Single Player Multiplayer Practice: An ALC-Style Journey w/o Tech Trading

[alcaras]

Links to the various rounds of play
Round 1: Turns 1-15 (3100 BC)
Round 2: Turns 16-30 (2200 BC)
Round 3: Turns 31-45 (1300 BC)
Round 4: Turns 46-60 (600 BC)

--

Hiya!

I'm going to try to run a thread modeled after Sisiutil's excellent ALC games in terms of community advice/commentary, but with a slightly different focus. I'm primarily interested in multiplayer play, however, it's very hard to screenshot up and comment on a multiplayer game while actually playing, and as far as I know there's no way to go back later.

Credit for the idea of the ALC-style game should go to Sisiutil. I hope it's ok to emulate his format -- imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

Thus instead, I came with the idea of simulating the MP environment with these map settings:

Basically the idea is Quick, Small, Temperate, Pangaea, Medium Sea Level at Noble (my current skill level sadly) with Aggressive AI and No Tech Trading. This changes the dynamics substantially from your normal game and hopefully will prove interesting. I chose 5 other random civilizations to join me.

My general strategy is based on the guidance here, in Kiershar's guide to Multiplayer Warmongering:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=217179

My hope is that this thread will prove interesting for discussion as well as help me (and others like me) identify and correct mistakes that I make early game -- in prior games I've played, I've found myself winning an early war but then watching my troops go on strike as my economy crashes -- or, alternatively, I find myself teching happily but then getting destroyed as an aggressive Neighbor marches across the map to attack me as I end up neglecting military production. My goal here is to learn to strike the proper balance.

I'm playing this as Ragnar of the Vikings (Agg/Fin). My initial plan is to take out one neighbor quickly and then consolidate land until my economy is secure enough to take out another neighbor.

Round 1: 4000-3100 BC (Turns 1-15)

The starting position:

I founded right where my settler started, since I figured it looked like a beautiful spot, with the gems, spices, corn and river.

I started researching Mining.

My scout went north, stumbling upon the very close cultural borders of Suryavarman II of Khmer. Oh dear, that's close. Looks like we just acquired our first target!

The scout then popped a goody hut to discover Bronze Working, after having run across some gold-giving goody huts.

I switched to Slavery right away. Is that the right call? Or should I have waited until after I would have been able to actually whip something? My concern is an turn of anarchy that early may set me back, but perhaps I'm micromanaging overmuch.

I began researching Animal Husbandry.

Buddhism was founded in a distant land as well.

My scout continued its circumnavigation of Nidaros and stumbled across the scouts and exploratory warriors of Hammurabi:

As well as everyone's favorite Aztec, Montezuma. He founded Hinduism, it seems.

Perhaps Montezuma will provide a semi-realistic portrayal of the hyper-aggressive neighbor one often runs into in MP FFAs.

Here's the production queued up at Nidaros. I still haven't whipped anything, since I don't think (perhaps wrongly!) that there's much of a point of whipping that first warrior. Does this production plan look reasonable?

And finally, an overview of the world as we know it:

I've also finished Animal Husbandry and started on The Wheel, so I can build roads.

I've scribbled in Nidaros' workable tiles using the strategy layer's add line feature (is there a keyboard shortcut for that? Being able to use it from outside the strategy layer would be nice; for example, Alt-S adds a sign from outside the strategy layer).

Some questions and goals:
- Is it worth whipping that worker?
- First priority is hooking up that Bronze -- my plan is to walk the worker up there, mine it, and then build a road to the river.
- After that, I plan to research Agriculture and farm the corn
- Then I want to mine the gems
- After that -- Pottery, cottaging the river tiles (including the Spices)
- But wait -- what about chopping? Those three forest tiles due south of Nidaros are too appealing to leave as is -- an invading army could camp on them and cause no end of trouble, especially the forested hill to the SE. But when to chop them and for what?
- I think my first worker will be too busy hooking up resources to do much chopping, but would it better to instead have the worker chop out that settler?
- But where would that settler go? 1 SE of the Pigs might be a good spot, but I need to get my scout over there to make sure. My gut tells me to avoid the jungle to my west and south. Settling on the river would also have the advantage of instantly hooking up my second city to my capital.

