With the release of civ4, there was never a better time to get into succession gaming than now. This game is for SG newbies looking to do just that.

Civ: To be determined
Difficulty: Prince (probably)
Victory: Let's go for diplomatic, since no one else seems to be and it will be a good way to learn about the new diplomacy AI
Map: Terra. If you don't know, it's an Earthlike map that's bigger than others of the same size (if that makes sense) and all the civs start on the same continent. Makes for a quite different play experience and, again, no one else seems to be doing it.
All other settings standard (standard size, medium sea level, temperate climate, normal barbs, normal speed)
Acceptable players: Anyone who has played in one or fewer SGs. If you're not sure but think you'd like to try this SG thing, please join this one. This will be my fourth (none completed yet) and first to lead. There are a couple of people I have in mind, and I will call you out if I must, but any SG noobs are welcome. I would prefer everyone have the game installed and working, but I can be convinced to make exceptions.
Other rules: Don't cheat or use known exploits (which there aren't any yet, but things change [Edit: Fobok informs me that there is one involving a bug in peace negotiation -- if you can figure out how to do this, don't]). Be nice to each other. That goes for lurkers too -- friendly advice and criticism is invited, but don't make us feel any stupider than we already do. Don't automate workers or city production, but feel free to fool around with having the governors manage worked tiles.
Roster size: 3-6, depending on how fast people express interest. I'd like to get this rolling pretty soon, so if there isn't a lot of interest right away, we'll start as soon as we have 3.

Roster closed
eotinb
Lord Genghis
Fobok
Xemu
Giga watt
Eyemaze
(The Caltrop will be a late addition)

I'd love to be a part of this newb-succession game! Depending on when the game starts, though. I'm getting Civ 4 next week. If the game starts before then... Well, kick me out. But, otherwise, sign me up. :goodjob:

If I can't actually play, I'd love to help plan/strategise at least, as well.

I hope you're serious about wanting a really and truly n00b, I'll give it a try. As you know, I'm still playing my first Civ3 SG. My only Civ4 game was at Settler level, and I did ok. Started one at Noble and barbs wiped out 2 scouts, 2 warriors and an archer about as fast as I could build them, so I stopped to give it some thought. :blush:

Prince level, huh? Kinda scary. Can we have lots of discussion before (and even in the middle of) turnsets...kinda like a training game for each other? If so, I'm in.

Sign me up!

With a name like "dont be afraid to be stupid" this looks like the ideal place to begin my SG journey.

As you know, I'm still playing my first Civ3 SG.
Which is why I made the entry condition 1 or fewer SG games rather than no experience at all. :) Welcome (that goes for all of you).
Prince level, huh? Kinda scary. Can we have lots of discussion before (and even in the middle of) turnsets...kinda like a training game for each other? If so, I'm in.
Absolutely. As far as I'm concerned, the points of this game are to get used to SGs (i.e., be stupid with pride) and learn civ4. I am not in any hurry to win, and in fact if we lose, I won't cry myself to sleep.
I'd love to be a part of this newb-succession game! Depending on when the game starts, though. I'm getting Civ 4 next week. If the game starts before then... Well, kick me out. But, otherwise, sign me up.

If I can't actually play, I'd love to help plan/strategise at least, as well.
If this rate of interest keeps up we may start tonight. :) If we do start before you get the game, you are more than welcome to join in the discussion. I may even keep a seventh spot open for you (off the books of course) once you get your game.

I'd like to give this a try too, please. :) I haven't played any succession games before of any game, but it sounds like it might be interesting. :) Single-player I'm still struggling on Warlord level.

Don't cheat or use known exploits (which there aren't any yet, but things change).

There actually is one, with the AI, in negotiating peace, that people should keep an eye out for when playing online. I saw it mentioned in either strategy or general discussion, (can't remember which). You can make the AI give you anything you want in negotiating peace by exploiting a bug with an error message. I tried it as a test in a single-player game and it worked rather easily. Not that I think anybody'd use it in this, but people should be made aware of it, especially so word reaches back to Firaxis and hopefully get it fixed. :)

Welcome Fobok and thanks for the heads up on the peace negotiation exploit. I'll be sure to keep a sharp lookout for this among this crew -- I can tell by your avatars that y'all are incorrigible cheaters and exploiters.

I want to keep one spot open for Xemu, who went to the trouble of basically asking for an SG like this in the forum. We have one more spot for another idiot, I mean noobie. The Caltrop, I have demoted you to seventh given how fast this is filling up, but as soon as you get your game, you're in. If we burn through the turns so fast that it gets to you before you get the game, we may skip you (because that will mean I'm up next and it's my ball so I can take it and go home if I want to) or may not depending on your ETA. I'm leaving the sixth spot open for whomever, and I encourage interested noobs to post even once we find that sixth person. Xemu may not take his reserved spot and The Caltrop's delivery guy may decide to keep trop's copy of the game for himself (in which case, delivery guy: let us know and you can have his spot). And if there are lots of noobs left hanging, someone else may take pity on you.

Any thoughts on the civ we should play? What civs and/or traits have you not tried in your SP (SG-talk for Single Player) games? I was thinking about Catherine -- I haven't played her yet, nor have I seen a SG using her -- but it's wide open at this point.

Also, any questions before we start? I won't say there is no such thing as a stupid question, but I will say that this is the place to ask it. If you've never played an SG before, there are a couple of things you need to think about:

1. Learn how screenshots work in civ4. I'm happy to explain if I need to.

2. Make sure you figure out how you plan to edit screenshots. I like the shareware program IrfanView (http://irfanview.com/) for clipping and MS Paint for dotmaps and other drawing tasks, although I plan to try to get the most out of the options under "strategy layer" in the game and I encourage all of you to do the same. I can explain the strategy layer as well.

3. Figure out how you will host your screenshots. I've been using Photobucket (http://photobucket.com/) without complaint for a while.

4. Take a cue from our comrade gmaharriet and get organized. You'll probably end up in more than one SG and taking some time now to organize your saved file directories, your photobucket (or whatever) subalbums, etc. will save you headache in the long run.

5. Figure out now to upload the save files. First time I tried to upload a civ4 file to the CFC server I couldn't get it to work. This was weird because I'd never had a problem with my civ3 saves. Turns out the default extension for civ4 games was not acceptable. I'm sure this will be fixed soon (if it isn't already) but you can work around it by zipping your saves, changing the extension (but make sure you tell us so we can change it back), or hosting them elsewhere.

6. If you post full-size screenshots to the thread, it will make your text run past the screen for most people's display settings. To avoid this you can clip the images to highlight the relevant part or put all the images in a separate post from the text. Or you can just make us use the horizontal scroll.

7. Figure out how you want to keep your log and how to make sure you do the right number of turns.

Some of this is covered on the sticky's in the civ3 SG forum (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=67), and I suggest you check them out if you have more questions. Or ask and someone will answer.

Once we get started, I was thinking we could go 30 turns for the first person (that's me!) and maybe 20 for the rest of the first round, then 10 for every round thereafter. How does that sound? Like Harriet said, feel free to stop at any point and ask for advice from your idiotic, I mean inexperienced, teammates.

Uh, one more thing (as if this post isn't long enough already). I've edited the initial post to include a ban on automating workers and city production. I haven't tried either one in civ4, but I have read that worker automation is still pretty sketchy and I've never seen the point of automated production. On the other hand, I encourage everyone to play around with using the city governors to manage worked tiles. If they're good enough for Sirian, they're good enough for me. They are not a Ron Popeil craptastic infomercial device though, so don't think you can "SET IT AND FORGET IT!"

Also, any questions before we start? I won't say there is no such thing as a stupid question, but I will say that this is the place to ask it. If you've never played an SG before, there are a couple of things you need to think about:

1. Learn how screenshots work in civ4. I'm happy to explain if I need to.

Hadn't even thought to look into this until now. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out, though. :)

2. Make sure you figure out how you plan to edit screenshots. I like the shareware program IrfanView (http://irfanview.com/) for clipping and MS Paint for dotmaps and other drawing tasks, although I plan to try to get the most out of the options under "strategy layer" in the game and I encourage all of you to do the same. I can explain the strategy layer as well.

Is Photoshop good for this? Or should I pick something that's less resource-intensive, to use while Civ 4's running?

6. If you post full-size screenshots to the thread, it will make your text run past the screen for most people's display settings. To avoid this you can clip the images to highlight the relevant part or put all the images in a separate post from the text. Or you can just make us use the horizontal scroll.

Not directly related to the quote, but how many screenshots should we aim for per turn? Or just see how it goes?

Once we get started, I was thinking we could go 30 turns for the first person (that's me!) and maybe 20 for the rest of the first round, then 10 for every round thereafter. How does that sound? Like Harriet said, feel free to stop at any point and ask for advice from your idiotic, I mean inexperienced, teammates.

Assuming 6 players including yourself, that would put us at turn 130 at the end of the first round. Of what, 450? (I can't remember for sure.) It seems pretty far in, but having never done a game like this before, I have no idea if that's normal or not.

Uh, one more thing (as if this post isn't long enough already). I've edited the initial post to include a ban on automating workers and city production. I haven't tried either one in civ4, but I have read that worker automation is still pretty sketchy and I've never seen the point of automated production. On the other hand, I encourage everyone to play around with using the city governors to manage worked tiles. If they're good enough for Sirian, they're good enough for me. They are not a Ron Popeil craptastic infomercial device though, so don't think you can "SET IT AND FORGET IT!"

This'll definitely be a learning experience. I've always used automated workers, in Civs 2 and 3, and SMAC, and now Civ 4. Should be fun. :) Never used automated production, though, (except in Civ 3 Conquests multiplayer where I couldn't seem to turn the ruddy thing off), so that's no big deal. What about autoexplore?

