AU 301 DAR - 4000BC to 0 AD

[supremebob]

Good day to you all,

Well this is my first DAR. I played this game, had great fun with it and also learned a lot while playing. Monarch Difficulty, Normal speed, Solver's unofficial patch. It gave me the opportunity of trying a most excellent strategy called the super forteress which is discussed in obsolete's thread here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=243033

The core of this stategy is to create the ultimate version of a GP farm which essentially negates any AI advantage in production and teching while keeping good enough relations with your neibours in order to avoid costly wars until you are ready to strike. It will be a challenge on this map considering the number of whackos we are facing. Now you may think that this strategy is not in line with the objective of the DAR but it works pretty well, you just have to use your second city instead of your first one for REXing.

I also would like to say that I have never been a wonder person, apart from stonehege-oracle combo for CoL. It seemed so difficult to time it or there was always something more important to build. That is to say if I am able to do it, everybody can. Onward then...

]

4000 B.C.: Following Blake's advice, we are skipping a turn moving 8-8 from starting position to bring the hills and marble within range which is especially important. It is a good city site but not ideal.

3960: Aksum is founded, builds worker. Our scout moves to the forest south. Never leave your scouts in open terrain if you can avoid it and cross rivers when you can.

Tech: agriculture – mysticism - masonry – the wheel. Pretty obvious choice here since bringing wheat and marble online is a priority.
3880: Our borders expand and the goody hut pops 53 gold. Our scout pops a scout on the coast, which moves west and continues moving south, following the forests (pops another 106 gold in 3720). Buddhism is founded.

]

3640: Ragnar is met, our western scout (1) kills a wolf other one (2) pops a map.

3520: 1 kills another wolf and pops a hut giving experience. Promoted to woodsman II. (God!, I love those)

]

3360: Our worker completes and we are 1 turn away from mysticism, thus we buid a settler for that turn and swich to Stonehenge thereafter. Yes, I know we are creative but denial is important and we get a bonus out of it(stele). Moreover since we plan to stay peaceful for as long as we can (i.e no state religion) we need every bit of culture we can get and it is helping us getting that first great prophet faster. Pericles is met

]

Here you go, 60 turns is a long time, but it will go down fast after we hook the marble and a couple of mines down.

3280-3040: Pericles founds hinduism and converts to it, our scout 2 pops another 45 gold bringing our total to 203. No tech were poped in this game. None. Keine. Nada. That's the way it is sometimes. Shaka is met.

3000: Masonry is ours. Our worker will finish the quarry before the Wheel is researched so he will build a Mine in the hill next to it in the meantime.

2920: Tokugawa is met. Oh boy, what a party!

2320: Stonehenge is built. Okay a couple of things to take notice of first here:

Our next tech is Bronze Working for chopping.
We will now finish that settler which was started a tousand years earlier which is good since our hapiness cap is reached.
There is a source of stone nearby but Shaka is already settled next to it.
Notice how my worker is farming the dye. This is both good and bad. Bad because he should be building a mine instead. Always keep your caps in mind... Good because he gets 1 extra gold. Even when you cant build a ressource yet dont be affraid to build on those tiles. That cottaged sugar is a flood plain one without a health penality.You can always change them later.

]

]

]

2280-1320: tech progression: Archery (defense) – Polytheism (although Meditation would have been a wiser choice, more on this later) – Animal Husbandry (Cows) – Priesthood (Oracle)

Settler is complete and founds the city of Gondar which starts a worker. Next in Aksum's build queue is an archer (its circa 1800 bc, dont let your settlers wander unescorted unless the area is secure), then the Great Wall. For our capital to become a production powerhouse we need to raise our hap. and health cap. As such, even if the gold mine is outside of our fat cross we hook it up and also build a road to our second city when all hills have been mined.

One special note about Gondar: it is to become our second GP farm in which we will « dump » all Great Artists wonders to avoid pollution, because lets face it GA suck as great specialists and our forteress does not need more culture(well it would be marginal at best anyway).

