whoknows01 - C3C Training on Monarch - Conq/Dom

[Mach]

I don't have the save in front of me, but...if you leave Tsingtao behind and head for Bejing, will Tsing become their capital (@ size 2)? That would be bad; then we couldn't get it for peace...

I'm inexperienced at war, so I'm going to watch closely and learn...maybe after I see your turns, pred, I'll try to reproduce them...

 

[predesad]

I don't have the save in front of me, but...if you leave Tsingtao behind and head for Bejing, will Tsing become their capital (@ size 2)? That would be bad; then we couldn't get it for peace...

I'm inexperienced at war, so I'm going to watch closely and learn...maybe after I see your turns, pred, I'll try to reproduce them...

I have thought of that & I will be wary of that, i do not know if i will go for beijing or not depending upon this factor.

since TCS has not shown up consider this my got it and i plan to p[lay later tonight

Mach, pm me your email and i will make you a "special" turn log for the battles if you want with more detail, or shold i just post a really detailed turn log, don't others to get bogged down with a long turn log though

 

[predesad]

I'm inexperienced at war, so I'm going to watch closely and learn...maybe after I see your turns, pred, I'll try to reproduce them...

Mach, I would highly reccomend doing that after the series I just had, if you are inexperienced at war this last sequence could be an eye opener. When i opened the turn I would never have guessed what i would be able to do in 8 turns, & really only 4 turns because it took 4 turns of travel before I made any attacks on turn 5 . . .

turn log:

okay, preturn made a few changes and notations:

first of all, Tlatelolco (i feel) has been a little mismanaged, it will be a perfect worker factory with a little work, why did we not irrigate the incense and work that tile, it would be worth 2 food, a shield, and 2 commerce? we have to get to 5 fpt & 5 spt ASAP because our worker situation is absolutely pitiful, but that is just my opinion, a quick fix will be to irrigate the incense and a flood plains, worker will stop working grassland tile when it finishes the road

changed productin in several cities:

Techno from warrior to spear, Tlaxcala & Texcoco archer to spear, Calix horse to spear : want some fast defense in case of a chinese counter attack or in case someone decides to declare while our troops are occupied, in Calix, horse was 7 turns, spear 4 and it had no barracks.
reduced science rate from 100% (Rep 18 turns @ -9 gpt) to 80% (rep 22 turns @ -2 gpt)
traded literature to 3 different civs for gold: Egypt 88, Russia 51, Vikings 25, for a net of 164
noted the English were building pyramids in London this is good for us in 2 respects
also noted we are stronger than everyone except korea who are average

- Texcoco = spear -> horse; Tlatelolco borders expand

1 - 975: move stack towards beijing, note that Canton is size 2, settler / spear to city site, workers roading to city site; Byz discover construction

-Tenoch = spear -> settler, Teo = horse -> settler, Tlat = worker -> worker (Tenoch / Teo mm so tenoch settler in 3 / Teo in 4, tlat can be mm 4 2 turn worker right now after border expansion, but hurts commerce due to working mountain)

2 - 950: Tlacopan founded (warrior in 10 turns), spear fortified; horse goes to find the nearby barb camp; spear in tenoch fortifies to be settler escort; prepare to finish Tlat preparation for more efficient worker factory, stack moves toward Beijing

- Byz build Oracle

3 - 925: continue march to Beijing, note Rep in 17 & 0 gpt @ 80%

- Tlat = worker -> worker (will have to slow down worker build to maintain 5 citizens for proper 2 turn worker factory, Tlax = spear -> horse, Calix = spear -> barracks, Xoch = barracks -> warrior (need a few more for mps and later upgrades); Byz warrior trespasses

4 - 900: cannot boot Byz warrior, so instead I renegotiate peace for 57 gold (they give us 57 gold); fortified the spears for mp / def; horse finds barb camp on mountain, single barb has been lurking around for a couple turns; move stack to forest by Beijing; Rep 16 turns, -6 gpt

- Tenoch = settler -> horse (tenoch can now be an 8 turn horse / settler factory)

