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Ragnoff

Oct 31, 2005, 03:13 AM

OK, we are the mighty Milanese Empire, known as the Ping Teammates! The year is 2880 B.C., and the first Dynasty has ended. The Ragnoff family has come to power (the Malinese have no idea where that name came from, or why that some foreign sounding.

"The first thing that the first Ragnoff Emperor does is ask his advisers to study his people, and to return.

First of all, we discover that the Ping Teammates are spiritual people. They are also quite wise in the ways of finance, having started bartering with one another before we even had anything valuable to barter with! You would think as a spiritual people we would start on the path to wisdom and guidance, but it appears that in the beginning the People's greed was more important than their devotion and in the beginning learned to make roads to rocks that had pretty colors in them, and then to dig up the rocks (we started with The Wheel and Mining). This may be why the first emperor, Ozymandous the first, directed his wise men to ignore the realm of the spiritual and focus instead on all of the things we could do with the world around us.

Ozymandous told us in addition to hiding from the animals, we could hunt them! His wise men learned that certain things, when planted in the ground, yielded good food if you bothered to stay around long enough to see it grow. After hunting the animals for awhile, we found out that if we rounded out some of the animals and stuck them inside a fence, they would always be there later we wanted to eat them. But while Ozymandous modestly claimed he only pointed his people down the first of the spiritual stones, mysticism, Ragnoff the Curious discovered that he must have, in fact, learned those secrets. Speaking of stones, we seem to have a lot of them lying around. Probably because we only really want the pretty colored ones when we dig them up, but there are a lot of ugly ones usually on top of the pretty ones. However, as Ragnoff the Curious prepares to take the reins of power into his hands, he notices that some of the people are experimenting with making piles of the ugly rocks, and suggest that if we polish the ugly rocks and then stack them on top of one another, we might be able to build a building that won't fall down next time the wind blows really hard. Ragnoff the Curious is somewhat doubtful, but allows the people to continue on this project that they call masonry. One of them even pointed out that if we could make the buildings really neat looking, it might cause us to rediscover our spiritiall side (masonry is a prerequisite for the last of the early religions with monotheism)."

I was fairly surprised to discover at first that we did not found either religion, especially since we have the spiritual trait. But I looked at our starting technologies and realized why Ozzy may have chosen to develop the worker technologies, if were going to build workers, we might as well have them be able to do a wide range of tasks. The financial tray will not do is a lot of good early, sent the tile must already produced to coins before it comes in the play. However, this makes towns and villages and even better potential build, so placing cottages should have some priority, particularly where there is already abundant food resources.

"Finally, one small village of other people we found took sticks with stones on one hand in shows us how do you could use another stick with a bit of animal gut to propel the first take a great velocity, a practice they called archery. Our people, however, been much wiser than the simple villagers, realized that while the villagers stood together in groups to practice this archery, archery also be used by people who were hiding behind trees and not standing in a big group. The villagers called their people who practiced archery archers, but we call our people who uses running around tactic skirmishers."

Our skirmishers are a great ancient unit, they have a 4 strength instead of an archers 3, can get one or two first strikes instead of an archers one, yet cost the same 25 hammers. The advantage of a great ancient unit like this means that we will probably be able to defend cities with but a unit or two from rampaging barbarians and early attacks. But in some ways the advantage is short lived, and if we don't engage in any early wars, we will probably be at long bowman before we need to use this unit.

"The next order of business for Ragnoff the Curious was to investigate our city itself into inquire about the people we have. Our capital city, Timbuktu, has grown twice since the Ping Teammates started keeping records. We discover that, for all the Ozymandous dynasty did to advance the state of knowledge about what we could do with the land, he never had people organize to go out and do those things! Instead, the people were busy looking about. One group of them, armed with very little but fast-moving, were scouting about. Two other groups, armed with big sticks, were moving at a slower pace. Finally, one group of people with big sticks, and the group of people who were practice been that skirmishing idea were stationed here at Timbuktu, which probably means that barbarians would not attack Timbuktu, and explains why the Ozymandous dynasty stayed in power for almost 1200 years! :P

However, it does seem that the Ozymandous dynasty finally decided that since we can do all these neat things with the land, we ought to organize a group of people to do that, and that is currently with the energy of Timbuktu is going: to train a group of people in all these tasks we learned! Apparently, learning the tasks isn't the hard part, it's convincing our people they want to do this! In order to trick people into doing this, we are going to give them a title, Workers, and tell them that this is a much better title than the People Carrying Clubs, or People Figuring out Cool New Things. This training is not yet complete, and Ragnoff the Curious would not dream of interrupting it. As for the city itself, it is, on forcefully, still a rather rude place. Although we have a nice palace that we inherited from the Ozymandous dynasty, the rest of the city is pretty much a collection of huts, tents, and straw buildings. This might explain the interest in piling stones on one another in an attempt to develop better buildings!

Of the lands nearby, we have found places where animals can be herded, and were numerous things can grow. Of course, none of them is actually near our main city. Unfortunately, the resource that we planted our city on and near, the great silk fields, are still something that we cannot understand how to properly harvest. Oh well, when we get these workers, they can start building a road towards the rocks, the cows, and corn and maybe we'll send some people to live there instead of bringing all the rocks back here!"

Okay, we have no buildings, three warriors, scout and a skirmisher. I will keep the scout and the two warriors out looking around. The scout I will bring back down towards Timbuktu, hoping to investigate the immediate surroundings and find locations for our next cities. I feel that, as soon as we finish the workers, we want to start settlers. An absolutely great city site would be the desert hill immediately north of the stone. The reasoning is that the city gets to food, a hammer, and according no matter where you put it. It does, however, get the defensive bonus for the Hill, and it will be able to utilize the nearby cow and corn while only overlapping the lake with Timbuktu. It finally play 10 turns, there is no way I will get the settler out, but I will start him. If I play 20, that I believe I can found the city before my turn ends. For research, I intend to finish masonry, and then start the polytheism tomatoes use them wrong. Monotheism is the only early religion left that we would have a shot at. While the people who founded the other two religions are closer to Monotheism, it is quite possible that those civilizations, already possessing religion, will currently be picking up the worker tasks we already know and may not have a great urge to get to Monotheism. Our spiritual trait becomes much more powerful if we have founded at least one religion.

Ozymandous, I didn't mean to rewrite your turns (he's released a history of them) but I wanted to do something related to our succession game and I thought perhaps I should get some feedback from folks before I went ahead with these plans. I will probably have a chance to play my turns after the kids get done trick-or-treating, so look for a post late tomorrow night.

Ozymandous

Oct 31, 2005, 12:01 PM

No problem in 'rewriting' them. I had a nice story written up as well, but after it was eaten (for once I didn't copy it before I tinkered with the page), I went to the summary.

Yes, our chief herder figured out how to selectively breed the animals near by, on a smaller scale since we had to way to keep large herds of them (no pastures) resulting in much improved steaks for the ruler, and the plan was to gather larger herds so the populace could eat better as well. :D

A rather smart general had figured out how to throw sticks more accurately than the initial barbarians in the village, and hence our Skirmisher's were born.

I'm still trying to figure out when a good time to build the initial worker/settler so sorry for the potential :smoke: there. :)

Oh, and yah, since we didn't start with Mysticism, and Buddhism and Hinduism were founded fairly early on I didn't make it a priority. Hopefully when that worker does pop out we can improve our lands better. And yah, Sulla I thought for a few minutes on where I wanted to found the initial city, and probably still choose wrong. :P

I believe the second person receives 20 turns, and after that 10 but I'm ot sure. :)

Ragnoff

Oct 31, 2005, 12:58 PM

I don't think there is necessarily a "best time" to build a worker/settler. Unlike civilization three, I feel that expertise is demonstrated in civilization four by skillfully developing the hand you're dealt and altering strategies to fit changing circumstances, rather than skillfully implementing a more formulaic ideal strategy.

In our case, I think I would have gone for workers earlier primarily because the research paths focused on worker capabilities. Additionally, while our starting city location has the potential to be developed into a quite effective city, particularly in regards to commerce, is not particularly powerful in its natural state. I do not believe any starting tiles have more than a combined three hammers/food. The only tile that we can get a total of five or more combined food/hammer/coins is the small lake to the West, which we cannot use right now because we do not have fishing.

As we are all new to the game, I do not offer this in an attempt to criticize, rather to analyze. I do not think the research choices made were inappropriate, nor do I think it is inherently wrong to delay a bit before producing settlers and workers, especially when one sees the need to explore to find a second city site, however I do not think that those two choices, combined with our starting city location, was optimal.

However, I also do not think we are necessarily in a bad position, as the city on the silk and the two additional silk resources, combined with the trade implications by having the city connected to both rivers, suggest that the city will be a commercial powerhouse when develops later in the game. We also have several units so we will be able to quickly exploreand access to a skirmisher, a powerful defensive unit for the early game. The only thing I think this means is that we have to carefully consider where to place the next city, so that we can have a city that is strong and production/food.

LKendter

Oct 31, 2005, 01:07 PM

Unlike civilization three, I feel that expertise is demonstrated in civilization four by skillfully developing the hand you're dealt and altering strategies to fit changing circumstances, rather than skillfully implementing a more formulaic ideal strategy.

I have to agree hear. If you have nearby fish then fishing is critical. Why learn about pastures if no cows. The list goes on and on.
Even what to build can be influenced by resources as some buildings speed up with things such as stone and marble.

Dwip

Oct 31, 2005, 01:09 PM

"Oh no," I say. "I'm up in RB2, and my copy of Civ isn't here ye..." *UPS truck pulls up and hands it to me*

Some days my timing works out.

Got it, with some delay while I figure out how to run things.

Ragnoff

Oct 31, 2005, 01:41 PM

Dwip, I am hoping to have enough time to complete my turns and post tonight, but there is a chance it will not be posted until tomorrow afternoon.

Dwip

Oct 31, 2005, 02:49 PM

(Boy, Civfanatics is being REALLY slow today)

Er, yeah. Ok. Ignore me. Apparently along with relearning the interface for Civ 4, I need to relearn not to post when I haven't had my caffiene yet, too... :crazyeye:

(Next stop, I relearn to read! See Dwip. See Dwip read. Read Dwip, read!)

On the plus side, I seem to be one of about two people with ATI cards the game just gets up and works for, so.

Talamane

Oct 31, 2005, 05:49 PM

Just for grins (and i need the practice).

The infamous calendar(~tm) start. Holy hannah! I rolled a start with the same settings. Super lucky. Founded two religions (Hinduism, Judaism), closed off my AI neighbor from expansion with borders crossing a small continent i share with him (China), crushing one of his cities with culture, about to pop a great prophet. Built Stonehenge and Oracle. Presently building skirms, since i see him getting desperate. Two cites, about to found third. Date is 925 BC.

And all because of wet corn and wet rice.

Ragnoff

Oct 31, 2005, 09:59 PM

OK, I am playing turns now, in trying to learn how to post images! I should this up tonight...

Ragnoff

Nov 01, 2005, 01:22 AM

"Ragnoff the Curious waited for a dissenting voice, but none was heard. Therefore, Ragnoff the Curious set out the following goals for his dynasty:

First, trick enough people into becoming workers and we can begin to grow more food!
Second, establish a second city, probably WSW of Timbuktu, perhaps on the desert hill. Third, attempt to establish monotheism in an attempt to it sounds the religion of Judaism. Fourth, continue scouting both rivers, as the rivers provide immediate trade access to all cities on their banks. Locate sites along these to propose to the following dynasty for the further establishment of our cities. If the third city can be founded, so much the better.

Ragnoff the Suddenly Less Curious tells his advisers to shut their miles, for all the chatter is given him a headache. After 1200 years, the Ragnoff dynasty finally had the chance, and by goodness it's time to do something impressive!"

2880 (preturn): there is nothing to set and everything looks ready, masonry is in progress as is the worker in Timbuktu.

2840 B.C. (turn 1): the scout in warrior to the north continued north, confirming that they've reached the line of tundra, and the scout crosses the river. Fir, from beavers, is found up here. The warrior to the south almost invades German territory! Last night, when looking at this screen, I was thinking what a great location for a city this was, but I did not notice the very faint white line (below) that represented the cultural border of Germany. Okay, we do want to get a city to the south here before Frederick expands too far, but for now there are more important concerns.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/8687/ragnoff013sy.jpg

2800 B.C. (turn 2): Bears and bears and bears, oh my! The scout moves to a hill in the north, only to find bears on the other side. The warrior to the south, by Frederick, moved southwest, and the newly revealed squares to the Northwest and Southeast to him both contain bears!!!!

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/7603/ragnoff027qw.jpg

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/8061/ragnoff038if.jpg

Now this warrior has the woodsman special ability, and is in the jungle, I'm almost afraid to push the end turn button, because the Bears might reduce our military forces by 40%!

Interturn: (Q: is this what we call the time between the end of one turn in the beginning of the next?) While the bare to the north decided he wasn't hungry for Scout, the first of the two bear from the self completely wiped out our experienced warriors in the jungle. (Animal psychics were able to determine that the bearers sent “thank you’s.” See what happens when you let your people learn mysticism). Apparently the following maxim does not hold true:

(Civ4's motto): Sometimes it's better to be neither lucky nor good. J at Sullla and Sirian

2760 B.C. (turn 3): I believe Frederick the Great paid off those bears! He no longer wanted our one warrior in that area to menace him! Deciding that ‘do not feed the bears’ might be good advice, the scout hurries south. The other northern warrior also turned south and east. A German scout has passed between Timbuktu the coast to the east, and our warrior wants to quickly determine if there are any city sites along the coast we should aggressively consider. Masonry is due next turn.

2720 B.C. (turn 4): Ragnoff the Not Quite As Curious is somewhat surprised, the ideas of tiling the not quite as pretty rocks on top of one another to form solid buildings proves to be sound, and masonry is discovered!

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/82/ragnoff049xn.jpg

Following the plan of the dynasty founder, Ragnoff the curious, this Ragnoff immediately orders a wise men to pursue knowledge of fishing (due in three turns) in order to hurry or acquisition of monotheism. “Wait,” you cry, “fishing is not a prerequisite for monotheism.” The thought process here is that the inland lake will and can read Gould to a research effort per turn. As Polytheism, at the current research rates, will take 8 turns and monotheism 10, I believe shifting to fishing and making use of that lake will speed, or at least not delay, our understanding of Monotheism. The worker is due in four more turns.

2680 B.C. (turn 5): these fellows appear off the northern border of Timbuktu, and Julius Caesar says hi!

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5705/ragnoff058tb.jpg

I tell him there will be peace in our time, because there is no way my dynasty will be prepared to fight a war! It is yet to be seen whether Rome will acknowledge the greatness of the Milanese Empire of the Ping Teammates.

The Warriors scouting to the northeast finds the coastline, pretty much confirming that there is no empire to our Norse (although both the Romans and the Germans are scouting that way). I see this as a good thing! We should start our empire along the northern and southern rivers, but the northern area should be ours for the taking as long as we do not drag our feet about it.

2640 B.C. (turn 6): nothing much happens, the northern warrior is one or two moves away from confirming the cotton and to the north the stars, and the scout is moving south along the western edge of the revealed territory. Fishing next turn, the worker the following turn.

2600 B.C. (turn 7): Fishing is discovered, and we begin research on Polytheism. I discover by checking Timbuktu that while switching a worker to the inland lake this turn does indeed reduce the time into polytheism is discovered to seven turns, it also delays are worker by one turn! So I will finish the worker next turn and then switch. I see another Roman scout to the west, and a German scout as well. However, I do not know if the German scout is the same one we viewed originally passing to art used, the Roman scout is certainly a new scout.

2560 B.C. (turn 8): Our worker finally arrives! , These fools, I mean hard-working souls, are now prepared to do the right thing and try to improve the living conditions around Timbuktu. Ozymandous had a barracks in the queue after the worker, which initially I leave alone, although that changes later (see below).

Checking Timbuktu reveals that the citizen AI has moved all three citizens to the Grassland Forest tiles, which gives us a total of 8 food, 4 hammers, and 3 coins. With this scenario, polytheism is still listed as is taking eight turns to complete. This is because they work or that was previously working the forested plains on the river (generating an extra coin) is now in the grassland claims which are not adjacent rivers. If I move one of the workers to the inland lake, we generate 8 food, 3 hammers and 6 coins! Leaving the citizen AI on, but emphasizing commerce, changes the workers again so that we generate 8 food, 2 hammers, and 7 coins. Unfortunately, this does not result in a further reduction of the time to research Polytheism, so I leave the AI off and take the middle route, 8/3/6. Generally, I believe that we do not need to tightly micromanage every city, for simply emphasizing what is desired usually works, and in fact times the AI does a good job of looking at the best citizen placement. However, while we have one city and are trying to speed research without sacrificing too much production, I'm willing to micromanage a little. Note that all of the configurations have only eight food, which means will be 11 more turns before Timbuktu grows. I decide this unacceptable, and move the worker N to the grasslands to establish farms.

The warrior to the N confirms that there is nothing there but tundra, and begins the long journey back to Timbuktu. I will probably stop them somewhere along the route we wish to place the city. A far greater concern, the scout has finely drawn level with Timbuktu (along the north-south axis) and standing on the Hill sees the cultural border of the Roman Empire. It is almost directly west, and a tiny bit south, of Timbuktu. My propose city site on the desert hill lies almost exactly between the two empires!!!!! Reevaluating our production situation, I realize that the farmers that the worker can build will hurry production of a settler, and insert a settler in the queue before the barracks. It will take 20 turns to produce a settler if I utilize the lake to improve our commerce and research, or 17 turns if we emphasize production, although since both food and hammers count towards production, we can still use some tiles on a river to do this. In that case, polytheism will arrive in seven turns, which means the three-turn diversion to fishing was a complete loss!!! I originally was going to let work on the barracks proceed (assuming we can always add a subtle or to the queue after Timbuktu has grown) but now the one skirmisher we have will have to serve to protect the new city.

We cannot lose the city site, Rome is too close. If we do not get polytheism, and we missed it by three turns, later dynasties can say it is ALL MY FAULT!

2520 B.C. (turn nine): I order the scout to begin exploring the edges of the Roman Empire, hoping to get a clue as to which way Caesar might jump. Research and city production are both on long-term projects, unless the worker can hurry the summer production far more than I expect, I doubt that I will be the one who makes the final choices as to the location of new city. The next several turns will go both way to quickly in way too slowly!

2480 B.C. (turn 10): I noticed that the Roman Empire includes a river, it seems like it might be the same river that, over in the East, enters the German lands. This means that our three empires may be connected in an international trade network (using the river) allowing religion to spread more quickly. Slightly alarmed by this I look and realize that none of the three empires we have contact with are the founders of the two religions currently in existence.

2440 B.C. (turn 11): more scouting.

2400 B.C. (turn 12): the farm completes, and I excitedly check the number of turns remaining for a settler and discover it is still 13! I nearly take myself as I realize that they grasslands with a farm (three food) is just as good as they grasslands the forests (to food and hammer) for the purposes of creating a settler!!! The only reason this was not a complete waste of time is that none of the grassland forests were on the river (which confirms the touching a river upon a corner is NOT enough to do use a river bonus, as the tile being worked did have one corner touching a river). The river must actually lie along one sides of the tile, this means that Timbuktu is not actually connected to the southern river, since it only touches the origination point of that river on a corner. Trying to figure out a way to improve our production, I think to myself, "you idiot, do a forest chop.” Then I realized that we do not yet know bronze working, so none of our tools are sufficient to clear a forest! This is the price of changing direction midstream, I was setting us up for religion rush in our research, diverted for fishing, was unable to take advantage of that because of the location of the Roman Empire, and then basically wasted worker actions! Well, not a complete waste, but not the most advantageous use. In doing this close examination, I discover something I cannot explain. A plain style with a forest should generate one food and two hammers, with the addition of a coin if it is along the river. Still coming in some improve state, is also supposed to add plus 1 coin. Therefore, the tile due south of Timbuktu, been any planes for us adjacent to the river with silk, should generate one food, to hammers, and two coins (which because of our financial characteristic would become three coins). However, it's generated only one coin. Is this a bug, or did I miss something obvious?

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/8203/ragnoff072pm.jpg

I determine that the only tile I can improve which will actually increase the speed that you can use a settler is the unforested grassland hill along the river to our east. Mining this hill will add two hammers. Several tiles could be brought from two combined food and hammers to three combined food and hammers, but we already have that. The worker did not finish the farm until this turn, so we cannot yet move him, but I will move him over to the hill next turn and then begin mining.

Ragnoff

Nov 01, 2005, 01:36 AM

2360 B.C. (turn 13): moving around the southern edge of the Roman Empire reveals more rivers, I must now choose to move west to scout's the edges of the Roman Empire, or to move south and probably used to see if this river system is indeed connected to our own. While considering this, I realize that we show a trade route link to Frederick, but not to anyone else. Also, both Frederick and Genghis Khan have now moved ahead of us in the score. This may simply mean that their borders expanded, or they may have placed a second settler. From this, I suspect Frederick has established a second city, and at that city is along the river. However, are you not remember looking to see if those a trade route before, so I may be wrong. Another potential explanation is that their workers have completed a road to a tile along this river, and that connected the two empires. If this latter is true, it suggests that not only can cities in the same trade network be linked by separate methods (see a along the river to city the city be along a road to city sees) but that our route and change from one type of connection (i.e. roads) to another (I use a coastline) without going through a city. I decide it may become very important to know what is to ourselves, particularly to know if we're going to get squeezed out along this river, so the scout turns south and east. On another note, the second warrior has nearly returned from the north. I had originally intended to leave him along northern river, potentially marching my suggested city site, but now I decide to bring him all the way back to Timbuktu. He can either escort the new settler or stay there for defense of Timbuktu and allow our skirmisher to escort a settler. Man do I find a lot to talk about on turns where, in reality, not much happens!

While attempting to avoid Frederick the great scout that's also sell from the Roman Empire, I ended up having to move one space to the west. This ended up being fortunate, as when I moved southwest to get around that scout (a direction I was not originally intending to go, I discovered the western coastline! It looks like the point I discovered would be a BAY, as the land and coastline moves Northwest and Southwest from my position, but it may mean room does not have much room to expand.

Additionally, because of this move I met Napoleon, the Little Corporal of France (don't tell him I referred to him in that way, he said I would kill me if I did!) More specifically, my scout met his scout south of the Roman Empire. Napoleon is not sure what he thinks about Julius Caesar, but thinks Frederick is a petty criminal masquerading as a world leader!!!!

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5796/ragnoff068nz.jpg

2320 B.C. (turn 14): not much, the mine is started, and I discover that the river passes through mountains south of the Roman Empire, so our scout will have to divert further west and south in an attempt to find a route back to the east.

2280 B.C. (turn 15): Polytheism is discovered! We begin Monotheism, which will unfortunately take 8 turns. My side route to Fishing and did nothing but add 3 turns to our eventual acquisition of Monotheism, as I never ended up using the light. On the plus side, the farm that we improved did seem to shave two turns off the acquisition of Monotheism (originally it would take 10 turns), so the farm was not as much of a loss as I thought.

2240 B.C. (turn 16): Scout scouts, warrior moves, worker continues to mine.

2200 B.C. (turn 17): See turn 16. The scout has made around the southern edge of the mountain chain, and is moving backup to the northeast, towards Timbuktu. It may be that if we place that second city where I won it, the combination of the city and the mountain chain will largely block off Caesar from our western and southwestern territory. This would only allow him to directly compete a few moves around the change of the North. Under the idea that, in Civ4, one should adapt to the hand we are dealt, I now believe that there is simply no other city spot as important as the one to our west. Additionally, a French warrior appears along the southern border of Timbuktu, moving from west to east. Between this and the scout siding, and led to believe the French Empire is South by Southwest from Timbuktu. Note that I have not yet confirmed this.

2160 B.C. (turn 18): the warrior that was cowed into the North finally returns to Timbuktu. Additionally, the mine completes, and moving around our citizens shaved one turn off our settler. Monotheism is due in five turns, the settler in six. I move worker to the planes just east of the city, intending to build a cottage (under the idea that the cottage can start developing, and become us very valuable commerce source later). I realize I am unable to start the cottage, as we do not yet have pottery! In another thread, someone asked if the religions were that important and said they saw very little disadvantage in chasing them (almost arguing acquisition of the religions should be a major goal as it was the most powerful thing to do in the early stages). Yet my turns have shown me the choices involved. We are spiritual civilization, so on one hand having a religion would be very useful. On the other hand, we could easily lose the race to monotheism in the next few turns. And that, coupled with the inability for a worker to perform several tasks, could put us in a seriously disadvantaged starting position. Remember, if I had not sidetracked to fishing, or fighting continued to work the lake and delayed the presumption of our settler, we would have monotheism before my turns that ends. As it is, it'll be the next dynasty that finds out if we win the race, or come in a close but agonizing second. Lacking anything else immediately productive to do, I move the worker to the west of the city, intending to start the road towards my intended 2nd city site. That will be needed. The scout, while moving around southern edge of the mountain chain, discovers there is a large desert almost due south of us. Conjure to the north, coastline to the east, desert to the cells, and a mountain chain to the west and a helpless to find clear borders to our empire. There is some possibility that Frederick to the southeast can squeeze in between the desert and the coast, and as I said room could either go around the chain to the N or Rome (or presumably France) could come through the desert from the South/Southeast. Nevertheless, the area encompassed by these natural territorial boundaries is quite large. Something to think about.

2120 B.C. (turn 19): the worker begins the road. The scout confirms that the river by Roman river by us or separate rivers, and reveals more of the desert by moving to a hilltop. Unfortunately, this move also reveals an adjacent barbarian with two combat promotions! Ozymandous left me a military force of five units, one of which was a recon unit. It looks like I'm going to leave my successor with merely 3, all of which will be located our home city, and which does not include a recon unit. I will, however, have less my successor with many choices because Monotheism and the settler will both be completed in the early parts of your turn. With trepidation in my heart, I end the turn.

2080 B.C. (turn 20): (what an odd year for the 20th turn, I assume either Ozymandous or I must have miscounted. As expected, the barbarian warrior gained more experience at the expense of our scouts, despite the hilltop advantage! The only surprise to me was that in the animated combat, our scouts actually killed 1 of the 3 warriors that were part of the barbarian warrior unit! Do not, I repeat do not, send out that settler and escorted. The loss of the both the scout and warrior earlier proved the outside world does not like us (yeah, it can't be anything like my own incompetence).

In short, I failed at three of my four goals. Although I did produce a worker, I did not use him as well as I could. I did not produce monotheism because of my diversion to fishing, followed by my inability to use the inland lake because of the need to hurry the settler production. Speaking of the settler, I did not even produce it, much less found our second city. I completed the scouting of the Northern River but both the scout in the warrior who were killed died during their scouting of the southern River. There is an area due south of us that he still unexplored.

The Ragnoff dynasty, before being thrown out of the palace by an angry crowd, quickly it tends to destroy all records of it (mis)rule.

That you were able to read this report proves that they failed even at this! :P

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1830/ragnoff080mv.jpg

Here is the save:

Ragnoff

Nov 01, 2005, 01:41 AM

Wow, those images are huge!!!! I did not see a wat to reduce then aside from cropping them (I am image illiterate, this si the first time I have ever used the.)

Anyone knwo fo a program that is free or included in Windows EP that will allow me to shrink them yet retain the detail?

Dwip

Nov 01, 2005, 03:40 AM

(See it and will pick it up tomorrow when I'm not exhausted from playing my solo game AND an MP game all day)

Images... Windows XP comes with Paint, which should be good enough to do whatever you need it to do, namely shrinking screenshots. (Go to the Image menu, Stretch/Skew, and fiddle around until it looks ok)

For most of yours, it probably would've been enough to zoom out a bit, take the screenshot, and then crop it so it just the interesting bits show up. (Use the dotted square Select tool, drag over the bit you want, Copy, make a new image, Paste)

Should do what you need. I don't particularly use Paint, so.

Further comments when I wake up.

Oh yeah. How do you do that thing with the signs? I've been trying to figure it out all day.

Kylearan

Nov 01, 2005, 04:01 AM

Hi,

Anyone knwo fo a program that is free or included in Windows EP that will allow me to shrink them yet retain the detail?

A great and free program I use is Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com/), an image viewer with some basic editing capabilities. It can crop images (just select an area, then select "crop" in the image menu), and it can save the image in jpg format with varying degrees of compression. It also can shrink pictures, either to specific sizes, or by specifying a percentage, and its shrink algorithm is quite good for preserving image quality,

-Kylearan

LKendter

Nov 01, 2005, 07:22 AM

Anyone knwo fo a program that is free or included in Windows EP that will allow me to shrink them yet retain the detail?
I am guessing you mean windows XP.

