Space-1: War While Waiting

[mad-bax]

Well we're at war.

4000BC: Pre-turn
Worker moves north to wheat. Reveals gems and goody hut. Also looks like we are only 2 tiles from the coast. Nevertheless I settle on the spot.
Found Rome - warrior.
Research set to Pottery at max.

3950BC:
Worker irrigates wheat.

3900BC:

3850BC:

3800BC:

IBT:
Rome warrior - warrior

3750BC:
Warrior NW towards hut
worker roads tile

3700BC:
Pop hut for warrior.
Warrior 2 North

3650BC:
Warrior SW
Warrior 2 N spots more gems and another hut.

3600BC:
Torn between working the BG or plains tile toward next city. Decide on BG.
Worker 2S
Warrior SW - hits coast.
Warrior W towards hut

3550BC:
Worker mine tile
warrior SW
Warrior 2 pops hut for barbs.

IBT:
Borders Expand
Rome warrior - rax

3500BC:
Warrior 3 West
Warrior 2 back to Rome
Warrior 2 heads north leaving 2 fortified barbs alone.

3450BC:
I'll stop recording specific exploration moves. 1 warrior is headed North and the other West in general.

3400BC:
Adjust science for pottery on interturn.

IBT:
Learn Pottery, research BW

3350BC:
Rome switched to granary.

3300BC:

3250BC:
Worker roads tile.

3200BC:
Pink scout appears at our borders. It's the vikings. How nice.
Can trade either BW or CB and all their 36g for alphabet. I take the BW trade.
Declare war.
Research set to IW.

3150BC:
Warrior kills barb.
Pop hut for more barbs.

3100BC:
Warrior 3 kills barb
Warrior 2 kills barb
Worker W - because the next city will be this way.

3050BC:
Worker irrigates

3000BC:
Warrior fortifies in Rome.
EOT

Our known world

Come and get some Ted

 

[TedJackson]

Got it

All alone on an island with the Vikings? There go the property prices


Ted

 

[a space oddity]

Wow, you're so quick, boys. Well done, MB

Like you said, we're at war..., a tad early perhaps, but this looks like a defendable appendix, nice and fertile too.

edit: Mad, could you edit the link so that it points to the zipped file, please?

 

[mad-bax]

Sorry Space... Fixed.

 

[handy900]

Originally posted by Greebley


I am not sure if I follow this point. The kill zone is on movement 1 terrain by your previous definition. Therefore the horse can attack for 1 move and head back for 1 move. Roads don't seem to make much difference in the point above. The only time I see it mattering is if you want to move more than 1 after attack which would only be useful if a town was within 3 of the kill zone. Then horses could make it back to a town in 1 and get healed fast.

Or is this what the statement above meant and assumed that the kill zone has a close town (which I think is very likely)?

Very good catch on a poorly worded post done while I was supposed to be working.
You are correct that roads are of no benefit on flat clear terrain. Where they are of benefit is when you are attacking into forest. If there is not road you get stuck on the forest tile, usually in a weakened state and not fortified. The road in a forest or jungle allows for retreat to the town or fortification on the tile next door.

Below is a shot of a kill zone. Note Canton 2 is undefended. The mountains & hills on the shoreline of the entire continent have a military unit to force the AI onto a flat square when they land. There are loads of cats in striking distance on mountains near New Beijing & New Nanking along with horses & spears. The AI dutifully lands where you see the purple knights. They are bombarded & killed. Same principles apply inland, force the AI to the battle ground of your choosing. We are not near yet at this point in our game, we have to survive first.

EDITSpace --- I just read the quote below at Realms Beyond

from Realms Beyond
Baiting the AI": Although the AI has been VASTLY improved since the days of the release version when it would sell out its whole strategic position to capture a worker anywhere within a billion miles of its units, there is still some exploitive factor in using workers as sacrificial lamb targets to bait the AI into exposed positions or delay or weaken an attack by diverting the enemy.

The above screen shot with an empty city is obvious bait. It uses no workers as bait, but it is bait. The workers in the screenshot are there for legitimate purposes. They are not why the AI is coming, it's the empty city that draws them. The one near the coast just arrived to build a fort. There are also cats, horses & swords on that tile. The "city bait" turns the AI's advantage of being able to "see" into a city against him. Do you consider this an exploit for purposes of this SG?

