This is the third Succession Game being played by folks from Realms Beyond Diablo.

I've recently tried my hand at a larger map with fewer civs and discovered the joyous possibilities of an expansionistic building game, with civs widely scattered and endless open terrain to expand into, building dozens of cities, just expand and expand and expand and expand. That's been surprisingly fun, and I the itch to try it in a succession game, Space-Diplo-Cultural disabled, and play all the way to 2050 (or, perhaps, roll over the world militarily if the mood and opportunity strike us). I've never seen past the year 1995, and rarely see past the mid 1800's.

Because this will be such a large, time-intensive game relative to a typical game, I'm protective of my investment in it, so this game will only be open to experienced folks I know won't wreck the game in the middle by dropping out, vanishing, etc. Larger maps go slower, as there's a LOT more to do, and a game with endless building-building-building, always settling more and more land, yet still dealing with military, tech, and other concerns, is not the best situation in which to meet new people. On the other hand, those of us from RBD do not want to become an isolated clique here at CivFanatics, which is why most of us have been jumping into other people's games, as well as playing in the ones we've organized and inviting anybody interested into some of our games. This particular game, though, is just for RBD players.

Game Scenerio:

Difficulty: Monarch
Civ: Americans
Map Size: Large
Landform: Pangaea
Landmass: Large
Climate: Hot, Wet
Mountains: Flat
Barbarians: Sedentary
Opponents: the five Commercial civs, plus Russia and Japan
Victory Conditions: Space, Diplo, Cultural disabled
Scenerio Objective: Win with the highest score in 2050, by being the most expansionistic and having the largest empire over time.


Turn Length: 10 turns (first round subject to number of players).

Current Roster:

Sirian
Charis
Carbon Copy

One or two spots still open, but planning to close the rotation after the first round.

Some thoughts on scenerio objectives: Securing the Pyramids is a top priority, since that will be the most valuable wonder, and denying it to the AI's is just as important as securing it for our own use. The Great Library would allow us to cruise through the middle ages, and once again, denying it to the enemy would be good. One other thing it would allow us to do: run higher luxuries through the early game, to boost our happy-people score. We are going for score, and if we build the GL, we would be sitting around waiting on the AI's to make discoveries for us, at least for a while, while we build up cash and score, and expand. On larger maps, wonders offer more bang for the buck, and the AI's are more likely to build them slower as they may start them in some small city -- the more cities they have, the more likely they will start a wonder in a crappy never-gonna-build-it location -- and yet if those are allowed to sit around and keep building up forever, the wonder cascade may never be broken, and they will steal middle ages wonders that way. High priority ought to go to breaking the cascade, and that will start with building the Pyramids. If our capital starts on a river, we can probably use it for continuous wonder building through the early part of the game.

Which brings me to the idea of tech trading. In a nutshell: the slower the world's progress up the tech tree, the better for us. There is no space race, no race to the UN, no race to much of anything except wonders, and research on larger worlds takes longer. Don't be fooled by the apparent "high" cost the AI's will pay for tech, as the research costs to discover it for themselves are equally inflated. I've selected the five commercial civs as opponents because they should be best equipped to do well with sprawling empires. In short: tech brokering generally runs counter to the particulars of this situation.

An early forbidden palace in a good location may be the second key to victory (the first being getting some or most of the best wonders). So I plan to scout widely from the very start, and look over our land and see what I can plot out for city plans. The shape and quality of our land, and the proximity of neighbors, may affect such a decision. Yet on a map like this, corruption is lower, and the FP doesn't have to be rushed with a leader, it can be built fairly soon in a good location if we dedicate to it. Neighbors will probably be too far away for us to get into any early wars, and by then, we'll have cities capable of building wonders, so I would urge the first leader be used to make an army, make sure he gets a victory, and build the Epic. If we even get into any wars at all in the first five thousand years. :)

No barbarians means safe to boldly expand early, so keep that in mind. Don't want to be so weak as to entice a neighbor into attacking, and units will be needed to keep people happy, but the first cycle of turns can be safely spent mostly on grabbing land.

I've played the opening. Report and game file to follow.


- Sirian

Since the Americans are the one civ that completely defy the logic of the Civ game structure (we formed up as an offshoot of other civs, primarily English, with French, at first, then absorbing immigrants from all over the world) I don't exactly have a theme for playing this one in-character. Being American, I'm not keen on the contortions necessary to adapt our history and culture to the civ model of starting as an ancient tribe -- just don't see that as a good fit. So rather than set a theme, I'm just going to start with a standard report, see what develops in other people's reports, what they are moved to write about their turns, and go from there.

We started on two rivers, one turn away from the shore, but on a grassland with no shield. I contemplated a couple of minutes on this starting position, finally deciding just to plop down right where it started us. I set research to Ceremonial Burial, sent our worker onto a flood plain to irrigate, and increased science rate to 100%. (Science at 100% and research into a cheap utility tech, like Pottery or Ceremonial or Bronze, is always my move of choice on a river start, where there is plenty of extra trade. Conventional starts, I may go for 40-turn discovery of something costlier, and pick up the cheap util techs from huts, trade, or coming back for them later once there is more commerce going in my empire and I can discover in a reasonable number of turns).

I send our scout to the south and build another. When the flood plains are irrigated, I swap to them, slowing building of scout but increasing growth rate. Built a road on the flood plain, sent second scout north, nabbed a goody hut and got Warrior Code, building a third scout now. Worker moves to adjacent grassland with shield and mines. (Just 3 turns! Industrious can get a real jump in this regard). Third scout heads eastward (there is coastline to the west). Start building settler.

Mined another grassland with shield, giving Washington one flood plain with 3 food, 2 trade, and pair of grassland with 2 food, 2 shield, 2 trade. Micromanagement of whether to be on the flood plain or grasslands in full swing, to time out settler production and size 3 city for earliest production of settler unit.

Scout heading south has found origin of South River, where there are silks just two city lengths away. Scout heading north has found lots of hills, some wines near Washington, drier lands beyond. Scout heading east has found... nothing but jungle. We have a VAST jungle here, hopefully a site for coal and rubber. I am also hoping there is iron and horses in the area. On the down side, our chances of finding saltpeter or oil anywhere within a gazillion miles looks slim. And resources are widely scattered on maps like this.

New York founded three squares south of Washington on the diagonal, with 2 overlap. Not the best long term situation, but I simply HAD to get that irrigatable wheat within immediate range for the value it will bring to our growth curve, and still build on the river, and make best use of the land there. 2 overlap won't affect us at all until after Sanitation, so I went with it.

Southern scout finds some goody huts, gets gold and Mysticism. He follows western shore a long way south, then cuts back to scout out the interior south of New York. Northern scout cuts across continent back and forth, uncovering all lands up there. Eastern scout found ocean to the east rather quickly, went north along eastern shore to explore area not covered by north scout, then turned back south and followed eastern shore. Southern scout finds goody hut with conscript warrior, who is sent on to become our great defensive army at New York. Ceremonial burial was discovered, started in on Bronze Working.

New York builds a warrior, which is sent to Washington, which is building second settler. North scout, traveling clockwise along the west coast, discovers Romans to the north, a wee bit closer than I would have liked, but still quite distant. Romans are the most dangerous ancient opponent of all, in my view. Their legionaries function well as attackers and can do more damage in small numbers than even Immortals, because you can't counterattack them effectively. Large stacks of immortals are worse, but even just a couple legions can wreak havoc. I am concerned about this development, but somewhat mollified when north scout turns the corner and returns, discovering that the Romans are isolated on the end of a peninsula and, if we cut our borders across from sea to sea, can keep them isolated from other civs for a long time to come. They are annoyed with us, which is not good, but they want an arm and a leg for their Alphabet tech, and I am NOT giving them Masonry ever. Things were little tense -- so tense looking, over time, that at the end of my turn I did something I rarely ever do: I offered a gift of ten gold to improve relations. They are now "cautious" and likely not too ill disposed to us for the next period or so. A trade or other positive exchange may get them to "polite" even, although under no circumstances should they be traded tech that could let them start on a wonder.

A goody hut in the south was empty. *sigh*

South scout cuts back across continent again after learning of all the lands south of New York. That area has not provided us any encounters with other civs and looks to be our "second breadbasket" where the Forbidden Palace and bulk of our expansion will go. East scout follows coast south, then eastward into the far reaches. At the end of my turn, still no contact with anybody but the Romans. Our scouts have ranged quite far!

Note to Charis: If you give away our world map for free, I'm going to bop you on the head! :crazyeyes

Finished Bronze working, started researching Iron. I'd LIKE to get going toward literacy and the GL, but I figure we'll get Alphabet from the romans sooner or later, or maybe we'll run into one of the other commercial civs -- they all start with Alphabet. Or maybe even another goody hut will be kind to us.

Second settler finished at Washington, sent north to found city on a wine in the hills. I founded ON the wine for strategic reasons. Did not want to be on a flood plain, get the wine online sooner, and have more early food available (there were only two flood plains there, the rest would be quite sparse foodwise if not for the wines). Boston looks like it will be strong strong city some day. Built a warrior, then set it to build a worker, as Washington is now on the pyramids and needs more land improvements, as well as getting the luxuries online soon.

New York gets irrigated wheat and two mined grassland w/ shield, then original worker returns to work more on Washington. Pyramids are underway, but a long long way to go, and we must hurry! New York builds a settler and I send him south to the silks. I looked over the situation and chose another non-optimal long term location with 2 overlap for the short term benefits. I wiped out a jungle with the settler, giving us an extra grassland in the area, in effect, by not settling on the grass, and there is so much jungle in this region, every good square counts.

