AWE pangaea, RaR 1.03
Civ = Rome
Pangaea, 80% Land, Arid, Warm, raging barbs.

Roster:
Zavior
T_McC
Bezhukov
Romeo
Greebley

Previous RAR expirience IS required, little bit of AW exp too.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/start1.JPG

This is our start.

I will roll a dice to decide starter.(If this ever stptarts ;) )

Hmm you may want to rethink the civ. Expanionist in AW is Double Plus ungood. Also, this spot has a cow, but not a hill on a river. I would rather have a hill on a river than a cow. Also what map type is this? (60-70-80) What are the barbarians? What version of RaR?
For AW, I would suggest the Sioux on a hill by a river with a food bonus of some type.
(Not a signup yet) I need to see what all happens first, and how/if some of my other games finish.

After Zav1, I'd like to try little bit harder start. Civ is mongols, because I've always wanted to try them.

Expanionist in AW is Double Plus ungood.
I fully agree. With Expanionist you feel required to explore to take advantage of your trait. To many early contacts = DEATH in AWE.


NOTE: Not a sign up - I need to close at least one more game.
However, I would *NEVER* sign up with an Expanionist civ.

Bah. I'll eat you alive after generating new start.

Note: LK & Bez, you are not eaten alive by 200 hungry hamsters.

I'm a little leery about the hamsters :dubious: .... But I'll sign up.

I have a modicum of experience in AW :mischief: ... maybe someone familiar will also find this appealing.

:wavey:

With this start and T-McC, I cannot say no. I am in.
I don't let animals eat me, I eat them. I don't like hamsters, I like large four legged animals. Them are good eating.

Any game good enough for Romeo and T_McC is good enough for me, hamsters or no. If there is still room, sign me up. I'd say, move one east to get away from nasty marshlands.

Any game good enough for Romeo and T_McC is good enough for me, hamsters or no. If there is still room, sign me up. I'd say, move one east to get away from nasty marshlands.
I also would support a 1 move east. We are still on a hill. Doubleplus good. But even better we get the elephants and apple in our starting ring.
I cannot compete with Bede or Sirian in verboseness, so I am heading in the opposite direction, or something. :cringe: We need an elephant smiley. :shakehead

I'm giving this 12 hours, and will roll starting player then.

I'm a little leery about the hamsters :dubious: .... But I'll sign up.

I have a modicum of experience in AW :mischief: ... maybe someone familiar will also find this appealing.

:wavey:

Are you suggesting some of the original Grumpy Old Men of Always War? Can we get the lucky candle? I tried really hard to get on your team in the play your way on thread, but I really had no starts worth playing, and the one I did play, well it was a "winner".
Regardless of what happens, I will try and pick your brain as much as you let me on the intricacies of always war.

Are you suggesting some of the original Grumpy Old Men of Always War?
I was kind of fishing .... see if anyone bites. I know they're around.

Can we get the lucky candle?
Yeah, you can never have enough Fart Luck.


:lol:

Yeah, you can never have enough Fart Luck.
:lol:

May the fart be with you...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY02_luckycandle.gif


Hey T - come make fun of my playing over here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=113987) if you get bored. I really gotta get the RaR mod...

Considering that our success in this game will largely hinge on how we play the first 100 turns, how about some pregame discussion.

My suggestion:

We have 53 shields to play with in the 21 turns it will take to grow to 4 (if we settle Rome one east of starting space to work apple right away). This allows two vet champs, then clan on growth to 4, taking us back to 2. Going back to 2 is better than back to one since we grow faster at two. In the twelve turns it takes to get back to 4, we have another 31 shields, with which we can build another clan. Here's the interesting part. At this point we bleed off a worker and leave Rome at one pop until Monarchy.

With a worker housing, at one pop (working a hill) Rome can make 5 spt, which is a vet champ every other turn. The two early clans can found one city working the apple and another working the phant, generating whatever additional clans we need while getting the maximum use out of the only barracks we'll have for a long time. The steady stream of vet champs should allow some pointy-stick expansion as well.

I'm rolling the starter now.
The dice says 3, so its Bezhukov. Take 25 or 20.

I'd like some input from team members before starting. Do we go with the two champs, then clan plan? Develop Rome (with granary/worker housing) and expand via pointy stick?
Go straight pointy stick from the get go, with a couple scouts mixed in to feel out the territory.

I'm currently having a ball playing COTM 10 as AW, but I haven't played an AW SG before, so would like to hear some other thoughts.

After looking at the save and seeing that we are in the middle, I would make sure we have at least 1 TG before we expand. The defense is really important. I would start with 2 champs, worker housing, granary, TG, settler, or something similar.
I would also set research to Domestication.

We do not start with Masonry. Remember, champs cost 10, while TG costs 20. Is one spear really better than two archers?

Two Champs and a Clan sounds like a reasonable opening. We want limited scouting as the less people we meet quickly, the better. Our biggest problem initially is going to be Barbs. I think they are set to Raging. :eek: So, they'll have much better units than us until our UU.

I'm not sold on having the capital size 1. We can't trade for techs, so limiting commerce at our only corruption-free city doesn't sound like a great idea. Might not be bad if we only do that until we get into Monarchy.

AWE with a middle start is extremely difficult. I think we are going to have to be on the offensive early, to try to keep one direction/border soft. The much slower expansion in RaR will dampen the difficulty a bit, but we cannot get into a position where we have to defend every city, all the time. That will be a loss.

So, ideally, we can play defense on one front and attack on another that is ever-decreasing. Unfortunately, defense is much easier in C3C than RaR. Best solution I see: Artillery and lots of it. Must keep extremely high kill ratios.

I think we shouldn't try to build with "1-turn" spacing, it'll get too crowded in our core. Standard AW spacing CxxC may work fairly well.

Since it looks like I'm last in the rotation ...

Don't be afraid to build workers. We will eventually have plenty of slaves/involuntaries, but we need to have our lands improved as fully as possible. We want roads everywhere we can reach to prevent Barbs (or other enemies) from hindering battlefield mobility. Having tiles mined sooner means faster unit builds.

Can't say much on the Tech front other than getting to Catapults fairly quickly. Since we have Champs it may not be imperative to get to our UU ASAP, it may be better to wait until the gov't switch.

We are going to be slow out of the gate for tech, unless we get lucky with who we meet when.

"I think we shouldn't try to build with "1-turn" spacing, it'll get too crowded in our core"

Considering the importance of the early turns, the downside of overcrowding is? We are COM, so rank corruption isn't as bad, and dense spacing makes sure we get all our tiles worked during the time of the game where we need to get them worked. With a grass/hill start, the choice is often between growth and production, so a few one size cities on a hill working a hill could produce the units to defend (via offense, if necessary) the cities generating our growth.

I think I'll start champ, champ, clan, with the option ot switch to TG if another civ shows up. Speaking of which - what are the trading rules for this one?

No GPT deals, no resource deals, got the point?
Other than those, there are no restrictions.

Must declare on sight? Units or borders?

AW is usually declare as soon as they show up on f4, or on Mapstat front page.
Is using the trading tab of Mapstat allowed here?

Declare as soon as you meet them ( they contact you ;) )
MapStat etc are fine.

Declare as soon as you meet them ( they contact you ;) )
MapStat etc are fine.

Full mapstat, or only the happy screen. I allowed the happy screen in my AWE games, but not trading screen.

I haven't tried MapStat by myself at all. Do as you feel good, but I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't look at the "trading table".

I usually use civassist, but don't think it will be much use in this game, so might just forgo using it at all, at least not the "alert screen".

Well once I had a look at our opponents (the usual MIL and AGR suspects) and the low (40 shields) granary cost, I went for the quick granary before growth to 3 (7 turns at 2 shields+9 at 3 produced it just in time), with immediate worker housing. I know this was a big risk, but felt it was our only real hope going up against the early-game powerhouses arrayed against us. It paid off, as we have yet to meet another civ and can make two-turn vet champs. The granary allows us to pop out occasional clans without killing our production.

We have researched Masonry and Alphabet and have 5 turns left on Math. This should set us up well for inital trades. Domestication and Cultivation should be available via trade. Worker popped a neaby hut but only got maps.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2-2750BC.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2science.JPG

I will join if you still have room. I probably shouldn't but AWE RaR sounds fun.

Based on my test games, not sure if "fun" is the right word - certainly challenging with this selection of civs. We just better hope the jags aren't close by. They really aren't fair.

My signature sort of gives away my definition of fun. :D

For some reason I really like AW games.

Hey Bez, I really liked the start. Good work. If we can sneak in a forge before contacts, we should be flying high.

I will join if you still have room. I probably shouldn't but AWE RaR sounds fun.

Wellllll ... look what the cat dragged in. :lol:

Solid start. Can't disagree with not going looking for trouble. I would like our host to confirm that we have raging barbs. :eek: That can be a good thing (all the AI starting units might be nerfed) or a bad thing (they'll also eat us alive). I tend to think it's a slight advantage to the human, so long as we don't lose a settler or a bunch of workers, since we know how to game a massive uprising.

One neat thing about playing as the Romans is we have a bunch of flavor units, so we'll at least have interestingly named things.

Looks like 1 more Champ, then a 3-turn TG (kill growth by working hill), then a Clan in about 5, dropping Roma back to size 3. How about S-S-E for the next city. River hill, but also crosses the river. If we went for the hill on our side of the river we would choke off our capital (I think we need to stay 5-3 for the first couple of settlers). Cross-river hill can work the Apple and has a BG in it's initial 9. The hill on our side of the river (SE-SE) could still work the Apple but would have to poach the BG from Roma to get more shields. Our non-capital cities are also good for artillery. :)

Is there anything good in the north? Looks tough to place a city with all of those mountains.

Agreed we want the Aztecs on the other side of the Pangaea. Or right on top of us so we might be able to catch the free Jags chasing barbs and their capital building its first settler. Quick kill-or-be-killed.

I think we have a chance to out-expand the Ai with two food bonuses and a Granary. If we can get 3-4 cities down before the fighting starts we could play most of this game on offense.

Well T_McC, I had a really fun 10 hour day today at the lab and am relaxing with beer now. Your ideas sound good, but if you would make a dotmap and tell me where to go, it would really help.
Don't worry, I won't play until the morning and I sleep this one off. I might also comprehend more later as well.
Kind of got it.

Here's some initial thoughts:

Open blue circle is a border. Best guess is the Sioux (it's kind of Maroon).

Blue Dot is a hill on the river, but requires a river crossing. Other problem are the mountains that surround the city. At least the one SE will have to be occupied to keep attackers on flat ground.

Going 1 N of the blue dot still gets a river hill, but stays within 1 turn of the capital. No real gain on defense, as we would still have to occupy at least one mountain, and the cross-river attack would be from a hill. I think we need to play defense-by-offense, and the location north of the blue dot makes that more difficult.

Either way, I think the 2nd city will be a Catapult factory until Monarchy. Each location could get 4 spt (pre-corruption) at size 1. If we can allow Roma to grow to size 5, we can do 7 spt for 3-turn TGs. We lose that ability (pre-Monarchy) if subsequent cities require either of the food bonuses.

The red dots are supporting/subsequent locations based on Blue dot. All hills, all freshwater. I doubt we'll be building the far SE location, but we should be able to get the other two. I think there will be enough tiles to go around, even with that tight a spacing.

North is a little ugly. The North yellow dot would be a good worker location, especially once Roma doesn't require both food bonuses. The western yellow dot is interesting, as the berries/marsh is equivalent to a BG. I can't figure out the rivers here, I think almost anything west requires a river crossing. Both yellow dots are on rivers.

With forge and slave market, Rome can make the magic 10 spt without starving. Don't be afraid to starve a little here and there to finish off builds, or conversely to get a little extra food if high production isn't needed in the last turn. Prolly not telling you anything you don't already know, but MM is uber-important in early RandR.

It might not hurt to build a secure temporary city that steals one of Romes hills and works another hill. That close, can it get four uncorrupted shields for 5 turn pults? once the area is secure and we get to Monarchy, we can move it to a more ideal location.

A medium-term trick I like is to settle on the berry with a hardy, then abandon the city to clear the tile. 2 extra food, and another with irrigation. Obviously can't do this if there is a city adjacent to it, so might want to keep this in mind in considering dotmaps.

"Hey Bez, I really liked the start. Good work."

Gee thanks, Romeo. Figured I'd leave the war-making to those with more practice than I.

;)

Be careful - there are some dangerous civs out there.

With forge and slave market, Rome can make the magic 10 spt without starving ...
Yeah, that's why it needs both food bonuses until we change gov'ts. After that I think it can run with only 1.

It might not hurt to build a secure temporary city that steals one of Romes hills and works another hill. That close, can it get four uncorrupted shields for 5 turn pults? once the area is secure and we get to Monarchy, we can move it to a more ideal location.
The blue dot does that, and probably wouldn't have to be moved later. Some of the red dots would have to be moved.

I'm just concerned with possible corruption difference between blue dot and a closer location. Any idea how to determine that? And of course ease of defense until our area is secured.

If we build on the blue dot, we probably wouldn't build any cities closer with the exception of (possibly) the northern yellow dot. I think we're going to be playing defense-by-offense, and the tile 1 N of the blue dot is rather lousy for that. We'd either have to cover the blue-dot tile anyway, or we'd be on the wrong side of the hill + river defense bonus (I think we want 2 Champs instead of 1 TG in most cases). From the blue dot, if we cover the one mountain tile, we can attack onto flat ground.

We also have too many rivers (actually a good thing) to try to ICS our core. Better to try to get each city a partner or two, and let the smaller groups be separated by more than 1 blank tile.

Can Hardies settle on the swamp? I thought they couldnt.

The blue dot is where I would settle next.

Greebley, you're in.

Roster:
Zavior
T_McC
Bezhukov - Just played
Romeo - Up
Greebley - On deck

Can Hardies settle on the swamp? I thought they couldnt.
Yeah. Non-Hardy settlers can't enter Jungle or Swamp, but the tiles are settleable. You cannot settle on Desert or blank Tundra tiles, although you can settle on forested Tundra. I don't think that restriction is ever relaxed.

IHT: Press space.
Turn 1: Press space.
Turn 2: Build champ, start TG.
Turn 3: We grow. THere is no way to get a net 3 turn TG. So I sawp to clan by working the Hill to get it 1 turn faster.
Turn 4: Turn Science down to get Math in 1.
Turn 5: Get math, head for scrape mining. It takes 4 turns.
Turn 6: Press space.
Turn 7: Pop out the clan heading to the blue dot. Set to champ. Lux to 0%.
Turn 8: The purple guys are the Iro. Yay!! We get to face braves. They are up Domestication, Ritualism, boatbuilding, cultivation and scrape mining. I get Ritualism for math and 5 gold, then declare war. They walkted a TG/settler pair by. We also get scrape mining next turn. Set off a champion in pursuit of their slaves. :)
Turn 9: Get Scrape mining. Since his TG pair is on flat ground, I decide to attack. We get 3 workers, losing 2 hps. Rome builds champ starts another. Found Blue dot. Blue dot starts with 3 shields and starts a TG.
Turn 10: Things get really ugly now. Meet the Aztecs they wander an elite TG within 2 spaces of Blue dot. They are only up Boats on us, pottery gets us boats and 1 gold. Then declare war. Brave pops up right on Blue dot. Attack with 2 HP champ, no damage and he gets a slave. So they are now G.Aing. Mobe Champ into Blue dot to try and defend. Move champ down from Rome to maybe bait the AI a bit, and set up a counterattack. Also spread out our slaves into an inviting target pattern. We could be in deep doodoo. Lux to 10%
Fortunatley Greebley follows me, and is really good with doing a lot with not a whole lot. Turn 10 happened and blam. I think I was too hasty to get out the settler. My mistake.
On the positive side, if we survive we will have incense.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_2350_BC.SAV

Well, atleast they are having early GA, wasting it pretty much.

The Problem may be in taht we know 2 people, and they both have 2 attack 5 hp, 2 move units. Staying alive is going to be a challenge. I think these are the 2 civs we least wanted to face ever, let alone right away.
Oh well, Live and learn. Next time T-McC says build a TG first, I think I will.

Sometimes the luck of the draw will kill any AWE game. In standard C3C starting next to Germany with free spears and archers is a killer.

This definitely will be an amazing game if you can win it.

If we lose, I will start a new one :scan:

I figured I'd be wasting my breath in telling Romeo of all people to be careful. :lol:

Couple thoughts - see Romeo3 for what can be done with just one city. Rome is productive enough to survive even if we lose our second city. Having the granary means building the clan wasn't that big of a setback. Secondly, the AI with strong early units seems to get distracted building shrines or wonders or something and doesn't always crank out the mass quantities you'd expect. If we can weather the initial storm, we should have some breathing room. See Bed3 for some whupping up on the jags.

Just killing the Iro clan is big in slowing them down.

If the second city manages somehow to survive, we can use our native worker to pop-rush a tg. We'll have plenty of slaves.

IF it survives. Lets not be too negative about it, if we can hold the second city we can probably wipe iros.

Looking the screenie, AI can take the slaves and leave the city alone, leaving it free to get reinforcements.

That would require, you know, reinforcements. :)

When the jags show up, we could be quickly toast. I would not be averse to making sure we do not have to face jags in the next game. The fairest way to do this would be to command them ourselves. :evil:

Hmm.. We dont have reinforcements? That ehrm kinda sucks you know :lol:
What about two champions on the screenie? They wont help much, but if we can save that city.. if

Ok, I got it and will see what I can do.

Note that worker baiting only works if the AI doesn't think he can take the city. They fixed the "go after workers before everything else" in conquest.

Preturn:
Familiarizing myself: Iroquois get double speed archers and Aztecs get double speed Champions. Hmmm... I see what you mean.

Writing is not the tech I would have picked. It leads nowhere and we can't form embassies. In order to survive vs fast units, I think I want to hide behind walls. Checking the Civopedia, walls come with Urbanization which is 2 techs - needing Cultivation first.

I would have gone for domestication much earlier than we did. Finding a big bonus food can make a difference and help determine where to settle.

I would like to switch Rome to a Tribal guardsman, but that is 3 turns and the brave can get us before that. I don't see a Champion helping enough. It will get one of the incoming braves, but then be killed by the other. Hmm... if I starve us by 4, I can get a TG in 2 turns. Looks to be the best option.

IBT: We do one hp on defense and Blue Dot is burned to the ground. One of the Workers is taken by a second brave.

2310 BC: I don't want to attack across a river and onto a hill vs a unit with more HP than our champion. The Champion instead goes onto the mountain where he at least has strong defense. They will probably go for our currently undefended capitol and he might survive.

Hmmm... Braves have +1 hp and +1 speed. Nasty times ahead.

MM the capitol to starve 2 and still get the TG next turn.

Workers yell, "Run Away! Run Away" while the Braves laugh at their slow plodding rate (the exception is our starting worker who is under the champion). I suspect the will zero in on the capitol instead.

IBT: The braves decide the Champion on the mountain is more important. The defiler of Blue Dot attacks and red-lines our Champion and is dead. The second Brave kills our red-line Champion. and captures our starting worker. We may have cost Iroquois a clan, but they gained it back in workers taken. There are 3 of them heading home.

2270 BC: Decide to build a Champion in 1 even though this is expensive in terms of food(6). I don't trust a lone unit in our capitol to defend and want some ability to defend our lands. Once we have 2 units in the capitol, I will feel more comfortable. Otherwise we lose the Brave vs TG fight and it is all over.

IBT: The Brave fortifies in the mountain to wait for more Braves to show up. The TG was actually sufficient.

2230 BC: MM our town for growth. Going to build another TG before anything else. We may get Aztecs showing up soon. The workers are circling to the far side of the town to get in. We have 2 Iroquois slaves left.

IBT: We now see 2 Braves on the mountain and an Aztec TG (elite). Both are on the edge of our territory.

2190 BC: Can the workers make it home???

The Braves advance and are going for the workers. Looks like the Aztec TG is doing the same. Not sure if we can get them onto the road network in time. The braves are next to our capitol and on flat land.

2150 BC: Our Champion attacks and kills one of the 2 braves. This generates a slave that I fortify for now. Workers flee into the Marsh and hills North of our city. If pursued they will be force N again.

IBT: Brave Fortifies. The spear steps onto our roaded bonus grassland.

2110 BC: Our workers are still trying to get home.

IBT: The Aztec TG is after our Workers. We spot another incoming Brave.