Attached please find the save file for Turn 15.

Your comments, insights, suggestions, critiques and questions are most welcome! I'll try to play a set of turns nightly and update as regularly as I'm able to do.

 

[oyzar]

should have whipped the worker some time ago, should have teched differentlyl, should prolly have been no huts, settling in place there was pretty silly, 1 NW is sooo much better it is not funny(the scout could have easily discovered this. You need AG asap and it should have been your first tech along with worker first, corn is just that powerfull, i would proly have gone ag-> mining since gems is too good to pass up. Chop a forest and at the time your showing us now you would have a size 2 city with a settler and a worker instead of a size 3 city with no improvements and no worker or settler... You didnt explain your choices at all. Why AH?? You have tittles that needs to be improved first. You didnt explain your choices at all. It is a reason there is two pages on the start before the first city is settled in sitsuils games. That said at this point i wouldnt bother whipping the worker as so many hammers have been invested in it allready and you dont even got frigging AG the way most important tech for this start.

 

[SickCycle]

I just started playing awhile ago but..

I would of grabbed Agriculture > Mining > Wheel > Bronze > Pottery > Iron or Myst (not sure which one first) or something like that.

I would of dropped a road after working the corn and gem, it would of went from my city straight down those three resources and right into khmers territory.

My build would of been something like, Scout/Worker/Warrior/Worker/Granary/Barracks then pumped out about 6-8 axes and rushed khmer for my second city, my third would of dropped prob by that fresh water in the jungle to grab gold and spam cottages on the nice grassland, and use khmers for a production center, it kinda looks like it has a bunch of hills and forests so I can only assume it would have some food resources around being his capital.

Cant see much of the map so thats just what I would of done from what I can see

I'd prob cut one of the forests to rush a settler or maybe the second worker, whip if i needed to, I might cut them all depends on the health of the city you got five so you can cut one and still get a +2. If your thinking about MP, you might want to cut them all especially around your capital just so they couldn't be used to fortify in but I don't really play MP.

 

[ds61514]

Quick note: Wow the Math Mage is on Civ! Can't wait for the reams of algorithms that will come .

 

[alcaras]

Thank you!

I deliberately played the start I would have normally played it because I wanted to make the very mistakes I'm getting called for.

should have whipped the worker some time ago,

When abouts? When more than 0 hammers was invested in it and I had the necessary pop?

should have teched differentlyl,

Following the plan from K's post on MP warmongering, but why is that Corn so important this early? To my mind, Bronze is vital to get Axes ASAP, along with Slavery and Choppin'.

should prolly have been no huts

Agreed.

settling in place there was pretty silly, 1 NW is sooo much better it is not funny(the scout could have easily discovered this.

Mmm, I think the 'phants weren't visible at the start and the scout was east of the settler -- but I begin to see why Sisi's games go to two pages on the first few moves. Duly noted!

You need AG asap and it should have been your first tech along with worker first, corn is just that powerfull, i would proly have gone ag-> mining since gems is too good to pass up.

The rationale here is to get a great food source and then get a production/happiness source, to get city growth and production?

Chop a forest and at the time your showing us now you would have a size 2 city with a settler and a worker instead of a size 3 city with no improvements and no worker or settler...

Wow, that's a _significant_ difference. I'm glad I made the mistakes though, because I didn't realize it _mattered_ the much this early.

You didnt explain your choices at all. Why AH??

To see where Horses are; but I see your point: there's nothing in my capital's BFC that needs AH, and I already have bronze.

That said at this point i wouldnt bother whipping the worker as so many hammers have been invested in it allready and you dont even got frigging AG the way most important tech for this start.

Noted! Thanks for the advice, this is exactly the sort of scathing rebukes I need

--

I would of grabbed Agriculture > Mining > Wheel > Bronze > Pottery > Iron or Myst (not sure which one first) or something like that.

Ag b/c of the importance of that first early food source.

I would of dropped a road after working the corn and gem, it would of went from my city straight down those three resources and right into khmers territory.

My build would of been something like, Scout/Worker/Warrior/Worker/Granary/Barracks then pumped out about 6-8 axes and rushed khmer for my second city,

That's a good idea, considering that they're that close. I may switch out that settler and focus on getting a military early.