 

[a space oddity]

@Handy: empty cities as bait is acceptable for this game, such a thing would work in real life too IMO, but we should do our best to defend those cities from the 'outside' so to speak, just like in real life. And I think we will because the loss of a cities is too costly (as opposed to worker(-slaves)).

There is another rule which we should discuss: suicide galleys. The RBCiv rules disallows this, I rarely use them myself. But it may just be the game will turn out to be much too difficult under the AW restriction. Having the AI at war 'from a distance' should slow down the development on other continents. I'm willing to make this a voting issue.

So, gentlemen, what is you opninion on the use of suicide galleys in this game?

 

[mad-bax]

I have no opinion either way. Perhaps my brain isn't in gear, but I don't see what benefit contacts with the other continent(s) would be. We won't be able to trade with them, except for maybe two techs in total, we can't use the contacts in any beneficial way, so why waste the shields and effort? Also, how do we provoke wars oversees without the ability to sign MA's?

Personally I wouldn't use suicide galleys in this situation, but not because of any high moral principle, just because I don't think it's worth it.

 

[Karasu]

I haven't got a strong opinion on suicide Galleys (apart from the fact that I have had some luck with them lately... ).

It may be true that having faraway civs at war with us could slow their progress somewhat, but we won't be able to form alliances. This will probably negate most of the effects of the war declaration.

 

[TedJackson]

Here's the position at turn 9

Rome has just produced it's first Settler but we have a stack of Vikings (1 Archer, 2 Warriors) heading toward us. We've also met & declared war on the Iroquois who emerged from the FoW 2S, 1SW of Rome.

I was going to settle on the river by the Cow but that's obviously not possible now.

The question is should I:

a) Disband the Settler to hurry the Spear?
b) Send the Settler to the Coast 2E, 1SE?
c) Send the Settler to the coast 3N?
d) Something else ?

As I'm so close to the end of my turns I thought it only fair that Karasu should have some input on the choices.

I've got to go out for a few hours so I'll let you all mull things over.


Ted

 

[a space oddity]

My inclination is to vote c) because b) is a bit of a 'nothing' site but then again we'll be there quicker.

We have 3 warriors right? Tricky! Maybe we should build more warriors instead of the spear and try to rely on offensive defense. It might be an idea to put 1 warrior in the forest to prevent the stack from taking that position.

 

[Karasu]

What about the coast 1N-2E? It misses the river but gets the wheat and could stay out of trouble for a while...

I was expecting the Vikings to be able to attack somewhat later... I'd be inclined to defending on the hill, moving a couple more warriors there and hope we get some luck.

I agree with Space on building mainly warriors. If we survive the first attack, though, it may be nice to have a couple of Spears to guard our next cities.


P.S. Ted, thank you for being so fair. I know you are a gentleman.

 

[TedJackson]

I Should have said that there are 2 reg Warriors in Rome. We could use one of them to join the Warrior forted on the hill.

The Vikings will have to move across the 2 plains tiles (SW & SE of the hill) to reach Rome. We might be able to kill 1 or 2 of them there.


Ted

 

[TedJackson]

x-posted with Karasu

I opted for the Spear in Rome to maximise our survival chances if we can't kill any of the Vikings before they reach the city.

If we kill two of the VIkings in the next two turns then switching to a Warrior makes sense. If, however, we have bad luck with the RNG then we might end up with three attackers vs two defenders. In that situation I'd rather have one of the defenders be a Spear


Ted

 

[TedJackson]

Rather than mess about, I'm going to end my turns early to allow Karasu maximum opportunity to deal with the Viking threat/Settler destination issues.


Pre-flight checks... OK

Press button

1 - 2950BC
Exploring Warrior heads NE

2 - 2900BC
Exploring Warrior NE

IBT
Warrior fends off attacking barb
Rome Granary - Settler

3 - 2850BC
MM Rome for max food
Worker (Alice) irrigate - road
Warrior E

4 - 2800BC
Warrior E

5 - 2750BC
Warrior NE

6 - 2710BC
Alic road - NW
Warrior N
MM Rome for max pop (growth)

IBT
Viking stack (Archer & 2 Warriors) appears on hill 2W of Alice

7 - 2670BC
I was going to settle by the Cow (3 or 4SW from Rome) but the Viking forces have put paid to that plan
Alice E
Warrior W (to keep an eye on the Vikings)

