ALWAYS WAR,MONARCH.
 

Any one interested please indicate here.

Propain,Matrix,Banzai and myself have shown interest,there's a place for Beam if he wants it.
We could probably accomidate 2 more players,what with the holidays coming up.
Discussions on the civ will be helpfull.
A.W. rules apply,on meeting a civ ,trades are in order but war must be declared on the same turn.Apart from that virtually anything goes,we can't pull any strokes 'cos we'll be at war with everyone.

Count me in, thanks for reserving a place for me! So this means always at war with all Civs? Ha, put that farmer gambit in the trashcan! Civ, both Zulu and Iroq are first thoughts.

How about AI peace offers, can those be accepted, traded and war declared same turn in these rules?

Tarly [goodjob]

Accept peace??

Wimp.

Always war means always war. No peace . You declare as soon as you meet - not at the end of the turn ;)

Gonna have to do your own research!

Glad you can play,Beam.The AW rules as i understand 'em are,you can 1st trade then you must declare,after that no peace,not nohow [fdevil].
We'll have a general concensus on the teams choice as to civ.I prefer continents to pangea and normal size map.
Any-one else like to vollenteer to play?

Thanks for the advice,Col,It's only monarch level so we'll grab the Great library and Zeus if we have Ivory,The rest will be a cakewalk[lol]

I'm in!

My holiday is from 22 may till 12 june.
I doubt you want to wait untill I get back, so you can better start without me.
Maybe I can join when I get back, but we will see it when we get there!

Have fun,
Banzai!

Checking in. [cool]

Let's change this game into "Barbarization". [evil]

If we don't start before you go on your Hols,You'll be welcome to join in on you return.
First things first,shall we patch to v 1.22 or whatever the latest patch is?
Will everyone post their preferences as to map size,Civ and whatever.
I think we could keep to the present(Matrix Game)turn order,unless anyone has any objections.
Lets get the chat over and get this show on the road.
It rather looks as if there aren't going to be any volanteers to join us,must have been put off by our undoubted brilliance.[lol]

I'd have liked to have joined - but experience suggests that I dont have time to play my turns - and end up being skipped most of the time.

I will follow with interest though.

Wimp ;)

Ok guys there are some decisions to make:
- Civilization
- Map type
- Map size
- Opponents
- ?

The Civ
A militaristic civ, but not the Chinese!
The Japs are good, but I've played them sooooo many times now!
The Mongols and Zulu are both expansionistic, which is not usefull.
The Romans are commercial.. a waste.
What about the Vikings? Seafearing can be usefull with a continents map, but thats all. Great UU!
The Germans are Scientific, which is awesome! Unfortunately the UU comes with tanks.. a bit late.
I vote for the Vikings, followed by Germans and Japs.

Map size
No larger than Standard please.. Don't care if it is small or standard.

Map type
I prefer Pangea, but Continents is ok too if there is not too much water.

Opponents
A mix of ancient UU and medival UU civs, offensive and defensive units:
Hittities + Persians + Greeks + Mongols + Dutch + Russians... something like that.

Anything else?

Banzai!

Hm, since we will be always at war there are a couple of things we need to do ourselves where normally the AI is doing the work, main thing being techs. Therefore Sci will be a very good ability. We will also have to generate cash ourselves but imo Com. isn't strong enough, I would rather opt for Agri. Mil is nice as well giving cheap barracks but my fav. combo is Sci, Agri. Sumeria if I am not mistaken.

Mil is the way to go imho. You will definitely need armies. To break even you need a kill ratio of 7 to 1 assuming 7 opponents.

What about the Celts? A three Gallic army can do some real damage. Religous isnt great gives you cheap culture and a quick goverment change. Gallic swords rock. Good attack, defense and mobility.

Are the Celts militaristic?
How could I've missed them!
Militaristic - Religious is good.. they are like the Japs, but with an early UU.
Thanks Col!
I change my vote to Celts!

Reli is useless in AaW. Goverment change is hardly needed, maybe once to go from Desp. to Mon. and the cheap culture can be provided by Libs as well boosting science beakers in the mean time.

