Ragnar Danneskjold: A Tale of Freedom

[Anar]

Building Pyramids and adopting Representation early means we will be at war with Huayna and Joao by ~500AD. Anyone knows what makes demands more/less probable. Is it power rating or something else? So if we are to go this route, which for me has more cons than pros, we should secure that Mao is on our side, by setting him on either of them before. As far as I remember Mao is easy to persuade to wage your wars.

Pyramids without stone is like 5 settlers or ~15 axemen.

As to the city spots. 1N of the corn is fine, but we need to build monument anyway for effective chopping, unless we get religion there, which seems unlikely now.

As to research we should stop at Math, accumulate some cash, build libraries and adapt to what others have.

We also should scout our west. There might be stone or marble

 

[oynaz]

I must admit I do not like two of Earthling's city locations. One North of the corn gives a meciocre city, and makes it hard to make use of the floodplains South of Friesvig. By settling one East of the corn, the city gains two river grassland hills and a floodplain, and makes room for the city two West one South of the clam which is in an excellent location. And the city by the corn will have four grassland hills, one plains hill, corn, a floodplain, lots of riverside grassland, and lots of forest. A production powerhouse if ever I saw one, and a good place to build pyramids.

Settling the city north-east of the sheep early is a dangerous compromise. If we want to block Huayna, I suggest settling 1E of the copper, 1NW of the corn. This will secure an important military ressource, and the city can be a decent production city. If we want to build the pyramids early, the city I suggested before is much, much stronger.

With that in mind, I have made a dotmap. I suggest settling blue first, then green, and make the Pyramids here.

We need military, BTW. Barbs are nor far off. And we really need Beowulf to head North.

 

[PaulusIII]

Unfortunately I cannot take the save seeing how I'm away for the rest of the week.

Ugh... Joao. Why Joao? One of the biggest jerks in Civ, constantly making demands and all that.

I'd say Mids first and expansion later. Once we have copper we will be able to expand nonetheless as I don't think much of Capac in terms of military, and we might find ourselves at war with him sooner than we might think because he might get pushy as well.

 

[Diamondeye]

I just wanted to chime in; I like Oynaz' dotmap a lot. We should definately aim at the next city being a production city to get Mids asap.

 

[oynaz]

OK, I think we have a kind of consensus here. So:

Got it. Will post tonight. (Tonight in Denmark, that is).

 

[oynaz]

Stone!

Beowulf moved swiftly through the woods along the Eastern Incan border. He knew of Ragnar's great vision: A series of great stone monuments, which would inspire the Viking people to cooperate in new and until now unheard of ways. However, the lands around Friesvig did not have sufficient amounts of easily accessible stone, and without that, constructing Ragnar's vision would be a tall order indeed.

From farmers along the Incan border, Beowulf had heard rumors of stone to the
North, and he was heading up to investigate.

After some days in the front, he spied a hill. He went to have a look from it, and
there! In the valley. Easily accessible stone - just like Ragnar wanted. There was even some sheep nearby. Ragnar would be pleased.

--

A very short turnset, but I found stone to the West the same turn the settler finished, in a good location. It is a bit far however.

Friesvig has hit happy cap - I am currently stagnating it and building an archer. We could switch to a settler, but I am concerned about barbs.

 

[Earthling]

Excellent news. We now have to wait and see what Huayna's up to but it's an impressive discovery. Also gives me a chance to chime in with one more thing, very fortuitous it's not too late:

-I do like that latest dotmap as well, really is close enough to perfect that it saved us a lot of trouble. I can agree to settling the blue city area first for blocking, but I think there may be a slightly better position - on one of the hills to the South or SW. A plains hill adds some production, we'd never have the food to work them all anyway. Or if we get SW closer to the river we bring into range some floodplain/river tiles. Until we get a worker any fp would be just as good as the corn, and of course we still keep both corn/copper in the BFC; a hill also adds a defensive bonus and further visibility across the flatlands south, and the city may have more long term potential. I'd think straight south onto the plains hill does it best for me but if there are any other insights they're welcome too. Otherwise, I like things again though - the red city is a fine spot and so I don't mind pushing the green city further away, especially as we have other priorities now. And if everyone else likes the blue city where it is too then that's more than good enough also, given the distance we probably will want it to get its own worker, maybe warrior or archer > worker for the build.

