SGOTM7 - Team Obormot

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http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/SGOTM7-Start.jpg

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Ottomans
World size - 80 wide by 80 high. (Small)
Difficulty - Deity
Landform - Archepelago
Barbarians - Roaming

The map is handbuilt, and therefore may not have a standard configuration.

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game. The SGOTM Reference thread contains all the files and links you need to install the small mod for PTW/C3C and rather larger mod for vanilla. There are test saves too so you can check your installation.

The GOTM Reference Thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=71788)
SGOTM Reference Thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=112722)
Upload Save to Server (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm.php)
Download Save from Server (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm_submission_list.php)


This Months' sponsored variant is Always War Deity (AWD) the rules for which are as follows.

1. You must declare war on each Civilisation by the end of the turn you make that contact.
2. You must remain at war with each Civilisation until the end of the game, or until that Civilisation is destroyed.
3. You may trade with a Civilisation on the turn you make contact and before declaring war, but you may not establish any embassies.
4. No turn based (gpt) deals are permitted.
5. You must win by Domination.

Note: PTW and Vanilla players are not permitted to leader rush Great Wonders Before the year 1000BC for this game.

Hi mates,

Reporting in. I am ready to go. Looking forward to play my first SGOTM with this team.

Hi everybody

Now it's time to discuss the strategy and some technical issues.

As i see it, the strategy depends drasticaly on whether we are alone on our island or not. If we are alone then we have time until other civs discover Map Making during which we can expand peacefully and just fill our island with cities. If there are AI civs on our island then we have to build only a few cities (3-5) and start building archers straight away. As the map is hand-made, i expect that we're alone, cause this case is definitely easier and i just don't think that they chose to make the more difficult map for a deity game. But i don't think that we can base our strategy on that anyway. If it was a normal game, i would suggest fast exploration to find this out, but in AW game we'll have to declare war on any civ we find, and if we find someone on our island without enough military units we'll be eliminated by the AI starting units. I don't know what we have to do here, maybe markh knows, cause he sais, that he is used to playing AWE.

In any case we'll have to build a few cities, so we can discuss the starting location. It seems to be pretty good, those strange animals seem to be equavilent to cows and that big seashell is useless on despotism and without a harbour, if i understood the thread about GOTM resources correctly. Since they are on plains, they'll give +1 food when irrigated. This means that we can construct a settler/worker factories with 4-3-3 growth cycle. Unfortunately the sheep is located in such a way that we can share only one of the two tiles. (But again, if we're not alone we better squeeze 2 settlers ASAP and start building barracks and archers.) Unless there are foggazers in our team, that see something extraordinary, i suggest settling in place and building second city 2SE so that we can share the sheep. If no other food resources around it'll have 3-3-2-2 growth cycle.

Another problem is that research will be very difficult, because we can only trade with each AI civ once. So it seems that the only way for us to get techs is to have the GL. We have to decide if we're gonna build it or capture it. I think building it is safer and we shoul do it. It is deity, so we have to start a prebuild ASAP. We know Masonry, so we can use a palace prebuild, but it costs only 100 shields at the beginning. (Anyone knows what does the palace cost depend on?)
Anyway we can start building Piramids and when AI builds it (surely before we discover Literature) switch to Palace that would hopefully cost more at that time, and switch to GL, when we discover Literature. We'll have to discover writing and literature for ourselves, cause if the ai knows literature before we build the GL our chances for finishing it first go down, and beside that we propably won't be able to trade for it. And since we cannot build curraghs when we don't know alphabet, i am afraid, that we'll have to discover alphabet for ourselves too.
So what tech should we research first? I think we should go for Alphabet, so that we can build curraghs ASAP and trade for Pottery and Warrior code with civs on other islands before declaring war on them (but we should check F10 first, of course).

Build sequence that i suggest: 2 warriors to explore (Not looking for other civs, but for good city locations. No MP, use the luxury slider!), settler (should be finished one turn after city growth to size 3 if the worker starts irrigating sheep without building roads), then curragh.

So here is a list of questions, please write what you think about it.

1. Can we assume that we're alone on an island?
2. Where should we settle and build second city?
3. Should we build the GL?
4. What tech should we research?
5. Build sequence.

Now about the technical part.

Following mad-bax's advice i'll now PM all team members (except markh, as he already checked in) so that they check in.

We'll have to decide how many turns should each player make and make up some roster. Does anyone want to play first? I suggest that we'll play for 20 turns at the beginning and change this number later. And if the player encounters some unexpected situation, he has to stop playing (even if he just made one turn), and post here what happened, so that we can discuss it.

Can anyone think of a name for our team? I don't like the idea of my nick being put on the list (propably somewhere at the bottom) as a team name. By the way, if anyone ants to be the team captain, i'll gladly give my place to someone else.

Post any suggestions.

Recently there was an interesting conversation in the maintenance thread. Markh asked if the AW rules mean that we have to declare war as soon as we see someone in F4 screen, or that we can wait untill that civ contacts us.

Here is the answer:

Yes it is different. In SGOTM3 I tried to relax the rules a little because the map was so tough. This got me into hot water.

This game plays by the standard AW rules.


I haven't played SGOTM3, but it seems that there he had to relax the rules, because there were AI civs nearby, and he had to give players time in such a way. But in SGOTM7 the rules are standard AW, which means that we have to declare war on AI civs as soon as we see them in F4 screen.
I think that this means that we are indeed alone on our island.

I expect one enemy civ on our island at max. I made some test runs with the settings of this game and it was impossible to handle two civs at AW on this level in the beginning. With a good starting location I could handle one enemy quite well, but if a second followed early I never had a chance. The tech race will be quite fast if the AI civs get to know each other quickly. I would also suggest to try to build the GL. As we are not allowed to trade after the first contact this will be the only way to keep up. Alphabet seems to be the tech to research first for curraghs. If we encounter another civ on our island then we should consider to switch to Warrior Code.
The starting position looks good, so settling in place will be ok in my opinion. For city spacing I would do CxxC, so we can shift troops from town to town in one turn. Where to put the second city we should discuss after settling as then we get to know the surroundings better. Two Warriors first would be my choice, too.
10 or 20 turns ? Both would be ok for me.

Hello, everybody.

1. Can we assume that we're alone on an island?
2. Where should we settle and build second city?
3. Should we build the GL?
4. What tech should we research?
5. Build sequence.

1. I'd say it depends on the size of our island. If it's rather large, I can see one AI being manageable if they're far away from us. This is only a small map, though, so I doubt our island is very big. I think it's safe to assume we're alone.

2. Probably on that river, but I'll wait till we've explored some.

3. I think it will be crucial in this game. If we didn't get it, we'd have to self-research in a war-time economy. That wouldn't be good.

4. I would say head straight for Literature. Unless, like markh said, we are not alone on our island, then switch to Warrior Code. But who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and get a tech from a goody hut. :)

5. 1 warrior first, then if it looks like it's a large island, build another for exploring. If it's a small island, either build another warrior for MP or something else.

EDIT: Forgot about the turns. Usually in SGs, it goes 20 turns for the first person, then 10 after, until IA, where it's 5. However, if someone feels like playing more or less, that's fine too.

We can decide on turn order when everyone gets here. I'd prefer not to go first, but I will if no one else wants to.

For city spacing I would do CxxC, so we can shift troops from town to town in one turn.

I never used this idea before, cause i usually don't keep any garrisons - all my units fight somewhere, but this game can be an exception, cause we're gonna be at war with everybody and they can unload units at any part of our island. (There is a trick here, but it doesn't always work: if you keep no garrison at one coastal city, the AI will send galleys to it, after that you pull some units into that city and pull some units out of another coastal city on the other side of the island and the AI will turn there, and so on). I don't think we should build any defensive units (i never do it),
*edit: we should build some to invade other islands if we don't get any MGL's* so if we're gonna fight with horses city spacing does not affect our ability to defend, and if we're gonna fight with slow units, then we'll consider this when choosing place for new cities.


1 warrior first, then if it looks like it's a large island, build another for exploring. If it's a small island, either build another warrior for MP or something else.

If we buld something big after the first warrior, we'll have to delay settler production, which is not good. If we pop Alphabet from a GH, we can build a curragh though.

Hopefully we have some horses around the corner and our Island is not too small. Thought of this spacing as we are in a small world and if we are on Island alone we will not have too much space. We will definitely need a lot of production, so we have to have many cities, but I think we can take this up as we explored some more.
We could build barracks after the first warrior as we start with the respective tech and if we are not alone and the neighbour is near we will be in trouble anyway. In that case a second warrior will not help that much I guess. Obormot you play deity what are the starting units for the AI at this level ? Is it possible to get techs at deity from a goody hut ?

Reporting in. Nothing much to suggest except that on higher levels, it is almost always better to settle in place than look for a better site. On lower levels one can afford to look, but there's no time here.

I haven't played with the modded resources before, so I'll have to take a look at them before I can comment.

Hopefully we have some horses around the corner and our Island is not too small. Thought of this spacing as we are in a small world and if we are on Island alone we will not have too much space. We will definitely need a lot of production, so we have to have many cities, but I think we can take this up as we explored some more.

I don't like too tight spacing. OCN at high levels is decreased, so if we build many cities we'll get very high rank corruption. Usually i space cities so that there are about 12 tiles per city.

We could build barracks after the first warrior as we start with the respective tech and if we are not alone and the neighbour is near we will be in trouble anyway. In that case a second warrior will not help that much I guess.

Barracks cost 40 shields, if we build warrior and barracks, we'll get our second city much later. I don't say, that we really need that second warrior, but we'll build him just not to waste the shields. Then we can use him for exploration if our island is large or as MP, if it's small.


Obormot you play deity what are the starting units for the AI at this level ? Is it possible to get techs at deity from a goody hut ?

1 extra settler, 2 extra workers and a bunch of defensive/attacking units (8/4 if i remember correctly). Maybe it is possible, but i only remember getting techs with an expansionist civ. Most common case is people in white and sometimes maps or gold.


I haven't played with the modded resources before, so I'll have to take a look at them before I can comment.

sheep=cow, oyster=fish if i'm not mistaken.

I don't like too tight spacing. OCN at high levels is decreased, so if we build many cities we'll get very high rank corruption. Usually i space cities so that there are about 12 tiles per city.

Barracks cost 40 shields, if we build warrior and barracks, we'll get our second city much later. I don't say, that we really need that second warrior, but we'll build him just not to waste the shields. Then we can use him for exploration if our island is large or as MP, if it's small.

sheep=cow, oyster=fish if i'm not mistaken.

I din't know that the OCN is reduced on higher levels. Usually I use wider spacing, too. Let us see what island mad-bax gave us.

I agree, we should settle our island as fast as possible. The more I see the starting position the more I think we are alone. It looks like a settler factory.

There are dots beside the resources. The sheep have three green (food ?) and the sea shell has one yellow (shield ?) and two green (food ?), so the sea shell could be like whales.

If the sheep gives 3 food then it's really cool, but i'm afraid it's only 2.
OCN at deity level is 60% in c3c, you can see it in the editor.

Should we discuss on the opening ? I think the game starts today, isn't it ? I would do the exploration a little bit more cautious than normal as we are playing AW. If we have another civ on our island and we bump into them too soon it will be a short game. On the other hand if we delay contact too long we will have nothing to trade during the first contact.

Should the worker go south first to see whether there is a better spot or do want to improve one of the sheep or the bg right away ? I think settling in place would not be that bad.

My suggestion:
Settle in place, worker goes to irrigate the sheep without roading.
We build 2 warriors, work sheep tile. First 3 turns we get +2 fpt, following turns +3fpt. Growth in 7 turns. First warrior built in 4 turns, 2nd in 3 due to growth. At size 2 we'll have +4 fpt, +5 spt. Grow to size 3 in 5 turns, and produce settler the next turn.
Warriors do carefull exploration, as markh said. There cannot be enemy civs too close, i think. If warriors find something good, send settler there. If they don't, then we can settle second city 2SE, and share one of the sheep tiles (The first city gets 4-3-3 growth cycle with a granary, the second 3-3-2-2. We gain only one turn for the second city, though, so maybe we should build the second city further.). If Alphabet is finished (or going to be finished in fewer turns, than needed for a curragh) start (pre)building a curragh, if we'll have pottery start granary, otherwise start another warrior-settler cycle. Of course that is for the case if we're alone. I suggest that whoever plays first 20 turns should stop playing if he meets any other civ on our island, and we'll discuss that situation then.

BTW, today i got Ceremonial Burial from a GH in GOTM43 on deity, not shure if that is possible in conquests, though.

Just checking in. this is my first SGOTM so please dont be to harsh. I agree with obormort that we should build 2 warriors followed by a settler. 2nd city placement could be discussed upon building the settler and we have a better idea of the surrounding terrain.

The game has started, and some other teams already started playing.
So who is going to play the opening 20 moves?
And what will be the turn order after that? I suggest that in the first round anyone who wants to play from current situation can take the save, and in later rounds we just keep the same order.
The Adjudicator didn't check in yet, if he doesn't appear i'll put him last in the list.

I would not mind to start, but I would be able to start today later in the evening only. Now I am at work. If I am starting I would post a screenshot after our first warrior explored a few turns to get comments.

OK, if anybody wants to play first and can do it before markh, then he can do it. Otherwise markh will be first. It's a good idea to post a screenshot after first few warror turns.
BTW, can everybody post their timezones, so that we can see what is meant by 'evening' or 'morning'. Mine is GMT+4.

I am in Germany, so GMT 0. I could start between 7 and 8 in the evening today at the earliest.
20 turns for the first one, 10 for the following ? From my side it is ok, I even would not mind to play only 10 in the beginning, too. Both would be ok for me. Anyway if I will be the starter I will stop in between and post sreens and ask for comments.

If noone objects I will start it in about 2 hours. Older people need a little longer to get prepared, so all of you still have a chance to keep me from playing. ;)

Hello, I'm just checking in. This is my first SGOTM as well, and I normally play emperor, so this will be a challenge.

I agree we should build two warriors and a settler. I also agree lets discuss second city placement after we look around a bit.

I am GMT -6, and cannot begin any earlier than GMT 2:00 am tomorrow. Can't wait to get going!

So we are complete now. Welcome to all once again.

I have the save and I will begin now. As soon our first warrior explored a bit I will post a screenshot for further discussion. Let us cross our fingers.

By the way is it possible on deity to get to Philosophy first ? Is it worth the risk or do we go straight for literature ?

I played 5 turns now. The sheep give 2fpt, 2spt, after irrigation 3fpt, 2spt. Our first warrior is complete and as you can see there is unit to the north :eek: . On F4 there is nothing, yet, so we would have to contact from our side. Should we ? After F10 we have the following civs in the game beside us : Indians, Zulu, Arabs, Persians, Vikings and Americans. Judging from the colour I would say it is Vikings or Indians. At this early stage I think we would have trading opportunities. Research is set to Alphabet at 20%, 100% made no difference, so I set to 20% to get cash. Any suggestions ? Here is the map at this stage

It is possible, especially on an archipelago map, but i don't think that we should take the risk in this game. If we get the GL, we're gonna have technical parity with the AI civs anyway, and getting philosophy doesn't change anything at all.
Looking forward to see the screenshot. I'll propably be in touch for several hours more, before i go to sleep (it's half past 10 pm in Moscow now).

I Re-read the maintenance thread and I think we have to contact. It was said that as soon as we have the ABILITY to contact we have to declare war, which we now have. We see the warrior and we could trade.

markh, i didn't see your post when i posted previous message.
I think we should trade with those guys and declare war on them, it seems, that they are on another island. And propably they'll appear in F4 next turn anyway.
You've set research to 20%, and i'm not sure if that is correct. The algorithm, that civ uses to determine if we get the tech is
1. check how many beaker we've accuculated. If it's equal to tech cost, tech is discovered.
2. check how many turns we researched. If it's equal to 50, tech is discovered.
So, to find out if there is any point at researching at 100% you also have to take the ammount of beakers you'll get at size 2 into account. Tech cost depends on map size and difficulty, easiest way to find it out is using civassist.
For example if a tech costs 200 beakers, and you get +4 beakers/turn at size 1 (50 turns) you should put your science to 100%, cause at size 2 you'll get more beakers, and it'll speed up the research.
But it seems, that we can trade Alphabet from those guys in the north (if they are Vikings or Indians), if i remember the starting techs correctly.
From the picture, i can see that there is another sheep tile up the river, so i would suggest building our second city 2SE, so that we can share one sheep tile.
With granaries both cities would be able to grow in 3 turns.
And what is that thing on the hill S,SW from the warrior?

I would have checked on research after the city grew to size 2, but I also think we have to contact as next turn they will appear under F4. I will do so and see what I can get.
2 SE for the second city sounds good.
The other tile below our warrior are olives (2 Food, 1 Gold, 2 Shields).

I would have checked on research after the city grew to size 2

I think that you misunderstood me. Putting science to 100% before growth can sometimes speed up research by a couple of turns even if it doesn't say so.
Example:
tech costs 200 beakers
4 beakers at size 1
6 beakers at size 2
city growth in 20 turns
If you research at max all the time:
after growth you have 80 beakers accumulated
at size 2 you get remaining 120 in 20 turns
Research time: 40 turns
If you research at min at size 1:
after growth you have 20 beakers
at size 2 you even if you put science at max you'll need 30 turns
Now the research time is 50 turns (but you'll have 210 gold instead).
It's better to do such calculations (at least approximately) each time, and decide whether that gold is worth those turns of research.
In our case i don't know if we had to research at max, cause i don't know the tech cost. Anyway, we can trade for Alphabet now.
And it'd be better to research Writing at min now, cause it's quite expensive and we are not in a hurry, we have to get Literature only when the prebuild is complete.
I thought olives don't give any shields. Did you mean, that we'll get 2 shields after mining that hill?

Contacted. They are the Indians. Got 10gold and Alphabet for Masonry and Bronze Working. We have our first war. Research set to writing. After growth I forgot to set luxury up, Istanbul riots. Damn this is deity. Sorry for that.
The Indian warrior left to the west, so I moved our warrior west, too. According to the attached map I fear that we might have a connection to the Indians in the west. Still I would prefer to complete the settler in Istanbul and build the second city asap. It is still a long way for India if we have a direct connection and we have good shield count, so we can build warriors fast.

Yes, it'd be better to complete the settler first, i think. The location for the second city is still 2SE. By the time we build the second city, we should be able to see, if there is a land connection to India, and decide what to do according to that.

I have to agree, it certainly looks like we're connected. Still, can't be too sure with Archipelago maps.

About the next city. By 2SE do you mean there'll be only 1 tile between the cities? I thought we were doing CxxC not CxC (ICS). It's not like our island is that small, from the looks of things.

I'm in GMT-5, btw.

I would place next city at 332 or 3332. Should we pop the gh south to our second warrior ? To the west it seems that we do not have a direct connection to India. It cannot be seen at this screenshot, but as far as I can see there is only coast.

Everything is possible in man-made maps. I think that we are NOT connected.
I'd send the western warrior along that strip of water to meet someone else and hopefully trade for pottery. Otherwise we'll have to research pottery ourselves.
I think that we should place our second city at 33. We are not doing ICS, but the second city will be an exception :). Then we after building granaries we can setup a 6 turn SF in the capital, and a 3 turn WF in the second city. We'll need rapid expansion, cause our island looks fairly big. Usually we should keep to 12-tiles-per-city placement, but not wasting food resources has a higher priority.
I think we should start a prebuild for the GL in our 3rd city.
The area near the goat mountain and the olive hill looks good for that, but we'll have to explore.
All other cities from 4th then will have to build military.
I think we can open GH later. If we are indeed alone on our island, than noone will take it from us. So we better pick it up at the time barbs won't be a problem. And we can possibly get a better tech.

