The front now:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM5-Offa-1050AD.JPG

Nice progress :goodjob:

Astonishingly, the Aztecs stab us one turn before we were going to stab them, by forming an alliance with the Americans. So much for that problem, and all that discussion. We lose three slaves working to improve their road network, but nothing else.
Very nice of Monty and Abe. :D
It was really about time that the AI start with their really bad diplomacy. ;)

I really think we should now look for the one-tile island owners. These things make me nervous :rolleyes:
The fastest way into the core of Iroland leads probably over Japan, so we are best off with a quick war against them. They lost their iron already in my turnset, so there shouldn't be too much strong opposition left.

We still have some turns of RoP with India, so we could move through their land to reach America. But watch out there. Our iron trade to Ghandhi ends next turn, so Abe may be able to convince him to change sides.

But we could also just start with Spain for a beachhead. They are weak and backwards, so they shouldn't be much of a problem.

Well, I just put something in the spoiler thread.
I did it directly, so we don't lose time for everybody to comment.
It's anyways not much content, though I somehow managed to waste a lot of words.
I will just edit any complaints there ;)

Great progress NP. Your kill ratio is more than adequate. ;)

This map certainly is big, and we still have a long way to go. Any ideas how we can speed up? I know it shouldn't matter, but there are 2 teams with better scores than ours and that gives me a bad feeling. Our cossacks seem nearly invincible but even with their 3 movement it's hard to get everywhere quickly. It is a particular drag that the AI have been so bad at roadbuilding.

At some point we can start cash rushing horsemen for upgrades near the frontline, eliminating the weary trek to the action. It seems a bit premature at the moment though as I guess cossacks built in the core can still get to the front reasonably fast.

@Klarius. Thanks for doing the write up. I've just read it and think it's superb. :goodjob:

I've got it and will play this weekend, kinda busy this time of year.

Nice going though! :)

I come back tomorrow or so before I play, with some comments and to see yours.

Yes, thanks, Klarius--another splendid job. :thumbsup:

This map certainly is big, and we still have a long way to go. Any ideas how we can speed up? I know it shouldn't matter, but there are 2 teams with better scores than ours and that gives me a bad feeling. Our cossacks seem nearly invincible but even with their 3 movement it's hard to get everywhere quickly. It is a particular drag that the AI have been so bad at roadbuilding.

We have 38 Cossacks and four armies east of Zimbabwe, and I think we should complete our conquest of the main continent using these alone, apart from the possibility of a few reinforcements cash-rushed right at the front as mentioned by Offa. The transit times from our core to the front are becoming absurd, especially given that we're moving the front line back so quickly. Our Cossacks now around Canton probably wouldn't see action for ten turns, if sent east. So I think all our Cossacks west of Zimbabwe should be moving west to the ship chain, not east.

I think we should be able to conquer all of the main continent within thirty turns, making appropriate use of dastardly procedures. With our new production devoted entirely to the northern continent and the minor areas, we may be able to take everything else in that time too.

I vote for Seville as our first target on the northern continent. A relatively short, direct sea route is much more important than the question of which northern opponent we attack first.

We should be ship-chaining the Cossacks for our northern strike force to the unclaimed area of our continent closest to Seville. My decision to end the ship chain from Shanghai in Moscow was an automatic, safe one, and we shouldn't stick with it.

We should go to war with the Egyptians well before we're in position to attack their homeland, so that we can start picking off all their irritating little cities on the strangely shaped peninsula. The modest force of Cossacks and galleys we've got around Calixtlahuaca should be able to take several (though first it'll have to deal with Yokohama).

If we're going to conclude this game as efficiently as possible--and we'd better, given that our wrong decision about the Great Lighthouse spotted the Smacksters twenty turns--we have to have clear and agreed goals for each remaining round. In the next ten turns, I believe, we need to:

1. Eliminate the Japanese and the English,

2. Take every Iroquois city up to and including Salamanca at a minimum,

3. Land ten Cossacks next to Seville, and

4. Start approaching Egypt's minor cities, whether or not we go to war with Egypt.

So, good luck, Gozpel. :D We may not be building enough galleys for this strategy, so feel free to change any of my builds.

Smackster's report is interesting. It does indeed seem that we missed a chance to get started earlier. For myself, I have become rather accustomed to Ainwood's maps in which the Lighthouse is often needed. I don't really see why team Smackster built the Colossus if they were intending a very early palace jump, but it seems to have worked for them. Potentially their greatest advantage would have been with the barb uprising which kept us pinned down for a long time, but they could have escaped from the home island.

There is still hope though. The end of this game may be quite scrappy and a number of turns could easily be wasted chasing down the AI.

I'm not convinced that the Lighthouse was a mistake. Team Smackster will have had a hard time with galley transports for quite some time.
And they had to give up their most productive town at some time.
The palace jumping route is for sure good for score, but if it really leads to fasted conquest has still to be shown.
There were also other factors which delayed us. We needed a long time to connect horses, obviously different from Team Smackster. Also we probably lost a few turns by our scouting approach relative to the blind gamble.

What to do now.
I agree mostly with Northern Pike. We should look to mainly use the existing forces through Japan into Iroquois. There are a lot cities to capture in this region, but when we are through the jungle, the speed of our troops should pay off. Still as long as we have money I would rush horses in every barracks city near the front.

I also agree to take just the most convenient foothold on the northern continent first. I cannot look in the save just now, so I don't now what's really best. AFAIR Spain or the southernmost american town are quite similar for transports. If going for Spain I wouldn't wait for a force to build up, but attack with a handful of cossacks ASAP.
I don't think that we already have to prepare for mopping up the egypts. They have a lot pesky towns, but we can hope to get the more remote in a peace treaty (to be broken immediately). Several of the towns can be reached by galleys within a few turns and their core shouldn't be a problem at all.
I still think we should take on America first (after Spain if more convenient) and only then go for India and Egypt in parallel.