Boston can be the settler factory for the north, but its first duty of the moment is to help support Washington. New York is on full blown settler factory output, while Philadelphia has just been founded and is doing not much of anything as yet.

Here are the Sirian Land Surveys of our home region, starting with the vital south.

http://sirian.warpcore.org/civ3/succession/builders-south.jpg

Purple dot is the top priority. After much contemplation, that site looks ideal to me for Forbidden Palace construction: a cattle and river, some hills, some grass, some flood plains, and it grabs the ivory. If we seize this with our next settler from New York and get it going quickly, it may make our game in the long run.

Yellow Dot is a high priority. It makes good use of the land in the area, is close to the capital, and would complete our borders from sea to sea, perhaps cutting off the Romans from ever exploring past us -- if we are stingy with our world and territory maps: we have nothing to gain from them as we already know all the vitals of their region. Yellow dot is also on the sea, but would need some irrigation help before too long to come "online".

White Dot is yet more overlap with New York, but beyond it is only more jungle, and this is yet another "sacrifice overlap for growth curve". The city will become a producer MUCH sooner from this position than it would further south in the jungles. This would be a third priority. Blue dot is a good site for linking up to purple, and has lots of good land to grow strong sooner. All the green dots are good inland sites in a pattern that I pondered and played with for a good bit of time. It's all based on supporting Purple Dot, though. Red dots are coastline cities, mostly in rugged areas: the rest of what could be done with the land.

Now for the north:

http://sirian.warpcore.org/civ3/succession/builders-north.jpg

You can see Yellow Dot on this picture as well. White Dot is the priority site: grab that rich land on the river by the sea before the Romans get to it. Must be defended with troops, as well, though don't wait for troops to go grab it.

Green dots are strong and urgent sites, the one on the river as a defensive strong point against future Roman incursion, and the one by all the food goodies as a strong grower. Red dots are other good sites for later, and I've not planned out any further because the Romans would only wreck any longer range plans. They do NOT have much land up there and will start coming south before long. We should get the two greens and the white, and insist on those being ours, and be flexible about the rest. If they grab some land in the middle, as long as its not encroaching on white and green, we can get along with that. Stopping to fight an ancient war is not in our best interest, BUT... under no circumstances give the Romans tech if they threaten us. Expand quickly, but then consolodate and prepare. I've gone for Iron so early to give us the chance to defend against Rome if we have to.

Gray dot in the west LOOKS like the best site over there but may not be. I simply don't have the information. There could be more land over there than meets the eye. What it may come down to is a question of building ONE city, on the river, and having it be strong early, or two cities on the coasts. I like the hill next to gray dot, but it looks landlocked, which is absolutely not desirable for a city over there. I'll leave it up to Charis or Carbon to figure out what to do over there, if anything. Looks to me, now, though, like a lower priority than reaching out to grab purple and blue in the south, yellow in the east, and white and green in the north.

I played 40 turns. Next up is Charis with 20 turns, then Carbon with 20 turns, and we'll see if anyone else signs on by then.

Above all else, the one thing we not do is let the pyramids slip out of our hands. It was a bit of a gambit to build a second settler, I hope that pays off.


- Sirian

Count me in. Sounds fun!

I'd be interested in joining this game. I've been a constant lurker on the other RBD games and enjoyed them thoroughly. :) I've mostly played regent/monarch games on large world maps, but so far I've mostly blitzed as soon as I got knights and later, cavalry, so a building game should be a good change of pace. I have never actually played a succession game, however. So, can I join?

Sounds very good :P

Snagging the file and will play it tonight...

Charis

2150 BC (0) - The American nation had been founded, and strongly so, by
our first President, Sir Iyan, but the people felt that their religious
freedoms were at jeapordy, so they turned to a man of the cloth,
Deacon Charis Lincoln, to lead their country over the next twenty years.

A studious man, Deacon Charis looked over the memoirs of Sir Iyan,
and was pleased with what he read. Only a few points bothered him...

First, the yellow dot east of Washington seemed misplaced. NE one spot
gets us the gold, on the coast, and still 'locks' our borders if a
temple is built there. The crucial southern purple dot was also a slight
puzzle. It was great except for one thing -- it wasn't ACTUALLY on
a river square and would not get those special bonuses (so was it best?)
To the north, the western white and left dots seemed highest priority,
although timing-wise, the green spot on the hill looked more appropriate
against Roman incursions. Deacon Charis does not trust Caesar, and expects
him to expand straight at us, and try to place the border more than
halfway between us. The histograph suggest they have three cities right now,
while we have four, and will place their fourth soon. That border line,
if drawn halfway, would two squares north of green dot, include the nice
sea spot, and be just one square from the NW wheat. Without 'sealing' though,
if we take away a spot where they were moving a settler too, it will keep
moving 'forward' and place itself like a thorn in our side. One question
is... would they like the Egyptians in RBD2, start an early war if we
have many cities with no/little defense, or would they chill out given the
greater room to grow compared to that game? If the latter, low warrior-
high settler gambit could mean a huge space advantage. If not, we'll
not meet the same success as we did their, with this panagaea map and
expansionist neighbors.

2110 BC (1) - Southern scout finds dual wheat site on sea and river
with fish!! Wowza! It's JUST below where you scouted and showed on
your map, but it's a doozie. Deacon Charis may try to grab that site
ASAP and settle 'back' from their towards Washington, unless someone
else gets there first.

2070 BC (2) - Oh crud! It's a stone's throw from our next neighbor,
the Indians. :(

2030 BC (3) - Worker pops out of Boston which starts on a warrior
en route to becoming a settler factory. Madras is contacted, and
Charis meets with Gandhi. He is prepared to give us 50 Gold and Alphabet
for Masonry. Normally the Deacon would accept such an offer, but
his memory prodded him of notes of Sir Iyan, pointing out it's no
deal if we end up losing Pyramids by a turn. Instead I offer him a
token of goodwill (a VERY small token, 1 gold). He would have to be
the worst scout on the planet not to land on this golden site just
to his west.

1990 BC (4) - To the Far East (appropriately) we run across an elite
green warrior, from a country called "Japan". We introduce ourselves
He is annoyed, and points out he is skilled in the arts of war. As
it would take him 500 years just to reach us with warriors, Charis
was not overly scared. Oh my, not only did he not need any tech from
us, but he had Alphabet and the Wheel as well. Hmmm... a worker was
available as well?? He would not part with knowledge, but would actually
sell us a worker! I took him not as a slave, but as a disciple, and
'donated' 27 gold (less than the 30 Tokogawa wanted). They too have
four cities. An extra worker that costs no upkeep this early, nice.
Our industrious bonus vs a 'slow' foreign worker - together this came
out as a non-industrious normal worker (6 turns for a hill road, 12 to
mine, vs 3 and 6 for our regular industrious worker). Acolyte Toshi was
sent to connect Boston to Washington and bring in the holy wine!!

1950 BC (5), 1910 BC (6) - More scouting

1870 BC (7) - Settler and Warrior seen heading due south from Rome.
New York finishes settler and starts warrior, and we discover the
secrets of Iron. The man of the cloth starts Polytheism and notes
a very early Monarchy could be started. Iron is seen to on the
hill one square from white dot near Washington, in the mountains
far east of Rome, and is not seen ANYWHERE else over the visible
map. Fairly scarce I would say, making it a high priority grab.
(If Rome does NOT see their supply they will come after us)

Where to send the settler FIRST? He'll be the only one for a while,
given that all our cities are again size 1. If I look at Rome's area,
that settler of his is heading for the river/sea/whale spot, and his
next area would be the cattle, then perhaps the river to the south.
After that, if he's searched, the sea spot or the wheat would be
prime choices for him. 'Our' iron spot is invisible and too far.
So until we actually need to build something with iron, it can
wait til we 'take our boundaries'. As for heading North or South,
Rome has no choice and will have to come South. India might, for
some reason, go east, and we may have more time. Plus if they get more
jungle while we secure top dog spot in our northern pennisula and
end up hemmed in by India and take out Rome, we're in good shape too.
So first focus will be to the North. Let's go outside-in and hope
Rome follows a more normal "spread from center" approach. The settler
is sent for green dot on the sea. (With its wheat it can provide the
settler for the white dot to its North). "Sealing" with yellow is nice
in theory, but Rome will feel free to walk right on through our
territory (correct me if I'm wrong) and we're not going to get
pushy and say "get out!". The deacon is confident with a strong
Washington that if we don't trade away Masonry we'll get those
Pyramids.

1830 BC (8) - The Deacon is starting to think that Boston should
slip in a Barracks to act as troop provider, while New York
needs a temple to expand boundaries and get that extra wheat square.
He's also worried about disease in Philly someday.

1790 (9), 1750 BC (10) - Simple moves. Philly finishes warrior and
starts a worker. (Why not take advantage of being industrious?)
New York warrior heads to Washington to stave off some unrest when it
hits size 4.