I agree with Iroquois that the second city should be spaced CxxC. There appears to be ample room. Our second city should be on the river, with access to the sheep, and closer to the incense.

I say we don't pop the huts until we have a few cities and a few MP. If that hut has barbs, they could threaten our settler in a few turns. If we are alone on this island, we can wait to pop the huts for a while.

I agree with Iroquois that the second city should be spaced CxxC. There appears to be ample room. Our second city should be on the river, with access to the sheep, and closer to the incense.

I totally disagree with you. The reason why i want to place the second city closer is, so that it has access to TWO sheep tiles. One city with a granary doesn't need to have +4 fpt all the time. So 2 food units will be wasted every 3 turns if both sheep tiles to the North a used only by one city. Instead we can space other cities further away, so that each city gets a given number of tiles. And we can grab the incense with our 3rd city anyway.

BTW, from the screenshot i see that we are researching Writing at max now and it takes us 42 turns. Propably we can put research at minimum now, cause our city is going to shrink anyway, and the research is only going to get slower.

Submitted the save.
I placed the second city at 3332. To the west we are safe until MM. If we place the next city to the north at 88 or 889 we have a choke point if we have a neighbour to the north. Unfortunately I lost our second warrior to a barb, but we have another one coming from Istanbul securing our worker.

Here is my log :

4000BC : Istanbul founded, warrior in 4, worker goes NE, research set to Alphabet
3950 BC : worker irrigates the sheep
3900 BC : -
3850 BC : -
3800 BC : Warrior completes in Istanbul and goes south, Building second warrior, worker goes to next sheep, contact India : get Alphabet, 10gold, give masonry and bronze working, declared war, research set to writing
3750 BC : irrigating second sheep
3700 BC : -
3650 BC : -
3600 BC : second warrior built, Istanbul builds settler, worker roads
3550 BC Istanbul riots :mad: , luxury set to 20%
3500 BC : -
3450 BC : -
3400 BC : -
3350 BC : -
3300 BC : luxury set to 40% (at least this I noticed)
3250 BC : Settler built in Istanbul, production set to warrior, luxury down to 0%
3200 BC : -
3150 BC : worker roading south of Istanbul
3100 BC : Edrine funded at 3332, 2nd warrior lost to bard, barb did not lose one 1 HP !
3050 BC : Warrior built in Istanbul, moved to worker for defence against barbs

Still, i think that founding Edrine at 3332 was a mistake. It'll be able to grow only in 4 turns, not in three. I've suggested placing the second city at 33 long before, and there were no objections, so i thought that everyuone agreed. Next time, please, post your objections to what i say before doing differently, so that we can argue first.

Yes, I had a hard time thinking of placing the second city, but I thought that Erdine at this position will have very good production and we have enough place for a another good city at 699 or 663. 699 will be a good choke point if there is access to our position from the north, it looks like this. I was not so convinced of my own suggestion of CxxC, so I chose a wider city placement. I think both core cities are power horses in the long run.
For the next player it is important to tke a look at the luxury slider as Istanbul will grow to size 2.

Hmm, I don't think I agree with Edrine either, but I usually use CxxC, so I'm a little biased. However, there is still room to place another city 2 SE or maybe 2 S of Istanbul to get the olives and sheep. 2fpt and 2 spt is not bad. It won't be on the river, though. Later on we could abandon it to make more space for Istanbul and Edrine.

I might be able to play tomorrow (around 4pm for me, GMT-5), but someone else is free to take it before then if they want.

Sorry to sound dense, but in talking about placement, I'm hearing numbers like Edrine at 3332, or another good city at 699 or 663. Can someone explain this?

Such loose placement is generally fine, cause we have a low OCN on small deity map.
The little mistake that i see is that Edrine doesn't have access to one of the sheep tiles near Istanbul, which would've allowed it to grow faster with micromanagement.

We can still build a temporary city to produce workers, though at 36 or 33 from the capital, but i don't think we should do that now, cause it'll slow down Edrine's growth.

Places East of Edrine are not bad, but there is a much better location for the third city on the floodplains, near the goats on the mountain and on the desert.

As noone is able to play now, i'll take the save.

My plan is:
Build a curragh in Istanbul, try to meet someone, who knows pottery, then build a settler and send him to the location, i specified. Our western warrior will explore that place more.
Build a warrior, than a worker in Edrine.
The third city will start a GL prebuild immidiately.

3000 BC, end of markh,s turn
Switched Istanbul to curragh.

2950 BC, turn 1.
See zulu warrior at the other side of the water strip near Istanbul.
They have pottery, but we have nothing of interest for them.
Since i had to put lux at 20% research didn't speed up.
Wanted to pay them gpt, but it's not allowed.
Declared war.
Warror moves out from Edrine to fight the barbs.

2900BC, turn 2.
worker completes road to Edrine, moves to mine the BG near Istanbul.

2850 BC, turn 3.
Istanbul completes curragh, starts settler
Edrine completes warrior, starts worker
Western warrior (renamed to warrior1) destroys barb camp for 25 gold, looses 1 hp.
Warrior near Edrine (warrior2) sees wheat on the FP.
Now, seeing all those cool places for new cities,
i have to agree that placing Edrine at 33 was useless.
I'm just used to playing on random maps.
Newly built warrior3 will explore the East.
Curragh sails East and sees zulu borders.

2800 BC, turn 4.
warriors 1 and 2 are attacked by barbs. w2 kiled, w1 has 1hp left and upgrades to veteran.
Curragh sees zulu island. It is also separated from us by a narrow strip of water.

2750 BC, turn 5.
Move Warrior3 to kill the barbs near 3rd city location.

2710 BC, turn 6.
Edrine completes worker, starts another one.
Istanbul growth, lux 40%.

2670 BC, turn 7.
Kill a barb (warrior3).
Curragh contacts Arabia (also separated by a narrow strip).
Nothing to trade, just declare war.
It seems that our island is in the center surrounded by AI islands.
And it's too late to trade starting techs now. Curragh will wait untill we discover Writing,
so that we can trade it before declaring war. We also have to remember, that trading writing means,
that AI's will get MM faster, so maybe it's better not to trade at all.
Worker1 completes mine, starts road.
Worker2 starts irrigating plains near Edrine.

2630 BC, turn 8.
Istanbul completes setller, starts warrior. Science 100% now.

2590 BC, turn 9.
Destroy the barb camp near Edrine, at last.

2550 BC, turn 10.
Curragh sees green border (persians?), no contact possible yet, so we turn back and wait.
Warriors continue exploring southwards.

I've played.
On the map i've drawn locations, where i'd have placed new cities.
I don't think we need any more in the beginning, cause the jungle and the desert are useless, and even if we clear them, it won't help much due to low OCN.
I suggest building only those cities, and start building military.
We also need a lot of workers, even though we're industrious, since we want those few cities as powerfull as possible. I suggest building about 1.5 workers/city, or even more: 10-12 workers.

I chose Edrine at that location as I wanted it at the river and it still had access to at least one sheep at the river, so I thought this to be better than 33 from the capitol. I should have waited to get some more comments. Sorry, will not do this again.
Obormot's suggested locations for our next cities look good.
I would also be a little cautious about trading writing. The longer we can keep the AI from MM the better. Maybe we should stop to search for the other civs for the time being.

We are in a small world with 7 civs (including us), so the AI will not have much room to settle and they will build up their military fast. We should consider this. The AI is not good at invasions from sea, but we are at war with all, so they will all send their ships. I think on deity this will be quite a threat. Our forces will have much to do.

I do not know whether it is good to stop settling after 4 cities. I would not want a beachhead on our island from the AI, so I would fill it asap. I would still take one city producing settlers and the rest going military. I do not know whether the AI sends settlers in war mode, would be costfree workers, though.

1.5 workers / city sounds well.

DBear : 669 means the directions to go. If you take the numeric pad to the right on your keyboard, you can see it. 8 is north, 2 is south, 4 is west, etc., so 669 would be east, east, northeast

I thought about this game and came to a conclusion, that we must not trade writing at the AI. Writing has very low priority for the AI, while MM has a high priority. Anyway, we only need Literature at the time our prebuild is complete, so i think that we should research pottery after writing at full speed to get granaries, and then switch to Literature. The problem here is that we won't be able to build any good military units.

The paradox of this game is that we'll propably have to defend with fast attacking units to kill whatever the AI civs unload on our island quickly and attack with lots of defensive units and catapults.

Maybe we should discover the Wheel before Literature also to build chariots, so that we can upgrade them later.

I do not know whether it is good to stop settling after 4 cities. I would not want a beachhead on our island from the AI, so I would fill it asap.

I also think, that we have to fill our island ASAP, but first build minimum military required to hold from AI attacks. They'll get MM pretty fast even if we don't give them Writing.

What about popping the huts soon ? I made a test run last weekend on deity in conquests and I got a tech, so maybe we have chances on two techs for free. As soon as we have a few more warriors we should do this. Warrior Code or The Wheel would be quite helpful.
I also thought of going for the wheel or warrior code before literature, but if the AIs are fast we could spoil our attempt on the GL. We have still some turns to get writing, so maybe we could pop the huts before we reach writing.

We'll have to see how the prebuild goes. If the prebuild will be moving fast, then i suggest going straight for literature. If there will be enough time, to research something else while prebuilding the GL, then we should go for it.

Now our 2 survived warriors have almost completed exploring, and they can pop GH's on their way back. There'll be a few more built by that time.

Continuing the discussion of how many cities--

The victory condition is domination, so we will have to build (or take!) a lot of cities eventually. I think this means we want a limited number of very strong cities on our continent. I like the plan of having fast movers on our continent, and attacking with combined forces. How quickly will this even be possible? What should our initial strategy be for military buildup? I guess we have to start with a whole lot of warriors?

I can take the game in 12 hours and re-post it in another 12. I also like your suggested city locations and agree that we need a lot of workers. I will continue using our settler and worker factories during my turns.

Does anyone know if the ai will send settlers during war? Like was stated earlier that could be a good source of workers or possibly even letting the ai build cities for us to take. Unless you think their is to much risk in letting an AI get a foothold on our island. I agree that we should most likely go straight for literature(assuming we can prebuild). I fear if we do not get the Great Library our game will be as good as over. The AI will have far superior units to take over our inferior ones. If possible i would like to play either today or tomorrow evening about 8pm using the time on the bottom of the screen. I am gmt -7

I can take the game in about 24 or so hours after Adjuctor and leave it approximatley 12 after i pick it up. Please feel free to leave sugestions as this is my first SGOTM. I will post if anything significant occurs.

The more I think of it the more I doubt that the AI will send settlers during an overseas campaign. It will send battle units only.
Exploration of our island should be finished and as Obormot said on the way back the warriors should pop the huts. If we are lucky we get a tech giving us better offensive units.
Combined units will depend on whether we will get the GL giving us the necessary techs. If we do not get it we will need a long time to get to combined forces. If we do not get the GL I would not call the game over. We then would have to set up a plan to capture it to get us back into the game, but that is still very far ahead. I think we have good production in our core and with a prebuild it should be manageable.
We should start to build up military not too late as the AI will be quite fast to MM.

About the cities.
I suggested building only those few cities, cause we'll need military very soon and to build it, we need high production ASAP. Building cities in other areas won't increase our production significantly due to poor land and corruption. But later we'll have to fill all of the island with our culture, of course. As soon as we'll feel relatively safe, we'll build cities to cover the whole island.

About AI settlers.
I think, that AI may send settlers to our island, then we'll have to capture those settlers or cities (maybe raze the cities to prevent culture flips).

About military units.
For maximum effectiveness in defence it's best to cover all of our island with roads and have fast units attacking enemy as soon as he unloads any units. So it'd be better to build chariots right from the beginning and upgrade them later (we'll have lots of money: no need to research with the GL). It'll definitely be better in the long run. After we ensured good protection from the AI, we'll start building ship, pikemen and catapults to invade AI islands.

About the GL.
The 3rd city has to start building palace immideately. Palace now costs 300 shields.
I suggest placing the first citizen on the wheat floodplain for growth and new citizens on goats and mined BG's for production. Right now it's difficult for me to tell if we'll be able to research something before Literature and have those 300 shields collected right in time. We'll decide after discovering writing.

If we'll have time to research the Wheel, then i suggest researching it and building chariots. Otherwise build warriors.

I'm glad you played, Obormot, since I wouldn't have been able to play today anyway. I can play Friday at 4 pm GMT -5 (-5 is Eastern time, right?...).

I agree with pretty much everything Obormot just said in the above post. Perhaps we should slowly build more cities, not a settler pump, but more like a settler trickle. This way we'll have time to build units without too much corruption and we'll slowly fill up the island.

About Goody huts. When we do pop them, I suggest we pop them on the same turn we finish researching a tech. This way we'll have no beakers wasted, and will maximise techs. And don't forget to switch to something like CB so we can possibly get an important tech like Lit or the Wheel.

I'm pretty much available any evening. (GMT -6)

I have played my ten turns with some interesting events. Barbs are becoming a real problem, with three new camps of which I have dispersed only one so far. And the barbs have horse now.

When I began, the largest civs were listed as America, Viking, Arab, Persian, Indian, Zulu, and pathetic us.

2550--End of Obormot Turns
2510--Warriors and curragh head south to explore.
2470--Bursa is founded and begin palace prebuild at 300 turns. Working the wheat. Meet the persians. They are being attacked by the Arabs. They don't have alphabet! I could either trade for pottery and warrior code for alpha and most of our cahs, or alpha and 4g for the wheel. I take the wheel since we can research pottery fast after writing and I want to see the horses now. We have them one square SW of Istanbul.
2430--Barbs show up in the East. worker to horses.
2390--Now barbs in the West! We are short of warriors to defend ourselves, but I sent our explorers to intercept.
2350--warriors 1 and 4 in position, warrior 1 is attacked by Bursa and wins, losing one life
2310--warrior4 attacks a barb in the east and dies. Swith Edrine to warrior. The workers were delaying two turns for growth, and we really need more fighters.
2270--warrior5 attacks and wins, warrior3 finally arrives from the south.
2230--Riots! Istanbul and Bursa. Sorry guys. Lux set to 30. Warriors 3 and 5 go to the East barb camp.
2190--Settler built. Warrior5 attacks East barbs and loses to warrior, but wounds him. Warrior 3 kills the horse in the camp.
2150--Warrior1 kills barb warrior threatening settler. Settler is moving to site 4. More barbs appear in the south. we have no warriors, two workers, and an empty city building the palace in the area. This is not good. I move a worker out of the way. Incense is hooked. Lux 10, Sci 90, writing in 7.

Sorry for the barb mess I am leaving. Good luck whoever is next!

A few suggestions:
1. Maybe start producing chariots instead of warriors now, so that they'll become veteran killing the barbs? Then we don't have to go for the barb camps, just kill the barbs on our territorry and provide protection for the settlers.
2. Near Istanbul there are land improvements, that are not being used, and are not goting to be used, since Istanbul is producing settlers. Workers should be moved to improve land near new cities, especially Bursa, since it's going to grow fast.

I also would recommend to build chariots and we should think of building barracks when Istanbul and Edrine (not both at the same time) have enough production to finish it in a few turns. We could then use the barbs to develop elites faster.

We don't need elite chariots, cause we're gonna upgrade them very soon. I think that we should build barracks when we know horseback riding. Propably we'll get it from the GL as soon as it is complete.

So we will try to get our regulars promoted to vets by farming barbs or do we want to upgrade regulars ? I have never done that before as I think that those vets are worth it building barracks earlier. Will we have enough cash to upgrade ? The real cash saving can be started after the GL is completed, but maybe the AI already has MM at that time and can land first troops. Ok it is only 2 at a time, but if 3 or 4 civs land troops constantly it may get troublesome fighting with regulars. Maybe I am just a bit too cautious :rolleyes:

Maybe you are right. It is very difficult to predict when the AI will get MM. Since the distance between islands is so small, tech pace can be quite fast. We'll see how it goes, and maybe build some barracks earlier.

I will download in about 6-8 hours and play my turns. any last minute advice would be welcome. I will upload when done. I will be away from my computer saturday and sunday. Sorry but hope all goes well while i am gone. I am planning on most likely only attacking incoming barbs to get our milatary built back a bit. along with that continue to populate our island as obormot outlined earlier.

Not really advice, but the tactical situation in Bursa is the current highest priority for the next few turns in my mind. Edrine should be able to build workers without waiting for the population to catchup for a while.

More info--CivAssist II said that India had four cities at the beginning of my turns, yet only Zulu and us were smaller. I don't know if this was accurate based on our current map view, but we have some cathcing up to do. What units does the AI start with on Diety level?

Also, it would be nice to get to those spices sooner rather than later. What do others think?

More info--CivAssist II said that India had four cities at the beginning of my turns, yet only Zulu and us were smaller. I don't know if this was accurate based on our current map view, but we have some cathcing up to do. What units does the AI start with on Diety level?

Usually it's even worth on Deity/Demigod. AI start with 2 settlers and 3 workers + some military. And the cost factor is 60%, which means that AI cities only need 12 food to grow (6 with a granary). On Continents or Pangaea AI usually has twice as much territory and population after the expansion phase.

I agree, that we should get luxuries, we'll need them for Bursa to grow, but perhaps it's better to get those spices using a colony first and build a city later.

I agree with using a colony for the spices. any settlers would be better put to use starting our other cities.

If the spices are in an otherwise bad location, ok, but I hate to use a worker for a colony when we don't have to. We'll need all the workers we can get.

tough start. if that barb is headed for bursa will it chase a worker? we have 2 warriors. one only has one point and is a long way away. the other is protecting our settler. any thoughts

If Bursa is still at population 1 and has not collected much shields, let the barb walk into Bursa. He'll propably steal some gold.

Pick up end of turn 2150 BC. Only 2 warriors one far away with 1 hp. barb closing in on Bursa. switch bursa to warrior. after managing we will only be down the one shield we would have gained in the next turn.

2110 BC name resulting warrior4. switch bursa back to palace. move worker away from barb. found iznik with settler. barb attacks and is defeated by warrior4 without losing a point.

2070 Curragh survives attack. Istanbul builds warrior. Move warrior back to Iznek due to approaching warrior and horseman.

2030 Persians building collosus. Warrior in Iznek defeats barb warrior and horseman. is upgraded to elite.

1950 Research is lowered to minimum to get library in one turn. another barb camp located near bursa. Americans complete collosus

1910 Research literature in 34 turns breaking even (90%)

1870 Indians Oracle Zulus Great Temple. Moving elite warrior and regular warrior towards goody hut. Just finished tech just in case it is a tech. 2 warriors if otherwise.
most likely proceed toward barb camp with both.

1830 Curagh sank by white galley. colony built on spices. goody hut was evil white warriors.

1790 regular defeats one warior loses 2 hp. retreat with regular and replace with elite. bring warrior5 from bursa (had 2 only needs one now we have spices)

1750 Lose warrior 5. Edrin produces warrior switched to worker

1700 Istanbul produces chariot switched to settler. settler will finish just after growth. Iznek produces worker switched to chariot.

1675 Chariot loses 2 hp and retreats (Barb loses 0) elite warrior kills barb losing no hp. Bursa size 5 growth in 3 turns now producing 6 shields per turn. Edrine worker in 2. Istanbul settler in 5. Iznek Chariot in 8 growth in 8.

Link to map:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=89142&stc=1

File uploaded. Feel free to critisize.

