TGOM03 - Celts in Space (C3C Demi-god)

[scoutsout]

Is the idea with the skirmish line to shuffle back and forth to block the settler pair?

Exactly.

And would it make sense to block water access to our coast with a couple of curraghs until we can get the coast settled or would that be a waste of shields?

Well... since I got us Map Making, we can't build Curraughs any more... I think it might be more effective to build a Galley in the town where I've got a 10-shield forest chop into a barracks build. And yes, I mean swap the build order... we didn't have MM when I started that build...

My current thinking: We might be able to settle the coast more quickly using the galley to shuttle the settlers along the coast...beyond the point where our roads end.

You might be able to move them along quite quickly if you can get the galley to within walking distance of a shore, and have the settlers hop on the boat and move 3 more tiles... If possible, try to get 2 settlers on the galley...

 

[Bede]

The key to an effective dance line is to form a three sided diamond

x
x with the opponent's settler pair in the center of the diamond.
x

Then whichever way they go you just slide with them, maintaining the diamond. Sooner or later they will get tired of the conga and go away to the open side. You don't need to maintain tight contact just make sure they are contained if they move in a direction you don't like.

Galley dancing is a little harder to put together, you just need to make sure that all coastal fields are protected by a unit of some kind.

Scout's trading round is a good example of the power of the beeline research. As with one tradeable tech he picked up everything that was out there plus all the gold. The AI tends to move by columns in the Ancient Age, so you can use that to your advantage.

Their strategy changes in the Middle Ages and they tend to move across the top row towards all the Wonders and the Government up there, skipping Printing Press.

And their approach remains focused on the Governments in the early IA with occasional side trips to Replaceable Parts for the troop upgrade, but they tend to skip Espionage and generally ignore most of the middle of the IA tree until all the governments are known.

Need to mix some siege into the build queues. A practical approach might be build a town, start a cataault, then build a settler, then decide what the town will specialize in (population for science and commerce or shields for military.

 

[scoutsout]

Need to mix some siege into the build queues. A practical approach might be build a town, start a cataault, then build a settler, then decide what the town will specialize in (population for science and commerce or shields for military.

Well... we don't know Math yet, so we can't build catapults... yet...

...but consider this...

• Our UU is a fast unit
• Our UU has a high shield cost
• our UU will retreat a certain percentage of the time

Our UU costs what, 70 shields? Roughly the same as a catapult and swordsman combined...perhaps we should view them as a combination catapult/swordsman. Plus we can skirmish with 'em in defense...

My thinking: this unit was made for one-dimensional tactics. If we use catapults to bombard the defending spears down to 1hp, our Gallic Swords will have exactly the same risk of losing as a 30-shield swordsman. I'd rather wear the spears down with a GS or two than spend 300 shields to build ten catapults.

Give me ten Gallic Swords at the start of hostilities, and 6 or 8 veteran warriors (that I can upgrade with Golden Age money) and I will give you this continent.

(Though I am going to hold out for a shiny new rocket launcher if you want the rest of the world.)

 

[eotinb]

I need to face the music here. cIV has simply destroyed my interest in civ3. If I stay, I'm just going to take forever to do each turnset because whenever I have time I find myself inserting the cIV disc. So I guess I'm out. I shouldn't have signed up in the first place but the roster was/is so great. Guess I'll be lurking with cleverhandle and the rest of the lurker's gallery. All the best, Team TGOM.

 

[Bede]

Roster check:

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

gmaharriet - up
Bede - built a boat and whacked a barb or two
General M - up
eotinb - swapped with scout then dropped out. You will be missed!
scoutsout - got the dance line going

 

[eotinb]

Roster check:

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

gmaharriet - up
Bede - built a boat and whacked a barb or two
General M - up
eotinb - swapped with scout then dropped out. You will be missed!
scoutsout - got the dance line going

Thanks for the nice sentiment, Bede. And I can't wait to see how GM and Harriet do their simultaneous turns.

 

[gmaharriet]

I think I'm up and I've got it. This game is a good 2 levels above where I barely have a toehold at Monarch, so I'm going to need a whole LOT of handholding to get through this.

Here is an updated screenie from the end of Scout's turnset. It seems the Incas added another town on the penninsula when we weren't looking.

