I am soo looking forward to playing SCOTMs, since RCP is a terrible feature in PTW.

I just hope there will be enough people interested to play SCOTM...
So many people still don't have conquests... X-Team for example uses Macs so there won't be SCOTM for them, which is bad since those guys make a strong team.

Great great.
I have time to play tomorrow night too.
JJ

I just hope there will be enough people interested to play SCOTM...
So many people still don't have conquests... X-Team for example uses Macs so there won't be SCOTM for them, which is bad since those guys make a strong team.They all have PC's really, so I have no sympathy for them.
I think we'll find a good enough core group for SCOTM, I'd still like to play both.

T0 450AD
This one is rather complex. I've studied the map, and looked at the deals. The best deal is with India for 67 gold and 6GPT, they must be getting something from elsewhere, so I'll take that and move on.
From Egypt for Eng we get 49 gold, 1GPT and Republic. From Scandy 29 gold for Mono, from France for peace 26 gold and 1GPT (we don't need that city), Japan 25 gold for eng, Zulu peace for 20 gold, Aztecs 17 gold for Monarchy, Spain 15 and China 13.
OK that is enough, I'm not giving them all everything. I'll just try to keep them all broke.

We have 650 gold now.

T1 460AD
Chivalry comes in. Resisance reduced but still in 3 American cities. Worker built in Calcutta.
We upgrade 8 horses to Knights, trying to make best use of movements and upgrading on the 6th move where possible.

Suddenly our map is worth something and we net about 100 gold in map trades, somebody must have gone somewhere and traded it to us.
So make that 9 Knights. Hold the iron disconnect to see if we can get two more upgrades next turn.

War ends with France and Arabia, will look at getting them back together again.


T2 470AD
2 Galleys built, and resistance is futile and its over.

Can't find gold for two upgrades, so get 18 gold from Iro, for 1GPT. Two more horses upgraded.
Jungle cleared going to Karachi, which really helps getting over there. 3 knights arrive at the coast, but its going to take 6 turns to get to the Mecca jump of point. But Kufah is reached in 4, so the initial troops will go to Kufah. Then as the rest arrive we'll march to Mecca. France will probably want Chivalry and we are not giving them that. So we go alone.

Iron is cut, but Bombay stays on Knight as it gets one in 3

Push the slider to 30%, as we are pushing everything east.

T3 480AD
Seattle Temple->worker, Calcutta horse->horse

First galley leaves, but its only 3 turns to Kufah

T4 490AD
Lahore barracks->horse
We rush another galley as we have too many Knights->galleys. Two more galleys leave, and two more should go next turn.

Our power is strong, so we reneg peace with Egypt for 56 gold. We had 16 turns left of a deal anyway. It will either be 20 more turns before we attack Egypt or it wont matter

T5 500AD
Bombay Knight->horse send to spain as spain shows us a sword
Calcutta horse->horse

Aztecs sell us two workers for Republic
First troops arrive outside Kufah, we will wait for more and should be able to take Medina same turn.

T6 510AD
Seattle worker->galley
Delhi Marketplace->horse
More troops arrive at Kufah, waiting for two more galleys in two turns and we go in, we should have a steady flow from then on in.

Reneg peace with Scandy and we get 46 gold, and not one, not two, not three, .......9 GPT. for Peace reneg??????

T7 520AD
Washington Temple->Barracks, Bombay and Madras Horse->Knight, or back to horses when we cut the iron in two seconds.

T8 530AD
Delhi and Bombay horse->horse
Barb comes out of nowhere and sacks Detroit for a citizen, this time I rush the spear for 48 gold.

Time for war declare on Arabs.
At Khurasan, 3 Knights
Knight->spear 1/4 knight retreat
Knight->spear 1/4 victory Khurasan is taken
Final knight moves to Medina
At Kufah, a knight and an knight army (single still)
Knight->spear 4/5 victory (upgrade)
Army->spear 1/4 retreat (whoops)

4 more knights are dropped off

Another galley is loaded, so now we should have that steady flow coming

T9 540AD
Detroit spear->harbour
Calcutta horse->horse

At Kufah
Knight ->spear our Knight dies
Knight->spear 5/5 Knight (upgrade)
Knight->spear 3/5 Knight Kufah is taken

We reneg peace with Japan for a worker, Currently I'm avoiding deals with Spain, France, Iroquois, pending wars
With Celts we reneg for 2 workers. Note they would not give one worker for Engineering, guess they are close to it.
England we reneg for 1 worker. Bizzarre, half of them have workers for trade

T10 550AD
Horses hooked and we upgrade 3 more Knights.

Medina is size one without culture, so we are bypassing going to Mecca. The army has only two Knights, needs third which moves there now. Two others are near. That would give us three Knights and an army to move on Mecca, they probably have Pikes, but I would do it.

Score 247
Next post for analysis and maps

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

Here is a list of things to mention

1) Don't take Medina until we can capture it (size 2 or culture expansion)

2) To safely take Mecca, hold the army, join another Knight to it, bring the two Knights I should from the galley, and add the Knight from Kufah (leave one at Kurasn). Now that force should be able to take Mecca.

3)There are three galleys that will be back at Karachi next turn, there are plenty of troops waiting there, I've prioritised vet Knights. Also one galley with Knights at Karachi ready to move next turn

4) A number of units in the game are active, so after hitting end turn they will remain active for you to move. There are a few in cities asleep, they are providing MP, but I would have upgraded them given more cash.

5) There is one Knight on the Spanish border, sometime soon we should get some more Knights and open that front, but probably not in the next 10 turns.

6) Iron takes three turns to hook. So when its done use whatever cash to upgrade the horses, and hook it up again. Sometime soon (as a lot of barracks are going to finish) we are going to produce more horses than we can upgrade, so some of the better cities should switch to producing Knights

7) As soon as Mecca is taken stop, so that we can work out the jump.

8) Do not get per turn deals with France, Iroquois, Spain or Egypt anymore

Haven't loaded the save but it looks good. :goodjob:
I agreed with Smackster on all positions but one.

Here is a list of things to mention

6) Iron takes three turns to hook. So when its done use whatever cash to upgrade the horses, and hook it up again. Sometime soon (as a lot of barracks are going to finish) we are going to produce more horses than we can upgrade, so some of the better cities should switch to producing Knights


If you can't upgrade horses due to luck of money simply send those horses towards Spain. Horses will be almost as effective for quite some time and i reckon it takes the same time to build 3 horses as it does 1 knight... If you ask me 3 horses are always better than one knight... I suggest keep building horses, if you don't have money for upgrade send them to battle anyway (spain is a good target as i mentioned before). It will be faster to take AIs in sheer numbers than waiting for knights to be build. Just my 2 cents.

@JJ. Do you know how resource disconnect trick work??? I didn't know about it until we started playing SGOTM3.

It is probably a good idea to pause game when you take Mecca so you, Smackster and Wotan can do the math on palace jump. I will stay away, 'cause i will totally screw this up as i did in GOTM37 :crazyeye: ..


edit: Oh, Smackster is here.. When you said you would come home early to play, what time zone did you have in mind???? :) It's 1AM BTW :rolleyes:

Haven't loaded the save but it looks good.
If you can't upgrade horses due to luck of money simply send those horses towards Spain. Horses will be almost as effective for quite some time and i reckon it takes the same time to build 3 horses or 1 knight... If you ask me 3 horses are always better than one knight... I suggest keep building horses, if you don't have money for upgrade send them to battle anyway (spain is a good target as i mentioned before). It will be faster to take AIs in sheer numbers than waiting for knights to be build. Just my 2 cents.

So far we are not talking about many horses, like 2-3. But I agree that we should move these extras to Spain and take their land as soon as possible. This will mean that the lux slider needs to be tweaked as the extras are providing MP

Loaded the save, looks good but we need more workers.
Calcutta doesn't need pop 9... Build worker each time it reaches pop 9.
When Washington finishes barrack, build a worker and mine those goats for extra shields.

Now, there is a mined BG that Bangalore and Delhi share S-SW from Delhi.. Remove Delhi citizen from that BG and put it on another BG NE from Delhi and put Bangalore citizen from sea square to the now available BG.

I doubt city of Houston needs barracks, with only desert tiles it will never be able to produce anything, but take that extra maitenance gold for having barracks.
Lahore - horseman in 24 turns, may be it is worthwhile to switch it to temple so it eventially expands and can use more useful tiles.

Khm... i think i am going to get some sleep now... it's getting really late here

Looking good! Not much to discuss until Mecca falls. The we should take a small break and discuss the jump. Some MMing to do before hitting return.

Start planning for Spainish war. And peace with America expires in 10 turns. We should take them out soon after that.

Do you know how resource disconnect trick work??? I didn't know about it until we started playing SGOTM3.

It is probably a good idea to pause game when you take Mecca so you, Smackster and Wotan can do the math on palace jump.

I guess you are refering to the fact that some resources have a random chance to become depleted every turn, so therefore, one unhooks the iron after doing upgrades to knight/setting prod to knights? There arent any other issues with this?

I will stop when Mecca falls.

Other than that I will, naturally, pop some questions here if I dont agree to what has been mapped out in the previous posts here when I look at the save later on today.

JJ

I guess you are refering to the fact that some resources have a random chance to become depleted every turn, so therefore, one unhooks the iron after doing upgrades to knight/setting prod to knights? There arent any other issues with this?

Nothing to do with the possibility of a resource being depleted. It is a technique to build horsemen and then upgrade them to knights/Cavalry.

A knight cost 70 shields from a city. A Horseman 30 shields from a city. If you first build a Horseman for 30 shields and then upgrade it to a Knight, the cost for the Knight will be 30 shields and 80 gold. In most games this is a "smart" way of having more units in the field than if you build every Knight/Cavalry from scratch. So each time you hook up Iron with workers you take the opportunity to ungrade available Horsemen then you immediately unhook the iron again and continue to build Horsemen.

To have this running at max efficiency you need 6 Workers and a soldier on the iron. So each time you want to upgrade you simply build a road with the workers and after upgrades destroy the road again with the soldier.

Ah, I see. Just the ability to build horsemen after chivalry.
jj

Note the turn you hook the iron, all horse builds switch to Knight, what you do is upgrade all the horses you have cash for (and trade to get as much as you can), and then use the warrior to cut the iron, then switch those knight builds back to horses.

Right on.
So, the plan:

1. Get mecca. (and stop...)
2. Continue to build army (HM - upgrade to knights).
3. Move what we can spare towards spanish border.
4. Also some of dmans suggestions on worker build, mmanaging and production sounds sound.


Any phony wars or big deal trading planned?
JJ

Loaded the save, looks good but we need more workers.
Calcutta doesn't need pop 9... Build worker each time it reaches pop 9.
When Washington finishes barrack, build a worker and mine those goats for extra shields.

How many more do we feel we need, there are quite a lot out there. The extra citizen in Calcutta is not wasted, it does bring us extra commerce. But I'm fine if we feel the need to get more.


I doubt city of Houston needs barracks, with only desert tiles it will never be able to produce anything, but take that extra maitenance gold for having barracks.
Lahore - horseman in 24 turns, may be it is worthwhile to switch it to temple so it eventially expands and can use more useful tiles.

Agreed, some of those outlying cities will also become very corrupt pretty soon, so maybe Houston should switch to a horse and then wealth. Its ok to have some regular horses, they can be used for resistance busting at the very least. I'm concerned that some of those 2 shield cities will become 1 shield after the jump.

Note the turn you hook the iron, all horse builds switch to Knight, what you do is upgrade all the horses you have cash for (and trade to get as much as you can), and then use the warrior to cut the iron, then switch those knight builds back to horses.
Unless you can afford to keep as many workers as needed to build the road there. Then you and connect/disconnect during your turn and no cties change from HM to Knights.

It's all yours JJ.
Convert arab land to christianity :) (it wasn't exactly politically correct sentence or was it? :) )

Pre turn:

Switch production in Lahore to temple, in Houston to Horseman.
Micromanage a litte.
Move HM from Bombay towards Chicago.

1 - 550 AD:

Calcutta: HM to HM.
Zulu are building Sun Tzu.

2 - 560 AD:

Move troops across the channel towards arabia, and also towards Spanish border.

3 - 570 AD:

An archer sneaks past us near Medina and snatches back a worker building road.
We take it back, killing the archer in the process.
Boston: Barracks-HM
Seattle: Galley-Harbor
San Fran:HM-Harbor

IBT: Japan wants to talk. They want Chivalry and WM, giving WM. Haha.


4 - 580:

Calcutta: HM-Knight
One resister quelled i Kufah.
Moving army towards Mecca now.
Upgraded some HM in NY.

I have to ask about that other army. I assume we are taking it across towards Arabia since it is in Karachi? On the other hand I seem to recall that we talked about sending only one over?

JJ

No send that other army over, but less priority than sending the spare Knights.
Once its over there and we feel we can spare those Knights, first check it can pillage (I assume not) and if not then work out if we can spare another unit to go with it. Send them south pillaging. This should be well into Wotan's turn of course.

BTW when you take Mecca, post a save. Also I ran trade assist and it said that Washington was the next biggest city, so do push at least one worker out of that city to reduce it a little.

When the capital city is razed or abandonned, each city in the empire scores
3 points per national citizen
1 point per foreign citizen
1 point per neighboring town (1-6)
2 points per neighboring city (7-12)
3 points per neighboring metropolis (13+)
1 point per military unit
The city with the most points is the new capital!

A neighbor city must yours, and within 8 tiles walking distance from the target city (a 17x17 square). The old capital does not count as a neighbor.

If there is a tie for the most points, the palace jumps to the first city in the database, which is usually the oldest city. After some old cities have been razed the database gets out of order and it's impossible to tell where the palace will go in a tie.

Without doing the calcuations we would probably need to drop some worker in Mecca to get the size up. I don't see that we can do it before we've wiped them out. So I suggest right now that we just continue to finish off Arabia, capture all their cities.

IBT:

Dehli: HM-Knight
Madras: HM-Knight
Chicago: Barracks-Knight
Washington; Barracks-Worker (at size 12 next turn).
England are building Sun Tzu.
Resistance in Kufah has ended.
Medina grows to two...

5 - 590 AD:

Troop movements.
Arabia have pikes in Mecca. Got one right now it seems, not fortified yet.
We have 5 knights in Chicago now.
Will attack Mecca the next turn.

IBT:
Washington: Worker-Worker
Calcutta:HM-HM

6 - 600 AD:
Attack on Mecca:
Army vs. pike - army looses 2 hp
Army vs. spear - army barely survives! but kills spear (OMG.)
Knight vs. spear -knight 1hp (upgrade to elite!)
Knight vs. spear -knight retreat, spear unhurt.
Knight vs. spear -knight looses 1hp, upgrade to elite.
Mecca is ours, with two workers to boot!
5 Resisters.

Good work, the jump is not even close, so proceed with the fight, I can't advise where to take it. Flip chance is high (7%) so this turn put as many troops in Mecca as you can (can't flip this turn), to try to reduce resistance, then leave only one defender after that so we only lose that one if it flips.

You'll have to use your judgement where to go next. If you are unsure, post a map, with our military sizes.

Note You are actually on turn 5, 600AD is turn 5, you see 550AD was turn 0.
Your last turn should be 650AD

smackster

Don't know if anyone else is about, suggest you just play on. The palace jump is not close. As Washnton is 5 pops bigger, and has many cities around it. I can do the calculations tonight.

I suggest we'll have to get Mecca to size 12, and capture all the cities round it, and then put some troops in Mecca.

On line! Just had a look at the save. Well done. Will have a look at the palace jump too. Would like us to get a few russian workers across to join to Mecca since we want it to eventually have russian citizens.

One thing: I really want us to raze the city NE of Mecca at distance 4. It will unfortunately put a lot of cities at corruption rank 2 and it will be the sole city at rank 1! The plan to put the FP in Delhi sort of had this in mind too.

Right well capture that city first, and we can look at abandoning it later. Its very close to the line of what I don't do to exploit RCP. I realise its not to the letter of the banned part, and far less than what Xteam did in SG3.

Suggest JJ keeps playing. The palace jump will not work right now.

