SGOTM5 - Russia. Game Thread Team Peanut.

Hi everyone, and welcome to the SGOTM5 Game thread.

Note: EVERYONE will have to install the correct resource graphics whether or not they have played SGOTM4.


Here is the start position.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM5-starta.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM5-startb.jpg

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Russia
World size - Large, 25% land give or take.
Difficulty Regent - but plays harder.
The map is handbuilt, and therefore may not have a standard configuration.

Here are a couple of links you might find useful.

The original GOTM23 Announcement. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/gotm23_arabs.shtml)
The Constitution (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1733966&postcount=61)
The GOTM Reference Thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=71788)
SGOTM5 Maintenance Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=105346)

This Months' sponsored variant is OBCC - One Built City Conquest the rules for which are as follows.

1. You may never build a settler.
2. You must win by conquest victory condition.

Hi guys!
Here we go :)
I'm ready for action, as allways.

Wellcome rrau and Mailman :wavey:
I don't know you two so:
Whereabouts in the world are you?
What's your succession game experience?

As for this variant :lol:
I don't know HOW mad-bax has done it, but no settlers from huts - amazing!
When I first started to play civ, long before I found CFC, I used to think that building settlers was a waste of resources. Capturing cities that someone else had built always seemed more efficient and cost effective. I haven't done it that way for a long time, so it will fun to see how it feels now.
Barracks, units and workers.
Oh yes, this is definately going to be fun :)

edit: rrau I see you are a successiongame junkie - hope you have enough time for us :)

Now I've just downloaded the save and F10 reveals that we are sharing the world with no less than these civilizations:

civ_steve checking in; I've got my Sword and Lance for this one!

Welcome rrau and Chamnix :wavey: (If I've read MB's list correctly). No Peglegasus for this one.

I've got the game. What a long list of opponents - should be fun!! I'll post logs in the rest of this post later.

---------------------------------------
Turn Logs:

Turn set 1; Keith Larson 4000 to 3000 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2355940&postcount=23) Freezing Scouting commences; city site to West detected - Cattle, River, Coast and Furs; Moscow founded (on BG) in 3750 BC; Huts give us Pottery; we started with BronzeWorking and Alphabet!; start Research on WarriorCode; Build 2 more Scouts, then Worker; pop eqWorker from Hut; build Warrior; pop maps from hut

Turn set 2; civ_steve 2950 to 2550 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2359077&postcount=44) Learn Warrior Code; pop Huts for Mysticism; Disband 1 Scout; Furs connected; pop Huts for Warrior - disbanded on the spot; disband remaining 2 Scouts once our island is scouted; finish Temple

Turn set 3; Peanut 2510 to 2150 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2359279&postcount=46) Build another Worker; improve tiles around Moscow

Turn set 4; Mathilda 2110 to 1790 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2360327&postcount=58) Learn Writing; grow twice and Join 1 Worker; Moscow is size8

Turn set 5; rrau 1750 to 1525 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2361129&postcount=62) Finish Colossus; most improvements complete; join 2 Workers (Moscow is size10)

Turn set 6; MailMan 1500 to 1250 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2362981&postcount=71) Finish Barracks; build 2 Archers; Learn Map-Making, putting a Galley in the water that turn; build 2nd Galley; off exploring

MB's list isn't correct though, if you look a few posts down in the same thread, you'll find out why.

I played around with a test game this morning and was surprized how easy a OCBC is to play. Of course I had a better starting position, but I learned a few things.

If we are a great distance from any civil, it can make sense to build an early wonder. I built a hoard of archers early on and only stopped because of the upkeep. I was able to "city pick" the Aztecs and Arabs and still build the Colossus. I wish I had built the Colossus first and then the archers. I would have had more gold for upkeep and I would not have had to walk so far to get to the nearest enemy city.

I say this not only to open the possiblity of building the Colossus early, but also to remind us that we have plenty of time to find a good city sight.

Who will get us started?

If we are a great distance from any civil, it can make sense to build an early wonder.

With that amount of civs in the game I doubt we'll struggle to find company.
Oh, I don't want to go first, if that's ok.

Welcome back, fellow Peanuts. A special welcome to rrau and Mailman and congratulations to you both on being promoted (?) to nutty status. Where are you from and what timezone are you in ? I am in Brisbane, Australia at UT+10.

We run this team as a sort of chaotic democracy, with anybody feeling impatient welcome to crack the whip to keep things moving. We are called Team Peanut through an accident of history. I am the ship's figurehead who the others sometimes allow to climb down and take the wheel - that's when we sometimes end up in uncharted and unexpected waters or maybe even on the rocks.

Our rules are simple and are something like this (and please suggest changes if you disagree) :-
All criticisms are constructive and all ideas (however nutty) are welcome.
Whoever is up is the boss for that round. Whatever they decide is what happens. Only one captain in the chair at a time.
Post a "got-it" within 24 hours of the last player posting results. Then please play and post in 72 hours. Otherwise the next player can post a "got-it" and proceed.
If you cannot play in time then please post a "pass this round" as soon as possible.
Have fun playing and remember it's only a game after all !

Some thoughts :

I suspect that we will need a good supply of cash and workers to get our grand armies up and marching. Also workers to pave the way for our troops to visit destruction and enslavement on our unsuspecting neighbours. Which means we need scouts to meet all our temporary friends, and to pop lots of huts for cash and techs so we can trade up a cash surplus. Or something like that ...

Lets have an exchange of strategy ideas before we start.

For lack of anything better how about our roster being as MB listed it in the database - civ_steve, Keith Larson, MailMan, Mathilda, Peanut, rrau

Remember we play PTW, and do not forget the scenario download.

[list] All criticisms are constructive and all ideas (however nutty) are welcome.
.....
Post a "got-it" within 24 hours of the last player posting results. Then please play and post in 72 hours. Otherwise the next player can post a "got-it" and proceed.

For lack of anything better how about our roster being as MB listed it in the database - civ_steve, Keith Larson, MailMan, Mathilda, Peanut, rrau

:whipped:
Well, I do feel I'm the official team whip and here's my ideas for this time round for keeping the thingy moving. ( I don't want to have to resort to :ar15: )
Peanut I think it's (or at least feel should be) 24 + 48 hours.
If you know you can't play and post within two days of your turn coming up please post a pass or try to swap with the next player.
And please inform others of preknown absences.
And check the thread daily.
If anybody has a problem with doing that here's the nutty idea:
PM or email me your mobile number and I'll send you a text message (SMS, whatever you call it) when you're up. Scary I know, but I'm not a pshycho :crazyeye: :D

Anyone got any hunches about the first moves and which way the settler and the scout should be going?

Hi, checking in. :wavey: I'm in a small town in Missouri, USA. GMT-6.

Level of experience: I can win most emperor games with a good start (but not as fast as the best). I am trying a demigod solo game now and am still alive and have wiped out one rival. (However deity always kills me off)

Strategy: How about building 2 more scouts, then rax, a worker, and then archers as long as we can support them. If we want to try for an early wonder, I would probably want go with Pyramids (if not on a small landmass) to get our newly captured cities filled with our citizens asap.

Proposed government route: Republic (possibly communism later if the game goes that long)

Research: This is regent, so may be slow. Do we want to just do pointy stick research or research at max. Regardless I think we should try to get the other civs warring amongst themselves to keep their tech pace slow.

[edit] 2 of the mountains look like they are near rivers. Maybe send the scout to one of those mountains and take a look around and see if there's some food bonuses nearby

:whipped:
Well, I do feel I'm the official team whip and here's my ideas for this time round for keeping the thingy moving. I wasn't going to single anybody out for meritorious service ... but ... now you mention it ... we have all appreciated your discrete prompting so from me please keep it up.

Peanut I think it's (or at least feel should be) 24 + 48 hours. Yes that's what I meant to say but you put it more clearly. As for the SMS idea - truly nutty territory I suspect but we are Team Peanut after all ... we should all ponder on it. A private mail can send a prompt to your email address as an alternative but ... hmmm.... an SMS gives it that personal, immediate touch !

As for the settler - I think we should move. The mountain to the SE has a river and green beyond it so perhaps we should scout it first then decide. The west mountain may also be overlooking promising territory.

I think we will need population growth (which equals production and income) and cash to fund troops. So Colossus & Pyramids may be worthwhile or at least a granary. Moscow will be churning out troops for quite a while as well as workers so we need to keep growth up.

The Library would be useful so that we can slacken research after a few essential techs for offensive units eg. IW, HBR., until we conquor enough cities to fuel our research as well as supporting our troops.

Welcome rrau. Great ideas and lets keep the debate running. We should be able to get through the first few rounds of the roster quickly as with one city we will probably be exploring and building and arming for a while yet.

As for the SMS idea - truly nutty territory I suspect but we are Team Peanut after all ... we should all ponder on it. A private mail can send a prompt to your email address as an alternative but ... hmmm.... an SMS gives it that personal, immediate touch !
I would have thought that if you are by the puter to check your mails, you'd check the game as well, no? I understand well internet & anonymity issues and won't hold a gun to anyones head about this :)

As for the settler - I think we should move. The mountain to the SE has a river and green beyond it so perhaps we should scout it first then decide. The west mountain may also be overlooking promising territory..
Move the settler :eek: you don't say :D
Yes, south seems obvious to me too, but it seems that we're in for suprises. (No settlers from huts - I just can't get over that one)

... Colossus & Pyramids ...... granary.... Library
Barracks, I want barracks :bounce:
And I'd like to apologise for this beforehand, but I'm still not THAT convinced by Republic that I'd accept it out of hand for game like this, where we'll be doing a LOT of fighting - conquest and a fast one at that. So someone's going to have to convince me why it would be better than Monarchy :)

Would you like to start the game off for us Steve, like Nutty suggested?

oh btw, me GMT +2 (Helsinki, and yes, it's white with snow), if that wasn't clear from last time.

Hello all, MailMan reporting for duty.

I am still playing SGOTM4 on team alamo. and currently playing GOTM37 as my first deity game which is looking promesing (still in AA but looking good on a warrior+settler factory).
I am from Israel (GMT+2).

I will look at the save later on, but for now scouting south sounds good.
build: scout, scout, barracks, archer, worker (depanding on the land that we'll get).
research: need to see to modified techs.

@Mathilda - MB said we could keep settlers from huts and towns from huts. We just can't build any.

Gameplay Equalisation.
1. War mobilisation has been reinstated in both versions of the software. It becomes available with the discovery of Nationalism as in the original game.
2. Leaders cannot hurry great wonders or small wonders. They may however be disbanded for 250 shields.
3. The Heroic Epic no longer requires a victorious Army in the field. It is now a small wonder that is available with the discovery of warrior code. This may be used to reduce the disadvantage that players attempting a non-military victory have due to not being able to rush wonders. It also means that players and teams persuing a military victory will be more likely to face AI armies.
4. Differential Naval Movement is engaged by default.
5. It is not possible to pop settlers from huts.
@rrau I was talking about what was posted in this, number five.

civ_steve, checking back in after a busy day.

OK, I see my error; with very little time I just looked at MB's team listing. I see that Chamnix is out and MailMan is in. Welcome, MailMan!

I'm in California, so I'm at GMT-8

There are 3 mountains, and the scout should go to the West or SE one first - there appears to be a bit of river showing at both of these locations, so they seem most promising. If something good shows up, then the Worker and Settler can follow; if not, maybe they should go to each of the other two mountains? Ideally, we would find a coastal-river space with a food bonus nearby (and maybe some BGs as well!)

I'm concerned about the 25% land for this game. Unless we happen across somebody, I think we MUST found our one and only Settler-City on the coast! (Just in case everybody is on scattered islands.) So I'd anticipate a bit of scouting around to find the best available space (or at least a very good one.)

Research - we'll want Archers pretty quickly, and want to know where Horses are. Otherwise, probably no research, save money and let the AI learn things for us to pry out of them!! :D

Builds - if we are on a large enough land mass, 2 more scouts sounds reasonable, then a Barracks. Once the land mass is scouted, we can disband the Scouts (we can only support 4 units.) An early Worker would be good, too; it can improve our good terrain (I hope) then be rejoined into the city at a later date.

Depends after the Barracks, but we definitely want Veteran units.

Govt is open to debate; with 15 civs we should be at war with somebody most of the time; however, WW is not to difficult to handle in Republic.

OK, I can play first if people want; however, I did play the last turnset for SGOTM4, so I feel obliged to offer the first set of turns to someone else :) ; how about Keith? (Also, I wouldn't be able to play for 24 more hours.)

oops, missed that one.

I suggest building a roster sheet based on geographic location.
we have:
GMT-6: rrau
GMT-8: civ_steve
GMT+2: Mathilda and MailMan
GMT+10: Peanut
GMT-6: Keith Larson

I suggest the following roster:
civ_steve
Peanut
Mathilda
rrau
MailMan
Keith Larson

(edit: fix Keith Larson timezone)

Keith is in US central time, is that the same as rrau -6.

Yes I am Central time. I could start us out late tonight (after 9 PM central US) or give that honor to rrau. BTW I am a graduate from the University of Missouri!

Like CivSteve I am concerned about the small land mass. With the slow AI expansion in Regent we have time to find a good city site. I started a second test game to confirm my earlier observations and it is real easy to get too far ahead of the AI. What I mean by this is that we need the AI to found cities for us and if we hit them too hard too fast we will have large areas of unsettled land to deal with. It has felt odd sitting around waiting for the AI to settle cities. Almost makes you long for deity. (Almost!) :D

Keith, why don't you go ahead. I've still got some stuff to do tonight before tomorrow AM (and work) rolls around.

Welcome Mailman. Good to have you with us.

I am happy with MailMan's roster suggestion and if there is no objections you may as well start us off Keith. Remember Keith you get 20 turns to start, and then it's ten turns each.

Some more ideas : CS's build order seems ok but we will need to have some MPs around for happiness as with only one city and no settlers we probably will get a large population and few (if any) luxuries. A temple may be needed. 25% land sounds like we will need Mapmaking early and the lighthouse may come in handy.

As for workers - I think we will need workers for a while to maximise Moscow's production and to road towards our enemies' gates, but slaves will serve nicely if available.

PS Mathilde - snow eh ? On very cold days in midwinter there is very occasionally some snow in the hills a few hundred km inland from here, and it melts by midmorning. My children have never seen any. Today summer is almost on us, and the days are getting hotter and more humid. Plus some great evening storms already. That's life in the subtropics.

Turn 1: 4000 BC
Worker moves S and sees nothing but trees and snow. Scout moves W to mountaintop and Bingo! Two more tiles is a coastline, river and a cow! Settler moves W.

Turn 2: 3950 BC
Scout move W to check out the city site. Very good news a bonus grass, game in woods and at least one more grassland. Worker and settler move W.

Turn 3: 3900 BC
Moving S the scout see huts across a bay on a mountain it also sees furs and another game but this one is on a grassland tile! I think I will found the city on the Bonus grassland tile this will bring the cattle, the furs and the bonus game on the grassland and one more grassland tile within the city radius.

Turn 4: 3850 BC
Scout move S then SE and sees huts to the E. Worker and settler continue their trek.

Turn 5: 3800 BC
Scout move E towards huts. Worker and settler are now both on city site.

Turn 6: 3750 BC
Scout moves onto huts and discovers pottery. How strange! F6 shows we started with BW and Alphabet. Moscow is founded and starts building scout and researching WC in 18 turns. Worker moves to cattle to start work.

Turn 7 3700 BC
Nothing to note.

Turn 8 3650 BC
Nothing to note.

Turn 9: 3600 BC
Nothing.

Turn 10: 3550 BC
Nothing.

Turn 11: 3500 BC
Moscow completes scout and starts another. New Scout will explore to the NE. Worker starts road. First scout continues to explore the SW coast.

Turn 12: 3450 BC
Nothing.

Turn 13: 3400 BC
Across the waters our first scout sees silks.

Turn 14: 3350 BC
Worker finish improving cattle tile an move S to hook up the furs and then the game.

Turn 15: 3300 BC
Finish third scout and start worker. N scout sees huts.

Turn 16: 3250 BC
Huts give us CB. S scout has revealed the area around the southern river. It has a grain rather than cattle and some extra bonus grass. Other than that it is about the same.

Turn 17: 3200 BC
Center Scout sees huts.

Turn 18: 3150 BC
Second worker completed. And starts warrior. Center scout gets an eqWorker from huts and sees another good city site on the NE coast. Southern Scout sees more huts.

Turn 19: 3100 BC
S Scout only gives us maps from the huts.

Turn 20: 3050 BC
Nothing new.

Turn 21: 3000 BC
Moscow makes warrior and starts another.

After Action Report:
It looks like we are all alone on an ice island. I suggest we go for Mapmaking ASP and find our first victim. In the mean time we might as well build the Colossus.

What happened to the upload link? How do I upload my move? :sad: I am going to bed now. Hopefully there will be a link by morning.

Upload saves here. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm.php)

What happened to the upload link? How do I upload my move? :sad: I am going to bed now. Hopefully there will be a link by morning.
You can also get to the upload page by going to the Peanut, SGOTM4, page 1; the first post by MB has links to the Upload and Download pages there!

Probably be a good idea to store the website as a 'Favorites' as well.

I'm dying to see the save; it sounds like you found an ideal first city site: River, coastal and food bonus, and some Luxuries as well!

Odd that we look like Russia, with a Scout and can build Scouts, but we have a Commercial attribute for starting Techs (Alphabet). I haven't actually loaded the game yet (very busy weekend); how is it that no one made mention of this before the turns were played? This was an important thing to discuss, because it gives us a big step along the path to Map-Making! If we're alone on this ice island, WC is a mistake but one that's reasonable to make. Our path has to be Writing-MapMaking, and as fast as possible!! We're going to be 18 turns behind any other team that chose Writing first.

I see you said something about a good city site on the NE coast; just a reminder for all, we can't build ANY Settlers in this variant and MB has made sure we wont get any from Huts. The only additional cities we'll get are those we take from the AI.

I think we can drop Wheel from our list of immediate desired Techs. It looks like we might be on an Archipelago-style map with lots of islands, possibly one per civ. Such civs are very vulnerable to Galleys dropping off Swordsmen directly adjacent to their coastal cities; the ability to move by Galley makes up for the reduced movement of the Swordsman (but not for the ability to retreat; eventually we'll want Horsemen, but we might be able to wait until we get it from somebody)

Also at Regent level, these civs will be terribly isolated and behind in Tech - totally ripe for plundering!

Republic looks better to me, after thinking about it. The extra commerce per city tile being worked will probably be crucial to support the units we'll need with only one initial city. Along that line of thinking, Colossus sounds like a great Wonder to get early on. Pyramids are out, better to build a Granary for 60 than Pyramids for 400 and get the same effect.

Are we going by MailMan's roster?

civ_steve
Peanut
Mathilda
rrau
MailMan
Keith Larson

If so, I suppose I'm up!! (Put that whip down, Mathilda! :) )

Good job on the city site!
Alone on an ice-island eh?
How long till map making? (I'm at work and can't check the game)
With only one city, I want to have archers ready to hop on those boats as soon as they are ready. I presume galleys can get accross without lighthouse if scouts can see across.
Building colosuus worries me, is it necessary?

Sounds like a great city site Keith ! You tripped over a lush oasis of plenty in an ice desert - or something like that.

And yes, I reckon we're in your expert hands next, CS. Then the figurehead climbs down off the bow and does strange and unexpected (ie. inexplicable) things with the rudder and sails. Followed by :whipped::queen:

If we are going to be doing a lot of sailing about then the lighthouse will be handy. Building the Colossus for the extra cash will be useful as well while we wait to learn how to build those darned complicated rowing boats !

Put that whip down, Mathilda! :) )
Awwhh.. spoiling my fun :lol:
You better get yourself ready for action Peanut :satan:
btw Peanut, I'm not at all jealous for your subtropics, it was really beautiful here this morning, although darn cold.

Mathilda - It's me that's jealous for your free cool temperatures. After summer days of over 35 degrees C and 80 percent humidity driven by hot moist winds blowing in off the Coral Sea we get nights of 27 degrees and 95 percent humidity. It's times like that we wish for just a few minutes of -10 degrees for a change. Although I must admit that today it has been delightfully comfortable.

I replayed the first 5 turns as Keith logged them. Here is a screenshot of what was revealed up to that point, regarding our Capital city site:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg5_bc3800.JPG

In general, founding on a BG is a no-no, but I've counted things up about 3 different ways, and I think it works out slightly better to do it that way! :thumbsup: (vs founding on the Forest just SE of the BG; no other space is even close in comparison)

So if Keith Uploads the SAVE file tomorrow morning (first thing), I'll play right after that.

No upload yet, so I thought about the Capital and what Worker actions should be performed around it. Here's a screenshot of what I'd propose:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg5_bc3800Worktodo.JPG

Most very important thing to do is to get our Capital to maximum sustainable population ASAP. We only have one city, so we need to wring as much commerce and production out of it as possible.

This says 'Granary' to me, and right now. Once completed, start building Workers, make any and all improvements to the local terrain, then do a mass-Join Workers to get to max population, set Luxuries appropriately and continue.

We are in a food-poor area so we need to irrigate our two food bonuses; that's easy for the Cattle; the Games requires being chopped and then the adjacent Lake allows Irrigation.

OK, that give us +6 food in Despotism, and +8 food in Republic/Monarchy. We'll have 4 Grasslands to occupy, so we can also occupy 6 Tundra spaces and the Lake for a Maximum population of 11. A Harbor will allow us to go to 12, using a Coastal tile, and that's as large as we can grow for a while. At size 12, with the Furs connected and 2 MP's eventually in place, we'd have 1 Happy, 3 Content and 8 Unhappy citizens; this would need 7 Happy faces to make 6H/0C/6U, or about 30% of the 26 Commerce or so that we'd be generating under Despotism leaving around 19 per turn for Research, Taxes or whatever; under Monarchy we'd have 3 MPs, so we'd have 1H/4C/7U needing 6 Happy Faces and leaving maybe 22 Commerce; under Republic we'd have 0 MPs, so we'd have 1H/1C/10U needing 9 Happy Faces, but we'd have nearly 40 Commerce to start with, so we'd have about 31 Commerce to work with. Except for possible WarWeariness (which we have some control over), Republic seems to be the best Government for us. A Colossus adds 13 Commerce to Republic and Monarchy, but not much to Despotism; still we should build it, probably right after we Max ourselves.

So, looking at the map above, those are the improvements I'd recommend. Most of them are obvious; I think its critical not to Chop any of the Tundra Woods squares; the short term 10 shields we'd gain don't make up for the loss of 1 shield long term. But I would chop the Games square for sure(we lose 2 Shields, but can now support two additional Tundra squares, making up the 2 Shields or more and adding up to 2 additional Commerce); the Grasslands Woods is right on the border of To Chop or Not; short term it allows us to work another Tundra square - lose 1 Shield but gain 1 or 2 Commerce; however, once we have a harbor, it might be nicer to have the 2 Shields from the Woods space. I'd recommend making a decision on this one last, and seeing what the status is.

If I'm counting correctly, we have 3 Scouts, 2 Workers, an eqWorker from a Hut and a Warrior. That's 7 units, costing us 3 gpt! I'm planning on doing some disbanding at earliest opportunity.

Any comments?

Yes I certainly do have comments!
As in thank you Steve, your thourough work is always wonderful to read :)

Here is the upload.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_BC3000_01.SAV

I agree to most of civ_steve analysis.
however I am not so sure about building a granary. at least not on the start.
It may be better to produce 2 workers and the Colossus first.
At small size our city will grow fast due to the 2 food bonus. therefore it may be better to produce workers first and later on they will join our city (when it grows beyond size 6)

Good job on the write up CivS. I agree with all the tile improvements you suggest. When you see the upload you will note that the road in the snow forest S of Moscow is complete and the workers are on the furs. A third worker is on the way from a hut, so I have my doubts about a granary as well. We can easily build one or two more works in less time than it would take to build a granary and that should easily allow us to keep up tile improvement with pop growth. So what should we build with all the chopping? I suggest a temple. As our income grows the one gold per turn upkeep is less than 10% on the slider. Once we have explored the whole island we need to disband the scouts ASP. If they are a great distance from Moscow I would just disband them in place. The two shields are not worth the lose in gold. After a temple I still think the Colossus would be nice to have. What else are we going to build?

looking at the save I noticed the following:
1. I think we took the worse direction from the three. each location have roughly the same bonuses, but we took one BG while on the other two direction we would have settled on a tundra tile leaving us with more grass to grow.
2. the west scout should be disbanded after getting the GH. the north scout is about to be disbanded as well.
3. the warrior may have been a bad choice. it cost us 1gpt. it would help us if have to fight barbs.
4. I agree with Keith Larson on the build order of temple --> Colossus.
5. research: min on writing max on MM.

Clearly we have the worse of the three sites. But I saw our present site first and it met all of our criteria. The SE site is only a little better, with the NE site being the best by far. I was not even considering going in the NE direction at first because I did not see a river in that direction. I think I did the right thing by going for the first good site I saw. I am sure we will be moving our Palace as the game progresses.

The warrior was a bad choice. I should have gone for another worker.

OK, I do have the official save, now. I guess I can be convinced that we don't need a Granary; if we improve the Cow and Games spaces, and keep size down to 3 or 4, we should maintain 4 turn growth; spitting out about 4 or 5 more Workers should be about right.

OK, Temple-Colossus it is. The Warrior does cost us now, but will be needed as MP eventually; it seems to be just early.

@Keith Larson: I am sorry that my comment seemed like accusation I was targeting the potential differences between us and the other teams.

Just to add some oil: If there is a land bridge to the SE our location may be even worse.

Another note: there is realy no point in waiting for the other civs to settle. even if they do settle on the ice patch it, would be hard for us to take them out without razing them since they will grow very slowly and will not produce culture for a long long time.

I don't think you are yet in a position to decide which location is better or worse. I would wait until you have the world map before continuing this particular discussion if I were you. ;)

Interesting note MB. I will try to remember this discussion after we'll get our maps.
for now we will just play on...

Mailman - on your last point - yes ... but we need cities in the vicinity of Moscow to build a productive core and the only way we will get them is if the AI settle there. Once they do, and the towns grow to pop 2, we can capture them without autorazing them. The trick for us will be enticing innocent immigrants to settle where we want them to settle.

Unless of course we shift our capital when we find and conquor a ready-built land with a better climate.

As for where we settled - c'est la vie or whatever it is they say in Paris. It's done now, the captain-of-the-day made a decision, and now we will just march on towards our inevitable if perhaps ever so slightly delayed triumph. And it may turn out to have advantages we don't see just yet.

PS I just saw MB's email. I have a suspicion that this map is more evil than it seems from this icy position. Hmmm ... well MB ? (picture an intercontinental glower plus one raised eyebrow type of smilie here ...)

Went ahead and played this evening:

Turn 0, 3000 BC
Set 'Emphasis Production' to Yes for the city Governor
Change Production to Temple
Set Research to 90%; WC in 1, but -3 gpt

Turn 1, 2950 BC
Learn WC, next Masonry (!!) (What, has Steve lost his head!)
Research to 0 (+3 gpt)
We can build the Heroic Epic, BTW!
Start Roading Furs (3 turns)
Move Scouts, and keep moving 3rd Worker toward Home
Moscow is size3; MM to Grassland to Grow in 5; Temple in 14

Turn 2, 2900 BC
Scout hits Huts to West; we are Taught ... Mysticism (darn, wanted Wheel)
Set Research to Writing; at 50% learn in 40 turns with 0 gpt (I'm sure it will come down)
North Scout sees Land to North, across Strait

Turn 3, 2850 BC
Disband North Scout; Research at 70%, still 39 turns

Turn 4, 2800 BC
Furs are connected (we're the Happy Despotism)
Send arriving Worker to Bare Grassland
Send 2 Workers to Games space

Turn 5, 2750 BC
Start Roading with 1
Start Chopping with 2
37 turns for Writing

Turn 6, 2710 BC
Moscow is now Size 4, working the Furs
set Research to 80%; Writing now in 30 Turns at 0 gpt
Temple in 6; Growth in 7
East Scout sees Huts

Turn 7, 2670 BC
Huts give us a skilled Warrior; promptly disbanded!

