SGOTM4 - Game Thread.

Hi everyone, and welcome to your game thread.

Here is the start position.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM4.jpg

Note: EVERYONE has to install the correct resource graphics whether or not they have played this scenario or GOTM before. If you haven't done it yet, you had better get a wriggle on.

The saves will be available once the timelock has been released tonight (19th September).

Here are some links you might find useful.

The original GOTM28 Announcement. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/gotm28_india.shtml)
The Draft Constitution (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1733966&postcount=61)
The GOTM Reference Thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=71788)
SGOTM4 - Maintenance Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=100194)
Download latest Save. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm_submission_list.php)
Upload a Save. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm.php)

This Months' sponsored variant is 5 City Challenge the rules for which are as follows.

1. You may not end a turn with more than 5 cities.

Team Leaders: It would be a good idea to PM your team mates to get them all checked in here as soon as is possible. ;)

Good luck everyone! :)

I'm checking in.

As am I...

Wow - How did that happen. I'm the team name.

Anyway, checking in.

Checking in. Looking forward to this :) .

Alright, since my name is on the list I guess that makes me leader, so I'll kick off the discussions here.

First a note: I assume CKS will check in soon, but does not have PM or e-mail enabled, so I can't fire off a message. Because I don't know when that player will check in, let's start planning. We will wait to finalize decisions until they show up.

I don't know how much SGOTM experience people have, so maybe we should get that out on the table first.
This is my first SGOTM (Except for one round as a replacement last game), but I have been lurking in the forums for the last couple months. As such I have a few observations.
1. Teams that communicate more seem to do better.
2. It is easy to treat this like you treat your normal games. IMO, this is not a good idea. Take your time on every turn.

Now on to the basic decisions.
1. Turn Order - I don't feel strongly on this. I think the standard 20 for the first player, 10 thereafter till it gets to take too long.

2. Victory Condition - I believe we are playing the variant, so we should choose a condition to try for.
Conquest - Should be interesting. A tough one with only 5 cities to support troops. I wouldn't mind trying this since it would be a big challenge.
Domination - Not an option
Space Ship - Would make for a pretty long game, but would be fun.
Culture 20K - I like this one. I think this is the one that would allow us to beat the original Jason Best Date.
Diplomacy - Also very workable, but I don't like this one as much.
Histograph - Impossible without effectively achieving a conquest.

3. First moves. I'll let others chime in on this before I spout off my opinions.

4. City Placement Strategy.
There are a few options here.
We could start with a close build, and then build new cities in optimal places, disbanding the old ones.
We could try to get cities placed right at the beginning, but in something like an OCP.
We could spread our cities farther. Corruption shouldn't be much of a problem with only 5 cities.

5. Some random thoughts.
Because of the rules of the variant, we can definately get a couple armies out if we want.
We could capture or build a few extra cities one turn to enable the Forbidden Palace. I think that we could switch to FP and then disband.

Let the discussions begin :)

This too is my first SGOTM, but I too did some lurking for SGOTM3, and I agree:

The more we discuss, the more we share, and the more we get a clearer view of our short-term and long-term goals.

Ten turns is not a great deal of playing time. So, I think when executing each turn, especially in the first half of the game, every single decision you make should be scrutinised. Since we are playing 5CC, the micromanagement aspects shouldn't be too much work. Convesely, build orders are extremely important since we only have 5 objects produced at any one time.

I agree that we should start with 10 turns each. See how we go from there. If we can manage to average 10 turns a day, then the game should be over before the deadline with no probs.

Conquest - I wouldn't mind trying this, but I think our game will be killed if we don't start with any horses or iron in our core. In which case a mass archer rush on our neighbour may be necessary.
Space Ship - We also need to make sure that we have access, either through trading or posession of the modern age resources. Could be tricky, but good fun. Also, with 5 cities, we will need to work hard to keep up with research.
Culture 20K - I think that this condition is probably the most winnable. As long as we can get going with our second city by the time we can build Colossus, Oracle and maybe even the Pyramids, we should be onto a winner.
Diplomacy - Might be tricky, but given the right circumstances, I think I can be friendly enough. :)

I would tend to shoot for 20K, but if things don't go our way, then we should be prepared to either go for the Space Race or Conquest. I'm just scared that resources are not going to be readily available. We may have to take them by force.

In terms of cityplacement, I think it would completely depend on what is available, but I tend to shy away from disbanding cities. The sooner we can start developing our final 5 cities the better in my opinion. However, i'm open to suggestion as to the advantages of jeffelammar's method.

I was thinking about the possibility of armies and FP today actually. I think the FP may not be as key to victory, since we won't have that much corruption, yet if we do get the chance, i don't see why we shouldn't build it. As for armies. It depends entirely on our goal, but one army should suffice for defending our realm from intruders (if we are playing 20K), whereas two could be useful for conquest. I doubt we'll get more than two - though who knows?

In terms of opening moves, I would suggest Worker East, then if nothing exciting shows up, settle on the spot... Build a few warriors for scouting out perfect city spots, then first settler should be built when city reaches size 4. Research pottery on max. Then Bronze Working for Colossus, for potential 20K starter. If we have a hostile neughbour, we may need to think about securing iron sooner rather than later. If that isn't possible, then horses? If no horses ... :eek:

Also useful info to note is, i live in London. So i'm on GMT. Our time zones may affect the lenght of time between plays allowing for discussion.

I look forward to playing with you guys! :)

In terms of cityplacement, I think it would completely depend on what is available, but I tend to shy away from disbanding cities. The sooner we can start developing our final 5 cities the better in my opinion. However, i'm open to suggestion as to the advantages of jeffelammar's method.

I don't necessarily disagree with you on this, I was just trying to lay out as many options as I could so we can discuss the pros and cons. The biggest pro about disbanding cities is that we can get an early boost, and then later build a city in a more "optimal" location.


In terms of opening moves, I would suggest Worker East, then if nothing exciting shows up, settle on the spot... Build a few warriors for scouting out perfect city spots, then first settler should be built when city reaches size 4. Research pottery on max. Then Bronze Working for Colossus, for potential 20K starter. If we have a hostile neughbour, we may need to think about securing iron sooner rather than later. If that isn't possible, then horses? If no horses ... :eek:

A few thoughts on this.
1. I think pottery is a good start, but is it really worth it? I mean, we are only going to have 5 cities, so do we really need to get Granaries ASAP. The answer may be yes, but I thought we should consider that.
2. We are India, so we have a good MA attacker that doesn't require horses or iron. It would keep us from a mass upgrade, but at least we know we'll be able to build it.
3. I agree completely on the move east. That river seems to be the best bet for a food bonus.

I'm here. (I don't have internet access from home, really, so weekends I often don't check anything. "Game starts the 20th" didn't suggest check on the 19th to me.)

This is my first SGOTM. Interestingly, GOTM 28 was my first GOTM. I lost it by conquest just after learning gunpowder only because the local civs took pity on me and didn't completely wipe me out earlier on. I expect to do better this time around.

1.
20 turns to start and then 10 sounds good to me. With 5 cities things should go quickly. I'm in the USA in the central time zone if location matters for setting up the playing order.

2.
I've never won a game by conquest. I'm not very good at managing warfare efficiently, and I like to build culture. My one attempt at a conquest win (before I really understood how things worked) ended up as an accidental 100K win. I'm willing to try it, though. In GOTM 28 there was no accessible iron; there may or may not have been horses, but I didn't have any.

I like the idea of space ship wins, but the game does run long. Here, getting the necessary resources may be tricky.

A diplomatic win shouldn't be too hard. I default to this when I haven't managed to get my act together, though, so I'd rather try something else.

I like the 20K idea. If we are trying to finish quickly, it seems to be the one where the 5 city rule will have the least effect on finish date.

I'll get this posted and write more later.

3. First Moves

While worker east puts the worker on the tile we'd want to work first if we settle in place, stepping onto the mountain gives us a wider view. This I think is a toss-up; I like to know where I am, so I may give this more emphasis than it deserves.

Depending on what the worker sees, moving the settler north or northeast would keep us on the river but give us another forest. It looks like grassland all around, so keeping some shields (either for continued use or for a chop) might be nice. North loses us the southern BG, but I think we should consider northeast.

As for research, I think that depends on what our goal is. If we go for 20K, I think we want bronze working or mysticism first, and try to trade for pottery.

Definitely get some warriors out scouting. Even if we build and disband some early cities, we want to make the most of them. We'll need local warriors to find city spots and long distance warriors to find neighbors to trade with.

4. Cities

I'm uncomfortable with disbanding cities. I'd rather put them where we want them eventually. However, this requires knowing where they should go early on. I guess I'm willing to be flexible.

5. Other stuff

We might want to build the FP for the culture, if we go for a 20K win. Otherwise I'm not sure it is worth building extra cities just so we can build it. Capturing them is another story. How many do we need? That depends on map size, so we don't know it yet, right?

With 5 cities, are we allowed 1 army or 2? (We need 4 cities per army, I think, but I don't know if it is 0-4=1, 5-8=2 or 0-3=0, 4-7=1. I've never had armies when I didn't have many cities.) I'm not sure I'm up to doing much adding and disbanding of cities to get extra armies/the FP/etc.

Ok, looks like we have the whole team checked in. One monkeywrench that I got from the Maintainence thread. Apparently we are Carthage instead of India.

This changes strategy a little. Our UU is now pretty useless IMO.
This makes aquisition of Horses and or Iron critical.

I guess we need a turn order. I'll go ahead and suggest one. All I did is take the order from MadBax's Signup thread. I would also be willing to go first if Chunkymonkey doesn't want to.

1. Chunkymonkey
2. CKS
3. Conehead234
4. Jeffelammar
5. Viper275

I would say that in this variant, we should discuss all new city locations. If you get to a point where you aren't sure about something take a time out from your play and post. I think I'd rather take extra time and get agreement then have someone come back after the fact.

We should finish our initial discussions before we start though. :)

Quick Node:
It takes 4 full cities to create an army, so with 5 we would only be able to make one. That said, if we can capture 3 cities in a turn, form the army, and then disband the remaining 3, thus ending the turn with 2 armies and 5 cities.

Apparently we are Carthage instead of India..
Ok, well that's thrown a spanner in the works. :rolleyes: I agree the Numid is pretty useless in respect of the early GA, although, if we can secure iron, we may be able to hold off the GA until late middle ages.

I'm happy to play the turn order you suggest jeffelammar, however, i sense that you may potentially have a better opening strategy than me with the initial dense placement. IIRC from the sign-up thread, you are comfortable with Deity level from time to time, whereas I have only just started venturing into the realms of Demi-God. The first 20 turns are key in my opinion, and I would hate to screw them up. On the other hand, if you don't feel comfortable starting, i'll play. Just give me a little extra time with them. ;) Unless anyone else feels up to the challenge??

The religious trait of Carthage allows us a headstart in the 20K area, and in my opinion, we'll do well by trying to get to the Republic (or Monarchy) quickly. However, Militaristic has just increased my opinion of the possibilities of Conquest. So i'm in two minds. I think our goal should be decided before we start playing, with a 50 turn window for change, since the 20K win can't be effectively achieved after this time.

Since every city placement is vitally important in this game, they should be discussed and when it is time to decide where to move the settler, have a time-out.

While worker east puts the worker on the tile we'd want to work first if we settle in place, stepping onto the mountain gives us a wider view
I agree, yet i can't help thinking an extra worker turn or two mining and roading grasslands might eventually be in our favour. We do need to find the supreme spot for our capital, but how long would you spend looking?

As for research, I think that depends on what our goal is. If we go for 20K, I think we want bronze working or mysticism first, and try to trade for pottery.
If that is our goal, I agree.

It takes 4 full cities to create an army, so with 5 we would only be able to make one.
Remember, if we're desperate for another army we could always create 3 settlers and have them sitting around spare waiting for a leader to turn up, then bam! 8 cities for one turn!

I'll have to test the save, we should be India though. I've never played an SGOTM but I have played and am playing several normal SGs so I know the drill.

1. 20 first, 10 after. Probably 5 when we hit the... Industrial Age? At that point there can be literally 100 or more workers building railroads to manage and that is very time-consuming. We'll play it by ear though.
2. Hmm...
Conquest- Possibly, could be fun. However, as mentioned, 5 cities will limit our unit support and I like to start out a war with a fair amount of units for a good first strike.
Domination- Not with 5CC.
Space: Trade will be crucial here, since 5 cities can't support science later in the game. Would definitely improve my game, it's a possibility.
Diplomatic: As mentioned earlier, we'll trade a lot regardless of our victory condition. The other civs will like us for that. Consider this backup if the other one doesn't work.
Cultural, 20K: Definitely a possibility, I have little experience here but it'll be great.
However, let's not get too sure on one. Diplomatic will always work unless we go conquest (even then maybe) and we can keep options open on the rest. Get lots of culture in one city, stay ahead or with AI in techs, and we have options, and I like options.
3. Worker on mountain to see nearby surroundings. If we see something good move there, otherwise settle on the spot.
4. Everyone know how to make dotmaps? You take a screenshot of the game (Print screen button on keyboard then paste into image program) then make dots on where the cities go. Works for great things. I suggest that after we know the immediate area everyone tries making one and we decide from those. City placement is important in 5CC.
5. Not much. Pretty well covered in other questions, may add when I know if it's Carthage or India. Decide if capital should go for 20K or not (Palace prebuilds could be key, but corruption?)

Time Zones... I'm GMT -8, see location. jeffelammar is GMT -7, correct? Conehead is GMT -5, don't know about CKS, chunkymonkey on GMT. Some make the rosters go in order by time thinking it'll go faster. Assuming CKS is on GMT -5 or GMT -6 it's already like that.

Here is where we stand.

One more twist: I opened the save last night. I made no moves, but did look at it. I wanted to try to focus our planning. We are Carthage, but it wasn't any Carthage I know about. According to the CiviloPedia in the save, Carthage appears to be Commercial and Industrious. I'm at work now, so I can't check the rest, but I think this changes things just a bit more. I didn't check the UU, so this could have changed too.

Turn order: I would say we should go with the turn order as suggested above unless someone has an objection. Any one of us should be able to adjust their play to match our team strategy. If nobody object before tomorrow, I say we start with Chunkymonkey. I think we should be able to get underway by late Wednesday unless someone thinks we need more pre-game discussion.
First Move:
Worker east to explore the river
pros:
Worker gets to the most likely place to expand
We see more high commerce squares.

Worker to the mountain to expose more territory.
pros:
Many more total squares revealed

Any ideas how to break the stalemate on this choice, as CKS put it, this is a tossup. I would go east if playing myself.

Victory Condition:
I think we are in agreement to start by looking for a place to build a 20K city. If we don't think this is going to work we have backups. Since conquest can be decided after 20 or 30 turns, I suggest that we check in on this after the first two turnsets. (Unless that player feels we have missed something, in which canse they should pause and bring it up then)

Dot Maps:
I've never made one except on Graph paper at home. I do think that they will be critical for city placement discussions. I don't think RCP is critical in this case due to the small number of cities, but if we can follow an RCP we should. (We should definately make sure our 20K city is Rank 1)

One more suggestion: I think we might want to put together a end of turn checklist for everyone to use. Some items to put on it...
CHECKLIST(Updated per ChunkyMonkey's post 21:34 GMT - 9/21)
1. Micro-manage all cities (check disorder and if we can maximize production by switching things around)
2. Contact all AIs (Or at least use the Trade Assist or CRPMapStat utility, I assume that is legal here since it is in GOTM)
3. Make an turnlog so we know exactly what happened on each turn. Make sure the turnlog and summary include research data and that they bring up discussion on next tech.
4. Check the tax/research slider each turn so we make sure we are not unnecessarily overspending on research (what I mean by this is, if say for example 40% spending on the Wheel yields a 4 turn finish, but so does 10%, then we should move the slider to 10%).

Please post your additions below and I will add them to this post so we can use it as the reference.

OK, I'm happy to start. I can't screw up that badly in 20 turns. ;)

I'm at home from 12am to 6pm GMT on Wednesday so hopefully I can start within that time frame if nobody has any objections.

The commercial and industrious Carthage is the Conquests Carthage if i remember rightly, this slightly weakens us in terms of the industrious trait being useful only in the early game. Also the religious trait is missing meaning we have to spend more on our temples and cathedrals. However, these are two solid traits and provide us with a solid civ.

I doubt the first settler will be finished by my time being up, but I should have a clear view of the surrounding area. So i'll post a screenshot of the surrounding area and then we can make dotmaps. This is a good exercise. RCP is not critical in 5CC, and if we can afford to take advantage of better city locations in exchange for the small amount of corruption gleaned from unequal rank, i think we should.

Checklist

1.I use Dianthus' CRPMapStat to check rioting and trades available. However it does not show resources and luxuries available, so a quick F2 each turn is nothing to worry about.
2.Micromanaging is essential - no doubt about that. It won't get boring because we will only have 5 cities for 10 turns each!
3.Make an turnlog so we know exactly what happened on each turn.
4.Check the tax/research slider each turn so we make sure we are not unnecessarily overspending on research (what I mean by this is, if say for example 40% spending on the Wheel yields a 4 turn finish, but so does 10%, then we should move the slider to 10%). Straightforward?
5. We should have an ongoing discussion about the next two to three techs to be researched based on current info. This way, we can plan when to start palace pre-builds in our 20K city and so on.

The commercial and industrious Carthage is the Conquests Carthage if i remember rightly, this slightly weakens us in terms of the industrious trait being useful only in the early game. Also the religious trait is missing meaning we have to spend more on our temples and cathedrals. However, these are two solid traits and provide us with a solid civ.

Ahh, that makes sense. I don't own C3C, so that would be why these changes shocked me so much. I agree completely that the traits are strong, but the industrious won't help for long as we should probably have all our cities fully improved relatively early.

I just noticed a few things that I probably should have checked before. The original announcement shows that we apparently have differential naval movment, and a whole bunch of other changes to make PTW look like C3C.
We should check the civilopedia to be sure. (I'll do that tonight)
The big ones that may have a big influence on us.
1. Map Trading - Printing Press not Writing
2. Space Race - Robotics for last part. Would make us have to keep up through more of the modern ages to get this.
3. Differential Naval Movement - If we are on an island, this may be important so we can establish trade, it has a tendency to make suicide galleys harder to use.

OK, I'm happy to start. I can't screw up that badly in 20 turns. ;)



It isn't a problem for me to go next, and I'm sure I can screw up far worse in the next 10 turns. I'm pretty sure I'm the weakest player here, so if you want me moved to where I'll cause the least damage (wherever that is), I'm okay with that.

I've also looked at the starting spot and checked the civilopedia. Of course, I left my notes away from this computer, but I think the traits were the only strange thing - the UU is the Numidian Mercenary (2/3/1) and we start with masonry and alphabet.

I'm leaning toward moving the worker east, btw.

the UU is the Numidian Mercenary (2/3/1)
Also remember that Numidian Mercenaries are 30 shields total. I'd avoid producing them in cities with low shields per turn.

The traits definitely hurt us. Commercial has a very limited affect for 5 cities (not much commerce effect and there's little corruption anyway), and there's not much terrain to work in 5CC and not many shields for bonus. I use CRPMapStat. I think we'll be micromanaging a lot here (I mean, in 5CC, there's not much else to do.) This goes for everything (research, building, etc.)

Early game stuff: I still like worker on mountain because of lots of viewing area. As I said, see something good like bonus resource then grab it, otherwise settle on the spot. Once we get land knowledge we need dotmaps to figure out city placement. In 5CC, I think the most important thing is good city placement, regardless of borders. No ICS here, more of an OCP thing.

OK I've been doing some homework...

Intelligence

We are Carthage. Our traits are commercial and industrious. This means we start with Masonry and the Alphabet. Or UU is the Numidian Mercenary who is a 2/3/1 for 30 shields with Bronze Working.

It seems as though ship movement has been doubled.

Robotics does possess the last spaceship part.

Map trading should be available with Map Making.

Looking at F10, our rivals are:

INDIA
Commercial and religious. They start with Alphabet and Ceremonial Burial.
UU is the War Elephant 4/3/2 for 70 shields with Chivalry.

GREECE
Scientific and commercial. Start with Bronze Working and Alphabet.
UU is the Hoplite 1/3/1 for 20 shields with Bronze Working.

OTTOMANS
Scientific and Industrious. Start with Masonry and Bronze Working.
UU is the Sipahi 8/3/3 for 100 shields with MilTrad

ROME
Militaristic and commercial. Start with Warrior code and Alphabet.
UU is the Legionary 3/3/1 for 30 shields, iron and Iron Working.

BABYLONIANS
Scientific and religious. Start with Bronze Working, Ceremonial Burial.
UU is the Bowman 2/2/1 for 20 shields with Warrior code.

PERSIA
Industrious and scientific. Start with Masonry, and Bronze Working.
UU is the immortal 4/2/1 for 30 shields with iron and Iron Working.

VIKINGS
Militaristic and Expansionist. Start with Pottery and Warrior Code.
UU is the Berserker 6/2/1 for 70 shieds with Invention.

CELTS
Militaristic and religious. Start with Warrior Code and Ceremonial Burial.
UU is the Gallic Swordsman 3/2/2 for 40 shields with Iron and Iron Working.

GERMANY
Scientific and Militaristic. Start with Bronze Working and Warrior Code.
UU is the Panzer 16/8/3 for 100 shields with oil, rubber and Motorized Transportation.

Two decisions i need to make before I play my turns are:

1. First Worker Move.
I could move east, which will uncover some higher commerce tiles, and possibly a bonus. It would probably be more sensible to settle our capital on the river. Also, the worker will be able to start work straight away.

Or I could move to the mountain. This will uncover more tiles. There could be some food bonuses there, but if we move the settler we will be moving away from the river. Also, the worker loses a turn or two. However, considering my initial build order will be 2 warriors, the extra shield gleaned from a mined BG may not be that critical.

2. First research.
Bronze Working. 5 out of 9 rivals start with this. Easily traded for.
Mathematics. Unecessary this early in the game.
Writing. Again, unnecessary, but is an expensive tech that could be researched on minimum and allow us purchasing power.
Pottery. Easily purchased. Do we need a granary? Maybe if there is a food bonus somewhere in Carthage's radius.
The Wheel. If we research this, we have a gauranteed monopoly, plus we will see where horses are - essential.
Warrior Code. Allows archers - not particulary fussed.
Ceremonial Burial. A temple might be nice but this tech is easily traded for at a time that we need it.

I'm prepared to take a democratic vote on these two issues.
Personally, i'm tempted to move worker east, and start research on The Wheel at minimum.

Worker: Either way is okay with me. In my own games I tend to climb mountains to look around, but I also tend to start very slowly. I'm trying to get myself to manage worker turns better in the early game. Going to the mountain will probably be three turns of walking. We would need to see a significant bonus to want to move away from the river. We have to be close to the eastern coast (from our position on the minimap), so moving the worker east may tell us where it is.

Research: I like the wheel. With some commerce at the start, I'd lean towards researching quickly. It will be a while before we can do anything with money anyway.

Differential Naval Movement: If we send out suicide galleys, DNM makes things easier, I think. We get 6 ocean moves. We'll be slower going around the coast, but we'll get farther before we stop and die when striking out for unknown lands.

My votes are
Worker east - I may put too much weight on it, but I can never pass up the commerce bonus of the river, so I would rather know more about that than what is on the other side of the mountain.

Research - Wheel - If we can get our hands on horses, we could prep up for a horseman rush by building some cheap chariots. I would like to weaken our nearest rival a bit even if we don't go Conquest.

As a note, I don't think I have ever made the Wheel my first tech, but I really like the idea of trying that strategy.

I still stand by worker on mountain for viewing. The maximum time it would be moving a settler would be 3 turns, and it would still be close to the river then, would grab it eventually. At the same time, we could leave the potential bonus alone for the next city.

How many turns will The Wheel be at 100%? Could be nice to grab quickly.

OK. I'm going to play these turns when I get back from my lectures this evening from 6pm GMT onwards, so anybody has any burning issues, please say within the next 6 hours. I'll upload the save ready for CKS.

I'm going to go with the move to the mountain. My main reasoning is the extra production from the mined BG, a couple of turns late, will not have a huge impact. My first builds will be warriors anyway, so pumping out three shields instead of two does not save us a lot of time. I'd rather be sure that we weren't missing a bonus just out of our reach to the north of the river or something.

I guess I will research The Wheel on maximum so that we have it first. I usually research on minimum since I prefer the gold in the early game to set me up for a swordsmen or horse rush-upgrade, but I feel as though knowing the location of the horses is slightly more critical.

Wish me luck! :)

That sounds good to me.

About upgrading: I guess I'm not expecting to find easily accessible iron. While nothing says it will be just like GOTM 28, it seems unlikely that things will be changed to make it easier for us. Plus, while our civ isn't India, we still have a strong UU that _doesn't_ require iron. I wouldn't mind being wrong about this, though.

Good luck. Have fun.

Good luck ChunkyMonkey. I'll look forward to reading the results.

As a note, I think this is the right way to go. Get all the input from everyone, but let the person playing the turns make the final decision, with no "I told you so's" from the rest of the team.

Finished!

The save is here!

Turnlog

1 – 4000BC – Move worker NW. See some spices. This is not good enough to lure me away from the river, so I settle Carthage on the spot. Which is lucky, since we have a cow 2 squares SE of us. Start research on Wheel at maximum – est. 27 turns. Start producing warrior.

2 – 3950BC – Move worker E.

3 – 3900BC – Move worker SE onto BG.

4 – 3850BC – Start building road.

5 – 3800BC – :sleep:

6 – 3750BC – Warrior 1 produced. Send him NE. Worker mines. Start building another warrior.

7 – 3700BC – War1 E.

8 – 3650BC – War1 N.

9 – 3600BC – War1 N. Worker south onto cow.

10 – 3550BC – Warrior 2 produced. Move him S. War1 W. Worker start roading cow. Start producing another warrior.

11 – 3500BC – Carthage expands and is size 2. War2 SW. War1 W.

12 – 3450BC – Worker moves W. War2 SW. War1 W.

13 – 3400BC – Worker irrigates BG. Warrior 3 produced. Move him E. Warrior 2 moves W. War1 W. Warrior 4 started for garrison and MP purposes.

14 – 3350BC – War3 N. War2 S. War1 SW.

15 – 3300BC – Worker moves E onto cow. War 3 North. War 1 S. War2 South.

16 – 3250BC – Worker irrigates cow. Warrior 4 is garrisoned. War3 N. War2 S. War 1 S. Start producing settler.

17 – 3200BC – War3 N. War2 SE. War 1 S.

18 – 3150BC - Carthage grows to size 3. Worker moves NE. War1 S. War2 S. War3 NW.

19 – 3100BC - Worker starts roading BG. War1 S. War2 S. War3 NE.

20 – 3050BC – War1 SW. War3NW. War2 SW.

At the end of Turn 20 we have a Firaxis score of 68 which puts our scoring trend, according to the submission graph, slightly above everyone else! :thumbsup:

Key things to note for the next few turns.

Carthage will require careful micromanagement to ensure it remains on 4fpt.

Carthage will grow to size 4 in 3 turns, just as the settler is produced. I believe that each settler should aim to be produced at this exact stage.

The Wheel will be available in 3 turns. After this, I would consider researching Writing on minimum to build up some gold reserves. Assuming we meet a neighbour in the next batch of turns, he should not have knowledge of the Wheel. Remember to trade wisely for techs that we absolutely require.

I’ll stick up a dotmap soon to let you know where I think at least the next city should be placed. To be perfectly honest, I’m considering voting for either Carthage to be our 20K city, or a city built on the hill 3 spaces south of Carthage. The advantage of having one of these cities is they are on the river. The hill city will have plenty of production once the food situation is sorted out and once we are in a non-despotic government. Also it is on the coast, so we can start the Colossus straight away. Carthage does not have much production capability but could easily reach a high population.

This is the map at 3050BC:

Looks good! I've downloaded the save, and I'll get a chance to look at our situation tonight. I probably won't get any thoughts posted until tomorrow morning (about 18 hours).

Nice set of turns. I sugggest Carthage for 20K. The only other I might consider would be one with the cow and hills, but without the river I'd prefer not.

Oops... I forgot to mention that there is also a whale one square NE, one square N of the eastern most hill to the NE of Carthage - slightly obscured by the edge of the map. Here is a zoomed-in gridded version of our map, probably better for dotmap purposes, although slightly trickier to work out where BGs are and so on...

These are my candidate spots for our cities.

I would prefer them to be settled in this order:
Red, Blue, Orange, Yellow.

I have abandoned the notion of trying to stick with RCP since there isn't enough land, and the marginal advantage gained in corruption terms will probably be less than the crummier production capability of such a ring. But i'm open to a solution.

I think the Red city should be our 20K city. For me, it was a competition between the red city, the orange city and Carthage. Let me explain:

Red city:
PROS
plenty of production capability with 4 mined BGs, a mined cow, 2 forests and two hills.
quick growth – remember to micromanage between a BG and silks/mined hill on the last turn of growth
coastal city – can build colossus straight from the word go with a palace pre-build.
non capital-city – can use palace pre-build.
out of the way from any nasties.
CONS
not on a river – will require aqueduct. but, we could probably rush this as soon as we learn construction.

Blue city:
PROS
masses of production once the area has been sufficiently worked. will definitely outproduce any rival wonder-building city.
coastal city – can build colossus.
river city – does not need aqueduct.
non-capital city – can use palace pre-build.
CONS
will take some time to get city up and running, a few squares will need to be worked for it to become optimum.
will require a harbour sooner or later.
maybe vulnerable to attack and pillaging. hard to defend.

Carthage:
PROS
already up and running.
good growth potential – will get to size 12 with no problems.
already has 2cpt from palace.
CONS
capital city – can not use pre-build palace and we may end up kicking ourselves if we lose in a wonder cascade.
not coastal – cannot build colossus – cheap wonder – easy culture.
not as huge a production capability as the other two.

So, therefore I chose red. It will require careful micromanagement to ensure we don't waste food but that wouldn't be too tough. Recommend as soon as the worker has finished roading and possibly mining (we only need 3 worked squars in Carthage for the time being), we use him to connect to our 20K city and start work (possibly mining the cow).

