Wondering the different ways people would go from here.

[ShunNakamura]

Well the attached screenshot shows where I am currently at in my game. I no doubt failed to rex all that fast also my scouting was a bit poor(though honestly since I rex slow my scouting is mostly to find other civs). However, I do have a third city on its way to claim the silks. And I have that settler coming in from the falls.

It is a standard size Pangaea map on Reagent[if memory serves]. The temp/climate/age(or whatever) as well as Barbarians were set on Random. I quickly found that there weren't much Barbarian wise and they weren't moving much, so I guessed that I could get away with very little military in the rex phase and focused instead on workers(I hate not having a hoard of workers). Neither city yet has a granary, I didn't feel the need since both are food rich, was that a mistake?

The opponents are as follows. To the east is Egypt(who has access to iron though no Iron Working). They are fairly close and thus are one of the civs I am thinking of striking down. To the south is China(I don't know if they have iron or not). They are close, but there is a large expanse of hills between them and me and not much prime real estate. Only thing of note is a single spice resource just outside of their capital's BFC. Directly to the north is Germany. There is some jungle and some hills between me and them and they do have access to Iron(though they don't have Iron Working yet). Normally I would ignore them in favor of wiping Egypt out. However, Germany has the Romans to their west(whom I learned Iron Working from this turn and had the luck to have iron in my second city's radius) and the Mayans(or was it Incans? to their north). Also Germany for some reason was annoyed with me from the start even after some generous trades early on. The others are cautious or Polite(even if they started annoyed).

Tech Wise I am the only one with horseback riding and Rome and I are the only ones with Iron Working. I am currently hoarding it. Hopefully Rome proves loath to part with it as well. That will keep Germany and Egypt from building swords.


Now my options that I see are as follows. I can strike down Egypt which would let me research something other than writing. Or I can learn writing, gift it to the Mayans and Romans(assuming they don't get to it before me) and get them to help me Dogpile Bismark(it is writing that enables that option, right?). I don't consider Rome an option due to distance and the fact that Legionaries could prove a tough nut to crack at this time.

As for my settler in Niagra. He can be produced in either 6 turns, or in 3 turns(by using the iron hill). The issue is where to drop him. Being Aggricultural I could probably afford to settle near the incense(netting me two lux).

On to military expansion. I can obviously build Mounted Warriors or Swordsman. If I go the Swords route I could alter to Mathematics and use catapults as well(take some of the luck out of sacking Egypt or China). Using swords rather than MW's would also avoid an early Golden Age. But then again I might have at least 5 or 6 cities by the first win so that may not be so bad(particularly so if I attack the Germans).

Either way while I wait for the forces to amass and tech to tech up I would use the mounted warrior being produced in my capital to scout more about the enemy and possible routes to them.



Anyways so far I am personally inclined to try and dogpile Germany if possible. I have gold and tech to bribe the others with and Germany seems to be the only one who doesn't want to play friends with me. I suppose if I wanted I could even try and get Egypt in on the dogpile(seeing as how they are proving to be a rather friendly neighbor at the moment). In addition if bad luck strikes and my MW's all get clobbered by a single redlined spear(it has happened in another game of mine ) Germany is far enough away that I'll have replacement troops before they can hit me. Egypt and their war chariots(assuming the AI builds them and has access to horses) could get to me relatively quickly.

Or long story short mostly I am just bored and decided to use my current game as a conversation starter(besides feed back can only help, yes?). Starting to wish I had been on a higher difficultly. This looks to be a decent start for a tough game should I manage the start correctly. I suppose the real question is if I have the industrial/modern resources around as well.

 

[del62]

You dont need to gift the other civs writing, but you need need to build embassies

 

[Spoonwood]

What sort of Victory Condition do you want? No matter the victory condition, I advise more cities and a city between Salamanca and Niagra Falls. I'd definitely trade horseback riding for iron working. Finish Writing. If you want a conquest or domination victory, I'd just build a ring or two of cities around the capital, then barracks and mounted warriors in your cities and pretty much forget about research after Writing and Iron Working.

 

[ShunNakamura]

I was not aware of the other civs not needing writing.. never tried an Ancient age Dogpile before.

@spoonwood I should not I already have iron working, the Romans only wanted pottery and masonry(I think that was what it was) for it. Maybe some gold, don't recall exactly.

