SGOTM3 Rome - Team Smackster

[smackster]

Looks like a good set of turns. Certainly the right decision to go for IW

I think we just keep pumping troops from Rome, and try to get Veii into shape for settlers. While Veii is being setup, might want to squeeze a couple of warriors out, just plan that forest chop for the granary, and I would not divert from this scheme right now. Once we have enough defence in Rome, and / or have beaten off the first wave from Greece, only then should Rome chuck out that settler we need for the factory, and then if we are still alive , we need to get a worker factory.

There is no doubt Greece will send some stuff our way, at Emperor they get a few bonus warriors, that will now be coming our way.

 

[smackster]

The Roster

smackster
Tarkeel (just played)
dmanahko (playing)
Wotan (next up)
DeceasedHorse

 

[dmanakho]

Ok, on a good side we have 2 cities now..
on a bad side, we have only one worker and not enough units to defend.
I will start building another archer in Rome after this one is over.
I don't feel safe with our second city beeing unprotected, but i hope we will be able to send troops from captial.
I must disagree on researching math and masonry... It will be a pretty bad idea in my opinion.
Instead we will buy those techs.
I must stress again that unless we build Great library and get all techs we will be ran over by AI knights in no time.... We have 2 scientific civs Russians and Babylonians and all the AIs will trade like crazy... We will be able to outresearch them for a long time.
I think we should go for writing at 10% then literature... As soon as we buy masonry we shall start prebuilding GL with palace.
What does team think??? I will play tonight and my play won't really need these long ran decisions so all i am going to do now is to make sure we don't get run over by greek archers.

 

[smackster]

I would change Veii build option to warrior as we can get it this turn. That one extra might really help us, then start on the granary. Start the forest chop ASAP, don't stop to admire the scenary.

I think we should wait on the technology decision, if you suddenely get IW, then stop and lets discuss. I do want Writing as I really want to be able to trade for contacts and do some trading before we get to AW. But I'd like to see where this goes, and if we meet anyone else.

When Rome gets to size 4 start building Warriors only, as we would get 5 shields and Warriors in two turns, Archer in 4. Better two Warriors than one Archer. Once is grows again, maybe change that, or once we get more shield production.

 

[dmanakho]

I am sorry Smackster, I finished playing before I read your message.
I didn't switch to warrior and i am glad i didn't and you will see why.
I will have my write-up screenshot and save file as soon as i finish typing and uploading...

 

[smackster]

Its ok, as long as you survived, I'd prefer to get the granary earlier. You did survive right

 

[dmanakho]

Ok, I played my turns, tried my best and i hope i didn't suck that much.
hurrying to say, yes i have survived indeed and Rome is mightier than ever

Here is the map at the end of my game:

And here is my write up

1. 2510BC Veii built archer, places another in queue. Worker goes towards woods to do some chopping. MM (micromanage) Veii, luxury down to 0%, science up to 90%. IW in 14 turns. I decided to stop scouting and Warrior heads north to protect Antium. F4 screen is clear.

2. 2470BC Worker arrives to the forest. City status: Antium granary in 24, Veii archer in 4. F4 is clear just Alex with his glum face. IW in 13

3. 2430BC Hooters alert!!!!! .
3 Greek warriors showed up. Two came from east mountain grid and one from south east. Worker starts chopping some wood. Warrior heads to Antium. City status: Antium granary in 23; Veii archer in 3. Veii reached pop 4; MM Veii – luxury slider up 10%, science down to 80% IW in 14. F4 is clear

4. 2390 BC, worker chopping, warrior is next to Antium. IW in 13 turns, Archer is in 2, Granary 22, F4 is clear. Greeks approaching.

5. 2350 BC, worker chopping, warrior arrives in Antium. Greek warriors moved to the wine hill. I decided not to attack since they have extra defense bonus on hill and I have 2 units in Veii vs. 3 Greeks. I am pretty confident we will be okay. I have fortified my units. Archer will be ready next turn, but not soon enough if Greeks decide to attack.