Turn 8, 2630 BC
Grassland has Road, start Mining
Writing in 24 at 80% and 0 gpt
West Scout hits the end of the Peninsula

Turn 9, 2590 BC
Disband West Scout
East Scout hits the end of the road

Turn 10, 2550 BC
Disband East Scout
A perfect chop finishes the Temple with no extra Shields
Start on Worker
Workers start Irrigating Game
Research at 90% gets Writing in 19

End of Turnlog

Got the Temple done; Game is being Irrigated; time to build Workers and Bulk up! Research Writing and then Map-Making, build Colossus, go out and explore ... well, there's lots to do!

Peanut, over to you!!
2550 BC Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_BC2550_01.SAV)

Well steered CS. Shame about The Wheel, but a good move with that 0% Masonry shuffle.

It's a Got It from the team figurehead. Stay tuned ...

Pre-turn : Everything looks in great shape. No grumpy faces in Moscow ... yet.

In Between Turns : Absolutely nothing. No visitors, no barbarians, no joyriding aliens swooping past. Nothing. Not even any sign of that blasted interminable ice melting.

1. 2510 BC : Workers working hard.

IBT : See earlier IBT situation report.

2. 2470 BC : A fresh worker. We now have four workers, enough to keep pace with improvements to match growth (mainly roads in worked forests). We start a granary to speed growth.

IBT : Just as exciting.

3. 2430 BC : Workers head over to road a forest.

IBT : Can't stand the suspense. What is happening out there ???

4. 2390 BC : Workers head for the forested grass.

IBT : Ditto

5. 2350 BC : More road building.

IBT : Hang on ... was that a flash of silver in the sky ... a visitor from Alpha Centauri perhaps ... nope. Just some ice on a distant mountain and a brief break in the snow clouds letting a rare ray of sunlight through.

6. 2310 BC : More hard labour.

IBT : Dull beyond belief.

7. 2270 BC : We now have five solid Russian citizens. One unhappy.

IBT : Yep I believe it now. Megadull.

8. 2230 BC : Let's do some digging with the Tundra tiles.

IBT : Even duller.

9. 2190 BC : Labouring on ...

IBT : More interesting this time ... nope only kidding.

10. 2150 BC : Even more hard work. Those mining workers are almost sweating in these arctic conditions.

Gratuitous advice : Team & especially Mathilda - you have a choice. We finish the Granary in 1, and grow in two. We can either switch to Colossus now (finish in 21 or less), or build Granary so we can grow faster, build another MP and then start the Colossus. We could join workers soon, or use them to road out to the other coasts for faster troop movement if we eventually choose to embark our invasion forces from the other side of our island. Or something completely different. Your thoughts ... ?

Over to you Madame Captain Mathilda ! This game will get more exciting very soon I trust.
The 2150BC Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_BC2150_01.SAV)

:lol:

It *will* liven up shortly. But it is amusing to read.
I expect to get a lot of abuse for the start. I hope that I will be forgiven later. <fingers crossed>

Very nice write-up.

I vote to delay the Granary. The Granary at this point will save us 10 food, however it will not be helpful when growing from size 6 to 7 since it get emptied.
For the cost of 10 food we can get the Colossus early to boost up both cash flow and culture. It will also save 1 gpt of the Granary maintenance.
The Granary is also not helpful when we will decide to join the workers.

It is very nice to see that our game is rolling quickly with several players contributing each day.

I vote for colossus now then granary. Then maybe heroic epic as a prebuild for the Great Lighthouse

Be careful - we might get ourselves a 20K culture victory.

Just kidding :joke:

Something was telling me that if I played last night, Peanut would play the most exciting set of SGOTM turns in recorded history right after! I can see I was half right. ;)

We have 4 Workers, so we want to get to size7 before rejoining them (and it looks like that will work with our growth rate and amount of Work to be done.) (Edit - since we didn't chop the Grassland/Forest, we can support up to Size10: Cattle, Grassland and Games space give us +6 Food, to support 6 Forest/Tundra tiles = 9 tiles, plus the Lake. With Forest Chop -after Colossus- we can grow to size11; with Harbor we can support size12) Right now they are stacked 2 and 2; all that's left to do is Tundra Road and Mine, so we should have a stack of 3 to do the Roads in 1 turn, Mine in 2, and the other Worker can work individually. Also, don't forget our 1 Lake space! This allows us an extra food for Growth vs the Woods spaces (it's still 2 turns to get to Size6, but putting the new citizen in the Lake will give us 5 turn growth to size7, vs 7 turn growth if we use a Forest). We will have to start cranking up the Luxuries on the next Growth; that's fine, cause that's what it will take.

Definitely change the Granary over to Colossus; building a Granary might have helped earlier, but not now. Colossus wont help us much now (I count about 3 more Commerce it will add to our total), but once we change Governments, it will be practically essential to sustain our OBCC effort.

Eventually I think we're going to want the Great Lighthouse; I'd suggest we build that after we get a few Galleys out exploring, obviously after we learn Map-Making. We will also need a Harbor then; this will give us extra Food in the Coastal spaces, allowing us to grow to Size12. (Also, we then have more choices between Growth, Commerce and Production.)

BTW, I wouldn't plan on getting a productive Core around our current palace. We may eventually take over someone who has several cities, and decide to move our Palace at that time (or use a GL to build FP there; we'd have to take them out entirely so there'd be no flips; Heroic Epic should help to get GLs so it has to be on the "list of things to build ... someday"). Moving our Palace will totally destory the utility of Moscow, so we have to make lots of decisions about how much to put into Moscow.

OK Mathilda, you're UP!

Can't use a GL to build small wonders. :mischief:

It's harder now :evil:

You can hand build the FP - or hand build a new Palace - or Free Jump and give up your only city. :)

Whoa! :eek: More of the small print becomes bold! I know who's enjoying themself the most in the early stages of this SGOTM!!

but wait:
"2. Leaders cannot hurry great wonders or small wonders. They may however be disbanded for 250 shields." Wouldn't that build an FP? Or if disbanded, will this disallow Great Wonders and Small Wonders from being built?

My vote is in on switching to Colossus. Mad-bax seems to be having too much fun with this one. Since this is a totally custom map the thought occured to me that we can expect to find anything. Maybe our little chuck of ice is rich in iron, oil, snow-rubber, ice-horses, ect. Who knows, of the three city sites on our ice island ours might be the only one to have iron or horses (or both!). The possiblity exists that these valuable resources might be at one or both of the other sites as well. Once we have fully developed around Moscow we should start roading out towards the other two just in case.

Leaders cannot hurry great wonders or small wonders. They may however be disbanded for 250 shields." Wouldn't that build an FP? Or if disbanded, will this disallow Great Wonders and Small Wonders from being built?

Small and Great wonders can't be rushed by disbanding. :cry:

Oh my.
THAT was quick, Peanut I AM impressed.
I better put that whip down ;)
Yes, got it, and will play soonish.

So colossus it is.
I like rrau's idea of heroic epic prebuild for lighthouse.

If we plan to abandon our current capital, wonders will not do us good. We will have a tough decision when it will comes to that.

preturn 2150BC
Moscow pop 5 (1-3-1) grow in 2
Writing due in 8 Science 80% +0/turn, 10 in the kitty
Change production to colossus - 21 turns.
I can tell this is going to be sooo exciting.

If any of the IBTs turns out as thrilling as Peanut's, I'll let you know.

turn1 2110BC
mining

turn2 2070BC
Moscow size 6, set worker on lake as suggested by steve, next growth in 5
If we'd left him on the forest, nex growth would have been in 7, but colossus 4 turns sooner (in fifteen)
would have been -1 gold due to lux though this way:
lux up by 10% - new worker pays for his own lux spending now we're at 2-2-2

turn3 2030BC
work

turn4 1990BC
more

turn5 1950BC
?

turn6 1910BC
Wau, some action.
Get to adjust science slider to save 1 gold and still get writing in one. What a party.

turn7 1870BC
All sorts of excitment.
Learn how to write.
Culture expansion.
Moscow grows to size 7
Ok, with 10%lux and 80% science working the lake and a tundramine by river we get
colossus in 11, growth in 14, but we'll join a worker next turn, mapmaking in 23 at -1 / turn.

turn9 1830BC
Join the worker, lux up to 20%, colossus in 9

turn10 1790BC
I can't stand the this any more, it is just too exciting for me.

Here it is (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_BC1790_01.SAV)

What an excitement.

Looking at the save I suggest a bit MM:
work 2 roaded forest tiles instead of 2 mined tundra. we will get The Colossus 1 turn sooner at the cost of one research per turn.

Soon we can join two more workers leaving only 1 to actually do something.

Great job, Mathilda! Quite exciting! :lol:

Just a thought: Great Lighthouse would be much more useful to us at this stage than Colossus. The ability to move an extra space and to survive Sea spaces could be critical to reaching out and finding people. Also, keep in mind that Differential Naval Movement is ON: that means that Galleys get 6 movement points (7 with Great Lighthouse), and that Coast takes 3 movements to enter, Sea takes 2 and Ocean only 1. I can see us needing to cross long stretches of water (only 25% land, although we can see several nearby chunks of land), which GreatLight would really help in doing.

If we change to Oracle, I think it and Great Lighthouse take 300 shields to build so it makes a good pre-build, and we can time it to finish with learning Map-Making. We can still build Colossus later, after we get our Galleys out. What do you guys think?

And who's next? (edit - I see it's rrau! OK, you're UP!! Regarding the MM'ing suggestion from MailMan, be sure we don't lose a Happy face, too! I don't think we will, since 20% of 15 should be 3. We can't sustain the research rate without increasing Taxes as well, but that can probably be figured out after the Workers finish mining and join the capital. MB said something about eqWorkers not being able to be sold or disbanded; he didn't say they couldn't be joined, so I'm hoping they can or our strategy is undermined a bit.)

Good progress folks. I was on the edge of my seat reading your writeup Mathilda. :)

I agree that the Lighthouse will be very important. However switching to Oracle as a prebuild may mean we will lose Colossus as there is sure to be somebody out there building it as well. If we build Colossus first then we delay GL by about 8 turns and I suspect we have a higher chance of getting it as well. That means the GL will kick in while our first galley is still heading off to reach the bits of land we can see in easy reach (eg. that island with the silks and that bit of land in the north.

I suggest keeping a road gang of workers (3) in case we need to set up a colony for horses - which means after MM perhaps we should go for Wheel & HBR. We will need an invasion force eventually and I reckon horses are handy for that. If nothing else the eqworker should be able to build a colony.

preflight (1790bc)

MM Moscow for Colossus in 7 (just moved one cit to a roaded forest, not both as it would waste a shield and lose a commerce
Could have moved off the lake, for colossus in 6, but would have delayed growth too much

ibt: Our treasury is dangerously low

turn 1 (1750bc)

zzzz

ibt: Our treasury is dangerously low

turn 2 (1725bc)

zzzz

ibt: Our treasury is dangerously low and the workers finished mining

turn 3 (1700bc)

workers to last unimproved tile in city radius

ibt: Our treasury is dangerously low

turn 4 (1675bc)

workers roaded last unimproved tile

ibt: Our treasury is dangerously low

turn 5 (1650bc)

workers begin mining

ibt: Our treasury is dangerously low

turn 6 (1625bc)

zzzz

ibt: Complete Colossus. Start Heroic Epic as prebuild for the Great Lighthouse. Our treasury is dangerously low. AND workers complete mining. :eek: Busy year

turn 7 (1600bc)

worker and one eqWorker to Moscow to join next turn

ibt: Guess what? Our treasury is dangerously low :rolleyes:

turn 8 (1575bc)

joined worker and eqWorker to Moscow. Moscow can't grow anymore at this time :(
MM to 5 happy and 5 sad workers. (When I hit the city tile, the governer tries to make an entertainer, so I don't know if we'll riot or not - although I think this bug usually only happens sometimes in C3C when you've equally managed the happy and sad citizens.)
Treasury at 1g + 1gpt. 1.7.2

ibt: We get steps into our cave. :D no riot :D . No warning from our Domestic Advisor :)

turn 9 (1550bc)

zzzz

ibt: zzzzz

turn 10 (1525bc)

zzzz

Notes:

1. Heroic epic due in 12. MM completes in 8 so it can be switched then, but will be late getting out a galley. Other option: switch Heroic Epic to granary in 2, then rax, then a prebuild for harbor/galley/GL

2. We have 3g in our treasury earning 1 gpt don't let all our wealth go to your head. ;)

3. If you MM Moscow to get the unroaded forest across the coast, a cit becomes unhappy and will have to increase lux slider and lower research rate. Not a good trade-off in my opinion.

4. We seem to be off by one turn somewhere. Mailman should play 11 to get us back on track.

5. Sorry Peanut, I didn't see your suggestion about keeping a crew of 3 workers until too late.

Alright! We are definitely putting the turns together quickly, and it looks like we've pulled slightly ahead in score on the Graph! :goodjob: Better scoring slope, too.

I think we should plan to hit the Sea with our first Galley's paddles the instant we learn Map-Making. I think we're generating just over 10 shields/turn, so we should plan on 5 turns of producing something, then 2 turns of pre-build for Galley, with a switch as we learn Map-Making via "Show me the Big Picture" option. Between Granary and Barracks, I'd say Barracks. Now that we know we can join eqWorkers to our city, it should be pretty easy to go raiding; this would eliminate the need for us to grow our city directly so I don't think a Granary is needed or desirable.

So, I'd recommend switching to Barracks immediately - 1 turn (probably waste some shields), then build 2 Vet Archers back to back - 4 turns, then the Galley (prebuild for it) - 3 turns, 8 total. It can head off with the Archers (maybe leave one for MP if it helps our Luxury tax any), and if we get a chance to poach, we can start the warring early (after contact and whatever trading we wish to do). After that, build 2 or 3 more Galleys to send off, an MP if we didn't leave one behind, a harbor, to get to size12. After that, we need to reassess. How many contacts are we making? How vulnerable are they? What do we have to research vs what can we trade for? Maybe at this point we build Great Lighthouse, or maybe we start building what we need to conduct war.

After Map-Making, what should we research? I'm actually leaning towards Iron-Working! If the AI has mostly coastal cities we will be attacking from the Sea often, so I don't see the Horseman to be as powerful. A stack of Swordsmen that suddenly drop in directly adjacent to an AI city is very powerful. So I'd recommend Iron-Working; see if we have it, which would give our Worker a good task to work on.

MailMan is UP! Let's hear what the Team thinks we should do next.

I got it and will probably play in ~12 hours

I like CS build order and research plan.
I do not think that the archers as MP will help our research since we will be paying 1 gpt for the barracks.

Any advise would be welcomed.

On my turn, which was the hight of exitement about a century ago,
after population of 7 each 10% lux was costing 2 gold, so 1 gold for mp might work out cheaper.
Yes, I'm still eager to get out there with archers on board asap.

edit: You know the more I think about this the more I think conquest will be quite short and sharp. 25% land, looking at the size of land we know already in relation to the whole world, our island seems to to be a big chunk of that.
So let's just get out there and :hammer:
How far do you think it will be worth researching? -Regent level.
I'm thinking we could turn research off quite early to pay for units.

I think we will stop our research after we get our knights.
Although we may concure the world using swords and horses alone.
It would be intersting to try capture the world with archers only but I fear that we will need large masses of those and currently we can not maintain them.

This from the maintanance thread:
Can eqworkers be joined?

Yep. Just not built, bought, sold or disbanded.
So that's Ok.

Then same place:
Leaders are pretty lame in this game. Anythjing they can rush usefully in the AA/MA range is only worth 100 shields, so that's their effective shield value. Until you acquire a few cities you can't build an army either, and even then armies aren't ever so useful use in Classic IMHO.
So no leaderfarming required, just use the elites for normal fighting to increase chances of winning.
Who can tell, that I can't wait to get off this ice-patch to go and 'make some friends'?

I'm sure MB has a few more tricks up his sleeve.

We will be facing a choice, between warring early (using our Commerce to support our army) or research (using our Commerce to learn new things.) Once we've made a few contacts, we'll see how much research we need to do. (We'll also determine how valuable an early Great Lighthouse is, too.)

However, we will want to get to a new Government (I still favor Republic for the extra commerce per square it will give us). So maybe, after Map-Making, it's possible that one of the AI has learned Iron-Working, so we might be able to trade for it fairly quickly; therefore we might want to research Philsophy or Code of Laws to give this a chance to happen while we're exploring.

As far as trading Techs goes, I think we should keep Map-Making to ourselves as long as possible. Writing should be tradeable, if it gets us a valuable Tech, otherwise we should hold it as well. I think the first level Techs should all be tradeable by us.

In any case, once we learn Iron-Working (by trade or by research), we should be aggressive about defending any Iron sources we come across. If we can keep the AI to only having Spears, Archers and maybe Chariots/Horses, we will have a much easier time with our conquering.

It's quite possible this will be an Ancient Age only set of combat (which would be fine by me!) But, like I started this post out saying, MB has warned us that this is a non-standard type of map, so we can expect it to be heavily modified, with all sorts of oddities thrown at us.

Also, any cities we capture, we should keep if at all possible. The extra army support alone is worth it, in addition to the extra production and commerce.

I agree that we need to build shipping ASP, so the Barracks/Archer plan sounds good to me. I don't see any point to the granary. I would disband the warrior MPs however. I will be a lot of turns until we actually find someone and all those turns the two archers will suck up gold. Another plan is not to even build the archers and just build wealth for those few turns. Or we could build Vet warriors in hopes we have iron and disband the regular ones.

I'm really hoping we have Iron on our chunk of tundra and rock ... somewhere! If so, Vet Warriors upgraded to Vet Swordsmen is the way to go! But I don't think I'd commit to building Warriors until we know.

Not sure about Wealth; I think we'd only get one more Gold/turn, maybe 2. Better to store as pre-build; then either build a Wonder (Great Lighthouse, Heroic Epic) or finish something else quickly. I do favor a Harbor once we get our Galleys off and exploring - gets us to size 12.

First the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_BC1250_01.SAV)

Turn log.
Pre-check: changed HE to barracks. loosing the current 14 shields. no way to MM to get more food/commerce out of it.
MM in 8 (17bpt), 14spt, 0 extra food, 3g+1gpt

1. 1500BC - barracks --> archer in 2 (0gpt)
all tiles except 1 far away forest is improved. set worker to lay roads around the island.

2. 1475BC worker start roading.

3. 1450BC archer --> archer.

4. 1425BC nada

5. 1400BC archer --> Granery as pre-build to galley.
disband warrior. he is not helping as MP at this point and in 2 turns it will cost us gpt.
the earned 2 shields will help us build galley in 2 turns.
adjust sliders to finish MM in 2 with -2gpt that will get us to 0g in two turns.
worker finished road, moved to another tile. warrior barb is seen by our worker on a mountain NE of the start location
Finaly some action!

IBT - barb moved away (NE)

6. 1375BC adjust sliders to get back to 0gpt still MM in 1.
worker start road.

IBT learn MM. use big picture to change production to galley - now in 1.

7. 1350BC I thought hard on what to research next. looked again in all the available post on our thread and decided to go with iron working (in 9).
set production to another galley. decided to trade 2 food to get the 2nd galley 1 turn sooner.
Set the galley to explore CCW.
set sliders to earn 3gpt. IW in 11.

8. 1325BC move galley.

9. 1300BC another galley came off the shipping docks (+2gpt now). set production to harbor.
worker finished roading another tile. move to the next.
set second galley to explore CW.

10. 1275BC move ships, start road.

11. 1250BC (getting in par with rounded turns.) move ships.

Summery: nothing intersting. tried to hurry as much as possible with getting those ships out.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=74974&stc=1

Nicely done, MailMan! Good MM'ing to get MM a turn early, and those Galleys out in 4 turns instead of 6!

Let's see if we have Iron. If we do, then we have something for the Worker to do. If we don't, maybe the next Galley can drop him off to road the one Tundra/Woods space (something to do later.)

There's Tundra to the South and a bit of Grassland to the North; hopefully one of those will give us someone to contact; or at least somewhere else to go.

Game is starting to get very interesting! Alright Keith, you're UP!!

One other thing: with Differential Naval Movement, you want to include one Sea space per turn of Galley movement. This will allow you to move at least 3 spaces; Going Coast-Coast will limit you to only 2. (And from Coast you can go Sea-Ocean-Sea-Coast, moving 4 spaces with a Galley! Just be sure there's Coast to end up on.)

(For once we're actually one of the LEADING teams in getting turns done!! Obviously a good arrangement wrt time zones!)

I got the file and will start playing around 9 PM US Central. Great set of turns MailMan! What is the date Barb horses show up? I forgot. We want to move the worker back home before that or place him under a unit. A horsemen will kill him for sure.

Thanks for the update, Keith; I'll look to see if there's a save tonight.

We may be stuck with all sorts of Barb camps forever! I don't think we'll be able to afford garrisoning all the land on our not-so-little frozen island. We may eventually be able to Garrison most of the center and confine the Barbs to the arms. I don't know when Barb Horses start showing up.

Excellent progress comrade Peanuts ! We need to keep putting in roads in the wilderness. If there is Iron or Horses about we may need a colony. I suspect we need the Lighthouse if just to make sea tiles safe for us.

Mother Russia blossoms under our generalship ! We march and soon we will demonstrate to the world the many benefits of "joining" our glorious empire.

Mother Russia blossoms under our generalship ! We march and soon we will demonstrate to the world the many benefits of "joining" our glorious empire.
Key benefit that they get to keep breathing! ;)

I noticed something about the list of other civs in the game that Mathilda posted: we are the ONLY Scientific civ! Therefore we are much more likely to have a monopoly on IronWorking for a while.

I've updated my first post (4th overall, I believe) with a log of turns done so far.

Turn 0: 1250 BC
Everything is in good order.

Turn 1: 1225 BC
IBT Barb galley makes appearance N of Moscow. How could those barbarians have learned MM for free!
N galley find barb camp to our N.

Turn 2: 1200 BC
IBT Barb galley moves closer.
Worker moves E to road another tile.
S galley discovers green tiles on the S island!
Move slider up to 70% to get IW in 4.

Turn 3: 1175 BC
Second Barb galley shows up! Must be Santa’s elves up there in the North or something.

Turn 4: 1150 BC
Harbor completed, start Great Lighthouse. Took both citizens on the tundra and move them to the sea. This will give us pop growth in 11. Our exploration does not look to promising so far and I am thinking we will need it to find other civs. Can move slider down and still get IW in 2.

Turn 5: 1125 BC
Can move slider down on more. N galley starts towards island to the N.

Turn 6: 1100 BC
Finish IW and start CoL. Bingo Iron 2 tiles N and 3 tiles NE. Two other irons are on the ice island as well. Our little island will be popular once everyone can sail! Move worker back N to link up iron.

Turn 7 1075 BC
I moved our worker right next to a barb warrior! Exciting news! N galley sees evidence of intelligent life!

Turn 8 1050 BC
Worker is killed. Move across gray border and find a little bald man who looks like a turtle. He has communications with strange peoples called the Egyptians, Americans, and Spanish. He knows how to make bricks and make wheels. He does not know how to make maps. He has six cities. Since this is such an important moment for our team I am going to save and upload. I suggest we have some discussion and let CivSteve finish my last two turns when he does his ten. I suggest we dump the GL and build a galley wasting 18. Build two warriors as MPs, send to two archers to clear the iron, build another worker, start building warriors and galleys like crazy and go conquer.

Yey, some company.
I loaded the save and had a little look around.
Gandhi seems to be more prepared to sell communications with the Spanish than the others. Maybe start from there and hope they've got knowledge of others.
Was it 21 turns to lighthouse atm? That's a long time. Surely that extra movement point on a boat can't be worth it?
Was I the only one who thought the archers were supposed to go on one of them galleys?
a little bald man who looks like a turtle
:lol: I always think of E.T.

Ah ! Things are warming up a little. Sounds like we will need some troops for home defence - and to defend our Iron colony when we build it.

We are caught in a tight spot just now. We need cash for troops (for defence and offense) and our cash flow won't improve until either we get to Republic or we "persuade" some cities to join Mother Russia. I think the latter is a better prospect for the moment.

So we can either build and eventually upgrade warriors or just use archers knowing we will lose many against spears. Whichever, we will need to march many of them cross-country when we set up a troop ferrying service - which means roads).

(Of course we can try to set up an efficient barb camp farming process for some extra pocket money).

Whatever - sounds like we are in for some fun, fellow Peanuts.

Was I the only one who thought the archers were supposed to go on one of them galleys? I tought about it for a while but decided against it.
My reasons was:
1. MP to get our lux slider down a notch
2. barbs was seen on our island so we need some defence.
3. 2 archers have low chances on taking any city alone. when we decide to attack we will need more troops, then our current archers can join.
4. It was also a bet on which direction was looking the most promising (1 archer per boat sound even worse).
5. I did not see in the discussion votes for that move.

I only regret not using one of the galleys to move the worker to the forest.

Regarding the lighthouse - it will more than double our movements over see (using the ocean squares as well as the see squares + extra movement)
I think it should be our first priority with the current build.

If I recall correctly the world map trading was lowered back to MM. I suggest trading them.
The contacks with the other civs we will get enough - so we should trade techs after we get all our contacts - no point in trading for contacts.
Note that in the next turn they might trade our contact as well (since they know writing).

Edit: Regading research - I suggest finish CoL and philosophy at max, than republic at min.
By the time we finish philosophy we will need the cash for our army.
Republic may be reaserched at max if after getting philosophy we can learn it under 20-25 turns. Since we will not increase our beacons by much for a long time the number of turns to learn republic will only increase.

I've loaded the save. Definitely bad news!! I was hoping for isolated starts, and instead we've got 4 AI's knowing each other. Map-Making is the only Tech we have that they don't, and I'm interpreting Gandhi's non-interest in trading for it (he's only offering TM and 14 Gold, and is insulted if we ask for one of his Tier1 Techs) to mean that he's just about researched it, or one or more of the other AI know it already.

I can see a light blue border just to the West of Gandhi's city, so we should have a 2nd contact next turn.

Lahore is only size 1; even with 2 Archers, and assuming the attack worked, the city would be destroyed.

We have a lot we need to do. I don't think we can afford the Lighthouse now; I think we have to secure the nearby iron, and build a colony on it and protect it, so I'd go with Switching to Galley (losing tons of Shields), build a Warrior MP, send the Archers off to deal with the barbs, build a Worker and connect the Iron up. Build some more Warriors along the way to form a force; need at least one more Galley as well.

Regroup. We need the 2 Archers to protect the Iron, 2 Warrior MPs (20 Shields) (maybe only 1 for 10), 6 more Warriors (60 Shields) to become Swordsmen, another Galley (30 shields), (one is created from the GLight switch). Oh yeah, a Worker (10 Shields). That is 120 Shields, or about 10 turns. The 6 swords will need 240 gold to upgrade. Setting CodeofLaws to 10% gains us 14 gpt (which will go down as we build stuff; we should take whatever Gold we can from the AI). I figure the two Galleys can take 4 Swords over for a first strike, then one can come back to pick up 2 more who will be hoofing it across the tundra.

Actually, better yet, we can set Moscow to 15 shields/turn, and crank out 2 turn Swordsmen. This will allow us to continue research, although our Unit costs will go up.

So, I would follow MailMan's trade suggestion and not make any serious trades yet. Get a few more contacts. See if we can take money from the AI over the next few turns. However, continuing on to build GreatLight is too passive; I'd change GreatLight to Galley, clear Barbs; build Warrior MP(s) to release Archer(s) to clear path to Iron; build Worker to connect and colonize Iron; build another Galley along the way, start building Swordsmen. Maintain CofLaws at fastest pace. I'd say let's take a few AI cities, so we can have an army and not spend all our commerce on it!

