Space-1: War While Waiting

"Something hidden - go and find it!"
Rudyard Kipling

:D


Ted
 
Our best hope for learning where the iron is located is still to get someone's map in one of the three pre-war trading sessions which remain to us. This is why Map Making should be our next tech choice, I think.
 
One interesting thing about maps though is that a suicide galley could hurt more than help. If we are the first to find the new civ, then when we trade they won't have maps of our land and we will know the far continent, but not our own that we need. If we do find them first, then I think we want to trade communications to them, but not to get new ones from them That way when the new ones meet us they have improved chance of having our continental map.

Given the amount of trouble I have gone through to hoard communications [Edit: in other games,] it seems an ironic twist of this varient.


Good catch, Northern Pike. Point 1 is something I need to keep my eyes open for. As for Point 2, I think it started a spear when we needed them badly, but then I never adjusted it when we got some. Would a catapult make sense? We can always use another, it doesn't require barracks, and it would use all the shields.
 
Pre turn still 350 BC
Move spear from Neapolis towards Hispalis. Nice catch NPike.
Switch Pisae to cat instead of worker. We need more of both.
Set slider to 80/10 for Poly in 3 turns, we are losing 1 GPT.
Antium warrior will move to Veii for police duty.
Archer in Veii moves to Rome, and archer in Rome moves toward Neapolis.
Make a not about NPike & Greebley comments about researching Map making next and strategy if we happen to meet a new civ.
Switch Pompeii to Library. I agree with Ted we need one city building improvements at all times. Flo & Hilda will soon have Pompeii’s lands irrigated. Flo is going to have to move after irrigating as the Ai swords keep staring at her. Must be lonely so far from home.
Switch Rome to settler since it will grow to 7 in 2 turns. May as well build a settler, we need more towns.
No towns will revolt next turn.
Diplo
Spain up Phi & Maps, down Lit
Iroquois up Phil, Map, Poly, Construction
Vikes up Phil, Maps, Poly
Babs up Phil, Map, Poly, Construction
Military – Spain / Average; Vikes / Average; Babs / Strong; Iroquois / Strong
There are barbs near Ravenna. Hope they get lucky & kill AI unit for us.
Hit enter

Turn 1 330 BC
Spear beats warrior at Ravenna
AI sword & archer head to Hispalis as predicted by NPike. The citizens of Hispalis send their personal thanks to thanks NPike! ;)
Neapolis cat shot takes 1 hp from sword. Roman vet horse is 55/45 favorite, I attack and do no damage, but the horse retreats. Our walls will not be done in Hispalis before the AI gets there. I hope the arrival of the spear turns them away.
Bathsheba mining.
Archer arrives in Neapolis.
Archer arriving in Rome fortifies so people do not revolt.
Flo & Hilda will finish irrigating in 1 turn; the near Babylon spear will take 2 to get there so they can escape to safety. Alice moved to chop Pompeii forest for the Library.
Spear explores. I’ll report if he spots anything interesting. Chap building road to new city site on the river.
Pompeii attacks unfortified spear moving towards Rome & loses. :( Send Archer from Ravenna to Pompeii.
Rush barracks in Ravenna.
Spear in Ravenna wins.

Turn 2 310 BC
Cumae builds Horse, set to Horse.
Neapolis builds Spear, set to horse.
Ravenna builds Barracks, set to spear.
Sword near Hispalis turns back, archer will attack next turn versus 2 spears.
Ravenna is against 3 Iroquois archers, 1 Babylonian Bowman with another archer & spear nearby.
Workers moved to irrigate river tiles.
Ravenna elite Archer attacks & beats unfortified vet archer. Elite warrior attacks unfortified archer and wins. No more attacks can be made, as it would leave our attacker exposed to AI reprisals. Ravenna will receive a horse from Cumae next turn.
I leave the room for a Diet Coke and daughter asks when I return why Rome is burning. I race to the PC & see she is joking. I’d told her earlier Rome would burn if I forgot to hire a clown. She got me good with that one. :lol:
MM Rome (now size 7) to hire a clown so it will not revolt. The Settler from Rome is due in 2 turns. I’m sending him to a place on the river with overlap near Veii. I hope this far away from the front we can build walls before anyone shows up.
Slider 80/10 poly due in 1 losing 3GPT.

Turn 3 290 BC
Slider now 80/10 and I set research to Maps due in 6 turns losing 3 GPT.
Ai has taken all hills from Ravenna towards Hispalis.
No attacks from either side.

