Now that dman has led this loser (and others) to a Monarch win, we were feeling a little ballsy and wanted to go for an Emporer win. NO restrictions on victory condition and AI spawn is now turned off. The world is still completely random. As is our civilization and the opponents. We'll cut off the roster @ 5. So sign up quick. I'll roll some starts tonight and post the first five starting positions tomorrow.

This is [c3c]

Playing as: Random civ
World size: Standard map
World: completely random
Barbs: random
Rivals: 7 random civs
Difficulty: Emporer
victories enabled:
domin.
space race
diplo
conquest
cultural
desired victory: any
respawn: off
Ai aggression: normal

4000BC save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/start5.SAV)
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/tr02_start5.jpg

Roster: FULL
Admiral Kutzov
eldar
dman
Mach
Tubby Rower
Minute Man

Signing up, if you'll have me back (I won't be going off on holiday this time!)

Signing up, if you'll have me back (I won't be going off on holiday this time!)
Sure!! You can even start off if you want. I don't mind giving up the first turnset. Although I like the challenge of getting the best start, I'll defer to others if they want it.

I'll sign in...
But i will be extremely grumpy this time around when you guys make mistakes... :gripe: ;)
Much harder to fix them on Emperor level you know... :)

What civ do we play this time?
Chinese, Maya, Celts, Iro's are usually recommended for an easy training emperor win.

Oh, you know what it means if i play - we are going for fast domination/conquest :ar15:
Although, I already have quite few SGs going on, i enjoyed playing with this team so i would be honored if you take me.

I don't want to step in front of anyone from TR01, but if you end up with some room, I'd love to join. I'm a monarch player, I've taken some small steps on emperor (and had a few small successes), but I still haven't managed to beat it.

What civ do we play this time?
Chinese, Maya, Celts, Iro's are usually recommended for an easy training emperor win.
I like the completely random starts. I won't know who we'll be until I get the starts tonight.

Roster: FULL
eldar (first 20)
dman
Mach
Tubby Rower
Minute Man
Admiral Kutzov

I might consider one other open spot.

BTW, dman, I played completely random game this weekend and ended up as India on an archepeligo. I won Dom. That was the first arch. I've ever played. The resources being split up and me being able to build War Elephants with no resources help quite a bit ;) .

Signing up. Boy, is this filling up fast.

Are we going to save a spot for the Admiral? Or are we going to make dman go it alone again? :)

I actually wouldn't mind picking a good civ, considering that this game is going to be quite a bit harder. But random is OK too.

BTW, dman, I played completely random game this weekend and ended up as India on an archepeligo. I won Dom. That was the first arch. I've ever played. The resources being split up and me being able to build War Elephants with no resources help quite a bit ;) .

it would only impress me if it was an emperor difficulty level.
We both know monarch is a piece of cake for you now. ;)

Signing up. Boy, is this filling up fast.


One of the disadvantages of not living on east coast- you are always late :)


Are we going to save a spot for the Admiral? Or are we going to make dman go it alone again? :)


I wouldn't mind to share trainer's duties... Will make my life much easier..
We will let captain to decide.

Are we going to save a spot for the Admiral? Or are we going to make dman go it alone again? :)

I'll close it and PM A-K to see if he wants to join. I just love idiots!! :salute:

The reason why I play random is to not pigeon-hole myself into a specific game-play style. I'm open to selecting a specific civ but personally I'd rather random. But since this is a team activity, I'll defer to the team.

I wouldn't mind to share trainer's duties... Will make my life much easier..
We will let captain to decide.
I'm not considering this too much of a training game. I like to consider it a venture into the unknown. That way there's no pressure on dman or A-K. But please, ask questions if you are unclear on reasons. And dman, remember that MAch, MM and myself are stepping up to a new level. But don't go easy on us. ;)

idiot contingent reporting :salute:

I was too busy finishing up GotM39 to sign up for this (domination in 1752), so I'll just lurk.

It's nice to have you A-K!

Here are the starts (There bad no luxes)
Start 1
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/tr02_start1.jpg

Start 2
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/tr02_start2.jpg

Start 3
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/tr02_start3.jpg

Start 4
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/tr02_start4.jpg

Start 5
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/tr02_start5.jpg

#5 looks like the best of a bad bunch - what are the Civs?

Start 5 looks easiest...

Civs:
Start 1 - Byznatinnes
Start 2 - Korea
Start 3 - Inca
Start 4 - Carthage
Start 5 - Rome

Rome, huh...
We can play Rome.
Should we move worker north first, if no food bonus (wheat??) opens settler in place and worker to irrigate and road food plains.

Research to pottery at max and Rome to build warrior->warrior->settler (for granary pre-build if food bonus exists or just a settler if not)

According to the minimaps, Starts 1 & 2 are near the south pole, and 3, 4 & 5 are almost on the equator.

It looks like everyone likes 5. A-K won't like the Flood Plains but he won't play until they are fully developed any way so he should have to fool with them.

I think that worker N and settle in place. Move the settler only if there is a food bonus and it will NOT be in the city radius if settled in place.

As far as research, our opponents are Celts, Russia, Arabia, Babylon, Aztecs, China, & Egypt. Out of those, 4 have Pottery, 4 Ceremonial Burial, 2 Bronze Working, 2 Warrior Code and 2 Masonry. We start out with WC & Alpha. WE have the monopoly on Alpha at the beginning. I think that we should start on Writing at max. We can trade for Pots.

oh well....
Looks like we gamble this time and trade pottery...

The only problem would be if we play archipelago and nobody is around... but l doubt that is the case...
So Writing at max and we are going for philosophy freebie

HEre are the guidelines for the game. I stole these from others but they did a better job of writing things down than I could.Also, each turn (except the first player) will be around ten turns +/- a few. If you don't have to complete them all then its OK to stop early and pass it on. Sometimes the game just has some natural break points beyond which you might commit the next player to a massive undertaking and you want to leave the choice up to them as they will shoulder the burden. Sometimes a war is just about over and you don't want to leave a the next player with a couple of boring "clean-up" turns or you have worked to get something done that you feel is important and you don't want it lost. Take a couple extra to do so. Try not to "hog" all the fun, but don't short change yourself either.
Succession Game Etiquette Guide
Please do:
Let the team know if you're going to be unable to play for an extended period - holiday, illness, exams etc.
Post a "Got it" notice or ask for a skip within 24 hours of the save becoming available (I reserve the right to skip a player who hasn't responded after the 24 hour grace period is over).
Play and post within 48 hours of posting a "Got it". Additional time may be requested and granted for expected delays.
Write up a log of the events occurring during your turn and post it along with your save.
Provide notes for the next player as to the current situation and any immediate plans for the future - are those Caravels heading NE or SW? is that Swordsman fortified to heal or act as a lookout? Our forces are mustering for an attack on...
Feel free to pause and ask for advice, or simply discuss, if a situation arisies in the game and you're unsure of the best course of action.

Please do not:
Automate Workers.
Use City Governors unless the team has discussed and agreed their use.
Leave units on goto orders that will extend beyond your turn. (Auto-moving is bad form in SGs)
Make deals on your last turn. However, you should notify the next player if trading opportunities exist.
Make wholesale changes to build orders on the inherited turn without consulting the team. One or two is okay, and pre-builds may naturally get changed.

oh well....
Looks like we gamble this time and trade pottery...

The only problem would be if we play archipelago and nobody is around... but l doubt that is the case...
So Writing at max and we are going for philosophy freebie
We don't have to. I was just suggesting that we look at going to writing. If we are on an archipelago, then we will have a monopoly on trading. None of the AI will be able to build a curraph. Also, doesn't archipelago maps put you near the coast at the start? I see no coast, so I'm going on the assumption that we are at least playing continents.

No, I agree with you Tubby..
I think this is an acceptable risk in this game to go for writing 1st...
and We will have to meet other AIs ASAP to do some trading.

I agree with #5, though I'm not too thrilled with flood plains, either. Doesn't look like we have too many, though.

AFAIK, arch maps don't automatically put you near the coast (unless you're seafaring). But even if we are on an arch map, it's still pretty rare to start on an island all by yourself. Skipping Pottery and going straight to Writing makes me a little bit nervous, but it's probably a worthwhile gamble.

Ok Eldar, you're up for the first 20. If you don't want it let us know and we could shuffle the roster.

Move worker N. If no food bonuses, settle in place. If there is a food bonus, move only if not in 21 tile radius. Writing @ max.

What should the first worker's tasks be? once settled, irrigate FP or go mine/road BG by the river.

I'd think that the BG would be more important but the FP would cause growth to increase a little more rapidly.

Move worker N. If no food bonuses, settle in place. If there is a food bonus, move only if not in 21 tile radius. Writing @ max.

What should the first worker's tasks be? once settled, irrigate FP or go mine/road BG by the river.

I'd think that the BG would be more important but the FP would cause growth to increase a little more rapidly.

Another reason to move if we can cover more BGs for production.

If we move worker north it should at least start roading Flood Plains, otherwise we will lose worker turns.

It will be important to postpone GA until we change government, so all the early warfaring will be done with my favorite horses.

I'd suggest letting someone else start - I have a free uninterrupted evening (my wife is going to see a film I don't want to see...) so I plan on getting COTM9 out of the way.

I can start this but since i've started the previous game I suggest AdmiralK. kicks us in.
If we don't hear from him i will play late tonight. (if that is okay with the team of course)

Sure that's fine. I understand the need to get COTM9 out of the way. I did mine this past weekend while the wife was away. Now onto GOTM40...

We'll get the roster updated tomorrow depending on who plays the first turnset.

After all that... my continuation of COTM9 went very badly wrong after not too long.
Don't think I'll be going back to it.

eldar, Do you still want to go first then??

Do you want me to start? Let me know by 7:00pm EST.

If I start I will move the worker N per team decision. I'd road the FP and then mine/road the BG. Probably build 3 warriors right off the bat and get them out running around.

Research writing at minimum, conserving cash to use as trade goods. Pottery will be cheap once we meet some AIs. After writing, will probably go Phil at max. I like to trade around on the IT we get Phil and then our freebie gives us a monopoly tech. Really the only two techs I'm worried about getting early are iron and pottery, but I don't want to dump a ton of money into research, so we'll trade. Nice to play a no variant game. :)

Go ahead and start, I don't feel like screwing up two games in one night....

OK I'll make a command decision.....


NEW Roster
Admiral Kutzov (first 20) -EST
eldar - UK
dman -EST
Mach - ???
Tubby Rower -EST
Minute Man -MST

Go ahead and start, I don't feel like screwing up two games in one night....
You could go ahead and start GOTM40... It's regent :lol:

BTW A-K, the save is in the first post

If I start I will move the worker N per team decision. I'd road the FP and then mine/road the BG.
You'll have to excuse my ignorance of the terrain mod in the picture, but the bg you're talking about is to the west, correct? The one with three 'rocks'? In that case, maybe we should send the worker there first. Not only will we get the tile we're gonna work mined/roaded quicker, but we'll bust a bit more fog that way (as we can already see that hill to the ne)...

I'm CST, btw. :cool:

got it playing as planned.

The reason we decided to move N to the Flood Plain first is to reveal more around the river. If you went W to the BG, you wouldn't reveal too much more of the river. If we had a Wheat on the Flood Plain we could potentially have a 4-turn settler factory. Growth is most essential in the early game.

BTW, the "rocks" are terrain's traits. The two green rocks indicate 2 food with the grassland and the blue rock indicates that it is a bonus grassland.

Team voted for N to the FP except for Mach. After further review, the challenge is upheld and Mach will not be charged a time out. Worker goes west. Reset prefs to 'idiot'.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_4000BC.jpg

Plant Rome in place. Looks like I'm already in deep do-do with the team as there's wheat that would have been in reach had I followed directions. Place paper bag over head & continue. Rome > warrior. Set research to writing @ 20%.

3950: Change research to CB. Move Sparticus W to pop the hut, get pottery. Change research back to writing.

3900: Sparticus E to BG

3850: Sparticus starts mining

3800: Nap time.

IT: Rome warrior (hereafter Ward) > warrior

3750: Ward E

3700: Ward N

3650: Ward NE

3600: Ward NE

3550: Ward N

IT: Rome warrior (hereafter Wally) > warrior

3500: Wally SE, Ward E. Ward pops hut, disturbing 3 angry barbs. Lux to 10%

3450: Ward fortifies to recover from 1 barb attack (2 left), Wally E

3400: Ward attacks barb on hill; June now a widow. Wally S.

IT: Rome warrior (hereafter Beaver) > warrior

3350: Wally E

3250: Wally SE, finds dyes

IT: Rome warrior (hereafter Eddie) > settler

3200: Eddie fortifies (for later use as settler escort; escort service seems very appropriate for Mr. Haskell BTW). Wally N

3150: Wally N, meets Cleo. She greets us politely. Wally tongue tied, having never seen a two piece with thong before. Cleo has BW, Masonry, CB. We have pottery, Alpha, WC. Too speachless to deal.

3100: Wally N

3050: Wally E. Realize fascination with Cleo has caused me to waste money and drop lux to zero. Meet Mao's archer (nice jacket dude). Mao has BW and Masonry. Trade Mao pottery for 35g (all) + BW. Get over the infatuation and trade Cleo pottery for 17g + Masonry.

3000: Trade Cleo WC for CB + 18 (all)g. Wally N.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_3000BC.jpg

Map details my ideas for the future. In addition to the reasons on the map, #1 lets us get boats in the water (very important for admirals). No unescorted settlers. We're the tech leaders. Hang on to Alpha until we're close to writing unless a really good trade appears. Get 2 boats out (one north, one south), no suicides needed as yet. Bueller, any questions?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR2_AK_3000_BC.SAV

I would research writing at Max...
I recently learned from DocT and other legendary players that C3C calculates research in a way different to PTW and it makes sence to research at max even when eventially it still says 50turns even with 100% of lux slider.
I forgot what exact forum i've learned this information but i read it like last week.

Oops: cross-posting with AdmiralK :)

If we had a Wheat on the Flood Plain we could potentially have a 4-turn settler factory.
Fair enough. Although I've had little success getting a 4-turn factory going with one fp wheat. The reason is we need to work 3 flood plain tiles to get to +5 food (+3 for wheat fp, +1 * 2 for other fp). If we try a population 5-7 factory, that only leaves us with 2 pop points to place on bgs...for a grand total of 5 shields at size 5. So on shields, we're running 5-7-7-9=28 shields in 4 turns, not quite enough for a settler.

So blabbing on :rolleyes: , I think any food bonus gives us a 6-turn factory. We need 2 food bonuses for a 4-turn factory. Busting fog west might give us better chances of either, since it busts more fog and adds the possibilty of cows to the mix.

That was my full logic there. Just my two cents, I have no big objections to heading north. It's all a fine point, and maybe I'm wrong...which would explain why I consistantly lose on emperor... :crazyeye:

Edit: Ok, so this is quite wrong. :smoke:

And now I see the turns. Doh! :cry: Sorry everyone... :(

I just love to be right, cause usually i am wrong :lol: .