I use paintbrush all the time to and decrease the total width.
It also has an option to increase or decrease the picture size.
The report above required me to constantly scroll left and right as the images were to large to show at my current screen resolution.

Ragnoff

Nov 01, 2005, 03:16 PM

OK, I went back and edited the imagies, should be easier to read now

Dwip

Nov 01, 2005, 03:49 PM

I won't be able to play for a while, so in the meantime, I'll throw up a tentative dotmap for discussion.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb2c_2080dotmap.jpg

In general, the blue and green dots are "We want these now rather than later" cities, the purple dots are "Get these when we can get there" cities, and the red dots are "When we get around to it" cities.

The southern green dot will be a City of Greatness with proper farming and mining. This should be either city 1 or city 2.

The southern blue dot will, likewise, be a decent city someday, and also helps block off Germany from expanding.

North green dot and north blue dot aren't fantastic, but help block off Rome and Germany (emphasis should be on north blue dot to keep Germany out of our backfield)

Purple dots will be nice to have at some point, once we deal with immediate concerns. North purple in particular has some good stuff. Yes, I left the furs out of range. Either we can put a crap city up there, or just wait on a border expansion.

The eastern red dots are kind of funny, and I really kind of want them where the arrows point, so as to hit the crab, but I chose not to do it that way. We'll see when we get there. I'm not too worried about them right now.

We have a settler due in 4. I'll be sending him to south blue dot unless somebody gives me a good reason not to.

Ragnoff

Nov 01, 2005, 05:24 PM

well, my choice for a first city would not be any of the places you placed dots. In civ 4, I just do not see the point in slavishly attempting perfect city spacing.my choice for first city would be one that can be immediately productive with minimal worker effort, as our capital city is not.if you placed your first city basically where you have the line between the two green cities, specifically on that desert hill space, it woulf do a few things. First,it begins to block off the gap in the two mountain ranges, making it highly unlikely Rome wants to come in this direction. With a little bit of growth, it will block those off, and we have a shot at getting a religion to spur that growth. second, it transforms a fairly useless tile into a very useful one.left alone, the desert hill was barely worth mining, as there are more productive hills around it. With the city on it, it will produce 2/1/1 and get the defensive benefitsof a hill for the unit stationed there. Finally, you'll have access to both the cow pasture and the corn. Working those two titles (as the animal husbandry should be our next tech to pursue)will make that a strong early grower, and working the marble to the south will both give us access to marble for quicker wonder production but will also be a nice tile in its own right.

I could see a strong argument for making the two blue dot cities 2 & 3 as you are right, that will block off Frederick. But as both of those city sites require significant work or action, in clearing jungles and they like, to become really productive, I do not think they should be our second city.

I'm not going to even discuss the northern sight at this point, as I think we all agree those can wait until the southern three cities are settled. Rome's actions and other choices may alter what we do up in that direction. Although I would say, my initial suggestion would be getting the clam is more important in preventing overlap on the northern red cities. Clams will add one health to every city we have.

Dwip

Nov 01, 2005, 06:49 PM

Counterargument thusly:

1. I'm not going for perfect city placement (though what I came up with does fit together remarkably well), as I am trying to make each city Be All It Can Be, catch all the resources I can, and then fill some space.

2. Which is where my green dot cities come in. I put them where I did because A) once South Green Dot comes online, and there's a lot less jungle clearing there than you think there is, with all those hills and farm/watermill space, it has the potential to be a monster of a city - maybe our highest producer. Also we get that ivory; B) North Green Dot isn't so hot, but it's ok, and blocks that mountain range ok.

3. As for the blue dot cities, I put them second (I'd probably go for south green dot first to make sure we get it) because if we're going to block off Fred that close to his capitol, we need to do that RIGHT NOW, and not later, or there won't be a later. Concerns such as "Will this be an awesome city" are secondary to that concern in this case.

4. With a further nod towards improvement time in the jungle, if we go straight for iron working (which we'll want in any case), it's something like 18 turns of research, plus tile clearing time. In the meantime, South Green Dot has plenty of grassland and hill open to do whatever with, so it's not exactly crippled. South Blue Dot IS, but that's really too bad, as I've explained.

It's Stone there, btw, for whatever that's worth, which considering how much I love Stonehenge, is probably a lot.

I see where you're coming from with your city placement, but I think putting South Green Dot where it is will make an even better city, what with all the hills, and the grasslands, and the river to work with. Its northern neighbor, well, not so good, but it could be worse.

5. I'm not particularly satisfied with those northern red dots myself. I'm not entirely sure what to do about it, either. One thought may be to move Northeast Red Dot to 1s of where my arrow is pointing, move both purple dot cities 1e of where they are now, and leave Northwest Red Dot where it is, and then stick in another city somewhere up north. Will look at it. If that other city could somehow catch the furs, that would be fantastic, even if it otherwise sucks.

I wish you could dotmap directly in the game. That would've been just about the best feature ever. Alas.

Ragnoff

Nov 01, 2005, 07:06 PM

Hmmm, I had not considered eventually watermilling the tiles allong the river, ad I have not gotten much beyong the classical age, but i see your point.

Ok, I am convonvinced about south green dot, but I would still do that before the blue dots. although I definately thin s blue dot should be the 3rd city if we are going to do it.

Talamane

Nov 01, 2005, 09:06 PM

I agree with Ragnoff. We need to get that wet corn up and running fast if we are to have any chance of settling our lands in a reasonable amount of time. Rome may grab the rice to the west, but it's dry.

We should try to build our settlers and workers from this city, because the corn farm will produce one loaf. Once the cows are online, it's going to be a very good factory.

The good news is that neither of our neighbors founded the first two religions. If we can get Judaism, we have a shot of converting them, since Christianity is a ways down the tech tree. We should try to get that also, if only for denial purposes. We can then pit Rome against Germany or vice versa, by playing the religion card. For example, with Rome Jewish, and Germany Christian, we could have them fighting. Our "trading with our enemy" minus would be offset by our "brothers and sisters of the faith" plus in diplomacy. Or we could have peace while we boom to the north (and as much to the south as possible) by converting them to the same religion. If all three of us are different religions, diplomacy will be problematic, at best, and the pointy stick looms large.

Sorry, but i just dont see what South Green Dot does for us right now. Settling that far from the capital will push maintenance costs up. It's a good city site, but it should not be our second city.

DeceasedHorse

Nov 02, 2005, 12:30 AM

Impressive work Ragnoff.

Just a FYI, but I am unable to run civ IV at the moment. I will post once I get it operational.

Dwip

Nov 02, 2005, 12:51 PM

[0] 2080 BC - Settler comes in in 4. No scouts to be had, but we're more or less fine for exploration. I'm still a big fan of South Green Dot, but I seem to be the only one, so we'll go with Ragnoff's spot and see where that gets us.

[2] 2000 BC - Road completes, move the worker west into the forest with the idea of roading through there and the corn to our next city site.

IBT - Pliny lists the most cultured civilizations. 2 civs we don't know are #1 and #2, Fred's #3, we're #4, followed by Caesar, Nappy, and Khan.

[3] 1960 BC - Monotheism comes in, and we found Judaism! I go right ahead and make it the state religion. We need a new tech, and...hrm. We need Writing for Calender, but Bronze Working could be useful with all the trees, and I think we'll go with that.

[4] 1920 BC - Settler comes in. Rather than keep going on the rax, Timbuktu switches to a skirm. We could also be going for Stonehenge, but we'll do it this way for now.

[6] 1840 BC - The game really liked that hill, too, it seems. Djenne founded. Start a skirm, for lack of a better idea.

[7] 1800 BC - And the road to Djenne completes.

[8] 1760 BC - Skirm completes in Timbuktu. We'll work on the rax for a bit, though somebody should feel free to swap that out for a settler or something. I am utterly unconvinced of the utility of a rax this early, personally, but I just played a solo game where I was swapping out warrior garrisons with mech inf, so.

[10] 1680 BC - Bronze Working comes in. Start on Pottery, though this can be changed. Swap to Slavery because we can. There is copper NE of Timbuktu in the hills, among other places.

Thoughts:

1. Switch Timbuktu to something that isn't a rax. I favor either another settler, or Stonehenge.

2. In a few turns, Djenne will grow. It might be worthwhile to swap to a worker or settler at that point, rather than keep on with the skirm.

3. I went with Pottery for lack of a better idea. Feel free to switch that.

Ragnoff

Nov 02, 2005, 01:17 PM

I think I left teh rax when i was waiting for Timbuktu to grow in 2 turns (if I remember right it was queued up hen I started). I don't know how fast we decay though, so that may have been a mistake.

I would not be at all opposed to going for stonhenge, especially when that stone is hooked up! Not sure if we waited too long though.

There is so many possibilites that I think the "one right move" syndrom of civ3 is gone!

Although i must say stonehenge seems VERY popular in teh SG threads, maybe sullla or sirian will comment on if they think it is ever worth passing on it?

BTW, VERY glad we still got Monotheism and founded a relegion, I was kicking myself about that and if we missed by 2 turns I would have felt that i had :smoke: it up!

Tidus4444

Nov 02, 2005, 04:02 PM

I'd second Stonehenge. It'll guarantee us a religious great person down the line, enabling us to nab the Jewish shrine as soon as possible to get some good gold flowing in our empire. It'd also allow us time to get those food resources up and running and allow time for the capital city to grow before we start settler production in earnest.

Talamane

Nov 02, 2005, 05:16 PM

Keep in mind that you can chop to get a wonder sped up. And later in the game, u can "buy" a wonder. In a test game i played, Hollywood cost me 5.6 K gold. :D

Even if you build a farm, cottage or workshop, the forest will still go towards the wonder.

Am I up?

Talamane

Nov 02, 2005, 08:16 PM

Got it. But i will not be able to play until tomorrow night.

DeceasedHorse

Nov 02, 2005, 09:16 PM

I think I have civ working now.:king:

Ozymandous

Nov 03, 2005, 07:15 AM

Hi,

A great and free program I use is Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com/), an image viewer with some basic editing capabilities. It can crop images (just select an area, then select "crop" in the image menu), and it can save the image in jpg format with varying degrees of compression. It also can shrink pictures, either to specific sizes, or by specifying a percentage, and its shrink algorithm is quite good for preserving image quality,

-Kylearan

I use that as well Kylearan. :) Irfanview is a good app, and it's free. :)

Ozymandous

Nov 03, 2005, 07:44 AM

Ragnoff

Nov 03, 2005, 08:33 AM

Hmm, sorry I missed this thread the last day or two. All right, a few thoughts...

1. When I founded Timbuktu it had the little 'road' graphic fromt he city to both rivers, thus my assumption that it was connected to both, but I don't know for sure. I don't see the North river flowing into the sea, so I'd think the trade route we have with Frederick is via the southern river that goes East into the German lands.

I missed this completely! You are right, we must have trade access along the southern route.

2. Umm, we -need- to send any settlers South to block off Frederick sooner rather than later, since once the Germans border expands we have zero chance to build there.

I am REALLY not a fan of this, It causes friction with the AI, so unless you have already decide to go AW with fredrck, blocking him into a corner, with a city that will no be productive for a long time (we need to be able to clear jungle), when we ALSO have a slow growing/producing main city seems like you are begging Fredrick to start a war we cannot win. The Art of War says to ALWAYS leave your opponent an escape route. Backed into a corner, the AI is smart enough to attack.

3. It's too late for this but I liked your city placement further south Dwip, than the one on the hill. Desert's provide -zero- food, hammers and commerce unless there is a special there so avoid them if at all possible. They are essentially a wasted tile until late (is thre a tech that ever allows them to be worked?) in the game. COnsider them like mountains.

Look closer, there are 3 desserts spaces, true, but one is UNDER the city center, transforming it into a 2/1/1 desert (city centers are always 2/1/1, unless build on a resource, then they are 2/1/1 + the unimproved resouce benifit). A second has a stone resource with a quarry (that we will want anyway) so it will be a 0/3/0. Not great, but not horible. That leaves us with one dessert Hill (can be mined for 0/2/0 if needed) and it gets BOTH wet corn, and wet cows. (5/0/0 and 4/2/0). this city will get up and running quickly, and can easliy grow into the teens.

4. If you have more than one religion then you almost have to not have a state religion since you lose 4 (assuming only one other religion) culture points per turn for each religion you have that's not the state religion.

This is on a per city basis. I often feel the +25% to buildings and happiness bonas, plus the ability to create prophets without monastaries is worth losing 5 culture in only 1 or 2 cites, or the +2 exp. It also depends on whether you are going for a cul tural victory. the nice thing is, as a spiritual civ, we can switch back and for to what ever is the best on a turn by turn basis!

5. Stonehenge is a great early wonder, IMHO, since it gives GP points as well as the free oblisk, which can help cities grow borders relatively quickly (10 turns) after they are founded.

Agreed, especially if another city is well set up to do workers/settlers.

6. Don't chop all the forests around since later on they provide good health boosts, also, found cities on fresh water if at all possible since it gives a +2 health that way. Founding the second city on that desert hill means the city won't be as strong as the one a bit further South could have been.

That assumes that health will be the limiting factor in that city, some time happyniss is the problem rather than health. Freshwater is a consideration, but only one of several considerations. Actually, south green dot is not adjacent to fresh water either, and has much more jungle, so it would be less healthy, at least untill the jungle is choped down.

7. If you want an early religion, I'd suggest going 100% towards it otherwise wait. I'm glad Fishing didn't cost us the religion, but I didn't choose fishing mainly because we had just that one lake tile and it seemed low priority.

yes, but with our finance trait it was one GOOD tile I did not need a worker to improve! As I said, this proved to be a mistake after I found rome and decided that the settler became ultra important, but it givs us an option we did not have. <shrug> at the time i thought eh 3 coins would make this at least a wash (3 turns to reserach, But gained back by the extra commerce.

8. The barracks, or whatever, I was using mainly as a placeholder while waiting for the city to grow, it wasn't 'set in stone' as a must have. :D That's a great feature, since the shield put towards something doesn't decay that fast. :)

LOL I used it the same way!

9. We don't need to squeeze the cities in like sardines anymore, so we need to pick the best places to build them even if we don't get every tile used. It's better to have optimal city placement more than it is to make sure we work every tile, especially mountains and desert, since early on at least, both of these tiles are useless and simply wasted space.

true, but all else being equal, a closer city has less maintainence, is connected quiker by the workers, and is easier to defend. a sloty overlap is fine if that is the best placement resource wise (although I am so glad ICS is gone).

I've played a few more games (started them at least) and have a better handle on what to do, regarding research, and such, or at least like to think I do. :D Usually while building the first warrior/scout and waiting for the city to grow, I've found is a good time to try to snag one of the early religions and/or flesh out the worker abilities so when one is finally brought out they can work on everything. :)

Yes, although I actually have had a lot of success going for monotheism about like we did, after a *few* worker tecks, if you do nto start with mystisism. The AIs, if they lose the budism/hinduism race, usually do not seem to go for mono until later. If you try to get all of the worker tech first you will not get mono in time.

Ragnoff

Nov 03, 2005, 08:40 AM

grr double post

Dwip

Nov 03, 2005, 03:14 PM

Variously:

Blocking Fred

We are not, from my perspective, blocking Fred in so much as we are making sure we have enough space. He can still escape to the southwest, and maybe the east. We are, in any event, going to wind up with "Our close borders spark tensions!" anyway, whether it's us settling those spots or him, so I can't really get behind that argument.

There are a couple of things we can do in the short term, though. #1 is simply garrison everything with skirms and laugh a lot when they try and attack us. #2, and this has worked well for me in two solo games thus far, is to go to organized religion (we can do this in 5 turns and should), crank a missionary, and make Berlin nice and happy and Jewish, which will cause Fred to convert, and be our best buddy anyway because the religious diplo bonus is gigantic.

Doing this to Caesar is probably a worthwhile plan, too.

Stonehenge

I'm all for leaping on Stonehenge with both feet, and having the workers run over to the stone and quarry it as soon as they get done. I think we're all in agreement on how great Stonehenge is.

Of course, we do need to be cranking lots more settlers sooner rather than later.

Religion

I think we get religious building culture bonuses regardless of the state religion, but I may be wrong. In any event, there's really no reason for us not to be Jewish with Organized Religion for a long time yet, for the obvious reasons.

Dotmapping

See attachment.

Commentary as per previous dotmap. I moved the NE Red Dot city a bit to snag the copper over the crabs, since NW Purple Dot will grab some as it is. Also note the existance of Black Dot in the far north, which is a totally craptacular "Well, at least we get all those furs" type of city. Definitely an "If we get around to it" sort of thing.

Talamane

Nov 03, 2005, 06:35 PM

A bloodless coup ensues in Timbuktu and Tamerlane's ugly brother, Talamane, now sits on the throne. His plan is to build Stonehenge. A stone mine is commanded to be built. His majesty contemplates chopping the silk forests around the capital, since plantations he wishes to build later will necessitate their removal. He plans to institute Organized Religion. When his finance ministers questioned him as to how the royal treasury was supposed to pay for this, they were executed.

[00] 1680 BC Pre-flight looks good. Pottery will help our gigantic empire grow faster. And building it adds +1 health to the metro areas with corn, rice, and wheat, which are the resources we should be able to grab. Move one of our inexperienced warriors to Djenne since a settler will be built there. Scout some of the map towards the south, and hope to avoid the bears. Start Timbuktu on Stonehenge, due in 20.

[01] 1640 BC Since Timbuktu is food poor, creating priest specialists will be problematic, and our Great Person will probably be a Great Artist, if we build Parthenon. The Oracle is a possibility, but it requires marble to do so in a reasonable amount of time. We have marble, but it is way in the future.

[02] 1600 BC Frederick builds a city to the southeast of our capital near the cows and coast. Send warriors to scout it out. He has probably taken out the bears. Corn farm completes. Djenne will grow on the next turn.

[03] 1560 BC Start the workers on a quarry, which takes 8 long turns. Djenne can now complete the skirm in 6 turns, and will grow to size 3 in 5 turns. At size three, i will switch to settler.
[04] 1520 BC Pottery comes in, and we start on Priesthood (due in 4) to enable building the Oracle.
[05] 1480 BC Continue moving scouts to Fred's new town.
[06] 1440 BC Judaism spreads to Djenne, and to Berlin! Berlin is size 6, has wet rice and gems. It's garrisoned with three archers.
[07] 1400 BC Frederick converts to Judaism. It might not be possible to get a peek at his new town. I circumnavigate with the warrior.
[08] 1360 BC Priesthood complete, and start on Writing in 6. Bad news. It looks like Rome has settled just south of South Green Dot.
[09] 1320 BC Djenne makes its skirm, and i start it on a settler, due in 13.
[10] 1280 BC Worker will complete quarry next turn, start him on road. Talamane is killed in a chariot accident before he can institute Organized Religion, and a new ruler ascends to the throne.

Summary: Khan has been scouting our north (and no doubt likes what he sees), and the south is beginning to look crowded. We may want to send our settler to claim the horses/cows. Stonehenge is due in 10, remaining turns will drop in half when the stone quarry road completes. We can still settle on South Green Dot, and probably convert Rome to Judaism. I am glad i dont have to make that decision. I forgot to to throw the switch on the Organized Religion civic, before you do so, check to make sure we can afford it--it will speed up Stonehenge.

Tidus4444

Nov 03, 2005, 09:01 PM

Am I in this game? I haven't been added to the player roster, but in the SG topic Ozzy said "The more the merrier," or something to that effect. I suppose I'd be on deck right now i I were the sixth person in the rotation.

Ozymandous

Nov 04, 2005, 06:46 AM

Ragnoff: Blocking the AI's and having close borders is a factor in the game. It's either we get the spot first or he (AI) does, so I'd always vote in our favor. If you sign an "open borders" agreement they don't seem to mind as much anyway. Do you want Fred to dictate where we settle in the South? I don't. :D

Tidus: I think Speaker made the roster so I'll have to PM him to add you add the end of the list, so yes I'd say you're up next. :)

General: Looking good so far, but we need to keep cranking settlers, which my initial choice of city site hampered, oops. ICS may be dead, but REX sure isn't, as long as we can defend the cities and keep at least 50% going on science.

Regarding culture, umm, everyone does know that culture helps with defense and the rapidly expanding borders help close off vast tracts of land without having to immediately have a settler found another city there right? I suppose the question is do we want to use the religions as more of a 'denial' tactic to keep them from ghe AI, or to boost the culture of the cities where they found in and thus help expand the borders of our empire without having to build a ton of military? Remember in Civ4, unlike Civ3, borders actually are worth something and rapidly expanding culture can help a lot.

Just a thought, not saying we have to do things my way at all, but I'm a fan of somewhat peaceful border/territory expansion without having to divert everything to military if at all psosible. Unless it's an AW game or something.. :)

DeceasedHorse

Nov 04, 2005, 07:47 PM

Preturn:

Adopt Organized Religion. Stonehenge now due in 9 turns. We have 97 gp in the bank and are running a -1 defecit as a result of our new upkeep costs.

Turn 1 (1240 B.C.) Quarry finishes, start on road.
IBT: Genghis Khan shows up asking for Open Borders. I agree.
Turn 2 (1200 B.C.): Not too much
Turn 3 (1160 B.C.): ditto
Turn 4 (1120 B.C.) Writing comes in, start on Theology. Spot a French scout to the north of Djenne-it’s Napoleon, who tell me to fear his Archer. Stonehenge is now due in two with stone hooked up.
Turn 5 (1080): I decide to start roading towards the NW red dot in an effort to close off our borders on that flank.
Turn 6 (1040) Stonehenge finishes in Timbuktu! Djenne’s borders expand. I decide to let Djenne finish its barracks.
Turn 7 (1000) I bring back our worker to start irrigating the land around our capitol.
Spot a Roman worker connecting his Elephant city to the rest of what I presume to be his empire. Lose a turn on Theology as I temporarily move one of Timbuktu’s pop units off of a river tile in order to speed up growth; once the farm is built, it can be switched back.
Turn 8 (975): Judaism spreads to Antium, the Roman Elephant city to our south.
Turn 9 (925): Djenne builds settler, starts worker. I hate to screw up its growth curve like this, but we really need another worker ASAP and once Timbuktu finishes its barracks it can fufill our military needs or build settlers as appropriate. Warrior/Settler pair heads north.
Turn 10 (900): Timbuktu finishes ‘rax, starts Skirmisher.

Sorry, no pictures this time :cry:

Tidus4444

Nov 04, 2005, 08:18 PM

Got it, will probably play later tonight.

Tidus4444

Nov 04, 2005, 09:16 PM

Arg, had a great report together when BSOD took it out. At least it didn't strike while I was playing.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Freddie has control of the two southern turquiose dots on Dwip's dotmap. I sent the settler toward the red dot on dwip's map, near the cows. Worked on getting a road to this city. Both of our mature cities are working on settlers; however, I noticed that there is barbarian cultural control in the north, so we may have to swap over to some military to deal with the threat. Two civs came knocking for open borders, but I turned them down.

Talamane

Nov 04, 2005, 09:30 PM

Tidus4444

Nov 05, 2005, 07:44 AM

If you are getting BSOD's after C4 has been running a while, chances are something in your computer is getting too hot, usually the video card.

Somehow, our player name became YOUR-KKXX5RXWD9, lol. I have no idea how to fix this.

Edit: I loaded the file into a hex editor and poked RB2c into the player name. It works. However, it looks like your file format is different from the others that have been loaded. This is new territory for me, so i was poking around. Did you startup the game in some odd way? (i find that hard to believe, i presume you loaded DeceasedHorse's game and went from there) . Was it an autosave?

Ozy? If you want i can post a "fixed" save of his game.

Actually, yes it was an autosave. I hit a wierd bug on about turn 3 when Caesar came calling asking for open borders. Basically, the deals area obscured the diplomatic area. It allowed me to click "yes," to the deal,"not a chance" was obscured, so I couldn't click it. So I reloaded the autosave from the turn before and then clicked no to his proposal.

LKendter

Nov 05, 2005, 08:26 AM

Somehow, our player name became YOUR-KKXX5RXWD9, lol. I have no idea how to fix this.

Alt-D brings up details on your civ and let's you rename the leader.

Talamane

Nov 05, 2005, 02:35 PM

Thanks a bunch, LK. I hope someone makes a list of all the undocumented features soon. Was this feature in Civ3? I can't recall. Shift-D was diplomacy, IIRC.

Edit: Sheesh, ALT-D is in the book.:eek:

Ragnoff

Nov 05, 2005, 05:59 PM

So where are we at? whos turn is it?

Talamane

Nov 05, 2005, 06:42 PM

Ozy is up and you are on deck.

Ragnoff

Nov 06, 2005, 11:28 AM

ok, been a day and a half, hate to skip the captain though. If I do not see a got it by this evening, I will play it.

Ragnoff

Nov 06, 2005, 03:06 PM

Well, could I get a second opinion, should I skip?

Dwip

Nov 06, 2005, 04:16 PM

In the interests of keeping the game moving, I'd say go for it. We can always swap Ozy and you for this round if he shows up soon.

Ragnoff

Nov 06, 2005, 05:42 PM

OK Got it, playing soon (ozy if you post a got it before I am done with turns we will go with your turns).

Ragnoff

Nov 06, 2005, 08:30 PM

The second Ragnoff dynasty takes the throw in much to the dismay of the people. They are screaming where is Ozymandous is dynasty? They at least didn't screw everything up!!!! However, a spokesperson for the Ragnoff that the Tidus dynasty has left the Empire, and since the Ozymandous dynasty is for some reason the seriously absent (Ragnoff dynasty’s spokesperson make sure he's paid off the people who are terrorizing Ozymandous and his descendents in their house). Somebody has to lead the Empire! Several families, both common and noble, eagerly volunteer, as their ancestors recorded how questionable the first Ragnoff dynasty affected these groups volunteered was greatly helpful, all dissenters rounded up and executed one fell swoop.

The advisers are summoned. These are all new families than before, and seem eager to prove how much better they are as of the previous Ragnoff dynasty's advisers by taking the current Ragnoff, Ragnoff the devout, through all the decisions of that original dynasty and the succeeding dynasties pointing out all their problems. They particularly wanted to show how bad the tightest dynasty was (guessing here that they're looking for justification for the coup I mean sudden departure of the Tidus).

First, finances. It turns if we both 90% of our empire's production to the wise men, we will discover Theology in 14 turns and add one coin profit or 94 per turn. If we run at 100%, will lose three per turn, but Theology would finish in 12th. As the Ragnoff dynasty will not likely stay in power long enough to see the treasury run dry, sciences ordered full. That brings us to sciences. Why have the last two dynasties been researching Theology? We have one religion, and it doesn't look like were in position to build the chapel. The dynasty decides that, while were not certain why Theology is being researched, we will not anger as the descendents of two former dynasties by switching away. Besides, they can't blame this one on us.

The military's not particularly strong. We have six units, one guarding each city, one guarding the worker that's connecting the distant city, and two that are in cities producing settlers for escorts. While this is not particularly strong, one additional soldiers being produced, and the others will have to wait until we have finished the settlers. There's a barbarian village to our north, which I doubt that I'll be able to deal with during my dynasty. As far as the city plays and goes, there is one spot left in the south we could take along the river, which would get us gems. There are a couple places along the coast to the east. One of the original spots chosen would now be right on Germany's border, but would still get wheat, fish, and, if we push Germany's borders back one, spices. This is the original turquoise dot, and I say we teach Frederick a lesson! Although I will be the one building it, because of the barbarians, I would argue that south purple but should move one studies used to the other side of the river. This the city will then take up both the ivory and the cows. This makes Southeast red dot not as good a city, I don't see astounding that for a long time anyways, and we could possibly turn that into another coastal fishing village. I'll try to settle due South and East. This I would think is more dangerous if we didn't have our religion already spread to both Rome and Germany, and both like us at the moment. This will mostly seal the continent, although Rome would still be able to slip someone in to the north until culture growth seals that route.

Speaking of religion, we got God. More importantly, Germany and Rome also have our God! Given the chance, will try to get a set of missionaries started so that they can be sent to what should be each of the three godless cities we will own. The one in the south and east are particularly important, as we need to start pushing borders back with those cities. Ragnoff the Devout is happy to hear this, and orders the advisers to go find something useful to do! It is time to start the next dynasty!”

(1) 625 B.C. - Worker starts a road on the cow pasture. Another section on the road finished in the north.

(2) 600 B.C. - Julius Caesar has built another city, northeast of Rome, almost between Djenne and Kumbi Saleh. The road on the pastor finishes in the worker is ordered to build the road to Timbuktu. The other workers moved adjacent to Kumbi Saleh and starts to pasture before the road that will connect the city to the rest of the Empire.