One thing in K's MP Warmongering thread is that he doesn't emphasize granaries as an important building. What I've read about the interaction between whipping and granaries seems to indicate they ought to be, since they help cities grow faster. Is a granary worth it early, or is it saner to get more units first and then squeeze in a granary?

Keep in mind I'm doing my best to simulate the MP environment, where being defenseless early means another player's exploring warrior will attack and take your defenseless city, though arguably you might able to switch in a warrior for defense and whip it out in an emergency.

I'd prob cut one of the forests to rush a settler or maybe the second worker, whip if i needed to, I might cut them all depends on the health of the city you got five so you can cut one and still get a +2. If your thinking about MP, you might want to cut them all especially around your capital just so they couldn't be used to fortify in but I don't really play MP.

Sounds good.

--

Quick note: Wow the Math Mage is on Civ! Can't wait for the reams of algorithms that will come

Hehe, not quite yet -- I'm still trying to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanics! But thanks for the words of encouragement

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

My take:

a) for the next game, you might want to reconsider those technology settings. As I recall, the pre-Better AI was crippled badly by no tech trading, and I don't know that it isn't still a handicap.

b) Without seeing the view you had prior to settling, it's hard to judge how well you chose you settlement.

c) When the Khmer show up so close, you should be thinking early rush. With the luck of early copper, you should be bending everything toward that. My response would likely have been (1) suspend research of AH, and turn immediately to wheel to get it hooked up (2) immediately suspend training of the warrior, and start training a worker (who will be ready to whip after 6 turns).

Worker improves the gems and the copper, the connects the road.

d) If you want to play in a multiplayer style (ie, immediate priority has to be finishing the warrior), you should have micromanaged your tiles better. That food in your food bin isn't doing you any good. Better to have collected exactly the amount of food you needed to grow to size two, then arranged your tiles trading your growth for hammers.

e) Switching to AH after mining was a weird choice. Already covered elsewhere.

I'm glad I made the mistakes though, because I didn't realize it _mattered_ the much this early.

Of course it does - leverage in the opening is everything. That said, I wouldn't have a settler here; clearly city #2 is going to be Khmeristan, which has already been settled.

Understanding the corn is a big deal. The corn tile gives you +1F to start with, and +2F when improved (+3 if irrigated, but that won't be for a while yet). In terms of raw production, that's already stronger than an unresourced mine, and because you are mining food it is better than that (faster growth, also whipping food to hammers is a bit more efficient than working for hammers - especially once you have a granary built).

 

[BCLG100]

I'm a bit confused, so are you just playing AI? or is this a live multiplayer game?

You can do this with a real life MP game, its quite easy to do if your playing pitboss or pbem, just create a spoiler thread for it or join in with the ISDG/MTDG's as there MP, its a whole lot different playing against AI than against humans, mainly because humans are not as stupid but then more stupid than the AI!

 

[Scaphism]

Agreed that 1NW would have made a much stronger capital.
You can still settle a city to your SW, 1N of the lake on that sugar. You get Gold and Corn in the BFC, 5 hills, fresh water/irrigible jungle, and only 1 tile overlap with the capital. It can be a stellar, stellar city itself. I think that might be the stronger option - the if the capital were 1NW it simply couldn't work all the awesome tiles it would have available. 2 super cities can though.

AH was clearly unnecessary since you have bronze in your BFC. That's really an amazing start - you have grassland bronze (provides enough food to work itself with no deficit) and grassland gems (also enough food to work itself, great commerce, and it's uncommon AFAIK to find gems not covered in jungle - i.e. you need iron working to clear the jungle and work them). That means you can work 2 mines for solid production and still continue to grow, meanwhile getting excellent commerce.

Roads: Once you hook up the bronze, don't road to the rivier. Sometimes it make sense, but not here. You have 3 options for how you want to connect the bronze to your capital: 1W (to the river), 1SW (over the hill), 1S (through the corn).

Your best option by far is through the corn. It's the fastest path (sending your worker onto the hill loses a turn, and troops move more slowly as well), and it hooks up both your copper and your corn, which you will want a road on anyways. It also paves the way towards Khmer, as you said.