The Gallic Swordie absolutely rocks but has a useless upgrade path.

lol
Every advantage has its drawbacks.
You don't want to revolt to feudalism and/or communism Beam? :)

I'll go along with the Hairy Irish,continents,sedentary barbs,standard map,random opponents,take any reasonable starting position without being precious about it.enough water to make suicide galleys necessary.

Do we patch to 1.22?
Have I missed anything?

No problems with patch 1.22 here!

I prefer 1.22.

1.22 ok for me too

My initial idea was Sci, agri : sumeria too. free tech, cheap libs will be good to keep up in science and agri is always a great char. However Celts are fine for me too, we should be able to keep up in research at monarch level anyway and militaristic + celt swords is a dangerous combination too.

So Sumeria and Celts both ok (with slight pref for sumeria [:p])

1.22 is fine with me. I am pretty sure the Celts are Agri + Rel., unless that has changed between 1.15 and 1.22.

Slight pref for Sumeria here as well.

O.K. It seems we're more or less agreed,would you be so kind as to set the ball rolling,Propain,same roster as the Matrix game.
Play 15 to 20 turns,after that we can go 10 turns each.Not a hard and fast rule,we'll keep it flexible,especially when the game gets fast and furious.
Everyone patch to 1.22.
The strategy for always war in the early turns is to try to avoid contact for as long as possible so only explore in a radius around our capital far enough to find where to place cities.
We need walls in our front line cities and lots of catapults.The great library is quite important.We should try to discover polytheism for the extra tech and perhaps an SGL.
The statue of Zeus would be very handy if we have ivory.
The longer we avoid contact with other civs,the more chance they will start to fight each other.

Hey,Beam,could you post the save of your victory in the Matrix S.G.game.Thank you .

Peoples, wanting to start this but several things are still unclear to me:

Civ: Beam is right: Celts are reli & agri not mil. That leaves me with a strong pref for Sumeria
Map: I prefer pangeae over continents. Gives it that extra bite :)

Nobody is online now so I go with this. I'll be happy to start over if we decide on something else

Turn 1 - 4000 BC
First map we roll, looks like this :

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...327_start1.jpg
31.91KB

As standing orders from col. tarleton are not to be picky I decide to give it a go. Terrain looks ok, nicely in middle of map . Move worker on the mountain for a good view of southern terrain, and see this

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...711_start2.jpg
62.77KB

Not bad at all, lotsa BG and a wheat. I decide to settle on the dot (ordinary grass tile.)

Turn 2 - 3950 BC
Found Ur. We have flood plains nearby, must be an SG thing.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...027_3950bc.jpg
69.63KB

I'm in doubt if I'll start on a granary first or an enkidu warrior... decide to do the warrior for MP and in case some exp civ wanders by and we need to declare war.

On the tech side I decide to go for WC at 100%. I really want archers asap so we can use them to try and postpone our GA.

Turn 3 - 3900 BC
move worker

Turn 4 - 3850 BC
worker start irri

turn 5 - 3800 bc/ turn 6 - 3750BC
zzz

Turn 7 - 3700 BC
we grow to 2 and we dont need MP! Gotta love monarch.

turn 8 - 3650 BC
irri done, start road

turn 9 - 3600 BC
Enkidu warrior done, start granary

Turn 10 - 3550 BC
zzzz

Turn 11 - 3500 BC
move worker

Interturn - Border expands. We now can see:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...913_3450BC.jpg
107.9KB

Very nice, luxes nearby, and a hut.

Turn 12/13/14 - 3450 BC - 3350 BC
Zzzzzz

Turn 14 - 3300 BC
We grow to 4 pop, we need to adjust lux slider!

Turn 15/16 - 3250 - 3200 BC
Zzzzz

Turn 17 - 3150 BC
mine done, start road

Turn 18 - 3100 BC
WC done, start on the wheel. Need to adjust lux slider (5 pop)

Turn 19 - 3050 BC
Zzz

Turn 20 - 3000 BC
Move worker..

