Rat 09 - going for conquest [Archive] - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

Dimy

Nov 15, 2005, 11:02 AM

Ok here's my 15 turns (and I got some bad news at the end...) :mischief:

3240 BC: Our Warrior in the northeast gets attacked by lions, I give him a Woodsman I promotion and take 4 turns to heal.

3200 BC: nothing happens

3160 BC: Now our warrior in the northwest meet some lions, I move him in the forest for some defense bonus. Now here's a nice pic with flying cam enabled:

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image001.jpg

3120 BC: Our warrior kills the Lion and is also promoted to Woodsman I. 3 turns to heal.

3080 BC: Archery is discovered, next is Bronze Working (13 turns). Worker is ready in Rome, but the only thing he can do is building pastures... so he's only useful on the cows in the south of Rome. I think the worker was build a little bit too early (Rome was only size 2), but that's ok... the pasture should give us a nice bonus when it's finished. A warrior was already prebuild and queued up, so not to waste any shields I'll let Rome finish the Warrior and queue up Barracks next.

3040 BC: Worker starts building pasture on the Cows.

3000 BC: Tribal Village spotted by our Woodsman I warrior in the northeast... We get a free Warrior... a tech or some gold would have been nice here, oh well... we can still use him to explore. There are lions directly to the east of where our 2 warriors now sit... I fortify the warrior we just received.

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image002.jpg

2960 BC: The Lion is killed by the Woodsman I Warrior and need 6 turns to heal. The newly received warrior continues exploring the norteast...
A warrior is finished in Rome and will defend the city (for now), Barracks is started.
Our Woodsman I warrior in the Northwest meanwhile spots another Lion and moves to the forest directly northeast of the Lion to get some more XP.

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image003.jpg

2920 BC: The Lions attack the Woodsman I and are getting killed, our warrior has some more XP and need 5 turns to heal. Pasture is ready south of rome, but there's no other work the Worker can do at the moment... so I send him back to Rome. When we discovered some more worker techs we'll be able to use him again. I immediately reconfigure the "worked tiles" in the city screen and change it from a forest tile (2 food, 1 hammer) to the cows with pasture tile (3 food and 3 hammers!).

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image004.jpg

2880 BC: The worker is back in Rome and I let him rest there for now... he's useless at the moment. As for discovery... here's the bad news, it definitely looks like we're alone on this continent! Why is that bad? Because we have no AI to conquer... and might not have any AI to conquer untill we can build Galleons to cross the oceans! And it's very likely we fall behind in tech as well... This doesn't look good for our goals :mad:
Now that I know we probably won't have an enemy to fight, I change our science objectives... I had beelined to Iron Working, but instead removed the Iron Working from the queue and queued up Agriculture instead. But first we finish Bronze Working.

2840 BC: nothing happens this turn...

2800 BC: Some wolves are spotted near our Woodsman who's still healing in the forest... he should do alright if attacked though.

2760 BC: Smart wolves... instead of attacking the nearly healed Woodsman fortified in the forest he attacks the nearby unpromoted warrior on the plains just north! But still dies...

2720 BC: nothing of interest

2680 BC: my last turn and again nothing of interest

Barracks in Rome will be finished in 5 turns, Bronze Working is up in 3 turns. I queued an archer and settler in Rome to build next. A nice place to settle would be at the river mouth to the northeast of rome. But there are plenty of other sweet spots to choose from. Here's a map:

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image005.jpg

Arathorn

Nov 15, 2005, 11:09 AM

5 health bonuses and 2 happies? Oh boy. Hope for a landbridge in the west!

BTW, conquest, even with a late start, should be very doable. I'm pretty sure I could have won one Monarch game that way, but I did domination instead. Just keep your techs MOOOving along and you should be OK.

Arathorn

Xarathas

Nov 15, 2005, 12:19 PM

Since we're more than likely to be on this continent alone, I think we should detour from iron working and pick up irrigation/mining/sailing, and find a city to send out a galley to confirm whether any nearby landmass are reachable by galleys. There's no point rushing for iron working at this stage since (more than likely) no one will compete with us for iron :p If we do find a land bridge to the west, then we can just switch back as planned.

As for religion, assuming we're on this continent alone. I think we should hook up that marble to the north with our third city and Oracle for one(CoL or Theology). Should be able to get that done in time on Prince lvl.

Hmm.. not sure where we'd want to find our second city, however. If this continent indeed does not have any hostile forces on it, it would probably be a good idea for our second city to be a coastal one... perhaps to the SW or the E for the rice?

What do the rest of you think?

Like Arathorn said, even with a late start on conquest it should be still manageable. Especially since we're only on a standard sized map :)

Dimy

Nov 15, 2005, 12:25 PM

Yeah...as i already said in my report (and actioned upon) i queued up irrigation after bronze working (which is nearly finished), worker techs will be most important now and then we should indeed go for the quickest way to Galleons.

Xarathas

Nov 15, 2005, 12:29 PM

Woop.. missed that :D point taken.

ThERat

Nov 15, 2005, 05:27 PM

the reason why I chose a worker was due to the cows. At that moment Rome was pathetic and would have needed 12 turns to grow as well. Even it means now the worker has nothing to do, long term I hope the pasture will help. Now we have to change goals, get the worker techs first.

I see Rome as the worker/settler pump and hope we can get a coastal town and hill town next.
We defentiely need to make sure we get 1 religion for culture as well.

I thought the queue built suggested to form a warrior straight which is a sign we are not alone. Well, I was wrong.

By the way, Dimy, nice write-up

Roster:
ThERat
Dimy - just played
Greebley - up
Thrar - on deck
Xarathas

Xarathas

Nov 15, 2005, 11:26 PM

quick notice.. I'm going to be leaving for a cruise on Friday and will be back Monday evening. Hopefully I'll get my first set of turns before then.. Feel free to skip me if my turn's up during the weekend.

Dimy

Nov 16, 2005, 10:33 AM

Any news from Greebley? It's been 24 hours since I played my turn... :)

Greebley

Nov 16, 2005, 10:47 AM

I am here. I got it.

Greebley

Nov 16, 2005, 01:10 PM

I will be out from Nov 18th through Nov 28th. Computer access will be limited. I plan to finish my current turn before I go. Skip me if my turn comes up.

ThERat

Nov 17, 2005, 03:48 PM

Greebley, are you able to finish your turnset tonight? Else, we skip you until you are back from your trip

Greebley

Nov 17, 2005, 09:02 PM

I was hoping to play tonight before I left, but have had to deal with issues at work. I will not be able to play before I leave so skip me.

ThERat

Nov 17, 2005, 09:12 PM

ok, sure Greebley

Roster:
ThERat
Dimy - just played
Greebley - away from 18 to 28th Nov
Thrar - up
Xarathas - on deck

Thrar

Nov 17, 2005, 10:52 PM

got it, will have it done in the next couple of hours.

Thrar

Nov 18, 2005, 08:24 AM

(0) Apparently Rome just grew - I see no reason to continue with the barracks now, so I switch to settler. Since I don't think we'll need Bronze Working soon, I also switch to Agriculture immediately. Can finish BW later.

(1) Ok, I just noticed we didn't have 2 warriors as I had seen before, but 4!! This will definitely be enough military for a while, now that we know we're on our own. I'll leave the woodsmen walking around the island, the normal guy comes back to later guard our 2nd city.

(2) Thanks for building all those warriors, at least I have something to move ;)

(3) move along...nothing to see here.

(4) ...

(5) Hey, there's a hut!

IBT - western woodsman killed a wolf, now at 4/5.

(6) this might be the most exciting screenshot in this turnset: what will they find?

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~s0500422/images/Civ4/Rat09/what's%20that%20hut.jpg

Damn...36 gold.

(7) mapped out those tiles missing in the middle. We have horses!

(8) Agriculture! Finally something to do!!! Worker starts on a farm. Next tech will be the Wheel (8). Rome's warrior heads south to have a look at the waters, I can't decide on the settle location.

(9) ...

(10) ...

(11) No unknown water resources in the south.

(12) settler complete. Now where to settle? This is the situation:

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~s0500422/images/Civ4/Rat09/2nd%20city.jpg

These two circles suggested by the computer are exactly what I was thinking about, if only...if only we wouldn't need a culture expansion to grab the cows on the eastern location. Settling directly north of the river would mean that we can never access that rice (except by settling on top). The eastern circle is a great site, but we can't get that expansion now.
Finally I decide to settle 2 north of the river circle, directly west of the cows. Settling the southern circle would be a city without any resource or bonus, which wouldn't help very much for expansion. Later (probably much later) we might settle the hill east of Rome, or north of the rice. Since there's no warrior cover, I move the settler only one tile to avoid bad surprises (causes 1 turn delay).
Back in Rome, I order another settler. The barracks can wait.

IBT - Lions attack our western woodsman - promoting him to woodsman II!

(13) Worker starts on next farm, no roads available (and necessary) yet.

(14) Antium founded, start on an archer (no granary available yet). There's another hut in the west!

(15) preparation for the next turn: Xarathas, your first will be a big one!
(hut to be popped in the west, research of Wheel completed)

Our empire (well...):

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~s0500422/images/Civ4/Rat09/rat%20empire%202080BC.jpg

Thoughts on how to proceed:
My #1 choice for next tech would be Pottery. Granaries would help a lot, and we even get them 1/2 price! I don't know how much time we have until the research on BW begins to decay, maybe research 1 turn on Pottery (there will be A LOT of research carried over), switch to BW for one turn to avoid decay, then finish Pottery?
Antium above all could use a worker, maybe switch after growth? The third city could be founded on the southern circle, and share Rome's worker. Our civ traits give us 1/2 price granaries and lighthouses, some coastal resource cities would be nice, unfortunately there are not many around...

Xarathas, have fun!

ThERat

Nov 18, 2005, 08:54 AM

Roster:
ThERat - up
Dimy - on deck
Greebley - away from 18 to 28th Nov
Thrar - just played
Xarathas - on cruise from Fri til Monday

Unless Xarathas can play today (since it's Fri in the US now), I will play the turns tomorrow. The early turns aren't that eventful anyway.
By the way, we should try and grab 1 religion. I usually try and go for Oracle and then get confucius.

Xarathas

Nov 18, 2005, 01:40 PM

Hey guys.. I need to head for the port in 20 minutes, so I won't be able to play the turns and do a write up =/ I'll be back Monday though, so please skip me this round (and next if necessary, sorry). I'll be able to play turns starting Monday night.

