VQ04 - Revenge!

[Maquis]

Ater our bitter defeat in VQ02, and the AI dogpile we were the victim of in VQ03, it is time for a little sweet revenge! We will be taking on all of those whom decalred war on us in these games.

We are once again Roman - ala VQ02. Our opponents are:

Egypt - Hatsheput
Mali - Mansa Musa
America - Washington
Japan - Tokagowa
England - Victoria
America - Roosevelt


As you can see, America is in there twice. We were attacked by Washington early in VQ02, and Roosevelt has been piling on in VQ03. They must both be taken out!

Speaking of taken out... there is only one win condition, conquest. As a revenge game, there can be no other option.

The usual suspects: (roster)

player 1: Maquis
player 2: eektor
player 3: bobrath
player 4: GreyFox
player 5: oldbustedjorn
alternate: sozopol (if OBJ is still out of the loop)

I'll start with 30, and we'll all play 20 the first round. Normal 10 turns thereafter.

 

[eektor]

Can't wait for this one to start! Glad you changed the icon too. Now we have no excuses though.

 

[bobrath]

I still think the Chili had nothing to do with our losses. I place the blame solely on Firaxis for making the game!

 

[GreyFox]

Fox reporting for revenge mission ...

I think sozopol should be given a chance to particpat as full member in the roster, 6 or 5 players doesn't make too big a difference.

Two Americans??? , I wonder how the color coding would be assigned ...

I presume its Prince, Pangea?
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[Maquis]

Yes, it is Prince, Pangea. And here's our start...

Nice start! Looks like we have wine, cows, and ivory in the fat cross, along with lotsa floodplains. Good for the

I played the first 30 turns. Tech went BW (copper is off to our east a ways) and then wheel and agriculture. We are now researching AH.

Built a warrior and worker. Worker chopped a forest on the hill, to rush a settler. I want to get to the eastern copper ASAP.

We've met Vicky, Hatty, Toka, Washington, and Roosevelt already. Note: Roosevelt is pinkish in color. Well, that explains a lot, I always thought there was something... "different" about him. Oh well, he's going to be wiped out just like the rest of 'em.

Here's the map so far. You can see Vicky to the SW, Hatty to the W, Toka N, Roosevelt NE, and Washington to the E.

Here's the save. Eektor's up. Remember, everyone plays 20.

 

[GreyFox]

Just for the fun of it (its too early, I know):

Dot-map:

- Blue: next city, ASAP. Grab copper.
can move 1 tile north to grab one more wine and also convert one desert tile to useful city tile, but need one expansion to connect copper
can also move 1 tile south to be on hill, but totally loses the wines (save them for future expansion?)

- green dot: just for sones at the moment.

- grey dot: gems. might be good for early economy boost

- cyan dot: excellent site with gold, pig, and rice.

- yellow dot: another excellent site, with cow, gold and silk

- red dot: just a space filler with a gold.

Disclaimer: Above is just to get discusions going, hastily drawn.

 

[Maquis]

I agree that blue dot should be first. Washington is directly east, and we want to grab the copper before he does.

After AH comes in, we should look at going for IW next. I thikn the earlier we get our UU up the better!

Early war might be best in this game... even though it seemed to bite us in the other VQ's. I think that we need to WIPE out a civ early, then sit back and grow for a bit...

 

[bobrath]

Grey dot... why not go NW one tile? That would resolve some of the conflicting borders and get you on the sea...

 

[sgrig]

luker's comment:

Well good luck guys! Hopefully this will go better than the last two VQ games!

My personal opinion is that in the last two games you were a bit too trigger-happy. That is, you sometimes declared war without a proper build-up, and then even moderately successful wars took too long and drained your resources and weakened you so that others could attack you.

Remember Sun Tzu - "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."

 

[omni_paul]

lurker says: I'd move blue dot (copper town) one to the W. Founding on the hill = big production bonus over time, and you can save the wine for a future development. Also, it makes it one hell of an early wonder city, what with the extra hammer from the hill, 3 extra forests and the copper mine!

Just a lurker opinion. Will watch this one with interest .

 

[omni_paul]

Uh, oops. Make that one less forest. Guess that's why I'm only a lurker

 

[GreyFox]

My personal opinion is that in the last two games you were a bit too trigger-happy. That is, you sometimes declared war without a proper build-up, and then even moderately successful wars took too long and drained your resources and weakened you so that others could attack you.

Agree, agree. Ok, in VQ04, we will amass 10,000 praets before declaring war

I'd move blue dot (copper town) one to the W.

The problem with miving west, be it NW, directly west, or SW, is, it takes the city one cultural expansion to grab the copper. But, we want copper fast!

Grey dot... why not go NW one tile? That would resolve some of the conflicting borders and get you on the sea...

You are absolutely right! I drew grey dot first and red-dot as an after thought. However, being a conquest game, I would not worry too much about overlapping. How many size 21 cities would we have without first having H&H (heatlth and happiness) issues? Also, the greydot was placed on a jungle (1 less jungle to worry about).