Had a look at the save. All of our enemies will already go for peace, so i could see what techs do they have. The zulu already know writing, so they'll propably get MM in a few turns. So we have to expect zulu invasion soon. They'll propably bring two impies or an impi and a warrior. Impies have defense 2, so we'll need at least archers to kill them effectively. Now we can safely switch to Warrior Code, cause our prebuild will be completed in 40 turns (30 at max if we improve the labd around Bursa quickly), and Literature will be discovered in 17 turns.

So i suggest switching to Warrior Code and building some archers. We should also check every turn what techs do the AI's have. We should wait with our expansion a bit, focusing on building military.

The prebuild is going to slowly, corruption is 3/9 for the 3rd city!
We'll also need about 10-15 turns to build the GL after we switch from palace.
I'm afraid that the AI's will get the GL before us if they cascate from ToA.
We can mine the hills and join some workers to Bursa to speed it up.

I think barb ships can only appear if someone has MM. Is that correct ?

I can pick this up tomorrow, if no one objects.

Didn't see your post Obormot. So obviously one of the civs we do not know, yet has MM already if it is correct that barb ships can appear only if one civ learned MM. Hopefully they do not trade it around too soon. Switching to warrior code sounds good. We should also take into consideration that Impis are fast movers, so they can retreat. We will need even more units to kill them.

Yes, I'm pretty sure barb galleys can only appear if someone (might even be if 2 AIs) has MM.

I agree with going for Warrior Code first.

I'll take it Sunday after DBear...I think we're the only two left, anyway...

It's bad that AI's have MM already. I've underestimated the tech pace. Though the map is an archipelago, the distances between islands are very small, and the AI civ's made contacts relatively quickly. They'll propably start to build cities on our island. I think, we should let them do it, and try to avoid contacts, so that we can attack them later, when we have sufficent forces. Maybe we should only build the cow citiy and then just military. We can try to play a trick with AI civs that want to attack us. If we put a warrior in all coastal cities except one, then they'll land their forces near the one without garrison. And our army would be just waiting for them to land. I'm not shure it'll work, it doesn't work always, but it does work pretty often. Sometimes you can make the AI move the galleys back and forth, without landing troops at all.

The next player should also see how well tha prebuild will be going and how fast we can research HR after Warrior Code is researched. If there is time for HR, research it and build chariots to upgrade later. Otherwise build archers, also i don't like it. If zulus land impies, try to finish off those who run away with veterans.

0) 1675BC: At 90% science, we can get lit in 17 and the palace is taking 43. Switch to warcode, we can get it in 5. However, Bursa is 3 turns from increasing pop, which will cause rioting. If I switch a citizen from flood plain to incense hill, growth is slowed, but corruption is at 40%. Send warrior to guard worker.

1) 1650: Wherever that worker was doing s of Bursa, I'm gettin' him outta there, it's not safe.

2) 1625: Sweet, we neutralize the camp. Barb horse threatens Edrine. Edrine worker-->warrior.

3) 1600: Barb horse rides into Edirne, steals gold.

4) 1575: Warrior tries to intercept barb horse, fails. Workers chop forest to hurry chariot in Iznik. We need military, fast! Good news is we can get warcode next turn.

5) 1550: Chariot guarding Edrine dies. We can get HB in 8 or IW in 10. If archers are good, swords are even better. Let's at least see if we have iron. The palace build is still a long way off.

6) 1525: chariot from Iznik moves to escort settler from Istanbul. Workers chop forest to speed up military.

7) 1500: Workers done chopping, start roading and irrigating.

8) 1475: Looks like the barbs are gone.

9) 1450: Istanbul archer-->archer. Uskudar built, starts archer.

10) 1425: Edirne archer-->archer. Iznik archer-->archer. Cheez, the corruption at Bursa is murder. Uskudar is roaded up.

Uskudar was build to guard the eastern approach to the capitol and fill in the gaps. Corruption is taking a toll. We should definitely be looking for the FP soon.

Question: I assume there's a good reason we haven't been popping the goody huts--fear of more barbs?

And just to clarify the order:

Markh
Obormot
The Adjudicator
XoThErMiK
DBear
IroquoisPlisken--up

We should consider researching HBR first as we have horses already. It is faster to research and we cannot be sure to have iron on our island. We would miss some good units if we research IW first and observe we do not have iron on our island. Don't know whether we can afford the missing horsemen if we do not have iron. In the bad case archers are quite well, but I would prefer horsemen asap. If afterwards we notice that we have iron our horsemen are still of good use whereas archers are not that well.

I don't like how things are going now. The prebuild is going really slowly. That's my mistake (but noone corrected it): i underestimated corruption, i almost always play on standard maps. Now i'm afraid that we don't get the GL in time. The GL city is furthest away from the capital, and has high rank corruption. We don't know how fast other AI civs are going, so we don't know how much time is left. I suggest moving more workers near Bursa and mining all hills nearby, the placing 1 citizen on the FP to keep the population level high and all others on the hills. We can rise the lux slider to 50, 60, even 70%, but we need to get the GL first. Science slider doesn't matter, cause we only need Literature and now we are getting it earlier. If we don't have enough workers, build more, maybe join some to Bursa. I suggest building no more cities for a while, they'll be useless because of corruption.

Got it. I'll play sometime today. I'll see what I can do.

Pre-turn – According to the Military Advisor, there are barbs by Iznik. I’ll make a mental note of that.

IBT – Zulu are building Pyramids.

1400 (1) – Move four workers by Bursa to incense hill and start mining it. Begin to irrigate the tile west of Uskudar.

IBT – Here comes the barbs. A horse appears NW of Iznik, and a warrior SW of Bursa.

1375 (2) – The horse can attack Iznik next turn, but I can’t reach it, so I guess I’ll just cross my fingers.

IBT – Our archer takes one damage, but kills the horse. The warrior fortifies in place.

1350 (3) – Workers finish mining the hill. Move them to hill north of Bursa. IW due next turn. Lower lux to 50%, still due next turn, +6 gpt.

IBT – Persians request an audience. I’m curious, so I agree to see them. They want 27 gold and 5 gpt from us for peace. I laugh in his face.
IW in, start on HBR @ 100%, due in 7. We have iron on the mountain SW of Iznik.

1325 (4) – Istanbul archer->archer. Move archer towards Iznik for more protection. Road the hill north of Bursa.

At present, it will take 7 turns to research HBR and 20 turns for Lit, for a total of 27 and those turns will only increase, since we’re not building settlers or many workers. The Palace will be done in 28 and we can always make it take a few turns longer if we have to. As long as we get Literature fairly early compared to the other AIs, we should be able to get the GL.
However, the rest of the AIs are VERY far ahead. No one has Lit yet, but it can’t be far off. If we are beaten to the GL we can only hope that someone close to us gets it so we can capture it from them.

IBT – The Arabs request an audience. I don’t feel like talking so I ignore them.
Indians complete Statue of Zeus in Bombay! No cascades, though, so that means all AI’s who were building something just wasted a lot of shields. :)

1300 (5) – Start mining grassland by Uskudar and the hill by Bursa.

IBT – Baghdad’s borders expand. One more expansion and they’ll pop a hut for us…

1275 (6) – Edrine archer->archer. Damn! Bursa will riot next turn if I don’t increase lux, but if I do, HBR will take 5 more turns instead of 4. I can’t have Bursa riot, though.

IBT – Indians are building ToA. And complete Pyramids in Delhi! They’re running away with Wonders…Persians start ToA. Americans complete Hanging Gardens in New York! They’re THAT far ahead?!?

1250 (7) – Iznik archer->archer. Move him towards Edrine to help with goody hut when we pop it.

I’ll leave the workers unmoved. Do we want to road the iron now? I’m guessing yes, but figured there was no reason to move them yet if we can discuss it.

I’ll play only 7 turns to even out the turns (it’s now turn 70).

I suggest popping one or both goody huts on the turn that HBR completes. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and get Lit or another tech free. There’s a good amount of units over there, so it’s worth a shot.

Um...I've got a problem.

I just realized that the oysters by Istanbul did not show up on my game. I thought I already downloaded and installed the SGOTM resources, but I guess I didn't do it correctly...

What should I do? Does the save work for whoever's next and can they see the resources? Should I redo my turns if I can get the resources to work?

EDIT: I rechecked my game and it appears as if the bonus from the sheep/oysters/etc. are still working, it's just that they don't appear on the map. :confused:
And I did already download the resources, it just didn't work...

EDIT: Nvm, I fixed it...still, does the save work? It should, but just want to make sure.

The save should work anyway. Propably something wrong with resource.pcx. Make shure that resource.pcx in Art directory has oysters.

The wonder building pace is absolutely normal for deity. Hope they'll complete ToA before they get Lit, that's the cascade that usually takes the GL away. If they switched to ToA from Piramids it should be soon.

Now everyone has played and it's markh's turn again.

I checked the save and everything looks fine for me. Plisken, do you have the Sgotm folder in your scenarios directory?

Got it. I will play this evening.

Yep, everything's fine now with the resources...heh, I had downloaded the file, I just forgot to extract them. :blush:

Here is my log :

moved workers to Iron at iznik

1225BC : Istanbul builds Archer -> Archer
Workers arrive on Iron near iznik

1200BC : Uskudar builds Archer -> Archer
Workers roading the Iron
Vikings complete the great lighthouse
1st Zulu galley comes in sight

1175BC : Archer clears barb camp sw of Iznik
Move forces out of Iznik to bait the Zulu galley
HBR in one turn, science back to 50%
Archer from Uskudar moved 1 w to be able to reach Istanbul in one turn
Archer moved from Edrine joining the Archer from Uskudar
Zulu asks for peace, too expensive ;) ask him to leave politely
Zulu galley drops 2 warriors north of Istanbul

1150BC : HBR researched, set to cb, pop 1 goody hut -> barbs, did not pop the other one due to fear of more barbs, research set to lit in 17 turns at 90%
Iron is up
Istanbul builds Archer -> Swordsman
Edrine builds Archer -> Horseman
Archer defeats veteran Zulu warrior
Archer defeats regular Zulu warrior
America completes Temple of Artemis

1125BC : warrior guarding the spices defends against popped barb
Archer defends against the second popped barb, new camp south of spices
Bursa grown to 7, lux up to 30%, lit in 19, palace in 17
Archer lost against warrior in barb camp
Another barb horse shows up near Iznik

1100BC : Archer in Iznik defends successfully against barb horse
Iznik builds Archer - > Archer

1075BC : barb horse defeated near Bursa by veteran warrior

1050BC : Istanbul builds Swordsman -> Swordsman
Zulu galley comes back in sight

1025BC : Edrine builds horseman -> horseman
Archer defeats barb warrior south of Bursa, promotes
Archer put on Iron for defense, more barbs
Zulu drops 1 elite and 1 regular warrior

1000BC : Uskudar builds Archer -> Settler
Swordsman defeats elite warrior, down to 1 HP
Archer defeats regular warrior
Vet Archer loses against barb horse
Archer south of spices defeats barb horse, promotes
Archer from Iznik moved towards Bursa

Lit in 14 , Palace in 11

So Obormot is next. I left the elite warrior in Bursa unmoved, so you can still kill the barb horse. Settler in Uskudar is just a suggestion. The barbs are getting annoying. Here is a map how it looks like now. The goats on the hill near Bursa are mined, but I took the workers away as barbs are near.

Got it, going to play now.
ToA is complete, that's good, our chances to get the GL go up.

I've played my 10 turns, the most imporatant thing: we have an MGL!
Here's my log:

-1000 (End of markh's turn)
Killed the barb horse with a veteran warrior (Elites should only kill other civ's units)
Made one citizen in Bursa a scientist not to raze the lux and to get Lit in the same time as the prebuild.
We have enough forces to kill a galleyfull of crappy units, and more than we can support, so let's build settlers and

workers again. Also build barracks in some cities. Archers suck, so we'll use them for MP. Try to kill with other units

for promotions.

Iznik: Archer->Settler (not growing fast anyway)
Istanbul: Swordsman->Barracks (now that we can build good units, let's build veterans)
markh forgot to MM Istanbul after killing zulus and the good sheep tile was wasted. When you kill someone always zoom to

city screen to move citizens back to tiles that were blocked by enemies or barbs.
Edrine: Horseman->Barracks
Uskudar: Settler->Worker

MM'ed everything for faster growth, but fewer shields, i think that's more important.

-975 (turn 1)

Archer moved to Bursa for MP. Elite warrior goest to Istanbul, will try to kill someone to get leader.
Veteran archer sees barb horse in the jungle, but runs away, cause he is wounded and i don't wand to risk.
Horseman moved to Bursa to kill the barbs.
Lowered lux, cause Bursa has more units as MP now.

-950 (turn 2)

Swordsman healed and moved out of Istanbul, so that zulus won't be afraid to land their units near it.
Killed barb near Bursa with Horseman.
I noticed that the barbs were acting stupid and i realized that i didn't set the NoAIPatrol flag on this computer, fixed

it and continued to play.

-925 (turn 3)

Istanbul completes Barracks, starts Horseman.
Zulu galley in sight. I moved all units out of Istanbul, now zulus will propably unload near it, and we've got plenty of

units just waiting for that.Killed barb horse near Bursa with our Horse.
Move veteran warrior from Bursa to Istanbul.

-900 (turn 4)

Uskudar: Worker->Barracks
Iznik: Settler->Barracks
Zulus unload archer and warrior near Istanbul, as i expected.
Kill warrior with swordsman, kill archer with elite warrior.
*** And Yes!!! We've got him!!! A leader from our first elite kill!!!! ***
Leader moved to Istanbul and an empty army is created.
I think it's best to fill it with knights, when we get chivalry. (pretyy soon, if we get the GL)
Horseman moved to pop the GH.
Now we're getting Literature before the prebuild, so i raised lux and MM'ed Bursa to get the prebuild faster.
Settler moves to found a city near the cows, protected by two archers.

-875 (turn 5)

Pop a GH near Edrine with Horseman, lot's of barbs come out. I blocked the mountains near Edrine with archers before

popping th GH, so they won't be a problem.

-850 (turn 6)

IBT barbs promote one of our archers to veteran.
Kill another barb with a horse. There is another barb camp near Uskudar. Lot's of barbs to create Elites.
Settler and two archers see a barb horse near the cows.

-825 (turn 7)

IBT one of our archers killed by the barb horse.
Kill that horse with an archer.
Izmit founded, starts barracks.
See zulu gallet again.

-800 (turn 8)

Nothing of interest happens.

-775 (turn 9)

IBT indians unload Ancient Cavalry and a warrior. AC is a tough unit, we'll have to beware of the indians.
Luckily we kill the AC with our swordsman and it promotes to veteran.
Kill the warrior with the veteran Horseman.
The zulu galley just sails on.

-750 (turn 10)

Barb horse threatens worker near Uskudar, attack it with our Horseman, loose.
Finish off the barb horse with the chariot.
Learned Literature, switched Bursa to the GL, will get it in 12 turns.
lux 40%, research pottery at 40%, enough to get it in 4 turns.

Now it's Adjudicator's turn:

Markh - played
Obormot - played
The Adjudicator - up
XoThErMiK
DBear
IroquoisPlisken

Some general advice (to all players):

We shoud pay more attention to micromanagement (i've seen a few citizen placed not ideally in the saves). MM is not fun of course, but when you have only 10 turns to play it's not that boring too. Go through all the cities before the end of turn and see that no or minimum food/shields is wasted.

Also i've seen a few mistakes with worker actions: think more before improving a tile. For example when there are plains near a river, irrigate them first and then normal plains to get more commerce sooner.

Now i suggest that we emphasize growth, not production. Build units after barracks in most cities, and build settlers/workers in cities that try to grow beyond population 6, cause frowth after size 6 is slower.

I think that we should build only horsemen as military units, cause it's easier to defend with fast units and we don't need defensive units to invade when we have an army.

I suggest that we leave the barb camps for now, so that they produce more barbs for us to kill to get elites. Kill barbs with veterans, kill enemies with elites. Also veteran warriors/chariots should not fight, cause we'll upgrade them soon anyway.

I forgot to mm in the last turn, sorry. After the first assault of the Zulu I mmed and also after the cities grew. Yes, the workers I could have used better I admit.

A leader with the first elite win, that's great. In the current COTM I got my first MGL in 1370AD although a lot of fighting and many, many elites winning. I already thought that MGLs were turned off for that game.

I have the save, And will play it and post it in the next 8 hours. I will be unavailable Friday through Tuesday, so if my turn comes up again feel free and skip me.

730--Kill barb horse s of Bursa, Lux to 50 for the turn. Istanbul builds settler-->horse.
710--Barb horse kills worker near Izmit. Arcker kills horse.
690--Sciene 10, pottery in 1. Horse to Izmit for extra defence.
670--Science 50, MM in 17. settler and warrior south of Bursa.
650--India lands 2 AC west of Iznik. One is killed, one is left alive as an Elite with three life at the cost of 2 archers, one horse, and a redlined horse left exposed. Arabs have a settler and archer south of Bursa near where I was going.
630--India lands 2 swords west of Iznik. The AC kills my horse, but is redlined. I kill it with an archer. I manage to kill a sword wit our sword, but lose another horse wounding the last sword.
610--Indian sword dies attacking our exposed archer. Zulus pile on, landing 2 Impi North of Istanbul. I kill one IMpi with a horse, who pomotes to vet. Another horse dies wounding the now Elite Impi. No one else around to attack with.
590--India builds a town on the NW of our island. I have no one to attack that IMpi, he moves East of Istanbul. He can now reach Istanbul or Uskudar.
570--Zulus land another Impi and a warrior betwwen Uskudar and IStanbul. I have our sword around now, and he killd the fresh Impi. Another horse dies fighting the warrior. Again, no one left to attack the wounded Impi without leaving a town empty in their reach.
550--Zulus attack Uskudar and raze it! Sword kills warrior. To make things even more interesting there is a massive uprising near Bursa. If we manage to survive the horse onslaught, we will have the GL in 2 turns. There is an undefended town on the coast SW of Bursa that we should leave undefended and hope all of the nice horsies go there.

Once again I feel like I left the game in worse shape than I got it, but the attacks were unrelenting and with tough units.

Some bad luck for us in combat in your turns. We urgently need to build more horsemen, i think. Barb uprising means that at least 2 of the AI's are in the MA.

if you guys want I could play some turns and join the team...this game looks it could break or actually succeed, think the next turns are crucial...

I'll be playing in the next 12 hours. I'll post and possibly wait for replies if anything more drastic happens than has already occured. Wish me luck and if you have any last minute advice feel free to state it now.

if you guys want I could play some turns and join the team...this game looks it could break or actually succeed, think the next turns are crucial...

There can be a problem with that. Noone of the staff members replied to my post in the sign-up thread if i could take you in my team after the game already started, i don't know if it's allowed. The software that that takes the submitted saves may only accept nicks of players that are in the team from the beginning. I think that we have to PM AlanH and ask him about that.

Does anybody have any objections against ThERat joining our team? He iseems to be more experienced than any player in our team and may help us a lot.

I don't have a problem. Having another Deity player couldn't hurt.

The only objection I can see is that our team is already 6 players. 7 may be a little too big, but I don't think it would be a problem.

No objections from my side. Any help is welcome.

Had a short look at the save. Istanbul and Edrine could finish their builds earlier with a little more mm. Are the Zulu and Indian galleys filled or on their way back ?

No problems here. Let's take all the help we can get.

Are the Zulu and Indian galleys filled or on their way back ?

Which direction are they facing?

thanks for those replies...it's up to you guys anyway.

Maybe I could give some advise first, I hope that's fine.