5 - 875: horse destroys barb camp and promotes to elite; attack Beijing with vet archers first, lose 2, 3rd vet archer kills spear, next vet archer kills spear, only one redlined spear remains, attack with horse because it has a longer shelf life and hope for promotion but get none; capture Beijing, citizen is unhappy, convert to scientist, production warrior; move horse and spear into Beijing, archers head towards Xinjan using former chinese roads; Rep in 14 -1 gpt up from -6 gpt thanks to capture of beijing; Canton now chinese capitol

- Chinese warrior shows up west of Xoch; Teo = settler -> horse (can also do 8 turn settler / horse) just realized there aint much land left so maybe settlers not a big priority soon

6 - 850: move wounded archer into Beijing; Archer leave Tlat to defend Xoch plus 2nd warrior will be built before chinese warrior gets there; Teo settler gets escort from Tlax spear

- chinese archer from canton approaches Beijing for attack

7 - 825: kill chinese archer w/ wounded archer from Beijing; horse is healed, leaves Beijing using chinese roads to attack and destroy Nanking which was guarded by a spear, split archers 2 head for Xinjian, 2 head for Chengdu

- Tlat = worker -> worker (after some mm it is now set up for a perfect 2 turn worker factory, after every worker is built just check and make sure citizens are working the right tiles to get 5 fpt & 5 spt, these tiles are: irrigated flood plains wheat, irrigated floodplains, 2 mined plains, and irrigated desert incense), Xoch = warrior -> horse

8 - 800: archer attacks Xinjian defended by warrior & loses, 2nd archer defeats warrior and destroys the city; Atzapotzalco founded very close to Chengdu (which has dyes) production set to warrior; Beijing citizen is no longer unhappy, put him to work; horse capture worker in land formerly belonging to Nanking; silks are hooked up;


-moved settler to hills where i had planned to build another city

-negotiate peace with China, they give us Chengdu and Tsingtao, leaving them with only 1 city, Canton

I know it is only 8 turns, but has been a busy 8 & I am calling it quits, special thanks to lullaby for putting me in very good position and kicking off the war

i went ahead and posted a somewhat detailed turn log because it was not that involved, no bombardment units, small stack, simple battles. i thought about building some cats, but if we are going to use horses cats will slow them down, it can be done, but not best combination.
-i do not reccommend hooking up iron yet, we can get a few more warriors for mps first, we were planning to use horses anyway.
-i guess the next player (Mach?) could open diplomacy with China and boot that warrior from next to Xoch.
-be wary of that warrior barb near our wounded horse, i was trying to get the horse back to a city with a barracks to heal, archer near Xoch might be used now to attack the barb, but i would lead him to flat lands instead of the mountains, is everyone aware of the barbarian bug and how to exploit it?
-i reccomend destroying china when the 20 turns are up unless they suddenly plop down several more cities, i highly recommend guarding our rep, this means keeping peace with China & the Byz until those deals expire

i could have gotten Tsintao in peace negotiations right after the capture of Beijing, however i wanted to settle near the dyes and if china settled in that area i was going to make sure to either destroy that city or get it in peace negotiations, when the settler / spear moved to the hills sure enough i spotted the chinese spear / settler right by the dyes.

i will post a pic shortly

 

[predesad]

also, i did a LOT of mm, especially concerning Techno & Teo, tried to emphasize commerce where possible without affecting production or growth and used close city placement to often switch citizens from one city to another. still an mm headache, but we have 2 lux, a third available, temples in every city, that means once the dyes get hooked up with 2 mps per city we can have 8 citizens with no happiness problems, when we switch to republic we can still support 6 citizens with no happiness problems.

oh, & i almost forgot about that horse barb by chendu, that sucks, he will sack our city next turn, i had no idea he was there until after the peace negotiation, nothing we can do about it.

 

[whoknows888]

Great job Predesad. Could you send me an email with how you effectively attacked etc. because I do lack military experience like Mach and I sometimes go to war too late and they have a large enough military, or they become a "runaway" civ.

 

[Lullaby]

first of all, Tlatelolco (i feel) has been a little mismanaged, it will be a perfect worker factory with a little work, why did we not irrigate the incense and work that tile, it would be worth 2 food, a shield, and 2 commerce?

