The last challenge -- Team game -- Deity trial

[Dirk1302]

Agree with this, unless you see Monty coming you may sneak in another worker in the capital imo. 2 workers is bit meagre to do all the work , copper city'll take some time to produce one and there's nothing wrong with 4 workers to prechop.

 

[bestsss]

The Rook, try counting mostly units w/ CR promos and archers w/ combat. Also HAs w/ combat. I think they are the supposed city attackers. The rest are support which the AI doesn't consider viable preparation.
If you see some CR promoted units wandering (not stacked) it means that Monty/Ragnar are morons (which we know anyways) and will spend some time chasing barb. cities (which is good for us).

Oh Yes, we need more workers. We can probably even steal a barb worker if they attempt connecting the east city w/ the one near the copper city but it's huge gamble w/ chariots x.x.
So when capital reach max size, switch to worker.

Good luck and hopefully Monty won't attack so soon.

 

[The Rook]

Played 7 turns, but this seemed like an appropriate place to stop with IW just in, and the settler ready to found the junk city if desired. Also, we have iron right by the capital.

Tech: IW took 7 turns due to lost commerce from whipped capital, and perhaps not helped by maintenance from new units. Currently set slider to refill the treasury.

Delhi: Switched production from archer to settler, put in two turns of production then whipped for 3 pop, put the overflow into an axe, finished axe (on its way to proposed city site). Currently one turn left to build archer and grow back to size 6. I think another worker would probably be best next.

Vijay: Switched production to monument (due in one turn, would suggest worker next). Just grown to size 2 this turn. Foolishly forgot to implement my own suggestion of 1 hammer into archer for potential emergency whipping.

Bombay: Completed granary, currently building barracks. Will grow to size 4 next turn with new granary half full.

Workers: Rice online, built road to proposed junk city site, two turns of pre-chopping on forested hill by Delhi/Bombay. Chop hammers can be allocated to either city this turn, or alternatively the worker could even begin building the iron mine this turn.

Intelligence: Our warrior discovered the Aztec Christian holy city, sent him back to check Monty's border cities for stack build-up, and nothing, the garrison is negligible. He is sending units toward the western barb sites though, in theory we could probably take one if we let Monty do most of the work. Also there is an Aztec settler that seems to be heading south. Ragnar has a lone swordsman wandering through Monty's land.

Diplomacy: No Dow yet. Corn is still potentially available for last minute peace treaty begging. Most interestingly, Toku has just adopted Confu! Fortunately, team Toku/Joao haven't gone WHEOOH yet.

Junk city: Settler and Archer moved into position last turn, so the city can be founded this turn if desired. I didn't build the city because there seemed to be a few ideas floating around about the timing. Dirk considered founding the city at the time of declaration, bestsss suggested chopping the walls which in practice may mean building the city before declaration.

 

[shyuhe]

Did you turn off the red fist indicator for BUG? Otherwise it looks like they went out of WHEOOH...

 

[The Rook]

@shyuhe

No, I wondered about this also, but they are still WHEOOH though. The same can be seen in Dirk's screenshots. I've noticed in ordinary play that when a civ is at war (or planning war?) with a civ you have not met, sometimes you don't see the orange fist indicator. I had wondered whether this was an indication that Monty/Ragnar were targeting Willem/Churchill, though I'm sure if this were the case bestsss would know, his knowledge of this game's mechanics is clearly better than mine.

 

[Duckweed]

This game really make me confused. It seems that most of Monty's force go to Willem/Churchill's border since the forces in his border cities with us are minimum. From the current picture I see more reasons that Willem/Churchill team is their current target. However, barbarian cities north might also draw his force.

So the major issue to be decided now is do we want to settle hill now? Safety vs economy. Please post your suggestions. I think we have a good chance to survive now with so many unexpected turns to prepare.

 

[shyuhe]

This may be an issue of BUG giving us more information than we should get. I'm starting to think they're after Willem/Churchill. I would vote for the gamble of sending the settler through Monty's territory to plant a city to gift to Ragnar (it has to be closer to him for him to accept it). In the meantime, I'd go barb hunting.

 

[bestsss]

Good, we got iron in a nice place.

I think it's a bug in BUG mod when teams are involved.

The orange fist thingie uses CvTeam.AI_declareWarTrade, the 1st thing the function does: performs checks if the team had war plan (ongoing war is also a war plan), the target doesn't matter at all.

However it seems it can't associate the team w/ a civilization (in that case more than one) and it fails to show the icon. I guess we will have similar issues w/ some other team/based stuff.

I am not sure the AI will target the city if we settle in the last moment, they pick a city and then advance to it.

 

[Dirk1302]

This preparation time can be quite long. I was actually declared on by Toku 650 bc once while he was in wheoohrn 1360 bc. If ais follow dagger_strat it's 1 turn of wheoohrn, if not it can be much longer. If you really dive into the code like bestsss has done you can often be fairly sure who the victim'll be so i'm inclined to trust his findings.

The absence of the bugmod fist puzzles me a bit. I thought it just reflected wheoohrn, no matter if other ais are known.

