Death on Prince

[CerberusIV]

Decent progress. This is my empire at 375BC (100 turns in). I now know the northern part of this continent only has WK and me with the others off to the south. That's good as it means room to expand. Barb cities are starting to appear but none in a useful position for me to take over.

[CerberusIV]

I have started whipping in Paris. Getting iron was nice - iron and horses means a decent military.

After IW I researched writing for open borders (which I have signed with everyone for now - I will drop one or two after I have explored further and decided whose side to be on). I have just completed Alphabet and started Metal Casting (for Louis's cheap forges). I may need Compass or Currency soon for my economy though.

5 cities is enough for now. I may found one more but my research rate is dropping and I need to consolidate my economy.

I decided not to try and found Confucianism but to try and catch Buddhism to keep with the majority religion on this continent. I now have it in one city but need to spread it to the rest. Hopefully some tech trades (which I haven't looked at yet) will get me towards Monotheism and Org Rel.

[dacole]

Ah ok so we are putting our 50 year saves here cool will download and start playing it this weekend. Have not read any of the ones you posted yet don't want to get to much of an idea of what is coming. Oh is this warlords or vanilla civ?

[Diadem]

Ok I downloaded the Louis save as well.

Nice, a DAR thread

I founded paris at the starting location. It seemed to be as good as any. Not a brilliant start, but there are pigs, and ivory. Ivory means Elephants. So we'll do a quick beeline to construction.

Here's an overview of what I'm going to research:



The research path is pretty simply. First the worker techs, then bronze working, then Judaism, I should be able to be there first, then a tech for the oracle, and then to construction and currency. Of course during the game modifications can be made.

When I had finished researching hunting I saw that noone had any religion yet, so I went for mysticism first, and managed to found hinduism.



A nice bonus, founding hinduism so late. After this I went for bronze working, then monotheism.

I explored most of the map with my initial warrior and a scout I popped from a goody hut. My first build was a worker, for the pigs and ivory. Also horses, as it turned out. After that a few warriors, then a settler. My second city was founded close by my capital, where it could get corn and cows. Pretty good 2nd city.

My capital was building stonehenge to pop the borders of my new cities quicker, when to my complete surprise Orleans already expanded. Hmmz, I was creative, completely forgot Well I finished stonehenge anyway, and continued on another settler.

Meanwhile my exploration of the map went fine. I lost two warriors and a scout to barbarians, but I did explore most of the map. No techs from goody huts, but quite a bit of cash.

I continued building workers, settlers and infrastructure. I built the great wall, and my first great person was a engineer which I used on the pyramids.

In 450 BC I have 5 cities, one of them founded 1 turn ago After monotheism I researched writing and pottery, used the oracle to grab metal casting, researched fishing and mathematics. I just finished that.



This is my empire so far. After my economy gets going a bit more I can expand further. I drew in the places where I am going to put further cities. I went to settle the spot with the banana's pretty soon. The one with the rice to the right of that not too long afterwards, but not before I have currency, to avoid my economy from crashing

The rest of the places can pretty much be settled whenever I want, the AI won't steal those.

Once I have currency and construction and a decent sized empire... I will crush every AI there is with elephants

[Diadem]

Note that I would have been much more militaristic if I hadn't had so much room.

As you can see I have 5 cities, and room for 6 more. Without any fighting at all. That's a very luxurious start. It also means there is really not much point in attacking early. Distance maintenance costs would kill me. And the AI starting positions don't seem to be so divine as to be worth that.

So peaceful expansion until my economy is very strong, and then war. Hopefully by that time elephants won't be obsolete yet But I don't think they will be

I might have to gift Wang Kon horses to make sure he builds mounted units. Makes things easier for my elephants (thank you Blake for that trick!)

EDIT:
Another thing to note is that I do not have copper and I haven't researched Iron Working yet. I have one warrior per city, and that's it for military. I am really depending on elephants for military, to conquer either bronze or iron. If the AI declares before I can build those, I'm rather screwed. I don't think they will though. They are mostly too far away to gain from a war. Only Wang Kon could be dangerous. He recently converted to confucianism which is unfortunate. I was hoping to convert him to hinduism. I don't want him as an enemy before I can build military. Gifting horses might help here too, though.

