Been playing a few times the TAM mod. Mostly on low difficulty and still it was very tough. I'm not motivated enough to play a single player game on high difficulty since it is really insane. But I like the mod so much, with all these beautiful units and many various civs! Especially, it plays like a completely different game, very little similarity with actual Conquests. No settler factories, no worker factories, not even barracks until a certain stage of the game! Multiple possiblities to trigger Golden Age, very peculiar civ-specific small wonders, great map, powerful AIs, multitude of resources! And slave and prisoner sacrifice to end up the gorefest with a 20K or even 100K victories! Indeed a fascinating mod!

About TAM:
- TAM's thread at CFC: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=23420
- TAM's forum at CDG : http://cdgroup.org/forums/tbs/civ3/index.php?h=1&pf=21
- Watorrey's site about TAM : http://civ3.watorrey.net/pages/tam.html
- Justus II's reference site about TAM : http://joe-s.home.insightbb.com/ancient_med.htm

The mod is rather large (80Mb download plus 2.5j patch). But it is well worth it!

Difficulty level is open for discussion but I'm thinking of Deity played by the RBC rules (no exploits). Not sure if anybody tried it and if it is winnable. Certainly Emperor is winnable. :)

Choice of civilization is also rather large (over 26).

Apparently it might be better to limit the game to players who are comfortable with Deity difficulty at the very least.

Specifics of the TAM mod

It might be I'm missing some important points here, please correct me if I'm wrong.

1. Cities not on the river can grow to size 4 without aqueduct. Cities on the river can grow to size 8 only without sewer. Cities over size 8 generate considerable pollution which is decreased by building public baths. All these improvements are very expensive to build.

2. Settlers cost 50 shields and are worth 3 citizens (30 shields and 2 citizens normally). This speaks for itself. No worker or settler factories ever!

3. Pottery is not a first level tech and is rather difficult to research. So, no early granaries. Hence, growth strategies are completely different and there is no REXing neither for a human playr nor for AI. Initial game flow is extremely slow.

4. Workers speed in very slow even with industrious trait.

5. There are no barracks essentially till almost the end of the game. The only place to produce veteran units and upgrade is the capital since Palace acts as barracks.

6. However, some regular units have 4 or even 5 hit points whereas heroic units (analog of elites) can have up to 7 hit points. Attack and defense strength of most units is doubled. Hence, combat system is rather different.

7. Settlers, wheeled units and most of the foot units cannot enter mountains and swamp unless workers build a road there. Cities cannot be founded on desert, forest, and mountains but OK in swamp once there is road there. Archers and some other units can enter mountains and are at the same time amphibious.

8. Ships are really slow until late in the game and even then and even with seafaring trait.

10. Barbarians are huge. They have attack of 4 and defence of 2 fortunately always conscript (3 hit points). Barbarian (pirate) ships are also very powerful. This limits initial contacts and early exploration substantially. There are also wild wolves which have 2 mp but attack-defence only 1-1.

11. There is a great choice of various governments and some wonders depend on governement. Once you revolt to another government, the wonder disappears.

12. There are civ-specific small wonders for each civ and their benefit is not to be underestimated.

13. There is very few possibilities of building local culture since temples bring only 1 culture per turn and building them in corrupt cities is virtually impossible since they require a cult site improvement to be built first.

14. Some units have enslave ability and slaves (traded or captured or obtained by razing cities) and enslaved units can be sacrificed to increase local culture or culture in the cultural center (capital usually). Capital accounts for about 80-90% of total culture.

15. AIs are very difficult to manipulate. They always ask you out of their territory. RoP are possible only later in the game. Military alliances are not possible completely IIRC.

Overall this stands for a very different kind of game.

Tempting.....

I haven't been in SGs for a while, but I guess I sign up.

I'm comfortable with deity, and KNOW it can be done.
Edit: I know it can be done on demi-god.

What civ? Howmany AIs?

Great to have you here Stapel. Hope Krys will join as well. ;)

It is the large map with all civs which TAM has (about 30 iirc). I'm not completely sure of how many are playable by a human player. Probably something around 20 and for Deity we might want to pick up some strong civ. I had a great experience with Kolchis and also tried Hunns, Egypt, Israel, Troy and Assyria but all on lower difficulty. Even started some games with Romans, Mynoans, Babylonians, Massagetae, Macedon and Picts but never finished them. Also tried Numidians, Scyth, Iberians and Etruscans but these are tough. Expansionist trait is kinda useless with these pesky barbarians.

There is a huge choice of unique units and starting options. And apparently, there is no way to play without MapStat since there are too many contacts and trade opportunities to monitor manually.

I'm in. :) I think I owe you something, akots. ;)

I'm OK for Deity, I trust in you. Do you want to play with all the 31 civs (fine with me) ? I'm fine with any civ that had significant importance in History. Fukc the Scyths or Kolchis or whatnot. :D

I hope we can grab 2 more people who know this mod, because I'm the newbie here (despite being the one who started the TAM hype at CDZ :eek: ).

I would very much like to play in this game! If you take me I will post some thoughts about what civ we could chose later on.

Surely, we seem to have a nice company assembled! :)

So far the roster looks great for Deity. IMHO, we can pull it off, at least give a decent fight before we lose. :lol:

OK, there are 4 players now:

Stapel
Krys
grs
akots

It might be a good idea to have at least one more or preferably two players. The map is large and turns might take time to play. The interturns are also long because of many AIs and lots of units crusing around. And the more the merrier!

Any thoughts about which civ to play?

I don't really mind what civ.

Can you give a brief summary of what this mod is. Trying to skim the sites in your links was a bit overwhelming.

It is indeed overwhelming. The best summary is in Justus II site. The best thing about it is that it plays completely differently. I'll try to summarize the most important pecularities of the gameplay process itself.

I think this will be on my watching list.

I'd like to try this one, though I'd be a newbie for this mod, I have extensive experience with other mods.

Ok time for some suggestions:

The Etruria: Agricultural, Seafaring. They have a nice civ-spefic advantage with their cheap granary and a UU that comes with bronze working (+1 speed).

Dacia: Expansionist, Agricultural. Tribalism (only 50 shields) reduces war weariness and propaganda chances (remember the Medes!). They have an excellen selection of military units.

Both have quite a central position, which I think is preferable.

@Bezhukov: Can you tell us a bit more about yourself? Are you comfortably (more or less) winning on Deity level?

I have edited the first post to describe some specifics of the game.

@Grs: Have not tried neither Dacia not Etruria to the point when I can tel it is winnable on higher difficulty. I know Etruscans have a sort of small wonder which puts granary in every city which might be very handy against Deity AI in this scenario.

I would be eager to try Egypt apparently and may be some civ with 3 movement cheap unit like chariot, for example. IMO, 3-move chariots can rule this game for a long time. They are fast, retreat often since they have 5hp veterans, and are very effective against spearmen though it take around 4 of them to kill one spear in a size +4 city. Out of these 4, 2 would retreat, 1 would die, and the last will win. I have to check if Etruria has this kind of chariot, I would certainly go for it.

We still might want to wait for one more player plus to Bezhukov.

I have checked and 3-move Chariot is only available to Egypt, Kolchis, Israel, Assyria, and Troy. Peltast is a rather cool unit though somewhat a bit expensive. There is also a 3-mp camel rider available to Saba and Imazighen but these guys are worth 50 shields each. Some later mounted units available with Tactics also have 3 mp. Hun Raiders are cool as well since they have no movement penalty and treat some terrain as road.

Egypts starting position seems bad. Flood plains is nice, but all those deserts?

Can the desert be mined for shields? I'm not sure but almost positive it can though take horrendous number of workers turns. Same actually goes for Dacia since forest chops are also very slow. But we certainly can try Etruria albeit it might be difficult to acquire many contacts early.

Getting many contacts soon, is, imho, the key to a victory on higher levels.

Egypt is not only desert btw. I guess there can ben enough shields!

Etruria is imho the most central civ in the game. the desert can be mined for +1 shield.

well I ope I can join. I am pretty familiar with this mod and won several times on emperor level with harder civs like media, so I believe I can do deity.
Oh and I also wish to try egypt. as far as I remember they got rich land and some hills with copper and marble so shields ar no problem.

Welcome WF. What the hell took you so long to find CFC?????

akots, in my PBEM, barbs (pillagers) are 4/2/1, not 4/3/1. :) Archers can have a go at them.

I follow your suggestions for the civ and all, I'm really not familiar with the mod. A central position would be nice, as well as something to sustain a decent growth. ;)

Welcome WF. What the hell took you so long to find CFC?????

Actually I am here for a long long time but I registered only a few weeks ago.
Well I'm glad to finally join the discussions and SG and tnx for the welcome :)

>Are you comfortably (more or less) winning on Deity level?

Yes, though I don't much enjoy levels beyond Deity. I've won all the Conquest scenarios on Deity, as well as RandR twice.

My weakness is a preference for building/trading over warring. As I note a tendency toward the opposite in these forums, I might possibly offer a useful corrective. The Etrurians sound like my kind of civ.

>Are you comfortably (more or less) winning on Deity level?

Yes, though I don't much enjoy levels beyond Deity. I've won all the Conquest scenarios on Deity, as well as RandR twice.

My weakness is a preference for building/trading over warring. As I note a tendency toward the opposite in these forums, I might possibly offer a useful corrective. The Etrurians sound like my kind of civ.

Before I discovered this forum, I never went to war, unless I had tanks. Due to SGs here, I learned how to effectively go to war in civ.

Today (as you will learn soon) I am real warmongerer.

Back in the civ II times, I liked to start with an American civ (yanks, Sioux or Aztecs) and no one else near: the ideal I no want no war start.

Seems the roster is full. The order of play might be dictated by real life as well but just preliminary:

I would like to start myself if there are no objections. Can play 40 turns. The next players can play 30 turns if they see fit. The civ are either Etruria or Egypt. Let's try Etruria for the beginning. If we lose, we can play Egypt then.

Roster:

1. akots
2. Stapel
3. Winterfell
4. grs
5. Bezhukov
6. Krys

Please post something if there are objections. I would also urge everyone to download and make themselves familiar with Mapstat utility which shows all the trade possiblities and alerts of civil disorder and other things so that this greatly saves time.

Any tips for the start? I guess going for contacts is the way to do, so I will try to navigate with the starting warrior in the ocean of barbarians. The beginning is very slow, so I'm not expecting of nothing happening during these first 40 turns, may be 2 or 3 contacts at most and may be we will have a worker built. Will play today later in the evening.

30 turns each ? :eek: That seems a lot ! Maybe 20 turns because this is a slow mod, but 30 sounds just too much.

How will barbs behave ? I prefer them as standard in C3C (no confusion between games), but up to you.

What are the settings of this game ? Deity. Do we turn on SGLs ? Victory conditions ? Please turn on "preserve random seed". Please turn off "respawn AI players". Please turn on "cultural conversions". Normal AI aggression ?

Do we put all the 31 civs ? I'd like to. :)

I'll do my best to play without MapStat whatsis.

Let's rock with the mysterious Etrurians ! :king:

I prefer 10 turns each. With an exception for starter.

I'm thinking of that many turns only for the beginning. It is mostly pressing Enter anyhow and cruising with the scout around the barbs. If we can expand and build some military, it will be 10 turns later on maximum and after we will be able to reach a certain size (hopefully), it might be worth to switch to 5 turns per player.

It took me about 20 minutes to play each turn on Emperor (plus 5-10 minutes of interturn) around turn +200 or so with the help of MapStat and I'm rather fast player.

It is still Deity but iirc, AIs start with "normal" Deity Motley Crew of a dozen units or am I wrong here? Anyhow, their troops would be most likely slaughtered by the bars.

OK, never mind, I will play 30 turns and see how it goes.

20 minutes per turn???
5 minutes interturn???

I divide those numbers by 10!

I'd start with 2 or 3 warriors. It has been my strat with TAM to build my first settler, before I build the first worker.

I had about 250 combat units by that time and some 200 slaves/workers and at war with 6 AI simultaneously. Some cities also occasionally need micromanagement. :)

It was on Emperor as Kolchis. Domination was very tempting but too tedious, so I decided to sacrifice everything possible and won by 20K culture. It took a long time to slaughter these innocent Auxiliary Warriors. :lol:

Playing now as I type this, will post shortly.

Ok, that clears things up!

Domination indeed seems a bit overdone.

Just to make sure and avoid any confusion, I have started a random game on a large map at Deity before starting this one.

The infamous start:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-start.JPG

[1-2]I decide to move the settler one tile to the plains. We might be able to find a use for the bonus grassland later hopefully. Warrior goes NE. Caere founded on second turn and set to warrior. Research to Currency at max 60% ready in 60 turns. Not sure if this is the right thing to do though.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-t2.JPG

[6] Another warrior is ready and goes NW.

[7] A pair for Roman warriors is spotted. We give Caesar Trade and Agriculture and receive Warrior Code and 30g in exchange. WC is the most expensive 1st tier tech iirc. Eastern warrior steps on a hill which says “Illiria” on it.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-t7.JPG

[9] Caere grows to size 2 and luxuries upped to 10%. Kolchians build Golden Fleece. That was fast indeed.

[10] Caere finishes warrior and starts on worker. Lydians build Riches of Kriosos and Sea People finish Sail Mastery. Caere starts on worker and warrior fortifies to guard the capital.

[11] Our borders expand and we meet a Gallic archer. We are up Trade on them, so I trade it for all their gold just to prevent trade with Rome.

[13] We meet heroic Macedonian archer. They are up Wheel and Domestication on us. Nothing of it can be traded.

[15] Scythians complete Bravery. Our western warrior survives attack of barbarian and comes to Liguria. Caere finished worker and starts on archer. Egyptians build Sphynx.

[17] Gallia has Domestication as well. We can buy it now but then there will be no way to trade it around except for some change from Caesar. I turn research to Currency on minimum.

[18] Nineveh build the Library of Nineveh.

[20] Macedonia has Tools now as well.

[21] Eastern warrior marches to Troy. They are up Domestication, Tools, Nature Cult, and Wheel on us. Gallia also has tools and Domestication. We can trade Wheel from them for 210g+3gpt. Traded Wheel to Rome for Tools and 110g. Traded Wheel to Gallia for Domestication+1g. We are at tech parity with Rome, Macedon, and Gallia for far.

[22] Archer ready, start on settler.

[24] We meet Iberia and trade them Trade for 142g+1gpt.

[30] Troy has Copper Working. Settler is ready in 1 turn. We are being somewhat cornered by Romans already since they built a city nearby. Might be starting in the center of the map is not that good idea. We need the granary badly. I would start on Etruscan Pottery immediately. It is 200 shields, a rather heavy investment for 2 granaries though. Don’t really know.

Here is our homeland. And situation in the west and in the east:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-t30a.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-t30b.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-t30c.JPG

And SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG1-6500BC.SAV)

The roster:

1. akots - just played
2. Stapel -UP
3. Winterfell - getting ready
4. grs
5. Bezhukov
6. Krys

@Stapel: IMO, you can take 20 turns if you want, there is still not much to do. But make sure to use MapStat or otherwise check Diplo screen every turn so that we don't miss any trades please.

got it! 10 ****ing caracters.....