I view the palace jump and the Lighthouse build as separate issues. It's not clear to me how much the former helped Team Smackster; but our investing the shield-equivalent of an adequate AA landing force in the GL, when it wasn't necessary to get off our continent, does look like a mistake. Anyway, that's water under the bridge now.

Regarding Egypt, normally I agree with getting an enemy's peripheral cities in a false peace treaty, but in Egypt's case the ratio of outlying junk cities to core cities is just too high. And it might be hard to find any other useful function for our Calixtlahuaca force after it takes Yokohama in any case.

To do list:

1. Eliminate the Japanese and the English,

2. Take every Iroquois city up to and including Salamanca at a minimum,

3. Land ten Cossacks next to Seville, and

4. Start approaching Egypt's minor cities, whether or not we go to war with Egypt.

And this you tell a poor builder! I rather hunker down and build culture for ten turns :lol:
I probably get it started today and will try to follow masterplans this time.

I should probably have mentioned earlier ;) that I agree entirely with Klarius's observation that no one should feel obliged to play ten full turns at this point. I only played nine, effectively. No one needs to persist beyond the point at which fatigue starts affecting the accuracy of his play.

Hi, i am back (work was done faster than expected) will investigate game and rejoin discussions tomorrow

First The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/offa_SG005_AD1150_01.SAV)


Pre-turn - I have no idea how many turns there's left on GA, but cities are in good order as always when NP played. Change a couple of library builds to something useful.

I rush some galleys and some other things for 400g or so, and manage to squeeze out another 25gpt from cities after this. That will change in a turn or two though. But still, we have a healthy income in GA. :)

Find the saltpeter, it was one turn from Gunpowder when I handed over the game last time and I haven't checked the save since then. Right, that is a plan I can follow without getting confused.

Check diplo, to see what's going on. Ok, more on that in a bit.

Check the map and find all those Spanish (4) and Egypt (7) junk-cities on the mountain/desert island W of former Scandinavia. I feel like landing a bunch of cossacks over there and just take them out one by one, while I muster some troops for their main cities.

Maybe half a dozen will do. Why I'm doing this is just to take them out, we might get a couple in peace-negotiations later, but not all of them. So if I raze/take them now, we don't have to worry about that. And I will have enough for the northern campain soon enough anyways.

Cancel stuff with Japan and declare war. That was so...honorable! :)

Lose a cossack and take Edo.

1060AD - Lose cossack IT to LB.

Take Nagasaki and Yokohama without trouble.
Kyoto had 6 defenders, we lose a cossack and take the city with the Oracle and Sistine.
Kill 2 spears in Nara and run out of units.

Izumo was in Iro's hands, 2 cossacks takes it from 2 MI's and we get a leader. Gozpel's Muffins is built, another cossack army. We like those.

Rush some horses.

Galleys are loaded with available cossacks and heads for different destinations. A couple of boats will drop off units by the Spanish junktowns to work their way north. We can't do anything to Egypt for another 7 turns. Or can we? Ah well, no hurry.

We will have half a dozen galley going for the spanish mainland, but it will take a few turns.

1070AD - Knight-army goes 5/13 against reg spear and take Nara.
Take Nagoya next without losses.

And the computer crashes for the second time. Possible cause heatstroke, as it is 36C here today. I have to play tonight instead.

Ok, replayed last turn and lost a cossack this time. Ah well.

What was my plan now again? Eh, yes, line up units for assaults on a couple cities next turn.

1080AD - Declare on England, only one cossack was needed and Lizzy is sent to the history books.

We take Tokyo without losses and Japan is gone too.

Take Osaka and Kagoshima from Iroquois.

Declare on Spain and drop off a couple of cossacks by one of their junk-cities.

1090AD - America and India sign peace.

We lose 8gpt from gems-deal with Egypt.

Take Ciudad de la Luna from Spain, land 2 more cossacks by next junktown.

Units need some healing.

1100AD - We take Valencia.

Remove barbcamp.

Take Satsuma from Iro's. And Kahnawake. And Grand River. All that jungle makes this quite slow, but we're getting closer to Salamanca.

Land 4 cossacks next to Seville.

1110AD - Kill 2 spears in Seville and take the city. Kill an approaching knight.
Land troops near Toledo and Zaragoza.

Line up a bunch to give Salamanca a go next turn.

1120AD - Take out 2 barbcamps for some revenue.

Take Tonawanda from Iro's.

We take Toledo but fail to take Zaragoza, losing a cossack there.

Gozpel's Muffins go 1/13, taking out 2 pikes in Salamanca.
Kill 3 LB's that blocks the path of reinforcements, kill last pike and LB in Salamanca and take the city.

Kill pike and spear in Allegheny and take the city.

1130AD - We take St Regis, Centralia and Tyendaga, lose 3 cossacks.

Hiawatha refuses to give up the one-tile isalnd for peace.

1140AD - Lose 2 cossacks IT to knights.

Our GA ends, we still make 270gpt or so.

Take Iro capitol Oil Springs, their new capitol jumps to Cattaraugus. They won't give up the island, it's pop 6 so it will be tough.

Take Barcelona.

Lose a cossack and take Madrid, together with the Pyramids.

Take Murcia.

Cancel all deals with Egypt and declare war. Move in some units.

1150AD - Arabs and Iro sign peace.

Americans kill 2 cossacks, where is the retreat function in this game?

Take Akwesasne, Niagara Falls and Mauch Chunk from Iro's, they're down to 4 cities. And of course they won't give up that stupid city!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And now I found out they have another one-tile island, we can get that one.

Raze 3 Egyptian junktowns.

Kill 5 american units, a silly reg sword kills a cossack.

Attack Thebes, kill a pike, a spear and a knight and take the city with the GLib. Great, we will learn Education :bounce: Like these unwashed hordes needs to be educated.

Reinforcements are slowly coming to the northern island, the logistics is a pain.

DO NOT attack Cattaraugus and leave Oka alone too, build a bunch of galleys and starve the island-town down to 1 pop. Then we might get it.