2070 BC:
Ok, we have 2 TG and a Champion in our capitol, we can be attacked by 2 Braves. So I need to keep the two TG in our Capitol. I would also like to be able to keep our Workers from needing to be chased to the northern wastes. So I use the Champion to defend them from the TG. They are in mountains so a TG attacking the warrior will be at poor odds.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_BC2070.JPG
Cultivation is next turn. It must have sped up. An AI probably got it.

IBT: We gain Cultivation and start Urbanization. The brave attacks and loses to the TG. The second brave stays in the Forest. The TG annoyingly steps on our Elephants. A Barbarian appears in the North.

2030 BC: Attacking the TG who is elite across a river makes no sense. Even if we win, the Barbarian would kill us. So the Champion escorts the 2 workers onto the mountain NW of our Capitol

IBT: A second Brave shows up on the forest. The TG Pillages our Elephants. The Barbarian Attacks the TG and loses without damaging the TG.

1990 BC: We now have 2 Champs and 2 TG's. I start on a Ballista. I want to be able to damage the TG's before attacking. I may have to attack the Elite TG before the Ballista is built though. I defend the square next to the Elite TG with a Champion.

IBT: The TG decides to attack my Champion. It kills the Champion and has 1 hp left. Here come the Jaguar Warriors (2 show up). A Brave Attacks us and loses.

1950 BC: We kill the 1 hp TG and send our workers to reconnect the Elephants.

Notes:
We have 2 TG to defend us and one Champion. I switched the Ballista to another TG as we will probably need it soon.

Our town growth was hurt, but we lived. I essentially "rushed" some units at the cost of 12 food from the food bin.

Once our defense is good enough to defend 2 cities we should start on the Clan. We will also need the Forge as well as Walls when Urbanization comes in. Right now the forge isn't very useful as it will put us from 5 to 6 shields. When we grow to size 4 it will be more useful.

Barbarians are starting to show up. Keep an eye out for them. Only seen 1 warrior so far. Remember they have higher attack.

Strategy: My advice is to defend. At speed 2 we can't see units coming and units that attack theirs may be vulnerable since they don't need to stop next to the capitol. Keep our defense high - build walls and settle hills. Let them burn their units against us while we grow slowly and carefully.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_BC1950.JPG

[Edit: Fixed Attachment

Nice Greebley, Way to recover and save our bacon. My moves set us back a little bit, but you totally saved our bacon.

Hmm, lets see what I can do.

IHT: Capital is down to 1 TG.
Turn1: Jumbos connected. Starve rome to get another TG next turn.
IBT: No attacks.
Turn2: We are kinda screwed up here.
IBT: We defend against 3 attacks, 1 kill, 2 retreats, we now have elite spear (1-1)
Turn3: Kill redlined Jag. (2-1)
IBT: Kill elite jag (3-1)
Turn4: Starve rome again, tg in 1.
IBT: ROFL, we get leader from killing brave. (4-1)
Too bad we need one city more to form army.
Turn5: TG still in 1.
IBT: Kill brave, redline Jag (5-1)
Turn6: Kill redlined jag (6-1), CHampion in 1.
IBT: Our elite spear gets redlined but kills brave. (7-1) Only Brave + Jag visible now :)
Turn7: Urbanisation in 1.
IBT: Get urbanisation, start on domestication, in 7.
Turn8: Kill iro tg (8-1)
IBT: No attacks.
Turn9: Rome -> champ -> clan, in 6.(city growth in 4)
IBT:Nothing
Turn10: Nothing.

We have 3 TGs, one of them elite, in Rome.
We have 2 vet champions in rome too.
We have unused leader in rome.
Seems that iro & aztec both stopped sending units, they might be fighting their own wars.

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

Roster:
Zavior - Just played
T_McC - Up
Bezhukov - On deck
Romeo
Greebley

Good show, Zav, you pulled our fat from the fire. Well, Greebley did that, and much obliged, but you kept our fat from getting refried. :mischief:

I have noticed the falloff from the initial push in RandR, I suspect it has something to do with all the shiny buildings the AI can build with its new technology, but may also be the raging barbs. This is the point at which I'd usually offer suggestions, but T_McC's up. So I'll just watch and take notes.

:)

Nice turns Zav. The way that the Aztecs were technologically impaired when I met them also suggests that they are fighting someone else.
@team I think we should look for expansion to the north as opposed to Towards the Iro and Aztecs right away.
@Greebley, I chose writing as it is the last tech the AI goes for before Dynasticism, and if we met anyone else would almost guarantee a trade possibility. I think you may have been correct that walls are more important though.

If possible to quickly grab slavery, I'd like to get Rome a slave market and forge, as this allows 10spt to get us some breathing room. Weaving and Fermentation may also be very cheap, and could reveal some much needed luxes.

"The way that the Aztecs were technologically impaired when I met them also suggests that they are fighting someone else."

Yeah - the raging barbs! :)

I never worry about trading with the AI. For writing, you would need to meet an AI between the time you get the tech and before they get it. Since you are probably actively avoiding meeting more AI, the chances are not good of it being any use.

I would consider whether we want walls in the capitol. If the capitol isn't going to be front line we may not need them, but if it is going to be attacked, it will keep our chances of loss down.

The only problem with getting our shields up in the capitol is that it means we are working 2 hills in the capitol. That means we wouldn't be growing. I would rather stay at 5 (4 + worker housing) or so shields in the capitol and keep our growth up to build towns. I think that going for a forge is too many shields right now, and a slave market is a bad idea as it will slow down science for the extra happiness. Once we get Dynasticism and/or have other towns producing clans, I would hold off on both the forge and slave market.

Perhaps if Domestication gets us more food, then we can reconsider. For now though, I think we should concentrate entirely on growth (keep food up) and units to defend our new territory.

Not sure how much we gain from new cities before Monarchy, especially cities we may have difficulty defending. Why not keep Rome at 5 for a little while to get it cranking and to secure the area? We can time the next clan for the turn before the discovery of Dyna (cost goes from 2 pop to 3 with Dyna), then grow back the lost pop during anarchy (no penalty during anarchy).

We _could_ build 2 clans + tgs to defend them, then revolt and gain pop in anarchy.

Good point Zav, the more cities the more growth. Just don't want to get to hasty with the expansion only to lose it again.

We gain a lot. After we get Monarchy we are spending 3 population per clan. So if we have 4 cities we have saved ourselves from taking 9 population from the capitol. The cities won't grow, but they will supply gold and build units. If they have 2 shields, then 4 cities is doubling the capitols production.

In other words, I think it would be a major mistake not to take advantage of the 2 and 1 pop clans when we can. From Doc T: it is sometimes worth delaying Monarchy to build cities. Depends on the circumstance of course, but I believe him.

Yes, I've heard that argument, and it can work sometimes, although with a heavy grassland start, we'd be better off getting Monarchy quickly. Plains lose nothing in despo, grass one crucial food. I'm just concerned that taking pop pff of Rome weakens us too much vis a vis the Iro and Aztec until monarchy allows us to recover the pop faster.

As for the doubling shields argument, my suggestion also doubles our shields (by getting and keeping Rome up near its capacity). Whichever we do, let's make sure we have adequate defense this time.

Well, I was gone for the weekend. Good to see we're not dead. :suicide:

I won't play until tomorrow. I suspect I'll take the Elite TG and some friends and re-found Blue dot. We'll need a 2nd city to prop up our economy.

As for the Leader: We don't have anything that will benefit from being in a 2-man army, unless we want to make a desperation run at knocking the Iro out of the game (look at us, we have a 10-HP Brave :) ). Even then I think we're better off stacking Champs with a TG or two and making a slow march. If we can rush the Palace Gardens, that's what I intend to do. Won't do anything at first, but will provide a trade boost rather soon. Once we can build Legions we can make solid use of an Army. Also remember that the Pentagon appears in the late IA, so even if we get three quick armies we can't boost them to 3 members right away.

Romeo figured it out after the fact, but yes, we do need to send stacks with each settler. Bad luck we didn't have another couple of turns to build defenses, but at least we can now build walls.

Hopefully we have gotten through the AI's initial stacks and are catching the expanding while in an otherwise 1CC GA. Nothing like losing big pop during a GA. :smoke:

I lied. I'm playing tonight. I won't rush anything with the leader, but we will have something to rush after my turns.

[EDIT] OK, I'm lying about that too. I did rush the Palace Gardens. :blush:

1600 BC (0)
Drop the 10% lux tax, upgrade a slave to a worker (we don't have any other use for gold). Push two workers and the Elite* TG out to road to our next city site. I advocated re-founding towards the Iro/Aztecs so we can get a buffer built away from our capital. Then we can improve our tiles in peace.

We really got hosed on the opponents. Both civs with non-Horse move 2 units, and they are also both Agricultural. Since we're building a Clan, swap tiles at capital to grow faster. Loses the 5 spt bit, but we'll manage. There is nothing to rush with the leader, except a Forge. Stick with Domestication, we'll get it in 5.

Oh, just to make the situation a bit happier: Does anyone see any Iron? You know, the stuff we need for our UU?

1575 BC (1)
Iro Brave splats against our capital. I also correct the name of our Capital. Aztec TG seems to be vectoring for our Elephants. Move a TG out to stop that.

1550 BC (2)
Scratch that. He wants to pillage our hill. Oh well.

Will have to monkey around to get growth and Clan on the same turn.

1525 BC (3)
Nope, I don't know where he's going.

1500 BC (4)
Honestly, I think he got into the Wacky Weed. He didn't pillage that tile either, and moved back across the river.

1475 BC (5)
Domestication in, on to Caste System. Our Aztec buddy moves back toward the Elephant.

I think I've got it now so that we grow and complete the Clan on the same turn. Maybe.

1450 BC (6)
It costs a Champ, but the Aztec TG is killed.

1425 BC (7)
We grow and produce a Clan. Back to size 3, and bump to 5 spt for a Champ. We will have two TG and 1 Champ upon founding. Roma is defended by 1 TG and 1 Champ. Will play by ear for shields/growth/builds in Roma.

1375 BC (9)
Roma build a Champ. Antium founded and starts on Walls, due in 4 with 0 excess fpt and 4 spt.

And another Aztec TG starts to wander up.

1350 BC (10)
Dancing with Aztec TG. I guess he's going for the Elephants as well.

We're on turn 66, and this is going quick. I will play 4 more (to 1250 BC) and get us on even numbers.

Swap Roma to a Ballista. I think an Artillery piece will be more handy than another TG right now.

1325 BC (11)
Two Jags appear (regs). I think we've got this set up properly that they have an uphill attack either way.

1300 BC (12)
First Jag runs across the river, so he can attack Antium ... across a river. :smoke: Dies. Next Jag also dies at Antium.

TG is heading for the Elephants.

1275 BC (13)
Caste System completes, move to Slavery. We could get Dynasticism in two techs, but I think we want a slave market first. Due in 5.

Ballista completes in Roma, on to a TG. Walls complete in Antium, on to Ballista.

Ballista scores a hit on the Aztec TG, and our Champ finished it off and promotes to Elite. This causes me to rush the Palace Gardens in Roma.

{Quick Check: The next SW we could rush is ... The Academy. I think we'll get another leader before that becomes available.)

The Iro start the Sphinx, meaning they have Dynasticism. So they also revolted during their GA. I suspect business is going to pick up. (Lucky for us they are building two useful wonders (Hanging Gardens) instead of Braves.)

1250 BC (14)
Palace Gardens complete. Roma to TG in 4, timed with growth to size 5. If you so desire, you can arrange the tiles to build in 3 with +0 fpt, then try to get a Clan timed for growth to size 5.

By 250 BC the Palace Gardens will be revenue neutral, and starting in 250 AD they will be a net profit.

Picture Follows.

The Blue circle is the Elite* TG and our foreign workers. Might as well try to get roads on as many tiles as we can inside our territory.

It is not a mistake to have the Ballista where it is. From that position it can move into either city to give a defensive bombard.

I propose the red dot for the next city (so maybe road the forest tile next). The Elite* TG should go to the new city, leaving vet TG behind Walls as the lead defenders at Antium. The red dot can share units with Antium as the enemy allows it. The red dot is a real tough defense-by-offense site, but we need to wall off Roma from the hordes. We probably need a TG and Champ to found the city, plus three units in Antium (I think we currently have TG + Champ, and the Elite* out in the fields). Five units (+ artillery) between the cities should be fairly stout.

After that maybe head for pink dot. Sort of alone, but only defensive terrain in the area and further seals Roma from the south.

Does anyone see any Horses? This might be quick.

Good show, as usual, T_McC. No horses, but we do have phants, with enslave and +1 hp, they at least beat Camels. :)
I'm not so crazy about our awesome UU - if we can find some iron in time for pikes, we'll be ok. Of course the 3-defense spear will be a big relief in itself. nice that we'll have gold and incense, too.

Settling pink dot would be my first priority. After that revolt and gain lost population back.

The advantage of the Red dot is that our new town and the red dot can exchange Defenders. They are within 1 turn of road movement. I don't think we can put all towns within 2 of each other, but for now I think we need it. If a defender of one falls the town can be reinforced. We cannot afford to lose any more towns.

So I agree with TMcC. Red then Pink.

You might be right. But getting another city is very important, and I'd like to build them in best available sites from the beginning.

We shouldn't revolt until we found at least two more cities. Somewhat of a moot point, since we still need Writing before Dynasticism and we can produce two Clans in ~20 turns and we'll need more turns than that to get to Dynasticism.

Pink Dot is rather isolated. It's two turns from any of our other cities, including the red dot, so we have to plan to defend it by itself. The red dot gives the advantage of being defendable from Antium, so we need less units to found it. If/when we go for the pink dot we should have at least 3 units escorting the settler. Red dot can be handled with 1 or 2.

The primary thinking here is to get another source of unit support and a few coins/bulbs per turn in addition to shielding the capital. The red dot is a temporary city in that we should plan to move it once the front moves away and/or it starts to cramp the cities surrounding it. So Walls and maybe Barracks in red dot, but otherwise light on the infrastructure. Antium and the pink dot look to be cities we'll keep in place for the whole game.

Antium is building a 7-turn Ballista at +1 fpt. If we get in a pinch we can level the food for 4 spt. I was trying to get some food in the bin so Antium could grow more readily during Anarchy. In Despotism the city builds faster at size 1 than at size 2, so adding some food now may allow us to peel off a worker before the revolt. It looks to be tough to get Roma off of the Apple for even a turn, so Antium will grow rather slowly.

I would seriously consider researching Weaving and Fermentation before Dynasticism. We seem to have been boned for resources and our terrain looks good for either Sheep or Grapes. Having a lux (or two, and extra food :) ) should allow for Roma to grow better during Anarchy. I think we'd have to run clowns if we don't find a native lux. Would also make a Slave Market in Roma much more palatable. Hopefully these would be 2-turn researches each so we don't slow down the revolt too much.

Next player should get to build a Clan, the following founds a city, and the third should be able to build a Clan and found a city. Once we get to 4 cities we should be close to the revolt.

I wouldn't get too worried about the population in our capital. During Anarchy and Monarchy it can easily grow every other turn. It can max out at +7 food at size 2, and should be able to relinquish the Apple to Antium.

Having another couple of cities to contribute while we research Dynasticism will be very helpful. Just recall that the pop cost goes up when we learn the tech, not when we form the government. I think Writing would have taken 9 turns to research when I selected Slavery, so I would guess we are at least 20 turns away from being able to research Dynasticism. Looking back I should have picked Weaving instead of Slavery. If we get a hit for Sheep (or Silks) we don't have much of a pressing need for Fermentation, so we could save a couple of turns towards the new government that way. I think we're 2 of 5 turns into Slavery research so it's probably not worthwhile to switch off of it.

"I wouldn't get too worried about the population in our capital. During Anarchy and Monarchy it can easily grow every other turn. It can max out at +7 food at size 2, and should be able to relinquish the Apple to Antium."

I'm more concerned with the shields in the capitol. Grassland despotisms are all about choosing production or growth, but rarely both, and when we peel of the clan, we take a big shield hit, not only in lost citizens, but also in the necessity of citizens working high food tiles instead of high shield.

If we can stay secure while peeling pop, it could be worth it, but if a SOD shows up, we might regret this course of action. The high shield plan also allows the valuable forge and slave market, getting Roma to the magic 10spt.

I will, however, defer to the wishes of the team and follow T_McC's plan. Playing tongiht.

... when we peel of the clan, we take a big shield hit ...
From what, 7 to 5? We can work the city center (2 spt), the Elephant and Apple (0 spt, net +4 fpt), and any of the following: 2 Hills (4 spt), 1 Hill + 1 BG + 1 Plains (4 spt), or 4 grass/plains (4 spt, max). How can we get to 7 base shields while in Despotism? Because if we don't get to 7 base shields, we gain very little from a Forge or Slave Market. We also don't gain any shields in growing from size 4 up to size 6, we just change what tiles are being worked.

We do gain commerce from growing, but we also gain commerce by founding more cities. Yes, we lose two pop in Roma to gain 1 in a new city. We also work two tiles with the 1 pop in the new city, so the loss of commerce is only for the transit time of the settler plus maybe 1 gold for corruption.

Unless I'm missing something here, trying to found more cities will delay our researching of Dynasticism by at most 5 turns, and allows us to be working 5-6 more tiles once we enter Monarchy (the other cities should be able to grow to size 2 by then) than if we try to turtle in the Capital. Not to mention the extra unit support once we get there. We are also playing AW, not OCC. If we don't build a buffer layer of cities between Roma and the enemy, it won't be our choice what tiles to work and we'll have a devil of a time trying to keep tiles improved.

I suggested killing growth at size 4 (working two hills) to get the TG one turn earlier. After that you'd have to monkey around a bit to have the Clan complete on the turn of/after growth to size 5. As long as we don't drop Roma below size 3, we can still make 5 spt and build units just as quickly as we could at size 5 (unless we kill growth, which also freezes our economy).

From here on out, the Iro and Aztecs can only assemble SODs by accident. If they build stuff to attack with, it get sent to the front ASAP. Units don't wait to be stacked. If we see an SOD, it will be Barbarians. In which case we're screwed.

Actually, the way Roma is set up in the save is better than what I described at the tail end of the last post. Stay at +2 fpt, 5 spt and build a TG in 4. Start on Clan, one turn at +2 fpt/5 spt, grow to size 5 and run 3 turns at +1 fpt/6 spt and 1 turn at 0 food/7 spt. End up with Clan and TG in 9, but should have 3/4 of a food box to re-grow to size 4. And still be 5 spt.

From here on out, the Iro and Aztecs can only assemble SODs by accident. If they build stuff to attack with, it get sent to the front ASAP. Units don't wait to be stacked. If we see an SOD, it will be Barbarians. In which case we're screwed.
Technically, I see the Iro as gassed!! We got rid of their starting units, their best 2 towns are wonder building, and their UU poses a whole lot fewer problems now.
If a Barb SoD appears, bail out of the City and prepare to lose some gold and population. We shouldn't see Barb Sod's for a while yet. I am thinking that Barb SoD's shouldn't show up until we get the massive barbarian uprising notice.
I think we should finish slavery and then move onto weaving, then beeline for Dyna, then work our way towards the Great Library.

The SoD concern is more the Aztecs, or, heaven forbid, a third civ.

T_McC, with 6 base shields, I believe a forge, WH, and slave market yields 10 net. 6x1.75=10.5 rounded down. At five pop not growing, you can work the two food boni, a bg, a plains, and a hill for 6 base shields. If you want growth, you can't work the hill at five, indeed there is no other shield producing tile that allows growth, so you'd only make 4 base spt, or you can grow painfully slowly at four with only 5 base spt.

The alternative I suggest is not necessarily turtling, but getting to the five and rampng up production in Roma, then making a 3 turn clan (higher production also equals faster clans). I haven't looked at the save and done the math yet, so I may be missing something here.

I plan to follow T_McC's suggestion, just pointing out that the conventional approach here, which would be valid in unmodded and a plains heavy start, may not be optimal here.

T_McC, with 6 base shields, I believe a forge, WH, and slave market yields 10 net. 6x1.75=10.5 rounded down. At five pop not growing, you can work the two food boni, a bg, a plains, and a hill for 6 base shields.

