[BTS] Prince Shadow Game

[Stibi-shimi]

Turn 35, 2600 BC

What's next for tech?

Full map

Spoiler :

Capital-Thebes

 

[SittinDown]

I think you need some commerce. Fishing, Pottery or Writing can help there.

• Writing is ok - a library lets you get beakers without any commerce tiles, and Thebes only has 4 good tiles anyway.
• Fishing is so-so here. The lake is a nice tile, but you don't really have any seafood here, so it's not a priority.
• Pottery is meh - granaries are good, but you don't have any rivers, so cottages are a little weak, and your workers should probably focus on chopping out settlers instead.

You'll be in better shape once you have Rome!

 

[SittinDown]

run your slider at 0% for a turn or two. don't run it at 90%. you lose 1 gpt on a rounding bug in the game - which is a lot when you only have 11!

 

[Stibi-shimi]

Turn 38, 2480 BC.

Ran slider at 0% for one turn for 12 gold; -1 gold at 100% for 11 turns for writing.

I'm in slavery now, without losing a turn because Ramses is spiritual. What's the rules on whipping cities? I see that Thebes is sick, so that's a pop that's not working. You can't see, but 2E of thebes is my worker chopping. That's 1 war chariot at Thebes and 2 in Memphis.

I could whip at Memphis now to get my 4th WC
In two turns before chopping is over I will have my 5th WC in Thebes
And in three turns the chop will probably give me my 6th WC in Thebes. And that's without having whipping any in Thebes at all. Is this overkill? Should I just whip the 6th WC and save the forest?

Spoiler :

 

[Fippy]

Thebes should not be whipped at all for WCs (but a library later).
You can connect some and stop chopping forests now
I see your worker stands on another one, could road pigs instead or finish a last chop.
Overall citizens are no biggie and sometimes even unimportant.

Memphis whip looks fine, 2 more WCs from here are okay.
Thebes maybe 1 more, warrior should also be completed so chariot can move out.
5-6 should easily take Rome with wandering warriors as backup.

 

[SittinDown]

Remember citizens just add -1 each. It's ones that cause your citizens to go idle.

• Also whipping chariots is usually quite inefficient. They're only 30 , so you get a lot of unhappiness compared to the hammers you get out of it, and you don't get any overflow. Compare that to a classic example of an efficient whip - an axeman. They cost 35 and if you put 4 in, you get 29 of overflow for your next build, for the cost of 2-population and 10 turns of unhappy. Using that, you can usually make 2 axes in 2 turns.

 

[SittinDown]

5 WC's is plenty - sooner with 5 is better than later with 6. it'll be a much easier fight if he doesn't have any archers yet.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

Turn 41, 2360 BC

5 war chariots on Memphis and ready to roll. 6th chariot will come after Memphis hits two and I whip it again, next turn. Going to start the war on the next turn by pilfering AC's worker there on the horses - hard to see but its down west behind the tooltip. What should I build next in the capital? Workers, settlers?

Spoiler :

 

[lymond]

Odd that you were not able to steal a worker sooner. He had a worker on those spots earlier in my test. But don't DOW now as you will just make him start building units, eliminating the element of surprise. I had sniped his worker far sooner than this and ceasefired. Actually ..ha...I think I did that twice.

Anyway, you will get those workers. Just keep those warriors near the edges to keep the worker in the city. Actually the worker may still be improving around there so you can snip when the WCs arrive.

Definitely attack from the SW of Rome so you can move in 1 turn and then attack Rome. Speed is important so always take the quickest route.

 

[SittinDown]

Yep - to further lymond's point, you really want to be able to take his capital the turn you DOW. I'm not sure if you can based on the terrain, it's hard to see.

But - he's certain to whip a defender as soon as you park a stack next to his capital. So you'll have a harder attack and capture a city with less population. It's a small difference, but it adds up. If you don't lose any WC's in this attack, it probably makes sense to have them go find another AI to bother.


Totally separate:

• Espionage - you should put your espionage weight on the Byzantines. You can do that in the espionage screen. No need to spend any more EP's on Casear. And the Aztecs look weak too - you might be able to just take them out if you find them soon enough.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

I've actually never played with espionage because I didn't understand it.