Turn 4 270 BC
Babylonian bow attacks & loses.
Three Viking archers retreat from Ravenna. Perhaps they are following our exploring sword as he approaches their lands.
Rome builds settler, set to spear due in 3 who will replace the spear going to the new city.
Hispalis builds walls, set to barracks due in 10.
Cat hits sword on the way to Hispalis as he passes Neapolis. 55/45 horse favorite attacks, gets 1 hp and retreats. At least he bought us some time because the sword will retreat now. The unfortified sword is down to 2 points in the forest, so our vet archer is a 70/30 favorite and he attacks and loses. The AI sword promotes to elite.
Hire clown in Neapolis as it is now size 6 shows 1 happy 3 content and 2 sad faces. It will not grow now. Veii also has 6 faces but shows 2 each happy, content & sad. Can someone explain this to me? Are the military loses related to this?
AI is moving towards Pompeii & Rome and ignoring Ravenna.

Turn 5 250 BC
Horse back to Pompeii
AI is gathering on the hill next to Ravenna now where they get a defensive bonus.
Iroquois archers are back.
Decide against attack on a spear on a hill near Ravenna as a 6 to 4 favorite. We are running out of units and will soon have cats.

Turn 6 230 BC
Spear defends Hispalis against archer.
Viroconium founded.
Spear from Neapolis head to Rome. Another spear is due in Rome in 1 turn.
Horse as 6 to 4 favorite kills regular spear on cow near Pompeii promotes to elite.
Our elite warrior & archer attack a stack of 3 archers near Ravenna. Both our units win, but no leaders created.
The Iroquois are in the jungle down south. If the AI sword moves next turn our exploring spear can hop on a mountain for a good look around.
Neapolis still needs a clown and Veii still does not. Both are size 6.
We are now weak to Spain & Vikes and average to Babylon & Iroquois. Spain must be way down south.
Babylon has swords coming our way, so both Vikes & Babylon have Iron.

Turn 7 210 BC
AI Sword attacks our exploring spear in the jungle and loses.
Rome builds spear, I set to spear & think we need to keep building settler /spear / spear /settler to take advantage of the land we have.
Antium builds cat, set to cat. There is no barracks here, so just build cats.
Pisae has a cat due in 1; let’s build workers only from there after the cat.
Elite warrior at Ravenna wins (the archer was still healing).
Diplo screen shows no Iron for Iroquois & Spain, there is Iron (0 extra) in both Babylon and Scandinavia.

IBT
Vikes request audience.

Turn 8 190 BC
Neapolis builds horse, set to cat. We need more cats to hit the swords as they pass by. If we can get enough to get them down to 1 hp our horses will have a chance to kill them in the forest.
Several new AI’s show up. There are now 3 Viking swords that appear to be going to Hispalis. I hit one with the cat, but if our horse attacks the forest & wins he will be stuck there in a weakened state to be picked off by an AI sword. Hispalis looks to be in trouble and will come under attack soon. There is no way to reinforce. If we can hit swords as they pass Neapolis perhaps we can buy enough time to finish the barracks & then rush another sword.
Pisae builds cat, set to worker.
Archer from Rome attacks & kills spear that had moved onto a flat tile not yet fortified.
Our explorer is going to be attacked each turn from now on I think. I moved him off the mountain into Jungle, may as well see how far he can go. He has attracted the attention of Spain, Scandinavia and Babylon who are tracking him.

Turn 9 170 BC
Explorer spear now named Lewis & Clark defends against 2 archers that attack him in the Jungle, and promotes to elite. I’m sending him south towards Babylon and Scandinavia.
We get maps, set to Monarchy in 15 turns. The slider is 80/10 Losing 2 GPT with 41 gold in the bank.
There are now Five Viking Swords 3 of which are veterans heading north to Hispalis along the hills. I can bombard 1 per turn we miss on this turn. The cat built in Antium a few turns ago will be in Neapolis next turn, and another will be built in 3 turns.
Elite horse from Pompeii beats an unfortified spear on the cow tile, and then retreats back into Pompeii.

IBT
The sword turned right and impaled himself on the spears of Neapolis. Perhaps they like attacking from the forest tile into Neapolis since it is larger than Hispalis and Neapolis has a bonus wheat tile. This is good news! We have a barracks and walls in Neapolis already, 2 spears, a horse & an archer along with 2 cats. I’d build nothing but cats as long as they keep coming to better the odds for the Romans.