Well, at least we've identified the problem. The production enhancers are applied individually and each result is rounded down/truncated. That is why 4 spt is so much better than 3 spt. If we have 6 base shields, each 25% enhancement is applied to give 0.25*6=1 extra shield. [Try to get Roma to produce 4 spt. :) ] If a city makes 3 spt, a single 25% enhancement should give 1 more, right? Two 25% enhancements have to give an extra shield, right????? :eek:

You can see this later in the game when net shields fluctuate wildly with tile assignments. Going from 4*n base shields to 4*n-1 can make a big difference when you have lots of shield multipliers. This wouldn't be nearly so pronounced if the enhancements were summed, then applied to the base shields.

So ... if it is impossible to get 10 spt in Despotism (Chiefdom?), the 60 shields spent on production enhancements to raise our ceiling from 7 spt to 9 spt are probably going to do us more good as a TG/Champ/Clan combination. Once we get into Monarchy, then the production enhancers will be very worthwhile.

In growing from size 4 to size 5, the options are +2 fpt and 5 spt, or +1 fpt and the nearly worthless 6 spt. There is no ramping up the population in Roma, other than not killing growth at size 4 to get 7 spt. The key is to not drop the population to 2 after building a Clan. The city grows its fastest at size 2, but will only pull 2 spt. Getting to size 3 allows for 5 spt and +2 fpt. The difference between sizes 3, 4, and 5 is primarily commerce unless we desperately need a 20-shield unit one turn sooner (can't do 7 spt at size 3 without starving. Of course, we would have 1/2 a box of food ... )

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

Hmm, Gonna have to go with Bez's 10 spt plan on this one folks.

I think we are better off growing. We are already way behind. We need more towns for unit support, to make more gold, to get more shields. Sure we can crank 10 shields for a while, but in the end we still have 10 shields. We have several towns and we are making a lot more than 10 shields.

If we were going for an all out assault I could see us cranking units. However in RaR it seems better to me to wait We can run only 50% gold maximum which means only so many units. Also in RaR the human has a hard time at the start, but things improve as one gets shields into ones towns.

So my vote is to continue to build settlers and keep growth up when we can.

As long as we continue to build clans at a reasonable rate I would be happy. It might make sense to be at size 5 with no growth for a short time, but in general I think we want to avoid it. At least until we get several towns to build clans instead of the capitol

Well, when you're wrong, you're wrong. :lol:

We should still be trying to found some more cities, but good to know we can get to 10 spt to quickly build escort groups. Or we can try to go on the offensive now, since we'll lose the 10 spt for 10 turns following Clan production.

Apparently the Aztecs haven't been participating, as we don't appear to have built anything besides the production boosters. Although in an AW game, we should resist merging foreign workers into our cities, even if we just want to whip them. (That 3rd guy ain't Roman! This should have only saved 3 turns on the Forge, and that's not worth the unhappiness for ages to come.)

Anyway, how torqued is our economy now? We're running a lux tax to keep the capital out of disorder (not sure about growing in Anarchy anymore, may have too much unhappiness to let people work in the fields). Do we charge after the Iros? If we can eliminate them our whiner will shut up.

Arrgh, so many good points, I can't fathom them all. Since this is AW, I might have to defer to the AW "legends" we have here.
While 10 shields is really nice, I think Greebley has a point on the sacraficing our future on the altar of the immeadiate. I vote we expand per T-McC, and then put up some shield enhancers.

The title of the post was "for reference purposes only". :rolleyes: In the actual game, I followed T_McC's advice. Report coming this evening.

To get the pic I went back to T_McC's save and merged a worker and built nothing else.

Pre-flight: Stick with the T_McC plan. TG in 4 from Roma, I may let Antium work the hill for faster Ballista there.

IBT: Brave approaches to east.

1200BC: Switch Antium to hill to get Ballista one turn faster. Can switch back next turn to avoid wastage. Move ballista onto hill, backed up by TG and champ.

Ibt: Another brave approaches, two in range of Antium.

1175BC: move both tgs, champ and ballista into Antium

IBT: One brave impales on tg, ballista hits on d. Two still lurk

1150BC: Roma: TG->slave market (can get sm+clan timed to growth to 6, we’re making 4gpt that does nothing, can afford lux if necessary), slavery->weaving in 3. That blows – lose vet champ attacking injured brave on grass (ballista hit).

1125BC: Antium: Ballista->champ (for mp duty in Roma)

IBT: Iro TG shows up.

1075BC: Weaving (no dice on wool)-> Fermentation in 3.

1050BC: Roma:SM->champ (clan in 5, growth in 6, so wait), Antium:champ->ballista

IBT: TG moves in range.

1025BC: Both ballistas hit, and elite champ makes a slave, but no leader.

IBT: Iro Spear shows up.:eek: RUH-OH. Brave retreats from attack on Antium.

1000BC: Elite champ cleans up brave, making another slave. Fermentation->Writing. Hey. Look what turned up down by Antium!:)

Sorry about the shield wastage with Roma, just wanted to get a full box before clan production, and thought 4 turns for SM, 6 for clan, but forgot about the production boost from SM. :blush: Having SM will pay off in long run, if we live that long. Will need to spend one turn at 6.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2-1000BC.JPG

I got it, and will try and expand tomorrow.

Sounds good. I think we built 2 units + a Ballista and lost 1, so we're running a little farther ahead.

If we can defend what we've got, we can expand. If we can't, we shouldn't. It sounds like we are able to defend against the Iros OK, that should have been the last of their GA production. But where are the Aztecs? They must be fighting someone we haven't met yet. Or the Barbs are tearing them a new one.

Spending a turn at size 6 isn't a problem, it should allow a 2nd Clan to be built sooner than dropping back to size 3. Being at size 4 should also allow 3-turn TGs with positive food, if I actually know how many spt we produce. :lol:

Two Wines means Antium will also be a very strong city when we can shield it from the Iro. If/when we get into position to found a city near the Incense, the Clan should probably be accompanied by at least 2 TGs and a Champ. I am hoping the red dot is essentially a "free" city, where the Iro will have to get in a position to attack either it or Antium and not both. Once we get into Monarchy Antium should be able to produce good spt, if we can keep the Iro off of the good tiles.

Good idea to road the Mountains. When our unit production starts to get ahead of our losses we'll want to occupy the high ground to keep the kill ratios up. May also allow us to start bombardment before attack is even possible.

"When our unit production starts to get ahead of our losses we'll want to occupy the high ground to keep the kill ratios up."

Hmmm, is it just me or is this sentence backwards?

;)

Depends, of course on Iro willingness to play along. I would like to prevent that spear from getting on the mountain or it will be a LONG time before we can get it off.

Risky start...but seems to pay off. Tried a couple of RaR AWDG, and I ended with Champ-TG-Archer as best start; then, the AI starting units will show up and waste themselves on the capital. After that, slow expansion.
Note Walls in the capital are unneeded; the Palace already acts as wall.
And, don't even think about frontline cities not on hills...
Good luck!

IHT: Not much
Turn 1: Spear comes off the mountain. More bad news, the Iro have 8 cities. Bombard 2 Hp's off the spear, claim the other mountain by Antium.
IBT: Elite brave attacks elite TG on a mountain. We lose 2 hps, he loses 7. (1-0).
Turn 2: Redline the spear in the open, lose a vet champ to it. Kill it with an elite champ cover with TG. Start to hookup wines.
IBT: TG kills brave (2-1). Aztecs build the oracle.
Turn 3: Hook up wines, get lux to 10%.
IBT: Aztec jag shows up near.
Turn 4: Reinforcing everything we have.
IBT: not much
Turn 5: Writing in, start dyansticism. Build a clan and a ballista. Start a champ and a balista.
Turn 6: Moving.
Turn 7: I am gonna found on the lake instead of the red dot. It just makes sense to me. Build a champ, start a forge in Roma. Can be Swapped.
Turn 8: Build Cumae.
Turn 9: Dig in.
Turn 10: Move workers to road the gold hill.
I really think the Aztecs are fighting the Iro, as I really haven't seen much of either. I would like to expand next to the hill beneath the second grapes. Based on the cultural expansion of the Iro border we can see, I guess that it is their capitol. We know what Greebley likes to do to AI capitols. :D
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/zav2750.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_BC750.SAV

Romeo,

I like grabbing the gold, but one champ in the capital is not cool. Pls try to be more careful in the future. OK?

Romeo,

I like grabbing the gold, but one champ in the capital is not cool. Pls try to be more careful in the future. OK?
We should have 2 champs in the capitol, 1 vet and 1 reg.

Turn 7: I am gonna found on the lake instead of the red dot. It just makes sense to me.
Well ... if you wanted to found a tile that was two turns from Antium, it would have made more sense to found on the Gold hill. It's still fresh water, and that way we would be working the Gold at all times for the extra trade. And it would be unpillageable.

It would also have made it much more convenient to build on the Hill S of the incense. As it stands, an Incense city will be cramped. Only two tiles from Cumae, but not 1-turn moves in both directions.

Do we really want a Forge right now? Or do we want to squeeze out one more 2-pop Clan before Dynasticism? May even be worth delaying research by a turn or two to get a Clan + a unit built before revolting.

I thought the capital dropped to size 4 when the Clan was built. How is it still size 4? Or did the Clan complete and drop Roma to size 3? Not too important as we head into Anarchy. Roma should grow every other turn, even with relinquishing the Apple to Antium, and it may not be happy above size 3 anyway during Anarchy. The city size is more of an issue to build a defender before revolting. We could build the Clan 1st (before Dynasticism), then delay the revolt to complete a TG if it is necessary. That way we wouldn't have to artificially slow research. Can't open the game at work so I don't know how many units we've got, or whether it's a good idea to try to found a city during Anarchy.

I would suggest a city on the hill S of the TG on the Mountain. It's not 1-turn from anything, but should lock up the Wines from pillaging and allow Antium to grow (and likely provide the Settlers, instead of Roma). That city will be a lightning rod for the Iros, but should be generating attacks from flat ground. It can also feed itself from the FPs and the Wines when Antium doesn't need them. That city may have to wait for us to have Spears to found. I think we can get Bronze Working as the next tech after Dynasticism.

Any thoughts on what to do with a leader? Is there a science building we can rush in Roma?

Once we're in a non-despo government, it can be better to settle on non-hill tiles (assuming we can defend the location, a big assumption) as this allows hills to be mined, yielding an extra shield or two. Sorry I missed the extra champ in Roma, although I'd rather keep a TG there, if possible. The forge in Roma gives us a lot more long-term flexibility, so if possible, would be good to complete it. We don't get a science uilding until philo - doubt we'll get it first, so that's lower priority to research - we''l wnat to go bronze->construction, I imagine.

I agree with Bez on the forge. The forge allows us to do 10 spt at size five, regardless of our government. I slowed growth to cut a turn off the forge by working the hill. That way we get growth to 5 and production of 10 at the same time.
I was thinking of tryin to use the standard CxxC placement, even though I know it doesn't have the same benefits in RaR.
I have the forge paying for itself in 10 turns after completion, which is a very profitable build. Be warned that there is an Aztec Jag somewhere in the hills to the south of us, but he hasn't moved towards us and is at least 2 turns from attacking. I would get out of Cheifdom ASAP, and get to a better form of government.
T_McC just wants to make sure he doesn't get stuck playing another turnset of anarchy. :)

Once we're in a non-despo government, it can be better to settle on non-hill tiles (assuming we can defend the location, a big assumption) as this allows hills to be mined, yielding an extra shield or two.
The defensive bonus of founding on a hill is tough to top. If a city is on the front lines, we likely won't be able to improve the tiles around it. If it's not on the front lines, we probably don't need the defensive bonus of the hill. For now it appears as though every city we found will be the new target, so I would be very reluctant to give up a Hill site.

The forge in Roma gives us a lot more long-term flexibility, so if possible, would be good to complete it.
The question is: Do we build Forge --> TG --> Pioneer (3 pop) with an Anarchy in the middle where we very likely will be running clowns in the capital, or do we build Clan (2 pop) --> TG --> Forge, where the capital is smaller during the Anarchy but can still work the same number of tiles as if we waited to build the settler. I think we'll come out ahead by building the Clan first, and the Forge when we exit Anarchy. I think Roma runs a clown at size 4, but has +4 food. So growth beyond size 5 is doubtful until we form a new gov't. Unless we draw a short Anarchy I think we'll only be 1 pop behind where we would have been if we build the Forge 1st, and we'll have a new city to found.

After that we may be in a position to only build 1 more settler from Roma and can hopefully pull 15 spt for 2-turn Spears. What is going to be tough is that I don't think we're going to have a better offensive unit than Champs for a while. Elephants requires a bit of a sojourn off of the tech path, so it might be a while until we get there. (3 optional techs)

I am guessing I am going to favor a clan over a forge. We are still behind in growth. 3 towns by 750 BC is pretty bad even for a RaR game.


I got it

[Edit:
Since I wasn't positive:

Zavior
T_McC
Bezhukov
Romeo
Greebley - Up

Good analysis, as usual, T_McC. As for three towns being bad, see Romeo3 - they only had one. :eek: :lol:

I was actually thinking we might want to head straight for Elephants after Dyn. I need to look at the tech tree though. WIth a 4 -1 -2 unit we could go on the offensive and maybe take/raze some cities.

I think we need to get Spears and the ability to Mine before Elephants. They're nice units, but being able to mine means Roma can build them in 3 turns instead of 6. :) And having Spears means we don't have to build as many defensive units.

Yes, with the RandR production boosters, mines are uber-important.

Ya, I think you are right. Mining and then Elephants perhaps.

Sounds like a plan.

Actually, we might be able to coax 2-turn Jumbos out of Roma, if it can use both food bonuses. We need 18 raw shields to get 30 net (SM + Forge + WH). The CC is 3 spt (I think, once growth to size 8), 1 BG, 2 mined Hills (8 spt), and a Mountain give 18. Only -4 food to get there, so work both Food bonuses for + 7 food. And that's 17 spt at size 6. :lol: OK, river plains for -1 food and the shield the CC doesn't get. Or mine the river plains to be sure.

I'm leaving for week tomorrow, so skip me for that time, after that I need to find out whats wrong with my comp :blush:

I'm having problems loading the game. I think I will need to swap with TMcC while I try to figure out what is going on.

I have the full 1.02 + the 1.03 beta patch installed. I didn't need anything else did I?

[Edit: I have PTW - If I can't figure it out I will post the error I got here. Can't do it now.]

Not to sound paranoid, but ...

I think the problem you're having is spelled A-N-A-R-C-H-Y T-U-R-N-S.
This seems to happen a lot in our games. :rolleyes:

:rotfl:

I can play tonight, and will get us through to Monarchy.

Actually, I seem to remember having a problem with the Native American flavor Spearman. Can't remember what the solution was, probably a missing/extra underscore in the unit name.

For the good of the team, I vote that you take 20, T_McC. hate to see your genius go to waste during anarchy. :)

Actually, I seem to remember having a problem with the Native American flavor Spearman. Can't remember what the solution was, probably a missing/extra underscore in the unit name.


I don't know what version this is on. However, 1.01 had a something with Apache Longbow fix. However, I don't think the game is that far.

@Greebley, what is the error you are getting?

I am pretty sure it is the unit mentioned by TMcC.

Do you remember how you solved it?

Zav2 - Progress?

750 BC (0)
Swap Roma to Clan, and adjust tiles to grow in 2 and complete Clan in 2. We seem a little short on units, the Anarchy may not be too much fun.

Antium gets a MM bit to grow and gain an extra shield in the process. I really don't like where Cumae was founded, it should have gone on the Gold hill. I think that would have meant an extra shield in the CC and the extra trade. Maybe move it along later.

No adjustment of the sliders necessary, or possible.

730 BC (1)
Nothin'. Start moving two slaves back to Roma to be upgraded, we don't really have a need for money.

Stick with Ballista over a reg TG in Antium. We do seem a little short on units, but Artillery cures a lot of ills.

710 BC (2)
Roma: Clan --> TG
Antium: Ballista --> Clan. Plenty of time to change my mind, won't come close to completing before the revolt.

Where did everybody go?

690 BC (3)
I had to ask. Two Jags appear, and threaten Antium. They also stand on our Wines. Ballista go 2/4. Elite Champ wins and creates a Slave.

670 BC (4)
Dynasticism in, don't revolt yet. Head for Bronze Working. Unkilled Jag retreats.

Bonk Jag with rocks (1/3) and off with now-elite Champ. Would really like to get through IT unscathed, as things are a little spread out.

650 BC (5)
Made it. Two TG and a Champ in Cumae, 1 TG in Antium. Each city has two Ballista, and we can get a unit back to Antium next turn. (Hid Elite Champ under Elite* TG for this turn.)

Walls complete in Cumae, start on Counselor. These guys rock, and should allow us to get up to 4 raw spt in Cumae.

630 BC (6)
TG completes in Roma, call for a revolution. We draw three turns of Anarchy.

Two reg Iro Braves and a Warrior appear on the outskirts. Smells like a leader to me!

Defense is set, we'll see how it goes.

Roma needs a clown at size 3! Get Cumae and Antium some food.

610 BC (7)
The Iro have Horses, I see a Chariot.

Fat finger a move, and re-load the autosave. Score a couple of Ballista hits, but Brave retreats. Now we're spread out again.

590 BC (8)
Iro build the Sphinx, and send a unit from our NE! Off one Brave, and a Warrior. Spot Iron claimed by Aztecs to our South.

570 BC (9)
Got too spread out, and now things could get interesting.

550 BC (10)
We survive unscathed, winning one on defense and retreating an Iro Chariot.

Re-arrange tiles. Check on Cumae, and swap to Ballista. Swap Antium to a Granary, this will be our Pioneer source. Will sacrifice slave next turn. Maybe. Screw that, I'll sacrifice the slave when I form the city to claim the Iron.

530 BC (11)
Uhhh, the Iro are in the Middle Ages. They just started Sun Tzu's.

510 BC (12)
Retreat a Jag. Bonk a Brave, but have nothing with which to kill it.

490 BC (13)
Bronze Working in, head for Construction (Mining). We have Gems to our NE. Upgrade a TG to a Scutatio.

470 BC (14)
Send out a party to found the next city. Elite TG, Ballista, 3 workers and a Slave. Hope it survives. The Clan and two Scutatio will be coming along next turn.

450 BC (15)
Roma makes 10 spt, so 3-turn Scutatio. Antium completes Granary, moves on to Pioneer. Cumae: Ballista --> Ballista. Have to dial science down for a bit until we found another city.

430 BC (16)
Roma riots when it was fine last turn. Ahh .. 3 MP in Monarchy.

410 BC (17)
Everybody in position for founding next turn.

390 BC (18)
Found Neapolis, then realize I brought the wrong Iro with me. Send slave back and grab a worker. Neapolis starts Walls.

370 BC (19)
Construction in. Now we can mine. Start on Mysticism. Maybe we have Tobacco?

Sacrifice Iro Worker and now we have Iron. :)

Redline Iro Spear, then redline our Champ to kill it.

Might as well play 1 more.

350 BC (20)
Cumae: Ballista --> Counselor. With the position of Neapolis, this city will stay so might as well try to improve it.

Good bombardment round, kill Jag and generate a Slave. No leader though.

Final Notes:
Mysticism may not have been an inspired choice, but maybe we have another lux nearby. Only took two turns.

Roma should be able to build 2-turn Scutatio after a mine completes. Keep enough money in the kitty to upgrade a slave or two to hustle that along. We have three workers mining the gold hill south of Cumae. They were there, and we want to work that hill almost every turn. After that completes we should either try to hook up the Iron or just work around our capital.

Roma and Antium should be able to get a nice cycle going of Pioneers/defenders, so we can settle a new city about every 8 turns. Antium can grow 3 pop points in 6 turns, may need a mine or two to build a Pioneer that quickly. Roma will soon be able to build 2 Scutatio/1 Legion in 6 turns, for a very stiff settlement group.

A Forge in Roma would be nice, but we should also consider adding a Shrine. The Slave Market effect will cost us a lot of money in lux tax, adding a Shrine will pay for itself and then some most turns. Hard to take a break in units, though, before we can get a 2nd city stood up to providing military.

If I didn't think Greebley would kill me, I would be very tempted to build a scout and go poking around our North. Shouldn't someone else have wandered by already? And we will need some knowledge of that area soon to plan our settlements. (Maybe clear out another couple of tiles in a circle.)

Here's the current situation. From the borders of Neapolis, you can tell exactly which tile the Iro capital is built on. Lucky us, an Ag civ with an AA UU got a river FP start. :)

Blue circles are new stuff this turn. If the iron wasn't there, I would have founded Neapolis 1 NE, but we need the stuff. Besides, maybe this denies it to the Aztecs.