Admiral, take that paper bag of your head.

I have come up with another dot map...
I think it better positions city in relationship with capital and we have better river use.

My order would be:
dark blue
pink
light blue
green
...
i am sure there will be better locations west from us...
...
red

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_3000BC-dman.jpg

@ team - I'll take my lumps for the almost unilateral decision to send the worker west. however, we got pottery for no cost; we're the tech leader and we're about to grab a lux and get boats in the water to meet new marks. Popping the hut with the worker was no risk since we didn't have any military units. I know I'm an idiot, but I'd rather have the tech than the pump at this time on emperor. IMIO, it's more important to get the tech lead at this point than to get a settler pump up. If we get a tech lead, we can tie the AI in knots with deals. This game is not going to be a horse rush, slam the AI. It is going to be a trading, warring with legions slam the AI. Forgot to mention, after the settler, Rome should build more warriors for exploring and then build a settler for #2 just before it grows to size 3. I almost never research at max.

@ d-man: feel free to disagree with any of this. Me likes to converse.

x-post with D-man on the prior post. didn't know how tight the team wanted to go on builds. River (pink) is better for growth and still lets us get the boats out. Re light blue - was thinking on NE on the gold, but I'm flexible. I like the tight city placement. I feel very strongly that we should not go max on writing to save coin to trade later. Need some team discussion on this in 10-20 turns.

@ team - I'll take my lumps for the almost unilateral decision to send the worker west. however, we got pottery for no cost; we're the tech leader and we're about to grab a lux and get boats in the water to meet new marks. Popping the hut with the worker was no risk since we didn't have any military units. I know I'm an idiot, but I'd rather have the tech than the pump at this time on emperor.

IMIO, it's more important to get the tech lead at this point than to get a settler pump up. If we get a tech lead, we can tie the AI in knots with deals.
.
It's okay with your decision to settle in place..
But there is a fatal flaw on thinking tech is better than settler plan.
There is no such thing as tech lead in AA, you can be very last in tech but get ahead of everybody in a single turn as I showed in previous game.
But if we have settle pump and build more cities than AIs this game will indeed
become a horse rush, slam the AI. :) Well, that is my style of playing. I don't do all this complex gaming until Diety level...
Emperor AIs are still quite weak. We need to grow as fast as it is possible.


This game is not going to be a horse rush, slam the AI. It is going to be a trading, warring with legions slam the AI.

Sure, if we don't have horses around that is. ;) . But seriously we will see how things will go.. If we can fight before Republic we will have to use horses.


Forgot to mention, after the settler, Rome should build more warriors for exploring and then build a settler for #2 just before it grows to size 3. I almost never research at max.

Agree, we also need more workers. but send settler to the wheat and start granary.
I've never done writing research at max before myself, but after i've read that piece of info i sometimes do if i want to gamble and get to the tech before AIs.


@ d-man: feel free to disagree with any of this. Me likes to converse.

Already have ;)

x-post with D-man on the prior post. didn't know how tight the team wanted to go on builds. River (pink) is better for grow and still lets us get the boats out. Re light blue - was thinking on NE on the gold, but I'm flexible.

Green is also a coastal city and with pink and green we will control both fish and dyes..

@team: No temples, colliseums, caphedrals and other crappy builds..
We will need in level of importance:

1. barracks.
2. markets
3. few libraries just to get us to Mil Trad.

I feel very strongly that we should not go max on writing to save coin to trade later.

I know what you mean...
And i felt exactly the same... But what i learned... All we need is to meet as many AIs as we can and simply wait..
Doesn't matter how many techs they know and ahead of us..
All we need is to get a single tech before them - philosophy.
Grab another tech for free and with two techs that we have and nobody else does we will be able to trade everything Ais have plus all their money.
It does work - "as seen on TV" and better :) .
Republic slingshot - that is the best, AIs will sell their mothers for Republic.
But it is a big gamble on emperor level and i would not go for it.

Damn, x-posts. Good points. We have different styles, that's why I wanted to play this. I agree we need a pump to expand fast but I wasn't worried about getting it up before city 3. I agree we shouldn't get locked into a plan this early (i.e. horse v. legions). I've usually done archer rushes before horses simply cause the civs I usually play are more suited for that. Shouldn't we start acting as Aristotle and start axing the trainees what we should do? ;)

here we go again with the xposts.
All we need is to meet as many AIs as we can and simply wait..
Doesn't matter how many techs they know and ahead of us..
All we need is to get a single tech before them - philosophy.
Grab another tech for free and with two techs that we have and nobody else does we will be able to trade everything Ais have plus all their money.
It does work - "as seen on TV" and better .
Republic slingshot - that is the best, AIs will sell their mothers for Republic.
But it is a big gamble on emperor level and i would not go for it.


that's why I mentioned my pref for trading on the IT when we get Phil. Concur the slingshot is too risky on Emperor. My reason for min research is that nobody knows Alpha at this time. I think we can get away with min research on writing and then max on Phil.

Agree with going for Phil straight away - though with the Alpha monopoly, going for Republic might be on... safety first is the order of the day.

Now, means we'll be hand-researching our Govt - so we'll want at least one Despotic war during that time.

Is it too early to plan the demise of China (who are best dealt with very early on, I have learned).

Neil. :cool:

Is it too early to plan the demise of China

not at all. Where are they?

@ team - d-man and I have been going round in circles about how to approach this. What does everyone else think? IMHO, we need lux at this level due to the happy face thingy and my research ideas have been detailed ad nauseum above. IIRC, this is a trainer, not a dictator, so state your thoughts! your assignment is rep. vs. mon. why one or the other and how to get there.

We can always figure our a common solution...

I found the place where I've read about research at max..
It was here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=111377&page=3&pp=20

Just scroll to the middle of the thread and start reading DocT. Renata and Dynamic posts...
It actually makes sence to get writing at max.
And if we get writing faster we can actually gamble and go for CoL before Philosophy depending on situation.

We have one lux secure already... We definetely need to go for republic...
monarchy only pays of if we play AWE... Also monarchy corruption level really hurts military production. Also, forget self-research in monarchy.
Human republic can easily outperform AI in research on emperor level.


Oh, i certainly didn't mean to sound as a dictator... I mentioned in previous game - i am very politically incorrect person.... Please bare with me... I am really nice person inside. :cool:

@team: please throw your thoughts into the thread... lurkers are also welcome.

Oh, i certainly didn't mean to sound as a dictator... I mentioned in previous game - i am very politically incorrect person.... Please bare with me... I am really nice person inside.



didn't mean to imply you were a dictator, but thought we should let the trainees speak before we argued ourselves to death. ;) Like I said our styles are different so this should be interesting....

If you really want to see PC incorrectness, give me a few posts and I'll go from there :lol:

Let's sit back for a bit and let the rest of the team post their thoughts and why. :)

Yikes! An entire page of posts in two hours! So much to comment on!

So people want an aa war, eh? We're arguing on units & targets already? (And did someone mention military tradition?) Ok. I would wait to see what we see out there, civ placement & resource availability. But we are militaristic...so youse the bosses on this one. :hammer:

Ok, so I would have done writing on max since we're the only ones with alpha, but ok. I think republic slingshot is out because we did min on writing, although if still nobody has alpha when we get writing (unlikely...), then we could take a shot at it. So...continue min on writing, don't trade alpha while we have a monopoly, and do either CoL or philo after writing at max (depending on the monopoly status of alpha). That's my vote.

But I could be convinced to try the slingshot no matter what. ;)

Dotmap. I'm nervous about the settler factory; it seems so shield-poor. Now that we've built a settler, can we move an mp out of Rome on to that hill 2 west of dark blue dot, before we settle that spot? Using the road, the warrior can get to that hill before the settler could reach the dot. If we see a bg in reach, we can move our factory 1 spot west.

Also green dot -- could we move it se onto that forest square, to reduce overlap, and to grab some nice ocean commerce? I don't think it hurts us in the short term...

Rome's gonna be a nice strong city -- we can get it to >20spt, I think. Sweet.

I agree with the settling order -- dark blue dot then pink dot. Then we'll need workers, so squeeze 2 of them out of Rome. Hopefully by then the settler pump will be up and running.

That's all I can think of for now.

Also green dot -- could we move it se onto that forest square, to reduce overlap, and to grab some nice ocean commerce? I don't think it hurts us in the short term...


We will need that forest for shields, if we move green dot city to forest we will minimize our shield tiles and that city will have to be one of the major "military factories". So I would say leave it where it is, it is still a coastal city.
In this particular situation ocean commerce will only help at the later stages of the game when you can afford to put an extra citizen on sea tile..
It is okay for overlaps. I prefer tight city build...
Remember we won't need more than 12 tiles per city... ever...
So overlaps are ok and encouraged. The closer cities are to capital the less corruption.
If we play this right we will finish this game way before hospitals are invented... and i hope before anybody enters IA.



EDIT: TO learn how to play Rome on emperor level please go to the SGOTM forum and lookup Team Smackster and Team XTeam threads.. Those were classic cases of playing as Rome. While won't exactly apply in our situation due to specific variant and PTW version of the game it still will give a pretty good idea on how to play. Oh, and i acted as a total looser those old good days. :lol:

MORE EDIT: I agree that city is pretty low shield city.. We might want to use pop-rush strategy there...
I would suggest to build granary in Rome anyway... We don't have the "best" startup location

Here's the hospital rant (hopefully people find it useful like the temple rant):

hospitals are evil because they cause polluition. If you need hospitals, you've spaced your cities too far apart. If you need a hospital, you need all those cultural happiness thingies that cost gold. hospitals are bad cause you need mass transit and recycling.

@ team - did dman's required reading. go with writing on max. See the thread he suggested if you'ins need 'splainin'.

OK, who invited the Admiral? :lol: :joke: It is a little bit of a shame about that flood plain wheat, but then I never really know what to do with those cities anyway - they never seem to have enough shields.

I do have one minor quibble, though - why haven't we irrigated any of those flood plains yet? Having more food is good, right?

I agree with dman's first two dots. I think we need to get the wheat online soon, then found on the coast and build a boat or two. The other dots are a little tight for my taste, but with the river and coast placement, that's probably unavoidable. We might want to move the red dot to the other side of the river (for the free jungle chop, if nothing else), but we can worry about that later.

I like the suggestion of checking out the terrain NW of the blue dot before we settle the city.

On Republic vs. Monarch...is there really even a question? Republic has much better income, and WW shouldn't be a big problem if we plan our wars properly.

I'm inclined to agree that we should have done max research on Writing and gone full speed ahead toward the Republic slingshot, but admittedly I don't really know how feasible that is at Emperor level. Since we started with a monopoly on Alpha, though, it probably would have been worth a shot.

Is it worth cranking up research on Writing now, or did we miss our chance? The alternative would be to finish the min run on Writing, research Philo at max, and take whatever looks best at that time as our free tech. Then we research our way towards Republic as fast as practical, and when we get it, trade it around for tech parity (if we're not already there).

EDIT: Boy, you guys post a lot. Two more while I was writing this post...I actually like green dot where it is, since it has more possible shield-producing tiles - the commerce from the ocean is nice, but the production is nicer.

I'm inclined to agree that we should have done max research on Writing and gone full speed ahead toward the Republic slingshot, but admittedly I don't really know how feasible that is at Emperor level. Since we started with a monopoly on Alpha, though, it probably would have been worth a shot.

It is possible on Emperor but it is a big gamble... Then we don't know how lucky AIs will be hut popping... We have Russians and Arabs who expansionist...
We also don't know land mass but it already looks like it is big continent or pangea so AI research rate will be from fast-to-very-fast.
Let's meet all the neighbours 1st, get writing (at max) and then have a deep breath before deciding.

We might want to move the red dot to the other side of the river (for the free jungle chop, if nothing else), but we can worry about that later.

Absolutely... Not a priority but we have to remember to update dot map to make sure city goes on jungle tile.

hospitals are evil because they cause polluition. If you need hospitals, you've spaced your cities too far apart. If you need a hospital, you need all those cultural happiness thingies that cost gold. hospitals are bad cause you need mass transit and recycling.


I promise i won't argue with each post of yours ;) , but there are some exeptions for hospitals (as well as there are some exceptions for temples).

1. When you can not grow horizontaly (territory-wise) and have to grow vertically (pop-wise). Happens often on high difficulty levels and when you want to do self research. Those taxmen and scientists help.
2. When you play for score like in HoF. I think it is stupid but score you get when you win the game proportional to number of happy people/specialists in your empire.. So hospitals help greatly..

But Admiral is right... warmongers don't need no stinking hospitals. :lol:

This is my first try as a trainer, so I try to exhaustively detail my thoughts.

Is it worth cranking up research on Writing now, or did we miss our chance?

No we haven't missed our chance. (hopefully) that's been the point of d-man's and my dicussions. Only 20 turns have been played. This game is wide open. Go have fun.

On Republic vs. Monarch...is there really even a question? Republic has much better income, and WW shouldn't be a big problem if we plan our wars properly

depends where we're going. personally, I see communism in our future. Then again, I'm an idiot. Too early to lock into an strat.

depends where we're going. personally, I see communism in our future. Then again, I'm an idiot. Too early to lock into an strat.

Well, OK, but even if we do eventually go commie, I think I'd still rather be a republic until then. The couple of times I have tried the monarchy->communism path, I found that monarchy just didn't have the income to support any kind of decent research speed by the late MA. That may just be a commentary on my empire management skills, of course, but I still vote for republic.

Warfare in a Republican government unless your force is utterly overwhelming to your opponent forces a suspension of research (even if you are SirPleb), unless you have acquired every known luxury, and even that is iffy. So you need to pick your opponent, <switch to Elmer Fudd voice> very, very carefully.

republic->commie is indeed a better path..
But I sincerely hope we finish this game before IA if we play it right. (am i repeating myself here.... :hmm: )

there are some exeptions for hospitals (as well as there are some exceptions for temples

agree. Like those cities that can go over 100 spt. The discussion on rep v. mon. boils down to how much warring we're going to do. I.e. are we going to intitiate or receive? Too early to decide.

well, we are not going to play "Always war" game...
So Republic is a better government because of:

1. Less corruption.
2. Better income.

We do need extra luxuries indeed ... And that is how we are likely to choose our 1st opponent... We need to aquire more luxuries early in the game.
But lets see how it goes...
If it was up to me monarchy would be out of the question even before the game started :)

So Republic is a better government because of:

1. Less corruption.
2. Better income.

We do need extra luxuries indeed ... And that is how we are likely to choose our 1st opponent... We need to aquire more luxuries early in the game.

concur. Only reason to pick Monarchy is if we want to tie the AI up in war.

Apologies for all this discussion. I tend to get caught up in pushing the envelope and trying new things. Thus all the discussion, which I"ve enjoyed. Since we're only 20 turns into this, I'll now shut up for a bit...