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...612_3000bc.jpg
107.79KB

And the save

Download Attachment: [img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] AWM 3000BC.SAV
54.82KB

Well orft we jolly well go.
Lets make the turn order:-
Propain (played)
Banzai (up) To let him get a turn in before going on Holiday.
Matrix (on deck)
Beam.
Col.Tarleton.

Sumerians,eh? They are agri and Sci.
I can't see us delaying our Golden Age for long,so despotosm G.A. it is.
Pangea?You really like a challenge,P.P.They'll be coming for us from all angles[lol]
Perhaps settle our 1st city on the hill to the NW.
Try to keep all cities at 3 tiles for reinforcement purposes and take rivers into account for movement purposes.
We need masonry for walls,all front line cities will need them,that means all our cities[lol].
We also need lots of catapults.
Good luck to the next leader.(banzai).

GA
Delaying the GA will be a challenge but not impossible. If we build lots of archer we'll have shot. After getting the wheel we'll have some extra options in terms of WC and horsies

walls
NOt sure about the walls, I personally never build them even though they are cheap. I prefer to attack with archers and other units from our cities instead of doing a 100% defensive war. In that case walls arent really usefull.

1st city
The hill Col. T. mentions is good but we should also consider settling next to the hut. If we pop thehut by settling we'll never get barbs from it and prevent wandering scouts from other civs to extract a tech or somethig from it

settler fac
I;ve set up Ur to become a settler fac. It's a pity though we cant do a warrior, settler every 4 turns as we lack a 1 shield when at size 5. We'll be doing 9,9,11,11 shields which sucks, because we'll be wasting 10 shields in the last turn. When in monarchy we'll be getting one more food from the wheat, so we should immediately mine the wheat tile when in monarchy. That will give us 10,10,12,12 shields, so we can then build warrior, settler every 4 turns, wasting only 4 shields. Big reason to go for monarchy asap.

techs
I think we should aim for monarchy asap. We'll be in monarchy for ages as republic will be impossible with WW. The sooner we're in monarchy the sooner we'll reap the benefits of a better gov. Also monarchy will have a huge benefit for Ur in production terms. Also being in monarchy quickly increases the chance of avoifing a despot GA

Question is if we want cata's before monarchy or after. I'd prefer after as alpha and maths will take us ages to research which means prolonged despotism.

double post

So good he said it twice.

I've not played AW in conquests so not using walls and cats might be made unescessary by 1 or 2 armies.In PTW,however,walls and cats are a must.We need a kill ratio of at least 10 to 1,you won't get that by attacking out of cities.
The key to winning is to defend as cost effectively as possible whilst building infrastructure in our back lines,if we have any.
By all means pop the hut with a city.
If anyone can survive through the middle ages without walls and many cats,they're a better man than I am,Gunga Din.[lol]

Played a few test scenarios yesterday evening. Avoiding early GA essentialy comes down to luck. I had a worst instance where I was discovered by the AI in turn 3 triggering GA in 8 or something. I had a best instance where I made it into the MA without any problems whatsoever: became monarchy and triggered my GA when I wanted. Missed GLib by 1 turn, but I had some civ unrest so would easily have been possible to build playing carefully. I was only discovered by 2 civs although playing pangaea settings. Didn't build any walls or cata's either, but I was extremely lucky to have only 2 civs who discovered me. As I said, that was my best instance.

observations
- Rapid expansion is not as feasible as in a normal game, settling without an escort is a no-no after the 2nd/3rd city. One settler fac turned out to be enough because it was difficult enough to keep up building mil units. Quite an adaptation from my usual playstyle where I try to spread out like a weed.
- Archers are nice to fend of those early attacks, horsies are better. I think chariots and HBR are quite important. I'd say Col Tarlt. is right and cata's will be very usefull especially once the spears and swords come your way. This takes awhile however so I still think monarchy shoudl be a priority.
- Build rax and units. The usual 'bare backbone' army isnt gonna cut it here. 2 enkidu warriors and 2/3 archers for frontline cities are necessary once the ai start sending troops. I hace to say the monarch AI isnt too bad. I rarely saw more than 3 units from civ approach at the same time. Also they send warriors in the beginning that basically only fortify/pillage when they see an enkidu
- Temples are really usefull for frontline cities, the expanded border gives better defense options. Road your terrain and you can effectively attack anything and retreat before it even reaches your city.\
- workers: I build a friggin' army of workers. Basically because I had to chop a lot of jungle in some games, but the road network that you can build fast is invaluable.