Hadn't even thought to look into this until now. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out, though. :)
It is pretty easy. Civ4 is nice in that it stores screenies for you automatically when you press PrintScreen, rather than having to alt-tab out and dump the clipboard into some other program. The default location of the screenshot directory (and saved games, among other things) is My Documents\My Games\... (if you can't find it from there you need more help than I can provide :)).
Is Photoshop good for this? Or should I pick something that's less resource-intensive, to use while Civ 4's running?
Never used Photoshop myself (to do this). Since Civ4 saves screenies for you (see above) you can edit them all after your turns are over, so resource use is not a big problem. Do whatever works for you.
Not directly related to the quote, but how many screenshots should we aim for per turn? Or just see how it goes?
There isn't a hard and fast rule, but you'll figure out what's right for you. Aso, feel free to peruse other SGs to get an idea of what others do (in fact, perusing other SGs is just a good idea in general to see how these things work and to learn from others' successes and failures). I tend to use more than most, but that's just me.
Assuming 6 players including yourself, that would put us at turn 130 at the end of the first round. Of what, 450? (I can't remember for sure.) It seems pretty far in, but having never done a game like this before, I have no idea if that's normal or not.
The thing is the first few turns go by pretty fast since you don't have many units to move or cities to decide the production of. But we will go with majority opinion on this.
This'll definitely be a learning experience. I've always used automated workers, in Civs 2 and 3, and SMAC, and now Civ 4. Should be fun. :) Never used automated production, though, (except in Civ 3 Conquests multiplayer where I couldn't seem to turn the ruddy thing off), so that's no big deal. What about autoexplore?
I think you'll learn to love managing your own workers. Being smarter than the AI with respect to workers is one of the biggest advantages human players have. For anyone who has never managed workers at all, take a little time to learn about how many worker turns it takes to build the various improvements and how this is modified by terrain. Once the game starts we can talk about more civ4 specific stuff like when to chop before doing another improvement vs. when to do both at once (an option new to civ4). Also if you've never managed workers in civ4, you'll want to check out just about any of the civ4 SGs going on right now and pay attention to their discussions about making research decisions based on nearby resources (every worker action, other than moving, is unlocked by a tech in civ4).

As for auto-explore, I have never used it other than to drive away the last little fog in the ocean in civ3, so I don't know how good it is. Even so, I'm going to ask that we don't use it. This way those who aren't already familiar with things like ending on safer tiles and the Tarzan Gambit(TM) (in which you promote a warrior to Woodsman II so he can move twice as fast through forest and jungle, swinging through the trees as it were) will learn them. It's also important to make strategic decisions about where to explore next (generally towards neighbors to scout out their territories and find any nice spots you can beat them to, looking for concentrations of resources, when to head in a mostly straight line vs. when to circle around your immediate area, etc.) as opposed to just tactical choices (ending a turn on a forest for defense or hill for visibility and defense, popping goody huts, etc.).

In general, automation is frowned upon in SGs, but we shall see what people decide about the city governors (and the new goto command, which I think is much more SG-friendly than the civ3 version).

Any openings?

I really want to join in with this if you have any openings left. Would be my first SG.

As for civ/leader I would suggest someone with creative

Sounds great! I'm in... thanks for saving a spot for me. I expect to fully take advantage of the opportunity with lots of dumb questions! :)

Eyemaze, sorry but you're the odd man (or woman) out. But as I said above, if there is enough interest I may start another newbie SG or one of the old-timers might take pity on the noobs. And please stick around and ask any questions or offer advice as you see fit. You might also think about shadowing some turns. That means downloading the save and playing the same number of turns as whoever is officially up. You can compare how you did to how we did. But if you do this, make sure not to reveal any spoilers (if you aren't sure if something is a spoiler, err on the side of not saying anything).

As soon as I get a little more feedback on which leader and/or traits people are interested in, I'll roll us up a start. On that issue, why Creative, Eyemaze?

Hm, Im not to sure whats a good UU, I like ghandi personally

Just my opinion, but I found in the C3C SG I'm in, the early turns took about 1/2 hour each and more like 1 1/2 hours per turn later. It's not just the playing, but writing everything down in the turnlog and doing the screen shots. 10 turns is plenty after the very first 20 turns if you want it turned around fairly quickly. I've only really played one game of Civ4 at Settler level, so I'm still struggling with the interface and what tech does what.

You mentioned playing Catherine. I was trying to play her in the Noble game I lost so many units to barbs by the time I had my 2nd city, and Prince would be even harder.

Also, I don't know how to zip a file. :blush: (I can UNzip one though. :p ) I also have a hard time with cropping pics. Maybe one of the mods could advise on how to just upload a file.

Hm, Im not to sure whats a good UU, I like ghandi personally
I don't particularly like the Indian UU -- Fast Worker, 3 movement instead of 2. It has its advantages, but it's certainly not my favorite. I also think perhaps we should steer clear of a spiritual civ. Don't get me wrong, they seem very cool and the prospect of an early religion is very nice, but between Sulla's walkthrough and the RB1 SG I feel like spritual is getting more attention than other traits at this early point (also makes sense because so many people want to fool around with religion and civics).

Also keep in mind how the traits could help towards our chosen victory condition: Diplomatic (since I haven't heard any objections, I'm assuming this is still the goal, but it's subject to change). It seems like the key to a diplomatic victory is being big enough to control most of the voting and popular enough to have a friend or two for whatever else you need. Of course, it might be more fun to pick traits that don't help towards that goal and find non-intuitive ways to make our traits work for us. For instance, Aggressive doesn't seem like a good trait for a UN victory, but you can use the UN as a backdoor to domination -- control enough of the world's population through warmongering that the vote is just a formality.

One other thing to keep in mind is the map: Terra. If we make it to the empty continents first, we should be able to fill up a decent chunk of them before the AI comes along. That could end up being a lot of votes in the General Assembly gained through essentially giving priority to naval technology. Making another plug for Cathy: Finanacial = money to do research and Creative = culture to grow borders and fill gaps in new continents fast.

Well I think Industrious is good for getting Wonders, wich really get all the bonuses of most other civs

I like spiritual because of the No turn anarchy, wich lets you switch civics at will, but I guess if they are overused then we should skip it

Cathy sounds good to me.

Im a wee lazy right now =/ whats cathy's traits

See my plug above, Creative and Financial. Shall I read to you from the manual what these traits do, Oh He Who Shall Not Have To Lift Even His Smallest Finger? ;)

Edit: I'm beat so I'm going to bed way early tonight. When I awake, I'll see what everyone thinks about who we should play, then do what I want anyway. I'll post a screenshot of our start so we can discuss where to settle, our initial research agenda, and take a stab at early build orders.

See my plug above, Creative and Financial. Shall I read to you from the manual what these traits do, Oh He Who Shall Not Have To Lift Even His Smallest Finger? ;)

Edit: I'm beat so I'm going to bed way early tonight. When I awake, I'll see what everyone thinks about who we should play, then do what I want anyway. I'll post a screenshot of our start so we can discuss where to settle, our initial research agenda, and take a stab at early build orders.
:blush:
cmon gimmie a break :)

I thinking of an industrius civ, once I deal with all the kids tonight Ill look in some more

Cool beans! I'm subscribed. Good luck team.

Catherine also sounds fine to me... I'm new enough to Civ 4 that I don't have a good sense of anything to make suggestions. :)

I'm not sure I've ever had a Diplomatic victory in any version of Civ so I guess I'll have to back off my usual foreign policies of only grudgingly helping allies and invading at the drop of a hat...

Catherine's fine for me too, haven't tried either of those traits yet, so should be interesting to see.

Cathrine is good with me

Some RL issues have come up for me and I'm not going to be able to participate, but I thank you for the opportunity.

Some RL issues have come up for me and I'm not going to be able to participate, but I thank you for the opportunity.
I'm very sorry to see you go, Harriet, but I understand. I've talked to the judges and they feel that this should not count towards your SG total for purposes of qualifying for a future newbie SG. Good judges get a treat and maybe I'll take them for a walk later.

Eyemaze, this is your chance to get back in if you want to. I'll put you in the roster for now, but let me know one way or another.

Giga watt, glad you have bowed to the inevitable and agreed to Cathy. I'll be right back with our start. The future is now!

Here we go!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot001.jpg

As you can see, we are on the coast, which is very good. This is a race to the other continent, so a coastal start is nice. Silks and rice nearby and maybe some more in the fog. Any reason not to settle in place? Where should our warrior move? My feeling is that on Prince, the tribal village should still be OK, but maybe we want to wait and pop it when our borders expand.

This start will allow us to do some serious cottage spam. Moscow should be rich and large, but maybe not that productive. In my SP games on the Terra map, the original continent fills up pretty quickly, so if we want a decent share of it we should either be prepared to take out a neighbor down the road or expand as fast as we can right now. My inclination is to bypass any early religions or wonders and grow, grow, grow. With our financial abilities and enough attention to cottage-building, we should be able to still research at a decent rate even with city maintenance. I'd love to find a nearby spot for a second city that's more productive and make settlers with Moscow and escorts with city2 (St. Pete's?) and then proceed to grabbing the good spots and walling off our neighbors with our fast-growing borders. Other thoughts?

Hey, this looks cool :)
Maybe I should actually play a game of Civ4 before I try one of these though...
Haven't played any Civ's except the original and freeciv. Bit of a purist :)

Most of the other games going focus on culture, tech and religion so here where we will just expand and commerce it up should be interesting.

Is the reason you are pausing to pop the village is because of the possiblity of a barbarian spawn?

Also reading your start reminded me of something that has kept bothering me, everyone always talks about building on the coast as oppossed to one tile off the coast (as the AI seems to love doing) what is the reason for this? Ports and ocean tiles?