I've been playing a test game as Mycenae, and have found that being the tech broker is crucial. Since so many civs are cut off from other civs, you can sell techs at monopoly prices several times over. Workers will start showing up for sale, and you can trade techs for them, or just generate huge amounts of cash. Can we build the coracle? If so, would be good to get a few out.

Please note, we are playing by RBC rules, so no worker trades with AI at least to turn 100.

proposed dotmap:

Hmm...do we really want to spit in Caesar face right now?

Hmm...do we really want to spit in Caesar face right now?
Why not?

I could build the fist city on the 2nd spot first, though.
Yet, I have never encountered extra AI agression by building close.

Please note that there is no local culture in this mod until much later in the game. So if we want to grab something, like food bonus or resource (second wool), it better be in the 9-tile radius of the city. Also, we should have some copper, tin, and iron apparently in the Alps. I like the most western city which grabs us cow, wheat, olives, wool, and a bunch of mountains at the same time. It is a bit too far from the capital, but we can buld (or capture) "bridging" city(ies) later on.

Caesar is aggressive fellow, true. But he will have some room for expansion. Might be enough time for us to build a few units for defense. That is one of the reasons I don't like to start in the center of the map at all. And no food bonus on start hurts as well proportionally to the difficulty level. We might be better off as Massagetae. :lol:

But nobody said it will be easy. ;)

If we don't care for Caesar right now, Stapels map is good imho.

Preturn 6500 BC: Akots has left our rhealm in fine shape. King Priamos is ahead natur cult and copper working, but there is no uses in trying to be it now.

Turn 1; 6450 BC: We have a settler. I switch to Etrsucan pottery. the settler goes west. Our western scout-warrior meets barbs, but sees pink borders (Gallai, already known). Our Black Sea scouting warriro sees the borders of purple (Dacian?) borders.
Turn 2; 6400 BC: no barb attacks
Turn 3; 6350 BC: :sleep:
Turn 4; 6300 BC: Volci is founded. Our capital will make units (veteran), Volci the super granary. We buy Nature Cult from Alexander for 153 gold & 3gpt; We buy copper working From the Romans for Nature Cult & 55 gold. The Dacian appear to be of no use, atm.
Turn 5; 6250 BC: :sleep:
Turn 6; 6200 BC: We meet the Huns. No traeres possible.
Turn 7; 6150 BC: Caer, Archer => Archer
Turn 8; 6100 BC: We discover a borderline on a nwely discovered island. We name it Great Britain :smug: .
Turn 9; 6050 BC: Still no techs around.
Turn 10; 6000 BC: I finally get to some mm-ing to do. Volci needs 2 grains, but has three. We are able to add an extra shield to the production of out super granary!
Turn 11; 5950 BC: Caere, Archer => Archer. We meet the Britons. They are backward, but have 303 gold and 2 gpt. We can get that for any either WC or the Wheel :) . I pick WC, but can't tell you why. Just picked it ;) .
Turn 12; 5900 BC: Sheep connected. We meet the Goths.

Stapel's moment of criticism: Akots, you roaded and mined the tile northwest of Caere. This til e can thus not be used for more advanced MM-stuff. I know, a minor thing, yet these can be the things that can be important. I do realise I make mistakes, and do expect you to tell what you don't like!

Turn 13; 5850 BC: Caere gets mm-ed. It needs another 8 shields, but can do 6 shields. maximised for money thus. Both the Trojans and the Macedonians have Chariots. Torjans will seel for 358 (we have 366), the Macedoians need 1gpt extra. There is nothing we can do with chariots from the tech brokers perspective. We still can sell three techs to the Iberians. They have 130 gold or so. So, when ohter techs come arounbd, we will have severla possibilites to trade. Currency needs another 18 turns.

No, I am not hallucinating. The science slider constantly jumps to 40%. WTF?? 10% is sufficient! Am I missing something?


Turn 14; 5800 BC: We meet the Scythians. They're backward.
Interturn: Casar wants 37 gold. Usually I ALWAYS tell the AI the back-off, mostly for war happiness reasons. But, in this situation I am happy to pay him :) . Note, would it have been Priamos, I would have told him to back off.
Turn 15; 5750 BC: Caere, Archer => settler (will grow to 4 in 5 turns. Settler finished in 9). Vercingetorix of the Gallians has 139 gold, and is willing to pay us 135 for nature cult. We accept. Viriato is willing to pay 134 gold of his 136 for nature cult. we accept again.
Turn 16; 5700 BC: We meet the Germanic Tribes. Nothing special. Priamos has pottery. He won't sell it. Too bad, we could have traded pottery to the Macedonians for Chariots.
Turn 17; 5650 BC: :sleep:
Turn 18; 5600 BC: Priamos also has woodworking. He must be trading around with the peoples south-east of him.
Turn 19; 5550 BC: Alexander now has pottery and chariots. The Scythians also have chariots. We can buy pottery from ALex for 389 gold. We buy chariots from the Scythians for 3gpt, pottery and 10 gold.
Turn 20; 5500 BC: Alex now has wood working too. Not for sale. We have currency in 11.

I propose the next player takes 15 turns, and then 10 each. Our only worker is mining a tile near Volci. I think we needed the shields for ourt super-granary. When it's finsihed, we shoudl road it, to connect Volci to the sheep.
N.B. We need to slide lux to 10% for a few turns. Volci will grow to size 4 soon.

No, I am not hallucinating. The science slider constantly jumps to 40%. WTF?? 10% is sufficient! Am I missing something?
Government has most likely low rate cap :)

Government has most likely low rate cap :)
Explain please!

k, my turn!

[1 - 5450 BC] Trade pottery to alarich of the goths for 220 gold, to caesar for 430 and 1gpt and to the germans for 130 an 2gpt. Buy wood working from alexander for 428gold. We are now even with troy.

Archer on the alps sent to the east, to scout inside italy. Sometimes Mycenae and Minoans build colonies there so it might be useful to make contacts with them. Beside, we are sea -fairing so I may find some suitable spots for a coastal town.

IBT the harbour of carthage is done in North africa.

[3 - 5350 BC] Caere finishes settlers>swithced to spearman.
Settler sent to the hill in the west, accompanied by an archer from Caere.

[5 - 5250 BC] worker finishes the mine, starts road.
Warrior in the east reaches hun borders. We give the huns ww+90g and they give us ceremonial burial which macedonia and troy already have.
Raise lux to 10% to prevent disorder in Volci.

[7 - 5150 BC] Trading time! Wheel to Iberia for 100+2gpt. Chariots to Galiia for 120+4gpt. Well nothing else. GPT stands for +10. Currency in 4 turns and a city next turn. Etruscan pottery in 20.

[8 - 5100 BC] Gravisca founded. works on a second worker.
Archer in italy is blocked by roman borders and I dont wish to upset them , so next turn it will turn back to protect one of our cities.
Tryo got horseback riding but wouldnt sell.

[9 - 5050] Macedonian also have HBR now so troy isnt a monopoly anymore.
I buy it from troy as they offered the lower price of 737 of our 777 and then i sell it to the huns for 360+1gpt.

[10 - 5000 BC] Dead end to the warrior in the east. Since we pay -1 unit cost the warrior gruop decides to be brave and sacrifices itself to celebrate the new millenia :).

[11 - 4950 BC] Great news! Our capital's cultural influence expanded, the worker finished the road and moves to bg west of volci to mine and road, and finally we have currency. I chose to research rune script to alphabet to math path. It will serve us best this time I think. also science rate raised to 60%.
RS due to 36t.

[13 - 4850 BC] Caere built spearman, switched to settler.
Just my luck, Troy(but noone else) has rune script /=.
continue anyhow as I think it is better off this way. We may buy it when we can and sell to macedonia or huns. However I decreased science to 10% again. 58 to research, 16 gpt.

IBT 14-15 Alex demands currecy. I reject. He declares. We can defend oursleves! Prepare to war.

[15 - 4750 BC] King Winterfell the merchant dies while hunting sheep. May he rest in peace. Crown passes to his son grs. May he rule wisely and agrressively.


Well. The next player will have a war to fight, but I don't think it will be too hard. Macedonia will take a lot of time to bring soldiers to our territory. Build some def anyhow.

Good luck.

The save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAM_SG1,_4750_BC.SAV)

Explain please!
You can't have any slider set to more than for example 60%.

You can't have any slider set to more than for example 60%.

And, this applies too to tax, and not only science?

Well done Winterfell. Good trading!

And, this applies too to tax, and not only science?
It applies to each of the sliders, Science, Tax and Luxury :)

BTW:

The Macedonians do have their horse-generating wonder. Be sure to build up military ASAP!

Can anyone post a map of our land please ? And a minimap ?

Heavens, this mod is completely mad. :crazyeye: The expansion rate is dead slow but trades are aplenty. There really is something odd there. Two totally different scales... It's weird to play with tons of gold and techs and still have 2 or 3 cities.

BTW, wouldn't it have been better to just make no research at all in this game, since there are 30 other civs ?? With the expansion rate we have, we won't be able to make a good use of all we learn before a looong time, so why not make gold instead, and buy at low cost ?

Can anyone post a map of our land please ? And a minimap ?

...

BTW, wouldn't it have been better to just make no research at all in this game, since there are 30 other civs ?? With the expansion rate we have, we won't be able to make a good use of all we learn before a looong time, so why not make gold instead, and buy at low cost ?

Well with the civ we chose it might be right indeed, but if we are on 10% only it is not so bad.

Oh and I will upload and poost it here soon.

Another important thing I wanted to say. What we actually lack in here for the moment is small objectives and a greater goal. What is our mission? What should we do?
Well we can't head for acultural victory, not single city nor all civ. It wouldn't work for us. It will be really hard to reach domination not to talk about conquest. What we got left is the silk road(like spaceship) or points. That should be our main goal IMHO. Meanwhile, to increase our power here are some advices:
1. conquer antium from rome and expand by settling in the sout-western coast of liguria and maybe if we can of the iberian peninsula.
2. Build a fleet and an army in order to conquer the sea civs minoa and mycenae. Usually they aren't so powerfull and they're lands are rich. Also, the minoans has a colony in asia minor, which leads me to the next objective.
3. Conquer Troy. They are not the most powerfull, they have a lot of money and they lead in tech. If we manage to finish them off we can catch the lead.
If we can conquer them we will also be able to conquer Lydia in asia minor, which has a very valuable sic specific wonder..

Well that's all for now. Hope you play soon ^^

BTW, wouldn't it have been better to just make no research at all in this game, since there are 30 other civs ?? With the expansion rate we have, we won't be able to make a good use of all we learn before a looong time, so why not make gold instead, and buy at low cost ?

And

Well with the civ we chose it might be right indeed, but if we are on 10% only it is not so bad.

I would very much like you guys to actually read what I have been doing. It should be clear from my comments now, there is minimum 40% research (when lux is 0%)............................

As for goals: I'd prefer taking over Italy first.

About 40% tax - it stays put if luxury is set to 10%. But it can be turned down, just make sure it is done every turn.


The problem is what to do with all this gold. And we can get a few thousand gold anyhow hopefully before the cash-rushing government.

How's about copper? Do we have it?

Looks like the Deity tech rate is indeed rather high. And this amount of trading surely need MapStat.

However, instead of holding for Currency, I would have distributed it around for whatever gold and tech are available. War with Macedon might be unpleasant and highly unpleasant since usually AI (at my experience) is not eager to make peace rather soon. And it is a Deity AI which can produce a lot of units. Good tactics may be building a few archers and scaring the invaders from the mountain tops.

1. akots
2. Stapel
3. Winterfell - just played
4. grs - UP - taking 15 turns?
5. Bezhukov - preparing himself
6. Krys

As for goals: I'd prefer taking over Italy first.

Apparently yes, it is better to be in one piece and consolidated always.

Italy would be great indeed, but its gonna be really hard as we have no copper. That's why I offered capturing the less powerfull civs that do have copper such has minoa.

And about macedonia - we should be prepared but not over-worried. It will take them many turns to send attackers as they are pretty far. By the time they will arrive we will be able to protect ourselves. I hope :P

BTW, can you post a link where to get mapstat from plz?

And about macedonia - we should be prepared but not over-worried. It will take them many turns to send attackers as they are pretty far. By the time they will arrive we will be able to protect ourselves. I hope :P

Dude, there is only 2 or 3 tiles between our borders!

About mapstat:
I prefer not to use this cheaters-program.

Dude, there is only 2 or 3 tiles between our borders!



You didnt see the whole map if so. There are 2-3 tiles between our borders with their city Edessa, which is about 15 tiles far from their core. They will not produce wnough units in this colony. Here, see a screenie: Edessa (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Edessa.bmp)

About 40% tax - it stays put if luxury is set to 10%. But it can be turned down, just make sure it is done every turn. Tbh, this is cheating, the rate cap is there for a reason. We should not get around it, only because it is not implemented properly by the game engine.

4. grs - UP - taking 15 turns? Got it and will play 15.

Tbh, this is cheating, the rate cap is there for a reason. We should not get around it, only because it is not implemented properly by the game engine. ...

The rate cap is only for upping science, not for tax purposes. There is no minimal cap for science rate. This is a bug since C3C has no caps it has not been fixed in the patches. :p

The rate cap is only for upping science, not for tax purposes. There is no minimal cap for science rate. This is a bug since C3C has no caps it has not been fixed in the patches. Sorry, but this is not true. If that was meant like you say, why does the game fix it after every turn?

EDIT: If we agree to play that way, ok. But it is definetely taking advantage of a bug/loophole.

... About mapstat:
I prefer not to use this cheaters-program.

Do as you wish but make sure you click diplo on each civ every turn otherwise we can miss some valuable trades. Since there are 30 civs in this game, I'll bet you get bored and finally will give up. And it is not a cheater program by no means it is. It is invaluable tool for management of +20 cities as well. :p

However, if you are going to use it in PBEM, it still might have some bugs in it even with the latest version. ;)

Please follow the link to the Dianthus' sig and dowload it from his website.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?userid=29381

@grs: Do as you wish, I don't think it is that important. When I remember to adjust it, I do adjust but when I don't remember, I let it go.

@Winterfell: the link to picture is broken and I cannot find it in the uploads folder.

Just to be clear : I accepted to come in this game, to play with friends (and hello to the ones I don't know yet), but at no price I will cave in cheating tricks and whatnot. I'm glad the RBCiv rules were quoted, but not enough loud IMHO. It also appears that RBCiv rules are getting a bit old, as Sirian himself could tell (no update for C3C was made). And this is a mod, which means some things (many things !) have changed regarding the rules, like worker trading : this needs updating but we don't know the mod well !! :eek: Finally I don't want to use cheating programs like all GOTM players do, it's just annoying. I can handle long turn because I'm a superhero, so no problemo with me. :) And please let the slider like the program puts it.

Me want map. :p

Sure, MapStat or TradeAssist is certainly not mandatory just don't screw up the trades and micromanagement. ;)

I'd like to stick to RBC rules especially regarding exploits very strictly as well. For those players who are not familiar enough with them, please follow the link in the Krys' sig and read the rules page at the RBC website.