Attack on Medina:
Dont want them to fortify the pikeman there, so we attack.
Knight vs. pike - knight dies redlining pike.
Knight vs. spear - knight 1hp
knight vs. red pike - knight looses 1hp.
Medina is ours, but looses a pop point.

Also, reveals that arabia has more troops coming this way.
Two swords and two archers outside of Medina.
Basra is their new capital.

IBT:
We quell 4 resisters in Mecca. Only on left.
Arabs counterattack at Medina. Our injured knight puts up a fight killing an archer
but falls for a sword later. Medina is lost, and cant be taken back now because of size.
I should have waited a bit.
We also spot two arab Medieval Inf moving north from Basra.
Bombay: Marketplace-HM
Dehli: HM-HM
6 - 610 AD:

All the troops except one are moved out of Mecca. Flip chance 11%.
Second Army unloaded in Kufah. Three eager knights await their great and noble leader.
Iron will be hooked up next turn.

Here is a pic of Mecca.
I will take a little break now as my girlfriend came home.
Then you can also discuss a little.
I will probably play the remaining turns later tonight. If not, I will tell you.

JJ

I suggest you don't load those Knights in the army, unless you have enough other spare Knights to help fight Arabia. Not sure if you play C3C, but armies in PTW are not good.

Lets cut their iron, make sure they stop sending new sword/MI's

Ah, so very true, Smackster. There is a BIG difference between PTW armies and Conqest ones.
I shouldve noticed, almost loosing one at Mecca.

JJ

Ah, so very true, Smackster. There is a BIG difference between PTW armies and Conqest ones.
I shouldve noticed, almost loosing one at Mecca.

JJ
In SG 3 we got so many leaders, and put all our Knights into armies, found that we had no Knights left, just armies. They take so long to heal is one of the main problems I have with them.
I just want to use that other Army when we have enough spare Knights, as we will soon enough. On the other hand a Knight army (healed) will not be attacked by the AI, so it can be used effectively to heard them. However, we don't have that luxury right now.

When you finish for the night, post the save so we can look further. Hopefully you can finish your 10. Don't worry about MM on the last turn, Wotan is next and he loves to do that.

Any ideas on what to take now?
Basra with the iron next to it would be my initial thought.
JJ

Yes, taking the iron city, is as good as cutting the iron. Head that way with the main force, you will have to wait on Medina (they would eventually give it to us in peace so its not problem), and the other Knights to pick of their sword/MDI's.

That knight in Kufah, I suggest you use him too, if there are Knights coming from the sea, they should be able to provide protection if Arabia somehow gets near there. I would suggest that Arabia is on its last knees, so wont put up much more resistance.

Very good we are moving along...
Good turns JJ, keep going.

I guess my turns are next since MjM never showed up....

If we get a leader i suggest convert it to 250cash... that will make 3 horsemen upgrades... better than having an army

When you finish for the night, post the save so we can look further. Hopefully you can finish your 10. Don't worry about MM on the last turn, Wotan is next and he loves to do that.
Yummy, I just love MMing, NOT! There is only one thing worse than being witty and that is not being witty. (Oscar Wilde/Monty Python)

Oh well, I lefdt my last turns to Smackster in a chaos so I guess it is payback time... :)

:bump:
Who's keeping the roster in this game and every time tend to forget about me? :rolleyes:

I don't know why I do that, yes dman is next.

Should I attack Basra on my last turn?
I got like 8 Knights ready.
Not the army since that will probably heal sometime near year 1000.

JJ

Yes, I don't think that is a hard decision, with 8 Knights ready in the middle of the war, just make sure you take it :)

Very good we are moving along...
Good turns JJ, keep going.

I guess my turns are next since MjM never showed up....

If we get a leader i suggest convert it to 250cash... that will make 3 horsemen upgrades... better than having an army
Maybe I should read the instructions better, but how do we get the cash from a leader?

Ok. :) Final turns here:

6 - 610 AD:

All the troops except one are moved out of Mecca. Flip chance 11%.
Second Army unloaded in Kufah. Three eager knights await their great and noble leader.
Iron will be hooked up next turn.

IBT:

Resistance in Mecca ends.
Two MInf move to Medina.
Washington: Worker-worker
Calcutta HM-Knight

7 - 620 AD:

We stack troops on the hill west of Medina to be ready for a counterattack.
Also scout towards Basra and rest troops outside of Mecca.
Upgrade HM to knights as iron is hooked up now.

IBT:

Bangalore: HM-Knight
Bombay: HM-Knight
Dehli: HM-Knight
Mecca starves.
Mongols offer a deal not worth mentioning here.

8 - 630 AD:

Reinforcements moving towards Mecca.
Chicago now has 6 knights.
Do some upgrades to knights.

IBT:

Philly: Barracks-Knight
Miami: Barracks-Knight
Washington: Worker - Marketplace (can be switched, not sure how many workers we need,
but washington can keep pumping them out if need be.)

Abe is mad. We violate the waters west of Buffalo, he calls us fools and so on.
Mecca starves.

9 - 640 AD:

Moving troops setting up.
Will attack Basra next turn, if that is cool to do the last turn that is...
Got 7 knights outside.

IBT:

St.Louis: Spearman-Harbor
Bombay: HM-HM
Boston: Worker-HM

10 - 650 AD:

Attack on Basra.
Knight-Pike - Knight 2 hp
Knight-Spear - Knight no damage
Knight-Spear - Knight no damage!
Basra is ours to keep. Also the arab iron.
4 resisters. We move the rest of the troops into it to quell the oppression.
Arab capital moved to Baghdad.
We also take out a Medival Inf.
I have seen a couple move up towards Medina, so there might be a couple in that city.

So thats it.
For now :)

Will upload the save now.

Firaxis score: 300
Jason score: 196

Maybe I should read the instructions better, but how do we get the cash from a leader?
that i don't know... I guess M-B will give us a hint :)


Good turns JJ!!!!! :goodjob:
If you give me enough instructions i can play tonight if not i will wait until tomorrow

Looks good. Lets see what Arabia will give for peace now. Might need to take one or two more cities first. Then France is up.

What are the Knights doing in Chicago, I guess that is next to Spain? If so then we should start that takeover now too.

I just set the table for d-man to brutally oppress the spaniards :D

Arabia wont give much for peace, only 2-3 small towns. We need to take Baghdad and Narjan first since they are quite big.

It must have something to do with us playing russians in this game. I guess he blends in too well so you view him as part of the game not part of the team... :D :D :D

Arabia wont give much for peace, only 2-3 small towns. We need to take Baghdad and Narjan first since they are quite big.
I would like us to kill them off. No reason to leave any of them in the area. It was a different story with America/India where their new capitals were far from their starting gounds. With a bit of luck they should be gone during Dmans turns, at the latest during my stint. No risk they will flip and we can move everything south.

BTW, we should put America out of their misery too. Peace deal expires during Dmans turns.

Good night, I expect to wake up to an Arab and America free game tomorrow! ;) Good luck Dman! And well played jj!

I've looked at the save now.

1) Palace Jump We need to take, Baghdad, Medina, Najaran and Damascus, and get Mecca to size 12. At that point we may only need about 5 troops there to jump it. Nearer the time I'll do the precise calculations, the above is a rough guess, but we need all the above before we can even think about it.

2) Declare war on spain and send in the troops before hitting end turn. We do need the forces going west and east

3) Finish off both India and America

4) Reputation Time to consider ROP rape on France. Once we get peace with Arabia (capture the above) we should get a number of cities, we should take their last by breaking peace with them. If we get ROP with France (need embassy) and Iro first then we may be able to ROP rape both of them. Doesn't have to be very exotic, like get to their iron, cut it and take a few cities first turn. Anything now to get us a few extra turns.

Ok, I need a piece of advice here...
I loaded the save, MMd a little, declared on Spain and clicked next turn.
Joanne comes and asks to extend a peace treaty...
What do i do???
I dont want to have another 20 turns of peace with France unless we want to RoP here... having 2 wars on new continent makes it a little harder but manageable.
What do you reckon i should do?
I am having civ running on background and Joanne is waiting on our answer. :)


Edit: I had the same exact situation before in another SG. What fellows civ fanatics told me is that AI will always come to renegotiate the peace deal if previous peace deal included any kind of gpt, lux, resource deal in addition to actual peace... We've got to be careful so the situation like this doesn't affect our game play.


more edit: i hope somebody will get my message soon

Accept her peace and break it when you are ready, you don't need to ROP rape her too, unless you feel you get an advantage. We are long past needing a reputation.

edit : note there is a difference between breaking a peace deal, and ROP raping.

Ok, I am back online and sorry for the delay.
Didn't have a chance to play yesterday night, but will start playing in about 30-40 minutes from now.

Good luck, I would not have had an opportunity to play earlier today anyway: i will be able to pick it up tomorrow morning though.

Edit: I had the same exact situation before in another SG. What fellows civ fanatics told me is that AI will always come to renegotiate the peace deal if previous peace deal included any kind of gpt, lux, resource deal in addition to actual peace... We've got to be careful so the situation like this doesn't affect our game play.

This is a good point and I'd never understood why they come to renegotiate sometimes. I think we got 1 GPT from France so was not worth doing. I'm interested to know if this is the same for renegotiate peace (as opposed to peace at the end of a war), for instance we are getting 9 GPT from Scandy, I assume that when that deal ends they will come for another 20 turns of peace. With Scandy at 9GPT, I would say that deal was worth it.

I have not seen any good opportunities for phoney wars, as we don't have many embassies, we don't have spare cash, and don't have techs we would give away.

You might want to consider sending our second army south to do some resource cutting. Oh wait, need to check if they can pillage, if not can we afford to send another knight/horse with him.

Pre-turn.
Declare on Spain and enter their territory with everything with have in Chicago.
MM around Delhi, Bangalore and Wash.

IBT. France demands peace extension. Ok we will do it...

T1 660AD
Delhi HM->HM

Spain Front:
Attacking Toledo and Madrid and both taken with only knight lost. We have Great Wall in our possession.

Arab front:
Moved knights toward Baghdad and Najran.

3 Civilizations know Chivalry... I think I am going to trade chivalry, but right now all AIs broke.

IBT: Looks like Americans have at least 6 units on their island... We will need to take them in one turn to prevent major riots in our cities.

T2. 670AD.
Iron hooked upgraded 4 horses. Iron unhooked.
Spanish front:
Moved units towards Barcelona. Attack in 2 turns due to forests and hills.

Arab front:
Captured Medina.
Failed to take the Baghdad. Last pesky spearman forced 2 of our knights to retreat.
I shall wait for the attack next turn.
Najran to be taken next turn as well.

T3 680AD
Arab front:
Killed Warrior, sword and MDI in open field.
Captured Najran, Baghdad. Next target - Damascus.

Spanish front. Moving units towards Barcelona.

Home land: NY Temple-> Market. Chicago horse->Courthouse.

IBT Iroq. and France signed peace treaty.
Resistance in Madrid ended. Bombay HM->HM. Philadelphia worker->worker, Calcutta HM->HM

T4. 690 AD
Spanish Front:
Captured Barcelona lost 1 knight.

Arab front:
Waiting for troops to heal before attacking Damascus.

American front:
I have 6 knights prepared to attack America.

T5 700AD Declared on America. 6 knights near Boston hope that is going to be enough. Hired bunch of clowns in all former American cities to prevent rioting.
Killed 3 Arab archers in open. Will move towards Damascus next turn.

IBT: 3 Am. archers were killed while attacking our knights near Boston.
Wash., Atlanta are rioting. Bombay HM->HM, Calcutta HM->HM

T6. 710AD
Seattle harbor-> barracks.

American front:
Killed 4 spears and no casualties for us in Boston but there is an archer left in that city. We have to wait another turn.
Arab front:
Damascus is captured. We lost an elite knight.
Spanish front:
Moving all available troops for the attack next turn

IBT: Spain asks for peace, we reject.
Scandinavia asking for the extension of peace treaty we accept (again, they showed up because we have 9gpt in addition to peace deal)

T7 720AD.
American front:
It's over, America is no more.

Spanish front: Seville is captured with no losses. The rest of Spanish cities are far away in mountain range. Oh, there is another Spanish city on the central island.

Some of the AIs know invention.... I swear they didn't know it on previous turn because I have Civ assist running. But the same AIs who know invention know chivalry, so we can't trade one for the other....
We will have to wait another turn or maybe even until the next player's turns.

T8. 730 AD. Iron hooked, upgraded HM, iron unhooked.

Arab front: Ajran is captured - lost 1 knight.

Moving knights from American island to the Arab continent
Can't fight Spain, we might prepare for the attack on Egypt.
I have serious problems with my computer system. Communication device that connects chair with keyboard failed to operate properly and as a result we are at war with China :suicide: . (Went to the diplomacy and clicked wrong buttons with mouse)

T9: 740 AD

Arab Front:Yamama captured.
Keep moving knights from American island to the Arab continent

T10 750AD

Arab front:
Fustat captured. Wash. and Philly rioted. :smoke:

Didn't do much last turn. Few workers are awaiting orders


We need desperately courthouse in NY.
The rest of Arab cities are buried in deep desert. It will take some time to take them out. We probably want to consolidate our forces and attack France before finishing of Arabs.

If we move few more units towards Egypt we can also start picking at them. Hopefully palace jump will be possible to implement during Wotan's turns.

Didn't do any trades during my turns either. Didn't populate second army due to the temporary luck of troops. ARMIES CAN PILLAGE....

I hope Wotan can fix my mess and won't be too :aargh: at me.

East:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/750ADST-east.jpg

West:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/750ADST-west.jpg

Jason-238 (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Smackster_SG005_AD0750_01.SAV)

Good progress, but still a long way to go I think.

1) Lets utilise every resource to continue the fight. I see a lot of Knights playing reserve in places like Najaran and Mecca, lets get them all to the front lines and move in on France. I'd get ROPS with France and Iro and use them. Time for our army to get cutting.

1a) Arabia will give us three cities for peace, and leave the two near us that we can easily take when we break the peace. Even though at least one of those other cities is not the best position for us, take them in peace anyway and abandon ones we can't defend. Remember this is conquest, we only need cities in our core and a few in the front lines for healing etc.

2) We need to start the Mecca building campaign for the jump. Should be easier once we can finish off Arabia for good.

3) Lets see if we can work out a way to get somebody to fight against China.

4) We need some harbours to hook up our luxuries. There are two on the new continent that are not helping us on the old.

5) Take the fight to Egypt, I see two Knights sitting in Seville eating Tapas. There is one in Toledo aparantly resistance busting, forget that, get him to the front.

6) We can get two cities from the Spanish, Santiago and Mercia, take them and abandon them (too close to Egypt)

Pretty much agree with everything Smackster said, in my defence those knights in Mecca arab land don't play reserve... They have just returned after busting America and intended to move south fighting France.

I thought about harbors myself for luxuries...
It makes sense to rush a harbor in Kufah if it will help us to hook up luxuries between two continents and drop slider down. We will recoup those money in just few turns.

I did notice that Japan has a one tile island, so we need to make sure we get that in a peace deal with them, when we get down there.

Good catch.....
It would be a total disaster if we had to research marines :eek:

OK, I've got it. Will play today so hopefully by midday ECT the save will be posted.
1. Finish off Arabia. Peace + broken agreement.
2. Peace with Spain.
3. Egypt!
4. RoP w. France/Iroquois
5. Attack France and destroy whatever rep we might have.
6. Jump to Mecca.

MM around Delhi, Bangalore and Wash.

Was there lots of stuff to rearrange, dman?
You know, its nice to know what couldve been better :)

Progress looks nice and dandy.

JJ

Not much,
Same thing i told before your turn... switch BG between Delhi and Bangalore, so Bangalore can benefit from extra shields instead of wasting it on sea tile..
I also hired few specialists in Wash. since that cities overproduces food and doesn't so many citizens on flood plains to grow.