Dimy

Nov 18, 2005, 05:54 PM

Yeah I agree on the religion thing, we could grab one of the later religions for sure. We have plenty of land to expand so it's looking good. I just hope we won't be for too long in isolation as this definitely hurts scientific progress. But we should be able to outsmart the AI :goodjob:

ThERat

Nov 18, 2005, 06:45 PM

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Rat09BC-1520.Civ4SavedGame)

looking at the game, I think what we should do is, get pottery and then head for priesthood, build the Oracle and get CoL
CoL is crucial since we want to expand fast on this Island
since the Oracle can be built faster with marble I try and settle that spot in the north near marble faster

the highlights:we get the wheel, pottery and mysticism
step on hut get 41gold
get setterand settle Cumae in the north next to marble
Rome gets a rax, go for archer first then maybe granary for growth
Antium also gets an archer, since it is slower growing, go for granary
Cumae is on obelisk for border expansion to grab the horses

situation
we get meditation, in 4, we should go for priesthood first,
then masonry to grab the marble for faster Oracle
Antium looks like the shield powerhouse. Rome should go for settlers and workers (we need more of those)
once we got Oracle, grab CoL as the free tech

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat091520.jpg

Dimy

Nov 19, 2005, 06:45 AM

Goals:
Research Priesthood and Masonry
Connect Marble to speed up wonder builds like Oracle
Build more workers

Note: For some reason the screenshots I have made during my turn were not saved :( I went back to my final save game and took some screenshots of the situation after my final turn, sorry about that. On the good side: nothing really interesting happened, so no big loss there ;)

Turn 0 (1520 BC): I check out our cities and situation. I go to the techtree and queue up priesthood and masonry, i change the production in rome from archer to worker.

Turn 1 (1480 BC) : *Yawn* note: I'll skip reporting the turns where nothing happens from now on.

Turn 2 (1440 BC): Worker near Antium starts building a road to connect the two rivers, this road should make a trade route between Antium and Rome, when this connection has been made, the worker will start building a road northwards to connect Cumae and the marbles and eventually the horses to our empire.

Turn 3 (1400 BC): Antium finishes the Granary, starts constructing Obelisk to expand culture borders.

Turn 4 (1360 BC): Meditation is discovered, as queued up earlier next research is Priesthood (5 turns).

Turn 6 (1280 BC): (skipped turn 5 as nothing happened!) Worker is finished in Rome and continues building the archer it started earlier.

Turn 7 (1240 BC): Obelisk finished in Antium, start on Barracks and queued up Archer.

Turn 9 (1160 BC): Priesthood is discovered and Masonry is due in 4 turns. Archer finished in Rome, great timing... we can start building the Oracle right away. At the moment Rome produces 1 more hammer than Antium, and since Antium is at the coast I think it's a good site to build a Lighthouse and the Great Lighthouse wonder. Oracle is due in 25 turns...but this will be much quicker by the end of my turn :) In this turn, Rome and Antium are connected as the worker finished building the road between the two rivers, the worker now starts to build a road towards the horses and marble next to Cumae.
I promote the archer in Rome with City Garrison I and fortify him in Rome. I move the warrior in rome to the northwest on barb guard duty.

Turn 10 (1120 BC): Our worker near Rome hooked up our Cows for extra health in our cities. I start building a road to the Rice in the east.

Turn 13 (1000 BC): Masonry is discovered, Sailing is next so we can build a Lighthouse in Cumae and eventually the Great Lighthouse.

Turn 14 (975 BC): Our warrior from Rome meets a barb warrior in the west... I move our warrior to the forest/silk tile for defense bonus.

Turn 15 (950 BC): Our warrior easily wins the battle, need 4 turns to heal. No promotion unfortunately. Another barb warrior pops up in the east! We have a Warrior on guard duties there as well and move the warrior towards the barb warrior.
Our worker near Rome finished the road towards the Rice...only to find out we need Iron Working to clear the jungle and build a farm there! Well..that was a waste of worker moves...
The worker in the north has connected Cumae to our trade route and will build a road on the marble in the next turn (then obviously build a quarry).

I check Rome city screen and see we have reached our max happiness! I switch from emphasise on food to emphasise on production and turn on Avoid Growth... The Oracle is now due in only 13 turns! And the marble isn't even yet connected. So we should definitely finish the Oracle within the next 10 turns :

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image006.jpg

Same situation in Antium, size 4 is max happiness at the moment, so I switch to Avoid Growth. Please keep checking this and as we have extra happiness turn this off! Cumae will grow to max happiness in a few turns as well, so keep an eye on that.

In the next 15 turns we should definitely be able to finish the Oracle and get CoL! Then we have our religion and can get extra happiness in our cities to allow them to grow again. Sailing should also be finished so we could also start building a lighthouse and the Great Lighthouse in Antium. The research on Bronze working hasn't decayed yet, but we might want to research it next after Sailing (only 2 turns left for BW anyway). And maybe Iron Working so we can connect the rice. Also I just realise I moved our Rome worker to the wrong tile... please move him to tile we're actually working in Rome! :)

Here's an overview of our continent, check out the road our worker build... marble is nearly hooked up now!

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image007.jpg

Dimy

Nov 19, 2005, 06:53 AM

Roster:
ThERat - on deck
Dimy - just played
Greebley - away from 18 to 28th Nov
Thrar - up
Xarathas - on cruise from Fri til Monday

Go Thrar! Get us a religion! :goodjob:

ThERat

Nov 19, 2005, 07:27 AM

I am glad that that gamble with the marble city seems to pay off. great job, Dimy :goodjob:

I think we should expand slowly, but try and get to caravels as soon as possible. Isolated like this isn't really good

Thrar

Nov 19, 2005, 08:39 AM

Me again?!? Wow, this goes fast...
dunno how much time I have, may take me until Sunday.

(that means: got it!)

Thrar

Nov 20, 2005, 07:14 AM

(0) nothing really. I cancel the goto of Rome's worker, and turn on Antium's governor (no-growth). I have the feeling that by the time we get that marble connected, 75% of the oracle will be finished.

IBT - barb warriors attack our warrior out in open desert, but he wins.

(1) Start quarry on marble. Since Oracle production speed will double once that is completed (and roaded), I decide to build a granary first (useful once we get some happiness, or for poprushing). If we lose the Oracle by 2 turns (that's what we lose this way), it's my fault.

(2) Archer in Antium finished. I have no idea what we can build there waiting for Sailing to complete, so I order up another archer. Will complete same turn as sailing.

(3) Lots of barbs running around lately. Cumae gets obelisk, starts on granary.

(4) Note: that granary only costs 1 turn on the oracle, we get lots of overflow. So sue me if we miss it by one. Finish Sailing, start Writing. Actually, we need to delay the Oracle to get CoL. We first need writing! Don't sue me, no matter what happens about the granary! ;)

IBT - 2 barb warriors commit suicide on different groups of archers. And we have a problem: There's a barb city now interrupting our roads to Cumae! It's defended by 2 archers.

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~s0500422/images/Civ4/Rat09/barbs%20on%20our%20road!.jpg

(5) Our units gather to take it out (hopefully).

(6) Doesn't look good. 3.0 vs 4.5 odds for our archers. May need to build a road around it.

(7) Trying to lure out one archer with an exposed warrior, we could kill the second then.

(8) Doesn't work. Preparing to road around.

(9) starting to road. 3 turns.

(10) Writing finished, BW next turn. Taking that barb city is extremely risky, I don't dare.

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~s0500422/images/Civ4/Rat09/overview%20Rat700BC.jpg

Before ending this turn, check this:
1. If you want to attack the barb city, you may want to move that archer healing in the forest outside their borders. If not, you may want to move the woodsman II warrior NE of Numidian back to Cumae, to make the people happy.
2. I think a settler in Antium is pretty useful, and they have big production going. In Cumae I just didn't find any other good alternative, so I also ordered one. Note that it's built slowly because of unhappiness.

If or rather once you take the barb city, I suggest razing it (if it isn't autoraze anyway). It would look a good deal better on the river.

Stupid barbs, if it weren't for that city we'd have CoL by now. :(

Dimy

Nov 20, 2005, 07:28 AM

Crap...that's some rotten luck with that barb city messing up our trade route! :mad:

Yeah you're right about Writing, good spot! :) Btw, we could also grab Theology instead of CoL, theology is a more expensive tech and gives us Christianity. Assuming we still built the Oracle of course. Oh and I think you can play 5 more turns, as far as I know we play 15 turns a round. :goodjob:

ThERat

Nov 20, 2005, 07:29 AM

well, in order to avoid such a desaster again, we need to place our units tactically so that we bust the fog, no fog = no brabs :)

I guess we can wait for Xarathas, he can play next Monday night I guess

Roster:
ThERat
Dimy
Greebley - away from 18 to 28th Nov
Thrar
Xarathas - up on Monday night

Thrar, please post the save

Thrar

Nov 20, 2005, 07:45 AM

15 turns? I thought that was for the first round only.
Here's the save anyway, play as many turns as you like. ;)

ThERat

Nov 20, 2005, 08:03 AM

Thanks Thrar, maybe we should play 15 turns until we get any contacts, since this can be pretty short right now

Actually, that a barb town could pop up there in between our land is really crazy :lol: weird

ThERat

Nov 21, 2005, 06:42 AM

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Rat09BC-0325.Civ4SavedGame)

decided to swap with xarathas, since tomorrow I might be busy with some other games
thought a swap would be fine

Pre-Turn
the situation is all but rosy
wake the archer to bring it in as additional attacker next turn
turn down research a notch so we go to -1gpt

IT we get bronze working, next iron working on the way to caravels and maybe iron itself

1. 675BC
before the attack
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat09325a.jpg

use 2 warriors to soften up defense, but lose both
lose another archer and warrior

now the odds are our favor, archer defeats archer
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat09325b.jpg

win battle, another archer steps forward, attacks
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat09325c.jpg

Oracle build drops to 3 , now hopefully we get it

zooming out reveals that we have NO copper :(

2. 650BC
zzz

3. 625BC
Cumae's borders expand

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat09325d.jpg

take CoL to get an expensive tech and a free religion

4. 600BC
start Rome on archer

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat09325e.jpg
Cumae is home of our religion
start anarchy to get this as our state religion

5. 575BC
spot 2 more barb archers near our cities

6. 550BC
kill 1 barb archer with our archer (that was promoted with 25% add attack against archers)

IT barb archer suicides against ours

7. 525BC
something funny happens, it's 525BC but the no unit can be moved???
load the autosave of the same IT and now the game can continue, well ,well where is the patch
Rome: archer -> archer
spread religion to Rome for added happiness

8. 500BC

9. 475BC
archer step to the south and spots a yellow border (it's Egypt)

10. 450BC
Rome archer -> library
Antium: settler -> galley
step one tile west and we get this (somehow screenshot in diplo don't work)
anyway, we get contact with Egypt, get open borders since that doesn't matter but will improve the relationship

11. 425BC
Cumae settler -> rax

IT beat another barb on defense and get Iron working
tough decision but since we met someone, go for alphabet in 13 so we can trade

12. 400BC
great news, we do have 3(!) iron sources in our land :dance:
found Neapolis (->rax)

13. 375BC
found Pisae
beat another barb warrior
need to reduce research to 90% and alphabet drops to 13

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat09325f.jpg

14. 350BC
Rome grows to 7 and is unhappy again, but the temple is soon done

15. 325BC
start a forest chop to speed up granary in Neapolis

alphabet is due in 10
we should try and connect gold and rice, and the clam later on, with iron we can build our UU at least

our land, north and south
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat09325g.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat09325h.jpg

ThERat

Nov 21, 2005, 06:43 AM

and the amended Roster:
ThERat - swapped with Xarathas
Dimy - on deck
Greebley - away until 28th Nov
Thrar
Xarathas - up on Monday night

ThERat

Nov 21, 2005, 06:53 AM

an attempt for a dot map

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat09325i.jpg

Dimy

Nov 21, 2005, 10:38 AM

Hmm...looking on the picture of the southern part it seems like Egypt is really close, that's good news, we should be able to conquer a city pretty soon there once we have the praetorians and some galleys.
The dot map looks good too... purple dot seems to be most important to be able to connect the gold, Iron and Rice is already within our borders so is just a matter of hooking up. Good job on the barbs!

