Role Play Challenge: Chivalrous Washington

[KMadCandy]

i can't judge anything on marathon speed, tech times, city growth, when barbs come, even worker actions. i love the idea of stonehenge, we're charismatic! so of course i want myst/wheel/masonry in some order.

tech path afterwards, i think you can't delay BW too long, since our worker has nothing to do except roadwork once the corn and stone are taken care of. maybe those things will take so long that it works out to sneak something else in, i dunno.

 

[madscientist]

My thinking for the start of this game is to leverage what we get from GW. Expansive and charismatic means he can grow cities larger earlier than any other leader in the game (Vertical and horizontal expansion). He also starts with fishing and Agriculture, meaning he can work the corn once he gets a worker, and harvest fish from the lake for 2 commerce.

Stone is very attractive for stonehenge but to be honest GW can tech mining/BW and chop it out faster than teching masonry/whell and building a quarry/road. The stone is valuable for the Great Wall and/or pyramids. the land sort of sets us up for a SE. Also there is a lone grassland plot south of the settler which I bet is either horse/copper/iron.

I also plan to go with SNAATY's suggested start from a previous thread: fast border expansion, get capital to happy cap fast, then pump out worker and settlers to cut off some AI's. If we cannot expand by war versus the ladies, and are delayed expanding versus the rivals I think getting as much land as possible at the beginning is the way to go.

Tech path: hunting/archery/mining/wheel/pottery (I may get another worker tech depending on resources). Archery, sacriligous you say!!!! I have used Snaaty's early strat numerous times and it has not failed me yet, I alter the game from his walkthrough once I get the 4th city although I typically beeline liberalism (GW's trait are not best for that though).

Builds: worker/military/military/military etc... until we are at the happy cap then settler. Perhaps we can slip a workboat in there for exploration.


Finally, the stone is an interesting find and after early expansion we should utilize it. Axe-rush is out, and there is no industrious leader (Qin and HC were dropped). I am really considering the great wall pronto for the great spy. If the ladies start demanding techs left and right (especially catherine) we are probably going to have to steal some ourselves (and probably get our faces slapped in the process).

 

[Carabodes]

Tech path: hunting/archery/mining/wheel/pottery (I may get another worker tech depending on resources). Archery, sacriligous you say!!!! I have used Snaaty's early strat numerous times and it has not failed me yet, I alter the game from his walkthrough once I get the 4th city although I typically beeline liberalism (GW's trait are not best for that though).

Agree with hunting/archery/but ... ... then wheel (to hook up the corn + start road to stone).

Finally, the stone is an interesting find and after early expansion we should utilize it.

Absolutely.

I am really considering the great wall pronto for the great spy. If the ladies start demanding techs left and right (especially catherine) we are probably going to have to steal some ourselves (and probably get our faces slapped in the process).

Therefore I suggest you sneak in mining/bronzeworking/masonry (great wall as soon as masonry is in) before you take pottery (you can't "pott" much before you can chop anyway, too many trees around). After pottery maybe animal husbandry (to look for ponies)/mystisism (to try chopping stonehenge + be on the route to oracle).

And I too think that with those ladies, spies are a must, don't want them to you!

Builds: worker/military/military/military etc... until we are at the happy cap then settler. Perhaps we can slip a workboat in there for exploration.

Agree, but... .... suggesting a slightly faster approach:
worker/military (go explore)/military/settler (second city)/military/worker/workboat (go explore - can be delayed till after the wall)/Great Wall/stonehenge (if not built by others)(and/or)pyramids
Second city can then go military/worker/military/settler/something/oracle
- and we're on our way to our glorious empire.

Axe-rush is out, ... ...

Even if Nappe is next door???

 

[madscientist]

Even if Nappe is next door???

Part of the RPC game with chivalrous GW. HE will not break the peace until on of the ladies are attacked or he is. So if Nappy is nest dorr we have to play nice.

 

[Carabodes]

I was afraid that was the answer I would get.
(Napoleon and nice play somehow don't sound right. )

 

[madscientist]

I was afraid that was the answer I would get.
(Napoleon and nice play somehow don't sound right. )

I played one game in warlords where Nap was my next door neighbor the entire game and I never went to war with him. He did alot to egg me one (changed religions for no good reason, switched out of representation) but I kept bribing him to be nice. I worked I got a space win while he went to war with most of the world.