Turn log

0 – 750AD Pre-flight
Peace with Arabia, we get Mansura, Bukhara, Aleppo and 24 gold. Peace with Spain, we get Murcia, Santiago, Ciudad de la Luna and 12 gold. I plan and plan and plan. Finally see a solution to war with France without us ruining our rep over them, will have units in place in three turns to cut all resources they have connected, 2 horses and one iron. The one-tile island worries me. What if we wreak our rep and we cannot make a peace deal with Japan for the island?

1 – 760AD
So many cities now so I guess a rundown of what is produced is less important.
Iron hooked up and 4 Knights upgraded, next turn another Knight will be upgraded before unhooking it again.

France and Iroquois at war!!! In two turns France will have moved any surplus they have towards Iroquois and we will have an easy task. Will DoW Egypt next turn.

2 – 770AD
Dow Egypt, move in on Thebes with 7 Knights and Horsemen. Disconnect Iron.

3 – 780AD
3 Knights was enough to take Thebes, no losses! Only three Spearmen defending it! Pyramids are now ours! Alexandria was defended by one Pike and one spear, only two Knights attacked and took it. Two Horsemen without a mission left! ;)

DoW France. Chartres falls, One Knight killed one promoted to Elite.

4 – 790AD
Memphis falls. Lyons falls.

5 – 800AD
Harbours built on both continents, no “contact” though???. I thought it was enough to have a ship able to cross. So not until Astronomy… Paris falls.

6 – 810AD
Cut Egyptian Iron. Orleans falls. Peace with China, we get 7 gold but no cities, Smallest Chinese city is size 2.

7 – 820AD
Of course, China have a size 1 city now! Too late… Connect iron, 3 Knights.
Rheims and Rouen falls. France are now 1 size 2 capital and 7 size 1 cities. Need to wait a couple of mere turns for them to give us more. Now they offer 3 of the cities for peace.

IBT: Lyons flips.

8 – 830AD
Tonawanda and Besancon falls. Heliopolis and

9 – 840AD
We retake Lyons. Peace with France for all cities (4) but their Capital. We jump capital to Mecca.

10 – 850AD
Pi-Ramesses falls. When attacking I used a Elite Horseman as the second unit to attack by mistake, but it works out just fine since Comrade Stalin steps up. Peace with Egypt for all cities but their capital.

After action report:
Research: Invention in 2 turns. GL will be ours when we take Kyoto so no need to research in any real way.

Peace across the map. I have left most units wo moving them on the last turn. We are gearing up for war on Iroquois now. If we can start that war honourably and wait with the RoP rape until after we have secured the one-tile Japanese island in a peace I would be less worried.

One –tile islands: Two left near Heliopolis, I have started building a galley there, as soon as the resistance is gone rush it, send two horsemen with it and put one on each of the two one –tile islands off the coast.

Both Egypt and France down to one location, just wait 20 turns and take them out… Arabia has a one-tile island so we cannot force them out of the game. In 10 turns we can DoW again. Take their present capital and demand the island. Then wait for “the mother of all rep destructions” after we have received the one-tile Japanese island. To help us gain the japanese island we should build a few galleys on that coast and put them on the sea tiles that produce more than 1 food so the city shrinks. Spain also ready for a new war in 10 turns time.

We should shift the connect/disconnect process to our new capital sphere. We can build HMs in former india and wait for them to be transported there for upgrades.
Two Knights on the central island. Should be enough to take Zaragosa in 10 turns time, but if you feel unlucky we could send a couple of extra HMs there. A galley is being built in Bangalore.

Mecca looks like it will shrink but it will expand culture this turn so better tiles will be available for food production before it shrinks.

Forgot about India. We should put them out of their misery.

And, we need to start thinking about a landing in Scandinavia.

Firaxis: 456

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/smackstereast1.JPG
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/smacksterwest1.JPG

9 – 840AD
We retake Lyons. Peace with France for all cities (4) but their Capital. We jump capital to Mecca.


Wait, did you say jumped capital to Mecca. Guess it worked ok?

Wait, did you say jumped capital to Mecca. Guess it worked ok?
Yup, I joined 8 of our "own" workers to it. I did not even have to add any military units to it.

Great turns as usually Wotan!!!
Thos one tile islands are worrying me...
I bet M-B put them just for the reason...
We should dump our units on all un-occupied one tile islands to prevent AIs from colonizing those... Even slaves will do the job. no need to use military units. (well... i wonder how many chances of Scandinavians using berserks to attack those islands).

Do we need to get an alliance with somebody against Japanese?? Their Samurai's can cause major losses in our army.

Another team to watch for - Jeffelammer... Looks like they started conquest same turn we did...
Another thing we should be worried is accidental domination victory... This map has only 27% of land, so we need to start checking soon on dom. limits.

You know guys, unless you confident, we might have to start researching towards Marines...

Zulu and England have 1 tile islands (cities pop 2 and pop 4) with fish source...
It will be hard to get those in peace deal and we will need many galleys and quite few turns to starve them. This game will have to be played with surgical precision.

@M-B: Did you intentionaly put those islands on the map? It wasn't at all random, or was it? ;)

As long as we don't let the palace go to the one tile islands, we should be able to take them. Just two galleys at Nagasaki should starve that down. I didn't notice that Arabian island before, so we have to be really careful.

I'll study the map and post my thoughts, will play tonight.

smackster

So I agree lets keep our rep until we get those one tile islands. I think there is a good chance that would make no difference, but with this situation we can't afford to risk it.

Japan will be tough to beat, but we should be able to build enough Knights that even the Samurai will not help them.

Plans

New leader army for invasion of Scandy

Both armies in the east will invade Iro, although it looks like taking their cities will be quicker than cutting their iron. Start to move the Knights to the border.

Start building galleys in the west and moving everything I can.

T0 850AD
Forces march on Iroqois. Start to build for operations mop up the western mountains and invade scandiavia

T1 860AD
Rush galley in the west, to get the single tile islands. Start sending troops to finish off india.

T2 870AD
Invention comes in. Troops move to the front lines of Iroqois, ready next turn to attack, both armies in place.

Galley leaves the shore for the one tile island.

We rush two galleys to the east, in preperation for the Japanese island. I don't like to spend the cash, but I think its needed.

T3 880AD
Declare on Iroquois, declare on India

We pick off Iro stragglers, and move on their cities, attack next turn. They have two MI's in the mountains that we'll watch.

My turn for a mistake as I wrote about declaring war on India, moved my troops in but didn't actually declare war. No real harm, I'll move them out, declare then back.

T4 890AD
India ask us to leave which is convenient. This time we declare war.

Back at Iroqois Grand River and Centralia are taken for the loss of one Knight each. Both armies move towards Salamana. My goal is that Knights will attack first, and only one of the armies will attack healed troops, the second army will only be used to pickoff wounded defenders

Upgrade a few horses, some are getting near the front lines before they are upgraded, just depends where they are and where the barracks are.

T5 900AD
Iro show us Mounted warriors but their attacks is beaten off by our knights.

India show a War Elephant in their capital, and we are attacking with only horses. We have good luck as the capital is taken with only one loss. Their last city goes down to and we take all their 58 gold. India is no more.

Three Knights attack Salamanca, there was one pike defender, Salamanca is taken. The armies were standing in reserver not required. They now move south to Muach Chunk on the border of Japan, with both armies there, now is the time, we have 384 gold. War with Japan, see if we can buy Celts into it. If we are still concerned about Rep we can by pass Celts get ROP with them and move to England and finish Celts later.

The Celts join for 160 gold, I just a little concerned that Japan may hurt them, well not really :)

We continue the attack on Iro by taking Alleghany without loss. Clean up their wandering MI.

Galley arrives at Nagasaki, but of course we can't sit on the whales as they are at sea. This is the main goal of fighting Japan to get that city

T6 910AD
No visible response from Japan.

We take Mauch Chunk for the loss of one. The rest pile into Mauch Chunk. The second army heads south alone, spies MI and 2 Samurai in various places. The army is three turns from their iron.
Realise tha the Celts will give us cash for Reneg peace, so we get 80 gold back for that.

T7 920AD
Japan wander by our armies with Samurai. Predictably we lose 3 Knights attacking one in the open. The other Knight heads to their iron at least to stem that flow.

Another fleet of horses are upgraded.

Horses, and army and Knights arrive due north of Scandinavia. There are stacks and stacks of cities on our peninsular, which are best got through peace deals, when the time is right.


T8 930AD
Samurai wanders past our army and is blitzed.

Salamanc flips, but is taken back.

Niagra is attacked from two sides, and in a strange irony it Niagra, falls.

With reinforcements arriving at Mauch Chunk, its time to move on Tokyo. The Samurai defender is killed by the first Knight without damage, only pikes remain. The army wins but predictably is heavily damaged, the next Knight retreats and the next dies leaving a longbow defender.

Oil Springs is taken

T9 940AD
Japanese attack back, lb against our army, we survive bairly, then a Sam kills a knight and takes on damage then runs to Tokyo. We have enough troops near Tokyo now, and its taken without further loss.
Nagasaki is now size 3, but too early for Japan to talk to us.
The army arrives at Japans iron.

To the west troops start to load into galleys to move to Scany.

T9 950AD
Perfect timing as Japan complete Leo's for us, that will really help as we can't generate the cash for upgrades

The army cuts Japans iron and move towards their horses.

Knights attack Kagoshima and that is taken. Japan showing us lots of archers.

Knights arrive at Kyoto which is predictably showing a Samurai, most likely that is the only one.

Although I had a knight on the little island Egypt drop a settler there, I pull it off to our galley to wait out peace

Japan will now talk but are insulted by thoughts of giving up Nagasaki

Firaxis score 582

The front lines with Japan, and Iroquois

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/950ad1.jpg

Note the pickup point with Army, in byblos

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/scandy.jpg

Battle for Kyoto. I have put a couple of Knights to have a look at Kyoto, but we probably need to plan well for this battle. Maybe we should start with Osaka.

We are making good progress. A few items on the agenda for the next player:
1. Finish off Spain.
2. Let the Arabian Settler settle. It is probably going for a tile near the Iron east of Mecca. Make sure, by placing units on tiles, to herd it to a location of our choice. We do want it at distance 5! Absolutely not allowed for it is to settle closer to Mecca than 5 so the tile SW of the iron is an absolute no-no, as is on top of iron for obvious reasons. Best would be the forest NW of iron. After that attack Arabia, take out Capital, wait until they will give us the island. After that it is probably a question of breaking peace and garb whats left.
3. We need to take Beijing soon. It will give us the Lighthouse! So we can put a galley on the Whale near Nagasaki. N. will not shrink to size 2 unless we interdict the Whale. Take all Japanese cities but Nagoya. After that is accomplished we need a peace with N. as part of the agreement. Or take peace at first opportunity after taking Kyoto if they give us N.
4. Send a few units toward Hieraconpolis. In 10 turns peace with Egypt expires and we need to take them out. Also keep the two Knights on the Galley in the north until we decalre on Egypt again. They will be needed to take out the new Egyptian city that will be founded on the 3-tile island.
5. Peace with France expires in 9 turns, be ready to take them out when that happens...

Roster

dman (on deck)
Wotan
smackster (just played)
tomasjj (playing)
MjM (auto skip)
Tarkeel (auto skip)

Another problem we will have with Zulus, they have one tile island with fish and it is size 4....
We should plan in advance and have galleys surrounded that island when we DoW on Zulu

(...i am repeating myself but england also has 1tile island)

Another problem we will have with Zulus, they have one tile island with fish and it is size 4....
We should plan in advance and have galleys surrounded that island when we DoW on Zulu

(...i am repeating myself but england also has 1tile island)
Can't believe all these one tile islands, where is Mad-Bax, I'm going to have a word with him :mad:
We are going to have to be really careful trying to take them all.

smackster

It will be quite pity if any team in competition will miss or miscalculate those islands and AI will be left with the only city on such an island...
That will mean manual researhc until the end of Ind. Ages and forget about the Laurels..
I don't think it was a good idea to put those islands on the map. It brings a lot of randomness and luck into the game. If SGOTM is the competition about team's skill and that is what M-B is trying to do by removing many of the leader attributes it is not right to keep 1 tile islands present.

I'm not really mad about it, I was joking. I'm sure M-B did it on purpose and all teams will have to face it and I like it as a good challenge, well that is because I'm still confident that we can get them all. The only one I'm really concerned about is Arabia as we got our first peace with them before they had it, and I wish we'd noticed it before (I assume it was shrouded out or something).

Doink its easy. Gift them a load of cities in far off places. Move troops close by. Declare war. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, until they will talk peace. Then take all those cities back, on the same turn, take the capital on the same turn, raize it. Then I guarantee they will give us the one tiler. I believe the maximum amount of damage done on the same turn makes the difference what they will give us for peace (over time the effect of the damage is reduced, we don't know by how much, but to maximise it do it the same turn).

Just make sure the capital does not go to the island.

If my calculations are right, we only need to put a galley on the Nagasaki whale for a turn to get it down to size 2. For it to drop to size 3, the food box was empty, obviously they had no granary, so its still empty. Its size 3, and gets 6 food from tiles (center -2, 2 sea -2, 1 whale -2), and requires 6 food, so its still empty. Just one turn on the whale will get it to size 2.

We just have to build a couple of galleys and one is sure to survive and it will shrink. Time that with the turn that we finish off their second from last city. Actually we should do a test run. Actually I wonder if it will shrink before it sinks, I think it might.

smackster

Guys.
I can play tomorrow night CET. If you are cool with that, fine.
If not, please go ahead and bump/skip me.

JJ

Tomorrow is fine for me since i am next player and I can't play tonight anyway.
I believe we are on a good schedule. :)

Tomorrow is fine.

I'll make a list of cities to gift to Arabia. Question, if we gift a size one no culture city, and then capture it back, does it get auto raized (not that we really want them)

BTW we are nowhere near dom limit so that is not an issue.

Actually we should do a test run. Actually I wonder if it will shrink before it sinks, I think it might.

It should. Ships lost at sea is the last thing to happen before you regain contol of the game. So I guess we might do with just one galley even if it sinks.

I'll make a list of cities to gift to Arabia. Question, if we gift a size one no culture city, and then capture it back, does it get auto raized (not that we really want them).
There is also a time factor in that you will not be able to speak with your adversary until after a number of turns of war. How many I do not know?

There is also a time factor in that you will not be able to speak with your adversary until after a number of turns of war. How many I do not know?

that may not be always true...
I saw multiple claims on this web site that if you capture raize enough cities AI will talk to you the same turn...
Whether it is actually true or urban legend and how many cities needed to be captured i don't know.

There is also a time factor in that you will not be able to speak with your adversary until after a number of turns of war. How many I do not know?
Yes, that is why I put it in order. Gift x cities to Arabia, declare war, _do not attack_, wait, wait, wait, wait, until they will talk to us. Then in one turn, hit them, hit them hard, take all those cities back. All the ones we gift will remain undefended.

that may not be always true...
I saw multiple claims on this web site that if you capture raize enough cities AI will talk to you the same turn...
Whether it is actually true or urban legend and how many cities needed to be captured i don't know.
I'm pretty sure that its urban legend. I had a couple of games where I tried it and raized city after city in one turn, and they still would not talk. Even if there is some truth to it, we can't rely on it, so we should do my plan. Each city we take seems to have value, even if its a city that we just gifted to them. You can see this effect with WW, if you capture an AI city, and they capture it back next turn, you get WW like you lost one of your own cities.

Also the value you get for capturing cities does seem to be dependant on how much worth the AI puts to a city. I think its seems to be based on size of city, and capital (although it may just be that the capital is always big). So if we gift them a few size 4 cities (or whatever), then we can jump capital where we want, and capture their new capital a few times as we jump it around.

Just make sure we don't jump it to the one tile :)

Just make sure we don't jump it to the one tile :)

Is MjM here??? i am sure he will pull the trick. :)

Sorry for the sarcasm, but seriously if our student wants to be part of this game he better show up. He can't expect to be part of the team without showing up at all.

We need to put a requirement into team entry in the future, that you are on the forum everyday (apart from standard times you are away). There is no point being on this team if you are not, there are too many posts, and you get too far behind, regardless of skill. I would welcome new players to the team, on the condition that they are prepared to put the required time in.

Tarkeel's new life means he can't really keep up now, I don't think MjM joined this realising what it would be like and I don't think it makes sense to step back into this now.

