AUSG101 - Opportunist Team DAR2

[Rhothaerill]

This is the DAR (“during action report”) thread for the second turn block of 30 turns (2150bc – 1250bc) for the opportunist team. Please post your DAR of the next 30 turns, including thoughts of why you did what you did in the game, along with a screenshot at 1250bc and a savegame at 1250bc. Please name your save with your nickname, team name, and the time (i.e. rhoth-domination-1250bc).

Team registry:

Dominae
Arrian
Nor Me
BRC
Godking
Platfuss
korn469

Current voting (by spaceship team)

Dominae: 3
Nor Me: 2
BRC: 1

Total votes: 6 of 7

[Dominae]

I recommend everyone just hit 'Enter' without changing anything on the current turn. I played 2150BC and everything is in order. Just sit back and watch the Barb fireworks...hope my luck does not run out just yet!


Dominae

[korn469]

ok I haven't posted in the strategy forum much lately so my game recording skills are rather lax, but anyways here's my block

1870 - founded kufah to the south
1970 - founded basra to the north
1725 - sacked two barb camps that turn, and my warrior in the south became elite
1625 - founded khurasan to the north east
1525 - founded Anjar to the south east
1475 - barbarians killed my spearman in Anjar and sacked the town, it cost me 79 gold
1425 - founded Fustat to the northwest
1275 - traded Mathematics to carthage for writing and 5 gold, then put embassies in all of my rivals

one other thing of note, earlier (I forgot to write down when, sorry guys!) I traded the americans for horseback writing,

basically I tried to focus on building lots of workers and tile improvements, founding lots of cities by pumping settlers from mecca, maintaining a tech lead, and preparing for future military action

i finished the round with the following
*440 gold (-8 per turn)
*5 turns from monarchy
*i discovered polytheism, and traded for writing and horseback riding
*1 settler headed to found a new city
*18 workers
*2 warriors
*2 vet horsemen with more under construction

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Dominae in another thread
Now that I think of it, "opportunist" as a team goal seems a little odd. All other things being equal the Opportunist team will always be better than the other two teams, assuming they stick to their guns. If anyone agrees and has a problem with this, [b]it's not too late to turn the Opportunist team into a "Culture" team.[/b[ This way each team would have a very distinct and achievable goal, and there would be less reason to compare/compete between teams.

I have no problems with this as it would provide a detailed history of shooting for another win condition instead of being open to anything. But I think the team itself should decide this since it affects them. They are the ones that signed up for the opportunists win and if it changes to a culture win then they are the ones affected by changing their strategy.

So, opportunist team, please comment on this possible change. If the majority of you want to change goals that is fine, otherwise you will remain as you are now.

[Dominae]

I vote 'yes' for turning our goal into the more-defined Cultural victory (either 20k or 100k).

It's actually quite a different way to play the game that I'm sure many of us have never really tried. Great learning opportunity.

Any bets on how fast we can do it? Remember, we're not the Babs!


Dominae

[Beta]

Earth calling the Opportunistic team members... are you out there? Come in please.

[Arrian]

I was away all weekend. I intend to play my turns tonight.

Not sure about the culture thing. Will go with the flow on that one.

-Arrian

[alexman]

Arrian, you of all people should be against the culture thing. Winning by culture with a religious civ as early as possible involves zero science, filling 66% of the world with cities 2 tiles apart, while rush-buying temples and cathedrals.

[Dominae]

Ssh!

[Arrian]

Well, if speed is of the essence, yeah.

But many of my best games end up as culture wins or as games that could be won via culture, only I dominated first instead. 100k culture isn't THAT hard to come up with if you get yourself a big empire. The problem is that in my SP games, I play long past the point where victory is assured, playing in my pretty sandbox, and I know Dominae is loathe to do that... which brings us back to your point.

Hmm.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Your diabolical plot has been exposed! The forces of light rally against you! Down with Infinite Temple Sprawl!

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Sure, if we want to do a boring Culture win, we could. Then again, we could make it very similar to UP, but it would take longer that way. I'm not such which (if any) would be a good learning experience.