]

]

1320-975: The Great Wall is built and our second worker comes on line eager to do the tasks that we previously planned for him. Chop a settler in Gongar. Ragnar convert to hinduism. This is bad since I want him to fight Pericles eventually.Writing is researched. Now I took a risk and deviated somewhat from building the Oracle and made 3 archers (1/turn) then another settler. This is because I am starting to feel pressure from Shaka and if I dont hurry, he will take all the good city spots.

]

Note: See the two archers I am sending to explore east, doing the job my last suviving scout (up north) should have done ages ago. (I'm such a noob)

975-500
Tech researched: Alphabet

Boy was I lucky on this one! Frist, manage to found Lalibela first (production city) before Addis Ababa(cottage city). Lalibela was more important because of the stone for the Pyramids. Is also a great location, easy to defend on hills vs Tokugawa & Montezuma which was discovered last. I chop a barracks in Gondar and plan to make enough archers to deter him from attacking or at least hold him if he does, nutjob that he is. I always go worker first in all of my cities. In 875 BC the Oracle is completed... by me on Monarch (dont ask me how i got it, idk). I choose CoL (force of habit) because my courthouses are cheap but Metal Casting or Alphabet would have been better otherwise.
My first GP (Great prophet) is born and settles in.There no point in founding a shrine.

I found confucianism and send my missionary to Bismark (I dont remember when I met him) and convert him but I DO NOT convert myself (I dont want to die yet). Managed to get Iron Working for it (dont remember with whom, doing this from memory). Bismark wanted Polytheism so I gave it to him.These things are important: this tech is not vital to me however the +1 relations with him is. Dont be affraid to give in to non vital demands early, regarless if it makes you a pushover the AI is an idiot (I say this in a good way, if it was smart my capital would be taken by now).


]

Note: Notice how Shaka city is close to Addis Ababa (upper right corner). This means that the race was pretty close. I suspect the same thing for Lalibela and Tokugawa.





500 BC – 1 AD

Tech researched: aestetics
Techs obtained via trade (Pericles i think): fishing-pottery-granary

During this period the strangest thing happened: both Shaka and Bismark converts to hunduism which brings makes 4 of them now. I suspect that Pericles is building missonaries like mad to convert us all (so will I when they come my way) and this demonstrates that the AI, while not perfect, is much more coherent than before. It seems that not converting early payed off big time.
95 BC Shaka declares war on Montezuma (take that for a change!)

The Pyramids are build in 100 BC by me again (dont ask...), then granary, library, and straight for the Great Library. Reason: Pericles the b****** has managed to get literature before me. So no civic switchs ( caste, representation) now.
You'll notice on the screenshots that all cities exept my first are pretty undevelopped. This is because most of my workers were busy hooking up the stone and building a road to Lalibela.
The Partenon is being built in gondar to avoid GA pollution.
I never switched to slavery at all during the game. This is because as obsolete said: « one
turn or anarchy can cost you a wonder race and ultimately the game » Also no flood plains were present, so I did not have the luxury for whipping. (You need for your cities to grow consistently when using this strategy)

I actually wanted that spot where the barb city was one with 3 furs and iron fat cross but barbarians settled there first and getting the Pyramids was more important.
As soon as I can I plan on putting farms on grassland tiles and workshops on plains for all cities except Addis Ababa, putting cottages on grassland instead(still workshops on the plains, even cottage cities need hammers)

]

]

]

]

]

]

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by supremebob
My first GP (Great prophet) is born and settles in.There no point in founding a shrine.

Don't you have Confucianism? Why is there no point in getting a shrine, in gold terms you get a lot more than a settled GP.

[supremebob]

Hi couerdelion,

There are 3 reasons for not doing this

- I am not speading it. Getting the Parthenon was much more important then producing missionaries and the ratio hammer cost/benefit is not very good. 5 gold/turn is more that I would get from the shrine.
- A settled GP gives me 1 hammer (2 with Angkor Wat)
and 3 beakers with representation every turn thereafter.Most of our research is done through beakers anyway. Add in the multipliers with forge, ironworks,levee, factory... at 250% and those 11 prophets I settled in the course of the game brought me close to 900 h/turn in that city. A shrine gives none of that
- Most important of all settled GP gives GP points for more settled GP.

