TMcC01 - Narcissistic Nehru (C3C, AWM)

Well, every civ we don't meet is another civ that is building peacefully and higher tech costs for us. I'd rather have far-away civs building units (that will be outdated by the time they reach us) than libraries and marketplaces. We really need a slow tech pace in this game, as we are in no position to drive research.
 
Double Post
 
350 B.C. (0) - Rename Lahore to Sugar plantation, stop worker from mining hill near Nehruvia, and move it towards Greebley to connect the iron.
Lower science to 50%, Map Making now in 12 instead of 10, but +2 gpt instead of -1
Also, I notice light blue borders near France, and Dark green borders to our North. F10 reveals these are the Americans and Aztecs, no sign of the final civ yet (Egyptians).

IBT - Jav attacks Equina, Cat hits, loses to Elite spear (-2 hp) Injured Mayan Sword retreats.
Thebes Completes Temple of Artemis

330 B.C. (1) Indy : Spearman -> cat. Cats go 3 for 4. Byz archer at Dehli fortifies. Elite Archer attacks 2/4 Jav and loses doing only 1 hp! I can't spare another attacker, so I leave the jag be.
Army pillages tile working and incense tile
Change Nehruvia to a cat. in 2
Run TMC pops hut, gets maps.
Map Making now in 9 at +2gpt (Byz and Chinese have it)
Settler pair awaiting more defense before continuing.

IBT - Meet Americans, Chinese Horseman comes out of fog, 1 hp Jav retreats.

310 B.C. (2) Map Making now in 7 (Americans have MM) Declare War on Americans (who are up many techs, but we are up Lit. on everyone, so we should get it.)
Army finds Aztec settler pair in Mayan land, at Bonampak, Declare War(they are up same techs as Americans.) Map Making now in 6.
I am at a loss as to where to send the settler & 2 spearman. The North is now in danger with the Aztecs, and we are far from razing Palenque, so I send it to the relatively safe south.

IBT - Unfortunately, Chinese horsemen continue forward towards Greebley, as it is undefended.
4 Archers are near Slinger's Dehli now, so I send a spearman from Indy on the way.

290 B.C. (3) Nehruvia: Cat -> Archer. I cannot counterattack for lack of offensive units so I let them go (can't reach it next turn) but send an archer and catapult from Nehruvia and a spearman from equina on the way.

IBT - Horseman at Indy attacks and kills spearman, but is redlined. Other pillages tile.
3 archers now able to attack the Dehli, one other can just attack the wines.
Tzintzuntzen appears on the map just north of Greebley's Heights.

270 B.C. (4) I attack the horse with a warrior, but it loses, finish it off with a spearman(-1hp).

IBT - Suprisingly all Byz archers retreat. It looks as if them and the Mayans really have their eyes on it.
Dromon attacks NSS Minnow, and surprisingly, loses! (we lose 1 hp tho) The Dromon attack animation is unbelievably cool.

250 B.C. (5) Indy: Archer -> Archer. New Archer finishes off redlined chinese Horseman without a scratch.
Workers begin roading the iron, to be completed in 3 turns.
Move 2xSpearman Settler pair backwards, as I realize the new city will not be able to receive reinforcements. Moved towards hill SE-SE of Palenque (across a river).
Greebley heights reinforced with 2 cats, 1 spearman and 1 archer. I realize we could lose the city this turn!

I hit enter and pray it doesn't fall and...

IBT - They Fortify! Must be awaiting the 2 swordsman and 1 2/3 jav. Thrower approaching the city!
Lots of Byz Archers coming from the NE towards Greebley
Indy Riots (Weed on my part, it was undefended at size 6.)

T_McC01_230_BC_east.JPG



T_McC01_230_BC_west.JPG


I decided to pause here, as I want some input from the team as to what to do. We are in dire straights.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/T_McC01_230_BC.SAV
 
Looking at the game, I think you are doing fine. Continue to build units, attack with the catapults to injure units on your turn before attacking with archers (you may only want to attack badly damaged units), and never attack so that you expose a unit to counter attacks.