Next player, please fix MM'ing, this took ages to play and I have to stop.

We can get that annoying Zaragoza for peace with Spain.

Time to ROP-rape?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/IRO-front.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/North-front.jpg

Superb progress, and :goodjob: too for getting through ten turns despite two crashes and 36-degree heat.

The Caughnawaga problem raises questions I can't answer. Is Caughnawaga's share of the total Iroquois population an important variable? Can we expect to improve the situation enough--the offer of peace for Caughnawaga and Gayagaahe still insults the Iroquois--by starving Caugh. down to size one? Would taking/razing Oka help or hurt at this point?

Looks like our builder found his warmongering self :goodjob:

Re Caughnawagha:
Starving will help probably, but will take a long time.
We need a full amount of 20 boats. It has a harbor and they are in monarchy, so they will not need many clowns. Just blocking the food bonusses will not help.
I would recommend to go for it, but try also something else in the meantime.
Make peace for their other one tile island, then gift them back their bigger cities. They are empty then and no problem to retake.
Raze city after city, till they are left with a big capital and the island. My experience is that razing is better than capturing for getting concessions.

It wouldn't hurt if the new capital would be as far away from the island as possible.
If you really feal like trying some hilarious tricks, gift them moscow.
The population should change to iroquois then and their capital should jump there, when taking their other cities. Note population from other nationality does not change.
Gifting them a city with a lot foreign population is no use.

And please don't forget America. Put a galley on the Baltimore oysters ASAP.

EDIT:
Looked into the save. Another point with Iroquois. Ally French against them. This will isolate their capital and break the connection to the island, which is currently there through some foreign harbors.

Great stuff.
Those one tile islands are a worry, but Klarius' suggestion sounds OK. I am not keen on giving up Moscow though (Leo's).

It does seem very time consuming at the moment but we are making solid progress.

36 degrees :cooool: , not a familiar experience in Oxfordshire. Your odds on a white Christmas must be poor.

It is Wacken's turn I think. He appears to have learned the rudiments of ROP abuse etc and should do well. :D

Some great ideas there, Klarius, although I don't think we should implement the more radical of them without a lot more analysis. ;)

It looks as though we could starve Caughnawaga down to size one in about twenty turns, by spending most of our income on galley rushes in the area. Considered in itself this would be fast enough, if we stick with the assumption that we'll conquer the world in around 1350. But the crucial question is, could we then expect to get Caugh. and Gayagaahe for peace? Your "will help probably" isn't all that enthusiastic.

Wouldn't getting Gayagaahe in an immediately broken peace treaty make it hard to gain Caugh. the same way later? If you say this isn't a major factor I'll take your word for it, but it seems odd.

A broken peace treaty does hurt some. How much :confused:
But I see no chance to get both islands nearterm anyways.
Even the smaller is size 2 now. I think we would have to get Caughnawaga to below size 3 to get it in the same treaty.

I don't know the exact mechanics behind what they will give up and doubt that anybody does.
But I know that a size 6 city with culture and improvements is next to impossible to get. Still I remember that I did get such cities occassionaly, but don't know exactly how.

Still I think we best get the small island now (raze Oka first).
And we have to gift them some cities to be able to hurt them later.
I thought about it some more and think it's best not to rely on the french, but pillage all roads to isolate the capital.
Waiting for the galleys to come while at war, increases our war weariness.
I would even recommend to give them some turns peace and work on Arabs in the meantime. Maybe the Arabs buy them back into the war, so we don't have to break the treaty.
The Iros may also go back into republic in this time, which would be nice because war weariness will hit them hard when the war is resumed.
Only restart the war when we have galleys ready to immediately put Caughnwaga on diet.
And I would abandon every town, which we don't gift them back (or gift them to Arabs and raze them).
Flips generate free defenders, which is a PITA, when the majority of the troops are somewhere else.

Thanks for your response. I don't have time right now for any more detailed discussion, but three unrelated thoughts:

1. Wouldn't mass razing/abandonment of cities, however necessary it might be, provoke the AI into building a lot of settlers, with unforeseeable consequences?

2. If we return a number of cities to the Iroquois and then allow them peace, we'll virtually have to conquer them all over again. Wouldn't the immediate razing of the cities we gave them back inflict just as much pain on them?

3. Aden--not a one-tile city, but on an island--is a potential problem, and we should have a plan for dealing with it before we go to war with the Arabs.

1. Wouldn't mass razing/abandonment of cities, however necessary it might be, provoke the AI into building a lot of settlers, with unforeseeable consequences?

Well that would be really nice. Settler pairs are much easier to take out than defenders in big cities. If there is easy to reach open space they will typically go for it. That's a lot better than having to hunt down boat settlers.


2. If we return a number of cities to the Iroquois and then allow them peace, we'll virtually have to conquer them all over again. Wouldn't the immediate razing of the cities we gave them back inflict just as much pain on them?

If you gift cities they are undefended. So one shouldn't do it too long before attacking them again. But a few turns should be no problem.
But we could make peace and do the gifting only shortly before we declare again.
We risk flips in the meantime, probably no big problem.

All in all, I also don't know what's really best. :confused:
We might try peace for the small island, gifting some cities and immediate razing. If it works good, otherwise we have to make the galleys and starve Caughnawaga.

No matter what we do with Iros, we should start on Arabs soon. I would rather raze big cities and try to get a bunch of small cities in a peace treaty.
I see no special problem with Aden. It has no harbor, so no resources. One galley will be enough to deal with the city. That can be sent early or rushed locally.

I will get it tomorrow, meanwhile you guys can do some more discusion on this mess of one tile islands.

In my experience, the gifting/razing towns theory is a very dangerous theory. Sometimes when the AI get ROP-raped or treated in similar ways, like broken treaties it just put on the hardhat and refuse to budge. I'm even so sure of this, it must be written into the code :lol:

I think the starvation idea is the best right now and that still might not be enough.

