Turn Players' Thread #1

[Zeviz]

I also think that Templars are building Stonehenge. In the worst case, as Sunrise suggested, we can always whip 2 warriors in the time it will take their stack to go through our culture.

A warrior already has 25% city defense. Add 40% culture bonus, and 3 warriors can easily stop 5 quechas.

PS I agree that founding second city protected by a single warrior would be pushing it, but if our second warrior escorts the settler, our defenses would be reasonable. (25% from city + 25% from hill + 25% from fortification will make our warriors almost twice stronger than quechas)

[mostly-harmless]

You guys have all way more experience with MP than me.
But lets follow this scenario a bit more. Why should the Templars attack us if they can choke us with 3-4 units sitting on our best tiles?

Anyway, I am sure they will turn out to be our best buddies.

mh

[Sullla]

I concur with sooooo. I cannot possibly see the Templars rushing us, unless they are completely insane. Why would you open by researching Polytheism/Meditation (do we know which one of the two they grabbed, incidentally?), and working a 3/0/0 cattle tile, if you intended to go on an early attack?! Even by the bizarro standards of the Apolyton Demogame, that doesn't make any logical sense.

I am 99% convinced that they are working on Stonehenge right now. There is no other plan of action that makes even the least bit of sense. The Templars' quechuas are clearly out scouting around right now. One is in the west, one is healing just north of their city, and a third one is in the east, having met the "yellow civ" and turned back. How the hell would they pull off an early rush in those conditions? It would have to be the most incompetent rush of all time, given that we can build warriors every 2 turns if needed (grassland cows + mined plains hill + forested plains hill = 11 shields/turn if needed at size 3). And that's not even factoring Slavery civic.

Look, if the Templars actually do rush us, you can sponsor the next 10 Epics mostly_harmless.

Here's the most important thing to keep in mind: we know that we have few (one!) military units. The Templars don't know this. We know pretty much everything about them. They know little to nothing about us. For all they know, we have archers and warriors all over the place. Unless they have their own Ministry of Truth, I highly doubt they have any idea what military force we have. This allows us to run a calculated bluff, and go swipe their best territory away from them while they fiddle around with silly wonders. You don't win games by playing not to lose. The point of taking a Creative civ was to use our early border-popping to maximum advantage. We MUST get down there and lay claim to that fine southern region.

Fortune favors the bold.

[sunrise089]

I certainly agree....settler + 2 warriors and settle. At worst they choke the new city, but we have worker(s) to chop and they don't, plus we can outproduce them with 2 cities to their 1.

Hopefully they will spread that religion to us before we settle though, because otherwise it may not be forthcoming.

[Sullla]

Originally posted by sunrise089 Hopefully they will spread that religion to us before we settle though, because otherwise it may not be forthcoming.

Haha, very true. Of course, there's another religion at Code of Laws if the Templars don't want to share, and I think that will be our next medium-range tech goal, after a few more basic worker techs. (The path there runs through Literature and cheap libraries too, so it synergizes both of our traits.)

[sooooo]

Turn played with warrior starting out 1E and capital working a grassland forest by popular demand.

[mostly-harmless]

@ Sullla: They took Meditation. (see post30 Cloak&Dagger thread)

It is interesting that there are three civ with Mysticism as the starting tech and Polytheism is still there to grab.
I would not be surprised if Templars would go for a hydra.

And I would leave the next 10 epics to others. I rather fly over to the UK and hand sooooo the ketchup when he eats his hat. :-)

One last questions to you strategy-pros before I quit my Cassandra cries:
You are all convinced they go for Stonehenge. Would you rule out them building a settler?

mh

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by mostly-harmless You are all convinced they go for Stonehenge. Would you rule out them building a settler?

It is tough to grow while building a Settler . MH, the nice thing about getting out voted in these situations, is we are the only ones with the opportunity to say "I told you so" in the future. And to watch sooooo eat his (probably chocolate) hat .

Darrell

[mostly-harmless]

Originally posted by darrelljs

It is tough to grow while building a Settler . MH, the nice thing about getting out voted in these situations, is we are the only ones with the opportunity to say "I told you so" in the future. And to watch sooooo eat his (probably chocolate) hat .

Darrell

Of course, I meant, building a settler now that they are size 3.
It is what I would do in a SP. But then I never ranked high in any epics or adventures.

Not growing while building a worker or settler is among the game mechanics I grasped.

Anyway, shuffling off to write an "I told you sooooo" sign, just in case.

mh

[darrelljs]

Ah...didn't mean to insult you MH, its never good to get on the bad side of the MoT !