We are looking for 10 of their deaths to 1 of ours or better, and will just be trying to survive (no forward progress) for a while.


TMcC,
I still feel the contact hurts us more at this stage of the game than it helps. If we know 2x the number of civs, that is 2x the number of units we will be fighting. I don't think slowing them at this stage is that important, I am not at all sure that our being at war is going to make a huge difference on their research speeds, and as we hope to get the great library, that faster speed isn't a big deal. I think holding off meeting every civ until we feel our defenses are fairly solid is better. I am not positive that I am right about this; it is just an opinion. I do think in the older version of Civ being at war did cripple the AI's more than it does now. I guess we will see how your idea goes. It is hard to tell because we can't know what the tech speed would have been if we hadn't made contact. If the farther 3 civs are only a minor nuisance then I will be willing to agree with you.
 
Greebley, we already have met all civs (sans Egypt) so you're arguing a moot point. In Hindsight, I agree with you though, as the new Aztec Front will have us fighting a four front war.
 
Ya, I agree the point is moot. I am mostly discussing it to 'learn' for future games, because I just don't know the answer. Most of the discussion on my part is to solidify the reason WHY I think lack of contact is better and to see if my reasons can withstand the light of day. It may be next game I am arguing the other side, if TMcC's arguments and this game convince me :)

I am hoping my discussions don't come out as a blame or anything like that because that is not my intent at all. I am not always good at expressing myself. In RL, I have been guilty of overdiscussing things
 
We're hanging in there. I am not too worried about Greebley Heights, the Mayans are attacking across a river, into a walled city on the hills. Add in fortification and our spears have a +150% defense bonus, or are defending at a strength of 5. As Greebley said, keep building units, be careful with the attacks, and remember that artillery is our friend on offense and defense. A slight MM note, give the sugar tile back to Nehruvia. It can make 10 spt then.
 
Alright, let's break this down to see if there is a logical conclusion:

Contact with a new civ:
Always has a non-negative effect on our research speed. If we are researching a tech the new guy doesn't have, there is no effect. If the new guy does have the tech, it is cheaper for us. So contact is a good thing if we are lagging in tech, and not good if we are leading. <In this game, I expect us to be behind in technology, so this argues for more contacts.>

Declaring war on the new civ will make them send units to attack us. This is not a good thing. However, after the initial set of units, the AI will send them as they are produced. So the AI can only assemble stacks by accident after the initial "Wake up the offensive units in the cities and move out" phase. The caveat here is that trickles from 4-5 AI every turn have the same effect as a stack from 1. <This argues against more contacts.>

So the question becomes what would the AI be doing if they didn't know us? If they are not at war with someone, those shields poured into military probably go towards infrastructure and expansion. If this is true, we would be meeting larger, more capable AI's by delaying contact. Now the caveat here is that AI expansion is a zero-sum game. Only so many city sites exist, so eventually expansion has to stop and the AI will start to build units again.

Our making contact forces the AI to march troops across each other's territory to get to us. Does this make them more likely to be friendly, or more likely to declare war on each other? (Trespassing) Does being at war with us make the AI less likely to declare on each other? (Are the AI's programmed not to initiate multiple wars simultaneously.) These are the two most relevant questions, and I have no idea what the answers are.

If our declaring war makes it less likely the AI's will fight each other, then contacts should be minimized. If our declaring war forces the AI's to get into a war-time mentality, (i.e., "Stop marching your units next to my cities" "Oh yeah, I've got a big military so put your money where your mouth is!" etc.) and thus are more likely to fight with each other, then contacts should be maximized.

My only data point is GR2, and I doubt that there were any AI-AI wars on our continent.

