October Civ 2 Tournament: Celts - Spoiler

[Peaster]

solo, Yes, the attack against Berlin was do-or-die. I am happy with my use of units, but you have shown that I have a lot to learn about production. You made 100 crusaders in your game, over twice my total. And you built Mike's! For comparison purposes [excluding the Sioux problem], your game really ended around 400AD.

Your cities seem better placed and were probably a little bigger than mine, on average. Maybe Mike's pays for itself that way...? Interesting.

[solo]

Yes, Mike's helps production, and so do better city sites. In the first tournament, I did not build any happiness wonders and found my cities losing shields supporting warriors (used for martial law) AND new military units being built to attack the AI. Until I could shift support over to newly captured cities, my rate of production bogged down quite a bit. Even so, I think an earlier start onto the warpath allows you to get by with a leaner army, as was proven in your game here.

[Zenon]

I finished my own test game with a 540 AD conquest. I tried to play the game without making use of my knowledge of the map, but I assume there was still a considerable advantage. Therefore my game had to stay out of competition and I didn´t intend to post the result at all. But as I can see there are allready 2 players who have done better with great games and under these circumstances it seems fair to add to the comparison. I have no log this time, just a reconstruction of major events:

Start: 7 cities on the home continent using the specials + 1 city on the 1 tile/4 specials island to the West. I did not go for a size 1 settler.
Techs: straight to Monarchy, then Map Making, Horse Riding, to explore as fast as possible, Trade
900 BC Lighthouse
675 BC Hanging Gardens

375 BC Philosophy, Monotheism, London destroyed with the first troop of elephants
I had started conquest earlier than usual because of the limited home base. At this time maps had been shared with all AI. Contact with the Babylonians came late. They didn´t care to visit me and there was no early tech trade.

300 BC London destroyed, 2 English cities bribed, a base for building a road to the North to get closer to Aztecs and Babylonians. First troops land near Persian cities. With the military presence on continent 2 tributes come in.

200 BC Canterbury captured, English destroyed
25 BC Persepolis with MPE captured

1 AD Michelangelo´s. With rising tech costs due to the early conquest I had given up on Feudalism and Sun Tzu. In hindsight I probably should have invested these 400 shields in crusaders and triremes to send them to the Babylonians straight away. I think this would have saved a few turns.
stats: 13 cities, 8 Warriors, 13 Phalanges, 4 Elephants, 9 Crusaders, 9 Triremes, 3 Diplomats, a small army at 1 AD
Wonders: Lighthouse, HG, Michelangelo´s, (Colossus and MPE captured)

160 AD Persians destroyed, Sioux reduced to 1 city
280 AD First troops land near Babylon
320 AD Frankfurt captured
380 AD Babylon captured, must have been close to finish the Great Wall,
460 AD Tenochtitlan and Texcoco captured
480 AD Germans destroyed
520 AD Aztecs destroyed
540 AD Babylonians destroyed, end of game
stats: 34 cities, casualties: 15 units, score: 1640

Zenon

The final sav is attached

[Peaster]

@zenon - Nice game! Thanks for posting it. You are the master of low casualty rates! I assume you sabotage walls ?

It seems that without Marco's, you need early AI contact. Despite some bad luck at that, you still got 6 maps by 375BC! I guess we still don't know the final answer about Mike's, but your comments convince me it is not a stupid question.

@solo - I have replayed the game 1.5 times trying to match your production, but it is hard to guess how/when most of your units were produced. Do you have a save in the 500BC to 100AD range you would be willing to share?

Also, I found that building an early LH requires trade-techs (for caravans) which you got thru an AI. It worked like a charm. But I can only reach one AI quickly without the Lighthouse. Catch 22. What was your solution? Did you make a very early sailing trip up the west coast for that purpose? If so, what kind of units did you bring along?

[solo]

Zenon,

Nice game, and it may be good for the rest of us that you handicapped yourself a bit more than necessary to compensate for any map pre-knowledge.

