P3-03 - The Eternal War

Preplay:
Everything looks good. Not sure why we had a library in Pasargadae, but the event was pretty nice. I actually hem and haw and switch Persepolis to a galley. Library would be good but I think we need to be working all our tiles to get a settler out. Plus it'd be nice if a couple tiles were improved for more food before working on a build where we could grow.

Other than that I will ignore the pages upon pages of debate and barrel through single-mindedly with my crazy plans outlined in #58!

Turn-by-Turn

IT (100 AD)
And where are you headed there Mr. Joao?? Maybe they decided to attack Susa instead? Good thing I sent the LB just produced in Pasargadae down there!

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Turn 1 (125 AD)
I have suffered ignominious defeat and begin my brief reign with the destruction of our pillaging party! :woohoo: (run worker run!)

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Turn 2 (150 AD)
Is Joao playing Pied Piper to Mansa? That mini-stack could be headed to Susa too... AI must be scared of the garrison in Pasargadae. At least this isn't FFH and Susa doesn't get -25% defense for being on desert!

121-RunWorkerRun.jpg


And JC definitely doesn't have iron connected, though he is getting brave with some archers headed towards Ecbatana. Mansa also just pulled up there with an Axe and a Sword. Not too worried with the Nocho Garrison (TM) of 2 LB + 1 Axe.

121-NoRomanIron.jpg


Persepolis: Work Boat -> Galley (I think I mis-clicked, but we'll need a WB anyways, right? I mean, I just chose the cheaper boat to get some more scouting done! Yes, that's it for sure, brilliant!)

Susa: Barracks -> Axe (probably have enough LB's and will need offense too before too long, though LB's would work fine for that too really)

Turn 3 (175 AD)
Ooh, the fabled arctic horses! Bred of hardy stock with thick skins to deflect the arrows of our aggressors.

122-TundraHerds.jpg


Our iron is hooked up with the worker still alive!

Pew vs. Pew (unfortunately there is an axe next door after we win, though if we win that we have the HE unlocked)

122-PewPew.jpg


Pasargadae: LB -> Worker

Turn 4 (200 AD)
Axe near Rome leaves our LB alone, though JC runs out a couple archers towards it. With a promo in hand I think it'll be fine alone on the forested hill though.

GLH is built by Sitting Bull (wish it were Rome, or even Mansa!)

And the stolen worker is home safe!

123-HomeFree.jpg


Turn 5 (225 AD)
We punk a Roman catapult outside Ecbatana with a LB and earn a 2nd GG. I'd settle him in Pasargadae again, but it's not building a military unit currently so I'll hold in case someone vehemently disagrees.

Turn 6 (250 AD)
Ecbatana: Granary -> Monument (Library would take a while without a real food source and we need the borders to pop to see incoming nasties, plus the happy with Charismatic)
Susa: Axe -> Spear (bunch of chariots hanging out in the woods nearby, worry that other stacks are marshaling here for a big push, though haven't seen siege yet)
Persepolis: Galley -> Settler (island-bound)

Expel JC's attacker archers and hook up the ivory, not that we're really pushing happy caps

Turn 7 (275 AD)
SB and Louis join the Hereditary Rule club (formerly only Mansa & Joao), increasing my jitters about our lagging economy, though it looks like Louis actually just built the Pyramids.

Louis celebrates the occasion by marching a large stack (of mostly archers) into Persian territory near Pasargadae. We really need to get border cities up if we want to keep tile improvements...

126-LouisIncoming.jpg


Meanwhile the stack outside Susa grows...

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Turn 7 (300 AD)
Looks like the horsey island is actually a peninsula, which isn't as appealing :cry:

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Turn 8 (325 AD)
Hanging Gardens goes to Sitting Bull, who has quite the collection. I don't know if I've seen many wonders built by him before.

Louis seems to be gunning for our Capitol too (with just an axe inside). Reinforcements dispatched!

128-WheresHeGoin.jpg


Turn 9 (350 AD)
Finally someone attacked! A Native American sword suicides against a LB in Ecbatana, allowing us to improve some tiles there.

Persepolis: Settler -> WB (couple chops came in)
Susa: Spear -> LB (Maybe everyone is heading here?)

LB is coming out of Pasargadae next round, so I go ahead and settle the GG. And we can crank out CG3 Longbows!

Turn 10 (375 AD)
Louis does seem to be heading to Pasargadae...

Persepolis: WB -> Library
Pasargadae: LB -> LB

Someone out there popped a Great Prophet and founded Christianity. Hopefully we can bulb Philo to pick up a religion. That should probably be our tech path after our current line for elephants/catapults.

I'll hand things off here. An update on the state of things in the Persian empire:

A motley band of pioneers are boarded up ready to set sail with their work boats of supplies in tow. I'd vote for settling on top of the desert copper, leaving 2 seafood towns on the peninsula. If possible it's nice to have some hills & forests for these islands to work for some hammers and eventually they will be good draft-posts, so having more cities is preferable. That said I could also see settling on the east end of the island to get both crabs.

The Galley was just loaded this turn (so it can't unload), but it has 1 move left in case we decide to settle somewhere else.