When we start to attack we need to avoid autoraze as much as possible.
since each attack will take at least 2 turns (first one to get our troops near by) we can not attack even size 2 cities. the AI will rush defence and lower the city to size 1.
Either we attack size 3 and above cities or cities with culture or gift them republic the turn before.
We can always target their capitals...

OK, now I'll play devil's advocate to myself! :) (You can see that this is not straight forward.)

I counted it out: it's about 10 turns of movement for a regular Galley to reach Indian waters from Moscow. Sooo, we're looking at Galley, Warrior, Worker - move, move, Road for 3 turns, move, Colonize. 9 turns to connect Iron, 8 more turns of 2 turn Swordsmen, 10 turns of transport, so 27 turns before we are able to attack India under this scenario. (somewhere in the mid-400's)

If we finish Great Lighthouse, the movement cost will be cut to 5 or 6 turns or so. Plus we can stay in Sea spaces and ignore Barb Galleys if we wish (I've not seen them attack a vessel in Sea or Ocean tiles.) And we might need Great Lighthouse to make other contacts; don't know until we find out.

In 21 turns, we will probably have learned CofL and Phil, made lots of contacts (hopefully), probably traded for some Techs and gotten most of the maps out there. We should be full size (12) and able to support our army while doing a minimal research on Republic. That timing isn't too bad; the only issue would be if the 2 archers we have can fend the barbs off that long.

I'll play tomorrow; I'd like to get some commentary back on whether we want to finish Great Lighthouse and work for a later attack, or drop Great Lighthouse and go for something right now. Right now I'm leaning towards finishing Great Lighthouse and attacking later.

Good point, MailMan! 3 of these civs have a Religious trait, so I'd think we'd find many cities with some culture; those would be good to target, no matter what the size they wouldn't autoraze.

I lean towards building the Lighthouse. Sadly we have no worker at the moment so we either drop 18 shields by building a Galley - then worker - then back to GL, or we maximise production and finish building the GL (probably by concentrating on food to grow a little then max production). In the meantime we can research towards Republic and do as much exploring and trading as we can to raise cash. Then we build warriors / swords and shed some blood for Mother Russia.

I vote for the lighthouse as well.

In addition to the analysis made by civ_steve:
According to the trade deals on the table, the AI is soon to learn MM on his own (maybe some civ already know it).
If we delay our production of the lighthouse by too much the AI might snatch it (they may build the Orcale by now and will fallback to the lighthouse).

We also want the AI to continue development for us.

Ok, lighthouse it is.

I vote for lighthouse. Good discussion. I am glad that I stoped my turn set. This has been a great meeting of minds.

OK, it's continue on with the Great Lighthouse. Which means just another boring set of turns. ;)

Here's the log:

Turn 0, 1050 BC
No good trades with Gandhi (IMO)
Set Moscow for fast Growth
Stay with GLight
Working Seas allows one Archer to take defensive position.

Turn 1, 1025 BC
Galley heads West and makes contact with Abe
21 Gold, Masonry and Wheel (missing MapMak), knows Egypt and Spain, 8 cities + DC
Trades are getting better, but I still hold off

Turn 2, 1000 BC
Use fortify Galley trick to see an extra space, and Eastern Galley sees land!
Move over to tundra and Mountains, and some Huts (maybe pop them later)

Turn 3, 975 BC
Western Galley now meets the Spanish
Isabella knows the Egyptians, knows Wheel and Masonry (but is missing IronWorking!), had 4 total cities
Trade IronWrking and WM for TM, Contact with Egypt, Wheel and 3 Gold
Egypt has Masonry and HbackRid, 57 Gold and 4 total cities
Trade WM for Masonry, TM and 15 Gold
Trade Abe WM for WM and 1 Gold
Trade Gandhi WM for WM and 40 Gold
Trade Cleo WM for 21 Gold
Cleo and Isabella have HBackRiding; we still have MapM uniquely
Moscow is size11, needs both MPs, or additional Lux; CofL in 10; GLight in 16

Turn 4, 950 BC
Nothing much; BTW, they all have Iron sources!!
We do have a Horse just to the NorthWest

Turn 5, 925 BC
Dispatch a barb that stepped on our Furs
Lux to 30%
Reassign for some Growth

Turn 6, 900 BC
MP back; Lux to 20; back to Prod

Turn 7, 875 BC
Nothing much

Turn 8, 850 BC
Fortify Eastern Galley sees Sea to East; Cross over and see Red Culture!

Turn 9, 825 BC
Holy Smokes, its Japan and they have 8 Contacts for us!! (5 cities in all, 62 G, Math and HBRide)
They don't have Map-Making; checking the other civs we know, Abe and Gandhi have it.
I've got to think that in this group of 9 civs, someone either knows or is about to know Map-Making
sooo ... trade Map-Making for TM, contact with Aztecs and 38 Gold
Monte has 4 new contacts (which match some of Japans), 14 Gold, and HBRide (no MapMak)
Trade Map-Making for contact with Mongols and English, TM and 14 Gold
England has 4 Contacts (2 new ones that Japan didn't have! That is everybody!)
England has Map-Making, but is missing IronWork and Masonry, 5 cities as well
Mongols have 2 contacts, HBRide but no MapMaking, 3 cities, 31 Gold
Trade Mongols Map-Making for Contact with Celts and Zulu, TM and 31 Gold
Celts have no new contacts for us, 5 G, 4 cities, HBRide, but are missing Writing!!
Zulus have 2 new contacts, HBRide, 46 Gold and 7 cities, but are missing Masonry
Trade England IronWrk and Masonry for contact with Vikings and TM
Vikings have 7 cites, 95 Gold, HBRide and know the Chinese (no MapMaking)
Trade Ragnor MapMaking for Cont with China, TM and 58 Gold
Chine has 0 Gold, 6 cities, is missing Alphabet and Mysticism
Trade Alphabet to China for WM
Trade Writing to Celts for WM and 5 Gold
Trade Vikings contact with Mongols and Celts for WM and 37 Gold
Japan has the remaining contacts, and wont trade them for anything I want to give up
I see some Culture ahead, just North of Japan, so I'm steering towards it!

Turn 10, 800 BC
Definitely a purple border ahead

Turn 11, 775 BC
Meet Hiawatha; 8 cities, HBRide, 47 Gold and 2 contacts; he has MapMaking
Trade Contact with Vikings and Chinese for Contacts with Arabs, French, TM and 44 Gold
France is even with us in Techs, 25 Gold, 7 cities
Trade Joan Cont with China for WM and 23 Gold
Arabs match us in Techs with HBRide, 7 cities, 98 Gold
Trade Arabs Cont with Vikings, China for WM, 37 Gold
Trade Aztecs cont with Iroqouis for WM and 2 Gold

Turn 12, 750 BC
Learn Code-of-Laws; Philosophy in 7 at -3gpt
8 Turns to finish Great Lighthouse
376 Gold in Treasury

End of Turnlog

So, we have all the contacts, most of the Maps and Gold. Since making contact with the 2nd set of civs, I haven't traded our WM, nor have I traded a contact between the two sets of civs (I have traded contacts within each set, and there are still civs in the larger 2nd group that haven't met!) Our WM is probably very Valuable, so are the contacts so lets save them for a good purpose, or if the two sets are about to contact each other (there appears to be islands that will allow that, so we might want to leave Galleys there to keep an eye our, or maybe not.)

We are missing Math and HBRiding (I haven't actually checked this turn, so there might be another Tech out there). We just learned Code-of-Laws.

I propose that we set up Embassies with about half of the AI out there, declare War against the other half, and use CofLaws to get the other Techs we're missing, and to get the ones with Embassies to MA against the ones we're at war with. That should slow down their research, and get rid of some of their military. Among those, I definitely think we should Embassy with Spain and India, declare on America, and get those two to Ally against Abe with us. Also sign ROPs with Spain and India; renew when the time comes up and they will be ripe for our militar (or don't renew and maintain our integrity ... we might need that down the line.)

OK Peanut, you're UP!!

I'm attaching an image of our main map, with the mini-map in the corner.

Here's the save: 750 BC Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_BC0750_01.SAV)

Well, it wasn't that boring, was it?
Anyways, the map looks good for fighting, but could we try to have just one front at a time?
I mean start from one end of one of these long islands and work our way down.
Or is there again some finer point I'm missing? :D

Well, we have two groups of AI civs, one small and one large. I believe we can build FP in one of the two locations - distance corruption will hurt, but rank corruption will be almost non-existant. I'm not an expert at these things, but maybe a large city, located closest to Moscow (still far away), might only experience about half corruption and waste.

Question for us is: do we save the small group for later, establish ourselves in the big group, take them over one by one, then go after the small group. Or vice versa.

It's gutsy to take on the larger group. If successful, we should have a good shot at winning this thing; the smaller group should naturally lag.

It should be easier to take on the smaller group, and establish a 2nd core (not that we have a first!) quickly. But the larger group may then take off on us leaving us far behind (they have more potential for research.)

To win this thing, we should establish ourselves among the big group on good terrain, and take on the leader(s), forming alliances as we go along. Try to get rid of them during the AA.

Of course we keep the smaller group (Spain, India, America, and Egypt) fighting amongst themselves, to hold them back. I think India-Spain on America works. We should (hopefully) be ready to take them out maybe in the early MidAges.

I think, after we finish Philosophy (which is right before the Great Lighthouse is completed), we go Republic, probably at minimum, then Literature at minimum, connect Iron, build up army, and go for it. We do want to build Great Library - that should kick off our GA giving us a big boost about the time our 2nd core is built.

I'm off to eat turkey! :)

CS - If that's a boring set of turns then I am keen to see one you rate as exciting. It's nice to have some cash in the bank to fund a military expansion. Well done. Incidentally - what kind of devious mind would come up with a map like this ??

The war strategy sounds like fun. It's time for the figurehead to grab the wheel - then who knows what strange and hazardous waters we will end up in ?

... Well done. Incidentally - what kind of devious mind would come up with a map like this ??
...

Who indeed?? Only from the mind of MB!

Thanksgiving is a major family holiday in the States, so I've been rather occupied today. I was playing late last night, my wife was yelling at me to get to bed, and I stumble on Japan with all those contacts. I knew there was no way to resolve that mess rationally (at about 1:30 in the morning), so I shelved it for the night, got to spend a little time this morning to finish the set and post, but that was about it. The rest of the time was about festivities!

So the game is really changing now. We have tons of information, and should form some sort of plan.

BTW its amazing to me that I don't see ONE SINGLE ROAD anywhere in the AI domains!! Bizarre!

OK, who's going to donate their lands to us for our 2nd core? Requirements: must have Horses and Iron within their domain (giving us direct local access to close by strategic resources); ideally should have River, good coastal access, and food bonuses; and should be mostly Grassland, plains and some mountains (no jungles, some Woods OK, few mountains). I don't think it has to be too large of an area; 4-5 cities would probably do. Remember, we can't build any cities ourselves, so the cities we capture have to be the ones we want to keep, and have to work for us.

Leading candidates IMO are Zulu, Japan, Iroqouis and Arabs.

Zulus are in a good location, fairly close to Moscow, as far as things go; fewer moves to capture and support. Being Central is good for the followup conquests as well. Horses are pretty accessible; Iron is overland, but there are two cities with some access to Iron; 7 cities overall to capture (or get for peace), so it would form a basis for a good 2nd core. Drawbacks: Impis will give them a GA (although we can waste most of that by starting the War now and getting the local AI to absorb that hit), and the Zulu are behind in Tech, so they are easier to get as Allies for us.

Japan, further over, so more awkward to attack first and support later (the next two are even more awkward). Horses and Iron are inland, so both have to be captured by land campaign. Only 5 cities, and one is not that useful. Kyoto would make a good FP site. A AI tech leader, so it would be nice to take them out. No GA as well.

Iroquois - Again, an awkward location; Resources are very accessible, however, and they have lots of cities and good growth potential land. MW's will give them an early GA (assuming they connect Horses).

Arabs - all the way on the end. Difficult to attack, support, and stage from. No GA unit available. Otherwise, good terrain, resources fairly accessible, lots of cities.

Thinking about it, we're not looking for a core to develop; we just need a solid set of cities with access to resouces to build our military. I think the Zulu's central location and relative proximity to Moscow make it the best choice. (marginally so, so I'd welcome discussion on this.)

Going on (I'm assuming at this point that the Zulu's will be our first target; the following logic applies no matter who is ultimately chose) we declare War on (Zulu's), and get China and Mongols (or two adjacent civs to final target) to ally against the (Zulu's). Probably need to use Code of Laws to do this.

Doing a Science Check:
Most everybody has HBRiding (France doesn't)
Abe, Gandhi and Cleo already have Code-of-Laws! and Math
Spain is missing CoL and MapMaking
Everyone in large group is missing CoL
Japan, Zulus have Math and Literature!
Celts are missing MapMak

We can pick up Literature and Math from Japan with CoL (I checked, also get WM and all his 36 Gold). Having CoL, Lit and Math (I'd hold Lit for now, obviously, but Math and CoL are tradeable) give us lots of leverage to start wars.

Since Zulu and Japan have Lit (and we really don't want that getting out), I'd declare on both; besides China and Mongols on Zulu, add Vikings and England.

Let's pit the Aztecs, Celts and Iroqouis all against Japan (that should shed those early GA's for those civs.)

Finally, I'd pit Arabia and France against each other; maybe ally with Joan against Arabia.

And as I said before - India and Spain against Abe. Spain we have trades to get them; India we don't have a Tech. Let's see what they want, but we need to get them at each other's throats right away (I think). I don't think I'd want to give away our WM or Communications right now; but we can think about that. Egypt we can try to get involved as well, but our trading leverage with Egypt and India is small (except for WM and Comm.)

Building Embassies is going to be expensive; checking it out I'm seeing about a 50-60 Gold cost per embassy. So we can only do 5 or 6 right now; most important are China and Mongols, Iroqouis and Celts, Spain, probably France. At least that will get us allies against 4 civs.

Meanwhile, we finish GreatLighthouse, get some Vet Warrior MP(s) to guard Moscow, a Worker to connect and colonize the Iron, maybe recall our 2 Galleys, build 2 more, and up to 8 Warriors/Swordsmen (depending on how much money we can save.) I think 8 Swordsmen should do a good job on the Zulu (or other target), enough to capture a couple of cities and maybe get a couple more in peace.

How does this sound?

I'm sorry guys, but I have found a bug in the PTW version of the game. Please take a break for a while so that I can get it fixed. I hope I can sort it out quickly.

I really am very sorry for the inconvenience but it appears that I didn't spend enough time playtesting the PTW version since all the big changes were in 1.29f.

Yes CS - I have had a busy day and have only started checking out what trades are available and planning which civs would enjoy a proxy war when I noticed that there were no improvements at all ! Anywhere ! I set up an embassy with India and Spain and each had a worker sitting idle in their capital and no improvements around their capital. I stopped at that point meaning to raise it with MB but it looks like it may have cropped up already.

Perhaps that's what MB is fixing. If so, and if you are lurking MB and you read this, then 1) the current Peanut save is yours to tamper with and 2) what a corker of map !

As for civs - I concluded Zulu and Iroquois and America as they are large with largeish neighbours, and for Z&I it triggers their GA nice and early. If we can get everyone fighting somebody then all the better, but we won't have the cash to do embassies all round.

I agree with the worker - then warrior upgrade path. Perhaps another boat or two early on, and march the swords to the best embarkation point. I won't start until MB fixes the file and others can comment. Then I will redo the trades I have done and the two embassies and then proceed.

I did mess it up. One tick missing from a particular box. :(
It will be OK once Alan or ainwood write a utility to add the tick, but it's important that it gets corrected as early in the game as possible otherwise there will be a growing unfairness between the PTW and the 1.29f games.

I expected bugs to crop up, but I am annoyed myself for missing this one. What is doubly annoying is that I had it right in 1.29f and another version of the PTW game before I changed the settler from hut settings. :(

What about China as our first target? They have horses and iron and if we can get them eliminated before they hook up the horses, we don't have to worry about riders in the future. Then maybe capture the Viking cities (before bezerkers), then the Zulu and work our way around the larger semicircle island.

Just for clarification for me: we can't buy workers from oversea civs at this stage of the game can we?

I didn't like them for lack of River tiles. The extra point of commerce is very nice. Otherwise they would be a good choice.

Since we are the only Scientific civ (and I don't think we should trade our free Tech except as last resort), the AI civs with Knight-type UU's (Arabs, China, Japan) would need 3 techs of MidAge research before they can build their units. I'm sure we can take care of them before those units show up!

I think only the starting worker and workers from huts (called eqWorker) are non-tradeable. Workers built later should be tradeable.

I propably don't fully understand the importance of gold in this game.
I know, we'll struggle a bit, beacause of unit costs, but still.
What do we really need to research after we get republic?
We don't need the techs to go anywhere as I can't see us getting to Cavalry and Cossacks. If the AI decide to get something researched, we'll go and :hammer: a bit and demand it for peace. We'll even get a free one at the start of MA that we can use in trades, should we want something.
Great library? Steve, You don't know how much I respect your views ans I'm sorry that I'm going to have to ask you to explain that one to me as well in this game.
At Moscows current production rate it would take 28 turns!
Oh - appart from that Zulus and Japan already know Literature. Let's trade it and swap Great Lighthouse to Great Library! No- not good, because don't want golden age before republic or with just one city. Would get to turn research off though :)
Not that I have any other good ideas about starting the GA.
You can see I'm lost. I am the whole time stressing about winning quickly, what are the other teams up to?

No thanksgiving here, but it was my son's seventh birthday today, so plenty to do with parties and all that. So this break, 'suggested' by Mad-bax came at quite a convienient time.

My suggestion: Let's get the lighthouse and start building our military. We can always capture TGL. I don't think we can afford the shield investment for TGL on top of the lighthouse.

Yee, I'm with rrau on this one.
What I was actually thinking as well was this where to start the campaing, when I started the previous post, but then lost track somehow.
Is them couple of riverspaces going to be worth the longer boat-trip and military going backwards and forwards? I'd quite like starting with the Chinese as well. Speed fellow peanuts, speed.

Still don't know how to start GA though, capturing the GreatLibrary doesn't help that.

Next Scientific Wonder is Newton's! Might as well use Cossacks if that's the case. I'd rather build TGL, but only after the warring has started; preferably after we get the 2nd core established. (I was not suggesting we switch GLight for GLib; definitely finish GLight!)

Will have to count out the spaces; with Differential Naval movement, ocean travel is fast. Besides, Zulus might be a turn movement further away (maybe), but will also be a turn closer to the other civs to the East. Getting the extra 10 commerce or so from the river is quite useful to supporting our troops.

It's a close call; either way would be fine I'm sure.

After we capture TGL, we can always build another wonder to trigger the GA. We don't have to build the scientific ones, we just have to own it when we build a wonder. Hopefully with all the warring we'll be doing, we'll get a leader for the fp, and can use another leader after capturing TGL to rush a wonder to trigger our GA.

Hopefully with all the warring we'll be doing, we'll get a leader for the fp, and can use another leader after capturing TGL to rush a wonder to trigger our GA.
I wish we could.
2. Leaders cannot hurry great wonders or small wonders.

OK guys your save has been mended and you can continue to play. You need to download a new 1000BC file from the downloads page and play from there. I'm sorry bu you will have to re-play the last set of turns.

Once again I aplogise for the inconvenience.

So who plays now that we have been bumped back? Should it be me for the first 4 turns and then CivSteve for the Next 10 so we are back on track? I have not loading the save but I thing this will save our worker!

Well, actually the save that is uploaded there is the 1050bc, which is where Steve started from lasta time. I think let him do it again.

I've downloaded the new 1050 BC save. It's labeled with an '_02' in the name, so it doesn't conflict with the earlier save file. I think its best for me to replay the prior turn set as close to exactly the same as I did it before. Keith is short 2 turns due to the discussion we held about how to handle first contact, so I suggest he play 12 turns his next set, and I'll play 8.

I'll see if I can get this done tonight, and see how much different things are. Somehow I expect we'll see more AI roads this time!

OK, here is the new turn log with differences indicated in italics:

Turn 0, 1050 BC
No good trades with Gandhi (IMO)
Set Moscow for fast Growth
Stay with GLight
Working Seas allows one Archer to take defensive position.

Turn 1, 1025 BC
Galley heads West and makes contact with Abe
21 Gold, Masonry and Wheel (missing MapMak), knows Egypt and Spain, 8 cities + DC
Trades are getting better, but I still hold off

Turn 2, 1000 BC
Use fortify Galley trick to see an extra space, and Eastern Galley sees land!
Move over to tundra and Mountains, and some Huts (maybe pop them later)
something different - barb warrior pillages a road just outside our useful territory

Turn 3, 975 BC
Western Galley now meets the Spanish
Isabella knows the Egyptians, knows Wheel and Masonry (but is missing IronWorking!), had 4 total cities
Trade IronWrking and WM for TM, Contact with Egypt, Wheel and 3 Gold
Egypt has Masonry and HbackRid, 57 Gold and 4 total cities
Trade WM for Masonry, TM and 15 Gold
Trade Abe WM for WM and 1 Gold
Trade Gandhi WM for WM and 40 Gold
Trade Cleo WM for 21 Gold
All trades made the same; still see no roads!
Cleo and Isabella have HBackRiding; we still have MapM uniquely
Moscow is size11, needs both MPs, or additional Lux; CofL in 10; GLight in 16
ditto

Turn 4, 950 BC
Nothing much; BTW, they all have Iron sources!!
We do have a Horse just to the NorthWest

Turn 5, 925 BC
Dispatch a barb that stepped on our Furs
Lux to 30%
Reassign for some Growth
OK, this didn't happen; no barb, so no Lux increase; I did set up +1 food

Turn 6, 900 BC
MP back; Lux to 20; back to Prod
actually, nothing is changed

Turn 7, 875 BC
Nothing much
Now a barb is on the horizen to the SE and the earlier one approaches from NE
move MP across river, set Lux to 30%, set up some Growth

Turn 8, 850 BC
Fortify Eastern Galley sees Sea to East; Cross over and see Red Culture!
Same Galley movements; SE Barb advances (1 space out from Furs)
NE Barb fortifies just outside our useful territory

Turn 9, 825 BC
both barbs enter Forest spaces we use; both are dispatched by our Archers
Holy Smokes, its Japan and they have 8 Contacts for us!! (5 cities in all, 62 G (50 Gold), Math and HBRide)
They don't have Map-Making; checking the other civs we know, Abe and Gandhi have it.
(Whoa!! Gandhi has Philosophy, too!!)
I've got to think that in this group of 9 civs, someone either knows or is about to know Map-Making
sooo ... trade Map-Making for TM, contact with Aztecs and 38 Gold (ditto)
Monte has 4 new contacts (which match some of Japans), 3 cities, 14 Gold (24), and HBRide (no MapMak)
Trade Map-Making for contact with Mongols and English, TM and 14 (24) Gold
England has 4 Contacts (2 new ones that Japan didn't have! That is everybody!)
England has Map-Making, but is missing IronWork and Masonry, 5 cities as well
Mongols have 2 contacts, HBRide but no MapMaking, 3 cities, 31 Gold (25)
Trade Mongols Map-Making for Contact with Celts and Zulu, TM and 31 Gold (25)
Celts have no new contacts for us, 5 (1) G, 4 cities, (no) HBRide, but are missing Writing!!
Zulus have 2 new contacts, HBRide, 46 Gold and 7 cities (whoa, 5 cities!), but are missing Masonry
Trade England IronWrk and Masonry for contact with Vikings and TM (ditto)
Vikings have 7 (6!) cities, 95 (70) Gold, HBRide and know the Chinese (no MapMaking)
Trade Ragnor MapMaking for Cont with China, TM and 58 Gold (57)
China has 0 Gold, 6 cities, is missing Alphabet and Mysticism
Trade Alphabet to China for WM [i](ditto)[/i}
Trade Writing to Celts for WM and 5 (1) Gold
Trade Vikings contact with Mongols and Celts for WM and 37 Gold (didn't make this trade; only 13 Gold)
Japan has the remaining contacts, and wont trade them for anything I want to give up (ditto)
I see some Culture ahead, just North of Japan, so I'm steering towards it!

Turn 10, 800 BC
Definitely a purple border ahead
MPs are back, Lux to 20%, set Science to learn CofL in 2 turns

Turn 11, 775 BC
Yikes, a Barb Horse shows up to SE!
Meet Hiawatha; 8 cities, HBRide, 47 Gold and 2 contacts; he has MapMaking (And Philosophy!!)
Trade Contact with Vikings and Chinese for Contacts with Arabs, French, TM and 44 (47) Gold
France is even with us in Techs, 25 Gold, 7 cities (and Philosophy as well!)
Trade Joan Cont with China for WM and 23 Gold
(I might have noted this wrong the first time; Joan gets Cont with Vikings and China, for WM and 25 Gold)
Arabs match us in Techs with HBRide (and philosophy), 7 cities, 98 (148!!) Gold
Trade Arabs Cont with Vikings, China for WM, 37 Gold
(Trade Cont with Vikings, China, Celts, Aztecs and English for WM, 148 Gold and Philosophy
Trade Zulu, cont with Arabs and Iroqouis for WM and 46 Gold
Trade Egypt MapMaking for Math and 39 Gold)
Trade Aztecs cont with Iroqouis for WM and 2 (0) Gold

(BTW, I SEE ROADS IN AI EMPIRES)

Turn 12, 750 BC
Learn Code-of-Laws; Philosophy in 7 at -3gpt (nope, alread got it; Republic in 40 turns, +14 gpt)
Barb horse advances to Grassland/Forest, where Archer slays him; Lux to 30%)
8 Turns to finish Great Lighthouse
376 Gold in Treasury (Make that 532 Gold!!!)

End of Turnlog

In many ways this was better for us! We have Philosophy already, and another 150 Gold! We should have no problems establishing the embassies we wish to establish. I'd still declare the wars we were talking about; vs Japan with Iroqouis and Celts at least (possibly Aztecs) allied; probably vs France with Arabs allied; definitely vs America with Spain and India (maybe Egypt) allied; and either Zulu (my preference, although I don't like facing Impis) or China with adjacent civs allied.

We're started on Republic at Minimum, should complete Great Light in 8. And Peanut can take care of the Diplo stuff after we decide what to do. And Roads are showing up.

Full Speed, Peanut!!

New 750 BC Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_BC0750_02.SAV)

Ok, got it. Had a busy day out with the family and have only just got home. I will try to fit this in tomorrow evening. Looks like we are in an interesting position folks. I will check first for more comments on who we should antagonise with a phoney war and who we should actually invade initially.

Another discussion point. We can sustain 15 shields per turn, which means 2 turn Galleys or 2 turn Swordsmen (not 3.) If we go with an initial invasion force of 8 Swordsmen, which need 4 Galleys for direct, first wave transport, I count that we can do this in 29 turns: 8 to complete Great Lighthouse, 1 for Worker, 4 for two Galleys, and 16 for 8 Swordsmen. This give us 14 units needing support (8 swords, 4 galleys, 2 archers) or 10 gpt units support cost after the 4 free units. This is sustainable, too; once we've captured a few cities we'll be able to support more units.

We can cut 8 turns off the number by building Vet Warriors and upgrading them to Swords. This sounds good to me, we just have to account for 320 Gold to do the upgrades. We have more than that now, but we will be using a lot of the gold to form embassies. How much to save? We'll have 9 turns at 14 gpt for 126 Gold added. Then the Worker build will drop us a pop-point and increase our unit support cost by 1, so let's say 11 gpt for 2 turns (148 total) until the first Galley is out. Then 2 more turns at 10 gpt to get the 2nd Galley (168). Then 8 turns with one less gpt each turn, just under 40 gold for just over 200 earned. So we should hold onto about 120 Gold or so from our current treasury to have enough to upgrade all 8 Warriors to swordsmen. These are very rough numbers; when we're building the Warriors, we don't need 15 shields per turn, so I expect we'll be positioning for Growth and might get a bit more gpt once our pop increases.