Stupid me. I love playing agricultural civs, yet I forgot we can afford working deserts.

The whole rest is sort of what I hoped for to learn from. I for myself would have fought with much more caution and much less speed, taking one city after another and not splitting up my troops.

 

[Mach]

Nice, pred! I'm up, and I'll play it tomorrow. Today I'll replay pred's turns.

A few things.

1.) FP? I say we wait for a leader from the English war, and put it in Bejing. I'll farm for elite horses against barbs...
2.) Shall we switch to republic right away? I say yes. It'll hurt our economy, but only until we trigger our GA against the English-- then we build markets & libs, and we'll be fine. I'll bring our jags back home for that purpose. In Rep we'll have to rethink our factories...
3.) During my turns I'll try to get dyes hooked up, try to settle the north more, get horses built, and finish rep. Anything else?
4.) Northern dotmap...

 

[Mach]

Hm, the ways of the RNG are strange. I tried to reproduce your results, pred, but the stack got decimated at Bejing -- lost all but two archers. I was able to take the city by attacking in desparation with the spear (vs redlined spear)...but then I had to make peace for only Tsingtao. So as a test I redid it, waiting a turn outside Bejing before attacking...and I actually took Bejing without a loss! Then I was able to reproduce your results pretty much exactly, just a turn behind.

As a side note, I was able to make a 2-turn worker factory out of Tlat before the workers were done...first I worked the two wheats, the two mined plains, and a lake for +6 food and +4 shields. Then I moved the lake citizen to the incense, for +4 food and +5 shields. Since it got one extra shield on growth (I guess it worked a hill?), I got workers every two turns. So my turns had one extra worker.

 

[predesad]

Hm, the ways of the RNG are strange. I tried to reproduce your results, pred, but the stack got decimated at Bejing -- lost all but two archers. I was able to take the city by attacking in desparation with the spear (vs redlined spear)...but then I had to make peace for only Tsingtao. So as a test I redid it, waiting a turn outside Bejing before attacking...and I actually took Bejing without a loss! Then I was able to reproduce your results pretty much exactly, just a turn behind.

As a side note, I was able to make a 2-turn worker factory out of Tlat before the workers were done...first I worked the two wheats, the two mined plains, and a lake for +6 food and +4 shields. Then I moved the lake citizen to the incense, for +4 food and +5 shields. Since it got one extra shield on growth (I guess it worked a hill?), I got workers every two turns. So my turns had one extra worker.

hmm, about the reproduction thing, i remember having to select an archer from the stack because a regular archer was the first available, instead of hitting wait i right clicked on the stack and selected a veteran archer, i may try to replay the battle portion at a later time to see how to recreate it, wait, nevermind i think i know what the problem is, see in my log where i attacked the barb camp with my horse, if you did not engage in that battle also then the rng is completely different. fortunately i have an easy solution because i saved right before the battles so i could also post that turn for easy recreation, but then when i posted the log and turn i forgot about it, it is right here, i do not remember if i this save is before or after the horse attacks barb, so you must attack the barb camp first before attacking Beijing if it is before. And also be sure to use a veteran archer, a regular may give different overall results because it could alter the RNG, i think.

there were several ways to get the 2 turn factory at size 4 but all of them required mm on 2 turns, so i delayed the worker build intentionally to get to size 5 and the onyl mm required might be just to check which tiles are worked after worker builds to make sure they dont get arranged differently, this also gives us more commerce staying at size 5 instead of 4

@whoknows: the log pretty much has all the information in it since it was not too involved, if you have any questions about anything specific in the turn set just email / pm me (predesad AT yahoo DOT com) i think if you use the turn i have uploaded here you should be able to recreate with no problem because i think i have provided all the information.

@lullaby - i took some risk here, but no risk = no reward, i sort of planned the moves ahead of time and my results were almost best possible scenario, th ehorse could have easily lost in Nanking, like Mach had trouble, I could have taken heavy losses at Beijing. when they sent that archer out from Canton, I also attacked with a wounded archer to be able to use my horse to invade Nanking, which is a big risk. But the biggest part is knowing some about the AI, At this point in the game, AI cities typically have 2-3 defenders max, Beijing had 3, other cities only one, i was banking on weak defenses. If it sounds like it depends on a little luck, it's because it does, but i don't like to be safe all the time.