(3) 575 B.C. - Genghis Khan has canceled his open borders with us, the heathens following a different religion and is getting difficult.

(4) 550 B.C. - Kumbi Saleh has its orders expand. It still does not quite connect to the central region, but there is now only two rows of hexes between them.

(5) 525 B.C. - Kumbi Saleh Gross to size 2. Worker next to Timbuktu is ordered to start cutting the forest on silk plantation directly south of the city.

(6) 500 B.C. - a settler finishes in Djenne, and missionaries are started. The settler is sent south. A skirmisher finishes in Kumbi Saleh, and a work boat is started. The worker in that area finishes the pasture and begins connecting the city with a road.

(7) 475 B.C. - a skirmisher in the north, having stopped on top of the hill to confirm the new Roman city, is now moving towards a hill outside the barbarian city to check its size. If we end out been able to take that city at size 2 or more, we would capture instead of destroying I believe. Hamburg adopts Judaism, and now we can see where that other German city is.

(8) 450 B.C. – Gao is founded to the south. It sits right where the southern river splits east and west. When the borders grow one, and will incorporate a hill with gems. Although this is a particularly great city at the moment, it is almost entirely surrounded by grassland (although much of it has jungle were forced on it). Because it was on the river system, it is already considered connected to the capital no roads needed, although we probably will need roads eventually. As I see this eventually becoming a large city, and as I was able to move a skirmisher is there for a garrison, I start a granary here. The next emperor is free to override this.

(9) 425 B.C. - the forest chop finishes and causes the settler to finish. A missionary is started there as well. I start the settler moving towards what was the original North turquoise dot. I'm more and more confident we should still found that city. The next dynasty will start with the settler and a skirmisher on the hill 2 spots east of the location I am advocating. After one expansion, we will get both fish and we cheer, and if the expansion pushes back the border of Germany, spices. We'll also steal an improve grassland tile. The skirmisher to the north reveals a size 2 barbarian city, guarded by three archers! Archers are not good against us. I pulled the other skirmisher off his guard duty for the worker, who is now roading his way toward the horses within the boundaries of Kumbi Saleh.

(10) 400 B.C. – 2 skirmishers by the barb village.
http://img427.imageshack.us/img427/928/ragnoff117jv.jpg
This is not enough to take the city, but if they both move to the same adjacent spot the barbarian may attack out, which our skirmishers should do well at.

Road on silk plantations. I would get him to road toward the new city, but I left him for you to choose. As for teh new city, I would put it where originally planned, the solid circle. THe outline circle is an alternate spot. We have really good relations with fredrick, so I do nto think the colid cirle would provoke an attack. The 2 queued missionaries NEED to go to the two new cities for culture borders.
http://img427.imageshack.us/img427/9971/ragnoff105gz.jpg
Here is a big culture map.
http://img427.imageshack.us/img427/2364/ragnoff096br.jpg

Ozymandous (Captain) (skiped)
Ragnoff (Finished)
Dwip (Up now)
Talamane (on deck)
DeceasedHorse
Tidus4444

Talamane

Nov 06, 2005, 09:55 PM

Just finished up my 2nd practice game (Mali, Noble) and i founded 5 religions (turned off diplomatic, which was stupid, since i founded 5 religions :smoke:). You would think i would have won, but i lost the space race to Bismarck by 4 turns in 1996 AD :cry:. Same setup as here, Rome and Germany are neighbors. One of Rome's cities flipped to me, but i tried to keep my nose clean, and it did not pay.

Considering our situation here, my gut feeling is pointy stick. We need to get really big--which is problematic in C4 (maintenance). Once the other continent is trading, the AI will NOT TRADE TECHS to the human, whilst they trade like crazy amongst themselves.

Taking cities is hard. You must have siege, and you must have combined arms. To take that barb city, you will need at least 1+ skirms vs the defenders. In my 5 religion game, i had skirms that had xp vs archery and it was still dicey.

Ozymandous

Nov 07, 2005, 09:04 AM

Sorry, had a long weekend and did not expect both other players to finish Friday night.

I can jump in here or wait another round, up to Dwip and everyone else.

Erm, either way, TURN OFF STATE RELIGION if we have more than one, becasue you're -killing- the extra culture per turn that we'd have in Timbuktu.

With Stonehenge we don't need to add a missionary for each city but it doesn't hurt because the free ob will expand borders in 10 turns after the city's founded.

If we haven't already we need to get Bronze & Iron Working as the next two tech's after Theology. Lots of Jungle to clear and the Swordsmen/Axemen might come in handy.

Ragnoff

Nov 07, 2005, 09:18 AM

First, as their has not been a got it, why don't you grab it Ozy.

Second, if we are building buildings the +25% is better than the +culture as the + culture ONLY applies in cities that have more than one religion. Right now, we have 2 cites with state religion, 3 cities with none. Turning off state religion is ONLY useful if you are going for a cultural 3 city victory AND several cities in the empire have multiple religions (not the case at the moment). Our captial is not where we need the benifits right now, IMHO and we can really use the +25% to builds to get granaries and baraks up. Even when Theology founds another religion, as it is unlikely to found in our capital, be VERy careful about turning off organized religion in several citys for cultural benifits in one. Next, State religions provid a happiness benifit, which are hard to come by in the early going before our cities are set up and all the happiness benifits realized. Finally, realize since both Germany and Rome are adopting Judiems, realise that we are getting diplomatic benifits while we have the same state religion, so be sure that abandoning the state religion does nto lead to war! I agree that there are times it is better to run no religion and get more cultural beifits, I disagree the simple preasance of more than one religion means no state religion is hte only right choice!!!! There are advantages to each!!!! (Not saying you don't know that Ozy, just seems like you are kinda berating us for a choice that may have 2 situationally correct answers rather than one right answer always.)

Third, although we get the free OB, we are in a culture war for boarders in the 2 new cities, so missionaries will be VERY helpful to not loose tiles to Rome and steal some from Germany - both of whom have some culture in the neighborring cites. One missionary is 1 turn from complete, one is 2 turns. Use them in the south city (Gao) and in the city that you will found in the East, on Fredericks border (which I still advocate for the solid blue dot).

Ragnoff

Ragnoff

Nov 07, 2005, 10:51 AM

Oh, and could i make a request? if you start researching a tech, ESPECIALLY on that will take 1 or 2 full dynasties to complete, please explain WHY. I continued Theology, even though I think we will get little or no benifits from having done so this early, and we are ingoring other techs that I think would be QUITE valuable. however, as there was no explaination of why Theology, I was worried about changing it and messing up some agreed on plan.

Even if for some reason your report gets eaten by the great soul of the machine, PLEASE explain choices that will affect futre players. Otherwise, we will, as a group, act haphazardly!

As far as my ongoing discussion about state religion vs organized religion and Judism, I hope you will all realize this is a discussion! i have a strong opinion, but only in discussing them can we see the various advantages to others style of play!

BTW, Sirian or Sullla, are you reading our thread? would love some opinions or comments (or even knowing people are interested in what we do!)

Ozymandous

Nov 07, 2005, 10:54 AM

All right, then "Got it".

And Ragnoff.. Since you have all the answers about how 'State Religion' is the -only- way to go I won't comment on that anymore. *shrugs* Sound fair? Good.

Should we swap away from Theology when I get the save then? It seems that we don't really need about another boring religion and the FIVE culture per turn we'll get if we found it first. That five extra culture to close off borders, push back opposing borders or anything like that.

Ragnoff

Nov 07, 2005, 11:04 AM

Sigh, I am sorry, I don't think it is the only way to go. But it did not seems you were considering the alternative to No State religion.

I will stop posting opinions, I mistakenly thought talking these out would be a learnign experience.

Theology will finish within a turn or 2, might as well finish it.

Sullla

Nov 07, 2005, 12:21 PM

There are advantages and disadvantages to running a state religion. On the positive side, you get an additional happy face in cities with your state religion and the ability to use the civics in the Religion column, many of which are quite powerful. On the negative side, you lose out on any culture that you would be getting from your non-state religions and holy cities.

Which is the preferable course of action? That entirely depends upon the situation. :) In RB1, we flip-flopped back and forth between having a state religion and not having one as the situation dictated. We also changed our own religion frequently for the same reason (although that's not typical of most games!) before finally settling on Judaism. There is no "one right answer" when it comes to this question. If there is confusion as to what path should be taken, usual SG protocol is to ask the other team members what their opinion is, and then come to a consensus. Both positions here have merit - let's just try to be careful so that no one's feelings are hurt. :)

DeceasedHorse

Nov 07, 2005, 02:06 PM

Everyone just calm down, mmkay?

Tidus4444

Nov 07, 2005, 03:12 PM

To throw my two cents in here, I do think that theology was a suspicious decision (but like Ragnoff I decided to keep with it since the previous dynasty had thought it was important). However, since we're only a few turns from researching it now, we might as well nab it. As for state religion, I think for now we should keep it, but if we get Christianity and it spreads a bit we should swap to nothing so we can reap the benefits from culture.

BTW, does the +4 culture/turn for each religion just count in the founding city? Or is it every city that has the religion will get +4 culture/turn? Big difference there.

Talamane

Nov 07, 2005, 04:55 PM

Sorry, folks. It was DeceasedHorse that started on theology--i finished priesthood and started writing (for diplomacy). The reasoning is sound, however, based on my experiences with other continent games. Denial.

If any of our neighbors had gotten it, they would have switched to it immediately, and the diplo situation (as well as the shrine cash) would have tanked.

Usually a religion will found in another city, if you have more than one. In all likelihood, it will found in Djenne, but it appears to be an RNG thing.

Of course, one can get carried away with this, like my 5 religion game. Somewhere, there is a happy medium. :confused:

Ozymandous

Nov 07, 2005, 05:45 PM

400 BC (1):

I take a look around and realize that we’ve only founded one religion (so far), so the whole debate about state religion or not is moot. Depending on if we get Christianity and where it founds (last city built I think) I may or may not change from state religion if the added culture will help our borders expand to close off our hinterlands.

Looking around I change Djenne to settler, due in 8, in hopes of grabbing a site to the SW of that city. If we’re really lucky we might even get a second city there on the coast between the two rivers and next to the banana’s. I also swap Timbuk to settler (due in 12) and hope to chop the forest on top of the silk to the SE of the city since it would be chopped later when the plantation is built there and would do us more good now.

I’m also curious if that work boat being built in Kumbi will be able to grab the fish on that ocean square since we don’t have a tech that allows ocean travel, but I guess we’ll find out.

The Settler on the East coast I send to the grassland spot in hopes that we can get there and found the city in two turns. I very briefly debate turning down research on Theology in hopes that Christianity would be founded in the new city, but veto that pretty quickly mainly because I don’t know if that’s how the Holy Cities are picked, but mainly because I don’t want to loose the religion and the benefit’s it would garner.

One of the North Skirm’s I auto move to help escort one of the South Settlers. Due to arrive in 6.

375 BC (2):

Christianity founded in Kumbi in the NW. I check and see what the difference is since we’re spiritual and suffer no anarchy. Kumbi goes from 1 to 6 culture per turn. This means that as is, the borders will expand to close off the narrow path to our back areas in 14 turns as opposed to 40+ if we kept a State Religion. Gao is the only city building a building right now so I don’t feel the loss is that acute. Free missionary sent to Djenne in hopes that an extra +1 culture will generate per turn there since Timbuk’s next expansion is not for over 4000+ more culture.

Skirm outside the Barb city on the hill fortifies to watch and wait on the Swordsmen we will hopefully be able to build when IW comes in next (9 turns).

Worker near the Kumbi horses moves up to road/pasture them and the worker near Timbuk start’s the chop, forest cleared in 4.

350 BC (3):

We find out that we’re in 5th place for Technology. :( The work boat completes in Kumbi and I queue up a Skirm. No barracks there but we’ll need another escort for that second settler out of our cities.

325 BC (4):

The settler did make it to the Eastern Green dot and Walata is founded. Library queue’d up to help fight the culture war there. The missionary from Kumbi successfully spreads Christianity to Djenne and boosts culture there to +3/turn. Borders expected to expand (as long as no one changes us back to a State Religion) in Kumbi in 12 turns and Djenne in 11 which close off the back lands sooner rather than later. :) Please, please, please wait for our borders to expand before swapping back, thanks! :)

300 BC (5):

Borders to Gao expand and I finally catch a clue and realize a temple might be better there than the granary that was queued. Temple queued up instead of the granary and due in 19.

The forest near Timbuk is cleared and both settlers now due in 4. :D If we get both site’s to the SW we’ll have a way to both coasts, or at least what is hopefully the other ocean there.

275 BC (6):

Judaism spreads to Walata on its own so later we can swap back the state religion once we’re constructing more buildings and less units. Worker on the forest set to “road to” the gem’s south of Gao. That hill, when mined, will provide both gem’s and hammers. The worker should arrive on the hill about the time IW is discovered.

250 BC (7):

Kumbi builds a Skirm, I queue up a Christian temple to help with culture. Due in 6 with the city growing in 4. We need more workers so that might be a good place to pump out the occasional worker in between everything.

“Escort” Skirm sent to the SW city site, due to arrive in 3.

225 BC (8):

Moved a worker. IW due in 2, science funding slowed down so we don’t go broke. :D

200 BC (9):

Two settlers produced and IW due in 1. I queued the settlers and the skirmishers to the proposed city sites to the SW, the furthest one is due in 5.
With the settlers produced two Jewish missionaries are now both due in one turn each.

175 BC (10):

Two missionaries built, one sent to Kumbi and the other sent to the SW for the first site on the river. Hopefully Judaism will move to the other city there naturally.

The borders of Walata expand but still don’t push the German border back. We seriously need to build lots of culture buildings there sooner rather than later.

Settlers and their escorts on the way to their site’s to the SW (see pic). We have iron, but we NEED MORE WORKERS!

http://ozymandous.home.mindspring.com/Public_Stuff/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0001_8X6.JPG

IW came in, Meditation picked for lack of something better, due in 4.

A worker and a Judaism temple queued for Timbuk and Djenne respectively. Borders due to expand in 5-6 turns to close off that corridor as long as no state religion is chosen, then it might take a –bit- longer since both cities flanking the corridor are benefiting from both religions we founded. Right now the discount on constructing buildings isn’t worth it, IMHO, compard to the benefits of securing our back area from another civ. With our borders closed we can be a bit more liesurely about settling back there as our economy can stand it. Just do not agree to any Open Border agreements till we have all the city spots that we want founded.

We need lots more workers, then military, then settlers to secure/populate our back areas while not over expanding hopefully.

For what it's worth, I know both of the SW city spots are a bit out there but I'd rather have more land than less and I think we can hold onto the cities as long as we start producing more military to fortify them, our other cities and our back lines. That's common sense I know, more military can secure better, but if we don't get the land the other civ's will and if it comes down to us benefiting or another group benefitting I'd rather it be us. :)

Should get interesting from here on out.

Ragnoff

Nov 07, 2005, 06:42 PM

Ozymandous (Captain) (Finished round 2)
Ragnoff (Finished round 2)
Dwip (Up now - waiting for got it)
Talamane (on deck)
DeceasedHorse
Tidus4444

Ozy, PLEASE do not take this as critisism, these are questions because I do not under stand why you did a few things you did!!!!

1) First, do you remember if the work boat was able to get the fish? I thought they could go anywhere withing your cultural borders, but I could be wrong.

2) Missionaries and temples. On the temple in Gao, When I passed off the game Gao did not have a religion, no religion=no temple. That was one reason the missionary was ready in one turn. Did Gao get religion on its own? And were you thinking that is what would happen? Not sure why you delayed those if you were switching to no state relegion for culture benifits (although getting those setterlers out was GREAT!) Not saying I diagree, the only reason I choose missionaries is i knew we wanted culture and was not sure what else to do!!!!

3) have you divded an empire like we will be doing to Rome before? is the AI smart enough to get annoyed about it? I think that, if it works, we might pressure that Roman city to the south and culture flip it if we make that a goal of ours! I would never have thought of the tactic you are trying, this could be cool!

3) What tech did you go for after Tho? (I am prolly just missing it) and what direction do you think we should go with tech?

Finally for everyone:
How big can we get before the combination of number of cites and distance before the maintainence costs slow us? What techs/civics can we get oto combat this?

As you found cites, please note the rising maintainence costs so we can track those.

Edited to Add: Doh, i realized i could open up the save and answer some of my own questions! lol

1) good, the fish worked!
2) Ironworking, right, you mentiond this a few times <kick self> why meditation after?
Dwip PLEASE turn off organized religion, we are paying 2gpt for a civic that does noting without a state religion. Right now most cities get the same culture with org and Judism or no Judism, but the 2 that get more, as Ozy noted, are exactly the 2 that can close the Northern culture borders.

Dwip

Nov 07, 2005, 07:09 PM

I see it, and will most likely play tomorrow.

Without having looked at the game, a couple things.

1. Fred's culture borders are going to continue to be an issue for pretty much ever, since he'll always be generating that extra +2 cpt. So like Ozy said, more culture the better down that way.

2. That whole business with cutting off Rome worries me. I'll go ahead and do it, I think, but we need to be super-wary about A) being out-cultured by Caesar's cities and B) annoying him overly much*.My preferred method, if we decide we want some land, is to concentrate on building our more defensible core in the north, then pick either Caesar or Fred, and take his stuff. I think the way we're going now has lots of risk and not a lot of hope of payoff.

* - This has happened to me - my outculturing of a city turned a fairly good coreligionist friend almost into an enemy, and in that game I'm expecting to be invaded any time now.

3. Have we been doing anything about that barb city, which btw needs to be razed? I didn't see anything.

Ozymandous

Nov 07, 2005, 07:32 PM

Ragnoff:

No worries, since we only had one religion originally before Theology, choosing that as State Religion was a no-brainer, especially since we're Spiritual with no penalties.

As you noted, some answers..

1.) Yah the boat made it. I meant to note that but was talking to a frined at the time as well as trying to take notes and play and goofed a little.

2.) Gao already had Judaism in it when I got the save, not sure when it spread there naturally but assuming the missionary to Kumbi works we'll soon have Judaism in all our cities except the new ones.

I should have started the temple there before but I wasn't thinking. Ah well, at least with hammers not being lost production is kept.

FYI, as far as I know, a city will generate culture per turn for each religion you have as long as certain civic's aren't used and/or a state religion declared. For example, Djenni had three culture per turn because it had an OB and Judaism and Christianity with no state religion or civic like theocracy to hinder the religions there.

I may be wrong but from things I have seen I think that's how it works. If someone knows differently please let us know. :)

3.) No I've not divided an empire before, but I don't see it as much different than "hemming one in" as we're trying to do with Germany as well. I guess we'll find out shortly, but that's why I said we need to build more military. :D

3 (a?)) Iron Working, then Meditation.

Oops about keeping Organized Religion on, :smoke: move on my part, sorry about that.

Dwip:

1.) Yep, have to make sure we get both religions in Mala so it's even, and then boost every culture related thing there we can in that city.

2.) I agree, we'll have to boost all the culture related buildings in those cities as well, both temples as well as monasteries, etc. We need more military in general to secure the back lines anyway, so I don't see much difference.

3.) I didn't do anything with that barb city other than watch it grow. Swordsmen are among the best to sack a city with and we didn't have that till the end of my turn.

We seriously need to get one city cranking nothing but troops for the next 20 game turns to secure all our area's. Skirm's are pretty cheap and a handful of Axemen/Pikes and Swordsmen should do well to secure our area's and clear out any barb's hopefully.

Ragnoff

Nov 07, 2005, 07:44 PM

Ozymandous

Nov 08, 2005, 06:28 AM

BTW our empire name has one too many Cs in it, my fault. Please use alt-d and rename us to RB2c!

About the barbs, Ozy figured we need swordsman, but ironworking only arrived at the end of his turn. So basically, it is your call.

Looking at the save, there is a "farthest SW" skirmisher, I would move that first and hope all the automatic moves do not happen. If they do not, that skirmisher can move one more SW to a hill. From that hilltop you should be able to tell if there is ba 4th Romab city down there. (I would seriously rethink that fathest SW city if there is. that would be a city just begging to flip to the Romans if it has roman towns on 3 sides)

We needed IW for the swordsmen yes, but -also- to help clear out all that jungle. Unless you wanted to keep that nice tropical atmosphere around our poorly producing cities just because it looks good? :lol:

There is no Roman city down there that I could see to the SW (can't hurt to check though) and the border right above that furthest city spot, above the banana's, just expanded there in the last few turns because it wasn't there earlier. I'd imagine that's either the the 100 or maybe 500 (is there one?) culture border expansion from Rome itself since that was the first city in that direction we found.

I wouldn't expect that (Rome) border to expand greatly for now unless they pull a GA or build a wonder or two, and if we pump a lot of culture out of that city via temples, etc, we should be fairly safe with it, IMHO. Let's try not to run around screaming the sky is falling and be afraid to take a chance or two in this game, it's supposed to be a "test" game anyway, right? :D

Let's not forget that a good "culture bomb" or a few rushed wonders would easily swing the 'culture war' in our favor there and in other places but we have to have the city(s) settled first and then work towards those goals, not huddle up and be afraid to peek out from behind the doorframe worried the "boogey man" is going to get us. :)

Talamane

Nov 08, 2005, 06:11 PM

As Sulla mentioned, there is a serious tradeoff between culture and xp'd military units (via theocracy civic) when you have choices with multiple religions. We can get xp from clearing out barbs, but at some point in the game, a medieval "holy war" is probably in the mix. With vasselage and theocracy (both expensive, btw) we can get +4 xp and +2 with barracks for a total of +6. After we have cranked out the troops, we can go back to previous civics to save money. We have to wait 5 turns between revolutions, so it's not considered an exploit.

You gotta love a game that gives you these choices and forces you to make these decisions. :crazyeye:

Edit: Trying out a game with no state religion (founded 2) and found that diplomacy is less problematic. There is no "we are disappointed that you have fallen under a heathen religion" crappola.:goodjob:

Dwip

Nov 08, 2005, 08:51 PM

[0] 175 BC - We sure do have issues, and lots of them. We may or may not be winning in the land race, but we're sure not doing fantastic in the culture wars. Our army is...anemic. If we had invented rifles, they'd be wooden. The barb city in our back lines has almost as many archers as we have guys, period. Must be fixing this.

IBT - Caesar has culture border down next to SW red dot.

[1] 150 BC - I was going to have our settler bug out, but he was, er, on a goto.

[2] 125 BC - Kumbi Temple-Rax. Missionary spreads Judaism in Kumbi. I am almost completely unexcited about the red dot cities at this point, but go ahead and found Niani anyway, and convert it to Judaism. Continue to get screwed by random gotos. Argh.

IBT - In that epic struggle between barb archer and fortified on forested hill skirm, we somehow win. OTOH, Kumbi's got issues.

[3] 75 BC - Meditation comes in, start Monarchy for lack of a better idea.

IBT - Horses near Kumbi get pillaged.

[4] 50 BC - Djenne Temple->Rax.

[5] 25 BC - Our skirm up north continues to win vs barb archers.

[6] 1 AD - Kumbi Rax->Skirm. North skirm promoted to Combat I. Awdaghost founded on me SE red dot.

[7] 25 AD - Belatedly remember to switch off Organized Religion. :smoke:

IBT - Turn down Open Borders with Fred.

[8] 50 AD - Timbuktu Worker->Skirm.

IBT - Turn down Open Borders with Khan.

[9] 75 AD - Kumbi Skirm->Skirm. Gao Temple->Granary.

[10] 100 AD - Djenne Rax->Skirm.

We are, more or less, set up to go take down Alemanni now. REMEMBER TO RAZE IT. On second thought, I might have had Djenne train another settler, because we have another 3 or 4 dots to be settling.

And here's us:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb2c_100ad.jpg

Ozymandous

Nov 08, 2005, 09:07 PM

"Random GOTO's"? :lol: I pointed them out in my last report, and after the first check revealed the Roman city there I figured you would have realized to send the settler heading to the furthest spot back. :D Assuming that's who you meant (I don't think I had any others on 'goto'.)

Any particular reason why the new city in the SW is building a scout? Just curious. And yah, we need to dedicate a good city or three to military and workers, more than settlers right now, IMHO.

Ragnoff

Nov 08, 2005, 09:23 PM

I thought a general custom, if not rule, on RB succession games was you dont leave units with any automated orders, although I might be mixing the RB series and the LK series. That is why i left the settler in progress on no orders in my save. AS this was my first succession game, I had not wanted to say anything earlier..

Second question, why raze the barb city? why not make use of the fact it is a settler we do not have to make, for a city that will have pop already? Unless your concer is maitances costs, which are alread getting high. But if that is the case, should we fould any more cites right now?

Talamane

Nov 08, 2005, 10:05 PM

Barbs cities are usually on good sites. If there are (or were) 3 defenders, they will usually stand once you take them. If not, they will usually autoraze. Several posters have stated that some of their best cities were ex-barb.

Got it. Will play tomorrow. Need a question answered before I do. Do we want to keep making that scout in Niani?

Dwip

Nov 08, 2005, 11:39 PM

Random gotos - Apparently my reading comprehension sucks, because I read the relevant posts twice before playing, and still missed it. That and, as Ragnoff points out, I'm not exactly accustomed to recieving gotos in SGs. This makes the second time ever, I think. Oh well.

I've been using Kumbi for skirm producing, because it can make them in 2 turns. I definitely think Djenne needs to go back to settlers, though, and maybe Kumbi could fit one in, too. I'd rather have our last cities founded sooner rather than later.

As far as Alemanni goes, if the position on it didn't totally suck, and didn't completely ruin the dotmap, I'd be all for keeping it, since I'm a firm believer in the greatness of barb cities. But the position does, and it does ruin it, so I think it should be razed and replaced.

As far as the scout goes, I wanted it as filler production before cranking a worker, without spending zillions of turns on a temple. This may be :smoke:, though we COULD handle some more scouting. I wouldn't be opposed to cranking a galley real quick in Kumbi, either.

Ragnoff

Nov 09, 2005, 12:20 AM

Him, I would be in favor of leaving the city rather than replacing it, dot maps are just maps, (i.e. no plan survives first contact) and can be altered and replaced. I will take a look at the save and see if we would be shooting ourselves in teh feet with this, but I did not think so.

If the border between Kumbi and Djenne has closed, fell free to switch us back to Judiem and org religieon if you find yourself in a building building phase (as opposed to a troop building phase).

Edit : ok, I do nto think the bab city is in a bad spot, but it doe restrict what we could do if we raze and replace.

I think that we need to STOP founding cites though. Our costs, even not running organized religion, are high, we are breaking even at only 70 science,. most of that cost is in the number of cites penalty. That cost goes up not only for teh new city, but it raises that penalty for all the other cites as well, as far as i understance it. i don't think we can afford a larger science slowdow right now, and would rather produce the workers we need then more settlers.

Dwip

Nov 09, 2005, 02:53 AM

The choice as I see it WRT the dotmap and the barb city is we can have an ok city now, or two really good cities, one with coastal access and a bunch of resources later. As far as I can see, that's really not even a choice.

As far as taking the hit on research goes, I'd rather take one, and at least get the two purple dot cities founded. Once we get to Courthouses and Markets, that problem should go away. Plus city econ for all those turns. Plus city production for all those turns. Etc, etc.

Ozymandous

Nov 09, 2005, 06:59 AM

Hmm...

It is fairly typical to not have units on GOTO's, -unless- you specify who and where such orders are activated on as I did in two places in my report (although I admit I may not have been 100% clear, but in the context I thought everyone got the idea since there were a few comments on the idea) as follows:

200 BC (9):

Two settlers produced and IW due in 1. I queued the settlers and the skirmishers to the proposed city sites to the SW, the furthest one is due in 5.
With the settlers produced two Jewish missionaries are now both due in one turn each.

175 BC (10):

Two missionaries built, one sent to Kumbi and the other sent to the SW for the first site on the river. Hopefully Judaism will move to the other city there naturally.

The borders of Walata expand but still don’t push the German border back. We seriously need to build lots of culture buildings there sooner rather than later.

Settlers and their escorts on the way to their site’s to the SW (see pic). We have iron, but we NEED MORE WORKERS!

Sorry about the confusion, I thought the above bolded bits were clear, but in the future I'll not put anything on auto in case someone misses it in my report again. My mistake.:blush:

Erm, production cannot be swapped so all that "filler production" on that scout is essentially for nothing, and if you want to build something while the town grows then put a temple, barracks, anything in there so the production will actually go to something useful. :) I know, it's a change from Civ3, but that's part of the reason we're playing this right, to see the differences, and not fall into old habits? :D

As far as the barb city is concerned, I'm with those who want to raze it. I didn't think it was in a good spot myself when I opened the save before and if I had conquered it I would have razed it as well.