Most of the other games going focus on culture, tech and religion so here where we will just expand and commerce it up should be interesting.
I agree. I'd also like to figure out what the realistic limits to expansion are.

Is the reason you are pausing to pop the village is because of the possiblity of a barbarian spawn?
Yes. That'd be game over. In civ3, if you popped a hut by building a city right next to it, you were certain to not get a barb, but if expanding borders popped it, anything could happen. Not sure if that's still true, so if we settle in place (which I think we should) I guess we might as well pop it now, since the borders will expand before we could build another warrior anyway.

Also reading your start reminded me of something that has kept bothering me, everyone always talks about building on the coast as oppossed to one tile off the coast (as the AI seems to love doing) what is the reason for this? Ports and ocean tiles?
You can't build certain improvements (harbors, lighthouses) or any naval units unless your city is on the coast. If you have ocean tiles in your city radius but can't build the improvements that make them more productive when worked, you're hurting yourself. Also, all cities on the coast are connected for trading purposes (they can share access to resources and money-making trade routes with other cities) once you research Sailing.

Use the scout to pop the hut - you never get bad results from popping a hut with a scout in Civ IV.

Well, I had something typed, but accidently clicked a link and ended up losing it. Anyway, looks like a good place to start, and I agree with the stated plan. :) (I said it in a lot more detail before, but that's the basics.)

@Thyrwyn: Thanks. I had forgotten we had a scout instead of a warrior.

The log:
1. 4000BC: Settle Moscow in place, revealing dyes within our eventual radius and gold outside of it. Start building a warrior and researching Fishing (so we can work the lake when we want to speed research). Tribe donates $44 to our coffers. Scout reveals that we may be near the eastern end of our landmass.

2. 3960BC: Yup, can't go any farther east.

3. 3920BC: Find a good spot for an eventual city, with both horses and fishes and minimal overlap with Moscow. But not a priority to settle, since we shouldn't have any problem with someone else poaching it.

4. 3880BC: Moscow's borders expand, revealing desert and jungle to our west (yay!) and more dyes outside Moscow's workable tiles.

5. 3840BC

6. 3800BC: I'm not trudging through all that jungle, heading in another direction.

Start of 3760BC: Learn Fishing, start on Ag so we can farm that rice once we have a worker.

7. 3760BC: Another tribe gives us a lovely $32 donation.

8. 3720BC: Find some wine SW of Moscow, cows directly west.

9. 3680BC: Decent choke point to our west. We could close it off with one city, but 'twould be better to build a city on the coast and use a thrid city to close the choke. More gold by the other coast.

10. 3640BC: Somebody gets Meditation, the gongs tell me. Wolf spawns east of Moscow, warrior due in 3 but I don't think animals can't come into cultural borders -- is that right?

11. 3600BC: Another hut and more gold, this time 39 pieces. More wolves by our scout.

Start of 3560BC: Wolves attack, scout wins but only barely (0.2/1).

12. 3560BC: Scout sent to forest to heal next turn, meets Saladin, who is the founder of Buddhism. Sallie's scout seems to have come from the west.

13. 3520BC: Warrior finishes. A worker would take 12 turns, but Moscow will grow in 4, so I start on another warrior for now, to be switched once Moscow grows. Also, since this warrior is just a placeholder, I switch from the silk in the forest (2f/1h/1g) to the lake (2f/0h/3g) to get a temporary research boost (temporarily turning off the gov to do so). Warrior guards Moscow, scout starts to heal (8 turns).

14. 3480BC

Start of 3440BC: Finish Ag, start on Wheel.

15. 3440BC

Start of 3400BC: We meet Alexander (who has no religion, in case you were wondering). He and Sallie are cautious towards one another.

16. 3400BC: Alex seems to have come from our south.

17. 3360BC: Moscow grows to 3, I switch from warrior to worker (progress towards warrior obviously saved). Worker due in 10, so probably should have started back in 3520, as we would have had the worker 2 turns sooner (we waited 4 turns to save 2). I also turn the gov back on and tell him to max food (food = hammers for worker build anyway).

18. 3320BC

19. 3280BC

20. 3240BC

21. 3200BC: Scout is healed and Hinduism is founded by someone.

Start of 3160BC: Wheel -> Pots.

22. 3160BC: We find Tokugawa, caution all around.

23. 3120BC: Get a better vantage point from which to check out Tok's land.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot002.jpg

24. 3080BC: Bears show up by our scout, I run south.

25. 3040BC

26. 3000BC: Borders expand again.

27. 2960BC: Moscow finishes worker, goes back to warrior. I leave the gov on max food because we don't need to rush to Pots and might as well finish that second warrior quickly to get another scout in the field or to escort our first settler. Worker starts farm on rice.

28. 2920BC

29. 2880BC: I find Alex, behind a very narrow isthmus. It'd be great to bottle him in down there.

Start of 2840BC: Pots -> Animal Husbandry (we can pasture those horses now that they are in our borders and with a road could build chariots).

30. 2840BC

Some shots of our surroundings and neighbors.
First, a zoomed out view:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot003.jpg

Here is the horse/fish eventual town, but like I said, no hurry to get here:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot004.jpg

Depending on what the fog reveals, there is a good spot for a city over here to narrow this choke and eventually close it off:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot005.jpg

Another look at Tok, with bare map selected to show things more clearly:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot006.jpg

And here's Alex:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot007.jpg

The save. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/eo1_BC-2840.zip)

If you are reading RB1, you will have noticed that having a city on both a lake and an ocean allows for a neat trick -- using a lighthouse to boost the lake production to 3f. We should do that in Moscow pretty soon, and should settle the west of the big choke keeping the same trick in mind. Just W of the cows would make a very nice second city -- at least cows and gold (and maybe more in the fog), fresh water health bonus, coastal, and a couple of plains hills to mine -- mucho production.

Roster check:
eotinb (just played)
Lord Genghis (up next)
Fobok (in the queue)
Xemu
Giga watt
Eyemaze
(The Caltrop will be a late addition)

Your Lordship, if you would post at least a "got it" message when you have successfully downloaded the save, we would all be quite grateful. If you want to post more than that (to discuss strategy, for instance) feel free to do so. If you don't have the time to play your 20 turns (just for this round, remember) you can ask for a skip or swap.

Japan certainly has a luxurious location! :eek:

That site is screaming "Chick Magnet". :lol:
Ply them with wine, then relax on the silken bedcovers. :groucho:

LOL... certainly looks like Japan will make a good trading partner. This initial continent certainly does seem like it is going to be crowded if we've already met so many people.

Presumably the new world will require Ocean-going vessels to reach? I assume there is no Civ 4 equivalent of sailing alone the icecaps (even if we could find them).

Is that "Horses & Fishes" annotation done with the strategy layer? Cool. :)

Even with all our neighbors it seems like early aggression is just going to slow down our progress to the New World. With a diplo victory in mind and no particular plans for founding our own religion maybe we should take up the religion of our largest neighbors or push for some local religious unity to keep relations positive for free?

With space tight, making Go-like moves to cut off our territory seems wisest for our first expansion...

lurker's comment: Japan certainly has a luxurious location!

That site is screaming "Chick Magnet".
Ply them with wine, then relax on the silken bedcovers.
Now all they need is the Barry White hit single.

This initial continent certainly does seem like it is going to be crowded if we've already met so many people.
I've started a couple and almost finished another Terra game, and they are always crowded. Makes for a different kind of game.

Presumably the new world will require Ocean-going vessels to reach? I assume there is no Civ 4 equivalent of sailing alone the icecaps (even if we could find them).
Almost certainly. In the Terra game I'm wrapping up right now, there is a chain of islands reachable by galley north of the main continent. Room enough for 5 or 6 cities, maybe more, but nothing more than fishing villages. The main empty continents were not reachable until caravels.

Is that "Horses & Fishes" annotation done with the strategy layer? Cool. :)
I agree. :)

Even with all our neighbors it seems like early aggression is just going to slow down our progress to the New World. With a diplo victory in mind and no particular plans for founding our own religion maybe we should take up the religion of our largest neighbors or push for some local religious unity to keep relations positive for free?
The jury is still out on this, but aggression seems pretty difficult until Construction unlocks cats. Once the borders are mostly set, I think we should at least consider taking out one of our neighbors, but we shall see. You are right that we don't want war to take too much out of exploration, which should be our #1 priority. I like your idea of adopting a neighboring religion to improve relations. Obviously we'll have to wait at least until one of our cities gets a religion via the trade network, and even then it makes sense to see what the different factions are turning out to be. But I don't want to devote any shields to spreading someone else's religion and I wouldn't say adopting a religion keeps relations positive "for free."

With space tight, making Go-like moves to cut off our territory seems wisest for our first expansion...
A Go player, excellent. You are now officially in charge of dot maps. :joke:

I am definitely up for it although timing might be an issue going to Orlando or 9 days on Friday.

As to why creative? I like it that cities can be producing +2 culture right off the bat; culture = territory :D.

You've already gone and played your opening turns, so my comment is technically late, but I had a lurker's thought on your hut-dilemma.

In addition to not getting negative results with a scout, one of the best reasons I've found for letting a unit, as opposed to a border pop a hut is that units have a chance to get experience from huts. Now I'm no Civ4 expert, but I don't think I've ever seen a border-popped hut give me anything other than nothing, gold or a tech. I've no idea whether border-popping can give you free units or settlers, or what levels those can kick in on.

Looks like a good game you've got going, I'm gonna keep an eye on it.

PS: Sirian, how do you do those lurker's comments disclaimers?

You've already gone and played your opening turns, so my comment is technically late, but I had a lurker's thought on your hut-dilemma.