Darrell

[sooooo]

Turn 24 played. Not a lot to report except for some more scouting screenshots:

[sooooo]

Turn 25 played.

[mostly-harmless]

I took the liberty to check out the copper availability, as the Rabbits, being last, just finished the turn.
No luck for us.
The only copper we can spot sits 2N 1E of the Templars Horses!!!
That area with the oasis, the river, the grassland hills will make a very nice city spot for them.

I set research to IW since I was asked to choose. Is that the consensus?

mh

[Sullla]

mostly_harmless is right. There's no copper within a thousand miles. Except right next to the capital city of the Templars, naturally.

[rant]How can this be a custom map?! CyberShy, the map creator, doesn't know jack sh*t about setting up a fair map. One civ gets both early resources handed to their on a silver platter, not having to do a goddamn thing. Their nextdoor neighbor gets nothing. Nothing. Hey, if the Templars decide to attack us, we're completely screwed! Great job! That really makes for a fun game. Not to mention, we got exactly one resource at the start, cows. I'm sure that team with the four or five seafood is laughing their asses off at us right now.

What a load of bullsh*t. [/rant]

I never in a million years imagined we wouldn't have copper somewhere in our immediate vicinity. Really, I could not believe that the map design would be that poorly executed. I don't want to see us spend the next 22 turns researching Iron Working, which will set us back immeasurably. (In the same span, we could research Agriculture, The Wheel, Pottery, AND Archery!) Do we have a choice though?

How far do we want to carry a bluff that the Templars won't attack us? Because I fear that if we don't push our growth curve rapidly, we're going to get passed by civs out in the fog, who were given vastly superior starting positions.

[Sullla]

Alright, time to be a little more proactive. I've been mulling things over this morning, and here's what I would do in this situation. It's very much a gamble, so clearly there would need to be discussion and team agreement before deciding our plan.

What I would do is continue along our general course of action from before. I would *NOT* go after Iron Working next. As mentioned in the previous post, I'm advocating continued focus on growth curve as part of a strategic bluff that the Templars will stay on a peaceful footing. Here are a couple of reaons why that should work:

- The Templars are very likely building Stonehenge at the moment. That means that they won't be attacking any time soon.

- They will need to build a second city to connect their resources. By the time that they can finish a wonder, train a worker (remember, still no workers as yet!), train a settler, and connect their resources, we'll be in a position to meet them on even terms.

- The Demographics screen is our biggest ally right now. We are ranked #2 in power! Starting next turn, Espionage will have advanced to the point where we will be able to see the Templars on the bar graphs - and they will be able to see us in turn. Thus we LOOK vastly more superior militarily than we actually are. So long as we are near the top in military power, I rather strongly doubt the Templars will go on the attack.

- Most importantly, the Templars don't even know where we are. Information is power: we know what their situation looks like. They DON'T KNOW our situation, and won't have any clue that we lack metals/horses. In fact, since we told them where their horses are located, that would imply that we aren't worried about their military strength - exactly the opposite of our real state. If we look strong on the Demographics screen, they will have to respect that in the context of limited information.

- If anything, I bet the Templars are saying on their private board right now "I really hope we don't get rushed by Realms Beyond, we'd better try to make friends with them."

So what would I do specifically? I would build two more warriors in Airstrip One (the current one and one more), then swap to a settler next, running max food all the while. Two warriors would go south to secure the desired sweet location in the south. Winston would mine the forested grassland hill one tile north of the current position, the forest chop shields helping to speed along that first settler.

I would research The Wheel, then Archery next - both techs that increase the Demographics Power rating. Then probably Agriculture/Pottery after that. (Or some kind of combination of these techs.) Hopefully, we will find some source of copper or horses in the northeast (where we have a scout heading now), which can be claimed by our third city. Iron Working just seems too expensive right now to research; let's get some cheaper techs going first that will help speed the economy, then return to it in a little bit. So long as we can stay out of war, we will be OK with delaying a while.

Here's the formula for Power on the Demographics. Note that in the early game, researching certain techs and building barracks generally does more to increase it than building warriors or archers.

* * * * *

Soldiers- This has been the most intensive and by far the longest to research, as there are many factors that contribute to this number. Firstly it has no bearing on the total units you have in fact you could have zero units but show 100000+ soldiers in the demo screen, you will see how in a second.

Factor 1- Population points. For every two population points from all your cities you get 1000 soldiers. So;
1pop = 0 soldiers
2pop= 1000
3pop= 1000
4pop= 2000
5pop= 2000
6pop= 3000 and so on.