Perhaps research construction before currency just to be sure. Hmm...

[DrFaustus]

Here I am at 375bc. I've got five cities up and running. Built the Pyramids in Paris. Researched:
-hunt
- arch
- animal
- mine
- bronze
- writing
- iron,
and am now going for fishing. I seem to be pretty far behind the other civs in my research. I have open borders with all other civs, and have produced chariots as my barbarian quick reaction force.

At this point, I have switched to Hereditary Rule, and have no religion. I could use some pointers about where to go next, especially with regards to technology.



Here's the file: roi-375bc

Question: Could somebody change the upload section to allow files with a .CivWarlordsSav extension?

[dacole]

I have put my DAR's in a seperate area can be found here http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...19#post4691621

One thing you may want to look at Dr. Fastus is city placement. The more special resources per city the better. You know how to turn the grid on right? As for technology it really depends on how you are trying to win. I would consider going for alphabet to get tech trading as an option but going for islam so you can found a religon is also an option. Or you could go for sailing and take to the seas to meet the other civs. (I would put this as a distant third option though to the other two).

[DrFaustus]

Yeah - I thought that that plot of corn would become available to Lyons after a few years, but that turned out to not be the case. I'm starting over, with an emphasis on better city placement.

[Blake]

You guys are slow .


I start out with a goal - of maximizing the utility of creative. How do you do that? You spit out settlers real, real fast.

Towards the ends of spitting out settlers real fast I move Paris onto the plains hill which is on the coast, this site is kinda bad generally but it will do fine for spitting out settlers really fast.

Towards these ends I research AH followed by Mining, since mines are the best for popping out settlers.



The first settler founds SUPER-ORLEANS, a city so named for it's very phat fat cross. Thats how you use creative, snap up the very nice city sites and use them to get more very nice cities... the AI (latest version of my AI) has built the Stonehenge and Great Wall so far, go go AI!

Next up is Lyons which also has a solid fat cross, with Fish and Horses and Elephants.



I decide to devote Lyons to all things commerce mainly since it's so far back.

In 1000BC (actually just before) I have 5 cities.



Rheims is another nice city with Cows and Horses and there's the city behind the gold which is crappy but hey there were pigs to utilize.

Note that "5 cities by 1000BC" is pretty close to the limits of expansion, even 4 cities is fairly challenging. I did whip both of those settlers.

Next up Wang Kon discovers that I don't like him.



The city was size 2 and guarded by 2 warriors. I burnt it with the chariots. 40 cash for research and it's placement was subpar.

What's better than lots of cities? Lots more cities...



I needed the silver for happiness, and with fish it's a decent enough site.

Also note that it has a connection (Sailing is done) and the workboat is waiting. I actually automate the workboat so it hides in the city until the borders pop and then it pops out and fishes them, it's lazy.

My next city is Seoul.



My AI does garrison it's capital slightly lighter than the default AI (I think), it was guarded by 2 protective archers, I only had 6 Chariots but I decided to take a risk and it paid off. Note the date.


Anyway I want to finish off Korea, so I get a stack of 8 chariots and push on:



All 8 chariots die and fail to kill either archer in the city. This didn't really bother me because the chariots were obsolete anyway.

Things to note on strategy:
Mines are AWESOME. Since I went with pasture followed by 3 mines and also configured future cities in much the same way, I could pump out workers, settlers and chariots at a tremendous rate.

Note especially the 1040BC screenshot - Paris is size 5 and has Pigs and 4 mines, Orleans is size 4 and has Wheat, Cows and 2 Mines (1 is an Elephant). I have to say that finding the perfect balance between settlers and workers is critical - you need to be growing to happy cap asap, working all improved plots and training units as quickly as possible. Since training workers/settlers kills growth, the key is finding balance, but as a rule of thumb, if you are working unimproved plots, you need more workers.

I got 2 workers early on (like before settler) and have 3 workers at 1040BC. That's not really enough workers, but I started using the whip to make up for the lack of improved plots and I got more workers after cities 4 and 5.

