The last challenge -- Team game -- Deity trial

Do you mean Monty/Rag wandering troops? I doubt they'll travel across our entire empire. They're more likely to camp out near Delhi/Bombay if they fail an attack.
 
There is an archer there, so no extra escort. Probably the city can whip another archer (or axe?) as well.
If there is iron in the capital area the city will be more like liability during the next 15 turns or so.
That's why I am not so keen on the copper city, also if the AIs take a city, the price of the peace will jump significantly.

Anyways, the situation ain't pretty, so we need some luck. I hope dirk manages it, but I suppose the real war will be handled by The Rook/Duckweed.
 
Those wandering troops can be a problem indeed bestsss, but what can we do? Chopping on 20 H a piece doesn't contribute that much, most production must come from whipping. If we have iron the copper city isn't needed though we'll have copper up before we get to iw with masonry first. The problem with archers is that you can't whip them profitably And the copper city is very good, underexpanding could easily lead to a loss as well.

I'm probably playing Friday so we should have our plans up by then.
 
I hope to get time and post something more refined but..
* send the warrior from bombay to observe 'the enemy', perhaps keep him on the road if the archer loses the fight vs c1 barb.
* Adopt Hindu. If by any magic we keep the team at cautious in war the peace deal is cheaper.
* I think we don't want fogbusters around monty since even in war the AI is dumb and chases barb cities (more like suicides on them). I suppose we cant spare fogbusters anyways and if we survive the war we will have spare troops (and possible even a great general) to claim a few newly spawned cities. So move the archer from the south-west to Bombay. Also there is a chance barb workers to attempt to connect the cities too, might be lucky and catch one.
* If roading w/ a single worker the copper will be ready +-1 turn when the Iron working will have finished researching but we need the copper city. It is prime target for cottages to me. 1E of the copper, imo.
* Build rax, whip settler for 3 in Delhi. Need one more worker after whipping the settler and gergrowing back.
* Bombay, gets the granary/walls/rax w/ some chops/whips, archers.
---
I guess after IW we stop researching until we get great scientist.
 
1600 BC
switch archer and growth in capital, 3 turns to grow
switch hindu
switch masonry
move warrior NE

1560 BC
Survive barb* attack
Monty switches theocracy :lol:, he needs theo for that doesn't he? And they took Col from oracle.

Survive 2 subsequent archer attacks on capital

1440 BC
Masonry in

1360 BC
Whip settler for 3 pop at 7. city was unhappy for 1 turn , did this to stay at 4 after whip. Get some view of Monty lands, not much happening as of yet.

1240 BC
Found Viay, was no need to found it earlier as we finished the road one turn earlier. Have a choice between improving copper and improving rice now, both without loss of worker turns (Fastworkers :goodjob:). Choose copper so the city can work an improved tile one turn earlier. This gives us some more options in the discussion as well. I think we should whip a worker at 7 but we may choose to time a 2 pop axe whip instead.

From intelligence it'll take some time before we'll get declared on. Monty is pleased, Ragnar still cautious. If a Monty stack appears soon in the next set be sure you can whip the wall, you need to be at size 4 so maybe the gold should be switched to fp if that happens. There are no turns into walls atm.









Monty intelligence






 

Attachments

Those barb cities are popping up like lemmings. We definitely want swords to go grab some of them.

Still hard to say if Monty/Rag are after us or Churchill/WvO.
 
Yes, IW first would have turned out a bit better, especially if we find iron in capital, we've lost hammers in that case. I wasn't thrilled to go masonry first but the majority voted in favor of it and it would have given us some extra chances in case of a very early attack so i won't second guess that decision.

If we find iron outside any of our current cities we definitely went wrong, hope that's not the case.
 
It looks like we are not the clear target. Monty has enough force already and they have not started to march to our border. On the other side, staying in the major cities is also not a good sign.

There is a major choice to be decided for the next set. If we are the target, then that hill site near Bombay will greatly help the defense with cheaper archers. Otherwise, it is garbage spot. I think we should preroad to that site and send a settler to that site if war is assured. Better cautious than die easy.