1725 BC (11) - While they're free and towns are quiet, warriors head
to peek west at the fog zones along our coast there.
1700 BC (12) - The iron spot on the hill has TWO fish at knight's
moves from it, nice! (This is the hill next to the grey dot, and
it's not landlocked afterall, but a great spot!)
1675 BC (13) - Nothing but jungle and plain coast west of Philly.
1650 BC (14) - Roman archer shows up nearby, but alone. He's exploring.
Deacon meets up with Joan of Arc, and is nearly smitten with the
Saint. His immediate impulse is to woo her with Iron Working for
her Alphabet and Wheel, and she has met the English and the Greeks.
Joan is to the East of the Indians, quite a long distance away and
through jungle and mountains. Pretty cruddy land for these folks!
She would give us either of her techs merely for contact with the
Romans. But hey, we're the only ones the Romans have met or will
meet in a while. Why help them out?! :P And so, Deacon's counselors
persuade him it's best to let her muddle along and learn what she
needs to on her own. "Never mind."
1625 BC (15) - Ah, a goody hut seen to the west of Washington, so close.
After turn, Joan offers Alphabet for Iron Working. I give her 1 gold
instead, to be polite.
1600 BC (16) - Atlanta is founded at Green Dot. 50 Gold from that goodie
hut (decent, although I would have preferred tech).
1575 BC (17) - Cities near growth, wonder if they'll stay happy.
1550 BC (18) - French and Japanese start the Pyramids, but we're way ahead.
Our scouts note Paris has spices out the wazoo right at Paris.
Considered whipping the temple in New York, but production rate is
actually pretty decent. (Same for Barracks in Boston, it's doing fine)
1525 BC (19) - Move scouts.
1500 BC (20) - Washington expands culture boundary. Philly worker pops
out, ready to work. Starts on road for Silks and connecting to Washington.
Other workers have ignored this key task to mine production in DC.

Consider in DC shifting a worker from the irrigated area to the gold
hills. That would set growth to zero, but we're at max til the silks
arrive. That would shave 3 turns off pyramids too.
The worker next to Philly was planning to start a road and the worker
in the hills of wine was about to mine.
Philadelphia just started the settler, switch if needed.
Note none of the visible capitols of other countries are on the coast.
Gambit Colossus in Atlanta?

Trade? You can get the Wheel from France for 37+1/turn, or the Alphabet
for 32+1/turn.

Suggestions: (Take as my 2 cents) Do *NOT* trade anyone contact with the
Romans. Let them languish in anonymity. Neither give in to any
demands from anyone at this stage. I would stick with the no-tech trades
to Rome either.

Good luck, (Carbon unless Sirian inserts someone in the order)
Charis

Consider in DC shifting a worker from the irrigated area to the gold hills. That would set growth to zero, but we're at max til the silks arrive.

Max? MAX??? Run luxuries and keep growing! 10% will probably only affect Washington anyway, AND the gold from the extra square will pay for it, since we're on a river. Keep growing... and growing and growing. I'd like to see Washington roaring along at size 12 asap, no matter how much luxury has to be run (gold is plentiful and cheap on large maps), and we want to run some luxuries anyway as we go to improve our average score.

As for purple dot, in that forest square, it's definitely on the river. Right click it and observe "1 gold". That's how to tell. Is the only reason you opted not to head down there, that you thought it wasn't on the river? Or would have you sent north anyway?

Yellow dot where it is, vs where you suggest, it would give up two plains (one currently a forest), a hill, and two jungle (future grassland) for the hills with the gold and four sea squares. I really think where I suggested is stronger. Gold is desirable but not worth quite that much, even though it was a painful decision to abandon it. Plus, where you suggest would give it fewer soon-available good food and shield squares.

Green dot up north on the coast, with only one wheat in range, is going to be on one food after reaching size 2 unless a temple is rushed. It's a good grab, but not likely to provide a settler any time soon unless you supply irrigation in a hurry. Everything else sounds good, including the tech stinginess.

AI civs will not just walk through your borders indiscriminately. They will not tend to do so unless they disrespect you as being too weak, or have already "seen" map area beyond, or if they are intent on reaching a barbarian camp. I've held to a tenuous cross-continental situation like that before and not had AI's crossing through. It can be tense, as they may grow restless and demand contact, or if your seal is imperfect. Most often, AI's explore so much (especially expansionist ones) that they slip something past you before you realize it. If the Romans have now marched an archer past us to the south, it's already too late, and don't worry about it.

And yes, they might attack us. We're past the early "cushion" when you can safely run no military. It would be a good idea, if possible, to send a troop with each settler or get one there soon.

I'm glad to hear we're in the lead with the Pyramids. French were the only other civ to start with Masonry, and if they just started, then we should be in good shape if we keep growing Washington.


Carbon: I disagree with Charis's assessment of the urgency of establishing borders with the Romans for one reason: corruption. I plotted out about as far as we could go before the corruption starts to eat in, unless we build the FP up there, and all the lands beyond what I marked are pretty arid. Crowding the Romans may not be the best plan, although we might want to use a scout or two to obstruct them from reaching the best sites for them to build, to mess up their layouts.

The south is going to be the same way with corruption, as the good lands beyond the jungle are also beyond range of the Palace in Washington to control well. A good FP placement down there can double our productive lands eventually, while up north we'd not get as much benefit unless we made a point of trying to wipe out the Romans. If we're going to put the FP at purple dot without needing a leader, we have to get started soon on founding the city, getting a temple and courthouse going before despotism ends, AND still defend the place and secure more cities in the area. The FP coming online will add hundreds of trade and dozens of shields PER turn to everything in the area, so speed really matters.


Time's running late, I'll sort out roster tomorrow.

- Sirian

I'm thrilled at the 'little things' I'm picking up here. I find myself micromanaging and optimizing when my 'errors' are so much bigger or easier to see. Hadn't even thought of looking for '1 gold' to signify river. I right clicked the tile to inspect it and so
no river at all on the border, and thought it not river. Cool! :crazyeyes: (A gaff on the 'max' too, had it come to it,
raising the luxuries is obvious)

I tend too focus TOO much on the special squares vs "give up two plains after you deforest vs sea squares. Good tip.

I didn't think I could seal up border vs scouts, and yes, I'm pretty sure an archer got down. I must be considered 'weak' in other games, cuz they sure like to tromp all over my land (and I do the same to theirs ;p)

The river-ness of purple wasn't the main reason I didn't grab it. I thought two of the nicer ones up North would be at high risk if not founded early, while I don't see Gandhi as saying "I want to expand up to that useless jungle!!" He's just too far south, imho, to be the main threat. Plus if we gain the south and lose the north border, the Romans are a stone's throw from our capitol, which is not true in reverse. Both going N and S have merit, only time will tell I think. Getting ONE settler down there to purple dot is probably a good idea though in any case.

Thanks for the good input,
Charis

Well, far be it for me to look gift volunteers in the horse. :) They were in scarce supply last week. So here's our roster for starters.

Sirian
Charis
Carbon Copy
Toasty
Schnarrd

Carbon will take 20 turns, then we'll settle in to the 10 turn rotation from there forward. I really like 10 turns, because with any more, huge chunks of the game go by before you get another turn, and I feel a little disconnected from the game that way, like things just look SO different when it comes back to me, and you only get a few total turns. With 10 turns, there is more frequent interaction and less dependent on what any one player decides to do.

The roster here is now closed. Good luck, Carbon, and good luck to this team. We have a lot of building ahead of us. :)


- Sirian

This is gonna be a tough one to decide how to play. But that's what they pay me the big bucks for, right? :P

I have yet to start my turn, but I've looked at our world map and I agree with Charis that a higher priority should be placed on containing the Romans to the north than spreading to the south. Settling the yellow dot, the white dot, and the inland green dot should be enough to keep the Romans' growth severely stunted. The area to our south with the purple and blue dots, unless we're REALLY slow off the blocks and India is highly motivated, will be ours anyhow, but that won't necessarily be true of the white and green dots to the north. Sure they'll all be corrupt, but they'll all be ours. If nothing else, we could use them for worker production, especially white dot, that one has a ton of food available (which doesn't get affected by corruption), and the limiting factor in worker/settler production over the long term is almost always the city's growth rate, not the shield output.

I agree with Charis, in that it would be a good idea to send 1 settler down to purple dot quickly to get the FP city going early enough that it will be able to build/whip the stuff it needs to prior to starting the FP. If the rest of the south can be safely ignored for the moment because India's not likely going to expand that way, then it's reasonable to consider doing so until you're satisfied with the situation in the north, but you probably ought to at least plant a stake in the mud down there. It will also help give you advance notice if India does start doing the unexpected and expand in your direction.

Of course I'm not playing in this one so feel free to disregard... :)

Thanks for adding me to the roster, Sirian. I look forward to playing my turns! :D

I also agree with Carbon Copy. The Romans can be a formidable ancient to early middle age foe if allowed to spread indiscriminantly. Although the emphasis in this game is on building and I would prefer that we not risk early combat, I think we can essentially take the Romans out of the game if we move to contain them quickly.

Glanced at the latest save. Looks good so far. :) I think we're going to get the Pyramids, which IMHO is the best of the ancient wonders and plays along nicely with the building theme.

In the year 1500 B.C. there was suddenly a vacuum of power in the fledgling American state. The nation found itself in desperate need of great leadership, but the only two who answered the call of duty were the tacky and unrefined Carbon "C." Lincoln, and the charismatic advocate of temperance and "free silver", the perennial loser William Jennings Bryan. And thus it was that "C.", as he was informally called, took the helm of state in the most lopsided contest for power seen to date in American history, and these are his exploits...

Here's the particulars of my turn. It a classic case of good news/bad news.