Regular SG's are different, where you don't really have to pay attention until its your turn.

In my opinion, we only have 4 players on the roster right now, and the others will only be let back in after a sustained period of thread input.

Its seems only fair to the 4 of us that have put in so much time and effort into this game.

edit : note about new players in first paragraph

smackster

Is MjM here??? i am sure he will pull the trick. :)

Sorry for the sarcasm, but seriously if our student wants to be part of this game he better show up. He can't expect to be part of the team without showing up at all.

I guess I deserve that for my last set of turns. :mischief:

@Smackster - Christmas break is only 4 days away , ill be on the forums eveyday from there on to Januaryish , even right now I dont how much to do.

So I will participate if you guys still want me too.

I guess I deserve that for my last set of turns. :mischief:

@Smackster - Christmas break is only 4 days away , ill be on the forums eveyday from there on to Januaryish , even right now I dont how much to do.

So I will participate if you guys still want me too.
This game is getting very complicated, but if you join in and show that you are with us then I'm sure the team will be happy for you to play it.

@MjM: I believe all you need to do is showing up here, talking, throwing your ideas even most absurd ones and be the team member....
Once you learn what our situation is I am sure you will be put back into the roster again and no offence here... This is a competition after all and team Smackster finally wants to get its hands on that Golden laurel.


EDIT: Hey.... look at Smacster's and mine posts... we posted the very same minute with basically the same message...
Although i had to do more typing so i think i really should be the 1st one :mischief:

EDIT: Hey.... look at Smacster's and mine posts... we posted the very same minute with basically the same message...
Although i had to do more typing so i think i really should be the 1st one :mischief:
Less is more

Less is more

Precisely :p

smackster 205
dmanakho 147
Wotan 100
tomasjj 72
MjM 40
Tarkeel 18
mad-bax 10

I've had more posts on my own than some entire teams :)

There is a good core of totally corrupt cities to gift to Arabia. We can use those same cities for England/Zulu later.

Thebes, Alexandria, Seville, Barcelona, Madrid.

They are size 3-7 and in range of our core so we can get 5 horses there, who can take them all back in one turn without breaking rep, or risk of auto raize. There are three horses right there, use the ones from New York, and Washington and those 5 should be used to retake them.

Most important thing is to get Fez in a peace deal.

Turn of events should be

Gift 5 cities to Arabia
Declare war (next turn we have troops around those cities, move them out)
Move the horses into place, but you'll need to wait for peace
When they will negotiate, only then, take Muscat, use 3-4 Knights.
On the turn that Muscat falls, go to dip, see if they will give us Fez for peace.
The palace should be in the 5 now.
Take the one with the palace, go to dip, see if they will give us Fez for peace
Repeat for all 5 until the palace has jumped back to Aden. Then stop if we still don't have Fez we are in trouble.

If Fez is size 2 then stop before destroying all 5 on the other continent.

Hmm. I have read through here, and its getting messy. At least for me :)

-So what is the take on the Scandi invasion?
-And I saw that about taking out Egypt in ten turns time.

Then it is Japan, which Smackster described early on after his turns.
Galley towards the whale to shrink one-tiler, so that we get it in peace deal. But we will need to war against china to do that (getting the lighthouse in Beiijing right?)

And, naturally, the arabia issue. Getting Fez in a deal, set-up as described above.

Finish off Spain, and France when peace expires. (I hope there are troops for all this...)

Looking at the save now to get the firm picture.

Please dont hesitate to map out some more guidelines.

And whats this about gifting cities? Is that if all else fails regarding the one-tilers?


jj

Things are getting messy for me too...
Maybe wotan and smackster can come up with detailed plan for you and me.
We also need to build more galleys to starve Zulu and English 1tile islands and we better start building them now, so we don't have to wait later.

Here is a list

1) Arabia - Start the city gifting next turn to Arabia, gift those 5 I described, this is a setup we can use again and again, so it will be a good test. We don't know if we can get Fez, so this makes sure. Make sure we dont break rep, as there are units around those gifted cities, and then declare war. Wait until peace and take cities until we can get Fez, make sure the capital does not go to Fez, take back our cities and get Fez.

2) Scandy - Dump about 8 knights/horses in Scandy, and then attack

3) Japan - Keep fighting them and taking their cities. High flip chances, Samurai, just have to keep bashing them until they submit. Do not let the capital go to Nagasaki, or the game is over. After you take their capital, when they will talk peace, then put the galley on the whaile and see if we can get Nagasaki next turn. Don't wait for Lighthouse. Rush another galley in that area (I think there is one coming with a Knight) so that we can rinse and repeat.

4) Spain/France/Egypt - no priority, but if you have troops when peace expires then finish them

5) China- I don't quite see getting to China in your turns, but if the conditions are right then start on them. Great Lighthouse will be nice. Depends how easy Scandy fall.

6) England - When we are close enough to england, I suggest before any war with England that you gift them the 5 cities. Don't retake them until they will talk peace. Goal is to get the one tile again.

7) Zulu - Same as England

Feel free to take a couple of days over your turns.

And whats this about gifting cities? Is that if all else fails regarding the one-tilers?
jj
Thing is with this technique, we have to do the gifting prior to war, so it has to be well planned in advance. The cities we are gifting are no value to us. If we go to war and then find we can't get the one tiles, you have to go to peace, then wait 20 turns, then go to war then wait for peace. So gift them now and we can be sure, there is nothing to lose by gifting, as we can take them back. The AI is poor and will not put any defence in those cities.

Note that the only reason we need to capture cities from now, is to push back AI cultue and to give us some forward barracks. There are not points for firaxis score here.

Aye.

I might take some time on this. I dont want to mess it up, so the save will be studied along with the instructions/advice.

JJ

Here is a list

5) China- I don't quite see getting to China in your turns, but if the conditions are right then start on them. In fact I suggest before any war with China that you gift them the 5 cities. Don't retake them until they will talk peace. Goal is to get the one tile again.


China??? I can't check right now from work. But i don't remember China having 1 tile islands. Or am i wrong? I remember Arabs, Japs, Zulu and England have those nasty 1 tiles....

China have the Lighthouse!

Yeah, I know, but is that good enough reason to gift them cities instead of simply taking all they have????????? :confused:

China??? I can't check right now from work. But i don't remember China having 1 tile islands. Or am i wrong? I remember Arabs, Japs, Zulu and England have those nasty 1 tiles....
Sorry its England and Zulu.

We could skip Scandy, get a ROP and alliance with them and send our troops to capture the GL

Yeah, I know, but is that good enough reason to gift them cities instead of simply taking all they have????????? :confused:
No gifting is only for those with 1 tile Islands. The gifting is temporary in any case. Actually the gifting might be used against any Republic civ as taking those cities will put them into WW straight away.

Aye.
I might take some time on this. I dont want to mess it up, so the save will be studied along with the instructions/advice.

Any progress, remember you have to devote your life to this game once you are up :)

Any progress, remember you have to devote your life to this game once you are up :)


Hehe.. I dont think I am quite ready to devote my whole life into this.

Anyway, I reckon I will play in a couple of hours.
I sort of kept a slot open tonight to get the turns done in a proper way.

JJ

What about trading?
no real deal? Just keep them backwards and jump on a deal if its sweet enough and doesnt backfire on our campaign for world domination, I mean conquest :) ?

JJ

I believe we are about to capture Great Library in Kyoto...
So tech trading probably isn't needed.

Aye!
Copy that, d-man.

JJ

Double check that. I think it is in Kyoto, but i may be wrong, I often am :)

Its one of those Japanese cities, probably Kyoto. Hopefully they only have one Samurai there, so might be worth knocking out the other cities first, unless you can get enough Knights in place, I'd say 7-8 Knights and an army to attack Kyoto.

All I ask from the team when they are playing is to tell us when, and keep us updated if things change. Silence is the only thing we don't like.

Pre-turn:

Lurking around.
Trying to figure out the complexity, and the plans that are for units here and there.

England wants our maps, we say "Aye" when they give us gold too.
Japanese longbowman attacks one of our knights outside Tokyo, redlines it.

Paris flips :(
Murcia: Galley-Galley
New York, Lahore, Dehli and Madras: HM-HM
Tokyo flips too.


1 - 960 AD:

Paris flipping was kind of beat as that means our troop movement path has foreign land in it.
Will deal with that.
Gift Arabia: Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Thebes and Alexandria.
Remove troops around the cities and then declaire on Arabia.
We take Osaka.
We re-take Tokyo.
Move out of Kagoshima as its about to flip (43%).
Surround Iroquis capital.

IBT: Janie is mad for our knights, but this is kind of enroute towards the front.
I know our rep will take a hit for breaking the peace, but this kind of sucks, so we say war.
Some riots because of this. (I do hope you are ok with this, but this little girl is just annoying me now....)

2 - 970 AD:

We take Paris back, and roll through.
Ready for Kyoto.

IBT: France retake Rheims. She had some spears in the mountains that I didnt see cause we had no troops around there.
Zulu complete Art of War.

3 - 980 AD:

Kyoto is under attack. It seems pretty well defended, Samurai and at least 4 pikes.
They still wont give us Nagasaki.

4 - 990 AD:

We take Cattaragus. Capital moved to Khanawake.


5 - 1000 AD:

We loose 4 knights at gates of Kyoto. Only one Samurai left now, and two longbowmen coming in to support.
Damn. We had like one army and 8 knights+ there.
Arabs will now give us Fez in a peace deal.

So I post now for debate.

JJ

That redlined samurai will heal next turn, and Japs most likely will rush another pike.

Our rep is ruined, or was it ruined already?
But i guess you didn't have another choice.
Bottom line - nobody will give us RoP agreement...
Will load save tonight, hopefully Wotan can do it now before Smackster and I go home.

If Arabs give us one tile island then take it now.

In hindsight, it was a mistake to break peace, but I got irrational.
I like getting irrational from time to time, but I did not intend to ruin anything for the team.
Sorry if this mess things up seriously.
JJ

It probably doesn't mess things up much...

I was scratching my head lately thinking if it was a much bigger mistake not researching at max towards MT.....

Right now we just have to push with everything we have


EDIT: it is probably a good idea to start razing non-productive AIs cities unless there is a reason to keep them (like wonders, needed for gifting back for 1 tile islands deals, reheal troops, etc...) So if we don' tneed Paris for any reason i'd say raze it.

Yeah, I was wondering if I should start razing, but then again, it didnt look like it had been done by the others.
They might not have needed to raze yet.

Actually, I have really shiit my pants here by moving horsemen past chicago (last barracks in the west-end.) I really hope that doesnt slow us down too much.
I guess there were too many things to take care of here compared to what I am used to.
JJ

Why didn't you just ask for a ROP. From what I read she said leave, and you said war, that is not only breaking peace, but breaking ROP, for what purpose?. I wanted to save our ROP reputation for a sneak attack later.

I don't think it will make that much difference to our end date, but I think there are going to be a few teams close to us, so we need every turn and every trick to go right to win this.

I can't look at the save until later, but having got Kyoto so close we need to take it, but obviously I can't see how many troops we have.

For cities that don't have a wonder, and have a flip chance we can raize them. Unless that city is pushing back culture. Now that we are at war with France, just finish them off, and then we wont need to raize any of their cities. Having broken our rep, we might as well finish off Arabia now too. Once rep is broken, you can keep breaking it and it makes no difference.

OK, the position is somewhat in chaos. We need to sort things out fast.

1. Kyoto, we have a lot to lose by failing to take it. Are we sure the Samurai is alone? If it is ATTACK, first with the Knights and finally with the army four´, they all have one HP but the odds are in our favour now. If we leave it we will not be able to take it next turn. Leonardos will help us too so do not raze.
2. I would have liked us to have finished off Spain before shipping almost every unit near Valencia to Scandinavia... Need to address this, Do not attack Scandy until we have taken Valencia. We dont want to send units back and forth do we???
3. Arabia? We gifted the cities without units nearby to retake them, why??? :( A single HM within two tiles of each city would have done the trick in one turn. We need to retake the western cities and Muscat. Then peace for Fez. WE DO NOT WANT THEM TO HAVE A NEW CORE IN THE WEST. BTW, the HMs on the mountain N Thebes need to go to a better position before attack, now they will only be able to attack across river unless there is still no defender there.
4. France. Kill them off!
5. Egypt. Since our rep is wasted now we can as well skip thinking about waiting for peace agreements to expire. Try to have some units in position as soon as possible and DoW when all their cities can be taken in two turns at the most, landing on the island will take a turn before being able to attack.
6. What on earth are you doing around Memphis/Jaipur? Clearing jungle/irrigating and mining???????????????????????? And Memphis is building a Temple? Why do we want a temple there? And worker action, NOTHING BUT ROADMAKING IN NONPRODUCTIVE AREAS. We only use workers for things that bring us closer to victory. A road running through the mountains all the way to the southern tip will help us, clearing and developing terrain will only slow us down. PLEASE STOP THIS WASTE OF WORKER ACTIONS!!!!!!!
7. Since our rep is wasted now we can as well skip thinking about waiting for peace agreements to expire.

In hindsight, it was a mistake to break peace, but I got irrational.
I like getting irrational from time to time, but I did not intend to ruin anything for the team.
I can only say: Stop being irrational on a SGOTM. It is not fun for the rest of the team when one player does things that ruin/risk ruin the game. We invest a lot of time and effort into this game. You are not only damaging your own game... And in this case it was obviously not only a broken peace but a ROP rape. So that card is now out of the deck for us!!!! That is bad and will cost a few turns at the very least!!!!!

Well, honestly, I have messed some things up.

The reputatuon one was bad, hands down.

@smackster:How could France ask me to leave if we HAD a ROP? So I guess I didnt break any ROP with them?

On the other hand, regarding the other issues, I asked for clear instructions since this was complex, I got some major points/advice that I tried to work out.

Too bad I cant keep track of every thought here.
There was quite a bit back and forth on what to do, so in the end I tried to follow the last instructions that smackster gave me.

@wotan:
As for gifted cities to arabia: I read that after declaring war I should wait until we could talk (which was about 4/5 turns), and I tried getting what we had of units in postition for the retake when we were sure to get Fez.

Kyoto: I know its close, but I got some bad rolls. Had one army and 8 or nine knights before attack.

Spain: I was told to focus on Japan, getting Fez and shipping over to Scandy.

France: Was in the process of taking them out.

Worker actions: the workers were clearing and roading near the eastern tip of india when I took over. So, from what I figured, that was the deal around there, to get some better tiles.
Other areas I tried to connect the cities through the mountains like had been started.

Temple in Mempis, sorry about that. Also for the workers around there. I didnt think through why there were piles of workers around there.

I propose that you guys take over, you are better off without me.


JJ

@smackster:How could France ask me to leave if we HAD a ROP? So I guess I didnt break any ROP with them?
The problem is that if you have units within the country's borders when DoW the AI regard that as a ROP rape. You have to have all units outside borders before DoW! So when the IBT dialogue asked you to leave/DoW, using the DoW option automatically makes it a ROP rape.
If you did not know this, too bad. But now you know so will hopefully not do it again... ;)

On the other hand, regarding the other issues, I asked for clear instructions since this was complex, I got some major points/advice that I tried to work out.
I do not believe you have wandered that far from what we discussed. A few things, but minor stuff really. Nothing we cannot fix.


As for gifted cities to arabia: I read that after declaring war I should wait until we could talk (which was about 4/5 turns), and I tried getting what we had of units in postition for the retake when we were sure to get Fez.
I do not have the game active right now but what I remember was that I was a bit surprised you did not have HMs in position for all "retakes" when Arabia was ready to start talking peace with us.

Kyoto: I know its close, but I got some bad rolls. Had one army and 8 or nine knights before attack.
Keep going at it. You have a few 1hp units there. We might as well risk losing them since the opportunity to take Kyoto will disappear fdr several turns if we fail now.

Spain: I was told to focus on Japan, getting Fez and shipping over to Scandy..
Taking out Spain in the process must have been "hidden" within all the other stuff. They only have two cities left, I sent 2 Knights to the central island and built another Galley there to be able to ship more units if needed. And a few of the units waiting for passage to Scandinavia would have been able to move north and take out the last city.