The only thing that seems to need adjustment is worker trades which IMO better be not permitted up to turn 100. Afterwards we are free to trade as many as we can. Other things are probably OK as they are in the rules. Certainly, in case of doubt we can decided what is allowed and what is not. It might be better not to use the barbarian fix though, at least I have not used it when it was indeed critical. Now it does not seem to be that important since Deity AI has taken care of them. I'm also fine with occasional resource disconnection and upgrades but it cannot be done too often, may be every 20 turns or so and we better use this only if we are really desperate. However, in this particular mod, upgrades are apparently the only advantage we might have against the AI in pop-rushing governments and I would doubt it is a good idea to throw this possibility out fo the window. RBC rules are unclear on the subject and generally permit the limited use of this feature of the game.

Regarding the slider: please do as you feel comfortable. I'm telling you that either way is fine.

Finally I don't want to use cheating programs like all GOTM players do, it's just annoying. I can handle long turn because I'm a superhero

lurked in here, since I recently installed this mod and played it a bit. I don't know what mindset it is, to call poeple cheaters, who use a program that will help immensely with MM. mapstat, if used properly, will help track tech trades and check city happiness. also, it can tell you where on earth is the pollution that you might have missed catching during IT.
Now, if someone could tell me what sort of cheating this is? :confused: one gains NO advantage over other players not using the tool, except TIME. I prefer to think about strategy and MM of the citizens, but not clicking through F4 with 20+ Civ's just to check which trades are possible. People should have a choice, which way to play suits them best. I prefer that to a high handed 'you are using a cheater program' approach

edit: the motto of the game should be to have fun and live and let live. whatever suits you best, as long as you stick to the rules

@Rat: Certainly agree with you. But let everyone play like they see fit. We have come to beat the AI here and not each other. :lol:

Roster:

1. akots
2. Stapel
3. Winterfell - Just played
4. grs -Currently playing
5. Bezhukov - Getting ready
6. Krys - Trembling with anticipation

Well it is kryszcztov's mindset :)

I partly agree with him. The recent versions of mapstat/civ assist feel like an autopilot through the game and though I admire the work that has been put into this programs, I think they are a bit overdone. Not having to click each and every civ to look for techs turn by turn was a blessing for sure.

It might be better not to use the barbarian fix though, at least I have not used it when it was indeed critical. Now it does not seem to be that important since Deity AI has taken care of them.
lurkers comment: I believe that the ini for this mod already has the barbarian fix implemented. I think that the creators of this mod actually discovered the barb fix, although I might be wrong on this point. Anyway it doesn't sound like barbs are going to be much of an issue to you in this game!

Yes, mostly all the barbs have been slaughtered mercilessly by the Deity AI.

Me want map. :p

How about loading the save?

Ok, I am willing to use mapstat. The wbesite speaks off several parts: CRpViewer, CRpSettleLoc, CRpCreator, CRpRings, CRpMapStat & CRpStats.
Trade assist was not mentioned....

Should I use them all? Are some considered cheating?

Like GRS, I consider a tool that indicates new techs (or workers) available for trade a useful option.

A tooll that helps with mm-ing seems fishy to me.

It seems I can't upload files ATM, so stapel acn you plz take a screenshot of how far is edessa from other macedonians cities and show it to everyone?

Should I use them all? Are some considered cheating? you should never ever use the map tools that would reveal resources and maps etc.
just use Mapstat while you play and use the indication of trades. however, I only use it for techs, the lux etc seems to be not that reliable. you can always check F2 for available trades.
the happiness folder there is also useful to have a quick glance whether your cities are ok or red (riot)

I totally lack any idea of what is what, what to use, what not to use, when what why....

Either explain the what I should/could do, or don't bother to mention anything at all.

Your advice I should not use resource reveil tools quite weird. OF COURSE NOT!

All I want to know, is how to use a tool that informs when what civ got what tech to trade.
So far, nobody has given me the name of this tool, and how to use it. My concern are indeed how to use the tool properly, without accidentally using aspects of the tool that must be considered cheats.

The amount of totally useless info is once again crackeresque:) .

It seems I can't upload files ATM, so stapel acn you plz take a screenshot of how far is edessa from other macedonians cities and show it to everyone?
One day I am going to torture the inventor of the 10 character minimum

My comments on warfare:
Imho, it is useless to just be able to pull off the Macedonian attack (which WILL come). Once we proof ourselves to be able to pull it off, I think we should NOT end the war, but simply use our position, and the AI's inability to handle warfare, to do some leaderfishing. The Macedonian will come our way with their wonder-horsies and probably archers. Poor defense thus.

Be sure to build more archers now, we have too little :) !

On the CRPSuite:
mapstat - what you probably want to use and what akots talks about, just load it and put your autosave directories in the preferences, it automatically monitors these

rings - a utility to graphically show the RCP rings (obsolete for c3c) and definetely a cheat tool, since it can reveal all map and resources

settle-loc - a special utility to compare crp files (usefull to compare results of completed GOTM games)

viewer - lets you see a replay of a game up to the point of the save and definetely a cheat tool, since it can reveal all map and resources

stats - a very nice tool to show the developement of your civ (and only your civ!), you can load multiple save in it via shift+click and control+click

Is there Oil under Medessa :lol:

On the CRPSuite:
mapstat - what you probably want to use and what akots talks about, just load it and put your autosave directories in the preferences, it automatically monitors these
I did run mapstat. I checked preferences and saw autosave directories were already by default filled in.

So, what's next?
So far all advice has been what I already knew / did :( .

Edit:
This time I changed notification to Garrish, and I suddenly get a big alert. Could the subtle alert be so subtle I didn't notice?

And I get an alert for a city being neutral in happiness..... Is that feature or a bug?

Edit: it appears to be the growth-shrink alert. never mind.

In my humble opinion, MapStat interface is rather intuitive. The happiness screen just shows which cities have grown in size or in cultural borders and need adjustment. The trade screen shows workers and techs for trade and sometimes luxuries/resources but since the trade routes are calculated independently from Civ, and algorith is buggy, it does not always show all trades correctly. There is also very helpful flip calculator especially in our situation. ;)

And please, may be we need some archers. But I think we won't be able to survive this one. Better make peace as soon as we can and if we can. Wars during the growth phase are extremely unpleasant.

@Winterfell: In the future, it might be better to ask a team what to do in a similar situation that you have encountered. But it is OK, we can start a new game as Egypt. :)

Oh sorry, I guess I didn't estimated it correctly.
Probably my subconsciousness wanted to play egypt and decided to lose with the etruscans.

Anyhow maybe there's still a chance. Let's leave it to the next player.

Yes, lets wait for grs to play the turns. If we can survive the attack, we might have a good shot at winning this one.

Pre: I thought I was known for hazardous denial refusals, but suggesting we will fight the Macedonians any longer as needed :eek:

4700BC: Get rune script and 72g from Caesar for horseback riding. Start alphabet.

4650BC: Have to pass a worker offer (it wont be the last) :(

4600BC: Gallic complete their pallisades. Macedonians show an archer and we move to greet him.

4550BC: --

4500BC: Kill the archer. Huns and Troy have thing law.

4450BC: Daccia teleport us into a dead end. Macedones show another archer.

4400BC: Kill the other archer. Two champignon cavalry move into Edessa.

4350BC: The champingnon cavalries close in. Macedonians want 550 gold for peace. Etruscan Pottery completes.

4300BC: Tarquiini founded as dotmapped.

4250BC: Cavalry kills our spear and retreats into the city. Macedonian units show from the north and east.

4200BC: Pay 560gold for peace.

4150BC: Polytheism is known to Troy and Huns.

4050BC: Troy suddenly know bronze working and alphabet, they must have better trading partners in the east.

4000BC: Rome tries to cross our lands with a settler. We have an unmoved settler in Volci. Since alphabet and polytheism have been traded around, you might have a shot if you sell our techs to the backward civs. Getting alphabet would probably be optimal. I sent an archer scouting east, because unlike warriors they can cross mountains.

I would settle and nothing else till we have filled all land. Farmes gambit is a necessity here (although you will need to build a unit from time to time).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/4000BC.jpg

Five hundred gold for peace bites but good thing we survived. There is room left for 4 more cities if we go to dense build. And we need copper. The closest source is Cumae and it might flip unless Rome starts to build temples which is unlikely or they get a wonder. We can try sailing with a boat for contacts. Should be timber around, don't know if we have the tech.

It looks like landgrabbing is a priority and we want the settler as far as we can get to NNW. And may be grow some population and make archers and warriors for future upgrade while saving cash. Guess we have to get rid of pesky Romans in order to survive. Any ideas how?

Roster:

1. akots
2. Stapel
3. Winterfell
4. grs - Saved us from annihilation
5. Bezhukov - UP
6. Krys - Getting ready

Got it. Two questions for discussion before I play:

1. Thing Law will be available soon. I've tested it, and the communal corruption does not work. On the other hand, it removes the despo penalty. Do we want to revolt when we get it?

2. Dot map - the (few remaining, around the northern Adriatic) core sites have few resources. Do we want to be scattered all over, or build the (mediocre) core?

3. Alphabet allows curraghs - cherry pick with those? I'm already planning on one to make contact with the other Mediterranean civs. Good call on the archer heading east - the more advanced civs there will bring down tech costs in the next age when techs are UNTRADEABLE. How long does that last, BTW?

4. OK, not 2, but 4. Focus on irrigation for growth, or mines for productivity?

Got it. Two questions for discussion before I play:

1. Thing Law will be available soon. I've tested it, and the communal corruption does not work. On the other hand, it removes the despo penalty. Do we want to revolt when we get it? I would not revolt until we have settled all available land.

2. Dot map - the (few remaining, around the northern Adriatic) core sites have few resources. Do we want to be scattered all over, or build the (mediocre) core? I would scatter.

3. Alphabet allows curraghs - cherry pick with those? I'm already planning on one to make contact with the other Mediterranean civs. Good call on the archer heading east - the more advanced civs there will bring down tech costs in the next age when techs are UNTRADEABLE. How long does that last, BTW? I would build a curragh immediately to gain contacts. When do we get the first ship which can hold a settler btw?

4. OK, not 2, but 4. Focus on irrigation for growth, or mines for productivity? I would irrigate first. Beware that resouce boni are different (cow is +1,+1 e.g.).

I'm pretty comfortable (and not terribly satisfied) with the various resource/terrain changes. Hills are just Plains that take longer to develop - lame. This game on Deity feels a lot like unmodded on Sid, except for the oddly bashful AI. Are we playing on low aggression? I played a couple test games, and noted that several AI had 4 cities before I had two.

I haven't started the turns yet and will wait for input from TAM vets. Thanks for the guidance GRS - along the lines of what I had planned, although the greater food from Thing could help expansion. Too bad we're not religious.

-There is bronze under the Gallian city in the west. We might consider taking it by force.

-Only the first techs can't be traded, in new ages.

Since we are not religious, I'd prefer to do with some decent government. This Thing Law, I did not like it when I tried, we cannot cash-rush and corruption is high. Better stay in despotism and wait for Monarchy to come. Food is OK, just irrigate the bonus tiles.

I guess without looking at the save, just grab whatever space is left, we cannot be much picky here. I'd move the settler as far as possible to make sure that AI does not build a town between Caere and settler location after we found a city.

A new dot-mapo would be cool! Mine is accomplished!

I say we should wait for a better gov than thing law. And since we do not have many units and we have a lot of cash, it might be something else than monarchy. Note that there are many differences between c3c govs and this mod's govs.

I've thought a lot about the differences in this mod and would like to suggest an entirely different strategy. After settling one more town to grab maximum tiles in the eastern core, instead of building settlers, we build lots (25-30) warriors, then trade for copper and upgrade them to our 8/2 Peltast unit (only requires copper) when copper and that tech come on the market.

The one thing we have (and will have) in abundance is gold. Shields and Pop are highly restricted, and Settlers in this mod cost a ton of the things we don't have (shields and pop). If you include the opportunity cost of lost production, Settlers cost about 110 shields and 50 gold (post-settler towns will only make two or three shields instead of 6 or 7 unitl they slowly regrow). We could build 11 warriors with those shields instead. Better perhaps, to build 2 spears, and six warriors to upgrade, with maybe an archer mixed in. This force should easily be able to take a town, if not two or three.

So conquest is more cost efficient than settling, no?

It is also imperative that we establish contact with the tech leaders who are feeding Troy so we can buy techs at 5-7 instead of 2-4, and then resell them.

I've thought a lot about the differences in this mod and would like to suggest an entirely different strategy. After settling one more town to grab maximum tiles in the eastern core, instead of building settlers, we build lots (25-30) warriors, then trade for copper and upgrade them to our 8/2 Peltast unit (only requires copper) when copper and that tech come on the market.

The one thing we have (and will have) in abundance is gold. Shields and Pop are highly restricted, and Settlers in this mod cost a ton of the things we don't have (shields and pop). If you include the opportunity cost of lost production, Settlers cost about 110 shields and 50 gold (post-settler towns will only make two or three shields instead of 6 or 7 unitl they slowly regrow). We could build 11 warriors with those shields instead. Better perhaps, to build 2 spears, and six warriors to upgrade, with maybe an archer mixed in. This force should easily be able to take a town, if not two or three.

So conquest is more cost efficient than settling, no?

It is also imperative that we establish contact with the tech leaders who are feeding Troy so we can buy techs at 5-7 instead of 2-4, and then resell them.

Well this strategy seems efficient. If you will go for that you must first of all find out how you will get the copper. Besides, now I recall pelstats are only available with bronze working, which means we will need tin as well.
To get copper we must either build trade routes to rome or gallia, that will take time. Anyhow, I say begin your truns with this strategy and if there are any problems just come here again.

Broadswords take both, but Peltasts (sort of our UU) only take copper. Hopefully, we can coordinate the invasion with Monarchy to get the most out of our GA (triggered by Peltast, I believe, will need to check). Harbors will also help get trade going.

Who will you attack?

There will be time for upgrade. Now it is time to build a few more cities if this is possible. We also have granaries which helps to survive a little bit. IMO, going for total warrior build is too early, however, the capital can certainly go for that. Besdies, they will be veteran in this case.

With 25-30 (8/2) Peltasts? Whomever we want. :)

Rome would be my choice. Hmm, granaries do help, but every settler we build still decimates that town for several turns, especially under despo penalty. I'll play tonight.

Pre-flight: swap Volci to warrior (will time settler builds to 5 pop, instead of four, to retain more productivity), MM Care to get Spear in 2. Spears cost 4xwarrior, so will only build a few. Wow, lots of tech out there – will save up to buy sailing.

4000BC: Send settler to grab land in NE core.

3950BC: MM for growth.

3900BC: Caere spear->slave market (pre-build for harbor), Tarquinni worker-> warrior. All right, time to wheel and deal. Gift Germanic 25 gold to improve relations, get it back and all his gold (140 total) for HBR. 110 from Scythia for same. Ack, Troy still wants 15 gpt on top of our lump. Wait a couple. We badly need contact with the tech leaders.

IBT: Troy tries to extort 42 gold – we need that gold to buy techs, and he IS far away. We refuse, and he backs down.