I did not chop at all and only whipped the later settlers, bronze working was not an early tech for me. When you have good enough tiles to improve and work chopping can actually be counterproductive.

Chariots are overpowered, so when you have horses, just get chariots and forget about anything else. Either chariots, or more chariots, will solve any early military problem. You can generally kill an AI capital with 6-8 chariots.

I actually first got metal because I wanted Colossus. Then I got Iron and used it to finish off Korea, the stupid city killed 4 Swordsmen and 1 Chariot, but it went down. Don't underestimate those archers, always bring overkill (for my second run it was 4 swords and 6 chariots).

I beelined Currency to take care of financial problems, the sack bonus of Seoul paid for most of Currency. With Currency in hand I whipped in marketplaces, that ensured my economic success and I also used Wealth while researching to machinery to get Crossbows - because I had to tangle with Caesar next and thus chariots and swords and even axes just weren't worth the upkeep, so I used wealth to get Crossbows faster and then just pumped out Crossbows while getting Construction.

Cheap Forges + Currency = very uber. Try it.

I'm not going to continue any more DAR because I got to double the AI's score very quickly and XBows+Phants+Pults is an unbeatable army.

Also it was just crazy how Alexander, Ragnar and Caesar are packed in down there.

[DrFaustus]

Originally posted by Blake
You guys are slow .

Actually, I've played this game to finish twice already, just not the finish I wanted.

What you're doing is nothing short of amazing. Let me get this straight -- *no* wonders at all? I built both Pyramids and Great Wall right off the bat. But it seems you're are just going for the f*ing throat. Beautiful.

[Diadem]

Except for the capital Blake has the exact same city placement as me. Nice

Anyway Blake you're only expanding slightly faster than me. You had 5 cities in 1000 BC, I had 5 in 500 BC. Only a few turns

[DrFaustus]

Well, I ended up winning this game. Thanks to you guy's help.
I used Blake's 5 city locations, which I was able to get by 750BC.



My chariots are on their way over to WK to knock him out. He wasn't a pushover, and eventually Augustus came in on his side. But fortunately by then I was advanced beyond Auggie's means to do any damage.

After that, it was endless human wave attacks by Catherine until the time ran out.

I still have a lot to learn, but it was fun to win. Thanks for help.
I'm totally up for another DAR game, if anyone wants to submit a starting save.

Victory

[dacole]

helps starting knowing the lay of the land doesn't it

[dacole]

Oh and blake I think it may be time but I usually find six to eight units in a civ's capital as opposed to two, I will look at playing your way though it seems I may have been overestimating the importance of keeping research at 100% and having a religon since I assume you at some point had to drop it below 100? Mine was at 100 till around 1AD or so.

[Blake]

Keeping research above 0% is important... wait... what's that 10 doing in front there?

Seriously, focus on driving down that science rate to about 40%-60% and if the expanding/aconquering is good, take it all the way down to 0%. Any science rate above 50% is a strong indication taht you have scope for expansion.

When it comes to AI garrison levels timing is critical, firstly, if you have any units around their capital, then they'll start stacking units in it. The units basically leave with settlers.

The key is to hit the AI capital soon after a settler has just departed, dragging away a couple of defenders. This can't be predicted, but if you hit early the AI will pretty much always be pumping out settlers. It can work to go away and come back and the AI might have sent a settler out and thus diminished the capital garrison. Don't camp them, don't choke them. Go away and come back, try to pick off settlers while they're being escorted for an easy archer kill + free worker. Flanking1+Sentry OWNS HARD it's the best promotion in the game besides Medic.

Chariots. Own.


PS. DrFaustus, while you tried to use my city placement, you failed. It seems you've yet to learn the role of food - so I'm forced to now use food approximately 28 times in the next two paragraphs. Food is everything, food is twice as valuable as any other yield, a city without food is nothing. In particular, you fail to make use of the Wheat tile above Orleans and the Pigs above Rheims - which is a very useless city without the pigs.

Make use of those food resources properly and you'll get MUCH faster expansion, the value of food resources can't possibly be understated, work them, love them. Get granaries for more food, maximize your food to grow to caps asap. Growth is everything, and Food is everything for Growth. Food Food Food. That is the mantra.