Between roading to the river vs over the hill - I have no idea which would be better to be honest. Probably over the hill, but over the corn is such a clearly superior choice that I didn't even have that debate myself.

 

[SickCycle]

I always build roads to my enemies if it's possible or necessary, it means your units and reinforcements get there quicker and once the cities are captured they are already hooked up for the resources.

I just glanced at the SS but it really isn't necessary to hook up that dye right now.

If you just want to get better at MP, just play higher difficulties with Aggressive AI or (Better AI), put a bunch of Aggressive civs in the game with you like monty, ragnar, alex, catherine.

You'll either adjust or die as far as the Quick/Blazing settings you'll adjust to it after awhile, you can just change your offline games to quick but it's not really necessary.. I also hear the Fast Worker is more powerful the quicker the game speed so you might want to try using Asoka in your MP games. I never played Asoka just something I read, might be worth looking into.

I'm still getting the hang of city placement but I might of actually put mine 1N onto that plains hill just because I like to rush and with khmer so close it would of bumped my reaction time a bit plus it frees up the grassland still to be worked by the city by the gold so it wouldn't overlap and grabs the Ivory too but all these people say 1NW prob got there calculators out doing the math sooo..... and then prob moved my capital to the gold/grassland area for when I get civil services to really bring in the l00t.

Also, he grabbed AH cause he was thinking of founding his second city around that piggie in the NE I believe but without seeing the rest of the land it's not really worth the detour to a tech you otherwise may not need right now, especially when your that close to a neighbor it screams rush me and the gold trumps any piggie as far as I'm concerned the grassland is yummie once you clear the jungle that gold is just a incentive to detour towards IW.

 

[alcaras]

Nah, I grabbed AH out of habit -- BW, AH, IW -- the three ancient 'reveal resource' techs. But I shouldn't have, since I had Bronze.

I'll play 15 more turns tonight and get a post up -- thanks for all the advice!

SickCycle: How hard an AI for offline? Noble is currently my point, though I play with Aggressive AI (though stacking aggressive civs sounds like it might be fun). I'd rather not have to turn on tech trading to compete, and I hear that's necessary at the highest difficulty levels. I think Noble is that last level the AI doesn't cheat?

 

[alcaras]

Round 2: 2200 BC/Turn 30

Turn 16

Taking everyone's advice to heart, my revised plan is to forgo building a settler and instead settle duces tecum (under pain of punishment).

I changed the production to two Workers (removing the settler) -- I will chop the second worker with the first.

Turn 17

I discovered Agriculture and started The Wheel, so that I could hook up that bronze. My scout continued scouting, revealing a rice field and river delta to the south.

Turn 18

My first worker popped and I moved him to the forest due south of my capital. I thought about the forested hill, since it's generally more important to chop those, but I figure my goal here is to get my second worker out ASAP, so I need to move onto the grassland forest, since that takes fewer moves.

Turn 19

The scout continued its southern explorations, revealing the river delta leads to Hammurabi's lands.

Turn 20

My scout moved a hill NE of Hammurabi's lands, near some stone ... and I found my fourth neighbor.

Oh dear. Monty and his evil twin sister in one game...

Turn 21

Another choice hill move revealed just how close Boudica was...

I may just redirect my troops at her instead of Surya, since she's quite the unit stacker and warmonger, and because she's so close...

Turn 22

I discovered Agriculture, began researching Potttery.

My worker finished its chop and moved to hook up the Bronze (and later Corn).

Turn 23

Second worker came out and went to mine the copper while the first worker built a road on the corn. Production switched to a rax while my scout continued its easterly explorations:

Turn 24

Workers worked, scout scouted.

Turn 25

Discovered Pottery, queued up Writing and Mathematics. The plan after those two is to go back and get Masonry and then Construction for catapults.

Workers are building a mine and farm.

Turn 26

My scout has revealed the eastern shoreline, north of Bibracte -- some copper is there, which it would be good to keep an eye on.

The mine finishes, worker starts a road to it.

Turn 27

Scout discovers marble up by Khmer's lands.

Turn 28

Road finishes, copper is hooked up! I alt-click (something I only learned about recently, very handy!) to continuously queue Axemen.

Looks like we could have quite the fishing village up in the NE one day...

Turn 29

Turns out there's also silver in cold windswept tundra hills NE of Khmer.

