S-06 Guerrillas in the Mist

[ThERat]

got it

what are the plans? We will settle town #3 and get monarchy. Do we agree on blid's suggested spot? It's too far away IMHO and once the enemy comes with troops, it would be very tough to reinforce. Maybe a spot closer to our capital but extending south? We can always fill the land to the north later on.

As for research, was construction after monarchy agreed? There are some elephants to the south too IIRC.

 

[mike p]

To find Ragnar, check out one of the screenshots I posted from turnset that shows his worker. His worker was right outside the edge of his territory. He's slightly east and far to the south.

Vulnerable city is a good location, if we can expand enough to make it part of our core, instead of our border. An alternative would be to go 1w of the spot you indicated. We'd get a defensive bonus from the river on attacks from the west, and could cut the forest to the east, negating defensive bonuses for the enemy. We would lose the stone from the fat cross, but we'd get a grass hills/river tile to replace it that would be behind our front line and less likely to get pillaged anyway. It's also instantly connected to our capitol and has fresh water.

The key resource there is the iron anyway. HR will take care of unhappiness, so the wine is just bonus commerce really. Another option might be to settle directly on top of the iron to prevent pillaging.

Either Feudalism or Construction after Monarchy, I'd say.

 

[ThERat]

save

535 turns left, I will take 15
first things first, I revolt to slavery and organized religion, but we need to spread our faith
on turn 4 Judaism spreads to Vienne
on turn 6 meet Mehmed and auto declare war

spot Ragnars city in the south with metal connected, no good

killed 2 scouts and spot Mansa's land

Capital went archer - settler - axe - worker
worker will be done next turn, we have some stuff to develop
one worker is at the sheep to road since our capital is unhealthy already.
Vienne's borders will expand to get the sheep inside as well
our second worker is on the way to connect the iron

Vienne just finished it's granary and is now building a rax, we need more troops

founded the vulnerable Tolosa, hope it won't backfire

I zoomed in on Ragnar, he founded Christianity as well. I pillages the mine and a village but got a mere 2 gold for that
This is the situation there, we might build some gallics to take him out sooner

Ragnar's land, it seems the access is cut off and only accessible via north

our home cities, 3 of them

 

[sooooo]

OK, good, we met some more AIs finally. I think I preferred Mike's spot but vulnerable city should be fine. I think missionarying tolosa is a priority, to get us the 25% bonus to granary and barracks. Let's whip our new cities for infra. Can we spare the time to build a library in Bilbracte?

Soon the AIs will send their first stacks so we need to plan what to do. I think we need sentries to spot incoming stacks. Also disrupting troops, who could possibly be gallic warriors promoted to guerrilla 2. These can move quickly, pillage mines and be fairly safe.

 

[Compromise]

Got it. Will play tomorrow.

I am likely to do some whipping.

 

[mike p]

Whipping in new cities is good to get basic infrastructure in place. Whipping in the capital instead of working our cottages might be counterproductive in the long term. I think we should build a few more settlers out of the capital first and set up some flanking protection in defensible positions for Vulnerable City aka Ripe Tomato. And then worry about buildings in the capitol.

The workers should start chopping around Vienne. The two hills to the South need mines and the hill to the NE should be cleared. Chopping instead of whipping makes more sense there to me right now.

I have a modest proposal for our next city. It's not an awesome site, but it is defensible, will secure our eastern border, and can help push out units. It will also give line of sight across the lake, so we'll have plenty of notice if someone tries to send a stack through the Northern wastes towards our capitol.

The deer, a farm directly to the south and some grassland hills mean that we'll have decent production, and won't need to waste much on infrastructure besides a Dun, Barracks, and granary. After that, everything built there should be units. The red dot is a tundra hill tile, so we'll get a defensible choke point as well.

We're going to need a lot of units, so we need to get more production cities in place, IMO.

 

[ThERat]

pretty much agree with mike, especially whipping. Its fine to whip a rax, court etc in our outer cities. The capital is doing fine now and will be even better with more mines, no need to whip it. The second city will got for a rax and can then churn out more units.