Hooking up the spices will be essential once our 20K gets to size 3 or 4 depending on the number of military police we have inside. Every effort should be made to ensure that every tile being worked in every city radius, especially our 20K cty, is developed.

What do you guys think?

I am sorry I disappeared for a while, I was busy, can someone summerize what is the basic game plan for me.

I am sorry I disappeared for a while, I was busy, can someone summerize what is the basic game plan for me.

No worries!
We've decided that we will attempt a 20K win. If this goes horribly wrong, we will be prepared to go on the rampage :) .

We have a sneaking suspicion that we will be lacking horses and iron in the immediate vicinity, so it may be necessary to pacify a neighbour to gain access.

I have played the first 20 turns of the game - my summary is a few posts ago, and CKS will play the next ten. You're up after CKS if this is OK?

If you've got some spare time - why not have a read through the thread and see if we've missed anything or if you have any comments? Also i've produced a screenshot of our immediate potential territory. We were all going to try and create a dotmap of our candidates for city placement before the next turns are played.

Welcome back! :)

Well done on the maps and the discussion of the pros/cons. You mentioned everything I had come up with plus some.

I want to think about it a bit more, but I think I agree that the red dot is best for 20K.

I'll post more a bit later.

Here are my thoughts:
Research: We will have the wheel in 2 turns. After that, writing in 40 turns sounds okay. My only concern is if we don't find helpful neighbors to trade with. For 20K we want to build the Colossus or the Oracle, not the Pyramids (especially with only 5 cities). A minimum research on writing delays when we could research a culture-building tech if we had to do it ourselves. Rome and Scandinavia are the only civs that can't help us here, so this isn't a huge risk, but we should be aware of it.

Carthage as 20K: I don't think so. Carthage has plenty of food, but it isn't a great shield producer (I counted 20 + the city square at size 12). It isn't on the coast, and it can't prebuild using the palace. I don't like building 480 shield courthouses.

Red Dot city: This is my choice for 20K. There is plenty of food, it is on the coast, it shares only two tiles with Carthage, and it has the potential of 4 more shields than Carthage. The lack of a river is the drawback, but we can rush an aquaduct as soon as we learn construction.

Blue Dot city: With the mountains and hills there is lots of production, but not much food. This means we'd need to build lots of workers to join it and it would be a problem to feed the city until we were out of despotism and could irrigate the grassland.

Location of other cities:
I've never played a 5CC game by choice before, so I'm wondering about city placement. If I had as many cities as I wanted, I'd probably start with a ring around Carthage at 4-4.5, pretty much where chunkymonkey's dots are, moving the orange and yellow dots over a tile to fit in the ring. With only five, though, I'm wondering if we could protect them all if we strung them out to get the best territory we can see.

A city by the sheep would have lots of food, lots of shields, and lots of commerce. A city at the southern tip of our visibility would get us wool (and the coast on the left might be fresh water). Red dot, blue dot, sheep city and wool city would individually be better cities. However, that would give us a long string of cities. Corruption-wise we'd have the same rank corruption and a little more distance corruption. Defense-wise we'd have a longer border, but our island isn't that wide. We wouldn't want anyone else building alongside of us, so it would be a matter of keeping people out of a longer stretch of island. Travel from one city to another would take a long time, though.

I've added a brown&black dot for the sheep city and some green for possible wool locations. Does it make any sense to spread out like this? (Hopefully it will attach; I've never done this before.)

Ok here goes my take.

First, I think it would be a good idea to spread out our cities more than we normally would in a non 5cc game.

I would like to see us put two cities north of us and 2 south of the mountains. Though the mountains would be nice defense, I think we should secure as many of the wools as possible from down there. It would be nice if we can have excess numbers of 2 luxuries. That will give us some good solid trading leverage.

Some of the spices can be left just outside city radius and then picked up on culture expansion, but we want the wool in the basic 21 squares because of the food bonus.

One other possibility for the 20K city is a bit far away, but is in an incredibly strong position. It is where our farthest south warrior is standing in the above picture. I calculate that with 2 (+2/+1/+1) wool hills, this is going to produce an incredible number of shields at 12 pop (once we have a non despotic gov), and an insane amount after hospitals show up. We can always build workers and add to the city to build it up. The only disad is lack of river, but I think that is workable.

The other advantage is that it's cultural expansion should be quick to hold back enemy encroachment in the area.

EDIT: Looks like CKS posted while I was typing. Just a couple comments. I think we definately want cities south of the mountains. One where the warrior is, and the other either at the brown dot, or southwest of there.

When I get home I'll post a new dot map of what I am thinking.

I'm thinking that it would really help to be able to look for horses. Since we'll get horses in two turns, I'm planning on playing forward two turns and having the warrior by the wool go a little farther south. Then I'll stop until we decide what we should research next and where we want our 20K city to go, as we'll want our first settler to go there. I think the wool may be too far away to be feasible.

I'll get a screenshot and my thoughts up once I've done this.

I'm thinking that it would really help to be able to look for horses. Since we'll get horses in two turns, I'm planning on playing forward two turns and having the warrior by the wool go a little farther south. Then I'll stop until we decide what we should research next and where we want our 20K city to go, as we'll want our first settler to go there. I think the wool may be too far away to be feasible.

I'll get a screenshot and my thoughts up once I've done this.

Sounds like a great plan.

I understand that my proposed position is far away, I just look at the potential of that site and my mind is blown away at what a city there could do.

If nobody likes the warrior spot for 20K, I will vote for the red spot.

Regardless of whether we use the warrior spot for the 20K, I think we NEED to put a city in that area to secure the Wool. Resources will be critical, and having 2 tradable luxes should be huge.

In my opinion, I oppose a 5CC but I still believe we should go for a 20k culture, in order to reach the 20k culture, we need to outresearch and be able to build a big enough army to slow down our enemies and leader farm. But if we want to go for a 5CC, we should build our cities so they each get at least 21 tiles or close to it.

Well, as anticipated, we have no horses visible. Moving a little farther south revealed fresh water by the wool and a red border. Red is Rome, which does not thrill me. This means no good trades for cultural builds. We need to consider this when deciding what to research, as we may have no other neighbors. Currently we are set to writing, but we have no beakers invested.

Both the wool and the sheep give us a lot of food and shields, and I’d like to get cities near them if we can. However, a wool city would be a long way from Carthage (the green dot is 8 steps from Carthage) and the farthest, so it would be worst for corruption and it would take a long time to get there. This is probably not good for our 20K city. On the other hand, corruption might not be too bad with only the 5 cities, and we have a lot of shields there. If I have the chance, I’ll try some test games tomorrow morning to test out the corruption issue.

I also like the light blue dot by the sheep. I like our original red dot. The last city might go up where the grey is, once we know what’s there. That would give us two cities north and two cities south of Carthage. I’d vote for settling it last. We’ll have to move fast to get the wool, so I think it should come after the 20K city if we decide it shouldn't be the 20K city.

I also like the light blue dot by the sheep. I like our original red dot. The last city might go up where the grey is, once we know what’s there. That would give us two cities north and two cities south of Carthage. I’d vote for settling it last. We’ll have to move fast to get the wool, so I think it should come after the 20K city if we decide it shouldn't be the 20K city.

I agree completely with all of these statements. I think that you are right when it comes to the fact that my wool city isn't right for the 20K. I think it is absolutely critical that we settle it immediately after the 20K though.

I also agree with your city placement. I think there are a few good options for the grey city, but we can discuss that later.

@conehead - Hrm. I thought everyone who was signed up was all for the variant. When MadBax kicked off the game threads he posted that all teams were going variant.

Hmm... I think i underestimated the bonuses of sheep and wool! :eek: The blue and green spots do look very appetising. My only worry about the blue city is it would not get past size 9 or 10 until railroad, however, there is huge production value there. Also, if we can swipe the wool before the Romans (or is it Babylonians???) then that would be nice.

About corruption. I do not pretend to be an expert in the mechanics. I know about the concepts of rank and distance, but I can never estimate how much corruption will be experienced in a particular city - so i'm going to have to trust you guys as to the advantages and disadvantages of particular options. But if we chose the green city, or even the blue city as our 20K, surely rank corruption would be very low, and distance corruption would not be that great.

I think I agree exactly with CKS's placement. Obviously the other city to the northwest can be decided once we know what's around.

If we end up not making red our 20K, then could we consider moving it one tile NE? There will be no overlap, we still possess the cow and two hills. We lose one BG by settling on it, but gain a whale, and the BG will be reclaimed once the city is size 7. Actually... I think this might be a better red spot, even for 20K!

Suggest you start researching writing on minimum. If the reds are romans, then you will have only wasted one turn of research. Switch to Bronze Working at 50% or so. Time it so that we finish researching it at the time where our 20K city has 180 shields in the pre-build (colossus is 200 if i remember correctly).

However if the reds are babylonians, then they start with BW and CB. Great! They should have neither Alphabet nor the Wheel.

Just thought of something else concerning wonders. Considering the wonders we will probably try to grab are Colossus, Oracle, Great Library and Hanging Gardens, the industrious trait of HG and commercial trait of Colossus will probably set off our GA. This is obviously a bit later in the game, but it is something to think about.

It will depend completely on who we know and what they know and so forth, but I recommend working with a view to building the Hanging Gardens last, once we are in the MA. That's assuming we haven't had a NM triggered GA already...

Sorry, I didn't know that. I'll go with the varient now.

If we are going to go for the 20K, the spot NE of the red dot proposed by chunkymonky sounds good, once that city is settled we have to improve it ASAP and get it started on a temple or another culture building. We want to get the 1000 year doubling bonus so the more culture buildings we can get in before 1 AD, the better.

About corruption. I do not pretend to be an expert in the mechanics. I know about the concepts of rank and distance, but I can never estimate how much corruption will be experienced in a particular city - so i'm going to have to trust you guys as to the advantages and disadvantages of particular options. But if we chose the green city, or even the blue city as our 20K, surely rank corruption would be very low, and distance corruption would not be that great.

Due to the size of the world, I think the wool city would be about 40% corrumpt without a courthouse (can someone check me?). I think that will be a bit too much at the start.


If we end up not making red our 20K, then could we consider moving it one tile NE? There will be no overlap, we still possess the cow and two hills. We lose one BG by settling on it, but gain a whale, and the BG will be reclaimed once the city is size 7. Actually... I think this might be a better red spot, even for 20K!

I think it is AS good in the short term. It is only when we hit a pop of 18 that it becomes worse. (Because of 5 coasts instead of 3) Because of that, I say go for it if you want.


Suggest you start researching writing on minimum. If the reds are romans, then you will have only wasted one turn of research. Switch to Bronze Working at 50% or so. Time it so that we finish researching it at the time where our 20K city has 180 shields in the pre-build (colossus is 200 if i remember correctly).

However if the reds are babylonians, then they start with BW and CB. Great! They should have neither Alphabet nor the Wheel.

Just thought of something else concerning wonders. Considering the wonders we will probably try to grab are Colossus, Oracle, Great Library and Hanging Gardens, the industrious trait of HG and commercial trait of Colossus will probably set off our GA. This is obviously a bit later in the game, but it is something to think about.

It will depend completely on who we know and what they know and so forth, but I recommend working with a view to building the Hanging Gardens last, once we are in the MA. That's assuming we haven't had a NM triggered GA already...
All of this sounds good. I also think we should start planning an invasion of whoever the Red is. I think they will beat us to the wool, and we will want to take that at some point in the game.

So I did some corruption investigations. I opened some saved games and started abandoning cities until there were only five left, with the farthest out being about distance 11, which is the distance to our wool city, and the next being about distance 8, which is the distance to the sheep city if it is on the hill. As China, at monarch, on standard map: D12 city was 5/13 shields uncorrupted with no courthouse, 12/16 with courthouse (yes, I unwittingly changed other things, too). D8.5 city was 12/21 uncorrupted, 18/21 with courthouse. As Egypt, at emperor, on a larger map: D10 was 6/9, 7/9 with courthouse. As Spain (commercial), at monarch, on either a standard or large map (I think large, but it was a little hard to tell): D10.5 was 6/9 with no courthouse. D7 was 12/14. All of these are with no forbidden palace.

I compared the size of the box on the minimap to some other games; I think we are on a standard sized map. This is not so good. We can probably expect to lose between 1/3 and ½ of our shields to corruption until we have a courthouse at the wool location. The China D12 city was a little farther away and China isn't commercial.

So, is it still worth considering? I think so. I tried counting shields, but I’m not positive that I have them completely correct. At size 6, before corruption, we will have 19 or 20 shields before corruption (15 in despotism). (19 lets us grow, 20 if we work a mined mountain instead of a BG.) If we lose 1/3 of our shields, that is 12 or 13 shields left, which is what we’d get at the red dot site at size 6. With a courthouse we’d be up to 15 shields or more. The forbidden palace would give us probably only one corrupted shield, and we’d get some culture from it. With the forbidden palace and an aquaduct we would be looking at about 30 shields per turn at size 12.

So, what are the costs? To build the forbidden palace we’d have to invest in some extra cities that we disband. I don’t know how many we’d need, but we can look it up if nobody knows off the top of their head. Even if it is only 3 cities, that is 90 shields and 6 people, minus however many we can take from the Romans. An aquaduct will be another 100 shields (although that is only 5 turns if we have to build it completely by hand once we already have the FP). Building the FP here might keep us from the Colossus or Oracle, too. If we can build the FP early on, I don’t think we’d need a courthouse. If we can’t get the FP easily, we’d need a courthouse ASAP, which would mean researching writing and code of laws as fast as possible.

The benefits are a forbidden palace to reduce corruption elsewhere (of minimal benefit with only 5 cities), 2 cpt that will double fairly early, and a massively productive city early in the game.

Putting our 20K city at the red dot location would allow us a 4 turn head start over the wool location. We’d lose 1 shield to corruption early on (and only 2-3 later on). We wouldn’t need an aquaduct, a courthouse, or the FP to make it productive. It would be far from neighbors, so it wouldn’t be at risk if we went to war. (The wool city would be close to Rome.) The long-term productivity would be about 20% less (24 vs 30), but the early production would be about the same, perhaps a shield more.

Early food at both locations would be good, but we’d probably want to merge in some workers or settlers at the wool city later if it were our 20K city. If we built settlers for cities for the FP and we didn’t need them (due to capturing a city or whatever), this would be a good use for them.

I’m very tempted by the wool city. It is a gamble, though – will our investment pay off soon enough in terms of culture? We need to decide this before I continue on, because our settler will complete next turn. What are your thoughts?

Red is Rome, as I checked the top cities list, and Rome was on it in red.

The sheep city isn't nearly as good as the wool city or the red dot city for 20K, but it will still be a very powerful city. We get a little more food if we put it on the grass instead of the hill, but we are also farther from Carthage and we won't get one of the sheep until a cultural expansion. I'm leaning toward the hill site, but I can be convinced either way.

I'm leaning toward ceremonial burial rather than bronze working first. If we get it quickly and build a temple in our 20K city first, we will have a cultural expansion that gives us more tiles to use when building the Colossus. This is especially important if we put the 20K city by the wool, as we won't have wool until we get this expansion. If we put the 20K by the red dot or 1 tile NE, we will still want to get an early cultural expansion.

I'm eagerly awaiting your thoughts.

Good job with all the analysis.

I think I'll stick with my original thought though. 20K either on the red dot or 1 square NE. Early production is essential for the early wonders and library, temple etc.. I think that after the ancient age is over, we will not have a problem building Sistine's, Copernicus etc. The wool city is fantastic, and in my opinion it should be our third city. However as a 20K city I'm scared that it is too far from Carthage to defend efficiently, it will experience too much early corruption, and will take a while to link to Carthage.

Unless... if we were prepared to rush a courhouse, aqueduct, and build the FP in a spare timeslot towards the beginning of the middle ages, then the wool city would be OK.

I'm unsure :crazyeye: . I'h happy with either. I guess the decider would come down to who our neighbour is. If it is Rome, I would be biting my nails hoping that a swarm of legionnaries don't come and pillage the city and surroundings - i would want our star city out of the way. If Babylon, I would be confident that we could hold them back.

I'm afraid i'll have to abstain. :sad: I will not hold any grudges based on the decision that is made. ;)

EDIT: oops, just saw you say it is Rome. OK. I'm still unsure. However I agree with you as to buildng the temple first. 2cpt with a quick turn into 4cpt would be nice. How long will it take to research CB? We can try and get a pre-build for the temple. It is only 60 shields, so timing is of the essence.

Just another thought:

If we want to go with the wool city as our 20K city, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about losing out to Rome. They’ll settle south of the wool and we’ll be north of it. If we have to we can destroy their city later, but they can’t keep us from putting our city there. I expect them to build their first few cities by horses or iron. This should keep them from settling the wool very quickly, giving us time to get there if we don’t dilly-dally. Then the AI doesn’t usually try to grab resources by culture stealing them, in my experience.

Your wonder build order sounds good to me, chunkymonkey.

Just another thought:

If we want to go with the wool city as our 20K city, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about losing out to Rome.

I agree. This isn't a factor in my indecisiveness. I'm unsure for so many other reasons!

I'm afraid i'll have to abstain. :sad: I will not hold any grudges based on the decision that is made. ;)



Well, somebody had better vote. I can't make the decision!

I'm in a gambling mood, so I vote for the wool. :)

I vote for going to the Wool. With a plan to send workers from the north to beef up the population and do a few pop rushes to get early improvements.

If it goes the other way, I'd go for NE of the red dot and will not complain.

Note: Arggh DSL crash, good thing it didn't last long.

We can get ceremonial burial in 8 turns at our current break-even rate; bronze working will take 12 turns. We'll be plenty fast, we just don't want to get into a writing on minimum research so that we waste a bunch of turns. I'm thinking CB quickly, BW not so quickly if we still can't trade for it by the time we finish CB. This should be during someone else's turns, thankfully.

I like chunkymonkey's dotmap with CKS's brown dot, but we'll need to get rid of 1 of the cities there. Orange? I think we should try to beat the red civ to the wool.

The more I look at it the more I like the red dot for 20K. Coastal city grabs wonders, only Hoover Dam can't be gotten there.

Oh, and research, Ceremonial Burial.

After sleeping on it, I think I am going to recind my vote. (I hope you didn't already decide to listen to me, but if you did, then we will recover.)The Wool site is a great city, but the points other people have made show exactly why it is not good enough now.

I think that it is a toss up between red and the site northeast of the red.
I'd vote for Red/NE.

Research CB sounds right. We need that temple quick in the 20K.

I fear that we are alone on an island with Rome. MB sure believes in making starting positions interesting.

Well, that sounds like 3 votes for NE of the red dot and one for the red dot, with nobody very picky about which of these we choose. I don't have a preference either, so I guess I'll go with the tile NE of the red dot. We'll research CB pretty quickly and get started on a temple. I'll make contact with Rome and see what we can trade for.

I'll play today and I should get the save posted later this evening or tomorrow morning at the latest.

Here is my turnlog:
Turn 0 3050 Move citizen in Carthage onto a roaded BG tile to increase commerce. Now we get the Wheel in 2 turns

Turn 1 3000 Worker builds mine, all warriors move south

Turn 2 2950 Learn the Wheel. Set research to ceremonial burial at 80% - +1gpt, learn in 9 turns. The northern warrior (W1) goes west. The warrior by the sheep (W2) goes SW. The warrior by the wool (W3) goes SW, spots red border - Rome.

Turn 3 2900 Build settler, move it toward red dot + 1 tile NE spot. Carthage starts a warrior. W1 west, W2 SW, W3 W. Research to 70%, breakeven point.

Turn 4 2850 W3 S, W2 S, W1 W - reveals ivory in the north. Worker NE, N
Contact Rome, Caesar is cautious. They have bronzeworking, pottery, warrior code. We are up masonry and the wheel. I can get all three for the wheel, masonry, 2 gpt, + 9 g or I can get BW, WC, +10 g for Masonry and the Wheel. I elect to skip pottery - it costs us 48g to research it and Caesar wants 59 g for it - and make the second trade.

Turn 5 2800 Switch warrior build to archer (this takes the right amount of time to build before starting another settler, and I don't expect iron or horses), worker builds road, settler moves toward city site, W1 heads toward new city site, W2 and W3 continue south.

Turn 6 2750 Settler arrives, others continue.

Turn 7 2710 Settle Utica NE of red dot. Start barracks as a prebuild for a temple. Others continue. Set slider to 100% science; CB in 5.

Turn 8 2670 Finish archer, start settler for wool city. Archer goes south to fill in that one dark spot. Worker roads cow. W2 SW, W3 S.

Turn 9 2630 Archer S, W1 arrives Utica. W2 SW, W3 S

Turn 10 2590 Archer S, Worker goes back to irrigate so that we can irrigate the cow for Utica. W1 fortifies in Utica. W2 W, W3 NW. Set slider to 50%, CB in 1, +5gpt.

Score: 82 (Rome 93)

Some notes:
Carthage will grow and build a settler in 3 turns. This settler should go down to grab the wool. Utica will grow in 4 turns, which will speed progress toward a temple. Be sure to turn the barracks into a temple once we learn CB.

Rome is polite, has pottery, 2 cities, and no gold. Our military is average compared to them.

I left the archer south of Carthage to watch for barbs and to escort our settler south once it completes.

We need workers.

Our military advisor says there are barbarians near Utica, so we need to be aware of them.

I didn't think to get a screen shot before coming in to post this, but here is the save.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_BC2590_01.sav

Looking good! :thumbsup:

I'll have a look at the save and make some suggestions tonight, but from your turnlog it seems as though everything is going to plan. I agree with you about the lack of iron or horses. It looks like we may have to decide on a defence/attack strategy with respect to Rome.

Eventually, they will get annoyed at us for settling close to their territory. They are likely to make a demand. I believe we should capitulate, assuming their demand is not outrageous. This should give us at least another 20 turns of peace time to build an army of either

a) Archers
b) Mercenaries and some archers

Option A will prevent our GA going off. Option B will not, however the NM's 3 defence against the legions 3 attack is slightly nicer. If we can stave off an attack by the Romans until we have changed government that will be good. In either case, walls in the wool city would be useful, and a few catapults might not go amiss.

Also, I think we should start thinking about whether to go for Monarchy or Republic. Soon will be the time when we have to decide whether the Phil-Col-Rep path or the Poly-Mon path is more useful. Which government is best for a 5CC? Also, remember the Hanging Gardens come from Monarchy.

Good job CKS. Some initial thoughts. (I'll look at the save when I get home from work)

Rome - Of all the nations to have next to us, I think only Persia would be more annoying. I think we should either perform a quick archer rush, or just dig in and be defensive. Digging Rome out of entrenched positions is very hard. If we decide to rush rome, I would suggest using mercenaries to pillage their iron and then archers to take out a couple cites (especially Rome). I would suggest not eliminating Rome though.

Tech: I think we should give some thought to actively slowing the tech race once we know more than just rome. I don't know how successful we can be at this, but since it takes a long time to build wonders, we don't want new ones coming availiable ever 8 turns. Better if we can slow things down.

Golden Age: I think the timing of this is less important than keeping Rome weak. It would be nice to time the GA for the next Government and a 12 size Wonder city, but I think that reality may jump in. I agree with giving in to Rome's first demand unless we are ready with an archer rush AND rome does not have IW yet. In that case, strike while the lack of iron is hot.

Hey, has everyone read this article in the War academy:

Guide to 20K Victory

It pretty much sums up how our game should progress.
One of the most important points is slowing the tech race, which jeffelammar has just mentioned. We need to make sure that we don't trade and research techs unnecessarily. We want to deny other civs building wonders by creating dead-end wonder cascades. This is very tricky in the middle ages.

Reviewed that (excellent article) to make sure I didn't forget anything.

Archers or Mercenaries... Archers or Mercenaries... When do we plan to attack? If it's really close then Archers, they won't have many legionaries then. If it's by the time we are at a new government, mercenaries. I'd really like to avoid despotic GA, but it may be necessary if Rome gives us a really hard time.

We could use the Romans for leader farming, so don't kill them off yet, just weaken them.

We could use the Romans for leader farming, so don't kill them off yet, just weaken them.
I agree with this, in fact there are a couple other reasons to keep them around.

1. Your reason
2. Tech Race. Every AI eliminated speeds up research by the rest.
3. If we can keep them weak, I'd rather have a weak neighbor than have some KAI populate the area next to us.

We could use the Romans for leader farming, so don't kill them off yet, just weaken them.

Couldn't agree more. However, we may want to be careful though if we do manage to keep them as a pet. Sporadic warfare against them may not go down too well with our neighbours, and i'm not sure how essential trade is going to be in our game yet.

OK, i've had a look at CKS' save. The turns seem to have been executed perfectly. :)

I guess this means, conehead, you're up!

Remember we need to settle the wool city, then Carthage builds should be Archer - Settler. Remember to switch Utica to temple once CB is finished.

Next research - discuss?

HBR - pointless.
Mysticism - Oracle wonder.
Pottery - can trade for later.
Mathematics - catapults... good tech to trade also.
IW - The Romans are probably going for this. So we can get it off them i reckon.
Writing - Build up some cash on minimum whilst we finish temple and Colossus.

Also, should we divert settler to sheep in hills, if Rome beats us to wool?

We could use the Romans for leader farming, so don't kill them off yet, just weaken them.
Great idea, especially because this is PTW so the great leaders can rush great wonders. When we go to war (probably when we get a new government) I think we should have lots of mercenaries to find iron and pillage it, then make sure they can't get it back. They'll build archers, and more of them (3 archers costs as much as 2 legions) and more leaders. Got this idea from SirPleb's article on leaders. Basic idea but it's good.
3. If we can keep them weak, I'd rather have a weak neighbor than have some KAI populate the area next to us.
Good thought, I hate it when your island is covered with cities from all the other AIs that are on another island, too.

I suggest researching Mysticism, particularly if we want Monarchy. Republic slingshot won't work here in PTW so it'll be more difficult to get Republic if we take that route.

Conehead, I think you're up. If you can't get to it I can take it tomorrow.

I agree, we want to keep the Romans around for leader farming. I'm lousy at this, so keep reminding me of our goal. In order for this to work we will have to keep them away from iron; attacking legions would be very unpleasant with archers, even with catapult support. With respect to keeping others happy with us, they get mad if we declare war lots of times. As long as we just have one continuous war, they don't care. We should just never sign a peace treaty. We can go as long as we want without attacking while still at war.

I like writing as our next tech, because we need to be heading toward literacy for the Great Library and because we will need map making to get off our island, assuming it is in fact an island. If we can find some neighbors, we can surely trade for mysticism. I like the get to monarchy quickly idea, too, though, so either works for me. It will take us a while to build a temple and the colossus, so we should have plenty of time to research a great wonder tech.

If Rome beats us to the wool, I'm of two minds. We can divert to the sheep easily, and we want a sheep city. On the other hand, if we settle at the wool anyway and build a temple we will be well-placed to take advantage to the wool once we destroy their city. I guess that this will work well if we settle the wool later, so I'm leaning toward diverting and building the sheep city first. We can bring one of our exploring warriors back up to keep an eye on Rome to watch for a settler.

@CKS: Good thoughts. I agree, but I'll need to see how long Mysticism will take to research. If it's just a few turns I'd research it first then Writing. Then again, right now we need Temple and Colossus first, so I guess there's no rush to get The Oracle. On leader farming, you can learn some stuff about it from the second section of this post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1174121&postcount=2 .

On leader farming, you can learn some stuff about it from the second section of this post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1174121&postcount=2 .

That is a very helpful post. I've read it before, but a refresher always helps. My big problem is I've only tried this about twice, and I kept forgetting the long-range plan to take a short-term advantage. I'll try and stay focussed here.

Just as a note, if we don't hear from conehead by about 7PM US Mountain tomorrow, I'm going to consider it a skip and play the next set. (Since I would be up after him)

Correct me if I'm wrong. Regardless of who plays, the plan for the next 10 turns is
1. Try to settle the spot near the wool. (Which one? I would vote for the old green dot)
2. If Rome beats us, found the Sheep city. (I would vote for the spot sw of the light blue dot, since it has more food than the dot itself)
3. When we get CB next turn, if the time for Mysticism is < 8? turns then do that otherwise perform a 40 turn writing gambit.
4. Keep exploring further with one warrior, but bring the other back for MP and or defense against Rome.

Any other big ticket items?

Ok, cool.

1. Green spot is fine.
2. Either spot is fine for sheep city, SW is better city, but blue city is probably easier to defend.
3. Research plan sounds fine. Maybe we should do a 50%er on Writing, I fancy getting to Mapmaking fairly quickly so we can send out a couple of galleys, but i'd also like some gold.
4. Try to uncover as much of Roman territory as possible. We will probably need to buy their territory map off them soon to locate their iron. The more that we have uncovered ourselves, the less we'll have to pay. But otherwise, yep.

Remember if rome demands something, decide whether or not its worth giving in. Remember they'll probably have Iron Working very soon. :eek:

Sounds good to me.

1. Green dot sounds good, or one step closer to get the wool in the initial radius. The green dot is better eventually, but we do need a temple for expansion to get the wool (and to keep Rome away).
2. Either sheep city is fine with me.
3. Either writing or mysticism sounds fine; we aren't in a real big hurry so collecting a little cash would be nice.
4. I'm for exploring with one warrior and bringing the other back to the wool city. There are barbarians out there, too, and we don't want them pillaging if we can help it. Also, promoting our warriors would be nice. We should probably try to get extra archers and warriors out after some barbs.

Got it and am playing now. If I don't have to stop for consultation, I should be done by early tomorrow.

2190 save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_BC2190_01.SAV)

2590 - Pre-flight everything looks good. Hit next turn

IBT - nothing

Turn 1 :2550BC - Discover Ceremonial Burial - Start writing (3.7.0)
Archer checks out the mountains.
Warrior on west coast turns north.
Other Warrior continues to explore rome.
Switch Utica to temple
Could trade Rome CB + 6g for Pottery don't do it yet

IBT zzz

Turn 2 : 2510 BC - More moving
minor miscalc on my part. I moved the Worker to road into utica rather than irrigating the cow. Stupid me, sorry.