@ d-man: if you want to boot me, feel free, I'll take no offense. I likes to discuss, thus the previous discussions.

@AdmiralK: Running away? That early???? :rolleyes:

Oh, come on.... discussion is what this team needs... And i absolutely don't mind to spam the thread...I can not boot you, i am not the captain of this team and if i was i would personally ask you to stick together for the duration of this game.
Please keep going the way you started, it actually helps me come up with better arguments on the stuff i am trying to push. :)

Really, it's just a matter of personal playing style. lets learn from each other.

Still here, where's the rest of the team?

I'm here, just had to sleep last night. I got to the MA in GOTM40 since I had no SG's to play. I just got to work. I'm still reading through the posts. I'll comment in a minute or 3.

BTW, A-K I was about 55-45 on the decision to move north. I realized that the same tiles would be exposed by just settling and I really hate moving the first settler. So I sort of agreed with your decision.

More comments later. :coffee:

OK. I've finally finished the novel authored by dman and A-K ;)

Here are my thoughts

I'd go republic, just because of the forementioned corruption. Happiness (WW) can be compensated for.
Agree moving the red dot city location to the jungle for the free chop
I need more coffee
:coffee:
I think that we need to expand borders quicker and settle on hill 1 SE or NE of sugar in the north after the pink dot
I like when people dissent (occassionally) from the teams decision, but please follow A-K sterling example and explain yourself. Good job A-K!
@ A-K, don't be afraid to talk too much as I need the esplainin'
Pictures with turns are very good. Please everyone continue
I like horses because of the movement. Legions would be fun too. We can decide on this a little later


Ok roster:
Admiral Kutzov just played
eldar up
dmanon deck
Mach
Tubby Rower
Minute Man

Yep, I agree with Republic, especially as we're Commercial. I expect our economy won't be too much of a worry.

I didn't see anything in the dotmaps I disagree with, but then, I wasn't studying them too hard. Getting a coastal city first up is the best idea, we ought to get a Curragh out of it right away. Guess that'll be my job :)

Looks like flat terrain so far, so Horses will indeed be effective enough. Save the Legions for later (park a stack on a mountain as enemy-bait, get our GA kicked off with a defensive win!)

I still think we should go after China, they appeared from the East (appropriately enough) so we should concentrate expansion in that direction.

Still here, where's the rest of the team? @team: please throw your thoughts into the thread... lurkers are also welcome.
A note on my silence, before the last two posts. I get off of work @ 3:30 EST. Since I have dial-up at home, after that I usually don't check the forums at home unless I know something important is going on. I'm lucky and am able to peruse the forums at work and able to amply comment between 7-3:30. After that my comments will be sparse and limited to 57.6 kbs.

I still think we should go after China, they appeared from the East (appropriately enough) so we should concentrate expansion in that direction.
Is the reason for your hatred of the Chinese the riders? If so I agree they either need to be squashed earlier than chivalry or allied with.

Is the reason for your hatred of the Chinese the riders? If so I agree they either need to be squashed earlier than chivalry or allied with.

Too early to say...
We need to know map, we need to know locations of resources and luxuries...
Too early to say...

...and a little more action :)

Save for a new city, the next 10 turns were predictably uneventful - though I had to stay my itchy trigger finger for a couple of turns!

0 3000 Check trades, nothing around, but note Egypt already have a 2nd city, China don't - Beijing in a low-growth or low-shield area, perhaps? Or maybe a good target area at a distance. I'm going with dman's dottie; don't like our 2nd city to be too far from home.

1 2950 IT: Rome Settler->Barracks.

2 2900 Wally spots some greenish borders to the East!

3 2850 Ooh, no, they're yellow, probably Egypt then.

4 2800 Zzzzz.

5 2750 Yeah, it's Egypt. Forget what I might've said about flat terrain. Wally's up in the bloomin' Himalayas! IT: Cleo asks politely for us to move, but it's not a boot yet.

6 2710 Veii founded, starts Worker, working the Wheat. Wake Beaver and move him towards Veii for MP when it grows. Thebes is still defended by a Warrior… but nah, I'm not going to mess with the game like that just yet.

7 2670 If this were a solo game, I'd give it a go. Really. Oh how I wish Wally were an Archer not a Warrior! IT: Cleo boots Wally.

8 2630 IT: Rome Barracks->Archer; Egypt learns Wheel.

9 2590 Egypt want almost our entire economy, plus Alphabet, for The Wheel. No dice, Cleo. Realise Sci can come down to 10%, probably been possible since Rome was size 3… ah well.

10 2550 Wheel is still stupidly expensive. Rome has Archer in 3, can squeeze in another Warrior before the next Settler.

A little piccie:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_2550BC.jpg

Neil. :cool:

So now we have 30 turns for writing @ minimum. That's not too good to switch it to max now. Let's finish it out on min.

Now that cleo has the wheel she'll get some war chariots out you could bet. They are the same attack/defense as horses only cheaper (20 shields instead of 30). Luckily the Himalyas will slow her down if you get in a tussle.

Is that a goodie hut 2 NW of Veii? Should we send a warrior up there? We should really irrigate that wheat soon. Next city should be by dyes.

Is that correct A-K & dman?

eldar just played
Dman up
Mach on deck

Yep, that's a GH up near Veii. And I'd rather have cash in the bank than Writing sooner, when we have a monopoly on Alphabet from the start.

What I'd like is more contacts - get the Archer from Rome going North/West.

Neil. :cool:

I have it...
I am up in SGOTM6 tonight and since that one requires most possible attention i will probably play our game tomorrow if it is okay. ;)
But I will comment before i play later today... have to look at the save...

Oh come on.... you have 3 members on team Bede in this SG and I don't think that any of us will mind if you hurry through SGOTM6 turns to get to this one ;)

Is that a goodie hut 2 NW of Veii? Should we send a warrior up thereYou can send a warrior up there but make sure the cities and workers are defended. Above Monarch the huts usually pop barbs for non-expansionist civs.

Next city should go on the dyes by the river (per d-man's map)

We have almost 200gp...and a fearsome 3 warriors. We're weak compared to everyone we know. What are the chances someone will demand gold from us? (And if someone does we have to cave, right?)

We have almost 200gp...and a fearsome 3 warriors. We're weak compared to everyone we know. What are the chances someone will demand gold from us? (And if someone does we have to cave, right?)

I don't know what current situation is.... but team knows i can't keep money... i am spender... so expect me to spend all this cash way before anybody has a chance to demand anything... :lol:

We have almost 200gp...and a fearsome 3 warriors. We're weak compared to everyone we know. What are the chances someone will demand gold from us? (And if someone does we have to cave, right?)
I don't think that the AI will demand stuff this early. Mainly because they are doing the same thing that we are doing...expanding. With 2 or 3 cities there's not a lot of military that could be there unless they just don't have the food for settlers. When establishing embassies, I have seen AI with a settler due in 2 and the city just grew to 2. :crazyeye:

I'm thinking that once we meet more people the trading will involve money and Phil or CoL will be researched @ max to eat up some of that excess cash.

pre-turn: switch Rome to warrior... We will need to build another warrior after this one and send it to explore west.

T1. 2510BC. Rome warrior->warrior
T2. 2470BC. Worker finished mining send to Flood plain to irrigate.. Warrior is heading west.
T3. 2430BC. Rome warrior->granary. Veii worker->worker..
IBT. Stupid Egyptian warrior pops the hut near Veii and 3 angry barbarian popped...
T4. 2390BC. Eddie kill one barbarian.
T5. 2350BC. Eddie attacks another barbarian and dies. Second warrior from Rome finishes barb.
T6. 2310BC. China now also knows Wheel... I make a deal and purchase wheel from Egypt for Alpabet and 10gold. Good news. We have horses within Rome radius.

T7. 2270BC. Western warrior attacks barb. hut, kills and we take 25gold.

T8. 2190BC. Western Warrior spots brown border. Egypt knows Iron working. Rome grows and i have to bump lux slider up 10%.

T9. 2150BC. Veii worker->warrior to replace killed Eddie.

T10. 2110BC. We meet Russia. They know IW, Myst and HBR. China knows Myst and IW.
China has workers for trade. I do higly recommend to buy 2 workers from China for 216Gold. This will help us with tile improvement and will hurt China. We will be able to do tech trading as soon as we get Writing. From now on watch AIs every turn.
if somebody gets writing before us immediately buy it and trade around. If we are the 1st to get writing do not sell it but rather go to philosophy on max.Once Rome finished granary build another warrior then settler.

UPdated screenie with dot-maps to discuss:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02-2110BC.JPG

Not sure what you're gonna spend it on except research :lol:

Since this is my first try as a trainer, I'll share. If I'm stating the obvious, please advise.

At this stage, I like to keep around 200 in the bank. When opportunities for trades come up, I hit F1 and drop sci and lux to zero to max out gpt. Then I hit F4 to do the deals paying only techs and gpt if possible. After the deals are done, I put the sci and lux back to where they need to be (the bank allows us to spend more than we make without worries). By the time we have cash problems more opportunities for trade are usually on the board. I usually don't get worked up about having to gift 50 or so g to the AI at this point. All those (idiot) no research games really give one confidence for trading in the AA. Like someone said, the only tech we really need to worry about is Phil. Give me that and 100g and we're in the MA pretty fast. Just don't leave the bank empty with negative gpt.

With 2 or 3 cities there's not a lot of military that could be there unless they just don't have the food for settlers.

At emperor you can expect to have the AI ahead on military and cities at this point. They get some discounts to help their idiocy. We're what, 30-40 turns in?

Don't panic. Be one with Mapstat (my Zen phrase for the game)

Here's the homework. predict the year we'll get Phil. Which AI will have what tech then? Why should we trade on the IT when we get Phil?

What does the team think about no wonders or no wonders until Leo's?

Agree with everything Admiral said...
the only problem with Philosophy and it happened to me many times -> we have 2 expansionist tribes and they can simply pop Phil. from goodie hut...
I hate when that happens and that happens once in a while. Hopefully that won't happen in this game.

I agree on no wonders... With low food Rome and low shield Veii we won't be able to expand fast enough to afford wonders. Gr.Lib certainly helps but we should survive without one.
Leo is nice to have, I often try to get it.
This map feels like a large map rather than standard sized, tribes are located quite far from each other.

Stupid xposts. Nice job D-man.

Can we buy the workers for gpt instead of g? It will fuel China's research and keep Mao off our back. Or if the AI is stupid enough to declare, we get to keep our money.

Need a settler on pink soon.

I probably won't have done the granary in Rome, but that's a personal pref.

I probably won't have done the granary in Rome, but that's a personal pref.

As i woudn't have done barracks in Rome neither... :)
We need to grow fast and granary should help in long run...
Rome will have +3ftp so that will make spear(archer)/settler combination factory.
I haven't checked GPT possibility to buy those workers... But if you ask me at this stage of the game workers are much nicer purchase than techs...
Personal preference again.
Well, we know we have horses, we can't stop research if we really wanted it and get the rest on the tip of the sword :)
When i know i have horses i know the game is won.

Is that an f'n barb camp to the SW of pink?

I like pink, green, blue, yellow, red in that order. Burgandy can wait.

Nah, that is not a camp, those are dyes SW from pink.
Burgundy claims second source of horses and also on river...
But agree it can wait before other spots are claimed.

Here's the homework. predict the year we'll get Phil. Which AI will have what tech then? Why should we trade on the IT when we get Phil?

Year to get Phil: 22 turns from now ~ 1525 BC
AI will have up to Math & Poly at least if not Constr.
You should trade on IT when getting Phil because you can buy some of the more expensive AA techs with your Monopoly on Philosophy and then get a more expensive tech no one has as your free tech.

I like no built wonders. After reading Ision's wonder addiciton article I do my best to steer clear of them all together unless I'm the only one that can build it (SoZ) or I 'm on an archpeligo and seafaring and then GL is extremely useful.

On the dot-map, pink 1st then yellow then burgundy. unless that is a horse 1 W of burgundy then go there after pink to keep it from Russia.

Roster:
Admiral Kutzov
eldar
dman just played
Mach up
Tubby Rower on deck
Minute Man

Oh.... Another personal experience of mine..

On map like this when AIs are far away you can safely ignore when they demand tech. (not always but most of the time).
Even if AI declares it will take him 4-5+ turns to get to your towns and by that time they will be willing to talk again and make peace.
Just make sure you don't have hordes of scouting warriors around when AI demands something. (we are likely to be asked to share knowledge of writing as soon as we get it)

Lets see how long we can xpost tonight D-man. :lol:

No prob. with the workers. The techs we can make up at will as long as the AI doesn't pop Phil from a hut.

Are SGLs on or off?

Veii's got some nice forests to grab shields from. i probably would have done the granary there.

We should have the team throughly confused by now since our styles are different. ;)

You get the warm fuzzy from horses, I get it from iron (especially as Romans). I like legions even if we don't use them right away. They're offensive enough to keep the AI away and they're good until cav. for random attacks.

Here's another question for the team with a hypothetical: What are we gonna do if we build a legion, pop MGL and trigger the GA while despotic? Makes a good argument for D-man's horses if you think about it.

Chime in Tubby, I know you're here, your little green light is on. :)

Chime in Tubby, I know you're here, your little green light is on
I did.... remember that I have dial up so I don't refresh quite as often as you guys do

I checked and SGLs are on.

I've never used the Legionaires... I usually don't use the early UU civ. The only UU I've used is Beserks in COTM9 and Siphais :drool: in TR01.

Veii's got some nice forests to grab shields from.

Yep... I thought about that... Veii can become +4fpt settler factory working on irrigated wheat, FP and 2 forests. But I wanted to establish steady but slow settler pump in Row.. We have a lot of land to grab so having couple of towns with granaries will benefit us.
Other cities should definetely start with barracks 1st.
We have 3 native workers now, with 2 chinese slaves we will be able to road and mine our land quickly enough.

I won't comment on despotic GA and use of legions. Admiral, I suggest we step down on this one and let other guys to decide what will be our military machine is buit upon. :)

I like horses.... I don't think that the despotic GA will work to our benefit. Legions should still stand a chance until the end of MA's on getting a victory. So I'd hold off on them for now. We don't want a GA triggered off of a defensive win.

Do we have IW yet. I didn't see any iron on the map and didn't know if we just didn't know what it looked like yet or really don't have it.

My aren't xposts fun? :goodjob: tubby, on the homework.

Agree with d-man about most of the time ignoring the AI, but I've had bad experiences with AI scouting warriors popping out of the fog so I usually cave.

Unless Cathy has an uber settler pump in Siberia, she's done before Cossacks, so I'm not too worried about her. Maybe keep her on OCC until the MA for gifting/trade potential?

Having a nagging feeling that further scouts should be archers rather than warriors. Course if we get horses, use those.

I'd like to trade writing for IW before Phil is due (to one of those evil expansionist AIs). Rather get the benefit of the trade than let them pop it.