Worker started mining the gems and mining the hill N of our capital.

Turn 30

Got Writing, now onto Mathematics.

Here's the North:

And the South:

And our capital:

Next up for the worker is cottaging the spice, since I don't see Calendar for a while -- or should I hold off and improve something else?

--

Some questions for consideration:
- Should we attack Khmer or Celtia? Khmer's capital is, judging by the shape of their cultural borders, 2 north of the left wine in the pair of wines. That makes it 6 tiles away, ending on a nice forested hill which should be just south of their capital. Bibracte is also 6 tiles away, ending on a normal hill. Travel time should be the same 'cept for the last move, since I can use plains/grassland to get around (is there a river crossing move penalty? I don't remember, but I think there is, which means the forested hill penalty will be evened out by the river crossing penalty -- so they're exactly the same time away).
- Should we 'trickle over' axes one by one, or should we wait to amass n and then send them all over at once? How large should n be? (I'm thinking four? six? eight?)
- Whipping and chopping -- worth doing for axes? Good tiles are being worked, but getting the axes there earlier can't hurt. I've read the Strategy Articles on whipping but must admit I'm still a bit shy as to when to whip, after having been overenthusiastic with it a while ago and had far too many people unable to forget my cruel oppression. My concern here is we only have +5 happiness in the capital, which will be +6 with gems -- that means only a few whips and we're at the cap.

Your thoughts, comments and suggestions are most welcome -- the save is attached

 

[Hackapell]

Some questions for consideration:
- Should we attack Khmer or Celtia? Khmer's capital is, judging by the shape of their cultural borders, 2 north of the left wine in the pair of wines. That makes it 6 tiles away, ending on a nice forested hill which should be just south of their capital. Bibracte is also 6 tiles away, ending on a normal hill. Travel time should be the same 'cept for the last move, since I can use plains/grassland to get around (is there a river crossing move penalty? I don't remember, but I think there is, which means the forested hill penalty will be evened out by the river crossing penalty -- so they're exactly the same time away).

Why not both? They created your second and third cities. IF you had to pick, pick the one with copper , and destroy that nation. If both have copper, kill Boudi. one psycho per island please

- Should we 'trickle over' axes one by one, or should we wait to amass n and then send them all over at once? How large should n be? (I'm thinking four? six? eight?)

all at once. the most resistance you'll face is an archer and a warrior, and neither of them are protective. Aim for about five.

- Whipping and chopping -- worth doing for axes? Good tiles are being worked, but getting the axes there earlier can't hurt. I've read the Strategy Articles on whipping but must admit I'm still a bit shy as to when to whip, after having been overenthusiastic with it a while ago and had far too many people unable to forget my cruel oppression. My concern here is we only have +5 happiness in the capital, which will be +6 with gems -- that means only a few whips and we're at the cap.

Hook up the Ivory for 7 . That should help.
I think whipping is the way to go. you don't have that many trees, and you may want them for something else. there is a very good guide to whipping in the strategy articles forum:Vocum Sinerato-The Whip. Definently look at that. Also, a good idea is to whip just as you gain a pop, so you don't waste all the food you've been storing. Don't forget to put the overflow into another axe, that's what does all the heavy lifting.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

- Should we attack Khmer or Celtia? Khmer's capital is, judging by the shape of their cultural borders, 2 north of the left wine in the pair of wines. That makes it 6 tiles away, ending on a nice forested hill which should be just south of their capital. Bibracte is also 6 tiles away, ending on a normal hill. Travel time should be the same 'cept for the last move, since I can use plains/grassland to get around (is there a river crossing move penalty? I don't remember, but I think there is, which means the forested hill penalty will be evened out by the river crossing penalty -- so they're exactly the same time away).
- Should we 'trickle over' axes one by one, or should we wait to amass n and then send them all over at once? How large should n be? (I'm thinking four? six? eight?)
- Whipping and chopping -- worth doing for axes? Good tiles are being worked, but getting the axes there earlier can't hurt. I've read the Strategy Articles on whipping but must admit I'm still a bit shy as to when to whip, after having been overenthusiastic with it a while ago and had far too many people unable to forget my cruel oppression. My concern here is we only have +5 happiness in the capital, which will be +6 with gems -- that means only a few whips and we're at the cap.