What if we continue our wars by going for Arabs and sign alliance/ROP with France for now. We take out the Arabs and get a one pop town somewhere up north, fill it up to pop 12 with Iro workers and gift that to Hiawatha.

This means we take the first "cheap" one-tile island for peace now, get enough galleys to put the other town on diet, gift them the new capitol location and go to war again.

Or something like this? I need more coffee.

Looked into the save. Another point with Iroquois. Ally French against them. This will isolate their capital and break the connection to the island, which is currently there through some foreign harbors.

Erh? Do you want the French make the Iro capitol to jump, klarius? We rather have to protect Cattaraugus at all costs, it can't jump anywhere else than where we want it.

Erh? Do you want the French make the Iro capitol to jump, klarius? We rather have to protect Cattaraugus at all costs, it can't jump anywhere else than where we want it.
I never seen that Joanie really did anything when drawn into a war. She never builds a big number of attackers. Cattaraugus is sure still well enough defended.
It would be a different story if Arabs were at war with Iros, then we really would have to worry.

But if you read my other posts ;) , I already given up the idea and instead recommend pillaging roads to disconnect the island from the capital.

Anyways we should make peace soon for their small island. And gifting them back Salamanca or Oil Springs would completely take away the risk of anybody jumping the palace to the island.

Recommending stuff is one thing, saying it loud is another :)

I'm always careful with your posts, klarius, because you always seem to have more than one thing going on. I'm a simple, although somewhat genial and modest man and take nothing for granted :lol: That sounds so humble, coming from me.

I think the idea of giving them back a couple of big cities sounds good, but I would ignore that idea of ally with anyone against them. They need some pampering for a few turns, until we have the fleet to starve that pesky island city down.

Well, we seem to agree on getting Gayagaahe in an immediate peace with the Iroquois, anyway.

The speed with which we get twenty galleys to Caughnawaga to starve it down may be the determining variable in the game now, so we need to do this efficiently. We shouldn't spend gold on anything but rushing galleys until we have enough. Our first step should be to rush galleys in the more distant towns of Satsuma, Texcoco, Nagoya, Tlaxcala, Calixtlahuaca, and Xochicalco. If we sell our WM around, and if we deem it acceptable to sell Chemistry to the Arabs, we can afford all these rushes right now, before pressing Enter.

The other essential, irritating though it may be, is that we have to put or keep sufficient garrisons in Akwesasne, Tyendenaga, Mauch Chunk, and I suppose Oil Springs to bring them out of resistance, so that we can rush galleys there.

At the risk of stating the obvious, we can only rush a galley every other turn in any given city, since we can't afford the 100% premium on a rush with no shields accumulated.

We don't actually have to have all twenty galleys in position around Caugh. before we return to war with the Iroquois. Sixteen will be enough to guarantee a food deficit at size six, assuming of course we occupy the bonus tiles.

It seems easier to me to go along with the geography of the situation and attack the French next, and only then the Arabs. We can finish the Arabs off quickly with a RoP-rape unless we think this would make it significantly harder to get Caughnawaga in our second treaty with the Iroquois. France's city on the narrow mountainous island will require careful attention, since we presumably won't want a long list of broken peace treaties on our record when we try to get the Iroquois to agree to a second.

The Caughnawaga problem aside, we should still be thinking in terms of conquering the world by 1350 AD at the very latest.

We have a load of troops moving north.

This comes to the statement : "ship chains" which I read in some other post.

I will never conduct in any such activities!

If Palace-jump had come into real discussion, you would've got the same answer.

That's me.

So now we have a greater naval fleet, that if the game was sent to klarius. By this time of the game we would've probabaly taken over most of the N continent too by ship-chaining.

This isn't about personal valors, but I will never do a Palace-jump. Or ship-chaining.

I saw the possibilities in the first save. I just refuse to use the game to my advantage.

If you think I'm wrong, please kick me off the team.

Which, if you think I'm thinking of something good, you don't.

@WOA
Did you play some turns in the meantime?

Even risking that my plans are outdated, I made up my mind how to proceed.
Probably we will not win this time. There is a lot traffic in team Smackster's thread, I even saw civ_steve from Team Peanut as last poster at some time, but no new save from them. So I think they finished within 5-20 turns from their last posted save.
Still we should try for a good result and not give up.

My plan currently would be:
Pillage roads around current Iro capital and take out their last other city.
Make peace for the small island. We could try to further ruin their commerce by gifting them some of their own workers.
These would have to be teleported to our capital first, by collecting them in a city and gift it away.
If we go for this route we should not gift cities to Iros, but our next other target.
The idea behind this would be that they may sell of the harbour and start starving earlier. I don't know if this really works out, but maybe we should try.

Set a realistic goal to have the full 20 galleys around.
There are also currently spanish and egypt cities, which could provide them, so we will probably not be short of cities, but short of money to rush. Maybe even sacrifice slaves and a few cossacks by disbanding.
I think a goal of 10 turns is realistic. Some existing galleys may also make it by that time.
Only then redeclare on Iros, but don't forget to gift them some cities before, so we can do something to them.
The starvation will take something like 10 turns. So on this timeline the whole action will take around 20 turns. We should look that we have all the other civs reduced to small size by this time. I don't think we need to break any treaties for that, so we can play it save and be nice until then.
After that there would be one last dastardly effort to eliminate all civs within a few turns.
In the meantime work on all the other civs. Especially America so that we don't get another problem there with their island.
I think Egypt is not urgent currently. With all the galleys we have around we can land cossacks near their pesky towns later. So I would make peace with her soon to concentrate the forces on America and later India.

And one general remark. I would rather raze every big city from now on. They don't help us anything and we cannot afford the units to quell the resistance. The AI will send their settlers to the open space, but that's much better than when they load them in galleys.

So I think they finished within 5-20 turns from their last posted save.

Why do you think the range is so wide here? I'm glad to hear that you think they might have taken another fifteen or twenty turns to finish, since in that case we could still win, but what's the logic?