Xarathas

Nov 21, 2005, 02:08 PM

I'm back :) I'll download and play later tonight.

I agree with getting that gold ASAP.. that or we just need to start using the whip more :)

ThERat

Nov 21, 2005, 03:56 PM

like Egypt is really close, that's good news, we should be able to conquer a city pretty soon there once we have the praetorians and some galleys.that's why we have a galley ready in 1 to start with some recon trip in the south. I arrnaged open borders so we can sail into the Egyptian land and see what's beyond there.
With some pretorians and support we should surely be able to capture a town there as a first foothold.

By the way, I did not revolt to anything, I do not really fancy slavery since whips give unhappiness, but feel free to change that. And we should try and get monotheism so we can get organized religion for a boost.

A note, Rome was set on no growth allowed in the governor setup. it could well be that Antium is set that way too. So, please change that.

Xarathas

Nov 21, 2005, 08:29 PM

1)

a - Galley finished in Antium, changed to Great Lighthouse. I temporarily swapped the iron resource to be worked by Antium instead of Rome... this cut our build time for the wonder down to 13 turns :). I think this is a very worthwhile investment. Even if we don't get it, it'll at least give us a nice chunk of savings to prolong the 100% science.

b - Barbarian warrior spotted to the NE

c - Moving Galley towards Egyptian borders and will explore west side of our island after that.

2)

a - Cumae: Archer -> Praetorian

b - Rome: Temple -> Settler. I changed the SW plains to be managed by Rome instead of Pisae. Pisae is now using the forest (still 2f 1h, just no commerce). Shaves a turn off the Settler. ETA 8 turns.

3)

a - Hatty converts to Confucianism

b - Pyramids built in a far away land.

c - Neapolis: Granary -> Scout (for fog busting)

d - Revolution for Slavery.. I'm a liberal whipper :)

e - making the worker near Neapolis start on networking to purple dot & gold.

4)

a - Hatty adopts hereditary rule.

5)

a - northeast archer kills suicidal barbie warrior.

6)

nada

7)

a - Cumae: Praetorian -> Praetorian. I'm not touching the upgrades until we actually need it. Moving him towards Pisae.

b - Galley scouts Egyptian coast. 2 Archers guarding Alexandria.

8)

a - barbie archer sighted to the NE

9)

a - Great Lighthouse built in a faraway land :( Oh well, was worth a shot.

10)

a - 111 gold from Great Lighthouse

b - Antium: Great Lighthouse -> Praetorian

11)

a - Rome: Settler -> Library

b - Cumae: Praetorian -> Confucian Temple

c - Neapolis: Scout -> Barracks (will change to worker when pop hits 3)

d - Parthenon built in a faraway land.

e - Alphabet done researching, decided to forgo math/construction (doubt we'll need catapults just yet, since I only see archers and no axeman in Alexandria) and go for metal casting. Feel free to veto.

f - Hatty has Polytheism and Monarchy.. but won't trade Monarchy. Not worth making a deal for Poly since our only tradeable techs are CoL and Alphabet.

12)

a - Antium: Praetorian -> Praetorian.

13)

a - Pisae: Lighthouse -> Granary

b - NE archer kills barbie archer.

c - Alexandria now has 1 spearman and 1 archer instead of the 2 archer, moving Galley back towards Pisae.

14)

a - Ravenna founded on Purple dot. Started on Granary, since Gold is already in cultural borders from Neapolis.

15)

a - Antium: Praetorian -> Galley. getting a 2nd galley to explore/backup.

b - Cumae: Whipped 2 pop to finish temple, will grow back to size 5 in 2 turns.. gold resource should be connected in a few turns so by the time it hits size 7 the unhappiness from whipping should be gone.

We now have 4 praetorians at/near Pisae, and Galley is a turn away.

Have fun.. will load save and screenie in a minute.

Xarathas

Nov 21, 2005, 08:32 PM

Save & Screenie attached.

ThERat

Nov 21, 2005, 09:14 PM

I feel we should try and get Alexandria, worth it im my mind. But to be safe, without cats, I would think 3 galleys with 6 pretorians for a start and to establish a nice beachhead.

I would also like to see where that Island goes to. i can see you sailed way south, but didn't reach the end.

And one thing I don't understand. Why are the AI's so reluctant to trade. Every game I played so far was that way.

Roster:
ThERat
Dimy - up
Greebley - away until 28th Nov
Thrar - on deck
Xarathas

Thrar

Nov 21, 2005, 10:46 PM

Some more scouting of egyptian territory might be interesting, then I agree we should go for Alexandria and more.
So, do we keep playing 15 turns, even though we have contact now?

ThERat

Nov 21, 2005, 10:53 PM

while we assemble the forces, I agree the galley should sail back to find out more about that Island. We could also send over a unit with it, we have open borders, so we can do some good recon work first
Maybe can spread our religion too :mischief:

Dimy

Nov 22, 2005, 12:36 AM

Got it. Will have to go to work now, but I'll play as soon as I get back from work this afternoon.

Xarathas

Nov 22, 2005, 12:53 AM

Yeah, I turned back, because I figured we could probably declare war within about 3 turns or so :p but if you want to wait, that's fine too. Although, I don't think we actually need to wait for 3 galleys to attack.. 2 should be more than enough at this point. Just takes us 2 extra turns to shuffle 2 units over.. and if they want to attack our praetorians from their cities while we're moving the units, all the more power to them :)

They seem to be more and more unwilling to trade as you go up in lvl.. I can still get decent trades going for the most part on Monarch lvl.. but on Emperor, eesh. Prince should be fine.. once we get a few more contacts. If the egyptians won't trade us techs, we'll just have to beat it outta them :D. Btw, they did get Math on my last turn I think, could trade for it if you want.

Dimy

Nov 22, 2005, 12:49 PM

I just finished my turns, will start on the report now... don't wanna spoil anything but man...these 15 turns were awesome! :ar15: [pissed] :clap:

Dimy

Nov 22, 2005, 03:37 PM

Goals:

- Build more Praetorians
- Try and capture Alexandria within the next 15 turns!
- Build more workers, we have lot’s of land to develop
- Improve our financial situation (long-term goal)

Turn 0 – 50 AD:
Change production in Rome to Praetorian, Library is pre-build and queued up.
Queued up a worker after Granary production has finished in Pisae (Pisae should just have grown to size 3 when the Granary finishes).

Turn 1 – 75 AD:
Nothing special this turn, just work in progress

Turn 2 – 100 AD:
Rome grows to size 8 the same turn we connect the Gold, max happiness/health reached so I switch the city to avoid Growth for now. Neapolis grows to size 3, I change the production to a worker, Barracks have been prebuild and queued up.

Turn 3 – 125 AD:
Praetorian finished in Rome, build another one before we continue with the Library. Next praetorian due in 3 turns.

Turn 4 – 150 AD:
Start shipping over Praetorians with the Galley at hand, the idea is to land them on the neutral ground just south of Alexandria, on the Hills west of the Elephants. As this is not within the cultural borders of Egypt, I can land and group the Praetorians there to prepare for the attack. Our 2nd Galley is finished in Antium but will take a long time to reach Pisae from where we ship our Praetorians. As Antium is only protected by a Warrior at the moment, I change the production to an Archer.

Turn 5 – 175 AD:
http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image008.jpg

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image009.jpg

That’s right… “There’s land over there!” (Irish readers might recognize this line from the Amstel beer-commercial :lol: ) but it’s not neutral anymore… Good news, it’s not Egyptian, so if we can get an Open Borders agreement with the Russians, our strategy to land our Praetorians over there 2 at a time before we declare is not lost. I land the first troops on Egyptian soil to spare Galley movement, the troops will have to walk the last part towards the Russian borders.
Peter greets us… but he doesn’t want to trade for Open Borders just yet, but he does have some techs to trade. I trade him Alphabet for Mathematics and Meditation and Priesthood for Polytheism. Both these trade’s are slightly in his favour, but not too much...and, on a sidenote, he likes us just enough now to open his borders and welcomes our Praetorian invasion force within his lands. But I’m afraid there won’t be a lot of time for our Praetorians to enjoy Russian Caviar and Vodka, they have a war to prepare! :ar15: :egypt:
Oh and as you can see on the picture, we’re currently 2nd in score. Peter seems to be the weaker one here.

Dimy

Nov 22, 2005, 03:39 PM

Turn 6 – 200 AD:
Archer finished in Antium, I promote the archer with City Garrison I and fortify him. I release our Warrior as I have spotted some barb warriors in the east (at the end of my turn this warrior is unfortunately killed in action by the barb warrior). Antium starts on a Library.
Another Praetorian is finished in Rome and I continue with the Library that was prebuild, we now have the 6 Praetorians needed for the assault on Egypt.

Turn 7 – 225 AD:
Courthouse finished in Cumae, which is good as it reduces the city maintenance costs for Cumae. Cumae starts building a Praetorian and I queue up a Library.

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image010.jpg

“Caesar! They have settlers going for our holy lands!” Indeed, indeed…. It seems like Hatshepsut made some plan to colonise our beloved continent! As we’re not ready to declare war on Egypt yet, I decide to keep a close eye on the Egyptian Galley while continue shipping our Praetorians over to the Egyptian/Russian continent.