 

[Mach]

Preturn --
We're going to have some core worker issues -- we'll be using some unimproved tiles -- if we don't do something soon! We need more workers!

Here's my worker recon...
Tenoch will be @ 15spt with 2 more mined gl & 2 mined hills in rep. Do this first -- we can get it done in 20 turns or so.
Road forests by Texoco, then mine hills. It can switch off forests to hills so...
Tlax can use them. After it's gls are mined.
Teoti is ok.
Xochi needs a miner too, but I'll work others first.
Mine hill by Calix.
...and hook up dyes! I know we would like to improve our Chinese holdings, but I think the core comes first.

Change all northern warrior builds to workers. Sorry pred, I know I'm stepping on your toes here, but we need workers, and I think we'll be disbanding warriors once we're in Republic. We have no short term need for mp's, but we do need workers.
MM looks good, just a bit of work on Tlax.

Hit enter.

(I) Barb horse took 35 gold.
Tenoch horse --> settler
Calix rax --> horse
Tlac worker --> rax

T1 (775BC) Found Tzintalkjbndafl`aeln*^*. Start granary.
(I) Teoti horse --> settler
Tlat worker --> worker
Tex horse --> horse

T2 (750BC) zzz
(I) zzz

T3 (730BC) zzz
(I) Tlat worker --> worker

T4 (710BC) Poly to Russia for 73g
(I) Tlax horse --> horse

T5 (690BC) zzz
(I) Tenoch settler --> horse
Teoti settler --> settler
Tlat worker --> worker

T6 (670BC) zzz
(I) Bejing worker --> rax
Xoch horse --> horse

T7 (650BC) Horse attacks barb warrior...no promotion.
(I) Tlat worker --> worker

T8 (630BC) zzz
(I) Calix horse --> horse
Chinese settler emerges

T9 (610BC) Try to block the Chinese settler...
(I) Republic comes in! Set to currency in 10 @ 80% sci (-1gpt)
Tenoch horse --> settler
Teoti settler --> horse
Tlat worker --> worker
Tsing worker --> rax
Atzcap worker --> rax
Chengdu worker --> rax

T10 (590BC) zzz

I'll stop here -- I guess I could take 2 more turns, but since the next player will probably have anarchy turns, I'll leave him the extra.
Pretty boring turns, just built horses, moved workers, and mm'd.
There are two settlers heading to settle the very north, but they are still ~5 turns away. See if you can keep that Chinese settler blocked for that long; otherwise the settlers can be diverted east.
I've been improving our core with my mind on republic -- so I've been mining some hills, etc.
Our worker force increased from 9 to 19.
We have 3 settlers in the field. I would say get 1 more each out of Techno & Teoti, then grow them into pure horse factories. If we need more settlers, we can get them out of our wheat flood plains cities.

We now have an offensive force of 9 horses (7 of them are massed in Tlat). Our defensive force is 10 warriors, 6 spears, and 6 archers.
We have 10 turns left of peace with the Chinese. I think we have two choices here.
1.) Wait till this is over, end the Chinese, then go after the English. This will give us a smaller front to cover at all times. (Wanting a smaller front actually has little to do with defending our cities. A smaller front = needing fewer city garrisons = better for our economy in republic.)
2.) Hit the English first, leave the Chinese for later. We could attack the English earlier this way, but we'd have to leave some units to cover the Chinese front, to deter sneak attack.
I'm not sure what to do here. I think I like #2.


My advice for the next player
We could trade republic for construction right now, plus some chump change. I'm thinking take it.
Tlat needs MM on growth! Keep it at +5 food & +5 shields! Also watch other mm's...plenty of cities need it.
Lots of builds can be rethought -- lots of northern rax builds, for instance. I wasn't sure what to do there.
Please continue to improve our core. First, please do not chop any forests! They make nice shields. Also mine some hills around Tlax and Tex that you think we'll use.
Hook up the dyes. There are plenty of workers over there now.
Revolt to republic!
Once in republic, disband our warriors. Position our spears & archers on our fronts; leave interior cities empty.
Also mm our cities at that point. The magic numbers are 15spt (2 turn horse factory), 10spt (3 turn factory), or 8spt (4 turn factory).