With this type of play we are effectively bypassing the gold economy. In fact I would not have buld any cottages at all if Addis Ababa had been a good production site. You might think me weak but in 10 turns I can have an army more powerful than any of my neibours thanks to our godly production. With cottages, well... you can always throw'em to your enemies



Not bad huh! I could have gone even higher if the UN didnt force me out of my civics Why did I ever build that thing.

[Vaugula]

Originally posted by supremebob
It gave me the opportunity of trying a most excellent strategy called the super forteress which is discussed in obsolete's thread here:

After reading obsolete's posts on this subject I will never follow his strategy just on principal, his writing style is condescending and arrogant. But hey what would I know? I am sure he would call me a Prince level noob.

Originally posted by supremebob
- A settled GP gives me 1 hammer (2 with Angkor Wat)

Ankor Wat has no effect on settled GPs

Originally posted by supremebob
11 prophets I settled in the course of the game brought me close to 900 h/turn in that city. A shrine gives none of that

Except it only takes 1 to found the shrine, so you only sacrifice 2 base hammers which even after 250% multipliers that is 7 hammers (or put another way 0.8% of your 900 hammer's of production). You would still have 10 prophets to add to your production.

Originally posted by supremebob
- Most important of all settled GP gives GP points for more settled GP.

Unfortunately, settled Great People do no generate GPPs.

I completely understand the desire to not build a shrine (I founded 2 religions in my game and didn't build either shrine) but I think some of your reasoning is a bit off. The only argument that makes any sense to me is that the 5 gold/turn + 3 beakers/turn would be greater than what you would get from the shrine, but even then it is actually not that hard to check before settling to see if that is true.

[supremebob]

Thanks for correcting me Vaugula,

I should have got my facts right before answering. However the facts remains:

- The settled specialist benefit is immediate. Shrines require hammer investment in the form of missionaries to be effective, hammers which I cant afford to spend like that. Burning a prophet on a non spreaded religion is simply not worth it.

- That first GP you get is much more important at the beggining of the game (more turns left). It will take you quite a few turns to get another one. Early, every boost you get matters because your tech lead is not that great i.e. dont automatically burn your GE's on wonders.

- Gold (and commerce)is secondary compared to pure beakers for research(hence my big pile of gold in the end). I am not willing to sacrifice both beakers AND production for only a bit more gold.

- Wonders DO generate GP points and I get more wonders with more prod.

- Yes obsolete was a bit condescending towards CE's. But I take it with a smile because since the beginings of Civ IV we have been preaching about the vital role of cottages and how you cant win without them.

- I tried this strategy, it worked and I am a complete noob (your post proved it).

[Vaugula]

Originally posted by supremebob
- The settled specialist benefit is immediate. Shrines require hammer investment in the form of missionaries to be effective, hammers which I cant afford to spend like that. Burning a prophet on a non spreaded religion is simply not worth it.

I agree however I think blindly following that tennant is going to make you miss an opportunity sometime. For example, if you found the only religion on your continent it is going to auto-spread so at some point it is going to be better to found the shrine. With 11 Prophets generated you have a number of opportunities to check to see if it is worth it. Maybe you did check, I don't know, but you didn't say that you checked.

Originally posted by supremebob
- That first GP you get is much more important at the beggining of the game (more turns left). It will take you quite a few turns to get another one. Early, every boost you get matters because your tech lead is not that great i.e. dont automatically burn your GE's on wonders.

I completely agree, I wasn't suggesting that you should use the first one to build the shrine. Or even the second one. However at some point (perhaps even Mr Number 11) the marginal impact from 1 more settled prophet isn't that great and the shrine might be better. It might not, but I think it is at least considering

Originally posted by supremebob
- Gold (and commerce)is secondary compared to pure beakers for research(hence my big pile of gold in the end). I am not willing to sacrifice both beakers AND production for only a bit more gold.

I understand the theory but under some circumstances you are going to get better bang out of that shrine. Gold can be turned into beakers.

Originally posted by supremebob
- Yes obsolete was a bit condescending towards CE's. But I take it with a smile because since the beginings of Civ IV we have been preaching about the vital role of cottages and how you cant win without them.