Turn 8 – 250 AD:
Two more of our heroic and feared Praetorians land on Egyptian soil. They move south to meet up with their predecessors in the south.

Turn 9 275 AD:
Library is finished in Rome, I order another Praetorian and queue up a Courthouse.

Turn 10 300 AD:

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image011.jpg

Hmmm, it seems that Hatshepsut is sending her Galley to our Neutral Zone on the West Coast. Cumae just finished building that Praetorian I ordered up a few turns ago and it’s going on an intercept mission. Together with the Archer already in the Neutral Zone they’ll be following the Galley to it’s drop-off point.

Now another nice trick I used to do a lot in Civ III, but never actually tried this in Civ 4 as of yet… I didn’t plan this move, but I just spotted the opportunity and had a go at it!
Do what? Boat Hopping ™!

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image012.jpg
http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image013.jpg
http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image014.jpg
http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image015.jpg

Et Voila! As time is running out for me I need all the time I have and this little trick saved me 1 precious turn! :goodjob:

Dimy

Nov 22, 2005, 03:41 PM

Turn 11 – 325 AD:
Hmm now I did actually make a screenshot of how I unloaded the last two Praetorians from Galley 2 right into the Russian city of Yaroslavl’ but I can’t find the image in my screenshot folder…so you have to believe me on my word here! :lol:
I could have landed the Praetorians on Egyptian soil like the others did, but then I they would be moved somewhere outside Egyptian borders when we declare war on Egypt, but our Galley could just reach the coast of Yaroslavl’ so I unloaded our Praetorians into the city. Next turn we’re ready to declare on Hatshepsut!
Some more good news from the mainland, a Great Prophet is born in Rome! I move the Great Prophet to our Holy City, but will not use him in my turn. I leave it to you guys what’s in our best interest to do with him…we could build our holy shrine for some extra income… Use him to learn a new tech, or maybe we want him to join a city? I leave it up to Thrar to use him.

Turn 12 – 350 AD:
Hatshepsut calls up inbetween turns, she wants to trade us Calendar in return for CoL. As this is a fair trade (both 500 beakers) I accept the trade. What she doesn’t know yet, is that I declare war on her as soon as our turn starts!
We discover Metal Casting, as we need to work on our economy a bit I opt for Currency as next tech. Maybe we want Construction to build Catapults, but we might get lucky and trade this with Peter (at the moment he doesn’t have the tech yet though).
Worker is finished in Neapolis and now we have Calendar we can build plantations, and just south of Neapolis is some Silk waiting! What a coincidence…. Our worker is going there immediately to hook it up.
I dial up Hatshepsut and tell her that her head would look nice on a pole, she doesn’t take it very well. We’re at WAR! I wake our Praetorians in Russia, time to kick some butt! I move them towards Alexandria. “CHARGE!!!” And hey…how lucky am I huh? I can take the Egyptian city of Alexandria in my 15th and last turn! That boat hopping sure was helpful here! :mischief: :king:

Turn 13 – 375 AD:
Granary is finished in Ravenna, I start a Courthouse to reduce city maintenance costs. Our science is down to 70% now and we still lose money.

Turn 14 – 400 AD:
Library is finished in Antium and I start on a Courthouse there as well. Our Praetorians, meanwhile, arrived at the gates of Alexandria…ready for battle the next turn!

Turn 15 – 425 AD:
Remember that Egyptian Galley with a Settler and Archer? You thought I forgot all about it huh? Not really…during all the events described above, our archer and praetorian were secretly following Hatshepsut’s poor attempt to colonise on our grounds! Hatshepsut was in for a nice surprise when she landed her colonization party…. :ar15: [pissed]

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image016.jpg

Needless to say our Praetorians made dead meat of the Egyptian party… and the settler was captured and gave us a nice free worker! Plenty of work to do for him! I left this Preatorian unpromoted from the moment we finished building it. So promote the unit as you wish when it needs it.

Now... the battle I was preparing for my entire 15 turns! The Battle of Alexandria! Meet and greet our army (and the soon to be dead Egyptian protection forces):

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image017.jpg

Now…Egypt has two City Garrison I archers here, an unpromoted Spearman, a Worker (yippie, another free worker we can ship to the mainland or use him on our newly established base of operations) and the city has 40% culture defense bonus. As our Praetorians were still unpromoted I decide to give them City Raider I promotions. The odds are far in our favour so I lead the attack and CHARGE!

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image018.jpg
http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image019.jpg
http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image020.jpg

We won all three battles and didn’t loose a single unit…the city is ours! And what a Glorious day for Rome it is! We also capture the Egyptian worker that was hiding in some corner in the streets of Alexandria, I load him up in the Galley, but until our borders grow, we can’t move the Galley to our mainland! This could be a problem…until the borders grow we cannot bring in reinforcements from the mainland, so I suggest defending the city and sue for peace as soon as Hatshepsut wants to talk with us again. Hopefully she doesn’t have any strong units to throw against us in the meantime. This is a slight setback as I didn’t think of it… But all our Praetorians survived, so we have 6 strong units there.
Peter has Construction but doesn’t want to trade this yet, maybe he will later on… who knows. As we have some gold in our treasure now I set the science slider back to 80%.

In the next post I'll add some pictures with an overview of our continent and economic situation.

Dimy

Nov 22, 2005, 03:53 PM

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image021.jpg

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image022.jpg

We're first now in score, with the capture of Alexandria, we overtook Egypt in score. The Great Prophet is ready for action in our Holy City, I would suggest building the shrine with it, but if there's a better use for him feel free to do so. The Rice east of Rome is ready to be connected the next turn, a worker is already on it, just need the order. Rome is the only city on avoid growth, so you might want to release that as soon as hooked up the Rice and Silk. Some courthouses are due in a few turns as well so that should lower our maintenance costs. As I said in my report, we cannot ship reinforcements to Alexandria as our Galley cannot enter an Ocean Tile that's not within our Cultural border, so hold put! Unfortunately I gave all 6 Praetorians City Raider promotions, had I foreseen this I would have promoted only the units I needed for the attack and left 3 unpromoted. Oh..the Egyptian Galley is still there near our archer, one of our Galleys is heading north to sink it, or if you don't wanna take that risk...don't :). Well... I think that's all I have to say. Good luck Thrar! The save is in my first report post.

ThERat

Nov 22, 2005, 04:15 PM

Dimy

Nov 22, 2005, 04:21 PM

Great stuff Dimy :goodjob:

Well, I am sure we can keep that foothold on the 2nd continent for now. I'd say we should send one galley to sail to the east for the time being (since we can't ship reinforcements). How many turns of resistance do we face?

It turns out that we could fight earlier than initially expected with our landmass all for ourselves :)

I'd build the shrine with the Great Prophet.

There's 7 turns of resistance left, quite a lot but it's a size 8 city, only the lighthouse city improvement survived in Alexandria. We desperately need culture there to allow our Galleys to ship over from our mainland again...
Yeah I didn't expect to be able to fight so soon already! :) I really wanted to take Alexandria during my turns, I was afraid I missed out on it by 1 or 2 turns halfway, but I made it just in time ;-)

Xarathas

Nov 22, 2005, 04:24 PM

nice work Dimy!

Though.. one question, regarding our rule set. Weren't we supposed to raze all conquered AI cities? Or did I miss a rule change somewhere in the thread?

ThERat

Nov 22, 2005, 04:26 PM

I was afraid I missed out on it by 1 or 2 turns halfway, but I made it just in time ;-)Actually in such a case, it's ok to extend for a turn or 2 to make your round more 'complete' rather than handing off a sort of half finshed job.

By the way, with things heating up now, I rather we go to 10 turns per round. People should really spend time now during their turns for MM and strategic thinking.

Another thing, I would like us to get caravels and sail round the world first for the extra movement point. In this game we will have to travel by sea a lot, so this would really help.

ThERat

Nov 22, 2005, 04:28 PM

Though.. one question, regarding our rule set. Weren't we supposed to raze all conquered AI cities? Or did I miss a rule change somewhere in the thread?:eek: even I overlooked that. yes, that's right! Now, with this new feature in Civ4, we can't abandon the town. I'd say we might want to amend the rule, if the team is ok.

Razing of cities is compulsory except one foothold on each continent. What do you people think?

Xarathas

Nov 22, 2005, 04:36 PM

That could work, or if Dimy's around, maybe he has an autosave of the game a turn or two before the capture of Alexandria and we can just replay that?

Either solution works fine for me, though.

Dimy

Nov 22, 2005, 04:37 PM

:eek: even I overlooked that. yes, that's right! Now, with this new feature in Civ4, we can't abandon the town. I'd say we might want to amend the rule, if the team is ok.

Razing of cities is compulsory except one foothold on each continent. What do you people think?

Whoops...indeed...I completely forgot about that! :eek: Sorry... I could load the autosave from the beginning of turn 15 and do the last turn again, the positive thing about that would be that we don't need to defend the city and try to destroy some more egyptian cities with out Praetorians... the bad news, since we don't have a settler there, is that we have no way of reaching that continent again till we have Galleons.
I vote for the change to one foothold on each continent ;-). When we started the game we didn't know we'd be all alone huh? :crazyeye:

Dimy

Nov 22, 2005, 04:58 PM

Oh one more thing I forgot to mention... both Egypt and Russia have founded a holy city... so we can destroy two religions if we raze their continent :)

Yeah I agree with ThERat to go for the extra sea movement point. Could come in handy for sure.

Vol

Nov 22, 2005, 05:01 PM

Razing a holy city does not destroy a religion. Only razing every city that has the religion (and any remaining missionaries) can effectively "destroy" a religion.

ThERat

Nov 22, 2005, 05:15 PM

could load the autosave from the beginning of turn 15 and do the last turn againNo need for that, I generally dislike reloading a posted game to replay. We want to have fun in this game and without this foothold we need to wait a long time for galleons to have fun.

So, let's amend the rules to 1 foothold per continent. We need to get the culture going in Alexandria so we get a faster border expansion.

Thrar

Nov 22, 2005, 10:42 PM

Got it. I have an exam in a few hours, so I think I won't be able to play until tomorrow.

Not sure about the prophet, a shrine would give some income, but if he offers a nice tech that might be an option too. Specialist is probably the weakest option, although I don't remember exactly what prophets do.

I also didn't think about our rule when I first read the report, but I'm against changing it forever. We have to keep Alexandria now, but I'd like to stick with the original rule. All it means is that we have to bring along settlers if we want to resettle razed locations, same for footholds.
Happened once, would have happened to me too I think, but imo we still should stick to our original rule from now on.

(sidenote: resettle might even have been more effective, since borders could expand faster.)
Good turns anyway, good you paid attention to that galley coming around!

