October Civ 2 Tournament: Celts - Spoiler

[rjmatsleepers]

The save seems to be in a non-English language (possibly German). Can this be changed? Will this change anything?

RJM at Sleeper's

[Scouse Gits]

Yes its German, no it can't & no it won't!

Enjoy, Stu

[Bloody Monk]

As far as I can tell, the only thing that comes out German-ish is the Civ names. Everthing else is in English. Should be an interesting game. Play on.

Monk

[rjmatsleepers]

As everybody has pointed out, only the civilization names are in German, so no problems. However, having been saved as a scenario, the tech tree is unrestricted which is a shame. Also, I can't remember a worse starting position. Was there really a place like this, or did you tweak the map a bit

RJM at Sleeper's

[Zenon]

I remember players in the tournament discussion thread demanding challenging games. Well, it´s just a little terrain change and you have the additional advantage of the open tech tree.

Zenon

[solo]

We are stuck in a Scharzwald, if I've ever seen one!

Only Zenon will feel at home here, but there's some hope for the rest of us, because I have found the way to escape from this dark and gloomy German forest.

[solo]

I’ve finished my EC game, so if you’ve chosen EC, please do not read on until you’ve finished yourself.

After learning from DaveV’s and Zenon’s games in the first tournament, I was eager for another EC game. While waiting for this tournament game to start, I’ve been experimenting in some practice games and have come up with a variation to their approach that I like, which is based on the following assumptions:

1) Crusaders are the best way to go, since they can be researched quickly and also allow Michaelangelo’s. In my first game, having dragoons was nice, but this was overkill exacerbated by the delay taken in researching to them.

2) Even vet crusaders are overkill. A non-vet crusader will almost always take out a defending phalanx, (usually the strongest defending unit available to the AI). A good percentage of crusaders end up becoming vets after their attacks, anyways. For cities without walls, 4 non-vet crusaders are plenty for taking out cities with 2 defenders and 6 will be enough for bigger cities with 3 defenders. For walled cities, about 12 provide enough cushion to assure victory. This means Sun Tzu’s can be skipped in favor of getting more crusaders into action sooner. By the time vets may be needed to crack a really tough city with walls, it’s more economical to build a barracks close by and rush a few vets there immediately afterwards.

3) A leaner approach is more efficient than ICS. About 8 cities are enough at the home base. Then it’s time to place a few colonies closer to the AI, with the idea of having 4 of them established (for a total of about 12 cities) by the time Michaelangelo’s is ready. Any additonal cities will consist of those captured from the AI. Most of the crusaders used in the game will come from colonies and conquered cities. The main role of the the first 8 cities will be to build necessary wonders, triremes and the first wave of crusader attackers.

4) I think only two wonders are required: the Lighthouse and Michaelangelo’s. Logistics was my biggest problem in the first tournament game. It was easy to establish a huge army, but hard to get it to new targets in a timely fashion. Usually, the quickest way to move crusaders around is by using triremes, so it makes sense to build a lot of them and make their paths to successive targets as direct as possible over the open seas. With a leaner approach of only using 12 cities, the HG and Pottery can be skipped, allowing Michaelangelo’s to be completed before the first AI cities are captured. Until then, martial law does well enough.

5) Although Marco Polo’s was prohibited in this game, it may be a good idea to skip this wonder, too. Instead of making 4 caravans to build MPE, build triremes earlier and start exploring instead. The boats are essential later for transporting troops and are needed now to get the first two colonies established early enough to produce two more. MPE is more important in EL games, where the AI become very useful as research assistants; but in EC games, once Monotheism is discovered, research is over. A few useful tech trades are likely via the first few AI contacts made by exploration, which is probably enough help to get to Monotheism quickly.

6) Finally, as shown so effectively by DaveV and Zenon, a plan of attack is necessary that makes it possible to conquer that last AI city as quickly as possible. With this in mind, the home cities’ crusaders can usually take care of the nearest AI on the home continent. Colonies can be placed next to the next AI target and produce more crusaders to get a jump on them. By the time these first two AI are conquered, there will be enough crusaders available to launch simultaneous attacks on the remaining AI civs.

