Rat 41 CCM - AW a first attempt

[Northern Pike]

Yes, losing an archer means very little, when we can produce them in one turn in Rome. Letting slavers get attacked is more of a problem. In CCM it's important to think in terms of a sharp distinction between normally produced units, which given the low corruption are easily replaced, and auto-produced units, which are precious and should be used very carefully.

 

[Northern Pike]

Rat may not have much to do in the upcoming round except wait for the GLib. One thing, though: with Rome at an even 25 spt, we'll lose a turn on the build if an enemy is allowed to step on a single one of the city's two-shield tiles. So we should mine one or ideally two of Rome's BG tiles as soon as possible, to give ourselves some leeway.

Should we explore a little S and SE of Rome? We badly need to know whether we can put our next city there. Obviously there'd be some risk of meetings, but if the orange and purple people have units in that area we'll meet them soon anyway.

 

[vmxa]

We may want to make some regular spears during the turns the rax will not be available.

We should be able to send out one of the stacks of workers to do the minning as they have 2 spears. That was what I was thinking of, but figured I would leave it to the next guy to decide.

 

[Northern Pike]

Another possibility for getting useful builds out of Naples would be to crank out some warriors for suicide reconnaissance in the northern mountains. In deciding where to attack first, we need a better picture of the world around us, and in particular we need to know how thick that belt of mountains is. Of course there'd be some risk of new contacts, but with the mountain barrier it might not matter much.

I agree that regular spearmen are better than regular archers if that's our choice.

 

[ThERat]

Nice round again. Nothing you could do about the losses. There is this one hill access for the Vikings, if we could cut that, their enslavers wouldn't be able to just enter our land.

I agree with exploring a little, we need to find our first victim for expansion as we need to gobble up enemy cities or we die.

If nobody has a problem, I play 13 turns to make sure we get the Glib. If we don't the game is over anyway more or less, so it's better to know that in the next turnset.

 

[Northern Pike]

Yes, definitely play until we know about the Library.

In fact, play one turn after that so that we've collected our harvest of techs and can really plan.

 

[Elephantium]

Heh. Might as well make it a full turnset-and-a-half

 

[ThERat]

ok, will do that, have played 10 turns so far and will continue later today. so far, everything looks good.

 

[vmxa]

A little late, but play as many as you feel makes sense. I also gave a bit of thought to using a worker stack to get a few roads on those trees to gain the gold and the mobility. That was why I was thinking a few regular spears to cover would not be the worse thing and we can always disband later.

 

[Northern Pike]

Yes--if we're lucky, getting Rome more commerce might even let us cut the lux rate.

 

[ThERat]

Pre turn
decide to do what NP suggested and that is to mine the area around Rome to give us some
breathing space for shields. Finish the road between Rome and Naples and start to mine BG at Rome.

Decide to send out a warrior north to do some recon. An archer goes southwest of Rome

IT totally quiet? did they all upgrade their units and now can't pass the mountains?

Turn 1 900BC
get a hole gang to mine and it's done in 2 turns

Turn 2 860BC
Vikings dropped another enslaver next to Naples, going after it with a chariot
explore area a little

Turn 3 - 820BC
improve tiles around Rome, it's at 26spt now Glib still in 11

Turn 4 - 780BC
our exploring warrior finds hills and some Indochinese units, they can't cross though
we have anther chariot


Turn 5 - 740BC
Naples finished theater and start reg spear, no choice here
Milan finishes academy and starts theater.
Another enslaver is in


Turn 6 - 700BC
going to road the forests around Rome first to maybe get lux down a notch
It looks to me as if Orange (Turks?) could be an early victim, they are close to the west behind mountains

Turn 7 - 660BC
we got a nice worker crew of 5 together that can road a tile a turn
with this we get roads up in Rome, lux can be reduced to 30%

Turn 8 - 620BC
we get a supply shipment which is worth 25gold
grab it and send it to Rome with a chariot

decide not to alert the Orange Civ yet, better to wait til after the Glib and maybe iron

Turn 9 - 580BC
successfully return the shipment to Rome
Venice finishes slavery and goes for academy

Turn 10 - 540BC
Carthage just got literature
a Viking spear appears and we get a settler

Turn 11 - 500BC
two Viking spears now visible, send an enslaver south

Turn 12 - 475BC
Vikings drop their habitual enslaver, we get another chariot and worker
Rome grows to 11 and I need to up lux again. Guess this city needs more happy buildings aplenty
defeat the enslaver with enslaver after losing a e chariot with it


Turn 13 - 450BC
The Glib is save, 1 turn to go

uh-oh, Korea moves into our land with a convoy, they have roaded the mountains. we will need to defeat their initial stacks before moving to them

declare war on them and move plenty of troops southwest
our new settler will be there too and that might be good to fend them off

IT we get the Glib

Turn 14 - 425BC
set Rome on theater but that will change to a temple as we need 3 temples to unlock Christian builds
found Florence, this increases our income by 8gpt, set it on Roman symbol

IT we get masonry, pottery, IW, maths, CoL, polythesim, construction, sail, seafaring, trade and riding
change Milan to temple which is completes and Naples to Roman Fort

Turn 15 - 400BC
there is iron near Milan, but we need to road to it. Do we use a worker to claim that iron?
Now that we can build Forts, we do not need regular units anymore.