Dimy

Nov 23, 2005, 12:03 AM

Razing a holy city does not destroy a religion. Only razing every city that has the religion (and any remaining missionaries) can effectively "destroy" a religion.

That's why I said we can destroy the religions if we raze their continent (meaning all cities including the holy cities ;-) ) Assuming the religion didnt spread outside their continent yet.

Thrar

Nov 24, 2005, 04:57 AM

(0) send one more healthy praetorian out to protect the injured ones. Turn on governors in Rome, Antium, Cumae and Pisae. Some minor gains, no losses in any city. Turn off "no growth" in Antium, but turn it on in Cumae.
Switch Rome from courthouse to forge (why does our capital need a courthouse??? They are at 1 maintenance!), same in Antium (1 maintenance) and Ravenna (3 maintenance). Neapolis gets switched from barracks to forge, and Cumae will build one in 2 turns, after finishing its library.

(1) Ah right, the prophet! Using it for a tech is not an option - it would be Monotheism. I don't like priest specialists especially much, so I go with the shrine after all.

(2) Lots of cities building forges. Some healing praetorians, and nothing of interest. Switch Antium to a workboat, there is Clam in Rome's culture radius now.

(3) Pisae finishes worker, now on - forge. Antium and Ravenna expand borders. Nothing of interest.

(4) Egyptian swordsmen and war chariots sighted by our scouting galley.

(5) nothing.

(6) silks connected. Cumae can grow one more now.

(7) Alexandria comes out of resistance, and needs only 89 turns to finish a library. However...we are in slavery...and the pop is starving badly anyway. So I whip 3 citizens to hell, for a new shiny (albeit a bit bloody) library!
Before: 7 unhappy citizens out of 7 (huge WW). Now: 3 unhappy out of 4. The city actually gained relative happiness!!

(8) Library built. Now wait for border expansion, it's the only culture building available. Lost 1 pop to starvation, now at 3, one of those unhappy. 4 hammers/turn base to courthouse. Rome finishes forge (goes unhealthy), switch to confucian monastery. There's still a courthouse in queue.

(9) work boat connects clam. No more health problems in Rome. Since it'll grow soon, I queue an aqueduct.

(10) forge finished in Cumae. Next will be monastery. Rice farm finished, about to be hooked up. No more health problems soon. There's something like an army marching towards Alexandria. Actually, standing right next to it! The 3 promotable Praetorians get Combat I, and all stay fortified in Alexandria. One of the unpromoted ones takes out a lonely war chariot occupying the cows, then moves back to safety.
Lots of forges still being built, and in a few turns we should be able to ship over reinforcements. Since at the moment there are not many reinforcements (1 praetorian), we might also consider to make peace for 10 turns.

you will probably notice that there's a worker on the scouting galley, I noticed that only after it had left Alexandria, and didn't want to go back then. The other galley is ready to ship troops, the egyptian one is floating somewhere in our northern waters. Galley combat is pretty unpredictable, so I preferred to just leave it alone.

Have fun!

ThERat

Nov 24, 2005, 07:42 AM

Thrar, did you patch your Civ4, I get an error about worng version when i try and load it, since I did not patch yet

Dimy

Nov 24, 2005, 07:44 AM

Oh about the courthouses... I think you need a couple of them before you can build a Forbidden Palace, didn't really check the maint. costs of the city when I was building them to be honest ;-). Not that we need a FP right now, but just thinking ahead :).
Yeah I loaded the worker in the galley with the idea to ship it back to the mainland...that's when I discovered we couldn't go there... was in my last turn so couldn't unload it.

Thrar

Nov 24, 2005, 08:09 AM

I'm not sure if the FP needs some courthouses, but it certainly requires a certain number of cities, which very likely we don't have yet.
After the forges are done, I think some (3 or 4 maybe) more settlers for our mainland might be useful.

I did patch the game...didn't really think about it causing problems then. Is there a problem with everyone getting the patch?

ThERat

Nov 24, 2005, 08:28 AM

Dimy

Nov 24, 2005, 10:18 AM

I just patched the game as well, since we need it now anyway, performance seems ok.
So everyone better patch to play.

By the way, FP needs a court in that perticular place, not a number of courts. It's different for Oxford uni that needs 6 unis.

Ah that's it then, I knew there was something about courthouse and forbidden palace but was too lazy to check the civilopedia :lol:

Yeah I patched the game as well, save games seems to be loading fine.

Xarathas

Nov 24, 2005, 03:58 PM

I patched the game.. got a 1706 error that told me the source was invalid. I clicked okay.. and it kept patching anyway. It looks like the changes made it through (like not revealing horses until animal husbandry), and I can load the old saves.. yet it tells me that my version doesn't match the host's when I enter a LAN game with some friends.

weird..

Xarathas

Nov 24, 2005, 05:28 PM

1)

a - Our praetorians in Alexandria fended off the Egyptian attackers without much trouble.

b - Peter cancels open border deal with us... I wonder if the Egyptians had anything to do with this :p

c - Egyptian chariot pillages our cows. He paid for it with his life.

2)

a - Peter demands Metal Casting.. I told him to buzz off.

b - Rome finished Monastery, had aqueduct in queue.

3)

a - Hatty offered us peace without offering us tribute, so naturally, I refused :D

b - Border expanded at Alexandria, expedition force sent out. I left 2 praetorians at home to defend, and one incoming from the galley.

4)

a - Currency research done, changed to Literature. GL, and the two national wonders are both nice to have, especially the Heroic epic. We shouldn't have much trouble getting the unit required for the Heroic epic :p

b - Cumae: Monastery -> Praetorian.

c - our expedition force spots 2 stacks of Egyptian attackers heading towards our city. I keep the expedition force on the forest square and observe.

d - Our galley w/ worker runs into an egytian galley down south. Odds are with us if they attack.

5)

a - Egyptian galley defies the odds and sinks our galley :( darn luck goddess favors spiritual civs, I tell ya.

b - Our expedition force fends off a few attackers.

6)

a - more combat.. no units lost

b - Cumae: Praet -> Praet

c - Moved the Praet fortified at Cumae out east to deal with some barbarian problems.

7)

a - Rome: Courthouse -> Hanging Gardens. (18 turns)

b - Antium: Courthouse -> Collosus. (15 turns)

c - more battles.. still no units lost. We did get a lvl 3 unit, though.

8)

a - We actually lost two full strength combat 1 upgraded praet in the city to two axemen.. Maybe I'm unlucky :(

b - Literature -> Music. I think Notre Dame would be really helpful as all our cities are closing in on happiness issues. Free great artist may be useful to use in Alexandria (or just save it, up to you guys).

c - Doing some chopping near Rome.

d - Still more forces incoming.. moving expedition forces back into city. Not gonna happen just yet :p

e - Cumae - Praet -> Heroic Epic. This looks like a good mass production city with all those hills nearby.. and the horse.. and the cow.

9)

a - Neapolis - Barracks -> Praet

10)

a - Alexandria grew to 5 and became unhappy.. whip! This is like the perfect whipping city with the 2 5-food tiles.

11)

a - Alexandria - Courthouse -> Granary

12)

nada

13)

a - Expedition force / scouting team, take 2.

b - Did some whipping in Pisae to hurry up the forge.

c - Did some city micromanagement in half the cities.

14)

a - Peter wants Silk for Spice, that would be a hell yes.

b - Cumae: Heroic Epic -> Praet

c - Pisae: Forge -> Rax

d - Expedition party spots a stack of 7 (chariots, swords, spears).. and a galley up north lands 4 units right next to Alexandria. Eesh, they really want this city back. Good thing I stayed on forests.

15)

a - Cumae: Praet -> Praet (3 turns per 2 praets now it seems)

b - Neapolis: Praet -> Praet

c - We lost 1 praet, but won the rest. Their entire raiding party is destroyed but our units are quite wounded. Hatty comes and offers us Monotheism and Peace.. I decide to reject for the time being and picked off that swordsmen outisde our city that won the fight. I also moved our expeidtion force (heavily wounded) back into our cultural borders.. If we don't sign peace with Hatty, make sure you promote a few ASAP in case they somehow manage to attack it next turn with chariots.

Summary -

HG done in 3 turns, Colossus in 5 (faster if you decide to whip or do a quick chop. we have 7 praets at/near alexandria.. with a bunch of promotions to do for whoever's next. We have an option to take monotheism with the peace treaty (just ask hatty, she willl agree.. I'm pretty sure she'll give us the 1 measely gold a turn she has to offer too :p She won't give us monarchy though.. I tried). I think we could use a 10 turn peace treaty to heal/reinforce then head in for the kill. We do get a free tech (albeit cheap) outta it anyway. Regarding promotions, I suggest giving a few praets with combat 1 already the shock promotion. Will come in handy against those axemen.

As for building/tech plan. I totally forgot about cats.. and probably should get that as soon as we're done with music.

Should probably get 2 more settlers as Thrar suggested (either Pisae or Antium after colossus), and Rome looks like an ideal site for the GL.

Good luck to whoever's next. Hope my combat luck doesn't carry over :p

ThERat

Nov 24, 2005, 07:40 PM

Roster:
ThERat - up
Dimy - on deck
Greebley - away until 28th Nov
Thrar -
Xarathas

I think a 10 turn peace makes good sense, would like to have opne borders as well to get galleys sailing around to find more people. In any case, heading for caravels might be good to get the circumnavigation.
We should build up more pretorians and cats and then strike again.