Worker actions: the workers were clearing and roading near the eastern tip of india when I took over. So, from what I figured, that was the deal around there, to get some better tiles. .
Then the problem started during Smacksters turns... Well, well... :) We had this problem during our first game together SGOTM3, where someone on the team had a real affection for developing max corruption cities...

I propose that you guys take over, you are better off without me..
Don't quit on us now. You are doing just fine. The ROP rape was a low point but if you did not know the mechanics of the game we cannot really hang you too high. Just high enough so your toes reach the ground. ;)

Well, honestly, I have messed some things up.

@smackster:How could France ask me to leave if we HAD a ROP? So I guess I didnt break any ROP with them?

You don't need a ROP to break ROP. Be in their land, declare war, ROP reputation broken


On the other hand, regarding the other issues, I asked for clear instructions since this was complex, I got some major points/advice that I tried to work out.

Too bad I cant keep track of every thought here.
There was quite a bit back and forth on what to do, so in the end I tried to follow the last instructions that smackster gave me.
None of us are perfect, we all get criticised on this team when we screw up. These were a very complex set of turns, but sometimes you just have to play it and make the mistakes. Don't fall on your sword, its just a game.


@wotan:
As for gifted cities to arabia: I read that after declaring war I should wait until we could talk (which was about 4/5 turns), and I tried getting what we had of units in postition for the retake when we were sure to get Fez.

There were three horses there and two should have been taken from Washington/New York, one horse to take back each city. Its hard to give any more detailed advice than there already is. You have to play what makes sense.


Spain: I was told to focus on Japan, getting Fez and shipping over to Scandy.

I don't see the problem here, we have time to get Spain, and there should be more horses coming from the core.


Worker actions: the workers were clearing and roading near the eastern tip of india when I took over. So, from what I figured, that was the deal around there, to get some better tiles.
Other areas I tried to connect the cities through the mountains like had been started.

Temple in Mempis, sorry about that. Also for the workers around there. I didnt think through why there were piles of workers around there.

I propose that you guys take over, you are better off without me.
JJ
Its easy to criticise use of workers, don't take it personally, I often have less than optimal use of them, and dman and Wotan always ding me for it.

We would be better off if the best player played this solo, but the point of the SG is that we play as a team, and that is all that counts.

Don't take any criticism personally, its not like we know each other. Just understand the mistakes and try to learn from it. We all have been and continue to go through that.

Then the problem started during Smacksters turns... Well, well... :) We had this problem during our first game together SGOTM3, where someone on the team had a real affection for developing max corruption cities...

There we go again, and I'm always polite about Wotan's errors :)

I don't understand this without looking at the map, but are you sure those cities are max corruption, they are not that far from the FP?

There we go again, and I'm always polite about Wotan's errors :)

I don't understand this without looking at the map, but are you sure those cities are max corruption, they are not that far from the FP?
Sorry, I made that comment as a joke... I just had a SGOTM3 flashback when I wrote the comments on worker useage... I know I did a lot of suboptimum worker action in the past myself, I learnt a lot from Kuningas on that team in SGOTM2.

The question we need to ask before doing something in the game is simply: Will this bring us to victory faster than if I do not do it.

We would be better off if the best player played this solo, but the point of the SG is that we play as a team, and that is all that counts.
I am not sure about that. The fact that we only play 10 turns makes you focus better during your turns. The discussions between players develop everyones game and help us catch weaknesses and find possibilities.

Someone have said that SGOTMs make players play at one level higher than they are capable of in solo games. I agree with this opinion, even if I do not have anything to substantiate my claim by.

I propose that you guys take over, you are better off without me.




Nope, we can't do that... FYI, we all getting grilled by each other all the time. If you think you are having hard time, look at the SGOTM3 thread and all the hit i was under.
If somebody messes things up a little or a lot we sure are not going to be shy to tell about it, but that doesn't mean anyone here has something againts you.
So just stay with the team and help us to pull this victory.

Sorry, I made that comment as a joke... I just had a SGOTM3 flashback when I wrote the comments on worker useage... I know I did a lot of suboptimum worker action in the past myself, I learnt a lot from Kuningas on that team in SGOTM2.

The question we need to ask before doing something in the game is simply: Will this bring us to victory faster than if I do not do it.
I know you were joking. But I looked and those workers are working in our productive core. The ones near the Indian tip, or where they used to be?

I am not sure about that. The fact that we only play 10 turns makes you focus better during your turns. The discussions between players develop everyones game and help us catch weaknesses and find possibilities.

Someone have said that SGOTMs make players play at one level higher than they are capable of in solo games. I agree with this opinion, even if I do not have anything to substantiate my claim by.
No you are right, we are better as a team. I thought that as I drove home, if I played this solo, I would have made many, many more mistakes and would probably still be stuck on that island in the middle.

Views on the save

1) Most important task Arabia
I say getting Fez is No.1 priority, but I want to see if that settler will settle.
So wait one turn for peace. But no more. So take what you can this turn, attack their capital and take whatever other cities you can.
Next turn, if the settler has formed a city, see if we can get Fez and that in peace. If not then keep taking cities until we can get them both. Just be careful not to send the palace to Fez.

As there are many tasks do all the arab moves first each turn.

2) Second most important task Japan,
Kyoto, go for broke, take it this turn, attack this turn before you hit end turn, there are 4 one HP units, against maybe 1 one HP Samurai. Its a risk, but I'd take it.

We should consider abandoning Tokyo, and Osako, both big flips chance (22%/14%), so one of them is sure to flip in the next 3-4 turns, and they are not worth the hassle. Just my opinion. Actually wait and see if you can get Kyoto.

3) Scandy, I think we should send the 2 horses, and 2 knights in the galley over there, and attack Scandy with all those troops. Drop another horse in the army so it has more HP, does not really effect the army attack strength in PTW. That group should do as much damage as they can

Right now we don't have enough troops going down to byblos, to help in the attack, so we need to renew focus on sending troops down there. I think most of the cities on the peninsula can be taken in peace treaties. For instance the 2 Japanese cities can be taken now however, clearly Nagasaki is our priority.

4) Egypt, the Knights in the galley outside Avaris, should be dropped off and destroy Avaris. Put them both back on the galley and send them to Hiearaconopolis.

5) We need to start building more galleys as there are a lot of islands that the AI can go to, near the end of the game it may be tough to find all their settlers in galleys.

If you think you are having hard time, look at the SGOTM3 thread and all the hit i was under.

I can't remember the last time I gave you any flak? :D You play a solid game these days, Dman!

All,

ROP; sorry, but I didnt know that a declaring would make it impossible to get a ROP. I though one had to break an ROP for that. We lots of troops around paris when it flipped, and the borders expanded. That meant I still had quite a few troops inside their borders at the end of the turn.

Arabia: I guess we shouldve had troops ready to retake all the cities when they where supposed to talk to us after 4-5 turns. Thing is, when not familiar with the concept of what is to be done, in such a complex setting, I just try to follow instructions.

The criticisms are ok, I deserve that, thats what I learn from.
Its just that I cant keep up with the game here. So, as for continuing to play, I must say that I have felt playing this more a burden than fun. That has nothing to do with you and is of course not your fault. The only link I see between the criticisms I got and my decision not to play anymore is that I was actually not enjoying myself when I played last night. The fact that I felt it a burden could have contributed to my wrongdoings. This has actually made me dislike CIV a little bit too.

So, this is also based on the fact that I cannot find time in RL to plug in the amount of time needed to follow this game in the tempo that is expected from you guys. Last night when playing the last 5 turns I spend like 4 hours preparing and doing that. (Looking at it that way, I defo shouldve done better..hehe.)
And then, after spending hours doing things that are supposed to be fun, feeling beat, feeling it was a burden, starting to dislike civ - that isnt too cool.

I am really sorry that I let you guys down in the game, and also jumping ship here, leaving the team. But I got to do this for fun, and if it isnt fun anymore, then I must spend my sparetime otherwise.

You have been great to me and I have learnt a lot - thanks.

JJ

I can't remember the last time I gave you any flak? :D You play a solid game these days, Dman!

Yeah, other than setting up Wash and Phily on fire and revolt my last turn set :) (not that you mentioned anything, but i doubt it was a good play from me.


@JJ: I am really sorry to hear what you've said..... I understand your feelings and I respect your decision, but I feel sorry you are leaving without giving it a fight.

All,
The criticisms are ok, I deserve that, thats what I learn from.
Its just that I cant keep up with the game here. So, as for continuing to play, I must say that I have felt playing this more a burden than fun. That has nothing to do with you and is of course not your fault. The only link I see between the criticisms I got and my decision not to play anymore is that I was actually not enjoying myself when I played last night. The fact that I felt it a burden could have contributed to my wrongdoings. This has actually made me dislike CIV a little bit too.

So, this is also based on the fact that I cannot find time in RL to plug in the amount of time needed to follow this game in the tempo that is expected from you guys. Last night when playing the last 5 turns I spend like 4 hours preparing and doing that. (Looking at it that way, I defo shouldve done better..hehe.)
And then, after spending hours doing things that are supposed to be fun, feeling beat, feeling it was a burden, starting to dislike civ - that isnt too cool.

I am really sorry that I let you guys down in the game, and also jumping ship here, leaving the team. But I got to do this for fun, and if it isnt fun anymore, then I must spend my sparetime otherwise.

You have been great to me and I have learnt a lot - thanks.
For me its those complex difficult turns that make it fun, and I agree it does take a long time to play, but you did get it at a really difficult time, maybe you would not get a harder set of turns.

You should rethink leaving, as you over time you'll find it easier. For now you can just play 5 turns each time, or just assign an amount of time to play and then play until the time is up and then post. You don't have to do 10 turns.

For now stop either way, and dman should take it.

smackster

:sad:

but anyways I got it and can play tonight

It is Dec. 16 and i remember Tarkeel said he will become available after this date.... So he might join the team again.

Play 5, 10, or even 15 depending on time.

Would our captain volunteer to write 1st spoiler? :mischief:

ROP; sorry, but I didnt know that a declaring would make it impossible to get a ROP. I though one had to break an ROP for that. We lots of troops around paris when it flipped, and the borders expanded. That meant I still had quite a few troops inside their borders at the end of the turn.
Just as I guessed. I did know this myself a year ago...

Arabia: I guess we shouldve had troops ready to retake all the cities when they where supposed to talk to us after 4-5 turns. Thing is, when not familiar with the concept of what is to be done, in such a complex setting, I just try to follow instructions.
Minor thing really...

And then, after spending hours doing things that are supposed to be fun, feeling beat, feeling it was a burden, starting to dislike civ - that isnt too cool.

I am really sorry that I let you guys down in the game, and also jumping ship here, leaving the team. But I got to do this for fun, and if it isnt fun anymore, then I must spend my sparetime otherwise.

You have been great to me and I have learnt a lot - thanks.

JJ
You probably had the most difficult turn set yet in this game. We are at the point where the "camel's back" is about to break. It is the point in the game where turns are lost or gained in the race towards victory. It is normally after these turns that I lose interest in GOTMs and just rush them to the end wo any real MMing and thought. SGOTMs OTOH have the added aspect of a team to keep it interesting all the way to the finish line.

Stay on the team, keep up with what happens and see how things look next time you are up. It will probably be your last turnset on this game anyway. We should have it wrapped in 40-50 turns max...

Would our captain volunteer to write 1st spoiler? :mischief:
Yea here it is, we settled SE, researched WC, and MM, then built galleys, found india, built horses and took their cities, then entered the MA. Oh we built a wonder or two.

Only joking, yes I'll write it.

smackster

For now you can just play 5 turns each time, or just assign an amount of time to play and then play until the time is up and then post. You don't have to do 10 turns.


This is correct in fact. If you get fed up, distracted, called away on business, whatever - you can just post what you have done.

I would encourage you to stick at it. You are very fortunate to be placed on such a strong team and you will become a better player overnight (almost). The better you become, the more you will enjoy it. The team is competitive, and you will have to face the music from time to time. But in next to no time it can be you who is picking holes in your team mates game.

I was rubbish until I started playing SG's - and now I'm only nearly rubbish. ;) It's the reason I run the games.

I need to crop some of these pictures that appear to large right now (now cropped, original edited). But here is a draft.

Team Smackster SGOTM5 going for gold
dmanahko, Wotan, smackster, Tarkeel, MjM, tomasjj

In the start location we saw three mountains and we have three units. Now, its tempting to send one unit to each mountain to determine the best location, but we decided that Mad-Bax is unlikely to make the first move based on luck, so that each location would be largely similar.
The instructions were, move the scout to any one mountain, if you even see a hint of green then follow it with the rest of the crew. We moved SE, saw enough green and settled down there.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM54000BCST.jpg

Plan was to jump the palace ASAP, so would not develop too much in Moscow. No thoughts about leaving the palace there and building the FP for rank corruption usage, that may just take too long to setup.

We didn't take long before we settled and began to explore. We made a decision early that we would find somebody close by so started researching WC, but soon found its an island and should have gone Writing->MM.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm53050BCST_copy.jpg

We built another scout, warrior, then Temple. Decided there was no point building the barracks until we were ready to start building the military.
We popped some workers and warriors, and the precious wheel that showed we had horses. We disbanded one popped warrior when unit support kicked in, and dropped some workers in Moscow.

After the temple we started on Collossus, although when it was built in 1750BC it didn't give us much being Despot.

In 1500BC we got MM, and switched Moscow to our galley pre-build, plan was to pump a few galleys and find out whats out there.
We now started research on HBR, and had decided that we would build horses all the way, and didn't need IW.

In 1325BC our first galley made a quick suicide jaunt and we met most of the world. We took all their gold, techs and maps, but they were fairly backward. We could also see that there were more islands north.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM51250BCSMM_copy.jpg

When our first galley went north, we found that there was a good route to India, and made them our first target. We also liked the land in Mecca, so the plan was invade India, jump palace, build FP in Delhi, invade Arabia, jump palace to Mecca.
We were pleased at the route to India, as we didn't need the Lighthouse. We now started to mass build horses and send them north, a few galleys went round the coast to the east and prepared for invasion.

We set the target at 6 horses, didn't really think the Regent AI would hold us back.

550BC we had the horses in place and attacked Bombay, with some very unlucky RNG is held first turn, but was soon taken, and India put up very little resistance to the steady flow of horses that was coming.

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

During the war our eyes were turning to barb huts at home, but all military was being sent north, things started to look dicey as barbs were coming, and the MA were approaching, I really don't want to be around in Moscow when the revolts come

By 150BC we had India begging for peace they would give us 4 cities for the peace. At that same time Monarchy was affordable and I wanted to get that and revolt before we got too many cities. Republic was not available and we were planning at least two palace jumps so Monarchy seemed overall a better option for us.
So we got Monarchy and a 4 turn anarchy, then took 4 Indian cities and peace.

Next turn it happened, somebody researched Currency and the uprisings happened.
We traded for it so that we could get our first MA tech and put our heads down towards Chivalry.

There were about 3 huts on our island, and we had a warrior and an archer for defence.
Our targetted jump city (Calcutta) was ours and we had peace with India.

Would the barbs come, would we get out in time. You'll have to find out, next time, in the SGOTM5 spoiler thread.

smackster

Having read some of the other posts now, (hopefully Mad-Bax will for me reading them before I actually posted to the spoiler thread) its quite interesting the diverse way that teams have gone about this. Very interesting. I see why we got a points lead, but I wonder if the others will catch us.

I think everything hinges on dmanakho in the next 10 turns.

In addition

Discussion points of interest to me include:-
1. How important is the Great Lighthouse in this game?
As we planned a palace jump early we did not want to get it. If we had not been able to get across without it, then things would be harder, but we would have shipchained if required.

2. Was catching up in techs difficult?
Not in the least, make this Emperor/Deity and things might go the other way, even Monarch would be interesting.

3. Was it possible to get the capital city to 15spt in depspostism?
Actually we had it 14/16, with a bit of growth every other turn.