I agree with most of your plan, but we can and must do things on a tighter schedule, since it appears that's our only faint hope of winning. If we rush six galleys before hitting Enter as mentioned in my last post, we can get twenty galleys around Caughnawaga in seven turns, or eight at worst. And it's worth imposing the blockade as soon as we have sixteen galleys available, so we can act even sooner than that.

Also, it seems to me that a full blockade should cut Caugh.'s population to one in seven turns at most. Perhaps I'm missing some nuance, but shouldn't two turns at -10 food empty the food box, after which another five turns of food deficit would drop the city to size one?

Thus, I think our goal should be to conquer the rest of the world in about twelve turns, to allow for possible good luck regarding Caughnawaga. This won't be easy but I think it's feasible. Operating on this schedule, we should just eliminate the Egyptians now, rather than granting them peace and coming back later.

Incidentally, I realize I've been talking about a finish around 1350 AD while assuming that the span 1250-1350 comprises ten turns. :blush: What I've always meant, whether or not I've communicated it successfully, is that we should be able to win in about 30 turns from 1050 AD; and now I think we can do better than that.

I just assume they have posted the last save before winning and somebody closed it out. If there's a clear winning strategy the last player will probably not have stopped with 10 turns but just continued.
But there was also smackster mentioning in several posts that he wanted to hide their finishing date after their experience in SGOTM3. So there is still a range of possibilities.
5 turns is probably too conservative, I expect that they reach a score more comparable to Peanuts in the end. That would point more towards 20 turns.

With our finish date I am a bit conservative, but there may be complications. Maybe they have a granary in Caughnawga. They also may have boats and kill one of ours.

I still don't think Egypt a problem, but really think America and India will take some time. And if we aren't quick with America we can end up with another harbor one-tile island.
We don't have very many units on this island by now and they will have noticeable defenses.
Delhi would be very nice to have soon, because of Sun Tsu, providing healing in every small village.

Thanks for the explanation. If the Smacksters are inclined to play games with their finish date, there's reason to hope.

A granary in Caughnawaga won't keep the population from going 6-5-4-3-2-1
in five turns once the town's in food deficit with nothing in the box. And strange though it seems, a granary will just cause the food box to empty in one turn rather than two when we impose a total blockade and a -10 food deficit.

I am sorry, i have not yet had time to play. I might have time tomorrow, but since i am not sure of that, feel free to skip or swap me.
Work is taking too much of my time now :(

Wacken, Christmas and gotm38 is taking a long time here, so take as long as you want. It isn't a race, well not against the calendar anyway. The indignity of losing to team Smackster can take postponing for a little while longer. It isn't a game where moves can just get rushed off anymore, not that you would rush anyway.

Well, WackenOpenAir or Offa.
Are you able to take it today.
I could take it, if nobody else can, but would like to know early, because I think it will take a long time to play.

Edit:
Cross posted with Offa. Well, I really hoped we could close this before Christmas, but we can also wait.

Klarius, if you can then please take it. I definitely can't play tonight (hospital party).

Well, I have some time now and will play a few turns.
I will post some time tonight. Don't know if I manage 10 turns, the turns will take very long.

Well, I played 9 and a half.
Save 1250AD (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/offa_SG005_AD1250_01.SAV)

Iroquois, America and Spain are eliminated.
It's now mainly a question of us and the Arabs. The others should be quickly finished.

Turnlog:

Preturn:
Sell WM to France for all their 33g. Then declare war.
Trade with Arabia. Chemistry for all their gold WM and alliance against France.
Peace with Spain for Zaragoza 10g and 2gpt.
Sell world map to India for 43g.
Take a barb camp for 25g.
Go through our empire and sell a bunch of libraries.
Rush 8 galleys, disbanding a cossack in Satsuma deep in the jungle.

IBT:
Attacks by an american and two egypt knights. A few hitpoinst lost, nothing serious.

Turn 1 1160:
Pillage roads around Cattaragus.
Kill a french spear and capture settler.
Assault on chicago: 3 cossacks redlined against pike, knight and spear. City captured.
Alexandria is taken by one cossack against a pike. We get a harbor.
Kill a egypt settle pair.
Transporting cossacks is tedious. I probably haven't really optimized good.

IBT:
Only an american longbow runs around to impale itself on a cossack.
Niagara falls flips.

Turn 2 1170:
Astronomy is around. We first have to have more galleys.
Retake Nigara.
Some more pillaging around Cattaraugus.
Move towards Paris.
Rush galleys.
Lose two cossacks on New York. There was musket, pike and killer spear. Still at least two maces left.
Capture Elephantine and Memphis. No losses.
Raze Buffalo.
Lose a cossack at Pi-Ramesses.
Need 10% lux.

IBT:
An american knight kills a cossack.
Oil springs flips, just the turn I rushed a Galley.

Turn 3 1180:
I raze Oil springs. We will not be able to quell the new resistance anyway.
Raze Oka.
As expected Iros still don't want to give Caugnawagha.
Make peace for Gayagaaha.
Capture New York and Philadelphia.
Capture Heliopolis.
Try Detroit, lose a cossack, several muskets in there.
Capture Paris with Hanging Gardens.
Make RoP with Arabia. Will need for further progress with french.

IBT:
French longbows fail to kill cossacks.

Turn 4 1190:
Raze Washington, lose 2 cossacks.
Capture Detroit, lose another 2.
Abe is still not ready to give up cities.
Capture Abydos and Pi-Ramesses. Cleo doesn't want to part with the city I would like.
Capture Lyons and Marseilles. No losses.
Raze Denver on our home island.

Turn 5 1200:
Capture Rheims.
Capture San Francisco.
Capture St.Louis
Now what to do with Iros. We will have enough galleys to begin starving next turn.
I gift them Paris, Rheims, Salamanca, Beijing and Lyons. Maybe they feel strong enough now to declare, but probably not.
Either it will work or we are doomed. But something has to happen.
I want to declare next turn, begin the starving and do some damage to them.

