Okay...My Learning Play by Play

[TheMeInTeam]

No it's not, because you are obv better of if you let the AI settle the jungle stuff and just take their citys. I know it's kind of obv for most players, but i felt like pointing it out.
Of course you can get away with it on emperor, but it's still semi optimal.
And after all you can get away with capping 3 neighbors, instead of maybe just one on deity, so why not go for it?

It depends how great of a city is underneath all that nonsense. If we're talking about a gems and a rice, then no you wouldn't want to do it. If we're talking 15 riverside tiles, a pig, and 2 gems with another good jungle city nearby, then that's a different story.

There's also a question of alternatives; sometimes you can't get past 2 cities w/o settling into jungle, and in that case going alpha ASAP only to find out the AI doesn't have IW (or on continents/non pangaea maps, simply not willing to trade it) really hurts.

Still, lately I definitely like the ability to pre-emptively deny all 3 early strategic resources at a whim. Wars in any early era are a complete joke if the AI can only build archers or longbows...you just have to watch out for the resource-less guys like Monty, SB, Sal, Mansa Musa, and Pacal (sort of, but not really). If you don't camp too close to the cities, AI will still expand and build for you.

The reason I take early IW for that tactic is to prevent the AI from settling for/on top of iron. You can see iron in AI lands even without IW, assuming they have IW (tile yields are higher than usual even on hills or unimproved grass flatland), however you can't see it outside of borders and having them settle for it and instantly produce 5-10 metal units is a serious problem.

 

[Strickl3r]

I don't say never ever ever selftech IW in general. But on this map we have at least 4 solid spots w/o jungle and we have horses

Denying metal is always nice, but the AI builds to few units on emperor anyway. At least in the beginning when not plotting war. Pacal with his UU is still no big deal.

Am i the only one who thinks this is a no brainer 4-5 city HA rush map?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Denying metal is always nice, but the AI builds to few units on emperor anyway. At least in the beginning when not plotting war. Pacal with his UU is still no big deal.

It's not a question of "few" or "many" units, but the types of units. You lose some economy by teching IW super early, but if you manage to actually deny a target strategic resources, you get laughably powerful --> AI city capture conversions.

Am i the only one who thinks this is a no brainer 4-5 city HA rush map?

It would work and work very well. I love HA rush. However, I did smoke 2 AIs with pretty much just vultures and a couple late catas, and I lost very little in the process. The only difficulty I really haven't tested out the cheese denial strategy is deity. Still, # resources is finite, and since the AI never tries to hook them up or break the choke I can picture it working well enough if you can avoid peacevassal nonsense.

On this map we get a very nice UU and it's hard to ignore its potential when the opponent lacks metal!

 

[Izuul]

Is there a way to change this to Imm difficulty so that i can shadow?

Commerce looked like it could be a real issue on this map, but that looks much better now. 2nd city 1N of eastern gems. Pretty good early commerce now, but still lacking a bit for long-term. This is probably a good time to go take somebody out relatively early, and it looks like we have a neighbor conveniently close.

 

[Strickl3r]

It's not a question of "few" or "many" units, but the types of units. You lose some economy by teching IW super early, but if you manage to actually deny a target strategic resources, you get laughably powerful --> AI city capture conversions.



It would work and work very well. I love HA rush. However, I did smoke 2 AIs with pretty much just vultures and a couple late catas, and I lost very little in the process. The only difficulty I really haven't tested out the cheese denial strategy is deity. Still, # resources is finite, and since the AI never tries to hook them up or break the choke I can picture it working well enough if you can avoid peacevassal nonsense.

On this map we get a very nice UU and it's hard to ignore its potential when the opponent lacks metal!

Your approach also sounds like more fun i give you that.
HA rush is pretty straight forward.

 

[lymond]

Is there a way to change this to Imm difficulty so that i can shadow?

Open the 4000BC save in WB and save as a WB file. Play as a scenario.

 

[Izuul]

Open the 4000BC save in WB and save as a WB file. Play as a scenario.

Oh good, I did it right. Thanks!

 

[Deadelus]

I'm still here people, studying for this CCNA exam. I will try to get a bit a play in over the weekend but I am loving the discussion and the one thing I see is really important at the beginning is thinking ahead more than I have been. Thinking about the economy, where to settle and why, what techs are most optimul and why.

 

[Izuul]

Another thing to consider in the IW debate is that there are several guys here who could potentially tech Alpha early. I know the AI can be slow to get Alpha on emperor, but IW is fairly expensive and carries virtually no trade value b/c all of the AI go for it early.

I would rather tech things like HBR and Math and just do without IW until we are able to trade for Alpha. There's plenty of food here without the jungled pigs, and we have 1 non-jungled gems + gold, so the 2nd gems isn't really necessary right away either.

I think i would settle the eastern gems followed by the southern cow + gold + horse site, one more city to the west to work the other cow and eventually the gems, and then go beat on somebody with HAs. I know it's a shame not to use Vultures and all, but that copper isn't as convenient as the horses, and Pacal has already claimed a lot of the good FP tiles over there by that site.

 

[pomthom]

What abour HBR/Aesth? Math is also a go-to tech for the AI

 

[Izuul]

I don't like aesthetics here bc theres little use for that part of the tech tree right now. Math is to boost chops (lots of forests here), and HBR can be traded for alpha if necessary.

 

[Strickl3r]

You can't count on getting math via trade on emperor.

 

[Izuul]

You can't count on getting math via trade on emperor.

That's even true on immortal if you actually need early math for something. Where was trading for math suggested here though?

 

[pomthom]

That's even true on immortal if you actually need early math for something. Where was trading for math suggested here though?

Me by saying Math was a go-to tech for the AIs. But true that on Emperor and sometimes Immortal, that can be slow

 

[Strickl3r]

Should have quotet maybe.
Yeah same for immortal They tech it early, but you can never say when it is available for trade.