3850: Gravica settler->warrior, Volci warrior->settler Send Gravica settler west to sweet 3 lux spot. Trade our entire economy to get sailing from Mycenae. Trade to Gallia for 390 and 4 gpt. Get BW from Huns for Sailing + 150. Get 240 + 4 gpt from Rome for sailing. 30 gold from Goths. No one else has much to offer. Caere to harbour in two. Can dial lux down to zero.

DO NOT trade for copper until we build up at least 20 warriors. I forgot we are agriculture, so I think a combined farmers gambit/mass upgrade strategy will work well. Peltast is also move 2! :eek: 8/2/2 unit that only requires copper.

3800BC: MM sharing tiles to get better growth with same production. Found Casa to grab maximum tiles to NE.

IBT: great. Pirate galley shows up in adriatic.

3750BC: Caere harbour (fish are +3 food!)->curragh in 3 Ship HBR to Britons for 120gold. To Germanic for 60+1 gpt. Buy Mysticism (monopoly) from troy for 730+4gpt. Sell to Alex for 260. To Agamemnon for 40+10gpt. To Attila for 180+2gpt. Hate to cut into Priamos’ business like that. :lol: Not! To Gallia for 30+13gpt.

3700BC: Goths have Polytheism now, and Mycenae lacks it, but has Alpha. And…the Goths want our entire economy for Poly. Whatever. :rolleyes:

3650BC: Gravisca warrior->warrior

Huns want a big chunk of our gold. Hmm, refuse and they declare. Sorry if this hurts us, but should turn out to be phony.

3600BC: Caere curragh->curragh Pirate (5/4/2) waiting for us. We’ll wait for a second. Iberia beat us to the three lux spot west. Dacia give us 10gpt and 30 for Mysticism. Trade Britons 3 techs for Polytheism. Agamemnon gives us Alphabet and 20 gold for Poly. We have achieved tech parity!

3550BC: Oh, except Thing Law. Rome trades us that+120+8gpt for Poly. The 120 includes the 25 I gave him to get him polite with us.

IBT: Britons build Stonehenge.

3500BC: Telamun founded in west, getting flax and another wool.

3450BC: Ceare curragh->warrior (bingo, one turn vet warriors, baby!) :) Pirate moves to north, we can sneak by! :D One curragh has an archer on board, please drop him off near Israel and head east to Assyria and parts east – the tech leaders should be there. The other one can go hit the sea peoples, carthage, etc… Vilco Settler->Settler, Tarquni worker->worker.

3400BC: Ceare riots. :( Forgot his MP left. Lux to 10% for a turn.

IBT: Gallia extorts Alphabet.

3350BC: There is a settler next to the Roman copper. A city here should be able to produce culture in 15-20 turns with poprushes, stealing the Roman copper and giving us a strategic point from which to effectively attack Rome. I’ll leave that decision to the next player. Be careful to dodge the Pirate ship with our curraghs – he’s on their tail. Oh, and the Huns are at war with us.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAM-3350BC1.JPG

Sorry for the delay, the file was too big.

Huns want a big chunk of our gold.
....
Troy tries to extort 42 gold. I can not say anything, but this is a huge mistake. On my turns as I read it from your turns, these are our best trading partners, since they are on the gate to the eastern civs. Getting into a war about 42 gold pieces is one thing (often wrong), but getting in a war with the AIs who allow you the excellent trades you made on your turns. Try to reread your turn without being able to trade to these two and they lose all the good they have.

The 1st demand refusal (for currency) costed us 560 gold, netto, as we were not able to trade currency to him anymore after the war. This will cost us trading oportunities at least.

EDIT: Btw, I can't find the save.

well except for these mistakes, which I sadlly made as well, I think the turns were played fine. note he proamos didn't declare when we refused, only the huns.
Well, the huns, besides we can't trade with them now they're uu is really fast... We might need to build def again.

Please, if possible, can you upload the save?

Huns will come and in numbers. We better prepare another 500g to pay them for peace. :)

The settler is standing on forest and he cannot build a town there to steal the Roman copper. Besides what culture we are going to build? Just buy a worker and sacrifice one? There is however a city spot in the north near tin, and a rather good spot which we better grab before it is too late.

Don't know about the trades. Well, at least seems we made some profit.

Krys is up and can play anytime the save is around.

Let's discuss the strategy. Seems that the expansion phase has been finished mostly and we need to focus on military build up and future plans.

The settler is standing on forest and he cannot build a town there to steal the Roman copper.
Actually he is standing on a hill, it's just hard to see. The best indication is that you can see the future city borders, meaning the tile is settle-able.

Besides what culutre we are going to build? Just buy a worker and sacrifice one?

Possible, we may also build a shrine and a temple by rushing population.


There is however a city spot in the north near tin, and a rather good spot which we better grab before it is too late.


From what I've seen in the screenshot, no worries about that. There is a warrior guarding that spot, and AI will not settle in the other spots availableas these are too close to our cultural borders.

Actually he is standing on a hill, it's just hard to see. The best indication is that you can see the future city borders, meaning the tile is settle-able. ...

Sorry, did not notice it is on the hill. Then it makes sense. :)

Winterfell,

Thanks for making just the points I was going to make. As for the Huns, we could have as easily traded with Troy as with them. They are both buying their techs from the east. Usually they got techs simultaneously with Troy. You may be thinking of the Goths? with whom I was able to broker with a bit.

The gold was worth it, in my judgement, as we were racing to buy techs in order to sell them before Troy did. It is entirely possible that the Huns do not even know where we are - I did not see a Hun unit during any of my turns. If not, we now have the economy to support a ransom better. We should also be building quite a few units over the coming turns, so this should decrease the power disparity.

Pls do not build Spears - they cost 4xwarriors for little benefit. Yes, the warrior is guarding the Tin spot. We do not need tin for our UU, so low priority to settle there, though it is fresh water, so can grow over 4.

>Don't know about the trades. Well, at least seems we made some profit.

You can't be serious. :) Building up gold for upgrades in this manner is our only chance. This is the key to our strategy. In my turns we went from 200 gold and +12 per turn to 1200 gold and +60 per turn. We'll need (and will get, once we make more contacts) much more.

You can't be serious. Building up gold for upgrades in this manner is our only chance. This is the key to our strategy. In my turns we went from 200 gold and +12 per turn to 1200 gold and +60 per turn. We'll need (and will get, once we make more contacts) much more. I do not want to sound like a broken record, but it may well be that in someone elses turns the gold will go down some x00 and/or xxgpt again.

EDIT:
Pls do not build Spears - they cost 4xwarriors for little benefit. Yes, the warrior is guarding the Tin spot. We do not need tin for our UU, so low priority to settle there, though it is fresh water, so can grow over 4. We should have at least an adequate number to protect our offense forces. Please be carefull with overestimating the 8 attack. 2 def in this mod is like 1 in epic.

Still there is no save, at least I don't see a link to it.

IMO, we can go mostly for warrior builds with a few spearmen and tech brokering and then do instant upgrade. Need about 50-60 warriors/peltasts roughly to put a good dent into Romans and may be even kill them. But the more the better. 100 peltasts sounds reasonable. I assume Romans have at least 4 spears as defenders in each city and they are all veteran. And focus on getting contacts and more cash might be the top priority. Once we build up the forces, the demands would decrease if not disappear completely. And pretty soon we can start buying workers from AI.

For this to work, we need around 7-8K gold at least. When I was posting about the trade income, I was not sure whether we have made maximal profit possible. I noticed in a couple of trades there has been a rather large discount for the AI. The gold they have is not going to run away since they are in Despotism and if they have no contact with the tech leaders, we could have waited a bit before traiding and this would not accelerate the tech rate too much. However, these things are complicated and keeping tech rate balanced with our income requires considerable experience on Deity level in this mod which I am lacking. But if it were unmodded C3C, I would say that it was done OK but could have been done with less techs traded for the same cash and gpt. Again, since I lack experience in this mod, I'm not sure how brokering works and whether you can wait a turn or two before traiding.

The main disadvantage is that our tech brokering will accelerate the tech rate and might be too much so that we end up losing the caravan race or Diplomatic victory. That is why at a certain time point we have to stop traiding techs. Thus, the sooner we accumulate the cash we need the better we are off in the long run with expansion. I have to double check this but if there is a unit with enslave ability, we might think of using only it for combat and gaining a bunch of aux. warriors and sacrificing them thus gaining 20K cultural victory.

There were actually many small trades that went unreported. I'm pretty sure Macedonia has nearly the same contacts we do. Just about everyone but Iberia showed up with new techs at some point. I tried to wait until they had built up at least 50 free gold before making trades. It was necessary to take some sub-optimum amounts to:

A. beat Troy/Macedonia to the sale

B. Build up enough capital to get techs sooner than some of the midrange civs could get them - i.e. Gallia, Rome, Mycenae, and yes, grs, the Huns in one case, and then resell for a handsome profit.

Once we contact the tech leaders, prices for B will come down. Once we meet more laggards, profits from A will go up.

As to a too fast tech pace, won't the untradability of second age techs take care of that? As to Peltast defense - remember that they are also a fast unit. I have not seen any Roman fast units.

I don't think we need to wait for 50 units. The best timing would be after getting our government to monarchy to maximize our GA. Let's try to only trade old techs for workers, they are expensive to pay cash for. We may indeed have to ransom the Huns, but I would be surprised if they can even find us.

The save is up - sorry for the delay.

It all makes sense.

Krys is up then. May be possible to build us some military... Mostly warriors of course.

@Krys: You are up, please post "got it".

Yeah, I have this in mind. Unfortunately I was out last night, barely slept at all, and now I'm working, and may go out tonight as well. Maybe I'll only be able to play on Saturday morning/noon. :( If it's OK for everyone, then I promise to play it first before my PBEMs, otherwise just skip me, no big deal.

In case I play, I'll just follow your pieces of advice, guys.

I'm sure you can find and hour to play and post hopefully tomorrow morning. With MapStat it will take no more than that to play but if you would have to click on every civ every turn, it might be indeed taking a longer time. :evil:

Here we go. I played from turn 93 to turn 100. I did no trade, as prices that AI would propose me seemed way to low. No pic because our territory didn't see major changes, apart from the "soon-to-have-copper" city.


93- 3350BC : Found Velutonia.

94- 3300BC : Caere builds warrior.

IT (94-) : Scythians ask us to leave their territory, we leave.

95- 3250BC : Caere builds warrior.
Trading with Romans is now possible (sea route from Caere to Ravenna). Romans have copper, marble, wines, we have wool, Alphabet.

IT (95-) : Our warrior in Scythia is killed by a Hun chariot.
The pirate galley sinks after attacking a Roman curragh.

96- 3200BC : Caere builds warrior.
Tarquinii builds worker.

97- 3200BC : Caere builds warrior.
Casa builds worker.

IT (97-) : Macedonians ask us to leave their territory, we leave.

98- 3100BC : Caere builds warrior.

IT (98-) : 3 Hun warriors enter our territory, next to Casa.

99- 3050BC : Caere builds warrior.
Our 4/4 archer in Casa kills a 4/4 Hun warrior on hill.
We sign peace with the Huns for 520 gold.
Trading with Mycenaeans is now possible (sea route from Caere to Athenae). Mycenaeans have copper, marble.
Troyans have Monarchy, they must have paid around 3000 gold for it.
Lux to 10%.

IT (99-) : Macedonians ask us to leave their territory, we leave.
Mycenae (Mycenaeans) builds the Colossus.

100- 3000BC : Caere builds warrior.
Gravisca builds settler.
Huns also have Monarchy.


The settler was meant to go to southern France, but a Gallian settler is already going to this crowded place. There is the tin area to settle, and also maybe Slovenia (east of the capital).

the save is here and is heavy (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAM_SG1-3000BC.zip)

...Huns want a big chunk of our gold. Hmm, refuse and they declare. Sorry if this hurts us, but should turn out to be phony. ...

Please let's make the things clear: There are no phony wars in this mod.

I will try to play today in the evening or tomorrow.

Especially since a big chunk is never more than 100..... We lost more than 1k gold and some units for nothing now :(

I doubt we'll have to worry about it soon, but I would agree to avoid phony wars. On the other hand, we did not get "nothing" out of the Hun refusal. We got Mysticism at (local) monopoly and were able to recoup our investment with significant gpt thrown in.

The Huns were just as likely to provoke a war with the Macedonians by marching through their lands without and RoP as to manage to find us.

I have taken a close look at the save and it might be OK. We have a few choices atm IMO. We can trade Monarchy for some ridiculoius gpt, return about 50% of this back and revolt immediately facing probably 4-5 turn anarchy. It might be we will be able to trade for copper as well. Then, upgrade a warrior or two and trigger Golden Age in a phony war ourselves. By putting the guy in a boat and sailing to Minoans, for example. Not sure the war will be completely phony, but still less likely to see any units from Crete. We then should also go to Math and then to Lit with prebuilding for Great Library. It migth be we don't make it though since it is Deity level after all. However, in Monarchy and GA, this might work. On the drawback of this plan, price for Monarchy is too steep for my liking of it.

We also can build up a few warriors, try to culturally get our own copper and then upgrade starting a not-so-phony war against Roma. However, IMHO, we need about 50 peltasts at least to make a good progress. This will gain us some more land and resources. But this mean basically we will not get TGL.

Third plan might be just test our sailor's luck and try to make it to Lidia, Egypt, and may be even Sea Peoples as well as to Kolchis in the Black Sea. This takes huge time though. Meanwhile, we just sit and follow the second plan. After we get more contacts, cash flow from brokering might improve at least slightly. But AIs would also get contacts over time. We also need to grow the cities and another IMHO, we should start buyingworkers from the AI. They are at 250g and over a piece, so it is not cheap but might be well worth it. We can certainly sacrifice one in the soon-to-be copper city. And seems that settling phase is essentially over and we might think of letting the cities grow to make military.

I will try to play tonight, so please post your suggestions.

Also, on the technical side, we might have problems with uploading the save in the near future since it grows and grows in size and in no time will be over 1 Mb. I can put it out in the Yahoo briefcase if it gets critical. But for the present, CFC upload server seems to work OK.

Well, zipping it will definetely help, I would say.

Technical side : The save I got was attached if I'm not mistaken, whereas I had to upload the one I gave you, since it was heavier than 500 KB, even when zipped. The upload feature, however, can take files up to 3 MB if I'm not mistaken. So we have a real margin. :) Note it's the 1st time I've used upload and attachement at CFC for more than a year, so I'm not used to it.

Ingame issues : I think it's not good to pay tons of gold for Monarchy to a civ that already has tons of gold. I prefer to continue building warriors, and get a way to have copper without using a dirty trick (like breaking a deal...). Can any slave be sacrificed in any city for some culture ? If so, I'm for buying one and using it in the soon-to-get-copper city, if we're sure that no Roman city has culture yet around it. And if we're sure that the copper will be ours after adjustment of borders. I still don't know how borders adjust in Civ3 after all that time. :blush:

Pls do not buy workers, we need that cash to upgrade warriors or buy Monarchy, as you pointed out. We will be able to trade outdated techs for workers soon. We should be meeting Minoans, Phoenicians, Israelis, Egyptians, and hopefully the big inland civs within the next ten turns. Not long after that we should get contact with the Sea People, Carthage, and the Berbers. That's a lot of civs that should be somewhat backward, and thus willing to trade workers for tech. Having contact with the tech leaders also decreases tech costs. Pls wait until we make contact to buy Monarchy.