Thats about as far as we can go from 3:00 to 8:00, that's a pretty big belt of unsettleable territory. Next cities can go SW towards the Aztecs(?), give them a target and have them leave Roma alone. We may be lucky and no one is N of us. If that's the case we can expand and go on offense at the same time. Maybe only every other unit from Roma would have to be committed to settling, so we could move some offensive units to the front.

Have I mentioned how happy I am that we have as our neighbors two civs that get cheap UU's with move 2/retreat ability. Hopefully the Iro continue to build the 30-shield, wheeled 2/1/2 Chariots, instead of the 20-shield, non-wheeled 2/1/2 Braves. :rolleyes: And denying the Aztecs Iron may not have been such a good thing. They might have started building 3/1/1 Swords instead of 2/1/2 Jags with an exta HP.

I still like buiding on the Hill next to the incense. The city may not get big, but no Plains city would before irrigation. It would shield the capital and be able to work tiles behind it that Cumae wouldn't. Pink Dot may be better 1 N, but the current location "claims" the Gems and without further geographic info over there it's hard to say otherwise. Due N looks ugly unless we want to found on the BG next to the Elephant. Oh well, next player should have a settlement group to play with.

"Counselor. These guys rock"

Yes, long term, these guys might be our saving grace. Our crapacular UU certainly isn't. That said, we might want to get a GA rolling to help us catch up in the tech race.

I am pretty sure it is the unit mentioned by TMcC.

Do you remember how you solved it?
Go into your RaR directory, and look in the folder Units. In my install I have a folder Native Spearman (no underscore). Note what your version of the unit is named. Then go back to the RaR directory and look in the folder Text. Open the file Pediaicons.txt and search for "Native Spear".

In my version, I have the following lines:
#ANIMNAME_PRTO_Amerindian_Spearman
Native Spearman

You likely have a mismatch between the folder name under Units and the 2nd line I quoted. Just make them match and the error will go away. I think there will also be a problem with the American Infantry unit, but first we have to live that long.

Firstly, Greebley is up. If he can't get the game working, it's back to Bez.

Hooking up the Iron may not be a priority. We only need it for Legions, and while I think Bez is overly negative, they really aren't all that great. Once the Iron is hooked up we can't build Champs anymore.

Our offensive choices will be: Champs (10 shields, 2/1/1), Legions (30 shields, 3/2/1, +1 HP), Archers (20 shields, 2(2)/1/1), and eventually Elephants (60 shields, 4/1/2, +2 HP (essentially)). The proper builds will depend on how many shields Roma can pull per turn. Currently we can comfortably make 10 spt, and we likely want 3 Champs instead of 1 Legion (so no rush to hook up the Iron). Legions become advantageous if we need to kill TGs and Spears, and have a much better chance of surviving if exposed. I doubt we'll need to whack too many Spears, as if we plink them with Ballista shots they should run away.

The biggest problem we face with our current adversaries is their units retreating from combat. There are a lot of 1-defense units being sent against us, but too many are running away if our artillery doesn't red-line them before we attack. Once we can build Jumbos we should be able to kill any of the 1-defense units without artillery.

Roma should be able to pull 20 spt soon. We might as well build Archers instead of Champs then, defensive bombard comes in handy. I think we'll prefer 1 Legion to 2 Archers, once we hook up the Iron. If we can build Jumbos, and make 20 spt, I think we would prefer 2 Elephants to 3 Legions. So again, no rush to hook up the Iron. We may end up building a lot of Archers at 20 spt, as we would also want to slap out a 2-turn Shrine and Forge, and would need to keep the body count up. If we're building Scutatio we would alternate between shields and food/trade to get 30 shields in two turns.

At 30 spt (and this is quite possible with a Forge), the choice is 1 Jumbo or a Legion/Scutatio combo. A bit of a tricky decision, probably dependent on whether we're settling (combo) or trying to play offense (Jumbo).

We will also likely reach a point where Roma can put out a Hardy Pioneer. That will depend on whether we have "empty" land to our North to expand into, and how well we're doing on defense in the south. My gut says to expand whenever possible, and go pillaging moreso than attacking. We seem to be set up to get a nice kill ratio on defense right now.

Last thing to bear in mind: Legions can build roads, but Jumbos are super workers. Jumbos work at the pace of 3 foreign workers (move-build road on flat ground in a single turn).

I am going to try to fix it now. Hopefully my "I got it" will follow shortly...

[Edit: Very odd. I had no Native Spearman directory at all. I am trying to reinstall the 1.02 full and will then need to repatch to 1.03.

After the 1.02 I have the Native Spear directory. I wonder how it missed it last time.

Reinstalling seems to have fixed it. This is the first time I have installed something and not had it work. Very odd.

I Got it. Hope to play tomorrow.

Let's peel a clan off of Roma to avoid emptying the food box at 8.

Preturn: I also agree on a Pioneer before size 8. It turns out we can build a Hardy Pioneer in 5 turns when we grow. I will go with that.

IBT: The Iroquois are building Chariots. Silly AI. They are double the shields of Braves and have no defensive fire.
Get Mysticism. Going for Wheel in 2.

Early: More Iroquois attacks than Aztec. We get wheel and start on Riding in 4.

One turn our town is hit by a heavy attack red-lining both our TG and Scutatio to leave a champion as top defender (I moved the TG in from the other town and am very glad I did so).

Iroquois have Catapharacts

Mid: Lose a Champion to an attacking Spearman
Get Horse Back Riding and start on Heffalumps... er Elephants.

Late: Build Pompeii. Our other Pioneer heads N.

Notes:
We had to build troops. We were a bit short to handle the influx safely. I have started on the shield enhancing buildings though.

The capitol is size 7 again and probably should build another Pioneer.

Elephants in 2 turns. Yay! We need fast units.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_BC150.JPG

Got it. Will play tomorrow.

The MM seems a little odd in the save. Antium can easily be configured to have +5 food, and with a single production enhancer would be a 6-turn Pioneer factory. I'm not sure why everyone is so hot and bothered to build settlers out of Roma. It's the only reliable troop producer we've got. If we're really concerned about running a higher lux tax, kill growth at size 7 and make 15 spt. After the mine completes on the IT we can do almost 20, and with a couple of more mines and a forge (maybe only 1 more is necessry) the city can do 30 spt at size 7. We also seem to be having an MP crisis, so Greebley must have had some rough pRNG turns. Vet Scutatio fortified on a hill behind walls should clearly outclass anything we should be facing, so we must have gotten some bad rolls.

If we get a leader we should probably build a pillaging army for the Iros. We know they have Horses and Iron (from the Cataphracts). I'm not sure which is more important to clip. Normally I would say hit the Horses because Swords are leader-fodder in RaR. But the Iro have a non-Horse 2-move UU, so maybe hitting the Iron first is the better course.

Be wary of the Slave Market in Antium. I shadowed ahead a turn and it appears as though the SM unhappiness is broken. We got 2 unhappy faces from the SM, and unless we built a Wonder and no one told me, it should only be 1. This will really screw up the MM and lux tax, so it might be better to build either WH or a Forge there. Takes longer, but it will be very tough on us if we have to run 30% lux for Roma. We can't run 30% lux just for Antium.

The Scutatio in the North is covering a Hardy Pioneer. No idea where they're going, maybe Greebley had a spot in mind. Possibly the BG N of the Elephant? Would lock in the Gems, but the city would be low shields and probably only good for workers. Or we can go off the river and build N-NE of the Elephant on the reg Grass. Less trade, but a 2nd shield from the start and less cramping of the capital. I think that will also pull the Gems into our boundaries.

Thanks for the tips - I usually prefer WH before SM so they cancel out, and I've noticed the extra unhappy from SM before too and not sure what causes it. Good idea on maxing shields in Roma - may need to consdier getting some sci buildings there too at some point, or we are at risk of falling too far behind on tech.

I was a little disappointed of the placement of the city next to the berries, as this precludes us from setling and abandoning to clear the berry terrain. We won't be doing this soon, but we can't clear the terrain naturally until City Planning, which is a LONGGGG way off. Would like to consider moving this city one tile north if possible.

There's also an Alligator in the city radius of Pompeii, so in the current location (assuming it does not get the Elephant), it could grow to size 5 before irrigation and work 1 Hill + the Berry for maybe 7 spt after corruption. If you were to move it 1 N, it would have access to two additional grass tiles (1 with a forest, currently) and retain the Alligator. It still couldn't grow beyond size 7 before irrigation, and the bigger problem is with the way the rivers run the city would be 3 turns from Roma unless we build a lot of roads through the mountains.

If you want to move Pompeii, come up with a dotmap for the other settlements around it. I suspect we need to know where the other cities would be to make an informed decision whether it is worth the delay in re-founding.

"It still couldn't grow beyond size 7 before irrigation"

Being able to clear the Berry terrain would do wonders for whatever city uses that tile. I'll see what I can do about a DM tomorrow.

Pompeii has a chance to be a monster city once we get irrigation, if we can clear the bonus marsh tiles. Marsh clears to grassland, and Alligator=+2 food, Berries=+1 food. I think by definition these have to be regular grass as base tiles, but it is two sources of bonus food. We can clear the Alligator with Pompeii in its current position, moving the city would be required for clearing the Berries before High Explosives.

To clear these tiles, we'd have to build either 30-shield, 3-pop workers, or 60-shield, 2-pop workers. Regular Pioneers can settle on Marsh, but the tile must have a road on it first. Hardies don't require the road. So build on the tile, disband the resulting city by building a worker, and the ruins are on a cleared, grassland tile. A bit expensive, but could be worthwhile once we get irrigation and some production boosters, as clearing the Marsh and irrigating should allow the city to work an extra Hill or Mountain.

How do we see this game? I see us as having 1 population pump (Antium), 1 major troop producer (Roma), an economic "helper" with occasional troops (Cumae), and a target (Neapolis). I think we will be playing defense for the first 30 turns after we get Jumbos, as our troop producer will be dividing time between Elephants and defensive units for escort. Hopefully, Roma will be able to pull 30 spt soon. I think Antium needs one production booster and should then concentrate on building Pioneers. Cumae has a Counselor and a gold hill to work, so should be able to hit 10 spt. I would advocate production boosters there, and then it can build reg. Scutatio or Jumbos and the occasional Ballista. With the gold hill, it can also make a good contribution to our economy, so an Academy/Bazaar would be nice when we can spare units from the city. Neapolis can build Ballista, albeit slowly. I would try to prioritize giving the gold hill to Cumae and mining another hill for Neapolis to use. No sense in letting our most corrupt city work our highest commerce tile.

So I think our first few Jumbos are going to be best used to whack enemy with retreat ability. We're too thin to try an offensive now, but once we stabilize the Southern front (or get an Army) we can start to push against the Iros. Our best shot is to deny our enemy Iron, so they can't build any of the Knight variations or Pikemen. Our offensive era would be with Jumbo/Pike/Ballista stacks vs. Spearmen and Horse Archers. For now, play defense and grab whatever is soft in the North. A 10-city GA is better than a 5-city GA, and we really don't have a use for Legions yet.

The reason I want to build hardy clans out of Roma is to grow. More towns increases our unit support.

I think we have two options here. The first is to grow, building enough military for defense until we fill in our lands. Roma doesn't need to be at 15 shields and pumping out military to do this and can provide an extra towns.

The other option is to put Roma on 15 shields and build elephants and go on the offensive. This slows growth, allows us to slow the AI.

Given the large amount of land and the fact that every AI will be sending settlers (so we will meet them all), I prefer filling in the empty land first. The second possibility has merit.

So we should probably decide/vote. Are we trying to grow or are we trying to go on the offensive? My vote is growth for the reason above. It is a close vote though. Elephants can do some real damage now.

I am not suprised the MM is off. I had to play more quickly than I would have liked.

Given our terrain, we need more high defense units to occupy high ground and the extra cities to support the extra units. If we don't occupy the high ground, we risk losing come jumbos clearing even one defense units there, and with fast, two-defense units on the horizon, this becomes even more of a risk. Again, given our terrain, Scuts seem a much better value at this point than phants, even if it is annoying not to have much offensive firepower.

We should be able to snag mil training in the not too distant future, so can contemplate a second cource of vet units.

If they go on the mountains just do a HP with the Ballista and they go away. Also, we don't need vet Scuts to defend a mountain reg will do.

Well ...

I would vote for growth over trying to go on the offensive. My impression from looking at the save is that we are short on troops as it is, too many of our bodies are reg. Champs. So I think some of the initial production from Roma would go to securing the cities we already have. Maybe 3-4 more Scuts to that end. (Yes, our Capital is being defended by a regular Champ. :cringe: )

We would like some Jumbos in the south to clear out the trash we bombard. It really doesn't do us much good to injure units and have them run away (or retreat on an attack) only to heal and come back. I'd guess 4 Jumbos would take care of that problem. (2 attacking/2 healing every turn.) If we're not out chasing things we shouldn't have too much of a problem with getting our Jumbos attacked. We should always be able to run back into the city, or pull a unit out for cover. We've done a good job of roading most tiles in our territory to simplify this.

Antium can build a Pioneer every 6 turns once it has a production booster. Can we really expand any faster than that? If Roma builds 3 units in 6 turns, we seem to be just about breaking even. One (or two) go with the settler, one or two go to the southern front. In 10-20 turns Cumae should be able to contribute units as well, but probably at the rate of 1 per 3 turns (I can see 10 spt, but 15 is a bit in the distance).

Where things get tricky (and contradictory) is that by the end of Bezhokov's turn Roma might be making 30 spt! Now our options would be 3 Jumbos, 6 Scuts, or 2 Jumbo/2 Scuts in 6 turns. Two hills are currently being mined. The first completes on the IT and I think Roma can build a Forge on the IT as well. Roma currently has 24 shields towards a Scut. The mine comes on-line before the city production cycle, and I think the city can be configured to +0 fpt and get enough shields to reach 40 on the IT. With the 2nd hill and 1 mountain mined, I think Roma reaches 30 spt. Or an ultra-annoying 29. Hard to say. (Probably requires alternating negative food with surplus food to do different builds. 30 spt for 4 turns, ~20 for a couple, then back to 30 spt ...). This is contradictory because while we can build the units to settle faster, we can't take Hardies out of Roma to do the settling without killing the productivity. Worth re-visiting in about 20 turns, maybe then we can afford 4 turns of "slow" production in Roma to get an extra city.

But for now I think the 1st priorities are to catch up on troops in the south and improve the productivity of Roma. 2nd priority is to expand by building Pioneers out of Antium. A distant 3rd would be trying to go on the offensive. In 20 turns the first two priorities should be satisfied, and we could debate offense vs. faster expansion.

It is only guarded by a Champ for a single turn. The scut for it is built next turn. It was in zero danger. Its own scut left to follow the settler.

The whole north seems pretty open. I don't know that those cities need more than a single defender. If we fill in that land we have the advantage of no enemy cities north of us.

If we expand north slowly we will likely have two fronts when the AI takes much of th north lands. I favor faster settling in the north even if those cities are less well defended at first. We can catch up when the settling phase is over.

Basically, I want to counteract our losing half our empire early on and am willing to take a risk in the north where there doesn't seem to be anyone.

I concur with Greebley that we should expand quickly to the north.

Expand North ASAP is a gamble.

The Pro: If we find Horses, and we can comfortably hold all cities we found, and the South holds, we should be able to secure enough land to win the game. We can win with as few as 5 productive cities, even in an AW. We already have 3 monster locations and the FP/Mountains near the Northern explorer make for at least 1 more. We should easily be able to fill in with 6-8 other cities (we've already got two and space for two more) even without capturing enemy cities. It's also not going to get any easier on the Southern front with the passage of time as the Aztecs and Iro push towards Knights.

The Con: Uhh, this really is a gamble. If you want to build Hardies out of Roma, forget building Jumbos and forget using the capital to re-inforce the south with anything better than Champs. By yo-yoing the pop in Roma you are committed to 10-12 spt instead of 30, and for every settlement group originating from Roma you sacrifice 3 Scuts (2 you don't build with the 60 shields of Hardy and 1 for the escort), unless we are planning to send the settlers north with Champs as an escort. {I think Antium might have to build its own escorts, but it should be possible to get to 15 spt in Roma for a few turns.} I think we can effectively get 1 settler for every 4 turns. Antium pops 1 every 6 and Roma 1 every 12. Roma should require 4 turns to acquire 60 shields, and 4 turns to grow two sizes. During growth it can build 1 Scut + 1 Champ, wait 4 turns at size 7 to build 2 Scut, then pop a Hardy. Net of 3 Scut for escort every 12 turns to match the three settlers, with a Champ left over. If Roma can pull 20 spt at size 7, we can add an Archer or maybe another Scut instead of a Champ. Either way, Roma's unit production is basically committed to settling groups unless we run all Champs below 15 spt. Cumae can support the southern front with, maybe, 3-turn Ballista or 5-turn regular Scuts. Regular Champs or Archers are just a cry for help. If the pRNG turns on us (and we are a bit thin down there), Game Over.

I'm perfectly comfortable with the "Settle NOW" gamble, but if we try to do it half-assed we won't get anything accomplished. We either commit to re-inforce the south, now, or we commit everything to settling. Trying to do both will accomplish neither.

We will also likely have to use most of our workforce to connect the northern cities. I doubt we have enough workers to both push the road network out and improves all of the tiles around Roma in an expeditious fashion. ( :) ) Once we push the settlements out a couple of rings N, then our workers can fall back and we can start a military push. Maybe 30 turns from now.

We can accomplish a little bit of both via the "MP Shuffle". Send the Scuts Roma produces south, and pull the TGs north with the Settlers. If we end up in a heavy, non-barb fight in the North we're probably dead anyway. Also, expect to bump into the Iro again in our NE. You can see borders from one of their cities up there.

My concern with sending the Settlers with Champs as Escorts is losing them to Barbs. Vet TGs should be stout enough to keep that risk to a minimum.

I think it comes down to whether the southern cities can build enough units to defend themselves.

Personally, I think if we put the capitol on 30 shields and crank units, then that will be more than we really need for defense (which is why I also mentioned offense). On the other hand if it doesn't we may be a bit low on defense.

Note that I would have the new cities build workers to supply the workforce for the roads. RaR has very cheap roading so it doesn't require as much as C3C to road up the cities.

Its not an easy decision though.

Can you build barracks yet? If not, then Roma needs to be the military souce.

Well, I did something a little different, as I find getting basic infra built quickly really helps in RandR, and enhances flexibility whatever one decides. The early production boosters are a big departure from unmodded and a good source of advantage over the AI, especially in AW, so I went for that on my set.

Pre-flight: Adjust Roma for forge in 1 as T_McC recommended. Yeah, building a 3-turn scut there was suboptimal. Once we get a couple more scuts, I’d like to squeeze in a shrine. Not really sure what that settler in the north is up to. May settle to get Gems in our borders and just work hill, hill. Antium gets WH in 3, Neapolis works the iron mountain, getting WH in 6, Cumae gets the gold hill, and WH in 1. Will alternative boosters and units.

Rome adjustment requires lux bump to 30%

IBT: More iros approach

130BC: Roma:forge->scut. Roma make 21spt. Give apple to antium, now make 17spt for two turn scut. Antium gets apple and now is growing. Cumae:WH (making 10spt)->champ

reg champ kills wounded spear outside antium

IBT: More units approaching

110BC: Cumae: champ->SM Pompeii:walls->SM, Roma lets Pomp have mined hill for a turn and still gets scut. Found Pisae between iron and gold – trying to complete perimeter around Roma and didn't feel like wasting our settler on a food poor spot. FP location would have been too spread out.

90BC: Antium:WH-> champ (in 1, with MM), Roma:scut->scut

IBT: brave impales itself upon gates of antium, promoting tg to elite, cataphract impales himself upon tg on mountain, jags approach neapolis, other iros infiltrate the lines. Barb uprising message.

70BC: Cumae:SM->scut (2 turns, slightly starving), Antium: champ->ballista (in 2) Bombard elite brave on wines three times, two hits, reg champ kills him, elite champ takes out injured iro sword on hill. Tg’s cover exposed champs.

IBT: Iro brave impales on tg on mountain east of antium, jag impales on elite scut in Neapolis.

50BC: Roma:scut->shrine (MM to get in 2), 5 bombards to take reg aztec tg on hill to RL. 5/6 elite champ takes him out. Switch Antium to SM in 1, as he has 4 happy faces and only one sad.