I'm going to keep on building Temples and such, but still play a "normal" game until further notice.


Dominae

[Arrian]

Works for me. I build temples anyway (though not as automatically as I used to).

How did you envision your culture win idea playing out, Dominae?

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
How did you envision your culture win idea playing out, Dominae?

I was thinking of trying to do it very quickly by building a lot of cities and rushing Temples/Cathedrals, but not necessarily in the optimal way. alexman is right in saying that putting cities every two tiles is the fastest way to do it, but I'm not sure I have the stomach for that. If we take over our continent, 3-tile mostly everywhere and concentrate on Culture, we should have a UP-ish game where we win by Culture in the 1700's.

Of course, each player can do whatever he or she wants, but I'm going to say straight up that if we do go for a Culture win, I'm not going to be using all the tricks in the book to do it super-fast. As a learning experience I think we would lose a lot if we employed the "optimal" strategy for the Culture win.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Were the Borg very cultured?


Dominae

[Arrian]

Considering that even 3-tile is tough for me to stomach, I'm happy you don't want to go for the "optimal" culture-win strategy.

I still like the "opportunistic" concept, frankly. Take advantage of our opportunities and see what happens.

-Arrian

[GodKing]

Let opportunity rule. Or, if we do go culture, make ithe th 20K in one city way. Downloading and playing shortly.

[Arrian]

This is why I build spearmen. Or, more to the point, why I have more than 1 or 2 units lying around.

On the first turn, our norther warrior was killed.

That left me with what, a conscript warrior & a regular spearman? Something like that.

Anyway, that conscript eventually got himself promoted. I built another unit or two (vet archer, reg warrior, I think), before the Americans sauntered up and sneak attacked. Their 2 regular warriors were defeated.

Then the wheels came off. First, my vet archer attacked a regular american warrior and lost, this forced me to finish off said warrior with the spearman, and therefore the spearman took 1 more turn to get back to our road net.

Next, a barb warrior defeated our vet warrior (without hp loss) in our southeastern city (I forget the name) and wiped out the production on our 2nd archer.

Then, a barb horseman nailed the Japanese worker I had so ingeniously purchased, right after I got him (masonry + 42g).

At this point, another american warrior got in and was able to capture our NE city. I just couldn't get there in time. Why? Because I had no ****ing units, that's why.

Anyway, I took it back, but lost the spearman doing so (frustration attack, across the river, shouldn't have done it. My mistake).

I made peace with America at the earliest opportunity, and they paid me 103 gold for it.

Before finishing, I lost another vet unit to barbs (barb horse took down a vet archer on a hill - archer defending). That was fun.

On the last turn, I traded cem burial to Carthage for most of their cash, and then sent Mysticism & Math plus 8 gold to them for Writing. Then I established embassies everywhere.

I was going to mention the micromanaging I did with that irrigated game tile, but I'm too annoyed now.

Screenshot of the situation in 1250 bc:

[Arrian]

Here is the save:

[Theseus]

Holy cr*p!!

/me looks at his hand, which would surely be mangled from punching the monitor if in Arrian's place.

[Nor Me]

Let's start with the save.
The important details aren't about my current position but about the future:

Monarchy in 3, Iron connected in 5, by that stage I'd have 15 veteran warriors and slightly over 600 gold.

[GodKing]

OK. Down and dirty. For some reason photo suite isn't working tonight, so I cannot convert anything into a .jpg to show you pics. Guess I will have to reload the program soon.

2150 - Damon Dies. Palace grows, I skip it so we can as a group (if anybody wants, I almost always skip it) choose what style we want.
2030 - Our 2hp warrior dies due to barbs.
1990 - Purchase a worker and 2 g from Japan for alphabet.
1625 - Lost 79g due to barbs sacking a city. Darn not having enough defenders.
1250 - Japan sends a lone warrior into our territory, probably going to try and sneak attack. I have a chariot and a spear that can get to the city first (so we definitely will not loose it this turn), and have 5 more chariots that will arrive next turn. Forgot to diplo whore the past couple of turns, and Japan just reminded me to do so and to take all their gold so they cannot form any alliances. I sell them Math for all 65 of their gold, hoping against all reason that we will be able to capture a cat or two in their soon to be defeat. Purchased writing from America along with all their gold for poly and math (ya, I was a bit generous, but oh well. Hopefully they start researching HB soon and we can just buy it from them). Set up embassies all around (again, the no pic thing hurts here).