As to the Peltasts - don't forget that they are move 2 - I don't believe Rome has any fast units. We may lose our western city, but conquering the main Roman lands will make it worth it. Tech should slow down in our part of the world when we get to the untradable techs. The GL may need to be conquered. Should we successfully take Rome, we will have the firepower to do so, let's just hope it' s close by...

Contested tiles go to the city with more culture, even one more. In cities without culture, I believe the tie goes to the civ with more culture.

>And seems that settling phase is essentially over and we might think of letting the cities >grow to make military.

This sounds like a good idea, considering that our four main cities all have fresh water and can grow to 8, and that mountains are the only tiles that make more than 2 shields improved (they make 4).

Let's not shy away from the Slave Markets - we can make up the culture later.

Well I say we should go for the second plan and not build the GL. It's a small chance for us to get it, a gambling actually. If we lose it, we have lost many turns of production. We shuold go to war with rome.

I have not played yet, sorry for delay. Actually, it is surprizing for me that we have so little cash on Deity at this stage of the game. In vanilla or C3C, the higher the difficulty, the more cash you get. If this were a similar size map with similar number of civs on C3C, we could have got probably 10-times more cash on Deity than on Emperor difficulties. In this mod however, either we don't have enough contacts or there is something else. Because by turn 120 on Monarch (my first game with this mod), I had about 8000 gold. With many contacts (probably 17 or 19, don't remember exactly). Well, here we should have had more gold which does not happen even considering we lost 1000g in war reparations. I was expecting something in the region of 12-15K. Seems that AI can build units fast but also fast is reaching of the growth limitation due to food limitation. This just leaves them building more and more units and all their gold is eaten by the unit support costs. On one hand, this is good because they would choke themselves with units and slow down the research. On the other hand, we need this gold and we need Monarchy rather soon to be able to spend it. Since iirc, when AIs will revolt to Monarchy, and if they do (well, most will revolt), the cash they have on hand will greatly diminish.

This is very peculiar and unusual.

When I inherited the game, we were down 4 techs and near broke, which is very unusual considering my test games. I got us to tech parity with 1200 gold making 60 per turn by the end of my turns (also costing us 500 in an evetual peace concession), but I use CivAssist to keep track of opportunities. The gold was there are these turns. Not sure what is happening on the others.

Well, I have loaded the save yesterday and checked for current trading opportunities and there are none which are satisfactory enough except for Monarchy which I have mentioned. This leaves the TGL build as one of the top priorities IMHO. I wish we have a prebuild for it but I just don't see it happening since there are no contacts with tech leaders. And even in this case Lit is not tradeable. By the time we self-research it (which might take full 60 turns even on maximum or may be around 25-35 turns), the AIs would be already close to the next age and TGL will be certainly built.

The situation is grave and I'm very close to abandoning the game and starting a new one as a civ which can get some more contacts earlier. With second-hand tech brokering, what happens is that we accelerate local tech pace and don't profit enough from it to make this beneficial for us. By trading at somewhat inferior prices, we have basically "brought up" all AIs around us to a fair level and the trading opportunities are starting to deplete because of this. An alternative strategy might be dividing the AIs into groups which certainly have no contact with each other (for example, Iberia- Britons versus Scythia-Hunns) and attempting to arrange trades independently for each group by denying them the critical techs for a certain pathway so that they have to acquire a first or second level tech in this pathway. Since AI trades only once per turn with another AI, this basically means, they would acquire by trade or research only level 2 tech during a single turn. We then can offer them level 3 tech and get maximum profit out of it. But we still need more contacts for this to work.

Preturn check: Switch Telamun to growth, after a few worker builds due are finished, most towns will switch to warriors. We can trade copper from Rome for wool+250g at any time. No reasonable trades are possible. Does not look good. Anyhow, let’s see how it goes.

[1] Volci builds settler starts on Slave market. Goths have build Pyramids. That is a rather peculiar. I thought they were supposed to be in Egypt. Mithridates completes Oracle.

[2] Huns have 2 workers for sale. They want 550g for them. Settler from Volci goes to tin lake and settler near Tarquinii goes west.

[3] We meet Phoenician merchant ships. No trades possible. Whip cult site in Vetulona.

[4] Trade Alphabet to Iberia for worker+12g. Our boats sail to Crete and we meet Minoans. No trades here as well. Caere grows to size 6 and we appoint a tax collector there. Trade Poly to Germanic tribes for worker+108g+2gpt. Gravisca goes to Slave market.

[5] Roman warrior/velite/settler combo enters our territory. Access to roads will be locked by warriors but they still will advance.

[6] Troy, Macedonia, and Huns have Math and both Troy and Macedonia are up to 3K treasury. There is nothing we can do to get these moneys from them. Populonia built on tin lake. Goes to archer. Math is actually surprisingly cheap, only 1490 gold. But there is no way we can trade it for something worthy since Monarchy is way more expensive than Math. Caesar comes and asks to trade him wool and 3gpt for wines. We’ll think about it.

[7] A peculiar screenshot of barbarian island with Ravagers.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-107.JPG


[8] Trojans are building TGL. Here is our chance. IIRC, Troy is on the coast and we can get it with amphibious UU. We finally make contact with Lydia. And they are down Alpha and a few other techs on us. But have no gold! Kriosos and has no gold? This is weird. We have 24 warriors and are paying 15gpt unit support.

[9] Macedonians start building Olympic games. Volaterrae built in a weird location but it might survive there. We cross the seas and encounter Egyptian city of Elephantine. The mighty Pharaon is up Math and Monarchy and has 1800g. Next turn can drop archer who is supposed to march all the way to Persia.

[10] Archer unloaded, no reasonable trades are possible. Here is our core with a bunch of wondering Roman units. By no means should we block their way, let them go where they are going, it is not our business. If we do, they can attack. Might be good idea to make a path open for them to make sure they don’t jam our road traffic.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-110a.JPG

Here is the infamous wondrous Egypt:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-110b.JPG

And the city of Priam and Hector:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-110c.JPG

And the zipped heavy SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAM_SG1-2500BC.zip)

Stapel is UP and Winterfel is getting ready.

IMHO, we can capture TGL with some luck and get a few techs. Just need a bunch of boats since each boat can carry only a single attacker. And it is a long way to sail there.

One thing I'll do is check back with a civ when a gpt deal runs out to keep their gpt tied up. Might be too late for that here. Do galleys (require math) only carry one unit? Do we get an extra move from our seafaring trait? Why is Caere not growing? We can peel off a worker when it gets to six, and still make one turn warriors as it grows, correct?

Our curragh moves 2 coastal tiles and one sea. Galleys will be 2/3, don't know about transport capacity, iirc also a single unit. IMO, we don't need more workers of our own. At least not in Despotism and not in city size over 4. They are too slow to be a reasonable builds and takes a bit too long to build that population back. What is really lacking is population and might be that joining a worker from Caere to Vetulonia to whip a temple faster is OK. But we can rather easily trade for copper instead. IMO, the buildup phase has begun and each and every warrior counts. Romans, believe me or not, have lots of troops. Sitting in the cities and wondering around. We would have to knock them all off in a single turn if we want to survive the war and gain some cities and land.

And all we have is around 25 warriors most of which are veteran though. We need regulars for military police as well. The goal might be however, get to Monarchy before Golden Age and this is critical indeed since Monarchy is a very expensive tech. I'm not sure we can get it without screwing up our financial wellfare. At least, the demands have stopped and we are basically earning money with our military considering lost 1000g. The gpt which the AIs are having is not worth the hassle of trading and we would be giving away expensive techs at bargain prices or 3-4 gpt and 100g cash if any. Slaves though are worth it but they are not very abundant for sale. The trades have to be handled with great caution in this mod since techs are really very expensive for AI even on Deity.

We just need more time to build more warriors and get more contacts. It is not reasonable to start war without at least 50 units. There is also flux near Telamun which if hooked up in about +15 turns will get us a second luxury and this would allow the cities to grow to size 7.

"Romans, believe me or not, have lots of troops. Sitting in the cities and wondering around. We would have to knock them all off in a single turn if we want to survive the war and gain some cities and land."

I very much believe it. owever, they are all slow, correct? Once we get the cultural expansion in the copper city, we could allow the Roman units to approach us, then slaughter them in the open. This would make the cities easier to breach.

Given the number of civs out the, 100 +3/4 gpt could add up. This is gold that is evidently just going to Troy anyway.

It might be not the case. Looks like everything below a certain gold and gpt does not work for AI trades. I have not noticed this 100g going anywhere during my turns, only slightly increasing by the said 3-4 gpt. That is apparently difference between max science and troop maintenance which is not enough to buy the AI a tech. If we can apture Troy, we get a bunch of gold in addition to the Library.

Certainly, we would want as many Roman troops within our borders as reasonably possible. I would even try to bait them a little bit when we are ready. Still, very heavy losses may be anticipated on our side. We might also storm a few border cities on this very first turn. It might be, we will not be able to upgrade all the warriors though and getting the copper by border expansion will take a long time considering that border expansion takes 10 turns. Our culutre is a little bit smaller than Roman (by 25% or so) which does not help as well. I'm not sure but it might be worth to try to buy copper in exchange for our wool once there is road to Macedon. Each upgrade costs 90 gold and it is expensive and we don't have enough cash.

We can certainly try a semi-exploitative approach of trading Monarchy from Rome for gpt (we dont' have enough gpt atm) and then ask them to leave. I'm almost positive they will declare in this case. We can even try to trade copper from them. But let's leave this possibility as a last resort.

If we peel a worker from Caere (costing the equivalent of two warriors) and join to the copper city to rush temple, how long then? How about sacrificing the worker for culture?

I would want the border expansion before we attack, so the pertinent roads are ours and not Rome's.

Is there any possibility that this game was somehow started under the least aggressive AI setting. It's bizarre that the AI is not fighting amongst themselves, with all those unit costs.

I checked the save. Some notes:

Galleys carry two units, but it doesn't matter whether we have the GL or not, if we don't take the Roman lands, we ain't going anywhere in this game. Our UU can enter mountains, as well as being Amphibious (is there anything it can't do?)

We can't sac our own workers, but we can sac a slave in the copper city, giving a whopping 40 culture. This gets us not only copper, but also wines and marble. The alternative is waiting 4 turns to whip a temple, then 10 for expansion. Culture does not accrue to cities in anarchy, so we'd have to wait another x turns to get monarchy. So around 20 altogether. War (in Monarchy, for GA) is doable much sooner than that.

Phoenicia has Monarchy, and lacks both wool and tin (our UU doesn't need it). There is significant gold floating around out there; we can even sell Thing Law now for upwards of 400 gold total, and more contacts are coming soon. (Why was our archer dropped off way over near Elephantine? - long way to Persia from there). The Black Sea mission should be more fruitful. There are significant additional funds available for Monarchy, as well as opportunities to trade it for Math.

We are seafaring, so settling the easter Adriatic could also help our cash flow.

Certainly completely agree that we need the Roman lands. We then can sac the slave anytime in Vetulonia whenever we are ready for upgrade and war. It might be we need the temple there anyhow but not so sure about it. The archer which has been dropped off was supposed to visit Israel and try to sneak to Numidians and Arabs and may be Babylon and Medes while curragh which dropped him was supposed to sail west for randevous with Sea Peoples, Hannibal, and Imazhigen then continuing all the way to Picts. The Black Sea boat should be able to contact Hittites and Kolchis and archer from there can go either to Massagetae or Persia/Medes/Babylon following the edge of the map.

Regarding trades, I'm not sure. So far, the trades were not conducted like they should. This is not a micromanagement game, this is trading game. Getting a few golden coins is just not worth it while we can earn big cash on properly arranged trading. 400g is a sound moneys but they are not going to run away from us. Not until these guys who can give them will revolt to Monarchy. Full price for Thing Law if traded from us to a single AI is in the range of 700-900g. And we should not trade it to 5 AIs for tiny 400g IMO.

I'm not sure if Stapel is around. Let's wait for some more time and may be somebody can swap with him, may be grs?

It's strange, if I make the 50+2gpt trade, then they regenerate about that much money in 3-5 turns, when I can trade another old tech. Eventually we run out of techs to sell, but meanwhile, we have enough gold to buy Monarchy, revolt, upgrade 30 units, and take out Rome (It's the equivalent of Kinghts on spears and longbows - our Peltasts even have def bombard, tho if we fight properly, we won't be defending much).

The waiting around to accumulate gold is the only thing increasing the danger Rome can pose. I agree on waiting a few more turns for contact, but we need to pull the trigger soon. I'd sac the worker before revolting, so we can get the wines during anarchy. Dropping the archer about 10-15 tiles east of where he is would have speeded things up considerably. No sweat - contacting sea and carthage also very important.

Stapel is apparently on vacation. Good swap might be with grs if possible, otherwise, if grs does not have time, may be just Winterfell can take it and we skip Stapel.

I can play it on friday or saturday night.

@Winterfell: If you can play today or tomorrow earlier in the day please grab it. If not, may be leave to grs.

I will play it tomrrow if I may, as I will be gone for a week starting sunday and if I'm not taking it I will have no chnace to play for a while.
Good weekend anyhow.

OK, then please try to play tomorrow. There has been much discussion but if anything is still unclear, please post. Top priority goes to getting contacts and buying Monarchy for a reasonable price with a possibility of acquiring Math and continued preparation for war by building warriors and stockpiling cash. We'll sac the slave just before we ready to upgrade.

Yes, let's make sure to wait until after the revolt and new governemtn comes in to do that.

Forgive me but I won't be able to play.. Im going earlier than expected.
See you in 8 days.

May be Stapel has returned then. Otherwise, grs may be will play today or tomorrow.

I'm back.

Should I get it now?

Yes, by all means go ahead and play as soon as you have time. Grs apparently will be also happy to be able to play over the weekend. So, if you can play tomorrow, it would be great.

I can and will play on sunday evening, 21:00. So, if GRS can do a turn in between, that's fine with me.

@Grs: Please play if you can on Saturday.

Got it and will play tonight.

:( I need a skip in all SG I am up, since I am without civ access for the weekend :(

@Stapel: Any progress out there with the turns?

Got it! (10 horsecrap ****-up)

Is there a reason why I shouldn't buy Monarchy from the Phoenicians for 23gpt, 1000gold and wools (and trade it for math soemwhere else), ASAP, and get into anarchy??

It might be that the price goes down substantially once we get a few more contacts. It is a rather heavy investment which will essentially hamper our upgrades. Please use your own judgement on the matter though. But keep in mind we need about 40-50 upgrades from warriors to peltasts to wage successfull war over Rome. And first level techs in the next era are not tradeable so there is no brokering there at least until we can capture TGL.

We should have contact with Kolchis on the Black Sea and Israel east of Egypt in 3-5 turns, which will bring the price down, and with Sea and Carthage within 2-4, which will give us further trade opportunities. We do not need 40-50 Peltasts to begin war. 20-30 will suffice, as we can reinforce buring the coming Golden Age. A Peltast army would do some damage!