Da Save

The northern block...

...and our core.

 

[predesad]

Mach, I disagree with you about disbanding the warriors, they can become swords if we hook up the iron, and then med inf. Also, since our culture has an unexpected take off due to Artemis (which now that I really think about it (I still like the pyramids) is really going to help us) we don't have to worry so much about flips, by the time it expires we may be building some libraries which will exceed the culture of those temples anyway, but the point I have is we can keep cities from war instead of razing, but we will have resistors, instead of leaving a whole bunch of powerful units in a city to quell resistors, warriors would have the same effect. others may disagree, but with a militaristic approach i never disband any units, not any, never, never, never, but that is just my $.02.

I would trade for construction right now.

about switching my builds form warriors to workers, i almost started workers from the start myself & prolly should have, but the worker thing won't be an issue for long provided Tlat is handled properly and continues to be a worker factory for a long, long time.

As far as the China / England thing goes, take them both at the same time. How many archers do we have left, 3-4? Add a horse or 2 and send to China (when our peace runs out) meanwhile take the bulk of our horses and send them towards England. Alternatively, just take a whole bunch of those warriors along with the archers and throw them at China.

Mach - did you (or anyone else) try to recreate using the second save I attached yesterday?

And once more I make a vow, if you guys don't attack England before I get the turn, I will

 

[Mach]

I disagree with you about disbanding the warriors

Fair 'nough. If we want to go after England & China at the same time, then keeping some warriors around for defense is a good idea, if our market-less economy can bear them. I would at least suggest disbanding some of them, starting with the regulars...but I leave it up to the player. See what our economy looks like in rep, and see what we can keep. As far as upgrading them, well, we're be building horsemen pretty fast once we're solidly in rep...again, we'll have to see.

I'm playing a solo emperor game (and winning!) as the Greeks, and I think I made the mistake of building too many hoplites and warriors and not enough horse early on. Five extra horses would have meant a lot to my early wars, yet my slow movers have mostly sat around on useless guard duty... Well, I'm learning.

Something funny happened in that game, btw. I got germany down to it's last city, by a volcano. I moved 15 knights in for the kill, next to the volcano...and saw it smoking. I almost had a heart attack...as I hit space...and the volcano destroyed the germans, leaving me unscathed. "The rampaging Germans have destroyed the Germans."

Mach - did you (or anyone else) try to recreate using the second save I attached yesterday?

Not yet, no time. Will do, tho...

I forgot to mention that I'm bringing one of the scouts back home. We can use him to trigger our GA towards the end of the English war. That way we can build markets & libs quickly...

 

[predesad]

I guess we could always stick with horses and then knights, but when we reach the MA & before we get to Chivalry horses vs pikes wont be pretty unless we build some artillery units, in which case if we build artillery our slow moving artillery wont be able to keep up with the horses so we might as well switch to med inf, unless we use that time for infrastructure and peaceful building.

I rarely use horses because i prefer combined arms approach. I usually go with the early archer rush and bring along a couple cats, then start a buildup of swords + more cats for next war, then pikes (very few) + med inf + trebs.

the jag thing for GA is a good idea. we wont be able to do to England close to what we did to China so quickly and I doubt it would be wise to seperate our stack as I did with China, they have had / will have more time to build units. Plus we will have to plan on reinforcements from home, plus we'll need to consider a few spears trailing our horses for defense in conquered cities. Then right before we're ready to negotiate peace try to get the Jag victory, but we might actually have to build a couple more to get a victory unless we can pick off an archer / horse in the open, but that is iffy. After GA, negotiate peace and start on infrastructure and plan next war.

 

[Lullaby]

The main advantage of horsies/knights is speed and retreat chances. As we are facing some rough terrain in the south and west, this will be reduced to the retreat possibility. A combined arms approach will be more effective here. Hook up the iron and go for swords, I'd say.