That was ONE game, all the others were war driven.

The thing about Napolean, he is smart. So is AL. Jules is probably the least (Gus is the smarter of the Romans).

 

[vicawoo]

My thinking for the start of this game is to leverage what we get from GW. Expansive and charismatic means he can grow cities larger earlier than any other leader in the game (Vertical and horizontal expansion). He also starts with fishing and Agriculture, meaning he can work the corn once he gets a worker, and harvest fish from the lake for 2 commerce.

Stone is very attractive for stonehenge but to be honest GW can tech mining/BW and chop it out faster than teching masonry/whell and building a quarry/road. The stone is valuable for the Great Wall and/or pyramids. the land sort of sets us up for a SE. Also there is a lone grassland plot south of the settler which I bet is either horse/copper/iron.

I also plan to go with SNAATY's suggested start from a previous thread: fast border expansion, get capital to happy cap fast, then pump out worker and settlers to cut off some AI's. If we cannot expand by war versus the ladies, and are delayed expanding versus the rivals I think getting as much land as possible at the beginning is the way to go.

Tech path: hunting/archery/mining/wheel/pottery (I may get another worker tech depending on resources). Archery, sacriligous you say!!!! I have used Snaaty's early strat numerous times and it has not failed me yet, I alter the game from his walkthrough once I get the 4th city although I typically beeline liberalism (GW's trait are not best for that though).

Builds: worker/military/military/military etc... until we are at the happy cap then settler. Perhaps we can slip a workboat in there for exploration.


Finally, the stone is an interesting find and after early expansion we should utilize it. Axe-rush is out, and there is no industrious leader (Qin and HC were dropped). I am really considering the great wall pronto for the great spy. If the ladies start demanding techs left and right (especially catherine) we are probably going to have to steal some ourselves (and probably get our faces slapped in the process).

Is it faster? 120 hammers, so you'll have to make at least one mine and chop 3+ forests. Once the quarry is up, you're getting at least 6 hammers/turn, needing 10 turns to complete stone henge. With a corn, you should be size 3 to work a plain/hills for 9 hammers, so if you add in 6 turns building it while growing, that's 6 turns after the quarry. So 12 turns post-masonry.
In comparison, you must get mining, bronze working, mysticism. You can start chopping a mine before you complete mysticism, so you're getting about 5/turn + 20. Let's say you get 2 workers as you complete bronze working, so say you mine a plains/hill and a grassland hill for 8/turn, 2 forests for 40 hammers. Chop 2 more forests in 4 turns, 80+4*8=112, so about 5 turns. Add 2.5 more turns for each additional forest you want to save, more if you build only one worker.

Tech-wise, you're saving time, since you need bronze working, but you're wasting a ton of forests, in my opinion, and you don't have to chop settlers when you'll have 2 corns, a quarry, and 1-2 forests to work right after stonehenge is done.

Normally I'd just go for workers and settlers, but you're charismatic dangit. Chop a 2nd worker for the expansive bonus.

 

[Carabodes]

You're right, Julius is definitely not smart, and no diplomat. Last time (but one) I saw him, I had found him with my boats, he had not found me (none of his boats had been even in the vicinity of my land - islands maps), so to know my whereabouts, he must have gotten a map from somebody.

He declares while still at home on the other side of the world, giving me ample time to prepare, comes down from the north with his SoD and attacks the first city he meets, without even caring that one tile away, I had stacks and stacks waiting for him. None of his braves made it back home. 10 rounds passes, and down he comes again.

And all the time he completely ignored that I had one city strategically placed next to his border ofthe city where he had his sole ponies and his only coal. And I had airport in that city. Needless to say, Julle didn't last long.

Now Alex, he tries to be friendly and diplomatic, and at the same time building up. And he asseses not so much the powergraph as the weakest city, and launches for that. And he doesn't declare untill he's at my border. And if he's beaten, he's back to causious, and then starts being diplomatic again.

