Rat29 1BC AWM - pangaea

[ThERat]

Ok, here go go again, after beating the AI soundly in similar games at monarch and emperor difficulty, we are trying to up the ante by going for a pangaea win.

The team selected to start as Babylon:

Ok, here we go. I played 20 turns and did not explore at all. I went for WC and selected masonry as we want catapults sooner or later. I doubt we will go for the Glib as we can't really afford that. In addition, this is only monarch and we can steal the Glib from someone else.

I suggest to send out some exploring parties next to find the closest AI and attack them with bows soon, before they can even develop.

The staring area, I took th first start i got, which isn't too shabby. We can irrigate the wines and get some nice growth while we have shields as well.

 

[ThERat]

We play 10 turns from here on. Of course we welcome a new player, Rodent

By the way, are you using a programme like CAII or mapstat to help you out with regards to happiness etc? If you are in doubt about moves, do consult us. Also, look at our MM to learn how to improve your gameplay. I am sure you can move up in difficulty fast then.

The Roster:
TheRat - just played
el_filet - up
Rodent
Greebley
TheOverseer

 

[Rodent]

CivAssist Does not seem to work on my computer, so it will have to be Manual MM.

I have started Getting hang of Emperor, although i have tech problems.

 

[ThERat]

If CAII doesn't work for you, you can always use mapstat...that's what I use almost all the time. This programme will alert you about riots which can be really helpful if you have 200+ cities for example

 

[Ansar]

(subscribed)

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

Ok, I give up. What is 1bc. I sort of got the idea you were following the limited city variant, but then mentioned CAII and 200 cities, so I am confused.

 

[TheOverseer714]

1 built city. We build our capitol, then all other cities must be captured. The difficulty lies in not auto-razing and keeping them from flippig back. The other enemy is corruption, since the AI chooses where to build our cities, and it makes having a core rough. In game 2 we had to do a palace jump to have a decent core in old france.

 

[vmxa]

Lurker: I got it now.

 

[Greebley]

Checking in.

This game we may be able to use the trick of gathering 10 shields and then rushing a temple just when size 2 for certain towns. I would do this with towns that benefit from a border expansion. Earlier temples mean less flips later.

 

[darski]

lurker's comment: Lurker on board!

 

[el_filet]

i got it

probably just set up next player for bow rush

 

[el_filet]

Turn 0 (3000 BC):
switch babylon to food

Turn 4:
back to production

Turn 9:
decide to have just a little look around

Turn 10:
wines connected
science to 10%

IBT:
masonry->...

reread thread for direction and see I'm supposed to play only 10.

Notes:
selected alpha for GLib or Math, but with these terrain around i think we should take our chances with IW. nothing invested yet.
barb on the mountain revealed some water west. i suspect the southwest corner is empty. would send the warrior to confirm (unmoved) and further stack bows. 4 seems like a good stack for monarch.
started to mine the wine. irrigation is useless until we have a decent gouvernment.
remember to up lux when you move out our troops. I'd go toward the mountain in the east. suggest you build one bow for a second MP (war should be back by then) and sneak in a temple afterward. I missed to switch babylon back to seven shields in time, you should easily be able to keep it on seven from now on.

 

[el_filet]

The Roster:
TheRat
el_filet - just played
Rodent - up
Greebley
TheOverseer

 

[Rodent]

Turn 1- Warrior goes towards West Mountain to confirm, Switch to Iron Working.

Turn 2- Babylon Grows, bows in 3 turns now with 4 shields wastage

Turn 5- Another bow produced. adjust treasury to get even.

Turn 6- Worker completes mine. MM to get more food and bring shields down to 8. we have 4 bows, moving out. adjusting slider. IW in 18

Turn 7- we meet the aztecs. they have pottery and wheel. they wont part with wheel so we get pottery and 10 gold for Masonry. then we DOW aztecs.

Turn 8- we have bow. he has MP duty. an aztec archer moves in. i think we will be safe. Move bows in the only direction from which aztecs could have come.

Turn 9- MM to shave 1 turn off temple. We see Green borders. its either their capital or the 2nd city.

turn 10- We enter golden age. bow stack finds tlateloco, 2nd city of aztecs. also find a settler spear pair moving.

The situation looks cool. tlateloco is size 1, maybe ignore it and go for capital which is at most 3 tiles away

 

[ThERat]

nice move to switch to IW. As I did not restrict initial trades, I am cool with that. In fact, last time we always played that way.

Definitely go for their capital first, though 4 bows might be a little gamble.

The Roster:
TheRat
el_filet
Rodent
Greebley - up
TheOverseer - on deck

 

[Greebley]

I prefer no initial trades myself. Trade just doesn't feel 'always war' to me. The initial trade is "old school" with a good number of newer games not allowing it. It is true though that ThERat didn't state which we were playing.

In any case I got it.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Only one defender is not sufficient and puts our single city at risk. Switch to a bow at some shield loss.

The one Archer probably wouldn't attack, but if I complete a temple and 2 Archers showed up the next turn, we would likely have to rush a bow and lose 1 or 2 pop doing it. If the Archer did attack then it might get lucky and kill the sole defender. A temple isn't worth risking the game for.

I can lower lux by 10% and I do so and raise science.

IBT: Settler moves off to settle.

2070 BC: Attack Tlatelolco and kill the lone surviver. City auto-razes.
I kill the lone Archer and get an Elite Bowman.
MM our town to +3 food.

Rodent; be careful about automoves. The other Bowmen automoved. If I had to defend the attacking Bowman, I wouldn't have been able to. You can count the number of turns to the end of your set and never set automove numbers higher than that amount.

Raise science to get IW in 3 turns.

2030 BC: Settler headed back. I may try to kill for workers.

1990 BC: Settler on Mountain. Need to wait.

1950 BC: Temple completed so Lux to zero. Still on track for IW next turn.
Manage to kill Defending Spear and capture the Settler. We have our first two foreign workers.

1910 BC: I spy with my eye something that starts with the letter I.

It is well defended by our city and we won't lose it until someone with a boat plants a city.

Decided on Wheel next.

1870 BC: Going for worker Next to connect Iron faster.

1830 BC: Archer Killed near next Aztec town.

1790 BC: 2 Warrior have shown up. Kill one.

1750 BC: Kill the other warrior. Our attack stack is finishing healing and can advance next turn.

Notes:
Spotted a settler near the mountain 2 south of our attack stack.

It just occurred to me I picked a bad path to the Iron - too close to Volcano. Not worth stopping work for however.

 

[Rodent]

Good news to have Iron so close. Ignore the settler, hes making towns for us anyways

 

[ThERat]

Nice to have iron so close by with bows and swords, we should be able to take care of the Aztecs. Lets them settle before we take the capital. I rather they settle some land for us.

Rodent, as Greebley said, be careful about automoves in a SG. And defending with a mere bow is risky at AW games as well. Well, all went well in the end.

The Roster:
TheRat
el_filet
Rodent
Greebley
TheOverseer - up

 

[Greebley]

One way that SG's differ from solitary games, is that when I receive the hand-off, I don't know all the info that Rodent does. It may be that Rodent knew we could complete the temple and get another bow (only 3 turns) because there were no near units (there weren't). So I may have wasted the shields - but better safe than a game loss.

Agree on ignoring the settler. I mentioned it because it is the only Aztec unit spotted recently.

Unit costs are already starting to hurt us. Upon reflection, I think building a Granary while we connect iron and then building swords might be better. Otherwise we are stuck with too many bows and can't build swords unless we reduce science in a major way.