ThERat

Nov 25, 2005, 05:52 AM

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Rat09AD-1150.Civ4SavedGame)

Pre-Turn
maybe it's better to make peace now, get mono + 1gpt
also get open borders so we can explore a little
change to organized religion and revolt

1. 1010AD
anarchy is over, try to MM cities for the coming growth via HG
Ravenna will be a commerce powerhouse in the future

2. 1020AD
Ravenna gets a courthouse, start a settler in Cumae
Alexandria really grows too fast, will whip a citizen to rush granary next turn, employ 2 scientists there

a barb axe attack our pretorian hiding in a forrest and loses :)
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat091150a.jpg

3. 1030AD
cities have grown by pop 1, need to MM again
Rome goes for Great Library (national epic is a must in this city as well)

IT we get music, we need construction for catapults, go for that
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat091150b.jpg

4. 1040AD
Antium will now go for a few galley since we have only 1 left, set it to grow as well, using the 3gold sea tiles
well, we didn't get the Great Artist, that means we are not the first to discover it
no trades possible as usual, trading is so hard in Civ4

5. 1050AD
nothing much is going on, these are quiet turns preparing us slowly for another war

6. 1060AD
easter pretorian barely beats another barb

7. 1070AD
:mad: we get the message that the Great Library has been built in another country
we get a settler and some units
what I don't understand is why we aren't told yet that the GL can't be built

we get construction, go for compass

8. 1080AD
Rome is changed to National Epic, we get 188gold for the GL, this way we can keep research at 90%
trade for HBR is now possible but on very bad conditions, no need for that

9. 1090AD
found Arretium in the west, will go for a work boat for the clams

10. 1100AD
we have now 3 galleys, catapults are coming online slowly as well

our peace treaty with Egypt is cancelled, but aren't ready yet

11. 1110AD
we are lucky since we get a Great Engineer, not prophet
what to do with him
since happiness is a big issue on our Island, swap Rome to Notre Dame and rush it

IT get compass, machinery next in 7

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat091150c.jpg

12. 1120AD
we need one more court for the FP, Pisae is going for that

13. 1130AD
we have another settler that goes east this time

14. 1140AD
2 more pretorians arrive overseas

Rome gets the national epic

15. 325BC
we have one missioary to convert Pisae so we can build faster as well as get some border expansion
found Arpinum in the west

unit costs are very high already, next player should try and attack Egypt again
we do have 9 pretorians overseas, 4 catapults, 3 pretorian and 1 spear to be sent over
there is also an Egyptian galley on the way to claim more of our land, we should let it land or cancel open borders
we also make 20GP points a turn in Rome and will have another GP in 13 turns

our land, north and south
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat091150d.jpg

Dimy

Nov 25, 2005, 08:07 AM

Lot's of wonders there...too bad about missing out on the GL :(. Anyway...looks like you gave me some nice toys to play with in my round... Let's see if I can destroy Thebes during my turns. I'll be playing tomorrow as tonight..is..well...pubtime :)

Xarathas

Nov 25, 2005, 03:24 PM

Ooph.. tough break on the GL... I probably should've prioritized that before the HG when Literature came in.. ahh, well. Could've easily lost either wonder at this point I suppose.

Dimy

Nov 26, 2005, 09:58 AM

A rather uneventful set of turns for me this round, here's a wrap-up:

Turn 0 - 1150 AD:
Some micromanagement in Rome, Pisae and Cumae, remove specialist in each city to put on a tile with food, these cities can all grow without causing unhappiness, so rather have them grow sooner than later.

Turn 1 - 1160 AD:
Confucanism spreads in two of our cities! That's good...saves us from sending missionaries. I start the production of a settler in Cumae and Spearman in Ravenna to build a whaling station in the northern Tundra, we will soon discover Optics and could use the extra happiness from the whales.

Turn 2 - 1170 AD:
Whip 2 pop to rush Harbor in Alexandria.

Turn 3 - 1180 AD:
Sell Literature to Peter for 230 Gold, this money will help us keeping science at 80% for a while longer. Trade Silk to Hatshepsut for 5 Gold/turn.

Turn 6 - 1210 AD:
Strange event...Hatshepsut cancels Open Borders with us, cutting her own Galley with Settler/Longbowman off:

http://www.netrexgp.nl/img/succession/rat09/image023.jpg

I had a Praetorian ready there to intercept them when they would land..was hoping for another free worker, but now she has nowhere to go with the Galley.

Cumae finishes Settler, send settler up north to build Whaling Station:

http://www.dgerards.net/img/Rat09/image024.jpg

Turn 7 - 1220 AD:
We meet Victoria of the English... she was sailing with a Caravel outside Alexandria! :eek: I sign Open Borders with her and find out she is far ahead of us in tech! She has 7 or 8 techs we don't have yet. There's nothing we can trade with her.

Turn 8 - 1230 AD:
Whaling Station found, start construction Courthouse to reduce upkeep.

http://www.dgerards.net/img/Rat09/image025.jpg

Turn 9 - 1240 AD:
Finished moving around Catapults to Alexandria...ready to declare on Hatshepsut again. Declare war and move our 8 Praetorians and 5 Cats towards Thebes. Whipped 3 pop in Alexandria to rush Forge... excellent whipping City indeed! :goodjob:

Turn 10 - 1250 AD:
Egyptian Settler Galley moves north again... follow her with the Praetorian. We spot 2 Galleys outside Thebes, probably going for Alexandria. On board are 2 Swordsmen, a Longbowman and a War Chariot. I started building Walls in Alexandria, but couldn't whip it yet. Please try to whip this asap, there's 2 Praetorians and a Spearman in Alexandria defending it at the moment.

http://www.dgerards.net/img/Rat09/image026.jpg

Dimy

Nov 26, 2005, 10:02 AM

http://www.dgerards.net/img/Rat09/image027.jpg

P.S. Does anybody know a site to host pictures? I reached the limit on my current webhost and don't want to delete files there. I'm now hosting the last few pictures from my own PC/webserver, but that's only a temporary solution.

LKendter

Nov 26, 2005, 10:56 AM

P.S. Does anybody know a site to host pictures? I reached the limit on my current webhost and don't want to delete files there.

Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting (http://imageshack.us)

ThERat

Nov 26, 2005, 07:18 PM

Roster:
ThERat
Dimy
Greebley - away until 28th Nov
Thrar - up
Xarathas - on deck

get at the Egytpians now, we are lacking behind the rest of world already anyway :(
Don't forget to raze every city we take

10 turns from this round onwards

Shillen

Nov 26, 2005, 08:54 PM

Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting (http://imageshack.us)

Am I missing something? Is there a reason not to use the civfanatics upload feature?

LKendter

Nov 26, 2005, 09:21 PM

I reached the limit on my current webhost and don't want to delete files there.

Am I missing something? Is there a reason not to use the civfanatics upload feature?
Ready the comment about not deleting files. As far as I know Image Shack never deletes files. Civfanatics *will* delete them at some point.

Thrar

Nov 26, 2005, 10:53 PM

got it.
Objectives next 10 turns:
- raze/resettle 1 or 2 egyptian cities
- catch up in tech with England
- probably settle another city on our home continent

anything else?

ThERat

Nov 27, 2005, 01:49 AM

that's sounds like the plan. I would also try and get a caravel out, more contacts could help us to get the techs through trading. Also, we need to know where are the next targets.
Sicne Alexandria grows so fast, it should be our settler pump for the game

Thrar

Nov 27, 2005, 02:12 AM

(0) I dunno what that galley in the south is doing there, just sitting around, I tell them to go keep exploring.
Switch Alexandria to settler. We need to resettle the egyptian lands, or the russians take them! Rome to settler as well.
What does Pisae need a harbor for? Switch to library.
Same question for Antium. Doesn't need health nor does the trade income help. I leave it for now, it's only 2 turns left. Turn on governor for a lot (like 50%) faster build, only 1 turn now.
Why market in Ravenna? Switch to library.
Courthouse in Arpinum...ok, I understand, but BEFORE lighthouse? Anyway, it's almost done now. A lighthouse would actually mean more money for us, thanks to the big commerce from sea tiles; courthouse is only 2 gpt.
Whaling Station: Courthouse->Lighthouse. Same reasoning.
Cumae: turn growth back on.
Arretium: some micro to get lighthouse faster => in the end faster growth as well.
Turn on governor in Neapolis for some more production, at equal rest.

One note...please, be a bit more careful about city management. We have 10 cities, and I just switched production and/or tiles in *every single one* of them!! When you don't use the governors, you have to pay attention whenever the city grows, or something else influences its tile outcome.

Every religion in the world is already founded. There are some civs out there badly ahead of us! Victoria has every single tech available to us now, ahead at least 8, likely more. However, her score is low. With some more growth (both bigger cities and more cities), we should be able to get a lot more research going. We're 2nd in land area, only 4th in population, and 7th in GNP! I know the AI likes cottages a lot, but still, we need to use the lands we have!!
On the positive side, we have twice the average production, and 50% more in food. Should be able to catch up.
Alexandria is only at 5 commerce before courthouse effect, so it looks very bearable to settle more cities on the other continent. Later we can build the FP somewhere there, centrally. Even the few tiles we can see now offer no less than 4 resources we don't have yet, it would be a terrible waste to let this fall to Russia because of not bringing settlers. For now that means: I won't take/raze anything before we have some of those around!

Phew, I think I've never written so much about a turn 0. ;)
Finally: I end the turn!

(1) Optics finished, next is Monarchy. Eventually for knights.
That egyptian galley next to our continent is about to pillage some of our fish. Can't help it, but we need to be careful about the longbow.
Antium and Pisae build caravels; both to circumnavigate and to protect our water resources.
We're running a deficit of 25, but I guess Hatty will pay that for us.
Peter now has Engineering, doesn't want to give it to us though. :(

(2) Lose 1 praetorian while killing a stack of egyptians near Alexandria. One sword is left for them. They didn't pillage our fishing though. :)
Bombardment of Thebes starts.

(3) We get a great Prophet. Use him on Theology. No previously invisible techs appear for Victoria, we're down only 6 now!
The fun at Thebes starts. Bombed to 0, Praetorians charge, kill 2 longbow, 1 axer, 2 archer, 1 horse archer. There is one spearman left only, and we have one more praetorian, who happens to have shock promotion. Now what do we do...I leave the spearman alone. Without a settler, taking Thebes doesn't do much good.
Notice that there's a forced scientist in Alexandria, slowing down our settler. Turn him off, but it's too late now to save a turn.

(4) Monarchy comes in. Next will be Feudalism. Theology (from last turn's prophet) + Music to Peter for Engineering + 20g.
Rush settler in Alexandria (saves 1 turn).
That galley finally dropped the longbow, it kills our charging Praetorian, at 0.2 health.
2 of Thebes' praetorians promoted to Medic I, the whole stack rests for 1 turn to wait for the settler. Thebes just got a great Merchant, but it won't help them any more. Maybe they get a tech from it, doesn't really matter.

(5) Victoria just circumnavigated.
There's a new war chariot in Thebes, slays our city raider III against overwhelming odds, hardly taking a scratch.
Thebes goes down, we get a load of money (around 200), and the egyptian borders barely change.

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~s0500422/images/Civ4/Rat09/thebes%20down.jpg

I like the location of Thebes, the settler goes there. Giza on the west coast will be the next target, but probably not in my turns.

(6) Kill the intruding longbow and raze the city Hatty just founded.
After all the egyptian borders did move back, cost us 1 turn of settler movement though. But we cannot found in egyptian territory anyway.
Memphis will be tough to take, it's on a hill, with tons of longbows.

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~s0500422/images/Civ4/Rat09/next%20target.jpg

(7) troop movement. Antium starts on a settler for our home continent. There are 2 settlers on egyptian soil now, waiting for the raze of Giza.