130-IslandCities.jpg


Louis still has a big stack walking towards Susa (I think). Hopefully he will actually attack and not run around pillaging. We can probably send the 2 LB's in Persepolis to harass and pick off units if he keeps walking through. Other than that SB's stack is still hanging out in the woods outside Susa doing nothing but preventing us from improving our marble. Then there are a couple stray units around Pasargadae which we could probably snipe with LB's too. I've been pretty cautious and only attacking if we have 90%+ odds in our territory.

130-StacksIncoming.jpg


Closing Thoughts

Tech is moving along slowly. I paused research for a couple turns to build up gold reserves, so Math is still due in 5. We have a couple more cottages up in Persepolis now, with plenty of room under happy/health caps, so that city should grow for a while--probably don't whip the library. Overall I didn't really whip this round as all our cities had enough production and none too much food. I imagine we will be bringing the cat-o-nine to our island colonies soon enough though!

Worker situation is fine now, bigger problem is we can't improve tiles (and the gems are even in Mali culture!) due to invaders.

Hopefully with the new cottages we can chug through Math -> Construction -> HBR, my vote would to then go for COL to open the philo bulb. Not that it has a whole lot of trade value, but a religion would be helpful and we need COL for courts anyways. Note we'd need to research Alpha to open the bulb too. With LB's we have plenty of troops so no real pressing need for HE.

Roster
PaulusIII
nocho
Pindrus - That's me
Ralph Jackson - Up! (barring further dredging of lawns)
muxec - On Deck
OJimiJam - MIA, should we look for a 6th?

Save attached:
 

Attachments

So the AI are getting more serious with their stacks... Indeed hope they attack instead of scouting out our territory, or worse, pillaging it.

I think I'd prefer to settle on the eastern tip of the island to get both clams. If we're thinking about philo-bulbs we'll need to generate a GS obviously and I think it's best to try in the island city so the mainland can concentrate on troops. It then needs both seafood sources.

HE was unlocked already by the way, note the 11XP axe in Susa. Also it may be wise to give our defenders some promos when the AI finally have the guts to actually go on the attack... What do the current defences in Persepolis look like?

And good job getting the stolen worker back home, especially with our pillaging party decimated by Joao! :)
 
OK Got it, thoughts tonight then a report tomorrow.

Ralph
 
Yes, most units remain unpromoted. I slapped a couple anti-archer promo's on some "offensive" LB's, but there are a number that should get promoted if a stack pulls up to one of our cities. Luckily there aren't any catapults on our doorstep at the moment, but it could get dicey if 3 stacks attack during the same turn. We should be aware of whether we are going to sally-forth to destroy enemy stacks at the gates (before they can cause collateral damage) or just hole up with enough defenders. With our defensive advantage at the moment and the lack of siege we are fine just defending, but that may change once trebs or large stacks of cats are seen (like if we upgrade to 3.19!).
 
I noticed the leader of our gang say this in OB08:
I'm probably going for the dual install as well.
So do we upgrade to 3.19 then? I'm on a dual install as well by now and at least for me this is the only SG I still have in 3.17. And then muxec can hop on after Ralph :).

Or do we fear the AI in 3.19, like in
With our defensive advantage at the moment and the lack of siege we are fine just defending, but that may change once trebs or large stacks of cats are seen (like if we upgrade to 3.19!).
:D
 
Well I will play my set in 3.17 tonight but having finsihed off SGOTM (with an award , unfortunately a wooden one!) am happy to switch to 3/19 if the team desire afterwards.

Re the set.

I actually think we are in a pretty strong position. Plan in broad terms is.

Settle Island city to pick up Copper + 2 Clams straight away. With copper it will be one of those Island GP farms that actually has the hammers on hand to build its own infrastructure nicely.

Once we have 2 Scientists in Island city and scientists running in our capital our research rate will really take off. Although Constuction and HBR look like a large number of turns to research right now this will soon start dropping.

Other than that just start building the troops to be supplemented later by Cats ready to make our first push after JC then Mansa.

The incoming stacks aren't that worrying but supect we will suffer a bit of Pillaging but nothing too drastic. The AI is far from worrying our Longbow defended cities.

We have a GP in 19 turns so if we time things right we can look at taking Theology as a bulb getting us our religion and a useful civic. Will have to see how the numbers play out as we may well not want to delay an Academy for that but I will try and leave the choice of G Scientist or Prophet open at the end of my set for the team to decide.

Ralph
 
Yeah, it's time to switch to 3.19.

Construction/HBR sounds like a good plan to me. More thoughts when I've taken a proper look at the save.
 
Yeah, it's time to switch to 3.19.

From 26 to 30 July I will not be at home (seaside resort at last:) ) thus unable to play. I will take my netbook with me so I'll be able to provide some uselessful comment. I will probably take it after 30th and play my first set. :)

As for research - I suggest being defensive for a bit longer and teching to Literature. Luckily we have marble so epics will be fast. Also we have Feudalism to hold against the AIs just fine.
 
