Rat27 - AWM OBC as Persia

[TheOverseer714]

I finished playing last night, but didn't have time to get things posted. It was a pretty straightforward set, with very little action, Antium and Rome fell as planned with minimal losses. Now, we wait for the Romans to grow. We could shoot for the pyramids while we wait, or just develop our 2 cities and kill off the Romans. Then we wait for someone else to show. We throw a party and no one shows up, go figure. Here is my turn-log:

Spoiler :

Pre-flight check: CivAssist 2, Word program up and running. Load the save. Move 2 Immortals to bear on Antium.
Non combat:
Settlers 1
Workers 2, Slaves 0
Military:
Warriors 1
Spearmen 2
Immortals 4

Press enter=>

IBT: zzzz

1725 BC: Immortal wins vs rWarrior clean, Antium auto-razes, netting 1 gold. We are now Golden.(1-0)

IBT: zzzz

1700 BC: Move toward Rome.

IBT: Alphabet finishes, next is Mathematics.

1675 BC: Rome has Iron right beside it, not hooked up.

IBT: A Roman Archer steps out.
Persepolis Immortals=> Immortals.

1650 BC: Immortal wins vs rArcher, -1hp. (2-0)

IBT: zzzz

1625 BC: Move 2 more Immortals adjacent to Rome.

IBT: Another Roman Archer steps out, but is afraid to attack our stack.

1600 BC: Battle of Rome:
Immortal loses vs rSpear, red-lining him.
Immortal wins vs rSpear clean.
Immortal wins vs red-lined rSpear, and Rome is ours!
Immortal wins vs rArcher, -1hp. (5-1)
Rome has another town, but we should probably let it expand culturally and hopefully spit out a settler.

IBT: Persepolis Immortals=>Immortals.

1575 BC: Send Immortal up Iron road.

IBT: zzzz

1550 BC: Send settler up Iron Pike, plan to join to Rome.

IBT: zzzz

1525 BC:

IBT: Persepolis Immortals=>Immortals. We get 2nd Culture expansion.

1500 BC: That’s it, nothing left to do.

Non combat:
Settlers 1
Workers 2
Military:
Warriors 1
Spearmen 2
Immortals 6

One picture, showing the northeast:

And last but not least, the save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/110452/Ratt27_Overseer__1500_BC.SAV

 

[ThERat]

good job taking Rome (we are lucky that they did not connect the iron).

We need to wait for their other city to grow, maybe we can check things out there and also explore a little.
Pyramids in our capital doesn't sound like a bad idea actually. Better than going bankrupt. Once Rome is connected pretty soon, it can provide military

edit: one a second thought, I think it would be too risky to let our capital be 'out of action' so long. We still have to connect 2 luxes and need workers and protection for that. I rather we keep it on military duty for the time being. Once we get more cities, unit support will be more manageable.

 

[Greebley]

Given the iron so near Rome, I think the attack was the right call. Good work on taking them out.

BTW, do you actually need a border expansion to have a city not autodestroy? My impression was that any culture could do it - its just you are not sure it has culture until the border expands. The capitol is the exception in that it always has culture it it has been the capitol for a turn. If I am right we could take the captiol now. Problem is I don't know for sure.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I would want to be absolutely sure, and the first cultural expansion for a new palace is only 10 turns. Now that their best unit available is an archer, we can afford to wait. I'm wondering when we'll meet another opponent, it seems strangely quiet and peaceful for AW.

 

[el_filet]

i got it

still working on the things i hoped to finish saturday, so will probably post tomorrow night

will wait for expansion to be on the save side. in case it's the only roman city i'll wait for another. we can't risk killing the only opponent.

 

[Greebley]

We will want some Colonies on Lux. Also we may want to have extra road in case a town is settled to block our passage. Not as important as improvements for our city, but a robust road system can allow a town without breaking roads between towns and Lux.

 

[Greebley]

I loaded up the save to give more Specific feedback:

I disagree with your decision to hire the scientists in Rome and our capitol. Even with a 1BC game stopping growth is pretty much never the right thing to do. It slows science slightly to raise Lux and fire both scientists, but we need our town big. We are going to be building the GLib perhaps, and may need Rome or the Capitol big.

The bottom line is that it is nearly always right to raise the lux rate rather than hiring a scientist especially in the early part of the game. This has been pretty much been proven by better civ players than I. Only when you are raising Lux for a single city out of several should you hire a scientist or two.

Related to this the statement "Stopping growth is almost always wrong". There are cases where you do stop growing, but usually is is better to build a worker (or settler in our game) to bring down size.

Lux can grow too high if the city grows too big in which case a scientist or better IMO a worker build is called for. You often don't want to push above 30% - though there are times I have been as high as 50% to get the GLib.

Specifically in our case:
1) If we build more workers we can get Lux connected more quickly and it won't take all our workers to build the colonies for wine, incense, etc.
2) When we get Lit we will likely build the GLib even perhaps in the capitol and need maximum shields. Someone made the statement like "We won't get wonders because the AI will build them first". We have a chance but only if our city grows and has many shields - that is the way to get wonders. One city challenges going for a cultural victory get an incredible number of wonders in the capitol at this level of difficulty - because the city can grow huge (no settlers) and beat the AI.

I hope this all makes sense. I am trying to explain something that I know more by "because that is the way its always done", than a specific reason.