Peaster,

Here's a save from 1 AD, by which time I had 25 crusaders. After using caravans for Mike's, all cities built Crusaders forever, with very few exceptions (some more triremes, 1 diplomat, and 1 pikeman in a city threatened by barbs). Many crusaders were rushed with tribute money and many were partially rushed. I never built any elephants nor any defensive units in cities that I captured. All shields and spare cash went towards new crusaders. After Monotheism in 550 BC, I maxed out taxes for more income, too. Later on, it always seemed I was getting enough tribute to always rush crusaders in the captured cities nearest the action.

I always send out a warrior or two to explore first thing. The Babs were first contacted by a warrior who was sent off early up along the east coast, but I also had my first trireme exploring the west coast at that time. Earlier, the trireme had gone west with two settlers to establish Tintagel and Caerphilly, two sites discovered by my other warrior exploring the west coast. This warrior hopped onto the trireme to continue its explorations further north and west.

I hope this save is what you needed. I can post additional saves later if you want.

[Zenon]

Solo, I may have succeded in neutralizing most of my advantage, but the main reason I finished later was a miscalculation in the direction of my attack. Going for the Babylonians early would have been a better strategy as you have shown in your game.

Peaster, I didn´t bring down any city walls. I think that having fewer losses is just a matter of how attacks are prepared. In the beginning I try to fortify a phalanx near the target cities using good defensive terrain and wait until I am sure the attack force is sufficient. A river is also a nice way to approach AI cities without risking to many losses. I also try to avoid war until my units are in place. This costs time of cause, but fewer losses allow to start a campaign with a smaller force and provide more veterans for the next attacks. In the end, when there are plenty of attack units, I am probably to careful, though.

I think HG + Mikes was not necessary in this game and therefore a delay.

Zenon

[solo]

Originally posted by Zenon
I also try to avoid war until my units are in place. This costs time of cause, but fewer losses allow to start a campaign with a smaller force and provide more veterans for the next attacks.

I think HG + Mikes was not necessary in this game and therefore a delay.

Zenon

I agree with these points. I think I also overdid the caution a bit, since I wanted to make sure I sent enough crusaders north to be sure of taking out the walls in the Bab & Aztec capitals. This meant a slight delay reaching all the non-walled cities in the south.

I played without HG or Mike's in the first tournament game. Next game I plan the same and will hope an AI builds HG so it can be taken, instead. I doubt any of them will build Mike's. As in the last EL game, using luxuries may be more efficient, since no science is necessary after Monotheism. It might also mean that Trade can be skipped, along with Currency, Bronze Working and Pottery. If needed, the Lighthouse can be built by a shield-rich city instead of using caravans, since it only costs 200.

There's still a lot more to explore in EC strategy, I think.

[Old n Slow]

Seeing the wonderful opening picture (and knowing that the last two months I never really got off the ground) drove me to ry for an OCC game.

Not too pleased, but was able to launch in 1878 & arrive by 1893. No record, no threat, but a fiar amount of fun. (Attached save is just before the landing.

Hand four engineers working the land for a while (not too efficient for speed, but I'm sort of a perfectionist.) ended up watching them all die from a passing Sioux frigate. Replaced 'em later as well. Never did get the size up past 22 (not that it would have made a difference at the later stages of the game.)

Given the reduced value from searching (did a little anyway -- oh ho a neighbor!), I went for the early Republic vs Monopoly. Also decided to keep the city smallish for a while (easy to do with a food problem) hoping for alliances -- had one with the Babs virtually forever, but never with anyone else.

Some key dates -- Swirtched to Republic in 2250 BC

525BC notable for my tenth tech gift from the Babs (yes half were soso, but the other half were worth it.

300 BC, make size 5. (We love doesn't make a lot of sense when there's no food to support the population

175 BC -- Colossus

125 BC -- 1st trade route (and no I never even thought about making a road -- my poor settler was improving the countryside the entire game until his murder in 1812!)

160 AD -- 3rd trade route -- all with the Babs.

480 AD -- Copes.

520 AD -- buy a University

800 AD -- Shake's

960 AD -- make size 12 -- hold off on growing too much past this -- could feed one or two more at this time -- so we try to get some engineer action. Techs start to roll in at about three turns per. Do a lot of toggling to use the Iron every third turn to complete a camel (funds are thin.)