Enough said on strategy. In this game, huts, black clicking and MPE were prohibited. I decided to play without using bribery, too. Given the awkward starting position, the large map, and these restrictions, I believe I did okay with 480 AD. Looking back, I think I could have chopped off about 12 turns from this result if I had sent more crusaders towards the Sioux earlier than I actually did. I ended up sending too many up north where they were not needed.

The gold made the starting position somewhat exciting, but it’s the spice there that became absolutely essential. Without any grassland in sight, I did not want the disaster of building cities having only 1 surplus food, so I used one settler to irrigate the center tile before founding Kells with the other. For each of the other homeland cities this became a necessity, i.e. irrigating the city forest tile into plains before founding another city. To compensate for the delay in establishing cities two and three, I used the size 1 settler trick, while sitting a worker on the gold to speed up the progress towards Monarchy.

BC years

4000 Kells
3850 Alphabet

Next tech is also only 10 beakers. Seems my first key civ has started the game with many free techs.

3700 Code of Laws
3400 Ceremonial Burial
3250 Kells – settlers; Carmarthen can be founded now that its center forest tile is plains.

3050 Monarchy
2700 Map Making, Armagh

My first settler followed the specials west along the coast to a good site at Carmarthen, but my second settler first regretted moving along the barren mountains north of Kells, but since I knew I had to hit a whale and/or a fish at the next row of specials, I kept going.

With Map Making, early exploration can begin. My wandering warriors are only finding forests so I stick to the coastline for my cities and hope that better city sites can be found quickly with triremes. Of the remaining techs leading to Monotheism, my thinking is that I should learn the ones usually not acquired early by the AI, so my path of research is towards Literacy. I’m hoping AI trades will fill in things like Bronze Working, Currency, Horseback Riding, Mysticism and maybe Polytheism. Besides Philosophy, any other techs are of no interest.

2400 Writing
2300 Caernarfon, this is slow going
2050 Literacy
1750 Babylonier – trade for Bronze Working & Currency, give tech, share maps
1700 Tintagel
1550 Trade
1450 Deutsche – give tech, share maps
1300 Caerphilly
1100 Cork
1050 Mysticism
975 Rhymney; Perser – trade for Horseback Riding, give tech, share maps
925 Iona
800 Lighthouse
775 Philosophy, Polytheism
700 Englander – give tech, share maps; Perser – trade for Warrior Code (a blunder)
575 Azteken – give tech, share maps; Sioux – give tech, share maps

Now all of the AI have been found, with early AI wars giving me clues to where the others were likely to be.

550 Monotheism

Now I jack up taxes and wait for caravans to assemble for Michaelangelo’s. Ends up that I built 9 caravans, one too many. Now it’s just crusaders and triremes in the build queues.

400 Michaelangelo’s Chapel
375 Rhondda
300 Illauntanig

That’s the last colony and all the cities I care to build. It’s time to start stomping on AI cities.

125 Babylonier – trade for Seafaring, 100g tribute
100 hides(d) to Cork, 128g; Babylonier – trade for Construction, 50g tribute
75 Feudalism, now Sun Tzu’s is left as a possibility if things get too tough;
Babylonier – trade for Masonry, 25g tribute

Well, he’s running out of gold, so it’s time to attack.

50 Ur captured, along with Hanging Gardens, Pottery; Ashur taken, 7 gold; Ellipi destroyed

25 Babylon taken, 22g

AD years

1 Perser – trade for The Republic, give tech, share maps, 200g tribute
20 Susa taken, 68g, Iron Working; Kelten taken, 12g
40 Babylonisch civ kaput; Deutsche – trade for Banking, give tech, share maps, 200g tribute

60 Persepolis taken, 69g, The Wheel; Deutsche – 100g tribute; Englander – 200g tribute
80 Aztekisch – give tech, share maps, 200g tribute
100 Pasargarde taken, 55g
120 London taken, 16g; Arbela taken, 75g; Sioux – give tech, share maps, 150g tribute
140 Swansea, a city founded in order to build a trireme to move crusaders towards the Aztekisch
140 York taken, 22g; Nottingham taken, 8g, Great Library
200 Antioch taken, 99g; Persisch civ kaput
220 Hastings taken, 3g; Teotihuacan taken, 130g
240 Tlateloclo taken, 130g

Tenochtitlan has walls, so I have to wait before taking it.