And then there's Nappe - Always arrogant, always making demands, always annoyed at start. As soon as you get him to pleased, he takes your kindness as a sign of weakness, and makes another arrogant demand - back to annoyed. And all the time teching like crazy, building stack after stack of grenadiers, awaiting his moment, goes to furious and - boom! French units everywhere, swarming into my land, pillaging like crazy, everywhere I turn, there's a french soldier peeping round the corner. Only way to get at him is bribing somebody else to join + take some of his cities - and I have a very furious vassal for the rest of the game! The man's simply GRRRRRR!!!

Can't wait to see how you'll deal with them - and with those ladies.

Hope many people will join the tread, so we can have some lively discussions.

 

[Diamondeye]

Alright, you have convinced me. I'm English anyway, and have a thing about redheads. Despite their treachery

I know that feeling

I hope you won't find that with those ladies, you'll be the one needed to be rescued.

Hehe, might be, as it's rather hard to please Isabella, Boudica, Catherine and Elizabeth at once :O

I like Washington because he was a hemp farmer!

I was afraid that was the answer I would get.
(Napoleon and nice play somehow don't sound right. )

You'll get your revenge sooner or later, don't worry

 

[madscientist]

Chivalrous Washington: Part 1

Well I started the game tonight and went further into it than I expected. Not how I planned, some unexpected things.

First of all we settle in place, as 2 corn and 2 lake tiles are pretty darned good. Plus the stone.

Immediately I start exploring and find some tundra tiles, oh boy! Then we meet one of the Rivals.

The stupid one with the super UU.

Our tech path goes hunting/archery as there is no wroker techs that will help us right away besides the wheel.

Next we hit mining and BW and the world after BW

Notice anything? No copper or ladies yet. Well there is one copper source, very far north admidst icesheets, ice/tundra/clams. Essentially 2 tiles to utilize, copper and clams. I stationed an archer there just incase a barb city pops up and we need the copper.

We tech myst/Masonry/AH and low and behold

We got horses and cut off JC with 2 cities. Gotta keep him out of my tundra. Still no sign of any women.

AT this point it is pretty obvious: No ladies, just me and JC stuck on a rather barren northern continent. Bah, this stinks.

Now, some good news. I delayed teching masonry for archery and BW. But once I got tyhe stone hooked up I started some sonders in Washington.

First one

That was the first one anyone has built (there are a total of 9 leaders on this standard map). Stonehenge is not built yet!!

SO I decided to try it while some workers cleared a forrested southern hill. Wow!!!

Onto Pottery!!! But what after that and what do we do with the Roman dude. The rules say Washington must stay at peace with the rivals but only to maintain peace with the ladies. But, there are no ladies watching are there


The status of this fine empire so far

A little more zoomed out

So where do we go with this unusual situation. Here are some ideas

1) We have horse, and I assume JC will get that eastern horse soon. I do not think he has copper in Rome's BFC but not sure.
2) After Pottery, do we go for Iron and try to lock it up fast? If we get it (I still think it is south of Washington's) do we rush JC before any of the ladies find us misbehaving???
3) 2 wonders in Washington. Do we wonderspam here? We should get the pyramids no problem. Washington can support some farms I think, plus 3 food for each lake tile once I get a lighthouse. Easy to run some scientist specialists. The problem is the other two cities are not good cottage areas. Washington could easily be a monster GP farm with wonders galore. DO we settle them, ala OBSOLETES method??? AT this point I would not be surpirzed to still get the oracle after building the pyramids.

I could regenerate the maps and restart but I would like to work this out. IF JC has iron and we have not, it may be time to call it a day and retry the game.

Looking for some ideas from the troops!

 

[tboner23]

can you also grab the whale with a city on the ice sheets? it would at least work ONE more tile than 2. You could also keep expanding towards JC because he has all the barbs on the continent on his hands since you built the great wall. My noble-level recommendations are to tech iron working, expand towards JC to put more barb pressure on him and take away the Iron, and when you can work teh whales settle that ice-city. The copper would be nice to have in case there isn't Iron available.