As for VC, heh I didn't really choice one for this game.However, the general idea is to take out one maybe two or even three civs early on(since I rarely war early and figured I was due for a change). Working on Dogpiles would be a bonus sense I rarely use them. Basically it is a game to work on techniques strategies I rarely utilize. And since I have never built the spaceship I figured I would score an early lead through warring expansion and finish with the ship(though if I reach domination requirements before then I will hardly be put out; I can always make that a separate game). Also to play as a non-industrial Civ. I really like faster working workers :/. Practically addicted to them.


Did a quick number of turns non-optimized just to see what it would take to get Rome/Maya involved. Doesn't look too costly. The real question is how much they will actually contribute. However, I can't seem to get Egypt involved. Those quick turns did turn up something though. A) Greece is on my doorstep to the west(I never saw a single unit of theirs... so I was sure there had to be more than a little space between me and the next civ on that side). Also I was apparently wrong on the barb settings. Had a number of them come up from the south and some horses from the northwest.

 

[Sashie VII]

Neither city yet has a granary, I didn't feel the need since both are food rich, was that a mistake?

It would improve your growth rate, so a granary would've helped you.

Now my options that I see are as follows.

If I may suggest, another option would be to focus on expansion for the time being. After all, you'll wage war better with a solid base of production. As Spoonwood said,

I advise more cities and a city between Salamanca and Niagra Falls.

More cities would give you more production, and you can amass your forces faster. Leads to a faster invasion date, and less time for the AI to build their own military. You soldiers will have an easier time then.

On research, I agree with Spoonwood that you can turn research off soon if you're going for conquest. But in my opinion you can turn it off now, since you already have access to Mounted Warriors. In numbers, they'll be all you need to conquer the world.

 

[Aabraxan]

I would suggest picking your VC now. Having that in mind early always helps guide later decisions. It sounds like you want to go the conquest-to-space route. Pack cities in a little tighter (as others have already mentioned), and focus on expansion until you're about to run out of room. When that point hits, pick your first victim and start gearing up to pound them. As for MWs vs Swords, I'd go with MWs. A big stack of MWs can wreck an AA civ on Regent. The only drawback is that you might wind up with a despotic GA. If you want to avoid that, don't go with MWs until you've switched governments.

 

[Optional]

If other civs were closer and occupying decent terrain, then an early war would make sense. But Germany is relatively far away, across a mountain range and jungle. That terrain between you and Germany looks pretty unforgiving, actually - although reasonable once that jungle got cleared. Still, I wonder if there's better terrain around you.
Thebes seems to have some nice terrain, although I agree with you, Shunsuke, that Bismarck is nicer to attack for he's an aggressive bastard, and Cleopatra is kinda nice. What's west of you, Naka?

I'd go with MWs.The only drawback is that you might wind up with a despotic GA.

Yeah, a despotic GA with just a couple of towns is maybe not so worthwhile. Otherwise, look at the terrain as well: mined bonus grassland on rivers, which is found a lot in good starts, will not give anything extra in a GA, as the despotism penalty will take all the extra's away.
But if you have mined hills or irrigated desert tiles - and you will end up with a lot of those in this start - they will go from 2 to 3 shields and 1 to 2 shields respectively. In some GA's you'll notice a despotic penalty less than others, due to the terrain.

 

[Spoonwood]

If going for fast conquest or domination, there doesn't usually exist a drawback to a despotic GA, especially with the Mounted Warrior. If talking about an optimal GA in terms of production and commerce there does. The basic strategy of building a ring or two of cities around your capital, then barracks, and then Mounted Warriors after having Horseback Riding and possibly Writing for embassies and Iron Working to spot enemies iron resource can really work on certain types of pangea maps (espeically 80% pangea maps) up to and including Deity level, as well as possibly some Sid maps.

 

[ShunNakamura]

Well I decided to reload from the start and try with a warrior/warrior/granary(whipped) and then settle as much and as fast as possible. Just to see the difference it made. Not very much. I had one more city at the same year, but my land was less developed due to fewer workers at first. Plus not all the cities are networked by roads yet. However, it does pay off since once they are revved up(and the two richest food wise had finished their granaries and were beginning some workers) I will be in a better spot, however, dealing with barbs with limited military without roads is a pain(even with MWs, in the last round the MW's could reach nearly anypoint in one turn or less[even when I had covered that much land in the last round], thus my roaming rangers easily ran the barbs off, but the lack of roads mean they need two turns or more so I can't make any mistakes/misclicks on deployment).