260 barbs take my city Rhondda; Berlin taken, 36g, The Colossus
280 Canterbery taken, 14g; Leipzig taken, 16g; Sioux – 25g for peace; Killdeer destroyed (oh well, you can’t trust a human)

320 Hamburg taken, 18g; Deutsche civ kaput
340 Cedar Creek taken, 27g
360 Tenochtitlan taken, 345g, The Pyramids, Mathematics; Three Forks taken, 25g

Hmm, another Aztekisch city hiding somewhere, but it is quickly found.

380 barb leader, 150g; my city Rhondda is liberated; Coventry taken, 9g, Englisch civ kaput; Little Bighorn taken, The Oracle, Marco Polo’s Embassy, 46g

400 Texcoco taken, 176g, Aztekisch civ kaput

I was somewhat delayed finishing off the Sioux when a stack of crusaders I thought was safe was destroyed by the crafty Sioux.

420 Wounded Knee taken, 54g
460 Slim Buttes taken, 66g
480 Stony Lake taken, 81g, Sioux civ kaput, end of game

Score 1640, 213%, Kelten are victorious

[Zenon]

Originally posted by solo
Given the awkward starting position, the large map, and these restrictions, I believe I did okay with 480 AD.

No, you did not okay! Looks rather like an outstanding game to me! It seems we need much more difficult setups to slow you down.

Congratulations!

Zenon

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by Zenon


No, you did not okay! Looks rather like an outstanding game to me! It seems we need much more difficult setups to slow you down.

Congratulations!

Zenon

Yup!!

Maybe you and solo should limit yourselves to only one city. That might, might, add a century or two to the results.

Excellent game, solo!!

Monk

[Peaster]

Originally posted by Zenon
I remember players in the tournament discussion thread demanding challenging games. Well, it´s just a little terrain change and you have the additional advantage of the open tech tree.

Zenon

@Zenon - Doesn't this sound familiar from GOTM 45 ? IIRC you were on the other side then ! But thanks for starting this.

Well, I finished last night. Conquest in 480AD. This might sound familiar, too! I concede first place to solo, since he posted first, and I saw his finish date a few days ago. Of course, we haven't heard from Dave or LaFayette yet!

@solo - My internet connection is down at home, so I am writing this at work, and can't give a full response to your post. But I plan to download your save, and hope to discuss the game more soon. In a nutshell -

I also used the Size 1 method, and our openings were probably similar.
I decided that Zenon was teaching us a lesson about food. So, I used my second (non)settler to terra-form for about 3000 years, while everybody else focused on reproduction.

My exploring was pretty misguided and fruitless. Maybe I should learn those whale patterns one of these days. I built LH and HG, and captured MPE (luck!), maybe around 200BC. I did not build Mike's or SunTzu. My enemies built many walls (..and the GW. Bad luck!) and I suffered very heavy losses - over 25 per cent of my total units were lost. I do not mind bribing cities, but didn't manage to do it very often. The final turn was spectacular. I will try to post a screenshot of it, if I can. Congratulations on your result!

[Zenon]

Congratulations, Peaster! Yet another excellent game in this tournament. I hope you will post your log and save. It will be an interesting comparison with 2 identical conquest dates.

Zenon

[solo]

Excellent game, Peaster! I am in good company.

The Great Wall probably made your game tougher, so I look forward to more details, and can maybe learn a few more things about EC to help me improve in the next game. I see we shared opinions on not feeling the need for Sun Tzu's, and that we both saw the need for the Lighthouse.