D-man's right, this feels like a large map with the spacing.

This is a standard map. I like the idea of trading Writing just before Phil is due what previous turn to minimize chance of popping?

Why scouting archers?

If we get writing 1st we will be able to trade it for everything AIs have including IW...
We can buy IW right now for cash, but i would prefer workers at this moment. (ah, i am repeating myself again)

Question is - do we want to trade writing right away, or do we want to gamble and keep it (and one of the AIs might pop hut or self-research only a turn or two after us and still beat us to Phil. leaving us with nothing).

This map also feels like pangea map and if it is so research will be faster than we want it to be and phil. gambling even more dangerous. (depends on how soon AIs will learn about each other if haven't already)

We still have 4 unmet civs out there. They could be on another continent. I like keeping writing for a little while at least 5-7 turns to give us a head start on Phil.

I agree to get more workers. If we have to expand into the haunted jungle we'll have to get all the help that we can get!!!

Why scouting archers?

I guess it is safer if barbs are met to scout with archers...
But it likely to be waste of shields due to cost associated with archer build...(compared to warrior)
On emperor level we can't afford to build mil. units we can't use...
Although, sometimes you have no choice but building archers.
warriors are better due to direct upgrade to legion and horses will last us until the end of IAs within upgrade cycle.

@ tubby, I'm on dial up too. Thus my comments about all the xposts. ;)

Thou I lurked TR01, don't know if you guys covered why it is better to build offensive units to keep the AI at bay... IIRC there's an article in the War Academy.

RE the despotic GA. Something to be avoided. however, our UU would usually demand early war except for the spacing of this game. That was clear as mud wasn't it?

I just noticed that Russia has HBR. Should we get that & trade it around?

I remember some body saying something about offensive units add more to your power than defensive units and therefore cause the AI to think twice about demanding anything from you.

I agree if it was a crowded map (which this one isn't for some reason) then legions would be awesome to go run around and stomp a few civs real early. But Russia looks to be the closest @ ~ 20 tiles away so it would take 20 turns to get a legionaire up there. So let's build chariots then upgrade to horses!!

@ tubby, I'm on dial up too. Thus my comments about all the xposts. ;)

You guys just have to convert to broadband..
I have 3Mbit cable in my house and having a good time sitting in front of the laptop in nice warm kitchen sipping hot tea while watching civ. forums. :coffee:


Thou I lurked TR01, don't know if you guys covered why it is better to build offensive units to keep the AI at bay... IIRC there's an article in the War Academy.

I thought we did, We build offensive units because we are going to have offensive wars only... Slam AIs, slam :lol:


RE the despotic GA. Something to be avoided. however, our UU would usually demand early war except for the spacing of this game. That was clear as mud wasn't it?
That's why we need to convert to republic ASAP before using legions.
And with the spacing of this game our UU will be painfully slow. AIs are not good at putting roads together until middle of MAs that means one tile at a turn our speed is going to be with Legions. However we still can use them once in Republic for tactical purposes.

HBR can wait.

The AI calculates how strong you are based on some formula that's too deep for me. Suffice to say that archers (an offensive unit) have more value than spears (a defensive unit). Thus comparing 5 archers to 5 spears, the AI would tend to avoid you more if you have 5 archers.

We can get more warriors in a shorter time, but I sometimes build archers for quality over quantity due to unit support costs.

Archers, when stacked, also have that defensive bombard capacity. Doesn't look like we have to worry about the AI in this game, but I'm paranoid in addition to my idiocy.

Bottom line:
1: expand fast
2. get Phil. first

@ dman, could you put a T in your line and run it up to Virginia for me? The loss over the line would probably be too great though..


Ok. I think that the only thing that's left to talk about is the cities. What did you think about my thoughts?
On the dot-map, pink 1st then yellow then burgundy. unless that is a horse 1 W of burgundy then go there after pink to keep it from Russia.

I second on what Admiral said.

HBR can wait.
1. we don't have horses connected.
2. we have no city available to produce horses...
3. it will take another 30-40 turns before we can even build our first horse.
4. fast expansion is more important.
So start pumping settlers/warriors out of Rome
and Veii to start building second granary once it finishes warrior (or it can actually produce a settler first and then start on granary)

@ dman, could you put a T in your line and run it up to Virginia for me? The loss over the line would probably be too great though..

Sure, but that will cost you more. All this copper to pay for, you know. :)


Originally Posted by me
On the dot-map, pink 1st then yellow then burgundy. unless that is a horse 1 W of burgundy then go there after pink to keep it from Russia.

This actually makes sence. It doesn't feel like somebody is going to claim land east from us betwean rome and ocean. But russian will certainly try to get empty land south from Rostov. So i am having second thought and suggest pink then yellow then burgundy... But if situation changes player will have to make a decision accordingly.

Gotta turn you'ins on to the History Channel.

Rome was a successful empire due to its road network. They had the ability to move troops further and faster than the competition.

I agree workers are good. I almost never use slaves to do anything but road because they're too slow.

Presuming we get D-man's 2 slaves, start them roading to where we want future cities. we'll need a military unit to sit on them cause of the barbs.

I'm fine with going to Rep. asap, but if the AI's were closer, I'd argue for Monarchy for extended warfare. We had this discussion the other night. Go for Rep.

This actually makes sence.
Alright I got one right :dance:

I'm compiling a recommended list for Mach (he's up next) & here's what I got so far


Buy the 2 wokers from china
build settler in Veii after warrior finishes then start granary
build settler in Rome after granary then warrior
keep an eye on happiness
use MapStat
every turn check to see if anyone has writing. If so buy it then trade it around
After writing comes in -> Philosophy @ 100% unless lux needs to be raised
settle on pink dot with first settler and connect those dyes ASAP
Settle on burgundy dot with next settler. After that go blue or even up by the sugar in the north
build barracks in new cities

@ Tubby - yellow after pink is cool. I just want to connect the dyes to keep the lux slider reasonable.

This is somewhat heretical. It really doesn't matter where you build as long as you don't waste tiles. this is only true at emperor or below. of course if you're intelligent about the placement it helps alot. the AI is so stupid about city placement that you can expand into their gaps well into the middle ages. See threads about settler tunnelling.

Don't underestimate the stacked archer defensive bombard at this stage. I've had an archer and a warrior hold off 5+ horses in a Monarch game.

@ A-K I watch the History channel more and more these days :confused: I must be getting old @ 28 :lol:

Well I have to head to bed. My wife doesn't seem to mind me doing this for a little while but if I stay up all night talking to you guys instead of sitting on the couch with her, she might break my civ cd. She's mentioned it in jest before but I don't want to push it....

@ tubby - good list

@ lurkers - am I making sense or just being my usual idiot self?

Here's another of the wall thought - how bout a worker pump and a settler pump?

build settler in Rome after granary then warrior


Warrior then settler after granary.. We will need escort and MP while rome is growing so warrior goes 1st.


@ lurkers - am I making sense or just being my usual idiot self?

Here's another of the wall thought - how bout a worker pump and a settler pump?

1. You do make sense
2. Veii and Rome can be combined settler/worker pump depending in current needs of our economy we can pull a settler or a worker... have got to be flexible these days.
3. i am off for today as well... tired...

Man, I gotta get used to the pace you guys post at! Twice tonight I thought about commenting...and then didn't because it would have been a bad x-post...

Thanks for the list, tub. I was watching you guys talk and was keeping my own list, and it looked pretty similar. The only thing I would add is if someone demands writing, say no.

Question: what should I do with the workers? We have two working at Veii, and we'll have one plus the two slaves working at Rome. With the Rome workers: I would road/mine the bg s of Rome, then road the horses, then start roading up past green dot to pink dot. With the Veii workers: once they're done with Veii, they can go work yellow dot.

Anyways, I got it, will play tomorrow evening.

Another novella to catch up on first thing in the morning...!!

The only thing I would add is if someone demands writing, say no.

Only if you feel safe there are no scouting hordes of AI troops near our towns.


Question: what should I do with the workers? We have two working at Veii, and we'll have one plus the two slaves working at Rome. With the Rome workers: I would road/mine the bg s of Rome, then road the horses, then start roading up past green dot to pink dot. With the Veii workers: once they're done with Veii, they can go work yellow dot.
Anyways, I got it, will play tomorrow evening.

Road two forests north of Veii, will use those for shields. When settler is built send a worker along (or 2 slaves) to improve around new city. Escort workers with military... It felt like we have raging barbs in this game.

@ Mach, I'd say use the slaves as a roading crew. A-K is right. The ancient roman roads are still in Italy, and they were vital to troop & supply movement. Buy extra slaves if they become available. I wouldn't go broke with it though. We'll probably need some excess cash when we go max towards Phil.

Thing to remember about workers irrigate brown/ mine green. do not, i repeat DO NOT irrigate grasslands or bgs in despostism. Also don't hook up more than one of any type of lux or resource just yet. It could be the target of a demand too and puts us at risk for a war that we are unprepared for.

I'd agree with you on rejecting any demands from writing. demands for cash is up to you but I'd tell them to demand tribute in one hand and crap in the other and see which fills up quicker.

@A-K. You're right on as far as I can tell except for the legions ;) I'm with dman on the horse thing on this map.

@ everyone, How do you guys like playing a game where you know very little about the map (ie random temp, age, landform, barbs)? I think that this gives you more of a generic play style and makes you well-rounded like a big cinnamon bun

Around Rome and Veii, we should mine everything that can be mined - the Flood Plains will more than make up any food shortfall.

Around Rome and Veii, we should mine everything that can be mined - the Flood Plains will more than make up any food shortfall.
true. .. I didn't think about that. We can't mine FP, correct? Also do not cut forests. They are a high shield tile and need some shields right now.

No, you can't mine FPs (unless you're my wife, who modded the game to allow her to do so?!)

Same mining rule will apply to pink dot with it's flood plains.

@ tubby - I usually random the civ and set the map. :lol:

The land around Veii is probably the exception to the mine green, irrigate brown rule. We'll probably want to mine some brown around there.

First, read through 3 pages of posts. :coffee: Ok done.

Preflight -- Buy Chinese workers for 216g.
MM looks ok to me.
(I) -- Barb pops out of fog near western warrior.

T1 (2070BC) -- MM Rome for growth, granary still in 2.
Western warrior rests, Wally south, workers road.
(I) -- Veii grows.

T2 (2030BC) -- Wally se, western warrior nw. (Maybe I can lure that barb into annoying the Russkies.)
Work fp for growth in Veii. (It is about to get irrigated, so we should get +5 food this turn.)
(I) -- Barb pops out of the fog nw of Veii.
Celtic warrior arrives w of Rome, they are up Myst & IW.
Aztec warrior also arrives w of Rome, they are up Myst, IW, & HBR.
Rome granary --> warrior

T3 (1990BC) -- MM Veii, move citizen from fp to forest. (FPWheat will finish irrigating this turn, for +4 food.)
Move Veii worker onto forest.
Western warrior nw, Wally s.
Rome roading team moves ne of rome.
We can get IW from Celts for Alpha+58g...I pull the trigger. The only iron in sight is w of us, closer to the Russians than to us. :(
(I) -- various movements. Darn western barb is following me!

T4 (1950BC) -- Veii warrior attacks barb...& wins, losing 2hp, & promotes to elite! :dance:
Various workers road.
Western warrior nw on to mountain, Wally sw.
Lux to 20% for Veii.
(I) -- Various movements.
The Celts are building the pyramids.
Rome warrior --> settler

T5 (1910BC) -- Veii warrior back into city. Lux to 0%!
Western warrior rests on mountain, Wally s.
MM rome for shields, still grow in 2.
(I) -- Veii warrior --> granary
Barb attacks western warrior, we win, lost 1hp.

T6 (1870BC) -- Roading teams shuffle around.
Western warrior rests on mountain, Wally s.
(I) -- Various movements. Both veii & Rome grow.

T7 (1830BC) -- Western warrior rests, Wally s.
Lux back to 10% (Rome)
MM Rome to get settler in 2.
(I) -- Horse road done.

T8 (1790BC) -- Western warrior sw, Wally s.
Worker movements.
(I) -- We are the first to writing! :dance:
Rome settler --> archer

T9 (1750BC) -- Settler/warrior pair heads toward pink dot.
Lux to 0%, sci to 100%. Philo in 18 at -4gpt.
Western warrior se, Wally se.
Trade writing to China for myst & HBR...nah, j/k. :p
(I) -- Various movements.

T10 (1925BC) -- Settler/warrior pair w.
Western warrior w, Wally s. Wally sees Chinese border.

I'll stop here. There is still a worker to be moved. The archer build in Rome can be changed. We still have our monopoly on writing! Settler/warrior pair is moving toward pink dot. There's a worker pair roading toward pink dot, too. Unfortunately I didn't get much exploring done, what with tangling with barbs, and Wally started my turns at Land's End.

Early in my turns the military adviser was reporting a barb camp near Veii, and now he's reporting a barb camp near Rome. So there are barbs about, be careful.

Sorry if my turnlog is too long, I'm still learning so I figured more detail is better than less.

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02-mach-1725_BC.SAV)

Our Home (not much has changed).
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_2110_home.JPG

And Egypt. You can barely see China's borders there in the south.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_2110_egypt.JPG

Good set of turns Mach!
looks like we are going to have quite annoying barb problems.
We might want to switch Rome to warrior to get a faster build and switch to settler.... Next city near the cow and i suggest to make it a dedicated military factory. May be couple of archers out of there to scare barbs and then chariots/horses only.
Pink dot city may produce a worker before switching to barracks. If we think we have enough workers then directly to barracks (or warrior first to defend against barbs in that direction).

Other than that next player should keep going with expansion phase and hopefully we are the 1st to get philosophy.
Try to buy/trade mathematics before we research philo.
That will help us to get most expensive AA techs (construction/currency) as freebies.
Good luck and have fun.
Captain will put some roster together.

Oh, one more thing.
Do want to switch Veii to settler to get another city for military build faster?

Oh, yet another thing.... Check f4 screen every single turn, as soon as 1st AI comes up with writing trade ours for techs/cash with whoever possible, otherwise AIs will trade it between each other and we will be left with nothing.

Looks like we have best chunk of land... Egypt has wetlands, Russian north pole and china hopefully in the middle of jungle...
Rome has nice floodplains, BGs and hills... too bad not many luxes are around.
I reckon our first war will be for possesion of extra luxuries to support young Roman republic to be.

Switch Rome to warrior? Agreed. We get it faster, plus warriors upgrade to leigons.

Switch Veii to settler? Also yes. Gets our mil. factory up faster. Also, IIRC, if we keep going with the granary, we'll have to increase lux rate. If we do settler than granary, by the time Veii gets big again, we'll have those dyes hooked up.

Oh and..thanks dman! :)

Another proven advice....
never use workers in pairs at this stage of the game.
Cities are growing slow and it is waste of worker/turns to pair them together... (you can pair 2 slaves - essentially makes 1 worker).