6. 2310BC. Greeks attack indeed. Our archer kills 2 warriors and is promoted to elite. Our warrior kills last Greek warrior. Another archer is built in Veii and since we have only one worker I decided to squeeze another worker to be built in 2 turns. Another good thing about it is that otherwise Veii will reach pop 5 in 2 turns and we would have to increase luxury slide again. At this point it is good to keep Veii pop low until we build a road to that Wine hill. IW in 11, F4 is clear. Greek hoplite shows up from eastern mountain grid.

7. 2270BC Hoplite enters our land. Granary in 12, Worker in 1, units fortified.

8. 2230BC Hoplite moves to the BG next to Veii. I decided to gamble and attacked Hoplite with elite archer (I have another archer in reserve, that was the reason I wanted to have more archers; warriors are useless against even red lined hoplite). Good, hoplite is dead, archer redlined, no leader this time though. Veii built worker, I sent him to mine BG to the south from goat. Granary in 11, Veii places another archer in queue in 4 turns. F4 is clear

9. 2190BC Elite Archer backed to Veii needs some rest and recovery. Worker started mining BG. City Status: Veii archer in 3, Antium granary in 10; IW in 8; F4 is clear.

10. 2150BC – Fortified elite archer in Veii. Do nothing else. Workers are busy.
City status: Antium granary in 9, Veii archer in 2, IW in 7, F4 is clear.

Gold 14 (+1)
Firaxis score 118


Post turn suggestions: I suggest to build another worker in Veii as soon as archer is done, then spearman and then may be another settler if no more greeks show up and sent settler with spearman to the new city location.
I am trying to avoid discussion about city placement since i mostly play Conquest where i place city according geography and not grid, so you guys do it.. Just a little tiny, itsy-bitsy suggestion not to put 3rd city to far from capital. I think we should use it to build barracks to pump legions.

That's all folks...

Saved game can be downloaded from here: >>HERE<<

 

[smackster]

Great turn dmanakho, really nicely setup there. Good RNG rolls to get those wins, it was actually 53% chance to win that elite archer against the regular hoplite, so the right choice to attack and a great result.

That should actually give us a few breathing turns from Greece. No doubt they will send some archers, but you know the AI they will send them one or two at a time. That is probably most of their spare units gone, although clearly they will keep building them. I like the thought of building a spearman in Rome. Regular archer odds against fortified spearman, is just 20%.

But after that we need to keep a happy mix between defence and settler production. So I do suggest we build a settler in Rome after that spearman. And sorry to say but we do need to settle that far west spot, to get the expansion for Veii into the second game spot.

Now one slight mistake I think I see from the picture is that we need to cut the game forest, we appear to be cutting the regular forest. No harm done, just make sure that is done next.

Even in an always war game, getting the settler factory setup ASAP is the one sure way to win.

Smackster

 

[dmanakho]

Can you explain "regular forest" thing???
so i can learn on mistakes..
Plus, I have even better idea how to get rid of Greek archers...
Instead of waiting like a chicken on the egg we should counter-attack them each time.. When archer attacks archer he almost always win.
So i suggest we keep few archers in Veii and each time Greeks approach attack first..
After we have that second worker done in Veii i suggest to use him to road wine hill, we really need that luxury to keep Veii population high with minimum spending on luxury sliding. It will help us to build our units much faster and also squeeze settlers in Rome.

 

[smackster]

To the west of the worker is a game on a forest, that is the one we want to chop.

As a game on a grassland gives us 3 fpt, add that to the 4 fpt from the irrigated game then we get +5 fpt (each city gets +2 fpt default, and any square with more than 2 fpt adds more, so you get 2 from the irrigated game, and one from the grassland game, and we get our + 5 fpt) which is what we need for two turn growth at Antium (with Granary) and that with 26 shield points (+4 for growth, as the city grows you get the bonus) is what we need for a 4 turn settler factory. Get that up and running and Greece will soon me meat, minced meat, very finely sliced minced meat.

I have not even calculated how many shields we get yet, but will do if we think there is a problem. I tend not to count if I feel we obviously have what we need.