IBT: aztec border shows up south of neapolis

30BC: Antium: SM-forge (in 3, slightly starving), Pisae:walls->counselor, Cumae:scut->champ (growing) Iron Working->Aristocracy in 4 (toward mil training and barracks)

IBT: two phracts penetrate the lines and sit on wines. Chariot approaches from south, Jags retreat.

10BC: Cumae:champ->forge, pompeii:SM->WH (in 6, growing), Roma:Shrine->phant (in 3, MM) Ballistas go 3/5, elite champ beats 4/5 phract, reg champ feels lucky, phract retreat onto mountain, reg champ whacks him and promotes, creating a slave. I built these champs to be disposable and to get our worker force going, so why not take some chances?

IBT: more phracts from the east (not the most cost effective units, those)

10AD: Neapolis: WH->SM (in 4), not much action, lux down to 10%

IBT: same drill with phracts on wine. I should prolly build some more ballistas.

30AD: Pompeii manages to riot at two pop with a lux. Whatever – apparently palace gardens has the SM unhappy flag. He’ll get a specialist until MP gets built. I pay for skimping on ballistas, as they go 2/5, vet champ whiffs, elite champ gets retreat, elite champ whiffs

IBT: barb horse shows up west of pompeii – I think the barbs are winning.

50AD: Antium riots in protest of its MP’s dying. Roma:phant->phant. At this point, I’ll leave it to the next player – mainly just a holding action this set, as we got our productivity significantly ramped up. When Pisae finishes his counselor, you could let him start growing, though a cheap granary might be worth it first (iron mountains make a lot of shields)

Oh, and aristocracy came in, with mil training in 6.

I have it. With MLDR05 due first, this one will have plenty of time for comments. I will try to aggresively settle our north, but would appreciate a dotmap for exact locations. I also like elephants, so we can get us some cheap labor.

I also like elephants, so we can get us some cheap labor.

Based on the one RaR AW game I did the enslavement units are very powerful in RaR. It got to the point we didn't even need native units. Excess unit costs are one of the things that can kill you in RaR. Having all free labor pretty much eliminates that problem.

Not much space to dot map. We know nothing more that what was in Greebley's picture. Bez founded a city 1 NE of where the settler pair were standing in Greebley's picture.

We know about a SW by the Incense. I keep putting down a dot on the hill, two spaces from Cumae. We haven't bothered to found cities 1-move apart yet, so why bother starting now.

In the North we could found on the BG N of the Elephant. That would bring the Gems in our radius, and link the new city to our capital. There is an Apple NE of that, but we don't have much info about the surrounding terrain. If we found on the BG, then 1SW of the Apple is rather tight. (But, even if the Gems city is a throw-away, it can pull 8 raw spt and 8 trade at size 1, working a mined/roaded Gems Mountain. So probably worthwhile.) Founding a city 1 S of the Apple gives the cities more room, but we know the Iro are over that way somewhere. A city by the Apple might be a new target.

Our economy isn't too bad. We don't have major unit costs since it seems Bez was losing them just about as fast as he was building them. :lol: (Actually, we gained a few troops in the last ten.) We have many MP. If/when you start moving them, don't let cities riot.

I suspect you can either settle or build Jumbos. Not both. Again, unless you intend to send settlers with Champs as escorts. Roma is well set up for Jumbos (20 spt), but you might see the 30-spt plateau. I have no idea what Antium makes, its rioting in the save. If you're going to build Pioneers there, it may be an interesting decision between regs and hardys, depending on what tiles are actually available for Antium to use, and how quickly the city can regain lost pop. Cumae is building a Forge that I'm not entirely convinced is useful. I think it would pull 12 spt instead of 10. If you can commit one of the Wines to Cumae, it could work a 2nd mined hill, making the Forge much more useful. By the end of your round, Cumae could be the 2nd vet troop source.

Took a look at the save: With a mined Mountain, Roma makes 29 spt :cringe: at break-even food. Allowing the capital to grow to size 8 bumps that up to 31 spt. :) Roma is also happy at size 8 with 10% lux and 3 MP.

The MM of our three southern cities is a mess. You might be bouncing tiles around every turn and hoping the Iro don't step on any.

"The MM of our three southern cities is a mess."

One man's mess is another's work of art. :lol: I'd bet I wasted a grand total of less than ten shields (i.e. overflow on all builds) in my entire set. Lots of flexibility with the current set up, but takes a lot of MM. Cumae should be able to hit 15 spt with the forge. I got a two turn scut out of him pre-forge, so should be there.

I'm a builder at heart, so I made just enough units to hold the fort, then got some tough RNG my last turn. One of my primary goals was to get the southern high ground covered to prevent unit approaches where it would be difficult to clear the units, and that objective was acomplished. I managed to get a couple tg's back to Roma, they can be upgraded, if necessary. Also I got lux down from 20-30% to 10%, allowing us to secure Iron Working and Aristocracy on the way to Mil training. With productivity doubled, I was satisfied with the set.

"The MM of our three southern cities is a mess."

The point of that statement was to say: You have to juggle tiles every turn, as one (and only one) city can eat. Romeo will have to swap tiles every turn for maximum efficiency (as you've already done). Those cities aren't "set it and forget it".

After the Forge completes, Cumae might be able to get in an alternating 17-13 spt cycle. That could allow Antium to get some extra food. I don't think the 6-turn Pioneer factory is going to work out because it requires too much food. If Antium is at +5 food our production suffers in Cumae and Neapolis. Antium might be configurable into a 6-turn Hardy source, although I wasn't playing around with the MM enough to see for sure.

And do give Roma the food needed to grow to size 8. 30 spt is really nice. I might even be tempted to let it grow to 8, and then run max food for a couple of more turns (basically foregoing 1 unit) to put food in the box and prevent starvation if the Iro stand on a good tile.

Life will get a lot easier when we can irrigate, but that's a long way off.

Good points as usual - I went for shields over growth, which now gives us a lot more options in where to go from here. I've found that in pre-irrigation RandR, you're best not to set it and forget it, or you can forget about getting your cities developed in any reasonable timeframe. With cheap granaries, the growth sacrificed can be readily recovered and the extra shields help defend what growth we get.

Remember this game is only moderately difficult because we allowed our first city to get eaten. ;)

IHT: Not much too do
TUrn 1: Bez wants me to prove myself I guess. MM like mad. Neapolis starts forge, Cumae Shrine, Pompei Forge, Rome is swapped to 2 turn Scutiaos. Everybody but Neapolis eats. Elephant kills iro Chariot gets slave.
IBT: Lose elite * Tg to an injured prahct across a river. Oh well.
Turn 2: Elite Champ kills redlined Phract, nothing happens. I get more use out of our 1 elephant, killing a phract. Rome starts an elephant.
Turn 3: A barb horse by Rome is really hosing the MM up.
Turn 4: Barb horse pillaged the mined mountain.
Turn 5: Barb horse impaled himself on our Scut in Rome. Elephant kills phract and promotes. Lose a reg champ, but kill a chariot.
Turn 6: Kill a phract on defense with an elite champ, get a slave. Iros have heavy horse and LB's now. Rome grows to size 8 and starts another Elephant. Kill 2 heavy horse.
Turn 7: Military Training comes in, start on Philo. We need a science boosting building.
Turn 8: Antium builds a Hardy Pioneer. Sending him north. Iro show knights.
Turn 9: Kill said knight and Viola. The MGL is in Neapolis. For lack of anything better, I would rush the training camp in Neapolis. I like 5/2/2 blitz units early. :)
Turn 10: Neapolis riots after being fine at size 3 with 1 MP for many turns. I do not understand. Oh Well. Pesky barbs show up again.
Pretty soon we can go on the offensive. I would consider taking 4 phants, all our Ballistae and 3-4 Scuts and razing the Iro capitol that is near us. Before we can do this we need a much better road structure down south, and the elephants and their slaves are working on it now. This game does not look bleak at all. If Bez wants to give me another MM chore like that one though, I will be force to say some unkind things about his parents, relatives, career choice, etc.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2-1.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2-2.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_AD250.SAV

Good how, Romeo. We could save the MGL to rush The Academy in Rome. Sorry bout the MM, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. In non-AW, you can get to irrigation a lot faster than this, so its less of an issue, but is this varient with this start, food is a luxury that has to be used to maximum effect.

Given our lack of pikes, a march to the Iro capital could be pretty bloody. I'd rather get our perimeters established so Roma can be fully developed and our slaves and their handiwork less threatened.

Ok, I got it. [Edit: Are we thinking of going for the GLib?]

I sure am thinking of the Great Library. It will help us catch up somewhat in Tech.

If we aren't going to build the Great Library, we'd better get some more cities down PDQ. I wouldn't bother rushing the Training Camp. Those units aren't much better than Jumbos. What should be considered is a Scut army. Marching one of them around in Iro lands might get Hiawatha to stop sending mounted units. A wave of Bows looks a lot better than what we're currently facing.

I kind of suspect Greebley also respects the "Power of the Pillage". :) Doubly useful to cover, say, 1/2 dozen Jumbos for a capturing campaign. (You wanted Pikes, how about a 2-move 14-HP Pike. :mischief: )

2nd point: Would it make sense to evacuate Pompeii to make the Barbs go away? Better to let them take a few gold than have them tromping around our interior.

And what happened to Monty? Either he really had a bad starting location and is just as small as we are, or he's fighting the Iro, or the Barbs are whipping him like the dog that he is. :blush:

I second the scut army. Given the extra hp, the AI might even be scared of a jumbo army, which would give us an extra move.

Defense 1 armies don't work well without a defensive army. I would prefer the Scut army first and then the Jumbo (or better) one.

The barbs may take out a building population or current production. I am not sure abandoning it makes sense. I will see.

I think I like the army to cover or Jumbos from attack. If I get another leader I may consider the jumbo army as well.

It all works for me. I was using Mapstat during my turns, and we have Tech on the Aztecs.
I would concur with moving troops out of Pompei, letting the Barbs each take 1 to 2 gold and being done with them for a few turns. A new city would really help the unit support.
I like the idea of a Scut Army. I would really press the attack to the Iro capitol, as they were making 7 cpt, and I figure almost all of it has to be in their capitol. I think we can start the advance by the end of Greebley's 10 turns. Elephants can do 1 turn roads on non desert terrain.

I do know from Bed3 that even Hussars will shy away from a healthy Kensai army (2 defense). So if we can find a way to swing a 2-move, 2 defense unit, that would work. When do we get upgraded Elephant units (is there a Mameluk equivalent?)?

We get them in the second teir of the middle ages, and need both Iron and Horses. I would shy away from anything but a scut army. A scut army should be good all the way until MkIV's if we can keep it alive that long. That is a good enough deal for me.

Sounds good for now, just hate to waste an army on a move 1 unit. Pillaging and covering are both high priorities right now, so it will fit the bill decently.

Wonder if we could pull an AI and stick that * elite phant in there with the a scut to give some extra hitpoints and a little more oomph on the O if needed?

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_AD350.zip)

Preturn: I decide to absorb the Barbs as suggested.

IBT: The Barbs maximize their damage by taking out the wall and the almost completed shrine.

260 AD: Put 2 Scuts into the Army

270 AD: Waiting for two Elephants to build.

280 AD: Finish Gathering troops

IBT: See some Jags but they wander off.

290 AD: Advance into Iroquois lands.

300 AD: Outside Niagra falls (size 11). Lose a Elephant attacking a def 2 unit.

310 AD: Capture Niagra Falls. We are equal in culture so I kept it may change my mind. Up Science Kill Jaguar. Aztecs are active again.

320 AD: Kill an Iroquois Knight.

330 AD: Kill a Jaquar

IBT: Jaguar killed.

340 AD: Kill another Jaguar

350 AD: Lose 2 champions trying to take out a horse archer.

Notes:
This turn went poorly. As soon as I started advancing into enemy territory they sent a number of Knights after us. We could be in trouble.
In addition our RNG was sub-optimal.
I also did not play very well. Kept messing up the MM.
I would play it over if I could, but we are stuck with it. Blah! I hope I didn't ruin the game.

I'm thinking Niagara may need to be abandoned and the Iro capital pillaged to cut off horse and iron. T_McC?

I am more in favor of starving it. It will take 7 turns and has a good chance of not flipping. It has no resisters so the odds aren't that high.

So you're counting on that scut to hold off those 5 knights? :)

you will get creative enough Bez. We have faith in you.

The knights were all ignoring the captured town last turn. I did move an elephant out of it so maybe they would attack. Go ahead and disband if you want. I would like to have us grow, but given the enemy forces it might be hard.

Trickier will be our homelands where we have a lack of elephants. I committed too much to the attack, but I wasn't expecting the Iroquois to suddenly show up with huge numbers of units after being quiet for so long. I am guessing they ended a war with the Aztecs and those were the troops used to attack them. The timing of my attack was unfortunate.

Good luck.

Sounds like a mess, but I'll see what I can do tonight or tomorrow morning.

I don't think it's a big deal if Niagara Falls is re-captured. We can just hit it again and start over at a lower population. We'll never see WW in this game, and if the Elite Scut wins a battle before the city falls we come out ahead in shields. I say this without having seen where all of our troops are. It sounds like the 1st couple of turns might get real ugly.

For our reference, here is the turn order best I understand it:

Zavior - On deck if he appears before T_McC posts (i.e. up after TMcC)
T_McC - Up
Bezhukov - Otherwise on deck (Plays if the Big Z's computer has finally flipped - or something like that...)
Romeo
Greebley

Zav2 - Suddenly Last Supper :jesus:

350 AD (0)
Inventory: Niagara Falls has a single unit. Maybe the Iro will ignore an Elite Scut? We have a decent force to attack Salamanca, but that won't come for 2 turns. I can't retreat the Army into Niagara without abandoning our Artillery. Not gonna do it. I'll trade them for their Capital. :)

Now for the domestic mess: We're fighting the Barbs in the North, but have found the Ocean. We are well set up to flank the Iro and proceed down the coast. Swap the Monument in Pisae for a Shrine. Same culture, but does something useful. Next turn we cease growth at size 3. (But up the shields considerably.) Pompeii swapped to Walls, as we are getting attacked by the Aztecs there. Wastes shields, but we'll live. Looks like we're trying to hook up the Gems. That will help.

Antium should hold, unless we get totally boned by the pRNG. Three units can attack, and we have 2 Vet Scutatio and a Champ behind Walls and on a Hill. Plus, two of the units have to attack across the river. Unless both Knights win the city will hold and we can use our Jumbo on offense.

Neapolis is safe. Only 1 unit can attack. Although it appears we got a bad decision from the pRNG last round. We're actually fine all around. We just need a bit of even-handed luck and a few offensive units in our core. Start Elite TG that was guarding our superfluous Iron back to Neapolis.

Ugh. We're building a 54-shield Scut in Roma. Swap to an 86-shield Academy. No troops from Roma for 3 turns. Then we can get 1/turn if needed.

It's a beautiful day to die! :twitch: <Return>

IT - 1 Knight retreats. A slave is killed. (Odd, you should be able to re-capture your own people as slaves. But whatever.) Otherwise the Iro run around with no real intent. They also drop a Knight next to Ravenna. That's a lost cause, but that's why you don't found cities that are 4 turns from any other cities in AW. :nono:

The Aztecs shuffle and a barb horse heads for the interior.

360 AD (1)
Kill retreated Knight with Champ. Might distract one of the two Horse Archers next to Neapolis.

Kill Jag at Pompeii. Another is fortified. Pisae grows, now works the gold mountain.

Approach Salamanca. I don't think three Jumbos is going to get the job done, but we'll work with it. Reset Niagara to starve. Retreat workers from Ravenna.

The Iros have Pikes. Have to nail their Iron.

IT - Win one. Retreat one at Ravenna, so the town holds. Lose exposed Champ and a Scut at Neapolis. The Iro have approximately 8000 mounted units.

370 AD (2)
Roma: Academy --> Jumbo.
Neapolis: Scut --> Counselor (subject to change next turn)

Kill Jag with Jumbo, cover with Scut. City can't be attacked next turn.

Kill red-lined Knight with Scut. Now it's safe to connect Ravenna to the Empire.

I choose not to use our freshly-built Legion vs. the exposed Horse Archer. It would just be trading units, and I don't want the GA yet. Once we get Lit we can pull the trigger. Jumbo off offending Horse Archer.

Apparently the Elite Scut has cooties. The Iro have spent the entire turn running past Niagara Falls to attack our walled hill cities. [pimp] They are also whipping up a frenzy in Salamanca. It's down to size 6. Decent bombardment round, but there are at lest 4 Pikes in there. Might as well let it fly. Elite* wins flawlessly and generates a slave. Elite wins (-2 hp) and generates a slave. Vet wins flawlessly and no slave. Looks like next turn could be very interesting for the Iro.

IT - pRNG rears its ugly head at Neapolis. Down to an Elite Scutatio and I simply don't trust the game mechanics.

380 AD (3)
2/7 on Ballista at Salamanca. "Nice to see you again, Capt. Wonder". Charge anyway. Elite* generates Slave. (6/8) Elite also generates slave, so ...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_Ouch.JPG

That's gotta hurt. Sun Tzu's isn't that useful (early Leonardo's effect), but might as well keep it. And now we've got a problem. I can't really defend this city without using the Army. But I also don't want to lose the Army to a flip.

Then lose a Jumbo trying to attack a Knight on a Mountain. Had to do it, at least it reduces the potential attackers at Neapolis. Have to survive this IT to regroup. The AI really has a hard-on about that city. Bet it's an Iron Works site.

Oh, and of course the Barbs entered our territory and fortified on a mountain. Sat there until workers were nearby and then charged along. Have the workers covered and the cities empty, so the bastage should just take some money and go away. Gems are hooked up but not in our territory, so no help with the lux tax. We might get an extra unhappy from the slave markets for Sun Tzu's. I'm feeling less confident about capture all the time. It is a useful wonder but we're sort of stalled now. Maybe now that we've taken away two core cities the Iro attacks will finally slow.

IT - Lose the Legion I left out as bait. Otherwise, the loss of their Capital (and seeing it defended by 1-defense units) makes all the other Iro units re-target. I knew they'd do that. Yeah, my wife told me ... my wife, Morgan Fairchild. The pressure on our core will be relieved. That's the ticket. Barb takes 26 gold and leaves.

390 AD (4)
Kill red-lined Iro Knight. Kill Jag, then get really confused as to why I don't have any more moves left. Still not sure what happened. Anyway, cover each Jumbo with a Scutatio and leave 1 regular Scut defending Cumae, with a Jag in reach. :eek: A regular Jag, having to attack across a river into a walled city on a hill. :)

I think I'm going to try to put together about a 4-pack of Scuts to extend our road network out to the Iro lands. Those Scuts will also serve to garrison and relieve the Army. Speaking of which ... sacrifice two Iro workers and pop the borders at Salamanca. Not sure there is no cultural pressure, but now there is less. When the city starves down we should work tiles in the 1st 9 to be safer. I want to keep the Wonder, and the city has only a Worker housing remaining so it's not like the Iro will get a lot of infrastructure if it flips. That stack of Scuts can't come soon enough. Whack a Horse Archer with a Jumbo from Salamanca.

IT - "ZLTATLAOCH XOCHIHUALPA MEXTICTO" ... :dubious: ... I have no idea what the Aztecs just said. Blow them off.

400 AD (5)
Kill two Jags near Cumae. Kill Horse Archer and Knight near Salamanca. Bomb and kill another Knight at Salamanca. Popping the borders and playing offense is a lot more fun than risking the Scut Army to flip. :D

410 AD (6)
Gems are online. Stack of Scuts is forming, but the Aztecs are starting to show up. Bunch of Jags, so more of an annoyance than a threat. Iro are noticeably thinner. Should have another crack at those 70-shield defense 2 units next turn.

Zav2 - The Greatest Story Ever Hula'd :jesus:

420 AD (7)
Nothing on the IT. A bunch of Jags will attack Cumae next turn. I don't see that as a real threat. Classical Ed next turn. A couple of Legions are in the pipe in anticipation. Two Scuts set out for the west. The workers are in the North and the Jumbos are in Cumae to clean up and heal. Roma will push out another Jumbo in 2 turns.

Decision time at Salamanca. Either I risk the Army or I abandon the city. Up to 7 units can attack the city next turn. I can almost assuredly thin that out to 3-4 between using the Jumbos on offense and bombardment. The city is now size 1, so I don't really fear a flip. (We'll have 5 units in the city to the next turn.) We stand and fight. :salute:

Solid bombardment round (6/7). Off one Knight with 8/8 Elite* Jumbo. (4/8) Jumbo scratches another. The only 3 full-health units that can attack Salamanca next turn are Horse Archers, and they also have to go into the teeth of a bombardment.