So the final answer is ... I have no idea. :confused:
 
If it starts looking very grim we could perhaps start to settle down the peninsula S of SugarP. If we can secure the peninsula we could force a 1 front war. The dehli would be first city I would ever abandon if we get short on troops and then start a move towards the peninsula. We would need to take out Palaneque and then back fill as we can. I really don't think any northern expansion would be prudent as we will soon have the entire world coming after us. We need to get out of this multi front war. Put another settler somewhere that looks central on the peninsula and if we get another leader I would move the palace. It will get far worse before it gets better and hopefully we can hold GH long enough to get some techs. BTW, I was mining the hill due to it's relatinely secure location and to cut the turns on the GL. It would have added to shields there. Any mining done W of GH wiould most certainly have been pillaged.

Any word from the army on location of two irons and if the Mayan capital has been isolated. We need to pillage the capital and then unhook the irons. Pronto. Don't zigzag picking off every irrigation/road. Try to get bonus tiles/lux on your way but hightail it to the capital. The sooner we unhook the fewer swords we will see.
 
Ya, that is a very good point about AI warfare. Are AI wars less frequent? I don't know the answer, though if I had to choose, my guess would be "Yes, they ARE less frequent".

One case I think it is definitely better to not make contact is if you only meet one civ. The reason is that you can make serious forward progress if you are only fighting one opponent and don't need to play the defensive game. GR2 was close to this (I purposefully held off contact because of this for 10 of my turns).

Edit: BTW, we need 8 cities for 2 armies. A good reason to try to get to 8.
 
I didn't have time to post a turn-by turn log, but things went by smoothly. I guess I just panicked because I'm not used to AW yet.

Basically, I founded Yom's Folly on the hill SE of Palenque (across the river) because there was no other location I could settle without it being indefensible. The Mayan Capital is cutoff from the rest of the civ, and the army is on a dyes tile, ready to pillage next turn. Also, Steady streams and even stacks of Byz Archers and Javs + Swords have begun to show up. Try to get the iron hooked up immediately, but watch out for Byz Swords, I had to give up on connecting it 1 turn before the road was finished. If we have surplus population, we may consider founding a city there to prevent it from being pillaged.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/T_McC01_150_BC.SAV

Edit: Er... How do I get words to represent the link to the save? <a href= ... doesn't work.

Edit 2: Let's see if this works.... THE SAVE
 
I don't have an image button so I just use IMG and /IMG (in [] of course). What Http button are you talking about?

Under forum rules it says that HTML code is OFF (this is probably the reason a href=... didn't work) and vB code and is on, but the buttons.

Edit: Ah...I see, the links in the small forum rules box explain how to do what I asked about.
 
Maybe, it depends on what exactly it does? Where can I get the new patch?
 
T_McC 01 150 AD
Good news & bad news. More good news (I think) :D
I think we still have a chance to pull this off.

To Do:
Build a settler to settle on top of the iron – I changed Indy to settler due in 5. It will grow to size 7 soon anyway.
We need some swords.
I’ll try to irrigate some tiles around Equinia to speed growth. Not easy with too much AI traffic.
Build some horses so we can kill wounded swords.

Pre turn still 150 BC
If the AI put a premium on pillaging, we would be toast. They could pillage all our improvements.
Switched Yom to working the forest to get the walls in 9 (instead of 18) at the cost of slower growth. If the city falls, there will be no (as opposed to slow) growth.
Switched Equinia to work the forest so we get 4 shields instead of 3. Now we can get a cat every 4 turns instead of 5. Food is unchanged, but we lose a 1 GPT.
Switched Nehruvia from working un-mined hill to the mined plains to get 1 more SPT (now we get 10 SPT at no food loss of FPT
Move slider to 40/10 HBR in 2 turns and +8 GPT. (can’t get it in 1 turn)
Switch Slinger’s tiles to work the forest. We lose 1 FPT and gain 1 SPT so we get spears a little faster. We’ll need them to guard the iron I think.
I’ve made shields, iron & survival a priority. Hope it pans out.