I did not lose as many units, except against a walled Bab capital early and a stacking blunder later vs. the Sioux.

I captured HG early, and seeing that you did okay without MC makes me thing that this wonder can be skipped, too, to get an even faster jump on building an army and starting the attack. I managed in my first game without either happiness wonder and am thinking it may be better to wait for the AI, seeing if they willl build HG or another useful wonder and then just go and capture it instead of building it myself.

[Peaster]

Well, I brought the sav and screenshot to work today on a floppy, but the Apolyton upload server seems to be down, so I'll try again Friday.

On a Deity/normal map, I think it is a good idea to build HG asap, because you probably want more than 12 cities before you have time for Mike's or for capturing.

A huge EC question is whether to build Mike's, and I am eager to hear opinions on that. I usually seem to conquer faster without it, but it allows a different style of play (larger cities, scientists, taxmen, possibly trade routes, etc) that I don't understand as well. It certainly worked nicely for Zenon in August. I have play-tested from his 925BC save, getting fairly similar results with/without Mike's.

I always build S.T. on normal maps, assuming about 15 cities by 1000BC or so. It just seemed too hard this time.

A strong CFC player said he built GW just to stop an AI from getting it! That was not an option in this game, with such a poor base. Even worse, it was the 6-city purple civ building it. So, I couldn't do the usual diplo-tricks to simultaneously help my science and get their map. The good news was that their wonder-city was on the coast and easily attackable. Most of my losses were actually against the walls of other civs.

I had some good luck, too, getting MPE early, and also in the final attack, which I hope to show you soon.

[Peaster]

P's Log

4000BC: I thought for an hour about the first move, and finally chose a size 1 city opening, at the river/hill square to maximize shields. My NON-S will terra-form until 1000BC.

2900BC: I have 2 cities with an irrigated river square (and spice) for getting to size 2. After that, I set their tiles to forest/iron as often as possible, even with negative food income. At the moment, they're making beakers, to get monarchy by 2650BC. I am rush-building whenever possible. The NON-S has found a river and will start working that area.

Mistake 1: Without huts, I chose not to explore much early on. I missed some whales and early AI contact.

2150BC: Armagh (3rd c) founded on prepared plains/river.

2050BC: Caernarfon near a whale.

Mistake 2: Without the MPE option, I delayed trade for
horse/maps/writing. But caravans are needed for wonders. I wanted to use diplomats to make embassies, but this never happened.

1500BC: Writing + Tintagel (5th). I am 1000 years behind a normal schedule. New plans: Start LH at Kells and go for trade/caravans asap. I'll make triremes to move settlers and explore. If they find good sea routes (they don't), I'll switch LH to HG or ST. My warriors will be given to the druids if they don't find a whale soon.

1250BC: Contact with the deutsche gets bronze working + currency. I give them tech and 50g but can't get a map or tribute.

1000BC: Trade + Cork, 7th city on the west coast.

900BC: Riots starting. Contact with Babs gets a map, proving the existence of Grass. Production is OK from 7 size 2 cities in forests.

825BC: Babs sneak attack and soon pay 200g for peace.

675BC: My original Non-S finally settles at Rhymney (8th city) on the coast near the Babs. I rush a barracks + ele's there. The LH was built at about this time.

550BC: Discovery of England. Got their map and mysticism and settled Iona just north of them. After pottery/HG, I want monotheism and/or navigation. I decide not to try for wc/feud/ST with my small civ. Without feud, I get cheap militia (warriors) forever, so I won't need Mike's.

450BC: pottery and good news "England switches to Marco Polo".

400BC: Persians land near Cork. Maybe I should've talked, but I didn't. I killed them.

300BC: Great deal on a slightly battered size-1 English town - only 49 gold! But I only have 29. So, I talk to the Babs and get literacy and 50g from them for peace, and the deal is on.

275BC: 10 cities including the 2 outposts and the purchase. Only 27units: 2 settlers, 11 warriors, 3 horse, 7 el's, 4 boats. York builds MPE, which I capture next turn, along with a barracks. I have HG by now.

