Rat16 - warmongers go immortal

[ThERat]

Rat 16, set-up screen

moved warrior north

I would settle on the spot, we have corn and 3 flood plains, hills and grass

starting techs are mining and fishing
I would go for BW/agriculture/AH and then cottages

As I have learned, an early axe rush after getting maybe 2-3 cities on immortal to take first enemy is the way to survive on high difficulties

Roster
ThERat
Gotag
Till
Greebley
acidsatyr

A general remark about SG's. The victorious warmonger games of the Rat series were due to an agreed strategy and proper discussions. This is essential for a Civ4 SG success and I hope we can keep it that way. So, rather wait for discussion and input than playing in a rush.

 

[Till]

I agree on settling on the spot. Shame to waste a forest, but the spot is just too good.

 

[acidsatyr]

hmpffff.. I'll join, if you don't mind me probably skipping my first round next week (traveling to another continent so i won't be available in any of my current SG for 2,3 days).

by the way, why england again?

 

[Gotag]

It's a nice food rich starting spot. In all respects better then a production heavy one (cows ect..) at this difficulty. Corn is nice as it is a granable health bonus. In addition it is irrigateable so no roads are needed for connection to our city.

The only other reasonable spot, two tiles north, (1 turn move via the corn) would grab the fish but then we lose the flood plains.

We look to have 5 forests within the fat cross so we can with a clear conscience cut one with no regrets.

The fish is the second border pop away for the health. Wouldn't surprise me if copper or iron was close by.

An early lux would be lovely but I'm not holding my breath.

Research path looks fine. Feel free to grab some techs from huts btw.

Gotag

 

[ThERat]

ok, acid, you are in

Seems we all agree to settle on the spot (by the way this was my first roll as I din not want to artificially create a super start).

I will play tonight possibly 30-40 turns. It would be nice to have copper. I aim to get a wroker out by the time we have irrigation/BW.

I am not too sure whether we can pop anything useful on immortal using a warrior. if I pop barbs at the start we are dead I guess. So, shall I pop the hut?

 

[acidsatyr]

yeah pop it

 

[ThERat]

save

played 40 turns, popped the huts, got a map and 42gold

produced another warrior and then worker
currently building a warrior until our city grows to 4 (happy limit)
after warrior we should get a settler to claim some land
we need the iron for happy

no copper in sight yet, hope to get iron

went for BW (revolted to slavery), got agri and now going for wheel
we need IW sooner for barbs defense, but I would try and get cottages up first

we met Hatty and Cyrus in the south

the south with plenty of desert

north, the spot to grab fish and gold looks good to me

 

[ThERat]

Roster
ThERat
Gotag - up
Till
Greebley
acidsatyr

 

[Gotag]

The spot under the corn on that coast is better.

2 reasons, to get both the fish and gold requires a border pop. So we need an obilisk first. Without the gold and fish that city site is pretty bad.

OTOH the other site has the corn immediately AND the pigs go online as soon as London gets it next border pop. (and pastured of course) This is a very food rich spot. It's downside is a lack of fresh water.

Another intriguing possibility is following the river to that gold. Flood plains galore, gold and if we're lucky some copper in the fog. Frankly if we don't have a nearby supply of copper then we are going to get into a pretty big hole. I suspect though some AI is going to grab that spot first.

Waiting on further discussion before playing. I plan on having our exploring warrior go bust fog by the stone/gold to see how that looks.

In addition I plan to chop rush the settler via the forested incense. That forest tile is going to have to go eventually anyway.

Research is going to be pottery after wheel and at that point we need some discussion. Iron working or ??. At immortal barbs are usually a minor problem because the AIs expand so quick.

Gotag

 

[Till]

I can't look at the save from here, but from he screens i favour settling down the river and grab as many flood plains as possible. If there are any more hills near the gold one, it would be a crime not to place a city there.

It all depends on where copper is, however.

 

[Greebley]

checking in. No time to post comments yet.

 

[acidsatyr]

i think chasing cottages at this stage is wrong, this is the the time when you work resources, hills, farms, production, and try to hook up metals. I see couple of good GP farms (north of capital - two fish), and corn + pigs city.
At least we have peacefull neighbours.

 

[Gotag]

There is no copper nearby at all. In retrospect that probably makes IW after the wheel the indicated path (maybe animal husbandry for horses and chariots but what if we have no horses?)

This is the world as we know it. I hope this works and if so it's the first picture I've put in a post in over 4 years. meh..... Having fun with my image editor anyway.

We grabbed Pottery after Wheel and are now 3 turns into Ironworking. 19 left at max research. Finished the warrior after the getting to size 4 then started settler. We have massive food with the corn irrigated and all those flood plains.

We had a warrior eaten by a barb archer. Our other warrior is off scouting the east.

Settler due next turn. We chopped one forest leaving 4 in the fat cross. One mine built and the worker is in position to start a cottage.

No AI cities nearby. This could get grim from Barbs. I don't know fractal maps at all so maybe I screwed the pooch here research wise. Maybe I should have gone an immediate hunting/archery? Lesson learned if this go south. Always a problem with an early BW.

Best of luck the next up. Lots of potential second city sites but we need some escorts soonist.

Gotag

 

[Gotag]

Have to learn how to get pictures into the posts and not the thumbs. Ah well something else to learn.

Gotag

 

[acidsatyr]

definatelly head up for IW, we must have some iron around.

Major mistake was going for Potery, when we dont have any metal around. Pottery is useless at this point.

As for putting pictures directly into the post, first upload image to imageshack, then copy the link you get (the one directly to the image), and paste that link inbetween

where you want in your post.

where did alex come from?

 

[Mutineer]

Lurker comment:

I am often playing my games and there are no cooper around. I found that Chariots are nessesary for initial defence and to prevent AI from attacking you.
I would suggest to try for horses first = reserach animal hasbentry.

 

[Till]

Well on the bright side, it seems like no AI feels like cornerning us with cities.

Ironworking is currently 19 turns away.
Animal Husbandry is 10 turns away.
Hunting+Archery is 12 turns away.

What to do? Can we survive (in the best case) 19+2+4+1 turns against the barbs on immortal with nothing but warriors?
If not then i would suggest switching to Hunting+Archery. It takes almost as long as researching horsies and the unit we get out of it is superior when it comes to defend.

As for the second city location, the gold+fish city will be easier to defend than any other option i can think of. Maybe we should settle it first and take the other spots when we have the units to deal with barbs?

 

[Gotag]

My mistake regarding Alex. I met him with the first scouting warrior as I was heading north to check out the gold, floodplain's site. He was heading north with a scout so I assume he is southeast of us.

Given the space we have, going for Archery may be indeed the proper research path. While AH may work out well, we would need to get the horses and hook them up before we can make use of Chariots. I don't think we can afford the time at the moment.

Gotag

 

[ThERat]

I agree we better get archery to be safe

 

[Gotag]

I would not be in too much of a hurry to drop that second city. Normally it's a land grab rush but we seem to have a bit of a luxury on time to expand here.

I think we can wait some turns to get a better second city site then the one by the gold and fish. Its immediate surroundings are 4 coast, 3 hills and a plains tile. Needless to say pretty poor in the early game. (now watch our iron will be there and I'll feel pretty dumb at that point!!) There will be no use of the fish or gold until the first border pop which will be a while away.

The point about security is a good one. However a city site that gains us little or nothing while costing us (since we need to defend it and pay some maitenence costs) is actually not that critical an acquisition as long as we have the luxury of other space to get to. This of course changes in a typical land grab. This however seems to be anything but a typical start.

Gotag