P3-03 - The Eternal War

[PaulusIII]

P3-03 - The Eternal War

It's time for another Always War game!

Settings:

Map: Pangaea
Size: Standard
Speed: Normal
Difficulty: Monarch
Leader: Cyrus of Persia

Special settings: Always War, No Tech Trading

SG rules: Have fun, destroy our enemies, 24/48 rule. Not much else to say really, as always

Roster is closed!

PaulusIII
nocho
Pindrus
Ralph Jackson
muxec
OJimiJam

And the start:

Looks like we're settling in place and starting on Fishing.

 

[nocho]

Reporting for duty!

No Tech Trading

Does this not make it too easy? Not that I mind, though...

Settle in place indeed and go fishing. And get a nice huge wall of bricks maybe, with all that stone around? Or rather stack it in a triangular way? Or both?

 

[PaulusIII]

Reporting for duty!

Does this not make it too easy? Not that I mind, though...

Settle in place indeed and go fishing. And get a nice huge wall of bricks maybe, with all that stone around? Or rather stack it in a triangular way? Or both?

I fear it might be too difficult if we go the other way. Remind yourself that the other AI's will love each other with the mutual military struggle and open borders, so that you might well face a bunch of AI's who might well be Friendly all around and techwhoring all around.

Add in that we're under constant attack, and I'm not so sure about us getting anywhere.

 

[Whosit]

Lurker Comment: I'd probably recommend the No Tech Trading rule as well. I saw this practiced in other SGs, and I found out the importance of it in some of SP games. Granted, I was also playing OCC, so an AW game without other restrictions can probably get by without the rule, but if you allow tech trading, you're more likely to end up with Musketmen facing Riflemen or Infantry or something equally unpleasant.

I also saw that you are on Pangaea, which is also a good choice. I tried to play on continents, but all that did was allow the civs on the other continent to tech peacefully until they met me. Good luck, everyone!

 

[nocho]

That's true indeed, though it would depend a bit on which opponents we draw and the religious map. But yeah, could turn out ugly. As said, I don't mind the setting!

 

[Pindrus]

Thanks for starting this one up Paulus!

Anyone else find it odd that even though our noble Persian tribe has been wandering nomadically since time immemorial that they have no clue what lies beyond the next hill over? The people really do need our leadership!

Start looks interesting, with some decent potential for feeding many new generations with its rich sea bounty and lots of rocks to rearrange. Probably won't be an end-game powerhouse what with its trickle of a river. I wouldn't be surprised to find another resource (horsies.. horsies... horsies!) in the BFC, and I want to say that we should be guaranteed one with all our open ground but am not an expert in Civ4 placement mechanics.

I think the decision of lining stones up for a long ways or piling them up towards the sky in a pointy fashion will depend on the surroundings and neighbors. The need for fishing will be a nice excuse to get another explorer out. See no reason not to settle in place, though too bad we have no 3h tile for boats. It also seems like there may be land just to the north? I wouldn't be surprised if we were on a small, salt-water "lake" rather than the greater ocean.

 

[OJimiJam]

Ill take the open spot if its still going, i assume were still on 3.17?

 

[PaulusIII]

Yes, we're still on 3.17. Welcome aboard.

Playing the first round now.

 

[PaulusIII]

Ugh... I am an idiot. Forgot to check Always War

Regenerating start...

And immediately we're faced with a more interesting decision. Do we keep the food and settle in place, or move 1E for added hammers and defense? I favour option 2 because cities on hills save lives in AW.

 

[nocho]

1E sounds fine to me, though maybe you can move the scout first. Anyway, the extra hammer is a bonus already. If that island off the coast is a tiny one, we can even have a relatively save GP farm with that spare sea food.

Now with the rice we still go fishing first or do we change that for mining-BW right away?

 

[muxec]

I love instant great wall from the first start. Go to World Builder and scenariolize it.

Also... I have 3.19 I fear I will need to reinstall Civ4+BTS. For now I will hope that the game will be upgraded by the time I'm up.

 

[OJimiJam]

1E looks good, if that land is overseas the free trade routes will be nice. do wonders go significantly later on always war? we have a lot of forests.

 

[muxec]

Played a couple of AW starts offline, capital on hills often helps.

Techpath suggestion - Fishing->Archery->Mining-> BW-> Masonry.