2200 BC, pre-turn.
I decide to go for Monarchy soon. I also think it is better to pop some culture now in Vetulonia. On the longer run, we will need the money to get back into the tech race. The TGL is nice, and I DO think we should go for it, but it will take some turns!
I also focus on connectng the western 2 cities.

2350 BC; We sell TL to the (I really forgot who...) for 124 gold and sme gpt.

IT: Agamemnon wants 66gold, while he has a settler, guarded 1 warrior, in our lands. I tell him to piss off, and kinda hope he declares. They are pretty weak with their 2 city core. He backs down :( .

2300 BC; We sell TL to Hittites for 50 gold and 4gpt; Math to Germans for 124 and 5gpt.
2250 BC; We sell math to the goths for 167 gold, 5gpt and 2 workers.
2200 BC; Monarchy sold to Gallia for 287 & 12 gpt. To Mycaena for 123 & 12gpt. We are a monarchy now. 70% research towards mapmaking (46 turns), in order to get the ships that will transport 4 units. Rush a warrior in Volaterrea (uncomected), since it will grow to size 2 in one turn. Upgrade warriors to Peltasts.
2150 BC; We sell poly to the sea peoples for 170 & 11gpt.

IT: Britons want monarchy. :lol: No way. They declare war.

2000 BC; Not much, apart from meeting the babs.
IT: sell math to seapeoples
1975 BC; Sell monarchy to goths for 60 gold and two workers.
1950 BC; Sell alpha to Schyths for 100%5gpt.
1925 BC; We sell monarchy tp Kochis for 213 , wood and furs.
1900 NBC; not really much.

Summary:
We are at war with the Britons. I do not expect a single unit to come near, but you never know.
Some Peltasts are on the auto-move to a position in the southwest. I suggest the next players moves the few 3/3 peltats to the north, to deal with wandering Roman units. Once there are 15 4/4 Peltats in Vetulonia, and 10 in the southwest, and a few up north, we should have a go, I guess.

Da Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG1-1900BC.SAV)

Sounds OK. @Grs: please play then if you can. Bezhukov is next.

Maybe I am a bit over enthousiastic... dunno.
Ordering all citites to build Peltasts, and have the next player have the fun migth be better. In that scenario, GRS wil have 10 rather boring (a click here and there) turns, just like me.

The Roman's military is strong :( .

"We are at war with the Britons. I do not expect a single unit to come near, but you never know."

Haven't we been through this before? No more phony wars, please! We have a real one to fight...

Rome is strong only on offense - luckily for us, thy won't get to play any. They are slow (one move), we are fast. Their best defense unit is 4, our Peltast hits for 8. Think Knights on Spear. I'd suggest allowing four turns of slaughter near our copper city to gas the Romans before pressing the attack on Roman cities.

We will capture the GL, not build it, especially since you put us on the MM path instead of the untradable Lit.

We can use a mix of Vets and Regs at the front, as Rome will send a mix of offense and defense, giving regs plenty of promotion opportunities.

In this particular mod, AIs have huge armies even on low difficulty levels. To give a rough estimate, we might be facing about 50-70 Roman units up to 100-120 within a few turns from starting the war. Not sure that battling this with 20 peltasts is a good idea even if all of them are warriors/velites mix which will be not. Britons would need to travel overseas to land some units first and then they would have to walk to us. I'm not sure if Brits are flagged to builds ships. If they do, it might be not so great fun since they will be coming at us in about 15 turns or so. I just hope they will decide to sail over all the way.

AIs in this mod are able to accumulate really impressive SODs. IIRC, Dacia has tried to attack me with about 60 peltasts on Monarch level when I was playing Hunns around turn 180-190. It was one of the "phony wars" and I was able to make peace but it was not a very pleasant situation. I'm afraid that a similar thing will happen with Rome if we jump on them unprepared.

Note also that Roman spearmen are all veteran since they have rax in every city. This makes the combat working differently just because of the defence bonus rounding as well. Peltasts against spearmen in this game is not like knights against spearmen in normal C3C. The difference is about 10-20% up to 30% depending on terrain and in favor of defender.

"We are at war with the Britons. I do not expect a single unit to come near, but you never know."

Haven't we been through this before? No more phony wars, please! We have a real one to fight...
Well, I really do not expect any Briton unit to come near. Phony wars are fine, as long as they are really phoney.

Rome is strong only on offense - luckily for us, thy won't get to play any. They are slow (one move), we are fast. Their best defense unit is 4, our Peltast hits for 8. Think Knights on Spear. I'd suggest allowing four turns of slaughter near our copper city to gas the Romans before pressing the attack on Roman cities.
Agreed!
We need to weaken them in the field, before taking cities.

We will capture the GL, not build it, especially since you put us on the MM path instead of the untradable Lit.
Building the GL ourselves never even crossed my mind. When we would have researched lit, the GL would have finshed.

Good points all, akots, I'm just going on my test games, including one as Etruria, where I was really impressed by the advantage offered by the speed of the Peltast, as long as I kept my cities out of range of Roman-controlled roads. If we wait for them to come to us first, we'll be killing non-fortified units, which makes a significant difference. This also allows promotion to elites (two extra hps) and hopefully an army or two before taking on the cities. 2-move Peltasts can also use our road network to cover crisis spots and attack from the copper city, then head to the capital to heal in the same turn.

Don't the Britons have some cities in Brittany?

Bump!
:bump:

Just waiting for grs. Since Winterfell is skipping ... @Grs: its your turn to play.

Just waiting for grs. Since Winterfell is skipping ... @Grs: its your turn to play.

You must have missed the below in the out of pocket thread.

Please put me on autoskip in all my SG until further notice. :(

@LK: Thanks for pointing that out, I guess he will just take 20 turns later on. :)

The roster:

1. akots
2. Stapel
3. Winterfell - skip
4. grs - skip
5. Bezhukov - UP
6. Krys - ready

Guess I got it. Will play Sunday.

Hi all I'm back from Jerusalem. I'll play once my turn is up.

You can go ahead and take it now, as I haven't started yet.

Well, if no one else wants it, I guess I'll take it. Will post report tonight.

Yes, just play it please. The game has to move at least a little bit.

Ok, I'm on turn eight and need some input. Things were dicey for a while thanks to an unkind RNG. Such matters have a way of evening out, however, and the RNG has now decided to give me two leaders. I formed an army with the first, but it will not allow me to do so with the second. We have nine cities. Any idea why this is the case?

The next player will have great fun at Rome's expense, BTW. :)

I can answer you, the solution is in the biq BTW.

Armies require 6 cities each, not 4 like in the epic game. So we need 12 cities to support a 2nd army. Maybe the current war will allow that soon ?

Other various things I found in the biq :
- Movements on roads cost 1/4 point, not 1/3.
- Upgrade cost is 2 gold per shield, not 3.
- Golden Age lasts 25 turns, not 20.
- Forest gives 15 shields when chopped, not 10.
Plenty of other minor stuff, but this should already help a bit. :)

Well, we now have 10. :) Don't think I'll be able to get 12 on my set, but should get there early in the next. I'll get my report written up and posted later this evening. Also found Persia, and they shipped us two lux and horses. So things are looking up. If only we had gone for Literature instead of MapMaking. Oh well, we may need it to get the GL.

Pre-flight: Sell Math to Iberia for 26gpt and 130 gold (I had gifted him 100 to improve relations), buy 85 gold from Gallia for 6 gpt to ward off attacks. Move western forces back to the main front – if far western city falls, we will take it back after crushing the Roman core. Lydia gets Alpha for 8 gpt, 150 gold (50 of which we gave him). Plan to declare in two turns, getting forces positioned.

IBT: Gallia and Iberia slug it out on our western front. This is good news. :D

1875BC: War prep.

1850BC: This is it. Check trade opportunities pre-war: Sell Math to Sea Peoples for a pittance (120+3gpt), Alpha to Hittites for 50+9gpt. I demand Rome withdraw from our territory – and they comply! :confused: That’s… not so good. Hmmm, now what? Wait a turn and see what they do.

IBT: Rome moves one unit onto our territory.

1825BC: We meet Imagizhen – they are way behind in tech, have no gpt to spare. Ask Rome to depart, they agree. Pull up dialogue again – the option is still there. Ask again, they declare! :crazyeye: Vet Peltast attacks settler pair on Adriatic coast – he is now heroic, and we get a GA! :D We take out a couple Broadswords and batten down the hatches.

IBT: Interesting – Rome evacuates the west and advances only upon the wheat east of Gramisca . Advantage fast units, as we can recall the troops defending the west faster than Rome can bring those forces to bear in their main offensive.

1800BC: We lose one vet Peltast, and another retreats dispatching the two covering spears. After this, it’s a rout, with most work being done by the western guard Peltasts. Only get one promotion from the entire battle, however. Eastern front: One Peltast retreats on spear in grass. Next takes care of him. Vet promotes killing covering spear on hill. Whatever, retreat, then lose pelt attacking spear on grass. Spear promotes. We kill it flawlessly. Get a heroic killing broad on hill. Flawlessly dispatch broad on grass, redline but kill elite broad on grass. Vet pelt redlines but kills broad on hill, promoting.

Make peace with Brennus, giving 180 gold. We get it back, plus 100 and 6gpt, selling him Monarchy.

IBT: Broad kills our covering spear, on hill, across river, flawlessly. :mad: Heroic pelt is toast. We should have roaded that space.

1775: Need to kill 5 covering spears. Heroic pelt wins. Vet retreats. Vet redlines, promotes. Vet retreats. Vet retreats. Vet redlines, wins. Heroic (4/6) wins. Heroic in Adriatic theater loses to vet spear settler pair. Vet archer finishes the deal, promotes. Vet pelt (3/4) kills redlined spear. Reg archer kills reg axe. Reg pelt retreats from vet broad. Reg pelt kills vet broad, promotes. Reg pelt dies to vet broad, promoting it. RNG hates us. We’ll take a few lumps this IBT.

IBT: Fun RNG continues, as our superspears take a total of 1 hp off two attacking broads, promoting the second. Our defensive bombards whiff. :rolleyes:

1750BC: OK, open stack of 6 broads with no cover, but two spears on our copper. Western front: Vet pelt retreats from spear. Vet pelt kills vet spear. Vet pelt kills vet spear. Vet pelt kills vet spear. Reg archer kills vet axe. Reg pelt kills vet velite. Vet pelt kills vet velite. Invasion of Gravisca repulsed! Eastern front: Velt pelt kills spear on copper. Vet pelt clears last spear off of copper, promoting. Vet pelt redlines, killing vet broad. Reg pelt dies redlining vet broad. Reg pelt kills vet broad. Reg pelt kills heroic (4/7) broad, promoting. Vet archer kills injured vet broad. Heroic (3/6) pelt kills vet velite – producing a leader! Yeah baby! :D Army loads up with *heroic and two injured vets and heads to capital to heal. Reg archer kills injured vet broad. Assault on Vetulonia repulsed! 11 pelts healing in capital will be ready to take the fight to the Romans next turn!

IBT: Our source of tin is exhausted! Whatever. More roman spears approach. Macedon builds Olympic Games.

1725BC: Heroic pelt kills vet spear – and… we have a leader! :eek: Our advisors tell me we need 3 more cities to build an army. Sound like a plan. We clean up the latest Roman incursion with no losses, promoting a few vet and reg peltasts. The tide has turned.

IBT: Only two spears come calling, along with 6 units of cannon fodder.

1700BC: We take Pisae, with the army doing most of the damage, but not before going to one hp! :eek: He was at 8 before the last attack, and almost gave me a heart attack, losing 4 hp to take the last hp off of the defending spear. A Heroic pelt takes out the fourth spear, and a vet promotes taking out the last defender, a broadsword. Pisae is ours! I’ll rush a settler there to get the Roman pop down and get us to 12 faster (we should eventually abandon Pisae and try to get all coastal cities to take advantage of our seafaring trait.) Lose a vet Peltast cleaning up the rest of the Roman units on our territory, as well as a reg taking out a Velite (one defense!) on a mountain.

We meet Persia, getting opium, incense, and horses for Math. Also meet the Medes (down Math) but they have little to trade.

IBT: Egads – a Roman naval invasion coming our way – aren’t they cute, with their one move per turn. :lol: Even their ships are slow. We saw them coming, so Caere, which can build one turn galleys, will do just that in the upcoming turn. Broadswrod takes out our exposed archer, and promotes. We’d have saved about 5 units had we built a road on that hill. Phoenecia estabishes an embassy in our capital. The map we got in trade from Iberia shows Phoenecian cities in south Morocco, the Sudan, Gibraltar, and Kirgizstan!

1675BC: Rush settler in Pisae. The Roman invasion this turn consists of one lonely spear and three broadswords. We lose a heroic pelt to vet spear. Whoever said it’s not like Knights and Spears was right. Vet Pelt finishes off spear. Reg pelt takes some hp off of Heroic broad and retreats (what I had hoped for, as he would be exposed had he won). Vet pelt retreats from vet broad (I guess 8 attack v. 2 defense just wasn’t enough, whatever). He didn’t even take a hp off him, then next vet pelt kills vet broad without taking a scratch and promotes. The two extra hp are huge. Vet Pelt loses to injured vet broad. This is silly. Vet pelt and reg pelt finish off one-hp roman units. Vet archer feels lucky and dies to 3 hp broad, redlining it.

IBT: Rome only sends one spear, but they send a broad and and axe to the mountain beside Pisae (didn’t know they could move on mountains, could be trouble).

1650BC: Vet chariot (Caere is making one-turn chariots) takes 3 hp off of broad on mountain. We have 4 fully healed heroics, time to make a move on Cumae. Vet archer dies, taking no hp off of axe on mountain, promoting him (am I missing something here? 4 attack vs. 2 defense, even on mountain should do better than that?) 2 vet peltasts retreat from this demon axe. Finally, two reg pelts kill axe and broad. The assault on Cumae will have to wait a turn, as I’m tired of losing units. Heroic pelt redlines, but takes out Roman spear. We ship Math to Lydia for 24gpt and change. We get diamonds and some change from Media for Math. I waited too long to sell Hannibal Monarchy, as he got it somewhere else. Scythia gives us 24gpt and change for Math. Dacia is flat broke – he must have tons of units. Iberia and Gallia have been burning stacks of units on our western front to little effect.

IBT: all Rome can muster is an axe attack on our fortified spear on the tin mountain near Pisae, and finally on the fifth try, we win a battle with a spear! At 40 shields a pop, they’re stil useless.

1625BC: I play one extra turn to get us back on an even number. Time to get 12 cities and build an army. Vet chariot kills blocking axe (We took Rome’s only tin, so he can’t build broads). Army redlines, but takes out two spears guarding Cumae. We found Bologna on east coast of the boot, and hit the magic twelve. Heroic archer takes out broadsword on plains. I’ll leave the rest of the moves this turn to the next player. Taking out Rome would be nice, as this would give us barracks in all cities. The western Roman cities should be nearly defenseless, if you’d rather go that way. There is a settler in Vetlonia, who could build on the wines and get our borders closer to Rome, if this is the way you choose. Good luck!