There is a clown in one town, fire it, it's not necessary (more MM can be down to maximse growth and production). Try not to build too many reg units, you could swap those towns to walls first, that helps a lot defending them.
Then there is an empty town in the south seperated by rivers from the rest. I would strongly advise to send one archer there, so it can help out. Any landing and the city is gone.
I would switch Istanbul to a spear and let it produce some. You have hardly any defensive units and this is AW.

The empty army could be filled with the sword. A sword army can be quite powerful. Once you have 2 more towns, you could have another army as well. As for city placement I am surprised you did not go for cxxc, which helps a lot top defend.

530 BC - EIGHT Barb horseman appear near Bursa. 4 Barb Horseman Near our Spice Colony. 2 Arabians land near an undefensed Aydin. 2 Barb Horseman near Edrin. 2 Indians land near Istanbul. Move Unprotected workers away from Bursa and Aydin.

510 BC - Aydin is Razed. Bursa Gets GL!!.

490 BC - learn from GL: Cer. Burial, Myst, Math, Philoso, Code of laws, MM, Poly, Monarch, Const. Not switching govt. cant afford anarchy now. switching science to 0. Indians keep helping rid the horsemen near Bursa. Zulu Impi lands near Iznek (Killed by Archer in Iznek). Finish off Indians with elite swordsman and horsemen. Impi lands near Iznek defeats archer stations there.

470 - loses Spice camp and one source of Insence to Barbs. Adjust slider to keep everyone happy. Impi goes for our Iron but is defeated by horseman.

450 - Vikings Complete Great Wall. Barbs continue to destroy improvements, but i have no units to stop them.

430 Indian Swordsman lands near Iznek and is defeated by a horseman.

410 Zulu impi and warrior land near iznek. defeated by horsemen. Indians defeat final barb near bursa and are closing in but only with spearman and archer.

390 - Damn, It just keeps coming, Indian Ancient Cavalry and Archer land near Iznek. They are defeated but I lost our elite swordman. Every town is and has been working on horseman. We are making just fast enough to keep up with incoming attacks.

370 - Holy Crap nobody including barbs entered our territory that turn. Final indians near Bursa defeated. OUR TERRITORY IS FREE FROM ENEMIES for now.

350 - Rebuilt Spice colony and adjusted slider. Again no immediate imposing threats.


PS thanks for the help rat, i didnt see your post till i played but did get rid of the clown immediatly. I kept building horseman though as i have not had to defend any attacks yet just keep knocking em down with horsemen as they land. I left the army empty though, waiting for chivalry.

Maybe I could give some advise first, I hope that's fine.

Any help is welcome :)


There is a clown in one town, fire it, it's not necessary

I haven't looked at the save, but if there is a clown than we should of course fire him. The research is not important anyway, cause we'll get the GL soon (hopefully). And if we don't get it we're in trouble anyway. So luxury tax can be raised as high as it is needed to keep order without entertainers.


You have hardly any defensive units and this is AW.

and

As for city placement I am surprised you did not go for cxxc, which helps a lot top defend.

Here are some reasons for doing so:
- I think that it's best to defend with fast units, killing all ai units the same turn as they land. This way is more effective, cause we need fewer units. A bunch of horses in the center of our island can wipe out anything that lands on our island at any spot if we build roads everywhere. We don't need to scatter units around our island. Also this way the AI won't be able to pillage anything, and they won't take any tiles that are being worked. Also horsemen retreat, which means fewer losses. And when you kill someone after an attack you have a higher chance of promotions/leaders. I hardly remember a game in which i built any spearmen or walls.
- If we are going to defend with fast units, than cxxc city placement is not important. And on small map and deity the OCN is very small, so using tight city spacing would increase corruption very much.
I've never played AW before, though, so this may be wrong.


Try not to build too many reg units, you could swap those towns to walls first, that helps a lot defending them.

I started building barracks in all towns that would be military factories, but maybe The Adjudicator changed that, cause the situation was critical. Of course we should avoid building regulars. But wall in my opinion are not needed.


The empty army could be filled with the sword. A sword army can be quite powerful.

Sword army is quite powerfull, i agree, but now we have only one swordsman and one-swordsman-army is not much better than a single swordsman, so i think we can wait for knights and fill the army as soon as we get chivalry. We can fill it with any other units before that if we'll be really in trouble.

When i posted my last message i didn't see the post from XoThErMiK.

I think you've done a good job. You could do nothing to protect Aydin and handled the rest quite well. I'll have a look at the save now.

It seems that nobody is against THERat joining our team (except The Adjudicator, he said that he is away untill Tuesday, but i think we don't need to wait for him). Nobody replied to our posts in the sign-up thread, so i repeated the question in the maintanence thread. If noone still answers we can send a PM to AlanH.

I knew i had no chance to save Aydin plus when i loaded there were no units in it. So I let it go and focused on saving what i thought i could. I switched the 2 cities that were building barracks to horseman due to need. They could possibly be switched back now but we may want to have a few extra horses on hand for a couple reasons, 1. to upgrade. we are raking in the money with science off and we can upgrade them all to knights once we have chivalry, 2. for defense. our method of using our offense to attack as the enemy lands has worked better than letting our units defend. 3. As obormort mentioned horses retreat and lead to more promos/MGL's and less total losses. 4. So we are prepared for the next wave better than we were prepared for this one. After a couple horsemen are built up in each town we could continue building barracks/settlers mixed in with a few defense units (nice to have at least one spearman per town but not necessary as we have not had one per town so far.).

PS I was pretty damn close to loading up our army. One or two more turns of nonstop landing would have really pushed us to the edge. For now its still open and should only be used for emergencies until we have knights.

It's very bad that most of our cities are building regulars now, but we didn't have any other choice. Now we have to make a very important decision: Build barracks or continue building regular horsemen (no settlers for now surely :) ). I don't know whether we have enough units to defend the island while building barracks. I suspect that the ai will continue unloading forces with the same speed, or even faster, and there are propably some barbs left in the east (i've seen 20+ barb horses coming out of a barb camp during an uprising, hope they'll attack the zulu city there).
A possible compromise is building the barracks in some cities while other continue building horsemen, and than swap them around.

Well done XoThErMiK, I think you did the optimum. I would also prefer to build horseman only for the time being. Maybe a pike/city as soon as we have feudalism and we can afford it, but not necessarily. We should build barracks one after the after. The other cities should continue building units. Now as the GL is built we should get our island under control asap and change to monarchy. Maybe we should fill our army with swordsmen and get our island clear. It will still take some time until we get chivarly and by that time hopefully we have a second leader and enough cities to form a second army.

by the way, if you guys think there are too many players in this game, I understand that. I could just give my 2 cents...

If you need some more knowledge at AWD, try reading those SG's with Handy. It is a good lesson for everyone. Try the current HNDY15 for example.

Wating to fill the army with knights might not be wise. A sword army can be really helpful to clear the island and a sword costs only 30s while a knight costs 70s, which is difficult to build. You currently have only Istanbul being really productive in terms of building units. Try getting it to either 10spt or 15spt.

While I agree on trying to eliminate landings immediately, this might get difficult once you face knights and pike combinations. Remember that fast units would attack towns rather than pillaging. Its spears and pike that will pillage you land.

You should build some catapults to knock hp off those units for a better kill ratio (and a 10:1 kill ratio is crucial for an AWD game). that way you can wound those slow pillagers and gain time to fend them off. You can use the towns without barracks to build cats while the rax towns build horses and swords. If you emtpy towns, you can actually bait the AI to land their units near those towns. That might help also.


edit: I looked at the save: some comments
try to optmise your cities to get to either 10spt or 15spt. for example Bursa is on 9spt (very wasteful) and no growth. reassign one hill tile to the plains and you will get growth in 2 and still 8spt (4 turn horse). Once you hit pop9 you can set the city to 10spt. Thiese tiny details are needed to succeed at deity, MM every single turn.

Istanbul is working an unroaded forrest, but gains nth from that (13spt). Reassign and go for growth and 1 more commerce

try switching Iznik to cats after the current horse, its a regular unit atm
actually thinking about it, Bursa should build a settler, its high growth and can churn out settlers fast

by the way, if you guys think there are too many players in this game, I understand that. I could just give my 2 cents...

You are in the team now and can play. Two players haven't played this round yet - DBear and Iroquois, you guys decide what the turn order will be now. Since you are the only player in the team who knows how to play AWD, any advice from you is good.


Wating to fill the army with knights might not be wise. A sword army can be really helpful to clear the island and a sword costs only 30s while a knight costs 70s, which is difficult to build.

I thought that we'll upgrade horsemen to knights, perhaps even disconnectiong the iron for a while, cause we can save money on research with the GL. But i see we're not making enough money for that expensive upgrade. Anyway to transport the army we need navigation, it may be risky to transport settler and assemble the army on the other side, cause we risk loosing all our units in the first turn.


You currently have only Istanbul being really productive in terms of building units. Try getting it to either 10spt or 15spt.

I just wanted to say that :) And of course micromanagement is needed. For a horseman we should have 30(pretty impossible), 15, 10, or 8(7.5 is even better) spt.


You should build some catapults to knock hp off those units for a better kill ratio (and a 10:1 kill ratio is crucial for an AWD game). that way you can wound those slow pillagers and gain time to fend them off. You can use the towns without barracks to build cats while the rax towns build horses and swords. If you emtpy towns, you can actually bait the AI to land their units near those towns. That might help also.

I thought about it and i have to agree that my strategy is extremely risky. Fast unit+good defender combination can be quite difficult to handle. Catapults can help greatly, but i'm not sure, cause they are to slow and we'll have to keep to many in each town. A knight army may help a lot here, cause it's very fast and can kill the strong defensice units.


If you emtpy towns, you can actually bait the AI to land their units near those towns. That might help also.

I've mentioned that a few times here already. Keeping unprotected capital and having garrizons in all other cities usually makes the ai land units near the capital, where we slaughter them all. But this doesn't always work, i don't know why.

I'm booked to the end of the month. If TheRat wants to step in front of me, I have no problems with it.

does that mean the order is now

Markh - played
Obormot - played
The Adjudicator - played
XoThErMiK - just played
Rat - up
DBear - on deck
IroquoisPlisken

if so, then I will play 10 turns and hope to expand the little empire a little

ok played my turns, this is going to be very tough to survive

Pre-Turn
MM to speep up growth in Bursa and change to settler. Change Istanbul to sword
plan to bait AI at Istanbul

IT no landings this time round

1. 330BC
pull army towards Istanbul to fill with sword next turn
disperse the barb camp in the west for 25g and promotion to reg horse [1-0]
pull horse out of Istanbul to bait AI

IT well India doesn't listen and lands next to Iznik
GL gives us currency and we enter the MA, get monotheism as free tech :(
Istanbul finishes sword, Izmir and Iznik a horse, set them to cats

2.310BC
defeat spear and warrior with 3hp horses, defeat both
defeat 2 barb horses [5-0]

IT another landing of 2 units next to Iznik, we get Republic from GL
9 barb horses appear next to Edrine

3. 290BC
defeat spear and 2 hp sword
defeat 2/9 barb horses [9-0]

IT we get a settler from Bursa, finish a spear (that can be upgraded cheap to pike) in Edrine

4. 270BC
defeat 3 more barb horses [12-0]

IT barb pillage one tile and we get Persian landing of 4 units next to istanbul :eek:

5. 250BC
lose a horse against Persian immortal, defeat 5 barb horses
found Antalya next to spices
army defeats immortal and spear and archer [20-1]

IT India lands 2 more units, Zulu 2 more

6. 230BC
cat knocks off 1 hp off sword, 3hp horse defeats sword and promotes
disperse the trouble barb camp in the east for 25g
defeat 2hp immortal, promote horse to elite defeating last barb horse
defeat impi with army another Indian sword [26-1]

IT lose a horse on defense in Istanbul, get feudalism

7. 210BC
we meet Vikings, declare war, defeat last horse [27-1]

IT we learn Engineering and Chivalry, an american settler/MDI pair shows up
we get landings of another 6 units

8. 190BC
defeat a total of 4 units
upgrade a horse to knight, we need better defense [30-1]

IT the RnG are with us, the top knight defender in Istanbul defeats 3 untis and promotes elite doing so
[33-1], we get flooded with more units

9. 170BC
upgrade another horse, kill 2 units, Antalya faces a sword next turn [32-1]

IT it's getting worse and worse, lucky thw sword turns to barb camp, but 7 more units show up everywhere

10. 150BC
elite horse defeats spear , horse retreats versus sword, knight defeats impi
knight defeats archer and our fully healed army defeats sword
defeat 1 sword at Antalya [37-1]

we might lose a horse at Antalya in the IT, I recommend to pull the army there. we need more pikes and knights as we can't really cope with the many landings
this game might be lost unless we can get to the very powerful sipahis, that's our only chance.
Bursa now has a barracks a s well and builds pikes, Istanbul is building 5 turn knights. Good look to next player

Good job, you managed to kill all those units that were thrown at us.
Now i understand that my it's impossible to kill all those units in one turn, i have never played AW before. In normal games the AI is extremely poor at naval invasions, but here we have to face many simultaneously, so i agree to building pikes in towns that cannot produce knights fast.
I'm still not sure about catapults, though. Lots of catapults can be really good if the AI indeed land all their units in one spot. From your writeup i understood that they landed at least once in some location other then near Istanbul. We just won't be able to move them around quickly (even with cxxc placement it's not possible to move and then shoot in 1 turn). But i agree to building pikes. Sipahi is a really cool unit, but it costs 100s(!), which also means that upgrade knight->sipahi cost 90g. We also have to find time to build libraries at some point . They are cheap and we'll have to self-research at least to sipahi and navigation.

When i have time i'll look through that AWD thread. Hope that we'll still be alive when my turns come.

Indian units landed alays next to Izniks, Persia and Zulu seem to prefer Istanbul for their landings. Thus, having cats or trebs in either town is definitely useful to knock off hp. Walls in new towns help as well and cost no support.

I would try and get the army to raze those towns that are on our Island, but we now face 6 enemies and this is going to be really tough.

If DBear is still busy, I can switch with him.

I haven't looked at a save in a while, so I'll go do that now.

EDIT: I think whoever the next person is should switch to Monarchy as soon as they have a chance. Maybe rush a few units before revolting. Although that is pop rushing, not cash rushing, which I don't do much of. Would the decrease in pop and happiness be worth the few extra units?

How soon should we be thinking of building galleys? I realize getting our island under control is the first priority, but they'll just keep sending units if we don't start taking out their galleys.

Do we have a chance to bombard the galleys when they are still loaded and arrive at our coast ? Often the AI draws their galley back immediately if it is hit without landing the units. If we can prevent at least some landings it will help. I think the Zulu galleys and Indian ones will not come in range as the distance is too short, but the Persian ones have to go a long way along our coast if they prefer landing near Istanbul.

we do have only 6 cities at the moment, switching to monarchy isn't highest priority.
What we need to do is to be prepared for switching to research as soon as we get education. we then have to try and get to chemistry, metallurgy and mil Tradition to get sipahis and GA.

I don't know whether we can survive a anarchy period at the moment. I would rather wait until we have 8 cities and 2 armies if we can get that far. of course, we should start to pillage Indian land with an army as soon as we get to that. But it isn't that easy.

We got landings non stop and it was challenging just to hold that off. next player should build more pikes for defense.

Bombarding galleys and other units is a good idea, but at the moment we have only 2 cats and that's not enough for an AW game, we need plenty more

Difficult situation at the moment. Read a little bit of the current Hndy AWD game you are participating. Sounds like real fun. :thumbsup:
It is a little different there as you shared your continent with two civs. In that situation defensive units are important to survive. In our situation I thought having an island on our own we would have had more time to build enough forces to fend off any landing parties. I played some AWM and AWE and in most (not all) of these games I did not need defensive units although I shared an island with other civs. Cats/Trebs/Cannons plus offensive units were enough to defeat the civs sharing my lands, but that was just Monarch and Emperor. The AI on Deity is much faster than I could have imagined.
I would agree to building more pikes/cats for the time being.

BTW, Rat, have you tried to remove garrizons from Istanbul, while keeping some units in other cities to make the AI land their forces always near Istanbul? If you did, and this didn't help i can see a reason fro it: we have archers and horsemen as garrisons, and the stupid AI may not consider them as defense and thus is not afraid to land their units near cities with such garrizons. But if we put a pike in each city except one, this may work out. Then having a lot of cats in that 'unprotected' city and knights nearby will be excellent protection.

at the beginning I tried to bait the AI towards Istanbul but India went for Izmit (maybe you are right, since there was no spear inside). Later on so many units approached and landed on both tiles north of Istanbul, there wasn't even a chance to empty that town. With so many units, it's impossible to clear everything without heavy losses (that we can't afford). We need to keep pikes in cities and maybe revolt. We might want to fill the rest of the Island to prevent the AI to take it.

Propably your are right. We can try to bait the AI later on if we have plenty of knights and cats, but now just concentrate on a good kill ratio. Still they land most of the forces near Istanbul and Iznik and thus we have to keep lots of our units there and our other cities are left relatively unprotected. So if the AI decide to land large number of units near them we'll loose those cities.

The indians may also have landed near Iznik, cause they have their town nearby, the same with other civs that want to capture towns near their native ones (maybe).

I don't know if we can afford to send our army to clear the island and defend with other units.

is IroquoisPlisken taking his turns before dbear?

Oh, I'm up now? Ok, but I need some kind of plan before I start

but I need some kind of plan before I startread my suggestions at the end of my turnlog

beware that our southern town (Antalya) will be attacked on the IT, probably best to send our army there to help out. try and get up more pikes and trebs. and if possible, try to shave off a settler in Bursa to claim more of our land. we need 2 more cities for another army. if we succeed in getting a 2nd knight army, we might be able to send it over to India to start to pillage them to death. that's the only way to end those annoying landings.

Most important is to destroy all the landings loosing as little units as possible. Send the army to southern town unless there will be massive landings near Istanbul.

I think Istanbul should continue building 5-turn knights at 14 spt, other cities should build pikes and cats.

We can try make the AI land in the same spot by having pikes in all cities except one, so we'll need a pike per city. Cats should be placed in Istanbul and Iznik, since most landings are there. Maybe between the two cities, so that we can get to either city and fire a shot in one turn.

Sorry I wasn't able to play before DBear. I've been busy. Homework, and all my SGs decided it was my turn at the same time. :rolleyes:

I'm back now, and it looks like things are about the same. We are still getting visited regularly by hoardes of bad guys. Welcome, ThERat. We can use all of the experienced help we can get.

Perhaps we haven't stuck to the plan of trying to bait the enemy towards an undefended town long enough. The AI picks its target to land a few turns before they arrive. Maybe we haven't given them a juicy target for long enough to get their attention. I also like MarkH's idea to bombard incoming galleys. We should try to get some cats to our easternmost and westernmost towns eventually. If the AI persists in targeting our core, we can save a lot of energy by hitting their galleys before they get there.

Given the amount of units coming to our island, what type of force do you think we will need to successfully land and stay on another island?

Baiting the AI towards one city is good, but they are coming in such numbers, that sometimes it's not possible to kill them all in one shot, so we have to pull some spearmen into the empty city. This should work much better if we build many cats. And we also should have at least one pike in each other city.

The easiest way to invade is to transport an army to the enemy island (the stupid AI won't attack it), and use it as a cover for our other units. The army can also pillage roads, so that the AI won't get to any towns we capture in one turn.

is anyone actually playing since it has been so many days since my turns? or is this normal in a SGOTM?

I think the rules for sgotm are the same as for normal SGs, so people who don't play in 72 (is it 72?) hours can be skipped. It's been too long waiting for mee too. I think it is up to people next in the list to decide.

