Episode 1 - Part II
"Only 2 Golds, are you kidding me? 
Screw this game, I'm going snowballing 
."
Welcome back to "Replay #5 A history of heroes" with the 1st episode, reporting about the beginning of the round and: The "Checker"-rush? No, we won't make it that far as "Checkers" should play a role for very a very long time in this Replay. This episode is only about starting the snowball of the king of all snowballers, Huayna Capac, so here we go:
You've already seen the starting-scene and happyturtle already guessed the move I made, 1W with the Settler to found Cuzco on a Floodplain, reaching out the the Dry-Rice.
4000 BC is the year of the foundation of the capital of the world!
Here is a screenshot of
3820 BC, where I've already explored a bit of the surrounding land with the initial Checker and another one I built while
working the Plains-Hill-Forrest:
In the
1st Goody-Hut you saw on the 1st Screen, I got
144 
, which is
quite nice, now, the Checkers have found
2 additional Goody-Huts, but before we come to what is in them, let me say a few things:
- Research went Meditation, as it always does when I'm playing with a Mysticism-Civ against opponents that don't start with Mysticism. Of course, I wanna found an early Religion (Judaism) via being first to Meditation for the "Super-Shrine"-approach I prefer for Huge maps.
- The Checkers have found Stone, this is very nice. I pay huge attention to if I have Stone and Marble in the beginning in my Incan games, because with Incans, one really has a chance to build some World Wonders.
- I've encountered Lincoln and Frederick. This is really nice, because both of them tend to build very few units in the beginning -> are very easily conquerable with Checkers.
- What tile I work with Incans in the beginning always follows the same scheme. If I have a PHF (Plains-Hill-Forrest) I work that, because it offers the most Checkers until T50, the time where I normally attack the 1st Civ. If I don't have a PHF, I normally work a 3
tile, like a Floodplains, and let the city grow to size 2.
I say this, because the Checker-guide by
Virusmonster says, one needs to settle on a plains-Hill and work a PHF to get the necessary
for the Checker-rush. There are other possibilites, of course, settling on a plains-Hill and working a PHF is superb for the beginning, but I've successfully played at least 100 Checker-rushes where the city wasn't on a plains-Hill / didn't have a PHF, then, growing and working 2 tiles is faster. This is also related to
WastinTime who once asked me, why my maps don't have strong tiles to settle on, of course, I don't avoid settling on a strong tile, as that is imo a very very very powerful tactic in the beginning, but one can do without it, as you'll see.
Atm.,
the city produces 4 and Checkers every 8 turns, which is totally fine, and, to come back to the scene, the 1st
two Checkers have found some Goody-Huts, here is the revelation of them:
. Well, now you say "Cheater" , but I promise you, this is nice, but it's absolutely not op on Deity, and not with the approach I'm going to play. It would have been way nicer if I'd have found Mining + Fishing in the Goody Huts, because those are techs I have to research, Mining for the Gold, Fishing for the coastal cities I'm going to conquer and because FIN-coast is a great contributor to overal
in the beginning, getting AH is imba if one plays Egyptians, but
for Incans it only means that one can improve more sorts of Food, Chariots don't play any role if one has Checkers, and Masonry, well, that'd be awesome if the stone was in the BFC, then I could very early start on the Mids, but I'm not going to start on building the Mids before the Stone is available to me, and by the time I'll have that, I also could have traded for Masonry, so
nice, but not op!
Anyhow,
horses are in the 3rd ring of Cuzco, so I note to myself that I might very early transfer from Checker rushing to Chariot rushing, again, a possibility, but nothing that is op, as one can always do that on Deity, as one can always trade for AH at a latest of 2000 BC, when other Civs have reached Alpha.
It doesn't matter that my moving 1W with the Settler removed the Horses out of the BFC of Cuzco, because that city is going to be holy, and therefor produce a lot of
very early, right? So the 3rd ring will become available soon, and then I got riverside Horses, Horses that do not even need me to research The Wheel, an option if the 3rd Civ should have Copper, but against Archers, Checkers are a lot better than Chariots, so we'll see.