1500
-Caesar wants our Ceremonial Burial for his Alphabet. I decline.
-Boston finishes barracks, starts working on spearmen

1475
-The Olmec tribe teaches us Alphabet :crazyeyes (this is a recurring theme. every time I almost trade for tech, some goody hut gives it to us on the next turn)

1400
-We get our first glimpse of actual Japanese towns. They're almost up to France's eastern border along the southern coast

1375
-New York finishes temple, starts on settler

1350
-Boston finishes spear, starts another.
-road from Philly to the silk is complete, still need to connect it to the rest of the country, though.
-Adjusting sci/lux rate to account for Washington growing and limiting wasted beakers

1325
-Both scouts encounter goody huts that they can grab on their next turn. The suspense is killing me.
-Polytheism discovered. Since Poly is pointless by itself, the next tech I queue up is Monarchy. Even if we don't switch to it till after Code of Laws (if we don't just wait for Republic), we appear to be the first to try it so we can probably get the Hanging Gardens all to ourselves.

1300
-Drop sci to 10% as there's no way to get this tech in less than 40 turns without losing a lot of money per turn.
-The goody huts yield a conscript warrior by Japan, and up north the Inuits give us the wheel. I check our territory for horses, there is not a horse to be found within any region that we could possibly colonize, however, all other civs on our map have a horse.

1275
-A warrior that I thought was Japanese turned out to be Greek and we made contact with Greece. He offers Writing for Iron working, which I deny, but I do pay 20 bucks to contact the English. Elizabeth also wants iron working for writing, so i just give her a dollar to shut her up.

1250
-The Inuit tribe comes to our rescue, teaching us writing :crazyeyes. HA!

1225
-The Inuit aren't through with us yet, they give us Mapmaking as a parting gift. So that's five new techs discovered on my turn.

1200-1175
-On one of these turns, a settler is produced in New York, and is sent southward, to either the blue or the purple dot.

1150
-Japanese start the Oracle
-the northern scout makes contact with the Russians. Damn, they're a backwards people. Nothing worth trading on them. Have no clue where they're living, though.
-Establish embassies with the English (so I can figure out where they live, they're to the east of Greece, wich is in turn to the east of Japan, which is east of France, which is east of India, which is to the south of us, just to be different) and also with India. Only had enough cash for two, and those two were the cheapest besides Rome.

1125
-Japan DEMANDS contact with the Russians. I tell Tokugawa to stuff it, if he wants to march 500 turns over to our place he is welcome to do that. Turns out he was just kidding, after all. ;)

1100
-Rome is starting to pick up the settling speed, and if you're paying attention to this you should have realized that we've yet to found a town on my turn. Rome is up to 9 towns now, and their next settler is likely going to land on or near the white dot. I have spearmen staked out on the Green Dot and on the hill near the red dot on the coast, waiting for settlers to be produced. The white dot might end up in Roman hands unless Atlanta can be persuaded to grow more quickly (it's sitting on all the shields necessary to build a settler but is still 7 turns off of size 3 by the end of my turn).

-I grow suspicious of India's recent expansion and I trade 20g for their territory map. Holy crap, they're almost settled up to the purple dot! :eek: I have the settler bypass blue dot (to be settled by a trailing settler from NY or Philly) to grab the purple dot, but we are two or three turns short of founding it there (one or two of movement, then another to settle).

1050
-Get my hopes up with a goody hut, only to find it deserted. :(

1125
-Unit movement (there's a settler from NY headed to the northern green dot, and a settler from philly to settle on the blue dot in the south)

1000
-More movement. We are going to get the Pyramids no sweat. Monarchy is still something like 30 turns away from discovery.

Summary:

-We acheived 5 techs, 4 from goody huts, one from actual research on our part

-We made contact with the Greeks, the English, and the Russians

-We're starting to be out-settled. I don't know what we could have done differently on my turn to prevent this. Boston, with the only barracks in our empire, was churning out vet spears to stake out dots while both NY and Philly did nothing but settler production on my turn after their buildings were done.
Romans settling on White dot is a very real possibility. If that happens, the settler should move to either the red dot on our east coast to seal our borders with Rome or to the Gray dot to get our Iron on line. After the red dot is settled, our expansion efforts should be concentrated downward to meet the Indians. the Purple dot settler is almost to the site, blue dot is on its way, and the northern green dot settler is currently goto'd to reach the correct spot. I think Sirian gave us too many opponents for a large map to do *endless* expansion, it would have worked for a huge map, but I think we're one or two civs too many for a pure settlement game.

-We're about the only civ in the game that doesn't have any horses, nor any chance for horses in the forseeable future unless we conquer another civ.

-We're the most technologically advanced civ, thanks to the huts.

Wow, Carbon will be known as the "Great Scientist", we're in great shape on tech. I got scared by the lack of founding and your description, but after looking at the map I would say we're really in good shape.

- We'll beat Rome to White and one other dot at the border
easily. All his cities are puny, new size 1, and with no great foodstocks. We'll have our key spots settled long before they can crank out another settler, and Rome is too far. Too see if they have one coming from Rome, get that scout up on the mountain asap!

- India is by NO means "almost up to the purple dot". He's no further north from his capitol than we are south (ok, a little bit more) If you split the distance from Washington to Delhi, we can settle there and fill in and do just fine in the South.

- Seal the Rome border before bringing iron online would be my thought

- There seem to be a good amount of Spearmen around, get at LEAST one settler for the north out of boston before resuming with vets

- Good job not caving in to Tokogawa. :goodjob: (Now if he were the rbd2 Toko, we would be doomed ;p)

- Rome is SO isolated and our tech so strong, that if we dont sell contact with Romans, he'll be doomed for early obsolescence ;p

- Once the south is settled and both borders sealed, our only major disaster would be for both India AND Rome to go to war at same time. We could not sustain two fronts (heck, one will take all we got) It will be very nice indeed if this does stay a builder game for a while, we've got a ton of work to do including jungle clearing. :rolleyes:

Well done, and good luck to Toasty, who's up next.
Charis

The big worry I have is that Rome has access to both Iron and Horses (which equals knights if/when they make it to chivalry), and the iron just by itself means that we'll have Legionaries on our hands before too long. We don't even have so much as a pack mule to ride in America, so if we do get into any conflicts with the Romans, it will be our swordsmen versus their legionaries without any fast-moving units on our side (this is sounding kinda like the Infantry game). Maybe if we're lucky the Indians will have a spare horse in their lands and we can buy it off them for a lux or something once we connect roads.

Also, note that once they get mapmaking they're going to start sending settlers to the as-yet unclaimed lands to the East (in which case they're going to build a bunch of corrupt dirt-eating villages, but will also inevitably find the other civs and trade up to tech parity without us)...unless we launch our own flotilla to block them out of shore squares. And we don't even have a city on the shore yet. Oh well, I may not have founded a city, but Toasty is going to found at least three on his turn. Just be sure to put the cities on the dots.

The good news is that there might not be too many civs for too much longer. Out east, it's almost inevitable that someone along that east-west chain of civs on the southern coast (India, France, Japan, Greece, England) is going to get cut off by the surrounding civs. This is a wildcard factor, it may turn out that the East becomes a hopelessly Balkanized region of tiny civs for centuries, or the biggest civ in the neighborhood could just wipe out all the other ones. In the meantime, though, whoever comes out top dog in the less-crowded West (should be us) could become the dominant world power.

I'm going to be gone until around 2:00 AM tomorrow (actually day after tomorrow), so if Toasty uploads his game tomorrow, I'll have to be skipped. :cry: :cry: :cry: Can I be slipped in after Sirian instead?

It's been almost 24 hours since last save posted and no word from Toasty yet. If you still have time, Schnarrd, (and Toasty doesn't post first, to say he's got it) go ahead and take your turn next.

- Sirian

I'd be happy to join in someones place, but i'm not that good yet so you might not be interested, but hey, can't blame you. I followed in the wake of a great many Lurkers, mostly Sirian, his webpage helps :)

So if someone turns up missing, and you'd like to give me a chance, i'll be more than happy to take it.

Toasty, almost 48 hours have passed since the last save was posted. The sands of the hourglass are slipping away.

Because this will be such a large, time-intensive game relative to a typical game, I'm protective of my investment in it, so this game will only be open to experienced folks I know won't wreck the game in the middle by dropping out, vanishing, etc.

That was part of the original post. It's been 48 with no word from Toasty, so I'm dropping him from the roster. Sorry, Toasty, but we want to keep this one moving, and the rules were posted.

That brings the game back to me. I'll play and post. Schnarrd, let us know when you're available again.


- Sirian

Sirian, if you haven't already started playing the game, I'll jump in and take my turns. If you have already started, no big deal. Should I play after you, or with the drop-out of Toasty would you prefer to reorganize the roster?

Good work, Carbon. The right number of troops in the right places in the north, plenty of settlers moving around. I founded six new cities and only built one settler, just the way things break with only ten turns per player now.

Inherited turn: changed Philly and NY to temples, shuffled some food around with Boston/Washington, established embassy with Russia. Russia is rather isolated, but being an expansionist civ, I figured they had to have one or more scouts out and would soon make contact with somebody, so I traded them contact with the world for their world map, Horseback Riding, and all their gold (10). Their map revealed they had units ON THE DOORSTEP of Japanese land, so this move was born out.

First turn: took settler heading north off of Goto, and prepared to send him to white dot. Changed Atlanta's second tile from plains to sea, picking up one gold per turn (shields were maxed on the settler). Used the worker in the area to build road toward site of future Houston (and bring irrigation back from the river). Found a goody hut in the No Man's Land between Russia and Japan, and, seeing a black area in the region the Russians had not explored yet, decided to backtrack for a look, and hope for a goody hut.