Turn 10 150 BC
Rome builds spear, I set to Rome to build another settler since Rome is now size 6 again and will grow in 2. I’d suggest we put the city either on the river between Ravenna 7 Pompeii, or the tile where the blue Spanish warrior stands on the coast. Either location allows cats to move & fire from 1 city to the next.
Ravenna has a chance to get 2 kills. Attack bowman and archer with the elite warrior & archer. Both win. They can retreat next turn since no AI’s can counter attack them.
Archer in Pompeii kills another spear on the cow.
2 cat hits on a sword near Neapolis, so he will retreat next turn.
Alice will be done with the chop near Pompeii in 2 turns, there is a Spanish warrior nearby. I moved the only spear in Pompeii to cover Alice so she can finish the chop. I sent a replacement spear from Rome which had 3 + an archer.
AI has Lewis & Clark boxed in so I fortified him. Don’t forget to un-fortify & explore next turn.

I feel a lot better after turn 10 than earlier when I lost my second battle. The RNG finally started following the odds. Unless I missed one, we lost 2 units and killed 16. :)

For the next player
1. Un-fortify Lewis & Clark to continue exploration
2. Kill the spear next to Rome with an archer when he leaves the forest next turn.
3. Continue river tile improvements.
4. Rome will grow in 2, it will require a clown.
5. Fortify the spear over Alice near Pompeii so she can chop.
6. Move archer & warrior back into Ravenna. If you are patient you will get a chance to pick off archers and warriors here.

Please comment on any questionable plays. I want to get better, so please make me explain my actions if they look questionable. Thanks for all the pre turn tips!

Here is the save at 150 BC
Rome 150 BC Save
 
Rome at 150 BC. I posted the pic separate so you would not have to scroll to read the turn post.

Space01_150BC.JPG
 
Two comments on our search for Iron.

1) I think we should build a boat. Coastal iron has the additional advantage that we could mount an expedition. Land next to it build a city while rushing a harbor. If we survive even to the third turn and the iron is already roaded or under us (and we have money - so this is after monarchy), we get a single turn of iron which is enough to upgrade all the troops we can afford. Locating it now could be useful (if it exists). Maybe Cumae can switch briefly to a galley? Hopefully the AI does not have boats yet.

[Edit:One problem. Any enemy city that covers/blocks the coastal squares is likely to cut our supply line. Maybe this wouldn't work - we would have to send the units to the city; upgrade and return in that case].

2) Send the spearman straight west if we can. We seem to be in iroquois country, and the iroquois don't have any resources (at least none hooked up). I suspect the Vikings will be to the west.
 
Originally posted by Greebley
...Send the spearman straight west if we can. We seem to be in iroquois country, and the iroquois don't have any resources (at least none hooked up). I suspect the Vikings will be to the west.
Click to expand...

I totally agree. I was just looking at the map and came to the same conclusion. I came back to post and you had seen the same thing. The vikes are likely northwest of us. That is a viking city with the purple outline on our north western border, and they seem to come from the west to attack.

If we find coastal Iron, we can then try to build a city with a harbor on or next to the iron. If we get a harbor back in our core that can "see" the other harbor across squares that can be safely traversed, we are hooked up. If there is sea between the two harbors we need astronomy to hook the iron up.

We should ASAP switch Cumae to a galley and explore W and N with it. We should also send a galley to the south if we can spare the shields and outline our continent.
 
Great kill ratio, handy. That's what we need. :goodjob:

When two seemingly identical cities are in different happiness states, the explanation is often that one of them is pulling in more gold, and so getting more benefit from whatever luxury rate has been set. You can see this in Neapolis in the saved position: it can't work a forest tile (no gold) with its sixth citizen without becoming unhappy, but it can work the sea tile (two gold).
 
Nice work Handy. :goodjob:
NP: you're UP.

edit: I looked at the save an found everything in order. But since you asked I have a small nitpick: when you have to hire an entertainer, always try if you could also use a specialist. The clown in Neapolis could be made a taxman, to reduce the deficit by half. (from -2 to -1gpt... :p )
 
150 (0): Our defensive position looks basically sound, but a little delicate for want of garrison units. I switch Rome and Neapolis to spearman builds.

The Egyptians complete the Pyramids. That took a long time.


130 (1): We destroy a Spanish archer outside Pompeii with an elite archer.

The Vikings shuffle their swordsmen around in an inefficient manner--but they have seven of them on the the Hispalis-Ravenna line, along with two archers and a spearman.


110 (2): We destroy a Spanish warrior outside Pompeii with an elite archer.

We get a catapult hit on the Viking spearman around Rome, then ride it down with an elite horseman.

Two Viking units, a swordsman and an archer, die attacking Hispalis. A second swordsman in the stack doesn't attack. If these three units had been veterans rather than regulars, we would probably have lost the city.


90 (3): A Viking swordsman dies attacking Hispalis.