I agree, we don't need to found cities constantly now since our back lines are closed off but we do need to be sure to send out military troops to make sure no Barb's can spring up as well as defending our existing cities. Remember the penalties, as Ragnoff said, mount for all cities not just for the new ones, and trust me you really don't want to fall far behind the AI's on tech in this game because you can't always catch up as easily as in Civ3.

Throw another vote in on producing more military (first priority), then workers, then culture buildings where needed, then possibly settlers as we get a better handle on our finances. Alternately keep expanding but maybe a 3:1 military/settler ratio since we desperately need defenders and watchmen for our hinter lands. That's my opinion, although I'm sure someone will have other ideas. :lol:

Do we have the iron and copper connected yet? I hope so. If we have a city that can turn workers out in 5 turns or less can we please do that until we get at least one per city? :)

Dwip

Nov 09, 2005, 12:08 PM

Assortedly...

Gotos - No worries. I didn't really interpret that as involving gotos, but oh well.

City founding - Our borders aren't QUITE closed off yet, though they may be soon, depending on what Kumbi's at for expansion. Hence why the purple dot cities wouldn't worry me. I mainly don't want to have settlement moved so far down the list that we start getting galleys full of settlers trooping around our backlands.

Scout - Maybe I said that wrong. What I meant was for Niani to finish the scout while waiting on pop growth, then go worker. In true Civ 4 style, I suppose I could have had it work on a temple while waiting for growth, then switched to worker, built that, and switched back to the half-done temple, but I didn't, so. Might be worth trying somewhere though.

Ozymandous

Nov 09, 2005, 12:36 PM

The borders for Kumbi and Djenne didn't seal completely by the end of your turn Dwip? :eek: Hmm, they should have. That's worrisome. :(

I agree we don't want to stop settler production completely, just maybe one per rotation to slowly fill in the back while we crank troops and culture if possible. Maybe even as sparse as one settler every other rotation, depending.

Anyone know how many proposed decent, non-sardine can, city sites we have in the back lands? Also, it might be a good idea to farm/mine Djenne for our military needs unless there are more cities with a better potential hammer output. If the AI's ever run out of room we might have a hot war on our hands sooner rather than later depending on how much of the continent is left to the South.

Oh, and don't forget to forest chop any forests before plopping a city down since the chop's do carry over to one of our cities and if you clear a forest doing that you lose the 20 hammers worth of wood there.

Dwip

Nov 09, 2005, 12:48 PM

There's like a 1 tile diagonal gap, is all, but it's there.

There are, per my dotmap back on page 3 or so, 3 more cities to be founded which aren't pathetic, as well as a black dot furs/ice fishing village if we decide we want it.

This dotmap, here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3263245&postcount=44).

The observant reader will observe how badly Alemanni's placement destroys this.

Ozymandous

Nov 09, 2005, 12:52 PM

Ah, then the closest purple dot city would be needed soon, as long as we chop that forest first. Heh, the extra wood might even help boost the settler. :)

Talamane

Nov 09, 2005, 06:42 PM

[0] 100 AD. Since no one answered my question about continuing to build the scout in Niani, i will let it finish. Exploration to the south cant hurt.

[1] 125 AD. Skirm at Kumbi completes. Start another. Move units into attack position. I plan to attack with 5 skirms. Failure to take the barb city promotes the survivors, and there is no siege.

[2] 150 AD. Skirm completes in Djenne, move to Timbuktu, skirm completing in Timbuktu will move to Awdaghost.

[3] 175 AD. Workers complete the corral @ Kumbi. Move them to build mine on iron near Timbuktu. Our other workers complete the road near Djenne. I elect to mine the hill, and then complete the road to Niani. Skirms from Djenne move into capital, and warriors in capital move to Awdaghost, which will complete its warrior next turn.

[4] 200 AD. Skirm completes in Timbuktu and starts worker. Djenne starts another skirm. Start Awdaghost on rax. Stack of 4 skirms moves into barb territory. Moses is born in Timbuktu. He builds the Temple of Solomon. Incomes goes from +1 @ 70% sci to +10 :goodjob:

[5] 225 AD. The barbs do not attack. :rolleyes: Ok, the odds are 4.4 to 4.9, not too good. I will wait for 5th skirm. Fortify Kumbi's new skirm in Kumbi, and start a settler, due in 6, and in good position to settle in the back, once Alemmeni is gone.

[6] 250 AD. Workers on gems near Gao complete mine, and starts a farm for Gao (needs food). Attack on those heathens begins next turn. Weedy :smoke:, our new scout, moves south. I am moving him one tile at a time. Monarchy completes and start on math. I suggest we get alphabet next, which will allow tech trading.

[7] 275 AD. The barb city is sacked for 91 gold and destroyed at the cost of 2 skirms. I will fortify them, heal, and then position them for the settler due in 4 from Kumbi. Bump science to 80%, making +9/turn.

[8] 300 AD. Napoleon wants open borders, uh, no. Djenne makes another skirm. Fortify it in Djenne. Might be best to start it on a granary when the next unit completes, then pump settlers/workers from it. Send the garrisoned one in Djenne to Gao to beef up our borders. The next one should go to Niani. Worker starts on road to Niani. Iron mine completes, move worker to Timbuktu and start a cottage, we can use the money. I promote one of our skirms to heal, another to city defense, the other just promotes to extra strength (he was made without a rax). I keep moving Weedy due south.

[9] 325 AD. Caesar wants open borders, uh, no. Damn, lost 4 turns of production on a rax in Niani, because it was set to crank out scouts continuously. Fred has axemen, be careful.

[10] 350 AD. Road to Niani completes, start on farm for Niani. Start another skirm in Djenne. Math is due in 3 turns. Iron is hooked up. Skirms are on gotos to border towns to beef up our defenses. Kumbi's settler is due next turn, and a temple is queued up to close the border.

Ozymandous

Nov 10, 2005, 06:24 AM

[0][1] 125 AD. Skirm at Kumbi completes. Start another. Move units into attack position. I plan to attack with 5 skirms. Failure to take the barb city promotes the survivors, and there is no siege.

.....

[9] 325 AD. Caesar wants open borders, uh, no. Damn, lost 4 turns of production on a rax in Niani, because it was set to crank out scouts continuously. Fred has axemen, be careful.

Any particular reason we attacked the Barb city with Skirmisher's when we can make Swordsmen? :crazyeye:

Oh, and I may have had units on GOTO but at least I wasn't auto-building scouts, SCOUTS! :lol: :p

(just teasing yah Dwip. :D )

Talamane

Nov 10, 2005, 11:51 AM

Mainly because the iron was not hooked up. :crazyeye:

At any rate, it took 4 moves to go from Kumbi to the barb city. I did not want to put off taking it out any longer. The skirms used to take out the barb city will serve as defense for the new north cities.

Ozymandous

Nov 10, 2005, 01:22 PM

10+ turns after IW was discovered on the last turn of my round and it's still not hooked up?:eek:

Erm.. Ok?:crazyeye:

Dwip

Nov 10, 2005, 01:31 PM

Talamane

Nov 10, 2005, 03:01 PM

The first free worker went to build a mine on the iron. On turn 8, it was complete.

Ozymandous

Nov 11, 2005, 08:19 AM

Not sure I even recognized that we had iron to hook up...and I looked, too. :crazyeye:

(Hooking up the copper might help, too)

Too, skirms are pretty crazy good anyway, swords or no.

And I'll have you know that I deliberately chose that scout, after a whole 10 seconds of deliberation! :p

(not sure why it would be set to autobuild. I don't turn anything like that option on)

And yay, the barbarians have finally been dealt with. :hammer:

(yknow, Civfanatics sure does have cool smilies)

ATL-Click set's a unit to perma-build. It's not a option you have to flag. :)

Oh, and if the next player intends to settle on the purple dot to close off the back lands culture wise, please do not forget to chop that forest on the city spot -first-. That way the shields from the forest don't go to waste. Thanks. :)

DeceasedHorse, you're up.

Ragnoff

Nov 11, 2005, 01:34 PM

Has anyone seen DeceasedHorse or Tidus4444about? It has been over 24 hours from the last turn post.

DeceasedHorse

Nov 11, 2005, 08:43 PM

DeceasedHorse was AFK for a day and a half there. I apologize about that, personal difficulties. I'm still having some problems with running Civ IV consistently (basically, the damn thing won't work if i ever turn off or restart my computer...) and still haven't heard back from Take 2 (nor do I think they will resond any time in the next millenium). I got it and plan on playing out my turn set tommorrow.

Ozymandous

Nov 14, 2005, 06:24 AM

Well it's been three days. I think it's safe to say that if DH doesn't post an update by the end of the day then it's safe to skip him.

Who's next on the rotation? Tidus?

Tidus4444

Nov 14, 2005, 02:39 PM

Yeah, it's me. I'll play tomorrow if DH doesn't get it in today.

Ragnoff

Nov 14, 2005, 07:49 PM

can we consider DH out until/unless he confirms that both his system will run civ4 and he has interests? I know he last stated he was having problems getting things to run, but leaving us hanging all weekend does not help. It feels like, compared to other SGs, this one has little momentum and/or interest.

Ozymandous

Nov 15, 2005, 07:20 AM

All right, rule enforcement time. If 24 hours pass without a "got it" post we skip that person in the rotation and move on. Once the "got it" is posted there are 24 hours to complete the turn and post some sort of summary and the save.

Sound fair to everyone? I'd like to finish this SG before Christmas.:D

DeceasedHorse

Nov 15, 2005, 11:44 AM

I'm really sorry guys. I'm having some problems right now-consider me auto-skipped until I get back to you. :blush:

Ozymandous

Nov 16, 2005, 07:49 AM

Tidus? You done yet? If you don't post within the next 12 hours you will be skipped.

Talamane

Nov 16, 2005, 05:30 PM

Since we are learning this game, it might be good if we posted any synopses of solo games we have played. Here's one:

Stuck on a continent with K Khan playing Germans/Frederick. Suddenly he attacks with chariots and keshiks. We had open borders, and all his cities were HindJudaism. Both the shrines were in Berlin. We fought and fought as i struggled economically and technically to get HBR. We warred for 4 centuries and finally signed straight up peace when he saw that one of his cities was in peril. The rest of the world was light-years ahead of us. KK caught up quickly, while i lagged. When i say lagged, i mean i didnt get electricity until 1954 AD. I launched and won in 2033. Very fun game--i made good use of spies/subs and sabotage. But i still rated "Warren G Harding." :cry:

Ozymandous

Nov 16, 2005, 06:16 PM

Got it. Will play the turns and post tomorrow.

Ragnoff

Nov 18, 2005, 02:57 AM

gah! this almost fell off the first page!!!! NOT good

Ozymandous

Nov 18, 2005, 11:58 AM

Sorry, something came up and I couldn't play last night. Will play and post tonight.

One way or another I want to finish this game. :)

Ozymandous

Nov 18, 2005, 05:40 PM

350 AD (IT):
Nianni (SW city) production changed to Jewish temple instead of barracks. We must build culture there. Everything else left alone.

IBT: Khan comes ‘demanding’ 90 gold. I cave for now since we’re in no shape to fend him, or anyone off.

375 AD (1):
Gao builds granary, starts Jewish Monastery. Kumbi builds settler, starts Jewish Monastery.

400 AD (2):
Timbuk trains worker, starts another. Djenne finishes Skirmisher, starts Jewish Monastery.

425 AD (3):
Mathematics discovered, Sailing chosen next.

450 AD(4/IBT):
Our empire now holds ½ million people. We’re #1 in land, food and MFG, but 6th in GDP and 4th in military.

475 AD (5):
Kumbi builds Jewish Monastery, starts Worker.

500 AD (6):
Sailing discovered. Metal Casting up next. I chose this because it will help with our production sooner rather than later, and we need all the help we can get right now. MC due in 18. I’ll try to shorten that as I can.

520 AD (7):
Tadmeka formed on the middle purple dot. When borders expand out back lines will be closed off for good.

540 AD (8):
Kumbi trained Worker, starts a Jewish Missionary.

560 AD (9):
Djenne finishes Skirmisher, starts another. It’s set to auto-build now. Walata finally grows to size 4 and I :whipped: the library there. Timbuk finishes another Worker starts another.

580 AD (10):
Taoism founded in a distant land. Walata finishes the :whipped: library, starts Jewish Monastery. One of the Skirmishers in the North fends off a barb archer and promotes.
“Shock” chosen. Heh, +25% vs. melee units. Let’s see a Swordsman try to attack this city. Might want to move this Skirmisher more near the front lines.

NOTES:
There is a Skirmisher on GOTO from Djenne to the far North near where the “black dot” is on the map. We can decide where to settle that city later, IMHO. There is one city spot on the coast in the NE we need to settle as well as the one on the NW coast before we worry about “Black Dot”.

There is a scout (the one built in the SW city instead of something more culture specific which it probably needed a tad bit more) on GOTO heading below Gao since everything in the SW is blocked by foreign culture.

Various Missionaries are being trained to help spread our primary religion to our new cities. Workers are trying to mine any hills with Jungle on them since Jungle is useless compared to forests (IMHO) and also connect our cities.

PLEASE NOTE: The NE Skirmisher in the forest healing needs to more North ONE SPACE to be on the ‘dot’ location when we get ready to settle that spot. MC is due in 14, not sure what we might want to work on next. I build a pen for the cows, they need to be connected to our empire, and a work boat built for the seafood off the coast. The far NE city can build the boat(s), the city on the German border needs to pump all culture builds ASAP.

Other than that, we're much better on Workers than we were before, but we still need a few, one per city, IMHO. Farms on cleared land and mines on plain/jungled hills are probably for the best. If a city has 3 or 5 forest tiles we might want to leave them there if we can. Forests can become as nice as a mine once Lumbermills and the late civic/tech that gives +1 shield are discovered.

Any questions feel free to ask, let's get this thing going again! :hammer: :rockon:

(Sorry no pic's, I'm out of bandwidth till next month. :lol:)

Ragnoff

Nov 19, 2005, 08:48 AM

I got it, playing now

Ragnoff

Nov 19, 2005, 09:44 AM

The third Ragnoff dynasty would hopefully be better than the previous two. The empire was much larger now. The empire consists of 8 cities now, 1 just founded. Maintenance costs are already high, and this Ragnoff, Ragnoff the Miserly, decides that founding more cites is not something the empire can afford right now. He also notes that some previous empire has converted us back to paganism. As Ragnoff intends to build up the existing cities during his turns, he switches the empire back to Organized Religion and Judism. This does cost us 6 culture per turn (empire wide) but adds happiness that will soon be needed, improved our relations with both our neighbors, as well as speeding the construction of various buildings.

600 A.D.
Kumbi and finishes a missionary and startes a lighthouse, Djenne finishes a skirmisher and starts a library, Adwaghost finishes barracks and starts library, we are behind in tech, and backwards compared to Ghengis. Julius starts sending a settler party up that 1 tile gap we have. Skirmishers moved to try and block him.

620 A.D.
I guess because we are not at war, the skirmisher fails to block Julius, and using the road we built, the Roman settler moves far enough into the gap that we cannot prevent the founding of a Roman city in the north.

640 A.D.
The Scout to the south reveals more to the French and some of the Mongolian empire. the Romans and Germans have no choice but to come at us, they are bracketed.

I have 3 skirmishers surrounding the Romans, do I declare war to preserve the north? If I do not, a city will found. This is too momentous a choice to make alone. Almost all cites are dedicated to producing culture and library buildings, which I see as vital, but war would also mean units must be produced. The skirmishers we have are good defense, most likely enough to preserve us during the initial attacks. The real question, will the Romans accept peace after we destroy the settler and defenders, or will we be committed to a lengthy war?

Ragnoff

Nov 19, 2005, 09:49 AM

Oh, the various auto orders almost caused problems again, as I spent a long time looking for and canceling them. I almost missed the skirmisher headed north, which i needed for my failed attempt to block teh Romans, and is now one of teh units that i will use if we decalre war. I would like to request we follow the SG custom of no auto orders, either move or build, that extend into the next player's turns.

Talamane

Nov 19, 2005, 12:56 PM

Warren G Harding speaking.

Depending on how far the Roman city founds from our capital, it will probably be flip bait. I dont know how our cultures compare. We may be able to culture bomb it later.

If we go to war later with Rome, it's doomed. Either way, it saves us a settler.

Optics will soon allow them to use galleys to settle. At this point, the AI is trying to build enough cities to get a Forbidden Palace.

Ozymandous

Nov 19, 2005, 07:21 PM

Ragnoff

Nov 19, 2005, 08:53 PM

*shrugs* Either way, doesn't matter. The culture gap may have been closed if we had tried to concentrate on culture buildings earlier (which having an organized religion killed part of with Christianity in one of those cities trying to close the gap) but it's too late now.

Do what you think best Ragnoff. I've played enough solo games for this SG to honestly be an after thought more than anything else at this point anyway. :)

hmm, perhaps we should just agree not to be on a SG team again, I can think of little more effective than that last comment to suck the little enjoyment left in this out. Our captain does not care and consideres this game an afterthough.

To be presise, it was adopting a state relegion, not the organized relegion civic, that reduced the culture. Although there is no reason to have OR without a state religion. I decided to check to see this would have made a difference.

The 2nd religion was founded in 375 BC, at which time No State relegion was adopted. We stayed there until I just took over in 600 A.D., which means we have spent 3 turns not getting max culture, so we are 15 culture less than the most we could have there. Gosh, I guess your right, that musta killed our chance to close that gap..... Oh wait, we are still 135 culture short :rolleyes: I guess my advocation of organized relegion caused all this.

Ragnoff

Nov 19, 2005, 09:28 PM

660 A.D. Ragnoff decides that this transgression cannot be borne, and WAR is declared. Several skirmishers are shifted North, but the Settler and his escort are in the woods, and no attack is made this year. Theocracy would help, and can be achieved next turn. Gao finished a Monastery and begins a skirmisher. Kumbi finishes the lighthouse and begins an axeman. Will the first blow fall now?

680 A.D.
The battle begins?
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2900/rb2c7018sp.jpg
Our skirmisher, against the odds, takes down the Roman axeman.
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/6318/rb2c7024ud.jpg
The second skirmisher eliminates the Roman spearman, and the Roman settler is captured and put to work.
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/3637/rb2c7035dk.jpg
The borders of Tadmeka expand, sealing the path that lead to this war. The north is safe, and the forces are shifted back south. Theocracy and Hereditary Rule are adopted.

700 A.D.
Little movement from the Romans, but they do finish the Parthenon. Timbuktu finishes a worker, I start a skirmisher, and note that this city, our capital, lags behind in production and size. Kumbi finishes his axeman and begins another. The axeman is given a double City Raider promotion.

720 A.D.
Djenne finishes a Library and begins an axeman. Gao finishes a skirmisher and begins a Barracks.

740 A.D.
Kumbi finishes the axeman and begins a skirmisher. The nearby Roman town has only 2 archers and a spear defending. 2 axemen and 2 skirmishers will soon be nearby ready for battle.

760 A.D.
I had a crash to desktop, and so restarted this turn from the autosave. Djenne finishes the axeman and starts a chariot.

780 A.D.
Timbuktu finishes a skirmisher and starts a granary. Kumbi finishes a skirmisher and starts a galley. Niani finishes the temple and starts a monastery. Walata finishes the monetary and starts a work boat, there being no culture buildings left. Forces converge outside the Roman town. 3 axemen with city raider promotions. Next player can continue the war or pull back and try for peace.
http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/6581/rb2c7041br.jpg
Go ahead and list me a auto-skip for the time being.

Talamane

Nov 20, 2005, 08:02 PM

Good Job! :goodjob:

Ozymandous

Nov 21, 2005, 05:41 AM

hmm, perhaps we should just agree not to be on a SG team again, I can think of little more effective than that last comment to suck the little enjoyment left in this out. Our captain does not care and consideres this game an afterthough.

I care enough to want to finish this yes, but after all the delays and debates already yes this game isn't as vitally important as it was since I have played more than this game in Civ4.

Does that mean I don't care? No. Does that mean this game is the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thing I think of when I go to sleep? No. :lol:

It's a game. We'll see how well the different play styles turn out as things progress, that's for sure. At this point I'll just do pretty much what the group wants since it seems most of what I suggest or do IG is frowned upon or vetoed, which is another reason why this game doesn't rank as high in my priority list as it might for others.

In any event, this weekend is Thanksgiving so I'd expect things to stall from Wednesday night till as late as Sunday possibly.

Kylearan

Nov 21, 2005, 08:09 AM

Hi Ozy,

I care enough to want to finish this yes, but after all the delays and debates already yes this game isn't as vitally important as it was since I have played more than this game in Civ4.

Think about this succession game as more than just 'a normal game of Civ 4 on Noble'. It's also an introduction for some people to SGs in general, and to RB games in particular. As I understand it, one of the game captain's roles is to keep the team together and the game going, and sounding a wee bit more enthusiastic in one's posts might be helpful... ;)

-Kylearan

Dwip

Nov 21, 2005, 11:40 AM

"Oh," I say, "I'm up. Thanks for letting me know, thread subscription," I say, with sarcasm.

Have something back tonight or tomorrow.

Ozymandous

Nov 21, 2005, 01:20 PM

Hi Ozy,

Think about this succession game as more than just 'a normal game of Civ 4 on Noble'. It's also an introduction for some people to SGs in general, and to RB games in particular. As I understand it, one of the game captain's roles is to keep the team together and the game going, and sounding a wee bit more enthusiastic in one's posts might be helpful... ;)

-Kylearan

*sighs*

Well originally this game was meant to be an intro for people to jump in and play the game together to see what's new in Civ4 and experience those differences first hand and talk about them, etc.

What has really happened is some Civ3 perspectives have carried over, some are more dead set in one mindframe or another, and most importantly, things have slowed down cinsiderably. I'll admit I am partially to blame in some of these things, especially the first time my turn rolled around and I missed it because I wasn't expecting the turn to flip so quickly.

Judging by the last two people who signed up and disappeared and/or had problems but didn't post an update for about 4 days, and the lack of people posting "whats going on" type posts I'd assumed interest in this thread and game had waned. As mentioned this was meant to be an intro game and yet I have finished one solo game and started several others to various stages of completion. As such the primary goal, for me at least, of using this as a "learning game" has faded in significance.

Does this mean the game is useless? No. Even if I have to finish it myself I plan to get it done, but realize the initial goal of the game may or may not have passed into irrelevance.

With that being said it wuld be nice to have discussions about things people do, or questions, etc on things they, or others, did during their turns. I'll admit I have strong opinions as well, but if soemone can explain why a certain idea is better then I can be persuaded, albiet grudgingly. To start off I'll admit I goofed in not settling the last town I did during my turn about three turns earlier because I missed the settler (had him on fortify while awaiting the workers to finish clearing the forest there). If I had setled sooner, and thought to get a missionary there pronto, the borders may have closed before the Roman settler was even close enough to the back lines for us to declare war.

So my goof in that may or may not change the shape of the game. Also, I am curious why we're building axemen when we could build swords? Are we giving the axemen the city raider promotions when they are created, or what? If not, then why aren't we building more swordsmen, since they are better vs. cities? Do we want to keep the Roman cities we capture, or raze them and found our own? Do we have enough forces to defend not only our cities but our resources if Rome counters?

Anyone else have any other observations on things they have seen?

Ragnoff

Nov 21, 2005, 04:42 PM

I was building axemen because of their built in bonus vs melee. Add that to city radier promotions and they seem very good at taking out melee based defenders. For some reason, in the MP games I have played, enemy axeman seem far more effective than the swordmen I was building, although I have not had enough battles to know if this is an abberation, a misperception, or a valid observation. Another reason I was building the axemen was they were faster to build than swordmen and we had almost no melee troops. Actually, I was hoping to just get a few troops in the field. Originally, I thought I would be doing building turns, rather than the war, I i declaredwar even though not fully ready to, just to kill that settler. Now that we have a few troops. it might be better to switch over to swordmen. Maybe I should have started with swordsman, I don't know.

As far as the promotions, taking a hint from RB1, I was not promoting them at all at first, as I did not know if I would be facing a rush from Rome. I was thinking this way I could give them city raider or combat I or first strike promotions if we were able to get into an offensive position, or give Hillsman/woodsman/city defender promostions if Rome had troops availible to rush us.

I am sorry if I have been overly sensitive, but it seemed you did not want disagreement or opinions. Being religions, I thought we would switch beteen civics and religions as they benifited us and in responce to our evolving goals. However, it felt like I was ridiculed/dismissed for suggesting OR back when I did, and for switching to it on my last turns. I readily admit that there are times when the culture bonus of No State Religion are useful, once there is a second religion or more in the empire, obviously did not feel that was always the "one right answer."

Another thing that has been/seemed odd is the need for territory, and how we have reacted to it. Do we need as much territory for 4 as we did for 3? We could still found 3-4 cities in the north I think, but already we are down to like 40% science because of maintainece costs and civics costs. However, Rome and Germany are even more land hungry than we are, with other civs behind them. I don't, however, see where we made an obvious mistake. We had several goals, denying territory to Rome/Germany, trying to portect our own borders, finding the best distribution for our cites and the best production/location (and especially with the distribution goals not lining up well with the production locations or resouce locations).

Ozymandous

Nov 22, 2005, 06:02 AM

Axemen make sense in that concept. I have used them for trying to take cities as well if they get the "City Raider I" promotion since then they seem to almost be as useful as swords in that use, albiet a bit weaker.

Religion is still very new, and I haven't seen enough to get it right either with regards to OR or not. If you only have one religion is makes it easy to decide OR or not, but if you found more than one, or have neighbors who share differing state religions, it's hard to know which to switch to.

My apologies if you felt ridiculed for voicing your opinions, that wasn't the intent, just it seemed that anytime I suggested we not adopt a SR it was shot down too. I do see a need for a SR but not necessarily immediately, especially if we're a religious Civ. I swap all the time (maybe once every 30 turns or so) even with non religious civ's, so that's probably part of my problem.

Regarding land... In all Civ games, regardless of when you do it, more land/people will always mean more power. I think the early reviews and such saying you only need a handful of cities to win were a bit misleading. In Civ4 you can't necessarily spam settlers like in the previous versions, but the axiom of "more land/people = more power!" is still true, players still ened to juggle when it's best to expand, etc.

We're down to 40% science already? Wow, when did that happen? Did the war have anything to do with it? I usually try to expand/build to the point where at worst I am at 50% science, usually no lower than 70% if I can help it, so if we're down to 40% then yah, I agree we need to boost infrastructure seriously.

Maybe we can take that second Roman city, and perhaps to the far SW (that's a bit iffy) and then sue for peace without paying anything if we can and work more on infrastructure? Not sure how the AI's treat war and peace declarations in Civ4 since I usually am way ahead of them when I declare or they try to beat on me and I upgrade a few defenders quickly, or upgrade some old warriors lying around and fend the AI's off. :)

Ragnoff

Nov 22, 2005, 05:08 PM

Just a reminder, Tidus and DH both failed to play or post in a timely manner last round, so untilunless they reconfirm interest and ability, should we consider oursleved a 4 person team?

Ozymandous
Ragnoff
Dwip <- currently playing, expected to post tongiht.
Talamain <- on deck.

Talamane

Nov 22, 2005, 08:55 PM

Consider me a skip for the Thanksgiving holidays (unless we suspend for the holidays). I will be AFK until Friday evening.

Ozymandous

Nov 23, 2005, 06:57 AM

I'd say we postpone this until at least Sunday since I will not be around to play until that time as well.

Anyone have a problem with the break for Thanksgiving (in the US anwyay)? And I agree Ragnoff, 4 person rotation until/unless the other two jump back in.

Tidus4444

Nov 23, 2005, 11:04 AM

I'm just posting to say that I'm gone from a computer that can play civ IV until monday due to thanksgiving vacation.

Dwip

Nov 23, 2005, 11:56 AM

Well, I'm partway through, but RL sort of caught up with me. Since it sounds like we're all on hold until the end of the break, I'll see about finishing up late tonight or tomorrow.

Ragnoff

Nov 28, 2005, 10:08 AM

Are we ready to start back up again?

Dwip

Nov 28, 2005, 07:55 PM

[0] 780 AD - So, here we are. Let us recap. We are, of all the people we know, the biggest, with the most population. However, in 780AD, we know a whopping 4 civs.

We're getting completely schooled by AT LEAST Khan (of all people) on tech (most of which is old, but still), and with our 40% (!!!) science rate, we won't be catching up any time soon.