Edit: I see bestsss just explained the fist. I'm in favor of getting the city up on that hill and defend it well.It's likely that that city will be the target if we found it soon. I would build enough military to withstand an attack as i don't think the likelyhood of us being the target has diminished, it might be possible to get some swords in for barb hunting.

 

[Duckweed]

Initial plan for the next set

Tech path:

To Monarchy -- not possible in my set.

I think we'll have at least ~10 turns even we're the target and I'll send the warrior north to watch the SOD from Ragnar and also try to meet Willem team.

I'll settle the hill city right now, and chop the eastern 2 forests. A wall in the city will greatly enhance the battle odd before cats and also save us time to hold until peace treaty. Safety 1st, better cautious than die easily.

Delhi -- finish archer -> worker -> swordman -> settler, the whip overflow will go to archers.

Bombay -- finish barrack->archers

Copper city -> worker->granary

Question -- Where do you want to send the settler? Ragnar's border, Ivory spot, or the Cow/Wheat spot? I'll probably stop there.

 

[shyuhe]

Ah, bestsss's explanation makes sense. In that case, settle the hill city now and start chopping walls for it and get fortification bonuses for archers.

The city builds sound good.

 

[bestsss]

Try to get one spearman perhaps, I don't know when Ragnar obtained iron, if he didn't have for some time (since he lacks copper) he'd have mostly mounted units (HAs).
City builds look good to me.

 

[The Rook]

I almost completely agree with Duckweed's suggestions for tech, settling and builds, but I'm unsure about the sword if the intention is to use it defensively (for that I'd favour spear since we know Ragnar has HAs). If the idea is to send the sword to a barb city being harassed by Monty we just might get lucky though, and I'll be surprised if we get DoWed very soon.

For the future settler, I favour claiming the wheat/cow. Settling on the hill would be more conservative, I only hope it doesn't cost us the wheat. If we could take the wheat, cow and deer it would be a great site, especially with the potential defensive value. Ideally we could get the cow ready for when the city is founded.

 

[Duckweed]

The 1st swordman will be sent to the eastern barbarian city.

Ragnar has Iron, so his major units will still be melee units, one of his swordman has already appeared near our border. However 1 spearman is still good, we can whip it from Bombay when we see HAs coming.

 

[Duckweed]

Made some adjustment of the original plan.

Worker near the hill site connected the road to Monty 1st, we got 4 extra commerce 2 turns later.

I think we'll probably have at least another ~10 turns since you can see that Monty still send his forces north and Ragnar's forces has not appeared yet. So I let Bombay start lib after barrack and whipped in the next turn. it can run 2 scientists after it grow back to size 6. I suggest to irrigate the other 2 FPs.

Delhi has a settler in the queue with 38H, we can whip it now since the cow will be ready by the time it settles. Our 1st swordman and Axe are near the eastern barbarian city.

I also made 2 resource trade with Monty and Ragnar.

Roster:

Duckweed -- just played
Obsolete -- UP
Bestsss -- On deck
Shyuhe
Dirk1302
The Rook

BTW -- Very beautiful interface! Happy holiday to all.

 

[bestsss]

It looks good and still there is some time to sneak one city in the desert hills and give it to Monty.
W/ the gold of the barb city we should be able to sponsor the monarchy and the city looks quite decent I guess.

Merry Christmas!

 

[obsolete]

What to research next is a good question. The only tech we can get that can be traded around once we get it is Aesthetics. And that's assuming the others don't get it by then. We can get it in 11 turns but that's not going to happen since our money will run out by then. Also, since events are on, we should try to keep around 130 gold around at all times shouldn't we?

So... our list of things to do next turn-set are:

Garrison Bloody-Hill (archers, axes, spears)
Capture South-East barbarian horse city
Found triple-resource city
Get another settler ready with escort to plant down for peace-agreement in the future.

 

[bestsss]

Research we go for monarchy: that's for sure.
Unfortunately I think research to trade should be decided after monarchy AND if we manage to please someone to trade w/ us. For the moment everyone hates us (ok, Monty/Ragnar don't truly hate us but they will declare war)

I wonder how duckweed managed to draw so bad enemies, sandwich between Monty/Ragnar and Toku/Joao, now we are even heathen to Willem.

 

[Duckweed]

Since it seems that the 1st wave attack is very likely from Ragnar only, it should not be too hard to deal with. I'd produce 2 more swordmans from Delhi (can be done in 3 turns) to accelerate the capture of barbarian cities. Archers should be the major defensive forces considering their hammer investment. We don't have any trade partner now, so Monarchy is clearly the only tech path. For the sake of getting monarchy as quick as possible, saving cash is out of question.

 

[Duckweed]

I wonder how duckweed managed to draw so bad enemies, sandwich between Monty/Ragnar and Toku/Joao, now we are even heathen to Willem.

The chance to roll the only AI won't OB at cautious, 2 out of 3 AIs won't trade tech at cautious and 3 aggressive AIs in a game is really low, but believe me, this map is the 1st one I got without regeneration.