Debatable decision: The Sioux are building GW, but I don't know quite where they are and can't stop them. I didn't think they would trade maps during GW, so I gave them no techs (note:MGE).

2 new maps from M.P.E suggest -

1) Rush 4 units from England and sail for the Aztechens asap. I do this by 50BC, and finish them in 440AD.

2) The Deutsche have one very distant city, so I need to finish the Babs soon and move on. But I got distracted with some barbarians, playing the old phalanx-on-the-mountaintop trick for 150g. Then I had some bad luck against the Babs size 3 walled capitol, so this whole arena stalled. Also, I lost my reputation up there when I refused to withdraw.

225BC: The Persians are still mad about the killing thing and won't trade maps. But I can guess where they are and find them by boat. They are nearby, so I don't rush them. But mainly from bad luck against cities with rivers/walls, this civ is the toughest to crack, 480AD.

175BC: philo/mono and math/seafaring from AI, but with the Sioux problem and the 20 tech rule, Nav would take 40-50 turns, so taxes = 70.

75BC: Captured London. I wouldn't normally rush England, but I need the eastern port city of Nottingham to cross the channel, where I hope to find the Sioux.

1AD: 14 cities, 350g, 42units. I plan for a 300-400AD finish, but just don't have the resources. I expect the most trouble from the solid Persians and the hidden Sioux.

40AD: The Sioux finish GL and I get their map. England falls next turn. I will rush a boat to cross the channel, and also look for a sea-route from the homeland.

80AD: Babs done, but I am behind in the north. Berlin is far away, a size 7 with walls.

160AD: The Aztec capitol falls, and this arena becomes easy.

220AD: The boats arrive and I take the purple capitol + GW fairly easily. The 5 Sioux cities are spread out, and a new capitol is built, but they pose no special problems and they fall by 460AD.

320AD: Finally, the first Persian city falls! They talk, and I get their map. 5 turns later they give me 500g and the end in sight.

440AD: I find the last Aztec city and take it.

460AD: A crusader escorts my diplomat to the last Sioux city. Another dip sabotages walls in the Persian capitol, which quickly falls. There is still a size 1 Persian town, which I will bribe next turn.

Which leaves only Berlin. This size 7 walled city has been
surrounded for about 200 years by 5 mounted troops waiting for the right moment. Rhymney/Babylon has just sent two more triremes with 2 rushed vet crusaders, and 1 warrior for good luck. No more help for 200 years. I attack.

The first three vet crusaders die at the gates. Then four vet ele's win battles, but the flag is still up! End of turn.

480AD: Persia is history. But Berlin still has a Legion, which dispatches 2 of my ele's (stacked). My last two ele's also die attacking the Legion. Fortunately, my 2 triremes are still nearby. One takes out the Legion, but the flag is STILL up! The same boat attacks again, but dies. The last trireme attacks, and kills an enemy trireme. My patient warrior steps in!


(hope this works - I'm not sure how to post a jpg)

STATS: At the end, I had 34 cities, 1000g and 87 units (24 crusaders) and had lost 34 units. A small number of units and a high casualty rate.

Maybe diplomats are better against walls than crusaders? I haven't tested this much, but they seem to have a 40-50 per cent chance of taking down walls in the pre-500AD era.

cu_a480.sav

[solo]

Peaster,

I must say a very efficient use of resources against Berlin! Without the final warrior, it might have been quite a few more turns before taking that last city.

Trying to use diplomats to take out walls is a good idea, I think. Sabotage works quite often, and when it does at this stage of a game, the number of city improvements will be small, giving walls a good chance of being chosen.

From your log, I see that you got an earlier start vs. the AI than I did, perhaps the reason they were limited to 5 fewer cities than in my own game. It all goes to show that the earlier one can get the offense going, the better, even if it means deferring wonders that would be nice to have.

.jpg files can be inserted into posts the same way as .sav or .zip files, by using the browse function to attach them. I think you are limited to just one attachment per post.