A bit? I almost thought about reading through one his threads to mine out some choice quotes (anything with the word "noob" or a sentence that beings with "Not many players know..." are great candidates but there are plenty more) but I couldn't bear to be passively insulted like that again. Obsolete is obviously a pretty good player but I have to say that the point about cottages (and lightbulbing) is that playing with them makes life easier and hence gives you a stronger game than playing without them. I believe even a traditional (i.e. wide) pure production focus gives a stronger game. If you could win like this, I bet you could win more easily using traditional methods.

Just consider lightbulbing, as you outline above getting things (like beakers) early is better than getting them late, while lightbulbing can give you less beakers overall it gives them to you right now which can give you a critical advantage.

Originally posted by supremebob
- I tried this strategy, it worked and I am a complete noob (your post proved it).

I don't think you are as much as a noob as you are making out, afterall you did play this on Monarch and probably did significantly better than me (Cultural Victory in 1970 on Prince, just waiting for Zargon to start the last DAR thread to post. hint, hint, hint). While this strategy may have been successful that doesn't mean that another one couldn't be more successful, I think you would do even better with traditional approaches.

[couerdelion]

Not wishing to pollute the thread, here was a separate one on the subject of the Shrine vs Settled Prophets

Early Shrine vs Settled Prophet

Note also that
a) And early shrine also brings significant benefits. Not least of these, the rapid spread of the religion
b) There are benefits from having a state religion. The shrine will ensure that more of your cities will have your state religion even if you do not build a single missionary. In particular, if you are adopting a building and GP strategy, PAcifism and Organised Religion require at least some cities to have the religion. In this context, missionaries are remarkably cheap.
c) Shrines generate GP points. Prophets do not.
d) and culture

As for gold, the settled prophet gold is definitely a short term benefit. The shrine gold will, over time, be a lot more.

[binTravkin]

I played this period, there will be no DAR, however, I tried to post one, but imageshack didn't work for me yesterday.

I'd like to note, that the aggressiveness of the AIs and their personalities in general in this scenario contribute greatly to human player.
After being a bit scared by numerous posts on how there were poor neighbours in this scenario, as well as because it was my first game with 3.03 + Solvers mod, I decided to try it on Monarch (I play Emperor usually).
By 1AD I had it practically won, having double the land area of closest follower, 50% more score without a single wonder and 1st places by wide margin in GDP, Mfg. goods and Crop yield.
The only thing good about some AIs is that they managed to get a little ahead of me in tech. Here I must also note the extremely stupid behaviour of Ragnar, who shot for Alphabet while completely ignoring such crucial techs as BW and AH. If in this game I was allowed to attack, Ragnar would stand no chance.

I learned two very valuable lessons:

1.If you intend to expand rapidly, settler first is better than worker first.
Reasons:
- the resource gain is comparable. I'm here comparing how fast the empire can get to 2 cities and 2 workers, which is a critical early point as after it rapid expansion can be started by using the workers to chop in more workers/settlers. The idea is that while in settler first you get two cities very early, you stall a bit while producing workers in them both, on the opposite if you go worker first you can chop in the second city comparably quickly and similarly the second worker. This however, depends much on the forest and resource bonus availability. Some resources can amount to boost of early production that can offset the lack of earlier second city.
- you don't need to rush worker techs - instead you can focus on your strategic goals, like discovering horses/bronze and on defense

2.Having archery as one of the first three techs is an excellent step for securing the ability to expand. Usually players, including me , tend to neglect early defenses, relying on warriors to do the job. The problem is, you need three warriors to do what one archer can.
In the early phases of REX you don't need garrisons, you need escorts and response force to incoming barb warriors/archers, a single archer can serve your needs up to 3 cities, at which point you should be having BW and whipping in another is like question of 2 turns.

[Theseus]

Monarch, Normal, Solver and 3.03 patches [finally finished with Firaxis 3.13]

[Note: Most of the game of this course when it first game out, but couldn’t finish until I got a new comp and GC… better late than never!]


Hello all, and good job on getting AU-BTS going!!!!

I’ve been playing this since a couple days after it was published, unfortunately in dribs in drabs, and have only now gotten to 1 AD. Actually, “playing” is not even correct, at least at first; I think I spent 5 days or so just thinking about the start position (and the challenge, and the traits, etc.) before proceeding!

