron, or horse next to the starting location, I fear any early war attempt will fail. I tried an archer rush and my archer army had only 1.3% winning against the enemy archers in the fortified city 40% cultural def. Perhaps, in the very beginning build 1 warrior and use him with your starting warrior to take out the ai only archer in the beginning. Or wait until the catapult era.

Or perhaps old fashioned siege warfare ... starve them out. One could pillage all non-cottage improvements (if you plan to hold the cities eventually and use the suburbs) and camp on the cottages to completely stifle the enemy economy. If you pick one with little gold in the bank, maybe the troops go on strike and you can walk in despite the cultural defense?

Hopefully, someone good will answer before they start for real!

dV

 

[EEO]

1. But what did you research? (after the early religious techs, which aren't even on the MSR IW bee-line of course...) Every tech you research speeds things up a bit for the AIs. I assume you have Alpha, because otherwise you wouldn't even see what the AIs have. In pure MSR you stop teching at Wheel or maybe Mysticism for obelisks. Whether you bee-line IW or HBR.
2. Why do you still have 17 AIs alive at 5 BC? (he asks with a big Erkon )

Well, I had high score in mind, therefore opening objectives are clearly different.

My opening research path was: Mysticism, Polytheism, Masonry, The Wheel, Priesthood, Writing, Mathematics, Code of Laws, Civil Service (via Oracle about 1500 BC) , Alphabet.

Some remarks here:

• The shortest path towards CS slingshot is with Meditation instead of Polytheism and without The Wheel. But, of course, the latter is necessary to get Marble and to let some work to the worker. As for Polytheism, it's more likely to found a religion, is better valuable when getting Alphabet and opens the door to Great Library via Literature.

• I bypass without hesitation BW. I can acquire it easily by trade when necessary. Instead of 90 you get with 3 forests in the beginning, I get 330 with the same forests for building the Great Library thanks Marble, Mathematics and Civil Service ... (it could even have been 363 with Organized Religion).

 

[Lexad]

Moreover, you don't need to chop these forests early for settlers as you will find no place even for the third city, assuming more or less uniform AI distribution.

 

[LowtherCastle]

@EEO. Yeah, your research path is going to turbo-charge the AIs. It may be that so many AIs speeds up the tech rate no matter what, especially when they're all connected. We'll see. This map should get generate some massive scores with the fast tech rate and low tundra, rain forest. Probably take 350K to win...

With your tech path, at which point do you envision starting your war campaigns? With the Sword rush I'm starting pre-1000BC, even with a slow research pace. On this map, maybe way earlier.

 

[LowtherCastle]

- Spasibo

Well, not bad! You could've read our thread at civru.com

Don't I wish...

 

[MarkUCLA]

Ok. I'm pathetic as a player. Simply pathetic.
But I am getting better.

That said, I have a gambit i've seen no one suggest and wonder if its a viable option. Especially for those of us that are not great players.

Now don't go blowin me off without thinking about it, or giving it a shot. I tried it last night (with the test save) with pretty good results.

WHY NOT start by moving your warrior/settler combo around 4 squares west. I know, I know, You're giving the AI's a 4 turn head start and you'll have a slower start with your capital because it won't have all those fish & resources but....

1) The peninsula is yours anyway and as soon as you put a settler or 2 on it, those cities will explode.
2) You'll have your capital closer to the AI's capitol, or 2nd city. Your culture should give you a wide area of land to improve and put pressure on the AI's.
3) The AI's will have to go through your capitol 1st to attack your empire and you should have good cultural defense by then. Also, your most important resources will be protected till the AI's can swim across the harbor.

There are other good reasons, but it worked out pretty good for me. I discovered Hinduism 1st and the religion spread like wildfire. I built religious temples etc..and the culture from the capitol exploded.

Wish I was a better player to see how to really exploit a start like that, but it was working for me just fine.

That is till I saw the Incan's (I think) capitol with 7-8 archers in it, but they only had one city. You'll have 3 or so and will catch up to them soon.

Let me know if this is worth a shot.

 

[LowtherCastle]

@MarkUCLA
The best players (which I am not, but try to learn from) always play with a Master Plan. That starts with the victory condition(s) they are considering, the leader/civ characteristics they have and the map type and starting position. If you don't say what your goals are, there's no good way to evaluate your strategy.

That said, if you are slow at growing your empire, then it could be a good strategy to lock off the AIs to guarantee you'll get at least 2 cities, and to keep them off your back in general. It really depends on what lies to the West. If it's just more water and we're on an island, you wasted a lot of turns and maybe built a crappy capital.

The starting position is awesome. If you're in a hurry to build your second settler, you could just research BW, build a wkr and chop your second city. You'll get it quite fast that way.

 

[Lexad]

Let them come and build me a second city! I don't fear no AI! Well, no Monarch AI

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Instead of 90 you get with 3 forests in the beginning, I get 330 with the same forests for building the Great Library thanks Marble, Mathematics and Civil Service ... (it could even have been 363 with Organized Religion).[/LIST]

How do you work that out? (Bear in mind this is warlords, the forest chopping bonuses from vanilla don't apply).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Has it's uses, moreso in multiplayer. For example, compare a fortified a triple city defence longbow on a hill city vs one with one city defence and triple drill (as is easy with a 'Protective' civ). Attack them with 25 standard catapults each. The city defence bow will probably take 2-3 catapults out before it goes down. The triple drill longbow will probably kill most of them. I've actually seen them kill all, unscathed at the end.

Interesting. So, trying to read between the lines, what you're saying is that if a unit gets drill 3, it has so many first strikes that it becomes incredibly powerful. Yes? So the benefit of drill 1 isn't really much by itself but the power is that it can lead to drill 2 and drill 3? The benefit of each additional first strike is bigger than the previous one? (That might make sense if lots of first strikes mean the enemy unit gets hugely damaged before it gets any chance to attack).

Aren't there some situations where some units are immune to first strikes? If so I guess that gives the counter to the situation you're describing.

 

[EEO]

With your tech path, at which point do you envision starting your war campaigns? With the Sword rush I'm starting pre-1000BC, even with a slow research pace. On this map, maybe way earlier.

- If I have Copper or Iron, I begin producing Maceman at 625BC.
- Otherwise, I should begin producing Grenadiers around 250 AD. (Redcoats are an alternative, but Rifling is not on my main path)

 

[EEO]

How do you work that out? (Bear in mind this is warlords, the forest chopping bonuses from vanilla don't apply).

Of course, they do apply !!
You don't see them when you chop the forest, but if you open your city screen, you will see the bonuses ...
For instance, chopping a forest having Mathematics, you see 44
But if Marble and Civil Service do apply, you will see on your city screen (production) that you obtain 110 (44 * 2.5) for the chopping ...

Well, this is my last comment in this thread, because I am going to begin the true game ...

Good luck to all ...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Interesting. So, trying to read between the lines, what you're saying is that if a unit gets drill 3, it has so many first strikes that it becomes incredibly powerful. Yes? So the benefit of drill 1 isn't really much by itself but the power is that it can lead to drill 2 and drill 3? The benefit of each additional first strike is bigger than the previous one? (That might make sense if lots of first strikes mean the enemy unit gets hugely damaged before it gets any chance to attack).

Aren't there some situations where some units are immune to first strikes? If so I guess that gives the counter to the situation you're describing.

I think a key factor here is that with Drill 1 and 2 you're getting extra first strike chances. Drill 3 and 4 are giving you extra first strikes. With a first strike chance you have to first beat the RNG for the first strike and then beat the RNG that the strike does damage.

A first strike might or might not do damage.