Definitely build more than one Jag. Even if we manage to trigger a GA with the first one, the others are capable of pillaging and finishing off damaged units. About 4 of them should be ok.

 

[Mach]

Combined arms for future wars sounds fine with me. In prep, we can start using the northern towns for catapult production -- they're too corrupt to build vet units.

 

[whoknows888]

Got it but if I dont post tonight or early tomorrow morning next person, lullaby take my turn set. If you guys want to wait til I get back or continue without me is fine. I will be gone 3/1 to 3/6.

 

[Lullaby]

I should be able to play tonight.

Another thing: as I see it, we are down to 4 players. As this is labelled as a training game I'd say another emperor+ player would be quite nice.

 

[Lullaby]

got it

And this sentence is added only to reach the minimum character number of 10.

 

[Lullaby]

Turn 0, 590 BC
Traded Construction and 50gp for Republic
Started revolt
MMd cities for maximum food during anarchy

IBT: nothing special

Turn 1, 570 BC
...

IBT: The chinese settler crossed our borders

Turn 2, 550 BC
Told chinese to leave. The said they will.

IBT: Tlaxelolco going riot
Chinese are building the Colossus!!!!!

Turn 3, 530 BC

IBT: chinese entering our borders again, they now have a second settler who wants to move west

Turn 4, 510 BC
In a flash of inspiration I did not tell the chinese to leave. We could end up in a war during anarchy
Founded Malinalco s of Bejing

IBT: nothing

Turn 5, 490 BC
Founded Tula on northern Cape

IBT: nothing

Turn 6, 470 BC
Founded Tamuin ne of the chinese capital Kanton. The northern area is completely settled now

IBT: nothing

Turn 7, 450 BC
...

IBT: nothing

Turn 8, 430 BC
We're now a Republic
Barb uprising near Chengdu
Lux 10%, Science 30%, Currency still in 9
Changed production in Xocichalco, Teoti and Calix to JagWarrior
Changed production in Chengdu to barracks
Looks like Korea is on a war trip west
The chinese settlers have stepped deep into our lands. I bring most of our horsies north to take them out in case they declare war when we tell them to leave.

IBT: nothing

Turn 9, 410 BC
Texcoco horseman -> horseman
Xochicalco JagWarrior -> horseman
Tlacopan barracks -> warrior
Changed production in Tlaxcala from horseman to settler
Traded with Korea Monarchy + 50gp for Republic
Traded with Russia Currency + 25gp for Republic
We're now in the MA
Set research to Feudalism, 21 turns for that
Russia and Byzantines both have Monotheism as their free tech. Egypt already has traded for it. The others are still in the AA.

You should usually not give the game to the next player after trading. In this case I will do so because the trades made it necessary to make an important decision, researching engineering or feudalism. The question is which of the two will give us the better trading opportunities.

The anarchy was rather long, eating up most of the turns.

What the next player should do: wait until the chinese settlers are in a position where they are vulnerable, then tell them to leave every round.

Build some warriors, hook up the iron, upgrade to swordsmen/MI. Possibly build some trebuchets.

The east holds another four fine city locations:

The save

 

[Mach]

Nice! Tough break on the long anarchy. I think you did a good job trading. And great job tangling with the Chinese settlers; I've found blocks like that to be tricky.

Before the trade for Monarchy, was there no chance we could get mono for rep plus cash? Just wondering. (I can't look at the save yet, but I do have MapStat here at work...)

I'd like us to research our next tech before scientific Korea gets to the MA, then trade it for mono. Do you guys think we can do it? Korea still needs currency & construction, they're broke, and they might be at war. We can research at deficit, and the lux will go down once the dyes are connected. As for which to research, I say go for the faster one.

We could make an embassy with Korea to see what's up, if they're at war and all that.

I think Artemis was a good call! We are cultural monsters, hehe. Helps prevent flips.

Looks like lots to do, preddy. The Chinese Peace will soon be up. I'll look at the save later, maybe I'll have more to say then.

As for wanting another player, I've felt that a post in the sg registry thread is in order, but I've been too timid to do it myself -- this isn't my sg. But with who out of town for awhile, is it terribly bad etiquette for us to put out a call?