I would not worry to much about the money, we can raze some more by trading later on. Our maps are valuable.

The lighthouse can be built in 7 instead of 8 by digging into our food reserve.
currently we need 110 shields to finish the lighthouse.
we can do that by 5 turns of 16spt with -1fpt and the 2 last turns 15spt with even food.
When building warriors we can get 3 extra food by working the see tiles.

Note that our worker will need 2 move + 3 road + 1 move + 3 road + 1 move + 1 colonize = 11 turns
If we want to go back to size 11 we not be able to produce 15 spt for a long while.

So I suggest the following sequnce:
1-7: lighthouse
8: worker
9: warrior (to be MP as the archer should defend the worker)
10: another warrior
11-16: 3 galleys
17-19: 3 warriors
18-19: 4th galley
20-25: 3 swordmans (need 60*5=300g to upgrade)

The above senario is faster than civ_steve but it will require tight MM on both our gold and food.
By that build time all the wars we start should be over and we can get some cash by trading.

We can get it faster by:
1. launch our attack with only 6 swords (cheaper and faster)
2. recall our galleys (will save 4 turns). I think they can get in time once we have the lighthouse.
3. we can leave our home undefended for couple of turns and use the 2 archers instead of swords. (with all the barbs I think we should leave at least on archer to guard the colony)

Good advice comrades. Thank you. Stay tuned ...

So, just to fill you in competely so that you know what happened to the game, I think I should explain the bug and how it was rectified. This is a little long winded but just bear with me.

The bug relates to the PTW editor and the terraform flag. This flag is set for workers (and eqWorkers) and tells the AI to use these units to build roads and mines etc. In the vanilla editor the flag can be set when a unit is given the ability to road or mine or irrigate. In the PTW editor when you remove the ability of a unit to build an airfield or a radar tower or an outpost the terraform flag check box greys out, but remains checked. In real life however the flag is not checked when the save file is created. Because of the number of changes in the 1.29f version I played this version most as I was worried about bugs in this version more. I only played the PTW version to first contact, and checked other stuff (like leaders and eqWorkers) with custom scenarios to save time. I didn't notice that the AI were not using or building workers. It was civ-steves post that prompted me to check, and I was devastated.

Instead of building workers, the AI had been building settlers in the PTW version. I checked a couple of 1.29f saves and in those games the tech rate was the same as far as I could judge and the city improvements and unit counts were almost identical. The only difference being that each AI had built one additional worker each.

After discussing the various options with the staff and testing various possibilities I decided to alter all the PTW saves at 1000BC by adding two workers to each AI in their capitals. I also removed a luxury from the PTW version of the map as a small handicap for the human player before trading over sea/ocean squares became possible.

In no way am I saying that the PTW and 1.29f games are comparable now, but hopefully the game is playable and enjoyable.

I still intend to continue with the idea of not allowing PTW workers to build airfields, radar towers and outposts, and hope that ainwood will be able to write a utility to allow this mod.

I apologise for the bug, and hopefully there will not be (m)any more. Thankfully, I have no need to further modify the games base rules and so there should be no repeat of this kind of mistake. I wish I were better, but I'm not unfortunatley. :(

Pre-turn : Jigger Moscow to get GL in 7 (running food down for a few turns).

On the Foreign Affairs front - We declare war on the Americans. Embassies with India and Spain (111G down). India joins the fun for CoL and WM. Spain is eager to play as well for Maths and CoL, and even tosses HBR in to sweeten the deal ! We declare war in France and raise an embassy in Mecca (58g). The Arabs are happy to thump Joan about a little for WM & CoL. We raise an embassy with the Iroquois (65g I think) and it seems that Hiawatha is already having a brawl with Joan ! We declare war on Japan but sadly Hiawatha wants too much for an alliance (ie. contact with the other side of the world!). We send an ambassador to Brennus (66g) and he then agrees annoy the Japanese for the mere price of Maths and CoL. We declare war in China and send an embassy to the Zulu (52g) but we cannot afford to bribe him to join the fun. In desperation we try the Vikings (44g) and they are happy to fight in exchange for WM, and he pays us 13g for the privilege.

Ok - that stirs the pot a little, we have 145g left, we gained HBR, now down to some serious Lighthouse building ...

(Note to MB - I saw two workers sitting in each capital with an embassy so things may not be quite right yet).

In Between Turns : Barb galley paddles about in our little lagoon and the palace expands.

730 BC : Our Galleys sail some more, generally aiming to meet around Zimbabwe in time to sail home. The Archer is back to MP duty and Luxuries are cut. We are on +14gpt, GL in 6.

IBT : Pretty dull.

710 BC : Galleys still sailing. A Japanese eqworker is spotted at work as we paddle past ! Nothing to trade.

IBT : A barbarian to the NE.

690 BC : An archer moves to intercept. Luxuries up to compensate. More sailing.

IBT : Nothing much. Barb is a coward - he just sits and watches us.

670 BC : Archer moves closer. More sailing. GL in 2. No techs to trade for and somehow the AI have scraped up something of value because they seem to have traded CoL/Maths/Phil about. We raise some spare change by selling WM to Lizzie for WM+16g, MM to Spain for WM+7g, and Maths to Mongolia for WM+10g (everyone else is numerate so he may as well be as well).

IBT : Barbarian runs away.

650 BC : Archer gives up and heads home. More sailing. We have sailed past 3 goody huts - if only we had a scout on board !! Spare change : WM to egypt for 12g, everyone else is broke or not interested.

IBT : Nothing interesting.

630 BC : Archer home, MM Moscow to give GL in 1 + 15gpt.

IBT : Boring.

610 BC : We own a Big Lighthouse !! Moscow starts on warriors and saves food (we have 1 food in the bin so we will get close to full then build the worker). We swap maps with India and Spain - the war seems to be going nowhere. Nothing worth trading around the place but Egypt is accumulating cash ! Perhaps she is at war with someone and is in her GA ? Not worth spending on an embassy to check though. Our Admiral of the fleet is excited at his new mobility capabilities ! There are a lot of sea tiles around to float on.

IBT : Boring.

590 BC : Warriors accumulating ! We send an archer off to annoy a barb camp to the south. Those galleys can really zip about now !

IBT : Boring.

570 BC : Spare change : WM brings in 20g and a few others' maps. More galley zipping.

IBT : Nothing interesting.

550 BC : Another warrior. We have 343g in the cash tin.

Gratuitous advice : I support the upgrade path for warriors. I suggest first building warriors and a few galleys, and letting the food bin grow until it is nearly full before building a worker. We just need a road on the tundra to the iron (3+3 turns) and then when ready to upgrade, plant a colony on the iron.

Over to you Madame Captain Mathilda !
550BC Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_BC0550_01.SAV)

Thankyou comrade Peanut.
I better get myself home from work so that I can have a look at the save.
So warriors, two more galleys, colony on the iron and upgrade.
I presume we are OK to continue with this (despite the workers?), unless mad-bax blows the whistle.

preturn 550BC
All looks well set up.

turn1 530BC
warrior -> warrior
Archer collects 25 gold from southern barb camp
Other chases barb
Galleys head home

IBT
barb warrioir attacks second archer and promptly dies.

turn2 510BC
warrior->galley
galleys -> home

turn3 490BC
galleys->home
archers looking for victims
Japanese got construction.
And Temujin seems to have developed some suprising new habbits:
(image at the end of post)

turn4 470BC
nothing really

turn5 450BC
galley -> worker
Archer collects 25 gold from eastern barb camp

turn6 430BC
worker->galley
mm to get galley and growth in 4, I should have built that worker earlier

turn7 410BC
getting worker in posititon

IBT
France and Iroquis sign peace.

turn8 390BC
start road

turn9 370BC

Archer kills barb horse

IBT
Reports of massive barbarian uprising near Moscow!

turn10 350BC
Just move archers.

end of turnlog

Well, another uneventful one.
And I feel I played really badly.
Worker should have been made two turns earlier.
And I didn't do any trades at all, I checked a few times,
but didn't seem to get anything worth trading.

rrau, I'm sure you can sort it out.

the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_BC0350_01.SAV)

Well isn't that interesting? Our wars must not have shaken things up enough; Construction Currency and Polytheism all gotten in 20 turns, and traded around. Protecting our Worker (and eventually our Colony) will be very important.

We're almost in position to launch our invasion; just a few pesky Barbs (hopefully just a few!) to tend to, first. If there's not many, we should be able to handle them with Swords (once we get Swords). If there's a lot, we could leave Moscow defenseless with a little gold (defend the colony) and watch the barbs disappear for a gold or so each. rrau will have to decide.

And, I'm sorry to say it, Temujin, but you're WAAAAY past a milk bath helping!

OK rrau, you're UP!

ok, got it.

>>>THE SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_BC0150_01.SAV)

Preflight (350bc)

Can't get any good trades without giving up contacts or dipping too much into cash reserves.

ibt:

Renewed Alliance with Spain vs America
Cancelled alliance with India vs America
Renewed Alliance with Vikings vs China
Cancelled Alliance with Celts vs Japanese
Cancelled Allinace with Arabia vs French
(Basically I renewed the ones we didn't have to pay anything for)

turn 1 (330bc)

moved workers and an archer to cover
switched Moscow to build another archer to protect the colony as there are two barb huts near there

ibt:

a barb horse moved onto the iron mountain our workers are heading towards
Egypt and India signed MA against America
barb horses moved off iron mountain. Didn't attack us

turn 2 (310bc)

roading

ibt:

Barb horse heading for lone archer

turn 3 (290bc)

roading

ibt: lone archer fends off barb horse with loss of one hp

turn 4 (270bc)

fortify lone archer to heal
move onto iron mountain

ibt:

Spain built the Pyramids

turn 5 (250bc)

because of extra archer, need to wait a couple turns before building colony

ibt:

America and India signed Peace Treaty
France and Arabia signed a peace Treaty
Japan built the Oracle
fended off a barb horse attack on the iron mountain

turn 6 (230bc)

Spain (vs America) and Vikings (vs Chinese) are the only ones we still have MA's with.
Checked to see about peace with Japan and France. Both wanted more than we could afford
Sold around our WM for close to 100g. There had been some contact between the two continents this last ibt, and I missed out on selling most of the contacts. :mad: There's still a couple left so I'm trading them for techs.

Trade Convention:
Bought Currency from Iroquois for 232g.
Trade Vikings currency, contact with Americans and Indians for Construction plus 11g.
Trade currency to India for Polytheism, WM, 76g.
Trade Currency to England for Literature and WM
Enter MA and get Monotheism as our free tech
Sell Literature to Iroquois for 97g
Sell Literature to Zulu for 49g, WM
Peace Treaty with France for construction
Still can't get peace with Japan even with literature. They want Lit plus 150g - nope
Sell Literature to Arabia for WM, 24g (now I know why Japan said no - it's almost worthless)
Sell Literature to Vikings for WM, 18g.

Kept a monopoly on Monotheism. :D

End trade round with 644g (more than I started with) :cool:

Should be able to wait 2 more turns for 2 more warriors then upgrade all 8.

ibt:

There's a lot of barbs heading towards our iron mountain. :(

turn 7 (210bc)

zzz

ibt: more barbs

turn 8 (190bc)

found iron colony
Upgraded our 8 vet warriors for 320g

ibt: a barb horse destroyed our road to the furs :cry: :sad:

turn 9 (170bc)

loaded galleys set sail :hammer:

ibt:

We get a second story for our palace

turn 10 (150bc)

Sailing

Notes:

I sailed fairly far out into the sea this turn - should be ready to enter ocean next turn.

Moscow will build a worker this turn. He needs to join the 3/4 hp sword on the furs to reconnect them. This will leave our town empty.

You have 280g to spend before the capital gets ransacked. (Have fun ;) )

I've MM's Moscow for growth since it will be losing a worker to reconnect the furs, and may lose population from barbs ransacking.

You have a worker fortified on iron mountain. Might need to use him as bait to draw the barb horsies away.


Mailman is UP and gets to kick off our first real war. :D

Who will it be? China who has been fighting the Vikings, or the well rested Zulu who haven't had their GA yet. I vote for China.

I got it and will probably play in 12 hours or so.
Since I will not see the save until I got home and start playing, please give your advise.

specifically: who shell we attack first?

Other issues:
- build order - I suggest building more troops (a lot more troops).
- Sceince - I suggest going for knights.
- home defence
- foreign affairs

At this point we should definitely target the Chinese: we're already at war with them and they wont get a GA during the battle.

Build Order: lots more troops. There's a Worker on the Iron Mountain, I suggest moving him down to the Fur/forest space and roading it, and switching Moscow from building a Worker to a Swordsman. I'd keep Moscow on Maximum growth for now, also; let's get up to size12.

I'd consider pillaging one of the roads between Moscow and the Iron colony, build a few Warriors, then reconnect and upgrade. Maybe after we build a Swordsman or two from scratch.

After we invade China and take a city or two, we want to sign a peace treaty and get one or two cities more at minimum. I figure we can go after Beijing, then Canton to get the Horses, and that's probably the time to sign peace (try to get Nanking, their Iron city, in the negotiations, and any other cities as well; this will help our units cost problem.)

I'd send 2 or 3 of the Galleys back to Moscow after the invasion; they'll be ready to ferry over more troops once we have more troops to ferry. If we keep our Galleys primarily in Sea spaces, they should be pretty safe from Barbs and AI GAlleys.

Research: finish Republic for sure, and switch at earliest opportunity (does everyone know how to get 2 opportunities for low Anarchy? Upon learning Republic, select "Show Me the Big Picture", go to F1 and start the Revolution. Wait until the F1 Advisor tells you how long Anarchy will be. If it's long, then when you exit, you'll be asked if you want to start a Revolution now that you know another Government. Say yes. If the Anarchy period is short, say "No, Anarchy is fine with me")

After Republic we can do one of two things: start Research on Feudalism then Chivalry for ourselves. Or save our money and beat the knowledge out of people as they learn it. If we save our money, we will want to disconnect and reconnect our Iron to upgrade Warriors as our treasury grows. At this point, I'm more inclined to save our money, perform upgrades, and see what we can get from the AI as we move forward. We have the entire map, so we can target Iron from someone as we attack them to deny them access to Swordsmen, Pikemen, MedInf and Knights.

After our first round with the Chinese, we'll probably have to regroup a bit. It would be nice to get Horses connected so we can have both Horsemen and Swordsmen available. We can use our Galleys to drop a few Swordsmen off and clear the Barb camp near the Horses. Then use our Worker, after connecting furs, to road over and colonize the Horses, too. We will have to dedicate a few units to defending these colonies.

After China, who? I'd like to have more units before taking on the Zulu, so it would seem that the Vikings would make sense for being next. Maybe do a similar thing: take a city or two, sign peace getting a couple more cities, then go back (after 20 turns have passed) and finish the Chinese (not likely to flip now). By that time we should have enough cities to build FP, so we can start on that.

At this point we need to be moving quickly to assert ourselves. It will be a race to see if we can do enough damage to the civs to prevent them from becoming too powerful, especially ones like the Iroqouis and Arabs. After we've asserted ourselves and have started building a 2nd core in the Viking/China area, we can maybe do raids on the others; not to take cities so much as destroy them and weaken the other civs. Have to see.

Good Luck, MailMan!

Peanut sent me a PM yesterday to say that the fix may not have worked. Thankfully I am able to say that the fix has worked, and the AI are happily building and using workers.

You did nearly give me a heart attack though. :nono: ;)

pre-flight:
Army: attack force of 8 vet swords on 4 galleys.
at home we have 2 warriors (1 elite) and 3 archer defending colony. one worker on the colony. 1 wounded sword on pillaged furs.
several barbs around.

foriegn affairs: we are at war with china, japan and america.
economy: 280g - 4gpt.

archer 4/4 vs barb horse 2/2 --> archer 4/4
move worker toward pillaged furs.
change production to sword but remain with high food (+6 fpt) sword in 6 grow in 3.

IBT. two barb horses commited suiside agains our troops.
indians are building a giant wall.

1. 130BC
move worker to furs. heal the sword.
advance ships twoard chaina capital.

IBT. The amirecans wants lit and 30g for peace. I say no.
another barb horse died.


2. 110BC
MM for 2 more shields. will grow next turn.
land forces.
archer 4/4 vs barb horse 2/2 --> archer 5/5

IBT.
china archer 3/3 vs sword 4/4 --> sword 3/4
barb horse 2/2 vs sword 4/4 --> sword 3/4

3. 90 BC
sword 4/4 vs spear 3/3 --> spear 1/3
sword 4/4 vs spear 3/3 --> spear 2/4
sword 4/4 vs spear 3/3 --> sword 3/4
sword 4/4 vs spear 2/4 --> sword 5/5
sword 4/4 vs archer 3/3 --> sword 2/4
CAPTURE Beijing !!! get 2 slaves.
make all 4 taxman since even the first citizen is un happy.
sword 4/4 vs horse 3/3 --> sword 4/4

archer 5/5 vs barb horse 2/2 --> archer 5/5
archer 4/4 vs barb horse 2/2 --> archer 3/4

capital grow to size 11. MM for max food and still produce sword in 1.
send galleys home.
now making +7 gpt.

IBT.
china archer 3/3 vs sword 4/4 --> archer 2/4

4. 70BC
archer 5/5 vs. barb horse --> archer 4/5
send one warrior home for upgeade.
move all sword to Beijing to rest.

IBT. another barb horse is now to dust.
when we have some time we must patrol this island.

5. 50BC
kill one more barb horse.
rest troops on the front.
I notice that India got republic. but they want much too much for it and we will get it in 5.

IBT. america and spain sign peace.
viking are building TGL.

6. 30BC
time for some diplomacy. sign peace with america for WM (get their WM + 1g).
gain aroung 70g buy trading maps.
chain transport 1 sword all the way to Beijing.
sword 4/4 vs archer 4/4 --> sword 2/2
killed barb horse.

IBT. archer 4/4 vs sword 5/5 --> archer 2/4
1 more barb horse

7. 10BC
sword 4/4 vs spear 3/3 --> sword 4/4
sword 4/4 vs spear 3/3 --> sword 2/4
sword 4/4 vs spear 3/3 --> sword 2/4
they are left only with 2/4 archer.
1 more barb horse
galley 4/4 vs barb galley 2/2 --> galley 3/4
1 barb warrior as well

8. 10AD
road on furs completed.
france and india both have republic and monarchy.
Canton reduce to size 1 but rushed no army (still archer 2/4)
Since I do not want to autoraze it I will just wait 5 turns. Chaina will surrended both the gem and the iron city in a peace deal but I think I will wait for this one as well (it is located on nice piece of land),
send 2 swords to heal.
pillage the horses.
set a scientist in Beijing and reduce science to 0.
pillage our road and start producing warriors (with +3fpt).

9 30AD
2 more swords reach the shores of far far away.
Moscow: warrior --> warrior

10. 50AD
we got republic. revolt immidiatly. since we only have 2 cities we should gain control next turn.
land china prisoner to do some hard work on our road system.
start roading back.
start study feudalism at min.

Notes to next player (I think it is Keith Larson):
You now have 8 swords on chinese land. Canton should expand in 3 turns and than you can take it.
You have a chain of galleys to transport troops quickly.
there is a worker in Beijing to connect the horses.
our alliance vs the chinese should end next turn. do not renew it.
I think we should form a republic

Summery: slower progress than I thought. a lot of barb activity but without any harm.
China will be soon left as a very small nation.
I think it was a VERY wise choise to builf the great lighthouse.

The SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD0050_01.SAV)

Time for a picture:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=75466&stc=1

I will play this evening (in 6-9 hours). Good progress team!

Good playing, MailMan! I agree that patience should do the job in China; wait until Canton is size2 then take it. (But not past the 3 or so turns you stated!) We should also be able to pick up a city or two (Iron city NanKing high on the list) for peace.

Good Luck Keith! I'll look for your post.

Turn 0: 50 BC
We can earn a little cash and one breaker by switching both Beijing citizens to tax-collectors and one Moscow citizen to a scientist.

Turn 1: 10 AD
IBT Vikings offer to renew alliance against China, I say no way. Celts and Japan sign peace treaty. Beijing loses one citizen. New government of Republic. Japan starts Great Library.
Luxury slider can now be set to 20 % and since we have lots of gold I will set the science slider to 10%. This will give us +13 gold per turn. Moscow is set for max growth so we will only produce a warrior ever other turn. For the six turns it will take us to grow to size 12 I am going to build spearmen instead. This will allow us to upgrade the two warriors we are using for MP duty to swordsmen. This seem like a more efficient use of shields to me. We would be wasting 4 shields for every warrior.

Turn 2: 90 AD
IBT Did not look at Beijing close enough and their sole citizen must have been unhappy. I switch that citizen to a scientist and move the science slider back down to 0%.
If everyone’s calculations are correct next turn should be the turn that Canton grows so I move our attack force forward. I will send 6 swordsmen, plus the worker to start work on the horses.

Turn 3: 110 AD
IBT the Arabs offer Monarchy for Republic but I don’t see the point of this. I say no. A fresh spearman moved into Canton. It grows in culture.
Sword 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3  Spearman 1/3
Sword 4/4 vs. Archer 4/4  Sword 2/4
Sword 4/4 vs. Spear 1/3  Sword 4/4
Take Canton, it contained a settler so we have two more slaves! I move them to road horses. (We can switch to something else if). Talk peace. China give us everything she has left which isn’t much we take Nanking and Xinjian and WM. Send Swordsmen to each on the new cities for MP duty. Canton and Xinjian are building warriors for MP duty. Nanking starts barracks. We are now at plus 24 gold. I am going to allow ourselves to heal and build up and prepare for Operation Viking. The battle plan is to take our Bioergvin and Shockholm first to deny the Vikings iron. Then take Nidaros.

Turn 4: 130 AD
IBT the AI makes so ridiculous offers. A barb horseman move next to the iron colony. Moscow complete the spearman who will move to the iron colony. I did not realize this but the worker was rebuilding the road so I will start a swordsman.
Archer takes out barb horseman. Upgrade Moscow MP to Swordsman.

Turn 5: 150 AD
Lots of Viking archers moving south. Spain and Egypt have signed an alliance against America. Our culture expanse and we add to the palace.
Do some more MM and will still grow in 2 and cut a turn off the swordsman. Will start road to the horses next turn.

Turn 6: 170 AD
Start road to horses. Horses hooked up in the new world and move to get some lamb. Our troops are hungry for some gyro sandwiches!


Turn 7 190 AD
Moscow is back to size 12! Set production to build a swordsmen every 2 turns. Will disconnect iron next turn, then start producing masses of warriors.

Turn 8 210 AD
Road cut.

Turn 9: 230 AD
Masses of Viking archers heading towards China. I hope China kills lots of them.
Queued up 10 warriors.

Turn 10: 250 AD
Iroquois declare war on Indians.

After Action Report:
A Swordsmen is heading up north to take out barbs. After first tile is road towards horses move the workers back to reconnect iron, then move them north again for the second tile. We may want to disconnect the China iron so it will not run out. Steve you can move the MP from Nanking to do this. It has not moved this turn.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD0250_01.SAV

Good set of turns, Keith! We are getting well set to surprise a few AI! (BTW: you know how I feel about Spearmen! IMO, better to waste 4 extra Shields on an offensive unit then 20 in total on a Defensive, but it is your call and your turns. I'm sure they'll be handy.)

I've got the save, but it's too late to play tonight. I'll play and post first thing tomorrow. Plan to disconnect the Chinese Iron (definitely want to preserve that resource and we've got several slave workers to reconnect later.) Probably need a few more Galleys - I'd like to chain 1 or 2 across to our new holdings and still have 4 or 5 to support amphibious landings. Build up our forces and pay Ragnor a visit! :) Sounds like fun!

(Edit: looked at the save, I see 2 stacks of 4 Viking Archers heading towards China's last city. It would be a shame if they did us a favor doing in China, and never made it home! I also see a Zulu Settler/Impi stack moving in past Nanking; I may try to restrict their movements. Finally, I see at least 2 one space islands have been colonized, one for Egypt and one for the Zulu. These will be trouble - we're a long way away from naval units that bombard, so once they reach Size2, we have to starve them to Size1 before the owning country is likely to let them go. If I can free a galley up, I'll send it off with a couple of warriors and see if there are other 1 tile islands to occupy, just to prevent the AI from making it harder. We can not let these island cities become the capital!!!!)

I would not invest time and effort on colonizing the horses in the home continent. we will soon have a harbor in Beijing, and since we have the lighthouse the trade routes will not be blocked.

Another adjusment I would do is start building the FP in Canton.
Not that we intent to do this, but since the capital is so far away, all the cities around the FP will enjoy the rank bug.

I would not invest time and effort on colonizing the horses in the home continent. we will soon have a harbor in Beijing, and since we have the lighthouse the trade routes will not be blocked.
I thought lighthouse only gives sea square connection, not ocean connection.
Do we have a sea only crossing point somewhere?

I believe there's a sea connection from the Viking area to the Egyptian area, and we have sea and coast connection to Egypt. Once a harbor is complete we'll know for sure because Furs would then show up in our China holdings.

I'll have to count it out, but Nidaros might make a better FP site. Because we will experience mostly distance corruption, we will want to use the closest big city as our FP city since they should experience the least amount of rank corruption and be able to finish it fastest. I don't think we can actually build the FP yet; we need a few more cities.

I agree we will be benefitting from the Rank Corruption Bug, but I don't think this violates GOTM rules because we're not moving our original Palace location.

I'm off to play the turns.

I agree we will be benefitting from the Rank Corruption Bug, but I don't think this violates GOTM rules because we're not moving our original Palace location.


I can confirm that this is correct. :)

You are right about the harbor. We will be connected. We may want to rush the harbor as we have more than enough gold for the upgrades. I would be nice to get some happiness over to our new cities. I would also like to start building horsemen ASP.