Most of the situations require only a single worker on a tile.
Don't improve hills (unless we need a road to connect cities) and no mountains for a while. We have despotic penalties on those. Roaded forests work better same 1f2s and much faster to road forest than mine-road hill...

Oh, the only pairing I did was a worker/slave pair that roads grassland in (I think) exactly 2 turns. I dedicated this pair to roading toward pink dot. Is that ok?

My intention was...
1.) Worker/slave pair roads to pink dot.
2.) Other slave works Rome a bit.
3.) Once Rome slave is done, send him over to pink dot.
4.) Split up Pink Dot City's workers into a)worker and b)two slaves, and have a&b work Pink Dot separately.

it is certainly
1. not end of the world
2. we have enough workers at a moment
3. we have a priority to connect dyes.

So you made a good decision.

But in general it is not a good idea..
There is an article somewhere around here.. I will find it and add a link.

I found it:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=111598

Very helpful article that shows how bad worker pairing is. (or, how good it is in certain situations)

Trade writing to China for myst & HBRheart attack then :rotfl:

Early in my turns the military adviser was reporting a barb camp near Veii, and now he's reporting a barb camp near Rome. So there are barbs about, be careful.I almost never use the military advisor, so I never knew stuff like this was reported. :cool:

I'm still learning so I figured more detail is better than less.
Me too

:goodjob:

Keep your eyes on the trades. If one AI gets writing, trade it to the others (where it makes sense)Oh, yet another thing.... Check f4 screen every single turn, as soon as 1st AI comes up with writing trade ours for techs/cash with whoever possible, otherwise AIs will trade it between each other and we will be left with nothing.
whoops, just moved on to d-man and saw this. @d-man, you may wish to consult a psychiatrist if you continue to think like me for longer than 4 hours... :crazyeye: Seriously, mapstat really takes the tedium out of checking the trades.

If we get some iron hooked up, we can upgrade a few warriors to barb hunt without having to worry about GA.

Keep those settlers and workers escorted. The barbs seem to be having a fertility festival. Don't forget to launch boats from dye city.

my personal pref for slaves is use them for nothing but roads since they are so slow to do anything. I save the workers for improving the terrain. haven't read the article yet but I tend to stack slaves until they can road in one turn (provided we have enough)

lurker's comment I never understood this about wasting worker turns. In the early game, it is much more important to get terrain improved.

re the workers, IIRC 3 of our workers will road & mine a BG in three turns. One roads, the other 2 mine and they finish the same turn. Irrigation takes 4 for a lone worker. 2 workers cuts that to 2 turns. Roading takes 3 for lone worker. 3 workers do roads in one turn. 2 workers take 2 turns to road. Mining takes 6 turns for a single, 2 cuts it to 3, 3 cuts it to 2. The gist is don't waste worker moves such as 2 workers roading. Too tired to think about chops. D-man's link made my brain explode (don't worry, this is nothing new). I'm an idiot, we don't do higher math than this. Need to focus on what we need so mach was right to go for the dyes. Mixed stacks of workers and slaves complicate this. Going to sleep see y'all tomorrow.

lurker's comment I never understood this about wasting worker turns. In the early game, it is much more important to get terrain improved.

Exactly my point... Generally, If you don't stack workers you will have terrain improved faster than if you stack them. (exceptions like jungle chop apply)
Read link i have above.

Trade writing to China for myst & HBR heart attack then :rotfl:
Me too. You got us good MAch!!!

How many people have Alpha. Can we trade it for HBR? Probably not though....

Good job on the turns Mach.

Roster:
Admiral Kutzov
eldar
dman
Mach - just played
Tubby Rower - up
Minute Man - On deck

I think that I might have an idea why this seems like a large or huge map. If the world was 3 byo and wet then we'd have a lot of jungles and mountains which would slow down those scout from the expansionist civs.

What are my goals for the next 10 turns?

continued development & scouting. connect dyes go for burgundy dot with next settler?

Burgundy dot? Or yellow dot by the cow? The barb I faced at Veii came from the direction of burgundy dot, so there may be a camp in that area. Unless that barb came from the hut that was popped around there on dman's turn... :hmm:

Yeah, I thought that burgundy got priority over yellow due to keeping horses away from Cathy. I'm not too concerned with the barbs. That's what the escort is for.

check every turn on status of writing..
Actually there are ways to figure out how soon AI will research tech..

Let say you go to egypt and ask what they give for writing and they will give us 2 techs (or may be one)
you go next or next after next turns and all they willing to give - few gold....
That means they are about to get writing and it is a time to sell it to everybody else...

Other than that - try to expand fast, build settlers, switch veii to granary after settler is built and keep going.

@ tubby - what do you think your goals should be for the next 10 turns?

Here are the available trades:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/trades_1725.jpg

Since I'm too lazy to go back and my dial up is too slow, I did a new dot map for discussion

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/dots_1725.jpg

At this time, I don't see any need to do any trades until the IT when we get Phil. That changes if one AI gets writing. See above. ;)

Hmm. One thing's clear... with 5 Civs met so far, this looks like another Pangaea. I'd make White a priority over everything but Luxes, we really need Iron.

I'd make White a priority over everything but Luxes, we really need Iron.

Quit panicking! We need iron but it is not urgent, we have horses..

Right now priority is to build production cities and start building horses.
That iron is not going anywhere...
I don't understand people mania with iron... Wasn't TR01 enough proof on how good horses are?

I agree with Admiral's dot map.
But after we put cow city we need to put at least 2 cities west from rome - those are going to produce more shields.

Ok as far as A-K's map goes. I'm going for blue (lux) , red, green then white. I'm going to trade writing around before the end of my turns. Not at the beginning because I want a head start on Phil. Let me know soon if this isn;t kosher....

Go for it Tubby, sounds like a good plan!!!

Get the dyes hooked up. Don't worry about green since it looks like Cathy & Cleo have closer sources of horses. Not sure blue is on a lux. Check that. I thought it was just filler.

Question for d-man: if we settle west, aren't we going into jungle?

I'm paranoid about iron, cause I've been without it in too many games. It gives me a warm fuzzy to know we've got one source.

My pref is red then white. Then re-evaluate.

Pre-turn - Swithced Veii to settler
switched Rome to warrior
t1 1700BC - Aztecs know writing
trade writing to china for everything that he has (Myst. HBR, & 52g)
trade HBR to Cleo for 28g to keep her out of her GA
trade writing to Celts for 45G
can get poly from Cathy for writing & 152g (leaving 44 enought for 11 turns at current tech pace. Will hold off)
Aztecs have poly too
lux up to 10% on Rome growth
t2 1675BC - Rome warrior -> settler
Aztecs built embassy in our capital
China & Russia have math and Russia and Aztecs have Poly
sci back @ 100%
t3 1650BC - Russians are building Pyramids
see russian settler headed for iron presumably
barb headed toward worker/slave
Antium founded on northern dyes -> worker
MM Veii for more food
t4 1625BC - Veii settler -> granary move toward iron but probably will settle in cow town
road crew leaves just in time for China warrior to spot barb
everyone except Cleo has Poly
math & poly are too expensive right now.... we need money for Philosophy
It looks like Russia stopped short of the iron
t5 1600BC - barb destroys road on hill :( sorry
t6 1575BC - zz
t7 1550BC - rome settler -> horseman
Neapolis founded -> barracks (see ivory going for 1S of iron with settler from rome)
t8 1525BC - move 2nd worker over to road to ivory & develop
t9 1500BC - rename Neapolis to cow town
have to bumb lux up to 20%. drop sci to 50% (Phil due in 3 at 50%-80%)
t10 1475BC - see celtic borders
see russian borders and I think that we'll be encroaching on their space but I think that I'm going to do it
t11 1450BC - zz
t12 1425bc - Get Phil go to big picture
get Poly from Cleo for writing & 95G
get MAth + 25 G from Mao for Phil
get 150g from cathy for Phil
sell math to Aztecs for 94 G
pick currency in science advisors screen and we get it!!! :dance:
research writing @ max (-2gpt)

I couldn't settle on the green so I decided to get cow town and then use that as a free road to try to get the iron and ivory at the same time.

There is a settler that should settle on that spot so we can get our ivory hooked up asap. the dyes are hooked up and the worker/slave is over by the dye town. I was intending on the slave roading and the worker irrigating that FP. Sorry for no screenie. If someone else could post one I'd be grateful.

Save from 1425BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02-tub-1425_BC.SAV)

Post - turn analysis.... The main reason why I didn't go for the horses is because I saw that Cathy was expanding more to the south than SE. Our next settler should be able to grab those horses (hopefully).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/tr02_1425BC.jpg

looks good after first review. will comment more tomorrow. soon to have 2 native lux (dyes + ivory) :cool:

I'll be paintballing all day tomorrow so I probably won't be on here at all. I had to finish this one and SW3 tonight. so people didn't wait on me...

Roster:
Admiral Kutzov - On deck
eldar
dman
Mach
Tubby Rower - just played
Minute Man - up

I'd recommend a start on the SoZ. There'll be more Ivory around, and the AI will try to build it. Last game, we got away with not building it... this time round, it could make a difference.

Of course I see the upside to dropping a city there -- it grabs the iron, and pulls the ivory into our borders. But, is there a downside to putting a city right next to the Russian border like that? I have this vague idea that it might make the Russians mad, or that the city might flip...

It won't make russians mad... but if we start popping cities far from capital that can't be productive at a moment it will hurt our military and AIs will see us weak and start demanding heavily.
I don't care about having that iron at all at the present moment, but i don't want to go against team will.

But just for the records, my advice to build inner productive core cities before expanding.

SoZ is nice to have, but we don't have a city to build it.
We have to establish productive core and steady output of military units in at least 3 cities before we dedicate a city for SoZ build.

And i want to re-iterated this again - do not be addictive to wonders. Learn to win emperor without extra help. You won't have ivory in every single game you play.

Hopefully one of our neighbours will build it for us :)

OK, got it.

I'll need to look at this a bit more before I figure out what I'm going to do (so keep the advice coming), but my immediate thought is that I'm not too thrilled with the idea of building a city there either. Where do you guys think would be a better place for the city? At a glance, S-SW of where the settler is looks reasonable.

@Minute man: not sure where you want to build it, but make sure it is on river..
And sinse settler is already near the iron it won't make sense wasting turns and moving it away.
Admiral's dot map is good... you may want to adjust it if that russian city i see is built too close to his dot map.

Well, the dot map is getting a little outdated - there's a Russian city too close to the white dot, so that's out, and the blue dot (1 space SE of the settler) isn't looking as good now that we can see the river a couple of spaces away. I do think we want to put the city somewhere where it will claim the ivory, so one space W of the ivory looks best to me.

OK, after looking at the save, there doesn't seem to be too much more to discuss. Keep expanding, exploring, and building military. Probably build another settler out of Rome next, and a curragh out of our coastal city as we need some sea exploration.

I am strongly leaning toward moving the settler - I just don't like building that close to the Russian city, and since we have horses I don't see that our need for iron is immediately urgent. We can just take it from Russia when we're ready to go to war. But since this goes against what most of the team has been suggesting, I'm going to wait for more feedback before I play my turns. Unless I hear a lot of support for claiming the iron, though, I'm going to put the city on the river just W of the ivory.

I'm with you Minute Man...
Finally found another horse lover in our team :)

Me too. The tile w of the ivory is fine with me.

on the horses vs. iron question - I'm not anti-equine, it's just hard to build railroads with horses and no iron. Def. claim the ivory.

I don't think dman is planning on us building any railroads.

on the horses vs. iron question - I'm not anti-equine, it's just hard to build railroads with horses and no iron. Def. claim the ivory.

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Come on Admiral... are you seriously thinking we will be building rail-roads in this game?????

If this is pangea map all we need to do is max research towards MT and then complete stop of all research and start butt kicking.

We will need iron indeed to build knights... but I am satisfied to know iron is nearby.
Here is what we know:
1. Egypt land is on top of wetlands - weak and not attractive target.
2. China - jungle kingdom - will be taken care about just after No.3
3. Russia - our first target (oh...sorry Cathy, even we share russian blood you are going to die first). There we have our iron.
End of story.

I don't think dman is planning on us building any railroads.


yeah I figured that ;)

:)
I am wrong... we need iron for one more reason - our mighty legions must bring our Golden Ages...
We should use our GA to build marketplaces in core cities to generate money for military and research.
So i suggest we start research towards Republic.
We have secured 2 lux sources and for the beginning that would be enough.

I'm fine with moving the iron. I just didn't see moving towards the jungle to claim the ivory a good idea. I eas really just placing it where it was to 1) claim the ivory, and 2 get the most territory at the same time. The iron was just going to be an added benefit. I'm with dman on the horses but I thought that it might be a good idea to put it where I had it. Do what you were planning on doing MM and I'll be cool with it. I just wanted the ivory really. I think expansion and military build up is the order of the day.

0 - 1425 BC

Notice Egypt has a worker for sale. Can never have too many workers, so trade Philo to Egypt for worker + 40 gold. Everything else looks good - thought about MM'ing Rome to get the horse faster, but it should happen anyway with the extra shields on growth.

1 - 1400 BC

Rome horse->settler. Antium worker->curragh.

Aztecs now have Map Making. I decide not to trade right now - we don't need it (I'd actually rather build a curragh or two first, since Antium has so little production right now), and nobody has much money, so there's not a lot to be gained by trying to broker it around.

2 - 1375 BC

Neapolis barracks->warrior - we need warm bodies for barb defense and exploring, and we can upgrade to legions when we get iron. Trade Philo to Celts for worker + 20 gold.

3 - 1350 BC

Pompeii founded. This brings ivory online, just in time to stop Veii from rioting. It turns out to be a pretty good spot for a town - flood plains, forests, and another ivory (just outside the current border).

4 - 1325 BC

Make contact with Babylon. He's down Philo and Currency. Since everybody else in the world knows Philo, sell it to him for 67 gold (his whole treasury).

5 - 1300 BC

Rome settler->horse. Neapolis warrior->warrior. Send the settler toward the norses to the N.

Code of Laws has been discovered - looks like the Babs researched it and traded with the Aztecs, as both have CoL and MM. I'm going to hold off again, as we don't need either one right this minute, and I think we can get more than that for our Currency monopoly. Hope I'm not being too greedy here.

7 - 1250 BC

Notified on the IT that the Aztecs have declared war on the Celts. :cool:

This is turn 70, so I'm going to stop here to get back on a multiple of 10.

The current situation:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR01-1250BC.jpg

Green dot is the proposed horse town. The settler is one space away. There are also a couple of slave workers (currently in Veii) en route to hook this up.

Red and blue dots are the other two towns that were proposed earlier. I think we should do these next, as there's some good territory near Rome that we're not using yet. We might also think about a town somewhere near the white dot, but obviously that depends on what the Russian settler pair does. Purple and grey dots are proposed future locations, though they might move when we've done more exploring.