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG1-1625BC.SAV)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Golden.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Roman Offensive.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Romeburns.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/GoodRNG.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Cumae.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/1625BC.JPG

Sorry bout the redlining army problem - both times they attacked with 8 hp's. With bonus, they should be 10/3 units. More random RNG. I've been switching builds to infra to make use of our GA. We should have plenty of units to roll Rome now, but feel free to produce more if you feel it necessary. Caere is making exactly 30 spt, hence the one-turn chariots (for garbage collection, and pseudo-bombard effect with retreat).

Hey, that looks good! I didn't expect war this soon. (You could have roaded that hill yourself first ;) ).

Q:
Why do you think lit would have been so much better than MM?

Mainly because it allows libraries :)

Also opens more options, although having the merchant ship will be nice (transports armies). If that lets us take the GL, it will all be worth it. No biggie.

Roading that hill would have delayed the war around 4 turns (no workers close by). Every turn we waited was another turn Rome was getting stronger than us. We needed the GA ASAP. Things got a little dicey (overall, the RNG was fair, it just bit me at the worst times), but the worst that could have happened was losing some Pelts on D. Our cities were never in danger.

We could use the army as cover to build a city one tile SE of the wines (there is a settler in the copper city), which would set us up nicely for taking Rome. I think some of Rome's cities are built on resources, and since they have few improvements, we could easily move them to more ideal locations once the war cools down. So probably best not to build improvements in these cities, instead farming them for workers.

The initial Roman invasion near Gravisca. Most of our forces were in copper city or the far west. We were saved by the 2 movement of the Peltast. This allowed the stack you see in our western city to clean up the broadswords and velites around Gravisca, after vet pelts from copper city took out the spears.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Roman_Offensive.JPG

Seems like a good set of turns! :goodjob:

The roster:

1. akots - getting ready
2. Stapel
3. Winterfell - skip
4. grs - skip
5. Bezhukov - Just played and it feels good to spill some Roman blood
6. Krys - UP

After much consideration, I'd recommend throwing everything we have at the Roman capital. The one weakness of our Peltasts is that they lack a hp compared to many of the units they are fighting. This means we need vets badly. Rome has a wonder that gives all cities barracks (we cannot build barracks, so this is doubly important).

We have a healthy army, that you can use as cover to build a city on the tile SE of the wines near Rome. Once both armies are healthy, you can park them and about 10 vet/heroic pelts right next to Rome. This should be sufficient to take it out (estimating 6-8 defenders at this point). After that, we can build vet pelts in all our cities, and should soon have Mapmaking, which will allow our amphibious pelts to dominate the Mediterranean. With our seafaring trait, our economy should then take off.

Until we get Rome, I'd recommend using our GA to build mostly infra, as reg pelts are pretty fragile, and there won't be many more easy promotion opportunities.

We can pillage copper and build warriors in the capital.

The pillage idea sounds good, but lets wait until after the GA - hate to waste those 30 spt. Maybe build some infra there with all those shields. We also have a good shot at Temple of Zeus.

I dislike the idea of pillaging.

Pillaging sounds too much like exploiting...
If we want to the temple of Zeus will bo ours for sure as noone else ever builds it.
The question is do we really want it.

It would be a nice first step in getting our culture out of the gutter. As we conquer coastal cities throughout the Med (my preferred method of expansion), it would be nice to be able to rush temples to grab fish/other resources quickly. We can currently build harbors, and will soon be one tech away from the uber-powerful ports. Minoan cities may also have quays, as well.

I'm open to other suggestions, but I think we need to go for building at least one wonder to get the big culture boost we wouldn't from just capturing. Since there are no units with defense greater than 4 until Iron, we should push our advantage now.

There is no way we can have decent culture against Deity AI even with Temple of Zeus. The cities will be flipping from us like the autumn leaves in any case. Just look at the total culture in the MapStat.

Krys is UP. Posting "got it" or skip request will be nice.

There are,what, 30? AI civs. There are not 30 big-culture wonders, nor enough early culture improvements for all 30 to be running away from us. Yes, the big 5 will never be caught (until we raze all their cities :hammer: ). But the mid-range ones can be competed with, and the stragglers can be dominated. If we can find civs without horses, then keeping cities can prevent immediate counters.

Guys, looking how long my turns took on the first time, when we were at peace and small, I don't think I can have time to play this game apart on weekends. I hope you understand, so I'll do my best to play it on Friday night or Saturday afternoon. If someone can play inbetween, that's cool. :)

Use MapStat then, it should help. We don't have many cities. I played right after you and it took me about 45 minutes to finish my 10 turns. Then another 45 minutes to write it up and post.

It's the IBT's. On my middling PC, they were taking 10-15 minutes apiece. I saw at least two AI-AI wars, and these can slow things down considerably.

cant help but need to post, since I remember our little debate here on page 4. just a little joke, don't take it too hard. :joke:

I can handle long turn because I'm a superhero, so no problemo with me. :lol:

Mapstat ain't that bad :rolleyes:

Mmmh yes, I can handle long turns, but if I lack time to play them, what can I do ? I have no problem playing for long when I have time, no matter what ITs take... And I obviously need more sleep.

So, we wait to weekend? I can try to play or if Winterfell has time. Please let's decide then.

Let's see if Winterfell's around. If he doesn't take it, go ahead and take a spin.

This weekend I will leave for a week.

We are actually in good shape after taking a closer look at the save. Of course, there is not enough units to take over the whole map. But we can advance for a while.

Did not manage to play today though. So, Krys, if you can play Friday night, please post otherwise I will make a second attmept to play. We are one tile away from contact with Assyria and can certainly capture Rome with the help of an army. Also noticed we are building a cult site or two and we don't need this if we are going to build SoZ. There are few civ building Great Library and I'm not sure that Troy will get it. But if we will be desperate, we can try to start stealing techs even though it is extremely expensive. I'd still vote for disconnecting copper at least once since we need a much larger army than what we have especially after the Golden Age. About 100 peltasts might be able to do the job. For now, it is OK since production and trade bonus is substantial but after GA ends, our advance will be slowed down and substantially.

It might be also a good time to chose the victory condition. Caravan might be doable but only if we capture Great Library. Domination or Conquest might be difficult because AIs will be likely to win by Caravan before it. Same goes for Diplomatic. 20K cultural might be also possible but we need about 500 slaves for it. This amounts to razing about 100 size 8 cities plus buying/capturing ever spare worker the AIs are having. Well, we get an enslaving unit with iron working which might ease the pain but still looks tough. May be it is too early to tell but capturing Great Library would not hurt in any case. Let's put this as a top priority for the current moment.

Killing Rome is in our powers but we can make peace for a city or two (after capturing Rome) and then go hammer somebody else. For this we need a few embassies and alliances as well though it is optional.

Since we are seafaring, I say capturing and settling cities along the coasts of the entire Italian boot should be first priority. This will provide the commerce to research/steal our way back into tech parity. Once this is accomplished, we should also be strong enough to capture the GL, if necessary. Might as well take the two western Roman cities as well to consolidate our lines. I think a couple of those cities are on resources, so we may need to move them. Once we get the mountains mined/worked around our northern cities, they should be productive enough to build units without disconnecting the copper (this feel exploitish).

After securing the boot, I'd shoot for conquering Minoan and Mycanean cities with their quays and offshore platforms that go together well with our seafaring trait. With the uber-powerful port improvement one tech away, these cities should flourish. We can also target any other civ-specific wonders that would be helpful. I'd like to go for a caravan win, as the conquest options sound too tedious. We can build up enough strength to take out any civs that threaten to beat us to it.

Playing tonight is not an option, I have too much civ to do, also diplo ;) and I want low-pressure evenings... I can certainly find some time on Saturday though. Definitively this weekend. :)

Ok, I'm playing now then.

Preturn check: Everything looks OK. Change Populonia from Cult site to Slave market, moving army and all fully healed peltasts to attack Rome. Reset preferences, seems that we have lost lots of worker turns due to Cancel friendly orders checked. We make contact with Assyria. Ashurbanipal has 12K gold. Traded him maps for 170g. Trade maps for about 600g profit. IBT. Iberia and Gallia hammer each other over some village in Pyrenees. Volchi starts on ToZ ready in 18 turns.

[1] We capture Rome and we now have barracks in all cities! Mantua founded in between Rome and Cumae. We lose 2 peltasts during siege of Rome and 3 peltasts attacking Roman broadsword on a hill. Can get Arretium of Ravenna from Rome for peace. Trade Monarchy to Dacia for 2 slaves (480 g worth). We need also to decide where to build Pantheon (forbidden palace). I’ve started one in Rome. But we can rush it with a leader if we even get one more. IBT. Romans advance with some longsowrds. Great Library built in Sidon. That is not that far away from coast, we can get it sooner or later. Though war with Babylon would be less pleasant than war with Troy.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-136.JPG

[2] One army advances to Antium, another to Arretium. We can get both cities next turn. Maps traded for some change of about 200g. We have about 2800 g in the bank.

[3] Southern army redlines but kills 3 spears in Antium. The city cannot be taken this turn. However, we captured Arretium with 3 Roman settlers and 4 workers in it! This totals to 12 slaves! Attack on Ravenna does not succeed but our discipline is good and all peltasts retreated after inflicting some damage. Trade WM to Babylon for 110g+9gpt.

[4] Not much progress on the war front, we certainly need more troops to deal with Rome and those which we have are too few to swiftly eliminate Rome. Alas, the war has been started too early to be completely victorious. But I consider this game a bit relaxed (it is not GOTM after all and we are not competing with other humans here) and just hope we can win even in this situation. With barracks and granaries in all cities it should be possible to grow and get powerful imho. IBT: Romans do nothing, probably rushing spears to cover the losses.

[5] I casually begin to partially cash-rush units and improvements. Mapmaking is due in 2 turns and we are supposed to get at least 2K gold with it by map trading. Arpinium is almost captured, two chariots retreated from longsword. Sothern army retreated to heal in Rome and 6 units advanced to battle for the hill of Antium. IBT. Iberia and Gallia still battle in Aquitania. Nobody wins, nobody wins there. We lose Cumae to amphibious Roman archer sailing around in a curragh.

[6] Cumae recaptured but our heroic archer died in the process and two chariots and a peltast retreat from a spear there. The battle for Arpinum yields our third leader, Lars Tolumnius. The city is captured together with a settler and worker for total of 4 slaves. Roma urgently switched to peltast and Lars runs there to rush the small wonder. At least we get a part of Golden Age with lower corruption. The battle of Antium proceeds as planned and we capture the city. Rome has only Neapolis and Ravenna left. They also have no techs or other things of interest to us. This means they have to go. Weaklings they are indeed. But still there are a few fierce battles ahead.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-141.JPG

Troy got Mapmaking and we traded their WM around for a net profit of about 400g. We are second in population, other stats are messed up because of Golden Age.

IBT. We discover Mapmaking, research to Seafaring at zero.

[7] We can try to snatch the Lighthouse but it is risky and there are no other wonders for backup. Lars rushes Pantheon in Rome. Gold before WM trading: 3835. After: 10251g plus some change in per turn deals of about 50 or 60. Assyria still has 12K but we are getting close. That has been a little bit more than expected, around 6.5 thousand. Now we need to spend it for good. Mostly probably rushing settlers and units as well as some critical improvements. It has been a long turn (even with MapStat) and I will stop now and continue after some sleep. Here is the gorgeous minimap and Sidon with Great Library. We need to capture Tyre first by amphibious attack and then advance there over land. Can capture a few Minoan cities on the way.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-142.JPG

Good show, akots! :thumbsup:

I'd like to take advantage of our free granaries to get our cities optimally placed before the next push for war (eliminating the Roman scourge first, of course). How about some dotmaps? My suggestions follow.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Romedot.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Romedot2.JPG

Arpenium is on wheat, so needs moved. Cumae needs moved to get access to fresh water and allow growth.We can bleed workers off of larger cities (or rush settlers) before moving them. Granaires allow them to grow back quickly.

What does a safe steal on lit look like? This opens up later techs for trade. Is seafaring available for trade?

Actually, we don't have to move anything anywhere, we can just buy whatever improvements we need and we have enough food bonuses apart from being agricultural. Moving cities is a desperate undertaking when we need more productivity and are far behind. We are not far behind and need to take full advantage of the Golden Age. I don't see much benefit from it since it is tedious task and cities have lots of improvements and we are not playing a milked game. We have more pressing things to do which is building military and navy.

We neither need to steal nor need to research. The first level techs we will be able to get from the Great Library hence all effort should go into Tyre-Sidon operation and further military expansion.

>Actually, we don't have to move anything anywhere, we can just buy whatever >improvements we need and we have enough food bonuses apart from being >agricultural.

This doesn't make sense - more food bonuses=more mines=more production.

>Moving cities is a desperate undertaking when we need more productivity and are far >behind. We are not far behind and need to take full advantage of the Golden Age. I >don't see much benefit from it since it is tedious task and cities have lots of >improvements and we are not playing a milked game.

This is exactly backwards. When you are desperate you cannot afford to optimize city placement. We've got a long way to go (hence my preference for locating cities optimally for the long haul), but we are already far from desperate. It's no more tedious than producing the workers and settlers in the cities we need to move (workers and settlers we already need, and thus would o/w need to produce in our more productive core, reducing core production significantly - this is where we'll get our military), then producing one final settler and resettling one tile over. They will recover pop fast with the food bonuses and free granaries. These cities are unlikely to have any significant improvements in them at this point. Rome hasn't had anything useful to build!

I'm only talking about moving three cities, for heaven's sakes. Cumae definitely needs to move to grow over 4. Moving Arpinum lets it work several mined hills, getting food from the wheat it sits upon and the fish. Moving Ravenna is lower priority.

Since the GL never obsoletes, the capture the GL strategy feels exploitish. I'd rather win by smart play.

If we're hopelessly behind in tech, we can capture Sidon to catch up, but if holding the GL is our long-term research strategy, that will require a military commitment far from home that could be better used establishing a productive empire closer to home.

SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG1-1375BC.SAV)

Continuing from previous long, still turn 7 left to move units around. IBT. Pantheon in Roma complete. We lost timber and furs from Kolchis. Not that we need both.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-142-panth.JPG

[8] Ravenna falls together with 2 settlers and 2 workers in it. We have many slaves indeed. Neapolis also falls, but Rome is not eliminated. They should have a wondering settler somewhere on land or in a boat. Actually, we have our own timber between Neapolis and Antium, just need to claim the tile.

There are few expansion possibilities. We can advance on Mycenae and probably will be able to capture all their cities except Tiryns which is the only one not coastal. Also, we can build a road to cross alps and found a city in Switzerland south-east of Gallia. From there, we should be able to push north and NE-NW towards Alesia, Lutetia, and Saxones. Third, we can advance towards Aquitania Since Iberia and Gallia are at war. Fourth, Minoan cities are all coastal and we can certainly hammer on them and probably capture all cities. We need may be 10-15 turns to prepare for these campaigns and I’m starting the preparations by building merchant ships and peltasts by part-rushing when needed. There are also a few productive tiles to claim in southern Italy and we can rush a few settlers after the Golden Age ends. And of course, hunting for Roman settler is a top priority. As well as claiming timber and settling a few city sites.