IBT
An Iroquois scout shows up
Iroquois offer CB for 40gp - I propose a counter offer.
Iroquois have Masonry (unaffordable) and CB
Buy CB from Iroquois for 32gp
Declare war on Iroquois

8 - 2630BC
Alice NE
Warrior NE (hill)
Vikings nust have found some barbs as they moved NE instead of E

IBT
Rome Settler - Spear (all right handy, I did say there was room for Spears )

9 - 2590BC
MM Rome for max production to get Spear in 4
Alice NE (Rome)

I'm handing over to Karasu at this point rather than mindlessly taking my full 10 turns.
I think I owe Karasu a turn from MB1 or MB2 anyway. Consider this repayment in full

Notes
A lot will depend on the next move by the Viking stack but there are several options open.

The save is > here <


Ted

 

[Karasu]

Got it, but I won't be able to play until tomorrow.

We have some time to keep on discussing options, if you wish...

And, Ted, thank you so much for handing me back those turns just at the right time...

 

[a space oddity]

Soilid turns again, Ted. Too bad about the Iroq scout, but things like that happen. It is going to a the nailbiting start, just the thing to help us ignore the hubbabubba over C3C.

Good luck, Karasu. I have the feeling you'll be needing it. Fluctuat nec mergitur.

 

[TedJackson]

Originally posted by Karasu
Ted, thank you so much for handing me back those turns just at the right time...

Well, I thought it better to give you a clear field

Seriously, I can't see an obviously "right" move so I thought it better to let you have it while there was still a bit of slack.

A lot depends on what the Viking stack does at the end of this turn. I think their most likely move is East or NE which suggests that we need at least two Warriors on the hill ASAP. The question then is will they attack the Warriors on the hill or ignore them?

If they ignore them then we might get lucky and kill one or two. If they attack then we'll have a fortified vet Warrior to bear the brunt of the attack. Sirp's Combat advisor only gives the Vikings a 32% chance of taking the hill if we have a fortified vet Warrior & a reg warrior (unfortified) in place.

We could move both reg Warriors from Rome to the hill to further reduce the Vikings chances of success but that would leave Rome with any defense if we have a run of bad luck with the RNG. Although the Spear would be ready before the stack made it to Rome.

The important thing (IMHO) is to try & stop the Vikings using the hill then forest route to Rome.


Ted

 

[handy900]

Originally posted by a space oddity
@Handy: empty cities as bait is acceptable for this game, such a thing would work in real life too IMO, but we should do our best to defend those cities from the 'outside' so to speak, just like in real life. And I think we will because the loss of a cities is too costly (as opposed to worker(-slaves)).

Yes, you must ensure you can kill all units before they reach the bait city. Plan B is to move units to the bait city if you realize you are going to leave AI units on the field. 1 AI knight down to 1 hp will beeline for an empty city. The picture above of China was a great "leader factory". Unfortunatly the game wound up as an AWE loss as I did not have the GL & fell too far beind in techs.
AWE is alot harder for me than AMW, can't seem to ever manage to get the GL in AWE. I can get it in a regular E game, but not AWE.

There is another rule which we should discuss: suicide galleys. The RBCiv rules disallows this, I rarely use them myself.

I vote yes, but it's a soft yes, as we can win without them. The main usefulness is:
1. We can slow down AI production as they send units our way. The downside is the AI tends to send more units than in a regular game, so you may see (not at first, but later) double digit units show up on the same turn. That's why you need the bait as in the china kill zone picutre above to direct them all to the same location.
2. If we get the GL, we get techs from 2 civs we have contact with. The other continent will be ahead of us in techs, so contact with them may net us multiple techs including chivalry before anyone on our continent gets it. If that happens we can own our continent that much sooner.
FYI - I've won a game some games where none of my suicide galleys ever made it, so we can definitely win without it. Also, it is kind of a bummer to see those shields sink.

 

[mad-bax]

Hmmm... I hadn't thought about getting contacts to improve the yield from the GL. I think I'll change my vote.

 

[a space oddity]

I agree, so the right tactic should be:

if we manage to claim the Great Library we will try our luck with suicide galleys,
if not we will safeguard the lives of the crewmembers and save our shields in the process.

Any objections?