And Germany proved too tough to crack in the previous round. Wasted 12 MW's against their Spears/Archers before I figured I had enough. Two elites fell to a single spear(I was losing at least 2-3 MW's to every spear he had, I assume all his cities must have been on hills with walls or something(edit, actually scratch that I know Berlin wasn't on a hill), that or I got RNG screwed. I really don't get lucky with retreat). Though actually he wasn't too tough since Rome and Maya over ran him, but I didn't get anything out of but lost MW's. I think that this time I will ignore Bismark(since I can easily fortify that mountain range and set defensive units on it, That should hold pretty well).

So for my early war that leaves Egypt to the east, China to the south, and Greece to the West(remembered to scout west this time). Egypt has a bunch of jungle/wetlands(or at least the area right before my warrior scout was blocked was mostly of that type) and doesn't look too appetizing. Plus Cleo is such a good neighbor to me. China to the south doesn't have much other than some spice(but I should manage to net that through one of my settled cities through Cultural expansion) and incense(which I already have). However, the Greeks look mighty tasty(they have wines and ivory two luxes I don't have... if I take those I would have incense, spice, silk, ivory, and wines once all my road are caught up). However, to bust the Hoplites I will probably need to go the Sword/Cat route(use MWs to pillage/harass/and patrol my territory I suppose).

Some more screenies. Note that these were taken the very turn I got Monarchy and that I used CivAssist so that I could control the zoom(at least I have yet to find a way in game to do it). Not much military since I was still Rexing/trying to catch up on workers however there is a settler on the move so within a turn or two after these I should have 7 towns. Plus I had bad luck with barbs and lost a MW and a couple archers attacking barb warriors who were harassing me(I was shocked at the MW loss). Anyways I still feel like I am revving up too slowly.

Other than that what would be the next tech you would go after? I figure it shouldn't be an optional tech, but construction would have minimal use(I suppose collos for happiness would allow a larger size easier, but I usually make do without them) since most of my cities were founded on rivers and thus I don't need aqueducts much. Currency would definitely gain a lot of support if I decide to mobilize against the Greeks. However, as it is I only have one of the luxes hooked up(I need more workers for roads... guh) and my sliders are maxed on lux and research so I don't get much as tax. But MM/CoL don't really look good either. I should also note that my science was turned all the way down in that screen sine I was avoiding overflow from finishing Philo, this CivAssist is fairly handy even if it makes my computer lag a bit more at first and has an odd habbit of making my keyboard short cuts stop working after I get rid of the alert popup(just for one unit though).

And as an ending note. . . good grief do the Romans have lots of wheat! Though I suppose Maya could challenge them for the northern ones and Greece could challenge for the southern 4 if they wanted. A resource abundant map this is(at least compared to what I normally see and as luck has it I have a good chunk of the good stuff easily grab-able right near me)

 

[Optional]

Well I decided to reload from the start and try with a warrior/warrior/granary(whipped) and then settle as much and as fast as possible. Just to see the difference it made. Not very much.

Comparing 2110 BC saves? The investment of a granery takes a bit more time to give a decent return. Compare 1000 BC saves, then you should see a difference.

I was losing at least 2-3 MW's to every spear he had, I assume all his cities must have been on hills with walls or something, that or I got RNG screwed.

You didn't attack across a river, did you? I know you restarted, but in your original save both visible German towns, Berlin and Hamburg, lie across a river from you. This give a 50% bonus to the defending unit. Normally a defending unit already gets some terrain bonus - 10% on flat terrain - plus a bonus for being fortified. I don't even know what the bonus for being fortified is, but if you've been attacking spears across rivers with Mounted Warriors you were favourite to lose - A 50% bonus for defending behind a river + 10% terrain defense bonus would on its own already bring the modified defense of a spearman to 3.2, better than the attack of 3 of a Mounted Warrior.
So circumnavigate any rivers if you can (sometimes you need to turn on clean map to see properly how the rivers are running).

I'm not seeing any screenies or a save, Shunsuke, so I find it a bit tricky to comment on what I think would be best to do now. Well I would certainly advise against colosseums; as far as I know, there's never much sense in them in a conquest game, but seem to have come to that conclusion yourself already.

 

[ShunNakamura]

Odd, I know it showed the screenies in the preview(I went over it a couple times to make sure). . . Well whatever the issue was I redid it and fixed it.