What does the weight go up to? 100? I set it arbitrarily at 25.



I'm going to start another settler in Thebes - it doesn't need to grow, I don't need units, and I'll probably capture 2 workers from Rome. I'll have to do some tile-counting to see whether I put it on corn or pig and whereabouts.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

Turn 44, 2240 BC. Hope I'm not going too slow. What should the worker on cows do? What should Memphis build after the last war chariot?

Spoiler :

you really want to be able to take his capital the turn you DOW. I'm not sure if you can based on the terrain, it's hard to see

It's a plains forest. I'm not sure if I can do 2 moves through that.

 

[SittinDown]

What does the weight go up to? 100? I set it arbitrarily at 25.

It's like a % slider thing. You have 0 weight on 2 AI's, and 25 weight on 1, so ALL of your espionage points are going onto Byantines now. (that's indicated by the green +4 ep next to his name).

Concentrating your espionage points is good, because you can see what that AI is researching after a little while. If you spread your points around, you probably won't generate enough espionage to see what anyone is ressearching.

But espionage is it's own whole thing - maybe just find a little guide on it. It can be powerful, but it's probably a distraction for you at this point.

 

[SittinDown]

I'd chop some of that forest West of Memphis. It's going to slow all your movements down anyway. Chop another worker probably - you'll need it for your 3rd city.

Just attack now with your 5 WC's. that 6th one probably you don't need it at all, but you can have it join up later if you go on to attack another AI.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

Uh oh. Rome has a fair number of archers.

Spoiler :

The cities. I'll get a warrior to Memphis for happy. Thebes is making a settler because I was already making it and I have to make settlers anyway. Next in Thebes queue will be worker. Chopping that forest next to Memphis.

Spoiler :

 

[elitetroops]

Haven't read the thread, looking at the latest screenshots only:

-Never go in blind if you can avoid it. Warrior NE of Rome could have moved 2SW to have visibility across lake.
-No idea what warrior south of Rome is doing. He should have moved around the borders to track a potential worker to steal when you declare, or move in on some diagonal as an extra backup in case you need to take out a last wounded defender.

Fog busting is good and all, but this early there is no real barb threat and you have war chariots to deal with any potential barbs that could spawn when you move that fog buster.

3 archers at this time is unlucky, usually it means that he is building a settler and 1-2 archers would have moved out with it as soon as it was finished. With visibility on city you could have noticed this and from espionage screen it is possible to estimate how long it will take him to finish the settler.

 

[SittinDown]

Hm, might be good to rewind a bit. You probably have long odds on Rome with 3 archers on a hill.

Your warriors are quite helpful in an early attack, and if you want to WC rush him, you really should try out a worker-steal. That will set him back a lot, and he will just keep building workers and not improving his tiles. You'll find that Rome is much easier to defeat if you'd stolen a worker. And - you can use the stolen worker to chop out a WC in Memphis sooner.

You did good with the tile improvements - so stick with that - it was really the warrior management that got you fouled up on the Rome attack.

(Great advice from elitetroops on using the lake to watch Rome also).... but parking a warrior by the horse / ivory / or wheat up north is what you want. And as he said, your fogbusting is probably overkill for this map with WC's having one warrior by the pigs is probably good enough, and possibly overkill on prince.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

Hm, might be good to rewind a bit.

Yeah I can't beat them with the WC's I have right now. I really should have peeked at the city from the hill NW of Rome.

you really should try out a worker-steal. That will set him back a lot, and he will just keep building workers and not improving his tiles.

Someone said that stealing a worker will make AC create archers because he'll be at war, unless I can ceasefire like immediately.

 

[SittinDown]

Well, the nice thing about these forum games, is that you can look at and old save, and try something different, and see how it works out.

 

[Stibi-shimi]

Ok, we're going back to Turn 46, 2160 BC. The War Chariots are waiting for the attack, but I'm going to maneuver the warrior onto the hill so that we can get eyes on Rome and decide whether it's a good time to pounce.

Memphis is building another unit in order to grow the pop. Thebes will pop the settler soon and then move on to a worker. Writing is being researched.

Spoiler :