IBT - zzz

Turn 3 : 2470 BC -
Carthage builds settler send it toward wool city.
Start an archer
Loss of carthage pop droped writing time up taxes to 2.8.0

IBT - zzz
Turn 4: 2430 BC
West warrior turns south. I can't get around the south side of rome with the other warrior, so he will explore what I now believe to be the end of the island. This lost a few turns, but the warrior isn't badly out of position

IBT -zzz

Turn 5: 2390 BC
Worker to cattle and starts irrigating.
The east warrior confirms that we are at the south tip of the island, just as we feared/expected.

IBT - A barb shows up near utica, but as you will see does not cause probs.

Turn 6: 2350 BC
Barb can't get anywhere that the warrior in utica can't so I don't chase.
Bad news. Rome gets Iron Working, and won't trade it.
I decide to get something for our CB since that is likely rome's next research.
Trade CB + 6g to Rome for Pottery.
Since we are isolated, I don't think we need to worry too much about trading techs with rome till we meet others.

IBT - Barb moves to hills sw, w of Utica. Still no reason to move.

Turn 7: 2310 BC
Worker to BG ne of Utica. Will mine next turn.

IBT - zzz

Turn 8: 2270 BC
Carthage builds archer start worker
Send new archer after the barbs.

IBT - Barb runs away.
- AARGHH - Rome founded the wool city we wanted. They have a lot of the crap. We may have to take it away from them.

Turn 9: 2230 BC
Turn the settler west to found sheep city on hills.
South warrior on way back north disperses barbs giving +25g, but is red lined. (He is resting up as I write this)

IBT - Loyal Elephant herders from our peasant class decide that they want to reward our hard work. They add a nice lawn outside the cave from which we rule.

Turn 10: 2190
Carthage builds Worker - start a granary.
Settler arrives at hills sheep city spot.
New worker goes south to BG.

After action report.
The settler is ready to go where he is I think. I like the increased defense there.
The south worker probably wants to create one more mine for carthage then do wone of two things.
a. Chop a forest to get Carthage a granary (then it can build lots of workers to join to utica (not to mention our other two settlers.)
b. Move up to help improve utica.
The newest archer is chasing the barbarians, I would suggest that he continue, with empasis on tracking down their camp.

So overall, things went about as we expected, would have been nice to get the wool, but we were prepared.

We are alone on an island with an agressive nation that has it's UU about to roll into us. (as feared) Let's see what happens.

Good writeup. Bit unlucky about the wool.
Just had a look at the save. I'm glad we have Rome's territory uncovered. At least they don't have horses.

Settler is fine where he is in my opinion.
Carthage worker could chop a forest or mine if he likes. We're going to get to the stage where we can't feasibly support any more citizens in Utica. Adding workers is probably not essential right now, at least til we've hooked up spice and ivory. The rate at which Utica worker is going is probably sufficient to maintain productivity.

Suggest the build after Granary should be next settler. We need to get a spot close to ivory... not sure where yet - tradeoff between enough food and closeness to ivory. :hmm:

We appear to be falling behind the others in terms of turns played. Suggest we should implement the 24hr 'got it' rule from now on. We can spend as long as is necessary talking about the turns, but as long as the player knows that they're up.

Things sound good. It's a pity about the wool, but we're going to need to go to war with Rome anyway and the sheep hill is nice. (I decided after playing my turns to try replaying with the wool city as the 20K city, playing each set of 10 turns after we play ours. It will be interesting to see if I can get it and keep it with the 10 turn head start.)

I haven't looked at the save yet, but I'll do that this afternoon. Without looking, my worker ideas are leaning towards improving Utica and getting a road to the spices, which will soon be in our territory. We really need some more workers; we need to road to our new cities, get the spice and ivory, and improve some more tiles.

I think we need to use the barbs to upgrade our military, as it will be a while before we have a barracks to start building vet units and Rome is looming.

Anyway, nice set of turns. Let's see if we can get some more turns played soon.

Ok, until Conehead checks in again, I say we keep with the roster order, so viper should be up by my records.

Let's run a quick strategy check, there are some questions pending.
1. Workers: What are the priorities for improvements, and how many more should we build?
I say the sheep city should produce one early to improve those squares. The one we have near Carthage should probably mine and road the BG to it's west, then start a couple roads toward the sheep. We probably want 1 more.

2. Rome: When to go to war.?
I say soon after we get IW, so we can locate and destroy their Iron supply.

3. Research: Should we try to accelerate our writing gambit to try to trade for iron sooner?

Then some good stuff CKS brought up.

Things sound good. It's a pity about the wool, but we're going to need to go to war with Rome anyway and the sheep hill is nice. (I decided after playing my turns to try replaying with the wool city as the 20K city, playing each set of 10 turns after we play ours. It will be interesting to see if I can get it and keep it with the 10 turn head start.)

Good, I'm glad you're doing that, I was sort of thinking of going back a bit later, and trying that, guess I won't have to.



I think we need to use the barbs to upgrade our military, as it will be a while before we have a barracks to start building vet units and Rome is looming.

We could sneak a rax in at Carthage if we get it a bit farther.

As a note, though I started a granary in carthage, I would be willing to entertain other possibilities. (there aren't enough shields built up to cost any if we change soon)


Anyway, nice set of turns. Let's see if we can get some more turns played soon.
Thanks. As I said at the beginning, I believe we should continue on, and just insert Conehead when he manages to get back to us.

I think we should complete the granary in Carthage. This will allow us to create our last two settlers and a bunch of workers quite quickly.

Workers
Agree, sheep city first build should be worker. If Carthage needs improving, finish that then start the road to sheep city. Next worker can help out at Utica. Matter of priority is linking spices once Carthage expands.

War
Massive risk going to war so early. We only just have three cities. Although might be able to waste Rome's GA. Need at least a couple more archers and one or two mercenaries. I will be so happy if we do end up with iron nearby.

Research
I agree we need to learn IW as soon as possible. Also, thinking about our next city. Should be on the coast somewhere before we learn MapMaking so we can send a galley out ASAP. Need trading partners. Suggest increasing Writing to virtual maximum, as long as budget can sustain it.

Sorry I've been a bit late on checking this. Got it.

My thoughts:

Granary in Carthage: I think we should build it. We won't need many settlers, but we'll want to build workers to merge into Utica, too, so I think it is a worthwhile investment.

Workers: I agree with the current thoughts. Utica will probably get to pop 6 by itself quickly, so we won't need workers to merge in until we get construction. We will have a spread out empire, so we will need a lot of roading.

War: We don't want to face a lot of legions, so I'm in favor of going as soon as we know where their iron is and can cut it off. We only have 3 cities, but we're only going to ever have 5. I tend to delay my attacks far too long; here that would really kill us. We do need to build up some military besides our regular warriors.

Iron: There are very few spots where Rome can get iron because they have all those wool hills. Either it is by Rome, it is by our sheep city (in which case we'll probably get invaded quickly), or it is in those hills to the west. Somehow I doubt that they don't have any available. We perhaps should build some NM to head down to their hills ASAP, even if we haven't gotten iron working yet. We can aim them in the right direction.

Research: Speeding up writing sounds good to me. Then trade for iron working and head for map making.

Next City: I think our next city should be on the coast up north, so as to get the ivory and send out some galleys. City number 5 would still be nice to get by the wool, after we destroy the Roman city. If that will take a while, we might consider building one closer and then abandoning it.

Next City: I think our next city should be on the coast up north, so as to get the ivory and send out some galleys. City number 5 would still be nice to get by the wool, after we destroy the Roman city. If that will take a while, we might consider building one closer and then abandoning it.
Couple thoughts on this.
1. Do we want to waste city squares on tundra? We may be better off getting 3 squares away from the ivory and using a colony to get it in at first. Depends on how much space is up there for an AI to sneak in. That said, I still think we want a city up there, but not too far north.

2. I think the abandoning should continue to be an option, we should keep our minds open on this. I have to say that the site around Rome looks pretty darn good too, and we could possibly get iron into things if we claim that area after we push Rome back.

Couple thoughts on this.
1. Do we want to waste city squares on tundra? We may be better off getting 3 squares away from the ivory and using a colony to get it in at first. Depends on how much space is up there for an AI to sneak in. That said, I still think we want a city up there, but not too far north.


No, I don't think we want a bunch of tundra in our radius. A couple of tiles would be okay, as we won't work them all for ages anyway, but not many. I was thinking that the location of the original yellow dot looked pretty good, with a colony on the ivory. It has grass, hills and water.

Having said that, I'm now wondering if it would make more sense to build a colony without the yellow dot city and build both cities farther south. I don't think I've ever built a colony, myself, so I may be missing something obvious. We'd have to protect the colony and the spaces next to it so another civ wouldn't settle by it and wipe it out, but we'd probably attack any other civ that built there before their city expanded. Barbarians don't seem to pillage roads that aren't in our territory, so the road wouldn't be at risk from them, just the colony itself.

If this is true, would it be better to have more southern cities? We could then have a wool city and an iron city, maybe. I think this depends on our war plans and progress.

I'm leaning toward the yellow dot, but being flexible about moving if things look better elsewhere after we get some space to the south.

First, I hope I didn't mess up too badly. Anyway:

Preturn- Good, although I don't understand irrigating grassland in Despotism. Since it'll be done right away it's probably best to leave it alone.
IBT- Nothing
1
Found Leptis Magna and grab the sheep.
IBT-Nothing
2
Parhae encampment gives us 25 gold.
IBT- Barbarians attack our units, we win. A couple decide to bother the Romans. Yay!
3
Nothing
IBT-Utica riots.
4
Hire a taxman.
IBT-Zzzz....
5
Nothing
IBT- Arrgh.... Carthage riots. Must pay more attention!
6
Hire tax collector.
IBT- Utica builds Temple, have no idea what to build next. Chose Archer, hope nobody minds too much.
7
Nothing
IBT- Nothing
8
Nothing
IBT-Nothing
9
Nothing
IBT-Barbarian attacks, we win.
10
None

Raising science didn't help much so I didn't do it. Lost track in turns but I assume this is the right place to stop? I'm so used to checking the victory status screen in C3C but it's not here in PTW.

First, I hope I didn't mess up too badly.
Not too bad. On your next set remember to check the f1 screen on each turn right before you hit next turn. The main thing you are checking here is to make sure that no cities will riot on the IBT. Given that we will only have 5 cities, it is critical that we don't lose their productivity. Remember, you only have 10 turns to play, so take your time on them.


Preturn- Good, although I don't understand irrigating grassland in Despotism. Since it'll be done right away it's probably best to leave it alone.

Just so you know this was irrigated early to get water so we could irrigate the cattle.


Hire a taxman.

In this case it would probably have been better to raise the lux slider. In an attempt at 20K it is critical to keep as many citizens producing shields as possible in the 20K city. All other empire considerations take second fiddle to maximizing production in Utica.


IBT- Utica builds Temple, have no idea what to build next. Chose Archer, hope nobody minds too much.

Utica should always be building culture if there is culture availiable. I would suggest switching it to Colossus before we continue.


I want to be clear. You did fine, I just wanted to point out some places where you could have been better. That's why we do this, to learn from others and get better.

Agree with everything jeff says. don't worry too much about the rioting cities, but it is important that we try to avoid things that are within our control.

viper, do you use Dianthus' MapStat utility or Ainwood's CivAssist? These really, really help out with all the micromanaging aspects of Civ. If you don't i could point you in the direction of them.

Got the save anyway. I'll have a look at it later.

BTW, on a side note viper, when you finish a set of turns could you upload the save using the link in madbax's first post. This will allow our score in the submission list to be updated. A few teams are getting a bit annoyed that there are some straggling teams holding up the submission graph. Guess who's the slowest team? :mischief:

OK looked at the save...

Switched Utica build to Colossus.
Switched Leptis Magna to temple.
Raised lux to increase production.

Once granary is finished in Carthage I want to start next settler. The two spots I would like to settle I've shown.

Red spot - allows us a string of cities. Rome will not be able to disrupt our troop movement. Plus we get a good production city once the surrounding squares are irrigated, harbor in place, and better gov.

Blue or yellow - need site fairly close to ivory. plus this will be a fairly good production site. prefer yellow but will be harder to maintain control of ivory until culture is heavy.

Once we have dealt with the Romans, we could abandon the red spot and build city one square south of the ruins of Rome.

Research? I want to research Mysticism next so we have a crutch just in case someone beats us to colossus (fingers crossed that doesn't happen), or literature for Great Library.

Any thoughts?

On your next set remember to check the f1 screen on each turn right before you hit next turn. The main thing you are checking here is to make sure that no cities will riot on the IBT. Given that we will only have 5 cities, it is critical that we don't lose their productivity. Remember, you only have 10 turns to play, so take your time on them.
Good thought.
Just so you know this was irrigated early to get water so we could irrigate the cattle.
Understand now.
In this case it would probably have been better to raise the lux slider. In an attempt at 20K it is critical to keep as many citizens producing shields as possible in the 20K city. All other empire considerations take second fiddle to maximizing production in Utica.
I tried that originally but it had to be at a fairly high level (20-30% I think) to do what it needed and that could slow down our research. Because we want to get writing first, I didn't want Rome getting it first.
Utica should always be building culture if there is culture availiable. I would suggest switching it to Colossus before we continue.
Perhaps I didn't read well enough, but I was still a bit confused as to whether Utica or Carthage was the 20K city. Now I know. Switch to Colossus.
viper, do you use Dianthus' MapStat utility or Ainwood's CivAssist? These really, really help out with all the micromanaging aspects of Civ.
I use MapStat.
BTW, on a side note viper, when you finish a set of turns could you upload the save using the link in madbax's first post. This will allow our score in the submission list to be updated. A few teams are getting a bit annoyed that there are some straggling teams holding up the submission graph. Guess who's the slowest team?
:lol: :wallbash: I have a dumb question: forum name is your user name, correct, or is it the team name?
Research? I want to research Mysticism next so we have a crutch just in case someone beats us to colossus (fingers crossed that doesn't happen), or literature for Great Library.
I think Literature, Great Library gives good culture.
Once we have dealt with the Romans, we could abandon the red spot and build city one square south of the ruins of Rome.
I like that idea.
Blue or yellow - need site fairly close to ivory. plus this will be a fairly good production site. prefer yellow but will be harder to maintain control of ivory until culture is heavy.
Could we build a colony at the ivory? I agree that yellow is better and if possible I would like it rather than blue.

Yep, forum name is user name.

Agree with your other points, viper.

File uploaded. Is chunkymonkey up now?

Cities:
I like the yellow dot over the blue dot. We don't yet have a coastal city for making galleys, since Utica will be building culture, and I'm confident we can protect our ivory colony with a city at the yellow dot.

I think the red dot is a fine city location unless we go to war right away. If we do attack right away (or get attacked), I think the production investment would be better spent on military until we get a better city spot.

I'd build the yellow city first. It has plenty of food and production possibilities Building a settler right after the granary completes sounds good to me. Then assess our war plans before deciding on another city.

Research:
I see three good possibilities: literature, map making, and mysticism. All three give us great wonders to build.

The great library is the best buy, culturally, at 67 shields per culture point per turn but the largest shield investment. It then lets us stop researching once we find some neighbors. Literature also gives us libraries. We can either rush a library first (better) or build one after the Great Library. Effectively, literature gives us 9 cpt.

Mysticism gives us the Oracle which may also help with happyness; it is only 300 shields but 75 shields per culture point per turn. I don't think it is as good a choice as literature right now.

Map making gives us the Great Lighthouse, which is poor for culture. What it does give us is the possibility of trading partners who aren't Rome. I'd _really_ like to meet some other people before Rome does. If there aren't any safe ways off our island, even better, because Rome won't meet them for ages.

I'd like map making first and then literature. If we build the Colossus and then start a prebuild on the Pyramids or Great Lighthouse, we should be well on our way to getting the Great Library and meeting friends.

Utica Build Thoughts:
We don't have to worry about what happens if we are beat out for the Colossus. We have the Pyramids to fall back on, and that takes 400 shields. We'll have something else to build long before we get the pyramids built. I'd like to try Colossus, library, Great Library, Hanging Gardens for a build order, rushing the library and anything we can get if we get a great leader.

Once granary is finished in Carthage I want to start next settler. The two spots I would like to settle I've shown.

Sounds right to me


Red spot - allows us a string of cities. Rome will not be able to disrupt our troop movement. Plus we get a good production city once the surrounding squares are irrigated, harbor in place, and better gov.

We probably don't want to spend too much effort upgrading it if we are going to abandon it. I like the spot for the reasons you stated.


Blue or yellow - need site fairly close to ivory. plus this will be a fairly good production site. prefer yellow but will be harder to maintain control of ivory until culture is heavy.

I like the Yellow. It is a better city, and I think we can keep the ivory with a colony and a bit of military support. (Plus it will give us a good excuse to wage war on whoever puts a tundra city up there)


Once we have dealt with the Romans, we could abandon the red spot and build city one square south of the ruins of Rome.

Agreed, when I first saw that spot, I nearly wet myself. I really would like to get a city there at some point.


Research? I want to research Mysticism next so we have a crutch just in case someone beats us to colossus (fingers crossed that doesn't happen), or literature for Great Library.

I'm waffling. I think it will take long enough to get the Colossus that we should avoid getting Lit for a bit, I like having the Oracle as a backup to Colossus, so I vote for Mysticism, but it is such a mild preference that I won't object to going for Lit.


Is chunkymonkey up now?

Yep, until Conehead resurfaces we just keep going through the roster.
When Conehead does re-surface, we will insert him as On Deck if that is ok with folks.

UP: ChunkyMonkey
On Deck: CKS

OK I'll probably play tomorrow evening (my time), so if anybody has anything else to say, let me know. If i do manage to get a settler out in my timeslot where should i send him - red or yellow? i vote yellow, better city in the long run. rome won't expand as far as red just yet (i hope :eek: )

I agree with CKS in that we probably need galleys more urgently than a wonder backup. makmaking gives both.

one point about the great library is that hardly any civs research literature until the ancient ages is pretty much over. hopefully we'll have the oracle and the colossus finished, plus a prebuild for the GL well on the way before anyone else researches lit - thats my experience anyway.

I agree with CKS in that we probably need galleys more urgently than a wonder backup. makmaking gives both.

Sounds good to me. Gee, I wish I had four advisors with me when I play my solo games.

I think we have a good plan. Now all we have to do is follow through. :)

Save is here!

Turnlog 1750BC – 1500BC

Utica Culture = 6

Turn 0 – 1750BC – Increase lux to 10%. Switch Utica to Colossus. Switch Leptis Magna to Worker.
IBT - :sleep:
Turn 1 – 1725BC – Carthage builds Granary. Switch to 4 turn settler. Move regular archer in Leptis Magna to meet settler and defend against barbs. Station other troops on mountain south of Leptis Magna.
IBT – Utica expands. Disaster – Rome learns Writing. :(
Turn 2 – 1700BC – Move a warrior back towards core from MP purposes. Move workers onto Utica hill.
IBT – Learn Writing. Start researching Mapmaking. A barb appears NW of Utica.
Turn 3 – 1675BC – Move warriors to protect workers. One worker roads, other moves to spice.
IBT – Barb runs away.
Turn 4 – 1650BC – Leptis Magna builds worker. Move him to sheep hill. Switch to temple. Spice worker roads.
IBT – Barb comes back! :crazyeye:
Turn 5 – 1625BC – Carthage builds Settler. Send towards agreed yellow spot. LepMag worker roads.
IBT – Barb moves closer.
Turn 6 – 1600BC – Attack barb with one warrior but lose :eek: . Attack with another and win. Have to increase lux to compensate for missing policeman. Start mining Utica hill.
IBT – spice linked. roman settler moves to SW of Leptis Magna.
Turn 7 – 1575BC – Reset lux to 10%. Carthage builds warrior. Start archer. Move Carthage warrior towards Utica. Spice worker helps out with Utica mine no.2.
IBT – Rome builds Pompeii close to the border.
Turn 8 – 1550BC – LepMag worker continues link road.
IBT – Romans start building Pyramids.
Turn 9 – 1525BC – Not much happens. Just moving troops around.
IBT – Carthage expands borders.
Turn 10 – 1500BC – Set research to 100%. MapMaking will be researched in approx. 14 turns at current funding. Found Theveste. Start archer build in preparation for galley. Utica workers go to link Theveste.

Utica culture = 26

I'll post some thoughts about the next turns in a bit, once I've got some more caffeine inside me!

Well, drat. That is too bad about the Romans getting writing first. I'm glad we are headed for map making.

How long do we want to ignore the Romans? If we wait to attack they may have lots of legions. If we attack before iron working we don't know where to pillage, except that they don't have many available hills for iron, so we could pillage them all.

I'll take a closer look at the save this evening and post any other thoughts I have. I'll probably play tomorrow afternoon unless we need more discussion time.

OK, my musings:

- We can get settler from Carthage out in four turns if micromanged properly.
- The worker from Leptis Magna could finish roading the square he is on plus one more than go back to improve the town. Once the settler founds our final town, another worker can finish the link. Perhaps next Carthage build should be worker.
- Mining the currently irrigated and undevelped BGs at Carthage are essential.
- Once Utica grows next turn - food is unimportant. Citizen should be placed on forest to give magical 10 shields per turn. Colossus will then be finished in 12 turns if calculations are correct.
- Pay attention to the barb presence near ivory. Theveste may need some backup. The archer is a pre-build for galley, although this will probably not be important until conehead/jeff's turns.
- The roman town of Cumae is settled on a hill. I don't have a good feeling about this. All roman hills are deep within their teritory.
- I doubt MapMaking will be finished within your turns CKS, but if it is, then I suggest Mysticism. I feel as though Oracle is a better investment - due to faster 1000y doubling bonus. If we manage to meet neighbours or Rome starts on the Great Library, which I doubt since they have started the Pyramids, then we can switch as necessary. Hopefully we will be able to trade MM for Iron Working. Knowing where the iron is seems more crucial as each turn passes.

Here are my thoughts.

The settler:
Where are we going to put the settler? If we put a city by the oysters, I just realized, we will increase corruption in Utica as the oyster city will be closer to Carthage. This causes me some concern. I'm leaning more toward waiting until we can build farther south.

Worker thoughts:
We need to road the Utica forest and mine the cow. We may lose 3 shields to corruption, and mining the cow will get us 10 spt then. This should give us the 12 fpt we need until we get construction.

Near Leptis Magna we need to irrigate the plains sheep and mine the hill sheep as we are already suffering from the despotism penalty.

Around Carthage we need 2 roaded and mined BG, Theveste needs a lot of improvements, and getting the ivory or more spices would be nice.

About Cumae:
I don't like this either. If there is iron under it, we'll just have to keep it disconnected and shieldless while we whittle it down. We'll need some NM to defend against attacks from them and to pillage elsewhere.

About Research:
The reason I like literature is that we get libraries as well as the Great Library. A library can be rushed, is only 80 shields, and gives us 3 cpt. The Oracle costs 300 shields and gives only 4 cpt. How about researching literature and then mysticism, then building a library, the oracle, and the GL? The library culture will start doubling fastest of all.

About Rome:
Notice that the Romans are building their cities all at distance 5-5.5 from Rome? Interesting reversal of roles.

The settler:
Where are we going to put the settler? If we put a city by the oysters, I just realized, we will increase corruption in Utica as the oyster city will be closer to Carthage. This causes me some concern. I'm leaning more toward waiting until we can build farther south.
I feel a bit uneasy about only having 4 cities. Also, I'm worried that Rome will settle in the gap before we expand. Assuming we mine the Utica cow, it will produce 13 shields. How many will be corrupted? 2 or 3? If 2, then we have 11spt and can afford to lose another to corruption. I'm not sure how badly the placement of town no.5 would affect the production in Utica. Obviously if we still only have 10spt once we have mined the cow then you're right.

Another possibility is a temporary town 6 squares directly north of carthage. This has limited growth potential with three grassland squares and a hill. The good thing is that after cultural expansion it will have direct control of the ivory. That said, after we move into rome's territory we can disband this city if desired.


Near Leptis Magna we need to irrigate the plains sheep and mine the hill sheep as we are already suffering from the despotism penalty. Around Carthage we need 2 roaded and mined BG, Theveste needs a lot of improvements, and getting the ivory or more spices would be nice.
Agree.


About Cumae:
I don't like this either. If there is iron under it, we'll just have to keep it disconnected and shieldless while we whittle it down. We'll need some NM to defend against attacks from them and to pillage elsewhere.
We are definitely going to have to consider building barracks in Carthage, Leptis Magna and Theveste and then pumping out the NMs + archers. I'm not so bothered about the ancient GA anymore, Utica is fairly well developed. I wouldn't want to initiate it until we have four towns with barracks pumping out /NM/archers/swords


About Research:
The reason I like literature is that we get libraries as well as the Great Library. A library can be rushed, is only 80 shields, and gives us 3 cpt. The Oracle costs 300 shields and gives only 4 cpt. How about researching literature and then mysticism, then building a library, the oracle, and the GL? The library culture will start doubling fastest of all.
It's all about the pre-builds. I think we are probably going to research MM at the same time or maybe just before we build colossus. Assuming we have the choice between an 8 turn Mysticism or a 15 turn Literature, giving 80 and 150prebuild shields respectively, we would probably waste shields building a library. Perhaps we could consider using some of the pre-build shields on something non-culturey, and timing the pre-build for a library exactly. Or perhaps we should pre-build with a view to getting Great Library first. Plus there's all the 1000y doubling bonuses and when they'll come to think about. Its tricky...

I looked up some stuff on corruption.

First thing is, we should have gone with the original red dot for Utica instead of 1 more tile away. This would have reduced our corruption as the closest city from 18% to 14% and it would have made our current red dot city by the oysters have the same rank, and we wouldn't be stewing about the location of the 5th city. Oh, well.

I assumed we are on a standard map, giving 16 cities as optimum and a map size of 100. I don't know the exact difficulty level for monarch, so I guessed 80. Then I plugged into the corruption equation for PTW. Utica is at distance 5.5 which rounds down to 5. This gives a distance corruption of just over 15%. As the closest city to Carthage it has a rank corruption of just over 3%. With a city in between, the rank corruption will go to 6%.

What this means: If my assumptions and calculations are correct, adding a city closer to Carthage will corrupt one additional shield. If we have a raw production of 13 shields, we should get 11 good shields with the present case, and we'll still get 10 if we build by the oysters. For small builds, the difference will just end up as wasted shields. For large builds, the extra shield will knock off 1 turn for every 110 shields required.

Once we get out of despotism, our distance corruption will go down, but our rank corruption will not. This will make the rank corruption relatively more important, although it will be the same in absolute terms. Once we get construction and build an aquaduct we will lose more shields (at the same percentage) because we will have more shields available to corrupt.

So, what are our thoughts on building the 5th city by the oysters? I'm currently thinking that the 2 turns on the Oracle or 3 on the GLibrary may not be worth worrying about. On the other hand, if we lose out by a turn or two, we'll kick ourselves.

First of all, good job with the calculations.

If we are able to maintain 10spt in Utica, then I think the tactical advantage of the oyster city over any other city outweighs the advantages of the extra couple of turns on large builds. Once we're out of despotism (hopefully sooner rather than later) this won't be an issue.

For me, the oyster city just looks like the best use of space, but that might be me just being arty or something.

EDIT: also, concerning the extra corrupted shields up to size 12. I hope that we will be able to abandon the oyster city in exchange for one placed on the ruins of Rome by the time we are in a position to build an aqueduct. :)

It's all about the pre-builds. I think we are probably going to research MM at the same time or maybe just before we build colossus. Assuming we have the choice between an 8 turn Mysticism or a 15 turn Literature, giving 80 and 150prebuild shields respectively, we would probably waste shields building a library. Perhaps we could consider using some of the pre-build shields on something non-culturey, and timing the pre-build for a library exactly. Or perhaps we should pre-build with a view to getting Great Library first. Plus there's all the 1000y doubling bonuses and when they'll come to think about. Its tricky...

I'll definitely agree with the tricky part. Your pre-build point is right on the mark, and I hadn't really considered it.

I don't think we want to build much non-culturey except an aquaduct and a courthouse. Building the colossus will give us more commerce, so it should reduce research times a little bit, making it even harder to predict the best choice for our purposes. Right now I'm leaning toward, if we can get literature within 11 turns of finishing the colossus, we should take literature. Then we should build a NM and a library (unless we can go straight to the library). Learn mysticism while prebuilding, switch to the Oracle, and then do the GLibrary. I'm going to do some calculations to see how things pan out. Because a library gives almost the same culture as the oracle, and much sooner, I'd really like to get one fast.

I'm kind of glad that this decision will not be made during my turns. ;)

For me, the oyster city just looks like the best use of space, but that might be me just being arty or something.

EDIT: also, concerning the extra corrupted shields up to size 12. I hope that we will be able to abandon the oyster city in exchange for one placed on the ruins of Rome by the time we are in a position to build an aqueduct. :)

I like the oyster city, and there really aren't any other good spots without taking on Rome. That defending warrior in Pompeii is looking awfully tempting right now. I can just imagine the vet legion one step away who destroys me if I decide to attack, though. I don't think we want to wait too long, though, so I also expect we'll have a nice southern city soon.

I haven't had a chance to look at the save yet. Last night was consumed finishing my GOTM35 game.
I'll take a good look tonight, but if you (CKS) want to do your turns before I post, you should.

Here are my basic thoughts. (Pending a detailed save file review tonight)

1. I like the yellow dot for city 4

2. City #5 is a big question. I agree that it should be a temporary.
I don't like any move that increases Corruption in Utica, but as you point out, the Oyster (red dot) is nice for consolidating territory.
That said, I think that either option (Oyster, and 6 north of Carthage) are decent choices.

3. Research: I just played a 20K game in GOTM35, and one of my biggest mistakes (IMO) was delaying getting into a better gov. As soon as we get into one, we can use gold to one turn rush any non-wonder improvements. We should anticipate the times that will happen and make sure we have enough gold (and maybe a disbandable unit) availiable when we will want to build the new improvement.
In this case the turn order looks like
Turn n: Build completes
disband unit or rush worker
switch to non-wonder improvement
cash rush it.
Turn n+1, back to producing wonders or repeat for new improvement.

4. Rome
I think it is time to decide. We need to either start war in the next 10 to 15 turns, or we need to plan on not fighting them for quite a while (like post 1000BC).
If we can muster an army of 4 NMs and 5-7 archers soon, then I say go for it. Otherwise go passive.