Factor 2- Technologies. Discovering some technologies (mostly military but not exclusively) gives you extra soldiers. I have to say some of them struck me as a little strange, like Military tradition gives you zero but hunting gives you 2000, but I’m not here to argue about that. Here is the list of techs that give you soldiers. If they are not listed then they give zero soldiers.

(For BTS 3.02)
2000 soldiers – Sailing, Hunting, Mining, Animal Husbandry
4000 soldiers- Wheel, Alphabet, Astronomy, Metal Casting, Compass, Construction, Steel, Radio, Satellites
5000 soldiers- Composites, Stealth
6000 soldiers- Mathematics, Chemistry, Combustion, Archery
8000 soldiers- Guilds, Fission, Flight, Bronze Working, Machinery, Assembly Line
10000 soldiers- Horseback Riding, Iron Working, Artillery, Industrialism, Rocketry, Advanced Flight, Laser
12000 soldiers- Gunpowder, Rifling, Military Science

Factor 3- City Improvement/Wonders. Like discovering some technologies, build certain improvements and wonders will increase the amount of soldiers you have on the demo screen. In this case you amount added for each improvement. For example you get 2000 soldiers for each wall you build, so if you have 5 walls, you have an extra 10000 soldiers. With wonders that give you soldiers, you can only build one so you only get that bonus once. Here is the list of what you get for each improvement. Improvements that don’t give soldiers are not listed.

(For BTS 3.02)
1000 soldiers- Trading Post, Shale Plant, Totem Pole
2000 soldiers- Walls, Dry Dock, Forge, Factory, Stable, Mint, Assembly Plant, Industrial Park, Levee, Dike
3000 soldiers- Dun, Barracks, Ikhanda, Citadel
4000 soldiers- Mt. Rushmore, Red Cross, Iron works, Ger, Statue of Zeus
6000 soldiers- Military Acadamy
8000 soldiers- Heroic Epic, Chichen Itza, Scotland Yard, West Point
10000 soldiers- Great Wall, Cristor Redentor, Moai Statues

Factor 4- Units. Finally each unit type has a different amount of soldiers attached to it, so a warrior contributes 1000 soldiers, while a Swordsman is 3000 soldiers. Interestingly enough a units experience points has no bearing on the amount of soldiers it equates to. Units such as scouts, workers missionaries and spies contribute zero soldiers to the demo screen. Here is the full list of what you get for each unit;

(For BTS 3.02)
1000 soldiers – Warrior, Quechua
2000 soldiers – Spearman, Archer, Chariot, Galley, Airship
3000 soldiers – Axeman, Swordsman, Jaguar Warrior, Gallic Warrior, Phalanx, Impi, War Chariot, Immortal, Horse Archer, Catapult, Trireme, Caravel, Holkan, Carrack
4000 soldiers – Praetorian, Pikeman, Longbowman, Crossbowman, Keshik, Galleon, Numidian Cavalry, Hwacha, Trebuchet, Skrimisher, Vulture, Dog Soldier, Bowman, Privateer
5000 soldiers – Cho-Ko-Nu, Maceman, War Elephant, Landsknecht, East Indiaman
6000 soldiers – Samurai, Musketman, Knight, Frigate, Ironclad, Transport, Ballista Elephant, Ship of the Line
7000 soldiers - Berserker
8000 soldiers – Musketeer, Camel Archer, Cannon, Destroyer, Submarine, Janissary, Oromo Warrior, Attack Submarine, Cataphract
9000 soldiers - Cuirassier
10000 soldiers – Rifleman, Grenadier, Machine Gun, Carrier, Conquistador, Stealth Destroyer, Guided Missile
12000 soldiers – Redcoat, Cavalry, Battleship
14000 soldiers – Missile Cruiser
15000 soldiers – Cossack, Fighter, Jet Fighter, Bomber
16000 soldiers – Infantry, Anti Tank
18000 soldiers – Marine, Paratrooper
20000 soldiers – SAM Infantry, Gunship, Artillery, Stealth Bomber
22000 soldiers – Navy SEAL
25000 soldiers – Tank
30000 soldiers – Panzer, Mechanized Infantry, Mobile SAM, Tactical Nuke
32000 soldiers – Mobile Artillery
40000 soldiers – Modern Armor, ICBM

* * * * *

Anyway, that's what I would do. I still think the real competition is not the Templars, but other (more competent) teams out in the fog. So I'd continue to push growth/expansion and rely on our sham "Soldier" rating to deter aggression. But obviously we could go in other directions!