Turn 6 1210:
Take a deep breath and declare on Iros.
Raze Cattaraugus and Salamanca.
Take the French cities back.
Iro Palace is now at Beijing.
Move galleys in.
Capture Atlanta, Houston and New Orleans. A leader -> army.
Abe would give now Baltimore, but I want Boston with his salt first.
Spare troops are moving into the arabian core. At some time there will be a RoP rape, but not before the other PITAs are resolved.

IBT:
Arabs capture Avignon right before our nose.

Turn 7 1220:
The blockade of Caughnawaga is complete.
Raze Boston and capture Miami. Make peace with Abe for his 1-tiler. He has still Seattle and Madras.
Make peace with Egypt. She gives now her Island city which would put a flip risk on Baltimore. She also has two cities left.
Capture Grenoble.
Declare on India and ally America for RoP. Maybe Gandhi wants his Madras back.
Take out a settler pair for starting.

Turn 8 1230:
Autoraze Dijon, Amien (on our island) and Rouen (middle rocky island). France plays OCC at Besancon and a lot of Ansars coming.
Capture Lahore and Bombay.
More troops move into Arabia.

Turn 9 1240:
Capture Delhi with Sun Tsu.
Capture Madras which Ghandhi in fact took back. Abe is playing OCC.

Turn 10 1250:
Capture Calcutta, Kolhapur and Karachi, but fail to some killer spears at Hyderabad.
Hiawatha talks and gives Caughnawaga (at pop 4), I put away the silken gloves and capture Beijing immediately.
Iros are gone. Sigh!
Then capture Giza. Egypt has still one city but shouldn't take more than 2 turns.
Capture Santiogo and Spain is no more.
Seattle and Americans are kaputt.

I then stop, I'm quite tired. Many units are unmoved.
India and France have two cities each, egypt one. Should be no problem.
We have RoP with Arabia and already quite a few units in their land.
But take care. They have lots of Ansar running around. But OTOH they have no salt.

I haven't really looked what's in production. It doesn't really matter.
I did send some galley towards the east end of India, so that one could shuttle a few units to Arabia.

And a few pictures.

The Iroquois nation at the begin of turn 10.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/kl_sg5_10.JPG

And the minimap at the end of turn 10.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/kl_sg5_11.JPG

Great work on the Iroquois. :goodjob:

Well, now the question.
Does anybody find the time today to finish this?
It shouldn't take many turns any more.
Mopping up Egypt and India is eays.
France also, but one can leave them to the Arabs.
Then it's just the preparation and execution of a nice backstab of Arabia.

I would say WackenOpenAir is up after we swapped.
Please post. If you cannot finnish it soon, anybody who can should.

I will see tonight if i have time.

Klarius, that was impressive progress, and great news about the Iroquois one tile towns. :goodjob:

I haven't had time to study the save yet, so I can only put this in general terms--but please, let's finish quickly in game time, not RL time. I don't care if we don't wrap this up until the New Year, as long as we do it in the minimum number of turns, which should be very few. Unless we're badly short of Cossacks around Arabia, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to finish off the Arabs in one turn with a RoP-rape.

The rest of the civs, except Arabia, should go next turn.
One could make peace with France for their one new city.
The Arabs have moved lots of Ansars towards their capital. That should fall next IBT.
Egypt and India should go next turn, if the RNG is not really ugly.
We have enough troops in Arabia to take their core cities, but for the outlying and island cities, we should prepare a bit.
I think it will take three turns to land troops from India on the Aden island. That would probably be a nice time for the final effort, but Arabs may declare earlier with nobody else around to fight.
It is probably not feasible to set up for every of their small cities, so another mop-up turn or two may be needed.

I also see a few small points, I missed. The one tile island near Baltimore should get a slave on it. I moved the archer but forgot to replace it.

Gayagaaha has a tiny flip risk towards arabia.
Just abandon it and let the warrior there hold the island.

Sure one should not rush it.
That's why I asked, if somebody has time.
But still I would like to see it finished. It's just the last couple percent missing.

Good to see you are doing well - hope you can get a laurel again. It may be possible for me to join you again on the next SGOTM as it looks now.

I looked again in the save and have another small suggestion.
I messed up our galley positions, so ship transports will not work nicely.
We have a lot troops in India and only a small part will make it into Arabia. Consider collecting some in an indian town and gift it away, so the troops (especially the army) go to moscow.
By that we will have enough on our island to deal with the Arabs there.
This should be done right away so the troops can start to move towards the towns.
The same could be applied to Scandinavia, but that's probably overkill for the 4 small arab cities on our island.

Got it.

I see a ROP rape on arabia in preparation, with very few units however, so i investigate a few cities. I sell almost all city improvements to get more gold for investigating:

Basra: 1 Pike.
Mecca: 1 Pike, 2 spear.
Damascus: 1 Pike, 2 spear.
Najran: 2 spear.
Khurasan: 2 pikes, 1 ansar

I bring home a bunch of knights by gifting a city to arabia as suggested.
I destroy one French city.

Disband some cities that risk flipping or being captured.
Moving units for ROP rape in Arabia.

Turn1:
French destroyed by Arabia.
Egypt destroyed by me.
India destroyed by me.

Avignon captured.
Canogeh destroyed.
Medina captured.
Chartres FAILED.
Najran captured.
Damascus razed.
Basra captured.
Kufah captured.
Mecca captured.
Baghdad captured.
Khurasan captured.
Delhi (the gifted city) recaptured.
Fez destroyed.
Chiraz destroyed.


Abandon all Arbian captured cities.
(could have razed them immeadiately, but i wanted to give my troops some time to rape the women and children :satan: )


Sorry, it is only 1 turn for now, but i have to go see Alexander now. (Movie)
I'll finish it when i get back in 3 hours or so.

Edit, no 3 hours, but 1 day.

Still turn1:

Chartres also destroyed.