But I agree on the sea (or was it lake?) part.

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[omni_paul]

The problem with miving west, be it NW, directly west, or SW, is, it takes the city one cultural expansion to grab the copper. But, we want copper fast!

I did think about that. I guess I'd just be loathe to waste the tiles in between. Then again, I often play with creative leaders, so the border pop is less of an issue than for JC.

 

[eektor]

Oops, I didn't realize I was up. I spent most of yesterday trying to finish my gotm game before the month is up. Sorry about that. Got it and I'll play tonight.

I'm thinking after settling on the blue dot, the cyan dot would be nice. If we work the gold right away it should even pay for the city maintenance of that city. If we don't get it in time then I guess yellow dot would be fine.

After AH, I'll be researching IW. Hopefully we would have iron beside us.

 

[Maquis]

Again, I agree to grab Blue Dot for the copper. Let's then try to get another worker/settler going for when IW comes in. We can't mis out if there's iron to be had...

One little update to the roster, everyone is in, no alternates. Everyone deserves a piece of the revenge pie!

player 1: Maquis -- Just played
player 2: eektor -- UP
player 3: bobrath -- on deck
player 4: GreyFox --
player 5: sozopol --
player 6: oldbustedjorn (last, since he asked for a little more time before jumping in)

 

[eektor]

Preturn: 2800 BC
Goals: Settle by the copper and research IW.
I noticed nobody was guarding the capital and there was a warrior up north. Decided to use the warrior to escort the settler and after the settler was done build some warriors.

Turn 2: 2720 BC
Warrior defeated panther and found a new source of copper. The other copper site looked better for the short run so I decided to keep with the plan of settling on the blue dot.




Turn 4: 2640 BC
Rome finished the settler and started building a warrior.

Turn 9: 2440 BC
Rome finished Warrior and is building another warrior.

Turn 10: 2400 BC
Antium founded and is building a warrior. (If you were wondering why it took a while to found the city from when I built the settler, its because our brave settler and warrior had to run away from these giant bears that kept following them.)

Turn 12: 2320 BC
Rome finished Warrior and is building a worker.

Turn 18: 2080 BC
Antium built Warrior and is building barracks.

Turn 19: 2040 BC
Rome built worker and is building Settler.
Cows connected.

Turn 20: 2000 BC
8 turns til Settler is finished
6 turns til IW is researched

After turn comments:

I suggest we research Pottery next so we can put cottages over all the flood plains. If we don’t have iron, that’s where we should send the next settler. Otherwise we could try to get the other copper spot or get a city next to a gold site. Oh if you want the settler faster you can chop another forest. I only did one forest chop because with all the flood plains, I wanted the 2 extra health from the 4 forest left. Although we could always chop it up when building our army of praets.

BTW Victoria volunteered to be our first target. How thoughtful of her. After her messing me up in gotm 3 and in VQ-02, this would be sweet revenge.



Our Roman empire

 

[eektor]

More pictures

Resources and culture




and the turn log

Spoiler :

Turn 30 (2800 BC)

Turn 31 (2760 BC)
Warrior defeats (2.00/2): Barbarian Panther

Turn 32 (2720 BC)

Turn 33 (2680 BC)
Rome finishes: Settler

Turn 34 (2640 BC)
Rome begins: Warrior

Turn 35 (2600 BC)

Turn 36 (2560 BC)

Turn 37 (2520 BC)
Tech learned: Animal Husbandry

Turn 38 (2480 BC)
Research begun: Iron Working
Rome finishes: Warrior

Turn 39 (2440 BC)
Rome begins: Warrior
Hinduism founded in a distant land

Turn 40 (2400 BC)
Antium founded
Antium begins: Warrior

Turn 41 (2360 BC)
Rome grows: 4
Rome finishes: Warrior

Turn 42 (2320 BC)
Rome begins: Worker

Turn 43 (2280 BC)

Turn 44 (2240 BC)

Turn 45 (2200 BC)

Turn 46 (2160 BC)

Turn 47 (2120 BC)
Antium finishes: Warrior

Turn 48 (2080 BC)
Antium begins: Barracks
Rome finishes: Worker

Turn 49 (2040 BC)
Rome begins: Settler

Turn 50 (2000 BC)

and here's the save

 

[bobrath]

Man... Vicky settled right next to where I wanted our third city to go. I think we might still be able to settle (yellow dot). Of course a second source of copper makes for a nice option to the NE of our capital.

Have to check it out!

(got it)

 

[bobrath]

(slow night so I went ahead and played).

The bad news - just about everyone will have iron it seems. Worst of all Vicky has two source. (sorry I didn't get anyone to declare war on us!)
The Good news - to get the two sources of iron, Vicky prolly ticked off Hatty something fierce.
The Better news - green dot (adjusted) is going to make an amazing 3rd city for us. Crabs and Iron in the big square.