We're at war with Rome, and...wait, why are we at war with Rome again? *reads back* Ok...stopping cities in the north, check. How did it get there in the first place? Who knows. Well, can't do anything about that now. And we sure aren't going to be attacking anybody's walled cities without catapults. Do we even HAVE catapults? No, but we can in...26 turns? Forget that. Well, this is going to be...something. Mobile pillaging squads and hoping Caesar gets Alphabet so we can extort tech from him when we go for peace, I guess. We also need Currency and Code of Laws, but...good luck with that.

Swap Niani to walls. Almost swap Djenne off chariot, but we'll let it complete and see what that gets us.

IBT - Khan wants Open Borders. Until we get the rest of our land, I don't wanna. Imhotep gets born in Rome.

[1] 800 AD - Djenne Chariot->Walls.

Copper hooks up.

Our army of nothing but City Raider II Axemen scares me. I'm used to having a few with Cover and Shock, just on that chance I get caught in the open. Not much to be done with that now, though. I give our new chariot Flank I and II and send it to go pillage its way through Rome. Move up un promoted skirm to cover the territory near Antium, which has a Praetorian. Fantastic. Swap out the Combat I skirm at Neapolis for the Medic I/Combat I Skirm, and pillage Caesar's rice.

IBT - Our Flank promotions work fantastically vs Caesar's brand new horse archer, and our chariot dies. Score.

[2] 820 AD - We are apparently #2 behind Khan in Toynbee's list of most powerful civs. Nappy is #3, Fred's #4, and Caesar's down at #6.

IBT - Nappy wants Open Borders. Again, I decline.

[3] 840 AD - Djenne Walls->Axeman. Kumbi Galley->Walls.

IBT - Praetorians rip up some of our skirms, as they like to do from time to time. Fred completes the Hanging Gardens.

[4] 860 AD - Niani Walls->Rax. Awdaghost ("Aw! Da ghost!") Library->Jewish Temple.

Oh, Caesar will talk now. And...he wants Niani for peace. That's not so hot. However, he WILL accept 18 gold and 2gpt, and I leap on it.

Boy did THAT suck.

Because somebody, somewhere, is going to say "WTF!?" to that, let us examine:

A. At 5 vs 6 odds OR WORSE all the time vs his cities, our single axe/skirm stack isn't going to be taking Neapolis or Antium any time soon.

B. Praetorians are strength 8. Caesar's got Combat I Praetorians, which were in the process of driving around on our hills. Also lots of strength 6 horse archers cruising around. Now, while I'm a big fan of the strength 5 axeman and the strength 4 skirm, let me tell you that the three skirms that went up against his Praetorians didn't fare well.

So without catapults and something to fight Praetorians with, we were pretty much done before we started.

[5] 880 AD - Kumbi Walls->Jewish Temple.

[6] 900 AD - Djenne Axeman->Christian Monastary. Gao Rax->Library. Move some workers.

[7] 920 AD - Walata Work Boat->Lighthouse. MMOW.

[8] 940 AD - Kumbi Temple->Christian Monastary. Awdaghost Temple->Jewish Monastary. Move some guys.

IBT - France demands the Fish we just hooked up, and I quote: "France demands that you give the following tribute. Our Chariot await your response." Yeah Nappy, I'm SO scared. I'm going to cave ANYWAY, because we need less people who hate us in the world, and it's worth a +1.

[9] 960 AD - Djenne Monastary->Christian Temple. MMOW.

[10] 980 AD - Metal Casting comes in, and we start on Currency in 24. Oi. Move some guys.

Notes:

1. Our scout is waaaaay down south, fortified, because we don't have Open Borders, and he can't go anywhere.

2. Galley's going north. We don't have OB with Rome, so can't go that way.

3. Lots of fortified dudes on hills to watch for. Move 'em if you want.

4. We REALLY want to go back to Organized Religion. I forgot to, but it needs doing.

5. Here's where we are. We need to finish settling our land. We need infrastructure (markets, courts) to get the money necessary to afford that land. We need tech to get the infrastructure. We just got done building most of the buildings to get the tech faster.

Talamane

Nov 28, 2005, 11:12 PM

OK, i think i am on deck, and DH is up.

DeceasedHorse

Nov 29, 2005, 09:14 AM

I'm still in now that I got the damn thing working-but only with version 1.0, unfortunately.

Ozymandous

Nov 29, 2005, 01:15 PM

Good turn Dwip. The only reason (IIRC) we started the war was to keep our back lands free. We'll probably need to round-robin (if we can) between our higher production cities (military-infrastructure-military) to make sure we actually have an army.

Erm, and yah, I found the ancient age special units for the most part aren't so great, IMHO. That was on a tough Pangea map playing as the Mongols. Even when odd.s were like 6.0 vs. 5.4 my stinking Keshek's would die horribly.

Nice strength calc there, let me tell you.

Talamane

Nov 29, 2005, 05:06 PM

Ozymandous

Nov 30, 2005, 05:58 AM

@DH

What happens when u patch?

To all:

I've found that if i play any video (my video player uses the dx9 overlay mode) or other dx9 3d games, the chance of crashing in Civ4 (orig and 1.09) is far greater. A clean boot to desktop is warranted, and annoys me.

Can you turn the wonder movies off? The video's are part of the "Bink (Blink?)" video aspect so you more than luikely have some issue on your PC that's causing an isue with this since if everyone isn't crashing on video play it's usually machine specific.

Talamane

Nov 30, 2005, 04:51 PM

No, i am talking about video outside of the game. My desktop can (if i dont play civ4) stay up weeks on end, with no problems. If i have watched some movies, i may as well reboot before i play civ4. The crash usually occurs (if it does) right when the saved game i have loaded is about to display, or, in the case of a new game, right after i click the OK button on the dialog that explains the civ i have picked to play, and the game is about to display the starting position.

The crash is specific to nvidia based gfx cards.

Ragnoff

Nov 30, 2005, 11:39 PM

I am not sure if that was a got it form DH or a don't got it...

Ozymandous

Dec 01, 2005, 07:38 AM

It's been more than 72 hours.

Talamane if you or DH don't post completed turns by the end of the day then you'll be skipped.

Tidus, you're up next. If Tidus doesn't respond by tomorrow then I'll grab the save and go from there.

Talamane, I have an nVidia card and I have zero problems playing the videos and/or any other aspect of the game. I suspect it's bad drivers or a corrupt registry or user profile (.dat) on your PC, IMHO.

Tidus4444

Dec 01, 2005, 03:48 PM

I'm here, and will play if DH or Talamane don't post by the end of the day.

Talamane

Dec 01, 2005, 04:53 PM

DH is up, i am on deck. If you want me to, i can start playing.

Talamane

Dec 01, 2005, 06:15 PM

[00] 980 AD Pre-flight check. JC and Fred are sore at us for the war. Since we are, at the present, #2 in power, i will endeavor to execute some peaceful builder turns. I look at various combos of religious civics, but the best (finance wise) is what we have, so no changes.

[01] 1000 AD Khan wants us to make war on Fred with him. I say no. He's not too happy about it. Some cottages get started. Kumbi starts on a granary for health. Forge will be next. Move galley towards our rear to finish scouting our lands, and will circumnavigate our continent, if possible. Highly unlikely, since we have no OB agreements.

[02] 1010 AD Djenne finishes temple, and starts on a forge. Start on more cottages. Khan has a basketfull of techs, but wont negotiate.

[03] 1020 AD Nappy wants our only iron for wine. Aint happening. Niani and Tadmekka complete their builds, and start on granaries. More cottages. Research @ 30 with +2 is very bad. Markets will help a lot, but the worked cottages will pull us out of the hole sooner than currency, which is now 31 turns away. MM the capital and Kumbi to take us to +10. Timbuktu adds a turn to the worker, but its worth the gold. Gao takes us to +15 without taking any turns off the library. Science to 40, and currency in 15. So keep in mind that Gao, Kumbi, and Timbuktu have hammers and gold turned on.

[04] 1030 AD More builder moves. Kumbi starts its forge.

[05] 1040 AD The galley reveals Fred's axeman hiding in the back. Obviously, Fred is building a galley and settler to move there. You can expect him to ask for OB again. We need to keep line of sight or a new barb city will pop up. Even though we have very little money, i will start a settler.

[06] 1050 AD A barb warrior wants to pillage some improvements around Tadmekka. Send a skirm from Kumbi to deal with it.

[07] 1060 AD Warrior attacks skirm and dies. Move him back to garrison Tadmekka. Waleta starts its forge and set back to hammers only. Timbuktu goes to hammers only. Roading from southwest to northeast to speed the settler which i will start in Djenne.

[08] 1070 AD Djenne starts settler. The next player will need to decide where to build our next city. While roads dont get us much, they do speed units, so more roading.

[09] 1080 AD Gao finishes its library and starts on a forge. Gao adds only two turns to its forge if its micro-ed for money, so money it is.

[10] 1090 AD We need to irrigate the freshwater forest/grassland tile the workers northwest of the capital are on. Timbuktu needs food, and this will complete its forge faster. I built a cottage on the west side plains (dry).

The next player could whip some of the builds presently going. You may want to consider parking the galley until something advantageous comes along. Currency due in 8 turns.

NOTE: The save is 1.09 and cannot be loaded with the original version.

Ozymandous

Dec 02, 2005, 06:01 PM

Thanks Talamane.

DH, you're up.

Everyone, please make sure of your place in the rotation, it's listed in the first post in this thread. Talamane, you're before DH, then DH, then Tidus. Tidus, if DH doesn't post a "got it" 24 hours from the time stamp on Talamane's post then you're up. I want everyone to follow that, even if it skips me. We really ned to get this thing in gear guys, only two set's of turns in a whole week? I know it was Thanksgiving here in the states but Dwip posted his turns early this week.

I shouldn't have to babysit, no one else should either, so let's keep this thing rolling and yet not have the same people playing all the rotations because others only check this thing every few days or once a week.

Currency will help with our finances, but I do hope we're remembering to build missionaries and culture buildings where we can to get the culture and religion going sooner rather than later, right? If not, please keep that going. Some of our cities will be pressured more than they already are if we ignore culture and don't build it every chance (within reason) that we can.

Tidus, assuming DH doesn't post a got it, if you don't post a got it within 24 hours after DH misses I'll go. Ragnoff you still want to be skipped? If so Dwip will be up again after me.

Talamane

Dec 03, 2005, 12:03 AM

I may have screwed up in some cities, but i think the only forges i started were in cities that had temples/libraries up. Once we have some income, we should try to build monasteries/libraries to get our science/culture up. With forges, these (and markets) can be built more quickly.

Ragnoff

Dec 03, 2005, 12:40 AM

No, I am back and able to play, So I will take it after you, Ozymandous.

Tidus4444

Dec 03, 2005, 09:03 AM

With finals coming up, I don't think I'll be able to play in this game again. Sorry once again for missing my turn once.

Ozymandous

Dec 03, 2005, 11:24 AM

All right, then this is my "got it".

Tidus, unless you specify otherwise you're off the rotation then from here onward since you don't think you'll be able to play again due to finals. If that changes, post and you can be added back in.

Ozymandous

Dec 03, 2005, 01:25 PM

EDIT: This is on 1.09 patch, so make sure youy patch before playing. I would have waited but at the rate this is going there might be a second patch out before we finish this. The bug fixes were worth patching, IMO. :)

1090 AD (IT):

Whipped granary in Tadmekka. Turned research up to 50% (-4) to get Currency in 6 turns instead of 8.

By the way… Looking at our borders, unless someone discovers an alternate way to our area via the far north near the ice or they discover galleons, our culture covers all possible coast access. Foreign galley’s shouldn’t get through at all.

A few of the ‘extra’ warriors garrisoning our cities are moved to the far north to push back the fog and/or spot for potential city sites.

1100 AD (1):

Niani (our far SW city pressured by Roman culture) builds granary, starts Monastery.
Tadmekka finishes granary, starts forge.

Adopt Organized Religion to speed construction of our many buildings. (Ragnoff… :P)

Workers sent mostly south to help clear jungle. Erm, are we planning to chop down all the forests around our cities? If there are three or more I usually leave them since they become good later in the game, but though I’d ask.

1120 AD (2):

Djenne builds settler, starts granary. Kumbi builds forge, starts library.

Looks like Genghis and Fredrick are having a party. :lol:

http://ozymandous.home.mindspring.com/Public_Stuff/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0004_8X6.jpg

1130 AD (3):

Whipped forge in Walatta. MMW (more movement of workers). Currency due in 2.

Djenne finishes Granery, Sistine Chapel started. Niani’s whipped Monastery finishes, starts library.

1140 AD (4):

Awd finishes forge, Jewish missionary started.

1150 AD (5):

Currency discovered, Alphabet next.

Gao whips forge.

1160 AD (6):

Timbuk, Kumbi, Gao finish their forge, library and forge respectively. All three start markets.

1170 AD (7):

Frederick asks us to declare war on Genghis… I agree (we can back out hopefully). Trade an extra cow for a bit of GPT.

Awd finishes missionary, market started.

1180 AD (8):

Moving workers and our two axemen to help fend off any Mongol forces from the South as needed.

1190 AD (9):

Grrrr… Frederick made peace with Genghis but Genghis won’t talk to us. Hopefully the next player in the rotation can fix that.

1200 AD (10):

Nothing of note happens.

A few notes for the pic below…

The Wheat (lime green circle) next to the ruins of the former Roman city is needed by Caesar. It should be hooked up in a few turns and we can trade it to him for more GPT and to boost relations hopefully.

The light blue circle to the left side (with the warrior) is a settler/missionary/warrior group ready to form a new city once markets have come in and our finances are better hopefully.

The Skirm to the far right (pink/red circle) is the other city site from Dwip’s original dot map.

The Warrior on the North Hill is there to push back the fog. There is another warrior next to the wheat & workers who should go to the far NW (coastal red dot) to clear the fog there and as a potential city site.

The two red dots are proposed city sites once we can afford them.
Middle red dot - I chose the spot next to the hill because it can still grab the plains tile, and the mined hill won’t be much less hammer wise than the mined copper, which we’d get in our borders anyway.

Far NW red dot – A good coastal location that pulls in the marble (!) which we don’t have anywhere else so a good “fishing village” for the future.

http://ozymandous.home.mindspring.com/Public_Stuff/Civ4/SG_notes1a.jpg

Sorry about declaring with Frederick but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. Hopefully Frederick will keep closed borders with them and Genghis will talk to us before he gets too close to us.

NOTE: Our far southern scout is on a GOTO to the north from where he was way down near the Mongols (so look for him Ragnoff).

IMHO, we should go for Drama next so we can build theater's and try to get a few Great Artists. A culture bomb or two in our pressured cities could be a major turning point in this game.

Dwip

Dec 03, 2005, 02:43 PM

I shall most likely, when my turn comes, campaign using that famous slogan, "He Kept Us Out Of War" or, depending on Ragnoff's luck with Khan, "He Got Us Out Of War."

;)

The roster, as I believe it to be, is:

Ozymandous
Ragnoff <-- UP
Dwip <-- On Deck
Talamane
Deceased Horse
Tidus4444 (perma-skip)

With a nod towards previous dotmap orthodoxy, let me present something of an alternate dotmap for your consideration:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb2c_dotmap_1200ad.jpg

Orange borders are our current workable city radii.

Red Dot is the generally agreed upon holdover from my first dotmap.

Purple Dot and Black Dot hold significant advantages over Ozy's two dots, I think, in that Purple Dot hits four different resources, has water access, and river access, and has only two unsightly snow tiles to deal with. Black Dot lacks water access, but covers all the furs. The tundra can perhaps have irrigation chained through it, though I've never tried to do this. Even if it can't, that's still four furs we can cover.

Ragnoff

Dec 03, 2005, 07:54 PM

got it! Goals, end war if possible, settle when markets allow (I like the purple dot above) continue to push culture.

Ragnoff

Dec 04, 2005, 02:44 AM

1200 A.D. I takeover in empire beset with financial problems. Our military is weak, and we are technologically far behind Genghis Khan, the current leader. Part of our financial problem may be due to the fact that we have no open borders treaties, which means we have no good trade routes. However, this is unfortunately necessary as long as we're trying to monopolize the land north. I attempt to get markets in as many places as possible.

1210 A.D. The Colossus is built, providing twin benefits to Walata, increases the financial capabilities of our coastal cities, it also will provide a cultural benefit in the cultural struggle with Germany. A market is started here. The Colossus has an immediate benefit, and the losing five gold/turn a 50% science we are now gaining one gold/turn.

1220 A.D. Kumbi Saleh builds a market, and shifts to an aqueduct, the city is unhealthy. We receive a message that t Malinese empire now holds 2 million souls.

1230 A.D. Awdaghost finishes the market, and begins a granary. We are now earning nine gold per turn at 50% science and two more markets will be due. I go ahead and settle our far northern city, which is called Tekedda. After settling, we still are earning five gold per turn. It begins a work boat in order to get the crabs nearby.

1240 A.D. Germany requests theology, as this is one of the few things I believe we will have unique and useful to trade for other technologies, I refuse. Alphabet is learned this turn, and the diplomacy will begin. We are far behind in technology, and must get as much for technology as we can. While I respect of the thoughts from Ozy that we should go for drama next, we can also get code of laws in five, which will allow us to build courthouses. I selected this, but we'll see what I can trade for. Science is increased to 60%, which we can only afford for five turns, but this will get us code of law in four. We have one advantage, only Khan knows alphabet and no one knows theology besides us. Unfortunately, Khan will not talk to us, but I choose to get as much as I can for theology in technology from the others. Frederick gives us calendar and his gold for alphabet, and then gives us both horseback riding and construction for theology. France gives us compass and 40 gold for theology. Caesar gives us feudalism for theology and alphabet. There only two technologies out there that we do not possess, Germany has machinery, Caesar has code of laws, and Khan has both. We've gone from way behind to at least within the tech race. Had I traded in a different order, I may have been able to get machinery, but I do not think so. Should Khan talk to us, and not trade theology from one of the others, we might be able to get something for theology from him still. A side effect of all this trading is we can now afford to run science at 60% for over 30 turns.

1250 A.D. :sleep: nothing much happens, the two warriors and a skirmisher to the north are positioned in such a way that there is no fog of war anymore. There will be no more barbarians from the north.

1260 A.D. Awdaghost finishes the granary and starts a settler for the northwest coast. Particularly with the Colossus, I believe it may be time to settle that location as well. We are only losing one gold per turn and soon will be able to start building court houses. Gao finishes a market and begins a worker.

1270 A.D. Kumbi finishes the aqueduct and begins a harbor. The harbor won't be particularly useful until we open our borders, something which considered doing fairly soon. Tadmekka finishes of forage and begins a temple. On this turn, workers also start building plantations on silk ans spice locations.

1280 A.D. Code of laws is finished and I begin drama. Code of laws opens up a possibility of adopting a caste system, which reminds me that trading for feudalism opened up serfdom and vassalage. While we do not currently need a caste system, serfdom the would be useful and I was :cry: for not adopting it earlier. Timbuktu finishes the market and begins a library. Napoleon declares war on Frederick, and Khan will finally talk to us. Unfortunately, somebody traded him theology or he learned himself. He also knows philosophy and machinery. His price for peace is the city Walata, so I guess we will stay a war with the Mongols for a while. Napoleon does not know the alphabet or code of laws, so if you learn something useful to us, there might be a trade possibility there. Frederick does not know code of laws, but will not trade it for machinery.

1290 A.D. As expected, we are requested to intervene in the war between France and Germany, Napoleon is the one making the requests. I say we cannot afford a war right now. This refusal switches him from cautious to annoyed, but I do not think we wanted to start fighting Frederick on our southeast border. Frederick learned alphabet this turn, so the only thing we have over him as code of laws. However, on the turn drama finishes, we might be able to trade code of laws and drama for machinery, and the next player should keep an eye on this possibility.

1300 A.D. :eek: :eek: A Mongolian force comes out of the Roman territory near Antium, south of Djenne and West of Gao. It is five strong, and includes a war elephant, 2 Keshik, a crossbowman and a catapult. I did not expect them to appear there, and I must have missed them moving through Roman lands. I started shifting axman and skirmisher's into the area, you'll find them on a hill south of Djenne and in Gao. Our biggest lack is Spearman, something that would help defeat this force. Gao finishes a worker, and starts a spear. A Spearman is also added at Timbuktu before the library. I am saving here, I would suggest that you switch our civics to vassalage, slavery, and theocracy, perhaps add a Spearman at Djenne as well (before the Sistine Chapel. Chapel is 5 turns from done with a forest chop due in 2), and then whip all three Spearman. I did not do this as you'll be using the forces so I thought if you wish to change what was there and whip something else that choice should be left to you.

Financially, were doing much better. We have added another city, increased science to 60%, and are only losing 2 gpt, and this before any of the court houses we can now build. Courthouses should be built anywhere the maintenece is 2gpt or more (which will be almost everywhere when the NE cost city is built)

A screenshot of the affected area with a Mongolian force circled in red and our forces circled in blue is below. The three cities I think you could whip defensive forces in are also circled.

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/3032/rb2c7056qc.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

jpowers

Dec 04, 2005, 08:01 AM

Lurker report: I think the reward of controlling all the land to the north is not worth the cost of your trade and diplomatic problems. Why not open borders to a few of the weaker guys adjacent to you and try to rebuild your economy and relations?

Dwip

Dec 04, 2005, 12:12 PM

Mmm...techs. Mmm...courthouses. Let's see if we can't take care of that stack, get some courts, and get on the road to recovery, here.

Got it.

Ozymandous

Dec 04, 2005, 04:33 PM

Dwip

Dec 04, 2005, 04:38 PM

[0] 1300 AD - Well, here we are. Khan's on the warpath. He'll talk to us right now, but we'll hold off and see if we can take down at least part of that stack he's got coming. Otherwise we're looking good. Lots of stuff completing RSN, including the second to last settler.

IBT - And Khan goes up on the hill like I suspected.

[1] 1310 AD - Kumbi Harbor->Courthouse, Walata Market->Courthouse, Awdaghost Settler->Courthouse, Tadmekka Temple->Courthouse (notice a theme here?)

Our issue here is that the best odds we have going vs Khan is 4.4 to 8.1. So I'll throw some guys out, fortify them, and hope he goes for it. One way or another, this war will be ending next turn, I think.

An incidental, as I'm driving workers. If future hill miners were to road said mined hills, this would make our task slightly easier come the advent of that wonderous invention, the railroad, as sticking RRs on mined hills is worth +1 shiel...hammer. Just saying.

IBT - Khan rips up our guys. We discover that combat in low graphics mode sucks the good suck.

[2] 1320 AD - Tekedda Work Boat->Lighthouse. Border expansions come in, and we're good to go on getting some work done around Tekedda.

Using various numbers of troops, including the entire garrisons of Djenne and Gao, I take down Khan's stack of guys. Unfortunately, we're not getting peace for anything short of Walata.

On the plus side, losing all those guys means we're making money again.

IBT - Somebody else scores the Great Library.

[3] 1330 AD - Drama comes in, and I start us on Civil Service for the irrigation.

Gao Spear->Longbow, Timbuktu Spear->Library.

Since we're making money again at 60% science, I go ahead and found Awlil on Red Dot, and start up a Lighthouse to give it something to do. We're back to losing money, but that will change.

IBT - Khan will take peace for Drama. I say no, because there are a couple of trade opportunities first.

[4] 1340 AD - Or not. Fred won't trade Machinery for anything we have, so I go ahead and give Khan Drama for peace. I keep saying this, and I'll say it again, that we really can't afford to be in wars, pretty much for a long long time.

[5] 1350 AD - Djenne Sistine Chapel->Courthouse. Do some work. I'd really like to be putting in watermills, but of course I didn't go for machinery, so.

IBT - Khan demands we cancel our deals with Fred, and I tell him no. Somebody else gets Chichen Itza.

[6] 1360 AD - Kumbi Courthouse->Theatre. Do some more work.

[7] 1370 AD - Timbuktu Library->Courthouse, Gao Longbow->Courthouse, Awdaghost Courthouse->Settler. We are now back to +3 gpt.

[8] 1380 AD - Kumbi Theatre->Colosseum, Walata Courthouse->Harbor. A whopping +7 gpt. Do lots more working.

[9] 1390 AD - Djenne Courthouse->Market. +11 gpt.

[10] 1400 AD - Tadmekka Courthouse->Market.

And there we are. Civil Service is due in 2, our last settler in 1. I recommend using both, the settler to found Black Dot, and the tech to trade us Machinery from Fred or Caesar. You MIGHT try offering Fred Drama/CoL plus our money, but he may not go for it. Too, it's about time for Open Borders with anyone who'll sign.

Once Machinery comes in, there's a lot of watermills that could be put in places. Too, some of the farms could probably be changed to mills. Or we could go straight to workshops. Places like Tadmekka, Timbuktu, and Gao could really use some form of shield production though.

Kumbi is out of infrastructure to produce RSN. I recommend using it to crank longbows to start replacing our badly out of date skirms.

I left a warrior on goto to Black Dot, which should arrive next turn.

Dwip

Dec 04, 2005, 05:01 PM

Did you settle the purple dot or the original spot? You cannot do anything with tundra, same as with ice. IMHO, the original spot (where the settler/warrior/missionary was) as a strong city and a fishing village is better than a mediocre city where the proposed purple dot was/is.

The black dot, land-locked and with all that ice/tundra is pretty weak. Better to have a fishing village, IMHO there as well. Whatever the group decides I'll go with. :)

Just thought I'd ask. :) Looks like we're maybe turning the corner on things. We'll be off to the races as soon as we settle the last cities.

With respect to Purple Dot...it sounds like you meant your light blue circle site to be a city, which was in no way clear to me when I originally brought up the idea of Purple Dot. Ah well.

OTOH, one of those little-known tricks of Civ 4 is that you CAN do stuff with tundra, but ONLY if it has fresh water access. So that tundra along the river can be worked with, watermilled or something. There's a whopping one tundra and two ice that can't be worked. I think it and the old site are about a horse apiece, as the saying goes. In any case, the point is moot, since Purple Dot was settled by Ragnoff on his turn.

Red Dot to the east, which everyone agreed on, was settled by me on my turn, so that really leaves us with the location of Black Dot, which is considerably more fluid.

Where I have it nets us all four beavers, which at +5 gold per beaver is 20, plus we can farm the plains for some additional whatever.

Where Ozy's dot is (coast between the beavers and the hill) gets us 2 beavers, plus 9 +4 gpt water tiles, which are self sustaining at +2 food per tile once lighthouses come in. We also have a forested plains, which I guess is worth a lumbermill or something. At any rate, it's something like +46 gold vs Black Dot's 20ish, which is clearly superior. All that intervening tundra that Ozy's location leaves empty can be drilled for oil in future administrations.

If we desperately want fishing villages, mind, that NW red dot didn't go anywhere, won't steal any usable tiles from Purple except maybe the marble and maybe a water tile, and is worth +44 gpt from all those water tiles. Too, SE of Red Dot is an empty land tile with 9 usable water tiles and a crab resource nearby. Might be worth doing. Dunno. I think with that kind of payoff, especially when we get them markets and suchlike, it probably is.

And with all due respect Ragnoff, and everyone, we're LOSING THE CULTURE WAR on several of our borders so can we please get drama sooner rather than later so we can build theater's and you know, maybe try to get a GA as well as have that extra culture and/or a culture boost in our most at risk cities? Please?

We have, as of my turn, Drama. Only a couple theatres have been built, because I concentrated mostly on Enemy #1, our finances. However, that has been more or less taken care of (or will by the middle of the next set of turns), and we can throw theatres out to work on.

Things are looking up, as long as we can stay out of wars. Wars are bad, m'kay? I might decide not to get us out of the next one. ;)

Talamane, by the by, is up.

A request: Before settling Black Dot, could we please make a note of our financal advisor stats? And then make a note after settlement to compare? Might be useful if we're going to get serious about fishing villages.

Talamane

Dec 04, 2005, 09:41 PM

Got it, will play and post tomorrow nite.

Ragnoff

Dec 05, 2005, 01:42 AM

And with all due respect Ragnoff, and everyone, we're LOSING THE CULTURE WAR on several of our borders so can we please get drama sooner rather than later so we can build theater's and you know, maybe try to get a GA as well as have that extra culture and/or a culture boost in our most at risk cities? Please?

We have, as of my turn, Drama. Only a couple theatres have been built, because I concentrated mostly on Enemy #1, our finances. However, that has been more or less taken care of (or will by the middle of the next set of turns), and we can throw theatres out to work on.