 

[The Conquerer22]

you shouldnt use washington you should use Gene Simmons for the ladies man,lmao

 

[The Conquerer22]

at least I think so

 

[Carabodes]

madscientist:

So where do we go with this unusual situation. Here are some ideas

1) We have horse, and I assume JC will get that eastern horse soon. I do not think he has copper in Rome's BFC but not sure.
2) After Pottery, do we go for Iron and try to lock it up fast? If we get it (I still think it is south of Washington's) do we rush JC before any of the ladies find us misbehaving???
3) 2 wonders in Washington. Do we wonderspam here? We should get the pyramids no problem. Washington can support some farms I think, plus 3 food for each lake tile once I get a lighthouse. Easy to run some scientist specialists. The problem is the other two cities are not good cottage areas. Washington could easily be a monster GP farm with wonders galore. DO we settle them, ala OBSOLETES method??? AT this point I would not be surpirzed to still get the oracle after building the pyramids.

I could regenerate the maps and restart but I would like to work this out. IF JC has iron and we have not, it may be time to call it a day and retry the game.

Looking for some ideas from the troops!

tboner23:

can you also grab the whale with a city on the ice sheets? it would at least work ONE more tile than 2. You could also keep expanding towards JC because he has all the barbs on the continent on his hands since you built the great wall. My noble-level recommendations are to tech iron working, expand towards JC to put more barb pressure on him and take away the Iron, and when you can work teh whales settle that ice-city. The copper would be nice to have in case there isn't Iron available.

1) and 2)
Yes please, go IW after pottery, then polytheism/priesthood for oracle. Immediate action: Rush 2 settlers, one for Copperfield, and one for expanding towards Julle. As tboner23 suggests, try to settle Copperfield so that you can grab the whales too. You didn’t have the grid on, so I can’t be sure, but to me it looks like you can grab crab/copper/whale by settling 1S of the icy hill up there. That will also, once you have the techs, give you a windmill and a waterwheel, thus the city will not be totally crappy.

Hook up copper asap (and iron when/if it comes in), spam axes and chariots. Add a little spearman just in case. Take the idiot – the ladies will never know he was even here . It’s only just to do so, the Roman Empire was long gone when Washington saw the light of day – history should repeat itself. And furthermore, there’s no room for an idiot with praetorians on our small continent . And do all this before JC has discovered iron, ‘cause he won’t be chivalrous! – And don’t be afraid, it’s quite possible to take out JC without iron, even if he has iron. I’ve done it (remember my story from my MP-game?), and I’m lousy at warfare. And if I can, you certainly can. Praetorians are killable, you only need more troops .

Might I suggest sailing right after IW/poly/priest? High time to let your scouts meet the ladies (as well as the other rivals) now that Julle is gone .

3) Yes, wonder spam capital (that’s why I suggested polytheism instead of meditation, more wonder-access) and copy Obsolete (I like his hammer-count! ), settle every GP you can grab. Be greedy and see if you can get oracle/colossus/great lighthouse (let that city get a lighthouse soon).

And don’t forget we have GW, build walls in all cities (cheap with stone) for later castles, if lucky, we might get the castle-quest . And if not, we’ll still get the EP’s from the castles once we have engineering.

No regeneration, please, just treat this as if it was an islands map. After Julle is dead and gone, it looks like the island/continent-part(?) east of Julle might be the next stepping stone in settling. At the moment we can see only 2 tiles, but I have the feeling it’s part of something worth settling on (and remember, I have still not patched, so no downloading of saves, thus no spoilers from me). There’s also one island south of NY, as well as one SE of Julle, they will both be reachable with sailing. Looks like they’re small, though, but since we only see the northern coast of them, they may of course be the points of a larger landmass. I know we’re a bit low on resources on our mainland, so we’ll have to prioritise astronomy in this game, but I think that early sailing might help us too.

And anyways, I would hate to see our pretty, wonder-spamming, and stone-filled capital being switched for some crappy capital on a larger, but more crowded continent, even though we’ll be lonely once the idiot’s gone. You’ll be alone in America, now go find Europe! And you can sit snugly isolated and protected while you watch the world (and catfights) go by, juggling your diplomatic skills, to their confusion.

 

[vicawoo]

I'd consider grabbing the copper/crab site at some point. That's worth 2 scientists. Except for the capital, you're poor on grasslands, and not many rivers to boot. I'd go for an SE fueled off of resources and focus on production. Jimmy Carter is going to be hard to take out.