OK, played the turn set:

Turn 0, 250 AD
Pillage China's Iron
I don't think the Zulu will found anywhere within the Chinese holdings, so I leave them alone
Nidaros is distance 19 from Moscow; Beijing is distance 22; I'd use Nidaros for FP site
We're at war with:
Japan, ok only Japan and no allies it appears
America: has Monarchy, missing Currency and Republic
Spain: Missing Republic and Mono, doesn't have Monarchy
Egypt: Missing Republic and Mono, doesn't have Monarchy
India: has Monarchy, missing Mono; BTW, we have no contacts to trade
Arabia: has Monarchy, 75 Gold, missing Mono
Iroqouis: has Monarchy, missing Mono, at war with India, will ally for 1 gpt
France: has Monarchy, 44 gold, missing Mono
Japan: at WAR; has Monarchy, missing Republic and Mono, will sign Peace for Rep (how thoughtful)
Aztecs: missing Mono and Republic, doesn't have Monarchy, 28 Gold
Celts: 5 Gold, missing Mono and Rep, doesn't have Monarchy
England: 117 Gold, missing Mono and Rep, and Monarchy
Mongols: 1 Gold, missing Construction, has Republic, doesn't have Monarchy
Declare Immediate War on Mongols
Zulu's: 39 Gold, has Monarchy, missing Mono
China: way behind and on the ropes
Vikings: missing Mono and Republic, and Monarchy; about to be attacked anyway
(BTW: Vikings have Gems to Trade: we do have a trade route)

We ally with Iroquois against India, for 6 Gold
Form Embassy with America (Wash has only Palace and Heroic Epic in it, building a Swordsman, 40% Tax, 60% Res)
Won't ally for Republic and give us Monarchy; trade Republic for Monarchy and WM
Spain Allies vs Indians, giving 2 Gold and WM, for Monarchy
Form Embassy with Egypt (Thebes has only Palace and Heroic Epic, building GreatLib, 24 turns, 10%T, 90%R)
Egypt Allies vs Indias, giving 31 Gold and WM, for Monarchy
Form Embassy with England (London has only Palace, building GreatLib, 29 Turns, 30%T, 70%R)
England Allies vs Mongols, giving 117 Gold and WM, for Monarchy
Form Embassy with Aztecs (Tenoch has Palace and HE, building Settler, 20%T, 80%R)
Aztecs Ally vs Japan, giving 28 Gold and WM, for Monarchy
Celts Ally vs Japan, giving 5 Gold and WM, for Monarchy

to recap: Allied vs India with Iroqouis, Spain and Egypt
Allied vs Japan with Celts and Aztecs
Allied vs Mongols with England
Treasury is at 397 Gold

Turn 1, 260 AD
Spain want to form Alliance vs Abe and do ROP; we say no
Moscow is building 1 turn Warriors

Turn 2, 270 AD
Dispatch a Barb horse who comes to close to our Colony
England lands a Settler/Spear near a former Chinese city near the Vikings

Turn 3, 280 AD
Galley with 2 Warriors head off looking for islands to occupy
Workers finish road on Mountains, head back to connect Iron
Viking Archers adjacent to Chinese Capital

Turn 4, 290 AD
Tsingtao captured, but Chinese sneak Hangchow on Dyes near Vikings
Oxford founded near Vikings

Turn 5, 300 AD
Not much

Turn 6, 310 AD
Last Warrior is built; Iron is reconnected; Workers sent off to road towards Horses
Set Moscow to 15 Shields, to build 2 turn Galleys for a While
Upgrade 6 Warriors to Swordsmen

Turn 7, 320 AD
Load Swords onto 3 Galleys, and head off
I lost a turn by how I loaded the Galleys; proper spot is Coast just off our Games Tile
6 Swords are following Viking Archers as they leave our Chinese holdings

Turn 8, 330 AD
Build Galley, pillage Iron road
Galleys ready to cross ocean (the Great Lighthouse is absolutely essential!)

Turn 9, 340 AD
Galleys cross and are just outside Viking Culture
Swordsmen from Chinese Holdings are just outside Oslo Culture

Turn 10, 350 AD
2 Barb Horses threaten our Iron Colony
Sword/Archer advancing towards Barb camp near Horses
Declare War on Vikings
vs 2 Archers near Beijing
4/4 Sword vs 3/3 Archer --> 5/5 Sword (yay!)
4/4 Sword vs 3/3 Archer --> 2/4 Sword
6 Swords land adj to Stockholm (their Iron city)
6 Swords move adj to Oslo (several Archers there, so moved into Forest)

Diplo recap:
Still at war with India, allied with Iroqouis, Spain and Egypt for 10 more turns
Still at war with Japan, allied with Celts and Aztecs for 10 more turns
Still at war with Mongols, allied with England for 10 more turns
Just declared war on Vikings
Recommend taking the two cities (Oslo and Stockholm), probably have to take out a bunch of Archers (I saw about 12-15 moving towards China that headed back), move on Nidaros, take it, then I'd sign Peace for whatever cities you can get

Research: we've still got Mono uniquely; that's what most are missing, no one has any new Techs, a few (Aztecs, Celts and England) are still missing Republic, so we can manipulate them into one more war, maybe.

There's a Galley with 2 Warriors in it heading out behind the land masses. I'm looking for other 1 tile island city sites; there's a little snippet of land visible behind the Iroqouis that I'm suspicious of, but I'd suggest moving around and checking everywhere. It will be tough to get the two cities we know about (likely need a lot more Galleys to occupy tiles and starve them down), so if at all possible, I think we should see if there are any more 1 tile islands to remove the possibility of there being an AI city on them.

I've built two more Galleys in Moscow, and we can now start building more 1 turn Warriors. We might want to build a Worker just because we're at Size 12 and can expand; I leave that to the next person (Peanut!!) Our initial Viking campaign should be over in the next set of turns (at least I hope so); I recommend Nidaros to be our FP city, although we can see the impact of Rank on Beijing's production after we've captured a few Viking cities that are closer to Moscow than Beijing is. If needed we have the cash to rush Beijing's harbor and Nanking's barracks, so we can upgrade the regular Warriors in Chine (if needed).

Who after the Vikings? Maybe Zulu's, or maybe we help England finish the Mongols, then come at the Zulus from both sides! I kind of like that idea; Mongols should be easy, and the extra time should give us overwhelming force against Shaka!



End of Turnlog

Lot's of diplo stuff at the start, and I've checked everybody: no one else knows any MidAges Techs. Looking at the scoring Chart, it's easy to see when someone starts capturing remote cities! :) Our slope changed a lot!!

Ok Peanut, you're UP!!

Here's the 350 AD Save. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD0350_01.SAV)

And a screen shot of our Viking invasion force: just be warned, there are a LOT of Viking Archers around!

Nice set of turns.
I hope that 6 sword will be enough to take Oslo. I used 6 of my 8 sword on my initial attack on Beijing (2 died in the process).

On the MM side: two notes:
1. Beijing is on govoner contol - it should be removed.
2. Nanking can work the Oysters.

I would rush harbor in beijing. we should be connected to the gems after Stockholmes is ours.

On the long term. I also think the Zulu should be our next target. they have 2 lux
Perhaps we should set them to war agains the mongols? (if we think we can attack them in less than 20 turn we might want to avoid it). The mongols are quite weak at it is, so it may on strengthen the zulu.

We should also target china after the war with the vikings is over. they are down to 1 city on a lux.

Thanks!

I hope that 6 sword will be enough to take Oslo. I used 6 of my 8 sword on my initial attack on Beijing (2 died in the process).
Beijing was the capital and was more heavily defended. Stockholm and Oslo are secondary cities and should have no more than 2 Spearmen in them, if that many; if we were attacking Nidaros I'd want at least 8 Swords. I'd suggest that each of these two cities be taken, then resolve any Archers that are moving around, heal surviving Swordsmen, finally move majority of surviving forces to take Nidaros in pincer move.

1. Beijing is on govoner contol - it should be removed.
I've gotten in the habit recently of allowing the governor to control citizen's moods within captured cities; it virtually assures no CD will occur and seems to have reduced CFs. Beijing went into CD on one of the turns when it grew to size4; I set the Governor to be sure that didn't happen again. Once China is completely gone, this isn't even an issue, and if Peanut or whomever wishes to control the captured cities by hand, that's fine.

On the long term. I also think the Zulu should be our next target. ...
Perhaps we should set them to war agains the mongols? ...
I'd prefer to hold off on the Zulus. Reason is that we MUST get their one-space island city during Peace negotiations; since it is size2, we will probably need to starve it to size1, which reguires 9 Galleys (10 if they build a harbor, and 20 if their culture expands!!) So we need at least that number of Galleys in the theater ready to starve off (Tugela?). This is why I propose we do the Mongols next; this gives us a bit more time to build our forces up, get some more Oars in the water and Swords smelted. Finish off China (next point) and use most of the Veterans/Elites from China, Vikings and Mongols, along with Fresh Troops to do a mass landing along Zulu coast, hack and slash several cities while Galleys reform to blockade their island city. If we can't get that city, we shouldn't declare war!

Regarding getting Zulus to ally vs Mongols: I would have if I could have. Other than money, we've got nothing of interest to Shaka that I could find.

We should also target china after the war with the vikings is over. Oh, yeah!! :)

(BTW, the Galley with the 2 Warriors off looking for 1 tile islands - you might think the resources could be better used. In GOTM30 (the Spanish one if I've got the wrong number) I was held up because of one Chinese city on a one tile island that had a Luxury on it; Mao wouldn't give it up no matter what I did to it! I needed Amphibious Warfare and Marines to finish my Conquest, and I don't want to go that far for this game!)

Cap'n Peanut reportin' for duty my fellow swashbuckling adventurers. It's full sail * for some jolly pillaging and mayhem and conquest with the Vikings and whoever else crosses our path ! Grab the sides and hang on - who knows where the figurehead will steer us ?

* (or is that full rowing as we only have galleys ??)

row, row, row your boat gently down the stream ...

Pre-turn : As usual, CS has left things in excellent shape. We rush Beijing's harbor - let's get Luxuries flowing. Moscow changes to Worker. Ok - here we go ...

IBT : Ghandi wants peace ! Hmmm ... No thanks. We lose one sword outside Oslo to Viking archers. The Viking workers scurry for safety ... hahahaha ... the Russians are coming, you cannot hide .... hahahahaha !!!

360AD : Our worker heads off to build roads north of the iron. Beijing's harbour is officially opened - and the citizens drape themselves in furs ! Ok Peanut - let's glue on some chest hairs, pump up those inflatable biceps and conquer some Vikings ! Stockholm (2 spears) falls for the devastating loss of one (yes count it - that's one) hit point ! Two slaves join our empire. Oslo (2 spears, 1 archer) costs us one sword. Can we bear this heavy toll ? Yep. The remaining Stockholm swords jump into the galleys for a free ride to Nidaros, sinking a Viking rowboat in the process. Voyager voyages down the coast.

IBT : A couple of Viking archers attack Oslo. One sword lost.

370AD : We dispatch a Viking archer and land four swords in the forest behind Nidaros. A barb camp is flattened for the fun of it.

IBT : No counter attack ! You chickens !

380AD : We rush Nanking's barracks. The swords wait for their friend to march from Stockholm. Voyager glimpses land off Aztecia.

IBT : One sword weakened outside Nidaros by archers. Delhi builds The Wall. Whoopee !

390AD : Nidaros is ours - just - with one sword lost. The telling blow is dealt by the weakened swordsman. Nidaros starts on the Forbidden Palace. In our generosity (and because there are 5 Viking archers converging on Nidaros) we graciously offer peace in return for 19g and three (count 'em that's three !!) cities. Scandanavia is left with its capital sitting in the desert. We occupy two single-tile islands off the Aztec coast (one with silks). We do a bit of map trading, picking up some 115g in spare change.

IBT : Nothing of interest.

400AD : We start roads to connect Russian China with Russian Scandanavia. Nidaros swaps to a courthouse to help corruption. Two warriors sail from Moscow in search of more of these One Tile Islands

IBT : A little Viking expedition of 4 spears and 3 archers just left Linkoping heading our way. Could they be plotting something ?

410AD : Nidaros rushes its courts (308g)

IBT : Kyoto builds the Library, London grabs the Gardens. The Vikings may be heading for China ! Maybe. Their 5 archer stack moves to join the fun. We will wait and see.

420AD : One more OTI found off Aztecia. The next boatload of warriors is on its way to it. The courts cut 30 turns off the Forbidden palace in Nidaros (now 67 turns).

IBT : The Mongols want a rest. No, sorry.

430AD : Road building. The Russian China warriors are sent to Nanking for planned upgrades. No trades worth anything.

IBT : Looks like the Vikings don't like Mao ! They have 8 archers and 5 spears on the march. We might send a sword behind them to bottle some of them up in teh peninsula perhaps ?

440AD : Road building etc. We move to hook up the iron again.

IBT : The Vikings continue to march. Hiawatha demands Monotheism. Go sit on your arrows !! He backs down. Cleo suddenly owns Engineering ! She HAS been busy, eh ? She wants to swap it for Monotheism. AND she has acquired Feudalism, and will swap both for Monotheism. !! WHAT ?? Nope, sorry darling. Not yet.

450AD : We move some swords in the general direction of Linkoping ... just in case

Summary and Gratuitous advice : About seven AIs have Engineering and Feudalism. We could probably trade Monotheism around for both of these plus a wad of cash, and once we get iron reconnected upgrade to MIs. We have horses available and we could start stockpiling for Knights as our next fighting unit. There are a swarm of Vikings off fighting China. We could bottle at least half of them up in the peninsula until we are ready to take out the Viking capital. There is a boat with two warriors heading for the third One Tile Island off Aztecia, there may be more out there.

We should have our foreign empire roaded up in a few turns, giving us another luxury. I have ignored our other wars for the moment, just in case the Vikings get a rush of blood to their double-pointed hats and open hostilities again with those wandering archers.

Over to you Madame Captain Mathilda !
The 450AD Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD0450_01.SAV)

PS just look at that score graph. Isn't it lovely ?

Ok, thanks Peanut.
So now we have the Chinese and the Vikings down to their capitals.
How much money have the vikings got, as in how are they supporting all their archers?
Unfortunately I'm not able till tomorrow night (too much work, can you imagine), so that's about 28 hours from now. So plenty of time to reach a decision about who's next.

And to think that I was afraid that our forced will not be enough... 3 captured cities + 3 in the peace deal, WOW!

so that's about 28 hours from now. So plenty of time to reach a decision about who's next.
Perhaps rrau will agree for a swap?

Edit: At first reading I thought you are refering to who will play next.

No, your second reading was better, I meant who will die next :D

I will have to look at the save tonight, but my early thoughts are to take out the Mongels next, then Zululand. Other issue to consider is sending all our workers except one to our newly conquered lands. I believe it will be a better use of them than building roads to resources we don't need. We still need one worker to reconnect our iron road, but other than that all others should cross over. Also I think we should continue to focus on building warriors and upgrading them. We should build a few horsemen as a rapid deployment force and for future upgrading, but for now we will get the most bang for our buck with swordsmen/MidInf. In addition, our horsemen loses will be higher than normal vs. Impi and Swordsmen/MinInf. will be much better for that task. After Zululand is taken and we can build knights then horsemen should be the way to go.

Awesome! :cool: (I'll have to go check our score graph; see who's on the same path we are!) I've loaded the save; that Jungle with silks is exactly what I was talking about. In my (very limited one time) experience, the AI would NEVER let that go if they got a city on it.

We should block the vikings in, but that will be a 2nd city for them since the culture has expanded. Still, no reason to have a stack like that running around.

Nidaros is definitely the place to put the FP. It's 6 base shields still generate 5 useful ones, while Beijing's 7 Shields only generate 4, so Nidaros is experiencing much less Rank Corruption. We need to help it grow; I'd suggest switching some Warrior production to Workers (in cities that can grow) and send the new Workers to Nidaros; improve it a bit, irrigate and road the plains, road the Forests and Join to grow it quickly. Nidaros can probably cut a lot of time off the FP by focusing on it a bit.

I'd also get some Barracks going in the 'New' World. Beijing for sure; Canton maybe. Also, since the Furs are connected (and Gems on the Way), lets get the Specialists into the field (at Canton, and Nanking) and start growing these cities.

I see at least 3 more 1-tile island; one off the Aztecs, one near Egypt and one more behind the Arabs. I have a feeling that there's more out there in the dark! It would be easier to build up Tsingtao (or another city on the backside of the long continent) to act as a base for island searches, then to use Moscow which is farther away; they'll need a Library (we're Scientific so these are Cheaper) and a lot of development, and we'll have to poprush Galleys and send units over. We also need to explore on the northern side of the northern group of civs and Arabia as well.

I'd trade Mono at this time. Figure out who we're going to be at war with and who we want to be allied with. Then trade Mono to someone else to get the missing Techs, and use Mono with the soon-to-be allies to get them to Ally with us. We should also be able to pick up all the loose gold along the way. I recommend we stay at war with Mongols and Japan (and India); maybe we can get the Zulu at war with Mongols? Or did we want them for our next target? (I still don't think we have enough Galleys to starve Tugela so they'll give it to us!) And let's get the Iroqouis involved; maybe in a 2 on 1 - Arabia and Iroqouis vs France. I would definitely use Mono at this time; it's our only leverage and I've got to believe we are only turns away from losing it.

So what do we research next? I see 2 paths. Research full tilt to Knights, build lots of Horses, save whatever Gold we can (hard while doing research), upgrade and invade. Or, turn off Research, load up boatloads of MedInf, and capture Kyoto (home of the Great Library!) Then, whenever Chivalry (or any of the nearby Techs is researched), we will get it when it's traded, and we can save lots of Money for upgrades.

I favor the 2nd method; we want the Great Library anyway. I think if we wait until we've captured Mongols and Zulu's and taken them mostly out, it will be OK. Then we'll have a closer base to launch and support an attack on Japan. If we research Chivalry ourselves, I think we will barely learn it ahead of the AI, and we will not have enough Gold in hand to make the knowledge that useful to us.

Hmmm. Maybe with that in mind we don't trade Mono. We're only 10 turns from Feudalism as it is using a Scientist, which will give us MedInf anyway. If we can delay the AI a few more turns from being able to start on Chivalry, that would help us; our control of the seas allows us to put force where we want to. And once we control the Great Library, we don't need Research for a long time.

OK, there's a few things to ponder. 1.) Trade Mono and Research Chivalry; 2.) Trade Mono, do no Research, take on Mongols/Zulus then capture Great Lib; 3.) don't trade Mono, learn Feud at Min (or pick it up for a minor trade if available), take on Mongols/Zulus (I favor this order, but it's up to discussion) then capture Great Lib ... or ...

What do people think? One of these or something else. (I'm leaning towards 3)

(cross-posted: well, it was a big post!)

I agree with everything Keith said! Ability to drop a stack of Swords/MedInf from the sea is very powerful! And Warriors are cheap to build.

Mongols next!

Another point in favor of Swords/MedInf is the map layout. The map seems to be designed for neval operations. The troops will be better relocated by sea rather by on foot.
We should build some more galleys for that.

Edit: I vote for CS option #2 - we should start some wars and capture the GLib.

My vote is CS option #3. Ten turns is nothing. A scientist in one city only cost us no grow for 10 turns. In those ten turns we can build more warriors and galleys. If our plan is to take the Great Library we don't need any other tech than Feudalism so why trade and speed the AI up?

Yes. That's why I reconsidered the Trade of Mono. Every turn we delay the AI from getting it is one more turn we wont face Knights/Knight equivalents. And we get Feudalism in 10, and Engineering for Free with GreatLib capture. Only thing we're missing is starting some more wars. Maybe do option 2.5 - if we see Mono start to pop up anywhere, trade it to start wars (especially in the Arabia - France - Iroqouis section); otherwise, hold off until we've captured Great Library.

... It would be easier to build up Tsingtao (or another city on the backside of the long continent) to act as a base for island searches ...
Better yet, just rush a Galley at Tsingtao, load it with cheap, Regular Warriors and send it off, to last Jungle 1-tile island then up back of Iroquois towards Arab 1-tile island. Bring 'Voyager' back to Tsingtao, load it with Reg Warriors, send it off to SE, along backside of big continent. Send Galley with Warriors from Moscow up along North side of Northern civs. Maybe sign ROP with Egypt to occupy 1-tile Jungle island in their domain. That allows us to cover 6 more islands if they're out there (we know of at least 3 more); if we find more, we can rush another Galley in an appropriate location.

I also like option #3

I think the arabs are very close to mono.
They will ally agains the mongols for either mono+140g or 249g + 10gpt.
which means that mono worth something like (10*20*0.9 + 249 - 140) = 289g
The arabs seems to have the nicest land with room to expand. they should be kept under supervision.

We have a strong army comared to all!!

My vote for the next victim is the Zulu. I believe we can get Tugela in a peace deal. The Zulu are so close with 2 lux.
I think we should upgrade all warriors in Moscow load them and attack Zulu ASAP. I think we can easily get their 3 NW cities and maybe even the capital on first assult.
we need more money to upgrade all warriors.

On the building side, I would start building barracks. we do not need regular warriors more than we already have.
I would move the scientist from Canton to Beijing to allow Canton to develop.
Stockhom should build a worker to join the FP city.

OK guys, a lot of advice there.
Hang on to your seats to see whitch ones I followed.

preturn 450AD
Swich Stockholm to worker.
Take unneccessary specialists oFf duty and put them to work,
making sure we've still got one scientist somewhere.
Switch Xinjian to galley, don't rush it yet, as there's no warriors nearby
to hop onboard yet anyway.
Note that we are 'free' to DOW on the Chinese whenever we like.

IBT
Spain wants to know if we want to keep fighting with them against India.
Shame I wasn't really prepared for this question.
She'll give us her WM and all her 9 gold so we say yes.

England the same against the Mongols.
She'll give us WM, all her 37 gold + 1gpt and feudalism, so we say yes :D

Iroquis don't want to continue alliance against India, but will buy our WM for WM and14g.

Aztecs want to continue alliance against the Japs, unfortunately they haven't got any gold so we settle for
Engineering as our reward :D

Egypt would like to have us on side against India and are willing to pay 85g + 8gpt for the priviledge.
We let them.

Egyptians are building Sun Tzu's


turn1 460AD
Turn research off!
Barb horse near iron colony bo Mcow One of the 3 workers to reconnect the iron
is a slave so it takes two turns.
Cant resist temptation to drop one of the warriors off the boat to the north-west continent
to go and pop huts while the boat goes round. First one's empty.

IBT
Iroquis and India -> peace
Vikings kill off the Chinese !!


turn2 470AD
Use up all the gold by upgrading 7 warriors to med inf.

IBT
The Japs want peace - no can do.

turn3 480AD
Load MIs into the boats from Mcow, trade WM to get some cash, rush the harbour in Xinjian.
No they all had Mono btw, I'm sorry I missed out on that.

IBT
Aztecs and indians -> Sun Tzu's

turn4 490AD
Just manouvering

IBT
Japs and celts -> Sun Tzu's

turn5 500AD
more manouvering, looks like discovering more islands as well, south of Hangchow.

turn6 510AD
In position, ready to go the next turn. Can you guess who it will be?

turn7 520AD
plant some forests round mcow to improve production, building MIs atm.
road forests near Nidaros for the same purpose.
Hmmm, the more I discover of this map, the less I think it looks like 25% solid ground.
What do you think?
Oh yeah, that DOW I promised. Well it's the Zulus obviously.
But first lets trade maps with him and get 12 gold off him.


IBT
Ok, I did know this was going to happen.
There was a zulu impi-settler pair in the middle of our towns, one of which was undefended.
Of course the impi ran straight there.
Oh - and what does any AI do when you declare on them?
Well start building a wonder of course!

turn8 530AD
Who do we first run into in the Zulu territory?
Mongol settler-spear pair. Well, just have to divert and get them first.
then Zimbabwe:
4/4 MI > 3/3 pike - MI1/4
4/4 MI > 3/3 impi - MI3/4
4/4 MI > 3/3 pike - MI1/4 Zimbabwe is ours, with 1 worker.

elsewhere:Find another one tiler

IBT
Oh no! I'd parker voyager in ocean. By-bye voyager.
Zimbabweans are not happy people.
They kill our two med infs that were wounded earlier

turn9 540AD
we return the favour, and add two more loose ones to their to be buried list.
take Xinjian back with one sword.
lose one sword and one med inf to impi at Ishandwlana.


IBT
Get two MIs promoted to elite by surviving zulu archers :)


turn10 550AD
I notice ww in Mcow and turn one citizen to tax collector
Take Isandhlwana, with first MI.
The Zulu won't talk to us yet.

end of turnlog

The pile of boats haven't moved yet.
the irons are disconnected.
The westernmost galley is supposed to pick up the warrior three tiles away.

here it is, look if you dare (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD0550_01.SAV)

I'm unable to look at the save yet, but I'll throw a few comments out. Overall, very good progress, but there were some clumsy moments there. Any border town should be garrisoned, especially adjacent to a civ with fast units. And exploring with Galleys is touchy stuff; unless you're making a suicide run, be sure you can make it to a safe space. If you're moving through already navigated spaces, use the 'G' goto key; it won't let you end on a dangerous space.

I am amazed at how generous our allies are! :crazyeye: That was great! Them giving us the missing techs makes the question about trading Mono moot. :goodjob:

We are going to need a lot more Galleys before we're through. I'd suggest as standing policy to build Galleys when Iron is connected, and build Warriors when it isn't.

The FP in Nidaros is becoming more important, the sooner the better. If it's not up to its maximum population, we need to make (or rush) Workers to Join until it is.

And this is MOST IMPORTANT! We can not under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES allow the Zulu's capital to flip to Tugela, their 1 tile island city. If the current capital is relatively 'safe', I'd leave it alone, putting pressure on other cities. We've got to get Tugela; that's more important than any other Zulu city.

Just in case CivSteve did not make it clear enough we MUST NOT allow Tugela to become the Zulu capital. At this point this game is ours to lose. We are way ahead of the other teams and I can't see anyway they can catch up unless we play stupid. The one thing that will kill us is having to wait until the industrial age to win. I fear we jumped the gun on the Zulu. We should have waited until we could starve Tugela out with our navy.

Any border town should be garrisoned, especially adjacent to a civ with fast units.
It wasn't a border tow per se, it was more in the middle, but because of no culture expansion there was no-man's land in the middle.
And exploring with Galleys is touchy stuff; unless you're making a suicide run, be sure you can make it to a safe space. If you're moving through already navigated spaces, use the 'G' goto key; it won't let you end on a dangerous space. Well, it wasn't previously navigated. Yes, it was a mistake, i turned at the last movementpoint, when I saw a sea tile in a place where I presumed it would mean an island, and it did.


The FP in Nidaros is becoming more important, the sooner the better. If it's not up to its maximum population, we need to make (or rush) Workers to Join until it is.
Well, it is up to 6, I did jon 2 workers there, one built from Stockholm and one Chinese slave after China had been distroyed.

And this is MOST IMPORTANT! We can not under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES allow the Zulu's capital to flip to Tugela, their 1 tile island city. If the current capital is relatively 'safe', I'd leave it alone, putting pressure on other cities. We've got to get Tugela; that's more important than any other Zulu city.
Absolutely. I just agreed with Mailman, that we would be able to get Tugela in a peace deal. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough if I was wrong ;)

Great play Mathilda - I think the sooner we jumped onto the Zulu the better. As for the Galley - I am thankful I haven't done anything like that (yet) this game but I sure have have done that sort of thing before. You'll have to go a long way before you reach the quality of some of the dopey acts I have attained in some of my games (eg. declaring war and then accidentally sending my invasion fleet to invade the wrong country).

I agree that we need more galleys, we maybe even should start on horses in preparation for Knights, if we plan to use them. Also a Market in Moscow may be a good idea for the extra cash and the happiness once we get more luxuries on line.

>>>THE SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD0650_01.SAV)

Preflight (550ad)

move galleys near Tugela
switch Nanking from warrior to galley and rush for the blockade.

ibt:

Japanese ship nears Moscow

turn 1 (560ad)

pick up wounded warrior
heal troops

ibt: not much

turn 2 (570ad)

pillage around Zimbabwe
Move to attack Ngome next turn

turn 3 (580ad)

vet MI wins vs reg Impi, lost 3hp
lost one vet MI vs reg Impi
elite won flawlessly, no promotion and captured Ngome

ibt:

wounded vet MI defends against Impi, promoted to elite
lost wounded vet MI vs Zulu MI
Japanese landed a horseman by Moscow

turn 4 (590ad)

Kill Japanese horse near Moscow
4/5 MI defeats 4/4 MI and We get a leader (2 MI army)

ibt: Egypt and India signed a peace treaty

turn 5 (600ad)

found another one tile island and unloaded a warrior.

turn 6 (610ad)

upgraded warriors

turn 7 (620ad)

moved army to take Bapedi next turn

ibt: an impi snuck around army

turn 8 (630ad)

army defended Ngome's reg warrior garrison instead of taking Bapedi
pillaged road to iron.

turn 9 (640ad)

moving troops

turn 10 (650ad)

Pillaged Zulu iron
2 MI army defeated a Bapedi impi with loss of 1 hp and is joined by a vet MI for next turn

Notes:

1) there are 2 galleys of MI on automove towards Zimbabwe
2) a galley building in Beijing will complete this ibt and with the 2 coming from Moscow, will complete blockade of Tugela.
3) Even though Tugela still size 2, Zulu will give it plus a couple other cities for peace. However, with one of the Impi in Bapedi already killed, I would recommend at least taking Bapedi first. (Then maybe a mini-break to rebuild troops and build a couple markets)
4) The road to the spices and furs will complete on this ibt, so you should be able to lower the lux slider next turn
5) FP completes in 3
6) There's a mongol settler pair moving through Zulu territory towards ours (we are at war with them)

Whoa, just about to post, but rrau has played. Looks like very good stuff, especially point 3! If Bapedi isn't the capital, I'd say go for it, then lets get peace, Tugela and whatever other cities Shaka will give, and build up. Probably do in the Mongols a bit also!