And nope I wasn't sure what the bonus was from attack across rivers but I have a phobia of it, I won't even use a Immortal to attack a redlined spear from across one. Let alone MWs against a full health spear. Though I suppose the river could have been doing something sneaky that I didn't see. However, as far as I know I was not attacking across the river.

One thing I may not have mentioned is he had two archers in the city and their defensive bombardment really laid the smack down on my first two MW's. Losing 1 HP certainly didn't help the odds any.

 

[Optional]

Okay, then curse the RNG. Especially losing against barbs with MW's is bad. Is the level still Regent? That should give you 200% bonus against barbs; MW is attack 3, add 200% to that, and it's basically 9 to 1. Still, in 10 fights against barbs, you will lose 1 on average.

Looking at the science table, I would go Currency here, but I do that all the time anyway. Reason is that that's the tech the AI is most likely to ignore.
You can more or less count on the Romans going Construction. Map Making is very popular among the whole of the AI, and someone will probably do Code of Laws. Currency gives you best chance to get a high value monopoly tech - meaning the best chance to trade for the remaining AA techs; Map Making, Code of Laws and Construction.
After that, Feudalism would be interesting for your iron units upgrades. It's a very popular tech with the AI, sometimes that can be a reason to avoid researching it yourself, but I would probably research it myself here.

 

[ShunNakamura]

Heh, I should probably bother to learn the AI's tech prefs sooner or later.

As for fued, well I have an undeniable tech lead(it is pretty hard not to have some kind of tech lead on reagent imo). So I did pick it up fast.


Well the current itteration is going rather well implementing the advice I have been given. I started with a war against Cuddly Bismarck again not so much to take his lands myself, but to let Egypt, Maya, and Rome to focus on his lands while I prepped for a raid on Greek lands(I really wanted that ivory and wines). The only city I settled on German territory was the Dyes area. So that netted me spice, dye, incense, silk, wine, and ivory. I need furs and. . . uhhh. . . Something else yet. I also sacked Berlin hard enough that Egypt was capable of finishing them off.

On the Greek front I progressed much slower than I would have liked. Freakin Hoplites walled the advance at every point. In the end my army was probably 75% catapults. That finally gave me almost all their cities before I had to declare peace with them. Thus I was at war from 1325 BC(actually a bit earlier if memory serves) to around 10 AD between the Germans and Greeks. At which point my Gracious Neighbor by the name of Ceasar decides to jump that north most city of mine taking out the tiny garrison. Thus, I decided I could sign peace with Greece to deal with that treacherous traitor. Heck, I was even giving him GPT for something or other at the time.

Sadly for Rome my garrison while being weak wasn't my 'true defense'. Had I not had assumed he was friendly he would never have gotten that close without having to deal with my roving rangers(the MW's that I have set up to run all over the area, means I need fewer troops at home than if fortifying each town with 2-3 swords). Thus, he very quickly got his position overrun by my horde(though I lost a surprisingly high number of MW's to his archers when they were defending.. defensive bombardment can really be the difference between a win and a loss).

After sacking him(and making sure EVERY civilization in the world was doing the same) I found out why he risked that for my city. I mean it was a underdeveloped jungle city, no wonders, and he didn't direly need dyes. However, it turns out he was the ONE civilization without an iron source.


Anyways the current situation is Greece, China, Egypt, Maya, and the Inca are all Polite or Gracious to me(I supplied Greece with Iron for the war on Rome, since I have like 3 extra sources of it). Rome is in taters(Cleo is ripping him a new one, she scares me... an endless stream of swordsmen are marching on Rome. . . I think I am going to fortify our shared borders). And Germany is no more. However as you can see my civilization has been at non-stop war(no breaks or even lulls at all, seriously, it has been constant war on one front or another) for what. . . 2000 years? I have a feeling if I were in Republic(and just thinking about Democracy makes me shudder) that my nation would have shut down by now. Though Corruption has done a solid enough job of that on a large number of my Greek Cities. With such high corruption it takes that city ages to build the Forbidden Palace(it still isn't up drat it).



Anyways now that ya'll are caught up question time. It deals with Defensive bombardment. When firing, which value is it compared on? Is the archer's 1 bombard going against the MW's 3 attack or 1 defense? And do they receive defense bonus enhancement to the bombard value? Cuz those Archers hit mighty often.