If you can steal the rightmost resources from JC, particularly the fish and pig, that would help a lot. This is kind of dull, diplomatically, you're just bound to kill Jesus Christ once praetorians lose their advantage. Oh wait, that would be wrong.

 

[madscientist]

OK they way I see it

1) We tech Pottery, then IW. I agree. We gotta get wrining in there somewhere for the libraries though.
2) Poly/Priest and continues wonderspammiong, check.
3) Copper city. No, whles will not be in the same city as crabs/copper, and sea tiles are limited. Still good point about 2 scientists. I'll wait until we tech IW.
4) Death to the Romans, I like it!

5) further cut off JC, may be difficult but I'll see what we can do.
6) Once JC is out we have an isolated start basically. SO we have to impress the ladies with the mysterious and isolated island of wonders, Will our ladies accept that????

 

[Carabodes]

... ... ... ... and out of the misty fog and unknown darkness across the seas he came sailing, that wonderful, mysterious stranger, bringing promises of protection and rescue ... ... ... ...

and the go:


Of course they'll like it (as long as JC doesn't live to meet them first).


ps.: Sorry about the whale not fitting into the picture. Well, can't be helped, Willy has to stay free, then, and we'll have to find rusty lumps in the soil somewhere.

 

[madscientist]

Chivalrous Washington

Well, GW is completely heartbroken as you will read on.

First of all we built the pyramids, popped a Great Spy which we have saved for later (I will use it by the end of this section). a GE which we settled.

But some unforseen and rather severe events occurred which make me serious question whether we should restart this RPC.

First we send an archer to explore and see if we can try and cut JC off, low and behold.

Notice anything here? JC has iron and prats already IW moved up in priority just after pottery.

We also met one of the ladies, Hatshepsut (who founded judaism). Sorry I lost the screenshot. Oh well, so much for taking out JC early.

We tech IW and...

That's what we are talking about, iron within our cultural borders. We built city 4 south of Washington to work the wheat and iron (our choices are slim), but there is also a barbarian island to the south which looks pretty decent.

Then Washington loses his breath and gasps.

Look at the red words at the top. Liz has been killed!!!! This is a problem.

We continued teching, made some trades, got alphabet from HAtty for Aesthetics and send the great spy into Rome. Time to steal some techs, pull ahead, and get the GL and work representation.

Then we get another message> The Spanish civilization has been destroyed.

The final screenshot:

Well that does it for me. 2 of teh ladies I have yet to meet get themselves killed. You would figure that they could keep themselves alive until I resuce them. Bah.... I can deal with Prats and poor land, but this just kills the heart of the RPC.

With Issy and Liz gone I think I am going to just tank this game and restart it next week. Not for the problem of fighting out of a tough spot but the loss of these two.

Perhaps those two extra AIs just crowded the board too much. I'll stick to the 5 ladies next time, but have only 1 rival. And I'll use hemisphere continents rather than the big little board (that would also limit colonies, something I didn't think about until I started the game..

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Isabella - good riddance!
Liz - noooooo!!!!

Hatshepsut's not going to help out, she's either killing them with her chariots (not very likely in my experience of Warlords anyway) or will be chums with the agressor, and everyone, until you build Manhattan Project when she nukes the crap out of everyone.

I'm thinking Boudicca might be responsible if she's playing though, I heard she is "fiery".

 

[Carabodes]

I spotted that praetorian at once, and my heart sunk - till I saw the iron.

Then you had to go and spoil it all by not protecting your ladies properly. Shame on you! Where's the shivalry in letting the barbs win the game?

Regenerate, please, before the barbs build the UN and go for a diplo win.

Hemisphaeres sounds nice. I don't think you should cut off any of the AI, though, 8 AIs are only 1 AI more than the default settings for a standard map, isn't it? You can set the landmass to 3 or 4 continents (should prevent isolation) + some islands? Just suggesting.
As to the shape of the continents, have you tried snaky? Makes chances of meating everybody earlier much higher, I think. 'Cause you have to kind of meet them before they die, you see. Sorry, disappointment spawn sarcasm, nothing personal.

And all our beautiful wonders and our grand spy . And the poor, unprotected ladies, now they'll have to wait a whole week for you.

Well, better luck next time, we'll be waiting.