Suggest once we get Tugela that we stick a Warrior there (or rush one there), then Abandon the city. I'd prefer to take no risks that it might flip, no matter how slim.

Probably time to eliminate Ragnor and the Vikings from the game as well.

Definitely need a lot more Galleys; don't forget them!

The impending FP is going to really accelerate our game!

After Mongols, should we jump to Japan, or just keep eating along the Coast. Probably easier to eat along the coast, but the main competition is at the end, not in the middle. I'd like to minimize the amount of Samurai or Ansars in the game. At some point we need to consider our Northern friends as well!

OK, I think it's MailMan's!!

The SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD0750_01.SAV)

Turn log:
preturn: trade maps around for gain of 164g + 2gpt (for the aztecs)
Last turnst I played, I caputered our first city, and now we have 14 cities. nice going folks.
MM to got FP in 2 (at the cost of 2 food). and get some more food and money out of the rest of the cities.

IBT -
zulu killed two MI on mountains.
spain wanted to renew alliance vs. the Indians. they did not have anything so we say no.
same with england vs. monogols.
The aztecs however was willing to pay 11gpt + worker + WM to renew alliance against Japan. we say yes.

1. 660AD
switch Mcow to warriors.
our army take Bapedi with no hp lost.
took one of their archers with MI and decided to sit at the table to discuss peace.
We get in the deal 3 cities (and 10g, WM).
We now have one city in the far north.
I lowered lux slider one notch (we have 4 lux connected already).

Decided to take the rest of the Vikings next. move forces closer.
Send some galleys home.
load other galleys with reg warriors.

IBT
aztecs and japan sign peace.
WE GOT THE FP.

2. 670AD
we have enough workers to connect the road to the iron in one turn. so we can connect, upgrade, disconnect each turn.
we now earn +83 gpt.
Tugela has 0% chances of flipping.

3. 680AD
India give us a city on our continent and all thier gold (109g) and maps for peace. I say yey.
send delagation of defence + worker toward there.
declanre on the vikings and land forces near their capital (2 MI). 4 swords will join the attack force next turn.
grab one more 1-tile island.
decided to prepare attack force for the mongols as well.

IBT - france got invention.

4. 690AD
The two MI were enough to take scandinavia capital.
The spear protecting the monogol settler took 6hp off our army. I decided to take down the setller since I guess it would not found new city any time soon on the already crowded land mass.
one MI got elite fighting barb.
gather some cash from WM.
built embacy with france. they are 60% on research. 4 reg spear defending.
sign peace with japan for all thier gold (101g). the aztecs already bailed out of the allience.
build embacy with them as well (107g). 70% research, 2 pikes. 14 turns to sun tzu's.

IBT england and mongols sign peace.
a lot of nations suddenly have invention and chivalry.
I think the mongols chivalry first.


5. 700AD
got 50 gold from hut.

6. 710.
move forces.

IBT - the mongols got one city back from england via a flip.

7. 720AD
move forces. land forces near mongols new city.

8. 730AD
notice that Abe founded city on our land mass.
lost one sword but took Vikings last city.
THE VIKINGS ARE NO MORE.
lost one MI but took mongols new city.

IBT - Teology is also known in the world.

9. 740AD
move force.
rush galley.

10. 750AD
move forces.

Summery.
Completed FP.
Took out the Vikings (2 more cities)
Took 1 city and gain more 3 with peace deal from zulu.
gain 1 city from india via peace deal.
took 1 city from mongols.

Our forces should take mongols capital next turn.
There is a lot of troops waiting transport in the north. Egypt comes in mind.

We should probably start some more wars soon. espicially france and arabs should fight among themselves.
We should also start a war with egypy and ally spain and amirica against them.

Thanks for the delivery Mailman, I will play sometime in the next 4 hours. Great progress team! We are now on a roll!

We are definitely on a roll! And I see a Galley with Warrior on its way to occupy the 1-tile island behind the Mongols; very good, if the Mongols got a Settler there, it would likely become their capital. We can't allow that, but if we occupy it first, no problem.

I don't know if we need Knights for this game. If we put 3 or 4 Galleys on the back side of the Continent, we can attack most cities from the Sea. We can build Warriors for 10 vs Horses for 30 (so 3x as many MedInf), and it costs 60 to upgrade to MedInf vs 80 for Knights (less if someone, or us, builds Leo's) for the same attack, so it might be possible to stay with Galleys/MedInf for a while. The remaining interior cities can be easily crushed from both sides, and the civ is usually to decimated to respond. Eventually we might want Cossacks to kick off a GA.

Byblos, Egypt's one-tile island city, is going to be trouble! They are size 3 (so they have a harbor) and their culture has expanded! I think we will need to starve them down to size1 before Egypt will give up a city with culture (and they might not at that; we might need bombardment to destroy their cultural buildings, which doesn't come until Magnetism). So I'd hold off declaring War until we have enough Galleys to starve it down; even then, I wouldn't sign up any allies; if we signed America for instance and they took enough cities to jump the Palace to Byblos, we'd be sunk!

I'll look for a post later, Keith.

Turn 0: 750 AD
Our war with the Moguls will be drawing to a conclusion soon. And we have 11 more turns to finish in our peace deal with Zululand. I don’t think it is in our best interest to break deals just yet. Therefore our next target will be Egypt as Mailman suggests. I will target Elephantine first to take out their iron. I am switching Moscow to horseman mode in prep for knights and continue producing warriors in the New World. Here goes…

Turn 1: 760 AD
IBT Arabs land a settle/spearman on our ice block, just SW of Bengel.

The Attack on Karakorum.
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3 --> MI 2/4
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3 --> Spear 2/3
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3 --> MI 3/4
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3 --> MI 4/4
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 2/3 --> MI 1/4
Karakorum is ours!
MI 4/4 vs. Acher 3/3 --> MI 4/4
I make peace with Moguls for their last city Almarikh. 5 gold, WM and Chivalry. I chose Chivalry over Invention because I think I have a good chance of getting invention by trade. I can pick up Invention, but it costs more gold than I am willing to pay. Besides we will get it soon from Egypt. Sell Chivalry to the Iroquois for Wine and 5 gold. With Theology I will get it soon anyway. Sell WM around and get lots of change. Moving forces towards Egypt.

Turn 2: 770 AD
IBT Not much.
Upgrade to our first knight! Continue to heal or move forces. Trade WM for lots of gold.

Turn 3: 780 AD
IBT .
We pick up Invention and 4 gold from Iroquois for Wool, Gems and WM.

Turn 4: 790 AD
IBT Nothing much.
More upgrade. Close to being ready to attack Egypt.

Turn 5: 800 AD
IBT Terrible news! Bapedi has gone over to the Zulu. We will ractify that shortly. The worst thing is we lost our wool. The Iroquois will not be happy about that.
Three boatloads of MI are know next to Elephantine. Took out barb camp for gold.

Turn 6: 810 AD
I can’t believe this! I failed to notice a one tile island right next to Almarikh! The Celts just landed there. I was so focused on searching for islands in undiscovered tiles that I didn’t give that area a second look. Sorry team. We will have to take it in a peace deal with the Celts. Egypt totally ignored our invasion force. Strange. MI land.

Turn 7 820 AD
Elephantine Attack.
MI 4/4 vs. Pike 3/3 --> MI 3/4
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3 --> MI 2/4
Elephantine is ours. 8 MI are next to Giza. We will take it next turn. Spain gives us WM and 1 gold for the privilege of fighting Egypt. India comes at a higher price. We have to give them WM and Chivalry.

Turn 8 820 AD
IBT Leonardo’s is being built by some AI now.
Giza Attack.
MI 4/4 vs. Pike 3/3 --> Pike 1/3
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3 --> MI 5/5
MI 4/4 vs. Pike 1/3 --> MI 2/4
Giza is ours! It has a harbor so we have wool again!

Turn 9: 830 AD
IBT Lost 2 MI to Egyptian counter-attack.
Thebes Attack
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3 --> Spear 3/3
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3 --> MI 4/4
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3 --> MI 2/4
MI 4/4 vs. Spear 3/3 --> MI 4/4
Thebes is taken! Counter-attack of counter-attack.
MI 4/4 vs. MI 2/3 --> MI 3/4 (ours)
MI 4/4 vs. MI 1/3 --> MI 4/4 (ours)
We can attack Zulu in 2 more turns. Moving forces in place. Unfortunately Mongol settle/spear pair is blocking path to Hlobana so I am moving forces to take Swazi first.

Turn 10: 840 AD
Healing and moving.

After Action Report:
The Egyptian campaign is going well. We want to be sure to get Byblos in the peace deal. When we start the next Zulu war next turn we want to take out the Impi/settle pair and take Swazi. The next turn move to their iron and take it out the following turn. Continue roading and unroading each turn for upgrades. I have been trading maps each turn and getting from 1-4 gold per nation per turn. When they give you a WM make a second round and milk them again. We have some furs to sell, but I am holding them for something more important than cash. I have purposely left our homeland defended by mobile forces. I figure this will give us the most flexibility in defense. I did not upgrade the elite archer in hopes he will generate a great leader. I am sending all the upgraded archers to Egypt. I would like to hit America next on that land mass. America and India have really been beating up on each other. I wish I had read Civ-Steves post before I started playing. :blush:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD0850_01.SAV

Sorry for the delay in posting the link to the upload. Civ3 locked up on me and I had to reboot and replay the last turn from the autosave. Thankfully all I had to do is move units.

Not to redirect blame for my bad play, but I noted that Mailman did not give me a heads up on the island in his report. It is very import to give the next player an idea of what you were planning to do. There is so much that has to be kept track of in this game and we all depend on each other to keep things straight.

I think we can take Byblos in a peace deal from Ejypt.
We just have to verify that it will not become their capital.
according to the war academy (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_palace_jump.shtml) I think that Jaipur will become their capital.

both Jaipur and byblos have the same amount and type of cities in the 8 tile squere.
Jaipur has 1 more pop (3 points) and probably a unit or two more (1-2 points).
I think we can take thier current capital safely.

Not to redirect blame for my bad play, but I noted that Mailman did not give me a heads up on the island in his report. It is very import to give the next player an idea of what you were planning to do. There is so much that has to be kept track of in this game and we all depend on each other to keep things straight.
Sorry. In general, I think we are mostly handling the 1-tile islands rather well.

The zulu can be attacked in a turn or two. I think we can take both Bapedi and Swazi on the first strike (the forces near Bapedi need to re-orginezed).

We are going to break deals soon. the allince against Ejypt will soon end since we need to sign peace with them to get Byblos.

We can imediatly attack Ejypt again or better yet, attack spain on the way to America.
After the zulu are gone we should contineu to England.

Civ-steve I failed to mention that I purposely left some forces in the Bapedi area unmoved this turn. You do have the option to move them for a first turn strike at Bapedi and hope the other units can take out the impi/settler. Also note there is a city which will be getting 10 shields from a chop soon. They can finish their warrior, but after that they need to start something else.

Great progress fellow Peanuts ! This game is turning out to have more points to watch out for than unarmed combat with a family of enraged porcupines. Loads of fun.

However we must not get complacent. We are ahead of other teams in time, but the others can easily catch up. For example Team Smackster's graph is starting to kick up above our profile, Jeffelammar and Tao are on par ! We need to keep happiness up to keep our score accelerating. We may need to put in markets in larger towns to get more effect from our luxuries (and for cash flow), and look to capture some happiness wonders like the HG. Of course, Peanuts, conquering comes first !!

I did mention that island in my post, but you were probably playing by then. Perhaps if we see a one-tile island, not only should we mention it but go ahead and send a Galley/Warrior pair to occupy it with the 'G' key and mention that as well. That way, when the Galley moves it will remind the current player about the island.

Well I'll see if I can get Byblos; IMO it was risky to sign an alliance. Not only will we likely have to break the deal (and I will if Byblos is available), but there's a possibility that Spain and India can put enough force on Egypt to take the remaining major cities, forcing the Capital flip to Byblos. In reality I don't expect them to add much to the campaign at the potential loss of our reputation.

I'm playing; get ready Peanut!!

OK, turns played.

Turn 0, 850 AD
Quite a Military we've built up. 20 Galleys and 40 MedInf; 5 Knights, also.
1 Horse, 3 Swords and 18 Warriors waiting for Upgrade
32 Gold and 82 gpt, so they might take a While to upgrade
I agree that Jaipur is likely to be the next Capital of Egypt
Zulu's have just the 5 cities in their area; 1 turn left on Peace treaty
Mongols just 1 city; 11 turns for their peace treaty.
Only other 1 tile island is the unoccupied one off of Egypt.

IBT: Zulu's kick our MedInf out
Egypt wants to talk, and will give Byblos up! Good to Know.
Kyoto finishes Sun-Tzu's (I guess I can stop building any New Barracks!)

Turn 1, 860 AD
Memphis Assault:
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Spear -> 3/4 MedInf
5/5 MedInf vs 3/3 Spear -> 4/5 MedInf; Memphis captured
Byblos is still on the table
Move 2 MedInf (more coming) towards Heliopolis
Thinking, maybe Spain should be next (they'll be pissed at us anyway for breaking deal)
So start moving units that way.
Declare on Zulus
4/4 MedInf on 3/3 Impi with Settler -> 2/4 MedInf and 2 Slave Workers
MedInfs converge on Bapedi and Swazi
Army on the move towards Ulundi

Turn 2, 870 AD
Recapture of Bapedi:
4/4 MedInf vs 4/4 Impi -> 1/4 MedInf
5/5 MedInf vs 4/4 Impi -> 5/5 Medinf and Bapedi is ours
Swazi Blitz:
4/4 MedInv vs 3/3 Pike -> 4/4 MedInf
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Impi -> 2/4 MedInf and we own Swazi
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Impi, loose -> 3/4 MedInf and 1/3 retreated Impi
Army Advances to Ulundi's outskirts
MedInfs from Swazi load onto Transports to backup Ulundi attack
Galley will load MedInf for backside Assault
Egypt:
4/4 MedInf on 3/3 Archer/Stlr -> 2/4 MedInf and 2 more Slaves
Heliopolis Attack
4/4 MedInf on 3/3 Spear -> 2/4 MedInf
4/4 MedInf on 3/3 Spear -> 4/4 MedInf and Hel is ours (too bad for the Spanish Archer who slogged through all that Jungle to be disappointed)
Byblos is still on the table

IBT - Zulu Knight (3/3) does in a loose MedInf of ours near Swazi

Turn 3, 880 AD
13/13 MedInf Army does in 1 4/4 Pike at Ulundi -> 10/13 Army
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Knight -> 2/5 MedInf
4 More MedInfs land adj to Ulundi
2 MedInf on Galley towards Intombe
Declare on America
Try to Ally India vs America; 160 Gold is too steep in my book
Sign Peace with Egypt, getting Byblos, 2 Other cities, some Gold and WM
Declare on Spain
Land Adj Barcelona - 1 Knight, 2 LongB, 1 Archer
4 MedInfs join Barcelona force

Turn 4, 890 AD
Connect Iron, Upgrade 4 Horses, 1 MedInf, disconnect
Assault on Ulundi
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Pike -> 3/5 MedInf
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Pike -> 4/4 Pike!
4/4 MedInf vs 4/4 Pike -> 1/4 MedInf, and Ulundi is Russian
start moving towads Intombe
Attack on Barcelona
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Spear -> 2/3 Spear
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Spear -> 2/4 MedInf
4/4 MedInf vs 2/3 Spear -> 2/3 Spear!
4/4 MedInf vs 2/3 Spear -> 3/4 MedInf and Barcelona is ours
Knights and LongB/Arch move to pillage Spanish Iron

Turn 5, 900 AD
Intombe
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Pike -> 1/3 Pike
4/4 MedInf vs 1/3 Pike -> 5/5 MedInf
1/3 Impi is all that's left
Advance 4 MedInfs on Santiago
Pillage Spanish Iron, prepare to invest Madrid
Hurry Warrior at Byblos

Turn 6, 910 AD
Byblos builds Warrior, and is abandoned
Another Warrior is landed on other 1 tile Jungle island near Egypt
Intombe
5/5 MedInf vs 1/3 Impi -> 5/5 MedInf and Capture
Zulu's down to 1 city
Move 10/13 Army and 3 MedInfs overland to be Adjacent to Hlobane
Use Galley chain to land 2 more Medinfs adj to Hlobane
Santiago
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Spear -> 4/4 MedInf and Santiago falls; Spain down to 1
3 Knights, 1 MedInf, 2 LongB and 1 Archer are poised against Madrid

IBT Arabs have Gunpowder, so others probably do as well

Turn 7, 920 AD
Madrid!
4/4 LongB vs 3/3 Pike -> 3/3 Pike
4/4 LongB vs 3/3 Pike -> 1/3 Pike
4/4 MedInv vd 3/3 Spear -> 1/3 Spear (come on now!)
4/4 Knight vs 3/3 Spear -> 2/4 Knight
4/4 Knight vs 3/3 Spear -> 4/4 Knight
5/5 Archer vs 1/3 Pike -> 5/5 Archer, and Madrid (and the Pyramids)
Spain is no more!
4/4 Knight vs 3/3 American Knight -> 2/5 Knight
(America is shoving 3 Settler through with 1 Knight, 3 Spears and a Sword)
Hlobane!
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Pike -> 1/3 Pike
4/4 MedInf vs 3/3 Impi -> 3/4 MedInf
4/4 MedInf vs 1/3 Pike -> 4/4 MedInf, and capture of Hlobane
Zulu are no more!

Turn 8, 930 AD
Move units around; get ready for England and to finish the Mongols

Turn 9, 940 AD
More mass movement towards England on South Continent

Turn 10, 950 AD
Connect Iron, upgrade 4 Horses to Knights, 2 Warriors to MedInf, pillage
MedInf and Knight do in 2 American Swords near Madrid
Sell WM around for about 200 Gold

End of Turnlog

Lots of action; 2 more civs have exited the stage.

Currently at war only with America, and no alliances. I've got some MedInf in Galleys moving over to that front from Egypt. I've also sent some Galleys back towards Moscow to load up Knights - whether they go to America, or England is up to Peanut. We do have a Barracks in Egypt now, in their closest main city to us (I've left 3 Vet Warriors there for future upgrade), so we have a capability to reform MedInfs in our Egyptian holdings, which I've left pretty bare.

There are 3 Galleys loaded with troops ready to take out the Mongols. One more turn of peace, then we can declare and land next to their last city. They have a Spear/Stlr near Zimbabwe, so we should take that out before we capture their last city.

I have another 3 Galleys loaded with MedInf waiting near the English border. A 4th Galley is ready to be loaded near Swazi, and Ta-Tu could rush a 5th Galley, giving us ability to land 10 troops in 1 turn adjacent to London. We might need it - they probably have Knights, and know Gunpowder so might have Muskets as well. At any rate, I wouldn't start England until after Mongols are finished (and our MedInf army is ready to attack).

Only 1 tile island remaining (that I know of) is the Celtic one; I'd assume after a brief English war we'd move onto the Celts and see if we can get that city. I broke 2 alliances when I declared Peace with Egypt, so our reputation is not what it was. I've been exploring the region between the other central island and the Iroquouis/French/Arabs, so no more island there, and another Galley is up NW of Egypt checking out that space.

You know, we might be in position to take Kyoto and Great Library right around the time Chemistry is known; we should get several useful Techs out of it!

OK Peanut, you're UP!

950 AD Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD0950_01.SAV)

A very productive round, CS. I think that the timing you suggest for Japan is about right. I am inclined to visit Lizzie next as it will get us closer to Kyoto, which will be a very useful acquisition when the time comes.

I will reread CS's post, scratch my head, and see what comes up (probably just splinters under the fingernails but your figurehead may be lucky and get inspired!). Stay tuned ...

Nice going!

What about starting some wars in the eastern hemisphere to prepare the ground for the mighty russian invasion?

Pre-turn : Up to CS's usual standard - everything is in great shape. Let's see where the figurehead can steer us ...

IBT : We have a stack of Indian troops heading west past Madrid hoping to annoy Cleo. We might just let them go for now.

960AD : We inter an American sword by Madrid, and harvest four American slaves outside Memphis. Hangchow's harbour rushed for access to dyes. Troops move ready for the Mongol cleanup and in preparation for their London sightseeing outing. Some Knights wander across from Moscow to look at New Orleans.

IBT : The Indians continue their slow march to Jaipur. Not much else of interest.

970AD : We resume our frank discussions with the Mongols. A negotiating force lands beside Kazan, and the wandering settler elects to serve Mother Russia after his Spear friend has an unfortunate accident while examining one of our Infantry's maces.

IBT : Those Indians are persistently marching. A few isolated American archers come into view.

980AD : We pick off some American Knights and MIs heading for Madrid. Our two elite MIs visit the sights of Kazan and farewell the existing leadership. Oddly, he was in a milk bath of all things when the end came. New Orleans joins Mother Russia.

IBT : The Americans want peace. Nope. We lose an MI outside Madrid but so do the Americans.

990AD : We land some MIs to visit Atlanta. More troop movements ready for an English excursion.

IBT : We lose a worker near Fez (just next door).

1000AD : The Bengal MI wanders down the road and finds an american MI to attack - which he does. We gain two more American slaves near Madrid. Why they send settlers into a war zone is beyond me ! Atlanta joins Mother Russia. The English Adventure commences ... war declared and the borders are crossed. London is defended by pikes.

IBT : Weak English counter-attacks, and another American settler appears near Madrid. The Indians are not heading for Jaipur - they seem interested in Heliopolis. Hmmm ...

1010AD : Oxford falls. London still holds out (six MIs down)

IBT : Abe recaptures some workers.

1020AD : We take the workers back. We take peace from Abe for 3 fringe towns andsome small change. Nottingham is ours but London resists our efforts. We have lost seven MIs and a Knight so far, but Peter the Great popped up. He hops straight onto a waiting Galley, but I forgot to move him.

IBT : Weak English counter-attacks. Our Nottingham force moves up the London road. The Indians are not interested in us after all.

1030AD : Some unrest is emerging in Moscow, the Nottingham force is getting closer. An advance Knight takes out a pike.

IBT : Minor English counter-attacks.

1040AD : The southern army marches. Peter raises an army for Knights in Ulundi.

IBT : More minor counter-attacks. One of our one-tile warriors got sick and died.

1050AD : Two knights landed outside Ulundi to join the army. The day of reckoning - London is ours at last. The army moves towards York and some MIs move to Hastings. OOOPS - Moscow is still in disorder - I thought I had fixed it ... but no. An entertainer is hired. The HG in London should help happiness a bit anyway from now. A galley with a replacement is on a goto towards the one-tile-island..

Summary and Gratuitous advice : A mixed bag from Peanut this time. I made some poor decisions in attacking England a bit too early I suspect. Ah well.

A Zulu worker is heading for the incense near Nottingham to build a colony. There is a galley +warrior heading for the one-tile-island. I got carried away with warriors and we have too many now. We should probably put our outlying towns on wealth to pull in some more gold. We are approaching a cash flow crunch at this rate - I should have picked this up earlier. We can probably capture two more English towns before we run out of steam. We may need a few turns of peace to get the population happy again. I suggest that next we land an expedition outside Kyoto to get the Great Library to help us catch up.

Over to you Madame Captain Mathilda ! The 1050AD Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD1050_01.SAV)

Our two elite MIs visit the sights of Kazan and farewell the existing leadership. Oddly, he was in a milk bath of all things when the end came.
:lol:

I'll wait for a bit of analysis form our the team before I play.
Let's hope I don't mess up too badly this time.

Took a look at the save and I have these observations. 1) We have plenty of warriors for now. Upkeep is starting to kill us. Upgrade them ASP and get them to the action. 2) Knights are the most cost effective defender. We don’t need stacks of multiple units sitting in cities eating up gold. One knight, because of its movement can defend 2 to 5 cities. Leave the cities open and just move knights to threatened cities when foreign galleys get too close. Therefore change all the Pike builds to knights. 3) Stop all barrack builds because we will be getting the art of war soon. 4) Our larger cities can start building Marketplaces, then switch back to Knights.

Also, shift recent newly built Vet Warriors and Horsemen to the Front. It's more valuable for Upgrades to be done in Karakorum, than in Nidaros. Kyoto has both GreatLib and SunTzu's, so no new Barracks needed in the South.

No Pike builds. Change to Knight and disconnect Iron, or disconnect Iron and change to Horsemen. Would it make sense to change to Monarchy, taking the hit in turns lost?

Capitals are always heavily defended, and I think London was on a hill. Probably need 14 or more attackers to take in one round.

Might want to land a Worker on the Jungle 1-tile islands. They can be cleared and not present a disease risk to our inhabitants. A Worker would also prevent the island from being settled, too.

I'd focus on getting Horsemen/Knights built. Cossacks will be the main force for the closing act of this game.

Our war weariness is mainly due to losing many units to England.
I suggest capturing 1-2 more cities and then get 2-3 more in peace, re-organize our forces to take Japan's capital in a few turns.
Until the peace with England comes, we should either increase the lux slider or review all cities at the end of the turn. Moscow should build marketplace now. (both due lux and money)

THE SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD1150_01.SAV)


preturn 1050AD
Switched the buils according to KL's advice, makes sense to me.
Started moving troops towards front line.

IBT
Couple of rioting towns.
Double expansion to the palace:)

turn1 1060AD
Just moving troops. There's quite a lot now, isn't there.
Some Indian troops spotted in the old egyptian lands.


IBT
Four Indains move in to our territory!

turn2 1070AD
Ask Gandhi to leave or declare, he dedlares war on us!!!
Reduce his troops to protect our town.

Capture Hastings.

IBT
Inidan WAr elephant looking nasty next to Madrid :(

turn3 1080AD
Capture York.
Start heading all loaded galleys towards Kyoto.

Now, what to do about Madrid? It's got pyramids.
It's defended by 1 elite archer, there's one vet elephant next to it.
The closest unit (vet knight) can get to one away on the other side of town, from elephant.
OK, let's have a go:
5/5 archer vs 4/4 elephant -> 4/5 archer :)

IBT
Hastings flips to ENglish grrr...

turn4 1090AD
Retake Hastings. Lose two knights to spears at Warwick.
Sign peace for Dover, Newcastle and 39 gold.
Some other minor dealings with Indian forces.

IBT
Quite a few towns celbrate We love the Tzarina day

turn51100AD
Capture the Indian town of Seville.
There's really nothing happening, just getting the boys and girls into position.
Moscow finished Marketplace-> everybody happy in Mcow, we're at +124gpt
lux to 0%, +155gtp

IBT


turn6 1110AD
More of the same.
Worker reached one tile island.

IBT
Aztecs declare on English

turn7 1120AD
We declare on the English.
Move troops to take English towns next turns, pick up some workers.

IBT
Arab Answar warrior in New Orleans(ours) territory without good excuse.

turn8 1130AD
Capture Warwick.
Capture Coventry.
Can't get Canterbury, too many pikes in there.

Sign peace with India for 14gpt + WM as in they'll pay us.

IBT


turn9 1140AD
Investigate Kyoto:
2 Samurais, 4 pikes, 40% science, no lux, 25 shields to the good.
Iron, horses, no saltpeter. Would I see it in their resources box if they had it
even though we haven't discovered it yet?
Try to do screenshot for you all and the computer freezes.
Throw computer out of the window and go and buy a new one.
No, not really, but feel like it.
Reload the 1140AD autosave and pay for the investigation again, to be fair.