IBT
Wounded units retreat. Fresh ones are moving towards us.
Byz archer attacks & loses.
Nehruvia – spear – spear (every 2 turns we get s spear now).

Turn 1 130 BC
Pillage silks & move back towards the Mayan Capital. I’ll bet the horses are reconnected. I plan to pillage & explore the Mayan west.
Send spear from Nehruvia to empty sugar plantation and also send a spear from Yom over. The Mayan Jav can block or attack us next turn. I hope 1 spear in sugar will probably be enough to discourage attacks.
Bomb any units within reach. There are 5 Ai units next to Greebley heights that can attack next turn, but 2 are spears.
There are not many safe places for workers to work.
Both boats are still exploring.
Slider 30/10 +12 GPT 32 in the bank. HBR in 1

IBT
We kill 3 on defense, including the Mayan threat on Sugar Plantation. :D
HBR come in select Mysticism in 4 turns still earning +12 GPT. (I guess we’ll head to Monarchy). Construction was also an option but was .
Equinia – cat – cat (Zero growth here until we can irrigate which is much easier said than done.)
America builds the Hanging Gardens.
It’s 40 more turns until the GL.
I’m going to build a worker in Slingers after the spear comes in and try to join to Greebley Heights to speed up the library.

Turn 2 110 BC
Switch Nehruvia to horse (due in 2) we’ll get one every 3 turns.
Road to Yom finished. Now we can irrigate the “safe” tiles”.
Turn was kind of quiet. Wounded Ai units are going home, new ones have not yet arrived.
Kills: India 4, AI 0.
Indy is size 7 & F1 reveals 4 unhappy faces. By hiring a tax babe we can keep the slider at 40/10 earn 14 GPT, get Mysticism in 4, still get the settler in 2 and don’t starve. Who knows, maybe the gold will let us run a deficit later or upgrade something.

IBT
Kill 2 Byz archers.
There are still 5 archers left near Greebley heights in the forest under spear protection.

Turn 3 90 BC
Mayan horse no yet hooked up.
Kills: India 6, AI 0. All of our kills have been by spears on defense. Only possible attacks were not very good odds. When our horsemen arrive, we can play some offense.
Switch Slingers Delhi to a horse due in 6 turns. Nehruvia’s horseman come in next turn.
Speaking of Horses, these stacks are moving against our horses at Equinia. All are 2 tiles away: 7 javelins; 2 swords; 1 spear. Equinia has 3 elite spears on a flat tile with walls + 2 cats.
I’m rushing a spear in Equinia. If we lose our horses, we are in big-time trouble. By then time the javelins get here, we’ll have 4 spears, 2 cats and a horse.

IBT
The wonderful spears at Greebley heights kills 2 more archers.
Nehruvia – horse – spear (for Irontown’s settler).
Switch slinger’s back to spear. We’ll need them at Irontown.
Indy – settler – spear.
Equinia – spear – cat. The town grows back to its max size of 2 next turn and can build cats in 5 again.
Interestingly, 3 javs + 1 spear head towards the elite spears at Greebley Heights. Good news indeed. :D
Equinia cats go 0 for 2.
India 8 AI 0


Turn 4 70 BC
Greebley Heights bombs a French archer to red-line, allowing our archer to kill & promote to elite.
Tadpole& Minnow are still exploring. For future AW, based on GR2 & this game it appears if you get the boats out early, they meet minimal resistance.
The settler in Greebley Heights is stuck until he gets spear support being built in Slingers & Indy. 3 more turns for the spear escort. There is not much empty land left on the screen. If we don’t settle quickly the iron will be in AI hands. In 3 turns we’ll have a
3-spear escort in Indy (from Nehruvia, Indy & Slinger’s builds). In 5 turns we can settle Irontown. Hope it’s not too late.
Slider now goes to 30/0 with Mysticism in 2 and +11 GPT. We are rich, 64 in the bank.
India 9 AI 0

IBT
Sugar – barracks – Spear (7)
America is building the GL
The AI again does not pillage the road to the horses. :D
Greebley Heights is attracting tons of attention. I suppose the AI want to take away our incense, but they are ignoring the wines in Slinger’s.