This all feels very slow to me. It looks to me as though you went back onto autopilot after agriculture finished. Of course, some of the slowness is carried over from the start, it may be that.

Now that you have pottery, what are you going to do with it? The first five tiles to work are the corn, the copper, the gems, and mines on the two hills, or farms if you decide to abuse the whip instead. You don't need to cottage anything until you are sustaining 6 working population.

Granary? Perhaps - are you going to build one more granary or two more axes? You've also got a barracks to get done. The pre-req for Writing? are you really expecting to kick out a library before you conquer your first city?


Also, you should have your workers coordinated. A mine on turn 3 and another on turn 6 is stronger than two mines on turn 5. Exceptions are cases where you lose movement (chop forests in parallel).

The Khmer have trees, and the red wench doesn't. I'd be inclined to use an axeman under the cover of the trees to stifle development of the Khmer (a human might respond better than the AI though, so maybe that's outside of the game's objective), and then push the rest of your army east.

 

[Scaphism]

Also note that moving into a forest grassland and moving onto a forested hill makes no difference (unless it's a fast worker).

Since you're getting writing, get open borders with both Khmer and Celtia. Check what they both have if you can't see all the tiles. See if either is built on a hill. Then decide whom to attack.

Definitely target the capital first (they will probably get a second city out). The capital will have the production and population to build/whip extra defenders - any second cities will be lucky to get out 1 extra defender, and may may only be an archer if the second city doesn't have a military resource hooked up (or you pillage it).

I agree that pottery is unnecessary. You have excellent tiles to work right now without building cottages. And don't cottage the dye, you will eventually tear it down. If you build a cottage on a grassland river it immediately goes from 2F1C to 2F3C and will start growing. The dye will be 2F4C, but it will be more painful/turns wasted when you tear it down after calendar.

Last but not least: here's a change I didn't realize in BtS: Elephants require horseback riding. Construction alone isn't enough anymore. That makes sense to me, particularly since elephants are such an amazing counter to horse archers. Being able to completely dominate a military unit without ever knowing the tech seemed off somehow, and construction is such a crucial military tech anyway. It's still good, but not amazing.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

And a presentation comment: that's probably not the kind of link you want to use for your table of contents. Your choice, of course, but a link that drops the reader into the thread flows better.

Compare, for instance, with the ToC in ALC-17.2

 

[alcaras]

And a presentation comment: that's probably not the kind of link you want to use for your table of contents. Your choice, of course, but a link that drops the reader into the thread flows better.

Compare, for instance, with the ToC in ALC-17.2

Thank you -- I'll change that -- Is there any easy way to generate those links? To make the old style link, I just right-clicked the post number and chose Copy Link Location.

 

[alcaras]

Why not both?

I agree that we should take out both, but one at a time, I presume

all at once. the most resistance you'll face is an archer and a warrior, and neither of them are protective.

Aggressive AI will slave rush extra units -- I'll need to cut off copper supply (if any) to prevent them from having anything besides archers.

I think whipping is the way to go. you don't have that many trees, and you may want them for something else. there is a very good guide to whipping in the strategy articles forum:Vocum Sinerato-The Whip. Definently look at that. Also, a good idea is to whip just as you gain a pop, so you don't waste all the food you've been storing. Don't forget to put the overflow into another axe, that's what does all the heavy lifting.

I've read Vocum Sineratio (Thanks to VoiceOfUnreason for writing it!), I should probably read it again -- I was under the impression that one should whip right before gaining a pop, so next turn you gain back that pop instantly...

This all feels very slow to me. It looks to me as though you went back onto autopilot after agriculture finished. Of course, some of the slowness is carried over from the start, it may be that.

That may be!

Now that you have pottery, what are you going to do with it? The first five tiles to work are the corn, the copper, the gems, and mines on the two hills, or farms if you decide to abuse the whip instead. You don't need to cottage anything until you are sustaining 6 working population.

True, but when would I have gotten pottery? I don't think I could have gotten all the way through Construction -- I would have had to detour along the way -- would that be preferable though? I tend to like to get my city improvement techs out of the way so my workers are never waiting for a tech, but I can see your point how it wasn't immediately necessary to anything.