4. Did you prefer horsemen or swordsmen for conquest?
We always build horses if we have them

5. Which landmass did you decide to conquer first and why?
Just because we could see a path to India they were first. Our horses would take three turns to get to the pickup point, but once the galleys were up there then that didnt matter.

6. What did you like/dislike about the modifications made to the rules (workers/Heroic Epic/leaders/no settlers from huts etc.)?
I think it adds a very good balance, and should be standard for GOTM.

7. Was the first 80 to 100 turns just too boring for words?
Turns were quick so it didn't matter

8. Comparison of the three "tailored" settling locations.
I would have liked the NE location as it was closer to India, that its.

Good write-up. Now I am going to the thread to have a peak myself... :)

Excellent write-up Smackster!!!! :goodjob:

And now i am going to download save and spend next 2 hours doing some home work, reading threads, looking at options. I feel adrenaline rush already, too much of a responsibility on me. I think i am going to play next 5 turns and post the save, but we shall see how it goes.

This is correct in fact. If you get fed up, distracted, called away on business, whatever - you can just post what you have done.

I would encourage you to stick at it. You are very fortunate to be placed on such a strong team and you will become a better player overnight (almost). The better you become, the more you will enjoy it. The team is competitive, and you will have to face the music from time to time. But in next to no time it can be you who is picking holes in your team mates game.

I was rubbish until I started playing SG's - and now I'm only nearly rubbish. ;) It's the reason I run the games.
I too have only really learned this game from playing SG's, I was lucky that the first few were less intensive so I didn't get crucified too much.

We are trying here to bring new players in but I'm afraid the only way to keep up with us is to spend a lot of time on this, and I think most people can't devote that time.

Next SG, can we put a warning on our team label.

smackster

Oh. good Smackster is here...
I took Kyoto loosing only one knight.
We might loose 2 more IBT since Japs have to longbows next to Kyoto.

One thing i'd like to get your advice before i start playing.
I want to raze all the former Franch, Iro. Jap not productive cities wit resistors. We can keep garrisons there and i don't want them flipping.
Even if AI's settle again it will be easier to raze those no-culture cities than deal with flipping.
I am also going to cut all the iron sources in our new capital core and use connect/disconnect trick. Right now we have 2 iron sources connected and one will be connected next turn, i'd rather not do it

Only get rid of those that have large flip chances. If we get rid of cities, we create a gap for barbs, the AI can settle there, and we do lose some gold. Getting rid of France etc is the most sure way to stop them flipping.

I could only advice on a city by city basis. Come with a list of cities to abandon, and I'll have a look.

Pre-turn.
Switched Medina from knights to barracks in 4turns.
Re-routed bunch of workers. We need more roads and also we have very few workers in our capital core. Cities could have be much more productive if we had more workers there.
Tokyo and Kyoto have very high chance of flipping

Attacking Kyoto with 1hp knights. 1st knight dies but second kills Samurai and Kyoto is ours with all nice wonders.
Now bad news... 2 Japs longbows are next to Kyoto and i only have 2 1hp and 1hp army knights to protect.
Since i don't want to lose army i don't want it to be in Kyoto. So will use 2 knights instead and even if longbow takes Kyoto we should be able to retake it next turn.
More bad news, there are no reinforcements anywhere to be close. Switching many shore cities to build galleys...
That stupid 4pop Zulu island in another side of continent. It will take forever to get galleys there. So we should start moving galleys that direction now.
Switched production order in many corrupted cities from barracks/temples to build workers in 1t or to wealth.


IBT:
2 Japs LongBow attack 2 1hp knights in Kyoto. We kill one longbow and lose 1 knight
Arabs found city of Shiraz which is exactly in RCP5 distance... Good job on herding the settler.
We learned theology from GL

T1. 1010AD. Army kills japs longbow. Elite horse kills french longbow. I don't have enough troops to take Muskat i saw movement in between the turns and they have at least 3 spears and one longbow inside. Why have we stopped resource disconnect trick on both continents???? I don't even have workers anywhere nearby Delhi to do it...
And i can only pray for the Kyoto not to flip with the units we have there healing.
Fez has grown to size 2 but Arabs will still give it to us. I took back all of the cities we previously gifted but due to luck of nearby troops i could not reach Alexandria and Seville. I will make peace with Arabs next turn.
Moved 2 more units to Scandinavia, 2 more horses next turn and i will attack the following turn.
NY is about to riot, convert one citizen to tax collector.

IBT: Tokyo flips
Arab longbow attacks our knight and forces it to retreat.

T2. 1020AD. Retake Tokyo loosing a horse. Raize Bensacon. Take Alexandria and Seville back. Peace deal with Arabs, we take Fez, Shiraz and 48 Gold. They still left with 2 eastern cities. I don't have troops and i was afraid that now when Fez is pop 2 they won't trade it in. I am not worried about this peace. Our rep is ruined as as soon as we have reinforcements arabs are gone.. There might be a problem though. I saw an arab galley near Seville, hope it does not have a settler. I am moving all available units towards Japan. On easter continent moving Horses towards Scandy shipping point. Can't really upgrade them - iron is unhooked there and no workers around. Bombay revolted. I didn't see this coming. Civ assisted warned me only about NY in a previous turn :-(. Quelled 3 resistors in Kyoto.
Improvized half-way ship chaining to move HM from eastern to the western continents. (we really ought to call them for easy identification)
Raized Matsuyama in the mountain grid far-west

IBT: Wash. and Seattle riot, i don't get what is going on.. I checked cities and checked CIv assists, there were no warning on riots. :-(. I am glad i didn't try to take Muskat. 4 arab spears just left the city and they must have at least 2 more inside.. We need to calculate amount of troops accordingly.
Scandy asks our galley to leave, i notice they have gunpowder, that was fast. We learn gunpowder from GL, switch to Chemistry. I want to get rid of Egypt but i only have 1 knight near their capital, that won't be enough.


T3. 1030AD. Iron connected/disconnected. Rushed barracks in our capital core. rushed couple of galleys near Nagasaki.
Sending horses towards egyptian capital. Goal take of Egypt and then Spain out of the picture.
Kill Jap spear/setler pair. Moving many workers towards our capital core.

T4. 1040AD. What the hell i did this year :-(..... Forgot to take notes, but it was mostly routine of moving troops and units around. Entered Scandy, don't care about rep, if they ask to leave we will declare.
EDIT: Stupid... You raized Izumo with 1 knight loss and captured Akwesasno from Iro. Iro's left with 2 cities in desert and 3rd in deep jungles.

IBT. Scandy asks to leave or else.. I choose else.

T5. 1050AD Upsala, Goteborg captured with no losses, moving units towards Oslo. Kyoto has whopping 36% percent chance to flip. We probably don't want to keep troops there any longer other than for healing purposes. 2 extra galleys just arrived near Nagasaki, so next player please starve Nagasaki. There are few more galleys that can be rushed in cities near nagasaki.
We have troops everywhere but still not enough, most of them are not fortified except those in Kyoto. I tried my best, but I am sure Wotan can do better.

i have left most of the action on the last turn to the next player.
Save is coming in few.
and here comes the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/Smackster_SG005_AD1050_01.SAV)

Pre-turn.
That stupid 4pop Zulu island in another side of continent. It will take forever to get galleys there. So we should start moving galleys that direction now.
Switched production order in many corrupted cities from barracks/temples to build workers in 1t or to wealth.

Wont we get a city near that side, and be able to rush galleys.


T1. 1010AD. Army kills japs longbow. Elite horse kills french longbow. I don't have enough troops to take Muskat i saw movement in between the turns and they have at least 3 spears and one longbow inside. Why have we stopped resource disconnect trick on both continents???? I don't even have workers anywhere nearby Delhi to do it...

What we had been doing is building horses on the FP continent, and shipping them over to be upgraded, as we only have enough cash for 2 upgrades per turn, we can't upgrade them all, so need to build some Knights somewhere, which is what is happening around Mecca.


Fez has grown to size 2 but Arabs will still give it to us. I took back all of the cities we previously gifted but due to luck of nearby troops i could not reach Alexandria and Seville. I will make peace with Arabs next turn.

Assume you did it as you don't mention it later?


T2. 1020AD. Retake Tokyo loosing a horse. Raize Bensacon. Take Alexandria and Seville back. Peace deal with Arabs, we take Fez, Shiraz and 48 Gold. They still left with 2 eastern cities. I don't have troops and i am afraid that now when Fez is pop 2 they won't trade it in. I am not worried about this peace. Our rep is ruined as as soon as we have reinforcements arabs are gone.. There might be a problem though. I saw an arab galley near Seville, hope it does not have a settler.

Did we get Fez or not? We should expect to see settler wandering around. Any corrupt coastal city should start galleys' so we can hunt them all down.

OK looking at the save now.

Did we get Fez or not? We should expect to see settler wandering around. Any corrupt coastal city should start galleys' so we can hunt them all down.

Answer:
Peace deal with Arabs, we take Fez, Shiraz and 48 Gold.


We have 200gpt now and we have Leo so upgrades are not problem anymore.

I switched all corrupted cities to either building galleys or to generate wealth.

Wont we get a city near that side, and be able to rush galleys.


Having a brain short... sure we will.... but i've already sent 3 galleys that direction. :undecide:

Looking at the save

1) Nagasaki is still our priority. This turn, put the two galleys on the whale, see if we can starve it down and see if we can get it.
Meanwhile, I would move those troops out of Kyoto, they are well healed, Edo must fall. Clearly we don't care about rep.

Move the other army out of Osaka, no barracks, no point.
Watch Cattaraugus from Satsuma

2) Egypt, don't forget our galley sitting next to their city. Just finish them too.
We seem to have too many horses going to their capital. They could be turn round to go to Scandy, and use the Knights from their other city to take it.

3) There is some cash out there, we can get Spain gold for Theology etc.

4) There are 3 spots of Satlpetr along China/Zulu not sure how we should get to it though.

5) Once we take Oslo there is iron that should give us more Knight upgrades there.

Looking at the save

1) Nagasaki is still our priority. This turn, put the two galleys on the whale, see if we can starve it down and see if we can get it.
Meanwhile, I would move those troops out of Kyoto, they are well healed, Edo must fall. Clearly we don't care about rep.

Move the other army out of Osaka, no barracks, no point.
Watch Cattaraugus from Satsuma

2) Egypt, don't forget our galley sitting next to their city. Just finish them too.
We seem to have too many horses going to their capital. They could be turn round to go to Scandy, and use the Knights from their other city to take it.

3) There is some cash out there, we can get Spain gold for Theology etc.

4) There are 3 spots of Satlpetr along China/Zulu not sure how we should get to it though.

5) Once we take Oslo there is iron that should give us more Knight upgrades there.

All good points. I intentially moved so many horses to Egypt. I reckon all these turns Egypt did nothing but built spears... I want to finish them in one turn, so few extra horses just in case. Edo is defended by Samurai, so beware. Oh, we also need to finish Spain with those horses.

All good points. I intentially moved so many horses to Egypt. I reckon all these turns Egypt did nothing but built spears... I want to finish them in one turn, so few extra horses just in case. Edo is defended by Samurai, so beware.
Right but we can get Egypt later, if those Knights from the island don't come through. The battle there is easy, the battle for China/Zulu will be tough so the quicker our knights get there the better.

In a recent GOTM I left two of my neighbours until the final turns of the overall battle. As the furthest civ was so far away (10-15 turns movement on another continent), there came a point where I knew that the horses on my main continent could not get to the far continent before it was all over. At that time (or about 20 turns before the end), I made the move on the final civs on my continent. I timed it withint a couple of turns to finish all three.

Same will happen here, as we start to attack Zulu, any horses built in Washington will never get to that front, but they might get to say Egypt.

All I'm saying is now as a team we need to assess how to finish each civ in the best time. Most of the small cities on the long peninsular can be taken in peace deals.

Now I agree with you completely :)
I didn't think that far in advance :blush:
Let's reverse horses and ship them to Scandinavia.

Iron hook/unhook thingy is working now in our FP core as well as in capital core...
so with all the money coming in we should be able to upgrade horses immediately upon build.

Hopefully tomorrow we will get another 20 turns with Wotan and Smackster playing their turns.

I'd love to hear from JJ as well... He really ought to change his mind and stay with the team.

OK, got it. Will look at it later today.

Played a few turns, 1080AD now. France is gone, Arabia too, but for a Settler moving that will be captured in two turns. Scandinavia are almost gone, will make peace for small cities before crushing them. At War with Egypt they will be gone too next turn. And yes, before I forget it, Nagasaki is ours and we have restarted war on Japan. Will continue tonight.

Played a few turns, 1080AD now. France is gone, Arabia too, but for a Settler moving that will be captured in two turns. Scandinavia are almost gone, will make peace for small cities before crushing them. At War with Egypt they will be gone too next turn. And yes, before I forget it, Nagasaki is ours and we have restarted war on Japan. Will continue tonight.
Good news on Nagasaki. Interested to know when they gave it, did we get it to size 2. Similar plans required for Zulu/England. Really now this game is a matter of how quickly we can get our Knights to the front lines. Need to clear up the centre location. Clear any settler galleys that are left.

Wow!!!!!
Good turns Wotan!!! :goodjob:
I was anxious to hear about Nagasaki, give us some details later please

Turn log

0 – 1050AD Pre-flight
Moving units, Galley to Whale among them. Moved out of Osaka. Sold Theology to Spain for 55 gold. Sold WM to anyone willing to pay for it.

1 – 1060AD
Nagasaki shrinks to size 2 and Japan offer it and 51 gold for Peace. We take it. Moving a lot of things towards frontlines. Oslo and Dijon will fall next turn.

2 – 1070AD
Dijon falls and France is no more. Oslo falls. DoW Japan again.

IBT: We make peace with Iroquois for Tyendenaga and 20 gold. Osaka flips.

3 – 1080AD
Osaka retaken, Edo falls. DoW Arabia, Aden and Muscat falls. A Settler will take a couple of turns to track down. DoW Egypt.

4 – 1090AD
Nidaros and Stockholm falls. We get Jönköping, Norrköping and 11 gold in a Peace agreement, Linköping last city. Nara and Nagoya falls. Satsuma new Capital, unfortunately they will not talk to us. 2 size 1 cities and Satsuma left.

IBT: Oil Springs flips…

5 – 1100AD
Last Egyptian Settler captured, they are now gone.

6 – 1110AD
Last Arabian Settler captured. DoW Iroquois. Caughnawaga falls. Peace with Japan, we get Yokohama, Shimonoseki and 31 gold. We immediately re-declare war but fail to capture Satsuma.

IBT: Edo flips…

7 – 1120AD
Satsuma and Edo falls, Japan out! Linköping falls but there is a Scandinavian Settler out there!!!! DoW Spain, Zaragoza falls. DoW Celts, Lugdunum falls.

8 – 1130AD
Richborough falls. Oil springs re-taken. Valencia falls, Spain is out!. Trotsky appears!

IBT: Zulu kill the final Scandinavian Settler. Education received from GL.

9 – 1140AD
Khanawake falls, Iroquois is out! 6 tribes to go… Burdigala and Entremont falls.

IBT: Zulu DoW on us!

10 – 850AD
Mohacs falls.

After action report:
We are at war with Zulu and Celts.

All set up for DoW on Aztecs next turn. A few warnings: Two settlers “on the road”, one outside Marseilles and one between Satsuma and Osaka. Kill them! Two Galleys with Knights at sea ready to land the knights on the jungle outside Texcoco. Two Armies and a few knights in the Osaka area will reach first jungle tile north of Tlatelolco.

Zulu have two galleys in the west, both visible this turn.

A leader outside Lugdunum.

One turn for a galley between Valencia/Göteborg. Have started to send Knights that way, probably should send all Knights built in “India” there in the future. We have a total of 98 Knights now all but a dozen in the east…

We need to get galleys to the southern and eastern sides of the central island in case of landings there. In the south this is a reality with a Chinese city on the small island.

MMing done, just press return… :)

Firaxis: 884

EDIT: We need to bring the war to England as well. And get a few more Knights onto the central island maybe land them near Chinese cities. The most southern city will take us more than 10 turns to reach with a galley from the north. Maybe we can get to it faster from the south? after capturing the Lighthouse.