(8) Giza down to 12%. Upon razing it we could immediately found 2 cities, and we have overwhelming forces there. No need to wait - charge!
Lose a city raider III to a longbow - bad luck. City raider II takes out the next, then one with shock kills a spearman. Finally take the city against the badly injured longbow with a freshman. One note on promotions I chose: I tried not to mix city raider with other promotions, to get specialized forces. The CR will go to CR3 (or die) before anything else, the combat I take shock or medic I, possibly other things, but no CR.
Found Circei on the former Thebes location. Found Setia on the Giza spot.

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~s0500422/images/Civ4/Rat09/new%20cities.jpg

Since we now have spices on our own, I cancel the deal with Peter. I sell him a fish though.
"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for one day. Teach him how to fish and he won't pay you 4gpt any more!"
Memphis has huge borders, that one should definitely go down before peace. We need to pillage their ivory near former Thebes, it's still in their borders and we won't get it any time soon. We got some happiness problems at home.

(9) Rome builds settler, goes to settle on our own continent. The one Antium's building should be shipped over later.
Ivory pillaged. There are some russians walking through the now empty terrain, dunno what they want. No settler though. Troops moving towards Memphis.

(10) egyptian galley sinks our caravel. No comment.
There was one thing I was worried about in Memphis: they had a Barrage II catapult. Now it's standing unguarded right BETWEEN our two incoming stacks of praetorians. Not that I mind... A combat I (freshman) was supposed to take it out, but apparently commited suicide at the sight. I can't imagine any other reason for this result. Next freshman kills it flawlessly.

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~s0500422/images/Civ4/Rat09/military%201360AD.jpg

Memphis will probably fall in 3-4 turns. We should get the settler from Antium over as soon as it's done, resettle somewhere in the area of Memphis if the egyptian borders permit it, and one city in the triangle between Memphis, Novgorod and Circei (ex-Thebes).
Our forces approaching Memphis are so far 8 praetorians, with 1 more further away, plus 5 catapults. Memphis has 4 longbows (several with city garrison) and an axer. A suicide catapult might be necessary, to avoid waiting any longer before peace.
To avoid war weariness and also because of the border situation, I suggest to fight Russia for a while afterwards.
Victoria now considers us her worst enemy. I guess she was rather fond of Hatty...oh well, that's life. No trades for us though.
Feudalism is due in 2 turns, I queued Guilds, feel free to change that if you want.

Hmm...it's 1360AD. I must've missed a turn somewhere...dunno where. Strange. Sorry about that.
Can someone reset the player name back to Rat09? I don't know how, and we're called Dimy at the moment.

Xarathas, this is for you!

ThERat

Nov 27, 2005, 02:35 AM

very very good turnset, Thrar and a good analysis as well.

I had a look at the save beforehand and also wondered about the city set up a little.
Anyway, things improved a lot, guilds seem the logical step to research now.

I agree taking down Memphis and going for peace. Since we can't abandon cities in civ4, taking cities for peace won't be allowed in this game. (anyway have not seen the AI so far giving away cities anyway)

Roster:
ThERat - on deck
Dimy
Greebley
Thrar
Xarathas - up

Dimy

Nov 27, 2005, 03:34 AM

Hmm...it's 1360AD. I must've missed a turn somewhere...dunno where. Strange. Sorry about that.
Can someone reset the player name back to Rat09? I don't know how, and we're called Dimy at the moment.

Yeah I also had a feeling there was something wrong with the turns... as I was writing my log down during gameplay I was sure I had played 10 turns already, but it was only 1240 AD at the time so my 9th turn according the date.

As for the name change... I don't know what happened there, I loaded the save game and noticed the name of the game was changed. I have no idea how to turn it back either. It was the first time I loaded a save game with 1.09, maybe some bug with old save games?

About the Harbors, I build them for the increased trade route income, maybe the effect initially is not so much, but it will definitely be worth it in the long run.. and since we were running a lot in the red, I figured we could use every gold we can get ;-). But well...that's a difference in playing style.
I don't like the governors so much as they tend to use specialists before the city has grown to max supported size.

The Galley in the south was sitting there, because before I declared war in my 2nd last turn, we no longer had Open Borders with Egypt and neither with Russia...so it was trapped there.

Good set of turns, I agree on taking Memphis before declaring peace....and then take out some Russian cities next.

Dimy

Nov 27, 2005, 03:39 AM

Ready the comment about not deleting files. As far as I know Image Shack never deletes files. Civfanatics *will* delete them at some point.

Oh I solved the problem, I registered my own domain with webhosting. I have 2,5 GB of space now. Maybe I'll set up a website as well if I have the time :)
There's a blog now, but it's rather poor: http://www.dgerards.net/blog/ :mischief:

Xarathas

Nov 27, 2005, 05:11 PM

0) Looked around a bit and checked a few cities for tile management. Only thing I changed was to sacrifice growth in Aretium to finish the granary faster (went from 19 to 4 turns). It'll cut down our growing time there significantly.

Since it looks like we'll be peacing after Memphis, I took the Galley sentried between the 2 continents to go chase down that half dead Egyptian Galley up north.

1)

a - Our lone Praetorian way in the south fended off a horse archer, but lost to the Spearman that followed up.

b - Cumae: Praetorian -> Confucian Missionary. We don't need anymore military units at this point but could seriously use some cash... going to manually spread our religion to those cities since Cumae has nothing better to build at the moment.

c - Moved galley out of Alexandria in hopes of tempting that nearby Egyptian galley to attack us. It's either that or risk him intercepting out ferry. Odds are even (Combat 1 vs 10% coast defense).

d - Diverted 1 Praetorian in the back to pillage the improvements that will no doubt fall to Peter as soon as Memphis is taken. Cash is good.. as our econ's horrible at the moment.

2)

a - Egyptian galley managed to sink our galley without taking scratch.. go figure. However, that galley up north did manage to pick off that half dead egyptian galley. Moving him back down south now.

b - Antium: Settler -> Caravel

c - Cumae: Missionary -> Missionary

d - Commencing attack on Memphis. I prefer to give catapults barrage upgrades as opposed to city attack. I don't see them winning against Longbowmen anyway CR or no CR, so might as well do a bit more splash damage if we to intend to use them. Second upgrade would be Barrage 2 or Accuaracy depending on situation, though.

http://www.fun-soft.com/Xarathas/images/Civ4/Attack_Memphis.jpg

e - Confucianism spreads to Satiricium.

3)

a - Ravenna: Temple -> Worker. We really could use a bit more workers.

b - Egyptian Swordsmen with Combat 1 & 2 heading north.. to which city it's unclear. Vs the combat 1 / shock upgraded Praet in Setia I wouldn't mind, but if he diverts to Circei and attacks the CR3 Swords sitting at home.. the odds are pretty close... so I divert 1 swordsmen (gave him combat 1 & shock) from our attacking stack to intercept him.

c - Bombardment continues in Memphis

d - The Praetorian we last made in Cumae arrived in Arretium. I'm going to leave him there with a combat 1 upgrade. Just in case someone decides to be sneaky and drop off a load of units near there. Fat chance of that happening in the old civs, but I've seen that happen a few times on civ4. AIs are definately sneakier.

e - pillaged rice patty on the egyptian/russian border. Not much gold, but every bit helps at the moment.

4)

a - Cumae: Missionary -> Missionary

b - Neapolis: Temple -> Market

c - Arretium: Lighthouse -> Market

d - Setia: Lighthouse -> Courthouse

e - I moved our attacking stack 1 more step south.. forgot about the river.

f - Swordsmen ends up 1 square SE of Setia. Still very much in position to attack Circei, so I decided to pop the Praet out of Setia to kill it.

http://www.fun-soft.com/Xarathas/images/Civ4/Swords.jpg

5)

a - Antium: Caravel -> Caravel

b - Pisae: Temple -> Market (instead of the Library in queue, happiness problems in this city still)

c - Wow, the AIs are smarter than I thoguht. The previously un-upgraded catapult inside Memphis now heads towards Setia, with combat 1 & shock upgrade. I guess the AIs don't upgrade until they need it, too :)

http://www.fun-soft.com/Xarathas/images/Civ4/Smart_Catapult.jpg

d - Memphis razed. Casualties: 2 Catapults, 1 Praetorian. Also lost 1 Combat/Shock Praetorian attacking the swords north of Memphis (bleh). Got some money to alleviate our failing economy, and also a worker to boot.

e - I decided to hold off on peace until we can get our settler settled near Ex-Memphis. Would suck if Egyptians ran a settler there after we peace.

6)

a - Contact with Saladin! It appears that he's the founder of Judaism.

b - Remaining swordsmen picked off.

c - Spiral Minaret built in a faraway land :(

http://www.fun-soft.com/Xarathas/images/Civ4/Egyptian_Raiding_Party.jpg

7)

a - Victoria cancels open borders with us.

b - Rome: Temple -> Academy.

c - Cumae: Missionary -> Longbowmen. I think it's time to upgrade/retool our defense on our main continent... 80% of our cities are defended by a lone archer. It doesn't look like we'll be able to afford upgrading all the archers anytime soon, so I suggest we just replace them manually. Quite a few of our cities are out of meaningful buildings to build at this point.

d - Alexandria: Settler -> Temple

e - Ravenna: Worker -> Worker

e - Raiding party lands on our horsies near Setia. I hope it's got good scenery, because they'll be taking that image to their graves.

f - Raiding party annihilated.

8)

a - Antium: Caravel -> Colosseum

b - Circei: Granary -> Courthouse

c - Ardea founded on Alexandria's old site. Need to build a few cultural buildings in there urgently, however.

d - Peace established with hatty with Drama in exchange. I had the option of taking Drama or Horseback riding (what she offered), but we could really, really use theaters at the moment so I took that instead. Plus, it's a slightly more expensive tech.

e - I totally forgot to check civics earlier.. revolutioned to Caste System and Vassalage. Since we're an organized civ, Vassalage shouldn't make much of a difference on our upkeep at this point. Running caste system (at least for a few turns) to help establish borders in the newly settled city. Whoever's next may want to switch off of this depending on the border situation in Ardea.

9)

a - Running artist in Ardea. Not much goes on during this turn. Our upkeep is atrocious.

10)

a - Cumae: Longbowmen -> Theater

b - Chrstianity spreads to Ardea.. well that kinda sucks as I wanted to spread confucianism into there ASAP, but oh well. Shouldn't be that unlucky, right? :)

c - I decide to run an artist in Circei and Setia also. 3 turns of it will get us the first cultural expansion.

Not much else goes on in this turn either.

Summary:

Okay, now that we have peace, our #1 priority is to do something about that upkeep of ours. I checked with the various leaders, and it appears that Peter is the only one that would be willing to establish open borders with us. I suggest we do that, and raid his lands with missionaries.