Turn 5 50 BC
Equinia goes 0 for 2 with cats.
At least the workers are irrigating some of the “safe tiles”
2 horses from China will attack 2 spears in Indy next turn I think.
3 Javelins, 2 spears and an archer are next to Greebley.
I guess the reinforcements in Equinia scared them off.
A Swordsman will likely attack Yom next turn where walls are 4 turns away. He can’t take the city since RUN TMC is there also.
Slider goes 30/10 because Nehruvia had 3 frowns, 1 content and 2 smiles so it would have rioted.
MM Indy for more FPT and still get the spear in 3.
GL in 37 turns.
MM Sugar for less FPT & more SPT to get to 4 SPT.

IBT
Greebley Heights Elite Spears kill 2 javelins and an archer.
Indy’s spear kills a Chinese horse, but the other horse pillages our cow.
Yom’s wall-less spear kills a veteran sword. :D
India 14 AI 0
Mysticism – Polytheism
Nehruvia – spear – Horse
Delhi – spear – spear (now every 5 turns as Delhi has grown).


Turn 6 30 BC
Horse heads to Greebley where maybe he can do some good.
Army is heading towards some Mayan Iron it will pillage.
Slider is 40/10 Polytheism due in 12 earning 1 GPT.
Sugar & Slinger’s are size 3 and can build spears in 5 turns now. Nehruvia can build a horse in 3 (or spear in 2 if you need one).

IBT
2 archers killed by Greebley’s spears, but a spear pillages a tile of Greebley’s.
I think the horse can get him this turn.
Mayans are building the great wall.

Turn 7 10 BC
Greebley goes 0 for 2 with cats, so horse will have to wait to get the pillaging spear.
Now that we have 3 spears + a settler ready in Greebley, the Byz have a horse fortified on the Iron. He must die. All we have is an archer and a spear, but now is the time as more units are on the way, and the road is open now, so here we go…
Nehruvian horse kicks Byz horse. Thank you RNG :D We have a settler + 3 spears on the iron and will settle next turn.
You can bet AI will attack with a vengeance.
Yom will come under veteran Mayan sword attacks the next 2 turns. It may fall because there are no available units to reinforce. Sugar has 1 spear, and so does our Capital. The other southern spear is guarding the workers from a Mayan Javelin. If it was not on a hill I would probably abandon & move the spear to Sugar.
Surprising the Byz have not sunk our minnow yet.
India 17 AI 0

IBT
Good news, bad news.
We kill 2 Chinese horses at Indy, but china pillages to road to Slinger’s wines. We have an incredibly long line to hold in this game.
Yow kills a veteran sword.
India 20 AI 0 – but they have now pillaged 3 tiles during my set of turns. Without spear support (they are on Iron town) we can’t replace the pillaged tiles yet.
Indy – spear – spear
What the… Nehruvia riots. Did the loss of wines do it? I’ve been checking F1 each turn. I even reloaded the auto to see if I forgot and it was 3 smiles + 3 frowns last turn. Did the loss of wines take effect that fast?
Slider is now 30/20 with Poly dues in 14 losing 2 GPT. The GL build will complete in 34.