Early turns: Founded Chicago, Seattle, San Fran. Finished Pyramids, watched most civs switch to Great Library, established embassy with France and saw that they are CLOSE to finishing the GL -- too close for us to even have a prayer, so this bears out Carbon's gambit to skip Literacy and head right for Monarchy. That is going to pay off for us handsomely, I think. We are sure to get the Hanging Gardens in Washington as long as we don't trade Polytheism or Monarchy under any circumstances. Got Philosophy from the hut.

Middle turns: my backtrack pays off as I find a hut in the black region in No Mans Land (henceforth, NML), it gives us 50 gold. Founded Buffalo on the coast, Houston on the river, whipped some temples, and churned out a worker per turn from Washington (knowing it was pointless to start another wonder there at the moment). I set some of the workers to start in on bringing irrigation out to Buffalo, set one to building road toward Miami, sent one south to help build roads down there, and set one to building road in preparation for the next settler, to be founded ON the iron west of Boston. As Charis found out, this location is not landlocked, and it's our next priority. The iron is on the river and also on the sea, so it's perfect, and the road there is already complete, so that worker can do some irrigation and roads over there.

Late turns: whipped barracks in New York and Philly: we are in DESPERATE need of some military in the south, and it's almost invariably better for expansion to let new cities whip temples asap while older cities with barracks crank out vet spearmen to garrison the new colonies, in between building more settlers. I also established more embassies (especially with the Romans, who were down to annoyed but are now back to polite). Then I paid cash for everyone's territory map (not much, about 10-20 per civ) to get that info on the table, and especially to find out what India was doing. Apparently, their priority has been set exclusively to battling the French for grabbing land between them, as India has settled low-yield new towns in the tundra to their south, and not settled a single new town in our direction during my turn. That will change eventually, but we do have Purple Dot City established, and also blue dot.


Analysis: Now that our entire northern border has been established and all but one of our desired locations up there settled (the Romans grabbed one at Hispalis), it is time to turn our focus to expansion in the south, and let the northern cities, supported by Boston, do their own consolidating up north. Boston is building one more settler, for the iron city to its west, then it needs to crank spearmen and swordsmen (no need to whip) to strengthen our garrisons and deter the Romans. Rome has one warrior wandering around IN our lands, but he has been careful to avoid infringing on our territory, so I don't expect any trouble from him. Rome is notoriously slow at building culture, especially in its distant, corrupt colonies, so if we whip temples on the fronts lines, and build vet units at Boston (which itself needs a spearman, since it DOES have luxuries - don't tempt the AI to attack by ignoring Boston garrison), we should have the stronger position up there. They do not yet have wheel or iron working, so we know they haven't been stockpiling dangerous units as yet and won't be in a position to attack in the near future. I think.

Down south, we are totally vulnerable. If there had been barbarians on this map, I'd have had to build units down there sooner. Our new colonies are sitting empty, preparing to whip temples and waiting for vet spearmen from the cities with barracks. Now that we have Pyramids, our growth curve will shoot up! We can't afford to whip any one city too much -- there's no need, and more than a few whippings at this point will linger in effect for too long -- but we can afford to whip a temple in each town, a barracks here or there, and a courthouse, especially in Chicago, San Fran, and Seattle. We are not going to have the whip for much longer, as I believe we should switch to Monarchy as soon as we get it, or shortly after, and build the Colossus in Atlanta, which will probably kick off a Golden Age for us, which once we are out of Despotism is a GOOD thing, even this early, because we aren't going to get the GL, and we're going to want to race ahead to Education ASAP to cancel it out, grab Sistine and Bach (as well as Gardens) and own all the big happiness wonders to BOOST OUR SCORE, which after all is the point of this game, to expand and score big over time.

Why colossus in Atlanta? Every civ now building any kind of wonder is doing so in landlocked cities. Every last one. So not one of those will cascade to Colossus/Lighthouse. French will get the Great Library, then someone will probably get Oracle the following turn, then the cascade will end. Only a couple of civs even have a decent coastline city at all. Atlanta, with irrigation on the way, a whipped temple soon, and then two wheat, whale and some forests, should be able to get the Colossus, but only if we all team up to make it happen. We can let Monarchy come at min science, but then we need to have some libraries and cash reserve in place by then and go high science to speed ahead to the middle age. Ignore Republic (we'll trade for it later, once everyone has it) and rely on a golden age to boost our science rate for a while, enough to keep Washington building wonders one after another while the other towns crank expansion items: troops, workers, settlers, and in new colonies, infrastructure.

If we get a golden age, immediately rush-buy a courthouse in Chicago if it doesn't have one yet, then start it on the Forbidden Palace, to get max output toward that from the Golden Age bonus. Chicago's whole output could be bent toward getting the FP as soon as possible, and for that, it needs to build a temple and a courthouse first, then the Palace, while being supported by military and workers sent forward from other cities. And of course there are the AI's to deal with, so don't take any undue chances, but keep wonder-building cities focused and use the other cities to support them. Right now is a good time for Washington to catch up on temple and library. It should not be used to build settlers, since we want it larger to get the next wonder sooner (I know I used it for workers, but we really NEEDED the workers and there was nowhere else.)


Schnarrd: I would like for Charis to remain after me in the turn order, so I plan to keep things as: Sirian, Charis, Carbon, Schnarrd, for the long term. However, you did your miss your turn this time, and I don't want to give you two turns this round, so you can have your choice: take your turn from this round now (and be skipped on your normal turn this round), or wait until your normal turn. Whichever you prefer.

So it will either go:

Schnarrd
Charis
Carbon

or:

Charis
Carbon
Schnarrd

...for the rest of this round. Whichever you choose, Schnarrd. Then we're back to normal turns on the third round.

Schnarrd: post to let us know which you choose, and good luck if you are taking your turn next.


- Sirian

I've downloaded the game and hopefully will post later tonight.

After the sudden retirement of Sirian, interim ruler after the Milquetoasty debacle (no offense to Toasty if you’re out there :) ) the great country of America was left in chaos as Siran’s advisors pondered who should its next ruler. They determined that a weak ruler should be chosen so that the throne could be controlled by the advisors (a course of action that would be repeated many times in history). To that end, they chose Schnarrenberger, who was first discovered chewing grass among the cow herds that frequented San Francisco. Soon after ascending the throne, Schnarrenberger encountered his first crisis: his name was unpronounceable and so long that it took a full stone tablet to write in full. Thenceforward, for the ease of communication and to ease the cramped hands of the scribes, Schnarrenberger’s advisors nicknamed Schnarrenberger Schnarrd.

Schnarrd’s rule was a quiet one, his only major decision during his rule being to shorten his name to a more reasonable length. He developed a reputation for being an oddball, however, since the only words people heard him speak were variations of “Moo.” he was often found drooling and defecating in various cow herds throughout the country. For this reason, perhaps his death was fitting: an experiment with catapults went awry, flinging a cow high into the air, through Schnarrd’s bedroom window, and on to Schnarrd just as he was getting dressed. As a side note, groups of Schnarrd's advisors were later found eating sandwhiches they called "bergers." When asked what they were made of and where they got the ingredients for the "bergers," they simply cackled evilly.

Well, I didn't have to do much this go-round (10 turns go so fast!). I whipped a temples in the border cities and bulked up the military, but I did not build any swordsmen, only spearmen. Late into my reign I discovered that just about all the civilizations had Polytheism - the only civ lacking it was the English. Therefore, I brokered Polytheism and 40 gold to the English for Code of Laws and Mathematics. Also, the only new city I founded was the iron city, but a settler is heading south with more being built. The only other thing that I should mention is that Atlanta is building a courthouse so that corruption will be less when the Colossus is built.

With the rapid onslaught of polytheism, the minds of the people
once again turned to spiritual matters, and Deacon Charis II came
to power. He often spoke forcefully about "living our lives to please
the King, who is our wisdom and strength." This was interpretted by
his advisors as a need to investigate the Monarchy form of goverment,
and to move toward this new way... He began by a review of history,
and read what the prophets had to say. In summary, they foretold:

- Atlanta will be a great city. Treat it right and let it discover the
joys of the Colossus someday.
- The so called 'Great' Library is inferior to Education, and people
thinking for themselves.
- The people of Washington desire the beauty of Gardens, preferably Hanging.
(Longer term, Sistine and Bach, available with Theology and Music Theory)
- Encourage the people towards sacrifice for the good of the country,
as that will not be possible under a king.
- Be careful not to let Boston fall to terrorists.
- The people want to build a Forbidden Palace in Chicago, maybe we should ;p

He then reviewed the state of the Union after the great Bovine king,
Schnard (who does remind me much of a certain Lemming in his writing style :D)

- He finds odd the apparently rushed granary in Chicago, until an advisor
reminds him we have built the Pyramids!
- The wall production in Houston seems odd. The deacon is unfamiliar with
the effectiveness of walls.
- Charis II is also somewhat surprised by the courthouses being built when
there is land yet to be grabbed! Twelve cities, and only one settler in
production. As he looks more closely at each city, there is in fact no
extra place that can afford a settler at the moment. At least one settler
is moving in the field near Seattle.
- He notes the luxury rate is one higher than it needs to be an lowers it,
but promises to keep a close eye on it.

The good deacon expected but a short reign, so set about with these priorities.

* Meet the religious needs of the people, every city with a temple.
(Houston is switched off walls and temple rush planned)
* Continue infrastructure and plant seeds for expansion by next ruler.