I like the suggested city spot as it gives us a nice choke

 

[sooooo]

Also agree with mike and was going to suggest a similar spot for the next settler. We don't really know when the stacks will start coming, so it would be nice to identify the route that each AI will take to get to us, and set up sentries accordingly.

 

[Compromise]

400: Inherited. All looks good. Delete now-obsolete "Vulnerable city" sign. End turn.
385: Worker finishes in Bilbracte. Start missionary. Spoil Ragnar's rice fields.
370: Roading and scouting.
355: Spot Isabella Archer/Settler pair. Put one turn into chop west of Bilbracte and leave note about it.
340: Axe kills Ragnar scout. Vienne whips barracks, has enough food to grow without any surplus. Missionary and growth both due in 2T at Bilbracte.
325: Vienne starts chariot. Chariot only has 25% odds v. Isabella settler on hill; avoid. Iron mine started. Axe heals (2T) from killing scout.
310: Missionary completes in Bilbracte; start settler
295: Eastern archer discovers Ragnar's Haithabu. Only 2 archers in each of Ragnar's cities. Archer will try to pester both cities to delay Iron hookup.


280: Find Isabella's borders to southeast. Iron mine (w/o road) completes in Tolosa as Jewish Missionary spreads faith there.

265: Barcelona with a single archer garrison!
250: Pillage farm near Barcelona. Chariot completes in Vienne; start archer to garrison new eastern city. Road to iron completes (announcement next turn)

That's 10 turns and a reasonably even number, so I stop here. We now have Iron, so Vienne (or others) could start training Gallics. I didn't help much on the troop buildup, but we should be set to build next turn.

Isabella's settler got past me when it was clear her settler was going to be able to stay in forests or hills on its way to a city site.

I think we're going to be about one turn short of being able to finish Construction at 100%, which is fine

I have an archer alternating between a hill and a river-forest thus keeping an eye on two of Ragnar's cities on alternate turns. Each has a two-archer garrison. This seems to be keeping him from developing there, including hooking up his Iron. but maybe I'm deluding myself.

I left many signs on the map. They are not sacred. Please delete them if their message is obsolete or irritating to you.

I think we're going to have trouble supporting many (any?) more cities for a while.

Ragnar might be low-hanging fruit. Do we want to bring it to him?

There is still another civ out there. Maybe they're trapped in a ring of peaks?

Recommendations:

1) Found city to the east. I like Mike's spot. A worker who roaded the Iron is free to road, chop, camp the deer there. An archer (could be changed) is queued in Vienne to garrison the city, though the just-completed chariot can go there now.

2) Chop. I concentrated more on resources and, not sure when the AI might be incoming, connecting the Iron.

3) Build troops! Especially in Vienne (has some whip anger from granary and barracks) and Tolosa.

4) How to harass the AI?

 

[sooooo]

Got it. Will build some military. Feudalism after construction, right?

I think I will play tonight because I will not be able to on Saturday.

 

[Compromise]

Feudalism after construction, right?

I think so. Vassalage will be nice with all the troops we'll be building.

 

[sooooo]

OK, our capital is 1 point unhealth and 1 point unhappy. That's OK though because we are in hereditary rule and have some corn to hookity hook hook.

But we're building a settler before the proposed garrison is due, and I think we're about 20 workers short (3 workers for 3 cities and 1 settler in queue = too few workers). So I interrupt bilbracte for a worker.

T1 (235 BC): Temple of Artemis BIDL.

T2 (220 BC): Pillage spanish mine+road

T3 (205 BC): Pillage spanish cows

T4 (190 BC): Pillage spanish village to hamlet.

T5 (175 BC): Bilbracte finishes worker, resumes settler. Pillage spanish hamlet to cottage, then pillage cottage. Vienne finishes archer, starts gallic warrior. Persepolis has metal and spears, so no chance of pillaging with my chariot. I withdraw. I think I will cut the roads to the other persian cities so they cannot build more metal troops. Cyrus and ragnar will probably be our main threats early in the game, with Cyrus looking the one more likely to damage us.