Hispalis barracks --> spearman.


70 (4): I'm able to sneak a reinforcement of two spearmen and a catapult into Hispalis, and after this the city is never in any danger during this round.

The Iroquois, the Babylonians, and the Goths all have galleys sailing off our coasts. We may have trouble keeping our galleys afloat once we've built them.

Three Viking swordsmen die attacking Neapolis, all defeated by Dances-with-Stacks.

A Viking swordsman and a Viking archer die attacking Hispalis.

A Spanish warrior dies in a quixotic attack on Pompeii.

A Babylonian Bowman lands next to Veii from a galley.

Veii completes the Great Library, and begins walls.

Rome horseman --> spearman, Ravenna spearman --> spearman.

The Ottomans complete the Great Wall, implying we didn't get the Great Library with too much to spare.


50 (5): Lewis and Clark (who haven't been attacked this round, BTW) reach the western coast of our continent and turn north.

The Babylonian Bowman dies attacking Veii.

We get Philosophy, Code of Laws, and Construction from the Great Library.

Pompeii library --> archer, Viroconium walls --> barracks.


30 (6): Lewis and Clark discover iron, thirteen tiles from Ravenna in the Iroquois lands, and not hooked up:
 
We ride down a Spanish warrior outside Pompeii with an elite horseman.

We destroy a Spanish archer outside Pompeii with an elite archer.

A Viking archer dies attacking Neapolis.

Veii walls --> library, Neapolis spearman --> spearman.


10 (7): All quiet on the eastern front.

Cumae galley --> galley, Pisae worker --> worker, Rome catapult --> spearman.


10 (8): We destroy a wandering Viking spearman around Rome with an elite horseman.

We destroy an Iroquois archer with an elite archer outside Ravenna.

We get Monarchy from the Great Library, three turns before we would have discovered it by ourselves, and switch to single-scientist research on Currency.


30 (9): Two Iroquois archers die attacking Ravenna.

One Viking archer dies attacking Neapolis.

An Iroquois galley drops off an archer next to Veii.

Rome spearman --> catapult, Pompeii archer --> archer.


50 (10): We defeat the Iroquois archer outside Veii with an elite horseman.

Twelve elite victories this round, four of them defensive, failed to produce a Great Leader.

We destroyed twenty-two enemy units this round, twelve of them Viking, and lost none.
 
THE FUTURE:


Of course we want to revolt to monarchy soon, but given that we're being attacked with some vigour, the timing is tricky. Perhaps we should wait four turns, which would give us time to build another five ground units (assuming two from Rome) and a galley, and then go into anarchy.

Right now Lewis and Clark are fortified on the Iroquois iron to keep it from being hooked up.

Cumae is building a galley, which would be our third. If this seems to be more of a navy than we need the build can certainly be changed.

There's shallow water three tiles from Hispalis, which our northern galley will soon be in position to investigate.
 
Originally posted by Northern Pike
...When two seemingly identical cities are in different happiness states, the explanation is often that one of them is pulling in more gold, and so getting more benefit from whatever luxury rate has been set. You can see this in Neapolis in the saved position: it can't work a forest tile (no gold) with its sixth citizen without becoming unhappy, but it can work the sea tile (two gold).
Click to expand...

Thanks very much Northern Pike, I've always wondered about that and could never figure it out.

Originally posted by Space
I looked at the save an found everything in order. But since you asked I have a small nitpick: when you have to hire an entertainer, always try if you could also use a specialist. The clown in Neapolis could be made a taxman, to reduce the deficit by half. (from -2 to -1gpt... )
Click to expand...

Thanks Space, I thought I tried that (at least I meant to) but apparently did not. I want you to nitpick, I'm to the point I can beat an emporer game but not Diety, so I'm a few nitpicks away. Keep them coming.

Originally posted by Northern Pike
...We destroyed twenty-two enemy units this round, twelve of them Viking, and lost none.
Click to expand...


That's how we can win this game! Think of all the AI shields you just flushed!
Outstanding play, N Pike, really outstanding. :)
 
That Iron is a long way off and would be hard to hold. The AI would pillage our long exposed road over & over I think.'

Maybe we'll get lucky and a galley will find Iron on the coast NW of us. I hope.

Adding the Handy & Pike kills together we are 2 to 38 over the last 2 turns. Let's continue to expand and improve tiles.

Space, Watch the galleys starting to arrive. They will unload a unit in our rear cities. We need to keep a couple of horses available to run them down back there. Galleys will hold 1 unit at first, then 2 later on. AI will keep trying the beach landing in our rear cities all game long.
 
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