Wow looks like a great set of turns. I'm going to play it this weekend, but probably not before Saturday, I'll want to do some serious analysis on our final moves.

:goodjob:
Most of the central islands Chinese cities can probably be taken in peace deal...
Macao and Chinan are the only 2 cities that can grow above size 2 withouth expanding or building harbors.
If we only had more knights in Scandinavia to hit China with all the force.
We have horses there but won't be able to upgrade them soon, since iron is disconnected.
Other than that everything looks great. Celts are almost out.
Monty is a joke.
All those knights coming south should strike England and Liz doesn't really have big cities, neither she has salpenter.
China also doesn't have salpenter and the only nation who can give us more or less of a hard time would be Zulus.... But by that time i hope we will double the number of knights we have.

Can I officially announce that most difficult part of this game is over and we are entering the finish line? :)

BTW. I am at home today and loaded the save... looks nice, everything looks nice.

Wow looks like a great set of turns. I'm going to play it this weekend, but probably not before Saturday, I'll want to do some serious analysis on our final moves.
That would be great. I had some worries I had sent too many Knight/HMs east. There is a long and steady straem of them from former Arabia and towards the front but too few in the west. The road is just one tile short of Valencia and I have been sending loads of Workers there so the roading should pick up speed south of Valencia. Maybe we should start to rush regular HMs in the cities we have in the exteme SW?

And, Nagasaki shrunk to 2 the turn after I put the galley on the Whale. The same thing should happen to the Zulu and English cities on 1-tile islands.

EDIT: @Dman, the camels back is broken! Now it is just a question of finishing in so few turns as possible. We have 98 Knights! Actually more than needed in my opinion but to few of them are in the west. So we need to speed up to begin the war with England so our forces start moving west from the eastern front.

If Smacksters planning session can find a way for us to win this in 20 turns I would be sooo happy! More than that and I am less sure we have a good finish date. And if there is a possibility to do it in that time frame I suggest Smackster finish this baby on his watch!

I had no problem getting two consecutive peace offers from Japan, first for Nagasaki and then for their remaining 1 size cities. I would guess we can do the same with China if needed. Rushing Galleys in the south to send suicide galles towards the southern part of "central isles" could be an option to to get those annoying chinese cities.

Guys,

Looks like you are back on track!
I am really glad it you got us out of that quagmire I put you in.
Thats it you see, I would really hate it if I messed it all up for the team. That would be almost the only thing I know of that could make me feel real, real bad about myself.

Good job!

jj

Guys,

Looks like you are back on track!
I am really glad it you got us out of that quagmire I put you in.
Thats it you see, I would really hate it if I messed it all up for the team. That would be almost the only thing I know of that could make me feel real, real bad about myself.
Actually you didn't put us in a bad position at all. Reputation breaking has made no difference to the end result. As the others have said, we should have this wrapped up in the next 20 turns, which should be completed in the next 24 hours :)

As we are about to finish this SG, how about us guys playing a self made SG while we wait for the next one. A bad start Conquests Deity game or something like that.

Glad to hear it!

I wouldnt mind a Deity Conquest, if it isnt as intense as this one, that is :)
Since not being a competition game I guess there is a more lax approach.
Not to say that one shouldnt put in the effort... :)

jj

If Smacksters planning session can find a way for us to win this in 20 turns I would be sooo happy! More than that and I am less sure we have a good finish date. And if there is a possibility to do it in that time frame I suggest Smackster finish this baby on his watch!

Yes I'll finish it. I'm sure this can be done in less than 20, if every effort is put into finishing quickly, and I try to pull every last trick I know.


I had no problem getting two consecutive peace offers from Japan, first for Nagasaki and then for their remaining 1 size cities. I would guess we can do the same with China if needed. Rushing Galleys in the south to send suicide galles towards the southern part of "central isles" could be an option to to get those annoying chinese cities.
My experience is that reputation does not affect what you get in peace deals, and I think this has proved that. The only random factor is how long before they will talk to you, they key part is how much damage you do to them.

I'm going to implement more city gifting (although this time I might not suggest gifting Thebes which has the Pyramids, did anyone notice that little mistake), to maximise damage and in theory give us more of their cities in peace.

Glad to hear it!

I wouldnt mind a Deity Conquest, if it isnt as intense as this one, that is :)
Since not being a competition game I guess there is a more lax approach.
Not to say that one shouldnt put in the effort... :)

jj
Yes this would be relaxed, and would be good preparation for the next SGOTM.

Good.
Because I would really like the opportunity to cooperate and learn more from you guys.

Guys,

Looks like you are back on track!
I am really glad it you got us out of that quagmire I put you in.
Thats it you see, I would really hate it if I messed it all up for the team. That would be almost the only thing I know of that could make me feel real, real bad about myself.

Good job!

jj
You probably had the most difficult turn set of them all. I felt a bit on the edge during the first few of my turns but now the game is easy to wrap up. The difficult part is doing it in as few turns as possible. The only thing in your turns that might have cost us a few turns was the loss of a really good RoP rape in the final stages but since you did not know about how reputation works in the game we can't really hold it against you. And in my turn set I probably regained a few of those turns by being able to disregard our reputation and Zulu DoW also made it less important sinc ewe cannot use it against them. So on the whole I guess we are on track again. And I hope you have reconsidered and stay on the team. Not that you will get to play any more turns until the next SGOTM

Now all that remains is to finish this off in a better way than we did in SGOTM3. We lost that game by one turn and actually squandered a few turns in the final stages of the game by bad planning. With Smackster MMing this final turn set I look forward to not having to experience that again.

@Smackster: OK on the private game, with the holidays coming up there will be plenty of time for some gaming.

Now all that remains is to finish this off in a better way than we did in SGOTM3. We lost that game by one turn and actually squandered a few turns in the final stages of the game by bad planning. With Smackster MMing this final turn set I look forward to not having to experience that again.
Klarius only managed that as he knew our date, which he will not this time. Actually I was thinking of posting a save the turn before our finish date. They will assume that is the last save before finish, and that our real finish is 5-10 turns after that. I don't want to give them an accurate target. With the rank corruption exploiting in the non-jump games, they may well generate hundreds of units and still beat us.


@Smackster: OK on the private game, with the holidays coming up there will be plenty of time for some gaming.
Any suggestions for something different. Or shall we just play a totally random game, I'll randomise everything, generate the map, and post that. C3C.

Edit: We can post it in the forums and ask for 1-2 other players. It would be a good chance to start a Team Smackster training school so that we have enough players for our SGOTM.

Klarius only managed that as he knew our date, which he will not this time. Actually I was thinking of posting a save the turn before our finish date. They will assume that is the last save before finish, and that our real finish is 5-10 turns after that. I don't want to give them an accurate target. With the rank corruption exploiting in the non-jump games, they may well generate hundreds of units and still beat us.


Call me paranoid, but every time i look at who is in this forum i see quite few "GUESTS". Are those guests or are those spies i don't know :) .
But i have slight feeling that information is getting leaked from the team's threads.
Ok, Ok... i admit i am the paranoid :mischief:


Edit: We can post it in the forums and ask for 1-2 other players. It would be a good chance to start a Team Smackster training school so that we have enough players for our SGOTM.

So is it going to be a diety conquests game???
Are we going to train and be trained for the fastest conquest or come sort of non-military victory? I think next SG Mad-Bax will do something opposite from conquest/domination...
If we want to have really lousy start we probably should ask Doc. T. to give us some map numbers... He was collecting those ugly start location.


EDIT: How about a little competition within the team..
Smackster plays official turns but everybody else will play as well and we will see who can pull the victory in a fastest possible win...
Loser will pay for food and drinks next time we gather together somewhere in London... (I randomly picked up that city as a middle location between all of us)

EDIT: How about a little competition within the team..
Smackster plays official turns but everybody else will play as well and we will see who can pull the victory in a fastest possible win...
Loser will pay for food and drinks next time we gather together somewhere in London... (I randomly picked up that city as a middle location between all of us)
Interesting idea, we could each play 10 turns of the same save and then post what we did and compare. Start again with the worst save (take a vote) each play it and post again.

Why don't I just pick a totally random C3C diety map (even the number of opponents), and we take what we get.

Still haven't looked at the save, still at work, and going out tonight.

Well MapStat tells me that our friends China need Education, and I think our price is an alliance against Zulu. It would be good to get those two fighting while we take them from both sides :)

Wow I finnaly get off school and you guys are almost done , I guess I'll look at the save still.

Yes, this will be over in less than 20 I'm sure of that.

I've looked at the save and did find something to MM, I gained one gold with a manipulation in Bombay so now I'm really happy :)

But seriously I've seen a way to use all our home forces in the final battle. Simple really, as we approach Zulu (assuming they are the last opponent), I'll jump the palace to the front lines (where ever our troops are, so the jump works), then move all our troops in the core into a few cities, gift those cities to Zulu, and they will all teleport to the front. We declare war retake the cities and plow through Zulu.

Interesting idea...
Make sure palace jumps where you want it rather than to one of those one tile islands. :joke: :lol:

But seriously do it... I'd love to read last detailed report, hopefully tomorrow it will all be over.

Less than 5 to go before we have Smacksters fabulous finish... ;)

Its 1210AD, I'm at the gates of London, but its taking ages to get the troops to the front. No thoughts of a palace jump until we get to Zulu, which will be the final battle.

Turns are taking ages and I have other stuff to do. I'll do as much as I can and post.

Take your time, do not rush it at this stage. We can wait until tomorrow for the end. :) A report from the front when you decide you have played enough for today would be nice though.

T0 1150AD
Move troops nearer to Tlatelolco

IBT
Aztec ask us to move, but we want to get through that Aztec jungle, so we declare war, and they take one of our cities.
Zulu move a city near one of our cities, although a spearman is built. They will only capture it.

T1 1160AD
Get embassy with China for 50 gold, they will fight Zulu for Education, 2 * luxuries, 70 GPT, and 25 gold. Are they nuts with our reputation, we'll take it, and declare war on them.
China do have Salpetr.

Its always nice if the AI can declare on you, we ask England to move and they declare war on us. Don't panic this is manageable. By the time they attack us they will give us peace.

We rush a barracks in Stockhold. Abandon, Oslo so that we can drop a colony on the iron and don't have to road it to upgrade those horses

T2 1170AD
We still can't upgrade the horses in the west, we do need horses over there not just iron. A harbour will work, so we rush that. Its costs some, but all the horses to upgrade are a long way from the fight

We attack Aztecs and take three of the T cities, can't pronounce thoese name.

Time for real action. Who says our rep is so broken we can't get a deal, if the power is high and the price is right. China declars war on Zulu for Education, maps, 80 GPT (they wont get that for long), 2 luxuries, and 50 gold, and they sign a ROP with us, the fools.
Zulu wont give us peace, but we are going to take that when we can.

Both Aztecs and Celts are on their last knees, so we concentrate forces for England, and move troops to the border

Massed quantities of Knights are fast approaching the front. More arrive at the pick up point for Scandy.

T3 1180AD
All that cash and we still can't upgrade our horses in Scandy. We see a zulu gallye in the trade path and kill it, but still we don't get it, there must be others in the way.
Sending troops through China, as we can get them later.

China also show they have Riders. Peace with Zulu will break this deal, I'll wait one more turn to see if I can get the upgrade and then attack

T4 1190AD
Still no upgrades in Scandy. I guess there is somebody in the path. I find a sleeping galley and start to move it along the northern border.
We capture Canterbury easily but find its not even connected to the rest of England. They do have Knights one of which we dispatch.

T5 1200AD
The deal is broken with China, must have had luxuries cut off. That is fine we declare war. Attacks don't work too well, but we cut off their horses. We start to move our horses we can't upgrade. Our army is right near Beijing
We pick off a few of their cities in the center island

Tenoctitlan falls and we get another far off city for peace. One Aztec city left.

Knights move one step closer to York, but tis slow going through this land.

IBT English Knight moves past our armies :) China no counter attacks.

T6 1210AD
York falls, we hook up the roads, and a mass of Knights and armies arrive on a hill within striking distance of London. The English pigs only have spearmen in their cities, rather strange.

The Battles in China don't go so well, we can't seem to take anything, but we do them damage. The army and another knight start to cut off Beijing. More troops are coming but we are short in this arena

Battles on the center island are going well, but China still has 5 cities there.

Last Aztec city taken and we get their settler, they are now gone

T7 1220AD
Mohacs flips with a two knight army, but we take it back and we take the Celts capital.

London falls, only two spear defenders. Zulu Knight outside, maybe they are fighting the English, as the others join I think they might be.
Just for fun we get Mongals to join an alliance with us against Zulu, we give them three techs for it.
We now take Hastings, but of course England will not give us the one tile

T8 1230AD
Mongals ask us to leave, and we refuse. The Zulus fight the Mongals and Mongals lose their capital.

The conditions look right for the palace jump. The workers arrive at London. About 35 Knights move into three cities waiting for Kirk to beam them up
The armies, knights, everything arrive at London. We've only got one shot at this. But next turn

T9 1240AD
London resistance ends, and it doesn't flip, wow we would have lost 20 knights if it had.

I don't think I have the numbers right, I do a quick count and its close. I abandon Mecca and it does not go to London. OK, don't panic as we know we'll get it there somehow, and all the troops build in our cores from this point will not enter the game.
So I go through Seattle, Bombay, Washington, then London. Phew. I have destroyed our core, but actually we are still making +312 per turn.

I make peace with the Celts for a city. We gift Tokyo to Celts and 14 Knights are teleported to London. I give Paris to the Celts and 11 Knights are teleported to London.
Next we give Chicago to the Celts and another 8 Knights are in London. In a flash 33 additional Knights in the front lines.

At last some success against China and we take Shanhai, starts building a galley.

England down to two cities, one of which is Newcastle. We have to get it down in size to get it.

We put something like 41 Knights and three armies into the Zulu front. Typically there are no roads, so its going to take two turns just to get there.

T10 1250AD
Mongols are gone. Take the first Zulu city
Knight on gallye ready to land near the Chinese cities in the center island

Next Zulu city, size 12 defended by one Impi falls but we still lose a knight

T11 1260AD
Another Zulu city with one defender. We can see they have some Muskets, but we have not got there yet. Knights arrive at their satlpetr and iron
We are now very close to a deal on Tugela, still can't get Nottingham, galley should be on the fish in two turns

Canton falls, again, one defender, still take us three knights.

4-5 turns to win, will finish tonight.

1260AD
Move massive quantities of Knights into Zulu territory

1265AD
Tough fighting in China, as we make little progress.
On the central island we take another Chinese city, they are down to two there
In Zulu we take Hlobane, and move on Ulundi
Celts down to one city after they give us their far off city for peace. We gift them Paris and Chicago and jump another 20 Knights into London, we don't need them they wont make the front lines, but what the hay.

1270AD
Ulundi is defended by the dreaded Impi, and we lose 4 knights defeating them. Luckily we had about 20 in range.
Intombe, is harder as it has muskets, but we lose no knights taking that., only about 15 knights were left unused here.
At last Zulu will give us Tugela for peace and now there is only one 1 city site left. Galleys get to that fish next turn.
Straigh back to war with Zulu and now we have Zim in range. As we have stacks of Knights it will fall next turn.

We attack Beijing again, but just don't have enough troops there. At last we knock China off the middle continent. For peace they will give us two cities I can't find. I take them only to find there is an island in far sw corner.

This is so close I can smell it , how many 1 tilers are there left?

So it's only Zululand China and Celts left?

About that random C3C game , are we going to use this thread for it or go into the SG forums?

1275AD
There was a Zulu knight hidden among mine and he takes Imtombe back.

2 More Zulu cities are taken including Zim

1280AD
At last Newcastle is size 2 and we get it for peace with England

Zim is sent to the far continent. We have knights there but not enough.

China is the problem here, as we hit Beijing again, with and army too and lose the army it just wont go.

England surive. The celts survive too.

1285AD
Last English spear defends against 3 knights. city flips to celts just as we get their capital.

6 knights attack beijing but it wont fall.