I'm still in funk you stupid AI for giving me such a stupid start mode and play fast, I scout around with the intial 3 Checkers and
locate Frederick and Lincoln in the south. I scout the river and the coast because that connection will become important for me if I should discover that I have the ressources to research Sailing. Sailing would give me trades on rivers and coast and getting Trade-Networks via those is important for Religion-Auto-Spread mechanisms in the beginning of a round.
In
3505 BC, not only Frederick has researched Bronze Working (which I know from his switch to Slavery, I note this because it's very important for the Checker-rush if someone has Slavery because it means that one has to attack him with a lot more forge because he's going to whip additional troops very fast) ,
4 Checkers have met up at Lincolns Borders to let him know that this round is either gonna be very short for him, or for me :
Yes, only 4 Checkers, and it's only 3505 BC! This is, because I'm in "funk you, I'm going snowballing" mode because of the bad start. 4 Checkers is the absolute minimum to beat the 2 Archers AI is going to have in its city, if the start had been better, I'd have waited for an additional 5th Checker to be rdy, but atm. I'm playing "all or nothing" . Notice, that I have met Mansa and directed Espionage to him, and that Meditation is still 6 turns before finishing. Maybe a little early for a war?
I don't think, I declare war on Lincoln and move in. 2 turns later after moving through Lincoln's territory, in
3475 BC, 4 Checkers stand before his Capital "Washington" rdy to attack:
It's no hills-city and it's defended by 2 Archers, so I have a chance to take it. Because still being in funk you mode, I don't recognize that Meditation is still 4 turns from completition and that Judaism hasn't been founded in Cuzco,
I attack!
First Checker dies, heavily wounding the Archer. The second Checker is lucky though, he wins his 20% fight and kills the 2nd defending Archer and get's a Rambo (Rambo = lvl 3 Checker like in previous Replays again) . With such luck, it's now sure that I'm gonna get the city, the other two Checkers attack and... "OH FUNK YOU STUPID CHECKER" , the first one dies in a 70% fight, the second one wins killing the second Archer, so the
city is mine, but it's that with normal losses, 2 Checkers against 2 Archers, could have been really lucky here and take it with only 1 loss, but the 3rd Checker just did have to let himself get killed, well, doesn't matter.
City capture brings in 100 Gold:
Very nice to see, that the city has another Gold, anyhow, bad that's in the 2nd ring, I'm not going to get it soon. Then, in
3415 BC:
Uhm... Yes, that wasn't planned.
Judaism gets founded in Washington instead of Cuzco, because the Capital gets always divided through eight when the AI chooses a city for religion foundation, in addition, Washington had size 3 while Cuzco is still being size 1, and bigger cities get prefered in that process.
Anyhow, it's not bad that Washington got the holy city instead of Cuzco. A holy mega-Capital with Wallstreet and Oxford is very nice, but if those national Wonders are split up, one has the advantage that one can build the
multiplier-buildings in the holy city with highest priority, while the other city can prioritize the
multiplier buildings. Nothing to worry about now, only thing that's
nice of this in the moment, is, that Washington will have an easy borderpop now, so I'll have the necessary 3rd Gold I need for my approach. Totally stupid about this of course is, that now I won't get those riverside Horses anytime soon.
While I wait for Lincolns 2nd "Philadelphia" to grow, I make a
funny discovery in 3310 BC:
Churchill had started on a land tongue that gets totally blocked by Washington
. Of course I will never ever open Borders him and will invade him once he has settled the land tongue completely, even before he can expand to any islands that would lenghten my conquest of him.