In addition to not getting negative results with a scout, one of the best reasons I've found for letting a unit, as opposed to a border pop a hut is that units have a chance to get experience from huts. Now I'm no Civ4 expert, but I don't think I've ever seen a border-popped hut give me anything other than nothing, gold or a tech. I've no idea whether border-popping can give you free units or settlers, or what levels those can kick in on.

Looks like a good game you've got going, I'm gonna keep an eye on it.

PS: Sirian, how do you do those lurker's comments disclaimers?

Excellent point in regards to xp. Which reminds me of a somewhat related question -- does anyone know if it's possible to get a tech from a hut if you pop it before you settle your capital?

As for the lurker disclaimer, enclose the desired text with "delurk" tags.

There totally needs to be more SGs like this.

Good luck. I'll be empathizing with any and all stupid moves...

:dance:

Good turns! lets get the ball a roooollliinngggg

:dance:

Good turns! lets get the ball a roooollliinngggg

I understand and share your enthusiasm, Giga, but a little birdie told me that Lord Genghis happens to live in Australia, so with the time difference it's like Christmas over there or something. :confused:

On a serious note, I tend to be verbose in my turn logs. There's no reason to have as detailed a log as I did -- just write whatever feels right to you. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that at least one of us is not accustomed to manually moving workers, so I think it's a good idea to discuss worker moves at least through the first round, maybe longer. Decisions made in the early turns have long-lasting repurcussions, so let's talk about both what we are doing and why we are doing it -- the best way to learn from each other (and from each other's mistakes). For instance, last I looked, it may be a few turns before we need to improve any of the other tiles around Moscow, so we might as well road out to and pasture the horses so we can build a chariot or two for additional exploration.

In addition to not getting negative results with a scout, one of the best reasons I've found for letting a unit, as opposed to a border pop a hut is that units have a chance to get experience from huts. Now I'm no Civ4 expert, but I don't think I've ever seen a border-popped hut give me anything other than nothing, gold or a tech. I've no idea whether border-popping can give you free units or settlers, or what levels those can kick in on.


My second game of Civ4 I started last night, my scout popped a Settler, and my borders popped a Worker. Within 2 turns! Too bad I have no idea where to actually put cities :( I started with free Agriculture, and there was some corn/rice/something in my first city, so my worker was pretty set doing that and then building a road to the new town. Was only on Warlord.. I dont think Setllers pop on anything higher.

HO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Got it.

Just looking at the save now, will post my plans then we can discuss.

Because this is the Newbie SG, its probably best if everyone discusses what they are planning on doing before actually going ahead with it.

It might make the game a little slower, but I think we will all learn alot from it.

Thoughts?

I think I want a DVD player for X-mas.

The more discussion the better, IMHO. I hope my thoughts on our plans were made clear above.

It might make the game a little slower, but I think we will all learn alot from it.
Thoughts?

Yer, it'll help me too. And I'm not playing.. I'm kinda following along with the saves as well.

No ojections taking it slow from Gigawatt

Thoughts:

Interesting position with both the Japanese and Greeks hemming us in to the South and West.

My plan is as follows (thought I will most likely not be able to get much of it done during my 20 turns):

Production and City Sites

Once the Warrior is produced next turn, I will move to Scout. Normally I would start production on Granary or Barracks then switch to Settler on next pop growth, but because we are so hemmed in, I really want a Scout to start exploring to the NW.

Our Scout on the ground I will send West past Japan to scout (har har) the lands there.

With the Scout produced, I will then move on to our first Settler for the beginning of our land grab. I strongly suggest once that Settler is produced we move immediately to produce another Settler, before another Warrior to garrison/escort the third town. As we are surrounded by other Civs we can most likely risk an unescorted Settler (up for debate though). Then on to Warrior/Archer > Worker > Archers to Garrison > A Third Settler > Granary.

The sites for the second and third cities I suggest as follows:

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/SuspectX/eo11.jpg

Cows, wheat and it blocks Alexander off.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/SuspectX/eo12.jpg

Two possible sites.

Originally I was leaning towards A to cut off Japan, with B as a secondary possibility. But now I believe B is the much better choice, Cows give us health like the rice does (1 less with a Granary there) but they give +1 Food, +2 Hammers as opposed to just the +1 Food from Rice. If Japan goes for the Rice he will find himself with a face full of sand from the Deserts anyway so no real problems giving him the Rice.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/SuspectX/eo13.jpg

An overview.

I think we should settle at the blue dot first, there is a greater chance Greece will be pushing out this way, then that Japan will grab the purple site before us.

Technology and Diplomacy

Once Animal Husbandry is completed, I am thinking we go the Writing > Alphabet > Mathematics > Drama > Music route.

Once Writing is achieved, we can then open our borders up to all Civ's getting the rep bonus. Then when Alphabet comes in we should be able to trade off Writing and/or Alphabet and get some or all the techs we have "missed" such as Archery, Sailing, Mysticism and Bronze Working.

This way we get all the techs and most likely will be up Alphabet on everyone as well receiving another rep bonus for the tech trading.

After Alphabet, the reason I suggest rushing to Music is that not only can we trade the tech as we get them for the ones we miss and rep bonus, but also the first to get Music gets a free Great Artist. Having a Great Artist early I think is important with Japan and Greece so close. With a Great Artist we should have no problems culture bombing one of their cities, getting us another city early as well as slowing down our opponents considerable.

Thats my first War & Peace suggestion thread, what are your thoughts?

Settle plan: I much prefer B to A. I'm leaning towards settling B before blocking off Alex. He may try to escape the bottleneck, but I want to get B-town up and running ASAP because it is going to be very nice. Also, even though I would love to grab a good chunk of the continent, I also realize that given the realities of this map, we probably won't get everything we want. If we can get a good location quickly, all the longer for it to be productive. and closing the choke from B across towards Moscow will serve as a barrier to Tok and an escaped Alex. And gold is a pre-Calendar lux.

Relations: If we are going to use our borders to block off our neighbors, why open the borders and ruin the effect? I agree that it's good to have friends, but IMHO we can wait to sign open borders until we have backfilled.

Tech path: I don't see any need to beeline to Alphabet if we are using our borders to hem in the AI. Can't trade techs without open borders. Also, every tech decision needs to be made in light of getting to the other continent. That doesn't mean we need to head straight to Astronomy, but I don't think we need to worry about getting Music first. At this level we can probably get away with diversions, but on the harder levels, focus is everything so it's good to get in practice now. Anyway, culture bombs don't have that much of an effect against established cities. If Alex were to get one city past his choke, we might be able to flip it with a culture bomb, but no way any city that's already on the map will flip as a result of a culture bomb even if we could plant one right now, much less by the time we get Music. I'd say focus on any more techs that willl allow us to access resources we have or will soon get or are helpful for our growth plan, then Alphabet for libraries, then start looking at unlocking our luxes via Calendar and on to the naval techs. Diversions from the plan are OK but need to be for a specific reason.

Exploration: A warrior is as good as a scout in jungle, and better if he ends up doing escort duty or meets up with the locals. We are almost past the point at which scouts are viable.

Builds for Moscow: Look at the happy faces. Why build a granary if we are going to be stuck at size 5 or 6 until we can get a lux hooked up? Moscow is never going to be very productive, but it can make a lot of gold. With a lighthouse, all those ocean tiles are 2f/3c, like grasslands with villages, and the lake tile is 3f/3c, like a flood plain with a village. And only build a barracks if we're going to be making lots of troops there. Given it's mediocre production potential, I don't think we will. Research boosters, though, will be very nice there once we get the right techs.

I don't want to come across as bossy. This is my opinion of your thoughts. I am not an expert. Please consider this entire post as me lobbying for the strategy I want, not me dictating what you (or anyone) does.

Dont worry about being bossy I think its good to argue each position.

Settle Plan:
Valid point, Purple B is going to be a powerhouse. plus we dont know what is further North and to lose Purple B would be an absolute disaster.

Purple B > Blue, depending on what we see further North.

On relations:
I see what your saying, my argument was going to be that I cant see Alex or Tok going over our lands and then building another city, but looking at one of my games I see thats exactly with the AI did do, so I agree, no Open Borders definately is the better option.

Tech Path:
So Writing for Libraries and then make a beeline for Astronomy?

Also, every tech decision needs to be made in light of getting to the other continent.

Thats interesting, in the few games I have played on Terra I never worried about settling on the other continent. I was always worried about Maintenance costs on cities I settled on the new continent (though I guess they could be reduced with a Forbidden Palace)

Exploration and Moscow Build:
We are almost past the point at which scouts are viable.

What did you mean by this?

Very valid point, Warrior instead of Scout as we will need him for Garrison duty anyway.

So after current Warrior is built then, Warrior > Settler > Warrior/Archer > Worker > Archers to Garrison > A Third Settler > Lighthouse.

I think you make some very valid points and beelining for the other continent is something I havent done before so would be great to try it out.

So the basic city plan is:
Moscow: Money Tree
Purple B: Production Powerhouse

I will leave a little bit of time for some more comments then I will get my turns out the way.

Maintenance wasn't actually too bad when I played Terra, and the value of those cities helped a lot. Only the massive numbers of barbarians on the second continent gave me any trouble. This was at warlord, though, so it might be different higher.

@Lord Genghis: Glad we agree. As far as maintenance, you are eaclty right that a FP on the other continent would help a lot with the costs. But we don't really need a lot f cities, just a lot of people (to have more votes in the UN). We want to have the New World settled enough that by the time the AI discovers it and is ready to transport settlers, there is hardly any land left to grab.

@Fobok: Yeah, we'll have to be ready for the barbs over there, but they also will have done lots of the work for us. They may not pick the best city sites, but even if we raze their cities, the tiles will be improved some.

