SGOTM 06 - Fifth Element

[Merum]

Why hunting first? I disagree with this strategy. We need to find out if we have copper. We have a warrior that we intend to keep close to home for defense, so why build another off the bat? I think worker first while researching BW is the way to go. If we do manage to pop copper, we're straight off to the races with axes, and won't need to build another warrior. Otherwise, it's plan B, and hunting/archery. That's my 2 cents.

 

[Civicide]

A few reasons:

a) With that many resources around us, I think our chances of starting with copper in our FC are minimal

b) Even if we do have copper in our FC, we have to wait for a worker, and The Wheel, to hook it up. We can have archery before then and get a few archers out, which we're going to need anyway.

c) Hunting opens up AH, which allows us to hook up our cows earlier.

That said, BW first is a good option as well. I guess I don't have a strong preference.

 

[BLubmuz]

Oh, well i reversed the -
Hey Civ, a bit unlucky it isn't? you migrated in Iowa less than one year ago IIRC. Well i'm not in a wonderful position with my consultant activity ...still i insist.

Merum, BW first is a waste: as Civ pointed out, we need the wheel to hook it, and we need some unit to protect our worker and improvements, and archers are cheap and powerful, especially if promoted to drill2.
We got cows and gold to improve and PROTECT, and AH reveals HORSES, and i prefer a chariot rush instead of an axe rush: chariots are cheaper, and twice fast.

BUT, since we can't know if we got
a) copper
b) horses
c) a damn
it's better research surely useful techs first.

My guess is that Gyathaar has put something in the FC... my 2 cents.

A different thing is send the warrior East, or wherever to try to find an undefended capital: is a bet, and we MUST have full consensus on this (i mean unanimity).

 

[Merum]

Well, given that my current tries at BW first seem to work well in the beginning, but then I get bogged down due to lack of finances, maybe hunting/archery/ah first is a way to go. If we're going to do this tech path, we can build warrior first, and our starting warrior can maybe have some more freedom to seek an undefended capitol. I can be convinced that this is a path to take.

Seems like tis the season for unemployment. I'm still looking as well. Sucks during the holidays.

PS: Pray that Gyathaar didn't throw Rome into the mix. Julius just handed me my head in the sword of a Praetorian.

 

[BLubmuz]

I've played some test games, only for 60-80 turns to experiment (it's the reason we make tests it isn't?).

I propose this for our first TS:

1) settle in place
2) move the warrior E, explore a bit, then keep him inside our borders to catch some eventual pray, or to defend if needed and keep it safe from beasts
3) research: wheel, BW, hunting-AH, archery
4) first build worker-warrior

I think the worker build will ask more than a TS, then we can discuss after this first TS.
Given my tests, i suggest 20 turns for the first TS, it's not much more than hit 20 times "enter", then 15, starting from my TS.

Please, let's vote for this, so GB can start play.

My reasons:
- wheel first because copper or not, we need to connect the resources, and it's a job done
- worker first because with that gold - as i already said - is a sacrilege not improve it ASAP

please note:
after the first borders expansion, we can work bananas, that give 3f+1c
also, don't forget that, as charismatic, we need only 4XP to reach level3, and if we are lucky, our free warrior can reach medic2 killing some scout (if any).

@Merum
so, no more China? i could bet you are a brilliant manager, but often to be brilliant is not enough, as i know well.

 

[culdeus]

So can I lurk here? I never purchased Warlords though maybe I might have something interesting to add at some point perhaps.

 

[greatbeyond]

I propose starting shortly, making turns and stopping temporarily if something important comes up. By my estimation, I need to upload by Sunday Afternoon, if not earlier, at the 20th turn.

 

[Merum]

Here are my thoughts on the tech order: Wheel first makes no sense, as we don't really need to hook up cows til later to benefit from them. My assumption is that we'll be whipping heavily, and therefore won't hit the health limit any time soon. So, if we're going to go down this path, we should do hunting/archery THEN wheel, not the other way 'round.

Additionally, if we're going to be taking this tech path, worker first makes no sense. We can let the city grow some while either building another warrior for extra defense, or putting hammers into barracks. We'll end up getting the worker in less turns when we do build it, and it will just about even out.

I still wonder if BW first isn't the way to go, because with slavery, we can whip things we need. Even if we don't go worker first, we can whip the worker after some city growth?

In more test games I've played, I've successfully pulled off an oracle slingshot to metal casting in three games, which is 100% of the time I've tried it. I think a slingshot to some tech is worth seriously considering. The last game I played, I did stonehenge, then oracle. I had no stone, but I did have marble, which sped the oracle considerably. I then used the GP generated to grab theology and christianity, which helped considerably. I was also able to get the parthenon in this game, which sped up GP growth a bit.

I survived until 1758, at which time Louis landed a stack of rifles for me to try to fight with my axemen, and I gave up.

Important note: Remember in Warlords that cats are wildly overpowered. We're going to end up building a buttload of those bad boys, so construction is a high priority tech. I had stacks where cats outnumbered axes because of this.

Money is still an issue. I narrowly averted strikes a couple of times, and was just beginning to pull into an area where I could hang on a bit longer when the rifles landed. I had to resort to using a hybrid of SE and cottaging the hell out of every available tile (As well as pillaging the crap out of Kublai as I killed him off) to keep from units being disbanded by strikes, but I was slowly getting the slider back up. It was at 40% when the rifles landed, and if I had had just a bit more time, it might have been a different story.

Bottom line is, if we can't figure out a way to make the economy work, we will very quickly find ourselves in deep trouble.

@Blubmuz: No more China for now. I'm looking for a new job that will still have me travel to there often, as it seems a waste to have learned Mandarin and then not use it. Hopefully I'll find something sooner rather than later.