The real decision I think we have to make is whether to settle the stone city as #4, or get it #3 and get building earlier. We probably should prechop anyway since we don't want to chop before math, but it could still be a close call. Archer is fine to me now but I think Friesvig is doing excellent producing industrious workers and adventuresome settlers - so I'd go for stone as #3 and then get a lot of workers/defenders to make sure we can get roads out there and everything hooked up.

Edit: About the capital - work the food/commerce tiles and be building another worker, and then just switch to the archer when the chop comes in. If there's overflow or something just work it out so we're not spending more than 1-2 turns on random forests (and hence not working juicy tiles). In fact we probably just want a random warrior to guard the capital/get to 5 pop so it could even be warriors instead of archers, whatever you feel best. This is probably a prime game to be careful about our chop timing like this (ironically, unlike the usual switch to worker/settler for the chop, for us it's easier to work the food and build these units, using the chops for military). The good news about stone is that we'll now need no more than 8-9 chops (with Math) for the mids, so it could be doable in the capital or another city with the forests, nice to have flexibily.

As far as my voice goes I endorse our brilliant advisor oynaz to lead our people over the next few months if he desires as well (next turnset if you want), hopefully the rest of our council might agree and advise Ragnar of such?

 

[Loki Strikes]

I would vote stone city #3... I don't think taking chances on Mids is a good idea as otherwise we won't be able to run any government civics until constitution...

 

[Anar]

Stone should be settled as the third.

In the second city we need to build a monument first, as we want all chops to be effective, then all forests prechopped and roaded so then once math and stone are in, we can quickly seal the deal.

Also note that for this maneuver we'll need plenty of workers. 2 roading, 2 chopping + some improving #3 city and capital.

I would also like you to consider whether to allow hereditary rule in our variant, as IMO it's much more liberty-wise civic that representation.

 

[oynaz]

Hmm, I am in doubt, guys. I too, think that Stone City should be third, but do we make the green production city first, or the blue blocker/copper city?

I tend to favour green, but can it make the Pyramids in time?

 

[Anar]

I'd go with green one. It has more forest tiles and wood is what Pyramids are made of! I would say blue point has less production overall than green one.

 

[oynaz]

Damn, I am writing gibberish. What I meant was: Green is the superior spot for making the 'mids, but blue gives us copper and blocks Huayna. Decisions, decisions.

 

[Earthling]

Personally, I like the blue city overall because we do need a sound border with Huayna, and copper is rather nice. But if the concern in production - I'd think the yellow city would be better than the green one right now - at least, it has almost as many forests to chop, and settling on a plains hill gives more immediate production (for a worker/monument). It can also work the lake tiles in a pinch, and is more defensible/has better visibility being on "our" side of the mountains right now. The green city is nicer long term but we need workers down there, sailing, etc... Good luck whatever you choose though, it's not the hugest deal.

Also, to address Anar's comment - there's no way we're running HR. It definitely is not a "free" civic in the game, it's generally just a step up from flat out dictatorship, not like a constitutional monarchy like the modern day UK. I agree it's a good civic gameplaywise but we have to do without - we're not considering the default civics to really count for anything, so we can't be adopting others until we really have acceptable civics. In a pinch there are some other ones that could be alright at a later point in the game (eg. maybe environmentalism with the proper setup/background) given that we do want to stay competitive/ have fun, but HR we can do without.

 

[oynaz]

Ronja's Lasses

"Din frække tøs! Kan du så holde op med det der!"

Bjarke was an old and dignified man, and did not really deserve to have the apple shot from his hands. Ronja actually felt a bit ashamed as he yelled after her, but only a bit. Let the boys play with their clubs, she preferred the bow and arrow.
Ronja was 16 years old, and had yet to find her lot in life. She had had a some suitors, but none she really liked. The work in the fields was alright, but nothing she loved. The only thing she was really good at was the bow and arrow. She was sure that the bow and arrow could do well in defence of the Viking people, but until now, all Viking warriors had used clubs.

Six months later, Viking workers brought a supply of lumber to Friesvig. The construction workers took the majority of the wood, but the lumberjacks had been industrious, and there was a small surplus. Ronja secured some, and with some of the other unmarried girls she made bows and started practising in the fields outside Friesvig. Thus Ronja's Lasses, the first Viking archery unit, was formed.