OK, after extensive search, Roman settler has been located hiding underneath a warrior and enslaved by our heroic war chariot. Rome is then eliminated.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-143.JPG

In terms of culture, we will be more or less safe from flipping while capturing cities from Phoenicia, Minoans, and probably Troy as well as Germanic tribes. And we can only hope to hold for one turn the cities from cultural monsters including Babylon and Lydia. Mycenae, Gallia, Dacia, and Macedon will certainly have a few flips but we can advance there as well.

[9] Buildup continues. Traded WM around for another 500g or so in gpt as well as timber even though we will have our own soon. All Assyrian gold ended up in Huns’ pockets somehow. Must be a really expensive tech trading there. I’m loading a few peltats into merchant ships to take over Mycenae. The obvious targets are Athenae, Mycenae, Denrda, Pylos, and Thebai. We cannot hope to hold the cities for long though but we can always try. Also they have Menelaion very far to the north and Tiryns is not coastal.

[10] More units finished. There are 3 merchant ships (one with army and two other with 4 peltasts each) ready to attack Mycenan cities of Pylos and Athenae and may be Mycenae itself if RNG permits. There is also ship due next turn in Arpinum, just need to be loaded with peltasts and can attack Orchomenos as well. Workers/slaves north of Populonia are building road through Alps to bring settler on the other side. There is also settler on the hill east of Neapolis to build a city there.

Indeed, a few cities can be moved but lets wait until our Golden Age is over. Also, we will probably get Architecture once we capture the Great Library and can then rush aqueducts which will be actually cheaper than moving cities. We have almost 11K gold in the bank and can rush/part-rush what we want and wherever we want for a rather long time. If we need local culture, we can always sac one or to slaves instead of building temples.

There are a few Minoan units inside our borders going somewhere. I was just asking them out politely from time to time and they withdraw.

All battle plans are summarized below. There is also a curragh sailing towards Picts and another is coming home for upgrading.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-145a.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-145b.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-145c.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-145d.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG-145e.JPG

Certainly, I must agree that capturing Great Library in this scenario seems exploitive a bit. However, building libraries and other kind of stuff is not a good option IMO as well. That is just too tedious for my style. We might be better off going for Domination win then which is expected to come around turn 250 or so, may be slightly earlier or later if we build only military units. We need about 300 peltasts to succeed on this route though and most of them will be partially cash-rushed. However, we can capture Great Library for a single turn, catch up in techs and then abandon Sidon just to avoid temptation of capturing it once again for the city will most certainly flip. Or recapture it after it flips and then raze it. Otherwise, caravan win will take a huge time and even though I have little doubt we can get it, it will not be a really good game.

Let's hammer on Mycenae, Phenicia and Minoans first by building more peltasts and merchant ships and then make further plans since there are also options to advance north and west. Whoever plays next can decide on whether to move the cities now or wait, it is not important imho and can be done although the impact is very small.

It seems that cultural victory by sacrifice is still an option. We have many slaves indeed and their numbers are supposed to steadily increase while in the conquest phase. 500 slaves is a lot but not that impossible.

The roster:

1. akots - just played, Rome is history
2. Stapel - skip for a week
3. Winterfell - getting ready
4. grs - skip indefinitely
5. Bezhukov
6. Krys - UP It is Sunday man, just like you requested.

Otherwise, caravan win will take a huge time and even though I have little doubt we can get it, it will not be a really good game.

What is a caravan win?

What is a caravan win? It's like a Space Race, I think, but isn't it called the Silk Road victory? :confused:

There are a number of caravan houses (ten) to be built to create the silk road. It is essentially similar to Spaceship win but the required techs span over two ages: Iron Age and the following one. The caravan houses bring some culture and are rather expensive to build and are considered small wonders.

... I'd rather win by smart play. ...

:lol: There is nothing smart in winning against the AI in civ3. It is all known and there is no secret for me there. To demostrate smart play, you need to face a human opponent.

I thought this mod would offer a few other alternative strategies. So, let's try something different. Fast Domination rush seems honorable but tedious. Caravan doable but even more tedious. Conquest obsolete since we will be able to get cultural sacrifice win long before it. My bet is that cultural sacrifice will be the fastest route to vicotory.

The point is that at present we have enough cash to rush about 200 peltasts/chariots/merchant ships and support them without doing anything else for the next 30 turns with may be occasional settlers from overpopulated cities. Not that it guarantees the win but the game looks decided at this point unless screwed big.

Great work, akots, and thanks for the detailed report. Agreed that moving cities is not highest priority, especially in GA. I would like to get Arpinum off the wheat, but no big deal. I'd like to try to take advantage of our seafaring trait to build/capture lots of coastal cities (especially capturing them from Mycenae with the offshore platforms and Minos with the xtra harbors, need to conquer entire civ to prevent flips) and use the extra commerce to get science to a reasonable level to explore the late game techs, but that's because I'm a builder at heart and have never played this mod all the way through.

Not sure why a Silk Road victory would be tedious (long IT's?) if we concentrate on getting our empire developed more than unnecessary wars. With the amount of cash we have on hand, I'm not convinced a GL capture is necessary (we could steal lit then broker), but it would of course make things easier.

Guys, I know some won't like it, but I must come to this conclusion : I can't find the time or the will to play some turns in this game, and I think it has to do with my liking of SGs. I also have the same problem with solo games... My brain is on PBEM fix now. :crazyeye: So I think I'll drop off of this roster, but I'll still come back to see the progression. Sorry for not finding it out earlier. After all it's just a game. But I also want to reorganize myself in RL, and that's more important, I'm sure you guys can understand that. That way I hope there will be less delays in this game too. :)

What does PBEM stand for? :blush:

What does PBEM stand for? :blush:

Play-By-E-Mail

OK, Krys is out, grs is busy and Stapel is on vacation. This leaves the game to Winterfell who is UP. And we need a replacement player, at least one.

Hey LK, I know you don't already have enough games to play. :lol: Try out this mod - it grows on you.

k I'm grabbing the savenow.
But im not sure i will play all turns in the same time, maybe i will divide it 5-5.
Depends how much time it will take.

Well, play 5 then and post the log please. If it is too much strain, you can stop there. It took me about 5 hours to very accurately play and post all these 10 turns I played but I'm a very fast player and used MapStat. However, maps had to be traded individually to each AI for maximal profit and there are still some money to be made with these although rather small.

k delay. Sorry but I can't do it today, but tomorrow I will for sure.. 2.5 hours you say.. That's a lot.
Well our currnet goal is to conquer mycenae you say?

Tomorrow sounds fine. We've had some discussion, take a look at it and at the save and make your decisions then. Well, since you played this mod previously, you knew it takes some time to play besides the map is large and lots of diplo to do even with MapStat. I hate to remind this to people in SGs but when you signed up for the game, this means you can devote some time to play your turns about once a month. Actually 2-3 hours a month does not sound like a lot. ;)

@Winterfell: Any progress out there by chance?

OK, then may be Stapel can play?

I just returned.

I can play.

Please play then. The game is in dear danger of dying with only 3 functional players while grs is still unable to play. We are doing rather good here and it would be a pity to let it go in this situation. Krys has dropped (bad boy he is indeed) and Winterfell just disappeared. Please take 5 turns or 10 if you can afford that.

Ok
Got it!

I have a question for start-up.
Should we keep research at a minimum, and head for Sidon and its Great Library (that migth take a while)?
Or should we max-research literature?

Since the TGL is far away, the option of conquering it, and expecting not to keep it sounds rather fun.

Could we add an extra 'handicap' to this game by keeping research at 0%, until we have captured Sidon?

Hey, our ships are in Mycenian waters, and have no moving points left. Will this cause a rep-hit when I attack next turn?

Just move the ships out, declare, then move back in and attack?

Research: it is your call, either way can be fine apparently.

Just move the ships out, declare, then move back in and attack?


hmmmmmm,

I think reputation hits are calculated over the position of your units at the begin of a turn.....

anyone?

Did Aga-man ask as out IBT? Then we would be able to withdraw. But it is not that strict iirc, just need to declare when our units are not in their borders.

pre turn. Things look good. Rush a ahip in Aretum, to load a few more Peltatsts to conquere Corsica.
I'm a bit of a low rsik player. I will only attack when succes is sure.

Research to literature yet to 0%.

Turn 1; 1350 BC: We renegotiate peace with Mycene (after withdrawing ships first). We want Athens, they refuse, it's war.
Eight Peltasts attack Corsica. 2 retreats, one dead. The city of Orchomenos is now defended with a wounded warrior.
We capture Athens with our army. Mirafiori founded in southern Italy. Cortona settled near Iberians.

IT: due to my tremendous stupidity, we loose Neapolis and Mirafiori to the Mycaenians......
Oh boy... :( .

Turn 2; 1325BC; We recapture the 2 cities. We also capture Thebai. No more Mycenians in Italy. Corsica is also ours too. Pylos (on the croatina coast) is ours too.

Turn 3; 1300BC; We disband Pylos. There is a size 9 SoD next door. Troops are gathering in the south for a blow on the rest of the Mycenian empire.
Turn 4; 1275 bC; Not really much. We demolish some troops near Athens.
Turn 5; 1250 BC; Mycenae has fallen!
Turn 6; 1225 BC; All major Myceanian cities are ours. No more cities to conquere. Perusia founded.
Turn 7; 1200 BC; We are preparing for taking over Minoans. And we completed the SoZ.
Turn 8; 1175 BC; Ruselae founded up north. We kill the Mycenean SoD up north, without any losses, bu with a few promotions.
Turn 9; 1150 BC; Not much, we kill two more Mycenian units. We are ready to strike Minoans in 1 turn.
Turn 10 1125 BC; I got myself a riotting city :( . We make peace with Mycene and get 73 gold and the city of Gla, which is located on the Costa del Sol (that's in Spain). The Mycenian capitol is soemwhere up north.

We declare war to Minoans! We kill or capture all wandering units in our territory. Next target is the foot of the Italina boot that kicks Sicily. Gortys is ours.
Knossos is next: 17 wins and one retreat (no losses), and it is ours. It appears we brough exactly enough units.
All spearmen were attacked either by armies or 6/6 peltast, the 1-defense units were kicked by 4/4 peltasts. So it not just luck. Alltogether, I have had quite some elite victories, but no leader....

Anyway: that's about it. The 17 defending units have a disadvantage. There will be 3 broadswordsmen and 1 archer attack the next turn on Knossos. This might cost a defending army. That is quite stupid from my site. Now, it is too late not to send in the armies without movement points...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG1-1125BC.SAV

Krys has dropped (bad boy he is indeed)
:cry: That's why I hesitated in joining this team. I can't find myself playing solo games like before. And my HD died. :cry: Good luck with the promised victory.

Seems like a great solid progress with amphibious attacks!

@Krys: Thanks, we'll try. No ill feelings man.

Looks like Winterfell is still absent and grs still cannot play. This leaves the game to Bezhukov and any new player is wellcome to join in a quest for victory.

Stapel I assume you declared after they wouldn't give Athens. Right?

I'll take it tomorrow if no one else steps up.

Stapel I assume you declared after they wouldn't give Athens. Right?

Yup,
I clicked the peace deal under active treaties. Do you really want to re-negotiate peace? YES.
They would agree with 20 turns of peace, just like that, but I wanted Athens.
They refused (of course).

When pressing escape, a box comes up: Do you really want war: YES.

I realise I left the Minoan city poorly defended, but that is no reason to play ;) !

I'll be playing this evening. Was waiting to see if someone else wanted to join.

By all means go ahead and play please.

I'll be playing this evening. Was waiting to see if someone else wanted to join.

Getting a replacement player in any SG is hard.
Trying to find one for a custom mod is much worse.
I suspect you have to play with whom is left.

I am NOT joining. I have no interest in learning another mod.

Still hoping grs will come back one day.

Pre-flight: swap some builds to settlers to get our land covered and unit costs down. Wow – Crete was a hornet’s nest. Mobilize troops in Casa toward the front. Ship Darius 3 luxes and 10gpt for opium and incense (we need WLTK’s badly). Diamonds are very costly, but we get them from Media for wines and 15gpt.

IBT: We get very lucky, as one Minoan broadsword takes our first army down to 3 hps, the second takes our second army to 1 p, and an archer takes a heroic pelt to one hp. All live, however.

1100BC: Tarqunii:Plet->Slave Market, Arretium:Settler->Settler, Orchomenos:temple->settler, Gravisca:pelt->pelt, Dendra:temple->spear, Mycenae:temple->spear

Vet pelt kills minoan spear on flat near thebai.

Facing an army of 15 spears on a hill covering 9 broadswordsmen, we decide to abandon Knossos and thank the gods that much slaughter was averted. Not the proudest moment in the annals of Etruscan arms. Our ships accommodate just enough troops to pull a perfect Dunkirk, and Knossos is abandoned – let there be no doubt – we shall return! Or not – not much to gain there. Minos has sweeter targets elsewhere.

I’m tired of sitting on this lump o’ cash, so do a safe steal on Kolchis, netting us masonry. Which opens up exactly nothing for trade (all techs this allows have another prereq). Let’s see what Solomon knows – he’s pretty weak. Yes, a safe steal allows us to master the secrets of Literature. We set our own research to Code of Laws and order the construction of some libraries throughout the land. Hammi will sell us Education and Architeture for 6K a pop. Not just yet, Hammi, let’s see what develops.
It was risky, and researching the rest ourselves would have been cheaper, but it also would have taken 11 more turns. I’d like to have a better defensive unit with which to assault Babylon, though I may be dreaming.

Interesting – Assyria lacks Ed, while Troy lacks Architecture. We do some wheeling and dealing, and at the end of the day, we’re down about 4000 gold and 50 gpt, but we have tech parity. Getting Architecture is huge, as it allows aqueducts to be constructed, and they’re pretty cheap for us.

IBT: The Huns demand 100 gold, guess they’re not satisfied with the 50gpt and two luxes we’re already shipping them. To stay with the theme of this game, I tell them to stuff it, and we get our gpt back.

1075BC: A few builds complete, sorry but I don’t have the energy to note all builds. Vet pelt kills vet spear on flat. Load up strike force to take Mallia (Minoan city on the tip of the boot) next turn.

1050BC: Three Heroic pelts take Mallia with no losses. Cretian strike force recalled to the home front in anticipation of Hun incursion. Home cities benefit from garrisoning – many declaring that they love the king.

1000BC: We take the last Minoan city in the western Med and make peace.

I get too tired to write the rest of the report, as turns are taking forever and it is well into the wee hours. Summary: I was afraid of the Huns, so didn’t start any other wars, focusing mostly on infrastructure. We secured all luxes, so any city above 6 pop gets WLTK. Went three for four on steals (getting Astronomy netted us over 10K gold.) and we are now at tech parity, with CoL due in ten turns at monopoly. If we can get CH’s built and get a government with a trade bonus, we can win this baby the old-fashioned way. If you’d prefer 200 unit on 200 unit warfare, that can be arranged as well.

The big thing we need right now is workers. Once we get CoL, we can dedicate a couple non-core cities to spitting out workers to grow our cities faster and work the land. Something is screwy with the culture, as I rushed several temples, but they are not producing culture. Neither is the Pantheon in Rome.

Oh - we are now at peace with the Huns, we got it straight up without ever seeing a unit.

the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TAMSG1-900BC.SAV)