Turn2:

Fustat destroyed.
Merw destroyed.
Anjar destroyed.
Balkh destroyed.
Bukhara destroyed.
Orleans captured.

Turn3:

Mansura destroyed.
Muscat destroyed, great leader produced.
Yamama destroyed.
Aleppo destroyed.
Besancon captured.

Turn4:
Mosul destroyed (city that was build on island right of us)
Aycab destroyed (city built last turn by wandering settler pair)
Aden captured. Arabia destroyed.


VICTORY !
we spent 69 hours for victory.

Incase you guys wanna keep our victory date secret, i did not submit the latest save, but upload it here instead.

Thanks for finishing it off. :goodjob: I agree with keeping our date of victory secret for some time.

Well, that looks like a fine piece of work :goodjob: :king: [dance]

The save with the victory date will not show up in the list anyways, so you can just upload it.
Anyways I would even upload it if it would show up.

Excellent work guys.

Happy Christmas!

Well, Team Smackster hid their finish date even better than I expected.
They finished in 1325AD 25 turns after their last save.
Or in other words 10 turns after us :cool:

Team Jeffelammer is currently at a similar position we were at that time.
They could make it, if they really concentrate on the conquest and forget their score addiction.
Will be interesting to see how they fare.

Merry Christmas!

wow, didn't expect us to be in competition for a first place when looking at the graphs.

Hey gozpel, nice quote from the smackster thread ;)

Hopefully our fuzzy friend Gozpel and sticking to the principles will mess up some of the Klarius'es plans. :)

Looks like our decision to go for cosacks was the right one :goodjob:

Congratulations guys, reading the other threads, I don't think anyone will catch you.

When we finished I looked at your thread and you were at 1150AD and I could see that you were going to beat us handily. Even though we messed up a few turns sets in our game, I don't think we would have caught up 15 turns. Still I think its very interesting that two very different strategies can finish that close.

My plan for the final save posting was actually the reverse phycology, I was going to post a save the turn before the actual finish, make you guys think that we'd actually finished later than we did (as you'd probably count 10 from that date), so that you took your time :) But when I saw your save I realised it didn't matter.

Also my final turn set turned into a nightmare, I had planned 20 turns, but took 25. The last major city we took on the main continent was Beijing that housed the Lighthouse. We really can't have planned that any worse, as the lighthouse clearly made a difference in this game.

smackster

P.S. The last date does not get shown until all games have finished, so you can safely post the save.

Looks like our decision to go for cosacks was the right one :goodjob:
There is no doubt about that. Being a regent game, we hoped that by spending cash on Knights early we could get through most of the AI's before most other teams got to Cossacks. We were able to generate plenty of knights, and using some rather cheesy tricks get them to the front lines, but still I think that extra Cossack movement would have made the difference if we'd gone that route too.

Hello Smackster. I have just read a bit of your teams thread, and it is a wonder you ever get to play at all given the amount you write. I thought the :borg::borg::borg: brothers were chatty but...

Your teams curve was a stimulus for us, and I certainly thought you had us beat. Klarius is indeed pretty good at mindreading. We probably started conquest a little later than ideal, although it wasn't easy for us, especially as the middle age uprisings were badly timed.

The decision to go for cossacks was clearly important, and in retrospect seems clear, especially as we were able to manage 4/5 turn research even before Golden Age. It wasn't quite so clear to all of us at the time but at least we jumped the right way off the fence. In fact the knowledge that some other teams had obviously started conquest before us should have made the cosscks decision easy as we had to make up some time some how and our economy was very strong.

I never actually got to use the cossacks :hmm:. Klarius probably didn't think I was ready for such powerful toys.

Congratulations and merry :jesus:mas to all. [Wasn't a Santa smiley formerly available?] I believe this will be three straight SGOTM wins for Klarius if our lead holds up--unless you won SGOTM2 too? :rolleyes:

I still find it hard to believe that building two ancient Wonders was the right course, when I see how much earlier Team Smackster started their conquest than we did. Perhaps we should have done without the Colossus?

Hello Smackster. I have just read a bit of your teams thread, and it is a wonder you ever get to play at all given the amount you write. I thought the :borg::borg::borg: brothers were chatty but...
I think I have more posts in our thread, than some other teams combined :lol:


Your teams curve was a stimulus for us, and I certainly thought you had us beat. Klarius is indeed pretty good at mindreading. We probably started conquest a little later than ideal, although it wasn't easy for us, especially as the middle age uprisings were badly timed.
As I was hinting in our spoiler, we were able to escape the barbs with the palace jump, we even got our workers out in time. When we returned to finish the game many years later, a lot of those barbs were still around on that middle continent.


The decision to go for cossacks was clearly important, and in retrospect seems clear, especially as we were able to manage 4/5 turn research even before Golden Age. It wasn't quite so clear to all of us at the time but at least we jumped the right way off the fence. In fact the knowledge that some other teams had obviously started conquest before us should have made the cosscks decision easy as we had to make up some time some how and our economy was very strong.

I never actually got to use the cossacks :hmm:. Klarius probably didn't think I was ready for such powerful toys.
I pretty much play every other game like that, researching to MT. But I thought there was just a chance, we could finish this a Knights only gambit and get ahead of the other teams, but in the end the extra movement point, simply allows you to take multiple cities per turn. I was continually finding that our Knights got stuck in the mountains, and had to wait extra turns. I actually had stacks of 10-12 knights in the front lines that never even got into any fight.

With a few less mountains, and a few less of our tactical mistakes we might have improved this.

Congratulations and merry :jesus:mas to all. [Wasn't a Santa smiley formerly available?] I believe this will be three straight SGOTM wins for Klarius if our lead holds up--unless you won SGOTM2 too? :rolleyes:

I still find it hard to believe that building two ancient Wonders was the right course, when I see how much earlier Team Smackster started their conquest than we did. Perhaps we should have done without the Colossus?
I think we are the only team that went that way, everyone else that I can see built the lighthouse. Still looks like we will get second place, so I think ours was a valid alternative. Although I really hate palace jumping. Bring on SCOTM so that can dispense with that stuff.