IT - Win all three versus the Horse Archers, red-lining and promoting both units in the Army to Elite. :thanx: Jags retreat, pillage, and die.

430 AD (8)
Lit queued up. Kill Iro Knight at Salamanca. I am so tempted to whack the 5 slaves to complete Walls on this turn, but there's no threat. So don't do it.

Kill Jag at Cumae. Decide to go for it with a Legion vs. a Spear on a Hill. And fail. :cringe: Stupid opponents who have nothing that won't retreat. Elite Jumbo is also a complete failure. Must be something in the water. :suicide:

440 AD (9)
No attacks IT. Start Antium on a Pioneer, we may have a reprieve to expand a bit.

Army is partially healed, heads out of town to a mountain to fortify. A 9 HP-defense 4 unit fortified on a mountain should be ignored by the AI. All of the slaves and all but one of the Artillery follow. Minimize the damage of a flip, and nothing can attack next turn anyway.

Roma builds a Jumbo, starts another. A Legion is built and heads out to road. :rolleyes:
Whatever works, baby. :banana:

IT - OK, the AI won't ignore an Elite Scut when it's not across a river. Win one against a Jag, promoting a Scut to Elite. The circle of life and all that.

450 AD (10)
Bomb a lot of stuff around Salamanca. Kill two Knights and a Longbow. The herd is definitely thinning.

Final Notes:
I leave you short of offense in the core. The stack pulling Wagons East is assembling outside of Neapolis. The Legion and Jumbos can build roads while they walk, and be covered by the Scuts. Once we get our new cities linked to ours we can pull the Jumbos and the Army to attack the city NE of Salamanca. It almost has to be the new Iro capital (by the borders) and should contain the Sphinx. FREE BARRACKS!

The Iro are starting to smell a little overcooked. If we don't have any flips we may just be able to ram them into the ocean and build a 2nd core. The Aztecs are showing up in volume, but it's all crap. There is an Iro city SE of Ravenna, but nothing has shown up out from it so it can probably wait.

This is a really intense game as you not only have to swap tiles, but you also have to play chess with the military and try to anticipate what tiles the AI will step on so you have contingencies in the MM. Or you put the Capital on 1-turn units and know you can break in before the production/starvation cycle for the other cities and prevent the Governor from hitting the pipe too hard. :)

Unfortunately, I suspect the Iro are lightweights compared to the Inca. Check out F7. :eek:

Nothing like 4 hours for 10 turns. :lol:

Our Empire:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_East.JPG

The coast must be north. Most of the units are coming from the South, but that city NE of Salamanca looks like a capital/wonder city. (Lot of culture).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_West.JPG

Maybe stick a city on the blue dot? Works with Ravenna and the city the Iro are keeping warm for us.

Great turns!
I especially(spelling?) like the write-up.

Excellent work TMcC. Glad to see the assault I started got us something and wasn't a Fiasco.

The Rome having 24 shields was part of the reason I was be00mo0o0n000in0g th0e 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0ne0ver 0m0in0d0 m0y 000300 0ye0ar00 0ol0d 0isn't g0oing0 t0o l0et0 me0 fi0ni00sh0 th00is s0ta0t0em0ent00000000

Excellent write-up. :thumbsup:

So, are you taking it, Zav?

In order to keep this game moving along, let's assume Zavior still hasn't gotten his computer to work and skip him. He can jump in whenever he posts that he can play.

So the Roster:

Bezhukov - Up!
Romeo - On deck
Greebley
T_McC

Zavior - Post when you are ready to play, and be re-inserted into roster.

Well, I need to format my computer to get rid of trojan or some other nasty virus. Virus scans detect it, delete it, but it always comes back after booting.
The thing is, I've lost my own xp discs, and my friend is out of town :cry:

Got it, will play this evening. Any words of wisdom?

I think the city NE of Salamanca is the new Iro capital and contains the Sphinx. All of the cities to the S appear to have un-expanded borders, so if we grab the new capital the Iro may be down to Palace culture only. Grabbing the Sphinx is a nice double-whammy because we get free Barracks and the Iro go back to building almost entirely regular troops.

I couldn't get much intel on the Iro lands due to needing the Army to hang around Salamanca. We might want to build more Scuts in our core to send E so we won't again be in the position of capture ... wait 8-10 turns ... move the Army group out. I may be wrong, but I think the Iro are close to gassed and we may be able to capture a lot of cities fairly quickly if we have the troops to garrison new captures. I don't know how many cities the Iro have left but I am fairly confident we'll hit the ocean in the east soon. (Note the minimap: I don't believe the map generator can create a landmass that x-wraps.) Ideally we could hit the ocean and turn right with the Army group, grabbing Iro cities and moving towards the Aztecs at the same time. The remaining Iro cities in the North could be attacked by troops coming out of our core. I didn't see a lot of action from the Northern cities on my 10.

We are researching Lit now. I was trying to trip our GA to build the Great Library, without success. I guess we need to keep the Legions near the Artillery so they can attack something red-lined (and hence unable to retreat). I did see Iro Crossbows, so they can't build Braves anymore. If we get a GA we should have the Great Library within 10 turns of discovering Lit. We can easily pre-build for a Library and do the "Big Picture" production swap to get it on the turn Lit comes in. In a GA Roma will do probably do 50 spt, and maybe 60. Nothing like 1-turn Jumbos to crank up the body count.

I do think we want to found another city ASAP, although one should look carefully at the site I suggested in the previous post. It's probably not that good. We should just place a city that claims as many tiles as possible that our current cities cannot work. It's a shame we couldn't get a city built SW of Roma before the Aztecs showed up there. We could have shut them out of our core and made tile-swapping easier.

The Aztecs are an annoyance right now. I doubt they can bring enough to ever conquer a city, but they will get a pillage or two in. I'd rather use our resources to bury the Iro than to smack down the Aztecs right now. Once we can turn back towards our core with the Army group we should be able to sweep away the Aztecs.

I like the general area of the suggested city, though I might adjust slightly to lay off the forest, as we will be unable to plant them ourselves for millenia. I'm also a little stubborn, so might try to force a city to the SW to seal off the core, even if it delays the push on the Iro slightly - the extra Scut hitpoint should come in handy here.

I think 2 NW of the blue dot would work well. I have no idea where to go in the SW. Maybe SW of the Incense? Founding in that direction probably forces us to go after the Aztec city there. Not too big of a deal as they don't have Iron and Jumbos should eat Spears up. Also, if we found two tiles from their city the Jumbos can attack starting from our city. So no exposed units.

A continent can X-wrap. It usually won't or will have a small amount of wrap, but its possible they have some land.

Best way to check would be to see how many cities they have. I think that is legal this game.

I looked - the list had about 14 cities + capitol. I am guessing we will see the ocean before too long based on the number of directions we can see cities. At least in some directions they would be less than "2 deep".

One good thing is the lack of another contact. I think we would have seen a settler of another nation if they were connected by land to us. From the little I have seen, boat building is ignored by the AI more than the regular game. It will be interesting to see how long we have until a third contact.

Note that filling in the land will discourage such a contact. I would like to continue to build settlers and fill the Northern lands when we can. Taking out the sphinx would be worth while. first though.

One good thing is the lack of another contact. I think we would have seen a settler of another nation if they were connected by land to us. From the little I have seen, boat building is ignored by the AI more than the regular game. It will be interesting to see how long we have until a third contact.
This was supposed to be a Pangaea map. I agree with Greebley, though, that it is not. Someone would have had to wander by already if they were on our landmass, chasing Barbs or settling all of that available land.

If we are on a continent with the Iro and Aztecs, this game got a whole lot easier. Famous last words, but I'm almost ready to declare the Iro gassed, and the Aztecs just aren't mustering very much resistance. We've got two good settler sources with the two Iro cities so we can probably fill up the land fairly quickly. If we don't have any other opponents on our landmass we can send settlers with single-unit escorts and save our other troops for offense. The other possibility is that the AI settled a 1-tile choke point and the other AI are too dumb to get on a boat to get around it.

If the Iro still have 15 cities we're going to be fighting them for a long time. I think we still have to capture instead of raze, but we are likely to suffer a flip or two before we can send Hiawatha to the Happy Hunting Grounds.

Maybe we want to build a Galley in Ravenna next, to check out the Northern lands?

A continent can X-wrap. It usually won't or will have a small amount of wrap, but its possible they have some land.
I may be thinking of Civ2, but X-wrapping really screws up the corruption calcs due to (e.g) x-coords of -99 and 99 being much closer than the simple difference. I simply cannot remember playing a game where the landmass wrapped.

It is Pangea. Maybe there is a risk of meeting ppl. It can be slower to fill in the land in RaR. Perhaps we will see other civs from the West.

RandR with raging barbs - we could all be sharing the same continent and not meet anybody else until the Modern Age. I've seen some pangea civs on RandR lack contact the entire game.

Caesar was singularly unimpressed with the latest so-called “advance” presented to him by his leading generals. “This ‘legionary’ unit is supposed to be uniquely powerful? Why, it pales in comparison to the simple elephant riders we have been training for centuries”, thundered Caesar, singularly unimpressed. The one thing Caesar knew more thoroughly than the ways of war was the ways of men, however, and he understood the effect the proud-looking legionaries would have upon returning to Roma in triumph. The people’s spirits would be lifted to new heights of productivity and commerce; a veritable Golden Age might not be too much to hope for.

With this eventuality in mind, Caesar ordered his finest architects to devise plans for a Great Library, in which would be held all of the knowledge of the wisest in the world. The knowledge of military affairs Caesar especially coveted as he watched his plans unfold…

Preflight: let Roma starve a couple turns so that Antium can time its pioneer with growth. Look at little Neapolis rockin’ the house! 15spt! Pompeii can work hill and still get WH in one (sacrificing some gold for food), Pisae goes for a forge to make use of huge quantity of shields it throws out.

IBT: 3 iro knights approach Salamanca. 2 more jags from SE, barb horse heads toward Roma

460AD: Roma: ER->Arena (pre-build for library), Cumae:legion->legion, Neapolis:Scut->ER, Pompeii:WH->Scut (making 15 spt, too!), Ravenna:walls->counselor. Elite ER takes out barb horse flawlessly.

IBT: Iro knight attacks our army attempting to heal in Salamanca, taking it down to 4hp. :eek: One Aztec jag impales on elite scut in Cumae, another retreats – I smell GA!

470AD: Antium: pioneer->legion (in two). Legion takes out jag, and we get GA! (wish I knew how to insert the cool little pics here) Ballistas take out Iro Mounted Archer on mountain, with help from Elite ER, netting slave. Iro Pike shows up.

480AD: Swap Roma over via BP to get library on the nose (went from 35 spt to 45 spt with GA). GL in 8 (tho slightly starving until hill gets mined), Niagara:walls->counselor, Cumae:legion->ER, Neapolis:scut->legion, Pompeii:scut->forge. Vet ER redlines, but takes out Jag on hill where I’d like to place city. I am annoyed at the prospects legion attacks present for me, and make a note to produce fast units instead.

IBT: two Iro knights approach Salamanca (I had moved out army and artillery on previous turn).

490AD: We get trade on one turn research. Go for Civil Engineering in two. Salamanca:walls->counselor (I had started working camel instead of mountain when GA came in, now at 2 pop and growing fast). Legion slays jag near Cumae. Feeling bold, I press on with settling crew onto plains near Aztec city. Elite Scut makes me feel brave (he has legion, ballista support) Army goes exploring – Grand River is discovered on the coast. It has iron but is not the capital. Not sure what the army pillaging policy is, but easier to ask forgiveness than permission – I’m going for that iron. Swap Antium to Bazaar so I can keep lux at 10% as it grows.

IBT: A couple jags impale on scuts.

500AD: Neapolis:scut->shrine (need to get culture going to get border expansions), Pisae:forge->granary, Hispalis founded one tile SW of incense. Makes 4 spt out of the gates working incense. Kill a couple MA’s near Salamanca.

IBT: another couple knights show up near salamanca. FP message. Hmmm, looks like there was an uprising up north somewhere. Here come the pretty horsies!

510AD: Civil Engineering->Code of Laws (in 1), Cumae:ER->ER, pompeii:forge->granary, Ravenna:counselor->forge. Pillage Iro iron. Army falls back to cover Salamanca. Elite ER takes out severely injured Knight (ballistas have not lacked for targets! :hammer:), making yet another slave – we have a veritable caravan heading back toward the core. Elite ER (7/8) redlines before taking out injured longbow, resulting in: (see pic). Did someone say FP? Salamanca seems an appealing location for such a structure. The free barracks could come in quite handy.

IBT: Iro galley near Ravenna

520AD: Salamanca:FP->Slave Market, Antium:Water Mill->scut, CoL->Currency (in 2)

IBT: Iro Elephants approach!

530AD: Neapolis:granary->ER

540AD: Getting tired and forgetting builds. Antium makes scut, I think. Legionary smacks jag around, promotes. Vet ER takes out seriously bombarded elite ER near Salamanca. I think we’re about ready to move on Grand River. Bite the bullet and let barbs have way with Pisae – losing nearly complete granary. They may pillage our iron, however.

IBT: luckily, the barbs ignore the iron, but they destroy the walls of Pisae, of course, and kill pop.

550AD: Knock off a few units here and there, including settler pair near Salamanca. Strike force readied for Grand River. GL due next turn. Aztecs getting a bit thick around Neapolis (we have a work crew mining the iron)

GL = irrigation = just what we need to bust out.

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

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

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

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

I don't know of any way to not get the GLib if it is one turn, so that look guaranteed.

I think the next leader should go for an Offensive Army - Elephants or whatever is our strong fast unit at the time.

A couple of things without looking at the save:

GL=Irrigation!?! Maybe not. GL=Tech Parity with the Aztecs, if we don't have it already. :sad: So we do still have to research while we have the G. Lib. Hopefully we'll score a few required techs from the Aztecs.

"let Roma starve ... Look at little Neapolis rockin’ the house! 15spt!"
These two events are not unrelated. We were having a hard time letting Antium work its unique tiles, since that was where the Iro were attacking from. Hopefully that's been cleared up now and everbody can grow. Irrigation can't come soon enough.

Since we're in a GA, Antium might want to consider a Hardy Pioneer. I'm hoping our other source of settlers would be Niagara Falls. If we get lucky, the foreign citizen will be sent packing and the flip risk/mother country will be removed. :)

I'm not completely sold on a Jumbo Army, but I guess that would net us 3 attacks from 2 units on a good frequency. And we should have two Elite* Jumbos already. The other worthy possibility is The Academy in Roma, but that's a 5-turn project in the GA. Same with Heroic Epic. Tech is slow enough that we would get some use out of the Training Camp, which I wouldn't want to hand-build.

Is Grand River the home of the Sphinx? We could use that.

Once you use offensive Armies, don't forget to get up the Training Camp. It works as MilAc for Army bonus. That makes Heavy Horseman and Cavaliers the most effective units for armies (6.3.3 and 9.3.3), while Jumbos stay at 6.1.3.
And, the IGuard have blitz, which makes that wonder better than it seems at first sight.

Thanks Doc, that is good information to have.
I see the game but might need close to the full time limit on this one.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing re: irrigation after I posted that. Might be a good time to get out and meet the world to drag them into unending war and take advantage of their knowledge.

On a different note, once Roma gets the GL (and a Water Mill), might be a good idea to use it for units and get the rest of the core tricked out in the latest infra while the GA lasts. We have the tech to get bazaars built, and keeping lux at 10% really helped the research pace buzz along nicely during my set.

Grand River does indeed house the Sphinx, for which purpose the Light Brigade charges forth! :D

I will probably do as Bez suggests. I will try to get some production boosters in the core, and spam a ton of units out. I would really like to capture the Sphinx, and I will probably keep an elephant or 2 around the core and fish on the Aztec junk as they send it up. I really like elephants.
I will not decimated my forces as the light brigade was.
A dotmap might be nice, otherwise, I will plop cities whereever I feel like it.

I would suggest Hispalis gets a cultural building before a Slave Market, unless you plan to toast that Aztec city soon.

Otherwise we need a city up north, maybe N-N-NW of Roma. That's really all we can see right now that isn't already occupied. I doubt raze-and-replace is profitable during our GA, especially without having a super-food city in our core. I do think we should build Pioneers out of Niagara Falls, hoping to get lucky with the remaining Iro citizen shipping out.

We seem short on Artillery and long on Scuts, but depends how much you like defending the high ground. Bez is even more cautious than I am.

I'm not sure Neapolis should be getting all that food. We may be better served to let it stop at 15 (20?) spt and having Antium and Cumae stretch out a bit. Ideally we would have Antium working E and Cumae working NW to give all of the cities some tiles, but that's where the enemy are approaching from.

Another thought: How about a boat out of Ravenna? Maybe meet the neighbors and learn their technology. We might even get ahead of the Iro that way.

Food distribution varied wildly during my turns depending on what was being produced when where. Neapolis usually works the flood plain where that iro pike is standing, so he's borrowing food to avoid starving on this turn. Those scuts were produced for the north and the Hispalis vicinity, but were shifted to where they are upon the approach of all those Aztec units and the Iro pike to prevent pillaging. I'd kep a couple around to protect the iron mountain, as it produces an obscene quantity of shields.

I was thinking that toasting the Aztec city near Hispalis would be a good idea, though given pathetic Aztec culture, flip-risk shouldn't be too high anyway.

I think we're about set on scuts for now, but with all the 2 and 3 move units running around, they come in handy.

IHT: Not much to do. Move out of Pisae.
IBT: Kill an aztec chariot promote a Scut. Barbs take a total of 4 gold from Pisae, Iro Phants move north.
Turn 1: Elephant kills jag and promotes. Upgrade a champ to a legion. Move on Grand River.
IBT: Kill 3 jag warriors at Neapolis, promote other Scut there to Elite. Scut kills horse archer near Sal.
Turn 2: We learn all the ancient age techs from the Great Library. There are 3+ vet pikes in Gran river. Hit only 2 of them once with bombard. Kill a chariot, get a slave.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/zav2-1.jpg
IBT: Not too much
Turn 3: Kill knight by Sal. Get a slave. Legion chases off jag. Scut kills a rl jag. Kill a pike at Grand river.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/zav2-2.jpg
IBT: My first losses, a horse archer kills a legion and kills a slave.
Turn 4: Kill the evil horse archer, get a slave. Kill jag by Ravenna. (Landing). Kill pike at grand river, and we get an army. Kill another pike, lose a vet elephant. Elephant shows as top defender, but will not risk ballistae by attacking with Army. Kill a jag at Neopolis. Build a pioneer, send him by pompeii. Kill a pike by Roma. Roma starts The Academy.
IBT: Kill 1 ER by Sal, lose 1 scut and 1 slave.
Turn 5: Kill an elephant in Grand River, kill 1 by Sal. Lose an elephant to a jag.
IBT: Wierd, we self research Dark ages, then get 2 middle age techs from TGL. Oh well.
Turn 6: Kill 2 spears in Grand River, and we save a bunch of money on our barracks insurance. OUr Ballistae are hung out to dry and every thing is really injured. I kill the fast moving offense I do see, and buckle down for the long haul. Upgrade some scuts to pikes. I like free rax.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/zav2-3.jpg
IBT: The IRo kill our first elite * Elephant, barbs kill a scut in our northern territory, but we at least get one of them. Iro longbow kills a pike in Sal.
Turn 7: Kill the Longbow by Sal, get slave. Dig in at Sal. MOve our Ballistae into grand river. Moving and dodging, also some MM.
IBT: We meet the Inca, and learn a bunch of stuff. Rome, Academy to Angkor Wat. Seriously.
Turn 8: The Inca are declared upon. They are loaded. They own New York, so I assume some warrage is going on. Decide that we need a clock in Roma more.
IBT: Niagra Falls falls. Arrgh. Lose an elite legion to a chariot.
Turn 9: To make a bad turn worse, we learn feudalism and almost all our cities riot as worker housings go obsolete. I should have raised lux last turn. Dumb me. We have salt near Antium. Sell our worker housings. Recapture Grand river and use the cash on some upgrades.
IBT: We lose an elite elephant to a chariot. NUTS. We do learn how to irrigate though.
Turn 10: The long road gets weirder. We are going to get bumrushed by the Inca. I was retarded, and our Elephant army has 4 hp's left. (It lost 9 hps to a reg pike). Must do a bait and switch to keep it alive. Leave grand river open. Start research on engineering as river penalty is slaughtering us wholesale.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/zav2-4.jpg
The last 2 turns kinda sucked, but over all not bad. Hope greebley can pull my butt out of the fire once again. We have half the culture of the Inca, and half of the cpt of the Inca.
I would like to build the production enhancers in Rome, and then build Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat will save us a ton of cash, and really be ubernice. Really sorry on some of the moves over the last 2. Overall I think we are doing fine, but I might have killed our ER army. I may have overstrecthed us, but it seemed good until we met the Inca.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_AD650.SAV

Ok, I got it. I will see what I can do. Haven't read the whole report yet, but it sounds like good progress. The Sphinx will really help - more because they don't have it than the fact we do - I doubt they have many barracks.