Agreed our archers and warriors should attack their archers. Best if they are in the plains. If we fortify a vet warrior on that hill, then their regular archers have a 40% chance of winning, so we should win most of those, and maybe they will move into the plain and we should attack them their. If the AI was clever they would come with 3 archers defended by a phalanx, but luckily the AI is not clever.

I thought you had already built a second worker? I must have a look at the save. In general don't worry about the slider going high. OK, I must look at the save, and calculate the shields required. The second worker should help to get the settler factory up. If there is not second worker yet then switch that to settler.

 

[dmanakho]

so even if forest is outside city limit it still recieves bonus, i did not know that...
learn something new every day...

 

[smackster]

Yes goes to the nearest. Although I'm less worried about where those shields go as opposed to getting the extra food point, but would rather not waste them.

Always looking for the magic +5fpt.

 

[dmanakho]

So now we have to build a temple in Antium to expand its radius...

 

[smackster]

No, the next settler to the west so that it gets into culture range, too much time to build a temple.

 

[dmanakho]

Roger.... good planning
... and we are indeed biggest spammers... no teams who chat so much..
i guess i am the one most guilty here

 

[smackster]

The Roster

smackster
Tarkeel
dmanahko (just played)
Wotan (playing)
DeceasedHorse (next up)

 

[smackster]

Yes hopefully not too much spamming, don't want to scare anyone off having to read our musings. So we have four who are talking a lot, and one, DeceasedHorse, where are you? Are you here? Are you reading? We'd like to hear from you

 

[DeceasedHorse]

Wha? Huh?

Perfect timing, as I will finally have some free time over the next couple days. I just got through what was effectively the first week at my job, and I lost internet access to the internet yesterday. I've been reading up, and two of the SG's I'm in are effectively Always War variants so hopefully I will be ok. Getting Catapults should be our second priority after Iron Working; all this speculation about timing our contacts is all well and good, but useless unless we get some decent defenses on-line. This is made particularly true because of our proximity to Greece, which is about the worst neighbor we could possibly have in this variant. With their access to a what is effectively a 20-shield (well, 16 shields or so with the AI bonus on emperor) pikemen, fighting them with Legions one on one is not just a cost-effective way to conduct a war. Even starting next to Persia would have been better . Our Legion's extra defense point is very nice and will go a good way to helping us out however.

On another note, however, I am not really familiar with RCP and some of the other PTW bugs/tricks/strategies. I sort of understand the basics (how it works mechanically) but am a little unsure of how it is implemented. Probably won't be that much of a problem with all these dotmaps floating around though.

 

[smackster]

Good to see you DeceasedHorse, I thought you might be there. Its good to get all five of us up and running.

I looked at the latest save, and here are my suggestions for the next player

1) Build a spearman in Veii now, and then a settler next. Then Veii can get back to building troops.

2) After the workers complete their current moves, get them chopping the game forest and then mining that game, mine one more BG and then mine one G. That should get us a 4 turn 4/6 settler factory, hands up if you have not read the settler factory articles. That means it can start at size 4 (with half full food basket), and gets the following in shields/food. Leave the last forest unchopped as on growth we should work that and get the bonus two shields.

(5/5 means 5 this turn, 5 total, 10 food for growth, 30 shields for settler)

T1 Size 4 +5/5 food, 6/6 S
T2 Size 4 +5/10 (growth+2 S) food, 6+2/14 S
T3 Size 5 +5/5 food, 7/21 S
T4 Size 5 +5/10 food (growth +2 S), 7+2/30 S -> Settler for 30 shields

With Veii producing vet troops and Antium settlers, we are setting ourselves up for a win, if we survive that long Actually don't overestimate the power of the AI to attack, the Greeks are tough to defeat, but attacking they are useless.

3) Next research could be the Wheel. I'd like to know where the horses are. I personally don't value catapults at all.

 

[Wotan]

Got it! The roster is really geographically correct When I went to bed last night Tarkeel had just finished his turns. Now at 8am local, I start up the computer and what do you know, dmanahko have done his turns too. OK, raining today, this must be the worst summer in I do not know how long? I can't remember a single day in july when it did not rain. So, I will fire up PTW and play.

@Smackster: Spearman/Settler is a good plan.

@dmanahko: good turns, hope I can keep it up