@Culdeus: You can lurk, but you have to declare to Alan in the signup thread. On the other hand, I bet you can pick up Warlords for 20 bucks. (hint, hint) We could use another experienced hand in what appears to be a wild ride here.

 

[culdeus]

I need to look at this closer to make sure I'm not missing something, but in the AW games I've attempted over the year or so wheel is invaluable for being able to build chariots. This buys you some time and some flexibility to really harass the ai, worker steal, pillage etc.

Whether it needs to roll out first is not sure, but mounted units are THE thing to focus on in AW. Mounted units and pillaging. Lots of pillaging. Really you want the AI to build up a bunch of cities and you go around and cut them off and put them in just as bad a financial situation as you. Allowing an AI civ to run away unchecked and you are toast by the time anything that goes BANG gets up and running.

 

[Merum]

True about the Chariots, but wheel does us no good unless we have horses, so researching it before we have AH seems like wasted beakers to me.

Also, this isn't the Murky Waters thread.

 

[greatbeyond]

At this point I'm inclined to start the research with Hunting, this should take 9 turns by working the cows. Is it worth giving up the faster growth by working the water tile, which should speed up our tech rate?
Hunting would take 8 turns versus 9, it doesn't seem worth it.
After Hunting, allows us to go AH, Archery, or BW if there doesn't appear to be any nearby neighbors.
I suggest re evaluating at that point what's next.

 

[Sweetacshon]

Soo much written already.. I can't keep up.

Welcome, GB!! btw, Elvis...building was also said after his concerts so the crazy fans would go home.

I think I'm leaning toward BW first (no point in wheel first, as the worker still has to mine the bronze before roading), but can see the benefit of archery. I would prefer to get a worker out asap, as the gold and cows will be super powerful (huh?) early on. That being said, I am not one to get shifty early with warriors, and would love to be taught something by the team here The worker steal... will they really let you get close enough with AW?

OK... so let's get the warrior moved and check out the city site.

 

[greatbeyond]

Ok. I took the plunge, Warrior 1E, Settler in-place. coastline revealed to the west. See attached screen shot.

Screen shot was taken by using shift-Print Screen. Is there a better way of doing it that any has used?

 

[greatbeyond]

Enhanced screen shot shows we only have to worry about attacks by land from 3 directions , West is all coast,

 

[greatbeyond]

Fantastic news - I just checked the progress graph and we are ahead of CRC at turn 1, 37 points to their 34!
Should I upload the Turn 1 save?, Does anyone want to see every turn or just after an important event?

 

[Merum]

you're not supposed to upload 4000BC saves to the progress site, unless something has changed. So, just hold onto it, and make sure you play from the save.

So far, we have cow, two banana, dye, and gold in our FC. By the looks of the jungle, we are just north of the equatorial region, and there's a potential city site south of us with rice and more gold. It looks like the city has extended a road to the river, which bodes well for intercity commerce if we choose to follow that river S. We won't be able to make much of that until we have IW, however.

So now the grand debate begins. Do we continue with hunting and the warrior? Do we switch tech path to wheel, or to BW? Do we switch build to worker (This only really makes sense if we decide to go BW).

Taking the example of past laurel winning teams, let's not move too quickly on this. I'm not a huge fan of boring micromanagement, but this AW game is going to require nearly flawless play to even come out with a win, let alone a laurel. Our one set of wooden dinnerware is enough for me.

 

[greatbeyond]

As it is time to go to bed, I will leave things at the end of this first turn, and check back in about ten hours, then move again.

 

[culdeus]

True about the Chariots, but wheel does us no good unless we have horses, so researching it before we have AH seems like wasted beakers to me.

Also, this isn't the Murky Waters thread.

lol, you actually saw that. whoops

 

[Civicide]

Great, more bananas. Looks like plenty of food for us in our capital. We should be able to cottage up the river tiles at the very least, and should be able to make judicious use of the whip. Calendar should be a priority. We'll be beelining to catapults anyway, I'm sure, Calendar is not far off.

We definitely need to scout out a potential southern city site. The rice, gold, and river definitely make for a spot we should be looking to take. Hopefully will be a good commerce city.

 

[BLubmuz]

This time is a nice spot, i'd like to see what Gyathaar invented to complicate our life.

Why the wheel before BW?
first we can't know what we have in our FC (see my #23 for details)
the worker will be ready before BW is researched, but after the wheel, if this will be our first tech
worker's first job: mine the gold and when we reach size 2 our research will jump

Why a worker first?
we need 8 turns to grow at 2
at size 1 we put 3f in the worker, at 2, 4f
so we need only 3 turns more at s.1, but the worker will be ready at turn 19, otherwise at turn 24 and still the warrior has to complete.

Thus, the worker can have roaded and mined the gold when we reach size 2, ready to any other job, but our research will jump around turn 27.

Resuming the 1st TS goals:
research the wheel, start BW
build a worker
keep the warrior ON our borders (preferably around NE) to intercept some pray.

@Culdeus
Nice to see you like to contribute.
As i already said @Dutch, better if you do it officially.
edit (after check the subscriptions thread)
Welcome back, Culdeus, your suggestion will be appreciated!
end edit

I agree about chariots, i like fast units, of course we must know if we have horses, or at least if they're close enough.
Also, worker steal in AW is only possible with fast units.

I guess the terrorist/commando strategy is the best: keep the AI inside its cities, pillage everything in sight, and when a good stack is ready, conquer one by one, in a McArthur way.

a nice sig from a CFC member:
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour!"
-Sir Winston Churchill

i can bet this guy is English!