Turn 8 10 AD
Irontown founded and set to walls due in 10 (at the expense of 1 FPT). Walls in 20 was just too long.
Greebley’s archer kills the pillaging spear.
Spear in Indy heads to Nehruvia to help fight the 4 javelins on the way there. There is 1 cat from Greebley on the way.
Bombs some javelins but can’t attack since we would be exposed to counter attack.
Slider 40/20 Poly in 10 losing 1 GPT. No apparent riots.
IBT
Yom’s spear holds versus 2 swords and promotes to elite. The walls complete next turn. Yom will get a javelin attack next turn, but now looks like it will hold. The hill has made a big difference. Hills are very helpful – just look at Greebley’s kill stats the last few turns.
Byz want to talk, Tell her we are looking for a little less talk and a lot more action. She passes.
Spear pillages another spear near Indy. This is getting out of hand. Cats + horse are the answer.
Nehruvia – spear – horse (you can change to sword in 3 if you prefer).
Equinia – cat – cat
Yom – walls – barracks

Turn 9 30 AD
Pillage Mayans only source of Iron (per F4 they have no iron.) :goodjob:
No apparent riots, slider is 40/20, getting Poly in 10 and losing 1 GPT.
This Chinese pillaging has got to stop.
Cats hurt Mayan javelins next to our capital.

IBT
Chinese archer dies attacking Indy.
Chinese horse pillages another tile near Indy.
Sugar – spear – spear
A Mayan wants to attack our worker S of Sugar next turn.

Turn 10 50 AD
Bomb & kill pillaging spear near Indy
There are now 12 Mayan Javelins that I can see.
F1 is okay. GL is due in 39. Indy will no longer grow because of the pillaging, but it is not shrinking.

Summary:
The good news: We got Iron and killed 25 units and lost none.
The bad news: we lost 5 tiles to pillaging and lost our wines.
You can build a sword or a horse in 3 in the Capital.
Indy can build a sword in 5.
Sugar & Slinger can build spears in 5.
Equinia can make a cat in 5 (no growth there).
Greebley is no help (GL build) and Yom and Irontown are building walls & barracks.
Our lack of production is going to catch up with us unless we develop a plan. We are in no real position to go on offense, but if we don’t expand our production base, we will surely lose. Let’s throw all option on the table & develop a plan. One option is to go after the Byzantines, who have wonderful land and no Iron (at least not hooked up yet). They are in a corner, and if we could take a city, we would probably only have to fight Byzantine archers & spears to hold it. Two more cities North of Irontown would seal off the Byz from the other AI. If we could hold what we have now & capture Byz cities we might win this thing. Big IF. map Until the AI get longbows, we can hold Byz captured cities I think. If we can expand, perhaps we will be able to develop our core and hopefully protect it from pillaging.
Another option is to expand by building cities near Slinger and Equinia 2 tiles from nearby cities to puch our border away from our core.
I think if we sit still, we'll get overrun.
Any thoughts?

EDIT There are workers hiding in Sugar. They finished their work last turn, and had no spear cover on a nearby tile, so they are in Sugar. Reg Jav near Sugar may try to kill the fortified spear & capture a worker next turn. At least he is regular and our spear by sugar is a fortified veteran.

As you can see, there are many AI units inside our borders.

T_McC 50 AD save
 
Now that we have iron, we have a slim chance. That slim chance would get upgraded immensely with a 2nd leader. A Sword army would greatly expand our empire.

On the general plan, I basically agree with what Handy said. Our best chance is to play defense on our Western front, and try to make gains against the Byzantines. However, I think our first target should be Palenque. It will take most of Greebley's and my turns, but we should be able to put together a decent stack of swords, a couple of cats, and a settler. The units should be able to advance to Yom's Folly and then step across the river without being attacked. Found the replacement city 1 NW (adjacent to the river). That would allow us to get a couple of cities behind the lines, and allow us to grow a little.

After Palenque, I agree that our offensive action has to go east. It will be a slow slog until then, hopefully our GL gambit pays off.

One option we still have is to swap Greebley Heights to the Heroic Epic (minimal loss of shields, if any) and get another military producer on-line.

This was truly a craptacular start, and if we win from this position there is no challenge left on AWM. We have 8 cities. If you ignore the tiles the cities were founded on, we control only 9 tiles that produce 2 (or more) food without improvements.
 
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