I've now counted up some culture stuff. I counted by hand (I'd use one of the excel calculators, but I'm stuck on a computer without excel), so I don't guarantee the results.

These are the assumptions I made:
Colossus finishes in 1175 BC.
Utica has 10 shields per turn.
Option 1:
We learn literature 11 turns after finishing the Colossus. We build NM, library, oracle, great library.
Option 2:
We learn mysticism first. We build oracle, library partly rushed in 4 turns (wild guess), great library.
Option 3:
We learn literature 11 turns after finishing the Colossus. We build NM, library, great library, oracle.

With option 1, we complete library in 900 BC, Oracle in 270 BC, GLibrary in 390 AD. With option 2 we complete Oracle in 490 BC, library in 410 BC, GLibrary in 320 AD. The 1000 year doubling has kicked in for all buildings in 1390 AD, so I counted culture from these buildings until 1400 AD (nice round number).

Option 1 gives 2629 culture points (for these buildings alone) by 1400 AD. Option 2 gives 2695 culture points by 1400 AD, and we finish 7 turns earlier because we rushed the library. If we don't rush the library we will be only 3 turns ahead and also behind in culture, though not by much (2590 points).
Option 3 gives 2689 culture points, but we risk losing the oracle as it doesn't get built until 390 AD. Options 1 and 3 also give us some an extra military unit.

What about the effects of a great leader? If we get one, I think we are better off with option 1, because it gives us a slightly longer time to get one in time to be useful for rushing the great library. Beyond this, I don't know.

If we are looking at 10 turns past the colossus build to learn literature, it looks like it doesn't matter which option we pick. If we can learn it sooner than that, it gets better and better to pick literature. If we learn it later than that, it gets better and better to pick mysticism. Note that time to learn mysticism doesn't matter, because we'll just be prebuilding for the Oracle anyway. Since it seems unlikely that we can learn literature much faster than in 10 turns, we should probably go with mysticism first.

OK. I'm convinced! Option 1. Build order sounds good to me.

Afterwards, we should go towards Monarchy. Allows access to HG and good government. I figure Monarchy might be a better government for us through-game. Allows persistent Roman war, no war weariness, plenty of unit upkeep, and the difference between total Monarchic corruption and total Republican corruption won't be huge in this game.

So, I blew it. Somehow I only counted 4 cpt for the great library the second time around. Option 2 give 2695 points by 1400 AD, which is somewhat better than Option 1's 2629 points. I've gotten back to a computer with a culture calculator, so I'm not counting by hand anymore, and I'm going to try a few different combinations of different things, but it looks like option 2 (Oracle, library, Great Library) is the better deal.

I edited my culture calculation post pretty heavily after realizing my mistake.

I also looked at option 4: literature first, then GLibrary, rush a library, build Oracle last. With a 4 turn library, this gives exactly the same culture as option 3. The advantages are we get done 7 turns earlier and it doesn't matter how long it takes to research literacy; the disadvantage (compared to option 3) is we don't get a NM.

Here is what I now think:
If we can get literature within 8 turns of building the colossus, we should learn literature. If we can't, it doesn't matter whether we go mysticism or literature as the difference of 6 culture points is insignificant. With a library 8 turns after the colossus, we end up with 2800 cp at 1400 AD, just over 100 points more than the oracle first plan.

Because it doesn't matter which is first, I have a very slight preference for literature, because I think we will be more likely to be able to trade for mysticism than literature and because having a library will speed up our own research if the colossus should happen to speed research more than we expect. (If we build the great library first, the library gets delayed while we get free techs. If we build the library first, we get a research boost that will be significant in the colossus city; with only five cities this will be important.) I'm also unsure how well we can predict how long literature will take. If it says 15 turns, we won't get it in 8, but we might if it says 11 turns.

I don't know about Monarchy for our gov. While it would allow more war, I think the commerce loss is huge.

As a note, this version of the game appears (from the GOTM28 page) to have
+ Republic Government Unit maintenance cost is now 2 gpt/unit with free unit support of 1/3/4 for t/c/m.

In Monarchy the numbers are 2/4/8
Until the IA we will have only towns and cities. We will be giving up 5 units (one per town/city) for a greatly increased commerce. Short wars spelled with 20 Turn peaces with Rome seems to me a small price to pay for the increased commerce.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_BC1250_01.sav

Here is the save.

Well, this was an interesting set of turns, in that much of our planning went right out the window. First my turn log:

Turn 0 1500 BC – did nothing. IBT a barb shows up.

Turn 1 1475 BC – Carthage grows, settler in 3. I move the new citizen to river grass. This gives us extra commerce vs the BG or forest, doesn’t delay the settler, and lets us grow when the settler is made.
Utica grows to size 6. We get 10 uncorrupted shields, Colossus in 10 turns.
Leptis Magna and Theveste are growing slowly.
I set the Carthage warrior to be an mp. The northern workers road towards Theveste. The archer attacks the barb warrior and dies. I move the Carthage archer towards Theveste and switch to 10% entertainment

Turn 2 1450 BC – Wounded barb just sits there. Workers continue roading.

Turn 3 1425 BC – Barb retreates. Road to Theveste completes & we now get 2 shields. Archer will complete before we get map making, so I switch to NM. The archer arrives in Theveste.

Turn 4 1400 BC – Carthage builds settler, send it toward oyster hill. Start archer. Reset science to 100%. Northern archer to hill, northern worker 1 mines BG, other goes toward Utica forest. I swap LM build to barracks – we aren’t going to expand to vital tiles with the temple, and we need a source of vet troops.

IBT barb shows up in the north

Turn 5 1375 BC – Moved S warrior east to check on Antium defenders – spearman there, still warrior in Pompeii. Settler arrives on hill, S worker moves for connecting road (road first for anti-corruption and happiness, then back to improve LM – food and shields). N archer attacks barb. I hold my breath, afraid of repeating the first disaster, but he wins without being injured.

Turn 6 1350 BC – Build Hippo, start barracks there. Utica didn’t lose any shields. Worker roads Utica forest. N archer moves north, sees more ivory. S worker in place on BG to connect all cities. Pompeii now has a spearman, too.

IBT Rome demands 24 g. I give them the money.

Turn 7 1325 BC – Carthage grows. I put new citizen on river grass for 2 turns, will then move to river forest to get barracks in 5 turns instead of 6. This gives more commerce, no wasted shields, no growth delay. Carthage’s archer is an mp. Northern archer goes north, sees barb hut and 2 barb galleys. Roman warrior starts north, I move our units west to stay nearby.

IBT Vikings complete Colossus. Our plans will now change.

Turn 8 1300 BC – Switch Utica to Pyramids (25 turns). N archer disperses barb camp, get 25 g, lose 1 hp. Utica worker mines cow.

Turn 9 1275 BC – LM completes barracks, starts NM. Rome has learned map making. It costs us 36 g and 2 turns to learn it, Caesar wants 60 g for it. I don’t trade. Map Making in 2 at 80% science, +1gpt. Swap Carthage citizen onto river forest. Tundra archer heals, Utica forest is roaded, move to mine cow.

Turn 10 1250 BC – N archer moves south. N workers move to mine irrigated river grass that Carthage keeps working because of the 2 commerce. Carthage grows, set entertainment to 10%, still same time for barracks regardless of shields of new citizen, so put on river grass. Utica cow is mined, but we now have 3 corrupted shields. Once we get construction we will want to go back and irrigate the cow again, but there is no use doing that now, as we can’t grow anyway.

My thoughts on the current situation:
We can get mysticism in 6 turns or literature in 14 at the present rate. We can build the oracle in 13 turns or the great library in 23 turns. The culture works out marginally better for building the great library first.
Option 1: Oracle first, library in 6 (we will have to learn lit first, this assumes a 1 turn reduction in research time and a rush), Great Library last gives 2614 culture by 1250 AD and the Great Library done in 30 AD.
Option 2: Great Library first, library in 4 (we already know lit), Oracle last gives 2689 culture by 1250 AD and the Oracle done in 10 BC.
Shaving turns off of the library in option 1 adds 24 culture for each turn. Likewise, delaying the library removes 24 culture for each turn we are delayed. In option 2 each library turn is 21 culture, so a 6 turn library build gives 2647 culture by 1250 AD.

Option 1 almost certainly gives us the Oracle and the Great Library both. If we lose the Oracle for some reason, we will have had time to research literature, so we can switch to the great library (as long as we don’t lose our pyramids prebuild).
Option 2 gives us the Great Library for sure, but we risk losing the Oracle. The tradeoff is that if we miss the Oracle we are more likely to get the Hanging Gardens.

Rome is looming ominously. We need troops and we need friends. The most likely paths to get to another land mass both start where the land bulges west in Roman territory; this makes them more likely to get there first if there is a safe passage. Remember we have differential naval movement here; galleys get 6 moves, but coasts cost 3 moves; sea costs 2 moves, and ocean costs 1 move. Suicide through ocean squares to go farthest. I’m pretty sure that cities cost only 1 move, too, but we don’t have any cities to go through to speed us along. (If the opportunity presents itself, let’s build the Great Lighthouse as it will aid sea movement a lot.)

Awww crap.

Ok, first glitch. Guess it's time to regroup.

Before I go into planning, I need to let you know that I won't be able to play till late Sunday (Mountain Time). I'm going to my 10 year college reunion this weekend.
Let's hash out what we want to do, and I'll take my turns Sunday. I may be able to make some time on Saturday, but I wouldn't bet on it.
I could play tonight, but I think we need a strategy session before we go any farther.
If we come to agreement by about 12 Midnight MDT (3 hrs from this post) then I can play tonight, but I don't know if forcing my turns in is a good idea.

I think Option 2 is the safer bet, but I think we should go with option 1.
The modification I would make is that I think we need to attack Rome ASAP. They have way too much food, and will soon have all cities at 6 creating military. If we are ever going to take them down, now is the time. If we get lucky and get a GL, I would actually suggest using it on one of the wonders. Then fishing for a second to create the army. We need fast culture, and I doubt that we will have a good slot to slip in the Heroic Epic early.

Nothing to say on research since it is entierly dependent on the Option 1 vrs Option 2 choice above.

Any opinions on army size for attacking Rome? (Or do we not attack?)

I don't think delaying playing until Sunday will be a problem at all, jeff. You are going to have to make some big decisions during your turns, so we should all agree on a plan. I wouldn't want to be responsible all by myself.

If we don't attack Rome, they are going to attack us soon with lots of legions. I think we want to face as few of these as possible. We need at least a couple of NM as defense and pillagers and we need all our archers down south. Moving the archer out of Carthage will mean we need to increase our entertainment budget, but Carthage has lots of commerce, so the lux rate won't have to go too high.

If we can get 2 NM and 4-5 archers to Pompeii or Antium while they still show a spearman for defense, I think we should attack. If we can raze Pompeii and cut off Cumae quickly, I think we'll be okay. I'm guessing that the iron is in or near Cumae because we haven't seen legions yet. If the iron was in the hills by Rome, it would surely be connected already.

Ouch. :(

I also agree with Option 1. Since it has been demonstrated that the other civs are ahead of the game we cannot afford to take any chances. We need the Oracle. I'm still convinced that others will hopefully not research lit until the pyramids wonder cascade has ended.

Agree, all builds, bar Utica, from now on should be dedicated to military. Rome is not getting any weaker thats for sure.

I'll take a look at the save tomorrow, but I doubt I'll glean any extra information than from what you've provided in the log.

Never mind, we knew this game would be tricky. We may have to get into a mindset where we have to abandon 20K, and go for something else, but in all cases...

Rome must be subdued!

we should give conehead one last chance to reappear. So that gives him 24 hours from CKS's save upload (0240 GMT), to post a 'got it'. Otherwise we should consider him 'missing in action'.

we should give conehead one last chance to reappear. So that gives him 24 hours from CKS's save upload (0240 GMT), to post a 'got it'. Otherwise we should consider him 'missing in action'.

Sounds good. I'll post a "got it" soon after the 24 hr deadline. While I won't have time to play, I will be able to check mail, etc tonight after the 0240 GMT cutoff)

I will be able to play Sunday.

I think we all underestimated the incredible amount of food available in Rome. By my count they have 4 wool, several cows and some wheat. It's no wonder they have exploded in population.

The next turn needs to prep for the attack on Rome. The only non-land build going on (other than Utica) should be the galley that we need to use to try to get other contacts.

Our galley hopefully will find someone we can trade with to get IW, but if not, we may need to send a couple NMs down to rome to start pillaging ALL hills in their territory to make sure they don't get Iron hooked up. It may be that rome doesn't have iron either, which would be good for the short term. (I'm not betting on it though)

Option 1 is fine with me, too. I really want to get the GLibrary since a 5CC needs any research boost it can get, but I think we still have a good chance at it this way.

Another reason for attacking sooner rather than later is that the Romans are building the Pyramids. That ties up the production of one of their cities, too. We'll need every advantage we can get.

I think that pillaging all non-wool hills may be an effective tactic. It will cut of their iron supply for sure, and it will also reduce their production capabilities. I think we need to plan on doing a lot of pillaging. We can re-improve the land when we resettle it. It will increase travel time through lands that used to be Roman, but I think it will be worth it.

Theveste is prebuilding for a galley; it will be finished in about 4 turns and we can then move on to land troops there. In addition to finding new lands with our brand new galley, we should watch for other civ's galleys. The barb galleys showed up before Rome learned map making, so if there is safe passage to anyplace else, they may come to us. We need to make sure that the Romans don't end up with sole contact with neighbors.

All of our cities are reasonably good shield producers, but some still need considerable improvement. We need to improve cities now to improve unit production. Utica is set for the moment so we can concentrate on the others. Carthage needs some work and will continue to need it for a while because Carthage can continue to grow.

Thinking somewhat farther ahead, I think we need to cut Rome down to size and then beeline for construction as best we can while making sure we have wonders to build. We need an aquaduct in Utica.

If we get a great leader, I agree that we want to rush a wonder with it. We'll want to make sure to get full use out of it, so we should think about swapping builds if we have a substantial number of shields invested. If we get a second right away, I think we should rush another wonder. Right now there are lots of wonders to build, and the more we can get now, the better off we will be later. If it takes a while, build an army so we can build the heroic epic later at a time when we can't build a culture-heavy wonder.

Ok: Interesting turns, but nothing earthshattering.
I don't know how it happened, but somehow I missed year 1000. I ended up playing into 975, sorry for stealing an extra turn :)

Some good news. We have contact with Persia and India. :cool:

The Save 975BC (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_BC0975_01.SAV)
Turn Log
Turn 0 - 1250 BC - Preflight, looks good. Hit go.

Turn 1 - 1225 BC -
Research Map Making -> Literature
Switch Theveste to Galley

Turn 2 - 1200 BC -
Carthage builds Barracks -> NM
Send a worker to Theveste, keep one working Carthage, third one starts irrigating the plains with sheep

Turn 3 - 1175 BC
Workers keep going
Taxes to 2.7.1 - Still get myst in 4 turns

Turn 4 - 1150 BC
Rome now has HBR :(
Theveste builds Galley -> Barracks
Take one of the MPs from utica to prevent barbs in north so I can move the Archer to the south in prep for war with Rome.
Galley heads south toward Rome per our discussion of likely access to other landmasses.
Carthage is now at 7. Even though the extra shields mean nothing (still 3 turns for NMs), I use luxury slider to pacify the new guy.
Taxes to 1.7.2

IBT - Barb Galley is following our galley south. No big he can't catch us.

Turn 5 - 1125 BC
Carthage builds NM -> NM
Taxes 2.6.2 - Still Mysticism in 2

IBT - Roman warrior is skirting our southern borders, we may have no choice in exact timing of rome war.

Turn 6 - 1100 BC
Taxes to 3.5.2 to max gold

Turn 7 - 1075 BC
Discover Mysticism -> Literature
Rome wants Myst + 100g + 2gpt for IW, don't do it.
Taxes to 1.8.1
One citizen in Carthage turned into entertainer. (Doesn't change NM builds, and allows us to get to lit in 13 with only a minor loss)
Switch Utica to Oracle.

Turn 8 - 1050 BC
Carthage NM -> NM
Galley is down by rome. I seen the fine edge of what looks like coast to the west. I am going to go for it next turn since if it is, I can get there with no risk of losing the galley.

Turn 9 - 1025 BC
Leptis Magna builds NM -> Archer
Galley crosses to coast right near Persia [dance]
Persia has 7 cities, IW and HBR, lacks nothing we have.
Persia won't part with IW, but the devaluation of IW allows me to make a trade with Rome.
Trade Mysticism to Rome for IW + 22g.
Rome has iron (as expected) it is on the hill 1 ne of rome.
MM Hippo to use plains instead of oysters, we need shields more.

Turn 10 - 1000 BC
Galley heads north past persia.
Carthage NM -> Archer

Turn 11 - 975 BC
As I said before, I didn't mean to take this turn, but when I went to do my final save, it said 975, so obviously I did.
Meet India
India lacks Map Making but only has 28 gold, so I don't trade.


Post action report.
We should have the Oracle in a couple more turns. We should then use Pyramids/Lighthouse as prebuild for GL
I am starting to get our army massed in Leptis Magna.
Rome has a warrior near Hippo, I have an NM in Hippo, but I wouldn't be surprised if Rome attacks soon.
We are losing money to get the current rate on Lit, I think it is worth it though. When we get Lit, we should not trade it unless we have to. The longer other nations don't have lit, the more likely we get GL.

Note on Differential Naval movement.
Before you move the galley spend some time thinking of how the move will work. It takes a bit of thinking for me to make sure I'm going to get as far as possible, but still end up on a coast square.
Remember 3 mps for coast, 2 mps for sea, 1 mp for ocean. So you can do the following in one turn
-> coast -> sea -> coast
-> coast -> coast (very inefficient)
-> sea -> ocean -> sea -> coast (how I got to persia)

It is a bit tricky till you get used to it.

Good luck to the next player.

Got it. Any thoughts before I play?

I don't think there were any changes of plan during my turns.

When the oracle finishes we want to start building either Great Library or Library, we can do either by starting a "pyramids" pre-build while we finish researching Literature.

I wouldn't be at all shocked to find that you end up at war with Rome during your turns. The basic goal will be to mass a bunch of archers covered by a couple NMs to attack Roman Cities. The key will be sending a couple NMs south to pillage Rome's Iron. We will at a bit of a disadvantage, so make sure you attack easy targets unless we absolutely have to go after enemies in the mountains.

If we go to war with Rome, we will probably get our golden age. This will allow a couple things that we should do.
1. Keep mining the Grasslands on the river. They are better than BGs that aren't on rivers when in a Despotic Golde Age.
2. Try to get Carthage to 15 shields and as many as possible in Utica. The 15 shields in carthage will allow an NM every two turns. You will also be able to get some other cities to 10 shields. This is good because you can then get Archers in two.

In order to beat rome we will need to milk as much as possible out of our cities.

Other than that, I think we all know what the plan is.

Good job, i'm relieved we've met some others. :thumbsup:

I'll look at the save soon. However two things I think are really important.

Do not trade Literature until we have completed the GLib. If there are techs we need, we'll learn them soon enough. This is crucial to us getting our 20K rolling. However, we can probably afford to turn down the research on it, its going to take a while to build up 400 shields (36-40turns) The longer it takes for us to research, the longer it will take for others.

I completely forgot about the differential naval movement :eek: . I probably would have lost the galley if you hadn't mentioned it.

If this is the only source of iron that Rome has, we may need to make this our first stop. Just a couple of thoughts on war:

don't leave archers unattended where they can be reached with one turn. However leaving them just in view of road might be enough to lure the legions out. AI tends to march towards weak units without discrimination. Then they can be picked off. Try not to use NMs if at all possible. I really would like to save the GA for mid Middle Ages when all the yummy wonders turn up, but I understand if its for the purposes of guarding cities and other important points.

My personal strategy would be to mass about 10-15 archers and beeline for Rome. we can pillage iron and take Rome, effectively crippling the empire. A few turns later, Caesar should surrender. We can then have a brief respite whilst we build some swords... :hammer:

Sounds like things went well. I, too, am glad we met some other civs. It is also good to know where the iron is.

I wouldn't worry about using the NM. We don't have any choice about it as we can't build any other units with a defence of more than 1. If we get attacked, we get attacked. Plus, the nicest thing about delaying a golden age in a normal game is that we have more cities to benefit from it; that isn't going to happen here. Many of our tiles are already suffering from the despotic penalty, so they will benefit from the golden age anyway.

I definitely agree about beelining for Rome. Take out their iron and take over the area. Do we want to try to keep Rome or rebuild on or near its ruins? If we rebuild, we'll want a settler available shortly after Rome falls.

Definitely don't trade literature. We can see resources now, so we should avoid trading much anyway. We want to get to construction and monarchy, but we don't want to make it easier for other civs to research any techs. If we get the Great Library we won't need to trade to catch up in techs. If we don't, we can trade later.

Good luck.

See attachment. Any suggestions on how to fix it? Tried a quick copy-paste from the C3C disk but that didn't help. Don't have a PTW disk (PTW came with C3C and I use that disk.) I don't own a debugger. Otherwise skip and I'll post in tech support forum or quick answers thread in General Discussion.

See attachment. Any suggestions on how to fix it? Tried a quick copy-paste from the C3C disk but that didn't help. Don't have a PTW disk (PTW came with C3C and I use that disk.) I don't own a debugger. Otherwise skip and I'll post in tech support forum or quick answers thread in General Discussion.
I have no idea what that means. I certainly have never seen the like.

I have no ideas either. My only thought is to reboot and hope it goes away as my experiences with windows suggest that it may do strange things and cause weird error messages on occasion.

@CKS: Thank you, that was all it took, my guess being that it was running while it was on but isn't a startup thing so the debugger didn't open.

Will play and post turnlog tonight.

Middle Ages spoiler? We're not halfway done with the Ancient Age!!

Middle Ages spoiler? We're not halfway done with the Ancient Age!!

Yeah, but this isn't a race. It's the whole that counts.

We should try to pick up the pace a bit, but at this stage, every move is too important to miss something by being hasty.

I know, I just didn't know we were moving that slow.

Anyway, we can see Roman iron now and I haven't seen a legion yet. Should we race to it and pillage it? It could be pillaged by turn 7 of my turnlog, haven't started yet.

Probably better to wait till we get a force of at least 6 or 7 archers at Leptis Magna before we start the blitz. As soon as you think you have enough forces gathered go ahead and attack. I think Rome may be about to attack us, which would be even better than us declaring on them. Then we would get reverse war weariness, and we would continue to get it each time we re-declare on Rome later in the game. :)

But as soon as we are at war with Rome, then we do want to make a B-line to the iron for pillageing. That will even the war out.

I agree with jeff although i would probably wait until i had about 10 archers. if you do end up at war during your turns, feel free to stop the game and upload the save so that we can discuss. this war is going to make or break us, so the opening strat is fairly important.

One other note. We need to keep our Reputation intact, so make sure we don't have any units in Roman Territory when the war starts.

We all probably knew that, but I did want to make sure.

Okay, wanted to make sure more than 1 member agreed on what to do about Rome before playing.

Don't worry, I'll make sure not to declare with units in their land. The only thing, though, is that it only will affect their reputation with us unless they met the other civs. Best not to, though.

Don't worry, I'll make sure not to declare with units in their land. The only thing, though, is that it only will affect their reputation with us unless they met the other civs. Best not to, though.
Agreed, but given our plan to keep Rome around as a whipping boy for most of the game, Rome will certainly meet everyone :)

Plus, I think they already have met Persia and India.

Better safe than sorry.

I'm happy with our Rome plans, too.

On an unrelated note, I had some time yesterday and caught my wool-city 20K replay up to our current date. I'm a little behind overall, because the long trek down there delayed our research. I haven't met anyone else, but I've got map making and a galley almost done. In the wool city I rushed a temple, so as to get the wool in my boundaries asap and I joined in two workers after improving the surrounding area. It now has a population of 6 and is producing 8 uncorrupted shields (with all 5 cities built). I am going to go for the GL rather than the Oracle because I've got fewer shields, and I don't want to miss it. The other cities are producing military units, and I'll go to war with Rome about the same time in this game as in ours. I'm hopeful that I'll have gotten iron working in this game by then, so as to avoid the temptation of cheating in the pillaging.

The interesting questions are how quickly can I reduce the corruption in the wool city, and will the wars go enough alike that we can draw some conclusions about which city worked out best.

First, we get the Oracle. I then begin a prebuild to get a few shields for The Great Library. When we get Literature, I begin Code of Laws to see if we can get another uncorrupted shield out of a couple cities, particularly Utica. Have lowered science a lot to keep up with unit costs (after Literature, of course.) 10 units near the Romans. Whoever is up next could decide now's the time, even preturn. Played 9 turns to get back on track.
The save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_BC0750_01.SAV

I'll have a look at the save tonight. My only initial thoughts are that we should agree on a research plan now that we've gotten literature. We need to get construction (for an aquaduct and colloseum for Utica) and monarchy (for Hanging Gardens, in case we get to build it). Code of laws gives us courthouses, which will be nice, although we aren't going to get much in the way of reduced corruption in Utica as it is already in good shape. However, if we want to end up as a Republic we need code of laws to get us there anyway.

I'm undecided on the Republic/Monarchy choice. How much extra commerce will we get? I agree that the 5 units difference in support isn't crucial, but I expect we'll go over that (so we'd pay an extra 2 gpt each for the first 5 over the limit and then 1 gpt after that, as compared to in monarchy - assuming I'm correct about support costs being 1 gpt in monarchy). Will we make up enough in extra commerce for this and war weariness?

For 20 K purposes, I think we need to get to construction before the others, as the 6 citizen limit is causing the most problems. Since we will build the Great Library before an aquaduct anyway we aren't in a really big hurry, but we need to keep it in mind. For avoiding problems with the Romans, getting into a better government will be helpful. If we could arrange to swap governments shortly after making peace (so our anarchy is during the 20 turns of peace), that would be nice.

What do you guys think?

I lied. My other thought is, congratulations on getting the Oracle for us and starting the Great Library.

chunkymonkey, I'm lousy at warfare, so why don't you just take out 4 or 5 Roman cities during your turns and make peace before passing the save along? ;)

chunkymonkey, I'm lousy at warfare, so why don't you just take out 4 or 5 Roman cities during your turns and make peace before passing the save along? ;)
:rotfl:

I'll certainly do my best!

I'm not going to be able to play until friday evening. I have a presentation to prepare for friday so i'm pretty stressed out... don't want to do anything rash :) . In the meantime lets all prepare ourselves and take a good look at the save and make some preliminary suggestions.

As an aside, looks like we're doing brillaintly compared to the others in the submission graph. Lets keep it up. :thumbsup:

I'm undecided on the Republic/Monarchy choice. How much extra commerce will we get? I agree that the 5 units difference in support isn't crucial, but I expect we'll go over that (so we'd pay an extra 2 gpt each for the first 5 over the limit and then 1 gpt after that, as compared to in monarchy - assuming I'm correct about support costs being 1 gpt in monarchy). Will we make up enough in extra commerce for this and war weariness?


Here is a quick look at the trade off.
I think the commerce bonus is an fairly conservative one.

I have two columns in the Republic section.
One assumes 4 uncorrupted bonus commerce per city. (The equivalent of 4-5 roaded squares worked)
The second assumes 6 uncorrupted bonus (6-8 squares worked)

The numbers are the number of gold that could be gained. (Assuming taxes all gold, obviously some of these would be in research instead.)

Republic
5 towns/cities
15 Supported units.
+1 commerce per road


#units +20 +30
15 +20 +30
20 +10 +20
25 +0 +10
30 -10 +0
35 -20 -10
40 -30 -20
45 -40 -30


Monarchy
5 towns/cities
20 Supported units
no commerce bonus.


#units cost
15 0
20 0
25 -5
30 -10
35 -15
40 -20
45 -25

So if we have less than 30 units, republic is clearly (to me) better.
If we are in the 30-40 unit range, we are unclear which is better (it would depend on how much bonus we are really getting)
If we have 40+ units, Monarchy is clearly better.

Please do check my logic.

Okay, that sounds like a pretty good commerce bonus. As you can probably tell, I don't usually swap governments during a game. I usually go into republic or monarchy from despotism and haven't really paid attention to exactly how much I gained.

I have trouble imagining more than 40 units for our little empire. If our plan is mostly to keep people off of our continent (as opposed to taking over the world), then republic sounds good to me.

I also have a limited understanding of war weariness, but I don't usually have a problem with it in GOTM in republic, so I'll guess that we can manage it pretty well. In non-GOTM games, if I'm playing war the unit support costs kill me in republic long before anything else.

Okay, that sounds like a pretty good commerce bonus. As you can probably tell, I don't usually swap governments during a game. I usually go into republic or monarchy from despotism and haven't really paid attention to exactly how much I gained.

I'm the same. I usually hit Republic and stay there, unless I'm war-mongering in which case I hit Monarchy and stay there. I sometimes will go Democracy later, but that is rare.
It was good that you asked the question, it made me really think about the tradeoff.


I also have a limited understanding of war weariness, but I don't usually have a problem with it in GOTM in republic, so I'll guess that we can manage it pretty well. In non-GOTM games, if I'm playing war the unit support costs kill me in republic long before anything else.
There are some really good threads on the subject of WW. I'll go find the link and edit this post to include them. You can easilly fight a 20 year war without too much problem in Republic as long as you don't lose a lot of units.

Here's one (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=61628)

I've had a chance to look over the save now. Here's what I think.

Exploration: Keep the galley going. If Rome hasn't gotten a galley out, we might be able to keep them from contacting other civs by blocking the path we crossed on. If we have any evidence that they haven't met the rest of the world, we should put a galley in one of the coastal tiles on either end. Otherwise, don't bother.

War: Our military is average vs. Rome's. I think we should attack next turn. There will be three archers by Carthage available to take out the settler&spearman in our territory, giving us two foreign workers. The pair in the mountains we should ignore until they come out; they won't do anything against us. We can start our archer stack towards Pompeii. There are two NM in Leptis Magna; one should move out and go with the stack. We may need to increase our luxury tax. Pompeii should autoraze and our NM should get to the iron to pillage ASAP. I think we should get Pompeii and Rome out of the way first, although if Rome is filled with legions and the other cities aren't, I'll change my mind. Notice that Rome is building the pyramids and all other cities are quite small. They can't build quickly right now, and we should take advantage of this.