T6 (160 BC): Construction -> feudalism. Chop comes in to finish Tolosa's granary, overflow into barracks. Start mine here before borders expand. I would go on to pillage most of madrid dry (mines, farms etc) but won't talk about each individual one from here onward. Pop hut for gold.

T9 (115 BC): Bilbracte settler -> axe

T10 (100 BC): Kill izzy's scout near mansa's lands.

T11 (85 BC): Found Gregovia in designated spot. Research is +ve at about 40% science, so no more cities for a while. Hmm, I spot a viking spear but cannot see his iron mine. I assume he built it before we pillaged it. It is escorting a settler which would settle the now-nearest Viking city to us.

T12 (70 BC): Barracks completes in Tolosa, start spear. I pop Horseback riding from a hut . Note HBR does not obsolete chariots.

T13 (55 BC): Bilbracte starts a HA. It needs a military police to quash unhapiness. I figure being our most central city, bilbracte can house a detachment of mounted troops to send to vulnerable cities when needed. When they are not needed, they can serve as mounted police. Chop came in last turn here, so the HA will only take 2 turns. Vienne gallic warrior -> spearman.

T14 (40 BC): Tolosa spear -> catapult. Pillage cyrus' sheep pasture and road.

T15 (25 BC): Bilbracte HA -> jew missionary. Can be changed if we think we can afford to wait for religion to spread naturally. Pillage final spanish farm and a malinese deer camp.

Dian Fossey update: not brutally murdered yet. I have yet to hook up the corn. Should look into building a library probably in bilbracte soonish.



And the save

sooooo
mike p - UP
blid - On Deck
ThERat
Compromise

 

[Compromise]

Nice turns and writeup. Settler before worker was :weed: by me. Good catch.

I can't imagine we won't have incoming AI stacks soon, even though each of the last few turnsets has ended with that warning.

Not having played too many AW games, and none on Emperor, I'm wondering what our near-term plan is for dealing with the AI. It seems like we and the AI have been following the same early strategy: scout, and expand with settlers. To date, we've harassed them a bit more than the reverse, but that will change.

Going forward, what is the strategy? For example:

Do we maintain a small, evading harassment group at each AI's core to disrupt workers and slow development? Do such groups get reinforced/replaced?

Do we build a SoD (or two) and try to eliminate or take half the cities of one (or two) nearby AIs?

Are we aiming to cripple all AIs at the same rate or concentrate on knocking out the nearby ones while letting those further away develop with less harassment/pillaging from us?

What are the criteria for attacking and/or keeping AI cities? Well developed or Defensible? Commerce vs. Production vs. Hybrid? Only if we're making cash at 50% wealth? Raze the flatland cities first, come back for the hilltop cities?

I'm not looking for a script to play out, but if any AW experts have a sense of what works best, I'm open to ideas.

 

[sooooo]

Well ThERat is the AW expert, but my take on your questions:

Do we maintain a small, evading harassment group at each AI's core to disrupt workers and slow development? Do such groups get reinforced/replaced?

I think yes and yes.

Do we build a SoD (or two) and try to eliminate or take half the cities of one (or two) nearby AIs?

Not yet IMO. The enemy cities are too far away and will cost us too much maintenence, especially as we lack CoL. When enemy cities get closer (eg ivory spot) we can take them out.

Are we aiming to cripple all AIs at the same rate or concentrate on knocking out the nearby ones while letting those further away develop with less harassment/pillaging from us?

At the moment we have hindered the spanish and viking economies. Cyrus has metal so it much harder to pillage, but we can disconnect his cities and cause some general shenanigans. We should probably do some more damage to Mansa and Mehmed, and also try to find the mystery seventh civ.

What are the criteria for attacking and/or keeping AI cities? Well developed or Defensible? Commerce vs. Production vs. Hybrid? Only if we're making cash at 50% wealth? Raze the flatland cities first, come back for the hilltop cities?

Defensible is number one priority. Defensible will mean relatively close to our empire, and should hopefully be relatively low maintenence. Defensibility also means that hilltop cities may be better targets that flatland ones .