The scores at end of my turn. We moved up quite a bit, not sure exactly why - perhaps we have a bit more room to grow (or I was agressive in the right way on techs).

I went on a different research path (only just now researching Pottery):
Hunting >> Archery >> Mysticism >> Masonry >> Pottery (due in 3).
I went Huting so we could hook up Ivory for the production bonus, then Archery so we could have some defense in case anyone got uppity. Mysticism since our non-capital cities could not expand without culture. Then I saw that Rome could build Stonehenge in just 12 turns and decided to make a run, but having the stone hooked up (via Masonry) would make an even better chance.

Rome is 7 turns out from Stonehenge, our two workers are 3 turns away from completing the quarry - so I figure we're about 5 turns away. Worse case we can bump our research back up to 100% with the gain if someone beats us to it. (10 hammers per turn)
Antium has produced one Axeman (currently keeping an eye on Vicky from our gold) and an Archer (defending Antium). Another Archer will be done in 3 and can go to defend Rome or Cumae. (7 hpt)
Cumae is working hard on a work boat (still 21 turns out) so it can hook up crabs. Iron is just outside its borders, so Stonehenge... will be kinda important - if we miss it then get an oblisk going here. (1 hpt) BTW here's Cumae at founding:

Vicky has hooked up her horses for sure, so we may want to bring along Spearmen if we go after her first.

Standard Demographics info:

The resource chart is too big to fit on one screen, but as I said almost everyone has iron... Here's our west because its the most interesting (and we're starting to get crowded over there!

From the cultural view, you can see Vicky cornering Hatty (and where our other borders are going to be pushed):

I've marked with an in game sign my suggestion for our fourth city. Its up to the NE by the lake (on that injutting corner of the lake). Bit of overlap with Antium, but it will pull in the copper with its first border pop and with a bit of encouragement can seal our eastern border. Might be hard with Pinky showin a cultural push there tho.

Yay olde timey turnlog:

Spoiler :

Turn 50 (2000 BC)
Rome's borders expand
Antium grows: 2

Turn 51 (1960 BC)

Turn 52 (1920 BC)

Turn 53 (1880 BC)

Turn 54 (1840 BC)
Tech learned: Iron Working

Turn 55 (1800 BC)
Research begun: Hunting
User comment: Hunting so we can get the Elephants and archers!

Turn 56 (1760 BC)
Judaism founded in a distant land

Turn 57 (1720 BC)
User comment: Judaism FIDAL
Tech learned: Hunting
Rome finishes: Settler

Turn 58 (1680 BC)
Research begun: Archery
User comment: Archery next (defenders!)

Turn 59 (1640 BC)

Turn 60 (1600 BC)
Antium finishes: Barracks

Turn 61 (1560 BC)
Antium begins: Axeman
Cumae founded
Cumae begins: Work Boat
Tech learned: Archery

Turn 62 (1520 BC)
Research begun: Mysticism
User comment: Mysticism next - have to have oblisks for the culture pop

Turn 63 (1480 BC)

Turn 64 (1440 BC)
Tech learned: Mysticism
Rome grows: 5
Rome finishes: Barracks

Turn 65 (1400 BC)
Research begun: Masonry
Rome begins: Stonehenge
User comment: Gonna try to run for Stonehenge (only 12 turns).
User comment: Researching Masonry so we can hook up stone
Antium finishes: Axeman

Turn 66 (1360 BC)
Antium begins: Archer

Turn 67 (1320 BC)
Tech learned: Masonry

Turn 68 (1280 BC)
Research begun: Pottery
Antium finishes: Archer

Turn 69 (1240 BC)
Antium begins: Archer

Turn 70 (1200 BC)

Suggestions for next player:
I didn't want to chop to rush stonehenge since we got a late start, but you can. Thing is you'll have to take a worker off the quarry and by the time they got to a forest... prolly too late!
If Stonehenge fails, we prolly have to build obolisks cause religion ain't coming for a while. I think George got Judaism. We need Cumae and Antium to border pop to get us Iron (and lesser Pigs). Oh! There are a few turns on a farm in the tile one north of Cumae. Worker killed time there waiting for masonry to complete. Suggest after they finish the quarry, move one east and finish the farm to get Cumae popping
I'd suggest roading to the other AI borders. Gives us trade routes for resources and eventually roads for our armies to take.

and the save:

 

[GreyFox]

Got it, will play later in the evening.

Pretty nice turns, bob. The jump in score is most likely due to the 3rd city (a founding a city cost scor eto jump) and also the research of techs.

Damned, vicky, grabbed our horses! She will pay for her crimes in vq02, vq03, and here!

I would moved the workers up the road to the forest next to the cows if I wanted a chop. I agree on the importance of stonehedge ... will slow us somewhat if we lose it.

Your suggested city location sounds okay to me.

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