New City: I like the spot 2 SW of Rome for a new city. It is on the river, has 2 cows, 2 wools, 4 BG, and 1 wheat in its radius. It will have the iron after two cultural expansions. We could also build here without destroying Rome first, although I don't think it is a great idea.

Research: Since we are learning CoL now, I think we should head for republic first (CoL, Philosophy, Republic). We should learn republic about the time we finish the Great Library and we can revolt as soon as we are done with both. Then pick up math and construction so we can get Utica an aquaduct and colloseum (math might come from the GL). Prebuild if we need to, and then rush them as quickly as we can. Then polytheism and monarchy, prebuilding for the hanging gardens. With an aquaduct we are much more likely to actually get the HG because we can increase our population. In republic we can rush the colloseum quickly, getting culture and happiness to let us swell our population fast with some workers added in.

Research rate: I think we should continue to research relatively quickly, until we get the great library and republic. Then we should see what we pick up. We'll need money to rush improvements in Utica, but if we don't get much from the great library, we'll want our research to the culture techs timed with prebuilds as best we can. We should go as slowly as we can while still keeping Utica occupied.

If we get a leader: If we get really lucky and get a leader in the next few turns, we should switch our Utica build to a library (losing a few shields) and then use the leader to rush the great library. If we get one a little later on, we should switch to the great lighthouse (in 23 turns at present), build it, and then rush the great library. If we get to rush the GL, we should reconsider our research plans to get us to monarchy soon to pick up the HG early.

Workers: Let's try and get a colony on the ivory soon. We need mines on two tiles in Leptis Magna. Theveste needs the BG worked and another tile or two. Utica is set, but Carthage needs more improvements, as the population will continue to grow. Hippo needs lots of work, but if we destroy Rome soon, it won't be worth it as we'll be moving to a southern city.

Micromanagement: In Hippo, we want to move a citizen from the plains to the oysters for this turn only. This will cause growth a turn earlier while not affecting our production schedule. In Carthage, if we take a citizen off the forest, we can put two to work on roaded river tiles. All citizens work, we grow in 2 turns, we still finish the archer in 1 turn, and we trade 1 shield (bringing us to 10 shields) for 3 gold and 2 food.

The Pyramids: If Rome finishes the pyramids before we take the city, is it worth keeping it? I'm leaning toward no, as I like the spot to the sw for our city and we will only have 5 cities, but I can be convinced either way.

I've had a chance to look over the save now. Here's what I think.

Very nice summary. I agree completely with most of it, and have added a couple comments below.


Exploration: Keep the galley going. If Rome hasn't gotten a galley out, we might be able to keep them from contacting other civs by blocking the path we crossed on. If we have any evidence that they haven't met the rest of the world, we should put a galley in one of the coastal tiles on either end. Otherwise, don't bother.
I agree completely on keeping the Galley going, would be nice if we could find even more trading partners. (If possible we should try to set ourselves up as a trading broker. This will allow us to control the tech race more completely.

Blocking the passage is a good idea, but I don't think we can spare the time to build 2 more galleys in the immediate future. After we see how our Rome war is going we might consider, but right now I think we hedge our bets and keep pumping out archers.


War: Our military is average vs. Rome's. I think we should attack next turn.
Kill Kill Kill :)
There will be three archers by Carthage available to take out the settler&spearman in our territory, giving us two foreign workers. The pair in the mountains we should ignore until they come out; they won't do anything against us. We can start our archer stack towards Pompeii. There are two NM in Leptis Magna; one should move out and go with the stack. We may need to increase our luxury tax. Pompeii should autoraze and our NM should get to the iron to pillage ASAP. I think we should get Pompeii and Rome out of the way first, although if Rome is filled with legions and the other cities aren't, I'll change my mind. Notice that Rome is building the pyramids and all other cities are quite small. They can't build quickly right now, and we should take advantage of this.
I agree with these priorities. I want nothing more than to sack rome.


New City: I like the spot 2 SW of Rome for a new city. It is on the river, has 2 cows, 2 wools, 4 BG, and 1 wheat in its radius. It will have the iron after two cultural expansions. We could also build here without destroying Rome first, although I don't think it is a great idea.
Hmm, This didn't occur to me. I was thinking 1 sw of Rome to get iron in the 21. My one concern with 2sw is that a new city two away from the iron could easily steal it. We should consider however.



Research: Since we are learning CoL now, I think we should head for republic first (CoL, Philosophy, Republic). ...
Agreed on the basic flow of techs.


We should go as slowly as we can while still keeping Utica occupied.
I don't think this is a problem for a while. Even with a slow rate, after we get the GL, I think there will be ample builds availiable.



If we get a leader: If we get really lucky and get a leader in the next few turns, we should switch our Utica build to a library (losing a few shields) and then use the leader to rush the great library. If we get one a little later on, we should switch to the great lighthouse (in 23 turns at present), build it, and then rush the great library. If we get to rush the GL, we should reconsider our research plans to get us to monarchy soon to pick up the HG early.
100% agreement. If we rush GL, I say we immediately ignore the top part of the tech tree and push towards Monarchy to try to assure ourselves the HG. As with LIT DO NOT trade Monarchy once we get it. Try to leave HG out of the cascade.



Workers: Let's try and get a colony on the ivory soon. We need mines on two tiles in Leptis Magna. Theveste needs the BG worked and another tile or two. Utica is set, but Carthage needs more improvements, as the population will continue to grow. Hippo needs lots of work, but if we destroy Rome soon, it won't be worth it as we'll be moving to a southern city.
I prioritized Leptis Magna and Theveste above Carthage since Carthage was growing slow. As the workers free up I agree, one should head toward the ivory, and any free ones should concentrate on building up Carthage. If we get that done, start pre-improving Utica so it is ready as soon as we do get Construction.


The Pyramids: If Rome finishes the pyramids before we take the city, is it worth keeping it? I'm leaning toward no, as I like the spot to the sw for our city and we will only have 5 cities, but I can be convinced either way.
I too would lean towards no. The pyramids is worth 5 gpt to us. That is it. That said, I hope Rome gets it right before we raze them. That way nobody will have it. :evil:

Blocking the passage is a good idea, but I don't think we can spare the time to build 2 more galleys in the immediate future. After we see how our Rome war is going we might consider, but right now I think we hedge our bets and keep pumping out archers.

We don't need 2 galleys, just one - we only need to block one end to keep the passageway from being used. However, I agree that archers are probably more important now. If the Romans already have a galley out exploring, it won't do any good at all.


Hmm, This didn't occur to me. I was thinking 1 sw of Rome to get iron in the 27. My one concern with 2sw is that a new city two away from the iron could easily steal it. We should consider however.

I like the city 1 SW of Rome, too, but getting the wool in the city radius has big benefits. We should be able to keep the Romans from building north of Rome anyway. Worst case scenario, we block that territory with units when not at war with them.


I prioritized Leptis Magna and Theveste above Carthage since Carthage was growing slow. As the workers free up I agree, one should head toward the ivory, and any free ones should concentrate on building up Carthage. If we get that done, start pre-improving Utica so it is ready as soon as we do get Construction.

I agree with LM and Theveste being higher priorities. We are still at +4 food in Carthage, so it will continue to grow pretty quickly and the others will hit pop 6 soon. Actually Leptis Magna can't grow until we get out of despotism or it gets some culture. Good point about preparing Utica.

The two settlers in our territory will give us some nice Roman workers.

All agreed. Good analysis.

One thing I would like to be clear on is how willing we are to sacrifice a few archers in the hope of preserving our GA.

I plan to keep the NMs one step behind the stack of archers and as soon as things get hairy, move them in to help. Is this satisfactory? Or should I resign to the fact that our GA is going to turn up sooner or later anyway so just go in at full strength?

Also, about research. Assuming we get GLib, I think direct to Construction would be more beneficial. In my experience other civs research Polytheism and Monarchy before Construction. By the time we learn Monarchy from the others we should have a hefty pre-build for the HG.

One thing I would like to be clear on is how willing we are to sacrifice a few archers in the hope of preserving our GA.

I plan to keep the NMs one step behind the stack of archers and as soon as things get hairy, move them in to help. Is this satisfactory? Or should I resign to the fact that our GA is going to turn up sooner or later anyway so just go in at full strength?

My take on this is that we are going to have a tough enough fight on our hands that we are better off going in full strength.
If you think you can sack both Pompeii and Rome with just the archer stack, then go for it, but I am nervous about that.


Also, about research. Assuming we get GLib, I think direct to Construction would be more beneficial. In my experience other civs research Polytheism and Monarchy before Construction. By the time we learn Monarchy from the others we should have a hefty pre-build for the HG.
Good points. I am ok with either strategy for post GL. (I really hope we get it)

I really doubt we can delay a golden age very long (almost certainly not the 40 turns or so that would get us into a republic), so my vote is, don't worry about it. I don't have an objection to trying to delay it, either, though. We can risk an archer or two if you'd like. At least the Roman's strongest attacker is also their strongest defender, so we don't have to worry about them hiding in cities. If we can get the iron pillaged without triggering a golden age, I think we should see if we can hold out longer. Pillaging the iron is more important, though.

For research, if we learn construction before the republic, we can't easily rush a colloseum and aquaduct. If we revolt first, we can buy them. The only reason for going for monarchy first is if we can rush the great library. Then we'd have a big prebuild by the time we learned a useful tech. I'd rather use it on the Hanging Gardens than a colosseum. If we don't rush the great library fairly soon, I definitely agree with construction before monarchy.

If things get really bad with a war with Rome, we may even need the GA, even in despotism.

We need TGL. I don't think any other AI civs have Literature yet, so we've got an advantage.

Researching Construction is a good idea.

Sorry guys I've been much busier this weekend than I thought I was going to be. I'm definitely going to play and post when I get back from work tonight. If this happens again i'll make sure to let you know so that you can skip me. :)

Save is here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_BC0550_01.SAV)

Turnlog 750BC-550BC

Utica Culture = 126

0 – 750BC – Reduce Lux to Zero. We can cope.
IBT –
1 – 730BC – Move Theveste Worker to BG. Continue Galley. Declare War on Romans. Move Troops. Execute Roman spear next to Carthage. Archer becomes elite. Gain two slaves. Move Carthage Worker towards ivory.
IBT – Roman Warrior + Settler combo move into range. Tasty…
2 – 710BC – Massacre at Pompeii… Five of our archers die taking Pompeii :( , but it is eventually razed. One worker is captured. Our Roman slaves get to work.
IBT –
3 – 690BC - Lose a warrior to the war/settler combo. So an archer attacks. Becomes veteran, and we gain two slaves.
IBT –
4 – 670BC - Our slaves begin to construct a road form Leptis Magna to the ruins of Pompeii. Stack begins to move within borders of Rome.
IBT –
5 – 650BC - Stack moves next to Iron tile. Guess what’s fortified in Rome. A Legion :eek: . But he is only regular.
IBT – Rome moves its troops all over the place.
6 – 630BC – Move stack onto iron. Vet archer attacks spear and wins. Vet archer attacks archer and wins. Get 2 slaves from captured settler.
IBT –
7 – 610BC – Iron has been pillaged. :)
IBT – Learn Code of Laws.
8 - 590BC – Attack archer with archer, who becomes elite. Attack another archer with an archer – win. Attack another Archer with elite Archer. Win. Whilst moving galley, finger slips and presses the wrong key. Galley ends up in Sea tile. Almost have heart attack. :eek:
IBT – 570BC – Rome settles the town of Virconium next to our spices. The Greeks build the Pyramids in Athens. The Persians build the Lightouse in Persepolis. Our Galley is lost. :cry: , but we laugh at Caesar for wasting so many shields when he could have had about 6 or 7 legions by now :lol: .
9 – 570BC – Rome will discuss peace terms, but I am not interested. Attack spear with archer who becomes elite. Get two slaves. Attack archer with archer and win.
IBT –
10 – 550BC – Attack Virconium with archer, raze it and destroy their galley.

Utica Culture = 206

I’m so sorry for the lost galley (everyone makes mistakes!).

I think it’s important that we do not sign a peace treaty with Rome until we have at least sacked Rome and established a city of our own there. However I am fairly confident that with our current rate of production of archers we could annex the Romans to a single town empire fairly easily.

I honestly believe that Rome is not going to attack us with Legions. They may have a couple stored in cities, but I think the AI got confused by its iron interruption, so we will probably just face a trickle of archers for a few turns, then they should be easy prey. In any case I would wait until we had 10-12 vet archers (at least) until we attack Rome. Remember, attack them from their side of the river! Then we can mop up the outlying towns.

It is not a rush. We have disrupted the Roman empire so we can afford to take our time in demolishing it. As long as we have culture being produced in Utica there is no reason to do anything rash military-wise.

BTW, Philosophy will be researched in 3 turns. I assume republic is next. Timing its research to match with completion of Glib. Then we can revolt.

Also, luckily the GA has not been triggered. As long as we keep our stacks just outside the reach of their archers then we can maintain this without any bother. Since they don’t have any active legions, the NMs don’t need to be in play. Once we have sacked Rome, NMs should be withdrawn completely I believe. I would like to time GA for a size 12 Utica building and Sistine’s, JS Bach’s and I do think this is perfectly possible as long as we’re careful.

Next turn, the ivory colony can be constructed. This will allow citizens who currently entertainers in cities to work instead. I decided to use entertainers instead of lux after weighing up the benefits of each method at the time.

Looks great. Good Job.

I think we wait to sack Rome till we have 12 archers that can all attack that turn. We also need to get a settler on the way down pretty soon. I would suggest that we use Hippo to build the Settler since we will be disbanding it when we build the city near Rome.

I like putting the city 2 sw of Rome to get the Sheep. Then using military and culture expansion to control the iron.

Research: I agree finish Philo and get Republic, if possible simultaneous to getting GL, but if it is a couple turns later that is fine since we can use them to rush our Library.

Once more, well done. Too bad about the Galley, but as they say s**t happens.

It sounds like these turns went well. Great job on the war! It's too bad about the galley, but these things happen. If I counted correctly, we got 8 Roman workers and three promotions to elite. :) And that is the end of the wonders that could cascade into the Great Library, I believe.

I'll look at the save tonight and plan on playing tonight or tomorrow unless there seem to be issues we need to discuss. We seem agreed on a research plan and on getting a bunch of archers (at least 12) to sack Rome, trying to avoid using NM, and getting a settler out of Hippo for our city 2 tiles SW of Rome. I'll try to avoid any big military mistakes.

A few random thoughts:
Getting the ivory will be nice.
How do you feel about getting another galley out soon? If the war continues to go well, I'd like to take time out from building archers to build another galley.

Here is the save:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_BC0350_01.sav

Here is my turn log:
Turn 0 550 BC Woke archers on iron to attack nearby archer in jungle. One dies, other kills archer. This was not a good idea, but I didn’t know it at the time. I was worried that the archer would attack the NM, but I discovered they avoided him like the plague. I guess Rome isn’t interested in giving us a despotic golden age.
IBT More archers and warriors appear
Turn 1 530 BC Complete 1 archer, kill Roman archer, move archers around. Put colony on ivory.
IBT Another legion shows up. We lose an archer.
Turn 2 510 BC Complete 1 archer, elite archer kills archer, lots of movement
Turn 3 490 BC Learn Philosophy, start Republic (28 turns), build three archers, start settler in Hippo.
Turn 4 470 BC Elite archer kills archer, 2 archers die before a third kills the legion
Turn 5 450 BC Elite archer kills warrior.
Turn 6 430 BC Vet archers kill 2 archers
IBT 2 archers attacked, 1 wins, 1 loses
Turn 7 410 BC Vet archer kills archer and promotes, vet archer kills another archer
IBT Archer attacked, wins twice, then dies
Turn 8 390 BC Theveste starts a galley, vet archer kills archer, elite archer kills archer
Turn 9 370 BC Hippo completes settler, starts back on archers
Turn 10 350 BC Just some moving around.

Firaxis score 283.

The settler is in Leptis Magna.

There are 12 archers ready to step into Roman territory to attack Rome. There are two near Rome already, one on the iron hill and one in the jungle. I was going to leave it there as a decoy, but it can be moved onto the hill, too, as it hasn’t moved yet.

Rome is in the middle of its golden age, as the legion won in 470 BC (turn 4)

We are running at –7 gpt since building the settler, but attacking Rome will change this, as we are 11 units over the limit.

As soon as Rome falls, Leptis Magna needs a temple or library so that it can get some cultural expansion – we need that grassland and the hill for food.

We lost 6 archers. They lost 13 archers, 1 warrior, and 1 legion. I screwed around killing units in the open, but didn’t make much progress on Rome. We do now have the troops available for an assault on Rome in 3 turns. I expect someone else would have done a better job on the warfare, but I don’t think I messed things up too badly. I’ll let you finish things off, jeff.

We lost 6 archers. They lost 13 archers, 1 warrior, and 1 legion. I screwed around killing units in the open, but didn’t make much progress on Rome. We do now have the troops available for an assault on Rome in 3 turns. I expect someone else would have done a better job on the warfare, but I don’t think I messed things up too badly. I’ll let you finish things off, jeff.

Good job CKS. I've got it and have the following thoughts.

1. Looks like we are ready to tackle Rome. (I hope)
Unless someone thinks differently, I will use every archer that can make it to assault Rome. I notice that two of the archers in our territory are 1 HP shy of health, so Next turn I will start moving towards Rome. If those two Roman archers don't get out of the way, I may need to attack them on the way in to avoid having to use the NM to Cover them.

2. Research: Looks like I won't have a chance to change, so nothing to talk about here.

3. Utica: Again 13 turns to GL means I won't be doing anything here.

4. Rome: Assuming I manage to sack Rome, How much more should I do against them? Should I take out a couple more Roman cities, or should I take Rome and immediately make peace with them? I think the decision will be based on how many Archers remain after the battle.

One other General note: I am very impressed that both ChunkyMonkey and CKS managed to avoid the Golden Age. I hope I can do the same.

It is time for bed here in CO, and I have to work tomorrow. I'll play tomorrow evening between work and my 10:00 roller hockey game.

We have till then to review strategy :)

Good job CKS. :)

My thoughts:

Now we've got this far without triggering our GA I feel it would be annoying to trigger it now. I propose the 2NMs on Roman borders should move out of the way. Just in case. The one on the iron, can remain, as it presents a deterrent to attack.

I forgot to mention that during my turns, the Roman archers seemed much more interested in wandering all the way across their empire to reach a few of our stray archers, whilst our pillaging stack moved closer and closer to its iron :crazyeye: . I have a theory that the AI doesn't think strategically, and will go for the prey it believes it has the better odds of winning against. Therefore as long as we have some undefended archers wandering around their borders, they should never attack the NM.

The two regular Roman archers stationed just north of Rome should move one square NW next turn to meet our stack. Don't attack with the archer stack until next turn. These two archers will present a good opportunity for leader farming.

Whilst we're in Despotism, I see no reason to sign any peace treaty. Continue plugging away wasting their GA until we can raze all but one of their towns, preferably the southern most one. If it gets to the stage where Caesar would give us all of his cities for peace, i'm prepared to accept this. Obviously we need to then abandon the cities before the turn ends.

Whilst we've got a reasonable stack and more on the way, should we consider some cultural expansion from temple&library building in our non-Utica cities? This will gives us a few more points per turn through territory. We cannot really afford any more archers as it is.

I've been thinking about Leptis Magna and how this is a pretty poor food site. It's going to struggle to get to size 12. Perhaps, once the war is over we could move it near Antium to the wool there, or perhaps on the river bed to the SW of our Rome-replacement.

If it so happens that we get an MGL in the next couple of turns, what does everyone say to building an army. Rushing the GL would be a waste, and having a leader sitting around for another 20 turns until we have an available wonder would be a waste. If we build an army and fill it with archers or maybe swordsmen, depending on when it turns up, then we could soon build the Hero Epic, giving us greater chances of leader generation in the crucial wonder building phase of the Middle Ages. Thoughts?

Also, jeff, seeing as you're the leader would you like to PM mad-bax and let him know that conehead appears to have dropped out of our team.

I've been thinking about Leptis Magna and how this is a pretty poor food site. It's going to struggle to get to size 12. Perhaps, once the war is over we could move it near Antium to the wool there, or perhaps on the river bed to the SW of our Rome-replacement.

This is a good idea. I think we might put it in our original wool city location after we get Hippo moved. I really like the wool bonus, and having more wool means more to trade. I've got a couple of Roman workers improving land that LM would get after a cultural expansion, but maybe we should quit this and plan on moving LM. They can start roading over to near Antium, which shouldn't be Roman much longer.

About the golden age: I was very surprised that the Romans ignored the NMs, but I think you are right about them going after easier prey. A regular archer vs. a vet NM is pretty bad odds. I'd use a NM to cover the stack on the way in, but leave an open archer elsewhere to distract them. In this way I think that we can keep our stack intact all the way to Rome without risking a win by a NM. We are probably also safe to let the archers go uncovered, though, as they can't have that many free units. We were strong against them when I started, and there is no way they can have replaced units anywhere near as fast as they lost them.

About making peace: I'd like to hold off on making peace for a little while. After we finish the great library, we should see what techs we pick up. Then we should think about whether it makes sense to build the forbidden palace in Utica at this time. If we are 15 turns from construction, for example, we could get the forbidden palace and then rush the aquaduct and colosseum without wasting much time. If so, we should make peace for cities, start the FP, and disband the cities. I think we need 3 more cities for the FP, which should be possible. Right now, we have one settler and could get 2 cities for peace, giving us the needed 8.

I think we might leave the Romans with Cumae, which is their only hill city. If we want to leader farm with them, we want them to be able to build units. Plus we don't have good offensive units now, so avoiding attacking units fortified on hills would be nice. However, we'd need to keep them from building culture and stealing the cows from us. I don't really care, though.

About a great leader: At this point, making an army seems reasonable, unless we are in a good position to use it on a FP. I would like to have the heroic epic available to build, even if we don't get around to building it for a while.

The two regular Roman archers stationed just north of Rome should move one square NW next turn to meet our stack. Don't attack with the archer stack until next turn. These two archers will present a good opportunity for leader farming.

My intention exactly.

I've been thinking about Leptis Magna and how this is a pretty poor food site. It's going to struggle to get to size 12. Perhaps, once the war is over we could move it near Antium to the wool there, or perhaps on the river bed to the SW of our Rome-replacement.
I like it.

About a great leader: At this point, making an army seems reasonable, unless we are in a good position to use it on a FP. I would like to have the heroic epic available to build, even if we don't get around to building it for a while.
I disagree here, but am willing to be overruled. I would actually rather save the leader to rush the Hanging Gardens. This is a close call, so I could go either way.
The two sides to me are
1. Heroic Epic is a lot of culture would be nice to get it doubled up, but would delay Sistine/HG prebuilding.
2. HG is great culture, but would keep us from having the HE for a long time.

As for the FP and peace with Rome. We might want to look to have peace right about the time that we start our anarchy into republic and certainly when it ends we will want peace. This would work well since we would have just finished the GL and popped in our Library as well.

I'll PM Mad-Bax, but he may already know. I know he lurks a lot. :)

I think we need to know how long it will take for us to get to monarchy. I don't remember if anybody has polytheism. If not, then it will be a while before we get to monarchy, and we might as well prebuild and build the HG by hand. (After the aquaduct and once in a republic, Utica will build a lot more quickly.) If we will get there relatively quickly, then save the leader. Of course, first we have to get the leader.

I think we need to know how long it will take for us to get to monarchy. I don't remember if anybody has polytheism. If not, then it will be a while before we get to monarchy, and we might as well prebuild and build the HG by hand. (After the aquaduct and once in a republic, Utica will build a lot more quickly.) If we will get there relatively quickly, then save the leader. Of course, first we have to get the leader.
Good points. I really hope that I have to make this choice. :)
I was thinking that India and Persia would be close to Monarchy, but I didn't check, the more I think about it the better the HE sounds. It would be good to increase our leader chances as well. (Or at least the number of elites)

If so, we should make peace for cities, start the FP, and disband the cities. I think we need 3 more cities for the FP, which should be possible. Right now, we have one settler and could get 2 cities for peace, giving us the needed 8.
I think this one will have to be timed to go with the replacement of LM instead of the imminent (during my turns) replacement of Hippo.

Still, I should be able to fire off several elite combats during my turns, but the odds are still against us on the leader front. I'll try to farm as much as possible.

I think this one will have to be timed to go with the replacement of LM instead of the imminent (during my turns) replacement of Hippo.

Still, I should be able to fire off several elite combats during my turns, but the odds are still against us on the leader front. I'll try to farm as much as possible.

I agree with you about LM rather than Hippo. I was just contemplating the feasibility of getting to 8 cities. At first I had been thinking it would be difficult to get 3 new cities without building all of them ourselves; now I think we might be able to get all three from the Romans, if they still have three cities to give when we want them.

We've had 5 or 6 elite victories already. You have several elites to work with, so the odds against a leader aren't so horrible. If you just picked off stray archers (instead of taking on Rome), the chances of getting a leader during your turns would probably be about 30%. Concentrating on the destruction of Rome probably reduces the chances of a leader, but it's a much better deal for us in the long run.

Good luck!

If you just picked off stray archers (instead of taking on Rome), the chances of getting a leader during your turns would probably be about 30%

Agreed, but since we are all agreed that that is not what I'm going to do... :)

I sure will look to do that with any forces that survive the attack on Rome.

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_BC0150_01.SAV)

Turn 0 - 350 BC - Pre-flight
Could probably pull off a trade to get Math and HBR, but decide not to.
Great Library will take care of that.
Click Go.

IBT - Roman Archers move into jungle instead of towards our SOD.

Turn 1 - 330 BC - Start march on Rome
Per suggestions, leave unprotected archer to distract romans.
MM Theveste and Carthage to clowns to prevent disorder.

IBT - Rome moves around uselessly.

Turn 2 - 310 BC
Continue advance on Rome. Ready for next turn.

IBT - R Roman Archer attacks our V Archer across river. Our Archer redlines then promotes on victory.
The combat is going too fast for my tastes, turn on animated combat
Theveste builds galley start another.

Turn 3 - 290 BC - The day that never happened in reality.
Carthaginian forces attack Rome.
1. V. Archer attacks R. Legion and loses. Legion at 2/3
2. V. Archer attacks R. Spear and wins.
3. V. Archer attacks R. Spear and loses. Spear at 2/3.
4. E. Archer attacks R. Legion (2/3) and loses. Legion promotes (2/4)
5. V. Archer attacks V. Legion (2/4) and wins.
6. E. Archer attacks R. Spear (2/3) and wins.
That was easier than I feared
Rome is razed netting +5 slaves.
Veii is new capitol must be razed soon to keep our sheep.

Kill 4 more Roman archers at a cost of 1 of ours. Leave one redlined for an elite to finish next turn.
New Galley heads south.
Pop Rush Galley in Hippo.
Settler heads south.

IBT - Ottomans complete Great Wall. (Hope they aren't cascading library)

Turn 4 - 270 BC
Hippo gets Galley starts Archer
E. Archer kills redlined archer.
New Galley heads north to look at our north-eastern nub for other land.

IBT - Nothing

Turn 5 - 250 BC
Lure some roman archers into position for attack next turn.
Pop Rush Archer in Hippo

IBT - Luck on defense. Roman Archer attacks our Archer and loses.
Carthage builds Temple -> Archer

Turn 6 - 230 BC
Kill 3 Roman Archers, but lose E. Archer to V. Archer :(
Found Leptis Minor in spot 2sw of Old Rome. Start Temple.
Keep the new archer near Carthage since a roman Galley is up there.
Persia has Republic, but won't consider trading it.
Disband Hippo

IBT - Crap forgot to fix Leptis Major, starvation occurs (down to pop 4)

Turn 7 - 210 BC
Start march on Veii
Start march on Antium
Drop Taxes to 4.6.0 losing too much, need to save some for future rushing when we get Republic, disbanding Hippo hurt.

IBT - Theveste builds Galley starts Temple
Carthage builds Archer starts Library

Turn 8 - 190 BC
Attack Antium
2 V. Archers kill 2 R. Spears.
1 E. Archer kills 1 R. Archer and razes Antium. (+2 slaves)
Lose Galley attacking Roman Galley :(

IBT - NTR

Turn 9 - 170 BC
Attack on Veii
3 V. Archers kill 3 R. Spears
1 E Archer kills 1 V. Archer and razes Veii. (+2 slaves)
Hispalis is new Roman Capitol
V. Archer kills Roman R. Archer

IBT - NTR
Leptis Major builds Archer -> Settler

Turn 10 - 150 BC
Kill Barb Galley with our Galley.
Kill R. Spear with V. Archer, promotes.

Notes:
1. Galley in southwest needs to go 1 north next turn, then do the due west maneuver the turn after. Then should go south around the Persian island to hopefully find more land to visit.

2. The Stack of 5 slaves by Leptis Minor needs one slave to join them to finish the mine next turn. That will free the other 5 up.

3. There is a Roman Spear/Settler pair on the way to where Antium used to be. Probably best to let them move into position and wipe them out. The ruins of Antium will be the first place they are on level ground.

4. I would suggest that the Galley in the north move to the east and south since we won't have the ability to build galleys on the east till we replace
Leptis Major.

5. Leptis Major is building a Settler to go replace Antium. (Actually 1 north of where Antium was). We may want to have it build a couple workers first. They could be used to add pop to Leptis Minor to accelerate the Temple. LMinor won't be useful till cultural Expansion.

6. Consider Switching Theveste to a Library. Two Libs would help us get Republic quicker.

7. I had about 7 elite victories, but no luck on leaders. :(

Not quite what I hoped for, but I think it went OK.

I have to admit I was dreaming of getting a leader while attacking Rome, then building an army, and getting another. Then We could have rushed HE right after finishing the GL. I know it was an ambitious dream, but it was a fun one.

On a more serious note:
I think we want to either stop razing Roman cities or raze just one more. (Cumae or Pizae) That way they can continue to produce Archers for us to kill with our elites.

We are 3 turns from GL, but the Republic has been delayed a bit more than I wanted. Persia won't trade it, so they have sole possession which doesn't help our research much, and also means we won't get it from GL unless we find other trading partners soon.