1400? AD -- Isaac's

1590 -- Ind -- a couple of turns later & my first boat sails (a transport!) away to see if anyone else besides the Babs are in this world -- soon a couple of camels show nice profit.

1720 -- Farmland is starting to pay off. Now at size 18 (4 engineers are hard at work.)

1778 -- Darwin's

Early 1800's see the Germans sail a frigate around & start to smack my innocent guys -- five eventually die before he kills my warrior in 1802; Next turn a new cruiser sends the frigate to oblivion.

1812 -- Flight

1836 -- Space flight -- deicde to slowly build Apollo while funds are built up.

(Decide to slow the space race by researchin Env & Esp -- also buy the solar plant ( was getting a skull two out of three turns on average) & a spy in the near future

1851 -- Apollo is complete -- also finally switch to Democracy.

1853 -- disband some engineers, but rather than celebrating, buy a tank -- too many unfriendly signs -- only at peace with three civs -- no offical contact with the other two (last one was killed off long ago.)

Had more of an exciting finish than ususal -- the Babs had a 15/4/5/1/1/1 spaceship at the end and the Siuox had a 35/0/0/0/0/0 one as well. The terrain worked as a defensive buffer, so the military threat wasn't too bad (but note the ships around my city -- I built a couple of boats but they were locked in for over a decade.)

[Zenon]

Well done, Old n Slow!

This setting was not easy to play as OCC. The specials and the river made a nice SSC as I can see from your save, but there was a lot of settler work needed, the rules were not favourable for an OCC and contact with the AI was difficult in the beginning.

Congratulations!

Zenon

[Peaster]

Zenon - If you want to make this an official tournament, you can - go to the Hall of Fame, then open any tournament page and you should see a "start a tournament" button. I didn't try it, but assume this creates a page for posting results.

All - I am still interested in some EC questions raised in this thread, but don't want to hijack. So I am posting them in my EC Guide thread and hope you will join in there.

[La Fayette]

2 centuries behind (last Sioux city conquered in 680AD)
... but I deserve it, for 3 main reasons:

1) I am so accustomed to playing "no bribe" that I played "no bribe", not because I decided so but because I simply forgot

2) I was away from my computer about 4 days and made a lot of mistakes on the next turn, because I was no longer "in the mood".

3) I also forgot to rush towards Hamburg and get MPE which is really VERY useful IMO.

Fun game though (thank you, Zenon).

[Peaster]

Originally posted by La Fayette
... but I deserve it, for 3 main reasons:

1) I am so accustomed to playing "no bribe" that I played "no bribe", not because I decided so but because I simply forgot

Huh? Anyway, nice game! And I agree with you about MPE. I feel lost without it, even with fairly good AI contact. But maybe solo will show us that vigorous exploration can replace it, which seemed to happen in his game.

[Bloody Monk]

Good games everyone.

It seems the AI has no chance against this bunch. Maybe for future games, you folk will consider some minimum handicaps. La Fayette's idea of no city-bribe is good. If you are calling this conquest then bribing seems too easy. Also, the strat seems geared to an early start on conquest before the AI cities can develope, and this also is too easy. A peace-only beginning should be in order until some later date--200 ad or 400 ad. Also, to keep the number of units down early in the game, make Monarchy off limits between say, 200bc and the jump-off date, 200 or 400ad...requiring Republic has it's advantages, but it will penalize over-emphasis of unit production before starting the conquest phase.

A set of handicaps would make the game more of a challenge I think. Otherwise, this becomes like the fourth grade bully who dominates the school yard simply because he "developed" faster than everyone else. On the other hand, there are not many folk playing anyway, so perhaps it doesn't matter.

Monk

[La Fayette]

Please, let me imagine the look of solo as a fourth grade bully

[Bloody Monk]

Or a "Terminator"...

Either way, it's meant as a metaphor and with tongue firmly in cheek, because most of us geeks were the farthest thing from the "bully".

Does that make it a case of "Revenge of the Nerds"??

Monk