Very nice piece of testing.P.P. I suppose that we'll just have to play it by ear,delaying the G.A. as long as possible.

I think that Banzai has already left on holiday and won't return for a couple of weeks.

Can you take the game,Matrix?
We've not heard from Beam,lately,his expertise is sorely needed on the subject.
I still think that walls and cats are the way to go but we'll see how things turn out.I normally build walls as soon as a new city is founded.
We could go for the polyetheism gambit on the way to monarchy.
Getting this 1st will give us a free tech and perhaps an S.G.L.

It is my first Always at War ever so my thoughts are not exactly based on experience but on reasoning.

First of all it is key to decide if we want a run on Monarchy or the The Great Library. There are no shared techs in the path to both. Although we don't have Alpha TGL should be possible if we can get Philo first. Much cheaper to research compared to Lit. and we can choose Lit. as free tech.

TGL is a timecritical goal, the other ones are less time critical, i.e. we could research Warrior Code or IW before heading to Monarchy.

With respect to walls and cats I usually prefer and approach of keeping the AI out of our terrain and in that approach walls are basically useless because if everything goes well the AI should never reach our cities. Based on that I have a preference for PP's approach but as said that is based on reasoning, less on experience.

One observation from the previous SG, PP and me more or less have the same approach to warmonging so that could explain my pref. in this game. ;) I certainly plan to play a couple of testruns.

We can prebuild for great lib while researching for monarch. i think we can mangle alpha & masonry from some AI civ. Maybe even writing which leaves us close to lit after finishing monarchy.

I'm not gone yet, but I have no time to play.
Matrix, go ahead and take it!
One thing I would like to say.. Ur will grow before the granary will finish, resulting in an empty granary. If we delay the growth by only one turn we get that right back with a half full (or is it half empty?) granary!

See you when I get back in June!

Have fun,
Banzai

Played. Will post later, as I'm wanted for a card game downstairs. ;)

3000 BC (0)
Deselected wheat tile.

2950 BC (1)
Selected wheat tile.

2900 BC (2)
Granary done. Ur will grow next turn. Next: Enkidu Warrior for military police and as defense for the settler after him.
Tax/Sci/Lux: 1.7.2, because of maintenance.

2850 BC (3)
Ur hits size 6.
T/S/L: 1.6.3.

2800 BC (4)
Warrior done. 1.7.2 again.
Settler in 4 turns.
Mountain tile used instead of wheat, actually because I didn't thought of the fact that Ur is built next to a river. [blush] But I doubt whether we want Ur to become larger than 6. Worker done with road. Mines now.

2750 BC (5)
Zzz.

2710 BC (6)
Zzz.

2670 BC (7)
Zzz.

2630 BC (8)
Settler done. Heads for the dyes and is accompanied by a warrior.
1.8.1.
Ur grows next turn. Next: another settler.

2590 BC (9)
http://www.straland.com/images/cdz/SG201.jpg

2550 BC (10)
Sumer built. It doesn't need a warrior for military police. Yet I'll keep it there; who knows who may drop by.

2510 BC (11)
Settler done next turn.

2470 BC (12)
http://www.straland.com/images/cdz/SG202.jpg

2430 BC (13)
Lagash built. 25 gold from the tribe. (Phew!)

2390 BC (14)
Ur finishes warrior. Next: worker.

2350 BC (15)
We see a yellow border!
http://www.straland.com/images/cdz/SG203.jpg

Good time to hand it over to Beam. ;)

http://www.straland.com/junk/2350BC.SAV

Matrix,
A few questions:
- Why didnt you settle Sumer on the hill next to the river? Better defense, a river and leaving a spot east of ur for a city on the river in the jungle.
- Why did ur drop back to 4 when it build that settler, should drop to five as it can grow in 2??

I'd rather have we retreat that enkidu back in Lagash, the less we know from the map the better.