I don't know where the message dwip quoted was, I could not find it!!!!! I had to chose between Drama and CoL. I chose CoL FIRST, immediately followed by Drama, rather than the reverse for a few reasons:
1) We were behind on culture, science and hemoraging money, which was also slowing our placement of our last few cites, which was delaying Open Border pacts, which was costing us more money. Both the money and the culture needed to be addressed. As the money, via courhouses, had a trickle down effect on both science and placing our last cities for open borders, I thought that should be addressed first. Remeber, we were about 8 techs behind when Ii took over, which was something I was in a bit of a panic about.
2) Colosus. I was looking mostly at the border with Germany By Walata, althought the other areas were also needed, I thought teh Colosus would be engh to push back the border.
3) Trade value, I thought we might get more for CoL than for Drama. I know the AIs value CoL. As we were WAY behind science wise when I took over I may have placed too much value on CoL. As it turned out, I got most of the tech for Theocracy and alphabet, but I did not know that would happen when I made the Drama/CoL choice.
4) Related to 3, the only civ I could see the turn before Alphabet were the Mongols, who did not have drama. While I did not think we were winning the culture war, I also did not think we were LOSING it. If noone had drama it was a tie I thought for culture producing buildings. This probably influenced my belief that teh money problem was a more imminant concern than the culture one.
5) Regarding great artists, I did not think we could pull any citizans off the fields until the financial situation was under control (needed to produce coins and/or build buildings). HOWEVER, I know that I most likely do not pull people off of working tiles and make them specialists often enough, so this could be a totally off base position. we probalby could pull someone off in Walata to produce culture right there, and possibly that SW city surrounded by Rome, although it is very small. I guess not thinking I could make any specialist yet also infuenced my choice not to do Drama first, although I did not realize that until I was writing these comments.

If you think these concerns were groundless, and that it was a huge mistake to delay theaters for 4 turns to get CoL and start corthousesand
Note I agree, we need theaters badly, which was why Drama was the very next thing I set up. Perhaps I misunderstood the IMHO about drama, I took it as advice to be considered, which I did! I also thought you were indicating that finances were a big deal, especially with a settler sitting there waiting on finances before we could even consider settling another city. At the time of choice, I considered BOTH the culture situation and financial situation as critical, both as needing to be addressed, and made what I thought was my best call.

Things are looking up, as long as we can stay out of wars. Wars are bad, m'kay? I might decide not to get us out of the next one. ;)

I did not start that one, but I could not end it either! Khan would not talk for most of my turn, and demanded cities! THe Roman one was mine, but I thought it was needed to protect that back country at the time.

NOTE: these comments are ment to be DISCUSSION POINTS. I am displaying my thinking as best I can remeber it at the time so that we can examine reasons for and against my choice. I do not think I must be right, but I would hope we can examine the choices in the full light of the reasoning that led to them. IS each reason sound, unsound, or just different? Do the reasons together constitue a valid or invalid basis for the choice made?

As I look back over my turn, I realize I traded to get the maximum tech possible, but as Rome HAD CoL, I could instead have made it a priority to get CoL in Trade and start researching Drama immediately. I cannot remeber which tech I would not have gotten, I think Fudalism, but that would have been another way to address 2 of teh needs (finances and culture) at the expence of the 3rd (science). If I had gone that way, we could have started theaters in the south and courthouses in the north.

In any case, this game, and the discussions of the choices being made, is getting interesting again.

Ozymandous

Dec 05, 2005, 04:36 PM

Ragnoff,

The post Dwip quoted was my original one, which I think was up about 5 minutes (if that long) before I thought about it more and edited it to what it is now. Swapping COL and Drama really wasn't super critical at this stage (and I started that post before I finished reading where you started Drama right after COL) hence my edit. Sorry for the confusion.

My bad on the war, but at the time I didn't expect Frederick to chicken out less than five turns after he asked us to help either.:mad:

What's the concensus on lumbermills, water and wind mills? I usually use wind mills on plains/desert hills since they give a bit of food and aren't much less productive than mines (IIRC) once the right tech's arrive.

Once we open borders (do we wait for culture to cover all available city spots?) we should do well with tradem especially with out coastal cities thanks to the Colossus.

Talamane

Dec 05, 2005, 07:33 PM

[0] 1400 AD I note JC's big military. It's time to try to patch up things with him. A dogpile with him and Khan would not be a pretty sight.

[1] 1410 AD I start a longbow in Niani and micro to get it in 5. Culture can wait, if we dont have the military to keep it, what's the point? JC wants OB, done. I trade Civil Service and Drama to him for Machinery. A little in his favor, but he would get them from Khan otherwise, and it improves things a bit.

[2] 1420 AD Mencius is born in Timbuktu. I would like to get Divine Right (can build two wonders with this tech, and at the very least, trade to parity with it). He can contribute 1152 out of 1400 beakers required to research it. Setter completes and goes to black dot (one tile east of warrior fortified). Djenne has no health left, so some kind of health building is needed once it completes its market.

[3] 1430 AD Wadan is founded and starts on lighthouse. I start on military in every available town. Get optics + 30 for Civil Service from Fred, again in his favor, and again, to curry favor.

[4] 1440 AD Divine Right comes in and Islam is founded in Wadan. Trade silks for dyes with Fred. This trading will undoubtedly sour things with Khan, but he's not our type anyway. Start on guilds, we need knights.

[5] 1450 AD Worker actions and mil builds. Change civics to bureaucracy and theocracy.

[6] 1460 AD JC wants Divine Right for NOTHING. Uhm, no. That means nothing but bad. A theatre for Walata, though Hamburg is killing it.

[7] 1470 AD Roading mostly with the workers to speed unit access.

[8] 1480 AD Keep building mil units. Spiral Minaret started in Timbuktu, Versailles in Awdaghost.

[9] 1490 AD Fred and Napoleon go after each other. Each of them wants us to declare war on the other. Uh, no.

[10] 1500 AD JC declares war. Big surprise. Napoleon tries to shake down copper from us. Uh, no.

Send a skirm to protect the iron from the horse archer. That one will take some luck. JC will pillage since it will be hard to take a city. If he tries anything, it will be at Niani. It's a thorn in his side. You may want to cancel the Minaret due for a quick knight. Same for the Versailles in Awdaghost. Cancel the setter build in Kumbi as well. We can return to finish these when we win peace with JC.

Ragnoff

Dec 05, 2005, 11:39 PM

So we are up to DH again, who still has not confirmed he has 1.09 working to my knowledge unless I missed it. With Tidus out for finals, i think we are back to Ozymandous. So we are back at war, this time with Rome, and this time only because with will not give away big techs for free. We will likely have to beat JC about a bit before he will agree to peace.

Talamane

Dec 06, 2005, 12:39 AM

Guilds are due in 2. We have theocracy, so any knights made should kick butt. JC will try to pound Niani. If we could go to vasselage, it would help with even more xp.

Ozymandous

Dec 07, 2005, 07:05 AM

I'll try to get this tonight. :)

Woo a war I didn't start! :P Should be interesting.

Ozymandous

Dec 07, 2005, 05:55 PM

Got it but won't get a chance to play till tomorrow. Sorry about that.

Ozymandous

Dec 08, 2005, 07:52 PM

1500 AD (IT):

Strange, I got to refuse the French again (except they wanted us to stop trading with Fred this time) and see JC declare war. Weird, oh well. Not much to change, just queued up a few elephant to deal with the HA’s and figure we’ll go from there.

1505 AD (1):

JC moves some units around, IBT. Tad finishes market, I start a barracks. MMOW. A Maceman from Kumbi beat’s down a marauding HA.

1510 AD (2):

Guilds discovered, Gunpowder chosen next.

Dial up Genghis and offer him some Spices for a bit of GPT (5). That helps our cash flow.

1515 AD (3):

Tekeda finishes the forge, starts a harbor. Kumbi finishes our last settler, starts a Knight. WOO HOO!! Walata finally gained control of the south first ring of the city from Hamburg. :D More good tiles for that city to work now.

Swap to Slavery and Vassalage finally. Heh, now we have some high ranking troops rolling out. Queuing up Macemen since they get a boost vs. melee already and can get upgrades vs. mounted and archery and the others can’t.

Woo, I trade Guilds to Fred straight up for Engineering. :) At least our border cities should be a bit safer now.

1520 AD (4):

Genghis is the first to circumnavigate the globe. Hmm, we are far behind in tech, eh? I check, and not really. Not that I can se anyway.

Catapults are pounding Niani. A castle is whipped there to bolster defenses and the last of the reinforcements arrive just as more elephants, macemen and other units from JC’s group position outside the city.

Gao builds an elephant and I start a Jewish Missionary. I think this war will be pretty much over in the next few turns with us either fending JC off or possibly losing Niani. Looks like we have 11 defenders vs. 10 attackers including a cat. I cros my fingers and hit the “Next Turn” button.

1525 AD (5):

Well the battle started well. We beat down three of JC’s troops (one that came from his territory unaccounted for) but lost two in the process. As more reinforcements get built we’ll turn this thing around hopefully.

Tad finishes it’s barracks, queue’s up a Longbowman. Our last city, Agades, is founded in the far NW. I dial Science back to 60% (+7 GPT) and we cruise right along.

1530 AD (6):

Walata finishes ‘phant. I think for at least a minute on if I want to build the Hagia Sophia there then decide it’s better to work on something a bit more productive now, so start a Granary followed by a Grocer (queued to start before my end turn anyway). It can only grow to size 9 unless we find more Health for it, the Grocer helps with that also.

Niani now has 10 defenders again, JC has 6 outside the city. I dial him up to see if he’s ready to stop this useless war and he does a rude hand gesture and says “negotiate this pal!” :eek: lol!

1535 AD (7):

Woo, alas poor Dumbo we knew you well. *sniffle* Our glorious ‘phant kills three units before succumbing himself. Ah well… On another note we loose our last LB in Niani. ‘Phants, macemen and spears are all that’s left, 9 of them. ;)

Kumbi finishes a Knight (with shiney armor no less) and starts a castle, just for those medieval times sake.

Gao finishes the J. Missionary and starts a Longbow. I shuffle units and promote as needed.

I notice that Wadan is the Holy City for Islam (doh!) so turn off State Religion for two turns so the border can finally grow.

1540 AD (8):

A maceman finally kills that blasted ‘cat that was pounding Niani, but then dies to a ‘phant.

Awlil finishes Lighthouse, starts theater.

I finally beat back that stack that was outside Niani and stand triumphant on the hill overlooking the city amongst the ruins of the camp JC’s troops had there. I send a messenger to see if he’ll talk and he refuses. Oh well, I’ll give him time to appreciate his losses.
My hunch about Hagia Sophia was right, as it’s built this turn.

1545 AD (9):

Djenne finishes a maceman, starts a Theater. Tad finishes Longbowman, starts a J. Monastery. Tekedda finishes Harbor, starts a Granary.

I have a feeling JC might be a bit more receptive this time so dial him up again. He doesn’t like it much but agrees to peace for 210 gold and 4 GPT, HIS GOLD! Lol. ;)

The troops at Niani breathe a sigh of relief. Our most experienced unit there, Dumbo #2 has 12 experience points.

I change civics’ back to Bureaucracy and Organized Religion but we can’t swap back to Judaism for another three turns. At least the next player won’t have to worry about forgetting to swap off Theocracy.

1550 AD (10):

Kumbi finishes a castle, starts a caravel (hey, I wanted to see what else was out there in the world). Gao finishes a LB and starts a J. Missionary. Should be the last one we need for the cities we have. At least for Judaism. We need to start spreading the other religions around too if we can.

The Forge whipped in Niani. Now it can finally build something else. Not sure if it has any more culture buildings it can do or not, probably so.

Gunpowder due in one. The Spiral Minaret is due in one. 2 more turns till we can convert back to Judaism. Timbuk and Djenne are our top shield cities now, one of them might want to keep building military since we’ve buttoned JC up over there and he doesn’t like it much. Maybe even invade him and take his lands if we get a good tech/military lead.

I left money in the bank and a lot of units not upgraded. Some of them have 2 or more promotions as well. Upgrade as you see fit.

Next up! Oh, can someone hook our Iron back up? It was pillaged in the war and all our workers were busy with other things those last turns or two. Thanks.

Ragnoff

Dec 09, 2005, 04:50 PM

Turn 220 (1550 AD)
Tech learned: Gunpowder
Timbuktu finishes: The Spiral Minaret
Timbuktu begins: Jewish Monastery
Djenne finishes: Theatre
Gao grows: 11
Niani finishes: Forge

Note, this is what happened on the turn before it was handed off (turn 0) so I guess the atuologger pick up and saves this info.

Turn 221 (1555 AD)
Research begun: Paper
Djenne begins: Heroic Epic
Niani begins: Theatre
Kumbi Saleh finishes: Caravel

We have entered the Renaissance era! Paper is chosen so that we can potentially trade maps with our one ally, Frederick. Science is placed back up to 70% as the Spiral Minaret finishes. An odd thing about the xxx finishes in the log above is that is the turn when enough hammers or whatever accumulates, you do not actually get xxxx until the following turn, 1555 in this case, when you are asked to chose a new thing to build. Djenne is chosen for the Heroic epic, it is a high producing city that could quickly send troops wherever needed in the south.

Turn 222 (1560 AD)
Genghis Khan demands gold from us, I refuse and thankfully that does not provoke war.
Kumbi Saleh begins: Knight
Gao finishes: Jewish Missionary
Niani grows: 6
Tekedda finishes: Granary

Turn 223 (1565 AD)
Gao begins: Theatre
Tekedda begins: Theatre
Timbuktu finishes: Jewish Monastery
Timbuktu begins: Islamic Monastery
Tadmekka finishes: Jewish Monastery

We convert to Judaism for our state religion.

Turn 224 (1570 AD)
Tadmekka begins: Pikeman
Djenne finishes: Heroic Epic
Tadmekka grows: 10
Awlil's borders expand
Wadan grows: 2

Turn 225 (1575 AD)
Djenne begins: Castle
Judaism has spread: Wadan
Tech learned: Paper
Kumbi Saleh grows: 13
Kumbi Saleh finishes: Knight
Gao finishes: Theatre
Walata finishes: Grocer
Tekedda finishes: Theatre

Turn 226 (1580 AD)
Research begun: Printing Press
Kumbi Saleh begins: Caravel
Gao begins: Walls
Walata begins: National Epic
Tekedda begins: Library
Timbuktu grows: 12
Timbuktu finishes: Islamic Monastery
Timbuktu begins: Islamic Temple
Djenne grows: 11
Djenne finishes: Castle
Niani finishes: Theatre
Awlil grows: 5
Wadan finishes: Lighthouse

I begin researching printing press and I believe our next to should be banking which will allow replaceable parts, as this will allow us to get more benefit from windmills and water mills, and will allow us to build lumber mills in all of our forests that we still have surrounded many cities.

Walata is actually the city earning the most GP points, because of the wonders there and because limited space means to specialist are working in that city. I start the National epic there, figuring it will both help produce Great People and the Epic itself ads 4 culture per turn.

Genghis Khan declares war on Frederick, Frederick was already apparently losing the war to Napoleon, so we may be seeing the end of the Germans unless we choose to intervene.

Map trading - Frederick wants 140 Gold plus our world map for his, which tells me he must know a great deal more of the world than we do, so I accept. No one else will sell their world map at any price, but I gained 130 of the gold I spent back by selling the combined map that we have after buying it from Frederick, I would rather do this then have Fredrick sell ours about. Caesar is willing to open borders with us again, which I also accept, mostly to increase the gold from our trade routes.

At this point had a crash to desktop, one which messed up my graphics, so I'm rebooting and restarting and will attempt to play the last turn exactly as I had. I was able to do this.

Turn 227 (1585 AD)
Djenne begins: Knight
Niani begins: Courthouse
Wadan begins: Courthouse
Timbuktu begins: Theatre
Timbuktu begins: Jewish Temple
Contact made: English Empire
Kumbi Saleh finishes: Caravel
Gao finishes: Walls
Awdaghost grows: 11

Turn 228 (1590 AD)
Kumbi Saleh begins: Musketman
Gao begins: Castle
Timbuktu finishes: Jewish Temple
Djenne finishes: Knight
Awdaghost's borders expand
Tadmekka finishes: Pikeman
Awlil finishes: Theatre
Agades's borders expand

Turn 229 (1595 AD)
Timbuktu begins: Theatre
Djenne begins: Musketman
Tadmekka begins: Catapult
Awlil begins: Forge
Harkuf (Great Merchant) born in Walata
Tadmekka grows: 11

We have a great merchant in Walata. We have a caravel moving around the north of our lands. I would bring the caravel around to Walata, load up the great merchant, and sail over to Greece or Englandy for the money. We could use the money to upgrade many of our obsolete units. However, I left this choice, and the merchant, for the next player.

Turn 230 (1600 AD)
Napoleon declares an unprovoked war upon us. While we share no borders with Napoleon, his forces are rampaging up through Germany, and moving through Rome (assuming open borders there). Napolean’s largest force is south of Niani. I attack with three war elephants, a night, and a horse archer.

Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight defeats (10.00/10): French Horse Archer
War Elephant defeats (3.44/8): French Spearman
War Elephant defeats (6.72/8): French Crossbowman
War Elephant defeats (1.60/8): French Crossbowman
Horse Archer defeats (0.96/6): French Horse Archer
Knight defeats (8.50/10): French Horse Archer
Knight promoted: Combat I
Pikeman promoted: Combat I

There is still a catapult and a horse archer there. 2 spearman are moved out to protect to workers that were mining hills adjacent to Niani.

So there you go. Once again we are in a war, once again it was not of our doing. Many cities should finish projects in the south.

Also for everyone to consider!!! Germany only has 2 cities on the mainland, and may soon lose one. Do we wish to backstab him and take these cities ourself? Would this be considerd dasterdly? We could also just let them fall to France and Mongolia, which will kill their culture and give us many tiles, and then take them from France or in the next war with Mongolia (which I assume he will attack us at some point).

Kylearan

Dec 10, 2005, 01:38 AM

Boo! Hiss! I liked your verbose reports from the beginning of the game very much, Ragnoff. But this autolog crap, on the other hand... ;)

I wish that autologger had never been made. Makes most of the SGs a chore to read. :(

Ozymandous

Dec 10, 2005, 11:51 AM

Regarding Germany...

Does garrisoning a foreign city with your units prevent it's capture by a third nation if they are at war with the foreign nation but not the player?

If it prevents it we could garrison Fred's cities with a few of our units and help there, and/or wait till they are captured and then take them again later.

I think we will need to take out Rome (at least) and some of the other civ's on our continent eventually, but that's just my opinion. I'd rather not backstab Fred since he's the only AI that hasn't picked a fight with us so far. Genghis and JC are fair game since they have declared on us for little provocation before.

Other than that, I'd agree to either use the GM to do a trade thing far away and/or stick him in as a "free" specialist in one of our cities that are hurting for trade/commerce, culture, whatever.

Dwip

Dec 10, 2005, 11:57 AM

See it, will do something about it sooner rather than later.

I'm pretty sure you can't garrison like you're talking about, Ozy. I'm pretty sure I've booted random AI units out of other AI's cities I've been at war with. Or had them hang out, depending on Open Borders, of course.

Talamane

Dec 10, 2005, 02:20 PM

I know the AI can help defend a rival's cities, just saw it in the Cuban Isolationist thread, but whether the human player can do it appears to remain a mystery.

Ozymandous

Dec 11, 2005, 12:47 PM

Hmm, all right, saw this happen myself. Unless the 2nd civ is at war with the attacking civ they won't help defend at all.

So only if you're at war with the same group will your units help defend their cities. Too bad an opposing force can't keep another civ from taking a city but it makes sense I suppose since it would be too easy to garrison some dinky force in your friends city and then stay at peace.

I guess the moral here is that if you want to help an AI you build units and gift them over.

Dwip

Dec 11, 2005, 03:13 PM

Well, it looks like sooner turned into later. I've got a lot of stuff going for the next few days, so it's unlikely I'll be able to take my turns this time around. So afraid I'll need to pass this once.

Talamane

Dec 11, 2005, 04:26 PM

@Ragnoff, where's the save?

DeceasedHorse

Dec 12, 2005, 07:00 PM

Just letting everyone know that I have 1.09 operational if you still want me to play.

Ragnoff

Dec 12, 2005, 11:34 PM

Arrg, i thought I had the save up, here it is

Ragnoff

Dec 12, 2005, 11:35 PM

Talamane

Dec 13, 2005, 08:35 PM

@DH, i am up, got it. You're on deck.

Talamane

Dec 13, 2005, 08:53 PM

[0] 1600 AD Note French units. Looks good otherwise.

[1] 1605 AD Knight kills Horse Archer. Elephant kills cat. Knight kills Horse Archer. Sounds like chess. Versailles completes. Start on various mil unit builds. Timbuktu starts on a 'duct.

[2] 1610 AD The Great Merchant will board the caravel at Kumbi and sail to the Greek capital. Hopefully, Alex will give us open borders. Fred wants help with the Mongols, i decline, but gift him one of our furs. He's the only AI that is pleased with us. Berlin falls to Khan. I start massing troops in Gao, knowing that once Hamburg falls, we are next.

[3] 1615 AD Phant kills chariot :lol:, and knight kills sword trying to pillage gems. No open border agreement with Alex so our GM will go to England. Alex is in the Khan/Napoleon crowd so we can expect nothing but trouble from him. One good thing is that he doesnt like JC.

[4] 1620 AD Concentrating forces in Niani and Gao, while ensuring Walata has adequate defense. Printing press is done, and start on banking in 4.

[5] 1625 AD Works road strategic tiles in case JC gets ants in his pants. I lose a knight, but badly hurt a sword in JC's land. Revolted to theocracy so new units gain xp (should have done this earlier).

[6] 1630 AD Cat and mouse games with Napoleon's pitiful stack of units trying to reach Gao. Lost a worker (we have too many for the tasks at hand, so no big deal) but Nap loses a cat. He loses the sword.

[7] 1635 AD More killing of French units. I am moving our city seige stack to merge with stack attackers and the next player can start a siege on the nearest French city. I start on Nationalism in hopes of snagging the Taj Mahal. The next player, please start on Education next, then RP (for lumbermills) so if we get our golden age via the Taj, we can quickly build banks/universities during it (assuming we have won the peace).

[8] 1640 AD French spear suicides on our phant. A city busting stack is now merging to move into Nap's territory (it has a medic phant, dont use him to attack if possible). I am keeping some offensive units around Walata and Gao to keep Khan honest. Oops, i overshot England with the caravel.

[9] 1645 AD Lost another 2 workers to a sneak attack. Horse archer that could not be seen before the turn. Not fair. We wont need more workers until railroads anyway. We are #1 in military.

[10] 1650 AD Stack is healing as Nap tries to stop the inevitable.

[11] 1655 AD Add units to the stack. Start on banks in a couple of cities. Getting low on cash.

[12] 1660 AD Have fun! I played two extra turns, sorry. (No, i am not.) I held off on the Forbidden Palace, i think we should build it in a conquered city, perhaps to the south, possibly south of Gao. We need to take out JC and GK soon.

Turn 230 (1600 AD)
Timbuktu finishes: Theatre
Djenne finishes: Musketman
Gao finishes: Castle
Niani grows: 7
Awdaghost finishes: Versailles
Tekedda grows: 7
Tekedda finishes: Library

Turn 231 (1605 AD)
Timbuktu begins: Aqueduct
Djenne begins: Knight
Gao begins: Catapult
Awdaghost begins: Catapult
Tekedda begins: Barracks
Knight promoted: Combat II
Knight defeats (4.70/10): French Horse Archer
War Elephant defeats (3.12/8): French Catapult
War Elephant promoted: Combat II
Horse Archer promoted: Combat I
Horse Archer promoted: Combat II
Musketman promoted: City Garrison I
Djenne begins: Musketman
Knight promoted: Combat II
Knight defeats (5.50/10): French Horse Archer
Kumbi Saleh finishes: Musketman
Gao grows: 12
Awdaghost finishes: Catapult
Tadmekka finishes: Catapult
Tekedda's borders expand
Judaism has spread: Berlin (German Empire)
Judaism has spread: Berlin (Mongolian Empire)
Judaism has spread: Berlin (Mongolian Empire)

Turn 232 (1610 AD)
Kumbi Saleh begins: Forbidden Palace
Awdaghost begins: Theatre
Tadmekka begins: Catapult
Catapult promoted: Combat I
Musketman promoted: Combat I
Catapult promoted: Combat I
Kumbi Saleh begins: Knight
Djenne finishes: Musketman
Gao finishes: Catapult
Walata finishes: National Epic
Niani's borders expand

Turn 233 (1615 AD)
Djenne begins: Musketman
Gao begins: Musketman
Walata begins: Musketman
Catapult promoted: Combat I
Musketman promoted: Combat I
Tech learned: Printing Press
Timbuktu finishes: Aqueduct
Awdaghost finishes: Theatre
Tekedda finishes: Barracks

Turn 234 (1620 AD)
Research begun: Banking
Timbuktu begins: Knight
Awdaghost begins: Knight
Tekedda begins: Market
Tekedda begins: Courthouse
War Elephant defeats (7.12/8): French Chariot
Knight defeats (8.60/10): French Swordsman
Contact made: Greek Empire
Djenne finishes: Musketman
Tadmekka finishes: Catapult

Turn 235 (1625 AD)
Djenne begins: Knight
Tadmekka begins: Knight
Catapult promoted: Combat I
Musketman promoted: Combat I
Knight promoted: Combat II
Knight loses to: French Swordsman (1.86/6)
Kumbi Saleh finishes: Knight
Walata finishes: Musketman
Awlil grows: 6

Turn 236 (1630 AD)
Kumbi Saleh begins: Knight
Walata begins: Musketman
Walata begins: Barracks
Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight defeats (5.70/10): French Crossbowman
Timbuktu finishes: Knight
Djenne finishes: Knight
Gao finishes: Musketman
Walata grows: 10
Tadmekka grows: 12
Agades grows: 2
Worker loses to: French Catapult (5.00/5)

Turn 237 (1635 AD)
Timbuktu begins: Knight
Djenne begins: Knight
Gao begins: Knight
Musketman promoted: Combat I
Musketman promoted: City Garrison I
Axeman defeats (5.00/5): French Catapult
Knight defeats (2.30/10): French Swordsman
Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight promoted: Combat II
Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight promoted: Combat II
Tech learned: Banking
War Elephant loses to: French Spearman (1.12/4)

Turn 238 (1640 AD)
Research begun: Nationalism
Axeman promoted: Combat I
Knight defeats (3.20/10): French Crossbowman
Knight defeats (10.00/10): French Horse Archer
War Elephant defeats (8.00/8): French Horse Archer
Knight defeats (5.50/10): French Horse Archer
Axeman defeats (4.00/5): French Catapult
Djenne finishes: Knight
Walata finishes: Barracks
Awdaghost grows: 12
Awdaghost finishes: Knight
Wadan grows: 3
War Elephant defeats (6.64/8): French Spearman

Turn 239 (1645 AD)
Djenne begins: Catapult
Walata begins: Catapult
Awdaghost begins: Knight
Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight promoted: Shock
Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight promoted: Shock
Axeman promoted: Shock
Knight promoted: Combat II
War Elephant promoted: Mobility
Djenne finishes: Catapult
Kumbi Saleh finishes: Knight
Niani grows: 8
Niani finishes: Courthouse
Tadmekka finishes: Knight
Tekedda grows: 8
War Elephant defeats (6.80/8): French Catapult
War Elephant defeats (3.60/8): French Swordsman

Turn 240 (1650 AD)
Djenne begins: Knight
Kumbi Saleh begins: Knight
Niani begins: Market
Tadmekka begins: Bank
Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight promoted: Combat II
Catapult promoted: Combat I
Catapult promoted: Medic I
War Elephant promoted: Medic I
Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight promoted: Combat II
Timbuktu finishes: Knight
Djenne grows: 12
Gao finishes: Knight
Walata finishes: Catapult

Turn 241 (1655 AD)
Timbuktu begins: Musketman
Gao begins: Bank
Walata begins: Bank
Catapult promoted: Combat I
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
Knight defeats (2.50/10): French Horse Archer
Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight promoted: Combat II
Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight promoted: Combat II
Timbuktu's borders expand
Djenne finishes: Knight
Tekedda finishes: Courthouse
Worker loses to: French Horse Archer (6.00/6)

Turn 242 (1660 AD)
Djenne begins: Knight
Tekedda begins: Market
Knight defeats (4.00/10): French Horse Archer
Knight defeats (8.70/10): French Horse Archer
Knight promoted: Combat I
Knight promoted: Combat II

Ozymandous

Dec 15, 2005, 05:30 AM

DH you're up if you still want to play.

regoarrarr

Dec 15, 2005, 07:41 PM

Rb2b just finished - is it appropriate to comment on our game in here?