Milan is producing the Roman Senate which will give us powerful pretorians every 6 turns.
We should make the siege workshop somewhere soonish. Either we use a leader (if we ever get one or hand build it)
Note that it gives a free barracks as well
Changed Venice to temple so we get our 3rd temple in 6 turns

I decided to not chase that settler pair as we can actually make use of more towns and go after that additional Korean city later
Beware that they will have auto produced chariots and enslavers aplenty first. I would play defense for a while until we get
nice Legionaries (Rome will be able to make 1 per turn which will be a killer)

 

[Northern Pike]

It's good to have the GLib settled. Now the game really begins.

Using a native worker for the colony on the southern iron mountain would be painful, so we should send a slave. We'll have to pull one off the mining job outside Genoa and get it moving south immediately; we can't wait for that task to be completed.

We should just switch Rome's temple build to Siege Workshop, MM the town to 28 spt, and complete SW there in two turns. Then Rome can build its temple in three turns, still before Venice finishes the third temple, which is all that matters. With our Roman forts we don't have to worry about building the SW more slowly in a town where it would act as a third barracks, although that's normal CCM play.

We're in the familiar situation, for CCM, in which there would really be nothing worthwhile for a Leader to rush if we had one. If we do get a Leader soon I'd advise holding him to rush the Great Monastery when the GLib brings us Religion.

Those uncovered workers outside Milan are an alarming sight.

 

[ThERat]

relax I got the workers covered at all times with 2 units and did so too before saving. Screenshot was taken before that

 

[vmxa]

Looks like we are poised to make some moves now. We have piled up a fair number of elite wins, so a leader should be in the offing fairly soon. Plets are like getting Swordsman in V, while no one has them. Just bash bash bash everyone you see, nice.

 

[Civinator]

Plets are like getting Swordsman in V, while no one has them. Just bash bash bash everyone you see, nice.

I think it´s not such easy, but let´s see.

 

[vmxa]

What I mean is the the plets will be able to run over the stuff we will see for a time. Does not mean we will run over the game/map, just those real close for a time. They will get better stuff and cancel our move.

Hopefully we will have something else to run over them with soon after that. With no armies we have to be able to do two things well.

1- get ahead in tech for the better units
2- have higher number of concentrated units.

That means we wil have to expand steadily and some what quickly and constantly. This will not be so easy as we will not have armies to boost kill ratios and move over distances. Better units, management and replacements getting on target will have to subsitute for the armies.

The big danger in C3C is facing off with 6 or more civs with few or no armies. Here will will never have armies so the threat is greater and harder to counter. The mountains will help prevent being overrun right off. However that could mean we are just going to face more at once later.

The good news on the mountains is the lack of extra contact means they are not on a war footing and are not piling up units for us to face later. It is a double edge sword in that it also means they are not on a war footing and will probably do better at expanding and researching and trading.

 

[CommandoBob]

Got it, plan to have a strategy post up tonight.


On CCM
I've also got a solo CCM game going as Rome, but I'm stuck on a large island and suicide ships are doing just that: rolling over in the non-coastal tiles and saying "glurg-glurg-glurg" as they sink into Davey Jone's Locker.

Both games have a very different feel from 'normal' games, mostly to the changeup of how settlers are created. CxxC really doesn't work due to the lack of settlers and the fact that cities can grow to 10 before needing an aqueduct. Workers seems to be more plentiful since they do not interrupt city production.

I like the difference.

(Now to figure out the Tech Tree, which is so different from the 'normal' game!)

 

[Northern Pike]

We're driving for three temples to qualify for the cheap culture from Christian Communities, so a CC should be our next build everywhere once the third temple is completed in Venice.

The MM I mentioned to let Rome build the SW in two turns will also let us cut the lux rate to 30%.

Genoa should probably build a Roman fort after it completes slavery this IT.

Tactically, it's vital that we should use our one-turn roading stack to connect Florence's road network to the mountain the Koreans have roaded, and then occupy the mountain whenever the Koreans leave it open. If the Koreans can only move into our territory off roads, we'll deal with their fast units more easily. This won't delay our hooking up of the iron, since our roading stack will have a couple of free turns before the slave for the colony is in the area.

Slightly later: looking at the Civilopedia, I see that Roman Senate will trigger our GA, which is fine. But I also see "Production: 25%", and if this is the case the Senate will be wasted in Milan and must be built in Rome instead. So Milan should switch to a spearman, with MM to get it in three turns, while Rome builds SW --> Roman Senate (starting our GA) --> temple --> CC.

relax I got the workers covered at all times with 2 units and did so too before saving.

No, you posted a save that doesn't quite include your final moves, after your habit. So CB will need to cover those workers.

 

[Civinator]

On CCM
I've also got a solo CCM game going as Rome, but I'm stuck on a large island and suicide ships are doing just that: rolling over in the non-coastal tiles and saying "glurg-glurg-glurg" as they sink into Davey Jone's Locker.

Both games have a very different feel from 'normal' games, mostly to the changeup of how settlers are created. CxxC really doesn't work due to the lack of settlers and the fact that cities can grow to 10 before needing an aqueduct. Workers seems to be more plentiful since they do not interrupt city production.

I like the difference.

CommandoBob, thank you very much for your kind words.

 

[Civinator]

looking at the Civilopedia, I see that Roman Senate will trigger our GA, which is fine. But I also see "Production: 25%", and if this is the case the Senate will be wasted in Milan and must be built in Rome instead

Yes, it´s true. The Roman Senate gives a 25% production bonus.