Roster:

Dirk1302 -- just played
The Rook -- UP
Duckweed -- On deck
Obsolete
Bestsss
Shyuhe
Pauliskhan
 
^Not so easy to say if we're target or not. I don't know how teams work exactly. In fact one of them goes wheeohrn dragging the other with him. Now it's sure that the instigator will build a stack but will the other ai do the same and at the same speed? If so we might have seen a few Ragnar units already (not sure) but if not anything goes. Monty behavior is normal also for declaration, when he's ready some units from those cities get assembled into a stack and it marches. In the end i don't think we can tell yet, Monty doesn't have enough visible units to really threaten us atm.

I don't get the remark from units staying into major cities. There are quite a few wandering axes around, we'll need to prepare in Viay if we see a stack coming our way.

You mean the hill 2N3E of Bombay i assume, that would be a good fortress , could even gift it for peace later. Indeed settle it the moment we'll get declared on and move a stack of archers in.
 
Deity AI's 1st SOD is usually composed of 6~10 units, besides the ~3 units he'll save for city defense, I see his SOD is ready now. The only reason that he has not started to march his SOD is that he is waiting for cats and that's clearly not far away with their research power. Level 3 units make quite a lot difference for the war. If they send cats in the wave, I don't see any chance to survive, only skirmishers or protective archers in a hill city have chance.
 
I tried to explain it earlier: there is no player based decision about the war. It's the team only.
I mean no dragging or so, war is a team business.

We need ragnar intel, though. Monty doesn't build well stack b/c he is in spread religion phase. B/c even though the war is team business the players prepare and send the stack on their own (which, of course, is ******** but that's how it works)


I dont recall seeing any chariots of Monty (so perhaps he lacks horses) but there was one chariot of Ragnar, it'd be scary if he comes w/ horse archers...
 
OK, I think it's worth discussing this position further, there is much to be considered:

Tech:

IW is due in 6 turns (though we can probably make it 5). I think I should pause there so that we can review the iron situation and plan accordingly. After IW I think it could make sense to head for Monarchy for eventual diplo boost and happiness. It's difficult to fully abuse the whip for units in the capital right now as we regrow much faster than the unhappiness subsides. If we pick up Priesthood along the way we get cheap temples too, or alternatively we could head via Mono and take OR, though this route is slower. Anyway, since the science slider is stuck at 60% and we are out of gold, it's likely that the first few turns after IW can go into 100% gold to prepare for some deficit research, so our next tech might be outside the scope of my turn set.


Economy:

Our economy (or lack of) worries me. No libraries/specialists, foreign trade routes, treasury or cottages. We could build a road to Monty for trade routes, but I fear that it could serve as a path for our destruction. Are we building any cottages? If so, where? Whilst I personally thought the capital would have made a fine site for cottages with potential Bureau/Oxford, it's a bit late now to cottage the FP, and it would mean destroying some perfectly good farms. Duckweed suggests an alternative of cottaging Vijay and putting Oxford there. The capital needs a library, but there are perhaps more pressing matters such as workers/settlers/units. Units in a sense could help our economy if we manage to plunder some barb cities, but I think this needs to be reviewed once we are clear on the iron situation.


Defence:

It's unclear what the war status is with Monty/Ragnar, when or even if they will attack us. So I feel we need to strike a delicate balance between killing our economy/expansion for units, and just gleefully pretending we are safe. Duckweed makes the interesting suggestion of settling a junk city on the hill NE of Bombay for defence. We'll need some units to support the city for this to work though, and a settler, so I expect this move will require some build up. If Monty/Ragnar attack right now then I guess Bombay will be the likely target, At least for as long as we get/keep it above size 4 we can whip walls.

We have 2 archers in Delhi, should we send one somewhere? Do we want to find Willem/Churchill?