Japan (Kyoto) - 2 spears defending, building Oracle with 38 turns left
Americans - 2 spears defending, building Oracle with 37 turns left
Carthage - 2 numidean and 1 warrior defending. Building a settler.

All known cultures in awe of our culture.

Science:
America - equal to us (as I said, I was generous)
Carthage & Japan both lack Writing and Poly.

We have 11 cities
2 settlers on the way (used GoTo)
6 native workers
1 Jap worker
1 spear
3 warriors (currently acting as police)
8 chariots

Tax 60%, +20 gpt, around 800 gold now
Sci 10%, Monarchy in 27
Lux 30%, this can probably be lowered this turn as I forgot to check.

(quick edit to get a couple of those typos and other bad grammer things)

[GodKing]

oh ya, here is the save.

[Nor Me]

Here are the notes I have to make my DAR from:

2150BC All Techs gifted/sold to all civs. Mecca switched to archer.
2110BC Damascus builds worker-set to granary. Ent to 30
2070BC Medina buils worker+
2030BC Mecca archer-settler
1910BC Medina worker-granary
1870BC Mecca settler+ Baghdad barracks-worker ent to 10
Mysterious gap in record. Kufah founded in 1750BC 774 of Mecca
1650BC
1625BC Mecca settler-settler
1600BC Najran barracks-warrior Basra founded near Iron-starts on Temple
1550BC Polytheism discovered- Monarchy started
1475BC Damascus builds granary-worker. Carthagians establish embassy. Trade Writing+50gold for polytheism with America. Trade polytheism for horseback riding from japan. gift carthage horseback riding. Carthage haven't got contact
1450BC
1425BC Medina builds granary-worker. Baghdad warrior+ Anjar founded near chokepoint
Remember to establish embassies with America+Japan. Both capitals 65 turns from the oracle
1400BC Najran warrior+

Hardly complete but it might give some idea of what I did.

The first thing I did was to gift all tachs to all 3 AIs we've met. It was likely from there that America and Japan would get Iron Working before connecting Iron and Horseback Riding long before I'd consider attacking them. I'd have a tech lead in polytheism and monarchy before anyone would have anything useful to trade. So there seemed no reason not to. They might even build.

Then like Arrian, I lost the regular warrior to barbarians. It's one thing to have no defenses when you're not under attack but in this position, it's dangerous. So Mecca had to build an archer. Fortunately that was enough to deal with the barbarians for then.

For some reason, I decided that Damascus and Medina would be better off with granaries. Of course this meant going under the number of workers I'd like for some time but it should have paid off in population eventually.

I continued with the 3-ring and built a city near the Iron which pop-rushed a temple. I think that a distance 7 ring should be next. Would that satisfy all those who don't like close spacing? There's always the option of abandoning Mecca.
This means that Medina should be the only distance 5 city but that's really imposed by the geometry anyway. Actually, I've only one 7 distance city, the one near the chokepoint and another settler in place. The iton city is at a distance of 8. But that's planning for you.

The other cities in the first ring all built barracks and built only warriors if that was completed. They haven't generally had first choice of tiles so they've hardly been impressive.

The irrigated game means having to micromanage every turn . That shows in the result of course.

The immeadiate plan is to get Monarchy and then take all the veteran warriors off defense and MP duty and upgrade them. I don't know whether to hit Japan or America with 15 swordsmen but then that's not my choice.

A screenshot?

[Beta]

Originally posted by Arrian
This is why I build spearmen. Or, more to the point, why I have more than 1 or 2 units lying around.

On the first turn, our norther warrior was killed.

That left me with what, a conscript warrior & a regular spearman? Something like that.