IBT
Celts want our WM but are not prepared to pay for it so no.

turn10 1150AD
Have another go at Canterbury - Still no, they still got at least one longbow there, should be able to get it next turn.
Move into postion to attack Kyoto.
Declare war on Japan.


end of turnlog

Notice on the graph that Smackser's managed to start there fighting one turnset before ours.

Peanut had been quite busy using the troops at the front and most of my turn I just seemed to be moving troops.
Have fun rrau!

Got it, but heading to work. Will play in about 10-12 hours.

Good set of turns, Mathilda! The save doesn't have us at war with Japan, and we have a whole stack of units adjacent to Kyoto. In these circumstances we should declare before landing or entering their territory - Japan will insist we withdraw, so we will end up declaring before our next turn anyway, there will be a first strike against our units, but we wont have more damage to our reputation.

The redeclare on England also hurts our reputation, but it also keeps the tempo going and works to reduce our flip likelihood. I think the English are down to just 2 cities, Canturbury which we're about to take and Liverpool, which we can Galley over to from the South side and finish. Aztecs are down to one city (right next to England) and should be easy to finish.

Celts would seem to be next (besides Japan) for major assaults. Might take some setting up; our forces are somewhat scattered. And I'd recommend finishing off Egypt right away. We'll need some Galleys operating on the North side of the North Continent, and there are a couple cities building Barracks that we can switch and rush the Galleys. These will be more than sufficient to do in Egypt, and with a couple more Galleys, will help out against America in the future.

We have around 51 Warriors and 37 MedInf (and high 26 Galleys); 17 Knights. Probably enough Warriors/MedInf; I'd focus on Horsemen/Knights. Earning nearly 200 gpt as Republic; probably no real reason to change then! Might focus on building up key cities near the FP to increase our gold.

Yes, I notice Smackster's uptick came before ours. Key things that dictated our bustout was finishing the GreatLighthouse and research path. We researched WC first; if they went straight up Writing - MapMaking, they'd have Galleys out faster. But that would imply they didn't build GreatLighthouse; if that's so, I don't see how they can keep the rate of conquest up. (Unless they build it later.) Wont know for sure until the end.

rrau is up!

I could have sworn I declared war. :confused:
I was hoping to have a go at Egypt, but the Indian war interrupted that. However, there is a small (5?) force of MIs gathered since next to Egypt's current capital ready to start the next round.
There should be a galley, but might have been just one, on the way to Liverpool.
There are a 4-5 gallies around the northern continent and 3 waiting by Moscow. Just need someone for them to transport.
We are making about +190gpt atm, but it still only buys 3 warrior -> MI upgrades / turn I had that many warriors to upgrade, that I didn't build horsemen, but knights. There was no way, we could have been upgrading both.
Moscow and Nidaros got marketplaces and a couple of others are on the way.
Some of the smallest are on wealth, if you feel differently about them, feel free to swap.

Results are up for SGOTM04, 10th place.
All I can say, what should we have done to get the spaceship out more than a 100 :eek: turns earlier?

Nothing! I thought a 'reasonable' date for a SS Launch might have been in use, but since the dates weren't published, we (and everybody else) were in the dark. I just posted that the best victory condition might have been Histographic - guaranteed to be at 0 turns relative to Best Jason Date! THAT would have been a game!

>>>THE SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD1250_01.SAV)

preflight (1150ad)

DoW on Japanese

ibt:

4/4 pike defends 3/3 English lb => 3/5 pike
5/5 knight defends 4/4 Japanese mace => 3/5 knight
Karakorum rax => market

turn 1 (1160ad)

Turned off a lot of city governors or would have had widespread riots
lux to 10% and starve/tax some cities. To get all cites happy without using entertainers, we would have needed to use 40% lux tax rate. War weariness has definitely set in. :(
Capture Canterbury.

Near Yokohama:
4/4 knight vs 3/3 spear => 3/4 spear

Near Kyoto:
4/4 mace vs 4/4 samurai => 1/4 mace
4/4 mace vs 4/4 samurai => 3/4 samurai
4/4 mace vs 3/4 samurai => 2/4 mace
4/4 mace vs 3/3 pike => 3/5 mace
4/4 mace vs 3/3 pike => 1/3 pike
4/4 mace vs 3/3 pike => 2/4 mace
3/5 knight vs 1/3 pike => 3/5 knight - no promotion. Capture Kyoto with SunTzu's, Oracle and Great Library [dance]

ibt:

The Iroquois destroyed the Aztecs
lost all the but one of the damaged maces outside Kyoto in counter attack
India and Egypt signed a Peace Treaty
Learned: Theology, Printing Press, Education, gunpowder, and Chemistry from the Great Library
Arabs build Leo's in Damascus

turn 2 (1170ad)

Researching metallurgy at a loss of 3gpt and due in 9
not much other than troops moving

ibt: nothing significant

turn 3 (1180ad)

Near Yokohama:

4/4 knight vs 4/4 spear => 4/5 knight and captured Yokohama

Landed troops by Nara

ibt:

4/4 mace vs 4/4 pike => 2/4 pike
4/4 mace vs 4/4 samurai => 1/4 mace
4/4 mace vs 4/4 pike => 4/4 pike
4/4 mace vs 4/4 pike => 1/4 pike
5/5 knight vs 2/4 pike => 1/4 pike
4/4 knight vs 1/4 pike => 3/4 knight
4/4 knight vs 1/4 pike => 4/4 knight and captures Nara

turn 4 (1190ad)

moving and healing troops


turn 5 (1200ad)

more war weariness - lux slider to 20%
Trying to hang onto Nara and Kyoto
Trying to Rush a harbor in Nara by disbanding some galleys

ibt: Canterbury flipped with a healing army in it :mad: :wallbash:

turn 6 (1210ad)

recaptured Canturbury

moving troops

turn 7 (1220ad)

unload troops by Liverpool
Since we're about to lose Kyoto next turn, make peace with Japan. Get 2 cities and WM. (they know no new techs and have 0g)
Lux slider down to 10%

turn 8 (1230ad)

Captured Liverpool, but England still lives somewhere :mad:

ibt:

England declared war on the celts and the Rampaging Celts destroyed the English (must have had a settler that they had to settle in their territory when we destroyed their last town)
We get a wing addition for our palace

turn 9 (1240ad)

lux slider to 0%

ibt:

Celts built Cistine Chapel

turn 10(1250ad)

Pillaged iron for horse buildup for cossacks


Notes:

I turned off a lot of governors - don't rely on them for happiness unless you turn them back on

We learn metallurgy this ibt, should be able to trade it for some other techs.

I pillaged the iron this turn to start horseman buildup for Cossacks - just watch as I'm building a road on a iron hill on the N island.

When we re-declare war on Japan, we need to take out Osaka first (it has both iron and horses) as their samurai were brutal to us after capturing Nara and Kyoto.

Sorry about not making much progress this set of turns, it just felt too spread out to me to make a big push anywhere. :sad:

I think I left a galley on a goto to join the one waiting outside of Nagoya

There's also a galley moving to drop some troops near those smaller Egyptian cities, but I don't think it's on a goto order.

I started some culture builds during my turns so that we would expand our territory - and our score

Don't forget, the Celts still have that 1 tile island. They're probably next on the hit parade (well, maybe after or during Egypt! :) )

I started some culture builds during my turns so that we would expand our territory - and our score
Most important thing in this game is speed! MB has dropped the Green Laurel, so score means nothing! Growing culture will help against CF's, but I think we are culturally far behind most of our remaining AI civs so I'm not sure about the value. And we do NOT want to expand our territory, except maybe very carefully near some key big productive cities - this is a Conquest game, and we want to be sure not to trigger Domination!

I can see a lot of value in learning Metallurgy and then MilTrad. It will be great to kick off a GA soon! Is there any Tech out there that we need to trade for? Once Cossacks are in play, the game should end quickly, and I don't think we want to help the AI get Cavalry, so I wouldn't trade Metallurgy. (Maybe, to get lots of gold. Right before we learn MilTradition, if we can get lots of gold and gpt from the bigger civs, it might be worth trading then.)

I'm confused about the comments regarding Governors. If they're activated, they should reassign citizens to prevent CD in that city, right?

OK MailMan, you're UP!

'The area we control at the moment is getting quite large and getting the troops into the right place is quite a task. I felt the same as rrau that the troops were so spread out that I was struggling to get anything done. A galley from Nidaros to Kyoto takes I think seven turns. Maybe some ship chaining needs to be arranged?
I agree that we don't need culture, I doubt that more marketplaces would be worth building either.

I just looked at the save. Mathilda is right! We are very spread right now, and have no concentration of forces. It's a long road from our Viking/China area to the Celtic border, and the units we have at the front are separated - some in China, some in Liverpool, or this city or that. I'd keep forces moving forwards towards the front - hoofing it along the roads; our productive 2nd core (such as it is) can keep producing units to fill in. We definitely need to keep some Galley concentrations in each area, but a few could be set to chain, I guess. We only have 24, so a 1 Galley chain of 7 steps would leave 17 about; seems light to me. Maybe a couple of Shuttle areas (Moscow to China and East Zulu to front), and let the units hoof it from China to just past Zulu territory. Crossing over from Japan to India will be easier. Once we've done some damage to the Celts, our forces should be better concentrated!

Is it worth capturing Damascus and Leo's to reduce upgrade cost? Arabs are very far away, and the capture of Kyoto shows how capturing a forward city really puts the strain on our forces.

I think I'd use our Knights sparingly for the near term - use and abuse MedInf, and hold Knights in reserve to become Cossacks!

I got it and will probably play in 10-12 hours (after work).

I think about using metallurgy to start war between the arabs and france. maybe throw the americans as well against the arabs.

I havn' t looked at the save yet, but from previous posts it seems like fighting is off for a few turns until I can mass up some forces to take on the Celts.

what's up in the north island? can we finish ejypt this turn set?

That's a good use for Metallurgy! Maybe do Iroq and Arabs vs France and India vs America.

Egypt is spread out, but has very weak cities. Issue will be getting Galley support on the North side; probably only need 1. It's amazing how many city sites there are that would allow us to ship a Galley across a thin isthmus, but of course the AI settles a tile or two away!

The AI has Astronomy now, so they can reach the remote 1-tile Jungle islands. I'd suggest doubling up on those spaces, maybe with Workers to clear the Jungle. That would be very bad timing if one of our Warriors dies just as an AI Galley goes sailing by with a Settler!

Had another thought. We've captured a number of tundra cities on our own island from a couple of the other civs. Is this a good idea? Why I ask is that these cities are now closer to our Capital than some of the other cities are to Nidaros. We're increasing Rank Corruption in cities that can be productive by owning these tundra cities on our own island, which are of limited use.

Might be worthwhile to Abandon these tundra cities and pull our defenses back to around Moscow. In the future, if we capture a tundra city, raze it.

The SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD1300_01.SAV)

preturn - look OK. changed production to galley in a city near ejypt. move some forces slightly toward the celts and ejypt.

IBT - learn metal. next MT.

1. 1255AD
declare against the france.
allign arabs at the cost of: metal 229g + 13gpt
use metal to get all the missing techs + 97g.
I surely hope that it was worth it.

set sliders to learn MT at 13 with +80gpt.

IBT - arabs allign iroquos against france.
arabs build JB's.

2. 1260AD
declare war against the celts.
land forces near 4 of their cities (4 groups of 4 units). their defenders are spears.

grab celts settler that was moving through our lands.


IBT.
one galic warrior failed to take our knight. caused only 1 hp loss.
frence get copernicus.

3. 1265AD
all 4 cities are taken at the cost of a single knight. took 3 other wondering units and got 7 new slaves.
declare against ejypt. and place forces near 4 of their cities.

IBT - lost MI to celts
lost knight the ejypt.

4. 1270AD
underestimate ejypt forces. took only their capital. lost several units.
position forces to take celt's capital next turn.

IBT - lost 2 units to celts and ejypt. I shouldn't attack ejypt so soon.

5. 1275AD
took celts capital at the cost of MI + knight.
army lost 11hp before taking down the first reg pike.
took down far away celt city.

6. 1280AD
took ejyption town.

7. 1285AD
move forces.

IBT - Kyoto deposed! lost Sun Tzu ald TGL. (and a warrior).

8. 1290AD
took another celts city. sign peace for the 1 tile city. celts are left with one city,

IBT - continue peace deal with india

9. 1295AD
take new ejypt capital and sign peace for 2 cities. they are left with 1.

10. 1300AD
move forces.

Summery:
took celts and ejypt to one city eace.
started a war on the east.
lost kyoto to culture flip.
prepare army to take on america (several more turns are needed to prepare).
Japan should be our next target on the south after several more turn of preprations.
(edit) learned metalorogy, got 3 techs in trade. we are now even on tech race. MT in 2. I suggest reasearching up to RailRoading

Note:
there are two settlers with protection moving through our lands.

Can't play this round and will have to skip. So to you Civ-Steve.

Keith, are you sure? I wont be able to get to it for at least a day.

Good job, MailMan! You really rallied the troops and put two more civs on the ropes! I'm not sure the Metallurgy trade was worth it; I hate to put money in the AI's hands! I see an opportunity to start a war between America (missing Banking and Chemistry) and India; any reason not to do this?

Kyoto hurts a bit; have to retake it more to get Sun-Tzu's; Great Lib did its job. Iroqouis are kind of in the way; probably best to Galley around them.

I don't think we will make it to Rail-roading. MT should do the trick! It is a short jump to upgrade Knights to Cossacks, so we might not need too much money.

Keith, I'm leaving it open to you for the next day at least. Any other comments.

(BTW Most recent scoring graph shows Team Smackster score leveling off!)

I see an opportunity to start a war between America (missing Banking and Chemistry) and India; any reason not to do this?
I think our next target should be America. I have started to pour troops toward that front. I think they are weak enough to be taken without outside help. Note that if we do ally forces we will have to break deals soon enough.
I suggest gathering some more troops in the north, upgrade our knights and launch an attack in about 4 turns from now. (the barracks in Madrid should be rushed for that scenario).


I think RR will shorten our finish date. we are 4 techs away (we are also sciencific civ - so maybe 3 techs away).

Well done indeed Mailman!
I don't know where you found all the troops to sort out the Celts.
Keith and Steve, take your time. It's not like we're lagging behind and struggling to finish the game.
Must be interesting being in one of the other teams and be watching our graph :)

I don't know where you found all the troops to sort out the Celts.
1. masses: I moved forces to the front leaving many cities empty of defenders.
2. coordination: landed simultaneously near 4 cities
3. power: my attackers had all 4 strength. all the defenders at the first turn had only 2 stength (i.e. spears)
4. a bit of luck: took those 4 cities and several more units at the cost of only one knight on the first turn. (though, I lost several units (~8) on the remaining cities).

Civ-Steve, Believe me I would love to play, but there is just no way. The next 48 hours are booked. Don't you just love the holidays!

it looks like team Offa is also going to be giving us a run for our money

Keith, I know of what you say!

Heads-up to you Peanut: I've played 8 turns, 2 more to go. I'll finish tomorrow morning my time and upload. So if you have time Friday morning your time, it should be there; otherwise Friday evening or later.

We do have Cossacks, they do rock! Of course we are in our GA. Japan and America are feeling our power! More tomorrow.

Thursday evening has just opened up for me! I can play in about 11 hours. May I play and then Peanut?

Looked at the standings. The key is to finish this thing ASP. I think the game will be won by the finishing date bonus.

Keith: Only the Gold Laurel will be awarded. It is soley down to number of turns to win. Jason is not involved anymore! It's a race, pure and simple. :)

Thursday evening has just opened up for me! I can play in about 11 hours. May I play and then Peanut?
I didn't quite finish this morning. I have no problem with this, of course. Since I 'owe' you a couple of turns, I can upload the save as soon as I get home; you should get it 8 to 8:30 your time, if that works.

I agree that most important course is to finish as quick as possible. With our GA in play, and Science at 0 (one scientist somewhere is doing the minimum research thing), we are getting just over 400 gpt. It costs 100 gold to upgrade a Horse to Cossack, so that's potentially 4 Cossacks per turn, or 80 Cossacks added during GA! That's a tidal wave that would sweep the remaining civs from the continent! I think we're 20-30 turns (at most) from finishing the game (that's after the 9 turns I've played.)

I plan to disconnect our Iron and Saltpeter sources, setting up cities to finish Horsemen/Knights/Cossacks in the quickest most efficient manner. Build and upgrade, sweep and conquer. America and Japan are almost out; a few more Cossacks in the North continent, a DoW, and India will be no more also. That just leaves the big 3 (Arabia, France and Iroquois, and BTW, France is down to 5 cities, so our Metallurgy play has worked!) Galleys/Caravels are in position to transfer from India to Arabia, and we have clear roads to Iroqouis from the South. Cossacks still take a long time to move from our FP area to the Front, but as Horses are built, start moving them forward; when we reconnect Saltpeter they'll be that much closer to the front.

Also, America has Navigation (and only 1 city; Seattle, behind Indian territory.) I''m planning sign a false Peace treaty for Navigation from Abe. This makes our Galleys/Caravels totally safe and will shorten the resistance period in the American cities we already have. Once India is declared on, wipe out Seattle as well (no need for 20 turn peace deals at this point in the game.)

If there's any concern about any of this, please post right away. I'll do these set-up things, then save and Upload for Keith.

Sounds like a good strategy. Should we be starting to raze rather than conquor so that we don't get flips or waste garrison troops, apart from a few small R&R towns for healing ?

I am happy for Keith to fit in his round as well.

OK, file is uploaded.

Turn log:

Turn 0, 1300 AD
A few more units to move around
Things are in good shape; plan to retake Sun-Tzu's, get MilTrad, Cossacks and do some damage

Turn 1, 1305 AD
Declare on Japan; 4 MedInf adj to Kyoto; 4 Knights 2 spaces away on Hill
Hurry Barracks in Barcelona

IBT - Lose 2 Workers to 1 Sam; 1 MedInf to another leaving a 3/5 Samurai

Turn 2, 1310 AD
We learn Mil Tradition; begin Physics at Minimum (for now)
Kyoto!
1st MedInf dies but redlines a Reg Samurai
2nd MedInf captures Kyoto and SunTzu's
1 Pesky Samurai done in; 3 MedInf adv towards Kagoshima
4 Knights move into Kyoto and become Cossacks!
2 More get Galleyed into Nara and also Upgraded
5 Knight upgraded at Madrid
Lots of fun about to begin!

IBT Japanese Caravel sails from Kagoshima
1 Samurai comes forward but doesn't challenge Kyoto

Turn 3, 1315 AD
Cossacks on the Move!
Tokyo! (moving around the river)
1st Cossack attacks a Samurai, and wins! (3/4 and we have a GA!, goto +326 gpt)
2nd Cossack redlines a Pike, but dies
3rd Cossack kills the Pike; Tokyo is ours!
3 other Cossacks do in 2 Samurai and a LongB
Upgrade lots more, especially in Madrid
5 Cossacks ready to roll on America

Turn 4, 1320 AD
Kagoshima!
1st 2 MedInf are done in by a ferocious Japanese Pike, but the 3rd one does the Trick; Kago is ours
Start upgrading Galleys to Caravels at Nara
Shadow the Japanese Caravel
Land Units near Tlateloco (Japanese held)
DoW on America
Chicago is overrun by Cossacks without losing a HP
6 More move up as 2nd wave

IBT, Celts demand we move our Army out of their territory - Back to War with the Celts

Turn 5, 1325 AD
3 Cossacks Attack Osaka, lose 1 to Samurai, but take it, a Pike and Osaka
Move healed Tokyo Cossacks to threaten Satsuma
Army takes out Japan Pike/Stlr in Celt Territory (but down to 4/13!)
MedInf takes out Celt Spear/Stlr
Cossack and MedInf advance on Lugdunum
2 Elite MedInf kill 2 Japan Spears in Tlateloco, and capture it
Send Knight and MedInf back onto Galley to go around to Edo
2 Cossacks attack New York (do in Musket and Spear) and capture it
9 Cossacks advance to Threaten Washington and SanFran; 2 MedInfs and a LongB land adj to San Fran

IBT Samurai loses vs Cossack in Osaka; American Knight picks off one of our MedInfs

Turn 6, 1330 AD
Cossack and 4/13 MedInfs do in 2 Spears at Lugdunum; Celts are no more!
Lose 1 Cossack vs Samurai and Pike, but capture Satsuma
Lose 1 Cossack vs Musket, 2 Spears at Washington, but capture it
San Fran (2 Muskets, 1 Spear) is captured with no losses, and 1 Retreat
Lose 1 MedInf and 1 LongB attacking a Knight; finally kill it with Cossack
New York Cossack does in Wounded American Knight

IBT lose Tokyo to a Flip, losing one MedInf

Turn 7, 1335 AD
Land Knight/MedInf adjacent to Edo
Kill Japan LongB
Move 2 MedInfs from Tlateloco, 1 Cossack from Osaka adj to Izumo
Load Cossacks from Moscow on East side of Island to transport over to last two Japan Cities on Rock island
Japan Caravel has off loaded Samurai/Stlr on our island; prepare a welcome party
Heal in America proper
Cossack vs Spear at Denver, you know who wins and Denver is destroyed

IBT both Japan and America want peace; ix-nay

Turn 8, 1340 AD
Izumo is captured (1 Sam, 1 Pike) losing a MedInf
HaHa, our Knight and MedInf defeat two Pikes capturing Edo (Galley gambit works!)
Darn, lose 2 Cossacks trying to recapture Tokyo
Land 2 MedInfs and a Cossack adj to Tokyo
Land 2 Cossacks adj to Nagoya
Land MedInf and move Cossack within range of Detroit (on our island)
Cossack on Spear, and Philadelphia is ours!
2 Cossacks on Musket/Spear and Houston is ours!
Cossack on Spear and Boston is ours!

IBT nothing much

Turn 9, 1345 AD
2 Cossacks take Miami (1 pike) with 1 retreat
Detroit - Cossack/MedInf vs 2 spears, we capture it and get Stalin! Americans down to 1 city
Nagoya - 2 Cossacks vs 1 Sam/ 1 Pike, we capture it and had towards Nagasaki
Tokyo - vs 1 Sam, lose 2 MedInf but recapture; Japanese down to 2 cities
Land 3 Cossacks adj to Matsuyama
Sign Peace with Abe for Navigation and loose Gold and WM
Sign Peace with Japan for Matsuyam, loose Gold and WM
Disconnect Saltpeter; set a couple cities to build Knights
Disconnect Iron; set lots of cities to build Horsemen
Rush 7 Horsemen in Spanish/Egyptian area to supplement our American forces

End of Turnlog

I kept any city that would finish Cossacks within 4 turns, to do that. Most of the remaining cities are building Horsemen. I rushed 7 Horsemen in the Northern Continent, and a couple more cities have some production so they can build a bit and rush a few more. Madrid is finishing its Barracks this turn, so that's a good rally point for the future upgrades.

Saltpeter is next to Bapedi; 3 slave Workers are there ready to road it, as is a Warrior ready to pillage. Road from Moscow to our Iron colony is best place to pillage Iron.

I'd focus on India in the near term, build up and run over. We have 3 Caravels and 3 Galleys in the vicinity of India that can transport over up to 15 units for first strike at Arabia. Stalin (our most recent GL) is in a Caravel just off Detroit (on our home island); I figured he'd be best used making an Army once we've landed in Arabia (or we can make an army in Detroit, transport it over and load it once we land.)

Meanwhile, as horses finish in the Southern contintent start moving them up to the Iroqouis border. We recaptured Sun-Tzu's, so every city has a Barracks! There might be a Horse or two you'd wish to rush near the Iroqouis border; every eventual useful Cossack is good to have! And I didn't check to see if there's other builds along the Southern Continent that can be switched to Horse; might be worthwhile to switch; we don't need any Temples, Libraries or Marketplaces at this point, just military.

Some Workers are on automatic, and some Galleys are on long term move to Edo, so they can support any operations we might need to do on the back side of the South continent. Not sure if that's needed.

We're at peace with Japan and America. I've got 3 Cossacks (2 of which are healing) in Naval ships just off of Nagasaki, the last Japanese city. I'd suggest they land just outside of Japan's culture, heal, the run over his last city (Declare first, the take him out). I don't think niceties (such as 20 turn peace deals) are needed anymore; but it's probably worthwhile to sign peace with say Arabia, get some cities, then start up once again just to cut down on the number of cities to take. Just a thought if it makes sense.

There's also a Cossack and 2 MedInf on the way to Egypt's last city. Cleo's days are very few.

Have fun, Keith!

1345 AD Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD1345_01.SAV)

Looks like you not only had lots of fun CS, you have also seem to have set up Keith to unleash his fair share of destruction.

Just wondered - are we starting to skate near a domination limit ? That would be a rather rude interruption to what looks like a fairly bloodsoaked but rapid end game.

Got the save. I checked at 8 and 8:30 so I just missed Civ-Steve's earlier post. I want to be fresh when I play this so I am going to hold off until tommorrow evening. It is only 10:30 here in Central US, but it feels like 1:30, so it's off to bed.

It sound's like things are going to be lots of fun. I would say Peanut will have a good chance to finishing this off Saturday.

Just wondered - are we starting to skate near a domination limit ? That would be a rather rude interruption to what looks like a fairly bloodsoaked but rapid end game.
According to MapStat we are 1568 tiles away from Domination. So we can safely capture 160ish cities without triggering Domination. :) I think we're OK.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD1400_01.SAV

Turn 0: 1345 AD
Switched civilian builds to military. Wasted a few shields but who needs harbors and temples now.

Turn 1: 1350 AD
IBT Japan has joined the Arab war effort against France. Washington and Boston flipped back to the Americans. Tlatelolco flipped back to Japan. Lost 2 Cossack’s.

Washington is totally undefended so I am going to take her out again. Why wait. Take back Washington and Boston. Since everyone hate us, I am going to starve larger cities down (switch none resistors to entertainers) and remove garrisons so we will not lose units during flips. Move units to attack positions.

Turn 2: 1355 AD
IBT Not much.
Continue moving, healing and upgrading. Declare war on Egypt and move in.

Turn 3: 1360 AD
IBT France move next to Detroit. I have no units there. So I will raze it.
Avaris was undefended! Walk right in. Egypt is history.

Turn 4: 1365 AD
IBT French Knight next to New Orleans.
Declare war on Japan. Take Nagasaki and Tlatelolco. Japan is history. Forces ready to land next to Seattle next turn. More up grading and moving. Had to sell off some harbors in New Orleans and Yokohama to clear our iron out. That was a mistake to build those. I didn’t catch those builds in my pre-turn so we wasted lots of shields.

Turn 5: 1370 AD
IBT Arabia and France now at peace. French knight dies at the hand of our mighty warrior! We walk into an undefended Seattle and take out the Americans!

Turn 6: 1375 AD
Will be ready to take on Iroquois next turn, maybe India if I feel daring!

Turn 7 1380 AD
Declare war on the Iroquois. Kill MI and take settler, take Tenochtitlan, Centralia, Mauch Chunk, Teoihuacan, and 3 workers at the cost of one Cossack. 1 Cossack has gone elite. Sign peace deal with France. They give us 32 gold, WM, Economics, and an Alliance vs. the Iroquois. I figure this was safe in that France was down to only one city and it is to our advantage to keep the Iroquois fighting France. Seattle is built on saltpeter. I am tempted to raze it. I have 3 more horses I want to upgrade before I take on India and once we are at war with them the saltpeter will be cut off.

Turn 8 1385 AD
IBT The French were not much help for long, they have been wiped out.
Took Chondote, lost two Cossack’s attacking Salamanca. One Cossack went Elite.

Turn 9: 1390 AD
IBT Take out a longbowman and knight in counter attack. Didn’t even lose a HP!
Took Salamanca at the lose of two more Cossacks. Took Xochicalco. Killed elite knight. Took Ganogeh, another Cossack went elite.