550 BC (0) - Tweak a few settings, but all seems ok. Chicago finishes
its temple, and for this alone, the people cheer and want to build
his Palace! (But, but... I've just started!) Grounds and steps built.
Also, Athens of Greece has finished the Oracle (which has one of the
shortest lifespans of any wonder, iirc) Russians and Japanese switch to GL.

530 BC (1) - A Spearman and warrior are seen to come out of Pisae, yet no
Settler. Where are they going, and why? Puts Boston to making a Swordsmen,
for the Deacon knows that the Sword is sharp, able to divide bone and
marrow, and to penetrate the hearts of men!

510 BC (2) - Wash finishes library, starts placeholder for Hanging Gardens.
SF and Miami expand borders and English join the losing GL race. Huh wait,
French shift to Great Lighthouse. (Both likely due soon by some country)
Luxury to 10% to keep DC and NY fully working. Folks seem to be dead on
par with us in Tech, but have no contact with Romans. I hope GL's both
finish and end cascade before they get Monarchy and can switch to gardens.
Rome is still polite and WAY behind on tech, lacking even the means to bury
their own dead! Everyone is polite, excellent for a builder game ;p

490 BC (3) - Philly finishes spearman and thinks about Swordsmen (6 vs 4 turns,
same defense, triple offense), but decides on a Settler first. Miami is
set to be our Worker factory it looks like, taking 4 turns to grow and 5 to
produce worker. An Indian warrior is on his way up to scout. Some micromanage
of worker locations works nicely in cities like NY on this turn.
Seattle now 38 shields from temple, and the people are whipped into a
fervor that lets them finish in one turn. Houston is 39 away, and is
whipped for a temple.

470 BC (4) - NY completes Settler and starts another. Houston as our front
line city, starts a barracks. The French complete the Great Library at
Paris. Deacon notes Boston has no temple and doesnt like idea of a border gap
due to that, so he changes production. Deacon is half tempted to send the new
NY Settler up north to close that gaping large one open spot toward Rome, but
decides we're too behind in the South to do that. With Chicago as FP, we
want to have a line at Chicago or just beyond. Going past that would be
overreaching and India will beat us there or beat us down.

450 BC (5) - Chicago expands boundaries, starts Courthouse. (I'm confused
thought... the civolopedia says Courthouse reduces Corruption, but NOT
waste. Ie, gold loss, not shield loss.) Moves a worker in St.Louis,
and notes the City Governor was set (!!!) *WE* are the city governor!
Do not let mere AI handle this vital task in a builder game!

430 BC (6) - The Indians are building the Colossus. Drats. Atlanta is now
size 4, producing 4 or 5 shields, and 43 turns from Colossus. The Courthouse
would give at best one extra commerce and no shields. Now is the time
to switch to Colossus, decides Charis II. Houston whips a Barracks, with
end of whipping days coming soon, and St.Louis it's temple does whip.

* Test * Opens up RBD2 game with Tokogawa. In Matsuyama, size 7 with a
courthouse, commerce is 12(8+4corrupt) shields are 11(3 waste). Zero growth
four happy citizens, 3 content. I sell the courthouse (for a paltry 10 gold),
and next turn, rates are then: 12(6+6corrupt), shields are 11(4waste).
Ah, despite civopedia comments, waste (shields) is affected. Two other
tests. Lets see effect of courthouse on 'miserable' city with all but
one shield wasted. Salamanca was wasting 11 of its 12 shields and 15 of 16
commerce. It had no courthouse - one was rushed and rates were completely
unchanged. (Which means that it's mods are before caps, and waste and
corruption are so bad they would be negative if not for min-1 rule.)
What about WLTKD? Matsu alread had it going and was too happy to stop.
Shimonoseki was wasting 1 of 6 shields and 5 of 16 commerce. Inducing WLTK
there had no effect, even after several turns. (Then again waste was minimal
to start.) Our situation has San Francisco in minimal waste. We could get
zero or one shield, zero or one gold, and would 'lose' shields produced
toward Courthouse in the race for Colossus. He stands with the wonder shift.
(The deciding factor is that the 2 citizen whip needed for courthouse
would take some time to regrow population for same shield growth)

410 BC (7) - French want an audience to swap territory maps. I give her a
gold piece instead. St.Louis starts a worker. About to hit Monarchy,
what's left to whip? The harbor in Buffalo is about it.

390 BC (8) - We learn Monarchy, but put off going there one turn to whip
the Buffalo harbor, now needing just under 40 shields. Choose Currency,
although Construction was considered too. (Skipping republic) Washington
switches to Hanging Gardens, due in 22 (meaning we're likely to get it)
Boston is micromanaged to get temple in 2 turns. Settler in Chicago heads
East, to start on a "line of 4" from coast to coast, to form and seal our
border with India. Alas, can't see which spot yet, but there's a mix of
country and hoping for something useful. A spearman is just ahead a step
or two, to scout.

After cracking the whip the shields appear, so we leave Despotism behind us!
The Deacon is proud to see a temple in every city (except Boston, done in 2
turns and Buffalo, queued next)

370 BC (9) - Anarchy.

350 BC (10) - Anarchy. Note, the Settler and Spearman to the SW of Seattle
have NOT moved! The Indian warrior near us is trying to hide an Ivory
square! We're on the hill I intended to found the city on, which is
better defense, has ivory in square, and is near but not on a river.
With that city down, and one more east on river about 2-3 squares, we'll have
a solid wall of four cities as our Southern border. With one more squeezed
in south of Chicago, whereever we can fit it, it will produce nicely due
to proximity of Forbidden Palace there (someday). Our next leader might
well prefer to move ONE square NW, now on the coast, and overlapping
less. Or go one square East if you want to try to seal the border with
only 3 cities instead of 4 (I don't like that option as much).

The second southern settler is also un-moved for turn. He was going to
step next to Spearman. Together they could scout the hills close
to Chicago, or go for the forest square on the coast which is a Knight's
move to TWO gold and the Plains Cattle (yum). OR... you could backtrack
for a more consolidated border by snagging the Whale-capable square in
the jungle, NE of Chicago.

Other notes, besides key point on settler, above. Our workers almost have
the road to Chicago finished. Likewise Miami is almost connected, for our
last unconnected city (besides two new ones about to appear). We're also
looking to get a second path to Houston as our point city. Another worker from
Seattle has started a road to the west as well. Anarchy should end in about
three turns (?). You'll have massive reshifting of workers when that happens,
with so current income and entertainers all over the place. When Atlanta snaps
out of Anarchy, the benefits of Monarchy should lead it and Washington to need
nicely fewer turns to finish!

Good luck, should be a fun turn next! (Especially since you have two settlers yet to move in 350 BC)
Charis

Out of the chaos there rode a large man upon a mule with squinty eyes and a harsh Bostonian accent. Astride his lowly beast of burden, he plodded into the vacant palace in Washington and made a declaration:

"I am Theodore C. Roosevelt, and I am going to be your king."

When asked what the "C." stood for, the only reply he would ever give was "Your Majesty".

He was never known as a terribly literate man, and his reign was all too brief to judge his performance as a leader, but he was the best there was to be had at that time. Upon assuming the throne he surveyed the production of his lands left untended during the long period of anarchy. He reassigned some squares in some towns but nothing major was changed (which indeed the next ruler should change as he forgot to take most towns off of max food, being rather fond of eating, himself). His most notable reassignment was to arrest a wandering troupe of minstrels, and after declaring there to be "No Molly-coddling about" he placed them in forced labor in the gold mines outside of washington, cutting the construction time on Deacon Charis's Hanging Gardens nearly in half.

There were two cities founded during his reign, one at opposite coasts along the southern region. Fort New Orleans was constructed upon the Eastern shore, upon rather poor lands, placed primarily to seal the eastern border against Indian incursions. The site was also chosen for its access to no fewer than three prime city-building sites without interrupting their eventual growth. In the West, Detroit was founded on the hill upon which King Roosevelt had found him loitering. It also so happened that it had access to three prime city building spots without overlap, as well. This delighted the King to no end, and he spent many late nights in the royal chambers planning the placement of future American cities.

His joyousness was disturbed almost as soon as it began when news from Buffalo arrived: Those unwashed backwater hicks, the Romans, figured out how to fit their smelly bodies into boats without the stench killing themselves, and this reeking vessel of theirs was staggering down America's eastern seaboard, wilting crops as it passed. He sent an envoy to the Romans to check upon their technological situation. He was quite surprised that they had managed to acquire naval skills without first figuring out how to write or even bury their own dead, much less bathe. This development with the Romans disturbed him, but there was little to do about it as the American Navy was completely nonexistant, not even a toothpick to its name.

Roosevelt asked his surly and cryptic advisor, William Jennings Bryan, about the best course to take with the Romans, and received the impassioned response, "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!" This, of course, made absolutely no sense and was of no help at all, and Mr. Bryan was led away to the Washington Gold Mines, where he spent the rest of his days toiling underground and grumbling about the unfairness of what he called "the gold standard."

In plainspeak:

-Founded New Orleans on the east coast, Detroit on the west coast. Both started on temples.

-Hanging Gardens are under 20 turns to completion, IIRC

-Road completed to Chicago

-The Romans are starting to get uppity. Something will need to be done, but what that will be shall be up to Sirian. We will probably have to introduce them to the world now. They MIGHT also settle in the free jungle squares upon our east coast between New Orleans and whatever city is north of New Orleans on the east coast. this would be a bad thing. The good news is that the Romans are pathetic, culturally. They don't even have ceremonial burial, much less temples.