The barb warrior near Pompeii came out of the jungle to his east and seems to be just wandering around. I didn't have anybody on hand to deal with him, so I've just let him be.

Veii is currently MM'd to not grow until the turn after the granary completes. Change it back once it's done.

Aztecs and Babs still are up CoL and MM. Can probably trade Currency for those whenever seems appropriate.

Should probably start building something better than warriors once Neapolis finishes the one it's on. Or possibly keep building warriors for a mass legion upgrade, since we have quite a bit of gold?

Looks good, very good

I would suggest to trade currency for Col and MM and then we have two option
1. self-research towards republic.
2. start collecting money for future, building up military and prepare for war. AIs will get republic sooner or later and we will demand it from them as a result of peace deal.

Green dot is next city settler is there already.

I believe purple dot should be next followed by red and then blue.
Those 3 cities should generate lots of shields.
No reason to build warriors now unless we need fast MP unit or settler escort.
Lets start building horses everywhere we can.. It is time to start preparing for war.

got it. I'll see what happens with white and then decide on next cities.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on the purple dot dman... I think that blue, red, then purple would give us more productive cities quicker. That jungle is just nasty at this stage of the game

It's really a wash.
Purple gives us 2bgs and a hill.
Red - 1 bg, 4 forest tiles and a hill is probably the best short term. It also had flood plains for extra food.
Blue - desert, flood plains, plains forest and hills that take too long time to imrpove... Long term blue will be the best.
Purple also extends our borders south a little.

Yes, Purple is a good spot. We really need to know more about what is south/west of Rome.

It was either the greeks or the romans who killed messangers of bad news...

Recon: Change Neo. to horse

1225: Currency to Monte for CoL, MM, 25g (all). MM to Brennus for 73g (all). MM to Cathy for 54g (all). MM to Cleo for 50g (all). Change Rome to settler.

IT: Veii granary > settler

1200: Currency to Hammi for worker +191g. Find grapes, adjust location of horse city. With border expansion, it will pull in the grapes.

1175: Build Pisae. Change Antium to rax. Ain't gonna need no boats (we know everybody)

IT: Rome settler > horse

1150: zip

1125: change Pompeii to temple

IT: Neo. horse > horse

1100: zip

IT: Lit in, start Rep.

1075: zip

IT: End of era barb warning. Hammi must have traded Currency to Cathy for construction. I was gonna do it next turn. Cathy was being unreasonable. Crap, crap, and more crap...

1050: Lit + 9gpt to Monte for Construction. Hammi and Cathy both have Mono and Eng.

IT: Here come the barbs at Pisae. It's defended by one warrior. Lose it or use it time for the gold.

1025: buy eng from Hammi for Lit. 16gpt and 480g.

IT: Monte and Brennus sign peace

1000: Build Ravenna to capture the iron.

there's a settler to the SW of Pisae that should plant in place. I'm having dotmap issues will try to get one up later. There are two horses on the way to Pisae to kill barbs. We're research Rep at max. Hopefully we can use that to catch up.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR2_AK_1000_BC.SAV

Don't see bad news. :)
Well.... rather fast tech progress but expected on pangea map.
What's hurting us most is that instead of developing core we placing cities further away from capital. But that is where "trainers" have difference in playing styles. ;)

Ravenna will be under increasing risk flipping to Russia.

We need to build cities West, SW from Rome ASAP and start developing forces.
We want to take big chunk of Russia before they have feud and pikemen all over.
Good news - Russia either doesn't have iron or doesn't have it connected yet, i hope they don't have iron period. That makes it even more important to prevent Ravenna from flipping. We will need to keep bigger garrison there at all times until some culture is built.
Pisae to build culture, it will be hard to grab those wines. Russia has cheap libraries and they can grab wines before us... Makes it even more important to prepare for war with Russia as fast as it logistically possisble.

Switch citizen in Rome from plains to Flood plains to keep the city growing.

Good tradings Admiral :goodjob:

Ravenna will be under increasing risk flipping to Russia.


That's why it's building a library. ;) Seriously, we can move the equines there fairly quickly and use it as a rally point to go get Cathy. I'm much happier now that we have iron under our control for knights, rails, legions, etc. I knew it was gonna be a flip risk when I planted it, but I have visions of Roman horse leaving from there to open up new space.

Going to go work on dot map now and be back later (in an hour or so). I'm p.o'd with myself over the currency and Hammi/Cathy trades. I should have handled those better.

Need to do a little intelligence to see who has iron...

rather fast tech progress but expected on pangea map.
An idiot flaw - I still have that inate desire to do apocalypse now and play with marines and helicopters so I tend to force the pace too much.

Ok, will be waiting for screenies...

We still should have blue/purple/red dots from old maps and those to be settled in priority order.
It will take Ravenna too long to build library, that is why i said - bigger garrison there to prevent flip risks until library is built.

No worries about fast tech pace, if you didn't do those trades AIs would do it among themselves and we would be way behind the schedule on tech progress. More reasons to build horses, window to use legions is going to be very short if any and horses can be upgraded.

Dotmap is self-explanatory.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR2_1000.jpg

Here's my intelligence estimate:

Brennus has ivory and wines. Iron?
Cleo probably has no iron.
Cathy has furs and horses. Too soon to tell about iron.
Hammi has silks. Too soon to tell about iron.

Can't agree with Admiral's for map more...

Settle in order suggested and expand north..
But please use a warrior (don't waste horse) to explore those jungles south of us...

How about placing some useless jungle cities as a priority No1. We might have some rubber discovered there 2000 years from now :crazyeye:

How about placing some useless jungle cities as a priority No1. We might have some rubber discovered there 2000 years from now

Didn't think we were gonna let 'em live that long... :lol:

forgot to mention/ask - is that water to the SE ocean or an inland sea?

I agree with the dot-map. Good job A-K. It's interesting to see both playstyles of dman and A-k combining into one. :)

I think that the war with Russia should begin near the middle of dman's turns. So eldar build that boy some horsies. :lol:

I think that a couple of warriors should be upgraded to legions for GA use later. Go only for horses from hear on out.

Roster:
Admiral Kutzov - just played
eldar - up
dman - On deck
Mach
Tubby Rower
Minute Man

forgot to mention/ask - is that water to the SE ocean or an inland sea?

It only gives 1 food, so it's either ocean or a really big lake. Now if we only had some boats, we could find out for sure....

I think that it is a bay connected to the ocean. I would think that the Chinese would have met the Aztecs sooner if it was just a lake. I don't think that we need boats. But I'm not the expert here.

I think that it is a bay connected to the ocean. I would think that the Chinese would have met the Aztecs sooner if it was just a lake. I don't think that we need boats. But I'm not the expert here.

You're probably right. But our map is way too unexplored for my taste. I'd feel better if we send out at least a curragh or two to map the coastlines.

I think that the war with Russia should begin near the middle of dman's turns. So eldar build that boy some horsies. :lol:


Not going to happen. We only have one military city and it builds a 5 turn horse IIRC.
i think we will have to wait longer until we have that blue/red/purple cities founded, baracks built, pop grown and military conveyer belt established.
Also on emperor level we will need more horses/knights for the initial strike compared to what we had in TR01.

You mean that the great dman can't take on the Russians with two horses? :rolleyes:

Yeah I didn't think about the level being different. Aren't the combat calculations altered on higher levels or does the AI just keep more units in the cities?

The AI will just have more units, period.
It doesn't garrison that many more, as far as I can tell - 2 in outer towns, 3 in core towns, 4 in the capital seems the norm. I think you'd have to move up to DG/Deity to start seeing really big garrisons.

The problem here is that those garrisons will likely be Pikes before we even get to hit anything.

Agree with D-man that we need to build up our core as first priority. The question of when on the war depends on who has iron. If an AI doesn't have iron, it won't have pikes, MI, etc. I'm willing to take on an AI that doesn't have iron with just horses, cause we'll be facing spears archers and maybe Longbows. If the enemy AI has iron, we may need to go the slow road with cats and legions. I stopped production on the boats due to our lack of military. We know everyone which is all curraghs are really good for. Using galleys to scout or settler is too big a diversion of resources on a panagea map since the AI will be sending waves of troops by land.

More and more often i find myself in position where i totally agree with Admiral ;)

So let's just go ahead and keep improving our land especially core and start building armies.

Right, here we are.
I took an executive decision to deviate from the dotmap order when I discovered Iron up by the Wines, especially as Cleo's headed in that direction too.
Barbs didn't do any damage to us, Cathy and Brennus et al helped out some. We still got our licks in, and got an Elite Horse and 50g into the bargain.

Anyway, here's the turn log:
0 1000 Check deals, nothing open, so press space and get on with it.

IT: Nea Horse->Horse. Barb Horses don't advance on Pisae.

1 975 Send Nea's Horse towards Ravenna. Found Hispalis, start Worker. The Warrior in the NE finds more Iron.

IT: Barb Horses busy themselves with Cathy's forces.

2 950 Lux to 10% for Veii. Still running a high loss, but the Barbs haven't hit so far. Use Rome's Horse to take out a Barb Horse that may well have disconnected our Ivory in the IT.

IT: Celts complete Pyramids. Goody, they'll hose their GA. Loads of Barb Horses emerge near Pompeii.

3 925 Switch Nea to Archer for Barb defense. Fortify 2 Horses on the Ivory, move the Horses near Pisae back but they'll be slow getting there (they'd been stationed on the mountain).

IT: Rome Horse->Horse. Veii Settler->Settler. Nea Archer->Horse.

4 900 Lux down to 0% again. Kill all 4 Barb Horses round Pompeii, one of our Horses is now Elite :) My wife finished dinner and I took a break :D

IT: Rome riots - moving the Horse out and 0% Lux was a bit much. :bang:

5 875 Not much, moving troops.

IT: Celts boot us. Antium Settler->Worker.

6 850 Lux to 10% for Rome. Disband a Barb camp. Celt explorer was booted west, useful, can explore the jungle/swamp.

7 825 Zzz.

IT: Cathy demands 25g, she gets it.

8 800 Cathy's sending a Settler pair towards a free space, possibly, so I plonk Eddie there to stop her settling. Taxman hired in Hispalis to prevent a riot.

IT: Rome Horse->Horse. Nea Horse->Horse. Celts complete Oracle, GA-inspired no doubt. Iron connected.

9 775 Sci dropped so we're making a profit. We only had 42g after Cathy's demand, I wouldn't like to get caught out IT by, say, Brennus.

10 750 Lutetia founded (Purple dot). Bad news, there's a Barb camp a bit close. Starts Rax, it's already at 2spt so won't grow in time to get a Worker out. Disperse a Barb camp for some much-needed gold. Lux to 20% for Rome.

Screenie/dotmap:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_750BC.jpg

Next player, expect tribute demands (or worse) from Brennus, he's in his GA and may well be after a fight sooner rather than later.

My main reason for going for the Wines/Iron site, is that Pisae will most likely lose control of the Wines square, if it ever gets it. They're at the same distance from the Russian city, and the Russians will certainly out-culture Pisae. Securing Luxes is, IMO, a top priority.

Neil. :cool:

Looks good eldar. Always liked those executive decisions. If only my wife could cook. :sigh:

I haven't picked up on where the iron by the wines is, can you help me out?

Here's a wild hare :devil: First do an intelligence estimate and try to find out who's got iron. If the idiot pyscho genes are correct, the AI to the west/south have it, the AI to the NE don't. Split our offensive production into halves: the NE gets legions and practical stone throwing devices. The west/SW gets four legged fast movers. I know dividing forces invites defeat in detail, but I don't think the AI is that smart.

Consider a gpt deal with Brennus since he's doing the GA?

I suggest Cleo as target one. her settler pairs are becoming annoying.

Personal request that you don't crop the mini map. Helps idiots figure out the strategic situation (we're very visual)

More and more often i find myself in position where i totally agree with Admiral

This really scares me. :lol: ;) How will I pad my post count?

By popular request, a Mini Map with bonus zoom to clarify where the Iron is :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_750BC_IronWines.jpg

Hmm... I think it might be an idea to cat-and-mouse that Celt Horse/Settler pair. I'd at least like to know where it ends up. Tactical planning, and all, y'know.

FWIW, I don't think Brennus has Iron, but there are a few gaps - near Gergovia, maybe? [Edit] Nope, Brennus doesn't have Iron at the moment.

I have it, will play tomorrow so everyone has a chance for suggestions.

I think that Rome and Neapolis should have a settler shaved off of them. Either switch the horse now or settler after the horse. Dman should be founding 3-4 cities during his turnset.

A-K, are you suggesting a 2-sided war with the Russians and Egyptians? If we go at them one at a time I'd suggest the Russians first and we could even get the Aztecs help since he plopped an embassy in our capital...

Good job eldar on the executive decision. Thanks for explaining it.

@ dman & A-K, since you guys are starting to agree which one of you are becoming like the other???

Forgot about the ....

Roster:
Admiral Kutzov
eldar - just played
dman - up
Mach - On deck
Tubby Rower
Minute Man

Re the double war... i suggest the equine path for the west and SW AI and the slow legion cat route for the NE AI

Actually, i wasn't really happy to see that settler moving up north to get iron and wine we won't connect in next 20-30 turns unless we send there all workers we have.

We NEED CORE CITIES INFRASTRUCTURE!!!!!

I opened the save and what i see, most of our workers improving land around border corrupted cities and nobody seem to be present in core with exception of few slaves.

Never mind Egypt. The only reason they sending settler pairs is because their own land is a waste land and even if they put cities next to us those cities are going to be totally corrupt and won't improve egypt economy at all.

I still believe Russia should be our priority target, but the way things are going we won't have any army in a very long time. (we might start phony war with Egypt just to grab their pop1 cities though)

I thought about research. I suggest (actually i am insisting) to put it to 0 and start collecting gold. With our economy doesn't make any sense to do self-research. We will have to get GA, build markets before starting researching anything.
Well... game wasn't really going the way i would play it alone, but I am not complaining neither i am panicking ;) .
We will get there, just might take longer and we would be forced to build rail-roads after all :lol:

Actually, i wasn't really happy to see that settler moving up north to get iron and wine we won't connect in next 20-30 turns unless we send there all workers we have.

More like 12-15, given it can produce a Worker in 10 turns working the Wines, and there's a Worker already roading towards it.

We NEED CORE CITIES INFRASTRUCTURE!!!!!

I opened the save and what i see, most of our workers improving land around border corrupted cities and nobody seem to be present in core with exception of few slaves.

Veii already has enough tiles worked to be a 6-turn Settler factory. Rome may need 1 more tile worked, but if we're going to skim off a Settler when it hits size 6, no more for a bit.

Never mind Egypt. The only reason they sending settler pairs is because their own land is a waste land and even if they put cities next to us those cities are going to be totally corrupt and won't improve egypt economy at all.

I agree.

I still believe Russia should be our priority target, but the way things are going we won't have any army in a very long time.