I used the chop for an archer.


The defence of the settlers

"Quick, lads. Get to the top of the hill. The settlers are in trouble!"
Erik led his men at a sprint up the forested hill. The barbarian archers were closing in from the South, hoping to kill and plunder the helpless settlers.
Fortunately, Erik and his men had escorted the settlers southward. Erik reached the top of the hill, and signalled the leader of the settlers. The leader yelled his orders, and the settlers began running around and yelling at each other, faking panic and confusion.
"Stealthy now, lads". The warriors crept up and hid among the trees.
Meanwhile, the barbarian archers swallowed the bait. Rather than using their range advantage, they advanced to the settlers in antipitation of an easy kill. Not this time.

"PÅ DEM!! FOR FRIESVIG OG FOR RAGNAR!!"
The warriors yelled their battlecry, and charged the surprised barbarian archers. The element of surprise proved to be crucial. The bows and arrows were far superior to clubs, but in between the trees, the barbarians could not use their weapons properly. The battle was short and brutal, but the Vikings were victorious, and the settlers could move towards their new home.

The settler and the warrior excorting it was attacked be a barbarian archer, but I used the terrain to my advantage and got +75% defence bonus from a forested hill.
In honor of his deeds, I named the warrior Erik Forsvareren, meaning Erik the Defender.

I doubted which site to settle first, but in the end I went with the Green city. I am really worried about military production, and this city can be a really good unit pump. I
have named it Tindehult, a Danish/Swedish hybrid name meaning something like Peak Town. I let the city build a granary while working the 3F corn tile.
After chopping the archer, I let Friesvig work on a worker. The next chop went into
a settler, which is now 8 turns from completion.

Other highlights:

A bear! Better head for the goody hut revealed by Frievig's border expansion.

Which yielded a map. Meh. At least, it looks like we can get a very good National Park city up North.

Strategic notes.
The next city should claim the Stone. I revealed another sheep up there, but the area is crawling with critters. Better send Ronja's Lasses up there to do some crowd control.
Fourth city should claim the copper to our west. Friesvig builds settlers very fast.

I think Friesvig should finish the settler, but put the next chop into an archer. The third settler should be chopped. Settling Stone City and Copper City should be
top priorities.

We need Mysticism soon for monuments.

 

[Diamondeye]

Very nice report, Oynaz! How many archers/warriors do we have?

 

[oynaz]

An archer in Friesvig, a warrior in Tindehult with a promotion in hand, and an archer fogbusting to the SW.

 

[Diamondeye]

Cool, cool. Who's up? And what do we do next? We need to Stone for Mids asap, we need Myst for monuments... I'd prefer another archer aswell, so we still have something to fogbust with after settling the next city.

Name for the next city, by the stone, I was thinking "Granitholmen".

 

[Anar]

I believe I am up. I will have a look at the save and post my thoughts later on so we can discuss.

 

[Anar]

Here's some ideas for new cities:

The order would be: stone city -> commerce monster city -> copper city -> sheep-floodplain city. I would skip clam city for now and after we have those spots secured I would advise catapults/axemen war vs Huayna Capac. This would eliminate one imminent threat as he will come to us to adopt Hereditary Rule. There is plenty of forests so we could chop our army.

We can grow big then and maybe this will deter others from demands.

As to next turn plan I will finish the settler, then follow with two workers and chop some police.

I don't understand why we don't have Mysticism yet, I thought we agreed we want to have monument in Pyramids city for effective chopping. So I will change research to Mysticism and build monument. Also we should centre our espionage on one target and this can be either Huayna or Joao. If we are to kill the first then I will concentrate our espionage on the latter.

 

[oynaz]

I agree with you city sites, though I would be interested to see what the black spots around copper city has to offer.

I really think we should settle copper city before Commerce monster. There is plenty of room for barbs to spawn, and we risk getting in a war with HC or Joao as well. I would feel much safer with some axemen.
Hmm, now that I think about it, I am not sure we should settle commerce monster before removing HC. I am afraid that we will overstretch ourselves.

There is some decent land north of Sheep/Floodplain city. Grassland, corn and rivers. This spot can wait, though.

The lack of Mysticism is my bad. I thought we had it when I did my turnset.