-Two settlers that Charis started were produced and sent towards Chicago. Two more settlers were being trained to follow them.

-Establishing our next (final?) line of cities is going to be critical. There are a few very good settling squares that the spearman uncovered (i sent him to scout south rather than lead the way to New Orleans, which is still ungarrisoned). I will try to make a dotted map to show my plan for settlement. The one that I think is most critical is under the spearman to the south of Chicago, with a plains wheat on a river, followed by the ones to its east and west (one grabs a coastline/river with plains cow, the other another ivory or two).
-Currency is 7 turns out, we're running at a very modest deficit (-single digits, varies on the turn) for our treasury (~600).

-Ten turns in this game seemed like two turns. 10 turns in the LK8 game (just started the Industrial age) seem like 50 turns.

-Now that we can't fully contain the Romans anymore, once we consolidate to our south we might want to build military and wax the Romans before we start seeing Legionaries and Horsemen. In any case, we'll want to build lots of military, we're as thin as paper, with some holes punched in it.

1) San Fran and Atlanta need to be reworked so their production isn't totally retarded like it was when I played

2)Rome: Somehow they managed to slip past us and trade up to tech parity. I don't think their stinking barge has gone past our ports, so I'm at a loss as to why they are where they are It's possible that I missed a boat, but I don't remember seeing one until after we came out of anarchy (4 turns in), because I remember seeing their techs that they haven't discovered in the diplomacy window , and they had nothing. I check on turn 10, and they've got everything we have except for Monarchy, plus construction. :eek:

3) Dot map: here's the legend:

Black: cities that were founded before my turn + their city areas

Magenta: Cities that I founded on my turn (New Orleans and Detroit) plus their eventual city areas once their borders expand.

Green: Highest (IMO) priority spot. zero overlap with chicago, sits on a river (kinda hard to see zoomed out), and adjacent to a grassland wheat.

White: Actually, that's not the best spot. The best spot is 1 southwest of it, then it places more pressure on the Indian town, claims both ivories, is still on the river, but on top of the hill. Second priority behind the Green dot. If we can get those two, we'll have a buffer around Chicago with pretty high-production towns.

Orange: Should be shifted 1 sw also, not much changes except it goes onto the coast and trades some plains for sea. Tertiary priority with the yellow dot.

Yellow: Claims a sea/river spot, plus the plains cow. Tertiary priority along with the Orange dot

Turquoise: Possible sites for filling out our southern holdings. The land isn't all that great, but we might as well build them. The eastern one has one square of overlap with Seattle (but access to the whale), the western one fits pretty snugly.

I opened the save from Carbon Copy's reign and wow! You weren't kidding about the paper-thin military! It's more like as thin as a runway fashion model! The next ruler might want to change one our cities with barracks to pumping out spearmen. Also, I noticed Atlanta, which is building the Colossus, could be micro'd to drastically reduce the amount of time required to build the Colossus, seeing as how it is at size 6 and cannot grow beyond size 6 until construction (no fresh water). Other than that, I think we're going to beat the Indians to the next line of cities. Too bad about the Romans, but bound to happen at some point.

Charis: City governor? :confused: All I can say is, I never use it in my games. Not sure about the rushed granary, either. I was building the city walls because I was afraid of a Roman onslaught, because they are useful before you get aquaducts. Looking back on it though, it was a somewhat weedy decision because there were no signs of a Roman buildup. All in all, I commit my share of weed-induced decisions. :smoke:

Well what a crock that is -- those stinky pests getting Tech parity?!! What did they pay with? I thought they were fully backward, but perhaps the price on ancient techs is fairly low and/or they managed to scrape up some cash.

Good choices for the fort and Detroit, and excellent proposed sites. I'm not sure if we'll get them, being so close to India, but if we do... Chicago is truly a hub in its own right for the forbidden palace, the center of a cluster of cities. If we get those two, and if India doesn't start a fight, instead concentrating their efforts East, we're golden!

Alas, the worst case scenario is not pretty. Rome found a city between Buffalo and New Orleans, requires/declares war, and allies with India.

The middle scenario is palatable, but close. With two settlers for the dot, one for buffalo-newOrleans zone, and one "in the gap" of unclaimed space next to Rome, we're done with settler production. With infrastructure in good shape (temples everywhere, a courthouse or two and a harbor) we can then go max military, and if Rome or India dally, we can become something more than the continent's whipping boy :P With no military soon, I can see the threats increasing, and someone like militaristic Toko coming after us, and Rome becoming brazen.
The other nice part of the middle scenario is the finishing of the Hanging Gardens and Colossus. :) (That in-the-gap town would be in horrible territory, pure unadulterated plains, but it would be a sacrificial lamb that gives us time between a Roman declaration of war, and mobilization of troops to defend San Fran, Atlanta, Houston and Miami.

The game is shaping up nicely, should be a very fun next couple of turns.
Charis

PS to Schnaard, no rushed granary, that was a misintepretation seeing the granary when in fact it was a virtual granary due to having Pyramids

Actually, I'm not surprised about the Romans getting tech parity. In one of my games as the Persians, the Zulu were on an isolated continent until Astronomy. While everyone else was close to the industrial age, they were just beginning with the Renaissance technologies. As soon as one of the AI's discovered them, they were on a par with everyone else in terms of technology. Sometimes I wonder if the AI's conspire with each other against the human player.

PS to Charis: Yeah, I make the same mistake sometimes. Also, who is Lemming?

Plans seldom survive contact with the enemy.

On my first turn, I saw an Indian settlement pair move up into the space south of Chicago, definitely on pace to beat our settler there. I took a bold move and sent the spearman from Chicago out across the river to help secure the location. I had to do QUITE the shuffle and dance with our spearmen to blockade the Indians, but I pulled it off. Our early delay in getting started in the south has come back to haunt us a little, in that we have lost control of some of the lands, but I did the best I could with it and managed to get the most valuable of the remaining lands (barely), and possibly even all of the ivory. I'd rushbuild temple and library in Pittsburgh if I wasn't sure we'd need the cash for more urgent things.

Here's a shot of the situation in the south at the end of my turn:

All kinds of plans have gone awry. The first came when the Roman archer slipped past us, when Charis opted to found at Atlanta instead of Buffalo. That archer is why the Romans got to tech parity. I thought everyone on the team realized this? Maybe not. We could have done better to trade the Romans everything right before they would make contact, and I would have to start my turn if it hadn't already happened, but it was anyone's guess as to how long that would be. It's not the worst thing that they were kept in the dark for so long, and realize they would have paid bottom dollar for everything, maybe 100ish gold tops. The total lack of ceremonial burial for them earlier has left them hopelessly bereft of culture. Not a single one of their towns has expanded borders as yet, not even Veii, though some of their inner cities probably will soon. The Roman archer is on a return trip now and has just passed through the New Orleans area.

Since the Romans are out of the bag, there was no more need to keep our world map secret. Also, the Japanese had discovered Monarchy, and the GL gave it to the French, so there was little use in holding on to it from the other Civs. On the inherited turn, I established our last embassy, with the Greeks, and saw that they were just starting on the Great Wall. With just Currency to go until the Middle Ages, I realized that we had better build the Great Wall ourselves, or else the cascade is going to cost us Sistine Chapel. I changed Boston to the Great Wall and told our northern lands to fend for themselves for a while. I also changed Atlanta to speed up the Colossus. I set Miami to build walls -- it not being on a river, and us getting the Great Wall, it will be worthwhile to build walls in our frontier cities, at least the ones that need aquducts or those with really bad food production. Some of the ones on rivers can get to size 7 (same effect as walls) quickly enough not to benefit from walls. We'll be beelining to Music Theory (Theology, Education), so arrival of pikes will be delayed, thus the walls make more sense yet, with some our towns being too widely scattered to rely on quick reinforcements.

I traded World Map to everyone for all I could get, including their world maps, one greek worker, and traded Monarchy to everyone who didn't yet have it for all I could get. See, here's the thing about tech development. The first civ to acquire a tech has to pay a STEEP price. The second civ also pays a high price (in cash, or beakers). Each civ after that pays less and less and less, so that even the most pathetic civs can catch up on the cheap. The system is designed to promote parity, and though I have some grumbles about it, it does prevent the massacre of any one civ being hopelessly stuck in the dark ages. Also, if the AI's have X amount of research toward the tech, and trades take place that reduce the cost below X, they get the breakthrough automatically. The player does not, in the same situation, but can buy the tech for 1 gold from any civ that has it. (Found that out in an Emperor game where I didn't reach the top of the food chain until Theory of Evolution). The civs that were behind on Monarchy weren't going to speed up Japan's next discovery by getting caught up, so I brokered.

I also decided then and there to broker Currency to the whole world when we got it. Three reasons: 1) to get the two science civs into the middle age, let them get their free Monotheism, buy it from them and jump right to research on Theology. (Let's get this party started!). 2) Brokering immediately is the time to do it, if at all: when you can get 2nd-civ value from the highest bidder, and work the way down through the food chain. Getting their gold can speed us up, and slow them down. But the real kicker is, the very same gold they collectively pay us will go to buying us Monotheism, thus actually FURTHERING us in this one unique situation, and leaving all the other civs too broke to buy Monotheism for themselves from the science cultures. 3) The sooner to Education, the less benefit to the French. Why should we be researching Monotheism at max cost, when we could buy it at 4th-civ cost (after the science cultures get it, and the French get it from the Library). Every tech the French do not get for free is to our benefit. Thus I maxed our science rate on Currency.