You play lots of defensive wars on AW double GG rate is great. With Cyrus you can easily get 3 GGs early with TGW settling them in prod capital means 3 promotions out of the door with only barracks. 3 promos may be used for woodsman 3 for healing, C2Formation for spears, etc. Not Boudica but in late game with dozens of settled GGs either 3 per city or all in cap...

We probably should prioritize literature for HE.

The UU is great for killing early AI scout archers.

It's very important to pillage nearest AI metal early and keep it down.

 

[Pindrus]

1E looks fine for a start. With our capitol on the coast hopefully it won't bear the brunt of AI attacks, but land is preferable to ocean and the 2H plains/hill bonus is great. I would be tempted to forgo seafood for the opening and tech AH (if no horses nearby -> archery) -> Mining -> BW. If I remember correctly we start with Ag/Hunting so the worker can make a couple farms while waiting for BW.

First priority with our hammers should be a barracks then getting out 2 harassment squads of 3 units each (archers or immortals if we are lucky) to camp the closest 2 AI's. These would be fueled with chopping.

Also, I am going out of town to celebrate US Independence Day and will be out from Thursday through Monday, inclusive. So if I'm up then I will need a skip/swap.

And actually about the tech path, if there isn't a place where it is possible for horses to show up (if all forested) I would probably vote for just going straight to archery. Fortified in favorable terrain, nothing monarch AI's can launch at them for the next 3,000 year will dislodge a group of 3. Promo order is usually combat, cover or guerrilla 1, 2 for 2 of the archers, and one with medic ideally.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Apologies for the slight delay checking in.

Don't understamate the effect of no tech trading as it will dramatically reduce the difficulty of this game and has the real potential to turn it into a cake walk as we build a tech lead (rather than fighting a tech deficit). Of course that doesn't mean it won't be complete bloodbath as Monarch AW Pangea with Tech Trading on is pushing the envelope a bit!!

I am away until Monmday so if you blitz the first turn sets just swap me..

Ralph

 

[PaulusIII]

Be happy that we put Tech Trading off. In the first few turns (report will be up shortly) I saw something that looked like Malinese borders.

We also met Julius Caesar close by.

 

[nocho]

How long is shortly?

 

[PaulusIII]

Heh, sorry. Got a bit carried away with other things, and the heat over here is making me slow.

Anyway, as we discussed we settled 1E on the plains hill and started on Fishing.

You can see we have a gold mine close by as well. That's obviously good news. I started on a few warriors and archers, and a workboat once Fishing was fishing; tbh building a worker would've been too early because unirrigated rice is a mediocre tile and the worker wouldn't have too much to do yet. Plus, in AW extra defense never hurts

Archery was also researched early, being prepared never hurts.

But yeah... we ran into the one AI I didn't want to run into this early. !@#%!@%$! Julius Caesar. This means we'll get Praetorians against us.

(Note that Mansa Musa is to our east; we haven't met him yet, though. That at the very least is good news, since he builds little military and techtrading is off )

Overall, I think we're in a good starting position. We want to settle the gold next to speed up research a bit. We should research AH at the very least in the next set.

 

[nocho]

Ok, seems I'm second in roster so got it. Will play somewhere during the weekend.

Haven't looked at the save yet, will do so later today and post some more thoughts and get some input so as to not screw up too badly in these early stages. At least not without team consent.

Where to the east is Mansa? NE or SE? If NE then we may have that SE land (looks like a peninsula) to ourselves for backfill, which would be nice.

Any place in mind for settling the gold? I'm thinking either the desert 1SE of the gold or on the coast 2S1W of it. Would be on a lake which with a lighthouse would give an extra food at some point. If we have time for lighthouses of course. We'd also need a border pop for access to the gold. Maybe settling will also depend on if and where bronze/horses would pop up.

Building wise I guess spit out some more archers to start harrassing JC with them. Build a settler (with chop), don't know if at size 3 or wait till size 4.

Tech, finish BW, go AH. Wheel will be important as well, we'll need it for our UU and to hook up resources. Myst for border pops and the extra happy will be relatively high on the list as well.

I would have loved to get the GW (+GG emergence, steal everything from Mansa), but of course we'd need masonry and have no stone. Lots of forest to chop though. What do you think?

 

[muxec]

Try to get gold in the first ring we may or may not have time for border pop.

RPC note: no wonder MM hates us, we disabled tech trading.