Ozymandous

Dec 16, 2005, 02:27 PM

Erm, I dunno? The game saves weren't the same so I would think it would be all right to talk general strategy, but I'll leave that up to the others.

It seems DH is still having problem maybe. I'll lay claim to the save with "Got it!" and try to get the turns posted by tomorrow sometime. :)

Ozymandous

Dec 17, 2005, 04:58 PM

1660 AD (IT):

I cycle our cities and change almost all of them to max food. I swap to Vassalage for our units about to be produced, and then dial up Napoleon to see if he will settle for peace.

Peace with Napoleon for 50 gold and 7 GPT from him.

1665 AD (1):

Awd finishes a Knight, starts a grocer.
A lot of military units promoted and moved to multiple staging points.

1670 AD (2):

Djenne finishes a knight, starts a Grocer.
Kumbi finishes a Knight, starts a Grocer.
Awlil finishes a forge, starts a Granary.

1675 AD (3):

Timbuk finishes a Musketman, starts a Bank.
Moving military units. A lot of our units are in Niani now to help fortify the town and make it less of a target.

1680 AD (4):

Nationalism discovered. Music chosen next.
Tad finishes a bank and men with blue suits and cigar’s everywhere rejoice. Grocery chosen next to import all that caviar and white bread.

1685 AD (5):

Gao finishes a bank and again, men with blue suits rejoice. Grocer started.
Frederick finally makes peace with Genghis. Maybe he’ll survive long enough for us to take out Genghis? :D

1690 AD (6):

Elizabeth comes to us asking for Gunpowder in exchange for Music, which id due in 1 anyway. I decline with a slight grin and thanks.

I swap Niani to the Hermitage (100% culture) in hopes that it will eventually be able to get a bit more room.

1695 AD (7):

Music discovered, Replaceable Parts chosen next. Lumber mills will soon dot the landscape.

1700 AD (8):

Djenne finishes a grocer and starts a bank.
Kumbi finishes a grocer and starts a bank also.

1705 AD (9):

We’re the largest empire in the world! :) Alexander is second.

Genghis comes a’callin asking for Banking for less than it’s worth. I decline and he goes away in a huff, taking the smell of horse with him. Fumigator’s are called and take months to get the stink out of the royal greeting hall.

Walata finishes a bank and an aqueduct is started.

1710 AD (10):

Timbuk finishes a bank, starts a grocer.
Awd finishes a grocer, starts a bank.
Awlil finishes an aqueduct, starts a harbor.

Replaceable Parts due in 4. Niani has Hermitage due in 7, an idea might be to start the Taj Mahal there next since it output’s 10 culture per turn. Just a thought.

Mainly infrastructure built this round, as you can tell. When we finish all that I dunno if we need to build more military or missionaries. More missionaries = more cash so it’s a thought. Either way. :)

Oh, and that Caravel with the GM is still out roaming the waters. Alexander is next to us in score and land size so he'd be the best to use the GM with but since Alex won't open his borders I'm not sure what to do. Ah well, someone else can mess with him. :) (The caravel is in an English Port so if Lizzie has a decent sized capital he might work there too, :))

Ozymandous

Dec 17, 2005, 05:04 PM

Well drat, you can't edit a post to include a file. Well blah to that..

Ragnoff

Dec 18, 2005, 10:53 AM

got it, but will not be able to play until tomorrow (Monday).

Ragnoff

Dec 20, 2005, 02:24 AM

The glorious Ragnoff dynasty is once again in power. When he last left the throne a nasty war had begun, so the first order of business was to look at the State of the Union. It must be admitted that the union seems to be in pretty good order. No cities were gained in the war, but none were lost either. Most cities seem to be working on peaceful projects, primarily various ways to increase their financial strength. As we are a financial empire, this seems to be a good choice. There are several very large gatherings of warriors yet there is also not but warriors and skirmisher's holding the towns to the extreme north. Until enemies have a substantial Navy, this is probably an acceptable risk. Our legal system is still vassalage an expense we probably no longer need, and while a system of bureaucracy would allow great production in our capital of Timbuktu, nationhood would put an even smaller drain on the treasury. Moreover, we are still following barbaric labor practices, having our people locked in slavery. It would be cheaper, or at least no more expensive, to give them some rights and elevate them to serfdom. Finally, although it is cheaper to remain a theocracy, harnessing the power of organized religion will allow our many financial buildings to be completed more quickly. The savings gained in stepping down from vassalage to nationhood will offset the costs involved in organized religion. These changes in our social system are ordered immediately.

Internationally, Genghis Khan and his Mongols are furious with us, while Alexander and Napoleon, leaders of the Greek and the French, are merely annoyed. Frederick is pleased with us, while Elizabeth and Julius Caesar are both cautious. Both astronomy and philosophy exist in the world, but none who have them will trade them.

I wish to have replaceable parts quickly, and we have a surplus, so I turn science to 100% in order to speed the production of this technology. With that, I initiate my reign.

1715 A.D. we learned that a holy building, the Kong Mao, is built in a faraway land. Napoleon cancels his gold to us for its peace treaty, but it may have simply been netted his responsibility to provide us with recompense for the war has ended. I say this because, despite the end of the Golden peace treaty, he has not declared war. Tadmekka has finished producing a grocer, I order a missionary to send to a Roman town. I also discover that my attempts to adjust the finances were not wholly successful, I had not considered the increased military costs of supporting the large army, no longer enhanced by our system of vassalage. Several orders are given for workers to start expanding our farm system across the many planes that.our kingdom. Finally, the caravel containing a great merchant is ordered to Greek waters. Although we do not have open borders with Alexander, caravels may enter territory of others without provoking war, as many merchants the largest known city in Greece is Sparta, although this is not their capital. The other caravel also is navigating the Greek coast, also searching for their capital city.

1720 A.D. Djenne constructs a bank, and is ordered to begin a Jewish synagogue, this will help its culture improve quickly. Gao grows to size 13 is ordered to construct the Taj Mahal. It will take it 17 turns to build, but this will help push back the border in this area. Finishes one mercenary and is ordered to begin another. Replaceable parts will be learned next turn with science dropped back to 80%. We are gaining 25 gold per turn rather than losing gold, although we have only 92 at the beginning of this turn.

1725 A.D. We understand replaceable parts, I increase science to 90% again and I begin chemistry because it is next on the path that could lead us to railroads, something that I think would be useful in helping to defend our large territory. Kumbi finishes a bank and begins a Jewish missionary. Walata builds walls, as it is one of the cities that could be attacked should the Mongols move through German territory. This will also allow it to build a castle which will increase its culture output. The allowance of wind and water mills allows several forests on hilltops and on rivers to be converted. In the future, there's also the possibility of shifting some farms to water mills depending on the cities. The caravel reaches the waters around Sparta, and discovers to our dismay that Sparta is not the city it once was. We will continue to search for a good location for our great merchant.

1730 A.D. Alexander surprises me by offering an open borders, something he would not consider at the beginning of my reign. As we are looking for a place to land our great merchant, I agree. Alexander furthers offers a trade of paid for for, something I also except as we do have a few cities that are borderline unhealthy. Finally, I sell our extra cows for eight gold per turn. Kumbi finishes the missionary and begins a musketman, while Walata finishes the walls and begins a castle. Tadmekka finishes a missionary and starts an explorer.

At this point I have a crash to reboot.

Luckily the autosave lets me fix this problem.

We convert Neapolis to Judaism., I landed a great merchant on a hilltop outside Sparta, and I am able to see the capital of Athens inland.

1735 A.D. A Roman galleon has been working around our coast carrying a settler. There is one frozen spot in our north where he could land, however it would be a horrible city location for. I decide not to try to block this settler, for even if the city is placed in that one available spot, I think it can do us little harm. The merchant arrives in Athens and will get 1300 for a trade mission. This is the largest of the cities I have so far checked, and I decide to establish the mission. One of our missionaries board the Galleon to be transferred over to the German isle, in the last Roman city, Cumae adopts Judaism.

1740 A.D. Awdaghost finishes a bank and begins a musketman. Tadmekka finishes an explorer and begins a missionary. We have over 1300 gold pieces, and are losing but a single gold per turn with 90% science.

1745 A.D. Walata begins a caravel, and has another great merchant appears. He will give us over half of the technology, constitution, which would give us representation. As I think we may benefit to switching from her editor a rule to representation, at least in finances, I decided that will be the next technology after chemistry and spend a great person. I realize that some time earlier Niani had finished the heritage, and started a market. This market must have been geode already. I place a Jewish synagogue before the market, primarily for the culture boost in that critical area. The Explorer, and future missionaries, will be moved to Walata in preparation for transport to Greece.

1750A.D. Chemistry is learned and constitution is selected. Timbuktu finishes a grocery and begins a knight. Kumbi finishes a musketman and begins a caravel as I realize it's probably shorter to travel to England from this city. Tadmekka begins a grenadier and Tekedda begins a Jewish monastery after finishing its market. The Roman galleon passes by the icy northern shore leading me to believe there are islands Roman knows about that we do not. The German city of Cologne adopts Judaism, and every German and Roman city that we know about follows our faith.

Although that is not a full 10 turns, ending a session at 1760 would feel as weird as beginning one at 1710 did. So I'll stop here and pass the torch.

By the way, how do we plan on winning this game?

As Ragnoff the fifth steps down, he has one thought. Unlike his two immediately previous ancestor's dynasties, he did not leave the kingdom in the war when passing it off to his successor.

DeceasedHorse

Dec 20, 2005, 03:14 PM

Finals are over and I am home for Christmas break, so I can definately for sure (provided my laptop does not break AGAIN :mad: :mad: ) play, if you want me to. If not, I understand; I was a complete jackass towards you guys and I am really sorry about my irresponsibility.

Dwip

Dec 20, 2005, 06:11 PM

Well, I see it, and will deal with it sooner rather than later.

What IS our plan for winning, anyway?

Talamane

Dec 20, 2005, 09:45 PM

A plan? Sounds radical.

How about: take out Khan, JC, Napoleon, and Frederick, in that order? Own the continent once we have the financial power to maintain the cities we could/would gain? Khan will declare sooner or later, he's trying to gain a mil tech lead that would give him an advantage, since we've got the numbers.

It's too late for cultural. SS will give us a win, and then we will have the leadership abilities of Ethelred the Unready or maybe Warren G Harding. I will go along with whatever we decide upon.

While our start was not as auspicious as RB2a and 2b, they went on to conquer their respective continents. I think 2b pulled the SS switch. I need to read their threads.

Ozymandous

Dec 21, 2005, 07:10 AM

Plan? Heh, I'd agree with Talamane except maybe change the order of conquests. JC first, since he's closest, then Khan, then Napolean (after someone hopefully takes the last German city on the mainland). I'd be willing to leave Fred's last city on the mainland if none of the others takes it before we get them just because he's pretty weak and hasn't tried to backstab us.

I say JC first becasue we don't need him causing issues on our flank/rear when we go after the others.

Conquesto f the continent and then cruise to SS victory or go on to domination, either or is fine with me. We need to get started sooner rather than later, although with Christmas right around the corner we'll be a bit slow.

DH, jump in when you can, just post one way or another if you plan to finish this or spend your time on all the DH based SG's that you started.

Talamane

Dec 21, 2005, 05:42 PM

From a logistical standpoint, i agree.

However, it has been my experience with Soren's AI From Hell (TM) that Khan will declare on us as soon as we move on JC. I wonder if there is some sort of diplomatic perfidy we could come up with to counter this. Ideas anyone?

Dwip

Dec 21, 2005, 10:34 PM

Let us flog the horse some more, because I'm way too tired to post coherently tonight.

1750 AD - State of the Union:

Techwise, it's like this:

Khan: Up Philosophy, down Nationalism, Printing Press, Chemistry
Alex: Up Philosophy, Astronomy, down Music, DivRight, Paper, Gunpowder
Nappy: Down Music, DivRight, Paper
Fred: Down Nationalism, Printing Press, Chemistry
Beth: Down DivRight, Printing Press, Gunpowder
JC: Up Astronomy, down Nationalism, Chemistry, Replacable Parts

Repwise, thusly:

Khan: -5 Annoyed
Alex: +1 Cautious
JC: +1 Cautious
Nappy: -4 Annoyed
Beth: 0 Cautious
Fred: +8 Pleased

Militarily, we have spread out over our entire empire:

Crossbows: 1
Longbows: 5
Skirmishers: 12
Horse Archers: 1
War Elephants: 4
Knights: 15
Axemen: 1
Spearmen: 1
Macemen: 2
Warrior: 3
Pikemen: 3
Catapult: 8
Musketmen: 8
Galley: 1
Caravel: 2

With reference to future warfare, JC's army looks thusly:

In Neapolis: 5xKnight, 1xMusket, 3xPhant, 1xCrossbow, 4xLongbow, 1xPike, 3xCatapult

In Rome: 1xMusket, 1xPhant, 1xMaceman, 5xLongbow, 1xPikeman

In Cumae: 1xPhant, 2xMaceman, 2xCrossbow, 3xLongbow, 1xPike, 1xCatapult

In Antium: 1xMusket, 2xLongbow, 1xPikeman, 4xCatapult

Random: 1xKnight, 1xMaceman, 1xCrossbow

Total: 6xKnight, 2xMusket, 4xPhant, 4xCrossbow, 14xLongbow, 4xPike, 8xCatapult

Taking down Fred pretty much isn't an issue. No idea what Khan or Nappy have, so cannot estimate.

So we can take down JC's base, if we desire, albeit with some losses. Cutting horses should be fairly trivial, but iron? No chance. None at all. Kumbi will be in some trouble, without serious persuit units to protect from all of JC's Knights being in Neapolis.

If we keep on going through JC, into Khan or Nappy, then into Fred, we will likely win a domination victory through our continent alone, and if not we can pick on Alex or Beth.

OR, we can cash in on our likely to pick up science lead, run with that, and do the spaceship thing. If we do, it's fairly likely we aren't going to need to conquer anybody at all, because we're already the biggest civ in the world, with great land, albeit land that needs help because we have no workers improving half of it.

Now is likely the time to make that choice, though. We've got a lot of cities that can switch to either military or infrastructure with no penalty this turn, and if given a couple turns, I could pull the trigger on JC. It sounds like people are leaning for the military route, but I thought I'd throw some stats out for discussion.

Ragnoff

Dec 25, 2005, 07:53 AM

Merry Cristmas fellow rulers!

Talamane

Dec 26, 2005, 05:45 PM

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I have patched to version 1.52. Some of its features are based on the work of Harkonnen and comes highly recommended.

Ragnoff

Dec 27, 2005, 08:34 AM

also patched to 1.32, who is up?

Griselda

Dec 27, 2005, 10:10 AM

Looks like Dwip is, but he's waiting for feedback from others regarding the direction of the game before he plays.

Dwip, you're up in RB7, too, BTW! :hammer:

Dwip

Dec 27, 2005, 12:34 PM

What she said. However, it's been long enough, so if nobody's said anything by the time I've got my RB7 turns in (later today), I'll go ahead and make a decision and play.

Dwip

Dec 27, 2005, 03:27 PM

[0] 1750 AD - Ok. My executive decision is this. We have a tech lead on the whole planet. We COULD finish Caesar with what we have on hand right now, but we're probably better off with keeping him as a buffer between us and Nappy/Khan, not to mention if we try to fight him now, our forces will likely wind up being so anemic that Khan will steamroll us. Last but not least, I'm doing 3 warmonger games right now, and I'm tired of it. So.

Lots of swaps: Kumbi Caravel->Christian Missionary, Timbuktu Knight->Islamic Temple, Tadmekka Grenadier->Aqueduct. I'll let Walata's Caravel complete against my better judgement.

[1] 1755 AD - Djenne Jewish Missionary->Colosseum, Kumbi Christian Missionary->Christian Missionary, Awdaghost Musket->Colosseum, Awlil Harbor->Library.

I'm not sure why we've got all these Jewish Missionaries around we can't convert people with. Caravels to Beth and Alex? Maybe, but not yet.

[2] 1760 AD - Kumbi Christian Missionary->Christian Missionary, Walata Caravel->Colosseum.

Do some converting to Christianity in various of our towns. We'll start in on Islam sooner rather than later.

IBT - Fred comes demanding we cancel our deals with the vile Mongol. Well, I agree, Khan IS vile, but no. I'm going to keep being the He Kept Us Out Of War leader.

[3] 1765 AD - Timbuktu Islamic Temple->Islamic Missionary, Kumbi Christian Missionary->Christian Missionary, Tekedda Jewish Monastary->Bank.

[4] 1770 AD - Constitution comes in, start on Democracy. We pass Go, collect Representation, and switch over. Tadmekka Aqueduct->Monastary.

[5] 1775 AD - Timbuktu Islamic Missionary->Christian Monastary, Djenne Colosseum->Christian Missionary, Kumbi Christian Missionary->Christian Missionary.

[6] 1780 AD - Djenne Christian Missionary->Grenadier, Awdaghost Colosseum->Grenadier, Tadmekka Christian Monastary->Christian Temple.

[7] 1785 AD - Kumbi Christian Missionary->Christian Missionary. Walata Colosseum->Islamic Monastary.

Thanks to our friend the forest chop, the Taj Mahal completes in Gao, and it is the Golden Age of Mali.

[8] 1790 AD - Timbuktu Christian Monastary->Christian Temple, Djenne Grenadier->Christian Missionary, Kumbi Christian Missionary->Grenadier, Gao Christian Monastary->Christian Temple, Tadmekka Christian Temple->Theatre. Niani Jewish Synagogue->Market, apparently.

IBT - Fred wants us to trade Printing + 740 gold for Astronomy. Being not up on tech, I decline. It'll be there.

[9] 1795 AD - Timbuktu Christian Temple->Christan Cathedral, Djenne Christian Missionary->Grenadier, Gao Christian Temple->Christian Cathedral, Walata Islamic Monastary->Islamic Temple, Awdaghost Grenadier->Christian Monastary, Tadmekka Theatre->Colosseum, Tekedda Bank->Grocer.

IBT - Khan wants us to cancel our deals with the English. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with a no on that one. Caesar will do Chem + 70 gold for Astronomy.

[10] 1800 AD - Djenne Grenadier->Christian Missionary, Walata Islamic Temple->Islamic Missionary, Awdaghost Christian Monastary->Christian Temple, Awlil Library->Jewish Monastary.

And there we are. Constitution next turn. I recommend Djenne for Statue of Liberty. I also recommend Astronomy from Fred for Printing Press and whatever, because I want to start Observatories during our GA. We have monopoly on our other techs. Education->Liberalism->Economics sounds to me to be a good next step. Steam or Steel would be fine Liberalism techs.

We're mostly but not entirely set up with Christianity in all our cities. I want us to have Islam as well, because then we can go Free Religion with all that implies. So crank some missionaries and get it done. Also, stay the hell away from SciMeth until we get converted.

I'd like a couple prophets for the Christian/Islamic buildings, but.

We should be more or less set up at this point. We have enough land, good land, to win from. We have a decent tech lead, which will be picking up. Once we get Observatories/Universities online, we'll be pretty much good to go, even if Khan attacks us.

Ozymandous
Ragnoff
Dwip
Talamane <-- UP
Deceased Horse <-- ON DECK
Tidus4444 (perma-skip)

Talamane

Dec 27, 2005, 11:23 PM

Got it. Wont be able to play it until tomorrow night.

Ozymandous

Dec 28, 2005, 04:56 PM

Sorry I was on vacation, but the turns look good Dwip and Ragnoff. :)

Spaceship launch it is then, unless we can win with diplo which I haven't tried yet so am not sure about.

Everyone has patched right?

Talamane

Dec 28, 2005, 07:00 PM

Yes, i have patched to 1.52 version. I am playing in another SG, it's my turn, but it's stalled on a decision as to a settler, so, i am playing my turns on this one @ the moment. Will post tonight late or tomorrow.

Talamane

Dec 29, 2005, 07:48 PM

[0] 1800 AD I upgrade the two units standing guard near Neopolis to Grenadiers. And away we go!

[1] 1802 AD I civic up to Emancipation in order to dismay the AI's citizenry. Democracy is in and start on SoL. Start on education as we need to build universities badly. Lots of infrastructure builds. I trade chem for astronomy from Alex straight up. He must have wanted it badly--more beakers for astro than chem. It's doubtful we will get Liberalism first, since most of the AI's have philosophy and wont trade it. It's not a tragedy, but i beeline for it usually. The tech pace in this game is very slow.

[2] 1804 AD I spread religion around a couple towns with our missionaries. More infra and Kumbi starts on a frigate.

[3] 1806 AD Against my better judgement, i cut a sugar/copper deal with Liz. She has no gov techs to even begin to build SoL, but it will surely PO Alex. Probably weed.

[4] 1808 AD zzzz. Deblack the map with the caravels. What's the explorer for? Start a settler in Walata to build a city on a presently unoccupied island. Our golden age is over, and we are losing money again. Build time for SoL increases.

[5] 1810 AD Khan declares on Fred again. Workers roading for access. Organized religion is a drain on the economy, but i refrain from changing until most of the universities are built. We are at 90% science, but losing 24 GPT.

[6] 1812 AD Khan moves on Hamburg and starts bombardment. More roading.

[7] 1814 AD zzzz.

[8] 1816 AD zzzz.

[9] 1818 AD First to discover Liberalism and i pick Steam Power because it is 4160 beakers. Lib might be tradeable to Liz for Sci Method. We will see. Hamburg still holds out. Start on economics. I revolt to Free Religion and our loss goes down to -10 GPT. We have coal already mined near Gao.

[10] 1820 AD Load up the galleon with settler, musketman, longbow and head out for island NE of Fred's island. It has plenty of fish and should grow to a respectable size. I havent seen any AI galleons, so we may just get it. I have a musketman from Gao going to Walata to firm its defense. It's on goto, sorry. On of the caravels is on an extended goto to deblacken the map due north of Alex. Sorry, my lack of SG experience has caused these breaches of SB etiquette. Once the settler was built, our GPT loss ballooned to -49 GPT, as a lot of buildings completed also. We can change to Free Market once economics is in and this should help our situation. We should try to beeline to plastics in order to get the TGD. I would like to keep a couple of the forests north of Timbuktu for lumbermills.

Sorry, but i totally screwed up the missionary/explorer thing with Alex. I also forgot to build lumbermills, sheesh. RL was in my face, my apologies to the group. :smoke:

Ozymandous

Dec 30, 2005, 01:50 PM

Good turn Tal. :)

DH, you're up!

Talamane

Dec 31, 2005, 05:41 PM

If we arent going to kill one of our neighbors, forbidden palace needs to be built. Where?

Ozymandous

Jan 02, 2006, 02:25 PM

I thought to give an extra day of "cushion" since it was NYE and NYD, but apparently DH still didn't show up so this is my "got it".

Will play within 24-36 hours and post.

Ozymandous

Jan 03, 2006, 05:34 PM

1820 AD (IT):

Things look good. The previous dynasty did a good job from what I can tell managing our empire. 

1822 AD (1):

Walata finishes its Observatory so it can study the stars. A university is ordered to be built so this knowledge can be utilized more thoroughly.

Workers for our glorious empire are ordered to build lumber camps and farms as needed while galleons loaded with settlers and supplies search the globe for a new city spot.

1824 AD (2):

Economics is discovered. Scholars look for ways to employ this new knowledge and are looking at possibly forming business units called Corporations to make best use of this new technique.

Gao finishes its construction and starts an Islamic Monastery. Workers move around building more farms and lumber mills. Furniture stores rejoice at the increased supply of sleigh beds.

1826 AD (3):

Kumbi finishes its university. Professional “learners” called professors soon use their positions to expound on their socio/economic and governmental theories on ruling to their students, even if such professors don’t teach economics, or civics.

Much to the professor’s annoyance a Hindu Monastery is started next.

Niani finishes its Observatory. An Aqueduct is started next so the citizens can enjoy public bath houses and fountains.

1828 AD (4):

Gao finishes its Monastery. Construction starts on a University.

Tekedda finishes an Observatory. Construction on a Christian Monastery starts next.

Awlil finishes its Courthouse. Construction on a Grocer starts next.

Hamburg falls to Genghis.  The borders of Walata do not expand however (maybe next turn?)

1830 AD (5):

Kumbi finishes its Monastery and starts an Observatory.

Tadmekka finishes it’s Jail, prisoners from all over the Kingdom rejoice at the idea of 3 square meals a day, cable TV and air conditioning in the summer. The crime rate in the empire rises as the more “humane” methods take root and criminals no longer worry about “barbaric” punishment methods.

A grenadier is started in Tadmekka.

Awd finishes its construction and starts training a Jewish Missionary.

1832 AD (6):

The Corporation is discovered. A wondrous metal named Steel is researched next. It’s hoped that this strong metal will allow us to produce stronger buildings and items than the old Iron things we had before.

Our culture spreads from Walata in a wave and engulfs the recently captured city of Hamburg. Khan will have to expend much to keep the city docile.

1834 AD (7):

I move our Missionaries around to see if they can “spread the good word” and notice some don’t like us very well in the world. So the missionaries pull up and settle for yelling their messages across the borders.

1836 AD (8):

Timbuktu finishes its Observatory and starts a Christian Missionary. The more religions we have in our cities the better they seem to act. Since we have founded three religions why not?

Awd finishes training a Christian Missionary and starts to train another.

Tekedda finishes one Monastery and starts another. Monks rejoice.

Tad finishes its Grenadier and starts on the Forbidden Palace. Plans to possibly move our palace south, to more warm lands, are whispered about but nothing has been decided thus far.

1838 AD (9):

Alex comes demanding we cancel our deals with the English. We smile and nod and politely refuse.

We discover where JC had been heading, a small island out in the middle of the ocean. We find another, smaller island and decide to unload our settler on it. Do we want to settle it? I’m not sure. (No resources, single tile island)

1840 AD (10):

We are close with our research, scientists are promising wondrous new things.

Walata has become a “Holy center” and it’s our hope that prophet may be born there to further help spread our various religions. (It’s got National Epic +100% GL generation).

Niani starts a University. Awd starts a Hindu Monastery. Ships explore the vastness of the world and Missionaries spread our religions. All is quiet.

I didn't swap any civic's, and truth be told forgot to check on them till just now. :( Sorry about that, if there is anything better please swap? Thanks. :)

Ozymandous

Jan 03, 2006, 05:36 PM

Here's the save. :)

Ozymandous

Jan 05, 2006, 11:48 PM

Ragnoff --------------> Up now
Dwip
Talamane

Ok guys looks like this is all that's playing here anymore. You're up Ragnoff, or Dwip since it's been 3 days since I posted.

Anyone out there still?

Talamane

Jan 05, 2006, 11:53 PM

Is it just us now? :eek:

Dwip

Jan 06, 2006, 01:50 PM

Talk about your short rosters.

I'm right here, so got it.

Ozymandous

Jan 06, 2006, 02:19 PM

Is it just us now? :eek:

Yah, me too, so 4 of us total. Tidus never did muchn and DH, even though he said he couldn't get Civ4 to work much, started 3 other SG's while he couldn't seem to get this one working.:rolleyes:

Anywho, I just want to finish this, lol. :) Shouldn't take that long hopefully.

Dwip

Jan 06, 2006, 03:27 PM

[0] 1840 AD - We're in pretty good shape. Statue in 3, Steel in 1, etc, etc. Life is good. Railroads are...soon.

Khan's pissed at us, but it's not like that's new. However, since we might fight him sooner than JC, I shift our huge stack of knights by Djenne more towards Walata. I'd also upgrade some guys, but we need rifles first, so.

Either our science is at 50% to give us some upgrade cash, or it's at 50% for Civ 3-esque science slider MMing, which is utterly irrelevant in Civ 4 because beakers carry over between techs. Since we really can't upgrade much, I nudge us back up to 80% science.

Let's examine the missionary situation.

Needs Judaism: Nobody at all. The Vast Jewish Conspiricy has conquered.
Needs Christianity: Niani
Needs Islam: Niani, Djenne, Awdaghost, Awlil, Tadmekka, Kumbi, Tekedda

No use spreading Christianity or Islam to JC, since we don't have the holy buildings. This will change if we ever get another Prophet.

We don't really need to spread Hinduism except for Monastaries that will obsolete with SciMeth, so I just won't.

Swap Timbuktu to Islamic Missionary. We're done with Christian Missionaries.

[1] 1842 AD - Steel comes in, RR in 9. Tekedda Hindu Monastary->University.