Edit: On the scouts, once there are a decent number of barbs afoot, scouts are just asking to be killed. They are useful for two reasons: fast movement in flatlands and no bad results from huts. Once we hook up our horses, chariots will be just as good for movement and most of the huts are probably gone anyway.

Pre-turn: Nothing to do, so lets get these turns moving!

2800BC: Warrior completes in Moscow, send him NW to explore, start production on new Warrior, 4 turns to pop increase. Scout heads West.

2760BC: Worker completes farm, set to build Road to Purple B. (Be interesting to hear comments if a different improvement would have been better) The completed Farm on the Rice has dropped the pop increase in Moscow to 2 turns.

2720BC: Meet the Chinese.

2680BC:

2640BC: Warrior completes, Settler in 13. The Warrior scouting North discovers that the northern lands end in sea very quickly. We really are hemmed in!! Good thing we are planning on discovering the New World because it is unlikely we are going to be able to build many cities here. I like that we are so hemmed in though, definately adds another dimension to this SG.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/SuspectX/eo14.jpg

2600BC: Continue to explore, Scout reaches a Hill. For those of you that dont know, Hills give a larger line of sight compared to normal terrain. So when exploring in the early Ages if you can send your Scout hill hopping it exposes a lot more of the land. After this move Scout ended up right next to some Lions!

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/SuspectX/eo15.jpg

IBT: Scout is Victorious! Promotes to Woodsmen I and only lost 0.2 Health so will keep him moving.

2560BC:

2520BC: Continuing to explore, Warriors defeat Wolves.

2480BC: Meet Caesar, Animal Husbandry completes, move to Writing (12), after Writing, Sailing > Maths > Calender seems like the best path to enable us to produce Plantations on our luxuries as well as moving us towards our meta-goal of Astronomy. (I think thats the first time I have ever used meta-goal in a sentect, correct usage? haha)

2440BC: Continuing to explore. Discover some gold, stone and wine to the West.

2400BC:

2360BC:

2320BC: Horses and incense further West. Not a lot of resources around us.

2280BC:

2240BC: Meet the Spanish.

2200BC:

2160BC:

2120BC: Settlers complete. Begin a new Settler. Scouts discover Arabian lands to our far NW.

2080BC: Purple B is founded!! (Feel free to change the name by clicking on the City Name in the City Screen. Purple B has such a nice ring to it though!) Construction begins on a Warrior in Purple B.

2040BC: Workers begin on Pasture near Purple B. Writing completes, I began researching Archery, the Barbs can be pretty cruel in this game so would feel alot safer with Archers in our cities. Next player feel free to switch it out, but personally I think Archery, then as suggested above.

2000BC: And my reign comes to an end. Next city site will most likely be Blue indicated in my earlier post. Where we are going to build further West is not quite clear yet, I have sent the Scout North East, but we are going to be blocked in by Saladin and Tokugawa sooner rather then later.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/SuspectX/eo16.jpg

Very interesting map this one, looks like its going to be a fun, challenging game.

Good luck Fobok!

Roster check:
eotinb
Lord Genghis (just played)
Fobok (up next)
Xemu (in the queue)
Giga watt
Eyemaze
(The Caltrop will be a late addition)

Savefile: 102478

Got the file! I'll post my ideas in a few minutes.

Great job, LG. One nitpick and then my substantive comments.

Nitpick: Full screenshots cause your post to go wider than my current resolution, meaning that I have to slide back and forth to read your text. A common way around this problem is to either crop the screenshots or put them in a separate post after your log.

Important stuff: I agree that a city in the south to grab the wheat and seal off Alex should be next. After that, I would be content to close the gap between that city and Purple B and claim the NE of this continent for ourselves. If we miss the blue dot, I'd say fall back to the incense and close the borders there. That jungle land up north is nasty now, but once it's cleared away, it will make a very nice spot for some cottage industry.

As for resources, we don't have a super abundance, but we should be able to control 5 health bonuses (fish, cows, rice, wheat, and bananas) and maybe a clam or something depending on what the fog off the coast reveals. And four happiness bonuses is not bad (dyes, silk, gold, and incense). And we already see that Tok's got plenty of wine to share with us when the time comes.

Your research strategy makes sense to me.

I'll take a look at the save and see if anything else stands out.

Edit: Forgot to mention before, but once we get a little more settled, I'd like to get a galley out to explore along the coast, perhaps with a settler and archer on board. Might find a nice spot behind someone's lines that we could poach of perhaps some islands with a nice resource or two we don't have. this is not a priority, just something to keep in mind.

Moscow is currently running at +1 happy faces. we don't want to let it grow past 5 until we get the gold hooked up.

Really good idea re: galley + settler, depending on how the next few turns of exploration go.

I will make sure I cut down the pics in Ifranview next time for ya.

Ok, well looking around, my first thought is to try to balance the economy out a little more. Losing -1 a turn with the gold we have now is ok, but once we add another city that's going to drop to more difficult levels. So, my first thought was to bring research down to 90%, but taking a look at Moscow simply setting the governer to commerce should help.

I think, once the workers are done near Purple B, I think I'll send them to build a pasture on those horses and link it with a road, so we'll be able to build chariots.

Besides that, I think I'll stick to the plan as previously discussed. Sound ok?

Oh, is 20 turns for the first round still the plan?

Edit: Oh, sorry this took so long to post. Couldn't connect to the site for a while.

Go 20 Fobok, looking around, alot of SG's are going first two players 20, then 10 after that. Go 20 and see how it works, then suggest whatever to the next player.

Ok, well looking around, my first thought is to try to balance the economy out a little more. Losing -1 a turn with the gold we have now is ok, but once we add another city that's going to drop to more difficult levels. So, my first thought was to bring research down to 90%, but taking a look at Moscow simply setting the governer to commerce should help.
I'd wait until the settler finishes before doing this, but I think it's the right approach then. Moscow should be a money-making mecca.

I think, once the workers are done near Purple B, I think I'll send them to build a pasture on those horses and link it with a road, so we'll be able to build chariots.
I like this plan (in fact, I think I was the first to suggest it :)), but for now I think it's more important to get the gold hooked up once Purple B expands. Go ahead and build the road in advance of growing borders, that should work out pretty well. At that point, if there is nothing better to do, hook up the horses.

Oh, is 20 turns for the first round still the plan?
I don't see why not. But nothing is in stone. If you are getting bogged down and only want to play 10 (or 15 or whatever) just post the save then.

Ok, up to 1800 BC and ran into a snag.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg

Alex escaped before the settler was even built. (4 turns away.)

Should I go for an alternate settling spot?

Edit: Going to keep going until I get those 4 turns done, then I'll wait for an answer, things may change by then even more anyway.

Disappointing but not terrible.

I would suggest settling on either Red or Green.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/SuspectX/eo17.jpg

Green is essential after Red and then from there, another just to the West of it for the Cows and Horses and hopefully at least some cities on this continent.

It is a bit too far away at the moment though and if we went for it and Japan settled near Red it would be a disaster.

My suggestion would be settle on Red then pump out another Settler straight away to capture Green. Red gives us Rice and Gold in the City borders and the Rice and floodplains will help fuel quick growth.

Blue probably would be doable still, but if Alex or Tok settled on Red we would have to go to war to expand. Red will bottle Alex and set a landing point for us to get some more spots on this continent.

At the end of the day though your in control, so take these words as purely suggestion and do whatever you want to do.

Looks like this is going to be a fun game.

Ok, quick update. As of the turn where the settler was built, this is the situation (marking both your red dot location and a suggestion of my own:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/Situationasof1640BC.jpg

It's going to take time to expand Purple B to cover that gap, and it gives Alex the chance tio build in or get past us. If we build where the yellow dot is, it'll a) Potentially cut Alex off from both gold and wine right there, and b) consolidate the corner of the world we do hold. The yellow dot isn't very good for food, though, which is a problem. The red dot is better for food, but doesn't really cut off Tokugawa or Alex, and we could still be cut off anyway.

Your green dot is also so far away that we could be cut off from it totally within just a few turns. Yeah, we can spam settlers and *try* to cover the area between, but the longer we build settlers, the less growth we have in our cities. I think it might be better to consolidate our peninsula and use the other continent to expand than trying to grab such a huge space on this continent, slowing us down from going to the other.

Definately a good map for us SG virgins...decisions, decisions.

I think we have to go with Red Dot, if we settle anywhere first and Tok builds north, we are only going to be seriously hemmed in and Astronomy is a long way off. If Alex grabs the gold and wine it isnt a total disaster, Tok blocking us off would be.

Thats just my 2 cents, building on yellow and then gearing up for a New World settling extravaganza would be good fun and add a nice twist to this game, so happy either way.

I prefer the area of the yellow dot, but not the dot itself. One to the east would allow us to build coastal improvements and leave fewer unproductive tiles in the city radius. And it would still seal off our corner once it's borders expand. Then we might consider extending an arm down between Japan and Greece along the best spots as our settlers get there. Things are always crowded on a Terra map, so I won't be too surprised if we end up in our corner.

Yeah, that position is better. I'll go for it, I think. :) *gets back to turns*

I prefer Red dot myself. If we don't take it, I think Tok will before long and potentially cut us off even worse. The gold and wine would be nice but we know Alex just expanded so I think that buys us a window of time before he immediately expands again.

Also isn't the spot one east of yellow as you mention on a Desert? I've never built a city on a zero-resource tile, do you actually get anything out of it?

Then again, I preferred red dot over our actual second city, so that's no surprise. :)

The tech path talked about above sounds fine to me as well barring any surprises.