 

[Greebley]

Making this a seperate post:

My advice to next player is to raise lux to 10% and put both scientists to work. It only drops Math by two turns anyway. Especially in our GA we want to use the shields. Connect the Lux and start the roads toward the Wines with a new worker. Be aware of units from the other direction - I would keep an Immortal in the capitol on the hill 2 north of the capitol, watching the desert - we do not know if there is a connection that Rome could send units around the other way.

Since we can look, Rome has only 1 city and I agree we don't want to take it out. They may get "stuck" where they are so based on military they fail to grow and become useless, but for now I would let them alone to grow.

 

[ThERat]

Good analysis, Greebley.

Let's get lux up to employ all citizens. Merge the settler in Rome and peel off a worker to connect incense. Get our capital to produce another worker as well with growth so we can work towards the wines.

As we have 3 luxes nearby, there is no way we are alone with Rome on this continent. I would go for their capital once it expands (I confirmed in a test that even the capital can auto-raze without expanded borders). If Rome is out, there should be others to settle and also provide slaves.

 

[el_filet]

short on time today anyway, so i can wait whether group supports therats plan to grab new roman capital asap or wants to stay low/explore for now. i think even if there is another opponent, we should get as much cities out of the romans as possible.

 

[Greebley]

I am good with taking out the capitol once it expands.

 

[ThERat]

You might want to wait until Rome has another town then, if you feel we should wait. I am fine with both.

And I think we all agreed to go for maths -> writing -> literature for the Glib. With our limited unit support, Glib would be a great boost.

 

[el_filet]

Turn 0:
fire scientists and up lux (math in 17; 0 gpt; 4 gpt support)
mp in rome allows us to use bg
send warrior toward rome for mp duty

IBT:
romans move warrior and archer toward rome

Turn 1:
hut pops barbs
build road

IBT:
immo kills barb warrior

Turn 2:
kill another barb
almost lose immo killing roman attack force

IBT:
Perse: immo->worker

Turn 3:
send immo to watch desert north
kill last barb (for now)
found incense colony
lux to 0%, math in 11@-1gpt
rehire scientist in rome, math in 9

IBT:
perse: worker->immo

Turn 4:
add settler to rome, switch to entertainer (math in 11)

Turn 5:
road to rome connected, rehire scientist
kill roman archer
alternative road for luxes is a good idea, but improving rome is more important now.

IBT:
roman capital expands

Turn 6:
fire scientist (mp)
leaderfish on roman archer

IBT:
perse: immo->immo
rome: walls->worker

Turn 7:
kill spears in veii

Turn 8:
capture veii->walls
spot japanese warrior

Turn 9:
spot silk NE of rome

IBT:
Perse: immo->immo
rome: worker->worker

Turn 10:
notice japan still hasn't contacted us. so i tell them they're going to be destroyed before i kill their warrior.
spot boarders of what probably is the new roman capital
no, cumae is located near the gems in the south. could be japan, they got the dark red.
spot brown boarders near silk.
set new worker on iron for road toward veii
science back to 70%, math next turn


Notes to next player:
our units are scattered to protect colonies and provide mp. lux and gather units for attack on japan would be my next step.
we don't know brown yet and i don't see why we should. the mountain near rome offers a perfect opportunity to station our forces and kill incoming units on the grassland, but that can wait until we weakened japan. well, with our unit next to their boarder, my guess is we can't wait - to defend, weakening japan is more important with that broad frontier.
i'd switch colony defenders, an immo close to persepolis might come in handy. with iron near rome connected soon, we'll have another unit to finish off the romans.
chose the road over hills toward wines. smaller way to send troops toward desert and no river on the road.
marked intended roads (blue), defensive positions (red), opponents (lila) and luxes (pink)

 

[el_filet]

and i agree on going for glib - may chance until we finish research on writing though.

 

[Greebley]

It looks like you are next to Brown? That will mean we do have contact and need to declare war. The standard for AW is if they are on diplo you declare war. The "not meeting them" means keeping away from them so they don't appear on diplomacy. I remember discussing this elsewhere and am hoping I didn't confuse you with that post (which was about not meeting the Babs - I am not sure I specifically mentioned they weren't on Diplo).

If I did confuse then apologies on that.

 

[TheOverseer714]

That same question came up in another AW I'm in on. I "saw" an Indian warrior with a scout. I went a different direction, and no contact was made, there was no contact on the diplomacy screen. I would have had to actively seek the guy out to make contact to declare war. I think this is a point that could come up in any AW game. If contact has to be searched out, then it's not a violation. The next person who opens the save can tell if there is a diplomatic contact. If there is, a violation occurred. If not, no problem.

 

[el_filet]

i moved our unit toward brown on the last turn, so there's certainly no problem that can't be solved by next player. the japanese warrior on the other hand was standing next to our immo for 2 turns before i declared. this might have been a violation. can't remember ai not contacting me, if it's possible.

 

[Greebley]

The AI only contacts you when he has something to say. Sometimes you need to check diplo to see if you have contact. A short delay of 2 turns is a minor issue and not to be worried about.

For the scout case there is no requirement to search him out.

 

[ThERat]

The Roster
Greebley - up
ThERat
Elear
el filet
TheOverseer


How did the Romans spawn in the south? Is respawning enabled? Anyway, since we have another 2 enemies, we should be fine eliminating the Romans to get rid of any flip risk. We should also develop Rome for the GLib

 

[Greebley]

Forgot overseer had already played. I got it.

Were the romans were killed? 'Sent to Siberia' made me think they had a tundra town still left.