 

[mike p]

Got it. Will play tomorrow.

My only question is this. Is it worth it to build a temple in either Vienne or Bibracte, and then work a priest specialist for 30 turns to get a Great Profit? Either building the Temple of Solomon or lightbulbing Theology to open up Theocracy as a civics option?

And if it makes more sense to do it in the capitol, I'll delay the missionary until the temple is done.

 

[ThERat]

while having played quite a few AW games, AW is a tough beast. I agree that early on we should have some harassment parties before the AI will hole us in. We need to avoid that.
We need to have strong and various defenders, but we need to make sure e.g. that the Viking mine stays unconnected...

the temples sounds good to me also for th short term. I can see that feudalism takes awfully long, courts could help us as stated earlier...

 

[mike p]

25 BC Switch to temple at Bibracte. Switch from mine to deer tile, we want to grow more population. Will do missionary next.

25 AD I get our chariot killed in Mali, trying to sneak past Timbuktu to pillage the lands beyond. Mansa didn't attack him last turn despite having 4 skirmershers in range, but he managed to bring up a catapult and take him out.

35 AD I hire a priest in Bibracte. Ragnar is three turns away from mining the iron, so I move our archer in to scare away the worker. Next turn the archer survives an attack from a Viking archer and I retreat him out of Viking territory to heal up. I promote him to Guerilla II because then once he's healed he can probably pick off the worker that will be mining the iron, since the AI doesn't seem to worry about Guerillas or Woodsmen moving 2 tiles in one turn to snatch workers. Unfortunately, the tile I moved the archer to heal became Viking territory by a border pop, and I had the archer set to fortify until healed, which took much longer than anticipated because he was now in hostile territory. I didn't realize it for about 8 turns, and Ragnar may have hooked up the iron in the mean time. Sorry about that.

95 AD One turn before the missionary is completed, Judaism spreads to Gregoria on its own. So we have an extra missionary in the capitol. Maybe we can convert Isabella.

110 AD The attacks on our homeland have started. Ragnar is sending lots of archers, which our horsemen are eating up once they reach the grassland tile shown below. I let them pass by our Gallic warrior since we were only getting 70% odds due to terrain bonuses.

140 AD Cyrus has a catapult approaching Tolusa. His approach route is color coded in the pic below.

155 AD With help from a chop of the tundra hills, stable is built in Vienne. Using a horse archer and spearman, I kill two Viking archers. Ended up promoting the spearman to Medic I because we'll need to keep downtime at a minimum now that the invasions have begun.

200 AD Chop completes the granary in Gergovia. I decide to start a Dun before a Barracks since we'll want both and the Dun will give us some defensive bonus while the barracks are completed too. Also want to start a farm to the south of Gergovia.

As for the capitol, it's starting on an Aqueduct. Two health will allow us to grow another population point, and then can add more in commerce than we would get from a library, since our science rate has become so pathetic. We have 4 horse archers and several other units for defense, we may want to start sending some of them out to harrass the AI.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/56599/Guerrillas_in_the_Mist_AD-0200.CivWarlordsSave

 

[sooooo]

Blid is up now. Would not build duns until stone is hooked up (doubles production). Can't look at save but looks nice, finally the enemy is sending troops even if they are only archers. Priest specialist is good idea.

 

[blid]

Got it.

Would try to get a pillaging party or two. I would probably get the first general, do we agree on a medic III or do we settle an instructor first ?

A couple more cottages in the capital should be ordered, research is bad. Hope the pillaging party would net us some coins.

What should be the first target : Mansa is financial and is close, Cyrus is expanding like mad and Ragnar is the immediate threat due to its proximity. I'm quite torn between those three. I would build chariots for pillaging duty, don't want them to defend. An axe/spear couple would accompagny them and maybe a horse archer to defend against cats and swords. 4 units per stack should be enough to live for the moment.

 

[ThERat]

don't be too optimistic about sending out too many pillage parties. besides the need for more defenders, they will kill our science rate even more as they need support.
I seriously think CIV is broken when you can't maintain research at 40% with a mere 4 cities. It's just killing the fun.