Also isn't the spot one east of yellow as you mention on a Desert? I've never built a city on a zero-resource tile, do you actually get anything out of it?
All city centers get at least 2f/1s/1g. By settling on the desert, we make that tile useful and spare a grasslands for growth.

I like the looks of Red Dot, myself. Alex just plopped down a city, I think you've got a decent sized window to claim [shifted east] Yellow Dot before he settles another. With all that happy juice in Japan, I think your window to claim Red Dot is much smaller.

I'm liking this game a lot. Watching the RB games is fun, but it's like watching sports on TV. You know you're not good enough to be out there yourself. But you guys play much closer to my level. :D

Bob

I should have waited a bit longer before finishing my turns, but wanted to get this done before I went off-net at noon. Sorry! I really do feel though, that even taking red, we'll be cut off in that direction anyway, and while the red dot wouldn't have been too bad, any further west we extend will bring up maintenance costs to the point we can't afford until we consolidate some.

0 2000 BC: Nothing to do, started my turns.

1 1960 BC: We're second-wealthiest civilization, under Alexander. Continued sending warrior south and Scout north, exploring.

2 1920 BC: Found coast with both explorers.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/1920a.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/1920b.jpg

3 1880 BC: Worker finishes on cows, Purple B expands, start worker on building a road to the gold.

4 1840 BC: Warrior and Archery finishes. Send warrior to Moscow to prepare to escort the settler that's still # turns away. Start building Archer in Purple B, done in 6 turns. Researching Sailing, done in 8 turns.

5 1800 BC: Saladin offers open borders. I refuse, per discussion. Exploring the coast near Saladin, I find an island with horses. (See previous screenshots.) Looks like Alex already cut off our attempt to bind him in!

6 1760 BC: More horses discovered.

7 1720 BC: Workers start on mine. Warrior arrives in Moscow, fortifying until Settler's ready.

8 1680 BC: Judaism Founded in a distant land.

9 1640 BC: Settler built, building Archer in moscow. Settler sent out (with warrior escort) to eotinb's suggestion.

10 1600 BC: Archer at Purple B built, building a second to send to new city when built. Will switch to worker after third population.

11 1560 BC: Sailing finishes. Change mind and start building lighthouse at Purple B. Start Mathematics. 18 turns until complete. Remember and set Moscow to commerce, and lower science to 90%, mathematics move to 15 turns away. Mine finishes, starting road.

12 1520 BC: Build St. Petersburg one east of yellow dot. Start building lighthouse for now. Arabian lands block exploration North, taking scout South and west again.

13 1480 BC: Got access to gold! Sending worker to start connecting other gold resource, since we need more luxuries more than chariots right now.

14 1440 BC: Rome offers open borders, I refuse. Scouts almost encounter barbarians, but seem to get away.

15 1400 BC: Tokugawa converts to Buddism. Two other civs buddist now. (Saladin is the other.) Purple B grows to 3, switch to worker. 8 turns away.

16 1360 BC:

17 1320 BC: St. Petersburg expands, giving us the wine and blocking off our corner, and also grabs 2 squares of space from Sparta.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/1320.jpg

18 1280 BC: Worker starts mine. Done in 5 turns.

19 1240 BC:

20 1200 BC: My final turn. Alex offers open borders, I refuse. Moscow produces archer, switches to Settler. Isabella adopts Slavery.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/round1final1.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/round1finalb.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/eo1_BC-1200.Civ4SavedGame

Roster check:
eotinb
Lord Genghis
Fobok (just played)
Xemu (up next)
Giga watt (in the queue)
Eyemaze
(The Caltrop will be a late addition)

Well I head out tomorrow for 9 days. Not sure where that will leave me.

I am also now having CTDS frequently after a flawless first few days. :(


Looking interesting so far though!

@Eyemaze: Let us know when you get back. Until then, we will skip you. Sound OK?

@Fobok: Nicely done. Every time I hook up a new lux, I check my cities to see if I had any set to not grow because they were at max happiness. Haven't checked the save, so I don't know how Moscow is doing in this regard. Given the settlers coming out of there, it's probably not too close to the break-even point.

@Xemu: You're up, and feel free to try for the red dot. I feel much better now that our corner is sealed off. If we can pull of sending a tentacle out between Tok and Alex, that'd be nice -- maybe something in the vicinity of red dot and something along the coast west of Sparta? Seems like this is a crossroads. We can consolidate and build infrastructure, including working on backfilling our lands, or we can try to be a buffer between our closest neighbors. If we were to go all the way to the coast west of Sparta, we might be able to put enough pressure on Sparta to flip it -- I honestly don't know enough about the way flipping works to be sure. Alternatively, we might consider taking Sparta at some point in the future -- with a decent navy (which we should have, given our plans) and that choke, we could probalby take Sparta, push Alex back into his bottle, and he wouldn't be able to retaliate easily.

@team: Earlier I shot down Lord Genghis' plan to beeline to Alphabet and trade for missed techs because we didn't want open borders that soon. My mistake, as you can trade techs with closed borders. Soemthing to consider.

Also, with all of our towns (so far at least) being on the coast, both the Great Lighthouse and the Colussus would be very nice wonders to snag. Might make sense to build some mines, etc. around Purple B and get that city cranking out the hammers for such projects.

Looking good so far!

I am fine with being skipped until I get back.

Hm... we probably will need at least one 'home' religion for our empire. The Shrine income alone makes it a good strategic move; and if we spread it to our neighbors, allows us to create stauch allies. Plus, I'd really love to try out this new feature in the game!

I say we shoot for either Christianity or Islam, because those are the only ones left. ;)

Caltrop, the problem with going for a religion at this point is that we don't have the prerequisite techs. If that's the direction we want to go, we should hurry to Alphabet and trade for as many religious techs as we can. Personally, I think it's a distraction from our exploration goals. You're right that the shrine income is nice, but that too requires more than a little effort, spreading our faith around with missionaries. As far as alliances, we can get the same effect by adopting their religions -- no need to foist one of our own off on them. I totally understand giving the new feature a test drive -- I certainly did this in my own games. But one of my goals for this SG was to explore some different aspects than the other ongoing SGs. Hence the Terra map, the diplomatic victory goal, and the leader selection. And remember that not chasing a religion does not mean we are ignoring this new feature -- coping with religion when you are not a founder is still exploring the new feature, just in a different way.

By the way, do you have the game yet?

Working on it. Game will be in my possossion by next week at the latest... If I can just get a chance to go to the store for once! Grr...

Don't worry, I'm on it. I'll have it before the cycle finishes 2 revolutions.

I may be out of town this weekend, so If Im up by then and Im not around, just skip :)

Also, from my experience Ive found getting alphabet fast for tech trading has done me well, because everyone has spred techs and if you hold aphabet for a bit you can get pretty well off

Just downloaded the save, playing now...

Giga, if you could check in before you go, that'd be great. Otherwise I might end up waiting all weekend for you.

Ok eotinb, I will :)

(0) 1200 BC: Someone unknown builds Stonehenge.

(1) 1160 BC: I tweak the workers in Moscow a little to get our next settler in 16, not 24 turns (at the expense of a few commerce). Scout explores and it looks like Chinese and Japanese are filling in the territory to the west.

(2) 1120 BC: Nothing much, Isabella has a scout running around near our border Warrior too.

(3) 1080 BC: We enter the Classical era with our discovery of Mathematics! I set us on the path to Alphabet, though picking up Bronze Working or Masonry now that they are becoming super cheap is awfully tempting.

Purple B celebrates by adopting a new name, Purple Bee, and now "abuzz" with activity they finish their worker and start in on a Lighthouse. Said worker heads over to work on connecting the Rice to our trade network.

(4) 1040 BC: Not much activity, just continued exploration around Japan's borders.

(5) 1000 BC: Uh oh, our scouts discover a new Japanese settlement...

http://xemu.blogharbor.com/eo1,%20ss1.jpg

Well, should still give us some space to expand a little in that direction but we aren't going to be cutting off the space between the Arabs and Japan it seems.

(6) 975 BC: Our rice enters the trade network, as does our second gold if we need it for trade purposes. We start a Cottage outside Moscow.

(7) 950 BC: Fairly uneventful. We begin a Farm in the North Moscow area.

(8) 925 BC: Alexander sends out a stack with a settler & 2 archers into the "neutral zone" between him, us, and Japan.

http://xemu.blogharbor.com/eo1,%20ss2.jpg

Our next settler is still quite a few turns away, so looks like we may have to look elsewhere to settle. Maybe start filling in the area NE of Moscow?

(9) 900 BC: China offers Open Borders, we decline. Purple Bee's new Lighthouse finishes and we start in on an Archer. One idea for expansion might be to take a Galley and claim the smaller islands we discovered to the North?

Far to the west, we discover the edge of Caesar's empire.

(10) 875 BC: Our Cottage finishes, and I send that worker over to St. Pete to maybe put another one down there. The Greek settler / archer stack heads westward.

Oh, and here is the save... took me a bit to figure out how to attach it.

Solid, Xemu. I'm not surprised about the Greco-Japanese buffer zone. Seems now is the time to consolidate and build up some serious infrastructure. As far as future settlements, let's come up with a way to get the maximum use out of our limited land. We want useful cities, but we also want as many cities as we can reasonably fit. Once we figure out where we want additional cities, let's plop some settlers down in the places that will fill in our borders, then open those borders and start building relations and getting foreign trade routes going. And we don't want to forget the military, if for no other reason than to keep the AI off our backs.

Unless there are water resources, island cities will be slow-growing, so they are a low priority.

Roster check:
eotinb (in the queue, I think)
Lord Genghis
Fobok
Xemu (just played)
Giga watt (up next if weekend plans don't interfere)
Eyemaze (out of town)
The Caltrop (got to get to the store)

This is now going to be a very interesting game. The buffer was always going to happen, we could of avoided it, but this makes for a much better game I think. With only maybe 4 or 5 cities on this continent its going to be entertaining to see how we come out.

Astronomy is a LONNNNNNNNNG way away.

Very interesting game. As a newbie, I'm learning much. Both by reading the comments an playing a bit with the saves.

I hope there will be more newbie games for me to take part in. Would there be people interested in running another one soon ?

Glad you're getting something out of this Axle. I really should have had a smaller roster (something I've learned from this SG), but I wanted to accomodate as many as I could and didn't know if there would be enough interest for two games. But there are a few lurkers who seemed interested. Speak up if you want me to start another newbie SG. And Caltrop, how do you feel about switching to a second one, if we get it going?

Got it, and checking it out

Edit: The settler is due in 7 turns, so i think we should discuss where to put him.
I marked two spots that dont look too bad, the one NE of Moscow is a good one for inferstructure, but the other one gets a chunk of land, wich I think we could use
and incase you didnt guess, Im free this weekend, but Im worried about screwing these up. so Ill spend some time and thought

Pic (http://www.golddisksoftware.com/civ.png)

My vote is red dot. I reckon all the 'back area' is ours for the taking, other empires will not be getting that land any time soon. By grabbing red dot, we get extra land... After this, we'll not likely get much extra land.

So... Red Dot, the fill in the back of our peninsula.

EDIT: If you think it is best, Eotib, I will go on to EO2 instead of this current game.

Ok, red dot it is, working on them now

Turn 0:
Nothing Midtern.

Turn 1:
Rename the two Workers to Worker A and B.
Worker A in SW and B in the NE.
Worker A begins building a cottage.

Turn 1 mid:
Spain asks for Open borders, I decline.
Turn 2:
Worker B finishes Farm, I start a road, to try and get those horses conntectable, we might need them :scan:
Turn 3:
Archer Finishes, move him to Red dot location.
Worker B finishes road.
Turn 4: set workerB to build a farm the tile left of the one he was working, we could use the growth is moscow.
Some Barbs near Purple Bee, I move the warrior to the cows to make sure they dont pillage.
WorkerA finishes cottage and I move him to the West to make another.
Turn 5:
We get Alphabet, I stop here to disucuss Tech Trades.
Heres what we got:
Japan:Up sailing,potery,Writing,farming. He wont trade: myst,masonry,bronze.
Saladin: up writing and Animal Husbandry, will trade myst,masonry,bronze.
Mao: up none, will trade same as Saladin
Ceaser;Up pottery, math, alphabet, Will trade same as Saladin
greece: up writing, will trade myst and bronze, wont masonry
Isabella: up math, alphabet, Will trade same as saladin.

So, we are down Myst masonry and bronze, and we can prolly trade To one for those and hopefully reveal further techs.

Comments?
Ok, from my tests heres our deals
Saladin will take our two for two of his
Isabell will give us all of her 3 for our two
Rome till take pott/math or pott/alphabet for all 3.
Also, we have a barb archer coming to moscow, looks like I will have to Cancel worker B because the our archer I dont think will make it.
Cancel that, our archer can defend our workers =)

On the tech trades, I'd say spread it out to get as much as we can while keeping the advanced techs (Math, Alphabet). The last thing we want to trade is Alphabet, as that will eliminate our monopoly on tech trades. But that monopoly won't last forever. Of the things we can get, BW is the highest priority, IMHO, and Mysticism is the lowest. I believe that you can't trade for more advanced techs on the same turn that you trade to get their prerequisites, so check again next turn. That's also a good reason to hold your high-value techs back on the first round if you can. Another good reason to spead the love is to help as many relationships as we can. I think that two 1-for-1 trades are better than one 2-for-2 trade (especially if the "1" on our side is the same in both deals -- then it essentailly becomes a 1-for-2).

Although we want to cultivate good relations with our immediate neighbors, we are likely to have at least some negatives just from proximity ("Our close borders spark tensions" or some such) and it's too early to tell what the religious situaiton will be. It might be best to make trades to become friends with whoever is west of Japan (the same would hold true if someone were on the other side of Alex, but that seems unlikely).

Side note: How can you tell what they will and won't take without actually submitting the deal? Is there an equivalent of the civ3 foreign advisor who would allow tell you in advance if a deal would work?

I ask them "what do you want for the deal" or something like that, and if they say this will work, then I know.

for Math/Pottery we can get all the visible techs we are behind with, from only 1 civ, I think they prolly have a bunch more down that tree.
and some civs we know dont even have writing

edit: rest of turns when I wake up =)

Turn 5 continue:
WorkerA starts cottage.
Archer reaches spot for Red dot.
Trade math and pottery to Ceaser, no other techs available for trading, were at the top :cool:
Barbs attack warriors on the pig, we win, lost 1.2
Turn 6
Finish setler, start lighthouse because I see us working on an water tile.
Writing and Animal to Saladin for Iron working
Arhcer attacks barb archer by moscow and wins, loose 2.3
Turn 7
Giga red is built and start on an obolisk.
We have iron one tile next to St. Petersburg!
Another barb archer, I move the victorius archer and fortify him.
Turn 8
St petersburg finishes Lighthouse->granery
Barb pillages a cottage because the archer haddent healed enough to attack :(
turn 9
Kill the barb archer.
turn 10
Nothing =/

I'll take a look at the save and either come back with discussion or just play my 10 turns. (Reminder: We are now out of the first round and playing 10 turns at a time.) Too bad about the cottage, but these things happen. We need more military. I'm not sure we need obelisks in new towns, since we get +2 culture/turn from creative and the ob only gives 1. Certainly not the highest priority, so I'll probably change that build. On the other hand, given the new city's location it might need all the cultural help it can get.


Roster check:
eotinb (got it)
Lord Genghis (in the queue)
Fobok
Xemu
Giga watt (just played)
Eyemaze (out of town)
The Caltrop (out of this SG and into eo2)

Red dot really needs the culture, so I decided for an obolisk, since itll grab us a good chunk of land.

Since we are going to be hemmed in we could opt for war but personally I hope we dont. Most of my games have been big sprawled out affairs so it would be nice to play a game with only a handful of cities (at least til Astronomy) to show that it can be done, plus we are going for a Diplomatic victory and all.

Speaking of which, I think we should open the borders to everyone once we have laid down the city to our East. It helps Diplomatic relations and with no other land to grab I can see no downsides.

Pre-turn: Not sure why we're building a library in Purple Bee -- that's a production town, so a library's not a priority. Also, no need to farm around Moscow -- that's our commerce/research town, so cottages everywhere (except the forests -- we want some production for buildings, appropriate wonders, etc.). If you don't have anything better to do with a worker (which is not the case at this point, we need more, more, more!) I find that roading and clearing future resources is a good investment of worker turns. I've been thinking more about city specialization, and with that in mind I took another look at our cities and their potential. Here's my idea:
Moscow -- commerce, to be put into research. All science multiplying buildings and wonders go here.
Purple Bee -- production, including troops. West Point, that Epic that halves unit production times (National or Heroic -- I always get them confused -- I think it's Heroic)
St. Petersburg -- Not great for anything, but maybe a second fiddle for production. Perhaps a naval center? I understand why we put a city here (it was my idea after all :)) but there's not a lot of great tiles here.
Giga Red -- enough surplus food from rice and flood plains to be a decent specialist factory. Eventually we can chain farm all those plains.
Future northern cities -- assuming grasslands under all that jungle and no close-by source of fresh water, they will be good additional cottage cities.
Horse/fish town -- Not sure, I didn't take too close a look at this location.
This is not written in stone, but think about what you are building in each town along these kind of lines.

I also did some preliminary planning for our future cities, seen here:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot008.jpg
Location will depend on what the offshore fog reveals.
The culture button on the world map is nice, and it reminds me that St. Petes is in more need of culture than Giga Red at the moment:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot009.jpg

475 (1):...
450 (2):...
425 (3): Purple Bee finishes library (it was so close that I left it), starts on barracks.
400 (4):...
375 (ST): Izzy comes asking for Math, I turn her down. Maybe this was a bad idea, but we're not very close yet and I just didn't feel generous. Calendar comes in and I start on Compass. :aargh: I just realized we finished Calendar before the obelisk in Giga Red, making it obsolete before it even hit the ground. I should have caught this.
375 (5): I switch PurpB to emphasizing production and no growth (at max happy faces until we get the dyes hooked up), speeding build of barracks significantly. I also delete the obelisk build in Giga Red (although the hammers are still saved until they eventually decay) and start on a granary.
350 (6):...
325 (7): I max out research, as we can take running in the red for a while (-5gpt with 187 in the kitty).
300 (8):...
275 (9):...
250 (10): PurpB finishes barracks, starts on Great Lighthouse. We need more units, in a bad way (see pic below), but I couldn't resist this since almost all of our towns are coastal.

Summary: Pretty slow set of turns. I bet we have Optics before we build our first naval unit. Warrior up north did reveal some clams, which should change my plan for northern settlements.

The save. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/eo1_BC-0250.Civ4SavedGame)

Hopeless is a bit strong, but we aren't making anyone shake in their boots. Also, it worries me that Alex is so strong. We need more defenders down south quickly.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot010.jpg

The clams.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/eotinb/eo1/eo1_shot011.jpg

Edit: I forgot the save. Bad me. :spank:

Roster check:
eotinb (played the night away)
Lord Genghis (at the plate)
Fobok (on deck)
Xemu
Giga watt
Eyemaze (out of town)

Got it.

Will have a look at it in the morning and hopefully get through the turns.

I dunno if itll get to me in the next 3-4 days but my HDD just fried so I wont beable to play till I get a new one(its on its way right now) but Ill prolly have it in a few days

I ended up being extremely busy the last few days, and was worried that I'd missed my turn. Glad I didn't, but also kind of curious. Any news, Genghis?

Yeah, we seem to have stalled... what's the usual protocol for this sort of thing?

I didn't have a strict skipping policy because I wanted to give the noobies some lattitude. But since it has been a while without any word from Genghis, I'll go ahead and skip him. Fobok, you're up.

Roster check:
eotinb
Lord Genghis (fell off the planet)
Fobok (up)
Xemu (on deck)
Giga watt
Eyemaze (still out of town?)

Got it. :)

My computer is back in action.

Sorry it's taking so long. Had some problems with system lag, but finally thought to do a spyware scan and it seems to have been fixed. Going to reboot now just to be safe, then check out the savefile.

Uh-oh! Only on my second turn and Alexander declares. Here's the situation:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/War.jpg

There's no way those warriors can handle those swordsmen. Should I upgrade them to axemen, for the 50% bonus vs. melee units? It would probably give us enough bonus to defend, though it'd be a roll of the dice whether it does.

Or... is there some other ideas what to do? Or, any ideas what I should do for after the coming battle? I'm thinking focus on building up a bit more in the way of defenses, then switch to offensive to start taking the fight back to him.

Yes! upgrade!! thatll be our only chance!
Also move a unit from another city just incase we loose him we dont wanna loose the city

I agree that upgrading to axeman is the way to go, continue building an archer and send someone else in case we survive the first wave. The reinforcements should not come from our east coast towns, in expectation of a galley or two from Alex. This will be a great opportunity to build up our military -- first for defense and then for a counter-attack.

0 250BC: Didn't see much that needed discussing, so started my turns.

1 225BC: Move worker to second dye. Other worker starts building road on rice. St. Petersburg at max health so switching to max production until Granary's built.

2 200BC: Alexander Declares War! Saladin offers open borders, I refuse, per previous decision. lighthouse completed in Moscow, begin working on Axeman. Switch St. Petersburg to Archer, move another on route to St. Petersburg. Upgraded St. Petersburg warrior to Axeman.

3 175BC: Alex attacked St. Petersburg with swordsman, we won. Axeman at 2.3/5 health. Worker moves and builds road between Giga Red and rice.

4 150BC: Finish Compass, start construction so we'll be able to build catapults, a vital component of any counterattack against Alex. Archer arrives in St. Petersburg. Bring research down to 90% again, since we're starting to get low on funds, and we may need to do some upgrading.

5 125BC: Worker starts to move up so we can build towards horses. Scout trapped in west.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/Scouttrapped.jpg

6 100BC: Scout killed in west. Archer trained in St. Petersburg. Start sworsman. Check archman vs. next wave of attacker, 5.0 vs 5.5, decide to hold him in fortification.

7 75BC: No attack comes. He's going for the mine! Decide to risk an attack. Get totally wiped. Moscow's at 7/7 so do best to delay growth. Auto-management isn't sufficient this time, so manually adjust.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/75bc.jpg

8 50BC: Mao Zedong offers trade, rice for sheep. Both +1 health, so even trade, I accept for diplomatic reasons... or, well, I mean to accept, hit wrong button when alt-tabbing out to write this note, and accidently cancel. So, I go back and offer. Alex attacks with both attacking units, injures but promotes both archers. Choose city defence for both.

9 25 BC: Alex attacks again. Kills an archer. Worker finishes first horse road, moves on. Starts pasture, done in 4 turns, but still need road in that actual square.

10 1 AD: Archers successfully defend St. Petersburg, and finish healing to full. Worker finishes plantation, next turn build a route and we'll have our second Dye. Construction's two turns away.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/StPetersburgFinal.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/FinalOutline.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/Fobok/Civ%204%20SG%20-%20eo1/FinalOutline2.jpg

Roster check:
eotinb
Lord Genghis
Fobok (just finished)
Xemu (up)
Giga watt (in the queue)
Eyemaze (still out of town?)

Good job repelling Alex's initial wave, and Construction was the right call for research IMHO. I don't see the need to attack pillagers unless you have good odds or enough extra forces to spare. Given that we don't know what else might be coming up out of Greece, having plenty of defense makes more sense to me. Anyway, once we build up a counterpunch force, Greece will be ours.

I am back home now after 9 fun days in Orlando with perfect weather :)

Looking forward to taking the plate.

Welcome back, Eyemaze. Glad you had a good time in Orlando and as you can see we didn't get too far without you. Your turn is coming up pretty soon.

I'll try and do my turn tonight. It looks like Alexander might be on a pretty restricted spit of land, so hopefully we can (eventually) take the fight to him and annex his land completely, which would be nice.

I haven't done a lot of ancient warfare in the game yet so it will be interesting to see how this turns out!

Wopse, my bad for not checking up on this sooner, sorry!
Just finished a occ with all religions but buddism, was hella fun.

Gah, got caught up in family stuff last night, but should be able to hit it today.

So, dumb question, but I don't see the save game attached to Fobok's post?

So, dumb question, but I don't see the save game attached to Fobok's post?

Ack! Sorry!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/eo1_AD-0001.Civ4SavedGamehttp://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/eo1_AD-0001.Civ4SavedGame

Got the save. FYI, that link didn't work until I manually edited it... it's like two URLs jammed together (in case anyone else was getting it to shadow).

I dont have my disks this weekend, so if you finish some one else can switch me

(0) 1 AD : Atrocity! As I advance the turn the Greeks take St. Petersberg and raze it to the ground!

http://xemu.blogharbor.com/eo1%20turn2%201.jpg

(1) 25 AD: The invading Swordsman is barely alive, so I send the Archer from Moscow out to try and finish him off.

(2) 50 AD : The archer gambit works, and the battle-crazed Swordsman attacks our fully healthy Archer. The Archer is victorious and heads back to Moscow for a victory parade. They need some cheering up in Moscow, as the new Axeman division that was being heralded as the solution to our security problems has been halted, as the Iron mines now lie in the no-mans-land betwen us and the evil Greeks.

Meanwhile, our researchers finish Construction and I set them to work on the secrets of Metal Casting... direct progress towards Optics and gets us closer to Crossbows.

(3) 75 AD: Giga Red switches around some workers for more production... that granary is nice and all but we need to get more troops on the group.

Greek archers are sighted not far from Giga Red, in Tokugawa's land.

(4) 100 AD: The Greek archers move into our territory, menacing Giga Red but there is nothing nearby for them to pillage. I change around some production in Moscow to increase production and to switch to a Chariot now that we have Horses available.

(5) 125 AD: Nothing other than the war drums of the Greek archers getting closer to Giga Red.

(6) 150 AD: The archers pillage our Rice Farm.

(7) 175 AD: Mao offers us open borders but I refuse in line with long standing Russian tradition. The Granary, a sign of happier times in Giga Red finally finishes and the citizens put away their plowshares and begin working on swords for a new Chariot division.

(8) 200 AD: The Greek archers move up to menace the mines near Giga Red, and another Greek unit, this time Axeman, arrives SE of Giga Red. The citizens question whether maybe an Archer would have been a timelier choice to build there.

(9) 225 AD: The Greek archers attack Giga Red directly, but are easily repelled by our stalwart defenders. There is even more cause for celebration, as the Great Lighthouse is completed! The citizenry there quickly puts their leftover materials towards a Chariot division.

http://xemu.blogharbor.com/eo1%20turn2%202.jpg

(10) 250 AD: Mao tries to shake us down for the secrets of the Alphabet, and Caesar talks to us about Open Borders. Both are rejected, though we should start thinking about finding some allies here...

The Greek Axemen attack Giga Red and are repelled, but only barely. Fortunately the defenders gain some experience which will be handy in fighting off future waves. Also, the Chariot in Purple Bee is finished and heads down to help defend Giga Red, while they begin work on a Catapult.

That Chariot is going to be needed, because here's what headed for Giga Red...

http://xemu.blogharbor.com/eo1%20turn2%203.jpg

A somewhat ominous turn of events... even with their new veteran upgrades I'm not sure that Giga Red can hold against that. Also we need to get a Settler going somewhere in there to reclaim the area that was St. Pete before the Greeks do.

Here's the save:

Roster check:
eotinb
Lord Genghis
Fobok
Xemu (just finished)
Giga watt (no disks)
Eyemaze (up?)

I'd say hold off on the settler until we repel the invaders. But we do need to reclaim that iron. And now is as good a time as any to get some allies.

Good job repelling Alex's initial wave...

Yep, that was some fine work, there! :hammer:
Promoting to Axeman, just the ticket.

Man, do I love Civ4 combat or what! I'm glad you guys defended successfully. Er, well, for a while at least. :)

RAZED? The horror--! :eek: :cry:
You must seek your vengeance on the barbarous Greeks! :mad:
Go get em! (Er, after you survive THEIR offensive, of course!)


- Sirian

Let me kow if I am up :D

Eyemaze, go ahead and take it, as last we heard, Giga was out for a bit.

Yeah, I wont have my game disks till monday because I forgot to bring them

So... 5 days later... :) I just want to see what is going to happen to our fair civilization!

Anyone still interested in this game please post in this thread. At this time tomorrow, we'll continue with whomever is left, giving those who didn't post a day or so to get back in before opening up their spots to other interested parties.

Still interested, definitely!

Yep, still interested, assuming it's not dead. :)

Alright, the revised roster is me, Fobok and Xemu. That leaves three open spots, with first priority going to previous team members. I'll take the next swipe, then Fobok, then Xemu until we have more. I probably won't play today, but maybe later tonight or tomorrow AM (here in the US).

Any word, eotinb?

/em sheds a year for our abandoned game. :)