The roster now is

Markh - played
Obormot - played
The Adjudicator - played
XoThErMiK - played
Rat - played
DBear - is supposed to play now
Iroquois

The teams' progress graph can be viewed at the sgotm page. There are still teams that played less then we did, so i suppose we have some time.

BTW on that graph we are second last by the score and our QSC stats are the worst :(. Most teams seem to have chosen tight city placement and have built lots of towns. The teams at the top part of the table have lots of granaries built and that propably payed off. Our loose placement might be better in the long run because of the very low OCN on small deity maps, if only we can survive long enough. On that graph the scores of two teams started declining over time at about the same point we are at now, which propably means they lost some of their cities to the AI.

0) -150: Istanbul @14spt is perfect for cranking out knights every 5 turns. Bursa @9 is not optimal, worker is mining incense, should get us a 10th shield, but Bursa will lose pop. The Izzes, @6 are fine. I switch Bursa to settler, it is in danger of rioting. We need more towns anyway. Move archer from Bursa to Antalya to aid in defense.

1) -130: That was a bust. The archer doesn't even wound him. Landings n of Istanbul. Iznik pike-->pike. Upgrade horse to knight in Bursa. Leet warrior kills Zulu archer outside Edirne. Knights kill Immortals landing outside Istanbul, but there are still Arab archers to deal with. Army kills sword outside Antalya. Horse kills the other.

2) -110: GLib gives us invention. Izmit treb-->treb. Edrine riots, bring warrior back home. The Arab stack (3 archers and a spear) doesn't attack but heads s. Bursa knight is kills American mace, taking slaves. Izmit archer makes a clean kill vs. Indian archer outside. Army kills spear. I don't like building walls, but Antalya is making only 1 shield a turn, so what else is there?

3) -90: 2 archers dash themselves against a pike which goes leet, the 3rd pillages. Edrine pike-->pike. Brought over 2 cats from Iznik to upgrade to trebs at Bursa. Army carries the war to the Zulu, makes clean kill vs. impi in Mpondo.

4) -70: Zulus land sw of Bursa. Army takes Mpondo! Horse kills archer outside Antalya. Archer, horse, and treb move outside Karachi.
5) -50: Impis move to lambs on mountain, obviously they mean to pillage. Istanbul knight-->knight. The earlier pillaging has knocked Istanbul back to 12 shields/turn. Bursa settler-->pike. Iznik pike-->rax. Lose a horse going up against Karachi. Can't afford too many more losses.

6) -30: Americans pick up Sun Tzu, they also have theo and guns, which no one else we know has. We retreat from Karachi, we'll be back when we are stronger. Zulus didn't pillage, but move to a hill between Bursa and Edrine. Send trebs out to bomb impi, have leet knight kill one. Spear is camped on spices, but I don't have anything to root him out with.

7) -10: As expected, the spice is pillaged, causing Edirne and Izmit to riot. They're at surplus anyway, so shift citizen to taxman. Build Konya, starts spear. We have 8 towns now, try to get a 2nd army. Workers chopped forest n of Izmit.

8) 10: We pick up guns. There is saltpeter 2sw, 1w of Bursa within our borders. America seems to be the tech supplier, because they have a ton of money. Upgrade horse to knight. Army kicks spear off mountain s of Edrine. Superleet warrior (who should be upgraded sometime) kills archer outside Antalya.

9) 30: Vikings get Templars. We seem to have beaten back the invaders. Now if we can just hold onto Mpondo, which has a very high chance of flipping....

10) 50: Bursa pike-->FP. India lands an ancient, a sword, and an archer next to our workers. One knight is redlined, but kills off the ancient. Another knight kills the sword. 3rd knight kills the archer and invaders are repulsed. Leet knight kills archer outside Izmit. Drat, no leader. army, knights and trebs prepare to march on Karachi.

To do list: Immediate dangers are Mpondo flipping back. Antalya is in some slight danger as well, but Kufah is a long trek through the jungle. If the Vikings weren't around, I'd say ring the island coast with troops and we'd be safe until marines. Upgrade the superleet warrior as well.

Good job, DBear. You destroyed all those landings and even captured the Zulu city.
The only problem is that Mpondo will surely flip to the Zulus sooner or later, there is no hope of holding it. We should RAZE it immideately and send our settler to found a city further from the Zulu borders. We should also build a library in that city ASAP.

There are a few things to discuss.
1. Revolution. Should we go for it now or wait some more? It seems like we have enough units to hold on those turns of Anarchy and i really hate staying at despotism.
2. The tech pace is a bit too fast for an archipelago and we'll get Education soon. We need to do self-research and since we're scientific we should propably start building libraries to get to Sipahis and Navigation.

great job DBear :goodjob:

I think the brunt off initial units is over since I had to declare on many Civs. great thing we got gunpowder from the GLib, we might want to start self researching chemistry since it's pretty unlike we'll get it from the GL. We need to get to Mil Trad and then can rock and roll and finally attack the others.
I feel we should raze Mpondo and resettle closer to our capital to reduce flip risk. Same for that Indian town up north, don't keep it unless the culture ratings are close.

I agree to self-researching chemistry, since i never got it from the GL.
If you don't expect that many units in the near turns, then maybe we could revolt for monarchy and start building libraries in some cities, while other continue building military. I also think that we should stop building pikes/muskets but more cats and knights. We can invade with lots of cats covered by an army + some sipahi.

Great work DBear! :clap:

I definitely agree with abandoning Mpondo and resettling closer. Mpondo's pretty far away from our other cities, and is at a disadvantage defensively.

I'll decide whether to risk switching to Monarchy. Seems like we could handle it. Do we have pikes in every city yet?

I'll play tomorrow after I take my SATs. :(

Great job Dbear. :goodjob:
Mpondo should be razed. There will be no chance to avoid it flipping. We have too few units to hold it. I would resettle Uskudar and put another city between the horse and iron at the southeast of our island.
Monarchy could wait a little bit until we have more offensive units to overcome the anarchy time. Our terrain is good to stay in despotism a little more.
Also noted that two teams have a declining graph. If we can secure our island and do a successful first invasion we are in a good shape.

I knew Mpondo had a very high chance to flip, but I wanted to keep it around long enough to get that 8th city and get a chance for a 2nd army--and as it turned out, also the FP.

Pre-turn – I’ll wait until a settler is built to revolt, I think. Switch Edrine to settler, due next turn.

IBT – Arabs drop off a warrior and a spear by __.

70 (1) – Istanbul Knight->knight. Edrine settler->pike. Raze Karachi. Upgrade superelite warrior. Connect saltpeter. Abandon Mpondo.

90 (2) – Iznik barracks->settler. Bombard and redline an Indian galley that was stupid enough to get close to our trebs.
Found Sinop->worker (can be changed). Switch Istanbul to settler (due next turn) and Iznik to musket. Use a reg knight to kill an Arab archer that was sneaking up on Antalya, and get a promotion!

IBT – The wounded Indian galley heads home.

110 (3) – Istanbul settler->knight. I decide to risk a revolution. Damn, we draw 5 turns. Could be worse, I guess. Lots of unhappy citizens, however, only Iznik will starve.

IBT – Starvation at Iznik. Persians start Sistine’s. America drops off a MDI by Antalya.

130 (4) – Take 2 damage, but the vet knight kills the MDI. Iznik will starve again next turn. Should be its last starvation, though.

IBT – We learn Theology and Education from the GL. We now are on our own technologically. A Zulu sword appears by Antalya. Indians start Sistine’s and Leo’s. Zulu and Vikings start Sistine’s. America starts Copernicus. Iznik starves but is now breaking even.

150 (5) – nothing.

IBT – An Indian AC and sword appear by Antalya. Antalya riots…not that it really matters.

170 (6) – Move the army next to Antalya, and the knight into Antalya to defend against the archer.

IBT – The knight is redlined but kills the attacking archer. Zulu begin Leo’s.

190 (7) – The army takes 2 damage killing the AC and sword. Settler in place to settle next turn.

IBT – America drops off 3 swords by Antalya. What do they want with this city?!? Zulu start Leo’s…again…Persia completes Leo’s in Persepolis. Americans start Sistine’s, Copernicus, and Magellan’s (uh oh).

We are now a Monarchy.

210 (8) – Kill the 3 swords. Found Kafa in place of Karachi. Switch Istanbul to library. Sci is at 10% (even at 70%, Chemistry is still 50 turns) and lux is 40%, +16 gpt.

230 (9) – Antalya walls->treb. Nothing else.

IBT – Another Indian galley gets close enough to bombard.

250 (10) – Bombard and redline the Indian galley. The workers east of Izmit are going to connect Kafa. The next person may want to switch some other cities to libraries. None of our other cities are making much gold, either because of corruption, starvation, or settlers, but they’ll be back up to high pop in no time, so we may want to build the libraries now instead of later.

Good job, Iroquois.
We've survived anarchy period, so we'll propably live ;)

Now the goals are
-Cover the rest of the island with our cities. Maybe someone could make a dotmap?
I think when we build the FP most of them won't be totally corrupt.
-Build libraries in major cities
-Build forces for invasion. We should be ready to invade other islands after we research MT and Navigation (or even Astronomy).
I think we need a more detailed plan of the invasion, so that we know what units to build. I think that about 20 cannons and 20 sipahi covered by an army will be enough. Rat, what do you think about that? We also have to decide what civ to attack first. We have to check what resources do they have.
- Leader farming is very important. Our army is obsolete already.

I'll post more comments after i have a look at the save.

The roster now is

Markh - up
Obormot - on deck
The Adjudicator
XoThErMiK
Rat
DBear
Iroquois - just played

Got it. I will make a dotmap tomorrow before starting to play.

I looked at the save. Here are some things that i noticed.

- We only have 3 workers + 2 slaves! That's way too few. We should make some corrupt cities at the edges of our empire produce some.
- Right now there is a point in founding only one city in the desert near an oasis, other land is either already used or covered with jungle. We can build more cities in the jungles when we have enough workers to clear them.
- Our newly founded towns have a high chance of flipping, i would've founded them even deeper inland. I suggest libraries there.
- Bursa can build FP 4 turns faster if we take tiles from the jungle city nearby, that city has 7spt, but 4/7 are corrupted, so i think that productive tiles should be given to Bursa, and that city should make some workers.
- Izmit (or Iznik, i confuse them) has is founded at a good spot (double cow), but has high corruption, which won't improve much after FP is built. Suggest building courthouse there.
- Other core cities should partly build military, partly libraries, so that by the time we min-research chemistry we can research next tech faster. Perhaps Istanbul and Bursa can build universities too.
- Most of our enemies have only a few cities, except Vikings and Americans, that are far away. Arabs (they share an island with persia) have only 4, 1 of which is on our island. This means that i propably overestimated number of units needed to invade.
- Arabs land near Antalya, cause they have their city nearby. All other civs were landing near their native towns if they had any during the entire game. If they didn't have any, they landed near Istanbul. If we destroy the Arab city, they'll propably also land near Istanbul.
- Bombarding galleys is good when we can't cope with new landings. If we have enough units to kill the landing, better let the galley pass and kill those units. Otherwise we'll have to kill more later.
- We need a good kill ratio and good chances of leaders, so no more regular units. Build barracks first everywhere. And build lots of trebs. If we destroy the Arab city, all landings would propably go in the same place, so trebs will help a lot. We should leave Istanbul unprotected and try to redline landings with trebs, then kill them with Knights, but keep a couple of pikes nearby to pull them into the city in case there are some survivors. We should place some units on the good tiles with sheep near Istanbul, so that they'll be no landings on them.

I looked at the save, before we think about an invasion that has to

1. an army to cover sipahis and cannons
2. army not to be filled with more than 1 unit before landing else we got no transports

we need to get research faster. the key in deity and AW games is to use specialists, meaning corrupt cities need to go on high growth and use then scientists. we can do that with and we could probably settle another 3 towns if we squeeze a bit (more cities = less gold used for unit support)
I MM the save a bit and get lux down to 30%, using a single scientist for min research at the moment and we can make 32gpt. Please MM every turn and try to max growth while not compromising the build length. E.g in Istanbul, forrest is worked. moving it to the oyster gives us 3 more gold. these things are essential on higher levels, trust me.

final note. since research is still pathetic, we better build markets before libraries (a 10% science rate won't be better with libraries)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/ober250.jpg

as for new towns, I would build on on top of the salt (so that the AI can't pillage it with naval units later on) we can then squeeze in 1 or 2 more towns west of that in the desert.
one more town in the jungle (army can take care of that Arab town down south)


one more thing. I would switch Bursa to court, corruption isn't that bad that it's worth handbuilding the FP currently. We need mroe settlers and Bursa is the town to provide them.

I'm not sure about markets. I don't see how we'll benefit from that. After min-researching chemistry the techs we research will get cheaper since most AI civs will already know them. And then with libraries in core cities and universities in Istanbul and Bursa we'll be able to research faster then in 50 turns.
Marketplaces are good if we want to buy techs, but this is not possible in this game. Another possible use is saving money for the sipahi upgrade, but i'm not sure that the money we'll get from markets is woth building them (90 gold). Building libraries is better in my opinion. Remember, they are cheap for us.

Of course i agree that we need to transport an army with at least 2 units in it for invasion, so we have to be very carefull in leader farming. Having another army is essential.

markets versus libraries is usually a hot contested topic.

unless you run 100% science, markets will give you lot's of money and onwe is able to research faster. but you are right, I forgot that libraries are cheaper for us. so let's go for them first. they also improve our hopeless culture situation and give border expansions.

About the FP: i think it's better to build it, if we MM properly we can build it in 12 turns, that's not that much, and it'll help other cities a lot.
Your dotmap looks good. Using scientists is necessary, we could also ICS the jungle for scientists. Agree with everything you said about MM.

File is uploaded.

Here is my log :

end of 250AD : some MM. lux back to 30%
Izmit changed to barracks
Arabs land 2 Archers s of Antalya
America completes Copernicus

260AD :Izmit completes barracks -> Knight
Knight kills Arab Archer at Antalya
MDI kills Arab Archer at Antalya

270AD :Istanbul completes library -> Knight
Upgrade Horseman to Knight in Edrine

280AD : Zulu land Impi and warrior at Sinop
Indians land AC and Archer between Istanbul and Sinop

290AD : Sinop builds worker -> worker
Knight kills Indian AC
Knight kills Indian Archer
Knight kills Indian Impi
Knight kills Indian warrior
Upgarde last horseman to Knight
Zulu land Impi and horseman between Istanbul and Sinop
Arabs land archer at Antalya

300AD : Knight kills Zulu horseman
Knight kills Impi
MDI kills Arab archer at Antalya
Zulu land another Impi at Sinop
Indians have caravels

310AD: Army destroys Kufah
Knight kills Impi
Indians land 2 Acs, Spearman and warrior at Sinop

320AD : Antalya completes worker -> worker
Knight kills AC
Knight loses against AC
Knight kills spearman
Pikeman defends against warrior at Sinop

330AD : Istanbul completes Knight -> Settler
Iznik completes Musketman -> Library
Kafa completes worker -> Library
Knight kills AC

340AD : Edrine builds Musketman -> Knight
lux back to 30% (had to increase at last landing, otherwise Bursa would have rioted)
Indians land 3ACs, 2 Longbows, 1 MDI and 1 Swordsman near Istanbul

350AD : computer crashed had to reload autosave
Knight loses against AC
Knight kills Spearman
Knight loses against AC
Kinght loses against AC
Knight loses against AC
Spices are connected again.

I have a vey bad feeling about losing 4 knights against the already wounded ACs. :cry: I did not attack over a river. Sorry guys.
There are still 2 elite and 1 vet knight available to attack the stack. I leave this to the next player whether to keep attacking or play defense. The trebs are under the 2 muskets. They have bombarded the stack and cannot move this turn. The army is available again next turn (just came back from the jungle). Maybe it is better to change some productions to knights to compensate the losses. The FP is almost complete. 2 turns left.
I mmed every turn focusing on growth and cash.

I forgot something. In Istanbul a settler has been built and I have not yet moved him. I would send him either between the horses and the iron in the east or on the salpeter and I do not know whether I have mmed Istanbul this round. Sorry.

Well if you bombarded tha AC stack with trebs and then attacked them with knights and not across a river that looks likes just bad luck. I'll see what can be done. If we return the army to Istanbul then we'll propably be safe.

Yes, bombarded it and all 3 Acs were hit. That's why the second knight killed the spearman, but that was the point my luck went away. There are still two longbows, 1 MDI and 1 Sword that could attack the muskets over the trebs. You could still attack with one elite knight from Istanbul, 1 elite knight from Edrine and 1 vet knight from Bursa to reduce the stack. I did not want to lose any more units this turn, but maybe we will lose the muskets over the trebs if we do not attack the stack.The worker east of the stack should be pulled away as the ACs will kill him next turn. The only units that can reach Istanbul are the 3 wounded ACs, but the muskets over the trebs can still be moved into Istanbul.

Checked the save, everything doesn't look that bad, we still have a few knights that can attack.

Pre-turn
- kill indian MDI with vet knight
- kill sword with elite knight
- kill wounded AC with elite knight
- One of our knights (vet) is wounded and stays in the open. Cover him with pike. Move worker out of trouble.
- they still have 2 longbows (not wounded, reg and vet) and 2 AC (both redlined)
- Izmit is highly corrupt and building lib->courthouse
- Sinop is quite close to capital and won't be highly corrupt. It's also under heavy cultural pressure: worker->lib.
- Istanbul can build university in 8 turns. That's tempting, but we have to build some more knights.
- MM Bursa to prevent riot due to knight moved away and still get FP in 2 turns: one citizen->scientist, sci slider at 0.

IBT
- indian longbow attacks pike, looses
- another longbow attacks pike, wins
- 2hp AC attacks 2hp knights, looses, knight promotes to elite
- 1hp AC moves

[1@360AD]
- kill 1hp AC with elite knight
- kill 2hp longbow with elite 3hp knight
- Istanbul is doing 14 spt, i placed units on all tiles that produce 2 shields so that nobody lands on them.
If we loose one shield because of landings we loose 14.
- Switch Edrine from knight to treb. Knight takes too long and we need more trebs.
- Cash rushed settler in Konya (it has lots of food and almost no shields)

IBT
- some zulu landings near Sinop. They propably chose Sinop, cause i moved pike away from there to protect worker.

[2@370AD]
- FP in Bursa complete, MM it down do 14 spt, start knight.
- Konya: settler->settler
- Antalya is not totally corrupt now and grabbed some good tiles back from Bursa, switch it to lib.
- The zulu landed out of treb range.
- Kill impi with the army.
- Elite knight kills zulu archer
- Fortify musket in Sinop to prevent further landings near it.
- MM: some citizens turned to specialists, lux down to 20%, income 45gpt.

IBT
- Zulu landed near Sinop again. I think that's because they sent a galley there a few turns earlier, when it was still unprotected.

[3@380AD]
- Kill 2 zulu impies with army.
- Found 2 towns, they start workers.

[4@390AD]
- Nothing of interest

IBT
- Zulu land near Sinop

[5@400AD]
- Edrine: treb->lib
- Kill the Zulus with elite knights after treb bombardment

IBT
- Arabs land ansar near Antalya.

[6@410AD]
- Iznik: lib->treb
- Kill ansar with an army
- Cash-rush worker in Salonika

IBT
- Vikings attack army from the galley with a berserk (WTF?!). Army wins but is redlined.
- Indian caravells sail around our island. It seems that they are attracted by empty town with saltpeter.
We'll need to bring some units there for protection.
- Arabs resettle on our island. I don't want to send army there, we may need it soon for defense.

[7@420AD]
- Switch those empty towns to walls, send some units there.
- Walls in Ankara cash-rushed, Salonika didn't invest a shield yet, cash-rush next turn.
- Cash-rush settler in Konya.