They are still the logical first target, but Celts should go next as they're small, have the Pyramids, and Entremont is relatively close by - there's just a Jungle to hack through to get there.

(we might start phony war with Egypt just to grab their pop1 cities though)

Will probably work, too :lol: We might be able to station troops in the mountains and block off their access to the main landmass (as long as the 'bay' isn't actually an inland sea).

I thought about research. I suggest (actually i am insisting) to put it to 0 and start collecting gold. With our economy doesn't make any sense to do self-research. We will have to get GA, build markets before starting researching anything.

Agree, the AI will research Republic quicker than we can and we have enough of a tech advantage over some to buy it.

Well... game wasn't really going the way i would play it alone, but I am not complaining neither i am panicking ;) .

The AI are having a tough time, too. Rome is still #2 city - other than Entremont, the AI haven't built any culture in any of their capitals!

We will get there, just might take longer and we would be forced to build rail-roads after all :lol:

Choo choo!?

Neil. :cool:

Here's an idea. Once upon a time I played a game as the peaceful Sumerians. I never started any wars, caved to demands and just settled where ever there was space. I got to MT 3-4 techs ahead of the AI, upgraded my horses and went nuts. I actually quit that game cause it got too boring. That was on Monarch, but it may have some application here.

Now, Tubby's asking "How does this affect me?"

I'm not suggesting that we go totally passive but I'm not worried. If we have to wait for Chiv. or MT to have an effective army, so be it. The jungles and mountains make it tough on the movement of the AI as well.

I wasn't suggesting that we fight 2 wars at once. Rather the legions are better suited to take on Cleo and the horses are better suited to take on Cathy.

Remember that the desired victory is not domination or conquest (dman seems to only play dom/con games). I've opened this one up to any victory condition. I realize that most if not all of the victory type will be easier if you get to the dom limit then go after another victory. I'm cool with the peaceful route since I have yet to play a game without wars til the end. But dman might end up like this :twitch:...

@A-K, make one little statement in true inquiry and now I'll be haunted by it forever!! ;)

Sorry guys for been a little rough...
I just wanted to show how to play this game in the most effective way that's all..
We are militaristic and we've lost half of our trait by not waging early wars.

Just think this way. Have we not moved our settlers far from capital, but instead built those towns around and close to capital with may be just grabbing ivory we would already have all those pop 3to 6 towns with barracks built building horses. By the present time we would be ready for first major campaign and grabbed these iron and wine and much more as a result and we would be in much better shape economy and military wise.

Instead in this game we did what AIs would do - ran for the resources while sacrificing everything else.

I don't think that you're being rough. Just stating your opinion. I understand your strategy, and think that it is a very valid one. Running for resources seems like a comfort thing. And in order to get a good win date, you seem to have to be slightly uncomfortable at times.

As far as the tiles worked in the core, I think that all of the citizens ARE working improved tiles. It doesn't make sense to improve unused tiles until a little later when populations get bigger than 6.

We NEED CORE CITIES INFRASTRUCTURE!!!!!
I've been so quiet because you keep stating my thoughts before me, dman. (Sorry -- I'll try to pipe up more even if it's just to say I agree with people... :blush: ) I've agreed with you throughout on this one -- I would have rather had the core cities than the luxes. Still, we're in fine shape. Whatever you start during your turns I'll continue with. One question: what infra are you referring to? Rax in new cities is all I can think of. Tile improvements, too. I was thinking maybe we should convert Veii over to a worker factory for awhile after two more core cities are founded. IMO, we will need workers more than we'll need additional outlying cities.

Thanks for the input Mach. Don't be afraid to post even if it is just to agree with people. Sometimes that extra post helps stuff sink into my thick head.

EDIT: Plus it pads your post count ;)

We do need more workers no objections about that.

Neapolis should build a worker each time it reaches pop 6. it can not grow beyond pop 6 at the moment and won't be for some time. So each time when it reaches pop 6 and food box is nearly full it makes perfect sense to build a worker there and city will regrow in 1 turn.
We will indeed pop workers from Veii may be after one or two more settlers are built or between... It depends on what feels right to do at the moment.

... It depends on what feels right to do at the moment.I think that it was that attittude that got us in our current city placement. Workers are most beneficial especially when we start clear cutting the rainforests.

I think that it was that attittude that got us in our current city placement. Workers are most beneficial especially when we start clear cutting the rainforests.

very bad attitude when you apply it on city placements. :lol:

True, true.....

@ d-man-have you started? If you haven't, I'll open up the save get back with some ideas. If you have I'll wait until you're done.

IIRC, we're down a couple of MA techs. We were running hard on Rep to use it as trade goods.

Eldar's choice on Iron/Wine (sounds like a hair band song title from the 80's): I'm into iron denial whenever possible. So our horses can crush their horses as previously discussed. iron's also a great trade good considering how much AI will pay for it the railroad era.

Zen/Aristotle/Shemp (a true idol in the idiot world; to be revered by generations thru the magic box that play pictures) thought of the day. My understanding that this is a trainer, not a HOF attempt. What kind of VC do the trainees want to go for? Culturals out BTW. If'in you want 'splain', advise.

All sorts of sidebars to consider. Does everyone have an understanding of tax starving? How bout use of cops and engineers? What do the trainees want to learn about?

Tax starving? I don't know anything by that name, no. :( Are you talking about starving a captured city down by taxing them?

VC... Well, I came in with an open mind, but...being the Romans on a pangea is really begging for a military win, so that's the way I've been leaning lately. Also in my personal games I've actually had more cultural wins (2) than military wins (1)! My first half-dozen solo monarch games all ended in space wins. So I'd prefer to learn military better.

Engineers I have used, cops not so much.

@d-man-have you started? If you haven't, I'll open up the save get back with some ideas. If you have I'll wait until you're done.

I've played few turns


IIRC, we're down a couple of MA techs. We were running hard on Rep to use it as trade goods.

They way we do it we won't get it in next 30 turns and by that time all AIs will have it plus couple of more MA techs.. We are too late for self-research.
Why are we late? It is an emperor level and also because our core is so weak.


iron's also a great trade good considering how much AI will pay for it the railroad era.

Can't agree more, but if we played my way we would have armies and captured that iron if not now but in next few turns...
Or would it be too late for Railroads??? :mischief:



Zen/Aristotle/Shemp (a true idol in the idiot world; to be revered by generations thru the magic box that play pictures) thought of the day. My understanding that this is a trainer, not a HOF attempt.


Nope, I consider this a game to show trainees how to win emperor game in the most effective way. Certainly not HOF attempt. If you look at my scores in xOTMs i never get into 1st 20. :)


What kind of VC do the trainees want to go for? Culturals out BTW. If'in you want 'splain', advise.


Anything we choose. Actually we will reach our domination limit before anything else but then we can stop and keep going with like Space or histograph.... (Doub't anybody will vote for us in UN by that time though. :lol: )


How bout use of cops and engineers? What do the trainees want to learn about?

How about we play training DG game next time and that's where cops and engineers will finally appear. ;)


Ok, i'll go get my cup of a hot ceylon tea, will wait for my wife to get home and finish the game. Need some fixin' to do. :) (Actually expect at least some good news, but don't want to spoil you guys until full report is posted)

Are you talking about starving a captured city down by taxing them?


You take a size ten city from the AI. Change all the non-resistors to taxmen every turn until it is size one. helps take away the flip risks. That's what I mean by tax starving.

CE's don't help with building military. Cops can add productivity in border towns. More later if this goes that long.

One of the reasons I usually set the climate and make the civ random is that I personally find clearing jungle tedious. Thus I tend to play arid worlds.

I've played SS on no research. way too much MM. Although it's amazing the gold communists can accumulate.

Ok, i'll go get my cup of a hot ceylon tea, will wait for my wife to get home and finish the game. Need some fixin' to do. (Actually expect at least some good news, but don't want to spoil you guys until full report is posted)

'kay. I'll hold on comments til dman puts his turns up.

How about we play training DG game next time and that's where cops and engineers will finally appear.

I'm up for that, but I'll have to be a trainee since i have all sorts of problems there unless I play as the Dutch or Carthage on a pelago map with non-seafaring opponents.

pre-turn: i think i want to start a phony war with egypt... move 3 horses from Ravenna towards Egypt... there is a little voice inside me that keeps saying "... blood, i need some blood... kill'm all, kill'em now...."

Ok. China has some gold... sold them CoL for 37g. Little MM needed around Pisae and Lutetia

IBT. China demanded contstruction. We say no they retreat.

T1. 730BC. Iron Wines founded->worker. Pisae settler->settler; switched Rome to settler.

IBT. We have FP message.

T2. 710BC. Move our small army to attack egypt.

IBT. Celts demand 27 gold and i bow. Rome settler->horse. Antium worker->barracks.

T3. 690BC. Brundisium founded. pop-rush library in pompei. Declare on Egypt.

IBT. Russia boots us. looks like Russia and Celts are at war.

T4. 670BC. Pompeii lib->barracks. Auto-raze Byblos. 1 elite kill, lost one ver. horse. I don't really want invide egypt. I just want to raze a city or two and then make peace in exchange of tech or cities.

IBT. Celts are building Sun-Tzu. Aztecs are building Gr.LH.
T5. 650BC. Don't see no Egyptians troops... Well... I will park next city of Giza and either wait for city to grow so i can capture it or for Egypt to start talking to us..

IBT. Celts have Feud... :sad: .. bunch of Barb horses approach Lutetia...

T6. 630BC Syracuse is founded. Dispatching nearby horses to take care of Lutetia barbs. Ok. Bab and Celts know Feud. They both also know republic but no trades available. Egypt still won't talk and won't show up their armies.


IBT. Egyptian horse finally showed up. 5 barb horses moved to the hill near Lutetia.

T7. 610BC. Killed 3 barb horses, 2 to go. Kill egyptian horse - 1st elite attack and we have a leader! :dance: we have a leader! I think i know what i am going to do with it - rush FP in Ravenna. After we take surrounding Russian cities it will make a nice FP location and also will prevent Ravenna from flipping.
Russia knows republic. Aztecs know feud.
our deals will expire in next 2 turns and i should pull something out of this.
Have to hire tax man for 1 tun in Neapolis to avoid riots.

IBT. Celts boot us out.

T8. 590BC. Pompeii settler->settler. leader heads to ravenna. Giza grows to pop 2.
Egypt won't talk - Good. Taking Giza and kill settler pair somewhere else. Egypt now talks. Making peace with egypt and take 2 more cities + 5 gold
things aren't so good on tech front... AIs are way ahead. Bought republic from Babylon for 10gpt+180gold. Herding Egyptian settler pair.

t9. 570BC. Switch Ravenna to barracks, will rush FP next turn. Bought Feud from Aztecs for 109gold and 37gpt. We have 0 gold in treasury and +1running treasury

T10. 550BC. Schnappsville is founded. Rushed FP in Ravenna. Hired tax man in Neapolis to prevent rioting. We are low on money. But i hope once we revolt to republic situation will get better money wise. Plus i believe our GAs are not far away. As soon as we can collect around 10 horses and couple of Legions in single stuck attack Russia.
Research isn't possible right now but i hope it will get better. Revolt next turn after settler in Rome is build. I also switched few builds to workers to be completed next turn and cities will regrow during the anarchy tiem
I suggest to place it 4SW from rome in jungle...
Not the best location but very low corruption is what we need and there is at least a forest to place citizen on for faster barraks built.

Post-turn: there is an egyptian settler pair i was herding. Just keep doing that don't let them to settle to far into our land. SIngle scientist is hired in Heliopolis to research towards Invention. Keep it there during anarchy times. We need to build army to generate our GAs and build markets first followed by libraries to steam our research towards MT during and after GA is over. I envision we will by Mono and chivalry from AIs. Keep building barracks and military units only until we enter GAs. Keep building settlers in Veii. You should figure out a nice settler factory after we switch to republic. Convert Rome to military build facilities. Hook up wines and forward we go. Keep squeezing workers once in a while. Do not afraid to raze lux slider in Republic. But with 3 luxes we should do okay for quite some time.
Suggest to settle on blue dot then on green. Once done our core will be completed but keep building settlers. We might want to raze and replace russian cities to prevent flip risks.
Russians and Celts are busy killing each other so hopefully by the time we have army they won't have many units against us. We might want to attack russia even earlier depending on how situation goes. If we see Celts are overwhelming russia we should also start just to grab those cities around our Forbidden Palace city. We don't have to kill russia, we just want to extend our core around FP city. Egypt could be next target after Russia just to grab Gems they have.

Suggestions from the rest of the team are required

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02-550BC.JPG

I've edited post-turn comments several times, so you may want to re-read ;)

Celts demanded gold we said no they declared.

T1. 730BC. Iron Wines founded->worker. Pisae settler->settler; switched Rome to settler.

IBT. We have FP message.

T2. 710BC. Move our small army to attack egypt.

IBT. Celts demand 27 gold and i bow.

Now i'm really confused. Are we at war with Brennus or not?

Pulled the save, will look and post. Got all kinds of time on my hands since my turns all seem to come up at once on weekends....

At first glance, I really really like the FP in Ravenna. and the green dot.

Go dman! :hammer: Pretty impressive progress!

Suggestions from the rest of the team are required
I'm sure I will have some in time, but right now I only have questions.
1.) We have undefended cities...and others defended by horses atm. Should we build pikes to fill these gaps? Or just legions/horses?
2.) How will we continue paying our 47gpt commitment to other civs during anarchy? That's 24 citizens as taxmen, more than half our population after these workers & settler are built...am I missing something here? Nobody has any cash to trade us.
3.) How big of a military should we build up before attacking? If we're going to work on infra in our GA, then we should start with a pretty big hammer... Say, 20 horses & 10 legions?

Er, that's all I can think of right now. Priority is obviously get into republic, and build horsemen & legions (in ~equal quantities?). Continue 0% research until our economy is healthy. I agree with the new city placements.

@AK -- I was confused, too. I guess he mis-typed it, since we're obviously not at war with Brennus...

here are my thoughts (off the top of my flat little head; in some mirrors it looks pointy if anyone cares)

Change El-Ararna to worker
granary in Antium after Rep. (worker pump)
Giza to harbor (just in case we need one)
No need to panic on techs, we're only down mono
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/north.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/south.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/west.jpg

I have more comments but I'll let the team speak first. nice work dman.

No we are not at war with Celts... Funny thing that have happened...
I think i was writing what i had in my thoughts..
When they demanded i thought they would declare if i say no, so i typed it :lol:
I probably should read my reports before i post them in future.

Go dman! :hammer: Pretty impressive progress!
1.) We have undefended cities...and others defended by horses atm. Should we build pikes to fill these gaps? Or just legions/horses?


NO PIKES and no defensive units whatsoever at least not for now.
We won't need MPs in our core keep a unit (more in rare cases) in each border city and collect rest around russian border. After war is over we will use legions as MP and instead of pikes. Knights are coming soon anyways.
Just build horses and legions in proportion 3 horses for each legion.