Once we have the GL, we should hurry a Library ASAP, then a aqueduct if we get Construction from the GL. (We could even consider demanding it from rome for peace, but I think I prefer the FP ploy)

Good job, I can see Caesar unfurling his white flag now. :)

I'd like to add some thoughts:

War
Stay at war, at least until:
We have finished the Great Library and we have caught up tech-wise, and built a library in Utica. Demanding all Caesar's remaining cities (and excess techs) will allow us to start FP. Hopefully we'll get an MGL in the next few turns which would be perfect. But we should clean up the battlefield of roman units and settlers first. This will also give us time to leader farm.

Move the two NMs out of Leptis Minor to a safe square. I know they probably won't get attacked by that lone spearman, but can we really afford to take that chance?

Resources
I don't like those shady couple of squares up by the ivory. A barb horse could come out of there at any moment. Can we put something there ASAP?

Also, can we use one of our vast army of workers to construct a colony on the iron next turn? Once we have swordsmen, we'll have no bother from Ceasar, or Xerxes once he comes knocking at our door.

Build orders
Theveste should build library after temple.
Utica should build library after GLib.
Carthage should build something nice after the library, depending on techs we get from GLib, if there is nothing nice, then use Carthage to build a few swordsmen.
After Leptis Magna finishes Settler, build something that will be finished before we have to abandon Leptis Magna (like a worker, or an archer)

Others
Put one taxman in Carthage and one scientist in Theveste. This gives us -5gpt and Rep in 14 turns. A little more affordable.

Again, well done jeff.

Who's playing next? Haven't heard from viper for a while...
Whoever it is, i think they should stop the game just after we have learnt all the new techs from the GLib so we can assess how this changes our strat...

War
Stay at war, at least until:
We have finished the Great Library and we have caught up tech-wise, and built a library in Utica. Demanding all Caesar's remaining cities (and excess techs) will allow us to start FP. Hopefully we'll get an MGL in the next few turns which would be perfect. But we should clean up the battlefield of roman units and settlers first. This will also give us time to leader farm.

I agree completely. I would just like to leave them cities to build archers, and for us to demand when we eventually make peace.

Move the two NMs out of Leptis Minor to a safe square. I know they probably won't get attacked by that lone spearman, but can we really afford to take that chance?

Go ahead if you are worried about it. Rome has shown no interest in messing with our NMs, and I was assuming that all we had to do was make sure that no archers got close. I liked being able to move all my archers around to lure the Romans into bad positions.


Also, can we use one of our vast army of workers to construct a colony on the iron next turn? Once we have swordsmen, we'll have no bother from Ceasar, or Xerxes once he comes knocking at our door.
Doh, why didn't I think of this. I kept looking for things to do with my workers, should have thought of this. Might even want to take it a step further and colonize one of the various Wool to lower our tax burden. It will be a while before we can get a Temple in Leptis Minor. And one more lux will allow less clowns.


Build orders
Theveste should build library after temple.
Utica should build library after GLib.
Carthage should build something nice after the library, depending on techs we get from GLib, if there is nothing nice, then use Carthage to build a few swordsmen.
After Leptis Magna finishes Settler, build something that will be finished before we have to abandon Leptis Magna (like a worker, or an archer)

We might even want to consider doing the lib first in Theveste.


Who's playing next? Haven't heard from viper for a while...
Whoever it is, i think they should stop the game just after we have learnt all the new techs from the GLib so we can assess how this changes our strat... Viper is up, 24 hour rule is in effect for a got it.

Sorry I haven't posted much, lots of RL plus being up in a bunch of SGs has kept me busy. Been reading this, though. Got it.

Great job, jeff. We are in really good shape.

I also agree on our peace-making strategy. The Romans are no longer a threat, so we can pick off wandering units and leave them cities to build archers for us to kill until we want some cities of our own.

With respect to the NMs in Leptis Minor, I remembered that in Conquests the AI will attack fully healed armies if they are in a town but they won't when they are outside of town. I have some concerns that Rome may feel the same way about our NM. They may become a target in town when they weren't in the open. I don't have any idea if this will happen, but we should consider it.

I think colonizing both the iron and a wool is a great idea. We have lots of Roman workers around and we don't have all that many tiles to improve, although learning construction is going to help out with the tiles-in-use problem. Making sure we unfog those tiles by the ivory would be smart, too. The warrior there could wander until someone else gets there, but the end of the age is coming soon, and a barb invasion wouldn't be fun. I'd suggest getting one of our Roman workers to watch the area. EDIT: Okay, maybe not. A worker may not keep barbs from popping up. Let's get a real military unit there.

Chunkymonkey's build order sounds good to me, with either finishing the temple in Theveste first or switching to a library immediately.

I also would like to stop for discussion after we get techs from the great library.

Great job, jeff. We are in really good shape.

Thanks. It make me feel better. There wasn't anything I thought I did really badly wrong, but I really was hoping for a Leader, and was very disappointed when that didn't happen. Intellectually I know leaders are rare and also due to luck, but it did depress me a bit that I didn't get lucky on that front. (Besides the boost it would have given us)

About the NM. I don't think there is much risk of them attacking. If it was an archer I'd be worried. Still, as you say better safe than sorry. Go ahead and get them out of the way if you want.

I also would like to stop for discussion after we get techs from the great library.
I'll third that motion.

One other thing. If you decide you are going to replace Leptis Major with the city by the wool, you should make sure to get it's population down. Get as much as you can by building and pop-rushing Leptis Major before you abandon it. With Hippo, I founded Leptis Minor and then the last thing on the turn was to abandon Hippo and then re-check the science/lux sliders.
Remember we probably want to wait to do this till we are about to revolt to republic, so just keep the first settler built in reserve.

I was thinking about Utica last night. Let's get it an aquaduct before we revolt, if possible. It can't build anything, but if we have an aquaduct we can increase the population during our anarchy. If we have no aquaduct, we can't do anything at all. Also, we can safely add foreign workers as long as we have a military unit for each foreign citizen. We have an abundance of workers right now, and Leptis Magna will probably build some more; the native workers and a couple of foreign workers will fill out Utica nicely.

Agree, but it depends how close we are to Construction when we've learnt the Republic.

Also, about adding foreign workers. We shouldn't really have any worry about Utica flipping to Rome as it is so culture heavy and so far away. But as it happens, I would rather add our own citizens. This way we can reduce our military cost. We have more slaves than we know what to do with :) - and even though they only work at half speed, they should have all the jobs done that we want them to in no time.

But let's discuss our next moves after we learn our catch-up techs - so much depends on what techs we get.

As an aside, I've got some spare time coming up next week so I was planning on making a start on our Ancient Ages spoiler. I'm happy to do this unless anybody else had a burning desire to do it? I imagine we'll be in the Middle Ages within the next 30-40 turns, so probably best to get it started now...

As an aside, I've got some spare time coming up next week so I was planning on making a start on our Ancient Ages spoiler. I'm happy to do this unless anybody else had a burning desire to do it? I imagine we'll be in the Middle Ages within the next 30-40 turns, so probably best to get it started now...
I was going to volunteer to write it, but since you seem to be up for it, go ahead :)

Suits me. I'm always happy to let someone else do the work. ;)

I am sorry guys I haven't been active. I been busy with school and stuff. Hopefully I will be able to contribute something to the team. I can probably do turns tomorrow.

I am sorry guys I haven't been active. I been busy with school and stuff. Hopefully I will be able to contribute something to the team. I can probably do turns tomorrow.
Viper is playing now. There should be a pause in his turnset to discuss the techs we get from the GL, so you probably wouldn't be up till a day or two anyway.

In the future, when you get busy, could you just post a quick note? Just so we know what's up and can make proper decisions about skips etc.

I understand getting busy (we all do), but it would be nice to know.

I am sorry guys I haven't been active. I been busy with school and stuff. Hopefully I will be able to contribute something to the team. I can probably do turns tomorrow.
Whilst you're waiting to be reinserted, why not read the thread starting from where you left off? It'll give you an idea about the short-term and long-term strategies that we've decided upon. If there's anything you don't get, ask us. It's probably best to have everyone singing from the same hymn sheet. :)

As jeff says, we are going to refocus our short-term strategies once the Great Library gives us our catchup tecs.

I still haven't started yet :blush: I was going to play sometime soon, tonight or something, but I really don't mind conehead234 going ahead.

Just wanted to check and see if anyone was playing. Do we need to skip? If we don't start playing our turns, we will never finish before the cutoff.

Finish your turns Viper, I will take it after you if that is ok.

With all this RL for me, I think a skip is best. Sorry I didn't get to it.

Since i'm in a position to play now, i'll do the first three turns b4 the great library then post it up in the next couple of hours. then we can discuss. i don't mind completing the turnset, or conehead can start another 10 if he likes.

I've played up to 70BC. I'll post the save and turnlog in a couple of hours, I'm just going to go watch a film.

However... in short, we got the Great Library, Mathematics, Horseback Riding and a Great Leader. :)

I've played up to 70BC. I'll post the save and turnlog in a couple of hours, I'm just going to go watch a film.

However... in short, we got the Great Library, Mathematics, Horseback Riding and a Great Leader. :)
[dance]

Also, thanks for getting us moving again.

Well, that sounds nice!

My first thoughts are:
We need to get construction after finishing the Republic. Then polytheism, then monarchy. We should start Utica on a prebuild for either a colosseum or aquaduct, depending on how long it takes us to get construction. We may get construction from the library soon, as some unmet civs know it. When we meet them (or someone else does), we may get lots of other stuff. (I don't remember how close we are to having a galley where other civs might be.)

What should we do with the leader?
1. We could build an army. This lets us build the heroic epic, which would probably not be built for some time. We have a long string of great wonders to build, with not a lot of time in between them. If we got another leader, though, we'd have something else to rush with it. We could also build the military academy later, which would give us a better prebuild than the palace.
2. We could save it to rush the hanging gardens. I think we will have a reasonable prebuild for HG by the time we learn monarchy unless we get poly from the GLib.
3. We could get ourselves a few extra cities and use it to rush the forbidden palace in Utica. This would reduce corruption and give us some culture, too. If we can get some cities from Caesar, this is the way I'm leaning.

Any of these will be nice, though. Thanks, chunkymonkey.

Save is here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_BC0070_01.SAV)

Turnlog

0 - 150BC - Switch theveste to Library. Move Utica warrior to fog.
IBT -
1 - 130BC - Vet archer kills regular spear - Promoted. Build wool colony. South galley continues south. North galley continues east.
IBT -
2 - 110BC - Elite archer attacks spear and settler. Wins 2 slaves. Build iron colony. Pillage Roman access to iron colony.
IBT - Build Great Library :) - start on library.
3 - 90BC - Elite archer kills reg archer. Elite archer kills reg archer and we get a Great Leader!! :thumbsup: Send him towards to Utica.
IBT - Learn Mathematics and HBR from the GLib.
4 - 70BC - Vet archer kills reg archer. Vet archer loses to reg archer :( . Vet archer kills vet archer.

-------------------------------------

Rome knows Construction. Persia knows Republic. Utica is 10 shields into a library build. Our MGL will reach Utica in 1 turn. Rome will give us all their cities and Construction for peace.

Therefore, I propose that Utica switches to archer. On the turn that our MGL reaches Utica, take cities and Construction from Caesar for peace. Rush the FP with our MGL. Then before the end of the turn give these cities back to Caesar. This does three things.

1. Caesar remains a fairly moderate, but useful scientific power. We can therefore continue to trade with him for useful things.
2. Caesar remains a fairly decent militaristic power with his cities pumping out archers for our elites to farm.
3. The occupation of our land with Roman towns means that there is less space for an alien power to settle. I would prefer to have just the Romans as a continental neighbour.

Also, since we will learn Construction from the Romans, we can head towards Monarchy straight away. Hopefully we should get it in about 40 turns, allowing us to have a sufficient prebuild for HG after the FP, library, and aqueduct in Utica.

Any thoughts? I'd quite like to finish off the remaining 6 turns of this set, then I'll pass them on to conehead. So can we modify the roster?

chunkymonkey - UP NOW
conehead234 - ON DECK
CKS
jeffelammar
viper275

Rome knows Construction. Persia knows Republic. Utica is 10 shields into a library build. Our MGL will reach Utica in 1 turn. Rome will give us all their cities and Construction for peace.

Therefore, I propose that Utica switches to archer. On the turn that our MGL reaches Utica, take cities and Construction from Caesar for peace. Rush the FP with our MGL. Then before the end of the turn give these cities back to Caesar. This does three things.

I would also say that we should get Leptis Minor working on a Palace as soon as we can. I think LM should finish the temple, build a courthouse (possibly even rush it) and then palace. That would maximize our current empire's production.

I agree with the FP move, I wish there were a way to use the 10 current shields toward a library and I do have a minor issue that I don't think we want another archer right now. We will be at peace next turn, and our military budget is already high. I think we would be better off not building more military units.
It might be worth finishing the library before pulling the MGL/FP move. It delays us 4 turns on the FP, but would use the 10 shields we have towards culture rather than an even more overblown military.

1. Caesar remains a fairly moderate, but useful scientific power. We can therefore continue to trade with him for useful things.
2. Caesar remains a fairly decent militaristic power with his cities pumping out archers for our elites to farm.
3. The occupation of our land with Roman towns means that there is less space for an alien power to settle. I would prefer to have just the Romans as a continental neighbour.

Agreed. In fact, if we can get to 8 cities without taking all of Rome's remaining (leave them 2 if possible) it will accelerate their re-claiming of land.


Also, since we will learn Construction from the Romans, we can head towards Monarchy straight away. Hopefully we should get it in about 40 turns, allowing us to have a sufficient prebuild for HG after the FP, library, and aqueduct in Utica.

Any thoughts? I'd quite like to finish off the remaining 6 turns of this set, then I'll pass them on to conehead. So can we modify the roster?

chunkymonkey - UP NOW
conehead234 - ON DECK
CKS
jeffelammar
viper275
Turn order is ok. Agree with Monarchy as priority.

I would also say that we should get Leptis Minor working on a Palace as soon as we can. I think LM should finish the temple, build a courthouse (possibly even rush it) and then palace. That would maximize our current empire's production.
Agreed. I was hoping by the time we have built a temple in Leptis Minor we would have another couple of MGLs, one which we could use as a palace rush. This might be hoping for too much though. :)

I agree with the FP move, I wish there were a way to use the 10 current shields toward a library and I do have a minor issue that I don't think we want another archer right now. We will be at peace next turn, and our military budget is already high. I think we would be better off not building more military units.
It might be worth finishing the library before pulling the MGL/FP move. It delays us 4 turns on the FP, but would use the 10 shields we have towards culture rather than an even more overblown military.
I was planning on using the archer to disband to help disband-rush the library. I agree we have too many units. I think we should start disbanding all unnecessary units (that is regular units, warriors, and some archers) in an attempt to reduce completion time for library and aqueduct. The NMs are on their way back to stand in as military police. We should slowly start producing swordsmen in exchange for archers, which we should then disband in Utica.

I considered finishing the library first then doing the FP trick. But this means we would stay at war for another 6,7 turns whilst we wait for the FP build opportunity, and therefore another 6,7 turns we have to go through without getting another MGL. But if everyone else would prefer to do it this way...

Agreed. In fact, if we can get to 8 cities without taking all of Rome's remaining (leave them 2 if possible) it will accelerate their re-claiming of land.
In fact, I was planning on giving the cities back to Rome at the end of the turn. This improves on the advantages of all three points I gave. Of course, we should probably stay away from war for 20 turns, for reputation sake. Would it be better to cripple them for now so that they only have 2 or 3 cities? By the time we go back to war, I want to have a decent enough Roman army to farm again.

Turn order is ok. Agree with Monarchy as priority.
Ok, cool. I'll give everyone else a chance to discuss the plan before I go ahead :)

We should slowly start producing swordsmen in exchange for archers, which we should then disband in Utica.

We also should consider disbanding a couple in Leptis Minor. Would get that temple going quicker.


I considered finishing the library first then doing the FP trick. But this means we would stay at war for another 6,7 turns whilst we wait for the FP build opportunity, and therefore another 6,7 turns we have to go through without getting another MGL. But if everyone else would prefer to do it this way...

Ooops, for some reason I was thinking a library cost 60 shields, so it was only an extra 4 turns. Sounds like you have the better way to go on this. I'm just getting a bit antsy to get a Library going :)
So I think we are doing Archer (for disbanding) -> FP -> Library -> Aqueduct -> Colleseum -> HG pre-build
Is that right?

As a note, one alternative to massive disbanding would be to fight a short war against Persia. Take 12 archers, ferry them over and see how many Persian cities we can raze. (Probably 2 or 3). This would allow us to try to get a leader, and also to slow down the one scientific civ that we know.

So I think we are doing Archer (for disbanding) -> FP -> Library -> Aqueduct -> Colleseum -> HG pre-build
Is that right?

This sounds good to me. We want to rush everything as much as possible, and we'll want to fit in a revolution once we learn the republic, probably as soon as possible, so we can cash rush instead of pop rushing.

Chunkymonkey, I'm in agreement with your proposals. I think we want to leave the Romans in moderately good shape, but not too big. I don't want them to be able to challenge us in 20 turns, but we are probably in good enough shape that we'll be okay giving Caesar all his cities back. I don't think they'll be able to trade for iron any time soon.

I'm all for disbanding unnecessary units in Utica and elsewhere for culture rushing. Building temple, courthouse, palace in Leptis Minor sounds good.

I think we're set. The turn order sounds fine to me.

About a war with Persia: I don't have any feelings one way or the other. We'd need galleys available for ferrying, but slowing down the Persians would be nice. Before they have huge piles of immortals is a good time to attack them, and if our real goal is to see what we can get while we reduce our supply of archers, things should work out okay. On the other hand, peace is always nice. :)

Well, here comes the point where we make a decision about our destiny. I think a war with Persia is fruitless really, since:

1. We're not pursuing conquest - especially now that we've invested so much time in researching Republic.
2. Our meagre band of troops, once we've whittled some down, and left some behind to gaurd Leptis Minor. They're not really going to make a dent in Persian cities.
3. We don't have to worry about Persia landing on our shores with immortals. The AI is poor at beach landings, and by the time they do, we'll have a scattering of swords/medinf.
4. I'd rather keep the scientific civs healthy so that we have a decent tech trading partner, who isn't pissed with us for the rest of the game (i know they are at the moment, but that will probably change).
5. Our archers are much better as disbanding material.

So, in short, i don't fancy preparing to go to war with them during my turns, but if the rest of you fancy it, go ahead, and then I'll help out...

Well, here comes the point where we make a decision about our destiny. I think a war with Persia is fruitless really, since:

1. We're not pursuing conquest - especially now that we've invested so much time in researching Republic.
2. Our meagre band of troops, once we've whittled some down, and left some behind to gaurd Leptis Minor. They're not really going to make a dent in Persian cities.
3. We don't have to worry about Persia landing on our shores with immortals. The AI is poor at beach landings, and by the time they do, we'll have a scattering of swords/medinf.
4. I'd rather keep the scientific civs healthy so that we have a decent tech trading partner, who isn't pissed with us for the rest of the game (i know they are at the moment, but that will probably change).
5. Our archers are much better as disbanding material.

All of your points are valid. I think this really boils down to two options.
1. Basically Peaceful, fight Rome for about 10 turns followed by 20 turns of peace alternating the rest of the game.
Pros: The Peaceful version is an easier and less time consuming strategy. It also allows us more trading opportunities. Leaders remain near Utica.

2. Warmonger. Keep an offensive force of about 10-15 unitis always deployed against somebody.
Pros: More Leader opportunities, (but we would have to have boats to bring them home), Slow down the AI tech rate.
If we keep the wars down to 7-10 turns, War Weariness wouldn't be a problem.

I don't have strong feelings between the options, but I thought we should discuss it.

Personally, I don't like attacking other civs, because it feels wrong to me. We should be nice. ;) This is why my scores tend to be low.

In a 20K game, we want a slow tech pace so that nobody else can build faster than we do, and so that nobody else has a chance for a space ship before we accumulate 20K of culture. Getting rid of the scientific civs helps this out. I think we will be able to outbuild pretty much anybody, though, so I don't think we have to worry too much about the first part. I have a hard time guessing about space ship launches this early in the game.

The rest of chunkymonkey's points I agree with.

Here's the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_AD0050_01.SAV)

Completion of turns : 70BC - 50AD

Turn 4 - 70 BC - Switch Utica to Archer.
IBT -
Turn 5 - 50BC - Sign Peace Traty with Romans in exchange for the cities of Ravenna, Pisae, Cumae and Neapolis, also we get Construction and 35G. Rush the FP with our leader. Abandon Cumae and Pisae. Donate Neapolis and Ravenna to the Romans.
IBT - Complete FP :)
Turn 6 - 30BC - Found Sabratha, start temple. Disband Leptis Magna. Disband a regular archer in Utica - gives 5 shields.
IBT -
Turn 7 - 10BC - Add Roman workers to our two baby towns to try and get them a bit more productive. It works, however, they are unhappier, and we must be careful of the flip risk and always station troops in these cities. Discover a cute one-tile-mountain-island with our southern galley.
IBT - A Persian spear and settler turn up on our land near the ruins of Cumae. :eek:
Turn 8 - 10AD - Not much special happens.
IBT -
Turn 9 - 30AD - try to pen in Persians so they don't settle near the iron.
IBT -
Turn 10 - 50AD - Not much.

We may be at war with the Persians sooner than we imagined! At the moment, I have them penned into a tile where I think a Persian city will do least harm, although I would understand if we want to declare on them now and get a couple of Persian slaves.

Republic is in 2. Xerxes has Republic and Currency. Utica library is finished in 2. I think as soon as we have Republic, revolt, then get the aqueduct underway, maybe disband-rushing some NMs to help with the process. After aqueduct start prebuild for Hanging Gardens (or colosseum) - depending on current war status and leader prospects.

After Republic, research Polytheism, then Monarchy. We should get Currency from the GLib in no time, and we're not in need of a market anytime soon. If one civ learns either Construction or Literature during the next turnset, consider trading it to the others (obviously for a good deal), but not otherwise. We are trying to keep the tech pace down.

Conehead, you're up. 24 hour 'got it' and 72 hour play rules in effect.

Ask me if you don't understand why things are as they currently are - this is avery crucial point in the game.

We may be at war with the Persians sooner than we imagined! At the moment, I have them penned into a tile where I think a Persian city will do least harm, although I would understand if we want to declare on them now and get a couple of Persian slaves.

Republic is in 2. Xerxes has Republic and Currency. Utica library is finished in 2. I think as soon as we have Republic, revolt, then get the aqueduct underway, maybe disband-rushing some NMs to help with the process. After aqueduct start prebuild for Hanging Gardens (or colosseum) - depending on current war status and leader prospects.

After Republic, research Polytheism, then Monarchy. We should get Currency from the GLib in no time, and we're not in need of a market anytime soon. If one civ learns either Construction or Literature during the next turnset, consider trading it to the others (obviously for a good deal), but not otherwise. We are trying to keep the tech pace down.

Conehead, you're up. 24 hour 'got it' and 72 hour play rules in effect.

Ask me if you don't understand why things are as they currently are - this is avery crucial point in the game.
Looks good.

Nice job hemming in the Persian settler.
I would vote for an immediate declaration of war against Persia if we have elites that can attack the pair. Might as well give it a try. Then we would make peace with them the turn before our revolt to Republic finishes. If they build the city before we have elites to attack with, then I would let them be for a while longer.

I would also suggest letting the Library in Utica finish before we start the revolt. If we do, we won't be able to use the "two tries" trick for anarchy length, but I would rather get the culture out there 50 years earlier, which knocks 50 years of the double culture start. Not a huge diff, but It seems worth it to me.

I would strongly suggest that we do not add any Roman workers to Utica. Only add natives that we build in the other cities. We will often be at war with Rome, so it will hurt the one important city if we have foreign citizens.

I think the Colleseum is more important than the Gardens. It is much cheaper, and is only 1 less culture. Once in Republic we should make sure we have a positive cash flow so we can cash rush the aqueduct and colleseum ASAP. Don't use cash for anything else.

Nice set of turns, chunkymonkey.

I won't have a chance to look at the save until later, but things sound good.

We need to make sure that we have money to spend once we become a republic. It is essential that we rush a colosseum before anything else. If we can't get an aquaduct easily before revolting (and at 2 turns for the library and 2 for the Republic, we won't), we need to rush the aquaduct after the colosseum. The reason is not just the 1 turn later that we get the culture if we build the aquaduct first, but the extra turns of doubled culture later on, because the doubling is a year effect, not a turn effect. Getting an extra citizen one turn earlier won't help us much. And I agree with jeff, we must have the library before revolting.

We should disband a unit, cash rush the colosseum, disband a unit, and then cash rush an aquaduct. Then add in some workers to get us to size 12 quickly. We can add in a Roman worker if we need to, but native workers are best as they won't get unhappy when we are at war with Rome. We need to also make sure that they all work improved tiles to get as many shields as possible. We don't need the population to be able to grow by itself, just support itself, as we'll add the workers. Other cities need to build workers to add to Utica to get us to 12 ASAP.

I would also suggest letting the Library in Utica finish before we start the revolt. If we do, we won't be able to use the "two tries" trick for anarchy length, but I would rather get the culture out there 50 years earlier, which knocks 50 years of the double culture start. Not a huge diff, but It seems worth it to me.Please note that during anarchy, no culture is generated.

Please note that during anarchy, no culture is generated.
Yes, but getting the library 5 turns early (50 years) makes the doubling happen 50 years earlier, and later in the game that can make a noticeable difference because turns are closer together as you go on.

You get it 5 turn earlier, i.e. you gain 10cp. How many cpt do you currently have, i.e. how many cp will you gain, IF you are able to reduce anarchy by 1 turn in your 2nd government switch via "Big Picture"? How much cp do you gain by being able to cash-rush earlier?

You get it 5 turn earlier, i.e. you gain 10cp. How many cpt do you currently have, i.e. how many cp will you gain, IF you are able to reduce anarchy by 1 turn in your 2nd government switch via "Big Picture"? How much cp do you gain by being able to cash-rush earlier?

A library is 3 cpt. 5 turns now is 10 turns in 1000 years, so we are talking about 30 cp. While we have a good chance to get less than 5 turns anarchy, if we did we surely wouldn't try again. We aren't gaining 30 cpt now, so reducing by 1 or 2 turns isn't worth it from this perspective. Reducing it from 8 turns to 2 turns would be. The cash rushing issue is only an issue for a colosseum, as we will be building the hanging gardens next. We do want to be able to do this asap, but delaying a library so we can possibly hurry a colosseum by 1 turn isn't a good trade.

A simple solution, however, is to delay learning the republic for a turn, so the library completes first and we can try the reduce anarchy trick. Let's just adjust our tax rate. This will give us a little more cash, which we'd like anyway.

After looking at the save, I have some more thoughts.

We should definitely slow research on the Republic. If we put science to 40% we get Republic in 3 turns and gain 3 gpt. We can finish the library and have two opportunities to revolt via the "big picture" in case our first anarchy period is very long. We need the cash anyway.

Sabratha has 5 Roman citizens. We need 5 military units there to keep it from flipping. Leptis Minor has 2, so we need to keep the two units that are there in town. Because Sabratha and Leptis Minor have so many foreign citizens already, I think we might as well put a couple in Utica. They will have happiness issues down south, so we might as well put them to work in Utica, where happiness will be less of an issue (with a temple, the Oracle, a colosseum, and the Hanging Gardens). I think adding 2 native workers and 2 foreign workers as soon as we get the aquaduct will put us in good shape. Utica should grow to 7 first, then add the workers. If we can get another native worker built quickly, add him in, too. This will get us to size 12 very quickly.

We need to get some archers to Utica to disband. There are several units hanging around down south that should trek north or move into Sabratha.

We need cash for rushing. I suggest that after we get into Republic, we don't research until we get Utica taken care of. We may not be able to rush everything as quickly as we would like, but we need to make it a priority. We could also rush a harbor before the hanging gardens, since we are working the whale, but the extra food won't help much since we are planning on adding workers instead of letting Utica grow naturally. I think we should let it pass.

The land around Utica is in good shape. We want to get the other cities' tiles all worked, and then we should road all the tiles that are ours but not in a city radius. This way when we learn about new resources we won't have hundreds of unroaded tiles to road. The Roman workers will have nothing better to do anyway.

Persia has the Great Lighthouse and is ahead of us all in techs. I think that it is fairly likely that they have met some other civs. We should get a galley to explore around the other side of Persia to see if we can locate them.

I'm okay about attacking the Persians if we have some convenient elites to do it. If we get a short anarchy, they may not talk to us until after we are into a republic, but we should be able to make peace pretty quickly. If we do attack, we should consider building an embassy with India and dragging them into the conflict. We wouldn't then be able to declare peace early on, but the Persians would be unlikely to send many troops our way. We wouldn't have to attack them on their continent, so we could stay away from war weariness problems. As long as Persia doesn't trample all over India, this would distract them from researching for a while.

The Persians are nicely penned in, though, and we could just let them settle a city there on the outskirts. We can declare war later, any time we want.

I agree with all these ponts except for the one about 1 military unit per foreign citizen.

Using Dianthus' Mapstat utility, it tells me that Sabratha needs 2 units, and LM needs 1. Obviously this will change once we are back at war with Romans, but for now these are the numbers.

Another thing to remember is since Persia has the Great Lighthouse, once they build a harbour, we will be able to trade resources with them even before either of us researches Astronomy.

Since neither city has Roman culture and our people are ordinarily happy, the flip probability is [(roman citizens + roman tiles)*(their culture/our culture)-military units]/Distance factor. Right now, their total culture may be really small compared to ours, and I'm used to considering situations where the culture ratio is pretty close to 1. This means that Mapstat is right, and I was wrong. However, now that we are not at war, Rome will be building some culture, and the number of units needed will probably go up as time goes on. We'll have to keep an eye on this.

Being at war has nothing to do with the chances of flipping, so we don't have to worry about this when we redeclare on them. Going into civil disorder does, so we need to keep them happy.

Another thing to remember is since Persia has the Great Lighthouse, once they build a harbour, we will be able to trade resources with them even before either of us researches Astronomy.