We are doing well for meeting two of the hardest civs early on. But then I think RaR and DyP are easier than a normal game of the same difficulty level simply because RaR is more complex and humans can handle complexity better than an AI.

Took a look at the save:

As could be expected, we have tech parity with the Iro. So I fully agree with self-research on Engineering. We'll probably do a lot of researching, even with the Great Library.

Take particular note of the Inti Warrior in the picture. Ignores movement cost of Mountains and Hills. So those workers north of Pompeii are in jeopardy.

We are quite short of artillery on the Northern Front. More would make the killing a lot easier, and Pompeii can do 1/turn.

A tile swap at Pisae will get the Pike a turn sooner.

Good to see a boat out and about. Since we appear to have just met the baddest man on the planet, meeting other folks may be a good idea. The good news/bad news about the Inca wars is that they should have bled off some troops (and aren't likely to have an SOD roaming around), but they're quite large.

Next leader for the Military Academy equiv? After Engineering, maybe head for Gunpowder to build Bombards (attack 12, ROF 2)? The next best unit after Pikes aren't until the end of the MA. Matchlock gives us decent attackers, but slow attackers. We aren't likely to build anything besides Jumbos for a while.

It would be nice to find the Iro Horses. (Actually, they are at Allegheny) Cavaliers (Chivalry) would make a 9/3/3 Army with the Mil Acad. equivalent. (Note: The Training Camp is not listed as having that effect in the Civilopedia, but I trust Doc.)

It is worth upgrading our Slaves to Peasants, especially as we have some cash on hand and the Leo's equivalent.

The Inca are building Shangri La (Monasticism). That would be very useful for us to have instead of them. We can build it, but we must research Monasticism. We also know that they have Scientific Method and Seige Warfare from the Wonders they are building.

We have to be careful with the Jumbo Army. It's a 2-unit army with an attack of 5, so the primary advantage it offers us (over two individual units) is the possibility of 3 attacks instead of 2. In order to make that happen, we can't go running around attacking things willy-nilly. Keep the Jumbo Army with the Artillery and soften the opponents first.

We should probably starve Grand River down to size 1 before letting it build anything.

Good ideas folks, and good progress, Romeo, if a little close run, as usual. :D

Let's take advantage of our terrain and see if we can lure Inca units to their death attacking pikes in high places, with a few ER's around to clean up the mess. As much as I'd like to knock out the Aztecs, I'd even more like to get our empire more contiguous by wiping out the Iro north and west of Salamanca and settling any cities we need in there to close ranks a bit.

Shadowing ahead a couple of turns ... When the Mill completes in Roma we can make >60 spt, so a run at Shangri La would be quick. (Some irrigation is required to not starve, but should be easily accomplished.) If we try it and get beaten to the Wonder, we would have the Training Camp, Royal Tournament, or Ankgor Wat to fall back on. So not much of a gamble.

Shangri La = Bachs (+1 extra content face in the city where it is built). I think Ankgor Wat is a net wash (and in some places a negative) if it doubles slave market unhappiness. I can't be sure how the SM unhappiness works, it seems to change with every patch. (Is it arithmetic? Geometric? Capped at some number?)

I like Angkor wat for the free maintenance and the free culture. It helps us stay in the culture race as well as expands our borders. I think Shangri La is also nice. I trust whoever is playings decision on that one.
I like Bez's Idea of filling in our empire to the sea, and kicking the Iro out of there. I think we took out the Iro iron, as I have not seen any iron units since then. It was kind of my bad on the elephant army, I just wanted to kill stuff.
Our entire north was nearly completely devoid of units, and as soon as contact was made, I started rushing units to the north.
As T_McC said, the Inti's have no mountain or hill penalty. We must be aware of this.
Our worker force by Antium should irrigate like crazy on the wines and such and get our towns down there growing.
I concur on the worker upgrades and did a few myself.

Angkor Wat would be good to deny the AI - every AI culture monster I have had to worry about had Angkor Wat. We can always capture Shangri La if we miss that. BTW, Salamanca should also be a monster soon, with the Camel, Flood Plains, and mountains, if we can get it secure, it could be good for wonder chasing as well.

Ankgor Wat would give us 5 free Shrines now, plus a free one with every subsequent city. It is a net of +1 Happiness in some cities as it does not double Slave Market unhappiness. It would save us about 6 gpt in current upkeep, after the Shrine in Hispalis completes.

So small benefit in happiness (our bigger cities already have Shrines, except for Sal), medium benefit in economy (~+1 gpt for each city, some cities don't need Shrines), medium benefit in culture (about 8 cpt with current configuration). Strongest benefit is culture denial to the Inca. I was going to downplay that, but looking at the Iro cities with unexpanded borders ... No the AI does not generally build culture.

Shangri La gives a net +1 happiness in all cities and +2 in Roma, due to doubling of Slave Market unhappiness.

Medium benefit in happiness (all cities benefit), medium benefit in economy (saving on lux tax, allowing Roma to grow larger), small benefit in culture (3 cpt). The denial benefit is tricky: If we assume the Inca are building Shrines, this wonder has a strong denial benefit. If we assume they aren't, then Ankgor Wat is much better for denial.

So I would guess Ankgor Wat is the better for us. We could build both in Roma by the end of the GA, but we are probably better served to take 1 and build 7 Jumbos instead of the other. I would be satisfied with either, but I guess we should aim for Ankgor Wat and fall back on Shangri La. We should get 1, and the Inca Capital should build the other.

In due time... they shall both be OURS! Bwahahah! :evil:

Can I swap with the next player? I have an eye infection and it is hard to play. Hopefully by the time it comes back to me, I will be on antibiotics for it and can play then.

Looking at the save - the Elephant army very likely is dead. Number one target for the AI is injured armies. That hose archer will go for it.

With the loss of the Army we will be unable to continue our offensive vs the Iroquois for a while. We have only 1 elephant anywhere near that front.

OK, I can swap with Greebley. Will play it tomorrow night.

I was pretty confused when Greebley wanted to swap, there’s no way we’re making it all the way to Absolutism on these next 10 … :confused: .

Zav2 – Hey, who’s the New Guy?

650 AD (0)
Wake the threatened workers. Upgrade a slave for 13 gold. It doesn't seem to make them go any faster, but we'll eventually want to upgrade them to the move-2 workers so might as well do the 1st part for 1/2 price.

Grand River is turned into 2 taxmen and should starve next turn. Also swapped to complete a Counselor. Haven't checked the editor, but since these things do the other stuff courthouses do, maybe they reduce flip risk.

Wheedle an extra gold out of Sal. Starve Cumae a bit to get two turns off of the Mill. Pompeii to Ballista. Speed up growth at Pisae. Extra food and trade at Hispalis. Note we have an Elite Legion. Upgrade Scut to Pike at Virconium.

<Return>

IT - Lose MDI, worker, Army, and Galleass. This is already different from my brief shadow, so that's good.

660 AD (1)
Why do we have 4 culture at Grand River? Did we sacrifice two slaves? Not going to mention builds.

Red-line Jag, and attack with Elite Legion. Win with no leader. Bomb Incan Knight, but lose with Jumbo. Kill two of the Incan interlopers and generate 1 slave. Kill Iro HA that captured our worker. Kill one of two inpinging Jags. Kill final Incan intruder in the North.

IT - Lose Slave that was over near ??? for some odd reason. Get pillaged by a Jag. Learn Monasticism, Athletics, Castle Building, Chivalry, Seige Warfare, Engineering, Scholasticism, Scientific Method, Usury.

670 AD (2)
Roma finishes Water Mill, starts Ankgor Wat. Due in 7 at -1 fpt. It will get better.

Incans cascade from KT (Sioux?) to Shangri La. At least, I assume it was a cascade.

Red-line Iro Jumbo at the freshly-starved Grand River, and use Scut Army to finish him off. Kill Iro Pike with Elite Jumbo, kill Aztec Spear with Elite Legion. No leaders. Niagara Falls set to Pioneer, maybe we can ship an Iro citizen off.

Turn Research down to minimum allowed by law. (60% taxes). Neapolis goes to 2-turn Pikes. Bit of economic MM, and we make 50 gpt.

680 AD (3)
Continue the chess match with the enemy units. Win 3 battles, 1 promotion, but no leaders. Re-MM Roma to build Ankgor Wat in 5.

IT - I think someone just floated by, but it might have been the Aztecs.

690 AD (4)
Kill an Aztec Crossbow, but it might delay an assault on the Aztec city by a turn as our Elite Jumbo took way too much damage for attacking a 3-HP defense 2 unit.

Kill two Iro HA's. Can be attacked by 1 Jumbo next turn, but things are beginning to shape up for an assault N into Iro territory.

IT - Lose to an Iro Jumbo, attacking a fortified vet Pike, behind Walls, across a river!

700 AD (5)
Whack Iro Jumbo and generate a Slave. Bomb Jag twice, then let loose the Legions ...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_Leader.JPG
(spawned Claudius :blush: ) [Whoops, didn't capture the pithy name.]

Training Camp rushed in Cumae. (Didn't want a Jumbo Army yet, and maybe the Army boost lasts past the wonder expiration??? Can’t find another building with that flag.)
{Post-script: Even the Training Camp doesn’t have that flag in the .biq :cringe: )

Next couple of turns might be interesting. I think we can avalanche the Iroqouis N, and maybe grab a 2nd Leader to build a 14-HP Scut Army.

IT - Aztec Horse Archer offs a fortified Scut on a Mountain. I sometimes think the AI gets a peek at the pRNG when they try bullsh*t like that.

710 AD (6)
Neapolis makes 25 spt, so 2-turn Pikes. Will need them to match with Pioneers when filling the Iro North.

Bum-rush Atzcapo..., win with Elite Jumbo, retreat with Vet Jumbo, win with Vet Jumbo and city is razed. 1 Slave. Kill Aztec HA on our Iron Mountain.

Move into position to attack St. Regis.

IT - Now I'm sure someone came floating by.

720 AD (7)
Start with the Main Event. Assault on St. Regis. Elite Jumbo wins, Elite Jumbo wins, and the city is burnt to the ground. We capture 1 slave. I'm not really optimistic about capturing any of these Iro cities, they are all size 1. Oh well, we can build settlers too, and open space may spur other civs to land free labor in our backyard. 

IT - Bunch of Iro units come from South. Nothing really threatening, but may postpone a city assault.

730 AD (8)
We get Angkor Wat. Roma starts on 1-turn Jumbos.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_Wat.JPG

Antium goes to a Hardy Pioneer, I expect to burn another Iro city soon.

Kill an Iro Pike and a Jumbo, net 1 slave.

IT - Nothin' much

740 AD (9)
Getting some folks started on Infra. We are beginning to accumulate Jumbos. Move into a position to threaten two different Iro cities next turn. Can only burn 1, though, max.

Kill about 5 units without loss.

IT - We meet the Sioux. They have settled N of us on our coast. Of course, the Barb Horses run away from the Sioux settlement and go looking for our workers. We learn Architecture, Matchlock, Gunpowder, Navigation.

750 AD (10)
Shangri La is completed by someone who isn't us.

Kill a bunch of Aztecs and a Barb, promotion but no leaders.

Whack 2 Spears and a Horse Archer, raze Chondote.

We can almost buy the WM from the Sioux, but we'd need to throw in gpt. They have Horses, Iron, and Saltpeter. No Elephants or Camels. :rolleyes:

We could buy their TM via our WM + 100 gold. I don't do it, nor do I declare War. We can discuss whether this is worth buying.

There is a Jumbo with moves left, should have 2 full moves. Next player can decide where to send it. Also active is a Hardy Settler. I doubt we're going to get the chance to capture any Iro cities so we need to fill in the spaces.

Education could pop any tech now, but we've had a nice run. Another leader would be swell, I probably had over 20 Elite victories with only 1 leader to show for it. Hopefully we'll at least get 1 unit out of the Training Camp before it expires. :blush:

Note Sal has only 1 defender. It is reachable by 3-move units, so we could have a sweaty IT.

Getting the Territory map does help us determine if they are on the same continent, so whether we have to worry about large numbers of units (and which direction) all at once.

I would say it is worth doing the deal.

More pictures:

The Iro N:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_IroN.JPG

That Ghost Dancer can't attack anything next turn because of all that desert. I saw him run out of Oka last turn, so detoured a couple of Jumbos over to the city. He can't attack us, and hopefully that was a freshly-produced unit so the Iro can't whip Oka and we can capture it.

Yes, I killed the last defender of the rubbled city with a Scut. :lol: It was Elite, and the defender was a Horse Archer. Once we whack Akwesasne the North is clear and the Jumbos can re-join the Scut army. The Army spent my entire round parked in Grand River, so I suspect Greebley can do something more useful with it on his turns.

Our Core:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_Core.JPG

Note how fully improved our lands are. We should be able to get the replacements for the Iro cities stood up rather quickly. The guy in the Blue circle should probably be covered. I think the stack N of him is our of range for any of the Aztec units. That Iro Ghost Dancer will probably run in and stand on a Mountain to be killed. Again, he can't attack anything.

There is no point in trading units with the AI. On my round we killed more than 30 and lost 5. And 3 of those losses were fairly weak by the pRNG. (On the flipside, we didn't lose any units attacking cities this round.) The Aztec Knight circled could be attacked by one of our Jumbos, but the winning Jumbo would have to be covered as the tile S of the Knight is a Flood Plain. Got caught by that one in an earlier round.

The White dots are tiles in our cultural borders that none of our cities can work. I kind of like where Oka is, so the open Yellow circle would be a nice city to add, as it can poach some tiles from Coastal Ravenna.

I attacked north because those cities never had access to Iron, so could only have been guarded by Spears. Our Artillery hasn't moved this turn either, but it will be needed to go back into the Iro core (South).

Objectives:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_Objective2.JPG
We need more lux, so two on our border with the Iro are circled. I think a city on the Blue dot would be swell, as we could also keep the two Iro cities around it. The Spices are uglier, because those are also a food bonus.

The Iro went Fundy during my set. I think that means no WW, slow workers, a 50% rate cap, and whipping 'til the Cows come home. Let's try not to capture and abandon any Iro cities. The Aztecs perked up on my turns as they have somehow obtained Horses and Iron. Still not a real threat, but keeping it interesting. The Inca must be 1/2 the world away as I saw no further signs of them, and the Sioux came by boat.

Remember to Declare War on the Sioux. I don't have a strong opinion about buying the Sioux TM before declaring.

We don't have a pressing need to hook up the Saltpeter. Next thing we can use it on is Cannons (Metallurgy). ToW obsoletes the Training Camp, but would allow Mameluks. Potentially a 7/4/4 Army.

Would still be nice to nab the Iro Horses and start to wheel around the coast. Our front lines haven't gotten any longer with the N. Iro campaign, so every city from here on out should keep that true. The Iro still have some production, so we should try to keep multiple defenders in each front line city. Metallurgy is coming soon, and that obsoletes our City Walls.

Greebley should have plenty of units to play with. We have about 5-6 turns of GA remaining, and it would be nice to get a building or two in every city of our core.

Great turns as always. I got to learn to not have sucky turns every once in a while.
I believe that coffee is a food bonus, and gives 1 or 2 food. I would actually move the blue dot one southeast "off the hill'. It seems stupid to build off a hill but I think the extra workable terrain and the fact the iro are gassed means it should be safe.
We get a free shrine "culture expansion" with every city and should plan builds accordingly.
It looks like this team is resiliant and complementary enough to each others styles to overcome many obstacles. I am really impressed and learning a lot.

I believe that coffee is a food bonus, and gives 1 or 2 food. I would actually move the blue dot one southeast "off the hill'.

Depends on what else is down there. We don't know how far the terrain extends SE, and whether we'll be able to capture or we'll be facing Autorazes. Either spot works with the cities we can see. The Iro are semi-gassed. They seem to come up with a couple of units every turn, so we have to be careful about planting cities that are in their range. The city SW of Sal might also have Coffee. Hard to tell with a river mouth and a mine over it.

It looks like this team is resiliant and complementary enough to each others styles to overcome many obstacles. I am really impressed and learning a lot.
Heh, we've inadvertently got the proper order-of-play. If you and Greebley went back-to-back, we'd really get spread out. Alternating with players who are comfortable with "consolidation" turns tends to make for a steadier ride.

I got it BTW. Play tomorrow.

I believe that coffee is a food bonus, and gives 1 or 2 food.
Coffee is a luxury.

Actually it is both. I never was doubting it's luxury status.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/coffee.jpg
They make hills much more worthwhile. In Bed03 we used Tenochtitlan to become a monster production city by using 3 coffee hills and mountains and putting an FP analog there.
@T_McC, I can either spread our troops out, or do a slow concentrated builder turnset. I as of yet have not been able to mix the two.
Your ability to handle regouping and "Playing close to the chest" means that you are ideal for the Anarchy turns. It might be fortutious that you kept and keep get anarchy in AW.

Couple of notes:

GA ends in 770 AD. Before or after? Who knows.

Once we capture the Iro Horses we won't be able to build Jumbos. We'll be building Cavaliers (6.2.2, +1 HP), which would make a nice Army. I would be reluctant to upgrade the Jumbos we already have, as I don't think there are any more units that will generate slaves.

Walls expire with Metallurgy, which is 1 tech away. Metallurgy also gives us a reason to connect our Saltpeter: Cannons (Bombard 18, ROF 3). A pricey upgrade (even with Sun Tzu's), but a stack of 4 should red-line all the defenders of any remaining Iro city. And having 1-2 in each of our front-line Western cities basically makes us immune to Infantry units. Or any unit that has to stop adjacent to the city before attacking (having Jungle/Forest/Desert on our border is a good thing). So the stack of Ballistae in the East could be broken up and parts sent West, we don't have to build too many more by hand.

Once the GL expires, full-speed to Absolutism? Doesn't expire any of our Wonders and removes the rate cap. Also reduces Corruption, but should lead to bump in unit support. Worth it for the gov't-specific GW (Estates General: Colossus effect, +1 content in each city. Worth pre-building for in Roma if we can). Gives vet Spies as well, for whatever good that does.

I envision us building a "line in the sand" in the West, playing defense vs. the Sioux and Incas while clearing out the Iro and Aztecs. Then our East can provide pop and economy while our core builds military and economy. I would very much like to get another city or two NW of Pisae. That can be a terrific city (maybe Palace-worthy?) if we can get it off the front lines and away from the Barbs.

Once we get Map Making we can build the IP. Where do we want it? Of the cities we've founded, Ravenna is possible, but Grand River would be a monster with the IP. Only arguments against Grand River are it's possible flipping, and it probably forces us into building our SP 1st ring to our FP. Not sure what Grand River will look like with a Courthouse, maybe we don't need a Palace there.

I agree with your thoughts here T_McC.
I would rush full speed for Humanism after the Great Library expires, having a prebuild ready for the Encyclopedia. That way I can forsee us never really doing our own research again.
I concur that we want absolute Monarchy as it rids us for the most part of our evil rate cap.
I like Bombards. Note to all, that bombards have defense and cannot be captured anymore. The Defense value is pretty craptastic but at least it is there. I like keeping Jumbos around until Machine guns show up as the roading and the slaving is really cool. I know that they can chop forest, but can jumbo's clear jungle with High Explosive? I have never had them around long enough to find out.
I like to rush the IP with a MGL, and I concur that Grand River is a great place to build it. Flips should be pretty nonexistant in about 20 turns as our culture growth vs the Iro and the Aztecs starts to take off. I vote for sneaking in a production booster every now and again in our core. I like to have 1 city building a production booster at all times.
I am not sure if the palace's here generate a 2nd core, But I think they do not. I almost always put a palace in the IP city anyway.

as I don't think there are any more units that will generate slaves.