2.) How will we continue paying our 47gpt commitment to other civs during anarchy? That's 24 citizens as taxmen, more than half our population after these workers & settler are built...am I missing something here? Nobody has any cash to trade us.


Good question. i have no idea :blush: . What if we simply run on negative budget during the anarchy.... I believe when you are in anarchy you can run negative budget and won't lose city improvements... somewhat exploit, you can actually double check if it works that way. well... honestly i really didn't think about that... but revolt anyway ;)


3.) How big of a military should we build up before attacking? If we're going to work on infra in our GA, then we should start with a pretty big hammer... Say, 20 horses & 10 legions?


If we start on Russia dozen units are enough for initial strike given we keep building more in our core. Especially if they keep fighting Celts.
Check MA if he says we strong againt them
I'd say put them in two stacks and attack cities on both sides of Ravenna. Next war should be somewhat overwhelming and short. Take as many cities as possible, generate GA and make peace. During peace we need to build marketplaces, aqueducts and libraries in productive cities and then keep building more military.
Most of the warfare in this game will be done after we get MT, but we still can pick on weak targets.

Good job dman....

I agree with the 3 to 1 horse to legion ratio. I think that it ought to be a little more horses though. I saw the furs in Russia a while back and was going to mention them when the war started with them...

RE: Pikes....NO, NO, NO. Dman taught us not to build defensive units because they have less affect on your power rating and also the best defence is a good offense.

The gpt during anarchy still comes out of treasury. We might be losing some workers/ improvements. There are no maintenance/support costs so basically you only have the to-from civs and taxmen that are counted.

We need to revolt after all of the builds are completed next turn. Can we sell Fued to Aztecs for money?

@ A-K, any VC is desired. We'll probably get to dom limit then decide if we just want to finish or go for something else. I've used CE's before but have found no use for cops and would like to understand them better. I think that next time we could start a non-trainer DG or Diety where we all are fumbling around and see if we could pull out a victory.

We could play SGOTM07 (AWD :eek: ). A DG game would suit. A DG game with a Civ that doesn't get cheap culture - I'm still a little addicted to building my cheap Temples/Libraries, if I have them.

[Edit] Couldn't agree more on Pikes etc., defensive units in our core. For starters, Legions cost the same as Pikes and are just as good at defending, and better at attacking. Secondly, who needs defensive units in our core? If the AI get there, then the game's already lost.

Well we have 3 of us already on team. We'd have to get dman to defect from smackster.

I've never played an Always War game. Don't even know the impact of that other than either a strong Republic or Monarchy/Facist is necessary.

Roster:
Admiral Kutzov
eldar
dman - just did it his way
Mach - up
Tubby Rower - on deck - wondering if it's going to affect him
Minute Man

I've only tried AW at Chieftan/Warlord (Aztecs/Warlord/AW/Tiny/Pangaea is my favourite "very quick" game - usually done in 20-30 mins, tops).

It gets crazy at Monarch and above, from what I gather.

Always War Deity would be suicidal, I'll probably sit out SGOTM7 and leave it to the experts (like those who've won AW Sid, Defiant Sid, etc.)

I won AWM and it is not that hard.
I also won SGOTM3 with team Smackster, although not strictly AWE game but very difficult variant that was.

looking forward for SGOTM7 and i am sorry Tubby, i won't defect team Smackster unless they decide to kick me out themselvs... Those guys are good, very strong players.

looking forward for SGOTM7 and i am sorry Tubby, i won't defect team Smackster unless they decide to kick me out themselvs... Those guys are good, very strong players.No problem. I figured that you'd stick with them.

@ Mach, keep pulling settlers out of pop 6 cities until the dotmap(s) that A-K supplied is filled. we also could use some during the inevitable Russian war. Until they've been significantly reduced, a policy of raze/settle might be best.

Agree with Tubby, we will need few extra settlers.

@Team: be carefull on worker's use. Identify priorities before sending them to do work. I'd say right now priorities would be to improve land around inner core cities and to hook up wines. think twice before chopping forests. we can use those for shields. i wouldn't bother clearing wetlands at the moment. We should improve everything else before starting on wetlands.

War with Russia should continue at least until we capture furs source.
We may want to turn on Egypt after that to get hold of gems. With 5 lux sources Rome republic will be very strong.

Silks look a little too far, but situation can always change. I hope we will have gunpowder source for our cavalry.

On worker priorities.... There is no need to improve un-worked tiles in the core if no city can use them until size 7 or above. Since we are going to be skimming settlers after cities get to 6, it doesn't make sense to improve tiles that won't be worked until 50+ turns down the road. Look into the city screen to see which tiles are worked and improve only what is necessary.

Tubby is correct, if city cannot grow beyond pop 6 no need to improve the tiles beyond that.
But if city can grow beyond pop 6 we should let those cities to grow if they produce and have low corruption.
With 3 luxes and in republic we should allow them to do it to maximize production rate. I am never shy on putting lux slider up a notch if needed to boost production.
We need 15spt city to produce horse/legion each 2 turns or 10 spt for 3 turn horsearound.

I just had a really bad feeling - remember 9 turn anarchy last game??? :eek:
i hope it doesn't happen this time.

Ok, I agree with what people are saying. I can play it tonight. Here's my list of things to take care of on my turns...

Granary in Antium, worker in El-Arana.
Settle dman's blue dot first, then his green dot. Then work on AK's ne dotmap.
Recon military cities, see what tiles need improvement, look toward 10 or 15spt. Use workers here first, only on the tiles we will use.
Hook up wines.
Revolt to republic after one turn. Keep scientist going during anarchy. Run a deficit, since dman says we can't lose things in anarchy...but I'll test this in a personal game first... (I did a quick search of the forum and couldn't find a reference to this little white exploit...)
After anarchy, grow core cities toward 10 or 15spt military factories, except for...
Settler factory in Veii, worker pump in Antium
Build horses & some legions everywhere else. No pikes!
Herd egyptian settler.
Pull settlers out of size 6 cities that can't grow, like Neapolis.

I may not get all of this done, depending on how much anarchy I get. I've been feeling lucky lately... :D

I'm on board with the no pikes thing, BTW. I see the sense in it. Defensive units must have their uses somewhere though...maybe on higher levels when your civ is smaller so no offense is possible -- because they're (generally) cheaper, and have (I think) a cheaper upgrade path. But not in this game.

After reading the above, further training is not required until Nationalism. :goodjob:

The way this game is going, we only need one or two legions...

Mach makes nice lists. :goodjob:

It gets crazy at Monarch and above, from what I gather.
see Viper4. That was barbaric and defiant. While not AW, you'll get the idea.

DO NOT EVER GO TO FUEDALISM!!! Been there, done that, it's evil. If you're going AW think commie.

Re the workers: connecting stuff is job 1. improving the good core cities is job 2.

DG do it your self has a certain appeal.

If you want a really good game play Non-Oscillating War at Emperor on a pan map. Gets you your war and your diplomacy and all the fun stuff.

leaving trainer mode - go build horses. want to whack AI.

reentering trainer mode.

Preflight -- El-Amarna to worker
Rome will get to 15spt @ size 8 with 1 more mined grass & 2 mined hills
MM Veii for growth, the rest look good
(I) Brennus boots us
Rome settler --> horse
Veii worker --> settler
Antium worker --> granary
Neapolis worker --> horse
Ravenna FP --> horse
Iron Wines worker --> worker
Russians finish colossus

T1 (530BC) -- various unit moves, toying with Egyptian settler
We revolt! Fix happiness...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_anarchy.JPG
Treasure of 3g @ -47gpt.
(I) Pompeii revolts, sorry missed one
Volcano erupts w of Pompeii, frying some Celtic & Russian units, heh

T2 (510BC) -- Worker moves, settler arrives at blue dot
(I) Hammu founds an embassy with us

T3 (490BC) -- Palmyra founded on blue dot, set to rax
More worker moves, more toying with Egyptian settler
(I) -- nothing

T4 (470BC) -- More worker moves, more toying with Egypt
(I) We are a republic.
Celts build Artemis
Plenty o' cascading...Babs build TGL...more cascading...

T5 (450BC) -- Lots of MM. Move scientist to Neapolis
Continue tangling with Egypt. They seem to be retreating.
(I) Heliopolis riots, of course, because it was whipped. Sorry...
Arabs build Great Wall
Egypt builds Hanging Gardens

T6 (430BC) -- Egyptian settler is retreating
(I) Egypt declares war! :eek:
They raze El-Amarna...
Babs boot us.
Giza riots
Celts are building Leo's...they have Invention...Babs too.
Arabs build the Mausoleum

T7 (410BC) -- Giza horsemen kills Egyptian archer
various movements...
(I) -- not much. Egyptians found Hieraconpolis where El-Amarna was.
2 Egyptian chariots approach Heliopolis
Move scientist to Giza

T8 (390BC) -- Kill Egyptian warrior, losing a horse. :(
(I) -- Heliopolis is razed...

T9 (370BC) -- Getting some WW. Raise lux to 20%. Egypt won't talk.
Worker moves.
(I) -- not much

T10 (350BC) -- Attack Hieraconpolis with 2 horses, both retreat, taking only 1hp off of spear :(
Settler moving toward AK's light blue dot


*sigh* So we're in Republic. We're at war with Egypt and they won't talk. I founded one new city, and lost two more. I built a few horsemen, but also lost one. The wines will be connected in 3 turns. Veii will be a 4-turn settler factory once it has wines. Rome will be at 15spt when it grows once more, and the two mines are done. Neapolis will be at 10spt when it has wines. We're down mono & invention to 4 civs. Not very good turns, I'm afraid, although I'm not sure what I could have done about it.

So for the next player, keep improving the core; many hills need mining. Make a worker factory in Antium -- it's right now on max shields toward granary. We need to get out of this Egyptian war...

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_mach_350BC.SAV)

The Egyptian front...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_EgyptFront.JPG

...and where that settler is going.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/TR02_Mach_NextCity.JPG

Suggest that we send the next available Settler here, and station a military unit there until it's ready. Would hate for Mao to get hold of this spot:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/tr02_next_settler.jpg

Re: the war... forget Cathy for now, press on against Cleo. Has she been at war with China? There's a razed Egyptian city in the far east, or was that one of the ones we took for peace?

Thebes is a nice prize now, with the HG.

Disband any regular Warriors now we're in Republic. We should also upgrade the Vet warriors to Legions.

I think that the egyptian war would be good. Cleo just built the Hangning gardens and now we can take it from her.... On to Thebes!!!

I agree with eldar about the landbridge near Chengdu. That will help contain the Chinese.

Do we want to start our GA? or should we wait until everything is settled out first? our GA could help us build a few knights once we get chivalry so my vote is to wait a while.

We also need to start building markets in our core cities one at a time.

:) Oh pesky Egyptians..
I wonder why would they declare and trash their own rep...
Well, i have always wondered if rep hit matters for AIs... Looks like no matter how bad it is it doesn't affect them but human player only.

That city - El-Amarna probably hadn't had garrison and that's why they declared... Just a guess... Having a single warrior stationed inside a city makes a huge difference on AIs willingless to start war.

We might keep pressing them and we probably won't need so many troops to capture Egypt. Just make sure we are the ones who capturing cities from now on. HG is not a good wonder, gems that egypt has are more important.
Oh, we probably won't be able to have long war with Egypt because of WW.
When you are republic and our cities get razed WW hits really bad.

I wouldn't start GA quite yet. I want that GPT deal we have to expire and core cities to grow in pop a little bit more. That way we will have better kick once GA starts. Another reason i don't want to start GA now - i want to have more cities around FP city so we can use our GA to improve those to as well, but that measn we have to fight russians to get it.

Agree on city location Eldar suggested. Antium builds granary - I say lets convert it to military factory as well instead of making a dedicated worker pump.
We can shave worker from each city that reaches certain size and when it doesn't hurt production. Like Neapolis - don't build settlers there, make workers upon reaching size 6. If Veii can be 4 or 5 turn settler factory that should be enough for now.
Agree on one at a time marker - how about we start with Antium, switch that one to Market :) .
Oh, and this time make sure we have garrisons in each of our border citiies.


How about research?? Can we start researching invention on max now???
Do we have positive GPT once we switched to republic?

HG may not be a good wonder in the long run, true (unless we're not planning to get rails, but I don't think it's looking that way...) - but having it during our GA will be nice, if we still need Lux to control our populace.

HG may not be a good wonder in the long run, true (unless we're not planning to get rails, but I don't think it's looking that way...) - but having it during our GA will be nice, if we still need Lux to control our populace.

Does HG makes people happy only in city it's built or everywhere else as well?
In latter case it is a good wonder but if it only affects city it is built in it will be useless since captured Thebes is going to be:
1. starved
2. nearly 100% corrupted.

Yeah, El-Amarna was ungarrisoned. I had pulled the warrior out of Antium to help with the settler herding (the fact that Egypt had a warrior a bit ahead of the settler made the herding a bit tricky). Once that was done, I was moving our warrior to garrison El-Arama...but I was two turns too late. What I should have done was bring the horseman up from Rome...sorry, guys. :blush:

Do we have positive GPT once we switched to republic?
Yes, we're at +20gpt the last I remember. Sometime in the next turnset those gpt deals will expire, and that'll jump to almost 70gpt. So we can turn on max research. I didn't know that was ppl's intention, otherwise I could have started that 5 turns ago. Question: what is the advantage of starting a min run if you're going to switch to max later on? Those 12 beakers we invested during anarchy might shave a turn off, but...

As far as Antium goes I was thinking along different lines. I think Rome can be at 15spt by the end of the next turnset with the help of another worker...if we put it at minimal growth at that point. Neapolis, too, can be at 10spt very soon if we put it at minimal growth once the wines are hooked up. Other cities are in similar situations, just longer term. This is what I was aiming at with my worker moves -- I'm working some hills around Rome, for instance. But if we do it this way, we can't skim workers out of these cities...and IMO we need more workers. Should we delay our cities getting to 10 or 15spt for growth/workers? My opinion is we should max out these military factories earlier, and make Antium into our worker factory...

@dman:
HG makes 3 unhappy->content in city it's built, 1 unhappy->content everywhere else (and it's not continental, either). Expires with Steam.

Essentially a free Temple in every city, except where it's built, it's the same effect as a Cathedral.

I'm almost certain that the civlopedia tells us that the HG give 1 content person to all FRIENDLY cities. I'm not positive on what is the definition of friendly but I take it to mean that all civs at peace with you. In that case, it could prevent civs from going to war with us and let us decide the timing of future wars.

Ok. I agree HG is a good wonder.
But i won't feel bad if we don't take it now.
other than HG egypt mainland is useless to us, while russian mainland will be quite productive due to FP expanded core.
Plus i really want to take care of Cathy before she start blitzing us with cossacks.

Haven't seen any roster in a while.
Captain??