[8@430AD]
- Cash-rush walls in Salonika
- Konya: settler->walls
- Ankara: Walls->worker
- I don't want to found a town with the settler now, we don't have protection vs Vikings

IBT
- persians land 5 immortals and an archer near Antalya
- zulu land an archer and an impi near Antalya (2 tiles away)

[9@440AD]
- kill 4 immortals with army and 3 knights, no more units nearby.
- Cash-rush walls in Konya

IBT
- Army kills immortal and archer in defense

[10@450AD]
- Protect workers from zulu by knights
- Have to move one pike into Istanbul for MP block sheep tile with treb instead.
- Switch Bursa to musket, we need them vs the Vikings and Konya is unprotected.
- Maybe Istanbul also has to be switched to musket, i leave that to next player.

it looks almost as if we get no break to even think of moving units over to start attacking AI's on their homeland. this is tough.

now we need to make sure we cover the coastal towns due to vikings :eek:

we deserve another MGL by now. that would give us a knight army and a break in defending.

I think that each coastal town must be protected with a musket, but even that may not be enough vs the Vikings if they bring lots of berserks. We have to prepare to recapture some towns from the vikings. It'd be better not to keep 1-citizen towns, cause vikings will propably capture and not raze them (they are one of the strongest civs now and must be feeling confident) and we may capture them back. Another bad thing is that the landings don't go in the same spot any more. Each civ seems to attack the town that is closest to them:
India attacks Istanbul
Zulu - Sinop
Persia and Arabs - Antalya
Currently many cities were busy building libraries, courthouses, etc. Once we have libraries built and start building just military the situation may improve.

I tried to bait the AI, but the Zulu always landed near Sinop either there was a pike in the city or not. The Indians landed always SE E of Istanbul although I moved all units out of Istanbul to bait them. They seem to love that spot.

I will give it a go in 12 hours. With my luck, I expect to see some cavalry landing soon. As long as it isn't rifleman.

I have the save. I was about to start playing it last night when the forum server went offline. I didn't want to play it without being able to reference back to our thread, so I will try again tonight.

I did MM Sinop and Edrine to get the Sinop library two turns earlier.

Obortmot, were you planning to attack those Zulus with the knights over the workers? Also, are any of those boats on there way here?

I moved those knights to protect the workers from zulus. I think we should attack and kill them unless they go into the mountains. If they do we should wait for them to return into the open, where we can easily kill them. But remember that impies move two tiles.

The zulu galleys and the indian caravell didn't land any units yet. There is another indian caravell in the south hidden by fog of war, but maybe it sailed somewhere else.

I agree with trying to kill them in the open rather than wait for them to pillage or hide on higher ground.

I'm into my third turn, and I need some serious help. The save is posted, and here is my log so far.

PRE--MM in Sinop to get library 2 turns faster.

IBT Indians land pike and sword near undefeded Konya, zulus head for the mountains

460 (turn 1) -- I attack pike with vet knight and kills him, but I'm redlined. I kill sword with vet knight losing one life.

IBT Persia lands vet musket and 2 vet immortals in jungle by still undefended Konya. Zulus move in mountains towards Sinop.

470 (turn 2) -- I don't have enough forces to kill those persians. I attack musket with Eknight, and wound him once before retreating. I try again with a vet and don't even scratch him before retreating. I move the army and another knight nearby, but they can't reach Konya. Bursa completes musket, which moves to konya . Another knight in 5.

IBT First immortal makes short work of our musket in Konya and captures the town. Now they land a pike and two longbows in the jungle near now undefended Antalya. Arabs have spear and longbow two spaces away.

480 (turn 3) -- I attack that zulu impi who is in range of a worker now with our knigh tin Istanbul and lose. I kill the persian musket in Konya with Army, but I had to move one space to get there, so can only attack once. I kill one immortal with a knight, but lose to the other immortal with a knight!

We now have one fresh elite knight who can either retake Konya or move to defend Antalya. I think we should concede Antalya and use the knight to attack, but this situation looks grim beyond my experience. I need some advice at least, and wouldn't mind one of the more experienced players taking over at this point.

I looked at the save. I think that we have no hope of holding Antalya this turn.
All units that we can move to Antalya are an elite knight and a MDI. And they have 2 longbowmen which would propably kill both these units. So i suggest recapturing Konya with that elite knight and pulling some forces to Antalya to recapture it ASAP. Elite knight in Edrine should kill the impi that threatens some of our towns since it moves 2 tiles. Then after that if the knight will have enough HPs left pull him near Antalya. Also bring that MDI from Edrine. This will propably not be enough to recapture it, but we can recapture it in 2 turns when the army will be able to attack. In these 2 turns the persians will rush 2 spearmen. So it'll be army, some knights and an MDI vs pike 2 spears and 2 longbows, and we'll propably be able to recapture Antalya. We'll loose the library in Antalya (it's best to sell it now, cause it'll be destroyed anyway) and some population, which is bad, but not fatal. After moving all those units you'll propably have to raise lux to 30% (due to MP away) and MM.

If you don't want to play now, then maybe Rat can take this over (i've already played this round).

I'll have a look tonight and see what can be done about this situation, looking pretty bleak

@The Adjudicator you had some nasty RnG, happens at times, did you use the trebs to help wounding the enemy? that's crucial in AW games.

The problem with trebs is that they are parked near the capital, where all landings were most of the time. But in the end of my turnset and these few turns they started landing at our southern coast which is less protected. Maybe we have to bring some trebs there, but i think once we have a musket in each southern city the landings will again go to Istanbul.

ok game crashed in 3 IT and rebooted the computer losing the log, try to recap what happened

Pre-Turn
attack Zulu impi and get MGL :lol: , formed knight army, moved in into Antalay + MDI
2nd knight retook Konya

IT lost MDI but Antalay stands, get moer landings

1. 480ADAD
defeated some units

IT got more scary landings

2. 500AD
bombarded and kill a few, joined 2nd knight + 3rd knight into army
increase science to get chem in 15 at -20gpt

IT more landings especially around Antalya

3. 510AD
defeat a few units, wound some to get them to retreat
knight attacks some Zulu LB and we get another leader :D , that stays in Istanbul until we found city 12

IT army in Antalya defeats immortal and then the game crashed
we get 2 more landings
there are currently 11 enemy units in or near our land just to get you an idea

4. 520AD
kill 2 units bomb 3 and rest both armies

IT 3 more Persian units near Antalya (2 muskets)

5. 530AD
found 12th city Mugla, build army, am thinking of a muket army for landing to cover sipahis later
clear 4 units that are inside our territory after wounding them

IT 1 Indian AC lands, get the Pentagon message

6. 540AD
new knight takes out wounded AC, MDI army defeats 2 Persian units

IT no new landings, but Indians are close and healed Persian come back

7. 550AD
kill one unit, wound the rest
prepare for 1st landing trial on Indian land, plan is to drop 2 muskets on turn 1 and then drop army on 2nd turn
filling with muskets immediately

IT :eek: Indians land 5 units including a war elephant, this can get very ugly

8. 560AD
kill Persian musket first
knight army kills 2 Indians, lose 1 elite knight but kill 2 more units left 1 hp elephant
pike finishes him off
finally drop off 2 muskets on Indian soil hping the will survive the IT

IT tense moments, sword attacks and beat off 2 hp off forst musket, war elephant attacks and doesn't even scratch our unit
no more attacks, we are safe :dance:
Persia finishes Maggelan

9. 570AD
kill 2 Zulu units, but army badly beat, drop musket army and fill with 2 more units

IT Indian unit retreat to give way for our pillaging trip :)

10. 580AD
will play this until 600AD to even it out
kill 1 unit, but play defensive, no new landings, knight army goes for rest

IT Persia impale a knight at Antalya, ndina unit did not move and block our army

11. 590AD
bomb a Zulu galley and take it out with our galley

IT new landing of 4 Persian units next to Antalya

12. 600AD
knight army attack and defeats 2 knights but redlines, needs to rest
we will get chemistry in 3, then go for metal and Mil Trad, used scientists to speed up research
we have to send knight over under the army cover to drive away those Indian units blocking us

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/ober600.jpg

Great turns ThERat. :goodjob:
3 armies now. That is really nice.

Great work, Rat.
I thought that we'll have to recapture Antalya, but we were lucky to get that MGL and that saved us. What i really appreciate is that you had the guts to land that musket army in India. We need to start taking enemies out, otherwise the AIs will be to far ahead in tech.

Boy adjunctor you have some tough luck dont you. Glad we were able to pull through and therat kicked in to help out. I wont be able to play for about 24 - 30 hours. Feel free to leave me tips at this time. Am i correct in assuming we are going to pillage our way to the capital to cut off all other cities? The nights under the army are only to get people out of the way right? If we see any workers/settlers can we take them and keep them under our army and drop them off on our way back around our pillaging trip? I feel fairly confident I can handle the defensive side as I have played after poor luck the last 2 times and was able to do ok. However the offensive side is still new to me in this type of attack. If any of my assumptions for the offensive (or maybe pre-offensive) above are wrong please let me know. I am also assuming once we have pillaged the indians and have sipahis then we will proceed to take out the indian cities. When we get that far do we need to burn the cities we take and resettle or can we keep the indian cities. Unless we are able to crush the indians very quickly we would possibly lose a city or more to flip, as I am also assuming we will not have much for defensive to keep cities and production will be very corrupt and will take a while to build any impovements/units to help keep them from flipping. As long as we can handle any offensive against us, I think we should start using bursa as a settler factory and resettling as we go. Once we have taken/resettled a city or two, will these become the target for our enemies? Just a few thoughts, please let me know yours so we will all be on the same page.

I don't have much experience in this kind of invasion also, but as far as i know pillaging is done to prevent the AI from attacking the city we have captured in the next turn after capturing. With roads pillaged, AI units will stay in the open and we'll be able to take them out before they attack us. I have an idea of invading the island, but i don't know if it will work:

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

We could settle a town on the tile with a red cross and rush walls there. The indians won't be able to attack us in the same turn, so we'll be able to kill some of their units in the open. If we bring some muskets and trebs then we can have a really high kill ratio and they don't seem to have many towns. But i'm not sure if that would be enough, so we should wait for Rat's opinion before we do anything on the other island.

After we killed all units that attack that town we can easily take indian towns, that will be relatively unprotected after that. We can even use knights to do that.

As for the culture flips: i think we can handle them if we don't garrizon cities with our units, but keep a couple of units near each city, to retake it in case of a flip.

a few things to comment:

1. maybe we better empty Iznik and shift that musket to the north. the AI like to drop units to the weakest spots and they might be the northern cities with pike only at the moment. However we would rather see the AI land much closer to the core where we have armies and trebs. So, maybe shift musket to the north.

2. it is often enough to simply knock off a hp to get the units off the land for them to heal. this tactic can be very useful to be able to handle many units one at a time. that's what I did with those muskets near Antalya, I wouldn't want to risk attacking them, so rather knock hp off and they retreat.

3. This is deity and unit support for the AI is huge. We have to first pillage the land before we even dare think of settling. Else our city will simply be overrun, Indians now have elephants, nasty.

4. If the capital is not coastal we can pillage it and disconnect from the rest, that will trash the rep of that Civ since all trades will be gone.

5. currently there are no knights under the army, can send them over soon if we have spare knights. We can use them to clear the path or in the best case even attack towns. but I suggest not to take slaves along, they will slow down the army to 1 movement, we don't want to be that slow. for additional faster pillage we can also take explorers along, they can pillage nicely as well.

@XoThErMiK, take your time, MM every single turn to max builds in the productive core and scientists in the fringe towns.

3. This is deity and unit support for the AI is huge. We have to first pillage the land before we even dare think of settling. Else our city will simply be overrun, Indians now have elephants, nasty.

But they don't have that many cities too. I still think that we could hold that city if we settle there, but we need lots of muskets behind walls. I dont think that pillaging will change the situation much. If we wait too long, they may get to cavalry, and then holding that city will become really difficult. I think we should give it a try. If we see to many AI units coming, then we can just hide under the army and we won't loose anything. I thought about that idea and i like it even more now.

Wow, talk about luck with that MGL! Antalya has been saved from the brink of capture/destruction so many times now.

I like your idea, Obormot, but I think it would be better to settle 1 W, so it's not too close to Istanbul. It's still close enough to have landings in 1 turn, and it won't take any tiles from Istanbul.

Maybe we should put 4 more cities on our island for support of another army. On our eastern part we still have some space and we could bring a second army to India then. We simply let ThERat play and we will have enough MGLs :lol:
I like the thought of putting a city on the Indian island, but the elephants are quite strong with their additional HP, even against muskets fortified behind walls. We will need many of them. With the unit support on deity the AI will have many units even with only 4 -5 cities, but I would give it a try, too. We will not lose that much if we fail.

@Iroquois
Spacing does not matter here, we can disband the city once we've captured the island. What does matters is that the indians should not be able to attack our city in the same turn that we settle and we'll have time to rush walls. After that turn we can move the army into the city.

A musket army has defense of 6, fortified behind walls makes in 10.5. I think that will be enough to kill many elephants. They will also bring all their pikemen near that city leaving their cities protected by 2-3 pikes.

Building cities for another army is good, but we have to get another MGL first, and RNG can be really nasty ;)

Oh, if we're going to just disband the city afterwards, then sure, build where you suggested.


Building cities for another army is good, but we have to get another MGL first, and RNG can be really nasty

not for ThERat...

I say we secure the south. I don't like the Arabs coming thru that jungle. How many workers do we have available to clear it away?

since you all agree to settle a city there, go ahead. I can tell you it won't work right now. Elephants will stomp over us and the army will be gone in a blink.
Don't expect them to have only 20+ units, more like 50+. I rather pillage them to get their economy stalled. without resources, luxes and roads, they need to employ a lot of clowns and that will kill them. Then we can take out cities. That will really kill their unit support.
once we cleared 2-3 cities, we could think about settling. You could also tyr the following tactics to lure the units away from their core.

Drop a unit onto the forrest, once it can't be reached within 1 turn. India will throw all they have at it, making way for our attacks on cities.

@Rat
I don't see any point in crippling the economy of the indians. By the time we pillage enough americans and vikings will launch a spaceship :). We have to take out enemies, the tech pace is too fast. The indians will have the same amount (or even more) units after we pillage. And when they get to Nationalism we'll have to fight rifle instead of pikes. The only way to reduce the unit support is to raze towns.

I think that we don't take much risk in my plan:
turn 1 -> we move army one S from where it is now, and drop the settler on that tile.
turn 2 -> move army back, settle city, rush walls.
IBT indians go for that city, bu they don't reach in 1 turn
turn 3 -> If we see 50+ elephants like you said, we abandon the city and loose only one settler and some money. If we don't see that many elephants (remember, this is deity, not sid!), we move the army into the city and fortify it.
IBT hopefully all elephants die :)

But i think that your idea is better:

Drop a unit onto the forrest, once it can't be reached within 1 turn. India will throw all they have at it, making way for our attacks on cities.

This will also allow us to see how many units they have. If they don't have that many units we may use my plan above, if they have lots, we can try another plan: bring many knights, hide them under the army, drop a unit, all indians try to attack it, leaving their cities, knights attack the city, raze it and army moves to cover them.

@Xothermik
Can you play just one turn now and drop a unit on that tile with a cross on my picture? Then tell us how many units did indians send after him, so that we can decide what to do next. And, of course don't forget what Rat said about MM :)

As for the defense:

1. maybe we better empty Iznik and shift that musket to the north. the AI like to drop units to the weakest spots and they might be the northern cities with pike only at the moment. However we would rather see the AI land much closer to the core where we have armies and trebs. So, maybe shift musket to the north.

I agree to that. Everything went good when the AI dropped all their units in one spot.
We should have muskets in all cities except one.

this is the beauty of SG games, different opinions and different approaches. I like your idea of moving the army back, drop a settler and move army away to see whether we can manage.
I guess India is enjoying a GA atm since we lost against one elephant, but you are right, they do not have that many cities. let's try it out, we got nothing to lose.
one more advantage would be the fact that Indians would stop sending units to our core, that would lessen the burden at home.
And next player do not forget to move musket north and empty city. we need the landings near Iznik for easier defense.

I played the first couple turns at home this morning before work. I am at work now and forgot my notes (so what follows is to the best of my recolection although should be 98% correct)

Zulus landed 3 units - killed all 3, Redlined elite knight and promoted another vetran to elite.

Indians land 3 units, kill all 3 no loses no promotions.

3 Indian caravels and 2 zulu caravels on the way. To far away to bombard any but the Zulus will probably land next turn. Indians the next 3 in a row after that. Researched Chemistry. Played with sliders and MM's to get Metulurgy in 20 turns. 50% science, 20% Lux, +/- 14 Scientists, -7gpt, we only have about 105 gold or i would research more but then we lose 20 to 30 gpt to get Metulurgy in 15 turns. (ps had to make one clown in Izmet. If the lux goes up one level it cost about 10 gpt more, and since this is the only town that it really effects I figured that one clown was worth 10 gpt, if i am wrong let me know)

Dropped unit off on Indians Island on forest SW of army. Only about 8 units showed up but I had to move unit the very next turn under the army because 2 elephants and 2 ancient cavalry were on the square next to the unit. May start pillage a little now till we can get our military ready for attack. I dont think we can afford to remove any knights from our Island yet. Maybe after these 5 caravels are dispersed and we build a few more knights.



The 5 Caravels (15 units) kinda worries me, but we should be able to handle it as long as they continue to land near a mostly empty Iznek. I have 4 or 5 trebs there along with about 5 knights. I may have to pull a unit or two from near Antalya. Bombarding and getting them to retreat has worked well. They have lost 1 unit and have ?4? left out there. I will work to clear the jungle as I think Antalya could be farily productive due to location next to FP. Also with cities so tight there are no other tiles to be worked in the area surrounded by Bursa Antalya and Konya. I have been taking my time and MMing at the end of each turn.

One quick question what does it cost to upgrade knights to Sipahi? Due to research needed to get Sipahi we will have no money so will have to build them from scratch.

Any thoughts or suggestions feel free to let me know.

Good job on killing those landings.

The upgrade is expensive: 90 gold. I think the cost formula is the difference_in_shield_cost*3, knight=70, sipahi=100. I don't think there is a point in a mass knight->sipahi upgrade.

Did you check if the AI civs know Metallurgy? If not, maybe it's better to ersearch Astronomy now, since it's cheaper and we'll need it anyway to transport armies?

If you say, that there were not so many units attacking that town, then maybe we can try to settle there. I suggest that we also take a slave so that we can disband it and rush the walls in the same turn. But if you feel that they are going to overrun us, then just disband that town, and they won't attack the army. We don't have knights to attack now, but if we settle there and manage to hold the city, we won't get any more landings from the indians (i hope so). Then we may get some spare knights to attack the indians.

great job XoThErMiK

I would continue to research metal. we really need sipahis, once we have them we could switch off research for a while to upgrade some. they will give us the much needed GA and then I hope we can overrun the enemies

So am I up, or is XoThErMiK still playing?

edit: Nevermind, checked the save.

Way to pick up my mess, Rat. I've been out of commission for two days. When I left, we were about to lose two towns. Suddenly, we have invaded India!

So the plan is to lure the Indians to a remote forest that they cannot reach in one turn, and if they have overwhelming forces then we scrap the city on their land? Sounds great. Just want to point out that civassistII was showing our northwest city at 18% chance to flip. The city selection that Obormot picked is a lot closer to our capital, but may be closer to theirs as well. Also, if we settler the forest, will we lose the 14 shield per turn in Istanbul?