Do _we_ have a harbor yet? I think the answer is no, although I don't remember off the top of my head. We need to get one built; let's put it on the list after our cultural buildings complete.

Also, we should check on pop rushing before we revolt. A temple will balance out the unhappiness of two lost citizens (because of the Oracle), so we should pay attention to whether this makes sense for any of our cities. I didn't think of this last night when I had the save open, so I don't know where we are in terms of shields needed.

It's been more than 24 hours and we haven't heard from conehead. I should have time to play this evening; if conehead hasn't shown up by then, I'll plan to go ahead and play. If anybody objects, say so and I won't.

Yep, that's fine by me. Would be a good idea, if you do decide to play, to just post that you have started, just so noone else does.

Also, i don't remember how may shields can be rushed per citizen, since i rarely pop-rush, but go ahead. We need all the help we can get.

Also, can I suggest if we do get a MGL from attacking Persia in the next few turns, use it to rush a palace in Leptis Minor.

Yep, that's fine by me. Would be a good idea, if you do decide to play, to just post that you have started, just so noone else does.

Also, i don't remember how may shields can be rushed per citizen, since i rarely pop-rush, but go ahead. We need all the help we can get.

Also, can I suggest if we do get a MGL from attacking Persia in the next few turns, use it to rush a palace in Leptis Minor.
Play away :)

FYI: 20 Shields per Citizen with a max of 1/2 your pop rounded down.
so 2-3 pop, can rush 1 cit worth, 4-5 can pop 2 cits.
We should definately pop with Leptis Minor before we revolt. In fact this turn would be the optimum rush. We can pop the temple right now. We have 20 shields towards the temple, so 2 pops is the remaining 40 shields. This will let us start on the courthouse right away, then Palace, and we will get the Wool in shortly after the revolt.

If we do get a leader, I would rather create an army. So we can get the Heroic Epic. If you use it on a palace, I wouldn't complain though. (We should be so lucky)

Alright, I'm going to go ahead and play. I'll get things posted tonight or tomorrow morning.

If I can get the Persians with elites before they settle, I'll declare war. If they settle first, I'll probably leave them alone. If a leader should appear, I'll be very amazed, but I'll try to think of something to do with him. :)

Here is the save.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_AD0250_01.sav

Here are a few quick notes. I'll get my turn log posted in a bit.

We are at war with Persia - Xerxes declared on us when I refused to give him literature. He will talk to us now, but won't agree to peace on even terms.

We revolted to Republic and got a 3 turn anarchy. Then our unit costs were 46 gpt. I've disbanded quite a few archers.

Current Utica situation: There are 2 Roman workers in Utica. I think they should be added into the city this turn, but since jeff had concerns about adding in foreign citizens, I thought I'd let him make the decision. Adding them in gets us to 20 net shields and gives us more cash. We will have to increase luxury spending to 10%, I think, to keep them content until the colosseum finishes. I built the aquaduct first, despite what I wrote earlier, because we were so cash poor. I could short rush the aquaduct two turns earlier than the colosseum. This lets us add 5-6 shields and 10 gpt, which gets us to the colosseum I think 3 turns later. (The colosseum would have finished next turn at the earliest.) This will, however, cut about 5 turns off of our HG finish date, so I thought it was a good trade.

I was messing with the tax sliders at the end, and I don't remember what I left them at, but probably not where we actually want them to be.

I'll write more later.

It's looking good. :thumbsup:

I say add the workers into Utica, the 20spt would be great. The resultant unhappiness and minimal flip risk is of no concern at the moment. 20spt is much more important.

As soon as colosseum is finished, I say maximum research on Poly, then time research on Monarchy for HG prebuild.

Once LM has finished courthouse, start library. Also, I would switch citizen for irrigated grassland to mined hill (instead of growth in 3, court in 11, we would have growth in 4, court in 8)

Hopefully, if we can get to the borders to the east (Viking?), then we can meet some new trading partners, this would be helpful at this stage. Once Sabratha has finished harbor, maybe start pumping out suicide galleys? Consider library in Sabratha as well, we need more territory.

Also, we may be able to trade luxuries with India once harbor is finished. This would be a good idea.

Here are a few quick notes. I'll get my turn log posted in a bit.

Sounds good. I can't look at the save here at work, but I think it is reasonable.

I can play tonight.
EDIT: I'll do so unless Conehead posts a got it before about 7:00 Mountain time.

I don't think any of our strategy has changed.
At this point I think the most important things are
1. Exploration: Let's get out there and even try some suicide galleys to try to get some more contacts. I would also suggest that if we do, we don't trade them.

2. War: Make peace with Persia when we have an even Peace possible.

I have a possible long term strategy that I would like us to consider. It is a bit on the war-monger side, but I think it would be a good thing to do. We don't need to do this, but it might be interesting. There are a couple parts to this.
1. We don't maintain any native workers (we have plenty of slaves, and can gain more)
2. We split our army into two purposes
A. Home Front: 10-15 units for defense and leader farming against Rome.
B. Foreign Strike Force: A stack of 4 galleys and 8 swordsmen (or more). These are for performing surgical strikes against foreign governments. As our economy builds, the numbers could go up. The more we hurt the various AIs early, the less risk of having to wage wars to prevent a space race in the distant future.

Like I said, this doesn't have to decided now, but I did want us to consider the possibility. I know not everyone is comfortable with lots of war, but being a sucession game, maybe we should try some things that aren't in our normal repertoire.

I'm fine with the war idea, as long as we feel it can be executed perfectly each and every time. Another war strategy might be a sort of suicide mission in an attempt to raze foreign cities that are competing for the same wonders we are, or are in the current wonder cascade.

I think as long as the tech pace is as slow as it has been, we shouldn't see a space race... but thats a long way off.

We are going to have a fairly culture heavy time soon. Hanging Gardens - Cathedral (rushed) - University (rushed) - Sistines - Bach - Copernicus - Shakespears - Newtons.

We may have to consider different scenarios where we can only get 2/3 of these wonders. This is where the horrible wonder cascade starts. Which ones do we choose? Can we keep the tech pace slow enough and still stay ahead of the game?

I think as long as the tech pace is as slow as it has been, we shouldn't see a space race... but thats a long way off.

I am concerned that we don't really know how the tech race is going right now. There are a bunch of AIs that we haven't met yet. If they have been trading, then we could be backwards right now. That is why I emphasized exploration.


We may have to consider different scenarios where we can only get 2/3 of these wonders. This is where the horrible wonder cascade starts. Which ones do we choose? Can we keep the tech pace slow enough and still stay ahead of the game?
I think we should target Sistine, Bach, Shakespeare and Newton if possible. Hopefully we'll get some leaders to help. Hence my pushing for war :)
Hopefully we will get HG, but I'm not convinced till we know more about the tech race on the other continent(s).

We should also look at when we want to target our Golden Age. I'm torn, but we should be able to trigger it any time now with a NM win over a Roman. As soon as Rome's 20 turns run out :), but we don't have to.

Here is my turn log:

Turn 0, 50 AD Set science slider to 40%, Republic in 3 turns. Pop rushed temple in Leptis Minor. One elite archer could attack the spearman, but not both, so I don't attack.

IBT Xerxes demands literature, I refuse, they declare war. :)

Turn 1, 70 AD Leptis Minor completes temple, starts courthouse. Theveste expands. Pop rush temple in Sabratha (2 pop). Science slider to 30%, 2 turns to Republic, +7 gpt. Elite archer attacks regular spearman and dies, spearman loses no hp. Vet archer attacks (other elite would attack across a river) and redlines but wins. Add worker to LM. Swordsman kills barb.

Turn 2, 90 AD Utica finishes library, starts colosseum. Sabratha finishes temple, starts harbor. Science to 20%, Republic in 1, +9 gpt. Switch entertainer to taxman in Carthage. Vet sword disperses barb camp. Moving archers toward Utica.

Turn 3, 110 AD Learn republic and revolt, 3 turn anarchy so I don't rerevolt. Entertainer and scientist in Carthage, entertainer in LM.

Turn 4, 130 AD Nothing interesting.

Turn 5, 150 AD We are a republic. Unit costs are currently 46 gpt. Continue towards polytheism at minimum. Disband some archers in LM to hurry courthouse. Micromanage to emphasize cash and growth. LM has one scientist, Carthage 1 entertainer.

IBT Persians land a horse.

Turn 6, 170 AD Vet archer attacks horse, it retreats. Vet archer kills horse. All elites were far from horse, as I had expected a landing elsewhere. Move elites into better position for attacking landing parties.

Turn 7, 190 AD Theveste finishes temple, starts aquaduct. Disband warrior, archer in Utica.

Turn 8, 210 AD Leptis Minor expands. Short-rush aquaduct in Utica using cash and disbanded units. It would be 2 more turns before we could do this with a colosseum, as cash is still in short supply. With an aquaduct we can add people, giving us more shields, more cash, and a higher unit support limit, while absorbing some units (workers and disbands). I decide this will be worth it, as it will delay the colosseum about three turns but get us started on the hanging gardens rather quicker.

Turn 9, 230 AD Sabratha expands. Eastern galley goes on a suicide run to the east. We see purple borders, but end turn at sea.

Turn 10, 250 AD Finish colosseum in Carthage. Start swordsman, to replace warriors/archers with. Lose galley without making contact. Utica grows, I add 2 native workers. There are 2 Roman workers available to add in, and I think they need to be, but I'll leave that for jeff. If we add them in, we get to 20 net shields and 4 more gpt. We will have to increase the lux tax to probably 10%, which costs very little as only Carthage and Utica will be paying into the lux tax system. We can short-rush the colosseum in a couple of turns and turn the lux tax back down.

We should crank up the research rate as soon as we get the colosseum built, to get us to monarchy ASAP. At 20 shields, we'll be able to build pretty quickly.

Current score = 334, Current culture in Utica = 662.

About LM, yes, definitely move citizens around. We just got to the point where we can have all three citizens working, so citizen 3 has been a scientist. I was playing around with different scenarios there and with the tax sliders when I decided it was time to quit and go to bed. I'm still not sure whether it is better to do one scientist, 10% science, or no research until we finish the colosseum.

Because I didn't explicitly say it before. Nice Job CKS.

I am concerned that we don't really know how the tech race is going right now. There are a bunch of AIs that we haven't met yet. If they have been trading, then we could be backwards right now. That is why I emphasized exploration.

This bothers me, too. We have had some barb huts around and we haven't seen the end of era uprising, but we might not have had any huts at the right time. Once we've met the other civs I'll feel much more comfortable. I am leaning towards believing that Persia knows some more civs, and that this is why they are ahead of the rest of us. This might just be wishful thinking, though.

I think that if we stay focused on culture, we can get pretty much anything we want during the middle ages. I just did HG, cathedral, Sistine, university, Bach's, Copernicus', FP, and Shakespeare's in GOTM 36, without any problems. I rushed Copernicus, but the rest I built by hand. If I'd have been smart I'd have gotten Smith's as well. We need to go straight for theology, then music theory, then free artistry. As long as we don't trade music theory, bach's is pretty safe. I found getting both ST and Newton was impossible, because everyone else was ahead of me in techs. This might not be a problem in a monarch game.

We won't have any good prebuilds, though, as our palace prebuild is going to stay small. This is going to be an issue for the hanging gardens if we don't get to monarchy quickly. Also, we may need to use the palace prebuild for Utica for HG, and this will interfere with building a palace in LM. We'll have to pay attention to how many shields we can stockpile. During the middle ages, we'll need to use unwanted wonders as prebuilds for the ones we do want, which means staying caught up with the other civs. The Great Library will help at first.

This is an issue that I haven't really thought about. I knew the palace was going to stay a cheap build, but I haven't processed the consequences. I don't know how big a problem it is going to be for HG, for example, where we don't have anything else to prebuild with.

Anyway, I'm now not so confident we can get anything we want, but I still think we can get Sistine, Bach's, Shakespeare's, and either Copernicus' or Newton's for sure. If we get a little leader luck, we'll be in really good shape.

Well, that's probably enough rambling.

Well, maybe not quite enough rambling.

We probably won't need to rush a cathedral, as we can probably prebuild for it between finishing HG and learning theology. If we can put together a big prebuild using Sun Tzu's , we should go for Sistine Chapel first and then we will need to rush it. We will for sure need to rush the university. We need to make sure that we have money to do this. After we get monarchy we should probably turn research down or off completely and coast on the GLibrary for a while.

I think the war plan sounds fine. I like the plan of interfering sooner rather than later. Do we want to form alliances to stir up more trouble for the AIs or would we rather declare war and grant peace entirely on our own terms? We'll have free support for 15 units, once each city has an aquaduct (if it needs it), so supporting 25 or so units won't be too hard on our cash flow.

I think the war plan sounds fine. I like the plan of interfering sooner rather than later. Do we want to form alliances to stir up more trouble for the AIs or would we rather declare war and grant peace entirely on our own terms? We'll have free support for 15 units, once each city has an aquaduct (if it needs it), so supporting 25 or so units won't be too hard on our cash flow.
I think we should sign alliances in certain situations, but not others.
Sign In
1. The ally is right next to the enemy. Sign the alliance and wait 2 turns to attack so the enemy has a chance to move towards the ally.
2. We have places to put our units outside enemy territory after a short attack. (This is to minimize WW)

Don't Sign
1. Alliances where the ally and enemy are not on the same land mass.
2. If the enemy is much more powerful than the ally. This would cause the enemy to actually grow in strength in too many cases. The last thing we want to do is cause the utter destruction of an AI.

OK: I'm playing now. Will post again in a few hrs

The Save File (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_AD0350_01.SAV)
Sorry for the delay. When I first tried to upload the file, my computer went Blue Screen of death. That hosed my network setup, so it took a while to teach it how to talk to the internet again. Anyways, here is the info.

Turn Log
Turn 0 - 250 AD
Add the Romans to Utica. The arguments were good enough for me.
Taxes seem right. Stick with them.

IBT: I get the opportunity to add a Foundation and 1st floor to our palace.

Turn 1: 260 AD
Galley Crosses over to Persia to go around south side.
Persia Still Won't talk peace without Literature. Not going to do that.
Switch Utica to Courthouse and cash rush. (114 g) Switch back to Colleseum. We now have 80 shields towards it, so at 20 spt it is 2 turns.
No more cash rushing needed in Utica, so up taxes to 5.4.1 (Poly in 7)
Four more turns till peace with rome can be broken

IBT:
Carthage builds Sword -> Worker to add to Utica. For swordsmen, Carthage only needs 15 shields per turn, so the extra pop is wasted now, and an extra shield in Utica might (maybe not though) shave 1 turn off the HG.

Turn 2: 270 AD - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

IBT:
Barb near where Leptis Major was. Send archer to take care of it.
Persian Catapult damages our galley.
Carthage builds worker -> sword
Utica builds Colleseum -> Palace as HG prebuild
Sabratha builds Harbor -> Galley

Turn 3: 280 AD
Micro manage Carthage and Sabratha for food, they don't need all the shields.

IBT:
Romans move up, may be about to attack
Persian Galley spotted near Sabratha.

Turn 4: 290 AD
Move our units away from sentry duty to prepare if Rome attacks.
Taxes to 4.5.1 (-2 gpt), but get Poly 1 turn earlier.

IBT:
Carthage builds Sword -> Sword
Persia lands a horse and an archer near Sabratha

Turn 5: 300 AD
Swordsman attacks Persian V. Horse, wins but is redlined
Elite* archer kills R. Persian Archer. Sorry, but couldn't get a valid elite there, and didn't want to risk them taking Sabratha.
Galley near sw coast of Persia spots possible crossing. Will try next turn.
Persia knows Polytheism, and still won't make peace without Literature.

IBT:
Discover Polytheism -> Monarchy (in 10 if I don't change)
Sabratha build Galley -> Galley
Take Quick break to have some dinner :)

Turn 6: 310 AD
V. Archer loses to conscript barbarian warrior. Will send a sword to take care next turn.
The galley finds a small Island. India already has city there.
Leave the taxes alone. Am going to try to time it so the prebuild and the tech come on the same turn. We should use the "big picture -> F1" trick to switch the prebuild to HG and get it that turn. (Our palace is 300 shields and I think HG is as well, so that would be perfect timing)

IBT:
Carthage builds sword -> sword
Theveste builds aqueduct -> sword

Turn 7: 320 AD
Swordsman disperses Barb Camp
Send Galley east 2 from near Sabratha. I see sea to the east, but not within a set that would allow safe passage if there is coast past it. I decide to risk it anyway. The sea is just sea in the middle of ocean. Well maybe I'll be lucky and survive.
Differential Sea note: You can always start on a coast and go sea -> ocean as a scouting move. You can always get back to the orig coast if you do this. It allows you to check for possible corridors.
Leptis Minor is about to riot. Use entertainer. Hopefully the Courthouse will give them enough entertainment to get us out of rioting next turn.

IBT:
Leptis Minor builds Courthouse. Didn't solve happiness. Leave as entertainer.
Galley does not die. :)

Turn 8: 330 AD
The galley stays in ocean moves going east and then south when I see sign of sea. (see attached picture at end - actually I think I ended up east of the arrow, but I don't remember exactly) Woo Woo, I end up on coast near Viking homeland.
Vikings have 0 gold, 5 cities, and lack Literature and The Republic.
He also has no iron, no horses and no lux. He may be screwed.
Taxes to 5.4.1 - Monarchy in 10, same for Palace pre build.
Start moving troops into position for next Roman war.

IBT:
Appologize to Vikings for my galley in their territory
Carthage builds sword -> sword
Sabratha builds Galley -> Aqueduct

Turn 9: 340 AD - zzzzzzzz - Persia still wants lit for peace

IBT:
Theveste builds Sword -> Courthouse. Don't want more military right now. Colleseum would help, but has high cost. Feel free to switch to Colleseum if you want. The Courthouse is a wash (will get one more trade, at 1 maintenence), so Colleseum might be better.

Turn 10: 350 AD
Galley near Scandenavia sees more coast, crosses. I can see a green border (I assume Greece) and a dark blue Galley. (Babylon)
Babylon has 6 cities, 56 gold, lacks republic and lit.
They have horses, dyes, incense) They would pay 56 for lit, but I don't want them to have it.
Can't contact Green this turn, but definately next turn.
The galley near the small indian island goes due west 2 squares, and then I waffle for a while. Finally I decide that the risk is worth it. It keeps going due west. There is a light blue (Germany I assume) border visable, but I was unable to make contact, and I ended on sea. If we get lucky and the galley doesn't sink, we should contact the blue next turn.

After action report:
Persia has currency, so I belive that puts them in the MA, so we don't have to worry about massive barb invasions. When we get currency we'll be able to find out what persia's free tech was.

My intent was to use Leptis Minor's Colleseum build as a palace pre-build switching to palace when Utica builds the Gardens, but if you want to let it finish, feel free.

War with Rome: I think we are almost in position to fight our next rome war. I don't see any need to destroy roman cities. Just wait for them to come to us and kill their troops as a leader farming exercise.
War with Persia: They still want lit for peace. 88 Gold is enough for them to be "we almost have a deal". The war isn't hurting us, so I am perfectly fine staying at war. As long as they don't land more troops, there is no risk of War weariness.

Dont forget to use the "big picture" -> F1 -> Utica to switch Utica to Hanging Gardens on the turn we discover Monarchy. Otherwise the shields will go down the tubes as we'll get a Palace in Utica.

Utica: 908 culture (25 per turn) - Civ assist claims a 14867 culture total in 2050, so I think we are tracking well.
We will soon add HG for 4, Cathedral for 3, Sistine for 6 and Univeristy for 4. Those will put us into a definate 20K win and then it will just be a matter of getting whatever we can to pull the date in.

EDIT: I just noticed that this is the 3rd time in a row that I have left us poised to get a wonder in the next person's 10 turn set. Heh, all the work, but none of the glory :)

EDIT2: I keep thinking of more to add.
We now have contact with: India, Rome, Babylon, Persia and the Vikings
We know where Greece and Germany are and will contact greece next turn (and Germany if the galley doesn't sink)
The only missing entity is the Celts. Keep an eye out for dark green warriors :)

Viper is up next (24/72 rules apply)
Then ChunkyMonkey
Then Conehead
Then CKS
Then me again :)

Nice job, jeff. If you can continue to set up the next person for a wonder in Utica each time you play, I think we'll do very well. :) Good job on finding other civs, too.

We definitely don't want to give literature away, because not having it keeps the AIs from building libraries and slows the research pace. It looks like the other guys are just as backwards as the ones we knew. I think we are in good shape.

I'm leaning toward a colosseum in Theveste rather than a courthouse right now. Because our cities are widely spaced, building cultural buildings helps us gain more territory. Using the colosseum as a palace prebuild in LM sounds good to me, but I don't have a strong objection to doing something else either.

I'm okay with jeff's war plans, too. The only problem with being at war with Persia is that they are the only ones we could trade with. Since I don't see any urgent need to trade at this time, I'm not concerned. Leader farming with both Persia and Rome sounds good, and if we get a leader before the hanging gardens complete, we can build us a new palace or a nice army, all ready to terrorize some poor little archer so we can write an epic poem of its heroism.

...we can build us a new palace or a nice army, all ready to terrorize some poor little archer so we can write an epic poem of its heroism.
:lol: :clap:

OK we'll skip viper, I've got it. Should have it played by Tuesday.

Good job jeff, I'm glad we're getting a full contact list. This is going to make things much easier in terms of wonder cascade management since there is no need to second guess any unmet AI.

Hopefully, by the time we have Monarchy, we'll also have Currency and I can try and estimate the time it'll take to get to Theology for our Sistine prebuild.

Save (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=100200)

I've played an extra turn. I got a bit carried away sorry, but nothing exciting happened on that turn anyway so don't worry. :)

350AD - Switch Theveste to Colosseum, and emphasise production in Sabratha.
IBT- Carthage builds sword - continue.

360AD - Meet Greeks. They are polite, have horses, gems, 31G, currency, and 11 cities. Meet Germany, they are annoyed, have 26G, currency, monarchy, and 4 cities.
IBT - Learn Currency and enter the Middle Ages. Then learn Feudalism and Engineering! :D

370AD - Germans and Greeks both know Monarchy so reduce science spending to zero. Persia is up by Monotheism. Change Theveste build to market. Change Carthage to Market. Meet Ottomans, they are polite, have dyes, incense, and 4 cities.
Declare War on Rome again. Need to raise lux tax to reduce unhappiness from cities with Roman influence.
Attack reg spear with vet sword - win
Attack reg arch with elite arch - win
Attack reg spear with vet arch - promoted
Attack reg spear with vet arch - lose
Attack vet spear with vet arch - win
IBT - Learn Monarchy, Switch Utica to HG. Theveste expands.

380AD - Attack vet arch with elite arch - win
Attack reg spear with sword - lose.
IBT - Apologise to Ottomans for being in territory. Theveste expands. Add a palace part.

390AD - nothing really happens.
IBT -

400AD - destroy a barb. Attack reg spear with sword - win
IBT - Apologise to Bismarck for galley incursion.

410AD - Suicide Galley travels to east of Rome to meet Celts. They are not advanced. We now have a full contact list. :)
IBT - Carthage builds Market - switch to MedInf
LM builds Colosseum - switch to market
Sabratha builds Aqueduct - switch to market
Galley that met Celts is lost... oh well it did its job.

420Ad - Some micromanagement but nothing special.
IBT - Apologise To Hammy and Alex for galley patrols. Hanging Gardens is complete :cool: switch to market for the moment.

430AD - Nothing happens.
IBT - Persia lands horse next to Sabratha.
Carthage builds Med Inf - switch to courthouse
Theveste builds Market - switch to Colosseum.

440AD - Attack Persian horse with sword - horse retreats.
Attack it with elite* archer -win
Attack Rom arch with vet arch - win
IBT -

450AD - Nothing happens.
IBT -

460AD - Disperse barb camp to west of Sabratha.

----------------------------------------

My thoughts for the coming turns

Science
We are currently at zero earning ~ 80gpt. It would take us 12 turns to research Monotheism, but I am convinced one of the AI out of Ottomans, Germans and Greeks will research it within this time. Everyone is still missing Literature, and only Persia is ahead of us with Mono.

Carthage
Currently building courthouse but should switch to Cathedral as it becomes available. Workers are currently planting forest - and moving a mined grass to this forest when finished will net us 20spt in Carthage. Once these workers have finished they could start mining the mountain.

Leptis Minor
Growing at a ridiculousy quick pace. After market - should build library/cathedral.

Sabratha
After Market - should build library/cathedral.

Theveste
Needs desperate improvement as soon as Carhage and Utica are optimised. After Colosseum/cathedral - build granary.

Utica
Building market - but switch to cathedral/Sistine prebuild as necessary. Move mined grass to newly planted forest for max poss shields

War
The Roman war was very boring. They are still not strong enough to produce enough cannon fodder, and our happiness is suffering as a result. Feel free to sign peace treaty.

Persia still don't want peace, but this doesn't bother me. They still don't have iron. I hope Persia don't know Theology yet. Perhaps we can force this current wonder cascade to end with Sun Tzu's if we keep everyone else away from Theology.

Spoiler
Putting the finishing touches to it! I'll post it up in this thread tomorrow, and then I'll leave it up for a couple of days for comments and criticsm before i post it in the spoiler thread.

UP NOW - CKS

Good turns. Good to see we have contact with everyone.


I've played an extra turn. I got a bit carried away sorry, but nothing exciting happened on that turn anyway so don't worry. :)

It happens. No problem.

420Ad - Some micromanagement but nothing special.
IBT - Apologise To Hammy and Alex for galley patrols. Hanging Gardens is complete :cool: switch to market for the moment.

[dance]


Science
We are currently at zero earning ~ 80gpt. It would take us 12 turns to research Monotheism, but I am convinced one of the AI out of Ottomans, Germans and Greeks will research it within this time. Everyone is still missing Literature, and only Persia is ahead of us with Mono.

I agree with you on this. After we get Monotheism though, we should go all out for Theology, or at least whatever the level needed to get it timed with whatever prebuild we end up with.
After that, I say don't worry about bagging the GL and go straight for Education. We need the University sooner rather than later and we want to go for Copernicus and JS Bach.



Leptis Minor
Growing at a ridiculousy quick pace. After market - should build library/cathedral.

I thought we were going to go palace here, but now that I see the production, I would suggest cathedral then library then palace.


Sabratha
After Market - should build library/cathedral.

Sure. I might have gone lib -> market -> Cathedral, but this is fine.


Theveste
Needs desperate improvement as soon as Carhage and Utica are optimised. After Colosseum/cathedral - build granary.

We don't need a Colesseum in Theveste. Switch to Cathedral before Colleseum is completed. Once we get Sistine, Theveste will be set without a colleseum until we get to Hospital. If we want to build it later, fine, but it does cost 2 maintainence.


Utica
Building market - but switch to cathedral/Sistine prebuild as necessary. Move mined grass to newly planted forest for max poss shields

I would absolutely agree to switching this to Sun Tsu as a prebuild. What it is a prebuild for is dependent on how long it takes the GL to give us Monotheism.
When we get Monotheism the following calculation would take place.
How many shields over the cathedral are we.
If none or < 20, switch to Cathedral and rush it then start Sun Tsu as Sistine pre-build.
Otherwise time Theology to match when we would have enough shields for Sistine (600 IIRC). In this case disband an archer and rush the cathedral the turn after sistine.


War
The Roman war was very boring. They are still not strong enough to produce enough cannon fodder, and our happiness is suffering as a result. Feel free to sign peace treaty.

Persia still don't want peace, but this doesn't bother me. They still don't have iron. I hope Persia don't know Theology yet. Perhaps we can force this current wonder cascade to end with Sun Tzu's if we keep everyone else away from Theology.


Agreed. Sign peace with Rome if you wish. Persia will want peace eventually, so don't sweat them either.


Spoiler
Putting the finishing touches to it! I'll post it up in this thread tomorrow, and then I'll leave it up for a couple of days for comments and criticsm before i post it in the spoiler thread.

Cool. Look forward to seeing it.

One other thing. Time to start thinking about triggering our Golden Age. I would suggest that we get Sistine and then determine the timing of the Golden Age. Either immediately, or start it when we get Education. The flow would be disc Education. Rush Univeristy, Trigger GA, start copernicus pre-build and go for Astronomy. Researching Music Theory while we finish Copernicus.

I think staying at war with Persia is probably essential as they are our closest competitor in the tech race. Them building units rather than improvements slows their tech pace. As long as we can maintain happiness through a Persian war that lasts through the entire Middle Ages, which might not be a problem if we keep them at bay, and we manage to pinch Sistine's then this should be OK. If they do discover Theology before wonder cascade ends, perhaps we should try to draw in Ottomans, Greeks, and Germans (next most advanced civs), to and slow their tech rate and stop them from trading for Sistine.

Also, yes. Triggering GA as soon as Education is researched would be perfect. If we can do this, and slow the other's techs, I have no worries about getting at least three, maybe four out of Bach's, Shakespear's, Copernicus', Newton's.

Here is my spoiler: whadya think?

-----------------------------------

Team jeffelemmar – Ancient Ages Spoiler

Goal
For this game, we are pursuing a 20K victory with our second city – Utica. However, we decided that if this wasn’t going quite to plan, we would be prepared to go :hammer: . This approach would effectively scupper our chances for a UN win, or trading for Modern Age resources for the Space Race. So it was effectively 20K, Conquest, or bust. Since this is 5CC, and we are commercial, we felt RCP was not absolutely essential – but if the opportunity turned up we would go for it.

Initial Moves
The spot for Carthage would be fairly important, so we moved our worker onto the mountain to get a better view. There was nothing amazing there, so Carthage was settled on the spot. Research set to The Wheel on maximum, which we eventually learn in 2950BC. Hopefully our neighbours would not possess this tech, and we would be able to trade it around. Spend a few turns scouting the immediate area for a good 20K spot, and then send warriors south to find a friend. In 2900BC we produce our first settler and after much deliberation, send it northeast to grab the spot between the BGs, whale and hills. We also considered spots to the south, either near the wool, or the sheep, but we didn’t fancy the corruption problems or defendability issue. We eventually settle at these points, but we needed to get our 20K underway ASAP. In 2850BC we meet our first rival – Rome. Not exactly the Ancient Age neighbour that everyone wants! In 2710BC we settle our designated 20K city – Utica.