And that is perhaps the most interesting aspect of my early game:

Sooooo… REX (Rapid EXpansion), or land grab. But, hey, look at those traits!! Grrrr. Also, I knew right off the bat that this would be antithetical to my normal warmongering style. Grrr again.

Regardless, I moved the first Settler north to access the marble. No way I was going to pass that up, if only for the cashola from failing to complete wonders (i.e., 2x shields converted to gold). I figured I’d just do the best land grab I could, and then develop an early-midgame strat. I’d try to explore my immediate area (but not more), position Scouts and Archers for Barb deterrence, and try to position myself for a wide city spread grabbing the best resources I could.

Boom, my Scout discovers Mysticism before 3900BC!!! Well that changes EVERYTHING!!! Religions and CoL, here I come!!

And then, as I saw the shape of the terrain, the neighbors (yikes), and thought further, I purposefully said to myself, “Self, THROW AWAY your normal tactics and go for the max benefit of REX, to heck with the risks!!” and then came up with this strategy:

(This is the interesting part)

• Now having Mysticism, go for religion and Oracle/CoL, and to take advantage of Organized later.

• Wide city spread, depending on Creative to grab resources

• Once Oracle built, forget about anything else but the REX: no military, no real infrastructure, only a couple Workers to connect cities and develop the resources NEEDED…. otherwise, Archers and Scouts to picket and clear the dark lands from Barbs, and Settlers as fast as possible… use the whip judiciously. Take the chance that the AIs won’t invade.

• BUT, then, As I saw the layout of the AI civs, I decided to take a chance on well-developing Aksum whilst positioning my Archers and Scouts (and a Missionary!!), and go for a late city build across the neck.

So, I figure I flipped back and forth between REX and “strong capitol” at least 5 times!! At the end of my flipping, I ended up with a strong capitol followed by a ‘late but fast REX’. Gondar, my second city, only got built in 1000BC, after securing Confucianism and the Oracle in Aksum!!!! WOOT WOOT!!! In other words, all 5 additional cities were built between 1000BC and 1AD.

I’m sorta surprised I got away with it, but in retrospect the start was far enough away from everyone else to provide a little respite and the chance to be a little bit on the edge. On the other hand, I feel way naked. Bismarck built Essen just to the north of me, but it is in a crap jungle… oh well.

And to a point Blake made in the original game thread, I *do* have Barb cities nearby, and I *am* going to capture them. They have been important, along with no RoPs, to reserve all of the area to the south from AI encroachment.

________

Miscellaneous notes:

• Probably more Scouts than most people used, although in a smaller area. I wanted to eat up Animals (remember, Scouts are 2X against), and stake out positions for picket and barb denial.

• Set Aksum to beakers, then shields, then food, as appropriate. Did this right from the start, which I don’t think most people do.

• Irrigated the dye next to Aksum right away. I’d usually put a cottage there, but I used growth/whip a lot for this scenario.

• Different city spread than usual, focused on crossing the land mass for blockage, and resources more than good tiles (that was very hard for me to do).

• No RoPs… at least not yet. Rare for me.

• Many more Archers and Scouts for Barb denial than usual. Also used a Missionary for same, which is slightly crazy.

________

Commentary on the course:

Excellent lessons to be had, both positive and negative. Grabbing lebensraum and resources is good of course, but…

This kind of expansion, and lack of Worker and building infrastructure (not to mention the lack of military), is a BIIIIIG no-no. In a way, to be really successful at this challenge, one is forced to execute strategy/tactics that would otherwise invite a death-blow (i.e., errrrr, Vikings? Japanese?) I’m shocked not to have been attacked thus far.

Also, and this goes back to the most basic elements of Civ, one is forced to forgo proper development of the land/resources, just to get the landgrab done. I have only TWO Workers at this point, and should have at least five. I;ve also had to forgo taking true advantage of the marble, and even of my religions…. All wrong lessons for newer players.

In other words, given this start, I’d have built a strong 4-5 city core, and then rolled over my neighbors and Barbs for what I need. But maybe that’s just me.

[Note: I lost all the rest of my DARs due to changing to a new computer, so my final report is in the “End” thread]