None of our marble is hooked up yet, thanks to Sitting Bull's Sitting Stack. Personally I'm more worried about our research rates than about getting an offensive stack together. All Rome can do is send 2-3 archers and the odd catapult our way. They can't even match up with other AI stacks, so all they do is allow us to farm some unit exp/GG points. We aren't really close to filling up our little side of the continent yet, so there's no hurry to take them out. Const/HBR for Elephants will be a great boost to our defense and let us take out random units wandering in our territory with high odds.

I'd rather see us pick up currency/CoL before opening the epics and get a few more cities up and cottaged in the lush jungles to the NE. Plus this is necessary if we want to bulb philo and get a religion for civics/happiness (will also need alphabet...).

3.19 sounds fine to me, then I can balance this SG out with a single-player Always-Peace domination game featuring the re-newed and re-improved Spread Culture espionage mission :D

Have fun on your trip Muxec, I had my own beach adventure earlier this month and it was quite nice! More of a little cabin than a resort though, but that's part of the fun too for me.
 
So sorry for the slight delay on the report.

Plan was as discussed pushing through towards Catapults so we can start going on the offensive - whilst maintaining research with Libraries + Scientist where appropriate.

So how diid things look, well we had a slight problem with infiltrators who needed clearing out from our back lines to prevent pillaging



1infiltrators.jpg




But as can be seen from the top of the Picture we persuaded the french to suicde their stack versus our longbows without loss!

We settled our Island city whihc now has the copper mine + 2 clams done and will fiinsh its library quickly when it gets to size 3 and with Maths in the bag started out on construction


2mathsnewcity.jpg




We moved troops out and Sittting Bull has been slowly suiciding his stack against them. There is a worker hooking up the quarry to help boost production. The mixed stack of longbows, axes and spears has a counter for whatever Bull throws at it so with a bit of luck he will finish throwing his troops away next set.


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Popping our Oracle fuelled Prophet seemed a good place to go with construction 8 turns away. So team decision... research the filler techs post HBR to bulb Theology (my recommendation if the religion remains available) or just settle him in our Military city for the hammers and commerce.

In the N not many problems, Mansa has sent a lone axe to look round our lands but we have a higher experience axe who can deal with him.


5masnsatickle.jpg



Other than that in the NW two longbows are protecting the route towards gems + ivory. Culture border should pop next turn or the one after hence workers being ready to mine the gems for much needed commerce. We have started assembling our troops ready to push out in a while versus Mansa or JC.


6NE.jpg


Ralph
 

Attachments

Looking good! From your last picture, did JC voluntarily vassal to Joao? I guess that means the AIs are up to feudalism as well by now...
 
Just checked the save, looks great so far.

I'm for settling the GP, the big advantage of getting Theo early is trading it to other AIs. We already have good experience modifiers. As for religion - we will capture one from Musa. I love the idea of Cataphant war.

Our next GG will come soon. :)
 
I think the quality of your play & report will make up for its tardiness! I especially like the baiting tactic @ Susa and the LB guards protecting the gems.

Have any troops come from NE of the ivory/gems city? One part of AW games that I enjoy is not having much map knowledge--who knows if that land even really connects up with the rest of the continent?

I can't open the save atm, but if our economy can handle it I think we should get started with 1-2 more cities in the jungle/forest that we can cottage up for long-term reward.

I'm also torn on the prophet. Theo would actually be a better religion-grabbing tech than Philo because its civic would be much better for this AW setting. Even if we are close to being able to field cats/phants, my experience in AW is that progress into AI territory is a very slow march. You always have to be prepared for a counter-stack to show up anywhere and even if you have 1 opponent gassed there are other AI's still sending healthy stacks your way. My point here is that I think we should still aim to found a religion if possible and not count on 'liberating' one from a former-Mali city. Unless JC somehow gets Feudalism we should be able to stomp him with just cats + LB's + CR Swords/Axes. Rome isn't even on a hill. So we could probably afford to detour to Mono even between Constr and HBR, and just deploy elephants later for the push into the main AI lands. So I guess my slight preference would be waiting for the bulb.
 
Now I'm in hotel with netbook. Sorry for not playing before, forgot that I'm next. I guess it is a swap. :(
 
Since muxec needs another swap and OJimiJam's still MIA I guess that puts me up. Got the save.

I think it's by now time to start some good ol' stomping fun. I'll just build an army and see where we end up. :)

Also, it's going to get switched to 3.19 here.
 
Can someone else take the save please? Having a bit of computer trouble right now.
 
Hm, I'm afraid this SG might have caught a case of RDMS*! Unless Muxec is back this would put Nocho in the hot-seat.

Roster:
PaulusIII - kaput compy
nocho - up?
Pindrus
Ralph Jackson - Played most recently (a bit long ago for "just played!")
muxec - Netbook Only
OJimiJam - MIA

* - for those without medical degrees, this of course stands for Rapidly Disappearing Member Syndrome.
 
Can't get to it before Thursday, partly because I'm up in another SG as well. So if you want to take it before that, Pindrus, it's all yours! If not, I'll try to play it Thursday. Muxec would be available from Friday on, if I understood correctly.
 
Yes, I plan to play on Friday.

If I do, should I try to make a new Mansa-pillaging stack?
 
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