Builds:

The capital has 2 turns left to build an archer, and will grow into unhappiness in the mean time. I suggest switching production to a worker after this turn, we only have 2, and they seem to be behind schedule. By the time the worker and archer are finished the penalty will have about worn off, we'll be size 7 again and IW will be in, so we can decide what to do next. For Bombay I suggest working a plains forest for 1 turn in favour of a FP, this way we can build the granary in 3 turns with precisely 50% food, enabling it to half refill at size 4. After the granary, I think we should aim for a library, with the intention of whipping it at pop 6 and regrowing to size 4 the following turn (if we can 3 pop whip), ready for emergency walls. If we want to be more conservative, perhaps put a turn into walls, and a turn into a unit or two so we can quickly whip some defences (absolute emergency). If the FPs are farmed Bombay can grow reasonably quickly, and potentially net us an easy scientist. The capital obviously has far greater GP potential, but it's our main source of production right now. As there are no Hindu missionaries in sight, I think Vijay should build a monument first. With the rice and the FP it could grow quite quickly. It may be useful to establish some culture there in case someone steals the wine barb city before we can intervene, it would be a shame to lose the southern FP.

To summarise (before IW):

Dehli: Archer(1 turn)-Worker-Archer(finish) size 7
Bombay: Granary-Library (prioritise growth for potential whips, and perhaps put turns into military ready for whip)
Vijay: Monument


Improvements:

Our workers are grouped together and have just finished the copper mine, so it makes sense to improve the rice next. Then I see a few priorities worthy of consideration, and would appreciate the team's thoughts on what to improve, and in which order:

The capital has no improved tiles it can work at size 7, would it be worth improving the grassland hill and chopping the forest, or do we envisage that the capital will be whipped too frequently for that to matter now? Health will be less of a factor there once we have rice on-line.

The unimproved FPs by Bombay, farm them?

If we plan on settling obsolete's proposed site to the south any time soon, it might be worth pasturing the cow. The cow/wheat site could certainly help our production in the early game, with all those hills. Settling on the hill would be safer, though I fear we will lose the wheat, and if we are attacked by Joao/Toku I'm not completely sure where they will be heading.

If we settle the junk defensive city Duckweed proposed, we will need to build some roads there at some point.

What do we eventually plan to build at Vijay, farms or cottages?
 
I dont recall seeing any chariots of Monty (so perhaps he lacks horses) but there was one chariot of Ragnar, it'd be scary if he comes w/ horse archers...

Civ4ScreenShot0063.jpg
 
I just took a look at the shyuhe save the soldier values in demographics are quite packed. Max 123k, min 98k. We see Monty has quite higher value than Ragnar. Actually Ragnar has the lowest (!!!). [measured the pixels in the screenshot and he is the one w/ 98k!, around 2.35 more pixels than us]... And Monty is the top

B/c no team will be considered by Monty/Ragnar for a distant war target if has more than 85% of their power. (very unlikely to have border contact, since now we know that Ragnar is in the north and Monty expands toward us)...
The cutting value is: slightly less than 188k power, as we know no one can have that but us.

I dont wish to carry the bad news but I'd say I am over 98% confident we are the target...
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My bad, I should have studied that earlier, I recall one night I had the idea to look at demo screen, but it was quite late (around 4am and I didn't.. which I should have later)
So before it's totally late, we have to prepare for war.

Edit: added a very bad screenshot (mistakenly saved in 256colors w/o dithering)
Spoiler :

powerragnar.png

 
3 ineffective chops will get the walls up (2 out of the culture border). We can chop one from inside and wait for whip, w/ prechopped outside but
I think it's 20 turns the max preparation for total war on normal speed.
 
3 ineffective chops will get the walls up (2 out of the culture border). We can chop one from inside and wait for whip, w/ prechopped outside but
I think it's 20 turns the max preparation for total war on normal speed.

We probably have more time. As I mentioned, they are waiting for cats. If we can get >15 archers on the hill site with wall up, there's a slight chance we are able to hold till they are willing to talk. Level 3, actually their level 4 melee units make a huge difference of the battle odd.

@ The Rook
You need to change your plan toward full war preparation.:sad:
 
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