Congratulations to the team Offa!!!

Even before the game started I knew you will be the most serious competition and I am not surprised you guys won....

You have a very strong team so no surprises there.
Good job!!! :goodjob:

Congratulations to the team Offa!!!

Even before the game started I knew you will be the most serious competition and I am not surprised you guys won....

You have a very strong team so no surprises there.
Good job!!! :goodjob:
I think we should give them a handicap for the next game, hey Dman, fancy moving teams. Only joking of course.

:bounce:

Good work all!

Fuzzy, huh! :lol: I think I will abandon my principles in the next game and play as the team plays. With proper ship-chaining I could've sent a bigger force earlier to the northern island.

And I will continue to listen to klarius, I think I wanted knights, but the techpace was good enough to go for cossacks.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

I read through our thread and I was the main warmonger?!

I, the peaceful builder, started the wars. Then took a great part of the continent and took care of some outer cities.

And finally took 20+ cities during my last turnset!

You lot are a bad influence!

Now I'm going to play a builder's game all on my own, I'm fed up with all this bloodshed :lol:

Yes Offa, I'm going to build marketplaces quicker this time.

WOA, great work on GOTM 37. :goodjob: Apparently we're teaching you something here. ;)

WOA, great work on GOTM 37. :goodjob: Apparently we're teaching you something here. ;)

Yes, you are, thank you :worship:

Too good again for us mere mortals. ;)
Perhaps a nice quiet cultural game will bring you back in line. (..or perhaps not)

PS, i quess noone uploaded that last save right?

I'll wait a bit more if anyone actually did before doing so. Doing twice would probably have no good effects.

PS, i quess noone uploaded that last save right?

I'll wait a bit more if anyone actually did before doing so. Doing twice would probably have no good effects.

I don't understand this. I certainly have a full set of saves for this game, including 1275ad. I like to replay things using civReplay.

Or are you referring to something else?

What i mean:

I uploaded 1275 only to this thread, not to the sgotm submission when finishing the last turns.

It was said we could upload it anyway because the last date doesn't show and even if it does, it would still be good to upload it now.

However, if the last date doesn't show, i am not sure if anyone else already took the save from the tread and uploaded it.

Oh, that's what you mean. I don't see the harm in uploading the finish save. I believe we are safe :) .

Hi there,

I am gonna be on travel again between Januari the 24th and Februari the ~3th.

If sign ups for the next sgotm will be in that time, sign me up please !

Well, we should decide what version to use for SGOTM6.
I did initially think PtW for a bit more challenge.
There are two things speaking for C3C instead.

- Playing succesfully in PtW means tight RCP build and free palace jump IMO. Some of the team members may not like this, but with the changed rules on leaders, I think hand building the FP far away will let a team fall back in a normal big empire.

- There is the challenge by the CDZ team. ;)
Especially Anarres posting that he wants to beat Team Offa. The different versions will play too different to compare.

I'm still open to play any version (even vanilla for the extra kick of absolutely unusable communism :p ).

I am also open to playing any version. I usually prefer playing PTW probably as I am more used to it, and dislike the republic slingshot in c3c, which robs the ancient era of some of its colour. At least that won't be an issue here.
It is a pity that the two versions aren't really comparable.

I do agree that a palace jump would almost certainly be wanted in PTW. If team-mates (that's you Gozpel) can't live with that, maybe we should try c3c after all.

I would prefer to play the same version as our primary competition.

:lol: I will never like palace-jumps, but if the team wants it I'm not against it. So let's jump palaces and do some ship-chaining and other stuff I forgot, but I know I dislike. That will teach me a lesson for my whining :)

I prefer PTW actually, with a lot of leaders we can rush prime culture wonders and stuff.

Also, when it comes to 100k, I have a fair bit of experience with that. But I keep that for the thread when the time comes.

I prefer PTW actually, with a lot of leaders we can rush prime culture wonders and stuff.

Actually, leaders will not be able to rush any wonders...

Geez, I need to reread the rules. Ah well, leaders can still rush culture buildings.

I know PtW better and prefer it, but my opinion should be discounted for the fact that I'm going to miss a good deal of the game. If the rest of you reach a consensus for Conquests, that's fine too.

As for Team CDZ, shouldn't they match our choice of version if they want a direct competition? The challenger in a duel doesn't get to pick the weapon. :lol:

:lol: I will never like palace-jumps, but if the team wants it I'm not against it. So let's jump palaces and do some ship-chaining and other stuff I forgot, but I know I dislike. That will teach me a lesson for my whining :)

Noooo! gozpel, stay strong! Whine all you want about palace-jumps as they were designed to be whined about by players like us.

The Jason date for PTW is 1270AD, and for C3C it's 1375AD if that makes a difference to your thinking. I am not convinced that the C3C version is easier.

The Jason date for PTW is 1270AD, and for C3C it's 1375AD if that makes a difference to your thinking. I am not convinced that the C3C version is easier.
I think that just shows the weakness of the Jason best dates :D .
But even if it would make sense, the variant (no better government than despotism) and the changes to the PtW/vanilla leaders are a big disadvantage for these versions.
Coupled with a 3 settler-factory start for a Conquests agri civ, I don't see that PtW/vanilla can come near to the date possible in Conquests.

The game will be much easier in C3C imo.. because of these factors:
-Agricultural allows faster expansion and growth
-Better taxmen and scientists (civil enginers and policemen is a much smaller factor)
-Mil is normally a disadvantage for this type of game, thou doesnt matter for Celts since they have a 40 shield UU
-Better communism
-Faster forest chops

If leaders in vanilla/ptw was allowed to rush wonders it would be much closer thou.

I think that C3C could be easier, but I am not convinced. The ability to have two cores may help PTW/vanilla , despite no cash rushing. Additionally the map is custom made, and other things may bear on the outcome.