Could we try and find multiple landing spots that are defensible, such as mountains or forests behind rivers. Lets give the indians a few things to worry about, and hopefully they will lose a few elephants trying to clear them out.

My turns are done. I am feeling pretty good about where we are headed. Should be able to begin the invasion very soon. 4 Knights under army on India. Moving them 2 every 2 turns but that could be because I am too careful. I dont want to leave our trireme in the open so i load move 1 space, unload on the forest and move back. with guys on the forest all India comes at us. They cant reach us so the next turn i move them under the army. IBT The indians then retreat. Once they have retreated, I landed 2 more. If i am going about this wrong please let the next person know. Also I forgot to save at the end of my last turn so the game is at the beginning of the next. I didnt move any units or touch anything, Sorry. Hope its not a big deal. The IBT after what was sposed to be my last turn the Indians landed a pike and a couple bowmen or longbows near Iznek. Should be easily defeated after bombing.



IBT One immortal attacks and is defeated at antalya.

610 Bombard zulu caravel and Persians.

IBT Persians retreat. Americans Complete Smiths Trading Company
Zulu lands Horseman, Impi, and Longbow near Empty Iznek.

620 Defeats Zulus, elite knight redlined, vetran knight upgraded.

IBT Indians land Pike, Anc. Cavalry, and Med. Inf. 3 Indian and 2 Zulu Caravels on the way.

630 - Bombard with trebs and kill all 3 with no loses. Learn Chemistry switched to Metulurgy in 20 turns. (see previous post)

IBT Nine Indian Units Land (3 Med. Inf., 1 Sword, 1 elephant, 1 pike, 1 spear, 1Anc. Cav., 1 Archer)

640 – Bomb and then kill 2 healed Persian Muskets With Sword Army, others healed and head north. Bombard Indians with 5 trebs all hit but one. I had pulled the knight army the turn before cause I saw the Caravels on their way. Attack with Knight Army and defeat Pike, Elephant and Spear (only lose 4 hp). Veteran Knight defeats Sword (no lost hp). Veteran Knight defeats Anc. Cavalry (lost 3 hp). Elite Knight defeats Med. Inf. (lost 3 hp). 4 hp Elite Knight Defeats Med Inf (lost 3 hp). Cant get them all this turn (only 2 left) so I pull musket and pike from neighboring towns to cover worker till next turn. Metulurgy in 17 Turns.

IBT Persians Land Knight near solonika. Indian Caravels reload in Lahore(closest city) and head back. Indian archer and Med Inf. Killed attacking the Knight army in iznek (lost 3 or 4 hp).

650. Bomb and kill Persian Knight with new Knight from Bursa.

IBT Indians land 1 ancient Cavalry near Iznek.

660 – Bomb Anc. Cav. to red and kill with elite Knight. Bomb Indian Caravel. Metalurgy in 14 Turns.

IBT not much, Persians want to talk (They have Metalurgy)

670 Metalurgy in 13 Turns. Bombard 2 Indian Caravels to red. Bomb and then Defeat final 3 Persians (1 Musket and 2 Immortals) with Sword army and knight. MM add a couple scientists. I think we could possibly begin to attack the Indians. I move 2 knights over.

IBT – Nothing of note, another Persian Caravel appears.

680 – Metalurgy 12 Turns. Can only move 2 knights every other turn or our galley would be left in the open. Move the galley and unload knights one turn. Every comes after the nights IBT. Move the nights under the army and everyone retreats IBT. If we land Knights 2 turns in a row they would be up against 5-8 units. I am also scared to leave the galley open.

IBT Persians land 3 Knights – Arabia does not even have chemistry.

690 I had move trebs and Knight Army toward Konya and bombed Knights and finished off with army and elite knight. Kept one knight in Iznek otherwise will riot or shrink if change people to specialists.

IBT – 2 Zulu Caravels appear Near Konya.

700 Metalugy in 9. We now have 4 knights under the army on India, 6 knights on our island along with 9 trebs, 1 Knight army and 1 Sword Army.


Please feel free to critique my play as this is my first GOTM much less SGOTM. I am trying to learn as I go so if i made any obvious mistakes please let me have it. Nothing will be taken personally, I just want to learn.

things look pretty good. I personally would set lux to 30% and fire some clowns, maybe the metal tech woulg be 1 or 2 turns longer, but we can churn out more units.
I would move the army now N and then E, that way we can drop more units directly from istanbul. I feel with 6 knights next turn we could attack and maybe raze that city then proceed and finally found a city on that continent.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/ober710.jpg

We had one clown at the end of my last turn. He was in Izmit. Sliding the lux only affected this one worker in one town so i figured the clown was okay to save us about 10gpt.

I just noticed something looking at your pic Therat. Lahore (the indian city in sight) was population 12 a couple turns ago. Could they be drafting citizens already?

If they were drafting citizens, that would mean they'd be up to Nationalism (right?), and we'd be seeing rifles. I'm thinking the pike would still be on top, so we may have to deal with rifles in the city.

And Rat, I'm not sure 6 Knights, without treb support, can take a size 8 city with pikes (especially not with rifles). Do you have an estimate of how many units would be in the city?

So, we decided to raze the city first, and then settle? That's ok with me, i don't think that this sequence really matters that much.

@Iroquois
They don't have any rifles, cause they're not in IA. They couldn't poprush anything too, cause they're in democracy. Maybe they've built some settlers/workers (don't ask me why). I don't think they have many units inside, cause AIs usually send all their spare units (even defensive) when they see a target and cannot kill it in one turn. I've seen huge stacks going for a single barb warrior. Still i doubt that 6 knights will be enough. I'd say bring 8 knights there.

The roster is:

Markh -> played
Obormot -> played
The Adjudicator -> played 3 turns
Xothermik -> played
Rat -> played
DBear -> up
Iroquois -> on deck

they certainly do not have nationalism. we are lucky they do not have muskets either. the starvation could also be caused by happiness problems. if it is true that they are in democracy, our landing would make the citizens extremly unhappy, maybe they need too many clowns and thus starve.

I am surprised how few units they are sending after ours. I think they do not have that many units in that city. Knights retreat and we could give it a go with 6 knight, then see at what point a wounded units shows up. We can always bring back the wounded units to Istanbul to heal. I say raze Indian towns unless we are sure we conquer all of them. I do not wish to lose units to flips and I guess our culture stinks compared to theirs

Agree, no capturing unless we feel confident, that we'll capture everything soon. Even in that case keep no garrizons, just have a coule of units near the city to recapture it in case of a flip. Out culture stinks indeed :). You're right, they must have starved because of war weariness, i totally forgot about that. In fact all of AIs are either in democracy or in republic, which explains the fast tech pace.

1) 710: It is taking forever to do our research, and with no diplomacy, we can't even steal our research. We need to deal with the Arabs to the south. Our general sez that we are average compared to India and strong compared to the Arabs. We have no way of knowing if any other wars are going on. As I noted last time I played, America seems to be the tech supplier. Trebs near Istanbul bomb caravel, trebs near Iznik bomb invaders. Leet knight takes out pike. We already have 3 armies! I turn science down to avoid running a deficit. Knights make short work of the longbows. Send galley out to sink redlined caravel. Move our invaders to ne of Lahore. Send galley w/2 knights to help them. Gawd I hate this differential movement rule for sea units.

2) 720: Zulus land 3 archers and 3 Impis between Izmit and Mugla. India lands ancient, longbow, and pike near Iznik. Army takes out 2 impi, but lose knight dealing with another. Send the superknight vs. the pike in Lahore. Wounds the pike, but must retreat.

3) 730: Our pikes in Izmit perform admirably, defeating the Zulu archers. Impi dashes itself against a knight. India starts moving units into Lahore. They also land 2 phants, an ancient, a mace, a pike, a longbow, and a partridge in a pear tree e of Iznik. Sinop knight-->uni. Izmit knight-->settler. Kafa treb-->musket. Mugla walls-->harbor. Americans finish Bach's. Infantry army finishes off phant and ancient. Knight army takes out pike and other phant, but is redlined. Knight takes out mace. Knight rides from Sinop to finish longbow.

4) 740: Persians build Shakes. With India diverting troops to Lahore, invaders march on Bangalore. Trebs bomb Arab galley outside Salonika, redlining it.

5) 750: Istanbul knight-->uni. Bursa knight-->settler. Antalya knight-->musket. Americans build Newton. They must be pretty close to the IA by now. We lose a knight, but Bangalore burns. Zulus land an impi and longbow in their favorite place. Trebs bomb and infantry army takes care of the Zulus.

Question: Do y'all think we can afford to build unis yet or should I keep pumping out military? I don't want to get too far behind in research. We're still researching metallurgy when the leaders appear to be almost in the industrial age.

I think we can afford to build unis in Bursa and Istanbul, but smaller cities should build knights. I suppose you attacked Bangalore, cause the indians moved too many units into Lahore? That's good that we razed a city, but we still have to destroy Lahore, so we have to transport more knights to india. And we can use the same trick again to bait some of the units out of cities.
And i see that we have a stack of knights not covered with the army, did you fix that already?
BTW, how many knights do we have in india now?

I guess below that knight are workers from razing that town. Our knight will surely die on the IT unless you are going to cover it. By the way, maybe it would be better to pillage the roads so that India is rather immobile once we found that city on their continent.

We're still researching metallurgy when the leaders appear to be almost in the industrial age. this is deity, don't forget and we have to self reasearch everything. I am surprised that we aren't that far behind. Let try and take out the remaining 4 Indian towns and settle for more armies.

Just as a note, if we get another leader, we might want to keep him for anotehr sipahi army, that is ulimate terror then. But we need galleons for transport.

6) 760: Zulus land a longbow on incense hill e of Kafa. Izmit settler-->uni. Ankara rax-->musket. India sends 2 phants, a longbow and pike to avenge Bangalore but they can't reach us. Lose a knight getting rid of Zulu longbow. Take out Indian crew at heavy cost. Lost two knights and army is wounded.

7) 770: Americans and Zulu want to talk, but no dice. Americans have a fleet of frigates offshore and are doing occasional shelling. Some good news, our galley doesn't even get scratched fighting off an Indian galleon. We load slaves from Bangalore on. Our units in India need reinforcements.

8) 780: The last of our units in India is overrun. Arabs send a sortie out, killing one of our knights, redlining their longbow. Americans land a longbow near Kafa. Edrine knight-->uni. Bursa settler-->lib. Konya treb-->lib. American longbow dealt with. Knight attacks Basra, must retreat. Indian slaves brought safely home.

9) 790: Learn metal, start military. Kafa fends off a berzerker attack. Persia lands 2 knights. Knights kill pike and spear in Bursa. Upgrade 2 trebs to cannons.

10) 800: Persian knights are redlined, but they kill our musket. Americans land a longbow. Kafa seems to be the popular target now. Iznik knight-->knight. American frigates keep shelling our coastal cities. We raze Basra. Denizli built on iron, starts temple.


I suggest we take on the Arabs, they are a much easier target than India. Found city at orange dot. Will cover the peninsula upon expansion, plus can be defended from Antalya in one move. I founded Denizli on the iron instead of the coast because I thought it would be too much under Baghdad's influence if founded on the coast. Baghdad would always claim the coastal tiles leaving Denizli with almost nothing. Sorry about losing the army, there was no way to heal it and it just got ground down.

It's very strange that indians attacked a musket army in the open. Maybe it's because elephants also have more then normal HP? And it's very bad news, we won't be able to attack anybody untill we get another MGL or Navigation. I don't think that we shoul build all those universities. I'd switch all cities except the biggest ones to knights.

The Indians just attacked our healthy musket army? with phants? sounds quite impossible.
now we are in a worse shape and soon will face Cav's. the only thing saving us is the sipahi in 17 turns or less. After that we should go for Galleons straight so we can land armies overseas.

If the Indians attacked our fully healed army it sounds like a bug that we should mention to mad-bax. :lol: (just joking)
It sounds weird, but we never stop to learn. I experienced that the AI attacked armies that lost only 2 HPs in special cases, but attacking a fully healed army, that's new to me, too. Maybe the army was on an essential tile ? A ressource ? Wanted to rebuild a city at that place ? As the island is small he has not many alternatives for placing cities, so he might be more aggressive against armies. I experienced this in a special game at apolyton I participated in. There the AIs attacked armies as soon as the army lost 2 or 3 HPs. They were still in the green, but the AI attacked.

what I suspect is that our army was injured. how that happened is what puzzles me. but dbear can ultimately tell us about this mystery.
I am still quite sad about that, since it would have ensured taking over India.
Attacks on armies all depend on defense versus attack values. A musket army with defense 4 versus elephants with attack 4 sounds beyond me... :confused: it would be possible if our army was yellow, but that is also impossible unless we attack with it, which is pure suicide.

IMHO we should have pillaged all the way and disconnect everything they have. That would have killed them. With knights below the army one can pillage a lot.

Yes, have to wait until dbear tells us the story. It is really painful, losing the army there. It costs much time, which we hopefully will not miss in the end.

I just replayed a few turns out of curiosity and the army was never even touched though I razed 2 towns.

dbear, at least you learned a lesson not to get the army wounded. i'd say that could turn out to be the killer of the game. :(

Alright, playing now. I'll be done in a couple hours. Might only play 5 turns. I'll be taking extra care, so the turns will take a bit longer. ;)

Pre-turn – Switch Sinop from Uni to Knight. Arabia has just 3 cities now. Persia also has MT…

IBT – An American frigate sinks our galley that was left out north of Sinop. Indians send troops NOT to our island—over to the west. Vikings had 2 Berserks in a ship, but land them on the land instead of attacking from the ship. :confused:

810 (1) – Bursa libr->knight. Salonika galley->cannon.

Lots of landings last turn. Indians landed 2 ACs, a longbow, and a MDI between Iznik and Istanbul. I moved a pike from Izmit into Iznik, as well as a knight, so there’s 3 units in there. Istanbul has a knight and a musket, plus 2 cannons and a treb defending, so they should be safe.
Persia landed a knight and a longbow by Ankara, but I moved the MDI army there, so they’re safe.
Salonika is defended by a single pike, and a treb. It is in danger of being attacked by the 2 Persian units, the 2 Viking berserks, or an Arabian longbow. :(
I sent a musket to Bursa. 1 Knight is within range—don’t know if it will be enough…
I left Konya undefended, but I don’t think they’ll fall for it.

Do some MM, and hit enter, with fingers crossed.

IBT – A frigate bombards Salonika. Then a berserk is redlined, but captures it, stealing 1 gold. A pike follows him into there.
The 2 Persian units attack Ankara, and the MDI army holds them off, but is brought to 8/14.
The other berserk and the Arabian longbow head towards Konya. They’ll be picked off this turn by knights.
At Iznik, one AC attacks the pike, and dies, but the other AC kills him. An AC, longbow, and MDI are ready to attack Iznik again next turn. We’ve got plenty of artillery, but not many attackers…

820 (2) – The knight army kills the berserk.
Recapture Salonika and the treb, and kill the Arabian longbow.
Redline all but the Indian longbow, who I kill with Warrior6. Kill the AC and MDI, and get two knights promoted to leet. The island is safe once again.
Found Bolu ->library.

Amazingly, we are weak militarily only to America. Scandinavia, Persia, and India are average, and Zulu and Arabia are weak to us.

IBT – Arabia lands a longbow by Izmit, which riots…did the unit cause it to riot? I don’t see any other reason.

830 (3) – Kill the longbow. Otherwise it was a quiet turn. I enjoyed this turn. :)

IBT – Vikings ask for peace. No. Indians drop off a phant, a pike, a longbow, and a MDI by Izmit. Zulu land an Impi, a horse, and a longbow by Izmit.

840 (4) – Istanbul uni->knight. It’s going to need a market soon.

Bombard the phant, then attack with a vet knight. We lose, but bring the phant to 2 hp. Attack a pike with a 4/5 knight and…Oh. My. God. We get a leader. Rename the knight Gandhi’s Gravedigger.

Alright question time. Before I finish this turn and my last turn, what should we do? Build another musket army or wait for Sipahis?

I vote for assembling a knight army in india and :hammer:.
I see no point in waiting for Sipahis, since they'll have rifles by that time, and knights vs pikes is the same as sipahis vs rifles.
But lets see what the others say. DBear didn't explain the situation with the previous army yet, and if they do attack armies in the open, we'll have to think of some orther way of transporting units safely.

My thoughts:

Sipahi army would be nice, but not only do we need to finish research (how long now?) but then would have to build them from scratch and transport 2 at a time not loaded into army then live a turn and load them. I would love a sipahi army however timing is everything. If we can raze india with knights before they get rifles lets raze. We can still use the knight army to cover sipahis once we have them.

12 turns left on MT. Pretty far away. I think another knight army is the best bet right now, too. Even if we didn't want to use it to attack, 3 movement is even better than musket army at pillaging. That is, unless the AI attacked DBear's musket army at full health.

I am almost 100% sure a healthy musket army was not attacked. read my past post, I tried and replayed 8 turns last night razing 2 towns and not a single attack on our fully healed army. I am almost certain it was wounded due to attacking some units. dbear, it would be helpful to give us a report what happened so we can decide what to do with the army.

I'd say ship it over, use the same trick I did. First turn, drop 2 muskets and this time 2 knights. if they survive, 2nd turn drop the army (that is filled with 1 knight already), then immediately fill it with those 2 landed knights. That way we would be safe.

And this time round, please do pillage the land. It helps a lot slowing down the AI. Then we could think about settling as well.

edit: once we have sipahis, we can still use the knight army to cover sipahis underneath. a knight army is safe and won't be attacked until tanks I think.

:shakehead: guilty as charged. The slaves from Bangalore were in danger, so I attacked a phant with the army to attempt to save them and got the army wounded. I still didn't think it would fall under attack. Thought I could have both the army and the slaves. Shoulda just :sniper:

The slaves from Bangalore were in danger, so I attacked a phant with the army to attempt to save them and got the army wounded.that got to be one of the highlights in my SG history. :lol: to save some slaves :lol: attack with an attack 2 unit a defense 2 unit

I would vote for a knight army in India. Waiting for Sipahis would be too long in my opinion. I think we have enough chances for more MGLs to build a Sipahi army when they are available.

Rat, you said that when you replayed dbear's turns you razed 2 cities and i think you didn't pillage anything that time. So i still think that we have to attack indian cities without pillaging. Anyway their next defensive unit (rifle) requires no resources, And our cities are producing knights quite fast now, so if we do it fast enough, we may destroy india before rifles. A knight army and 6-8 knights will propably be enough.

what I meant is pillaging along the way. If you move the army you might as well pillage some parts to slow them down if we settle a town. We don't want phants to be able to reach the town in 1 turn. Of course, once we know we take out India, no more pillaging so that we can use the network ourselves

Of course we may not settle towns that can ve attacked in 1 turn, that is out of question. But i think that we can take out india before thay get rifles, so maybr just raze all cities without pillaging and then settle?

Armies pillage for free, right? I say we do a littlte on the way just in case things don't go as planned. And I agree that we need that knight army right now rather than waiting.

It looks like the AI's are beating each other up a bit. Has anyone witnessed an attack? I haven't since my first turns when Arabia and Persia were going at it.

After India, which island should we hit next? I vote for Persia. We will lose knights trying to kill those pesky Impi. And I bet Arabia and Persia are still at odds. It seems inevitable that we will have to fight rifles soon, but I'm betting we see some Infantry in America or Scandinavia by the time we get there. :(

840 (4) cont. – Switch Istanbul to galley. Kill the Impi and horse, but lose a knight to a longbow!

IBT – None of the units attack Izmit…but the phant moves to a mountain.