Also, you should have your workers coordinated. A mine on turn 3 and another on turn 6 is stronger than two mines on turn 5. Exceptions are cases where you lose movement (chop forests in parallel).

Makes sense -- I interpret this to mean that workers should finish improvements in any alternating fashion, is that a proper parse of your point?

The Khmer have trees, and the red wench doesn't. I'd be inclined to use an axeman under the cover of the trees to stifle development of the Khmer (a human might respond better than the AI though, so maybe that's outside of the game's objective), and then push the rest of your army east.

I'm worried that if I send an axe into Khmer while declaring war on Boudi as well, Khmer will slave rush units and swarm down my axe, as well as getting antagonized and preparing to counter attack. Perhaps I'm being overly cautious, though.

Also note that moving into a forest grassland and moving onto a forested hill makes no difference (unless it's a fast worker).

Good to know, thank you.

Since you're getting writing, get open borders with both Khmer and Celtia. Check what they both have if you can't see all the tiles. See if either is built on a hill. Then decide whom to attack.

What should I scout with? An axe? (I presume I shouldn't make an extra scout -- maybe just use my existing scout and then send an axe to Celtia).

Thank you all for the great advice thus far -- I am looking forward to seeing the next 15 turns and the beginning of military conflict, as I think I have a lot to learn there as well (from what I've been experimenting in offline games, I have trouble taking a city early -- the (aggressive) AI starts slave-whipping units. I am still not that good of a judge of when I have the military power to take a city, and 'near-misses' where my entire stack dies and they have 1 or 2 injured units left are very bad, because those units get promoted very quickly, they get GG points, etc.) I suppose judicious pillaging would shut down the enemy city's production enough to give myself a better chance to beat them at slave-rush game. And from what I've read in the Combat Explained post, I can estimate my chances by doing some quick math -- is there any easier way to get a stack v. stack chance, or is that something one must just do in one's head?

 

[Killroyan]

What????? The gems still aren't mined and you are talking about cottaging the spices???? GEMS have priority number 1. Riverside gems are the best resources you can get. You have food, hammer and 7 commerce or something which will boost your research like mad. If you want to do something then farm over the spices so you can work another hill for the production.

Two choices for your cities. Either 1 NE of the pigs to deny the others the ivory and you can use that city as a jumpboard for the other two capitals. Otherwise go to the forested plains hill to the west (1 NW of the corn) so you get corn, ivory and sugar and enough production.

 

[alcaras]

What????? The gems still aren't mined and you are talking about cottaging the spices???? GEMS have priority number 1. Riverside gems are the best resources you can get. You have food, hammer and 7 commerce or something which will boost your research like mad. If you want to do something then farm over the spices so you can work another hill for the production.

Gems are being mined as we speak Started a few turns ago -- my priority was 1. Corn, 2. Bronze and 3. Gems.

Two choices for your cities. Either 1 NE of the pigs to deny the others the ivory and you can use that city as a jumpboard for the other two capitals. Otherwise go to the forested plains hill to the west (1 NW of the corn) so you get corn, ivory and sugar and enough production.

Worth settling before attacking? My current plan is to stack axes and pay Boudi a visit and just take her city as my second city, with Khmer's as my third, thus forgoing building a settler.

 

[slobberinbear]

Some initial comments.

Since you are trying to simulate a MP game, You need to play like your pants are on fire. Assume that Boudica beelined Iron Working and has 6 Gallic Warriors coming right freaking now.

Scouts are great for MP because you need to know exactly where the strategic resources are, for your sake and your neighbors. They are also very irritating for your neighbors and can be a fun distraction to send their way.

Picket units are also handy if you can spare a warrior or archer here or there. It's better to have an early warning on an oncoming stack; time gives you the means to deal with it.

I would eliminate Boudica ASAP. Hammy needs to go too but his UU is pretty tough defending cities -- i'd wait until I had a stronger unit than axes to take him on.

I don't blame you for settling in place ... that's pretty common practice in MP. The problem is that in BtS, the starting locations are sometimes "off" by a square or two, and since you have no point of reference you can spend a few turns finding the right spot, which is an absolute killer in MP. I usually settle in place for that reason, or at the most settle on turn 2.