Hatty has some extra gold per turn, I think we should sell her a silk (as we have 5!) for 3 gold a turn. We need every bit of gold we can get at this point.

I didn't quite finish this last turn... as I would like to discuss on where to utilize our remaining settler. I'll leave it up to the next person to settle on turn 0.

http://www.fun-soft.com/Xarathas/images/Civ4/Settle_Where.jpg

I think we have 3 options for him at this point.

1) Settle where he is

2) Settle one step north

3) Don't settle until we deal with our econ problem. Which.. would risk having Peter settling a city nearby.

What do you all think?

If we choose #3, I'd suggest we keep running 1 artist in Circei until the borders pop twice.

Other items:

2 Caravels are on auto-explore at this moment. I don't remember if anyone circumnavigated the globe yet.. but we could try. Though I really doubt we'll get it as they had too much of a headstart on us.

1 Missionary is 2 paces from Ardea (I suggest we use it there), and 1 missionary is on the ferry (I suggest we send that to the to-be founded city, or Circei if we don't found a city). Any bit of cultural help we could get would be nice on that new continent. We should set one of our cities to just keep pumping missionaries to send out to us/Peter.

Good luck Rat!

PS, sorry for the edits if anyone was reading it just now. I typed some of this stuff before I decided to do the actions (got sick of alt-tabbing), so there were remanants of a few items that I changed my mind on :p Edit them out now!

ThERat

Nov 27, 2005, 05:36 PM

we got some cultural pressure there :(

I suggest to settle at the present spot. We will annoy Peter, but he has to be the next victim anyway.

For my turnset, it will be all about the economy I guess. We have too many cities in a short time, that's a problem in Civ4. But pumping missionaries and converting the others should help. I would try and send many to Peter. Each city with confucianism should give us +1gpt (did we build the Dai Miao?).

The circumnaviagtion has been completed by the English in the last turnset, however, knowing more of the world won't harm.

Eventually, we will own both continents and need to find the next proper target. So, exploring won't harm us.

Thrar

Nov 27, 2005, 08:09 PM

Converting might be useful for money, but since we'll raze the cities anyway at some point, I think it's a short-term profit only.
While we're in Caste System, we should get some merchants, since there isn't so much to build in some places anyway. I'd prefer that to building lots of missionaries that will only get us 30g or so each (1gpt until raze). For that, we might just as well run wealth (almost)!

Is it possible to settle 1 south of the current settler location? If so that looks like a useful spot to me, if not I prefer where he is now.

ThERat

Nov 28, 2005, 05:53 AM

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Rat09_AD-1525.Civ4SavedGame)

Pre-Turn
Thrar's comments about missionaries are very valid
they only make sense to spread to our own cities

Antium is happy, lift the no growth lock, set it to monastery for +10% research
MM, turn down research and we make -30gpt

1. 1470AD
spread our faith to culture battered Ardea
found Ostia to harm our economy even more

2. 1480AD
our economy is really ailing, -32gpt at the moment
reduce science to 60% and we go to -7gpt, bearable at least

we get guilds, go for banking since mercantilism might be good for us

3. 1490AD
fire some artists since we have gotten border expansions, we need to finish those courts and start the FP
in the south

4. 1500AD
we can't build knights since we lack HBR :(,
we should go for it after banking

5. 1505AD
:dance: we get a Great Engineer, that can be used to rush the FP on the other Island
clearing a forest speeds up the court at whaling station

6. 1510AD
we are now at positive cash flow at 60% science

IT we meet Mansa Musa, the fellow is up all techs that he could be :eek:

7. 1515AD
Circei is turning into a nice city slowly, finishes court as well
rush FP there
increase science to 70%, but this means -17gpt

8. 1520AD
:) our income makes one fantastic jump, we are now at break even at 70% science
now we can start to prepare for the next war

IT banking is in, HBR in 2 for knights

9. 1645AD
Alexandria grows very fast, it can be a super specialist city in the future
for now we can leave it to grow since the whale will be connected by work boat soon
(will reach whale in 2)
one caravel finally spots some land in the east

I think we should adopt mercantilism and hereditary rule for happiness and more specialists

next player should prepare for war, Peter doesn't look that strong and can really use the money and reduce culture pressure, income up by 39gpt from 9 turns ago

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rat091525.jpg

ThERat

Nov 28, 2005, 05:56 AM

and the Roster:
ThERat - just played
Dimy - up
Greebley - on deck
Thrar -
Xarathas

Dimy

Nov 28, 2005, 07:43 AM

Good job on the finance bit! I'll play this evening and see what I can do to prepare the next war. Hmm Mansa Musa is close to us in score as well.

Xarathas

Nov 28, 2005, 11:36 AM

Regarding our finances.

I think we should still send a few missionaries to Peter, at least to his coastal cities. Not only do we get a few gold (temporarily), we also get the chance of him spreading that religion to our other neighbors (once they get the required tech to trade overseas). Unless, we plan on doing another invasion in the near future, then this point is moot.

I agree with the merchants though. Might as well make use of that caste system if we're sticking with it. We should make sure that we have one city ready to pop a great scientist sometime in the future. We could use an academy for our science city.

Dimy

Nov 28, 2005, 01:36 PM

I won't be able to play my turns until tomorrow after work. I wouldn't mind if Greebley or Thrar swap with my spot if they do have time to play. I can do my turns in about 22 hours from now the earliest.

ThERat

Nov 28, 2005, 04:13 PM

I doubt Peter will be around for much longer. thus, I didn't bother to waste sending missionaries in soon to be razed cities.
We do have 2 of our own cities that still need confucianism, but I had hoped it would spread.

In my mind, we should prepare to strike Peter, I started to build some military during my turns (something like 2 cats and 2 pretorians). In 2 turns knights are available and we should build then and then go for Peter.

Xarathas

Nov 28, 2005, 05:21 PM

Okay. Question though, what's our strategy at this point vs the rest of Hatty's cities?

ThERat

Nov 28, 2005, 05:43 PM

Okay. Question though, what's our strategy at this point vs the rest of Hatty's cities?

Since our goal is conquest, we need to get rid of both of them as soon as we can. Of course we cannot simply raze and replace as fast as we would like since this will spell doom for our economy. We need to balance this.
I suggest taking on Russia for a while, razing as many cities as possible. Egypt might be able to squeeze ina new town or 2, but once we take them on, this shouldn't be an issue.

Yaroslav has only 2 defenders at the moment, if the rest is not much different, we should be able to advance quickly.

Thrar

Nov 29, 2005, 12:09 AM

I think for now we should leave Hatty alone, at least until war weariness has gome down, probably at least 2 more turnsets. Russia on the other hand looks very inviting, at least to get the northern cities until about Memphis level.
Raze/replace again, otherwise they will resettle. We shouldn't build too many cities there however, because of the economy. Depending on what the land looks like, maybe 2 or 3 more in russian territory north of former Memphis?

Depending on how long that takes, and if my estimates about war weariness are correct, we probably can resume war with egypt on my turns (in 20-30), but better not earlier imo. Probably later, depending on how things look like then. If we ever want to get out of that tech hole we need to get some econ.
Imo, the next priority tech is quite far away (but available I think): Astronomy. Then we can build galleons, and find out why everyone's score is so low...and make it a bit lower. ;)

btw I have no problem with waiting for Dimy, 1 day is not the end of the world.

Dimy

Nov 29, 2005, 12:31 AM

Ok, then I'll confirm that I'll do my turns this evening :) I'd do them now, but gotta go to work... *cough* *cough* I feel ill suddenly...maybe I should stay home :lol:

ThERat

Nov 29, 2005, 02:11 AM

btw I have no problem with waiting for Dimy, 1 day is not the end of the world.That's why I never commented about this. A fast turn around is nice to have but we will follow a 24/48 and nobody hasn't even come close to that.
Also, I would like Greebley to play after Dimy, he should be back by tomorrow unless he is still busy eating turkey and stuff.

Xarathas

Nov 29, 2005, 10:19 AM

Okay, so here's a suggestion. Instead of replacing cities in Optimal sites, we should consider the not-so-optimal sites (but instead the sites where cultural borders will best block off any chance of settlement). Of course, we don't want trash cities and still want to grab key resource squares when we can.. but I think we should strike a balance to limit the # of cities we build. After we build them, they should all run 1 or 2 artists right off the bat (via mercantilism) until the border pops once or twice depending on the need.

knupp715

Nov 29, 2005, 01:47 PM

Hey Guys. Just wanted to say your game is looking pretty nice. I've been following along for a few days now. Just finally subscribed. Good Luck with Russia and the rest of the world.

Dimy

Nov 29, 2005, 01:59 PM

Well I've finished my turns, so here's my log of events:

Turn 0 - 1525 AD:
Checking our situation and cities, make a few changes in city screen, either to increase production in certain cities or to improve growth/commerce where needed.

Turn 1 - 1530 AD:
Moving units around the map, shipping units to the other continent. Start building 1 Catapult and 2 Praetorians in cities that had finished production.
I change Civics from Organised Religion to Theocracy, Theocracy will give +2 free XP to all our newly build military units and has a lower upkeep than Org. Rel.

Turn 3 - 1540 AD:
We discover Horseback Riding and I queue up Paper and Printing Press next, Printing Press will increase commerce from Villages and Towns by +1 so will be good for our hurting economy/science. Lighthouse in finished in Circei and I start building a Forge to increase production. We make contact with Frederick of the Germans, who's 3rd in score and we can actually trade some techs with him! He has Philosophy, Civil Service and Gunpowder, we have Theology, Music and Literature. He's not in the mood to trade Gunpowder..even though it was white in the diplomacy screen. I trade Music and Theology for Civil Service (cheapest I could get it and in his favour...but we're so far behind in techs, I think we need it too much...) And I sell Literature for 70 Gold. We also agree to Open Borders with Frederick.
Last but not least...our whales at Whaling Station are finally connected :goodjob:

Turn 4 - 1545 AD:
Catapult finished in Rome, start on Knight. Mansa Musa has now become the leader in points :cry:

Turn 5 - 1550 AD:
Confucian Academy finished in Cumae, start building a Knight.

Turn 6 - 1555 AD:
Paper is discovered, next is Printing Press. Maceman is build in Ravenna and starts building a Knight as well. Whaling Station has finished the construction of a Granary and will now build a Forge. Setia just finished a Courthouse and will now build a Library.
I notice Peter has a Galley going to the only unclaimed piece of land of our continent in the northeast... I switch production in Arpinum to a Settler and hope we can claim the land before he lands there. (or we'll have to declare war on him of course).

Turn 8 - 1565 AD:
Colosseum finished in Antium and start on Knight. Cumae finished a Knight and st