1295AD
City flips to celts again, just as I was about to take their last city.
This is not my problem, in the far SE, I sent a number of knights down there but they either die or are put back by Impi. Now I just don't have enough down there.
All cash is used to rush things, but a couple of turns are being wasted here. Also that English city is still there, they must keep rushing new spearmen.

1300AD
England and Celts gone at last.

But we still have trouble in the far off continent. Rushing what I can. but they wont talk peace and I don't have enough there.

Beijing falls at last, and that will help us with gall movement.

Nightmare, still have not finished and I've got an early flight, so I'll finish on the plane and post when I get there.

I was so focused on getting the one tilers, that I didn't put enough into the far corner. Then the RNG got me with what I sent.

Another few turns to finish at least.

Feels like it's been a l-o-o-o-o-ng flight.....

Sorry guys I should not have offered to finish the game, but I got to a point where I couldn't just post the save, and it just took so much longer than I thought.

I didn't get a chance to do it yesterday but I'm going to have a look now

Personally i am not in a hurry, just anxious...
But you should take your time and spend all you want thinking on moves :) .

1300AD
Having to pull from 1300 AD autosave, to find that the Celts do not fall, if they flip again, I might just flip the PC across the room, don't worry I'm calm. I broke all the sins of SG's on Saturday night, trying to finish the game before a flight, but as I'd got it in such a mess, I couldn't hand it over.
Now where is that icon for slapping oneself in the face.

So I attack the Celtic city again with the same horse as before and he dies. I'm afraid I don't know the order, Beijing first or Celtic city first? Too bad, I do take Beijing, with about 20 Knights attacking. I fortify a stack of about 10 as there is nowhere for them to go.

The Lighthouse really does help now, and for the first time I can move galleys between the continents. Maybe this will help us finish the last few cities.

I look at diplomacy to find England are still there, what is going on. I check my patch level and its up to date. I search and there is a galley, next to my galley, I attack it dies, my god this is a nightmare.

1305AD
Celts continue to flip, I move Knights from all over to try to get to this latest city, and raze a few.

Nobody is talking peace with us now, so I'm just having to take out each city.

I have a few knights in the far left corner, but there are so many mountains its tough to get through. There are three cities left there, one Chinese and two Zulu. I capture one of the Zulu cities.

1310AD
I'd been tracking a Zulu galley it drops off a settler with an elite knight, it will take two turns to get to that as its in jungle.

City flips to Zulu. Starting to raze cities that have flip chances, this is crazy. Although so far it hasn't really cost us a turn.

1315AD
A momentus turn where nothing flips.

We attack the last Celtic city from 3 sides and take it, but even though its the last city, we raze it to teach somebody a lesson. Celts are gone.

We attack the last Chinese city, but it holds. We don't have enough there now to take it next turn. We look east and I just got some knights in a galley and that can get there. I'm lucky the last Zulu settler did not settle in the jungle, he moved east, one square closer to a stack of 24 knights that had come from the main battles.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/zulu.jpg

We actually have a chance to win it next turn

1320AD
Bad news as the Zulu settler forms a city, and our stack can't get to it. Wait, there is one 3/4 knight right next to that city. He's fighting a 5/5 knight, he goes in, and wins.
Back to the other continent. 3/3 knight against Impi, who have proved formidable foe, but one attack, one win and Zulu are gone.

China have Tientsin, we have 4 knights attacking. First one gets it and there is nobody left. Next turn will give us the win.

Can't quite believe that once I got stacks of knights into the attack I would always win with the first attack.

Hit end turn.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/victory.jpg

Yeah!!!! Finally!!!!

Thanks Smackster!!!
I am not sure we will get golden Laurel, but i feel much better when it's over :)

Good job!!! :goodjob:
I doub't we could do it any better than you did.

First off, what when wrong with those last turns.

1) I made two major mistakes, not putting enough troops into attacking from the west, I did send some there, but not enough, I guess that is true as Wotan said of his turns. The fact that I took Beijing from the East is a problem. The second mistake was that I thought I could take Beijing with the western forces, if instead I had just bypassed it and take cities east I would have opened up the roads to the major attack forces.

2) I spent a lot of time trying to get those one tile cities in peace deals, and after I got them I never got peace again with Zulu/China (even though China did not have a one tiler, I still needed peace to get their far off cities) and that meant I didn't have enough forces in the SW. Luck paid a part, as there were cities over there, but each one was attacked by a lone Zulu horseman, who raized them after defeating the spearman defender. If one of those cities had held we would have had a base, much closer to be able to build knights.

Overall the fact that the last city to fall was the Lighthouse city, really hurt us.

The palace jumping / city gifting did seem to work, as those last battles I had amazing numbers of troops in the field. The battle for Beijing, I might have lost 8-10 knights, but I had so many I just kept sending them in until we took it.

I can just post the final save to the submission site, that will mean that our last save shown will be the current one. They will probably think we won a lot sooner than we did (as I played 25 turns on this turnset). I'm thinking that I don't want to set them such a target, maybe if I submit say a 1300AD save, and then the final.

Lets do no posting in the other threads, don't want to give them a clue

Well done. I am a bit annoyed I let so many turns pass in my last turn set before realising we had an imbalance between Western and Eastern army strength. The Lighthouse was a major set back. If only India/Spain or America had built it... 1325 feels a bit late so I am rather sure Jefflammer or Offa will beat it.

Lets do no posting in the other threads, don't want to give them a clue
Shouldn't that be: @Dman: Lets do no posting in the other threads, don't want to give them a clue :lol: :lol: :lol:

Well done. I am a bit annoyed I let so many turns pass in my last turn set before realising we had an imbalance between Western and Eastern army strength. The Lighthouse was a major set back. If only India/Spain or America had built it... 1325 feels a bit late so I am rather sure Jefflammer or Offa will beat it.
It wasn't totally clear that we had too many troops in the east, until after I'd done the palace jumping. If I'd done that into the west it would have finished the game much quicker, but there were no obvious cities and we didn't have the forces there like we did in the east to help the palace jump (not that it worked the way I expected)

I looked at their Threads, Offa have Cossacks but seem to have a lot of land to take. Gozpel is against ship chaining and palace jumping so that will slow them down. Looking at that thread, I'll just post the final save, no need to give them anymore clue.
Jefflhammer, seems further out of it, we'll see.

Shouldn't that be: @Dman: Lets do no posting in the other threads, don't want to give them a clue :lol: :lol: :lol:

I wonder where are those accusations are coming from???? :hmm:
:D

1. Smackster, when are you going to start training SG? Today sounds as good as ever :) (if you have time that is)

2. Question for M-B. Is it legal to lurk other team threads without uploading and posting final save? Technically we finished the game, but don't want to have any legal issues here.

Congratulations, well done :)

A-ha.... Lurkers are here....
Didn't take long, did it :)

Looked at the Offa thread... They are very dangerous...
They captured a big chunk of land already and with Cossacks they can move much faster than we did.
I am suprprised how fast they managed to get Cossacks. Jeffelammar team is also researching towards MT full speed but I believe Offa already had cossacks when Jeffelammar team has only finished with invention.

I am not sure what unit production rate is for both teams.

If someone will beat us in conquest contest i believe it is going to be Klarius again. I don't think Jeffelammar will do it, but then who knows....

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

I looked at Offa's save (our save is uploaded) and they are sure to beat our score, with so many Cossacks in play. Now I wonder if it was right not to try to research MT. Well its interesting to see two very different games going for the same goal. I have a feeling that it will be as close as 5 turns, and will be those damn 5 turns that should never have been played.

Its easy to say now, but if I started the last 20 turns now, it would be easy to win in 20, and beat 1300AD. But it was a fun game anyway.

I'll start the training game when I get back home. I can't do this until I return.

smackster

I looked at Offa's save (our save is uploaded) and they are sure to beat our score, with so many Cossacks in play. Now I wonder if it was right not to try to research MT.
smackster

I've been scratching my head for quite sometime already..... We would sure have had a slower start, but then we would have much faster movements and kill ratio with cossacks. Especially if we didn't let AIs to advance further than pikes/muskets.
This game was all about possibilities and different strategies...
Even with the one we have chosen we could probably have shaven around 10-15 turns if we played perfect game with no errors made period.

I reckon it would also be better if Smackster stopped after 10 turns and put game with save and map in the thread. May be we would find some of the misses like troops disbalance...

Game was fun. If not first we most likely will get the second place.
But then there will be SGOTM6 which BTW doesn't start until end of January and it gives as plenty of time to do intra-team SG.


EDIT: I suggest we play as any 3rd tier civilization in training game for added difficulty.

I guess we wasted about 20 turns by mistakes, I cost us a few in my final turn set by not sending enough units west. Should have spotted that weakness. The major mistakes that followed us throughout the game was when we were "treading water" at the very beginning of the Indian campaign. That was probably a minimum cost of 5 turns but might have been as much as 10! And Smackster could have shaved a few off his final set of turns.

I looked at Offa's save (our save is uploaded) and they are sure to beat our score, with so many Cossacks in play. Now I wonder if it was right not to try to research MT. Well its interesting to see two very different games going for the same goal. I have a feeling that it will be as close as 5 turns, and will be those damn 5 turns that should never have been played.

Its easy to say now, but if I started the last 20 turns now, it would be easy to win in 20, and beat 1300AD. But it was a fun game anyway.

I'll start the training game when I get back home. I can't do this until I return.

smackster
If we could we should practice "end game" strategies. We seem to lose every game in the final turns... We have a solid lead in every game until we have broken the camels back then we finally lose out by a turn or two. :(

Offa seem to have a more difficult time with one of the one-tiles though, it has a harbour! :)

Don't beat yourselves up too much - looks to me like you folk turned in a great effort to finish when you did. Congratulations. You beat us by a decent margin !

Definitely, congratulations! The other teams will need an exceptional set of turns to better your date.

I had a couple questions: how many Palace Jumps did you do? And how concerned were you about 1 tile islands? I'm especially curious about that because there a three 1 tile islands to the SE of the Celts that are only reachable by suicide Galley or someone with the GreatLighthouse, and one of those islands has a Luxury on it.

Great work Smackster!
From what I can understand from your reports you did a very good job trying to finish the game off.
I was quite impressed, and also you shouldnt be so hard on yourselves team.
Some bad rolls and some flipping are out of our control basically, so, again :goodjob:
Lets cross all we got that this will be enough to pull off the victory.

Also, I would suggest, like Wotan has been into: what couldve been done better: When did we wait too long and loose turns, did we stop research to early, should the lighthouse had been built, and, naturally, where were the clear mistakes ;)


Looking forward to playing that SG, Deity with a 3rd tier civ.


JJ

Somehow Klarius knows we won the game.... Call me paranoid, but he is a one smart guy to figure it out. :)

Definitely, congratulations! The other teams will need an exceptional set of turns to better your date.

I had a couple questions: how many Palace Jumps did you do? And how concerned were you about 1 tile islands? I'm especially curious about that because there a three 1 tile islands to the SE of the Celts that are only reachable by suicide Galley or someone with the GreatLighthouse, and one of those islands has a Luxury on it.
We had three palace jumps. An early one to Calcutta, and as soon as the FP was built in Delhi, we then jumped it to Mecca. That was really the end of it, but later on I jumped to London. The third jump was a bit cheesy, as I simply used it to teleport troops to the front, I gifted cities to the AI with our stacks of knights, who found themselves in London.

From the moment we notice the 1-tilers we made it our No.1 priority. Essentially when we went to war with any AI that had a 1-tiler we would keep fighting until they gave it to us. Both the Zulu and English gave up theirs as soon as the island was down to size 2, which coincided with our galleys sitting on their fish / whales.

Nobody got to the SE islands, I didn't know they existed until the end game histograph review. The Chinese got the GL, and proceeded to settle the middle island and the island to the SW. We managed to destroy all the middle island, and got the SW cities for peace.

I'm sure the simple reason was not sending enough troops west, and those that went west did not do the right thing. I never had enough troops to capture Beijing so should have just taken all their other cities, that way I could have opened up a route for the main forces to get to Beijing quicker.

I should have only played 10 in that last session, although when I started to play I thought I had enough time to finish it.

Also it really was not obvious that we had to little going west. It seemed like we needed every troop we could muster for the east. In the end of course I had stacks of Knights with nothing to do. The knights from the final city gift never got to the front lines.

I'm sure the simple reason was not sending enough troops west, and those that went west did not do the right thing. I never had enough troops to capture Beijing so should have just taken all their other cities, that way I could have opened up a route for the main forces to get to Beijing quicker.
Also it really was not obvious that we had to little going west. It seemed like we needed every troop we could muster for the east. In the end of course I had stacks of Knights with nothing to do. The knights from the final city gift never got to the front lines.
Unfortunately I was too focused on fixing the situation in the east to think about the western situation until the late stages of my turns. OTOH an earlier understanding would probably only have added another 5 or 6 Knights to the western armies so we probably should have spotted it even earlier than that.

Don't blame yourself Smackster. You have had a good set of turns.
Let's watch Offa's saga on that one tile island...
They are moving 16 galleys to starve it down. I'd really love to see a screen shot :)

Overall I think our tactics were right, even if we don't win it will be very close. We didn't really have any luck, actually we were unlucky in some cases. I really think that M-B should be given a lot of praise for the map as we can see two very different strategies converging on the same dates.

When I point out mistakes I'm just pointing out what we could have done better, to me this is part of the fun :). So another mistake I made was rushing barracks and harbour to the west, trying to bring horses to that land, so that I could upgrade the horses we had. Of course we never got a trade route as the route travelled through enemy coastal squares. That wasted some gold.

Just took a look at Offa , the iriqous have a 6 pop 1 tiler with a harbor :eek: I think this will slow them down consideribly.

Jeffelamer is gonna be very close.

Thread is up, you are going to love this start position. I think we can add one more player to this game, which I stated in the thread.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2430975&postcount=1

I subscridebed to the thread and posted some thoughts.

Looks like Jeffelammers have the same problem we had in SGOTM3...

They counting points and score and arguing how to get higher score.

Must have forgotten it is all about the fastest finish only.

There is no doubt now we are not getting laurel... :sad:
Klarius pulled another 10 brilliant turns and team offa only handful of turns from victory.

There is no doubt now we are not getting laurel... :sad:
Klarius pulled another 10 brilliant turns and team offa only handful of turns from victory.
Yes I knew we were in trouble when they had two skips and Klarius came up. I think they can win in 5, and we would have had to be perfect to win by that date.

In retrospect.....
It probably was better to research towards MT and totally skip researching
Feud.,Mono.,Chiv....
But rather doing Eng.,Inv., Gunpowder,..., MT
We could probably be better off jumping from horses to cossacks, getting golden age and finishing the game there.

I am sure next game will be totally different in terms of map and strategies...
But i guess we will have to spend an extra cycle on doing math before making a final decision.

Good job anyways. I still believe we will be the second team this time around.

Well it was a close finish staying with Knights. So I don't think there is anything wrong with our tactic. I personally never skip Kinghts as it takes too long waiting for MT to start the major offensive. On any other game level I would certainly have pushed for Chivalry then MT.

@Smackster: Do you want to post our final save. I guess, we don't need to withhold anymore

Its posted. Remember that it wont show until all games are finished.

Reading the other threads, most teams think we have finished about 15 turns ahead of our actual finish :)

Whoops that was me, logged in for a 7 year old, we are playing an SG with some kids if you didn't already know.

Its pretty funny, playing Age of Discovery conquests, trying to explain why Spain can't research Protestanism to a 7 year old.

I've been lurking that thread since it started. :scan:

Reading the other threads, most teams think we have finished about 15 turns ahead of our actual finish :)
Except for klarius, who have an exceptional ESP ability. In every SGOTM he have been dead on what we are doing... ;)

Looks like a very good effort by all of you, despite my sudden absence in the middle of it :) With some luck, I should manage to stick around for the next one :p

People People People!!!
SGOTM6 is up and running.
Are we in as the same team..
I hope we are..
Tarkeel, Can you join ????

Yes I'm ready to play, let us know here if you are playing and I can do one team post

I can play, but I'm a bit rusty atm. Rome has taken much of my time lately