Turn 10: 1400 AD
IBT Lost 3 Cossacks to counter attacks. Took out one elite knight.
Counter attacked counter attackers and took out 3 knights, no losses.
Tried to take Cattaraugus, killed one pikemen, almost took out spear, lost two Cossacks.
Took Gandasetaigon, knight went elite.

Turn 11: 1405 AD
IBT Calvary attacking Mauch Chunk dies at the hand of a MI. A hoard of knights appear near Salamanca. Will have to deal with them before I move on to the next city. India has a stack of settlers/escorts heading our way. I was going to attack this turn but will wait until they move off the hill. Kill 4 knights, take Cattaraugus. No loses.
.

After Action Report:
Iroquois are reading to talk peace. They will give us the city on our ice island. We can take Grand River and maybe St. Regis next turn. I blocked all the defensive tiles the Indian settlers stack can move to. If they move in the open I would say attack next turn. We got to cut off that saltpeter. Switch to horseman and knights and upgrade like crazy. Lots of sea transport is in the wings if the next player wants to use it. In the next 10 turn we should be able to take out India and the Iroquois. Then in the final 10 take out Arabia.

OK, we're in the final stages, but there's still a lot of fighting to go. The road to Seattle can be pillaged, getting rid of that source of Saltpeter without razing the city itself. And the desert space just 2 Spaces NW of Seattle is a good spot to move those Cossacks to in preparation of attacking Karachi.

Peanut, you're UP! We have 70 Cossacks on the board, we just have to get them to the fronts! (Along with a few more that wish to join up!) GA should be over in about 2 or 3 turns.

Ok got it. However ...

It's 5:05 pm on a beautiful summer's day, the kids are high on their first Saturday of the summer school holidays, the potatoes are roasting and the family will be here soon for a lazy barbequeue on the deck watching the sunset. Summer ... sunshine ... Christmas in the air ... lovely !

... the Russian steamroller won't be chugging along again until tomorrow.

If seems a funny thing, Christmas and Summer together. :) However, we're supposed to hit 80 today ourselves :lol:

The steamroller's been running like a racecar most of this SGOTM. None of the other teams are anywhere near our turn rate! I think it can idle a day here and there.

Team Smackster is adding score at a faster rate; it will be interesting to see how similar or different their approach is, once we finish.

Peanut: it's been two tomorrows! Will you be able to play?

Don't spoil it steve. I was thinking how funny it would be if we didin't play for like a week. Everybody else would have to think that we've already finished :)
Though it would be good to get this finished soon, Christmas is sort of looming.

Sorry - some things came up. I should be able to post soon. Progress is s-l-o-w.

Pre-turn : Stalin builds an army in Seattle then hops on a boat to Iroquoia. All Cossacks in the south are galloping to the front. Two Moscow Cossacks set sail for Avignon. We rush some Cossacks for the upcoming Indian war, and move to pillage salt & iron. We wake some Cossacks in Salamanca to thin out Iroquois troops near Grand River.

IBT : The Indian settler party retreats to Bombay. Abu demands furs - Ok for now but we will remember ... Feeble Iroquois counter-attacks.

1405AD : Nottingham is unhappy ... Cossacks sent galloping to the front ! The Hut near Lisht gave us maps. We are overwhelmed by their generosity and usefulness. An elite Cossack loses to an Iro knight out in the open. Poop. A boat of Cossacks sets off for Goigouen near Moscow. Grand river captured for 1 Cossack lost. St. Regis captured - no losses. Oil Springs under siege.

IBT : The Indian convoy marches again from Bombay. 3 elephants, 3 pikes and 6 settlers.

1410AD : Oil Springs holds out (a stubborn musket keeps redlining Cossacks). More Cossacks rushed for India.

IBT : The Iroquois are reduced to longbows & archers ... hahahahaha. The Indian settlers march ... into a trap hahahahaha.

1415AD : Goigouen captured. Ok Ghandi - cop this one. The three settler guarding elephants taken without loss. Just three harmless pikes left - they can wait. Bangalore taken - no losses. Karachi taken - no losses. Lahore taken - no losses. Bombay - pop 11 on a hill - taken with no losses. Now the Iroquois. Akwasense taken - 1 Cossack down. Oil Springs taken and Lenin emerges from the gunpowder smoke. He raises an army and waits for healthy Cossacks to join up. Allegheny under siege.

IBT : The Indian settlers run in panic as news from home arrives. A few feeble Iro and Indian counterattacks. Golden age ends ...

1420AD : Disorder everywhere. OK - its Governors on for both continents (not Moscow). India :Bangalore taken - 1 Cossack down. Punjab (near Moscow) taken. Time to regroup and heal. Iroquoia : Stalin's army lands and conscripts 3 passing Cossacks. Allegheny taken - 2 lost. Tonawanda has some stubborn pikes ... next time then ...

IBT : Oops ... poop. Oil Springs flipped with 4 healing Cossacks and Lenin's empty army ! What timing !! :mad: The Indian settler party splits into two groups of three settlers each.

1425AD : Iroquoia : Oil Springs retaken and razed in retribution. And look - there's Shenandoah sitting twiddling his thumbs near Dacca ! Off with his head ! Tyendenaga is taken. India : Delhi taken - no losses. Calcutta is taken with no losses - and Trotsky pops up ! He forms an empty army and then heads for Seattle and the boats. Kolhapur taken - 1 Cossack lost. One settler party is captured. And the other one which headed home with no guards (but suddenly they HAD no home ... hahahahaha). Only Alexandria left on the Indian home continent.

IBT : You won't believe this - the figurehead strikes again ! an elephant emerged from the dark and took Trotsky's new and empty army :mad: . Who forgot to include an armed escort ??? All quiet on the Iroquois front.

1430AD : Indian campaign troops healing and heading for Seattle for the boats. Iroquois : Tonawanda captured. Stalin's army takes Gayagaahe. Slowly but steadily the steamroller moves north.

IBT : Well, its three in a row for the figurehead. :crazyeye: Stalin's Cossack army, resting in Gayagaahe with 8hp left, is TAKEN OUT by ONE Iro knight. Absolutely charming, eh ? Top that, fellow Peanuts ! See if YOU can lose three armies in the space of two turns for the loss of zero (count 'em - that's ZERO) enemy troops. Peanut's place in the SGOTM Knucklehead's Hall of Fame is assured :cool: !

1435AD : Dacca is taken first try ! As is Alexandria ! As is Chittagong ! Bye bye Ghandi - nice knowing you. The Indian invasion troops head for the boats. We rush a harbour in Seattle to upgrade the galleys. Cossacks group to take out the Arabs on our home ice island. Gayagaahe is leveled. We march on Rheims and Caughnawaga.

IBT : Very little activity apart from the occasional wandering Arab settlers.

1440AD : Marseilles is ours - 1 Cossack lost. Rheims is ours - and Copernicus' Observatory ! Whooopee ! Caughnawaga is ours - no losses. We are now facing Spears as the last ditch defenders. The last Iroquois cities are a bit of a march away. Let's see what Hiawatha will give away now ... no not enough. We fight on ...

IBT : Nothing of interest.

1445AD : The Indian campaign troops start heading for Arabia for their last great adventure. They will land near Avignon. Besancon is ours - 1 spear defending. Dijon is ours - 1 pike defending.

IBT : Arab settlers and cavalry wandering about. An Iro galley spotted - carrying a government-in-exile ?

1450AD : Avignon is ours. The Iro galley sinks our caravel - Poop! A persistent musket in Hyderabad means they hold out for another turn ... but Kahnawake is ours, and Kente is leveled.

Summary and Gratuitous advice : Hyderabad will be ours next turn. Oka may be as well - if lucky. That should see Hiawatha joining his ancestors. There is an Iro galley somewhere west of Najran (Arab) heading south. It may have a settler on board. There are Cossacks on a goto towards the front (finishing around Mauch Chunk). Some caravels from India are sailing with Cossacks for Arabia near Avignon. A lot of towns are on wealth to boost cash for rushing cavalry in towns up near the front lines. Our Cossacks are gathering to invade Arabia on multiple fronts ... victory is ours (as long as Peanut does not get his hands on the wheel again that is ... ;) )

Over to you Madame Captain Mathilda ! Seal Arabia's doom and our triumph ! The 1450AD Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD1450_01.SAV)

It will be my pleasure.
Ok, sorry about this, you are going to have to wait 24 hours, as this is now (at my first opportunity) too late for me to start playing.

Wow! What subtle strategy you have employed Peanut! I would never think to draw out that India WE by leaving an empty army about!! :lol: An awesome feat of army sacrifice!

All in all, it's good to see the Steamroller a'rollin! One of the problems with these SG games with big empires is that the situation changes so much between one's sets of turns. It's a lot to grab hold of.

Good Luck, Mathilda! This could be it.

Wow! What subtle strategy you have employed Peanut! I would never think to draw out that India WE by leaving an empty army about!! :lol: An awesome feat of army sacrifice!

Well it worked didn't it ? We got that elephant before he could do some serious damage !

Don't feel disheartened that you wouldn't have thought of this gambit, CS. The entry criteria for the very exclusive SKHoF is very stringent. True genius of the calibre required :crazyeye: is the domain of only a select few. Some of us just naturally have it, and the rest of you are doubtless very thankful that you don't ! :lol:

I saw that a spoiler thread was created. who wants to write one?
I think that both Peanut and civ_steve has earned their rights due their unique writing style.

When whoever writes it does, I think Mathilda's screenshot of Temuen taking a milkbath should be in it.

Well, technically Peanut still owes us a SGOTM4 final spoiler! ;)

I could write it; I'd be very happy to defer to someone else - I bet Mathilda could do a good job on the Spoiler. I'd be careful not to mention our 1-tile island hunts, though. A couple of civs are definitely scoring faster than us, so they are conquering earlier and faster; it would be too bad if a 1-tile island city trips them up!

Well, technically Peanut still owes us a SGOTM4 final spoiler! ;)
Uh ... yeah ... :blush: ... I'm right on it ... the cheque's in the mail ... the dog ate my homework ... um ... actually I just handed in my first summer school assignment 3 minutes ago so technically I have time free now ... until the kids notice that daddy isn't working on his books ...

As soon as Mathilda posts (if she cleans Arabia out) we should be free to lurk the other threads to see why they are scoring better. I agree with being discrete about the 1-tile islands - a civ without the Lighthouse would probably not discover them without using suicide galleys until they had Astronomy.

Technical problems last night, I was into turn 3 when the computer crashed for the fourth time. It was midnight anyway so I'm afraid I left it for another day.
I haven't quite got enthusiasm to do a decent write up, so thanks but no thanks.
Peanut, time write that check ;) as steve says, you do owe us one.

preturn 1450AD
Assesing the situation, two Iroquis towns and the Arabs left.
Found a couple of troops to shift, not many though.

IBT
Iroquis galley spotted.

turn1 1455AD
Iroquis galley sank.
Iroquis towns 1 down, 1 to go.
Arabs - got 25 towns, ahead of us by democracy.
Trade with them maps.
Sign ROP, land troops, attempt to place a cossack on every iron they have,
one 's got worker standing on it.
They've had saltpeter at some stage, but haven't any more.


IBT
Not a lot.


turn2 1460AD
Computer crashes, reload from autosave.
The Iroquis are history.

Take a deep breath and declare war on the Arabs.
Pillage their iron (all 4 of them).
Comp crashes again :mad:
Chrashes a second time before I even manage to get the game back on.
Do you think I should do something about this :lol:
Reload from autosave.
Clear home island of the pink influence.
On the main land:
Take Khurasan.
Orleans taken, lose one cossack.
Ahyab distroyed.
Lyons taken.



IBT

turn3 1465AD
Now then, I started this turn last night, but the sodding machine dived again,
so I'll have to reload it.
Lost, if I remember correctly 4 cossacks to Arab retalliation betweew turns, before this one.
Ok, Let's try again.
Medina captured. (6 cossaks, no losses)
Infuriatingly Anjar and Yamama both avoid capture.
Bayt Ras (founded last turn) is distroyed.
Chartres taken. (5 cossacks, one lost)
Amiens captured.
Disbanding unneeded workers to hurry cossacks, moving, rushing.
I changed builds in places that were never going to finish what they were building to explorers,
who can then run to cities building cossacks to be disbanded.


IBT
Lyons flips.
I think I'll start disbanding towns now to save the bother of having to capture them twice.


turn4 1470AD
Yamama captured and razed.
Bukhara captured and razed.
Lyons retaken and razed.
Suhar (founded last turn) destroyed.
Abandon Oka, danger of being captured.


IBT
Medina flips.


turn5 1475AD
Anjar captured and razed.
Medina retaken and razed.


IBT


turn6 1480AD
Aden taken and razed.
Mansura the same.
Damascus captured, we now own Leonardo's.
Aleppo captured
Mosul captured

Arabs will talk peace, take Muscat in peace deal + all thie money.
Move troops.
Declare war.
Raze Aleppo, Mosul & Muscat.
Abandon Chartres to free troops.
Attempt to take Mecca, 6 cossacks not enough.

IBT
Expansion to palace.
Arabs are building Shakespeare's theater :lol:


turn7 1485AD
Mecca captured and destroyed.
Fustat captured and destroyed.
Baghdad just about survives.

IBT
1 longow tries a red lined cossack and fails.

turn8 1490AD
Baghdad is ours.
Basra is playing hard to get.
It takes 8 cossack to conquer.
Only Najran left.
I don't believe it. I can't get it this turn, haven't got enough troops close enough.
Leave at least one wounded spear there.


IBT


turn9 1495AD
Capture Najran.
We have destroyed the Arabs.


IBT


turn10 1500AD
We win :king:
Firaxis score : 3070
Ranking: Cathrerine the Wise


Submission info:
Reference number: 1548
Game: SGOTM 5
Your team: Peanut
Your name: Mathilda
Date submitted: 2004-12-16
Software Version: PtW 1.27f
Game date: 1500 AD
Player race: Russia
Firaxis score: 3070
Jason score: 6250
Time played: 55:20:55
Game status: Conquest Victory for Russia
Submitted save: Peanut_SG005_AD1500_01.SAV
Renamed file: Peanut_SG005_AD1500_01.SAV (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Peanut_SG005_AD1500_01.SAV)


And now a little secret: That was actually my first ever conquest win.
I've only ever done domination or space before.

Thankyou all. That was fun - though over pretty quickly.
More chitchat tommorrow, now I've got to go to bed.

Oh, and if anyone wants any other saves, like the pre victory one, just let me know.

Nice job :hammer: everyone.

Well done team! It will be interesting to see how the other teams do.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/smilies/ole.gif Way to go team! I thought Mathilda would put the last fork in the AI for this game - they're done and so are we! Only time will tell if we are the fastest conquest, but we're certainly fastest to finish! :goodjob:

Here's what I put together to post in the Spoiler. Please suggest any changes; I'm planning to post maybe tonight or tomorrow.

Spoiler:

Team Peanut vs the World!

For SGOTM5, Team Peanut is comprised of Peanut, Mathilda, rrau, MailMan, KeithLarson and civ_steve. Turns out we have a multi-national team that spans 5 different time zones. MailMan proposed a team roster that skipped through the time-zones in order, and it worked incredibly efficiently. At times we were doing 3 or 4 turn-sets within a 24 hour period. That, plus the objective of this game was pretty basic, put us on a blistering rate of turnsets! (Perhaps MB should institute a speed based laurel as well!)

Capital site: our primary requirements were coastal, on a river (lake might be acceptable), and preferably with a food bonus. There are 3 sites that fit those requirements, but we came across the one to the West first. Interestingly, there is one bonus grassland there, but the best location for the city is on the BG! This allowed the most production for this site. Moscow was founded in 3750 BC

Builds: Scouting was important, so 2 more scouts were made. Then a 2nd Worker to develop our land. A Warrior for MP duty. Temple next in 2550 BC (using a forest chop of the Games space). A couple more Workers. Then a Granary build that got switched to Colossus. With only 4 unit support, the early game management of units was crucial. Once the scouts finished scouting our island, they were disbanded one by one. Extra Workers were built, but they could be added back to the city later, and were.

Goody Huts: Pottery (just before we founded Moscow; this is when we noticed we had Alphabet); Ceremonial Burial; an eqWorker; maps; Mysticism; skilled Warrior (disbanded on the spot!)

Research: In case we would get to archer rush somebody, we'd need archers! So we researched Warrior Code first, in 2950 BC. By this time we had practically confirmed we were all alone, so Writing was next, learned in 1870 BC, followed by Map-Making (of course!) in 1350 BC. After a quick research of IronWorking in 1100 BC (we were the only Scientific civ, so in addition to learning where a valuable resource is, we might have a unique Tech) our focus was Code-of-Laws, Philosophy and Republic. Map-Making was critical to allow contact with the other civs; we felt Republic was the best early government for us because the extra commerce would support a larger initial army.

Wonders: There's obviously a quandary on whether to build any or not. Early wonders are nice, especially in this game, but that would limit whether you wanted a future Palace Jump or not. However, fast research is most important and there's not much to do with your shields in the meantime - no point in building a big army, you have no where to go and will only delay your research. So Colossus wasn't too hard of a choice to make, and was completed in 1625 BC. After Colossus, we built a Barracks, 2 Vet Archers, and had just enough production to finish our first Galley as we learned Map-Making in 1350 BC. We got 2 Galleys out in the water, built a Harbor, and started on Great Lighthouse. Learning IronWorking in 1100 BC caused a bit of a problem - Iron was close by, but we had no Workers to connect it! And we would lose shields if we switched to another Build (say, Galley for instance.) Not only that, but our army costs would start to climb meaning a delay in learning Republic. We eventually decided to finish Great Lighthouse first before connecting Iron and building an army; this would get us close to Republic, and would give us time to make contacts, assess who we would attack, etc. Also, we felt that having the Great Lighthouse would speed up our eventual invasions, so we forged on and finished it in 610 BC. This pretty much puts the Palace Jump concept to rest.

Contacts: Finally got Galleys in the water in 1350 BC. 2 Galleys, one went North, the other South, around our island. Made initial contact with India in 1050 BC. Continuing on the North Galley met America in 1025 BC and Spain in 975 BC, then traded our IronWorking and WM for Egyptian contact, Wheel, Masonry, WMs and Gold. We now know almost everything about the small continent. Using the fortify Galley technique (which gives you a 3 tile visibility at sea) our Southern galley hopped over to the Rock island to the East, and then over to the big continent making contact with Japan in 825 BC, and they know 8 other civs. Figuring that Map-Making is known or about to be known, use it to gain contacts with Aztecs, Celts, English, Mongols, Zulus, Chinese, Vikings, along with WMs and lots of Gold. Contact Iroqouis in 775 BC, trading for contacts with Arabs and French, WMs, Philosophy and Gold. We now have all contacts, and pretty much all WM's. We learn CodeofLaws in 750 BC; since we have Philosophy already we can do minimum research on Republic, save some more Gold, we finish GreatLighthouse in 610 BC and are ready to start tooling up for war.

So, to answer mad-bax's questions:

1.) We felt GreatLighthouse was pretty important, especially for the West city site. We'll see how that plays out.

2.) Catching up in Techs was no problem.

3.) Yes, we had 15 spt in Despotism; we were very happy to see that Waste hadn't crept in by that time. Here's a screenshot of our capital

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg5_bc750Moscow.JPG

With the harbor we can grow to size 12. Without it we can be size 10 and still have 15 spt. Most important was not chopping any of the Tundra Forest spaces; if we chopped the Grassland forest, we could still mine it and occupy one of the mined Tundra spaces. The Colossus adds 3 commerce/turn in this screenshot; roading the remote tundra/Forest would make that 4 additional commerce. Once we were Republic, the Colossus really helped.

4.) Well, that's getting a little ahead on things right now! We actually used Swordsmen and Galley movement to drop them off.

5.) Even more ahead! We focused on the big continent first since we thought it would take longest to pacify. But we didn't ignore the smaller continent ;)

6.) Workers: well, the AI workers should be working from the start ;) ; I disagreed with this mod, really limits the use and strategies available with the initial worker; with 15+ civs in the game, why restrict the purchase of a Worker from another civ?
Heroic Epic - minor in my opinion, but should be done along with leader changes
Leaders - don't think I like this mod either; dilutes the effectiveness of the Military trait, changes the current strategies for the PTW 20K game (which isn't necessarily a bad thing); some additional randomness that can be quite beneficial adds color to the game! If it doesn't happen to me this time, it might the next.
No Settlers from Huts - same argument; also, dilutes the Expansionistic trait a bit.

7.) It was pretty boring. :) Later on, not nearly so much. :D

8.) All 3 sites look like they can get to 15 spt in Despotism. The SE site has easy access to Horses and Iron from the start, but has tons of Coast to wade through before getting to Sea - a bit more difficult to get to the small Northern Continent. The West site has good access to Iron, and Horses are a bit further away, and easier access to open waters. The North site has about the same access to resources as the West site, and very good access to India and the Northern continent. There is a crossing site over the the big continent so this location is pretty good for contacts. We'll see which one works best overall!

Well, that's keeping the cards close to your chest :)
Well done for doing the write-up steve.
I think Peanut could start working on the game over spoiler now, and try and get it done by the time it's required :whipped: :D

I believe I'm not the only one who's been reading the other teams' threads. Any thoughts?
I was wondering if Smacksters steep curve was connected to them having started the other way round the world take over, ie first doing the ones with lots of area, easy movement like Arabia.
I haven't read all the threads et, but I haven't noticed anyone else putting guards on the one tilers. It will intresting to see, if that will cause them trouble later on.

I read Smackster's and it looks like they just discovered the one tile islands with cities recently. It looks like the pop 4 Zulu city on a one tile island may give them some problems. :mischief:

I've read a bit of TSmackster's and TJeffelamer's threads. I didn't notice TJeffelamer discussing 1 tile islands. TSmackster is concerned about them and treading carefully.

That might be an advantage of the Western site - you have easier access to go around the Vikings and get to the back side of the big continent. Coupled with GreatLighthouse, this is pretty powerful. Not sure if its enough but I think we did a pretty good job. :thumbsup:

I think Peanut could start working on the game over spoiler now, and try and get it done by the time it's required :whipped: :D
Yes boss :)

And great work finishing the Arabs off. The idea about explorers being highly mobile shield carriers is one that I hadn't of.

Your writeup looks fine CS. It gives nothing away to make it easier for others, while concisely summing up our first stage (the pre-bloodletting stage).

It's been lots of fun playing this game with you all. Thank you. Shall we try to remain a mixed bag of nuts for the next SGOTM ?

The idea about explorers being highly mobile shield carriers is one that I hadn't of.
I don't know if its' widely used.
I was just doing my best to use all the possible shields. They were a suitable price and nicely mobile, so that's what I used.


It's been lots of fun playing this game with you all. Thank you. Shall we try to remain a mixed bag of nuts for the next SGOTM ?
I'm up for it. Just have to wait for the others to finsh :coffee: :xmas: :coffee:

Yes congratulations. :)

You will be able to read the staffs spoiler in around eighteen months give or take 5 minutes. :p

I still think we have a chance to pull this thing off. We played a very solid game and the one tile islands may bite the other teams hard. I am all for keeping our team together.

While I liked playing with this team the best of all the teams I've been on yet, I made a committment to a newly forming team a while ago. I'm going to be on team jb1964 next game. jb, Row and I have played several sg's together and they're good teammates.

I really enjoyed playing with this group, and hope to play SGOTM6 with as many as can stay. rrau - I'm sorry to see you go, but good luck ... well, not TOO good luck! :)

I think we played a good game, too, Keith! I suspect if our time is beaten, it wont be by more than 10-20 turns; and if a 1 tile island becomes an issue, those teams will be more like 50 to 100 turns behind. We'll see.

I'm posting the spoiler now, so we should have access to everything on SGOTM. Happy Holidays, everybody!

It really was good to finish the game so quickly. It's fun to read the other teams threads while they are still playing.

It was good to have you with us rrau, hope you'll have fun in your new team.

To one and all:
:xmas: Merry Christmas :xmas:



edit: just saw this:
Patience guys.... The next game won't start until the back end of January.
:cry:

Thank you all for a great game. It was much much better than the wooden spoon in SGOTM4 (which was my first SG).
It was especially nice to see that the game rolled on quickly and everybody contributed. (on SGOTM4 we came down to 2-3 players in the final stages)

I will be more than happy to join you in SGOTM6 whenever it comes out.

Smackster is putting a big marathon session in to finish their game. It looks like they're at 1300 AD and down to just China and Zimbabwe, if I'm reading things properly. Smackster has made a big push and has them on the ropes but I'm unsure if a 1-tile island is still holding them up or not and it sounds like they're at the edge of still having a useful force at the front. If a 1-tile island doesn't stop them cold now, they'll probably have the game done before 1350 (it sounds like.)

Looks like we have a solid 5 returning for SGOTM6! That will be a while; we really turned the crank on the game!

rrau - thanks for your great contribution and for being an honorary Peanut for this game. I wish you all (well most of) the best in your next sgotm.

As for the rest of my fellow Peanuts - ... end of January ?!?!?! I agree with Mathilda :cry: - although my wife will be happy with this timing.

Just finished reading your thread...
Good job team Peanut!!!! :goodjob:

@rrau: Are you sure you really want to leave this team???

I can see only one problem in your thread guys... You don't post pictures, it makes lurking much less entertaining. I remember you didn't post many pictures last time around either....
Make it fun for lurkers post more pictures when playing ;)

:bump: Hope everyone had a wonderful time off! The 2nd spoiler thread is up and we could use a volunteer to post a synopsis ... anyone?

hmm, no volunteers. OK, I'll post a quick summary.

SGOTM6 signup thread is up. We'll be playing the Celts! Goal is 100K culture victory, and the only governments allowed are Despotism and Communism.

C3C is available for play also, but is run as a separate award. So, what version of software do we wish to play? PTW or C3C?

for SGOTM6 I suggest going with the software version that has the most teams competing. that way we will have more chalange.

I am off for vacation till Feb 7th, therefore I will not contibute much for the pre-game discussion.

Good to see you guys :)
I'm good for either PTW or C3C.

Good to see you, too, Mathilda! No Peanut or Keith yet.

MailMan - I understand your sentiment, but we'll probably have to choose a version prior to play. C3C has the Temple of Artemis which could give a big initial boost of culture; however, I suspect that researching to Communism will be desirable (I've NEVER played in Communism, btw) so ToA might not be too critical (and it might be deactivated for this game too); besides, those Temples never double their cultural value. Check out Kuningas' spoilers for COTM08 where he used Communism to complete a 1300's 100K game.

Regardless, we will need to do a lot of warmongering to get a large enough space to hold all our culture producing cities! The Celts UU is quite up to the task; however at 50 Shields the upgrade cost is 80 in PTW and 120 in C3C. That might be the major tradeoff between the two - ToA in C3C but higher upgrade costs so slower developing empire.

Just some initial thoughts.

Greetings, fellow mixed nuts. It's been a long hot January here. The kids have just started the new school year and my study is keeping me busy when the little darlings gave me a respite. I've finally got back to see what was happening and lo ! A new game firing up !

Sorry about the Russian end write-up CS. I started gathering notes but life (ie. kids) just swamped me. Mathilda - just PM me a smack around the ear for not finishing writing and I will apply it to myself at the earliest opportunity.

I agree with CS. We will need lots of room and lots of cultural cities. I recall a CELT GOTM a while back where SirPleb (I think) used the Gallic Sword to great effect. His write-up was fascinating.

I am inclined to go for PTW so that leaders can rush those useful cultural buildings, however C3C is OK.

I am inclined to go for PTW so that leaders can rush those useful cultural buildings, however C3C is OK.
Good to see you too Peanut :)
Good thinking about the leaders too.
Unless there's mods to change that.

Remember the Leader changes from SGOTM5 are in play; they can be disbanded for 250 shields, but can't rush any Wonders.

I'm inclined to go with PTW; I'm more comfortable with it. But either one is fine.

Fellow Peanuts I vote for PTW. I think the start location is custom made for ring city placement.