I'm assuming the settler in the east is to settle where the warrior is standing on the river. We have 2 more settlers building and after that I think we're out of space...if another civ doesn't beat us to those spaces.

Has it been decided whether or not to switch the barracks to a galley? It was mentioned to found the next towns on the coast...north or south first? Since I have little idea of what I'm doing here, I hate to contradict Scout on changing the rax build, but it seems a priority to get the iron hooked up and start building GS's.

I'm not defecting to Civ4...I don't even like playing it...but I'm very close to just chickening out on playing C3C at a level I don't have any feel for. I'm still trying to integrate what I've learned at Emperor level and that may take several weeks and many, many SP games. Call me slow and plodding if you like, but I'm really struggling here.

 

[Bede]

Keep the faith!!

Keep the druids working towards Monarchy just as fast as we can afford it. Start putting together an assault force for Babylon or Inca. Archers and GS will do nicely for that. Keep the boats sailing. We wont be starting any wars till the turn we acquire Monarchy.

On a longer term view we need sojers and more sojers and space to breathe in. I am anticipating a long term war that will last as least as long as the Golden Age and maybe even longer, so if in doubt about what to do build soldiers. Warriors are okay becasue if hte Monarchy gambit plays as it should then we will have lots of cash for upgrades.

Might want to sneak in a temple or two if a town is growing towards seven.

 

[scoutsout]

In thinking about swapping the 'rax to a Galley in Camulodunum... the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that it's a good idea. IIRC, it's producing 2spt... so at 6 turns out we ought to get our next boat in the water in 2 turns.

I also played with a little dotmapping... this looks a little ICS'ish... but we could go with just 3 yellow dots and loosen this up considerably (I like Bede's white dots). But stop and think about all of the coastal tiles we could work with this plan... and allow each town to work a couple of plains tiles for the shields....

I think we should also consider another town W-SW of our Capitol... an use it to launch an offensive against Babylon...

I think we will continue to need some settlers... TJ'ville is probably the first place I'd consider a temple. That town can be mm'd for whatever we want... gold or shields...

 

[gmaharriet]

Keep the boats sailing.

Plural? We currently have one boat, so are you saying I should switch the rax to a galley?

Warriors are okay becasue if hte Monarchy gambit plays as it should then we will have lots of cash for upgrades.

I'm not sure what the Monarchy gambit consists of. In any event, we have zero rax atm, so any upgrades will be regulars. Is that the plan? Is it even possible to upgrade a unit without a rax?

Might want to sneak in a temple or two if a town is growing towards seven.

Temples? TEMPLES??? OK.

I'll hold off playing until I get more input on my questions.

 

[scoutsout]

....I hate to contradict Scout on changing the rax build, but it seems a priority to get the iron hooked up and start building GS's.

I meant to mention this in my previous post.... don't worry about not having any barracks... I suspect if you build the Galley in Camulodunum and start a rax there next, the rax will complete before you can connect our iron on the mountain with our despotic-non-industrious workers....

...as for building Gallic Swords... I think we need to build 4-6 veteran warriors (for upgrading). So barracks builds are in order in our more productive cities...then train a warrior... peel off another settler... maybe by then we'll have our iron hooked up and we can start building GS's....

Whaddya think Bede? Are we singing from the same sheet here? Or do you see it a little differently?

 

[gmaharriet]

I guess you posted while I was still writing, Scout. There are 2 settlers building besides the one just about ready to settle. Please, you and Bede (and maybe General Mayhem) discuss and decide. I'll follow whatever as best I can.

Edit: Ok, make that 2 posts while I've been writing.

 

[scoutsout]

@harriet: Don't feel bad about feeling a tad squeamish at this level. It's supposed to get a little dicey here.

Let's see if I can clear some muddy waters here...

On the "monarchy gambit".... Since we're religious, we can swap governments a lot less painlessly. With a non-religious civ, many human players will avoid monarchy unless it's an AW game. We can afford to switch to monarchy and later republic when it's more favorable. If we can get the monarchy tech first, we can get some serious trading leverage out of it. The AI has a fetish about techs that open the door for government types....

Good catch on "boats" singular versus plural. I think Bede missed it that I did a suicide curraugh run that netted us a contact, but lost us a boat. This is one of the reasons I think building a Galley in Camulodunum makes sense right now. After we use the galley to shuffle a couple of settlers, we can use it to sail around the Incas and meet Hannibal's neighbor(s).