On the screen you can btw. also see, that
Research went Mining after Meditation, of course because of the Golds, and that
Philadelphia has grown to size 2 in 3190 BC and the Checkers are already in attacking position: TSCHACKA TSCHECKERS I shout to them and the attack begins:
First Checker fulfills his duty and wounds one of the defending Archers. The 2nd Checker is lucky again though, he wins his 20% fight and also gets a Rambo
. The 3rd attacking Checker already was promoted to Cover having slain Lincolns roaming Archer on the way, he gets the 3rd Rambo I own up to this moment, so
the city falls with only 1 loss:
Capture brings in 94 Gold , Lincoln down, Incan empire up to 3 cities now! Nicest thing,
I also capture Lincolns Worker finally, so I can begin on improving those Golds now.
Let's have a look at the captured cities:
Both are one of the coast , another reason for me to keep playing in funk you mode. Note, that because being quite neurotic, I normally wouldn't have played the round further just because of this, I really hate cities that are 1 of the coast and normally raze them without thinking about it. Of course, I couldn't as one can never raze the first few cities one conquers in a Checker rush. Today, I'm free of this rule, by my own rule, overcome my stupid rules one after another. I may have a stupid rule in one game, but I may not have it in the next one.
Seeing the cities from a todays perspecitve,
both are quite nice, but not op. What I find the nicest about them is, that they're both connected via the same river, you can see, that
Judaism has already spread to Philadelphia, so this city is also going to get a very easy borderpop. Washington has a medium power source of Food, wet Rice, it has 2 Floodplains, it has Gold, and 2 times Incense, so it has enough Food for the beginning, will make a very nice Worker / Settler pump after having grown on Checkers, and later, it'll be a really decent Commerce-City that has also enough production potential through the hills.
Incense is one of the rarest Calendar ressources, so I already have some very nice tradegoods in the middle future.
Philadelphia lacks real Food to grow own, but grassland Cows are a nice tile for now, as it offers some production which can be translated to Checkers for the moment, and,
because of overlap, Philadelphia can borrow the Food from Washington once that city has reached its Happycap. What I like about Philadelphia also is the
riverside Wine, which is a 3 Commerce tile, and
Commerce is what's most important with Marathon Incan starts because one gets so many cities so early.
The limit of 30 pictures per post has been reached, so it's
time for a clearview before we continue to the next target, which will be Frederick.
Date: 3190 BC
Number of cities: 3
Number of Checkers: 6
Number of Workers: 1, another one already being produced in Washington
Player status: Funk you stupid AI mode
Things to note about this are, that it's still very early in the game, and that I got already enough Checkers to directly conquer the next target nevertheless.
The number of Workers is a little low having in mind that I have to improve 1 Rice, 1 Corn and 3 Golds, I'll have to work on that,
but the production potential of Washington is decent for this task.
I don't set Cuzco on growth yet, because 6 Checkers will probably only be enough for Fredericks 1st city as I expect him to whip a 3rd Archer when I attack him. Washington has been dedicated to Worker production for the moment because of its size and the abundance of Food it has with working the wet Rice and the 2 Floodplains,
Philadephia's production potential for Checkers isn't that great yet, so I need Cuzco to still help out.
The snowball has started.
----------------------
End of this post, next post going online within the hours! Make sure to follow it, till then, cya
Seraiel
Just kidding. Congratulations!!
True story, in my neck of the woods, my Civ friends think you are just freaking awesome (me too ofc). I would be surprised if you weren't asked to join the content staff.
through the other 2 FPs (every FP is 0.4 
.
. This is because AI builds the Settler in one city, and the Archers for the expansion in the other city, but 4 Archers are really something, even for 6 Checkers, and especially because the Archer on that hill could also move in the city, making it 6 vs 5. Fredericks turn passes, and because Philadelphia is undefended and he thinks that Hamburg is well enough protected, he orders the roaming Archer to go on attack course to Philadelphia 
but using the term "snowball" as a verb to mean "increasing on its own like a snowball rolling down a hill" is also used. IE, "Sales will snowball after the product launch". 