Anyway, that conscript eventually got himself promoted. I built another unit or two (vet archer, reg warrior, I think), before the Americans sauntered up and sneak attacked. Their 2 regular warriors were defeated.

Then the wheels came off. First, my vet archer attacked a regular american warrior and lost, this forced me to finish off said warrior with the spearman, and therefore the spearman took 1 more turn to get back to our road net.

Next, a barb warrior defeated our vet warrior (without hp loss) in our southeastern city (I forget the name) and wiped out the production on our 2nd archer.

Then, a barb horseman nailed the Japanese worker I had so ingeniously purchased, right after I got him (masonry + 42g).

At this point, another american warrior got in and was able to capture our NE city. I just couldn't get there in time. Why? Because I had no ****ing units, that's why.

Anyway, I took it back, but lost the spearman doing so (frustration attack, across the river, shouldn't have done it. My mistake).

I made peace with America at the earliest opportunity, and they paid me 103 gold for it.

Before finishing, I lost another vet unit to barbs (barb horse took down a vet archer on a hill - archer defending). That was fun.

On the last turn, I traded cem burial to Carthage for most of their cash, and then sent Mysticism & Math plus 8 gold to them for Writing. Then I established embassies everywhere.

I was going to mention the micromanaging I did with that irrigated game tile, but I'm too annoyed now.

Screenshot of the situation in 1250 bc:

OUCH! Almost enough to make you take up bridge.

[Dominae]

I play bridge.

Not sure why you guys are getting Damon killed. He survives the Barb battle in my game. Are you just hitting Enter when you load up the turn?

Even so, I'm curious as to why you guys think this is really bad. Look at the position we're in! I dare say the lack of military units early on has paid off.

I'll go into more details in my DAR, but the key is to place military unis outside your borders as lookouts. Then you can prepare (if need be) for a Barb attack and meet it at full strength. This is one of the powers of the Lux slider.


Dominae

[Theseus]

Dominae, I have REALLY tried to learn to play bridge 3 times. If you could (on-line, I guess) try to teach me... I'd be indebted.

I think you guys are doing pretty damn well.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Dominae
I'll go into more details in my DAR, but the key is to place military unis outside your borders as lookouts. Then you can prepare (if need be) for a Barb attack and meet it at full strength. This is one of the powers of the Lux slider.


Dominae

I used scouts and warrior lookouts in my run and had basically no combat. It worked very nice for me, no camps popped up near by. I know some like to smash camps fo rthe 25 gold, but I am not fond of it with regular warriors. That is why I kept the look outs. If I had vet archers or horses, then I am fond of letting camps return. Anyway with another expansion civ and Japan nearby, I figure the barbs would have little room to grow.

[Arrian]

All I did was press enter, Dominae. After loosing that warrior, I didn't have enough units to use lookouts. There already were multiple camps around our borders.

Why is it bad? Because expansion is only good when you can actually defend it.

I hate being in the position where 1 or 2 bad RN rolls can **** me. That's why I build more units, and yeah, my expansion is slighly slower.

Whatever, it worked out for you, and it looks like the others had more success than I.

For shits and giggles, I also played out my 2150bc save for a while... and things went well enough that my anger at the RNG died down for a while (leader in 1000bc, Pyramids rushed).

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Something weird must have happened with the save, because I did not lose that Warrior. I'm thinking I did some last-minute changes after saving the game to post here.

I'm not sure it matters in the long run, though. Seeing the Barb threat I pop out an extra couple of Warriors, which "easily" take care of the Barb threat. I did lose Cruise down past Carthaginian lands though (too bad: there's still some stuff to scout down there).

I'm sorry this game got you so frustrated, Arrian. I think the problem is that you were put in a position that employs a particular strategy that you're not comfortable with, namely paper-thin defense. It's not obvious (requires a lot of AI guesswork), and if you're not used to it I'm sure feels pretty reckless. I'm not saying you're not capable of it, just that your playstyle is very different from mine. But that's the point of AUSG101: to compare playstyles. Maybe we'll all end up agreeing that my "paper-thin" defense strategy is not so good after all.


Dominae