On stuff that seems counter-intuitive at the moment... tighter city placement seems to help as you progress to higher levels. Imagine towns on those 4 yellow dots... and imagine the 3 coastal sites working 4 irrigated plains and 2 coastal tiles... that's some serious production for towns that don't need a harbor or an aqueduct to work all that terrain.... working terrain (with citizens) is generally more important than simply claiming it (with borders).

Take a look at all of that stuff along the northern coast between GOC and scoutsrest. What good is it doing us? Not many gold pieces or shields coming from that area at the moment.... Now imagine razing that Incan town and settling that coast in a manner of our choosing.

On the lack of barracks in our empire.... we could probably afford a barracks in our capitol about now. It wouldn't hurt my feelings if you swapped that archer build to a barracks in GOC... and after that rax completes... you could peel a worker out of GOC and organize a forest chop on the tile 1NE of TJ'ville... to speed a barracks build along in that town...if you take a good look at TJ'ville, you'll see that we will need to invest some worker turns there to keep it productive past size 4....Scoutsrest looks dismal...completing a settler in something like 8 turns... but it's about to grow, and there's a worker mining a BG....

There are a couple of good things that should happen on your turns. The Silks should be connected in another turn or two... giving us a great deal more leeway on the need for the luxury slider. Look at the site we'll settle next...between the river and the cow on the coast. Granted, it won't look like much at first, but it will grow quickly with an extra food in the center plus the cow. We should be able to afford some specialists at that site - even in Despotism. It wouldn't surprise me to see that town at size 2 with a scientist in it by the end of your turns. (Of course... YOU will have to figure out if that makes sense.. )

I could be wrong, but I think you'll have more options to explore during your turnset than you might think. I'll go you one better. I bet you 1gpt you see an opportunity I haven't. Even your pre-flight questions have pointed out to me that we can now afford a barracks in our capitol.

 

[gmaharriet]

Thanks, Scout! I understand a bit better now and will get started. Are we also looking to plant a settler on Bede's other white dot as well as the 4 yellow? I'll play a few turns and check back.

 

[scoutsout]

Thanks, Scout! I understand a bit better now and will get started. Are we also looking to plant a settler on Bede's other white dot as well as the 4 yellow? I'll play a few turns and check back.

Planting a settler on Bede's other white dot looks good... but I think my western most yellow dot might keep babylon off our shore... there's an archer and a couple of warriors you might play with to try to discourage landings... but I doubt you've got enough to work with for proper blocking.

As you get settlers out and in position to beat AI settler pairs to the peninsula, you may be able to pull some of those archers in and use them for MPs... which could help keep the luxury slider under control.

...and we're here... if one of the AI get ignorant and (how does Bede put it?) "jump off the porch"....

 

[gmaharriet]

Planting a settler on Bede's other white dot looks good... but I think my western most yellow dot might keep babylon off our shore...

Yes, and keep those pesky barb camps from sprouting there. Already got rid of one, but have another barb on the loose in that area, and only one red-lined archer and a few warriors to get him. Ok, western yellow dot it is.

...and we're here... if one of the AI get ignorant and (how does Bede put it?) "jump off the porch"....

Is that Bedese for declare on us?

 

[gmaharriet]

TGOM03 1250bc - Preturn

Change Camoludunum from rax to galley, GOC from archer to rax in 5.

IT - Settler pairs head back N/W. Camoludunum galley -> rax.

1. 1225bc - Fortify archer line in case settler pairs return. Move our settler to it's final destination. Camoludunum unhappy so raise lux to 20% and send warrior that way for MP.

IT - Settler -> archer, barb shows up near our settler.

2. 1200bc - Mayhemium founded -> warrior. Warrior heading for Camoludunum fortifies in woods. Archer in SE heads toward barb and spots barb camp. TJville settler goes to meet galley. Everyone has maths now, Babs and Hittites have CoL.

IT - Hooray!!! Silks are connected! Richborough worker -> warrior. Incas start TofA and complete Pyramids in Cuzco. Carthage also begins TofA plus The Oracle.

