TheArchduke and the Gentleman Bastards lead the Mongol Horde

[suboptimal]

It would be an unlikely position given the size of the map, but if a player neighbor was close enough to send a trade route to would you consider a warrior/archer rush against a player using Ortoo before going after city-states or would conquering city-states first be the better proposition?

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, I like how you think.

You are right, +6 could break someone´s neck early on. But in PBEM #4 such an early trade route was not possible.

[TheArchduke]

TheArchduke	Rowain	Japper	Alhambram	Chevalier Mal Fet	Emperor K
Mongolia	Scotland	Cree	Netherlands	Korea	Georgia
India(Chandragupta)	Zulu	Mapuche	Poland	Khmer	Indonesia
Norway	Aztec	Persia	Macedonia	Nubia	Australia
Arabia	Kongo	Russia	Japan	Scythia	China
Egypt	Sumeria	France	America	India(Ghandi)	Rome
Spain	Greek(Pericles)	Brazil	England	Germany	Greek(Gorgo)

So,

TheArchduke - Mongolia

Yep, that is me.

Rowain - Sumeria (thought to be Zulu)

I am kinda suprised, the Zulu are the much better military and especially longterm choice and Scotland is builder galore.
Still they have been banned and rightly so in the Vanilla lineup for being too strong. To be honest, they are too strong in even this lineup as they could very well kill the unsuspecting builder victim.
Will Rowain really rush someone? He is an aggressive enough player. Or he might just be happy to clear barb camps and force others to build way more military then they want to. This means that we will need more warriors and more slingers then normally and make a conquest of a CS a no brainer because of that. My biggest fear is that Rowain will kill someone far, far away and not be my neighbour.

Japper - Cree

Too good of a choice. It will be interesting to see how Japper copes with Warcarts with his special scouts, which I am not going to pronounce. I fear not too well, considering his track record especially PBEM #5 and PBEM #4 before that.


Alhambram - Netherlands

Solid player, solid choice, the builder.

Chevalier Mal Fet - Korea

Yup, saw that coming as well, if left alone will become nasty.

Emperor K - Georgia


What?
What?

[pindicator]

Emperor K - Georgia


What?
What?

[suboptimal]

One other thing to note about Sumeria - they get a tribal village reward every time they take out a barbarian camp. It is very possible that Rowain builds a few war carts, goes barb camp hunting and pulls in some goodies like a settler, builder, free population or even a relic. If he's got some riverside grasslands he might also throw down a couple of Ziggurats to keep up with science and culture while he goes rampaging with the carts. Don't know which would be worse -- starting next to him and having to deal with war carts or starting away from him and having him wipe out a couple of people.

[TheArchduke]

Wow, what a strong start.

And with a ridiculous amount of jungles for chops and warcart speedbumps to boot.

Even before I move the warrior, I know. There is no reason to move. Bananas 3 2, 2 x 2 2 tiles and 1 x 4 tile.

Wow. Although the other starts will probably be as good.

I start off with a scout, a builder needs pottery + irrigation to be of any use.

Build order will be scout-slinger-builder-settler for now.


   

We settle Camorr.

   

[suboptimal]

That's a very nice start....curious to see what's north and west.  What is your plan for scouting?  Warrior downriver to the coast and then see what happens?

Looks like you're just north of the equator on the eastern end of the map -- rivers flow west, you're on the jungle belt at the equator and there are forests to the north of the belt.  If you scroll to the right do you see a map edge?  If this turns out to be the case I'd guess that opponents are centered at the ends and spread out along the shores, leaving the mid-shores and corners for territorial expansion.  You may also have a little less barbarian trouble than some of the others since you're probably not near any tundra.

[TheArchduke]

That's a very nice start....curious to see what's north and west.  What is your plan for scouting?  Warrior downriver to the coast and then see what happens?

Looks like you're just north of the equator on the eastern end of the map -- rivers flow west, you're on the jungle belt at the equator and there are forests to the north of the belt.  If you scroll to the right do you see a map edge?  If this turns out to be the case I'd guess that opponents are centered at the ends and spread out along the shores, leaving the mid-shores and corners for territorial expansion.  You may also have a little less barbarian trouble than some of the others since you're probably not near any tundra.

Eastern end of the map, probably around the jungle belt so smack dab in the middle.

Which probably means that the corners are free of player and there are 2 players south and north as well.

The warrior went towards an oasis I could see and will head south at all possible speed. I doubt I will find any CS on the coast and I want to scout who my neighbour is. The slinger will check out settle sites to the west of me.

Yeah, barbs should not be that much of an issue like in PBEM 6 where my capital never was free of them till the end of the game.

   

I am contemplating actually buying the copper tile after the tilepicker goes for the copper tile. It is an excellent one and gives me two eurekas. But we will see, keeping my monies together is more important for now.

[TheArchduke]

After browsing through the first 2 turns, we stumble upon our first possible expansion avenue. Some Floodplains and desert hill make this a very lucrative Petra spot.

   

Pity that we are the Mongols. Can we do buildering and rushing at the same time.

If one can, then the Mongols.




Also, no Hypatia, thus no crazy rush for Campi in this campaign, but I imagine we will see some earlier commercial hubs then usual.
Also with inland sea, I will push for this GG, just for her Barbradar™.

   

Rough plan for now:

Build (adapated)
Scout-Slinger-Warrior-Settler-Builder-Encampment at both capital and city #2

Research (adapted)
Animal Husbandry->Mining->Bronze Working (without Eureka)->Archery

Scouting:
Warrior firmly south, scout firmly north. If my city states are to the west of me on the coast, I will be suprised and angry.

Plan:
Notice that I am still researching pottery. Unfortunately I do not think I can afford this luxury. Switch to AH. As long as I do not know if Rowain is close to me or not we need to do military first.
So we will err on the side of caution and do a warrior after the slinger, my tiles are good enough to be worked and with scouting I can try to go for foreign trade.

If I spot Sumeria as my northern or southern neighbour a postponement of city #2 is likely. In that case we will hold off on expansion for quite a bit, get archers and chop out a settler expansion as soon as I feel safe enough.

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, chariots are heavy cavalry class units. So they get +3 CS from Genghis Khan.

Which also means that my heavy chariots are at CS 31, whilst Sumeria´s warcarts are CS 30.

So what this means is clear, my whole plan is stupid.  

Build.
Scout-Slinger(barb protection and Archery Eureka)-Builder-Settler-Heavy Chariot-Encampment-(chop out Heavy Chariots)

Use those Heavy Chariots to:

1.) Hold off Sumeria, if needed.
2.) Murderize a CS.
3.) Murderize a player.
4.) Profit.

Rough plan for now:

Research
Mining->The Wheel->Animal Husbandry->Bronze Working->Archery->Pottery->Irrigation

Scouting:
Warrior firmly south, scout firmly north.

Tiles
Wait for the Horse in natural expansion, buy the copper tile. Farm rice, pasture the horse and mine the copper.

Am I wrong here, or do heavy chariots actually make sense as a fighting unit for me?

Wow: