Difficulty: Monarch
Map Settings: All default
Civilization: Aztecs
Opponents: 5 Aggressive AI opponents: Alexander (Greece), Genghis Khan (Mongolia), Tokugawa (Japan), Huyana Capac (Inca), Napoleon (Frace). This is one civ fewer than the standard for the map. I wanted all Aggressive AI civs but didn't want two Mongolias, so Kublai Khan sits this one out.
Victory conditions: Time, Conquest, Domination.

Requirements: Be prepared for a fight.

Combat has changed a lot since Civ 3. And what better way is there to learn it than to get into some fights? And by some fights, I mean a lot of fights: I'm putting us on a continents map with five aggressive civs, and the only way to walk away victorious is by taking them down :hammer:

Roster (and proposed turn order):
Carbon Copy
bed_head7
Kylearan
Daveshack
Dwip
Tidus444

I will start this game tonight. The first two players will play 20 turns each, then everybody else will play 10. Let the team know that you've got the game within 24 hours, and you'll have 48 hours to finish your turn. We will be playing by the Realms Beyond Exploits list, and while there isn't anything on there right now, we should conform to it should anything be added between now and the conclusion of this game.

And to tide you guys over until then, here's our starting position:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB34000BC.JPG

Ivory, Cows, and Gold on a freshwater start. Pretty good, n'est-ce pas?

Nice one, looking forward to watching this. War elephants right off... for a warmongering theme! :)

Clobbering time! Ha! Now that's The Thing(TM). ;)

- Sirian

Lurker comment: I'll be interested in this game. I played a fun game last night that was similar. It was a monarch game as Hatty of the Egyptians. I started off on a continent with just the Aztecs and myself on it. The Aztecs didn't like me right off the bat and sent a stack of 3 jaguars and 3 archers at my civ. I signed open borders with them two turns before they declared war on me. It was quite a war. War Chariots vs Jaguars. Of course in the end I ended up building more axemen than war chariots since the axemen were far more effective against their jags. But the AI's tactics were outstanding. They'd take 3 galleys full of units and drop them off behind the front lines to take my less defended cities. They also produced those jaguars at an insane clip. My axemen were killing most of them so I had a great ratio otherwise I would have been overwhelmed. Fortunately they didn't have copper/iron to build axemen of their own or I'd have been in trouble.

Anyway, good luck with your game. It should be fun.

Checking in...

Looks indeed to be a nice start. Good mixture of terrain (high-food, -hammers, and -commerce), ivory for war elephants which I have a high respect for now after my solo game, and a health and happiness resource! :cool:

-Kylearan

No two ways about it, that -is- a sweet looking inland start! :drool:

4000 BC - So far, the start looks fantastic. We will have Ivory in our camp, which is not only important as an early luxury, but as a means to produce War Elephants once we hit Construction. We also have gold on a hill and cows on the plains. This is quite the resource-rich start, and that almost makes up for those desert tiles to our northeast. I found Tenochtitlan on the starting tile and set us on the course for Agriculture. Not only does this let us build farms for those floodplains and cow tiles, and with such good tiles to work with, I expect to get some workers out there fairly early on improving them. Scout goes SW and discovers a second ivory, more cows, and the ocean fairly close by. I set Tenochtitlan to build another scout.

3950 - While chasing after a goody hut, the scout notices horses and rice
to the south of Tenochtitlan.

3900 - Receive 30g from the hut.

3850 - Tenochtitlan's borders expand, revealing Stone and more gold to the north, as well as spices to the west.

3800 - Scout sees more Ivory and cows south.

3750 - Agriculture learned, Mining begun.

3700 - Nothing

3650 - Scout completed, worker started

3600 - pop two huts, receive ~70g between them. Southern scout encounters Alexander.

3550 - Northern scout encounters ocean just past the hills north of Tenochtitlan. Southern scout encounters the Incas.

3500 - Mining learned, Archery ordered up

3450 - Somebody else founds Buddhism. I pop a hut and get a map of the lands west of Tenochtitlan. More horses, more stone, but the terrain isn't too palatable.

3400 - Nothing

3350 - Nothing

3300 - Discover Archery, start on Bronze Working

3250 - Worker completes, I start on a Warrior. Worker starts building a
camp on the near ivory.

3200 - Nothing

3150 - Nothing

3100 - Nothing

3050 - Hinduism is founded in Athens.

Warrior is one turn away from completing. Tenochtitlan is running a large food surplus, but don't let it grow larger than size 4 until we get more health and happiness modifiers in. We need to get some more scouting done. My northern scout had a nasty run-in with a lion a few turns back and has been ordered to rest until recovered. there's a lion somewhat close to our southern scout (though it may have wandered off), but just to be safe, try not to end his turn in the open unless you're sure you won't be attacked. I'm not sure whether that patch of land to the west is an island or if it's connected to our continent by a one-tile isthmus, but the land in between seems pretty wretched, albeit resource-rich. We need to start thinking about our first settler, though I'm not sure whether that ought to come before or after our second warrior.

Another caveat is that we should NOT attempt to chop down any of those trees in Tenochtitlan after Bronze Working arrives. Right now they're adding a +1 health to offset the health penalty from the flood plains, and once Tenochtitlan grows to size 4, we'll need the 2 hammer tiles so that we can run high hammers/low food while keeping the city from growing to an unhealthy size. Once Bronze Working does arrive, we need to stop by Animal Husbandry and Wheel so we can hook up our cows and horses. After that, depending on the situation, we may want to go for Iron Working so we can start making some Jags :hammer:. Remember, since we're the Aztecs, our swordsmen don't need iron, so we don't even need to wait for the resource to get hooked up before we start making Jaguars.

Attached is the save and the shot of the world map as we know it so far. It looks like we have been blessed with a multitude of resource tiles, if not much in the way of diversity.

Got it, will play tomorrow evening at some point. Hopefully I can check on the game sometime tomorrow morning in between classes as well, to ask questions if needed.

I have played most of my turns, and the first settler finished. I don't really want to make this decision alone so early in my Civ4 playing career, so I stopped (well, I have to go to class anyway) for input.

Any ideas?

No opinions? Well, don't say I didn't warn you that I don't know how to place cities in this game yet.

No opinions? Well, don't say I didn't warn you that I don't know how to place cities in this game yet.

Don't know if you're still waiting but here goes. Not that I have many answers yet either... :mischief:

At least 3-4 plots away from the 1st city for one thing. Densities tend to be much lower in Civ4 than in Civ3 because maintenance costs skyrocket when you go over the optimum cities. Towards the nearest AI if we know of one, or near iron / copper, or best growth are the three main possibilities. The toward an AI strategy is at its highest value if you can keep them from spreading with the placement, for example to establish a choke point. You can't really deny them resources on most maps. When in doubt go with growth.

2950 BC (2) - Our scout near Greece kills a lion.

2900 BC (3) - Bronze Working completes, and I select Animal Husbandry as our next tech. A scout also finishes, and start on a warrior. I consider emphasizing production and building a warrior at size three, and then building the settler while still at size three, but I see no benefit, so I am going to let Tenochitlan grow to size four, build another warrior, and then a settler.

2850 BC (4) - Our scout near Greece kills another lion, promotes, and I take the Woodsman I promotion.

2750 BC (6) - Yet another lion killed, this time by a scout in the north, which also takes the Woodman I promotion.

2700 BC (7) - Animal Husbandry done, now start on Wheel.

2600 BC (9) - This time our scouts take care of a bear.

2500 BC (11) - Wheel finishes, and now start on Iron Working!

2450 BC (12) - Our scout down near the Inca now (was by Greece) unfortunately ends a turn next to barbarian archers, and died.

2250 BC (16) - Another worker from Tenochitlan finishes, and considering our goals in this game, a barracks seems appropriate.

2150 BC (18) - Run into barbarian archer on the way to settling. Uh oh. Well, change of course is due. Settler runs away, and I put the warrior on a forest across a river so our chances of winning are good.

2100 BC (19) - Warrior survived!

2050 BC (20) - http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_classical_era.jpg

Iron Working learned, and we have Iron very nearby. An archer completes in Tenochitclan, perfect timing to start our first Jaguar. And Teotihuacan is founded rather farther away than originally planned (8 tiles!), but in a pretty good spot, I think. It starts on an archer as well, as barb activity has noticeably increased.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_2000BC_teotihuacan.jpg

I stopped at 2000 BC, since I think that that is evening it up at 40 turns total. We have one turn to go on Masonry, which seemed like a decent choice for research. Only two turns anyway to research, so not really a big deal. Our scouts haven't made as much progress as I would have liked, but I kept on running in circles around barbs or stopping to heal.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_2000BC_scouts.jpg

Nothing else too exciting to share. Sorry about the shortage of pics interspersed, but there wasn't all that much exciting in the middle to report.

I couldn't voice my opinion about city placement as I was soundly asleep - it was night over here... :p

Anybody else thinks that city placement is a lot more interesting and difficult than it had been in Civ 3? With the high amount of resources and the inability to chain-irrigate early (which makes fresh water a top priority for me!), it looks like there isn't *the* best spot for any given city anymore. I like that! :goodjob:

Looks good so far; got it. Will play later in the evening.

-Kylearan

I do rather like the added difficulty of choosing spots. I feel like I can't have overlap anymore, as in my few solo attempts thus far, I have seen what too many smaller cities can do. Of course, settling eight (!!!) tiles away is far too many, or so I feel. But it grabbed copper and a cow, and looked like the best spot around, even if far off, so I went ahead and took it.

I was busy at work, but yes, 8 tiles away is a bit much. Especially since it looks like there isn't much in the way of rival civs over there. I probably would have suggested we put our second city to the south to grab the horses. Iron really isn't much of a priority for us, since our swordsman doesn't need iron to be produced, but if we want mounted units, we'll want horses. We're one opponent short of what you'd usually see in a map this size, so we've got a bit of room to grow, but I'd still rather build towards our opponents and try to fill those areas in later rather than expand off to the side. As long as the Incas aren't closer than I think they are, I think we have pretty much the upper part of this continent to ourselves.

Now, while avoiding overlap is more important than it used to be in Civ 3, I don't think we can let those tiles in between Tenochtitlan and Teotihuacan go to waste, especially with the gold hills in between. We can fit a real monster city (or perhaps two, offset north and south) in that gap. With all those floodplains at Tenochtitlan, I think we have our settler/worker factory set up, we need a city that can crank out hammers.

As for research, now that we have Iron Working, we ought to be researching techs that get us closer to War Elephants (that is, towards Construction). Once we get a coastal city, we probably ought to start getting the boat techs, but this is a game where I think we de-emphasize the religion branch and pick up military and worker techs instead.

I did put that city there with the assumption that we would put a city up on the coast on the river and then down to the south a bit along the river to use the tiles in between. It is just that at this time, the spot I chose was probably the best in terms of production/health. My original plan was to go for a city to get the horses and cow, but that spot was only three tiles from the capital. And a city that got only one of those would be rather weaker than the spot I settled. Of course, the settling towards the Greeks is a good point, but it seemed in this game we might be hedging them back a bit before running out of land became an issue anyway, so I decided not to base where to settle on the position of the Greeks.

It had escaped me that we were playing this game at quick speed - I already wondered why we were researching and building so fast! :eek: I would have preferred the game to be on normal speed, but on the other hand I haven't tried quick speed yet, so this is a good time to see how it will play out.

1950BC (1): We learn masonry. I ponder taking horseback riding next for horse archers, which are nice against enemy archers (immune to first strike!) and catapults (+50%), but since we haven't connected our horses yet, this can wait and I start research on writing instead.

1900BC (2): Wow, lots of barbs running around. Good thing our jaguar is completed! Our capital is size 5 now, and I order up a settler next.

1750BC (5): We learn writing, and I start pottery next for cottages. Teotihuacan completes the archer, and starts a library next for border expansion to get access to the cows. I could have built an obelisk faster, but I figure a library will do us more good, even if it takes longer.

Now that Teotihuacan is sufficiently defended, I set it to emphasize food and commerce. I like to let my cities grow ASAP before emphasizing production.

1700BC (6): One of our workers starts a long road to Teotihuacan.

1650BC (7): Tenochitlan completes settler, starts a jaguar. It has reached maximum health, but because it has a lot of excess food and is happy enough to support more citizens, I don't stop growth yet.

The settler and the jaguar head south to the horses and the rice.

1600BC (8): Our glorious scout has killed yet another barbarian warrior! He earns the Woodsman II promotion by this.
Pottery is discovered, and I choose mathematics towards construction (and war elephants!) next. We could research alphabet instead to enable tech trading, but since we have already connected our ivory, maybe we should prepare for a first war soon!

1550BC (9): Another jaguar is completed, and heads towards the worker for protection against barbs. Teno starts another worker: Our designated third city will have a lot of jungle to chop.

1500BC (10): Our wounded scout has to run away from another barbarian.


Our settler has reached a potential city site, but could also found a city on red dot instead:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb3_1500.jpg


If he founds where he stands, it will be a coastal city, will grab horses and rice, won't waste tiles, and can immediately work the horse, a grass (which could be irrigated!), and a forest before needing to chop.
If he founds on red dot, it will waste tiles, but it would grab horses, ivory, a cow, and the rice eventually. It could immediately work the cow and three grasslands before needing to chop, but could not irrigate anything.

Don't know what is better; because I like cities near the capital, I'd favor the spot where he stands on. Opinions?

-Kylearan

Some general, long-term thoughts...

This is meant to be a warmonger's game, so we should think about when to start our first war. We can either expand more before starting a war (there's a lot of lands to settle!), or we could fight an early war with jaguars and war elephants.

If we want to fight an early war, we have to prepare for that NOW. This is a game at quick speed, so the window of opportunity for fighting with jaguars and elephants will be short. I guess we wouldn't want to attack Greece, as they have copper at Athens and thus can build their phalanx unit... We might also want to have catapults, although an early war like this might be possible without (don't have any experience with that yet).

I'm not sure what's better; in a private game I would expand more and fight with better units later, but then we wouldn't see how an early war feels like so I don't know.

-Kylearan

It had escaped me that we were playing this game at quick speed - I already wondered why we were researching and building so fast! :eek: I would have preferred the game to be on normal speed, but on the other hand I haven't tried quick speed yet, so this is a good time to see how it will play out
-Kylearan


Ack! I did it on quick speed? That was not intentional, but might be somewhat interesting. Those drop down menus at the game creation screen seem to have really counter-intuitive behavior, because that wouldn't be the first time I've randomly switched to something I never meant to switch to.

I'm for founding the city where the settler stands. Do we know where the Incas are located yet? We have a big dark area just to our southeast that they could be hiding in, or they could also be down by where Greece is.

I'm personally more for war sooner rather than later, but I don't think we can do it with Jags since I screwed up the map, we might as well wait for Jumbos.

I guess I'm up, so got it.

Does quick speed affect everything proportionally, in particular tech, growth, and production rates? If it does, then it may not affect strategy, everything will be turns earlier but at the correct time. Or do you mean the travel time doesn't reduce so defenders will be better by the time our offensive units arrive?

Defenders seem to get a big early bonus, so I have no idea whether the Civ4 equivalent of an archer rush / sword rush is even possible any more. Part of my reason for joining this game is to learn about that though, so take all my words on war with some skepticism. ;)

Hi,

Or do you mean the travel time doesn't reduce so defenders will be better by the time our offensive units arrive?

Yes, that's what I meant - the other civs are quite far away. Seeing how fast we get new techs and can build new units, our jags might be obsolete once they reach the enemy...

Part of my reason for joining this game is to learn about that though, so take all my words on war with some skepticism. ;)

Ditto. :)

-Kylearan

I've tried a few ancient wars, and eesh, not easy. I think we'd be better off filling in some of our territory and waiting for catas to come in.

Also, all victory conditions are turned off except for the military ones, right? Well, that means that we've got all the time in the world to conquer. In fact, given the rapid obsolescence of our units due to the fast game speed, I think it might be best to simply wait until we've researched most of the techs in the modern age before we start going to war, assuming that no AI starts taking the territory of the other AIs and gets ahead of us. Heck, if we're not at war with anyone, we don't even have to worry too much about falling behind in tech since we'll eventually catch up and all they'd get is a few +happiness and health from future tech.

1500BC (0)
We're in last place on the most cultured list.

1450BC (1)
Build Tlatlolco in place, build jag
located the Incan borders

1400BC (2)
worker done, start settler

1300BC (4)
Huaynac Copac offers open borders, we accept for now

1200BC (6)
Scout killed by barbarian warrior :(
Math->Construction
Other scout runs into a barb too :( :(

1150BC (7)
Settler done start jag
Scout killed by barb warrior

1050BC (9)
Jag completes, start another
New jag gets combat II promo

100BC (10)
Start mine on the copper
Settler + archer moving toward some likely spots, next player can decide where to build a city. I've marked one possible spot on the screenshot but it's a pretty wide open area.

>>the save<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_Montezuma_BC-1000.Civ4SavedGame)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Civ4ScreenShot00022.JPG

[0] 1000 BC - Right then. Quick sure does look pretty quick. We have ages and ages of continent to play with here. Let's see what we can do with it.

IBT: Alex builds Stonehenge. Somebody else builds the Oracle.

[1] 960 BC - Guess we had a Jag with a promotion kicking around. I give him Combat II for lack of a better idea. Alex stole the good sugar/cows spot, which we'll want to be taking away from him later. Hook up our copper.

[2] 920 BC - Tenochtitlan Jag->Settler. Texcoco founded at Dave's location. Starts a rax to keep it busy.

IBT: Pyramids go to...somebody. Confucianism goes to the Incas, who convert.

[4] 840 BC - Tlateloco Jag->Rax. We really need a worker over there. We discover that in the epic struggle between barb warrior and Combat I/Shock Jag, well. We win, let's say. For that third promotion, which I make Cover.

[5] 800 BC - Nada.

[6] 760 BC - Tenochtitlan Settler->Worker. I envision Alex's culture expanding ways to be annoying sooner rather than later.

[7] 720 BC - Construction comes in, and we will eventually have access to phants. Hit up Meditation, on the idea that we will eventually want to go the Monarchy, etc route. Teotihuacan Library->Rax.

IBT: Somebody who isn't us lands the Great Lighthouse.

[8] 680 BC - Nada.

IBT: Somebody who isn't us gets the Colossus.

[9] 640 BC - Meditation comes in, and we go for Priesthood. Tenochtitlan Worker->Jag.

[10] 600 BC - The Incas beat me to Ollantaytambo's site by ONE TURN. ONE FREAKING TURN. I back our settler off. Somebody else can decide where to put him.

Boy did WE just get schooled on the land race.

Here's us:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb3_600bc.jpg

There's a barb city over by the red arrow, and some barb archers and our superJag over in that direction as well. Obviously this wants to be dealt with at some point.

Hi,

Boy did WE just get schooled on the land race.

Which begs for a war soon, right? :) Before the window of opportunity will be closed, no? :mischief: I see we're builing barracks almost everywhere, which would be the perfect preparation, right? :D

We should cancel the open borders deal with the Incans, IMHO, as our cultural borders would block access to the west now. I don't think the improved relations from the deal would have lasted long anyway, given the theme of this game... :p

Roster:
Carbon Copy
bed_head7
Kylearan
Daveshack
Dwip -> just played
Tidus444 -> UP NOW

-Kylearan

Got it, but won't be able to play just yet. Does anyone have a reccomendation for where to send that settler as a consolation prize?

I was thinking the mouth of the river NW of Teo and the iron, which nets us said iron, and won't be too bad later.

Of note, we have a couple of jags kicking around out west who could, with maybe a unit or two backup, take out the barb city and get promoted. They could then beat up either Olan or Alex's city in the north. I tend to prefer Olan, since it's isolated and likely to only have a couple units in garrison.

0: goals include dealing with the barbarian city and getting a settler ready for the next player. Drop science to 70% since we're down to 0 gold and in the red otherwise
1: priesthood comes in, start researching horseback riding
Tenoc finishes Jag, starts another
Teo finishes rax, starts archer; Tex does likewise
I begin sending the settler toward the suggested location.
2: I begin moving excess Jags to the barbarian city (called Goth).
3: Teno finishes Jag, starts library
4: Tla finishes the barracks, starts a jag
5: Tex finishes archer, starts Jag
Begin building road/mine toward our iron
6: "unpronounceable" (that's what most of the Aztec city names read to me anyway! :lol:) founded on Dwip's location, it starts on a barracks
7: Teno finishes library, starts archer
Teo finishes archer, starts worker
8: Teno finishes archer, begins settler
Three jags are now near Goth, I commence an attack. One of them dies, but the other two survive and get promotions (I gave one medic and one city raider II)
9: horseback riding completes, start metal casting
Tex finishes jag, begins an axeman
Judaism spreads to Teno, but I decline to revolution for now.
Two jags near Goth fortify until healed.
10: Mission accomplished; goth is no more. 11 gold is gained from pillaging, though unfortunately the city was too small and uncultured to keep from being razed in the struggle. There's still a barb archer on a hill near the city though; dislodging that might be tricky.

Hi,

sorry to repeat myself here, but I still like to attack the Incans, and soon. We are aggressive Aztecs, we have an early UU, we have ivory (and should build war elephants instead of axemen IMHO), and I'd really like to see some early combat action here instead of the normal builder's game approach...

(If Charis would be playing with us, he'd have emptied all our cities and attacked already, causing a heart attack for the following player... :p)

Roster:
Carbon Copy -> UP NOW
bed_head7
Kylearan
Daveshack
Dwip
Tidus444 -> just played

-Kylearan

(If Charis would be playing with us, he'd have emptied all our cities and attacked already, causing a heart attack for the following player... :p)


So, if the player before you were to pull a stunt like that, it would be okay then, right?

Hi,

So, if the player before you were to pull a stunt like that, it would be okay then, right?
Well, I followed Charis in turn order three times in SGs, and every single time had to deal with empty cities, unexpected war, a broken economy, and a heart attack, yes... :lol: Amazingly, we had gained something afterwards every time he did this, and I learned a lot about tactical maneuvering and combat in Civ 3 that way.

Seriously though, no, of course I don't want us to empty our cities to throw everything we have at the Incans. It would only be nice to have a war with ancient units, and after building and moving some elephants and some more jags, now would be the perfect time. Given the quick production, my estimation would be that either CC or you would be able to declare if we wanted to - but of course if the majority would like to build up our empire now and fight a war later, fair enough.

-Kylearan

My tactical skills are not something that should be emulated, so perhaps I best not go for so severe a move. Not that I ever would. But I agree that an early war taking advantage of our UU and elephants would be beneficial.

I'm going to say I have it for now, but I definitely won't be able to play today (Monday). I can probably get my turn in tomorrow, though.

By the by, have any of us figured out what exactly we've got out there on the west? At the end of my turn, it looked like it was either an island just off the coast or a 1-tile isthmus to some other landmass. Our western frontier certainly is some of the weirdest terrain I've seen from the Civ 4 terrain generator so far, with that one-tile-wide corridor between the peaks.

Since we've got catapults now, I wouldn't mind some early aggression. Just make sure you bring a couple so you can bombard down the enemy's defensive bonus.

Preturn - I switch us over to Slavery, since it doesn't make much of a difference, and we could use the whip.

(1) 160 BC - Teotihuacan finishes worker, starts on a catapult. I whip a barracks in Unpronounceable.

(2) 120 BC - Alexander offers spice for Ivory. I decide to hold off on that trade for now since we're not close to max happy in our cities yet, and I'd rather he didn't have any jumbos. Unpronounceable finishes barracks, starts on a granary. Our city down by the rice finishes a jag, and starts on a jumbo. Tenochtitlan finishes settler, also starts on War Elephant.

(3) 90 - Not much

(4) 40 - Greece and Incans both switch to Hereditary Rule, Christianity is founded in a foreign land. I promote one of our super-Jags to Cover, and soften him up with another Jag to knock the archer down to ~50%. The cover Jag then sweeps up the wounded archer and pops the hut: The villagers are hostile! The last jag in the area kills the resulting warrior on flat land and that is that.

(5) 1 AD - Greece asks to for open borders, right now Alexander is not my first target, so I agree to it.


(6) 40 AD - Nothing much. I send one of the spare jags to scout out that area to the west. Settler in place to found where the barb archer used to be. That site will grab both the rice, the horse, and the cows. Tenochtitlan starts on another settler to maybe grab that iron spot we see to the east.

(7) 80 AD - Tlaxcala founded, started on a barracks.

(8) 120 - Whip the Library at Texcoco

(9) 160 - Library completes at Texcoco, starts on spear. Catapult completes at Teotihuacan, also starts a spear.

(10) 200 - We discover Metal Casting, start on Fishing, now that we have actual coastal cities. With Beaker overflow, we're on 30/39 beakers and will discover it next turn. I drop science to 60% so we're no longer running at a defecit. Whip the granary at Unpronounceable. There are a few tech trades we might be able to do with the Incans (apparently they discovered Alphabet) if we had more cash, but that would involve giving them Horseback Riding, which I'm really not keen on doing at this juncture.

I've been stockpiling our units in Texcoco for now, we have three War Elephants, two catapults, and whatever defenders were in there when it was handed off. All of the new units I have left unpromoted, and probably ought to stay un-promoted until they're just about to get into combat. We obviously need more miltary before we start a fight, but on my watch I wanted to get some borders popped on our southern cities, so they haven't gone into military production yet. I'm not sure where to send the settler that is coming out of Tenochtitlan, either up to the coast to nab more gold and that stone, or to the east and maybe snag that iron. There isn't anything exciting out west except another stone source.

Teotihuacan is at its maximum happiness, so I rearranged its tiles so it won't grow next turn, though I'm not sure if it makes a difference whether that next pop point riots or not. If we can get it another happy face, we can let it grow again. The stagnant growth setup I devised also robs us of some commerce, so we dropped from being +1 to -1 gpt.

The Incans have been steadily pulling away from us in score during the course of my turn, but they're still a darn sight closer to us than Alex is right now. The big problem is that we signed open borders with them, so they've got a bunch of units roaming around inside our territory, and one behind our back lines in that desert off to the west. We probably ought to end that deal sooner rather than later. Once we get some more elephants going, we ought to be start knocking them down a peg or two. We also still need more workers to help clear jungle and help with our unit transport.

To do:

Build more military

Build more workers

Whip the Library in Tlatelolco in three turns (once it gets to 42/60 hammers in production), then start building units in there.

As for our research path, I'm open to suggestions.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb3200.jpg

Will see what I can do.

As it turns out, I didn't do much.

200 AD (0) - I am personally not entirely sure that going after the weaker of our two neighbors is the best way to go, but I guess I'll stick to that plan for the time being. As that is the plan, I see no real reason not to trade ivory for spices. It is a bit one sided a deal, but we need the happiness help, and if he isn't our first target, oh well if he builds some elephants.

240 AD (1) - Discover Fishing. With no clear need of anything, start on Alphabet. Since the Inca already have it, it isn't as valuable, but at least it will give us an idea of where the Greeks are in terms of tech, and may allow a couple of trades.

280 AD (2) - Settler in Tenoch finishes. Send him over to the wasteland in the west, not for the stone or copper or whatever it was, but for the fish and clam resources that will be in the city radius. We are in desperate need of the health.

360 AD (4) - Alexander declares war on Huayna Capac!

400 AD (5) - Ollantaytambo razed. I was too slow to get the screenshot, unfortunately. I am thinking we will definitely now have to change course and go after Alexander.

IT - It seems the Inca are definitely in need of help already. The come begging, but at this early point I say no. Considering our long term plans, our relations are not that important anyway.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_400AD.jpg

440 AD (6) -

IT - Hm, now Alexander wants help. With Machu Picchu (seen in picture) the closest city, and as the mini-map shows it is not particularly close to us, I invoke the new response that I get from the AI when asking for assistance of "We just don't see what we can gain from a war with them." Or something like that.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_440AD.jpg

480 AD (7) - Found whatever it is. Start on a soon-to-be obsoleted Obelisk to get our borders out quickly. I would recommend whipping a work boat once we hit size two with that city, and claiming the fish as soon as possible.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_480AD.jpg

560 AD (9) - Alphabet comes in. Start on Machinery, as it is unknown and there is not much else worth pursuing that I see. Trade Horseback Riding to the Inca now, since they are now fighting the Greeks and I would like the fight to be a little bit fairer, and only can get Sailing and Polytheism. Get Monarchy from Alexander for Alphabet and Priesthood.

My turns end uneventfully. I definitely built workers, as per Carbon Copy's orders. Military was also emphasized, though I squeezed forges in there to boost production. I seriously considered some granaries, as the added health from rice would be nice, but we don't want to miss our window of opportunity. That window being attacking Alexander while he is otherwise occupied. We have a very small stack outside of Delphi, and most of those units if not all were built during Carbon Copy's turns. But with a few more units coming off the production line in the next couple of turns, we should be able to at least trim down Alexander a bit, if not do any serious damage.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_600AD.jpg

By the way, I was wondering this but didn't get around to asking in my turn log, when did our leader's name change from "RB3 Montezuma" to "YOUR-KKXX5RXWD9"? It was like that when the save got back to me.

Hi,

By the way, I was wondering this but didn't get around to asking in my turn log, when did our leader's name change from "RB3 Montezuma" to "YOUR-KKXX5RXWD9"? It was like that when the save got back to me.

I wondered about that as well on my turns. Maybe the file got corrupted at one time during up-/download? If so, let's hope not more critical data wasn't corrupted too...

Got it.

-Kylearan

By the way, I was wondering this but didn't get around to asking in my turn log, when did our leader's name change from "RB3 Montezuma" to "YOUR-KKXX5RXWD9"? It was like that when the save got back to me.

I noticed this in another SG. If you launch Civ4 and then load the game it seems to leave the leader name alone, but if you double click the save to launch it, it seems to take on the local name on your computer. What I'm not sure of is whether it can be fixed on the fly, though setting the player name default in civ4.ini to "RB3 Montezuma" and double clicking should do the trick. Then reset the civ4.ini file to your preferred name for games. :)

You should be able to, IIRC, hit Alt+D and fix it midgame.

Bleh, we went through this in another SG I'm playing it. Hit Alt-D to fix it. Apparently it's my fault (that big combination of letters is my computer's name), but I don't know what keeps triggering it.

I didn't know you could double-click a savegame to start Civ 4 with it - nice, especially for SGs! :cool: I fix our name.

A lot has changed since I last had the game - wow, quick is quick! I'm curious how an SG on Epic game speed will feel...

600AD (1): In the list of largest Civilizations, Alex is first, we are third, and Huayna last. That has to change! But before declaring, I'd
like to have at least one war elephant as defense in our lands.

Since we have an open borders agreement with Alex, I move an elephant to Delhi to scout what he has for defense: 2 longbows, a sword, an axe, and a phalanx. Ouch, that could become bloody!

640AD (2): :sleep:

680AD (3): I declare war on Alex, and move our SoD of three elephants, a war chariot, an axeman, a spear and two catapults to Delphi. Nice! The axe and the sword have left the city!

720AD (4): Ouch, our SoD got attacked by a suicide catapult and took collateral damage. I give our spearman the Medic I promotion and fortify our wounded units while the catapults start to bombard the city.
I sneak in a temple in Teno, as we can build it in one turn only and have reached maximum happiness there.

760AD (5): A Greek sword and axe leave Delphi towards our lands. Another round of city bombardment reduces the defenses of Delphi to 20%.

800AD (6): Only two longbows and a phalanx are in Delphi, so I decide this is a good time to attack.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb3_01.jpg

I send in the two catapults, weakening the garrison considerably, and one catapult even manages to withdraw from combat! I send in a Combat I elephant (8.8 vs 9.2) and he dies, wounding a longbow. A second elephant kills a longbow, our axeman gets rid of the phalanx, and our third war elephant then takes the city! :hammer: Last but not least, our anti-catapult unit, the horse archer, destroys the Greek catapult before Alex might do silly things against our stack.

I play cat and mouse with the two Greek units in our territory, as I want to lure them out into the open before attacking them.

Teno now buils an aqueduct to let it grow (the city is 3 over its health maximum), and I also start a library in unpronouncable. I feel we can afford some infrastructure even during wartime, and we are *way* behind in tech and can only afford 40% research! (I'm running 100% for some turns now, as the capture of Delphi yielded over 100 gold)

840AD (7): The Greek swordman is killed. Our workers start to build military roads to Delphi, and our second SoD moves towards Olly.

880AD (8): The Greek axeman is killed. No other Greek units can be seen anywhere...I move some units towards our western, lightly defended new cities in case Alex has some funny ideas involving galleys.

920AD (9): Huayna makes peace with Alex! So let's see what Alex has to throw against us, now that he only has one opponent. A sword and an axe appear near Teotihuacan.

Oh, and we're broke and can only afford 20% research now! :eek: Financial advisor says we're spending 21g(!) on city maintenance and 15g on unit upkeep, so I switch all cities from units to infrastructure - I think what we have is enough to capture (raze?) one or two cities before ending the war. I also instruct our workers to build cottages.

960AD (10): Move units in anticipation of the axe and the sword. Our elephant on the hill has moved one of his two tiles already; I wanted to wait a turn before attacking the Greek units so that I don't have to expose the wounded elephant.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb3_02.jpg

Delphi is still under resistance.

When making peace with Alex (maybe after attacking Olly and/or Pharsalos?), do not accept cities from him as payment. Instead, try to get currency and/or code of laws (for courthouses) from him! We need money...

Our second SoD is not going for Pharsalos at the moment because I saw unit movement from Ollys direction so I thought our force would be needed there...

Roster:
Carbon Copy
bed_head7
Kylearan -> just played
Daveshack -> UP NOW
Dwip
Tidus444

-Kylearan

When making peace with Alex (maybe after attacking Olly and/or Pharsalos?), do not accept cities from him as payment.
Good Luck getting a city from him! :lol: It takes a whole lot more than capturing a city or two to get the AI to concede much more than a little cash. :mischief:

Lurker comment

Is it OK in exploits to use open borders to march up to a city and then declare war? It seems a bit RoP rape to me...

Copy should arrive tomorrow :agitated:

Lurker comment

Is it OK in exploits to use open borders to march up to a city and then declare war? It seems a bit RoP rape to me...

Copy should arrive tomorrow :agitated:

That isn't possible, as far as I know. If you have open borders and declare war, your units are booted from their territory.

My understanding is that you'll get kicked out if you do anyway...

My understanding is that you'll get kicked out if you do anyway...

That is the way it is supposed to work, yep. ... Yep.

Kylearan! Wasting no time dishing out the humble pie to the enemy! :D


You guys have Currency already, right? ... Right?

"A civilization without currency cannot develop a specialized economy nor support a growing empire."

Start building those libraries. Even when you are broke, Scientist specialists can still get you SOME bits of research.


- Sirian

Got it.

Sirian, thanks for the ideas! I'm noticing in my game fragments so far (keep starting new games to try out new stuff) that it's just about impossible to do really well with a one-dimensional (all military for example) style.

Hi,

Good Luck getting a city from him! :lol: It takes a whole lot more than capturing a city or two to get the AI to concede much more than a little cash. :mischief:

That tells how many aggressive wars I've fought so far in Civ 4... :crazyeye:

I've nearly completed another report about an (IMHO) interesting private game, to be posted on my site during the next days, but again it's a game without long wars. That's why I was so eager to declare war in this game, to finally see some action! :lol:

-Kylearan

P.S.: What about you, Speaker? You had mentioned you had prepared a website for Civ 4 as well, and I'd love to read more game reports from other people... ;)

Hi,

Is it OK in exploits to use open borders to march up to a city and then declare war? It seems a bit RoP rape to me...

To clarify: I moved the elephant to Delphi during peacetime to see what's in there, then moved it back out. Then, I manually cancelled the the open borders deal, then declared.

You have the permission to shoot me the day I consciously use an exploit... ;)

-Kylearan

Hi,

You guys have Currency already, right? ... Right?

Nope, that's why I was so worried during my turnlog. I didn't switch research though, as I hoped we could get the tech for peace from Alex.

Start building those libraries.

Did that already. :D

-Kylearan

That is the way it is supposed to work, yep. ... Yep.

- Sirian

Sorry, just got confused by this :blush::

600AD (1) Since we have an open borders agreement with Alex, I move an elephant to Delhi to scout what he has for defense: 2 longbows, a sword, an axe, and a phalanx. Ouch, that could become bloody!

640AD (2):

680AD (3): I declare war on Alex, and move our SoD of three elephants, a war chariot, an axeman, a spear and two catapults to Delphi. Nice! The axe and the sword have left the city!


Anyways,

should find out for myself soon.:mischief:

Will be interesting to see how this works out... had a similar game where i overrun the egypts pretty fast and had a pretty big empire afterwards, but then my neighbors passed my in science and it really got ugly. Building some cottages and use every tile which yields some gold helps somewhat, though this again hampers grow and production...

While early wars are the easiest to fight, they are the hardest to actually earn something from them.
Maybe the best way would be to countinue the war as a pillaging war. This way you earn some money, don't get more cities, cripple your opponent while still making no room for the third rival so settle more cities (as razing cities would do).

Setting up for my son's birthday party (he's 2) is turning out to be more work than I planned. Do y'all want to skip me? Late Sunday night or even Monday night would be the earliest play opportunity.

That's pretty much when I'd get around to it, too, so.

It's CC's decision, but I'm in no hurry here...

Will be interesting to see how this works out... had a similar game where i overrun the egypts pretty fast and had a pretty big empire afterwards, but then my neighbors passed my in science and it really got ugly. Building some cottages and use every tile which yields some gold helps somewhat, though this again hampers grow and production...

While early wars are the easiest to fight, they are the hardest to actually earn something from them.
Maybe the best way would be to countinue the war as a pillaging war. This way you earn some money, don't get more cities, cripple your opponent while still making no room for the third rival so settle more cities (as razing cities would do).


The exact same thing happened to me too
I think it is a matter of game speed as well. On normal speed you get some time to use the population advantage if you build infrastructure in between the wars. On fast speed the danger of an undiscovered (and peaceful) AI Civ getting quite an advantage may be even bigger. Civ IV is very interesting in this respect. If you build more (or loose more) troops than needed to win a particular war it will hurt you in the long run. Upgrade costs are immense late game, so building an invincable force in the middle ages may mean weakness, when there's gunpowder units around.

Since it doesn't really seem like skipping would speed the game up any, we don't have to skip Dave unless Dave wants to be skipped.

Well, it's been over two days. Dave, we need to hear something from you in the next eight hours or so, or you'll be skipped and it will be Dwip's turn.

Oh, thought you would have gone ahead before then. I may have some time tonight but you don't need to be bashful about skips with me. Last thing I want to do is hold anyone up! :)

Prolly be late tomorrow night before I can get to it, so why don't you go ahead, or if I don't hear anything by tomorrow night, I'll go ahead, or something.

P.S.: What about you, Speaker? You had mentioned you had prepared a website for Civ 4 as well, and I'd love to read more game reports from other people... ;)
I should read these threads a little more carefully or else I'll miss it when people you know, actually talk to me. :lol: My Civ4 site is up and running, but all it has currently is links to my SGs. Work's been a bear of late, and I haven't had much (any) time for SP games. So far I've played about 5 games to a winnable position and then started a new game. I've also played two Co-Op MP games with Sebmono, to really explore some of the new game elements.

In the first game, I went all culture (as India) and he went all military (as Japan), and we won by culture. We both learned a ton about how to maximize your culture, and how to spread religion. In the second game, which we are still currently playing, the emphasis for both of us was/is on economics and war. I'm playing as the Incans (financial/aggressive...mmm) and he's playing as Washington of the Americans (financial/organized I believe). We've wiped out both of the other Civs on our continent, and we'll get to prepare a full-scale naval invasion. Should be fun. :hammer:

And after that, now that I am familiar with the game mechanics, I'll be preparing a couple game reports. That is, if you'd stop stealing all the good variants! ;) Maybe I'll try 3CC culture on Emperor...Actually I'll probably do a sort of religious variant where I try to convert every other Civ to my religion. Should be fun.

Now back to your regularly scheduled war-mongering.

Hi,

Now back to your regularly scheduled war-mongering.

"regularly scheduled"...? :eek: Wish it were so - this game lies dormant now for way too long. :(

Any news from any of the players? Dave? Dwip?

-Kylearan

Since I haven't seen anything...I have it, and will have something back tomorrowish.

On second thought, it appears that I am WAY too tired to play coherently. I tried a turn or two, and...no. Since it's pretty doubtful that I'll be able to play tomorrow, why don't we just go ahead and skip me?

Sorry, team.

Well, I guess that means Tidus is up, with me on deck. The funny thing is, with all this skipping, you're pushing my turn close to a time where *I* will have to ask for a skip. :rolleyes:

Sul5B, here we come! :lol:

Sorry, this has been one crazy week.

I have next week off work, so can re-engage as early as tomorrow afternoon/night as long as my other boss (the one I'm married to) doesn't give me excessive things to do at home.

edit: This was not a "got it". I'll be ready the next time my turn comes up for sure. :)

Hi,

no news from Tidus for a while, so what now? I've played the last set of turn 26 posts and 9 days ago, and by now I've forgotten how the game looks like already. :(

I'm not the game captain so I hope I don't step on anybody's toes here, but could we get an update from all players who's still in, who's ready to play (and when), and who's out?

Original roster:
Carbon Copy
bed_head7
Kylearan
Daveshack
Dwip
Tidus444

It's the only SG I'm in because I had thought 2 SGs would be too time-consuming...and now that one SG is stalled already. :(

-Kylearan

I am still here. By the way, Kylearan, I know how you feel. I set a hard cap of three games, and now two of them are stalled.

I'm still here, and I suppose I've got it. I'll play the turns tomorrow.

I've started playing, but I need to beg for one more day or so, I won't be able to get to the rest of it until tomorrow at Midnight (EST). Lot of stuff is coming down the last day of class before Thanksgiving, but I ought to be free to finish this turn on Wednesday. I will say that this war is not going nearly as well as I had hoped it would.

Hey guys, I'm sorry but I'm gone until Monday. Thanksgiving vacation away from a civ-IV capable computer =(

Okay, I finished the turns! :cheer:

0 - 960 AD: Okay, we've captured Delphi, a lot of our larger cities are having
health/happiness problems, we don't have any money, and Alex won't talk for peace. Well, at least we're learning, right? I switch our research from Machinery to Currency, my guess is that we'll be lucky to keep Delphi, let alone get concessions from him for peace.

1 - 1000 AD: interturn, Alex adopts Serfdom and Vassalage. His marauding sword+axe move one tile away from Teotihuacan, so I upgrade the jumbo in the city to Shock and take one out. Then I take the War Elephant that is sitting on our copper and do the same to the other one. Alex still isn't talking to us.

2 - 1025 AD: Slow turn. Alex isn't talking, I'm moving our second SoD towards Delphi to help shore up the defense, and it ends the turn just outside.

Interturn, Alex shows up outside of Delphi with a stack of six swords and axes.

3 - 1050 AD: I promote the catapults in the new SoD to Drill, and the Jags etc. to Shock, then move them into Delphi and Fortify. Delphi comes out of resistance, and I start it on a Library. Then, during my regular checking of Alex's status, I notice he's willing to talk to us again. On a whim, I click on the "Let's stop this pointless fighting!" option, thinking it would take me to the negotiation screen, but apparently, I'm asking him for a straight-up peace treaty, and he accepted. :eek: :smoke: Well, it seems like as far ahead as he is technologically, we wouldn't be able to push him any further until we have more infrastructure and better units in place anyhow.

I switch Tenochtitlan over to the Hanging Gardens, with workers en route to hook up our stone by Calixtlahuaca, we ought to have a shot at building it.

4 - 1075 AD: I pile all the military units in the area into Delphi to ensure it won't flip back.

5 - 1100 AD: Interturn, Alex dials me up and wants me to trade him Meditation for 100 gold. Cha-ching! I then turn science all the way up to 30%. More piling units into Delphi.

6 - 1125 AD: The Barbarians have learned how to build galleys, I'm not sure if I am going to have to wait to pop the work boat until Unpronounceable can build a defending galley and get it in place.

7 - 1150 AD: Not much to talk about. Delphi's borders expand, more ducts, more granaries, more worker movements, more units piling into Delphi. All of our offensive forces are in there now, 19 units in total. I might have tried to grab whatever that city is by the dyes if I hadn't half-accidentally declared peace, but from what I've seen from the AI, if we hadn't diverted the units to Delphi and Alex thought he had a good shot at taking it back by force, there's no way we would have kept the city in peace negotiations.

8 - 1175 AD: I dial research up to 40%, where it will finish Currency in 6 turns at -10g per turn.

9 - 1200 AD: A barbarian galley comes out of the fog and whacks my work boat :smoke:. Huayna Capac offers us clams for a lump sum of 1g. Since it seems like it'll be a while before I can swat down those barb galleys and get our own clams hooked up, I agree (can't beat the price!). Since it appears we can trade resources with the Incas now (for some reason, we couldn't earlier in my turn), I sell them one of our rices for 2gpt. Also, the first ship of the Aztec Navy is christened at Unpronounceable, which then starts on another.

10 - 1225 AD: Stone is hooked up, so our completion time for the Hanging Gardens drops to 8 turns. I whip the library in Delphi, which actually decreases the unhappiness of the city by two (one "we yearn for the motherland" gets replaced by a "we cannot forgive your cruel oppression", and we lose two "it's too crowded" by burning two pop points). I turn the "avoid growth" governor on for Tenochtitlan (since it's both over its healthiness and happiness limits) and production time on the Hanging Gardens drops to 5 turns.

I then realize that we can revolt to Hereditary Rule, and do so (eliminating happiness issues throughout the empire, and the extra working citizens net us 2 of the 3 gpt difference in upkeep.). I then dial up research to 60% so that we discover Currency in two turns (at a cost of 46g, -23gpt).

Tlaxcala needs to build something with culture once it finishes its Forge so that its borders. expand. And as poor as we are, there is still a city we need to found, I marked it on the map.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB31225ad.jpg

A shot of our empire.

And the save:

Hi,

I whip the library in Delphi, which actually decreases the unhappiness of the city by two (one "we yearn for the motherland" gets replaced by a "we cannot forgive your cruel oppression", and we lose two "it's too crowded" by burning two pop points)

:lol: That's nice! Something to remember. :crazyeye:

production time on the Hanging Gardens drops to 5 turns.

Sounds good! :hammer:

Time to take care of some odds and ends:

Now that the patch is out, we should switch over to it. Bed_head, if you can switch for your turn, great, otherwise we should all be playing under 1.09 by the time Kylearan's turn starts.

And with the American Thanksgiving holiday going on (and its extended weekend), I'm going to suspend the 24/48 rule until Monday to accomodate for people who are busy with the holiday weekend. No need to ask for skips until Monday.

I have confirmed that pre-patch saves seem to load correctly with 1.09 installed.

I should be able to play tonight and post save tomorrow. Patch has been downloaded.

1225 AD (0) - Shuffle some units around. When we get Hanging Gardens, the extra population in a couple places is going to be unhappy, but with Hereditary Rule's +1 happy for military units, that is easy enough to combat.

1300 AD (3) - Currency in! And with 4g left in the treasury, drop research to 30%, and Calendar is due in seven turns.

1325 AD (4) -

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_1325AD.jpg

1400 AD (7) - The annoying barb galley is defeated, and our fishing boats can once again sail the seas safely.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_1400AD.jpg

1425 AD (8) - Whip a fishing boat in Calix.

1450 AD (9) - Calender finishes. No clear choice on my mind where to go next, and end up opting for Compass for Optics next, so we can get some ships out there searching for friends (and trades).

1500 AD (11) - Or maybe they will find us instead.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_1500AD.jpg

Log was a little lacking, yes, but for the most part the only activity was described above. Just building happy and healthy so that our cities can be a bit more productive. I guess with our game, we'll need to get agressiveish again soon, though we may want to just raze for the most part.

Got it, although I will probably need the full 48 hours to play. (Feast mode here as well, even if we don't celebrate thanksgiving over here! :p )

-Kylearan

Oy, are we behind in techs! :eek: Genghis is at least Monotheism, Literature, Feudalism, Compass and Machinery ahead of us, and Incans also have Code of Laws!

Our economy sucks, too. Financial advisor says it's mainly city maintenance, plus unit costs. I veto the research on Optics and start CoL instead, to get some courthouses going. I also reconfigure most of our cities (stop growth where we reached happiness limit, emphasize food in cities where we haven't reached the limit yet etc.). Teno gets two scientists.

I also think we need more cottages!

1530: CoL -> Optics. Start courthouses in most cities. Trade CoL to Genghis for Monotheism, Literature and 30g (he wouldn't give up any other useful techs).

1550: Optics -> Machinery (for Engineering, for faster movement and pikes)

1560: I start us on Chichen Itza - 8 turns only, maybe we get it. If not, we will have some money to spend on deficit research. :p

1570: Unpronouncable gives birth to a great engineer! I move him to Teno and fortify him (I think he's wasted on Chichen Itza). Teno starts Heroic Epic.

1590: Tokugawa finds us! Sistine's get built somewhere.


Some cities will reach their happiness limit during the next turns, so watch out. We might also consider declaring war on Alex again, because we have a ton of units that cost us money, and after this round of infrastructure, more and more cities can build military again now.

Roster:
Carbon Copy
bed_head7
Kylearan -> just played
Daveshack -> UP NOW
Dwip -> on deck
Tidus444

-Kylearan

Got it, too late to do anything tonight (this morning that is) but barring anything earth-shaking at work should be able to play in around 21 hours or so.

Any comments in favor of or against pop-rushing? I have not looked yet so have no idea whether any of the things we need to build are worth it.

I don't think that a GE can be used on a wonder. The only things they can hurry are ordinary buildings. The other main options are keep around until we get another Great Person of different type for a GA, or super-engineer. Don't recall if engineers can help with techs.

Anyone know how to tell our military strength vs Alex? :confused: That's one thing the Civ3 military advisor did that helped...

Hi,

I don't think that a GE can be used on a wonder.
Yes they can be used to rush wonders (or, in case of expensive wonders, contribute a healthy amount of hammers). Because of that, I find starting a GA with great engineers to be somewhat of a waste.

-Kylearan

Hmm... GE's can be used on wonders now, pretty sure the last time I got one in a personal game they couldn't handle wonders. I wonder if that was fixed in the patch...

Anyway, so if they can build wonders then that makes the upcoming turns even more fun. Just gotta decide what wonder to grab. ;) And gotta dedicate some cities to building GE's in my personal games. :cool:

I have not figured out the restrictions, but it seems some wonders it cannot rush. I have had a few times where the rush icon was dimmed.

I wish I had taken note of the wonder and conditions, but they sure can rush most. I just rush the GL with one.

Hi,

I have not figured out the restrictions, but it seems some wonders it cannot rush.
I had rushed both some ancient wonders (great library, for example) and some late-game wonders (Hollywood, ...) with GEs.

I have had a few times where the rush icon was dimmed.
Are you sure these were wonders you hadn't been able to rush, not projects? For example, IIRC Apollo and the spaceship parts are projects and thus can't be rushed.

-Kylearan

Yeah, I think the operative word is "building". I don't think Engineers can complete the Epics for you, nor the Apollo program or Manhattan Project (guessing on most of these, either for lack of trying to rush them with engineers or for lack of building them in the case of the Manhattan Project), but I haven't come across a building they can't rush yet.

8 turn Chichen Itza? That would be a nice wonder for us to grab. Gogo hooked up stone! :hammer: With fast speed turned on, those build times for wonders often make it seem like we're Industrious.

When last I checked the game, we had the second-largest empire by land area and I think also by population (presumably behind Alex), so it seems like cash production and maintenance reduction are our two biggest priorities. I'm also not certain that we're able to deal with Alex yet, or at least, I haven't been able to make much headway against larger AIs prior to the Industrial/Modern eras, but that might just be my shoddy warmongering (not to mention my penchant for random declarations of peace :blush: ).

Well, we made contact with just about everybody now, the only one we're missing now is Napoleon. Maybe he'll come knocking soon.

Yeah that is the restriction, forgot that aspect.

Summary:

Chichen Itza produced
Got another Great Engineer (that made 2 in pocket)
Rushed Hagia Sophia with one of them
Finished several courthouses, and one of the epics
Built lots of military, positioned in Delphi and border town to the NE, forget the name...

We're still well behind in techs. I couldn't figure out what to use the workers for in the end (all usable tiles improved?) so fortified most of them. The next player can probably take on Alex, if this isn't enough units then we probably can't produce enough.

I would do screenies but my whole family (myself, wife, 2 kids) has been sick, and I'm falling asleep writing this.

Hi,

The next player can probably take on Alex, if this isn't enough units then we probably can't produce enough.
Not only that, but if we won't get rid of some of our military, we will never be able to catch up with research, as they cost us a ton of money!

whole family (myself, wife, 2 kids) has been sick
Get well soon!

-Kylearan

Being sick's no fun. I recommend getting well. ;)

See it, may be more like Thursday before I play.

Hi,

Not only that, but if we won't get rid of some of our military, we will never be able to catch up with research, as they cost us a ton of money!


Do workers count towards unit cost? I haven't been able to find a way to merge them back into cities. Is there enough to be gained by disbanding some of them to make it worthwhile to do that instead of keeping them around until railroads? Or am I overlooking improvements which still need to be made?

Do workers count towards unit cost? I haven't been able to find a way to merge them back into cities. Is there enough to be gained by disbanding some of them to make it worthwhile to do that instead of keeping them around until railroads? Or am I overlooking improvements which still need to be made?

I think workers do count towards unit upkeep, though I think it's on a seperate schedule from the military units, but regardless I can't imagine any reason we'd ever want to disband them, especially if we're going to war. If we manage to take territory, we'll want to use them to improve that land once it's off the front lines or peace is declared. If the war doesn't go so well, we'll need them to mop up after the pillagers and get resources reconnected. Even if the fighting does go well, we'll probably need to fix some pillaging, you rarely ever fight an offensive war entirely inside your opponent's territory like you could in Civ 3.

Plus, even with bigger production capability in the Industrial, we're probably going to be too busy building either units or infrastructure for us to easily replace workers that we disband now.

[0] 1675 AD - It's been a while since I've seen Azteca. Things have changed a bit, looks like.

It appears that consensus is war with Alex, who's muskets frighten me, but we'll see how that works out. Such army as we have seems to be reasonably high tech. I will, however, wait for the next round of pikes and lbows to get done.

We are way behind in tech, to the tune of Drama, Theology, Music, Guilds, Philosophy, and Optics to more or less everyone but Khan, as well as Civil Service to Inca. Alex at least is also up Gunpowder, and maybe techs leading there, such as Paper and Education. Not so fantastic, but we'll see what we can do with it.

IBT - According to Thucydides, the largest civs are Alex, us, Sir Not Appearing On Our Map, Khan, Inca, and Toku.

[1] 1680 AD - Tenochtitlan Longbow->Longbow, Unpronouncable Pike->Pike.

We can apparently build the FP somewhere, which we should definitely do somewhere. Delphi maybe?

Move some troops up. We'll be a little thin on defense come the day, but should be ok.

[2] 1685 AD - Tenochtitlan Longbow->Longbow, Teo Longbow->Phant, Tlatelolco Pike->Longbow, Texcoco Pike->Market.

Move some more guys up.

IBT - Khan offers Silk for our Horses, and I accept. Somebody who's not us gets Angkor Wat.

[3] 1690 AD - Tenochtitlan Longbow->Phant, Teo Phant->Phant, Unpronouncable Pike->Longbow.

Move some more guys up. Getting close.

IBT - Somebody who's not us gets Versailles.

[4] 1695 AD - Move a few more guys up.

[5] 1700 AD - Guilds comes in, and we start on Banking. Tenochtitlan Phant->Knight, Teo Phant->Knight, Texcoco Market->Grocer, Unpronouncable Longbow->Grocer, Calixtlahuaca Harbor->Forge.

Today is the day, Alex. Declare. Move lots of guys up. Delphi has ludicrous amounts of guys in it. ETA at Pharsalos 2 turns. Argos, near Teo, is size 12, walled, and has 3 lbows and a Combat I/Medic I pike for defense.

I really want to go to Vassalage, but we can't afford it at all, and I had to drop to 40% science just now.

IBT - Alex catapults our elephant stack outside Pharsalos. Somebody else gets the Spiral Minaret.

[6] 1705 AD - Tenochtitlan Knight->Grocer, Tlateloco Longbow->Harbor.

Move up guys. Pharsalos is defended by a City Defense II Xbow, a City Defense II Longbow, and a City Defense I Longbow, and is size 9 with walls. That's pretty intense, but unlike some other Aztec leaders, I brought a lot of reasonably teched guys.

[7] 1710 AD - Teo Knight->Grocer, Tlaxcala Market->Grocer.

You know, if Alex's Combat I, Cover, Pinch Musket wants to just hang out and not fight me, I think I can deal. However, his Combat II/Formation Muskets near Delphi are going to be an issue.

Begin bombardment of Argos, dropping it to 28% defense.

IBT - Somebody builds the Islamic shrine, and Alex picks Enrico Dandolo in Athens.

[8] 1715 AD - Wherein a single Bombard I pult takes Pharsalos down an astronomical number of defense to 45%. Bombard Argos to 16%.

IBT - Alex's Supermusket destroys a Longbow we threw out as bait, and our Knight at Pharsalos takes down a Maceman Alex built.

[9] 1720 AD - Delphi Aqueduct->Forge.

Pharsalos bombarded to 0%. Argos bombarded to 4%. Horse Archers take down SuperMusket.

IBT - Alex shows up with Pikes and takes our HA down, and takes down a random phant at Pharsalos with Xbows of all things.

Napoleon shows up, and I declare peace in our time. However, our time is over in about a turn... ;)

Assault on Pharsalos:

City Raider II Catapult: Dies, but collaterals a bunch of guys (3 Xbows, 2 Lbows defending now)
City Raider II Catapult: Dies, but collaterals more guys.
Combat II Phant vs Xbow: We win
Combat II Phant vs Lbow: We win
Combat I Phant vs Lbow: We win
Combat I Phant vs Xbow: We win
Combat II Phant vs Xbow: We win, and Pharsalos is ours! We loot 173 gold.

Bombard Argos down to 0%. We are now ready for the assault.

IBT - Alex shows up with 10 or so guys from offscreen, and assaults Delphi for all he's worth. This works out not so well for him, and much better for us.

Khan demands 200 gp tribute, and, er, you know what? We NEED that gold. No. He goes off in a huff, and we're now at +2 rep.

[10] 1730 AD - Banking comes in, start Gunpowder. Tenoch Grocer->Bank, Teo Grocer->Bank, Tlateloco Harbor->Market.

Assorted side actions against pillagers. Delphi has some issues, but I can't really deal with them right now, except to spend some of that gold I didn't tribute Khan upgrading guys in Delphi.

Assault on Argos (2xLongbow, Com1/Med1 Pike, Raid2 Catapult):

Barrage I Catapult: Dies to longbow, causes some collateral.
Barrage I Catapult: WINS vs longbow, causes some collateral.
Combat I Knight vs Pike: We win.
Combat I Phant vs Longbow: We lose.
Combat I Phant vs Longbow: We win.
Flank I Horse Archer vs Catapult: We win, and Argos is ours. We loot 204 gold.

In one of those "Boy, isn't THIS amusing things, I send two of the pults I left in Delphi to take down Alex's pults, and follow up with a Jag.

We have, more or less, achieved my war aims. We have the troops, after they rest and refit, to continue the campaign.

We have lots of scattered horse archers, including two in Delphi, that could be knights, and should be knights. We also have a lot of gold. I left this still to be done, however.

Our whole country is building commerce infrastructure, for the obvious reasons. Although we've made enough to move back to 50% science, we should not grow complacent, and should endeavor to build more commerce infrastructure.

*chomps cigar*

I love it when a plan comes together. :goodjob:

Sounds like a great set of turns on the whole, I'm sorry to have doubted our war preparedness. Let's keep pounding! :hammer:

Up now: Tidus444
On deck: Me

There's still nothing better than overwhelming numbers! :)

Now as long as Alex doesn't counterpunch with overwhelming numbers of his own, this could be the point where it tips in our favor.

Great set of turns, Dwip! :goodjob:

Hope our economy will recover now, although we might not have lost enough units... :p

-Kylearan

Tidus, it's been over 48 hours, and we need to keep this game moving. And since you got skipped last time and it's been over a week since you've posted in the thread, unless you let us know that you're still willing to play, I'm going to skip you by default and take my turns after Dwip's.

I've got it, will probably have turns posted tonight.

Hi,

Tidus posted in RB2c that he can't play at the moment because of finals, so I guess he'll be on auto-skip in this game, too.

-Kylearan

Ah, thanks for the heads-up.

Didn't have time for the turns last night. :( I'll get them tonight instead.

0 - 1730 AD - Okay, I start with some few bits and pieces:

-I set some cities that were not yet at their health or happiness limits to grow, most notably Teotihuacan, which at size ten still has SIX sizes it can grow before maxing out on health.

-Nobody took me up on founding that city on the dot when I passed the turn last? Well, we'll see how that goes now. It's not so much that we need to have a city there as I don't want other civs to think that they've got space to put a city there and gain a foothold in our back yard and net two resources while they're at it.

-I do some wheeling and dealing. I trade one of our four cows to Tokugawa for 9gpt, then I trade a rice to Khan for 8 gpt, which ought to help out a bit on the research front. I also trade Banking to Khan for Music (since it gets us closer to Military Tradition and Cavalry). Napoleon has nothing interesting to trade for (he wouldn't do Theology for our two smaller techs). Huayna Capac has nothing we can give him, though he is currently showing -26 gpt in the trade screen.

I then spend all but 3 of the gold in our treasury upgrading horse archers to knights, and end the turn.

1 - 1735 AD - Alexander is floating a galleon past the front line with a mace and two cats. Unpronounceable finishes Grocer, starts Knight. I turn off the restrict growth governor to let it grow another size. Alex also tosses up some muskets and maces by Delphi.

2 - 1740 AD - Fighting at Pharsalos and Delphi. About even on both sides, all told, but Alex gave up a lot of his advantage by smashing them against my fortified units. On my turn, I sweep his attackers that survive out of the way without incurring any (immediate) losses besides a suicide catapult that let me dislodge his musket and mace off of that copper tile. I trade Literature and Code of Laws to Napoleon for Theology. This, among other things, lets us swap to theocracy if we so choose (and can decide on a state religion). I debate raising science to 60%, but gunpowder doesn't arrive any sooner and I'd rather have the cash for upgrading some horse archers than for one turn of beaker overflow.

3 - 1745 AD - Antony van Leeuwenhoek (Great Scientist) is born in Tenochtitlan. So we can start a Golden Age if we want to, or we can use Antony to discover Philosophy. Since Philosophy is on the direct route to Military Tradition, I opt for the tech. I think we want to spend Imanhotep on the Forbidden Palace in Delphi once it stops being under siege long enough to sneak him in.

4 - 1750 AD - Out of the fog through neutral territory comes a tremendous stack of pikes and maces, and wipe out every single defender in Pharsalos except for one war elephant and some cats. Incidentally, I look and see what the asking price on peace is, and he's willing to pay 260g for us to stop, but not any of his techs for trade. I just don't have the men to hold that city for another turn (the only units that can reach it this turn to shore up the defense are some mostly wounded horse units from Delphi or Argos), and if Alexander has anything to follow those initial units with next turn, there's no way that those will even make a difference, PLUS war weariness is up to 4 mad faces in some cities this turn, so I take my money and run. I shop our Philosophy around, and get Optics + 50g (all he had) from Napoleon, and then spend out of our war loot and get Civil Service for Philosophy + 320g from Genghis Khan. This is also the first turn that we are leading the game in score :hammer:. I dial science up to 80% this turn to get Gunpowder now.

5 - 1755 AD - Discover Gunpowder, start on Nationalism, due in 7 turns at 70% science.

6 - 1760 AD - Pharsalos comes out of resistance, I start it on a courthouse. Forbidden Palace completed in Delphi. Huanya Capac trades us Fur for our spare Stone. I switch us from Barbarism to Bureaucracy, and the increased cash out of Tenochtitlan pays for the increased upkeep + 2gpt and shaves a turn off of Nationalism.

7 - 1765 AD - Not much.

8 - 1770 AD - Napoleon finally has a trade route with us, so I trade him a sugar (I think) for one of his corn. This lets me allow a number of cities to grow, including the capital and Delphi. Argos comes out of resistance and I start that one on a courthouse, too. Tenochtitlan finishes a settler (!!), starts on a Musket.

9 - 1775 AD - Xochicalco founded on my green dot from my last set of turns, starts on a courthouse. Trade a cow to Napoleon for 7 gpt. Accidentally make Delphi unhealthy again by chopping too many forests, but I really don't want those trees adjacent to the city any more after all the fits that Alexander's troops gave me by hiding out in the forest and being unassailable.

10 - 1780 AD - Musket completed in Tenochtitlan, I send it to Xochi so it will have a defender but there's probably a better use for it somewhere else. I start Tenochtitlan on the National Epic, but there's no shields in the bin for it yet so feel free to switch.

The Confucian Missionary I'm building out of Teotihuacan is intended for Tenochtitlan, on the theory that the majority of our cities seem to have Confuscianism in them, so it would be the easiest to use as our State Religion. It'll make the other AIs angry, but we really need to be taking advantage of either Theocracy or Organized Religion for the increased experience or the increased build speed on buildings.

Nationalism will be discovered next turn, and from there we ought to be able to get Military Tradition next to start so we can start the war machine up again.

A shot of our empire zoomed out:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3-1780AD.jpg

And the save:

Hi,

Nobody took me up on founding that city on the dot when I passed the turn last?
I thought about it, but decided to ignore it on my turns. :blush: I just didn't feel our economy was good enough to support yet another city. (That's different now)

Nationalism will be discovered next turn
Will we want to build the Taj Mahal?

-Kylearan

We probably do want the Taj Mahal. Maybe switch Tenochtitlan to something that takes only one turn to build, then start it on the Taj Mahal next turn? Kind of makes me feel bad that I burned the Engineer on the Forbidden Palace, but with Bureaucracy in effect, Tenochtitlan is a monster city as far as production is concerned (look at the build speed on that National Epic; some of that is overflow, but Teno is set to build that thing in four turns!), so we might still get it. The problem is that pretty much all the AIs except for Napolean are already at Nationalism, so we don't know how much of a head start they have on building it.

I am sorry to say that I need to be skipped for about a week until I finish up with the semester, as I have finals on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.

Hi,

[...] I have finals on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.
Good luck!

Got it.

-Kylearan

IT: I go through all our cities and notice a lot of them are on "avoid growth" even if they are far away from becoming unhappy. I fix that.

Our finances are okay, so I cancel some courthouse builds in border cities and start culture instead.

The courthouse in Xochicalco is vetoed as well, and a lighthouse is ordered up instead. The city has only two food squares to work and won't be able to grow otherwise!

I renegotiate our deals with Genghis Khan. We are giving him horses for silks? Way too valuable! Now he gets dyes instead. We also get more money for providing him with rice.

(1) 1785AD: Napoleon asks for open borders, and I agree. Nationalism comes in, and I start us on Military Tradition next. Teno starts building the Taj Mahal, and I fire the two scientists and set it on starvation to maximize hammers. It will be finished in 10.

(2) 1790AD: Confucianism is spread in Teno via our missionary. During the next turns, I spread it in two other cities as well.

(3) 1795AD: Toku is the first to discover Liberalism!

(4) 1800AD: Now Nationalism is less worth to Napoleon than the turn before, so I trade it away together with our world map and 30 gold to get astronomy.
Alex starts a golden age.

(5) 1805AD: Huayna starts a golden age as well. The Taj Mahal gets built elsewhere! :sad: At least we will have some money for some more deficit research now. :p
Per CC's suggestion, I convert us to Confucianism.

(6) 1810AD: Military Tradition comes in, and I select Paper next (on the way to Rifling). We have a monopoly on the tech!
I switch several of our cities to military, and adopt vassalage and theocracy. Research gets switched off for some turns to upgrade some units.

(7) 1815AD: Napoleon demands 150 gold, but I tell him where to shove it. Several (experienced) units get upgraded to cavalry.
Toku starts a golden age, too.

(8) 1820AD: While upgrading more units, I notice we have a spearman with shock? :confused: I'm a fan of specialization and would have given him the anti-mounted-units promotion (forgot the name) instead, as there are better units to deal with enemy melee units...

(9) 1825AD: Upgrade some more. Alex declares war on Huayna Capac! Excellent! :goodjob:

(10) 1830AD: I switch on research again.


Now that we have a lot of cavalry and Alex is busy fighting Huayna, I strongly suggest to declare war in one or two turns! I've left the next player with enough money for some emergency upgrades in case Alex counter-attacks in places we didn't expect. Clobbering time, right? :D

We still can trade Military Tradition away if we want to. I'd say let's do it to catch up.

I'm against building the National Epic in Teno. We are only allowed two small wonders there, so I'd like to build West Point instead once we've met the requirements - Teno has the Heroic Epic already, so that combination would be nice.

Roster:
Carbon Copy
bed_head7 -> busy with exams
Kylearan -> just played
Daveshack -> UP NOW
Dwip -> on deck
Tidus444

-Kylearan

Re: Shock on spearmen. Perhaps the problem is that formation (the anti-mounted upgrade) is only available after combat II, and the spearmen was fighting axe/macemen?

Where was the shock spear, btw? If it was in that one town on the coast by Delphi, I probably did it to finish off the maceman that Alex plopped in our back lines. We really didn't have much in the way of units there, I think I did some creative things with the defenders the town did have to keep us from getting pillaged from hell to breakfast by them. If it was somewhere else, it was probably the same thing: I needed to off a wounded axe or mace and didn't have anything better to attack with. A lot of the units available to me for as long as the fighting lasted on my turn were wounded and healing.

Got it, but didn't notice until midnight, so will have to play tomorrow.

I've been brushing up on getting clobbered in a couple of "competition" games :cry:, and have a score to settle with Alex. Actually he's pissed me off in just about every game I've tried so far, save the ones that I'm Greece. Guy's a menace in Civ4.

Haven't looked at the save yet but I trust we're in much better shape than I was in while learning how to lose by conquest. :mischief:

Sorry, folks. My internet connection this weekend has been (for various reasons) intermittant. We haven't moved on this game since Wednesday? Not good. Dave, if you've got some turns played, post what you've got and pass it along today. Otherwise, you're skipped.

And in order to make our rotation even more complicated, this coming week is MY finals week, and I will need to be skipped until next Sunday. Bed_Head and Tidus, hopefully your exams went well and you can join us in the rotation again (otherwise, Dwip and Kylearan may be busier than they expected to be this coming week!)

Carbon Copy->busy with exams
bed_head7 -> busy with exams?
Kylearan -> just played
Daveshack -> Skipped?
Dwip -> UP NOW
Tidus444 -> busy with exams? If not, ON DECK

Yes, I have some turns and it's not pretty. :( Was trying to figure out how to improve the situation a bit before passing it on, but guess I could post what there is.


Turn 181 (1830 AD)
DS: Guess we should pull the leftover cats from the last war forward
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
Catapult promoted: Barrage II
Tech learned: Paper
Tenochtitlan grows: 17
Teotihuacan grows: 13
Unpronounceable begins: Musketman
Unpronounceable finishes: Musketman
Delphi finishes: Grocer
Argos grows: 12

Turn 182 (1835 AD)
Research begun: Education
Delphi begins: Catapult
DS: Now that we have paper, can see we're also down printing press and education
DS: Trade with Napolean first to get Chemistry, we'll be up it to someone else
Tech learned: Chemistry
Tech learned: Drama
DS: Mil Trad to Napolean for Chem, Drama, 50g
Tech learned: Education
DS: Mil Trad to Genghis for Educ + 290g
Tech learned: Printing Press
DS: Mil Trad to Huayna for Printing Press + 210g
Research begun: Steel
DS: Now had to decide between Steel and Liberalism. Don't think it's possible that nobody is close to Liberalism, and the free tech is the only benefit to us
DS: Hmm, this cavalry is due a couple of promos, wonder why it wasn't done before. Consult manual, we want pinch (alex has guns) so choose combat I and pinch
Cavalry promoted: Combat I
Cavalry promoted: Pinch
Catapult promoted: Barrage III
Tenochtitlan begins: Cavalry
Tenochtitlan finishes: Cavalry
Teotihuacan begins: Cavalry
Teotihuacan finishes: Cavalry
Delphi finishes: Catapult
Pharsalos finishes: Library

Turn 183 (1840 AD)
Delphi begins: Barracks
Pharsalos begins: Catapult
DS: On the tech front, Scientific Method, Economics, and Replaceable Parts are known
Texcoco begins: Musketman
Texcoco finishes: Musketman

Turn 184 (1845 AD)
DS: turn on friendly moves to get a feel for what Alex is up to
Tenochtitlan begins: Cavalry
Tenochtitlan finishes: Cavalry
Tlaxcala begins: Musketman
Tlaxcala finishes: Musketman
Delphi finishes: Barracks
Argos grows: 13

Turn 185 (1850 AD)
Delphi begins: Grenadier
Tenochtitlan begins: Cavalry
Tenochtitlan finishes: Cavalry
Unpronounceable grows: 17
Unpronounceable begins: Musketman
Unpronounceable finishes: Musketman
Calixtlahuaca finishes: Grocer
Pharsalos finishes: Catapult
Xochicalco grows: 4

Turn 186 (1855 AD)
Calixtlahuaca begins: Musketman
Pharsalos begins: Catapult
DS: Greeks capture Machu Pichu, guess it's time to start an offensive
DS: Alex requested help with Inca, not bloody likely
DS: position troops for action next turn
Pharsalos begins: Musketman
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
Musketman promoted: City Garrison I
Musketman promoted: City Garrison II
DS: Declare war, move cavalry on Sparta. Defenders are 3 rifles, grenadier, catapult
Musketman promoted: Pinch
Musketman promoted: City Garrison I
Axeman promoted: Medic I
Cavalry defeats (15.00/15): Greek Rifleman
DS: accidentally killed a rifle -- did a double move of cav into enemy territory, and they went ahead with attacking into the 2nd (unknown to be occupied) plot
Teotihuacan begins: Cavalry
Teotihuacan finishes: Cavalry
Texcoco begins: Musketman
Texcoco finishes: Musketman
Delphi grows: 15

Turn 187 (1860 AD)
Cavalry defeats (11.40/15): Greek Catapult
Musketman promoted: Pinch
Musketman promoted: City Garrison I
Cavalry promoted: Combat I
Cavalry promoted: Pinch
Cavalry defeats (15.00/15): Greek Grenadier
Cavalry promoted: Combat I
Cavalry promoted: Pinch
Cavalry defeats (12.60/15): Greek Grenadier
War Elephant promoted: Pinch
Musketman loses to: Greek Crossbowman (0.24/6)
Pikeman defeats (6.00/6): Greek Crossbowman
Tech learned: Steel
Tenochtitlan begins: Cavalry
Tenochtitlan finishes: Cavalry
Tlatelolco finishes: Grocer
Tlaxcala grows: 12
Cavalry defeats (7.50/15): Greek Catapult
Cavalry defeats (8.70/15): Greek Rifleman
Cavalry loses to: Greek Grenadier (10.08/12)

Turn 188 (1865 AD)
Research begun: Replaceable Parts
Tlatelolco begins: Frigate
Musketman promoted: Pinch
Musketman promoted: City Garrison I
Catapult loses to: Greek Grenadier (3.72/12)
Catapult loses to: Greek Rifleman (14.00/14)
Cavalry defeats (8.10/15): Greek Maceman
Cavalry promoted: Combat II
Cavalry promoted: Combat II
Cavalry defeats (15.00/15): Greek Grenadier


Alex has a lot of grenadiers and rifles. I thought it would be OK to send some of the cats in via a different stack, that turned out to be a mistake. Should have pre-positioned them with the main cavalry force.

I think we're a little ahead on combat results, but not making progress very fast. Sorry, I'm not an uber clobberer yet. :(

Hi,

ugh, reading autologs hurts my eyes and makes my head ache...

Hmm, this cavalry is due a couple of promos, wonder why it wasn't done before.
I usually delay promoting units as long as possible. If I declare war and move my SoD into enemy territory, it often gets attacked by catapults/cannons, and then I use the promotions to insta-heal my units. Also, I often have to decide on the fly which promotions are really needed depending on the current situation.

Normally, I only promote a couple of units in the stack to serve as defenders in case the SoD gets attacked, and leave the rest until needed.

-Kylearan

Hi,

ugh, reading autologs hurts my eyes and makes my head ache...


If it's the colors I can turn them off. If it's the principle, sorry I agree we should take more time when possible to make reports nicer. :)

I figured out the idea on delayed promotions after writing that comment into the log, and left a few unpromoted myself.

And in order to make our rotation even more complicated, this coming week is MY finals week, and I will need to be skipped until next Sunday. Bed_Head and Tidus, hopefully your exams went well and you can join us in the rotation again (otherwise, Dwip and Kylearan may be busier than they expected to be this coming week!)


If it will help the schedule, and if you all don't mind having such a poor clobberer take more turns, I can take another set before Thursday.

As if the rotation wasn't complicated enough already, I'll be out of town and unavailable from Saturday Dec 17 thru Thursday Dec 22, probably can't play till Friday.

I see it, and will attempt to have something back by tomorrow night.

Hi,

if you all don't mind having such a poor clobberer
Hey, I thought this game was about getting experience with clobbering, and non-optimal turns are the best way getting some, right? :)

-Kylearan

One thing I think I ought to be mentioned is to not forget that we are a Spiritual civ and can change civics more or less at will. I've noticed that when I take over for my turns, we've more or less ignored the civics screen, missing opportunities like making the free switch to slavery as soon as we learned Bronze Working early in the game. If we're building a lot of units instead of buildings, we can make a civic switch into Vassalage/Theocracy and get +4 experience for every unit built in our Confucian cities (and +2 exp everywhere else), or we can go into Nationhood and draft some free military for a few turns and then switch back into whatever we're staying in by default, though I'd hold off on that until we can at least get rifles from that deal. If you do fiddle around with our civics, make sure you note when you did it in your turn report so that the next person knows when they can do a civic swap again (since we are limited in only being able to do it once every five turns).

[0] 1865 AD - Well, it looks like we've got some crazy fighting going on with Alex. Sparta is ours next turn, unless something totally bizzare happens. OTOH, we need guys at Pharsalos now. Alex has a big stack between Pharsalos and Sparta which could go either way. We'll find out RSN, I guess. We could really use rifles.

IBT - Alex shows up with a frigate off our NW coast. Then he obliterates our cat stack that went too far.

[1] 1870 AD - After some preliminary skirmishing outside Delphi, we bomb Sparta down to 0% defense. I hold off the actual attack, because Alex's city defense promoted rifles are really huge.

IBT - Alex pulls out 4-5 cats at Sparta and collaterals the hell out of our cav stack. His big stack splits up between Sparta and Pharsalos. We no longer have the force necessary to take down Sparta. He also shows up outside Argos.

[2] 1875 AD - Begin constructing some frigates to counter Alex's navy. Counterattack slightly at Argos and Pharsalos, and upgrade Argos' defenders so we aren't destroyed. Sparta's attack force hangs tough. If we can live through the next round, we should triumph. If not...dunno.

IBT - Heavy fighting outside all three cities, which we generally win a lot. Pharsalos needs some help pretty quick, though. Argos' attackers are all utterly defeated, some with the help of Inca, who swoops in at the last.

[3] 1880 AD - Sparta is bombarded back down to 0. More troops are moved up, because this is going to take at least two turns to deal with.

Drill II Catapult moves in, is killed, but causes some damage. A mere Barrage I Catapult does the same, and we're for the cav fighting.

Combat I/Shock/Pinch Cavalry vs Rifle of Doom I - Death for us. In fact, his weak units in Sparta have 16 vs 20 odds or worse. We totally can't fight that at all. We'll see what the Grens can do, and if they can't, we're leaving.

There's some heavy fighting vs 6-7 Greek Rifles and Grens at Pharsalos, wherein it comes down to taking down Catapults with Horse Archers and Phants, which are then moved back into the city and upgraded to cav. We're almost out of the woods there, but not quite.

IBT - Alex probes Pharsalos with a Rifle, and wins.

[4] 1885 AD - Replacable Parts comes in, I start us on Rifling.

We officially have no chance in hell of taking Sparta with anything less than a giant stack of cav at this point, which we don't have. I will, however, leave our stack put, as it's doing ok for itself, and is keeping a lot of Alex's troops busy. We need seige weapons REALLY BAD there, though, as well as Grenadiers, neither of which we have in great supply. I take measures to correct some of this.

Everyone in our whole civ is REALLY ANGRY, as well, which I really can't fix.

IBT - Alex's stack has bugged out from Pharsalos.

[5] 1890 AD - Complete some troops, and switch over to more cannons. Alex left a pult out in the open at Sparta, so I kill it. We WILL be collateraled by a bunch of Catapults, but that's more or less ok. I think.

IBT - Sure enough, two pults enter, no pults leave.

[6] 1895 AD - I send a cavalry scouting force into Alex's eastern territories, and more less just hang out waiting for reinforcements.

IBT - Inca comes up offering Fish for Horses. I renegotiate, and get ivory instead. Alex pults us again, but with a Medic I and a Medic II unit on site, it's not really an issue.

[7] 1900 AD - Move up more troops.

IBT - Toku comes asking for Steel. I decline. He's not really thrilled with that, but...

[8] 1902 AD - We complete two frigates, and I swap both starving cities over to temples. Unfortunately, trying to attack Alex's frigate results in a loss for us.

For whatever fool reason, Alex moves out a chunk of his guys from Sparta, some to Pharsalos, and some to straight out in the open next to our huge stack. Not being a fool, I pick them off with cav. Or we try. I lose on cav on 16 vs 11 odds due to straight bad RNG luck. Subsequent attacks work out just fine.

At Pharsalos, the cav I left behind is sufficient to obliterate Alex's troops, and half ours don't even get hurt.

In the east, we find out where Knossos is. It's seriously underdefended, and if we had, you know, seige weapons, we could probably take it without issue. However.

IBT - Our scouting force is attacked by some Rifles Alex brings up, and handily defeats all of them. A galley I didn't even know we had, or I would have upgraded it, which was randomly sleeping on the north coast, gets destroyed by a caravel.

[9] 1904 AD - Rifling comes in, and Steam Power is the order of the day.

At Sparta, I judge that the time is pretty much never going to be better.

Catapult goes in, dies as I suspected, but opens things up for our Grens to take charge.

Combat II/Pinch Gren vs Combat I/City Def II Rifle - We win!
Combat I/Cover/Pinch Gren vs Combat I/City Def II Rifle - We win!
Combat II/Pinch Cav vs Combat I Rifle - We win!
Combat I/Pinch Cav vs Combat I/Cover/Medic I Gren - We win, and Sparta is ours, along with 224 gold and two workers!

Cleanup of various stray units is relatively straightforward.

Knossos has a whopping 2 pults and a gren in it, and I move up some more cav and such to take advantage of the fact.

[10] 1906 AD - We get another frigate, and we start another temple. We are now losing a whopping 40 gpt at 70% science, so I drop us to a much more humane 60%.

More troops are moved up towards Knossos.

Our second frigate takes on Alex's frigate, and wins!

Our southern troops heal. Next stop is Athens or Thermopylae, both of which are miles of culture border away.

Since DaveShack only took 8, I'll go ahead and take 12 to even things out.

IBT - Alex tries to assault our Knossos cav with a Gren, and totally fails.

Inca comes asking for Rifling in exchange for Constitution and 70 gold, which is all he has. He also has Steam Power, SciMeth, and Econ. I end up declining, just because I want to hang on to Rifling. Straight after, Nappy comes asking for Steel in exchange for SciMeth and 120 gold. I want SciMeth, but he'll do that same deal for Constitution, so I take it.

[11] 1908 AD - Our first cannon comes online at Tenochtitlan, and I move it south. Alex having moved some guys up to Sparta, I take them down, picking up a 17 xp cav in the process.

Knossos strike force is in place.

IBT - I love how Alex keeps throwing guys at our Knossos attack force, and losing. In a move of supreme :smoke:, he attacks with both his Rifle and Gren defenders, leaving, in the face of our 8 cav/1 musket stack...2 catapults.

[12] 1910 AD - You had better believe I'm all over that. In short order, Knossos, 199 gold, and a worker are ours.

Remember that caravel? Well, I sank it.

The 100 turn message is upon us.

We NEED to get out of this war. In fact, it is CRITICAL to our economy to get out ASAP. Alex will talk now, and I suggest the next player take advantage of that, wring some concessions out of him, and get us ready for the final push.

Too, if our policy towards Inca is going to be friendship, and he totally worships us right now, we should trade Rifling for whatever we can possibly get from him, with some focus on Econ so we can then switch to Free Market.

We're doing reasonably well militarily - lots of cav, more or less enough rifle troops, but almost no seige to speak of. I suggest letting at least the current crop of cannons complete.

Do we have West Point? We're eligible for it. We have access to Ironworks somwhere as well.

Nice turns, Dwip! Sparta would have been much easier without my :smoke:move trying to bring in most of the cats via Pharsalos. Alex's moves there in the middle of the set are pretty weird, if we can identify what triggered them, it would become a strategy.

Can cats be upgraded to cannons? (if we have any left that is) That was where I was going with steel, and then realized taking Sparta would require bringing in reinforcements.

Exams are finished, I am back home, so I can be slotted back in wherever. I haven't followed what has happened in the last couple of turnsets very closely, so I'll need to read up, but looks like we are getting exactly what we were looking for coming in to the game.

Yes cats can be upgrade to cannon and then arties.

Like, *bump* and such.

I think it's safe to say that Tidus isn't going to be picking things up, which puts our roster something like:

Carbon Copy->busy with exams
bed_head7 -> UP NOW
Kylearan -> ON DECK
Daveshack -> Out 12/17-12/22
Dwip -> Down in a hole
Tidus444 -> AWOL, likely with exams

Alright, I have it.

Experienced a couple of crashes, which I haven't had much trouble with. As it is, my 48 hours are up and I am about halfway done and wanting at least an hour or so break before giving it another go. We haven't been in too much of a hurry, so I imagine you all will be fine with giving me some extra time to finish, but I thought I should let you know what is going on.

Tried once more and once again crashed. I don't know how much time I will have for this tomorrow, so perhaps at this point a swap would be for the best. Sorry to hold up the game needlessly only to ask for a swap.

First few turns were spent skirting along the edges of the Greek empire and trying to draw Greek units out into the open to be killed. It worked fairly well, as about six or eight grenadiers were killed without losses. Also snuck some units over towards Machu Picchu which had been captured by the Greeks.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_1918AD.jpg

With the last Greek rifle there killed, the city became ours. As we did not have any cannons in the area, we did lose two cavalry, but by sending in Flanking promoted units in first, we only lost one cavalry. I razed it, since holding it would be a waste of units, and I didn't really see any real reason to give it back to the Inca, since they will come next if we ever manage to finish off the Greeks.

Towards the middle of the turnset, Steam Power came in, and research was begun on Railroad. The birth of a great engineer in Tenochitlan speeds up that research by a bit. I would have used it on a wonder of some sort, but for some reason I thought Louis Daguerre was a scientist, not an engineer, and hastily clicked on the technology icon before noticing that the unit was an engineer, not a scientist. Sorry about that.

Anyway, kept on moving the stack on in. Once two cannons finally made it to Thermopylae, defenses were bombarded down to 8%, and then the two cannons sent in. After that, the four riflemen, two grenadiers, and catapult in the city were killed without losses, and the city razed.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_1928AD.jpg

We have two small stacks of units. One of cavalry, highlighted in the picture below, are healing outside of Greek territory with the aid of a Medic II promoted unit. The other small stack in their territory includes a couple of cannons, a couple of grenadiers, and a few cavalry. It is headed for Athens to bombard down their defenses and hopefully take the city by the sixth or seventh turn of the next players turnset.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB3_1930AD.jpg

The domestic situation is terrible. Early on, I considered messing with culture rate and maybe switching over to some buildings that would help with happiness. After the first time the game crashed, and the pathetic effects of my efforts, I decided to just say to hell with it all. Hope no one cares too much. But it really is taking its toll. Our score has been dropping due to the mass starvation in our cities, and our productivity is non existant. It almost might be worth it to make peace with the Greeks and go after the Incans or something. I don't really know. We are running short of time, and will not be winning by conquest, obviously. But even winning by score is in danger, with the whole starvation thing and poor research capabilities. In fact, we dropped to third place in score.

By the way, Kylearan had not picked it up and I had more time than I realized, so I gave it another go and managed to finish up without any more computer problems. Sorry about the lateness.

Hi,

got it. Won't be able to play before tomorrow, or even thursday though.

-Kylearan

Okay, I'm back. I was too busy writing my Epic 1 report to check this thread the last few days.

Mass Starvation? Not good. We need to switch who we're fighting if we're so war-weary that cities are starving. We've only ever been at war with Greece, so maybe we just need to leave them alone for a while and work on somebody else.

Our empire is in a desolate state, but that's mainly because of some poor play on our part...

I renegotiate our deals, and now we get ~20gpt more income.

No wonder that we have severe happiness problems! We have dye, but no theatres anyway?!? :smoke: They are cheap, and provide two happiness! I queue them up almost everywhere. I also raise culture to 20% (later to 30%).

We have lots of unhappy faces, and yet several cities are on "emphasize growth". I switch those to emphasize production to stop them from growing into even more unhappiness, and to build those theatres faster.

Calix is producing units without a barracks; change that.

We are drowning in units (and unit upkeep!), but our cities lack important infrastructure like courthouses etc. :( We should have built some infra even during the war, but I guess it's too late for that now.

Why do we have lots of sleeping workers when lots of improvements are yet to be done? :smoke: I wake them up and send them working.

Given our pitiful economy, we should have researched economics and corporation before railroads, but I let this finish before switching.

We wage war a lot, and have yet to build West Point... I start it in Teno during my turns.


On turn five, we capture Athens. On turn nine, Herakleia falls. Now only Mycenae is left, then the Greeks should be destroyed. Alex has infantry now, but we have enough cannons to soften them up before going in with our precious high-level cavs.

When economics came in, I've switched us to free markets. Corporation will be done next turn; then I suggest going for infantry.

-Kylearan

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY Carbon Copy! :beer:

Yes, happy birthday, CC! :)

Happy Birthday, CC. Here's your present. ;)

[0] 1950 AD - Well, here we are. 80 turns remaining. Our war with Alex begins to draw to a close, since he has at best two cities left. It doesn't say so, but I'm going to bet he has one in the tundra.

For domination, we have 24.03% of 47% population, and 31.24% of 66% land area. We're losing in score to Toku.

Our economy sure is hurting. But hopefully I can bring this war with Alex to a close.

IBT - Inca wants Spices for Wheat. I accept.

[1] 1951 AD - Corporation comes in, we start Assembly Line by default, due in 10. We are (barely) making money at 40% sci/30% culture.

Teo Cav->Cannon.

Move our stack up towards Mycenae. Move some cav to scout western Greece, and...oh my. Corinth is right where I said it was going to be, and it's got...a whole lot of guys in it. What we can see is to the tune of 3 Frigates, 4 Galleons, a Catapult, and 12 (!) Infantry. Ok, that's going to take some doing.

IBT - The good news is, Alex's guys are all just kind of hanging out.

[2] 1952 AD - Calix Cannon->Bank, Delphi MG->MG, Argos Theatre->Temple, Knossos Library->Temple.

Our stack is mostly in position at Mycenae. The bombing begins next turn.

[3] 1953 AD - Tlatelolco MG->Bank, Tlaxcala Cav->Harbor.

Mycenae is bombed down to 30%, and troops keep moving up. We begin moving an assault force towards Corinth. We're going to take the gold hill if we can, then assault the city.

IBT - Somebody else gets the Pentagon.

[4] 1954 AD - Teo Cav->Observatory, Xochicalco Theatre->Harbor, Texcoco Rifle->Bank

Mycenae is bombed to 0%. We will assault next turn. Our troops are also in position at Gold Hill.

[5] 1955 AD - Argos Temple->Library.

On second thought, I bypass Gold Hill, since we have nothing capable of even attempting to hurt that infantry, and I'm not going to throw cav at it until it dies.

The Battle of Mycenae:

City Raider I/Barrage I Cannon vs Combat I/City Def I Infantry - Lose, but hurt some infantry.
Barrage I Cannon vs Combat I Infantry - Lose, but more collateral.
Combat II/Pinch Grenadier vs Combat I/City Def I Infantry - Lose. This is a bloody business.
Combat I/Pinch Cav vs Combat I Infantry - Win against odds.
Combat I/Pinch Cav vs Combat I Infantry - Lose
Combat III/Pinch Cav vs Combat I/City Def I Infantry - Win
Combat II/Pinch Cav vs Combat I Infantry - Win

Mycenae and 133 gold is ours.

IBT - Alex does a CRAZY amount of counter-attacking at Corinth. 3 of our cav and a gren die, 5 of Alex's infantry die.

Inca cancels our Fish/Ivory deal.

[6] 1956 AD - Tlaxcala Harbor->Observatory, Knossos Temple->Granary, Athens Temple, Herakleia Temple.

There's some random infantry of Alex's by Mycenae, so I take one of our 23 XP cavs and kill it with no HP loss for the promotion.

IBT - More counterattacking at Corinth. We lose a Rifle, Alex loses an infantry.

[7] 1957 AD - Pharsalos MG->Temple.

Move up vast forces towards Corinth.

IBT - Our ubercav kill two of Alex's infantry at Corinth.

Napoleon declares war on us!

[8] 1958 AD - Teo Observatory->MG, Texcoco Bank->MG, Delphi MG->Bank, Xochicalco Harbor->Market.

I continue to move up on Corinth.

IBT - WAY misfortunately for us, Napoleon lands two cav and two arty at Knossos, overwhelms the musket defenders, and razes the city.

[9] 1959 AD - Begin bombing Corinth. We are in no way ready to attack, but.

IBT - Nappy moves on up.

[10] 1960 AD - Argos Library->Cav, Mycenae Lighthouse.

We're more or less stuck in front of Corinth healing for the next few turns. Too, we probably need more guys.

Forces to take care of Nappy are on their way. With that in mind, I'm going to go ahead and take an extra turn just so somebody else isn't stuck with him.

IBT - Alex counterattacks again. Unfortunately for him, to make use of that classic quote from Die Hard, "Ho Ho Ho. Now I have a machine gun." We still lose a cav, but honestly, every guy he throws at us NOW is one less I have to root out of Corinth later.

[11] 1961 AD - Tenochtitlan West Point->Cav.

Let me reassure you, and I'm sure you worried a lot, that our Combat III/Pinch Cav is perfectly capable of taking care of Nappy's entire raiding force.

I'm strongly tempted to take the extra two turns I need to wipe Alex off the map, but I'll give somebody else the pleasure. He's now down to 2 infantry and a cannon as usable garrison in Corinth, and two infantry guarding resources outside who aren't moving for anything. Unfortunately, our entire stack of cav is pretty much shot to hell, but thanks to our Medic II Cav, will be ready to rock in a couple turns. So have fun, and enjoy the moment.

I'm pretty sure Nappy is SE of us, somewhere in the unexplored reaches. We're going to need a navy to take him down, and he's definitely got Destroyers, so, uh, good luck with that.

Assembly Line is due in 4, with our whopping 20% science/40% culture. However, once we kill Alex, the 18-19 unhappiness we're picking up from the war should go away, and life will return to good.

Carbon Copy->UP
bed_head7 -> ON DECK
Kylearan -> Waiting
Daveshack -> Out 12/17-12/22 (Back?)
Dwip -> Resting in the trenches
Tidus444 -> AWOL, likely with exams

I see the game, but probably can't get to it until monday due to christmas plans. Do you guys want me to call christmas break on this game now, or get one or two more rounds in first?

BTW, thanks guys for the birthday greetings. And speaking of birthdays, the 21st marks 4 years since the first wave of RBers migrated here to CFC and set up shop in the Civ 3 Stories and Tales forum, at least by my recollection of events. Hopefully we'll still be around in another four years.

:bday: RBCiv SGs!

Hi,

so we're at war with Nappy now...good thing our military railnet is forming, so that we can respond to his landings. Weren't you able to reinforce Knossos after Nappy landed, or didn't you see the landing? (Have they fixed this in the patch? That landings are actually shown now? :crazyeye: )

I have no idea if, or when I will be able to play until the new year. Do we really want to halt this game completely, or make it some kind of "first come, first serve" SG instead, meaning anybody from the roster who can play can get it?

-Kylearan

(Have they fixed this in the patch? That landings are actually shown now? :crazyeye: )

-Kylearan

Doesn't this show up on the ``Hostile troops near Blah!'' notification? I always use Alt-Tab and then click on each message to make sure I didn't miss anything (clicking on the message centers the screen on the origin of the event.)

Doesn't this show up on the ``Hostile troops near Blah!'' notification? I always use Alt-Tab and then click on each message to make sure I didn't miss anything (clicking on the message centers the screen on the origin of the event.)

There's a gripe about this in the RB Epics reports. The landing itself is not animated, and the "troops near blah" message sometimes shows up at the end of the turn instead of the beginning of the turn. Some other messages come out of order too.

Do we want to allow an autosave reload if this happens and the current player didn't notice it?

And speaking of birthdays, the 21st marks 4 years since the first wave of RBers migrated here to CFC and set up shop in the Civ 3 Stories and Tales forum, at least by my recollection of events. Hopefully we'll still be around in another four years.

:bday: RBCiv SGs!

Judging from the number of epic reports submitted, this year it also marks the date that a wave of CFCers showed up over on RBCiv, myself included. :D

I pretty much had no clue we had even been landed on until the arty came knocking. I almost reloaded, but in the end decided that there wasn't a whole lot I could've done for Knossos anyway, considering how thin on the ground actual units are over there. I ended up blowing a ton of money upgrading a war elephant to cav, plus rushing cav back from the front with Alex to deal with things. My bad.

OTOH, checking the Show Enemy Moves option seems to work reasonably well at showing landing Civ 3 style now, or at least did last night when Monty tried to kill me in my SP game. So that's maybe a plus.

I guess we can go to "first come, first served" until January. So if anybody can get this before Monday, go on ahead.

*nudge*

Somebody? Anybody?

I guess nobody took me up on the first come/first served thing. I personally found myself a lot busier than I expected myself to be during the holidays and never got around to it. However, I'll pick this up now. Expect a report by tomorrow.

Carbon Copy->UP
bed_head7 -> ON DECK
Kylearan -> Waiting
Daveshack -> ?
Dwip -> Resting in the trenches
Tidus444 -> AWOL?

1961 - One infantry of Alex's dies while attacking our huge stack. That leaves only one infantry defending Corinth.

1962 - Well, time to see how bad fighting against infantry can get with the new patch. One suicide cannon dies, another one retreats, and then the next two cavalry to attack both win their fights and we capture Corinth, wiping out the Greeks.

The Greeks are dead! The Greeks are finally dead!

Interturn, our exploring Frigate gets sunk by a French Destroyer

1963 - Broadway is built in a Faraway Land (Mongolia). With war weariness with Greece gone, I turn science back up to 60%, assembly line will complete in 5 turns.

1964 - Nothing

1965 - Civic Swap to Representation, Organized Religion, Nationhood, Serfdom. I stay in Free Market.

1966 - Nothing
1967 - Nothing

1968 - Discover Assembly Line, start on Scientific Method. French Destroyers start bombarding the defenses of Calixtlahuaca.

1969 - Calixtlahuaca's defenses are bombarded down to 24%, I trade some spices to Genghis Khan for some Hit Musicals. Then I notice our fish is disconnected and trade copper to Huayna Capac for some of those.

1970 - Corinth comes out of resistance, I start it on a Courthouse. I'm building infrastructure everywhere. Most cities are building an observatory or university, most of our newly acquired Greek cities are building Courthouses. Once we're finished with those, we probably ought to start building Factories and Coal Plants.

We're slowly catching up to Genghis Khan for second place. I have us on 70% science for this one turn so we discover SciMeth one turn sooner, but be sure to ratchet it back next turn. Calixlahuaca is uncontrollably starving due to the presence of that destroyer forcing them to not work the water tiles.

Once we finish with Scientific Method, some options for us are either to go pick up Civics techs (Liberalism, Democracy, Fascism, Communism). We may actually want to get to Communism sooner rather than later so we can adopt State Property and save on our distance upkeep, but that requres we get Liberalism first (which is in itself not a bad idea). The other option is to go into Physics, which will open up a bunch of military techs (Flight, Artillery), and will also let us get Electricity for our path to the Modern Age and more military techs (Industrialism). We'll also want to reserach Combustion so we can hook up our oil, once SciMeth reveals it. The third is to go for Biology so we can build farms wherever, and the reason why we might want to do that I'll explain below:

Right now, we're by far the largest country, over twice as large as the second-largest country. However, we only have the fourth-largest population. If we're going to win on the histograph (as seems likely; I don't think we can make enough headway with our tech defecit to realisically win with a military victory), we need to raise our population. We may need to plow under some cottages once we get to Biology and start replacing them with farms to boost our growth rate, and get every city as large as its food base can support. That means building all of the health buildings (market, grocer, granary, aqueduct) in the cities that don't already have them, it also means building happiness buildings so we don't have to run the cultural slider so much. Regardless, we need to make an effort to keep every city growing. We especially can't afford for them to starve needlessly.

Sixty turns left. Good luck.

Carbon Copy->
bed_head7 ->UP NOW
Kylearan -> ON DECK
Daveshack ->
Dwip ->
Tidus444 -> AWOL?

I am sorry. I will have to ask for a skip. It flooded in my area, and there is a lot of cleanup to do before I'll have anywhere in my house to sit down and play.

Got it.

Hope it's only cleaning up and nothing's got damaged, bed_head!

-Kylearan

I came back from work last night to find that my computer's CPU has called it quits. I don't know how long I'll be out, but consider me an auto-skip until I can get my computer running again. :(

Sorry for taking so long to play my turns!

On the inherited turn, I go through all our cities and switch off "avoid growth" in many, and set must of them from "emphasize production" to "emphasize growth", which both might help with CC's plan to grow our cities. ;)

Then I hit "end turn", and out of the blue get an attack on Teo by French units nobody had talked about and I hadn't seen! An artillery bombards city defenses, then another artillery attacks and dies against our defending machine gunner. A cavalry kills the machine gunner, then another cavalry kills a pikeman. Now the city is only defended by a wounded jaguar and Nappy has still a cav left...which decides to pillage instead of taking the city. :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

Whoa, that totally took me by surprise! Must have been one of these stealth landings which get no animation and will only be shown in the log. :eek:


I promote a machine gunner in Tex to Drill II and move it to Teo, as well with two cavs from other cities. One of it kills Nappy's wounded cav.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb3_1971ad.jpg

There's still an artillery and a cav near the city, but it's safe now. On the interturn, the artillery attacks and dies, and the cav pillages. I kill it with a 30xp cav of our own brought in from the south last turn.


The rest of the turns were quiet. I built infrastructure in all cities, and the workers irrigated a lot, especially cottages on plains which are not the best of choices anyway in my view. They also made an irrigation chain to our western tip of the continent, finally! That should have had happened a lot earlier than in the 1970s, but oh well...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb3_1977ad.jpg


Biology was researched, then liberalism (for the civics), then I've set us on physics toward military techs in case Nappy or someone else comes with more advanced and larger landing parties. I've forgotten to switch our civics; the next player should do so.


Nappy talks with us again, but does not want to make peace, so watch out for more landings, and maybe build some infantry as well.


We are leading in score now by about 400 points, gap increasing. Unless something bad (war) happens, it will be a cruise to a glorious time victory. ;)


-Kylearan

Am I up? If yes, got it but can't play until 10pm or after.

Am I up?
According to the roster on page one yes, but I'm not so sure anymore who's still in, out, or if the order is still the same... :lol:

Well, not counting skips, we've pretty much gone in the first post order the entire game. Here's how we stand as far as I can tell:

Carbon Copy->Dead computer, likely out for the rest of the SG :(
bed_head7 -> Out due to flood, may possibly be back before the end
Kylearan -> still here
Daveshack -> still here
Dwip -> still here
Tidus444 -> AWOL

Now, there's only 50 turns left, so there's only five more sessions to play.

Good job on the irrigation, Ky. I completely missed the "avoid growth" governor in our cities, and yeah, I didn't see any troops land (and wasn't expecting them near Teotihuacan, anyhow, since they were bombarding us on the other side of the continent).

You can slot me back in.

I've had a couple of rough nights scheduling wise. Still willing to try again tomorrow night if you want to wait, but if you're chomping at the bit then go ahead and skip me.

I have work and RB7 turns before this, so I prolly can't get to it yet anyway.

Well, I've ordered a new CPU, hopefully that'll fix the problem and I'll be back up and running by next week.

OK then, still got it.

Summary: still chugging away, but war threatens to interrupt prosperity.

Genghis Khan declared war on us and landed 4 artillery which were dispatched at a cost of 2 cannons.
2 more arty and 2 sam inf. have landed

Napolean has landed 4 tanks SE of Mycenae

We're off a turn, I'm dead tired and warfare while you're nodding off to sleep is a bad idea. Next player can take 11 please. :)


----------------------------New entries----------------------------
Turn 140 (1600 AD)
Texcoco grows: 13
Unpronounceable finishes: Catapult
Tlaxcala grows: 8
Tlaxcala's borders expand
Islam founded in a distant land

Turn 141 (1610 AD)
Unpronounceable begins: Harbor
Catapult promoted: City Raider I
War Elephant promoted: Combat I
Texcoco finishes: Courthouse
Calixtlahuaca finishes: Lighthouse

Turn 142 (1620 AD)
Texcoco begins: Catapult
Teotihuacan finishes: Chichen Itza
Taoism has spread: Texcoco
Calixtlahuaca grows: 9

Turn 143 (1630 AD)
Teotihuacan begins: Crossbowman
Tech learned: Engineering
Tenochtitlan finishes: Heroic Epic
Unpronounceable grows: 13
Tlaxcala grows: 9

Turn 144 (1640 AD)
Research begun: Music
Tenochtitlan begins: Pikeman
Research begun: Theology
Research begun: Feudalism
Tenochtitlan finishes: Pikeman
Teotihuacan finishes: Crossbowman
Tlatelolco grows: 10
Tlatelolco finishes: Courthouse
Texcoco finishes: Catapult
Delphi finishes: Courthouse

Turn 145 (1650 AD)
Tenochtitlan begins: Horse Archer
Teotihuacan begins: Catapult
Tlatelolco begins: Horse Archer
Texcoco begins: Archer
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
Crossbowman promoted: City Garrison I
Pikeman promoted: Cover
Tenochtitlan finishes: Horse Archer
Heron (Great Engineer) born in Tenochtitlan
Teotihuacan finishes: Catapult
Texcoco finishes: Archer
Unpronounceable finishes: Harbor

Turn 146 (1655 AD)
Tenochtitlan begins: The Hagia Sophia
Teotihuacan begins: Horse Archer
Texcoco begins: Axeman
Unpronounceable begins: Horse Archer
Horse Archer promoted: Flanking I
Archer promoted: Drill I
Tenochtitlan finishes: The Hagia Sophia
Teotihuacan finishes: Horse Archer

Turn 147 (1660 AD)
Tenochtitlan begins: Pikeman
Teotihuacan begins: Horse Archer
Horse Archer promoted: Flanking I
Tenochtitlan finishes: Pikeman
Teotihuacan finishes: Horse Archer
Tlatelolco finishes: Horse Archer
Texcoco finishes: Axeman
Unpronounceable finishes: Horse Archer

Turn 148 (1665 AD)
Tenochtitlan begins: Catapult
Teotihuacan begins: Crossbowman
Tlatelolco begins: Pikeman
Texcoco begins: Pikeman
Unpronounceable begins: Pikeman
Pikeman promoted: Cover
Horse Archer promoted: Flanking I
Horse Archer promoted: Flanking I
Horse Archer promoted: Combat I
Axeman promoted: City Raider I
Tech learned: Feudalism
Tenochtitlan finishes: Catapult
Teotihuacan finishes: Crossbowman
Tlaxcala finishes: Courthouse
Delphi finishes: Hindu Monastery

Turn 149 (1670 AD)
Research begun: Guilds
Tenochtitlan begins: Pikeman
Teotihuacan begins: Catapult
Tlaxcala begins: Market
Delphi begins: Aqueduct
Crossbowman promoted: Drill I
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
Tenochtitlan finishes: Pikeman
Teotihuacan finishes: Catapult
Calixtlahuaca finishes: Courthouse

Turn 150 (1675 AD)
Tenochtitlan begins: Longbowman
Teotihuacan begins: Longbowman
Calixtlahuaca begins: Harbor
Pikeman promoted: City Raider I
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
----------------------------New entries----------------------------
Turn 181 (1830 AD)
DS: Guess we should pull the leftover cats from the last war forward
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
Catapult promoted: Barrage II
Tech learned: Paper
Tenochtitlan grows: 17
Teotihuacan grows: 13
Unpronounceable begins: Musketman
Unpronounceable finishes: Musketman
Delphi finishes: Grocer
Argos grows: 12

Turn 182 (1835 AD)
Research begun: Education
Delphi begins: Catapult
DS: Now that we have paper, can see we're also down printing press and education
DS: Trade with Napolean first to get Chemistry, we'll be up it to someone else
Tech learned: Chemistry
Tech learned: Drama
DS: Mil Trad to Napolean for Chem, Drama, 50g
Tech learned: Education
DS: Mil Trad to Genghis for Educ + 290g
Tech learned: Printing Press
DS: Mil Trad to Huayna for Printing Press + 210g
Research begun: Steel
DS: Now had to decide between Steel and Liberalism. Don't think it's possible that nobody is close to Liberalism, and the free tech is the only benefit to us
DS: Hmm, this cavalry is due a couple of promos, wonder why it wasn't done before. Consult manual, we want pinch (alex has guns) so choose combat I and pinch
Cavalry promoted: Combat I
Cavalry promoted: Pinch
Catapult promoted: Barrage III
Tenochtitlan begins: Cavalry
Tenochtitlan finishes: Cavalry
Teotihuacan begins: Cavalry
Teotihuacan finishes: Cavalry
Delphi finishes: Catapult
Pharsalos finishes: Library

Turn 183 (1840 AD)
Delphi begins: Barracks
Pharsalos begins: Catapult
DS: On the tech front, Scientific Method, Economics, and Replaceable Parts are known
Texcoco begins: Musketman
Texcoco finishes: Musketman

Turn 184 (1845 AD)
DS: turn on friendly moves to get a feel for what Alex is up to
Tenochtitlan begins: Cavalry
Tenochtitlan finishes: Cavalry
Tlaxcala begins: Musketman
Tlaxcala finishes: Musketman
Delphi finishes: Barracks
Argos grows: 13

Turn 185 (1850 AD)
Delphi begins: Grenadier
Tenochtitlan begins: Cavalry
Tenochtitlan finishes: Cavalry
Unpronounceable grows: 17
Unpronounceable begins: Musketman
Unpronounceable finishes: Musketman
Calixtlahuaca finishes: Grocer
Pharsalos finishes: Catapult
Xochicalco grows: 4

Turn 186 (1855 AD)
Calixtlahuaca begins: Musketman
Pharsalos begins: Catapult
DS: Greeks capture Machu Pichu, guess it's time to start an offensive
DS: Alex requested help with Inca, not bloody likely
DS: position troops for action next turn
Pharsalos begins: Musketman
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
Musketman promoted: City Garrison I
Musketman promoted: City Garrison II
DS: Declare war, move cavalry on Sparta. Defenders are 3 rifles, grenadier, catapult
Musketman promoted: Pinch
Musketman promoted: City Garrison I
Axeman promoted: Medic I
Cavalry defeats (15.00/15): Greek Rifleman
DS: accidentally killed a rifle -- did a double move of cav into enemy territory, and they went ahead with attacking into the 2nd (unknown to be occupied) plot
Teotihuacan begins: Cavalry
Teotihuacan finishes: Cavalry
Texcoco begins: Musketman
Texcoco finishes: Musketman
Delphi grows: 15

Turn 187 (1860 AD)
Cavalry defeats (11.40/15): Greek Catapult
Musketman promoted: Pinch
Musketman promoted: City Garrison I
Cavalry promoted: Combat I
Cavalry promoted: Pinch
Cavalry defeats (15.00/15): Greek Grenadier
Cavalry promoted: Combat I
Cavalry promoted: Pinch
Cavalry defeats (12.60/15): Greek Grenadier
War Elephant promoted: Pinch
Musketman loses to: Greek Crossbowman (0.24/6)
Pikeman defeats (6.00/6): Greek Crossbowman
Tech learned: Steel
Tenochtitlan begins: Cavalry
Tenochtitlan finishes: Cavalry
Tlatelolco finishes: Grocer
Tlaxcala grows: 12
Cavalry defeats (7.50/15): Greek Catapult
Cavalry defeats (8.70/15): Greek Rifleman
Cavalry loses to: Greek Grenadier (10.08/12)

Turn 188 (1865 AD)
Research begun: Replaceable Parts
Tlatelolco begins: Frigate
Musketman promoted: Pinch
Musketman promoted: City Garrison I
Catapult loses to: Greek Grenadier (3.72/12)
Catapult loses to: Greek Rifleman (14.00/14)
Cavalry defeats (8.10/15): Greek Maceman
Cavalry promoted: Combat II
Cavalry promoted: Combat II
Cavalry defeats (15.00/15): Greek Grenadier
----------------------------New entries----------------------------
Turn 250 (1980 AD)
DS: Selling liberalism for the gold we can get, total around 1300
DS: Switch to Free Speech nets us 37gpt
Tenochtitlan grows: 20
Unpronounceable grows: 18
Tlaxcala grows: 18
Pharsalos grows: 15
Argos grows: 16
Xochicalco grows: 10
Sparta grows: 21
Corinth grows: 11
Athens grows: 18
Herakleia grows: 12

Turn 251 (1981 AD)
Tenochtitlan grows: 21
Tenochtitlan finishes: Infantry
Teotihuacan grows: 17
Texcoco grows: 20
Unpronounceable grows: 19
Delphi grows: 23
Pharsalos grows: 16
Xochicalco finishes: Observatory
Sparta grows: 22
Corinth grows: 12
Athens grows: 19
Herakleia grows: 13

Turn 252 (1982 AD)
Tenochtitlan begins: Infantry
Xochicalco begins: University
Tech learned: Physics
Tenochtitlan grows: 22
Tenochtitlan finishes: Infantry
Teotihuacan finishes: Ironworks
Tlatelolco grows: 16
Tlatelolco finishes: University
Texcoco grows: 21
Tlaxcala grows: 19
Tlaxcala finishes: Factory
Calixtlahuaca grows: 12
Pharsalos finishes: Forge
Argos grows: 17
Sparta finishes: Aqueduct
Athens grows: 20
Mycenae grows: 8

Turn 253 (1983 AD)
Research begun: Democracy
Tenochtitlan begins: Infantry
Teotihuacan begins: University
Tlatelolco begins: Lighthouse
Tlaxcala begins: Ironclad
Pharsalos begins: University
Sparta begins: University
Tenochtitlan finishes: Infantry
Tlatelolco finishes: Lighthouse
Unpronounceable grows: 20
Pharsalos grows: 17
Argos grows: 18
Argos finishes: Market
Sparta grows: 23
Corinth grows: 13
Athens finishes: Grocer
Mycenae finishes: Granary

Turn 254 (1984 AD)
Tenochtitlan begins: Infantry
Tlatelolco begins: Drydock
Argos begins: Aqueduct
Athens begins: Theatre
Mycenae begins: Harbor
DS: we have uranium
Teotihuacan grows: 18
Teotihuacan finishes: University
Texcoco finishes: Infantry
Unpronounceable finishes: University
Tlaxcala grows: 20
Calixtlahuaca grows: 13
Delphi grows: 24
Pharsalos grows: 18
Athens grows: 21
Athens finishes: Theatre
Herakleia grows: 14

Turn 255 (1985 AD)
Teotihuacan begins: Cavalry
Texcoco begins: Infantry
Unpronounceable begins: Drydock
Athens begins: Observatory
Cannon promoted: Barrage I
Cannon promoted: Barrage II
Cannon loses to: Mongolian Artillery (11.52/18)
Cannon promoted: Barrage I
Cannon promoted: Barrage II
Cannon loses to: Mongolian Artillery (14.04/18)
Cavalry defeats (5.55/15): Mongolian Artillery
Cavalry defeats (11.85/15): Mongolian Artillery
Cavalry defeats (12.15/15): Mongolian Artillery
Cavalry defeats (12.15/15): Mongolian Artillery
DS: Genghis declares war and lands 4 artillery
DS: Two cannons die knocking the arty down, then cavs kill arty
Tech learned: Democracy
Tenochtitlan grows: 23
Tenochtitlan finishes: Infantry
Calixtlahuaca grows: 14
Delphi finishes: University

Turn 256 (1986 AD)
Tenochtitlan begins: Infantry
Delphi begins: Cannon
Research begun: Medicine
DS: trying medicine to get some tech trade goods
Tenochtitlan finishes: Infantry
Teotihuacan finishes: Cavalry
Tlatelolco grows: 17
Texcoco grows: 22
Unpronounceable grows: 21
Pharsalos grows: 19
Sparta grows: 24
Corinth grows: 14
Corinth's borders expand
Corinth finishes: University
Herakleia finishes: Aqueduct
Mycenae grows: 9

Turn 257 (1987 AD)
Tenochtitlan begins: Infantry
Teotihuacan begins: Cavalry
Corinth begins: Infantry
Herakleia begins: Infantry
Tenochtitlan finishes: Infantry
Teotihuacan's borders expand
Teotihuacan finishes: Cavalry
Unpronounceable finishes: Drydock
Tlaxcala finishes: Ironclad
Pharsalos finishes: University
Argos grows: 19
Athens finishes: Observatory

Turn 258 (1988 AD)
Teotihuacan begins: Factory
Unpronounceable begins: Ironclad
Tlaxcala begins: Ironclad
Delphi begins: Colosseum
Pharsalos begins: Aqueduct
Athens begins: Barracks
Tlatelolco finishes: Drydock
Argos finishes: Aqueduct
Sparta finishes: University
Athens finishes: Barracks
Mycenae finishes: Harbor

Turn 259 (1989 AD)
Tlatelolco begins: Factory
Argos begins: Observatory
Sparta begins: Observatory
Athens begins: Library
Mycenae begins: Courthouse

Just realized editing a post might not update subscriptions.

Dwip is UP if we're still on track. :)

See it. Have it back tonight or tomorrow.

No such luck with the CPU. Arrived today, switched the chip out, still not working (in fact, now the computer isn't even posting anymore, which I could at least get it to do occasionally before freezing with the old CPU). I'll get another look at it tomorrow, but it looks like a new motherboard is now in order.

So, long story short, I'm still out of commision, and will probably buy myself a new computer, piece-by-piece, until I finally replace the part that was causing the problem.

Arright. I've been trying to play, and it's just not coming to me. Rather than delay things any longer, I'll just go ahead and ask for a skip, since it's pretty doubtful I'll be able to get back to this before next Friday.

Since CC's computer hates him (ouch!), that puts bed_head up, I believe.

Hm. Well, since saying I can play, I have wound up as up in the two other games I am playing, but I cannot play them until tomorrow evening, and definitely will not have time for a third turnset. I will try to play as soon as possible, I guess, but it will definitely not be in the next 48 hours.

I had been expecting to receive today a box with a few things I left at home, one of which was my Civ4 CD. Unfortunately, it seems that in packing up my stuff to move out of my room, it got placed in one of my random boxes of stuff instead of with things to take with me. I had assumed up until now that I had just put it upstairs somewhere (it doesn't flood that high) but I guess not. Considering this would be a last turnset, I guess I can call it a skip instead of dropping out, but the point is I will not be playing Civ4 for a few months until I can go home and look for it myself. I enjoyed playing with you all, and hopefully I will play with some of you again in the future.

Is this game dead? Come on, it's only what, 50 turns to go? I've played the second last turnset, so won't play again now. Anybody else?

-Kylearan

Well, the new gear arrived from UPS today, and I got it installed and running again after I got home from work, so I can pick this game back up. So I've got it.

Now, it'll probably be close to the full 48 for me to get this played, it's something like 5:00 AM right now and I JUST got things working, so I need to get some sleep.

Any luck with the rebuilt system?

Apparently not, it would seem.

Dwip, can you take it? That would keep Kylearan and me from having to alternate. :)

...and another game dies an unpretentious death. :( Looks like the first excitement about the new game is over and people start to lose interest. Granted, this SG offers no real excitement anymore, but I hate leaving a game unfinished behind...

-Kylearan

Well, I was going to take it this weekend, when I'll have time to play. If somebody wants to get it before then, feel free.

We've had some bad luck with a dead cpu and a missing CD. I'd like to see it through.

:bump:

None of you have Epics to play at the moment, right? :groucho:

Anyway, I'm just trying to decide what area of the succession games page to put this game into the "finished" games or keep it in the active section.

If you guys still want to see it through (c'mon, 50 turns! ;) ), I think it's something like

Dwip - UP NOW!
Kylearan - on deck
Daveshack

Well, I still see it, but it'll be at least this weekend before I have time to play. If anybody else wants to deal with it before then, well, feel free.

These are, I should note, turns I gave up the first time around because I couldn't figure out a good way to play them, so it may be best if we just skip me and move straight on to Kylearan.