Consolidation of Power
In 2550BC we discover CB, and start research on Writing. In 2470BC, we pop another settler from Carthage and send it towards the wool in the south. We hoped Rome wouldn’t beat us. In 2350BC, Rome learns IW which is a bit annoying, we need to get a move on with our research. Trade CB to Rome for Pottery. Rome builds a city by the wool area we were hoping to nab :( , so we divert settler to the sheep instead and build Leptis Magna in 2150BC. In 1500BC, we settle Theveste to the northwest of Carthage next to the hills. This will allow us to keep an eye and have access to the ivory there. In 1700BC we learn Writing and start research on Mapmaking as a crutch if our Colossus build in Utica gets beaten, and so we can start getting contacts. In 1350BC, we build Hippo on the hills to the south of Carthage for its strategic positioning and production potential for the up and coming war on Rome.

Keeping ahead of the game
Disaster strikes. In 1300BC, the Vikings build Colossus :eek: , so we quickly change plans and start preparations for building of the Oracle. In 1225BC we research MapMaking, and start building galleys. In 1075BC we research Mysticism. In 1025BC we meet our first overseas friend. They’re not really any better than Rome! In 975BC meet another, slightly friendlier AI sharing the continent to the northwest. After researching Literature, we decide that a Republic govt. would be much more suited to our long term plans, so we follow this path. Build the Oracle in 950BC and start work on the Great Library.

The Carthage-Roman War of 730BC – 50BC
We decided that since Rome owned the only source of iron, this would be the time to strike and strike decisively. Rome is still building the pyramids, so their Legion production would be minimal. If we didn’t take this opportunity now, we figured we would probably be :spank: for the rest of the game. In 710BC we raze the town of Pompeii. A stack of mercenaries and archers head towards the iron hill in an attempt to pillage it, with the slim hope that our GA does not get triggered. In 610BC we pillage their iron. At this point, we have only seen one legion, which has been fortified in Rome for the entire time our pillaging stack moved towards the Roman iron. In 550BC, we raze the town of Virconium. In 290BC we eventually raze Rome :yeah: . In 230BC we settle Leptis Minor two squares southwest of the ruins of Rome allowing us quick access to iron and wool, but must disband Hippo to maintain 5 cities. In 190BC, we raze Antium. In 170BC, we raze Veii. In 110BC we build the Great Library. In 90BC, we get a Great Leader attacking an archer :bounce: . Send him towards Utica in preparation for rushing the FP. In 70BC we learn Maths and HBR from the Glib. In 50BC, we give Caesar peace and he gives us all his cities and Construction. We then rush the FP with our leader before giving cities back to Caesar.

Development of the Carthaginian empire
In 30BC we settle Sabratha next to the wool south of Carthage and disband Leptis Magna as a result. A foreign power has started landing settlers on our shores – annoying. One particular warmonger demands we give him literature. We decline, so he declares war. In 110AD we learn Republic and get a 3 turn anarchy period. We then beeline towards Monarchy in an attempt to grab the Hanging gardens. In 330AD we start accumulating more contacts and by 410AD we know everybody. In 360AD we learn Currency from the GLib and enter the Middle Ages, where we also learn Engineering and Feudalism. In 370AD we declare war on the Romans again for leader faming purposes, but to no avail, they’re not producing enough fodder for our bloodthirsty warriors :rolleyes: . We learn Monarchy and in 420AD Utica builds the Hanging Gardens. The wonder cascade falls to a couple of civs who know Feudalism.

Utica
We chose to have 20K in Utica rather than Carthage due to the power of the palace pre-build. Our main objectives for successfully completing 20K are to:
1. Keep the tech pace extremely slow - there are a few scientific civs out there somewhere, so this might be tricky. However, we have been fairly successful with us and AI simultaneously entering MA around 350AD. The Middle Ages wonder cascade is absolutely horrible, and we hope to be under control of at least 4 out of 5 wonders.
2. Perfectly executing prebuilds for wonders.
3. Get our GA to start at the perfect time. We have been lucky in managing to suspend the start of our GA for this long.
4. Also, a few leaders here and there might be nice :) .

Improvement build dates for Utica in the Ancient Ages:
Built a temple in 1870BC.
Built The Oracle in 950BC.
Built The Great Library in 110BC.
Rushed a Forbidden Palace with our MGL in 50BC.
Built a library in 70AD.
Built a colosseum in 290AD.
Built the Hanging Gardens in 420AD.

Looks great to me. The only comment I have is that you are definately violating the letter of rule 4 from the spoiler list.
4. No discussion is permitted of any contact made from other continents.
That said, since everyone else playing is ahead of us in the timeline, I would go ahead and post as is and not worry about the fine line you tread when mentioning the non-continental powers.

Yeah, I had to rewrite parts when I realised that was a rule. However, since everyone should have at least met Persia and India before the Middle Ages is out, and I haven't mentioned specific details about any civ, I figured my refinements were OK. I was going to stick the current minimap in there as well, but it seems a bit pointless now if I have to scrub out the foriegn lands. But I still can do this if you think its a good idea, just to demonstrate how we've made incursions into Rome!

I've got the save. I can probably play either tonight or tomorrow night. I'll play 9 turns to put us back on schedule.

Nice job, chunkymonkey.

No research until someone gives us monotheism, then max for theology sounds like the way to go. Straight for education I agree with unless it looks like we can get it from the GL quickly - if we get theology from the library before we learn it ourselves, then we might research printing press while we wait for education. If we get theology first, we don't want to wait around for somebody else to get education. (Education won't do anyone else any good until they go back and learn literature; surely someone will do this soon.)

The cities look good, and I'm in agreement with your ideas about builds.

I'll sign peace with Caesar and continue to kill Persians who encroach on our space.

The spoiler sounds good to me. I don't see a problem with your mention of other civs; it doesn't cross over into discussions and we are definitely the last to reach the middle ages. We might remove the reference to where India is, if anybody has concerns.

Nice job, chunkymonkey, and thanks for taking it on.

No research until someone gives us monotheism, then max for theology sounds like the way to go. Straight for education I agree with unless it looks like we can get it from the GL quickly - if we get theology from the library before we learn it ourselves, then we might research printing press while we wait for education. If we get theology first, we don't want to wait around for somebody else to get education. (Education won't do anyone else any good until they go back and learn literature; surely someone will do this soon.)
I would go straight for Education no matter what and hope that an AI gets Printing Press for us before we get the Education. Printing Press gives "Contact Trading", so the AI is fairly likely to go for it and we need to make sure we get Education to get our University ASAP after the Chapel is complete.

Given our plan of triggering our GA after Education, I suggest signing peace with Rome now so 20 turns will have elaspsed when we want to use a NM to trigger it on a Roman.

I've got the save. I can probably play either tonight or tomorrow night. I'll play 9 turns to put us back on schedule.
Play 10 if you want. There is no reason to feel that we have to be synced up to some mythical "even turns" number. :)


3. Get our GA to start at the perfect time. We have been lucky in managing to suspend the start of our GA for this long.

I'm not sure how much it was luck. You and CKS did a great job of avoiding the GA at the beginning of the first Roman war.

I've had a chance to look at the save now. I'm planning on playing tonight, but I had a few thoughts.

For Carthage, I agree we should switch to a cathedral as soon as we learn monotheism.
For Utica, switch to Sun Tzu's and prebuild. I think we will get monotheism soon from the GL, because I think that Xerxes knows the other civs.
For Theveste, I agree on swapping the colosseum to a cathedral.
For Sabratha, I think we need to get culture; the temple alone isn't cutting it. I think we should build a library first, then marketplace or cathedral. At 2 cpt, we aren't going to get an expansion for a long time.
For Leptis Minor, I think we need to talk about the palace. We will have it in less than 16 turns, and it will immediately give us an extra 10 spt and 10 gpt, at least. I don't think corruption up north will change significantly, but in both LM and Sabratha we will get much less. Cathedral, then library, then palace gives us lots good things for LM, but I think the palace first is better.

What about building some embassies?
I don't think we should take Roman cities for peace, but we could get all of them.

For Leptis Minor, I think we need to talk about the palace. We will have it in less than 16 turns, and it will immediately give us an extra 10 spt and 10 gpt, at least. I don't think corruption up north will change significantly, but in both LM and Sabratha we will get much less. Cathedral, then library, then palace gives us lots good things for LM, but I think the palace first is better.

I have no problem with getting the Palace first. The main reason I said Cathedral was the happiness issue we currently face there. Once at peace with Rome, that may go away anyway.

On the subject of Peace with Rome. I would take all their cities and give them back to them. No real in game reason, just because I could.

Embassies. As long as the cost of building them doesn't take us under the cost of cash rushing the Cathedral and University, then build them. I don't know if we can though. Doesn't embassy come with Contact Trading?
EDIT: Scratch that. I just opened the game and we can build embassies. I think we should, but keep 500 gold around for rushing.

Agree with builds. This actually might be a good time to build Palace in LM seeing as how we don't currently need it as a prebuild in Utica.

Not really bothered with taking cities from Rome to be honest.

The only embassy I can really see us needing at the moment is that with India, for possible MA with Persia later. Embassies with Greeks, Ottomans and Germans may also be useful later for this purpose. However, remember that building an embassy gives us a free look into the capital, which we may want to save for the up and coming wnder cascade we will have to manage.

I would rather keep the cash if we don't need an embassy for either of these reasons.

The reason I'm thinking about some embassies is that I want to know if Persia has contact with other civs, just because I want to know if they are going to trade monotheism any time soon. Of course, since I can't do anything about it, it is just a curiousity issue. We definitely do want to keep plenty of cash around for rushing. I think we will get monotheism before building past a cathedral in Utica, but if I'm wrong we'll need to rush both a cathedral and a university very quickly.

I noticed that Persia had captured a worker from India, so they've already been at war.

If we are going to leader farm from Rome, we need to leave them with some production. They are doing a lousy job as it is; four cities with 5 citizens can't build much. Hopefully they will grow some if we don't take the cities.

I think we should plant another forest near Utica; that will give us an extra shield per turn if we need it. We'll slowly cut into our built up food supply when we use it, but we can do it for a while. Then we need to get some workers over to Theveste. It is growing slowly, so we might add in a worker after we get its tiles improved, but we have a lot of work to do first. I'll work on this.

The only embassy I can really see us needing at the moment is that with India, for possible MA with Persia later. Embassies with Greeks, Ottomans and Germans may also be useful later for this purpose. However, remember that building an embassy gives us a free look into the capital, which we may want to save for the up and coming wonder cascade we will have to manage.

Upon further review, I agree with chunkymonkey on this. Let's wait on the embassies till we want to see their capitols.

I'd really like to get a better world map (too bad trading won't happen for a while). Greece seems to have the most cities, so we may want to get 2 other AIs to dog-pile Greece at some point in the not too distant future. We want to be careful though. We don't want any AIs to be destroyed, so try to maintain the balance of power between different AIs.

As a note: I can play tonight or tomorrow. If CKS gets his turns done early enough AND we don't need to discuss I'll just grab and go tonight. Otherwise we can discuss tomorrow and I'll play tomorrow evening.

Here is the save. I tried to get it up last night, but my connection had issues.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_AD0560_01.sav

Here is my turn log.

Turn 0, 460 AD Switch Utica to Sun Tzu’s, Leptis Minor to Palace, Sabratha to library. MM LM for shields, still grow in 2. Made peace with Romans, happiness improves, leave slider at 20% lux.

Turn 1, 470 AD MM Sabratha for food, move units around, Persian galley in the area.

IBT Persia wants peace and lit. I refuse. Sabratha builds library, starts marketplace. LM grows

Turn 2, 480 AD LM grows in 5, palace in 12. Workers head north.

Turn 3, 490 AD Carthage completes courthouse, starts worker for Theveste. Workers finish forest for Utica – 22 turns to Sun Tzu’s.

Turn 4, 500 AD Carthage starts MI.

IBT See Persian galley again.

Turn 5, 510 AD Join worker to Theveste.

IBT 2 horsemen land near Sabratha.

Turn 6, 520 AD Carthage builds MI, starts another. Elite archer retreats horse. Elite* archer kills horse. Vet sword covers Sabratha.

IBT Redlined horse kills elite archer. :(

Turn 7, 530 AD Vet MI kills horse. LM grows, emphasize shields for palace in 6, growth in 7. MM Sabratha, grow in 4, marketplace in 3.

IBT Forgot about barbs while dealing with Persians, lose 2 foreign workers who were walking north. :( Roman settler boards galley.

Turn 8, 540 AD Kill barb.

IBT LM expands. Persians start Sun Tzu’s, Persian galley arrives Sabratha. Romans get out of boat by Cumae fish.

Turn 9, 550 AD Nothing much

IBT Persian horse unloads, another galley appears. Sabratha expands.

Turn 10, 560 AD Sabratha finishes marketplace, start colosseum. MI kills barb, MI kills Persian horse. MM LM – palace and growth in 3.

Firaxis Score: 420
Utica’s Culture 1489

Thoughts about the game:
Nothing exciting or controversial happened. I didn't build any embassies. There isn't much to talk about, except research.

Everyone else is backwards. They may all be working on literature. We can get monotheism in 6 if we run a deficit, and we may need to. Sun Tzu’s will finish in 15 turns, so we have 15 turns to get to theology or we will lose our prebuild and probably get Sun Tzu’s. I’m not sure how long we can wait. We could try waiting it out anyway, but I’m getting a little uncomfortable. The Persians just learned feudalism, so I’m reasonably confident that they haven’t started theology yet. We might not start a cascade if we build Sun Tzu’s first, but I think it is pretty iffy. I’m surprised, because I thought Persia would trade monotheism for feudalism or engineering. Is it possible that they haven’t met anybody else? Surely not.

We are running out of stuff we want to build because we don’t have any new techs. Carthage has been building MI, but we don’t need many. When size 12 cities get full of food, they should build workers to send to Theveste and Sabratha to hurry things along; they are in pretty good shape, but we can stuff them fuller. When LM is optimized for food, it grows in 5 turns without a granary.

After it finishes the palace, in 3 turns, LM needs some happiness improvements. A cathedral would be nice. Then I was thinking that maybe we could use LM as a wonder cascade killer. If LM builds the low culture wonders while Utica builds the high culture wonders, we might be able to break up some cascades before the AI can switch to our desired wonders. We may never be in a position where this would be helpful or possible, but I’m going to put it in the back of my mind, just in case.

Here is the save. I tried to get it up last night, but my connection had issues.

No worries. I'll get my turns in tonight.


Everyone else is backwards. They may all be working on literature. We can get monotheism in 6 if we run a deficit, and we may need to. Sun Tzu’s will finish in 15 turns, so we have 15 turns to get to theology or we will lose our prebuild and probably get Sun Tzu’s. I’m not sure how long we can wait. We could try waiting it out anyway, but I’m getting a little uncomfortable. The Persians just learned feudalism, so I’m reasonably confident that they haven’t started theology yet. We might not start a cascade if we build Sun Tzu’s first, but I think it is pretty iffy. I’m surprised, because I thought Persia would trade monotheism for feudalism or engineering. Is it possible that they haven’t met anybody else? Surely not.

Looks like there might not be contact between persia, et al. I'm at work now, so I can't check the save, but is there any way we could encourage Persia and India to trade?

I think someone will have monotheism in the next 6 turns. They usually go after Chivalry pretty quick. So I think we have to options.
1. Gamble that it will happen and we can research Theology in the 9 remaining turns before theology.
2. Switch to Monotheism and get it in 6 and then research theology.

In my opinion, getting Sun Tsu is not an option its culture is too low, and would push Sistine out to the point that it's culture would never double.



We are running out of stuff we want to build because we don’t have any new techs. Carthage has been building MI, but we don’t need many. When size 12 cities get full of food, they should build workers to send to Theveste and Sabratha to hurry things along; they are in pretty good shape, but we can stuff them fuller. When LM is optimized for food, it grows in 5 turns without a granary.

After it finishes the palace, in 3 turns, LM needs some happiness improvements. A cathedral would be nice. Then I was thinking that maybe we could use LM as a wonder cascade killer. If LM builds the low culture wonders while Utica builds the high culture wonders, we might be able to break up some cascades before the AI can switch to our desired wonders. We may never be in a position where this would be helpful or possible, but I’m going to put it in the back of my mind, just in case.
I like the cascade killer concept, keep it in mind for if we think we need it.
One thing we should consider is how we can our hands on some horses. It would be really nice to build some horsemen that could be upgraded to knights/cavalry. They are a far more mobile force for protecting the homeland, and would be a more effective strike force if we decide to take someone down a notch.

EDIT: damn, hate it when I submit and 2 secs later realize I didn't finish.
For the moment, I think Persia is the only possible source of horsies. Once we eventually make peace with them, we should at least consider the possibility of trading for horses.

EDIT 2: Once the Vikings learn Astronomy, we need to make sure we always have 3 units in Utica. I would hate to lose our 20K to a berserker sneak attack.
The other cities we would be able to re-take, but Utica is too important.

If the other civs aren't trading this is good for us at this stage in the game. Perhaps we can get past Sistine, Bach and Coprnicus without Persia meeting anybody.

I'm happy with either research option. If it does look like we are overproducing in Utica, then we could always switch some mined BGs to other tiles to reduce production, possibly buying us a couple more turns. Haven't looked at the save, but I imagine we have quite a lot of cash saved up, so we can afford to research at defecit if required.

Like the idea of the cascade killer in LM.

I wouldn't hold out hope for getting hold of the horses. Persia are seriously pissed. We'd either have to wait to learn Navigation before we can trade with others or go and conquer Persia. I really doubt our small military could stretch to protecting and securing a horse link through an Indian harbour, and by this time we would have lost the G.Lighthouse advantage of sea trading. By the time we've sorted it all out we'll probably have infantry!

Hopefully by the time Vikings have learnt Astronomy and decide to declare on us we'll have muskets/riflemen so I don't really see it as an issue, but you never know...

In my opinion, getting Sun Tsu is not an option its culture is too low, and would push Sistine out to the point that it's culture would never double.

EDIT 2: Once the Vikings learn Astronomy, we need to make sure we always have 3 units in Utica. I would hate to lose our 20K to a berserker sneak attack.
The other cities we would be able to re-take, but Utica is too important.

I agree, we don't want Sun Tzu's. It is better than wasting 600 shields for nothing, but not a lot better. We need theology soon. We can delay a while, as chunkymonkey said, but if we are delaying and someone else builds Sun Tzu's, we'll be stuck with nothing.

I agree about keeping units in Utica. We have plenty of units and they need to be somewhere; they might as well be there keeping berserkers out.

We do have plenty of money saved up, so we can run a deficit for a long time, but if we have to get to theology all by ourselves, we can't wait too long. 6 turns for monotheism plus at least that for theology doesn't leave much room for wiggling.

By the way, It's been 48 hours and no complaints. I say post the spoiler.

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_AD0660_01.SAV)

Ok first I have to say sorry. I implemented a slightly different strategy than discussed. It occured to me while playing. I decided that Theology would take 8 turns to build, so I would wait till we had exactly 8 turns left on it and then if the GL hadn't given us monotheism, then I'd trade with persia.

I decided this when on my Turn 1 I killed two persians and they were immediately willing to trade peace + mono + 20 for peace + eng. I still hoped to get monotheism from the library, but this was my fallback that allowed me to risk not researching it myself.

Turn Log:
Turn 0 : 560 AD - No Changes. Can wait two before I make decision on Monotheism

IBT - Persia lands horse and archer by Sabratha

Turn 1 : 570 AD -
V. sword kills Persian R. horse
E. Archer kills Persian R archer
Persia will accept even peace: see above.

IBT: Apologize to Scandinavia for galley incursion
Carthage builds MI start a NM (want 2 down south for GA trigger)

Turn 2: 580 AD
Switch Theveste to harbor. Don't need more units, but this will allow us to mm for extra commerce when we don't need the shields for building.

IBT: Leptis Minor builds Palace start on Library. (went from 81 gpt to 89)

Turn 3: 590 AD - zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

IBT: Carthage builds NM -> MI
Theveste Harbor -> Galley

Turn 4: 600 AD
MM Theveste for more commerce. Galley in 3.
Slow Carthage to a MI every 3 turns. Don't want too big a military

IBT: zzzzzzzzzz

Turn 5: 610 AD: zzzzzzzzzz

IBT: Apologize to Celts and Babs for galley incursions.
Leptis Minor builds Library -> Marketplace

Turn 6: 620 AD
Switch Theveste to Granary. Next turn is the Monotheism from GL, so I can switch to Cathedral then.

IBT: Carthage builds MI. Start Worker.

Turn 7: 630 AD: Show time. Too bad couldn't get more.
Trade Peace + Engineering to Persia for Peace + Monotheism + 20 Gold.
Switch LM, Thev and Sab to Cathedral

IBT: Carthage builds worker and starts on own Cathedral

Turn 8: 640 AD:
Nothing to report other than that Greece knows Invention.

IBT: Greeks start Leonardo's, now there's a shock.

Turn 9: 650 AD
Start a new forest near Utica as discussed.
MM Carthage for more food. Same Cathedral time
Disperse a barb camp
Add the worker to Theveste. (shaves a turn of cathedral)

IBT: Watch some Gallic Swordsmen run around in Celt homeland.

Turn 10: 660 AD
Not much going on.

Utica Culture: 1779 (+29 per turn)
Carthaginian Culture: 3100

Notes: Sorry for the switch. I thought the chance of getting monotheism was worth it. Too bad it didn't surface. Persia is still the onle one other than us to have Theology. That much is good news since we can probably get a good head start on Copernicus.

We are 5 turns from Theology and 5 turns from Sun Tsu. Remember to use the big picture and f1 trick to get the chapel instead of TSAoW.

We should go ahead and try to snag Leo with Leptis Minor. We will only be a couple turns behind and I bet we produce more than the Greek city. We can always abort and trash the shields if it looks to set up a dangerous cascade.

Research. We unfortunately we won't have education in time to get sistine, then cathedral then university. I suggest that we use the time between the Cathedral and getting Education to get a marketplace and then to pre-build the University.

I have the feeling that the main thing slowing the tech race right now is lack of contact. I bet that when Printing Press is discovered the tech rate will jump. Let's try to get as much of a head start on Copernicus and JS Bach as possible before that happens.

Let's consider both Viper and Conehead as skips. If they show up, they stay at their current places in the order and will get their turn the next time it comes around.

Well done jeff. Don't worry about the switch, we're still in the same place we wanted to be :)
I've got the save and I 'll have a look at it later. I'll probably be able to play by Saturday evening.

Just had a look at the save, everything looks fine. I just have a suggestion.

We have a possible trade with Persia:
Either

1. Wool+58gold -> furs+horses

or

2. Wool -> furs+28g

Seeing as how the AI we will probably want to use horses/knights against will be Persia, we could trade for these from India or any other civ when we get Astronomy, assuming there is a sea channel to the other continent we haven't yet discovered. So I plan to initiate trade no.2. Also, once we can trade with the others, we should be able to quite easily trade for 6-8 luxuries. I'm not sure we need this many, since the Chapel should make all cities turn into WLTKD, but if we can get hold of them, it would make things a little better during wartime.

Nice job, jeff. I think using the Persian trade as a fall-back was a good idea. It sounds like things are going well. I think you are right about lack of contact slowing the tech pace; let's take advantage of it while we can.

Either trade with Persia sounds okay with me.

If I have any other thoughts after looking at the save, I'll post them, but it sounds like everything is already covered.

Don't worry about the switch, we're still in the same place we wanted to be
It's just that in retrospect I wish I had made the monotheism trade with Persia when it was first availiable. Then we could have targeted Education for two turns after we finished Sistine. The upside is there is a good chance we'll get an extra tech or two out of the GL before we obsolete it with Education this way.



1. Wool+58gold -> furs+horses

2. Wool -> furs+28g

I would probably go with #1 so we can start replacing some of our Swords and the few remaining non-elite archers, we are about 13 turns from education (5 more for Theology and about 8 more (I think) for education. After that, our cities will be building Universities (a high priority everywhere). Seems to me that the next 13 turns is the time to start building a supply of horses.

That said. I have absolutely no problem if you decide to go with the no horses option.

BTW: The streak is alive. Again I leave things with the next player building a wonder. Of course in most cases it was the person before me who really set us up on the wonder, but it is amusing. Will I ever get to be the one who builds a wonder?

I preferred the non-horse trade since I figured Persia would probably declare again before the cease-fire is up and we would be horse-less, but I guess horses for any amount of time would be useful, even if only for a few turns. I'll go for trade #1.

I'll play tomorrow when I get back from work.

Sorry I keep stealing all the wonder builds, i can't help it! :)

Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_AD0760_01.SAV)

damn I had a turnlog written up in notepad and then my computer crashed before I saved it. :mad: never mind here's the abridged version.

660-700AD - not much happens really. i build some cathedrals and markets, micromanaging to emphasise food, production or commerce on various occasions. i trade Persia wool for furs+gold. then i trade them ivory (after building another ivory colony) for horses+gold once i have Carthage without anything to build. They go from furious to annoyed.
700AD - Build the Chapel.
710AD - Rush a Utica cathedral using rush worker then rush cathedral.
720-760AD - Various Roman incursions but i ask them to leave and they do every time.

Utica is ready to switch from market to university, then rush it between this turn and the next (Big Picture). Other cities are prebuilding for universities as well. Persia knows Chivalry and Greeks know Invention. I was hoping another AI would get one of these techs already so we could learn it before GLib expires, but oh well. Nobody has theology.

We are in a prime position to take all the good MA wonders. If we research Astronomy at a pace which can match our Golden Age research, obviously initiating GA once Uni is built, then prebuild for Bach whilst researching Music theory, and so on... Everyone is still at least two techs behind, and they still don't have literature. This should be easy (crosses fingers). We might even manage to pick up Smith's or Magellan.

Feel free to declare war on Rome at a suitable point for leader farming, alhough I don't think you'll have much luck. Also, remember to check for possible trades once we have Astronomy/Navigation. We are currently at 0% lux. This can be raised, but I just felt we'd be in a defecit too long.

I've sent a slave who didn't have anything better to do into no-mans land to build an outpost on a mountain somewhere so hat we don't have to use troops to clear fog, but feel free to move him somewhere else.

Oops, something I forgot to change before I saved the game was the research rate. Lowering the rate may still get us Education in 1 turn, I didn't check, sorry!

Can't think of anything else I've missed. I'll let you know if i have.

BTW, I've been using AlanH's 20K calclator, and assuming we build the University next turn and no other cultural improvements for the rest of the game, we should win in 1985. Obviously this can be improved. :)

Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/jeffelammar_SG004_AD0760_01.SAV)
damn I had a turnlog written up in notepad and then my computer crashed before I saved it. :mad: never mind here's the abridged version.

That's why I keep my notes on paper, no excuses for me. :)

Looks good. My comments follow.

Utica is ready to switch from market to university, then rush it between this turn and the next (Big Picture). Other cities are prebuilding for universities as well. Persia knows Chivalry and Greeks know Invention. I was hoping another AI would get one of these techs already so we could learn it before GLib expires, but oh well. Nobody has theology.

Note on this. When checking I noticed the both Sabratha and Theveste will finish their prebuilds next turn, so be sure to run through and change those cities when doing the big picture -> F1 list.


We are in a prime position to take all the good MA wonders. If we research Astronomy at a pace which can match our Golden Age research, obviously initiating GA once Uni is built, then prebuild for Bach whilst researching Music theory, and so on... Everyone is still at least two techs behind, and they still don't have literature. This should be easy (crosses fingers). We might even manage to pick up Smith's or Magellan.

[dance]


Feel free to declare war on Rome at a suitable point for leader farming, alhough I don't think you'll have much luck. Also, remember to check for possible trades once we have Astronomy/Navigation. We are currently at 0% lux. This can be raised, but I just felt we'd be in a defecit too long.

I think we will be triggering our GA with a NM victory, so we'll be at war with Rome anyway. Might even be nice to trash Byzantium.

If by chance we do get a leader, I would strongly suggest using him for an army so we can build the heroic epic. Plus an army would be great cover for our strike force if we ever make it.

Also try to capture those roman workers. I could use a slave to bring me my coffee.


Oops, something I forgot to change before I saved the game was the research rate. Lowering the rate may still get us Education in 1 turn, I didn't check, sorry!

I checked it we can lower 10% and still get it. We should. :bounce:


Can't think of anything else I've missed. I'll let you know if i have.

BTW, I've been using AlanH's 20K calclator, and assuming we build the University next turn and no other cultural improvements for the rest of the game, we should win in 1985. Obviously this can be improved. :)
:clap:

Nice job, chunkymonkey. I've got the save and will play tomorrow.

Putting up an outpost in no man's land sounds like a good idea to me.

I'll remember to use the big picture and to lower the research spending. I'll start the war with the Romans when there are some NM ready to start our golden age, and I'll try to get you some more foreign workers, jeff.

I'll have a look at the save tonight, and post if I notice anything. I'll also make sure to check here before playing, in case anyone has more bright ideas. We seem to be in really great shape. :)

I've looked at the save, and things look very nice. With the golden age we may be able to break jeff's streak.

The 2 NM in Leptis Minor can be sent east to take the archer, assuming it stays put or moves nicely. Shall I start the GA right away?

Definitely I think we want to get rid of Byzantium as it is encroaching on our tiles.

I haven't built outposts before. Do we get the visibility of 4 tiles even when looking over mountains? If there is a trick to placing it, let me know where the best place is.

The 2 NM in Leptis Minor can be sent east to take the archer, assuming it stays put or moves nicely. Shall I start the GA right away?

I think we want to start it on your turn one. We will get the University when you hit "next turn", so if we start it at the beginning of the next turn all 20 turns will go towards building Copernicus first then JS Bach.
It should push us to about 35 shields and since 34 is the right count to get Copernicus in 12 turns (34*12 = 408), then we get a good head start on JS Bach before it expires.

Yep, wait to initiate GA until University is built.

I never build outposts either, so I don't know. I'm not even sure if they use up a worker.

Good luck anyway!

I'm pretty sure that building an outpost uses a worker, but the GOTM is modded so it takes 10 turns in addition to using up the worker. It may take longer to build on a mountain. I guess we'll find out.