850 (5) – Sinop knight->musket. Izmit musket->knight.

Kill the remaining units on our island.

Gandhi’s Gravedigger is in Iznik, resting. When he’s healed, the galley should be completed and ready to be sent over. There’s another knight already in Istanbul.

There’s a redlined Arabian caravel that should be coming right by Sinop. Kill it with the galley. It doesn’t have any units, but one less ship to transport units over is always good.

Antalya will complete a musket next turn, but it doesn’t have a barracks. Should we switch it to a market?

I just realized that a worker has roaded the tile above the forest over on the Indian island (see pic). We may want to consider basing in Iznik--it can build a galley next turn. Also, Lahore is size 6 now. India has MT now, so they probably have Nationalism--rifles, and drafting. :cry:

Iroquois : You still have 5 turns to go, right ?

I will be out of town till monday so if my turn should happen to come up again (unlikely but possible) feel free to skip me. Army's do pillage for free, so do some pillaging on your way in, or if you cant get enough knights thier do some while you wait to amass your army.

Iroquois : You still have 5 turns to go, right ?

Uh...no. I only had time for 5. Sorry, should have made that clearer. School's coming to a close, finals are coming, plus all my SGs came up at the same time.

You can take it (I think it's your turn anyway).

I think we can play for 5 turns from now on, it started taking much time already.
But if anybody wants to play 10 turns, it's OK too.

Ok, I will play my turns today in the evening.

I played two turns and the Persians dropped cavs and riflemen. Stopped then and continue tomorrow. I am too tired now, so please be a little patient. I will continue later today. Need some rest. :sad:

IBT : Viking lose a Berserk at Izmit
Bursa build Knight -> Knight
Antalya builds Musketman -> Aqueduct

1) 860AD : some mm

IBT : Persians drop a Knight at Salonika
Indians drop a Longbow and Pike at Izmit
Istanbul builds galley -> galley

2) 870AD : bombard Indians at Izmit
Kill Longbow with archer
Kill pike with knight
kill Persian knight with knight

IBT : Americans drop a knight at Izmit
Vikings drop 2 crusader at Izmit
Persians drop 1 rifleman, 1 cavalry, 1 immortal and 1 longbow at Salonika

3) 880AD : bombard what is in range
kill Persian rifleman with MDI-army
kill Persian cavalry with knight-army
kill Persian immortal with knight
kill Persian longbow with knight
kill American knight with knight
kill Viking crusader with knight
kill Viking crusader with knight
island is clear again, some mm

IBT : Arabs drop a longbow at Ankara
Indians drop a phat at Izmit
Istanbul builds galley -> knight
Edrine builds university -> musketman

4) 890AD : bombard phant
kill Arab longbow with reg knight -> promotes to vet
kill phat with archer -> promotes to elite
some mm

IBT : Americans drop 1 rifleman, 1 cavalry and 3 MDIs at Izmit
Vikings capture Ankara with a berserk 1 turn before musketman would have been completed, didn't see the ship coming :mad:

5) 900AD : bombard American stack, no hit :blush:
Take back Ankara -> knight promotes to elite
Ankara -> barracks
kill American rifle with knight-army
kill American cavalry with MDI-army
kill American MDI with knight
kill American MDI with knight
lose archer against MDI
some mm

Obormot is up !

The empty army and 3 galleys are in Iznik. I would drop two knights and 2 muskets north of iznik on the Indian island on the first turn as soon as we can afford the units. I needed all units to kill the landed units. There is still one wounded American MDI at ismit.

Markh, I didn't see your last, it was marked as already read for me for some reason, so i thought you were still playing. Good job with dealing with those landings. I'll play my turns tomorrow.

@Obermot

I would try and settle one more town in our southeast next to Konya. Also, we can't wait much longer and I do not see many Indian units. I would straight after the IT take 1 knight to fill the army and 2-3 more knight to drop them on the forrest just opposite of Iznik. Wait with the 1 knight army a turn and then drop it to start attacking them. We do not have the time to wait much longer. At least we get sipahi in 4.

910
- kill wounded MDI left from previous turnset
- drop army with 1 knight and 4 more knights
- send galleys to Istanbul to transport some muskets

IBT
- persians land immortal and cavalry
- indians send only one elephant after our invaders
- one galley sunk by indian galeon

920
- kill persians
- assemble army (2 vets, 1 elite*)
- kill elephant with army, loose 3 hp
- move towards lahore, still has pikes

930
- Lahore is captured. I know i play risky ;). But it seems we have nothing left to loose.
- 2 muskets and 2 cannons dropped in India

IBT
- MT is discovered, Astronomy next

IBT
- Indian WE attack our knight, we win
- Lots of indian pikes are near Lahore
- Zulu drop some impies and a longbow near Lahore
- Bolu culture-flips

940
- Bolu recaptured
- Muskets and cannons fortified in Lahore
- There is a vikinjg caravell in sight, but there is nothing i can do.

IBT
- Indians and zulu pillage near Lahore
- Indians land a pike and a longbow near Istanbul
- It seems like all the ships head to Istanbul now after i removed the musket from there

950
- Wait untill the army heals...

IBT
- Zulu and Indian longbows attack and all die
- Vikings land a mace and a pike near Lahore

960
- kill viking mace, move army and knights out

IBT
- viking and indians pillage near Lahore
- Drop our first Sipahi and a knight in India

970
- All indian pikes are busy pillaging and Kolhapur is easily captured

IBT
- Our army is attacked (it was yellow) by a mace, but survives. This time we got away with it ;)

980
- Our great civilization has entered a golden age!
- We cannot hold Kolhapur, because our army is wounded, so i raze it and return army to Lahore to heal
- Drop 2 more Sipahis
- 4 indian pikes are trapped on a peninsula

IBT
- our musket is killed by a longbow
- some minor landings on our mainland

990
- Wait untill our units heal

IBT
- Bolu razed by a berserk

1000
- Kill the vikings on our island

Next turn the army will be fully healed and we can send some sipahis covered by the army to the hills north of Lahore and

then attack Delhi. Lahore is being starved down, next turn will be population 1. Istanbul is producing 4 turn Sipahis at 25spt, Bursa - 5 turns and 21 spt, Edrine - 6 turns and 17 spt.

:goodjob: Obermot
let's hope it won't flip. With sipahis we should be able to send India out of the game soon and then take on the rest. This is looking great really

Good job, Obormot!

Do you know the flip risk for Lahore?

Things are looking better. We may not be done until 1800 AD, but I think we'll win. :)

If we take out Delhi and other cities it propably won't flip. We still have one more risky turn. The next turn we move the units out of that town anyway.

The roster:

Markh - played
Obormot - just played
The Adjudicator - preparing to conquer India ;)
Xothermik - on deck
Rat
DBear
Iroquois

Some important info:
In another SG it was discovered that an army can get attacked if the NoAIPatrol is set to 0. It seems that when patroling the AI is moving units around and can accidentally run into the army :). BTW, DBear, how many HPs did that army have? Maybe it also happened because of patroling, i see you play with the fix from your signature. So i suggest that we all turn it back to 1 when we have armies in enemy land. Anyway there are no barbs in the game anymore.

Guys:

I will be out all next weekend (24th-26th) and unavailable to play if my turns come up then.

Things may go better for me if I get to fight on someone elses continent for a change! Are we planning on razing all of the Indian towns left? Are we going to try and settle any more towns on the Indian continent? Let me know. I will try to play tonight.

Depending on how things turn, capture or raze indian towns. If you capture them, don't leave army inside, but heal it in some safer place.

Here we go

IBT check flip risks for our towns. Lahore is .1%. Fingers crossed. I bomb the American Frigate. Scandinavia lands a pike, crusader, and berserk south of Antalya. Arabia lands cav on the jungle across the river from our armies. No artillery close enough to ping any bad guys.

1010 AD -- How am I supposed to defend the homeland without any knights? Only the fully healed MDI army and the 3 life knight army are available to attack the four invaders. The cav is the most dangerous, but also the hardest to kill. I will attack him with the MDI army. I don't want to risk attacking the viking pike first, because I wont get to his attackers anyway. Army wins, losing 3 life. I move a musket and a pike into Antalya. If things go badly, I have two new Sipahis next turn. The knight army and 3 Sipahis move to attack Dehli next turn.

IBT vike attackers die on our walls. Three more crusaders join the fray. The persians land another cav. The stupid Indian pikes disperse, instead of moving to reinforce Dehli. They also move a pike longbow to attack Lahore! A zulu impi longbow pair moves to attack Lahore as well. Maybe they are on the same continent? There are a lot of Amercans sailing clockwise around South of our island.

1020 AD -- Attack Dehli! First Sipahi wins, loses 1 life, and promotes. Second Sipahi wins, but is redlined. Same for the third. Kill persian Cav with MDI army. Kill vike pike with Sip. Kill crusader with other sip. MDI army will not attack remaining crusaders, but move to keep from getting attacked. MM in Bursa to get four turn Sips. Still getting Nav in 6.

IBT Vike crusader kills our foritifed musket in a city without a scratch. Second crusader attacks our sipahi instead of the pike. It dies, but not before redlining our Sip. Americans land two rifles and a longbow near undefended Salonika. Persians bring another cav.

1030 AD -- MDI army owns those persian cavs! I hit the american rifles with all four trebs! Knight army kills them both, but is down to 8 life. I clean up the rest on our island with Sips. Elite Sip attacks Dehli and wins, but is wounded again. The other two head for Lahore to heal.

No more time tonight. I will pick up tomorrow. The save is up for anyone to look at.

things looks ok, I would rush a rax in Lahore to get the siphai to heal immediately, else it takes too long

But, why on earth do we research navigation? This is the 2nd AW I am in where navigation is being researched. It is an absolutely unneccesary tech that we do not need. This kind of error can cost us dearly.
Switch the either banking or physics immediately. We need physics, ToG and magnetism to get to the next age (+banking)

1030 cont'd. Rush barracks in Lahore. Switch to banking.

IBT Americans are kind enough to bring a cav, a guerilla, and an infantry to the party. Zulus land three impi and two longbows near lahore.

1040 -- I hit two impis with cannon. First elite knight loses to impi without touching him. Second elite knight wins and we get another leader! Too many armies, not enough cities. Can't do anything with him now. 5 trebs fail to scratch the infantry.

Before I continue, I want to hear from the team about two choices: Should I attack the zulus with our knight army near lahore? He should clean up, but if he is wounded, he may be attacked. Also, how should I go after the americans? Their three units will reak havock on our continent, but all we have is an elight knight, two wounded armies, and two wounded sips to try and get them. My thought is to try and hit the Infantry with the elite knight and hope for a retreat. Then kill him with the 8 life knight army.

The save is up for you all to look at.

Infantry is very bad news, i didn't expect it so soon. It seems that attacking with elite knight, then army and then Sipahis is the best we can do. We still have one treb that can fire parked in some southern city, i don't think it'll help much, but that won't harm us anyway. You can move the army into Lahore and then kill 2 zulus, then kill others with knights. After the Sipahis heal try to attack Delhi with Sips and with knights too, so that we don't have to retreat again, after that maybe even with army, we have to risk now. America is a big problem, the next army should go there to pillage before they get bombers. If they get bombers, we won't be able to do any damage to them and will loose by UN. There is still some space in the jungle, switch some cities to settlers so that we can ICS that area quickly to support another army. Have we already invested any beakers into Banking? If not, we should switch to Physics and then go for Magnetism.

infantry can create havoc, you are right. We could opt to bring back the leader to form a powerful sipahi army. to do so we need to disband the MDI/sword army. Not a big deal since this army is obsolete now. What about attacking with that army as well, if we lose it, no issue since we are going for a new army.
or attack once and then disband it for 100shields (good for a university etc build).

at the rate our progress is going, we might soon face tanks and a UN loss, pretty likely. I think one issue was the stalled progress in India. IMHO the turning point.

Sorry, guys, but I have to quit eary again. I cannot get my conquests disk to work. I was planning on trying to kill the Infantry wityh the MDI army. If we win, bonus! If we lose, we can make a Sipahi Army with the leader. Also, I agree that we should bring more attackers to Dehli next time, but the Zulus are bringing constant longbows, and with only one musket in Lahore, we could easily lose to a couple longbows. The knights were doing a good job fending off attacks.

I will let you know when I get my game back functioning. In the mean time I will hav to settle for GOTM 44.

I'll pick it up and play atleast the first couple turns, depending on how it goes, later today (8-12 hours). If anything significant occurs i'll let you all know before making any major decisions.

Finished.

Not to bad I think.

Picked up in middle of turn 1040. MDI army army defeats Inf. near Bursa, Knight army defeats Geurilla near Bursa, Leet Knight defeats Cav near Bursa. Knight kills Impi near lahore. End of Adjunctors turn.

IBT - Vikes land 2 Beserks and 1 pike near Antyla, Arabia lands Ansar and Long Bomber near Antyla. India lands long bow and war phant near lahore.

1050 - Defeat all landed units listed above plus one lingering pike near lahore. lose one sipahi in process.

1060 - Defeat 2 pikes and 1 longbow near lahore. Start 4 Sipahi across to lahore.

IBT - Persians land Cav near Mugla.

1070 - Defeat Cav land Sips in lahore.

IBT - Viking take Ankara with Beserk (Damn Beserks). also land pike.

1080 - Retake Ankara. Move Sips and knights under army within attacking distance of Delhi. Load 3 more sips to send to India.

IBT - Americans land 2 Inf. and 1 Guerilla, Persia lands 2 cavs, Scandanavia lands 2 crusaders and a pike, ALL near Ankara.

1090 - Defeat all BUT American Units in homeland, Bombarded the crap outa them (5 trebs) and they did not lose 1 point. Can't seem to lose the MDI Army, maybe time to disband as we have plenty of Sips in India to form an army with. Will have 2 sips ready next turn to counter. Capture Delhi without a single loss (did have one retreat). 5 pikes were guarding the city. Move all units into city along with 3 new Sips from previous turn. We can probably continue to move on we have 1 undamaged knight army, 2 elite knights, 3 undamaged Sips, and a 4 hp leet sip.

Good luck with the americans whoevers next. I dont think they can take any cities in the next turn, I moved units from around to fortify the surrounding city.

Looks good, we can now propably finish India off.
IMO next army should be shipped to America and pillage, otherwise we'll loose by UN. I don't think we should disband the MDI srmy, if we settle or capture more towns we can support another one.

Roster:

Markh
Obormot
Adjudicator
Xothermik - just played
Rat - up
DBear - on deck
Iroquois

got it, we are short of 1 city to form another army. I hope I can achieve that, but we better do not leave our units in Delhi, flip risk is up to 10%, too risky to lose all our units.

Pillaging army for America sounds good, but where are they? We still do not know anything about the world shape.

Pre-Turn
send a sipahi on mountain next to Delhi to spot the surrounding, see 2 elephants, but no town
load leader into galley so that we can form a 2-sipahi army soon on the mainland
do not attack american units, we can't afford that

IT American inf and guerilla attack musket, losing and promoting it, 3rd attack defeats musket but inf down to 1 hp
Zulu climg mountain outside Delhi blocking our path to next town
we get banking

1. 1100AD
defeat both units using knights
attack Bombay with army and 4 sipahi (one retreats, the rest defeats units) and we own it
think about it, I guess we better form the army in India to take them out and then come back
form army and fill it with 2 sipahi
have to try and clear more Zulu units next to delhi, lose 1 sipahi, at homeland sipahi promotes elite taking out
inf. upgrade 2 galleys to caravels

IT we lose another knight on defense in India, the American and Persian ships avoid our mainland and sail towards India
this is no good

2. 1110AD
kill 2 Zulu units in india, otherwise a very quiet turn, healing armies before advancing next turn
empty salonika to draw the AI towards there

IT Americans and Persian aren't impressed, continue journey towards India

3. 1120AD
pull 2 sipahi, 1 musket and 3 workers towards India
attack Calcutta, take out 2 pikes with knight army

IT lots of enemy movement, really scary
America still sailing, Vikings drop a zerk on our treb
Persia drops 1 and Arabs 2 Cavs next to Bombay

4. 1130AD
take out zerk, sipahi army defeats pike in Calcutta and the city is ours
our sipahis take out all 3 cavs next to Bombay
move sipahi army to Madras, want to take out India next turn
lose an elite knight against a 2hp impi

IT Americans sail away? Vikings drop one templar, Zulu drop 4 units next to Calcutta and India one elephant

5. 1140AD
sipahi army attacks Madras, takes out 2 pikes, is down to 3hp, but India is history :dance:
take out 4 Zulu and 1 Viking unit without loss

IT America drop 1 Cav next to Salonika, Persia drops 1 cav next to Salonika and 3 cavs next to madras :eek:

6. 1150AD
increase science and we get physics next turn
take out all 5 Cavs wihtout losses, plan to set sail to Zulu, since that's the only and we can spot

IT wow, what a horror turn. Americans drop 2 infantry next to madras, 5 infantry, 1 rifle and 2 guerilla next to
, Impis add 4 more units in our south. how are we going to deal with them?
we get physics, next is magnetism in 10

7. 1160AD
easy things first, found Urfa in former India
knight army takes out 1 inf near Madras, heroic sipahi goes down to 1 hp but takes out 2nd inf, India is clear of units
take care of those 4 Zulu units, now for the American stack
bomb and take off hp from inf, knight army takes out 2/5, elite sipahi takes out no3, do not dare tke use sword army

IT :dance: 2 guerilla and rilfe attack knight army in salonika, bring it to 4 hp but all die, the 2 wounded inf move on
Zulu drops another 4 units next to Madras and 2 units next to Salonika

8. 1170AD
lose a sipahi trying to take out Impi, what's with those impis
take out all Zulu units, bomb inf down to 1 hp, take out 1 with sword army, rest heals this turn leaving 1 inf
land 2 siphai amry + 1 extra sipahi in Zulu land

IT Vikings attack sipahi in Salonika, but lose. Persia drop a Cav in our homeland
Zulu drop 3 more units next to Madras, we have to stop them soon.

9. 1180AD
promote sipahi to elite taking out that Persian Cav, kill that last American infantry
take out Zulu units near madras
since last IT Zulu units went into Intombe, not going to attack this turn risking the army
load 2 new sipahi to be dropped in Zululand for attacks

IT Vikings take Salonika, that was left empty to bait the AI, golden age ends and Istnabul riots, scroll forward to avoid
worse. Edrine is upset by propaganda

10. 1190AD
need to reduce science and we can only get magnetism in 15
take back Salonika

IT play a turn more to even things out, no landings this turn, America starts ToE :eek:

11. 1200AD
magnetism drops to 13, 2 sipahi start to attack Intombe and army takes it out.
Recommend to raze towns rather then keep them, since there are a lot of units running about
we have a settler in place in India

we have 19 cities, far more than anyone else and next turns we have 20, enough for another army
many elite wins didn't give me any MGL.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/ober1200.jpg

Great job, Rat!

As we take out more AIs (especially the Zulu), the fewer units we will have to deal with will be a big help. After the Zulu are gone, we should be able to push a much better offensive against whoever we attack next.

DBear's up.

EDIT: Which direction are American ships coming from? There appears to be a sea crossing West of Kafa.

yes, you are right, but as soon as I sent out one caravel, it was sunk by american ships. We need to send a few frigattes and galleon, but if we are unlucky, America will have bombers by then and then it will turn very nasty.

I have also seen Americans directly South of our Island. I bet their island is SW of us.

:goodjob: great work!
I think that now we can take our other neighbors out quite easily, but the americans are a big problem. I'm also afraid that they share their island with vikings and that means that taking vikings out will also be difficult and there will be no way to avoid UN loss.