3. 1175bc - Our archer takes out barb camp for 25g. Send workers N to work iron and AWAY from the other barb warrior. Our exploring boat spots bluish borders...Hittites, I think. Load settler on galley and head S. Send archer S to protect workers, since the one who took the camp is redlined.

IT - Hittites start GLight and complete Colossus in Ugarit, Babs start TofA and the MoM. Inca start TofA and the MoM. Carthage starts the Oracle and MoM. Barb heads toward an unprotected Camulodonum.

4. 1150bc - Drop off settler on western yellow dot and send galley back to pick up next one when ready. Move archers to block settler pair heading S...no diamond shape yet. Move archer toward barb, but I think he's 1 tile short.

IT - Barb pillages Camulodonum and destroyes work on the rax there. GOC rax -> settler. Hammi gets an embassy in GOC. Bab settler pair heading N toward us.

5. 1125bc - Now where did that barb go after pillaging? He just disappeared, but closed barn door with archer. Establish Cronium on yellow dot -> warrior. Move archers to block Bab settler pair. Have 2 workers mining iron and (I hope) safe from barb. Send worker to start forest chop for rax to start next turn in TJville.

IT - Hammi asks our boat to leave...of course we will. TJville archer -> rax. Hittites start MoM.

6. 1100bc - dancing with Bab settler pair, workers working.

IT - Hittites ask our boat to leave...sure. Mayhemium warrior -> worker.

7. 1075bc - more dancing and worker moves. GOC unhappy so raise lux to 20% again...going to have to move MP out of Scoutsville to block Hittite settler pair.

IT - 3 settler pairs invading us. Scoutsrest settler -> warrior. Richborough warrior -> archer.

8. 1050bc - new settler heads for the boat. warriors dancing and patrolling for barbs. curaugh scouting.

IT - Hooray!!! Iron is connected. Hammi wants 26g...sure, why not? GOC settler -> Gallic Sword!!!

9. 1025bc - I think there are FOUR settler pairs...lots of dancing. Send iron workers S to work. Load 2 settlers on galley and send S...plan to put one on easternmost yellow dot and the other on Bede's white dot, but that will probably be for the next player to decide.

IT - Hittites complete Oracle in Hattusus, Babs start MoM and the GLight. Inca and Carthage begins MoM. Carthage begin Hanging Gardens. Carthage completes MoM in Hippo. Settler pairs all seem to be heading home.

10. 1000bc - worker sent S to road to Cronium. Started moving galley farther S, but spotted barb galley, so sailed right into Cronium for safety. I don't know if that was the right move, but with 2 settlers on board...Yikes!!! I think the settlers still have movement left, so they can start walking if that seems safer. Left a worker near Scoutsville with movement as I'm not sure what's needed most. Carthage now has Monarchy. We can now trade for dyes with the Inca...they have no iron, but we only have one source and nothing else to trade.

Sorry I didn't get more roading done in the south, but I just wasn't sure if more barbs would show up. It's looking pretty safe atm and I left units to keep the areas lit. A couple of builds could be changed to Gallic Swords, but they'd be regulars. I think Bede's up next. He could even change the rax build in TJville to a temple if he likes.

Monarchy is due in 19 at -18g. If we can get those 2 additional settlements, the settlers ought to stay away, and we'll have plenty of MP's to lower the lux rate.

Pics to follow.

 

[gmaharriet]

Inca complete Pyramids in 1200 bc

Hittites complete Colossus in 1175 bc

Hittites complete The Oracle in 1025 bc

Carthage completes MoM in 1025bc

Our Empire at 1000 bc

Our southernmost explorations at 1000 bc

 

[Bede]

I think Pancho just painted a trapezoidal target on his chest

Nice bit of dancing and settling, GmH. Life will be good with those cows in the barn. It's what we've needed since the beginning.

We will soon be ready to "jump off hte porch and run with the big dogs". Now that Carthage knows Monarchy the price will come down a little. I keep forgetting just how big a difference there is in tech cost from Emperor to the "D" levels.

 

[scoutsout]

Okay... let's take a quick inventory:

• gmaharriet played some good turns, and got us a couple more towns
• I recently acquired a 5-year-old bottle of Tuscan Rosso...that will never see its 6th birthday

Now all I need is...

• a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that'll never see the other side of the Middle Ages...and
• an excuse.

Did I forget anything?