Horse Archers will be avaialble until Dragoons. Not the strongest attacker, but useful; especially for zone defence against intruding fast-movers.

Palaces reduce distance corruption, but not rank. With counselors, courthouses, district courts, local courts, and prisons available, as well as being so close to Salamanca, I do not forsee Grand River needing a palace. IP works well there, as I usually place IP where it will allow the most mountains to be worked.

In non-emergencies, I will alternate unit and production booster builds in cities until all boosters are built.

The palaces also increase the effective OCN. This can really help marginal cities.

Good point, LK. Would be good to get the Summer Palace built with some haste, just might be better to place it in a city like Pisae to reduce overall distance corruption. The fun thing about RandR is that there are measures to be taken to manage corruption, unlike unmodded, where some cities are just lost causes.

I lost my initial notes, so these will be inexact. (computer locked up).

Early: Declared war on sioux. Traded for Territory map. Started building up units in our North and West cities. There is a decent chance we share the land mass with the Sioux.

Mid: Captured Allegheny (horses). GLib gets us Edu and Physics and expires.

820 AD: Meet America. They are Primitive. I trade them some old techs for World map and 3 gold. Declare war.
Looking at the map there is a good chance the Polynesians and Tibetans are not on our Continent. The rest all are.

IBT: Lots of troops incoming from the West. Looks like Incans and Sioux will get here at the same time. I have been building up troops there, but unsure if we have enough.

830 AD: Kill Several Mounted warriors. Unfortunately, it is impossible to avoid some losses.

840 AD: Things are not looking good.

IBT: Hisapolis is hit by many Mounted warriors. We kill about 5-7 of them, but they kill our defenders, War Camel, and an 2 Elephant.

850 AD: I need to abandon Hisapolis. It has no defenders left and none can make it there. The war elephants cannot handle all the troops in our lands.

Notes:
We are being battered on all sides. Even the Iroquois have been mounting an attack on us in the last 2-3 turns. As I mentioned earlier, I was pretty sure something would show up in the West. This was more than I was expecting though. Both Civs showing up within a turn of each other was not good at all. If we can hold off the initial rush, we may be ok, though it has already cost us.

The other thing that makes it difficult is we are being attacked by speed 3 units. I guess the slower ones will be the second and third wave.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_AD850.JPG

Umm Dang. Hope we can dig out of this one. I think you are right, if we survive this wave we should be ok. Good work with this Greebley

Noticed that we're researching Theory of Warfare. Paradoxically, we may want to hold off on building the pricey Cuirassers just yet, although they'll kick in the long run. Cavs do just as well when fighting units in our own territory, and even the 4-1-3 fundie unit can be a good chaser. With our terrrain, pikes can also be a good investment against 4 power attackers. The extra hp and def bombard of muskets should be a research priority, even though they are still only 4 def.

I don't envy the situation you found yourself in Greebley, but as long as we can retain the Roma/Salamanca axis, I think we're still good. Good damage control. :thumbsup:

Am I up? i'll wait to hear from our fearless leader first.

We've got only one cuirassar so far. An attack 6 really is needed to get the mounted warriors - The attack 4 units take too much damage or die vs their 3 defense - especially on a hill.

Otherwise, I agree. Halbadiers we need. Feel free to balance between the two as you feel you need to.

Well, we can give Zavior 24 hrs to respond, but we haven't seen much of him lately. Otherwise Bezhukov is up, with Romeo to follow.

Looks a bit ugly, but I agree that this is the one wave the western civs can throw at us. They too are at the doorstep of the 120-shield units, so I don't think we'll see a lot of those at a time. Hopefully the Sioux have already had their GA, with all the wonders they've built or an earlier war.

Once we can seal our east and knock it down to one front, we'll be the biggest civ in the game (current + Iro + Aztec). And I doubt we can lose from that position, since the human is much better at city management than the AI. So this seems like the critical period of the game.

Would probably be worth delaying research on ToW to let the Cav in Roma complete. I don't think we can toss all the research we've performed to this point on the tech, but a delay of 2-3 turns might be useful. After that I do think we should build some Horse Archers or Inquisitors (or whatever that thing is). Our future research is a little tricky, as we're in no position right now to swallow an Anarchy.

The Inca shouldn't be able to build any new Intis, unless we lucked out and they don't have Saltpeter. You certainly can't say we've gotten off easy with the opposing UU's. We got the two worst early-AA opponents as neighbors, and the most useful MDI variant, and the MW is a rather nice unit. Meanwhile, Legions pretty much suck when none of your early game opponents has to build offensive infantry units. :lol:

I agree that the UU we are facing are really brutal. More than anything we would like to play defense vs the horse archers and mounted warriors. I would not expose any of our offensive units unless we are assured of complete victory.
I would consider whipping some pikes to help. I really think Bez's style of buttoning up warfare will be really useful here.
Without looking at the save, I cannot offer real useful info at this point. I think that we should play very conservatively here for the next 10-20. Same advice if Zav playes.

Guess I'm up then. Once more into the breach, dear friends!

Actually Bez, that is the wrong game. That would be appropriate for Bez1. Here something like Vini, Vidi, Vici is in order.

Maybe for your set, Romeo, mine was the retreat of the Light Brigade. :lol: However, there'll be no more retreating from here on out - I suspect. :hammer:

Pre-flight: 3 Inca HA’s at the gates of Roma, yikes – a little bad RNG and we are toasty! Et tu, Kamehameha? Wow, Iro ripped Polynesia a new one, I see. Cumae starves to get Pike in one (no need to build halbardiers, same defense for pike and cheaper. Cavas still available after Theory of Warfare, so no need to delay. Antium starves for a cav.

Why did we research Metallurgy again?

IBT: Inca HA fight barb horses instead of attacking Pisae. They do move onto iron square, however. 3 Sioux MW sit next to Roma, as do 3 Inca HA.

860BC: Battle for Roma, vet Cava redlines taking out Sioux MW. Vet Cava from Antium takes out MW, promotes. Vet ER takes out last MW. 4 ER’s take out Iro fast units threatening Grand River, but they are now exposed – lets hope Iros are gassed for a turn here. Brundisium founded on east coast. Pike in Virconium takes out Inca HA on the attack. Lutetia abandoned, as it is indefensible. Pike takes out HA on flat – go pikes on the offense, baby! If this RNG keeps up, we might just survive.

IBT: Exposed ER wins on hill vs. attacking iro HA, exposed ER on mountain loses, exposed pike on flat wins, promotes, then dies to inti, promoting him.

870BC: Oka is abandoned, as it is indefensible from the two Inca HA’s behind our lines. Elite Cava (5/7) takes out vet HA sitting on our gems. Pioneer making a run for the salt in south. Virconium is indefensible (three pikes, 6 fast units in range, including 4 Cavas), abandon it and fall back to preserve pikes and slaves hiding there. Elite ER takes out vet HA near Pisae – and… we have a leader! An army is formed in Roma. Sure would like to wait for Cuirs, but don’t have the time – Cava army coming up.

IBT: Ouch – Inca HA’s use roads near abandoned Oka to catch stack of fleeing slaves. We have an ER on the scene to deal with him, however. Inti attacks Ravenna, but is turned back at the gates!

880BC: Elite ER redlines, but takes out HA that stole our slaves. Vet Cava redlines, but takes out HA on flat – 6 attack vs 1 defense should be easier than that. Vet HA takes out vet Inca Cava near Pompeii, also redlining. Elite ER (7/8) takes out vet HA near Roma. Elite Cava (4/7) takes out HA north of Roma – our back lines are clear! Two vet HA’s take out a Sioux MW and an Iro HA near salt, they are exposed, but I don’t think any enemy units are in range.

IBT: Yikes. Lots of Inca units at the gates of Pompeii, including a Cuir.

890BC: Treb hits vet Cava, army takes a shot at dangerously low health, and promotes! Discover that pioneer can’t settle on desert salt tile. Doh! :crazyeye: Send over the slaves to connect. Elite ER takes out vet Cava near Pompeii, and also promotes.

IBT: Vet Cuir redlines, but wins against our vet pike at Pompeii, stack of 5 HA move on to mountain, elite Sioux HA takes out our elite scut fortified on mountain near Neapolis – whatever!

900BC: Elite ER’s kill two Iro ER’s approaching our holdings east. Block road to prevent counter. Treb hits vet Sioux MW in mountains south of Neapolis, Elite ER takes him out. Ballistas ping Aztec Knight near Cumae, Elite ER kills him. Vet Cava kills Inca HA on mountain by Pompeii, Elite ER (7/8) kills another, Army (5/12) kills another – the army’s zone of control had weakened many in the stack. Vet HA from Antium runs all the way over a kills another, promoting (those two hp are huge for HA’s). Vet HA (3/4) kills redlined Cuir. Elite ER comes down from Pisae to take the last – invasion repulsed with no losses! I’m now exhausted and will turn over the game.

I’ve been developing our frontier like normal, as they wouldn’t contribute much in the way of units anyway without production boostage, and our main cities have contributed enough to put up a fight. No important cities taken, and no pillaging suffered. We should be able to muster an Iro offensive relatively soon. Scut army is in Niagara for flexibility - can take him either direction. HA’s have been golden for homeland defense, but Cuirs are better for conquest.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2-900AD.JPG

Don't worry - Cumae just changed to clock to get to a better shield number (I think he was on 28). He made useful units before this. Antium needs MM to get pike next turn. Forest chop is to feed Cumae better - Antium now has mounatins to get shields from. Ravenna's bazaar is for happiness - he can be a good long term commerce city - lacks shields for efficient unit production.

Sounds good Bez. I like inheriting the warwind. Zav can claim it though, as I have ~36 hours before I can play, and I think he was skipped somewhere in there.

Zav's last message was that he had comp troubles. I suspect he will check in when he is back up and running. Don't delay the game just for him.

I know how you like to war Romeo, and you will have your chance in this game, but right now I think I got things fairly stabilized and we're falling behind in tech/cash capacity - we have some nicely tricked out cities missing basic (and cheap) infra, so if you could sneak some of these builds in instead of going full out units, it would be much appreciated.

I will see what I can do. I will check infra, but I will check the war status as well. Fortunately for you I get builder turns in LK94 before this to help my builder status.

80% of your builds in the core will still be military, I'm just saying - sneak in a library here and there. I'd like Ravenna to build all commerce/sci, if possible. If Sal and Pisae can get some production boosters up, they will also make nice unit producers. Roma is building Cavas as he grows (he can make 40spt while growing at a good clip) - once he's up to size, should be able to make Cuirs in decent time. Once Iro lands are ours, Rome could use some infra love too, I suspect.

IHT: Swap to some production boosters.
IBT: Kill ER with pike in IRo land. Pike on iron mountain kills templar, MW, cavalier and promotes. Whew.
Turn 1: Moving and healing
IBT: Kill a arquebusier, an iro Horse archer. Lose a pike fortified on a mountaint to an elite heavy horse.
Turn 2: Kill an American warrior, a pair of inca horse archers, a sioux Heavy horse and an iro pike. HOrse archers are decent at cleaning out the crap that infests our lands. 2 promotions to elite, the rest were elite wins.
IBT: Lose a pike to an Iro phant.
Turn 3: Kill 2 iro phants get 2 slaves. Kill 2 mounted warriors, 1 slave, 1 promotion. Kill an American archer, and an american warrior settler pair. Kill Sioux spear and knight and raze Pawnee. Setting up some offense. Almost all core cities are on production boosters.
IBT: Sioux kill a pike and ER pair.
Turn 4: Kill 2 mounted warriors, lose a horse archer to a 3rd. Kill an iro phant and an american sword. Lotsa slaves, no MGL's.
IBT: Lose a pike. We get massive uprising notice.
Turn 5: Kill a pike and spear and raze gandestagion. Both the Inca and the Sioux are republics. Must fix that. Build Syaracuse, kill Sioux pike.
IBT: Lose a slave.
Turn 6: The Sioux are coming in hard. Kill a MW and a cuirasser, moving some defense around. Build Ceaseraugusta. Kill 3 iro phants and a spear. Starting up an anti Aztec offensive in a few turns here.
IBT; Lose a phant to an iro horse archer.
Turn 7: Lose full hitpoint elite ER to a MW stack. I also lose 2 HA's to that evil stack. ARGH. Lose an elite HA to another MW stack. I hate MW!! Use army to kill MW and cavalier, kill iro elephant.
IBT: Lose our only cannon to a MW. Forgot the whole move 3 thing.
Turn 8: Kill a few things, still no MGL.
IBT: Speak of the devil. MW attacks pike, promotes him to elite. Aztecs attack pike, pops MGL. Saving him for cuirasser army. Lose pike to INca Cuiraser.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/zav2-21.jpg
Turn 9: Enough infra already. Need units. Rome gets 2 turn cuirs. All core towns built at least 1 production enhancer in my set. Kill a spear at Tlatco, otherwise a healing and moving turn.
IBT: More bad news, the Inca show up again. Lose an elite * ER and a pike, kill a cuir.
Turn 10: Kill lots of Iro and Sioux stuff, retreat from the INca up north. As the Rng needs equilibrium, we get a new elite * phant. Army in Rome. The wounded pike on the hill killed a HA that threatened too many cities, so I sacrafice the pike to the incoming cuirasers.
I really want to play the next five and finish bez's set, but I will post here. I wouldn't want T_McC to miss his anarchy turns now would I? Inca went into anarchy and emerged a Federal republic? We got to kill their units ASAP. We probably need to spam out pikes and cuirassers for the next 10-15 turns, then revolt. I let our forces get a little thin with the infra, but we are really cranking stuff out now.
I lost the pic for the first MGL.
This turnset was frustrating for a couple of reasons. For starters, the AI was actually intelligent, and kept strecthing the front in multiple directions. The second frustrating thing was the infra that I felt we needed. 5 core cities knocked 1 or 2 turns of cuir or pike builds. This was huge and the payoff is near immeadiate, so I built them. I do not think we will lose any cities ever again, we just will not have much offense for ~20 turns. Once we have some move 3 real HP offense and get our other 2 armies filled, we should be able to start the steamroller.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/zav2-31.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Zav2_AD1000.SAV

OK, I have to post sooner if I want to get thoughts in before people play ... :lol:

(a) I'm not up, Greebley is. Although I think we've swapped at least 2 of the last 3 rounds, and he last saw this game 15 turns ago. So if he wants to make the swap permanent, that would be fine with me.

(b) Not having looked at the save yet, but ... We're not going into Anarchy anytime soon. Abs Monarchy isn't that big a boost from Monarchy that we can risk 8 turns with no fresh troops to form the new government. We probably need 10-15 turns of troop building before we pull the trigger.

(c) Bez will get his 5 turns back next round, so no one needs to play 5 extra this round.

(d) Do we want to build the Encyclopedie? If we build it, this game is over. Cash rush gov't + No need to research = Avalanche. But ... we either have to revolt before we get Humanism (troops?) or we have to wait until the build finishes before revolting. The nice touch here is that the only place we could try to build the Encyclopedie is Roma, and if we get beaten to it, we can revolt and swap the build to the Estates General (or whatever that is). I think we do want to try to build it, and we want to start building now (if troop levels allow it).

(e) Is the last MGL unused, or is already an empty army? If we have 3 offensive Armies, I think it is time for Hiawatha to say good night. Leave the Cuirassier army in the core with artillery support (best chance to get 3-4 kills/turn), and send the other two East for a pure Cavalry campaign. Depending on troop levels (ours and theirs) the next MGL can be used for the International Port. No way we're doing 1000 shields by hand.

(f) Agree we need to put the Inca and Sioux back into Anarchy. A couple of burnt cities each should do the trick.

Good thoughts T_McC. I already concur on the 10-15 turns of troops.
I think that the Encyclopedia would be a game breaker for us as well. Roma cannot build it. We need the 2 turn cuirs from the capitol, especially with the Inca coming in again. Antium or Sal could easily prebuild for the Encyclopedia, and neither one was integral to the war effort in my turns.
I was building a lot of halbardiers as the turns were the same for pikes as halbards and the extra attack points and the cheaper upgrades to more useful units. I probably attacked with pikes/halbarads 4-6 times.
I am not sure if we can build the IP, but I instantly thought army with both MGL's. The IP in grand river would be good. I had ~40 elite victories, and most of our offensive troops are elite, so we should get many more cracks at MGL's.
The good news is that we know where the Tibetans are, (North of Ravenaa, they appear to have a continent) as I saw borders but no contact. We are also leading the cpt race, as our cpt is matching or beating everyone else's. I am really liking our chances now.

Um, why are we fighting with pikes - and losing lots of them, when we can build muskets??? :confused: The extra hp and def bombard are huge! (he wins a lot of battles where he redlines, and then promotes to elite, getting two MORE hp).

I'm sorry, Romeo, but our loss rate was too high to maintain on your turns. I know you got some difficult RNG (although attacking MW's (2 def) with vet HA's and their low hp instead of elite HA's/ER's or vet Cava's is tactically suboptimal). Vet HA's are for attacking ER's or HA's, and especially for lending a def bombard to a pike (hopefully soon to be musket) that is likely to be attacked.

If we can get antium working all his mountains, he can try for the Pedia (check F7 though, if Inca is Fed Repub, it may be too late to build it). Might need to do a worker join to get him tricked out.

Lets make the switch Permanant. I am up in more games than I can easily play so I wouldn't get to it for a while.

So go ahead and take the game, TMcC. I vote for going for the encylopie and the win.

Initial thoughts from looking at the save:

We cannot build Muskets, we don't have the tech. We can, however, build Arquebusiers, which are useless.

Too late to start the Encyclopedie? According to F7, no Wonders are currently in production. :eek: It's ours if we want it, no way the AI can get a city pulling 60 spt. Roma can do 75 spt at size 11 and break-even food. (16 turns to complete the Encyclopedie) Salamanca is a good 2nd choice, but it's not really off the front lines yet. And starting the Wonder there requires it to be left in peace for 25 turns.

Actually, how do we feel about 1-turn Mameluks from Roma? Are two 5-HP, 5 attack units worth more than one 6-HP, attack 6 unit? I think it's worth a couple (maybe even a Mameluk Army!?!) with all of that Desert to our East. Pull a nasty little surprise on the AI cities surrounded by Desert.

More later ...

I will explain my HA struggles. I was attacking with a 4 hp HA vs a MW with 5 hps. We were on flat ground, not desert and not across a river. HA's were all I had at the location, as I had already used up any ER's already. (BTW ER's are amazing MW killers and how I killed most of them.) The defensive bombards were almost all gone, or were all gone, when I attacked. I just got bad RnG. I used strategy on what attacked first, and used bombard everywhere I could.
I actually gained units on my set, but it doesn't seem like it as I was moving ER's and HA's out of garrisons and putting pikes in.
I honestly never thought of muskets, my mistake. I just kept building pikes and halbarads. BTW muskets maybe too rich for our blood shield wise. Something we could do is make 1 of the armies a pike/halbarad army and let the Inca suicide against it.
Most of my pike losses were when the odds favored us defending where we were, but the RNG didn't. Almost all battles where the AI redlined, he retreated. I cannot reiterate how annoying the stupid MW's were in the first part of my turnset. The good news is with the Inca in federal republic, the Sioux should soon join them, as they are currently in regular republic. double anarchy whammy would be good. The good news is that the sioux are now sending cuirs, which at 120 shields for 1 more attack, 1 more hp and no defensive bombard is much better for us then the dang 60 shield MW's.
I felt that I played the turns as best I could with jamming in as much infra as I could. We needed the infra as Roma is pretty pimped out right now, and 2 turn cuirs will really rock.
The AI will attack pikes on fortified on mountains with defensive bombard support, which I had never seen before. They will also attack pikes fortified in cities on hills behind walls with bombard.
Like I said, I saw the AI use moves I didn't think it was capable of. I had never seen a move and lightly probe attack style before and that was really a challenge to deal with on my turns.
As for knocking the Sioux around a little more, Cheyenne is right up by Ravena. When 1 of the cuir armies gets a chance it might be a good idea to capture it as I am sure we could use another city, and they could use the WW.
Humanism is an optional tech, and no encyclopedia builds had been started during my turnset.

I like Mamelukes, especially if we can get them in 1-turn. The 1 hp deduction kind of deterred me initially, but I like the ideal of a mameluk army.
Thanks for the info T_McC. I am glad I didn't make a mistake of not building our best defensive unit. I would get 1 cuir and 2 mamelukes out of Rome, then build the encyclopedia, and swap all other builds to units after their current infra finishes.