Exmination of where to put National Wonders:

Wall Street - Timbuktu (Kumbi/Gao/Walata)
Ironworks - Djenne (Tadmekka)
Oxford University - Tekedda (Walata)
Globe Theater - Niani?

We sure are sucking the good suck on shields.

Who's idea was THIS?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB2c-dwip-OTI.jpg

We're already paying out a ton of money for upkeep, we'll have to whip or rush everything ever built there, and...no. I'll leave the units there, but I'm not building that city.

Also do various conversions and things.

[2] 1844 AD - Timbuktu Islamic Missionary->Islamic Missionary, Kumbi Observatory->Hindu Temple, Gao University->Islamic Missionary, Walata University->Christian Monastary, Awdaghost Hindu Monastary->Hindu Temple.

In that "Oh yeah, Civics" thing, I swap from Nationhood->Free Speech, and Decentralization->Free Market. We're going to be running a bunch of specialists RSN, so I stay firmly in Representation.

IBT - Fred asks us to help vs Khan, and I decline.

[3] 1846 AD - Statue of Liberty comes in, and all your science is belong to us. Djenne starts on the Ironworks. Gao->Islamic Missionary->Islamic Missionary.

[4] 1848 AD - Timbuktu Islamic Missionary->Wall Street, Kumbi Hindu Temple->Grenadier, Awdaghost Hindu Temple->Grenadier, Awlil Grocer->Jewish Temple.

IBT - Beth offers to trade Clams for Corn. I accept.

[5] 1850 AD - Gao Islamic Missionary->Islamic Missionary, Tadmekka Forbidden Palace->Grenadier.

Oh look. It's Valmiki the Great Artist. In Walata. Can you say "Culture Bomb"? I knew you could.

[6] 1852 AD - Gao Islamic Missionary->Islamic Missionary, Walata Christian Monastary->Oxford University.

[7] 1854 AD - Awdaghost Grenadier->Grenadier, Awlil Jewish Temple->Market.

Our workers sure are doing a lot of work. Amazing, I know.

[8] 1856 AD - Railroad comes in, and we're off for Assembly Line in 8.

Kumbi Grenadier->Worker, Gao Islamic Missionary->Islamic Missionary.

Alex apparently wanted Gao to be Buddhist. So if we want some more religions, there it is. Just Confucianism and Taoism left, I think.

[9] 1858 AD - Gao Islamic Missionary-Islamic Missionary (our people do NOT like Islam), Tadmekka Grenadier->Worker.

Kumbi FINALLY converts, 3 missionaries later.

We really need more workers.

[10] 1860 AD - Kumbi Worker->Islamic Monastary, Gao Islamic Missionary->Islamic Missionary, Niani University->Islamic Monastary, Awdaghost Grenadier->Worker, Tadmekka Worker->Worker.

There is a missionary on goto to Awdaghost. Awlil and Tekedda still need missionaries, which should keep Gao good until about the time Assembly Line hits.

A couple more workers for RRing would in no way hurt us.

I suggest disbanding our caravels to save money. Maybe our frigate, and maybe even the galleon in Walata. I've been using the grens I built to replace warriors and skirms in our northern cities, disbanding the old units. We could stand with a bit more of this, and even more of it when infantry hits and our factories complete.

Ragnoff or Talamane, go for it.

Talamane

Jan 07, 2006, 12:51 PM

Who's idea was THIS?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB2c-dwip-OTI.jpg

That was an aborted attempt to settle the island NE of Fred's place. JC was already there so the next player went to the island south of it and there you have it--Nowhereville.

Ozymandous

Jan 07, 2006, 10:57 PM

The one tile spot with the settler, etc was my doing:

1838 AD (9):

Alex comes demanding we cancel our deals with the English. We smile and nod and politely refuse.

We discover where JC had been heading, a small island out in the middle of the ocean. We find another, smaller island and decide to unload our settler on it. Do we want to settle it? I’m not sure. (No resources, single tile island)

I didn't settle it. :P

Where was the GA used for the culture bomb? Niani? With the fall of Hamburg Walata didn't need much of a culture bomb, lol. :D

Talamane

Jan 07, 2006, 11:28 PM

@Dwip. I need the save.

Dwip

Jan 08, 2006, 12:09 PM

I imagine that would probably help, yes.

Talamane

Jan 08, 2006, 06:35 PM

Thanks, will play/post tomorrow nite.

Talamane

Jan 09, 2006, 09:52 PM

[0] 1860 AD Looks very good. Check trades, civics, etc. No changes. Thought about US, but that would knock out our specialists, and cost more. There's no need to rush anything with cash, so i press ENTER.

[1] 1862 AD Start Awdaghost on a machine gun. Start moving caravel to nearest port to disband. I cant recall if we get any hammers, so i will be conservative. Hamburg looks like, well, hamburger.

[2] 1864 AD Tekedda starts a drydock. I want enough frigates or destroyers to stop a seaborne invasion. I have regretted not having a navy too many times in civ 4.

[3] 1866 AD Keep cranking out workers from Tadmekka.

[4] 1868 AD zzzz.

[5] 1870 AD Assembly line comes in, and i start some factories. May be weed, but i start a banana plantation, Gao needs the health. Start a crab boat.

[6] 1872 AD zzzz.

[7] 1874 AD zzzz.

[8] 1876 AD The inevitable happens. Khan wants constitution, for, uhm, NOTHING. Nothing is what he gets. Declares war. He chose unwisely. I move our knight army on Hamburg (which hasnt even rioted, due to GK's army garrisoned) and bottle his forces. Alex is willing to declare war on GK, but he wants Liberalism and Economics. JC and Nap are Khan's bootlickers, so no cigar. Change combustion to mil tradition. Upgrade the cats to cannons. Once we get MT, we should back off on science slightly to upgrade some of our knights to cav.

[9] 1878 AD Djenne will complete its Ironworks in 2 turns and we should have enough production to meet the needs of the war. I lose two knights, and GK loses three in head to head combat. Lose a cannon (they cant bombard?), but take a grenadier. Hamburg will be a *****. Science to 70%, MT in two, and making 120 GPT.

[10] 1880 AD I hate passing this war off to someone, but them's the breaks. WTF is with this? Cannons cant bombard? Well, they sure cant bombard Hamburg. Does anyone know what this is about? Maybe because it has no tiles? Factories can be cancelled in lieu of units. Djenne will complete Ironworks in one turn and can crank out units fast. This is typical of Soren's AI. Once you fastrack science, one or more of the civs makes war on you. With Khan, it was inevitable once Hamburg got crushed.

Some of the units are fortified around Hamburg, others are healing. Play their turns before hitting ENTER. They are on tiles that force GK to attack across a river. This forces him to burn up his garrison in Hamburg. The Pentagon is available for building.

Talamane

Jan 09, 2006, 10:02 PM

I think the reason that Hamburg's defenses cant be bombarded is because Hamburg has no city defenses. It's size one, and has no tiles.

Edit: Just checked, and it has no defenses. So, the preferred attack would be cannons and gren against gren, and knight against phants and knights.

Ozymandous

Jan 10, 2006, 12:12 PM

Do we want to keep Hamburg if given the option?

Do we want to draw anyone else into this with us, or just leave things as they are?

I don't plan to upgrade units unless they have three levels of promotion, otehrwise it's probably cheaper to just build them.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Talamane

Jan 10, 2006, 05:36 PM

There are a couple of knights that would do well to get upgraded. We need to build some medic units!

If possible, keep Hamburg, since it's 90% Mali, and 0% Mongol. I am not sure if it has any world wonders, but Fred built a lot of neat stuff, and it has bananas.

Only Alex is interested in warring on GK, and his price is rather stiff (Liberalism and Economics). I would pull him in if GK is unwilling for a peace settlement after we take Hamburg, and he wants to prolong the war. We have jails in all of our largest cities, and GK declared, so WW wont be a problem for a while.

I couldnt help but notice that Tlblisi (sp) is rather culture crunched as well.

Ozymandous

Jan 12, 2006, 02:20 PM

Haven't forgotten about this, just will be a day or two before I can get to it. Classes just started again.

Ozymandous

Jan 14, 2006, 01:47 PM

1880 AD (IT):

I moved the knights across the river as someone already suggested and fortify them.

I look around for the GA I thought we had and don’t see him. I do notice that Niani (far SW city) is the only one that has any culture problems at all, as a mater of fact it’s only 79% Mali… I do hope the GA wasn’t used where there was zero or very little culture pressure but if so oh well.

1882 AD (1):

Military Tradition is discovered, Rifling is chosen next and then we’ll have Infantry and can really commence the spanking of Khan. *does a “Kirk voice”... Khhhaaannnnn!!!*

Djenne builds Ironworks, starts the Pentagon. Ah, for future reference, in my experience it’s not great to put something else with the Heroic Epic in a city besides West Point. Otherwise it seems to diminish the total power of each, from what I’ve seen anyway.

Hrm… I never realized when upgrading units that it deletes all experience above the last level attained. Luckily I only upgraded a 12/17 unit and not the 19/whatever one. :D

We lost our Caravel to the North but the Frigate in the South survived. I think Combustion and Destroyers will be next to protect our waters.

1884 AD (2):

IBT… Mongol Knight and Grenadier decide to rush our Machinegun position outside Hamburg. Horsemeat hamburgers with special exploding sauce is the result. (2-0 us)

Hmm, apparently Khan likes Gao since a lot of his forces are moving around there. We’ll shore that up and see if we can get some units there.

Tekedda finishes a Frigate, starts a factory. Awlil finishes an aqueduct starts an Islamic Monastery while we can (Sci Meth will soon be only choice).

I debate attacking Hamburg with our forces near there and decide to wait for a few more cannons if possible.

I do smack a musketman and catapult Khan moves up next to Gao. If anyone remembers the “peasant skeet” bit from History of the World Part 1, imagine that outside Gao when I finished. :D

1886 AD (3):

Tadmek finishes a factory, cannon queued next. Khan pillages a few of our items next to Gao, but we’re fine for now.
Wadan finishes a courthouse, starts an Islamic Monastery.

I spend both our cannons near Hamburg to soften the city a little and capture it with the loss of just a couple of units. I move the units we had outside Gao into the city itself but lose the roll with our Cavalry (88% success, but oh well. :() trying to take out a Grenadier.

1888 AD (4):

Rifling arrives and Khan shudders in his sleep but he doesn’t know why. ;) Combustion chosen next.

Timbuk finishes Wall Street and starts a factory. Awd finishes a factory and starts a Islamic Monastery. Awlil finishes an Islamic Monastery and starts a Christian Monastery.

I look around and notice how many of our forests are gone now. Any city that has less than three forest plots is clear cut since it’s useless to have less than three forest plots around any given city.

I roam through our cities and select those that can grow to max food and sometimes shields. We’re cranking research right now, usually less than 5 turns on anything we do so not worried about that right now.

1890 AD (5):

The two Machineguns I moved into Gao defeat a few knights and assorted units, as does the Cav I upgraded last turn (knight to cav). We loose another Caravel to Khan’s navy.. Blah, he better enjoy this while he can.

Kumbi finishes a factory, starts Infantry. Tadmek finishes cannon, starts Islamic Monastery.

I dial up JC and see if he’ll stop letting the Mongols wander through his territory and he says no. (Doesn’t like us enough.) So I give him a little Wheat and hope that will cheer him up eventually.

Oh, and I obliterate Khan’s entire stack outside Gao with minimal losses. :D Using the time to promote units that are less than 10 experience up to that mark if possible. Apparently (and you can tell I don’t upgrade a lot) when upgrading a unit everything above 10 is wiped out no matter the unit, but if they are below 10 no experience is lost.

1892 AD (6):

Combustion comes in and Fascism is selected. Mt. Rushmore would help with the WW we’re facing in our cities and I want to give a few more turns before I queue up all the Monasteries we can before Sci Meth is discovered.

Gao finishes a factory, starts a Buddist Monastery. Awd finishes an Islamic Monastery, starts Islamic Missionary. Tadmek finishes it’s Monastery, starts a Islamic Missionary. Awlil finishes an Islamic Monastery, starts Islamic Missionary. Hamburg finishes its revolt and I start a factory there.

1894 AD (7):

Walata finishes a factory. Starts Christian Temple. Various units trained. (Getting tired of listing them all.) Still whacking Khan’s units when they wander by.

1896 AD (8):

Gao finishes Monastery, starts a Jail. Various units built. I think we’re about done with Missionaries before Sci Meth is researched.

1898 AD (9):

Fascism discovered, Sci Meth due in 2.

1900 AD (10):

Sci Meth due next turn. I have scrolled ahead on all our cities and queued up all the Monastery’s I can so they will get built even though Sci Meth is done. This only applies to <50% of our cities, the rest are building Infantry, Cannon’s or something like that.

Mt. Rushmore can be built somewhere if we want to, to keep the war going and wipe out Khan. Assuming we want to kep fighting. Maybe take another city or two from him then try for peace. We’re rolling along pretty much with everything right now.

Sorry the report was a bit sparse but not much going on at times.

When Sci Meth comes in we can build well’s and have fun with our oil and newer equipment. :)

Oh, we have a GS south of Timbuk, just standing there. I didn’t see anything we wanted to rush in the last turn (1900) when he was discovered so left him there for later.

Have fun. :)

Talamane

Jan 14, 2006, 10:53 PM

Nice turn set. Well done! Khan chose unwisely.

Ozymandous

Jan 19, 2006, 03:38 PM

Dwip? You out there?

Sheesh, this is sad.

Dwip

Jan 19, 2006, 07:41 PM

Oh. I for some reason hadn't realized I was up. I see it, but I also have RB7 turns to get done, so it may be later rather than sooner.

Ozymandous

Jan 20, 2006, 05:01 AM

Well it's either you or Ragnoff, and from your last mention of him I sort of had the impression he wasn't playing this anymore.

Dwip

Jan 21, 2006, 03:24 PM

[0] 1900 AD - I have no idea what this GE is supposed to do for us, so he'll just sit in Timbuktu and hang out.

At the very least, we're going to thrash Tabriz. I don't want to take down Khan, because we can't bloody well afford it. But I am going to bleed him a bit.

Take a big strike force from Gao and move it towards Tiflis.

[1] 1902 AD - SciMeth comes in, start on Physics.

Awdaghost Cannon->Cannon, Tadmekka Cannon->Mt Rushmore.

We have Oil under Niani, at Gao, and in the desert between Kumbi, Djenne, and Tadmekka.

Somehow, our Combat III/Formation Knight loses to Khan's random Knight. Knights sure do annoy me a lot. Our backup Knight wins, however.

Still moving towards Tiflis.

IBT - Khan pillages some ex-JC farms, which I guess if he wants to do that, that's ok.

[2] 1904 AD - Kumbi Infantry->Infantry, Gao Jail->Infantry. Tekedda Factory->Monastary.

We win at Tiflis, which takes longer to type than to do.

IBT - Khan lands a whole bunch of guys up north at Awlil. There's about jack we can do about this.

[3] 1906 AD - Niani Monastary->Factory.

I scrape and dig and find a couple of guys to send to Awlil's relief.

[4] 1908 AD - Timbuktu Cannon->Infantry, Walata Drydock->Destroyer, Tekedda Monastary->Temple.

After application of new Acme Knight Be Gone, Awlil is more or less saved.

[5] 1910 AD - Kumbi Infantry->Infantry, Gao Infantry->Infantry, Awdaghost Cannon->Infantry, Wadan Monastary->Monastary.

In that epic struggle against catapults, etc.

[6] 1912 AD - Tekedda Temple->Temple, Tiflis Theatre.

We kilt us some Mongols. Awlil is safe.

[7] 1914 AD - Physics comes in, start Communism (for State Property).

Tadmekka Mt Rushmore->Infantry, Tekedda Temple->Temple.

We have Uranium at Wadan, Awdaghost, and clear off in the distance where Berlin used to be.

IBT - Khan is willing to pay us 70 gold for peace. I don't accept, because I'm going to deprive him of Tabriz.

[8] 1916 AD - Timbuktu Infantry->Jail, Gao Infantry->Colosseum, Djenne Pentagon->Monastary.

We move up to Tabriz.

IBT - I'm so unafraid of Khan now.

[9] 1918 AD - Djenne Monastary->Factory, Kumbi Infantry->Temple, Awdaghost Infantry->Infantry, Tekedda Temple->Temple.

Tabriz is ours with a few casualties.

Khan pays us 90 gold, 9 gpt, and his world map for peace. In 20 years or so, we should be involved in another war precipitated by Mongols unhappy with this particular peace treaty.

[10] 1920 AD - Communism comes in, start Biology (we need Medicine sooner rather than later). Revolt to State Property.

Kumbi Temple->Synagogue, Walata Destroyer->Worker, Tadmekka Infantry->Temple, Tekedda Temple->Colosseum, Awlil Factory->Observatory.

There are 100 turns left. We're winning. We will continue to win. We are the unstoppable colossus bestriding our world. All their base are belong to us.

Talamane

Jan 22, 2006, 12:32 AM

Got it. Play/post tomorrow.

Talamane

Jan 22, 2006, 04:35 PM

[0] 1920 AD Looks good, but we need health in our largest cities. Get bananas, rice, fish, and crabs hooked back up. SAVE ROEBLING FOR THE THREE GORGES DAM. Gao is the best spot for it, and it has three engineers. Once Roebling has rushed it, TGD should complete in about 8-12 turns.

[1] 1921 AD Timbuktu starts on wealth to maintain science rate, Gao starts on West Point. Walata and Awlil start on work boats. Workers start on banana plantation. Tadmekka starts on Kremlin.

[2] 1922 AD Infantry completions in Awdaghost move to Tiflis for firmer defense. Awdaghost starts on Scotland Yard. Deploy work boats. Liz wants us to stop trading with Alex, nah.

[3] 1923 AD Walata completes worker and starts on a destroyer. Djenne starts a university.

[4] 1924 AD Tekedda starts a jail, Niani starts a cathedral.

[5] 1925 AD Biology is learned, and we beeline (sort of) to plastics via medicine, electricity, and industrialism. Fred wants mil tradition for free, i give it to him out of pity, though in all likelihood, he will sell it to GK. With rice online, no cities are unhealthy and the extra food from farms via biology ought to make our cities grow fast.

[6] 1926 AD Worker turns.

[7] 1927 AD Move Roebling to Gao.

[8] 1928 AD Awlil starts a drydock. We need some sort of navy.

[9] 1929 AD Railing mostly. Start a spice plantation. Djenne has completed its university, observatory, and jail. Starts on infantry.

[10] 1930 AD We got another GE, and i moved him to Gao. I thought about revolting to US, but it will hurt our science. On the plus side, we can rush buildings with cash (which we dont have very much of), and it adds a hammer to towns. Since Gao has no towns, i left us on Representation. The tech path is medicine (due in one), then electricity, industrialism, and plastics. Please do not deviate from this, we really want and need TGD. Hamburg needs some happy, so once its factory is complete, build a temple. Keep making destroyers. Once medicine is in, build a hospital in Timbuktu, and then put it back on wealth to keep our treasury afloat. We may want to consider deleting some of our outdated units as the infantry and tank builds complete.

Ozymandous

Jan 23, 2006, 06:10 AM

I see it but won't get to this till tomorrow (9/24) night. Good turns you guys. :) Hopefully we can roll through this.

Is it just me or is the write-up taking more time than the playing?

Talamane

Jan 23, 2006, 06:22 PM

Yes, the need for more of the "why" in Civ4 makes SG writeups more work, but more fun. Well, sort of.

Ooh, i just remembered, i have something to write tonite for work tomorrow. :crazyeye:

Ozymandous

Jan 26, 2006, 09:39 PM

1930 (IT):

Not much to do for now, so off we go. :)
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1931 (1):

Medicine comes in. Electricity due in 5. I briefly consider swapping to Free Market for the +1 trade routes but decide not to.

Djenne builds an infantry and since it has a nasty yellow haze over the city I swap it off to a hospital.

Gao finishes West Point and I start a hospital to make sure all those troops we’ll be rolling out of there are as healthy as possible.

Awlil finishes a drydock. I notice there is no place for those ship builders to go to borrow money so a bank is ordered built. :)

Workers are ordered to go dig up the glowy green stuff. I hear it makes great jewelry. :D

Oh, and Alexander declares war on Elizabeth.

Timbuk swapped from Wealth to a hospital.
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1932 (2):

Walata finishes its jail, and not seeing much it –has- to build I swap it over to building Destroyers.

Tadmeka builds the Kremlin, and all the bean-counters rejoice. :D The local politicians rub their hands together and try to think of ways to spend the sudden surplus we may encounter. I don’t see anything the city desperately needs so I start building Infantry there to help replace our old forces.

Tedekka finishes a Destroyer and starts another.

I look around at our finances and where we want to be and decide to try the old axiom of throwing money at a problem to solve it. In this case that means bumping Science to 100%.
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1933 (3):

Alex comes-a-callin’ asking for help with Liz, but I wave him off and tell him good luck. We don’t need to fight some war on foreign shores.

Djenne finishes it’s hospital. It starts training Infantry like crazy again.
Kumbi finishes one Destroyer and starts another.

Nianni finishes it’s jail and starts a Grocer.

Tabriz finishes a Temple and starts a Theater. Wow, Culture has a squeeze on this city.
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1934 (4):

Khan comes demanding we stop trading with the Germans. He is denied.

Gao finishes it’s Hospital. We convert those workers to helping make us a bit of cash.

Awd finishes Scotland Yard, and starts a hospital since the living conditions in the city are very poor.
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1935 (5):

Awlil finishes it’s bank. A university is queued up next.

Gao is swapped to Broadway with the discovery of Electricity. It’s hoped the garish lights of the “Great White Way” will blind those in the foreign cities around it.

Tesla (GE) is born in Gao. Lol, that’s three of them we have now. :D Tesla spends all his time helping build Broadway. :)
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1936 (6):

Gao finishes Broadway and starts training an Infantry.

Various units are built and workers moved.
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1937 (7):

Destroyers and Infantry built. Hospitals completed and much wealth generated.
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1938 (8):

A rather uneventful year, much like 1937.
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1939 (9):

Our commanding general in charge of our forces arrives in a huff and demands to know why our military college isn’t, well, training military. :lol: Gao swapped to cannon building instead of wealth.

MMoW.
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1940 (10):

Hamburg finishes it’s Monastery. It’s fine with ‘happy’ right now but it’s on the verge of being a polluted and sick city. Hospital started.

Various spies, missionaries, Infantry and the occasional cannon finished this round.

Two new games to keep you busy while the turns scroll by… “Where’s Shelia” in which you get to try to find the spys we have and “Spread the Faith” where we make sure all the new cities have all the faith’s we founded. :D

Seriously, not much going on. With West Point in Gao, units coming out of there start with 10 exp right off the bat. We could probably disband everything with 6 of less exp since Djenne trains up to 6 XP right now as well. I didn’t disband anything so feel free to do so as needed.

Industrialization due in 2. Plastics after that and then we can finally use all those GE we have accumulated.

Have fun. :)

Dwip

Jan 27, 2006, 12:40 PM

I lost my notes in a reboot crash, so this is going to be fairly short.

Many railroads and such were constructed. Our workers will soon be out of work.

Many infantry were trained, and our military generally reorganized. Everything with less than 6 XP was pretty much disbanded, save for all but the most obsolete units in Niani. All cities now have at least two Infantry/MG level defenders. Frontline cities have more. The last remaining infantry we really NEED is on a hill near Kumbi. Niani might also want one or two more, then disband all those extra units or upgrade them if they're highly experienced.

I forgot about West Point in Gao totally. I suggest, after Djenne finishes whatever infantry we want, switching Djenne to wealth/research (or any buildings it missed), and Gao to tanks. Less is probably more on tanks - we also have a huge pile of cav still, which can be upgraded to gunships when the time comes, and which should be more than sufficient to defend us from Khan.

Three Gorges is due on the first turn. It took both Engineers to do this, but I felt it to be worth the cost. Radio also comes in in ~3 or so, which means Eiffel and such. We may as well start rushing for Apollo after that.

Talamane

Jan 27, 2006, 05:16 PM

Got it. Will play/post tomorrow. Why are my SG's always synching?

Talamane

Jan 28, 2006, 02:57 PM

[0] 1950 AD Looks good. Change Gao to tank.

[1] 1951 AD TGD gets built. Build bunkers in most cities. Airplanes will be a-flying soon, well maybe. In most cities, they only take one turn. Piling up workers on pasture near Djenne. Perhaps we should abandon them.

[2] 1952 AD On the year of my birth, Gustav Eiffel was born in Walata and he will rush, guess what, the Eiffel Tower. So appropriate, don't you think?

[3] 1953 AD Eiffel rushes the Eiffel Tower in Tadmekka. Djenne starts R&R. Research Media to build UN (denial). This gives us the option of a diplo win if we want it.

[4] 1954 AD zzzz.

[5] 1955 AD zzzz.

[6] 1956 AD Mass Media is discovered. A beeline to fusion may be in order, with a sidestep to genetics. UN starts in Tadmekka.

[7] 1957 AD zzzz.

[8] 1958 AD I set a research path of artillery, rocketry, satellites, fission, to fusion. Vetoable of course. Another GE rushes Hollywood in Timbuktu.

[9] 1959 AD I built us a navy. Nothing discourages the AI more than to lose his units in Davy Jones' Locker. Hollywood and R&R both complete, and the hammer overflow is turned into tanks. Sign OB with Napoleon. Our capital, pop 25, has health issues so ecology might not be bad.

[10] 1960 AD Make a trade with Napoleon--1 hit movie for whales and 10 GPT. Talamane, in his farewell speech to the nation, warns the people about the growing influence and power of the military-industrial complex. He urges his people to look to space exploration as a means to achieve national greatness.

Ozymandous

Jan 28, 2006, 06:03 PM

1960 (IT):

I look around briefly and things look good. Moving on…
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1961 (1):

Built I think a tank and a battleship or two. Lol…
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1962 (2):

Building temples and banks and various other small civic improvements while our scientists scratch their heads and ponder strange new technologies.
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1963 (3):

Rocketry discovered. Computers chosen next to then go into Fiber Optics so we can build the Internet and deprive anyone else of it. Due in 4.

Djenne starts to construct a space launch hanger, launch pads and mission control center and we call it “Apollo” after one of the deities of ancient times.
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1964 (4):

Another tank rolls off the assembly line.
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1965 (5):

More battleships are commissioned as Champaign producers rejoice as the vast quantities of bottles being used to christen the ships. :D

Land begins to be cleared for a national hospital in Gao. The commanding general of our armies plans to have the medical staff at our hospital educate every single soldier trained in Gao in basic medical skills. (Red Cross in Gao after the next tank, duh, I should have done that like three tanks ago.)
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1966 (6):

Tadmekka police begin to complain of migraine headaches as they have to deal with the “political immunity” of idiot drivers from foreign countries as they drop off their passengers, foreign dignitaries. (UN built).
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1967 (7):

Computers are discovered and developed. With their increased logic handling capabilities, science laboratories spring up across the land.

The first UN election is held to try to find a person who will command the general assembly. Naturally we propose our own ambassador to the UN to lead.

The mayor of Djenne phones the President and tells him of a new vein of precious gems that have been discovered near the city.
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1968 (8):

As with most “big governments” we’re bleeding red ink while massive government programs are initiated. We toe the line with the phrase “no new taxes” and know that soon enough we’ll be making a surplus again.

The results from the UN election are announced and we find that Alexander had been our opponent. He must have had back-office deals with our Southern neighbors since Napoleon and Khan both voted for his ambassador over ours.

We will not forget that insult, and Napoleon and Khan and better hope they don’t try any military maneuvers against us as there will be no quarter given (on my watch at least).
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1969 (9):

Our border patrols grow tired of confiscating boot-leg copies of our movies and plays and music so we form national “troupes” or musicians, actors and other assorted “show biz” folks and send them off to tour foreign lands.

We instruct the troupe’s to perform a variety of plays and distribute movies like “The Pirates of Penzance” and later “Mutiny on the Bounty” for the English, “Spartacus” for our dear friend Caesar, “Macarena” and “I’m too sexy” for Khan and Napoleon, and “The Crying Game” for Alexander.
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1970 (10):

The administration steps down as per ancient custom to go relax on a nice beach somewhere with a beer in one hand and a nubile young female intern in the other. ;)

*****
Not much going on. As soon as the lab’s finish we probably want to finish any bunkers we have left and alternate the rest of the cities on Gold or Research as needed. I had been swapping them to Research as long as we had a positive money flow.

Apollo Program will finish soon so this game should be over as soon as we can research the bits we need and get them all built. Or we could try for a diplo win, either way.