I also set New York and Philly to building military, and that's all they built for my whole turn. I then rushbuilt the courthouse at Chicago for cash, and figured I was ready to play my first turn. :)


230BC: Had to run an entertainer at San Fran. Disbanded our scout in England: I had traded for everyone's world map, and there was nothing left over there to scout. There is a second No Man's Land north of England, which if there is anything left to it down the road, we should grab some of that for ourselves once we have ships that can cross ocean.

In my test games, the No Mans Land areas have been closer to my homeland, thus more room to expand and more colonies to contest over. Not this game. At the arrival of AD, our lands are nearly filled. So it goes.

I sent our scout and tribal warrior above Japan toward the horsies in that area, with the intention of planting root there and denying the location to Japan as long as possible.

I woke our final scout, which was doing nothing but spying on Roman women bathing in the river, to play a "full court press" against Roman settler pairs now moving into our territory (on their way south, presumably, to some of our unclaimed jungles). The scout was ordered to stand directly below the foremost settler pair to prevent them from moving down each turn. They can move southeast, or southwest, but not south, and this should slow them a little.

210BC: Construction begins on the Forbidden Palace. :love2:

Washington grows to size 11. Time to increase luxury to 20%. I shift DC from high food to max shields and shave a turn off the Gardens, and open a flood plain for Boston, which is shifted now to high food while it waits on its temple to expand and its hills to be mined. Dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight south of Chicago, rushing settlers and troops to the area and DESPERATE to stop the Indians from seizing this spot. I barely, and I mean barely, managed it. If you want to see how bad it was, go ahead and reply a few turns from the last save and see for yourself. :) Geeze.

190BC: New York builds our first, and only, swordsman. He is sent south with the order to "Guard Chicago at any cost." I shuffled New York around to max shields (10 per) and started cranking spears every other turn. I urge this course of activity be continued until such time as the sun itself falls from the sky and burns out, never to rise again. (We are desperate for military, this city can't do wonders, it's now too large to waste on settlers, and it's got the perfectly efficient 10 shields per turn going, so it's cranking them out at almost a fast enough rate to keep up with the demand). It can make swords or spears as the situation warrants.

I realized Buffalo still had no troops, and was on high food with its temple expected... never. So I swapped to some hills and set a worker to chop that forest and open up the last plains spot.

Sweatin bullets in the south with the dance down there. (Oh wait, bullets haven't been invented yet. Sweating arrows, then! Heh).

170BC: Has deodorant been invented yet? No? Well then don't get downwind of me, this is simply TENSE. If this kind of shenanigans were taking place in real life, it might provoke a war.

Japanese settler pair shakes fists at our scout and warrior, then heads north toward the dyes. We should keep these guys here, I think, as I expected the AI to settle in a less optimal spot on the river, but it abandoned the area entirely! If we move, I bet the speed with which he jumps in there would spin heads.

150BC: Syracuse appears as a blight on our land. Guess we found out where the Romans were headed with that ship. I'll bet a dollar to a donut that there's either rubber or coal over there, as they passed plenty of good jungle before landing where they did. The AI is KNOWN to beeline right to future sites of resources. (Ain't that just too convenient? Heh). But no worries. That is a guaranteed flip to us, eventually, IF we squeeze its borders just a little. The best news is, Romans are totally sad on building culture. That one may even become ours sooner rather than later. And the worst case is, we simply take it from them if push comes to shove.

More bad news, Indian galley sails past Detroit. Expect another blight in our back lines soon. Everyone and their sister starts the Great Wall and the Hanging Gardens. I sent a spear to Atlanta, and sent its warrior on to San Fran (to help quell unrest).

130BC: Baltimore founded! Yes! VICTORY! This has to be one of my greatest Civ3 accomplishments ever. (I kid you not). I felt like I'd been put through a torturous eye-popping brain-fuzing chess problem. :eek:

Currency researched! I brokered to Japan first (16 gpt! plus cash), then to India, then Rome, then FRANCE (Huh? Guess the library doesn't kick in on the same turn, and what kind of weed were they smoking :smoke: buying this tech when they'd have gotten it for free anyway???), then the rest for pennies. Traded SILKS (!!!) and 280ish gold to Russia for Monotheism. (This is why you build a harbor SOMEWHERE, early on -- in this case at Buffalo, and kudos to all for not swapping off of that choice even though I didn't explain my early trade ambitions). Set research to max (80%, 20% Lux) and still running 26 per turn surplus income. Theology due in 14 turns.

110BC: Indian settler from Baltimore heads east, likely to grab the cattle south of New Orleans. Don't think we can get anything more over there. New York keeps a spear it built for its own defense (and we should upgrade defenders in Washington, Boston, and Philly soonish. Maybe not immediately but certainly before the end of Charis's turn). Scout impeding Romans is having some success. They have been delayed at least a turn or two, and the one from the back is catching up. If I had any more units AT ALL to spare, I'd add them to this effort. But I don't.

90BC: Settlers move into our next desired locations, west of Chicago. More Indians settlers, and some French units, threatening the area, so once again got there JUST in time.

70BC: Founded Pittsburgh and Denver on river spots. Denver has some overlap, but that's the best I could do. We simply COULD NOT leave that area empty, so close to the FP. Rule of thumb is, barring some compelling reason, city closer to the capital (or FP) gets the overlap, so Detroit will likely give way more or all of that overlap to Denver, while Denver concedes to Chicago. Not a real problem until Sanitation anyway, though. Pittsburgh will need a swrdsman by the end of Charis's turn or expect India to attack it. I kid you not, get some units down there and build walls. More units in Chicago are also warranted, and another one at Detroit. Any city with a resource, at least two defenders. (Philly, too, but it's far enough in the back to wait a bit. Also Boston. Don't wait on Boston, let it build itself a spear when the Wall finishes).

FINALLY built a garrison troop for Buffalo, and sent it on its way. Sent a troop toward Denver, also, due to arrive in 30BC.

50BC: Founded Harper's Ferry. New Bombay appears as a blight on our land, and in a skanky location, too. :mad: New Madras also appears. Our border now seems fixed.


To be continued...

We might squeeze one more overlapped city onto the river west of Detroit, and one between Baltimore and New Orleans -- or maybe even south of New Orleans, but don't count on it.

There are still some jungle lands left to settle. We have a settler due on the next turn in St. Louis, and one due eventually in Seattle. Miami is due for a barracks and can crank some troops. San Fran is due for courthouse, and it should build barracks and crank troops, as it is fairly well exposed. Atlanta could forego the barracks and build some catapults, after its wonder. We are going to suffer for lack of horses, yet no sense paying through the nose for horses. Build swords, spears, pikes, catapults.

I didn't build a single worker. We will need some more soon, but our military situation and land grabs in the south took all the attention there, and the north was all about world wonders. We WILL get all three wonders we are building, all due on Charis's turn, and sure to kick off our Golden Age in there. It is from this that we will open our permanent tech lead, or so it should be, so get stingy with brokering from there on out. We SHOULD be able to build Sistine in Washington and Bach's in Boston, and the Golden Age will speed us to Education and Music Theory, and hurry along our Forbidden Palace, which has gotten a solid early start. (Helps a lot having cash to buy that courthouse. The early move to Monarchy was a real winner this time out, in light of our zero chance to get the Great Library, as normally to rushbuild the courthouse in a distant FP-city, you have to whip two or even three pop).

Considering just how many shields it takes to build middle age wonders, a Palace placeholder, pending Music Theory, would be the safest plan for Boston (just make sure it has enough military). Don't hesitate. Early civ gets the worm.

As for the two blights, and the southbound Romans, the scout might slow them another turn or three, just keep moving him into their way. What are they going to do about it? Nothing. :)

Referring back to my last post and the screenshot, New Bombay is in such a crap-jack location, it ought to be ignored. Build on the white dots, putting the squeeze on them, and we'll probably flip the thing (and eventually use it as a permanent size 6 city, for workers, settlers, or drafting). If it refuses to flip, raze it if you capture it in some war at some point.

Syracuse is in a good location, one of our dots. Unfortunately, that means less flip pressure on it. I just hope it stays at no culture and flips soon. Green Dot would be the place to settle to pressure Syracuse. Red Dot is likely going to be lost to the Romans. I urge Yellow Dot as the top priority, both for its own sake, and because it will force a layout that will put pressure on the Romans no matter where in the region they decide to plop down. The settler from St. Louis ought to be able to make it to Yellow Dot before the Romans, if the scout continues to run interference.

Alternatively, the settler at Seattle could be rushed. This might even be a good idea, with the Romans marching through, but keep in mind, if they can't grab land near us, they'll just keep going anyway, ending up eventually at the No Man's Land. Still, it better for us in terms of score and long term city potential, to found the cities ourselves instead of waiting for centuries for one to flip to us. I wish Charis good luck in sorting out what to do about this situation.

The knob to the west of Washington should be grabbed, too, eventually. The Romans have shown a total disinterest in the barren patch that is unclaimed between our two empires, so Charis need not rush to grab it. We can claim that dry baked location any time we please. Because of pressure on Hispalis, I look for it to flip to us before 500AD. Could be wrong, but that's my guess.

The Lighthouse is going to be built by the French. No one else is even attempting it. It's good that the French are building it in a strong city, and not some colony which would allow endless cascade effect to linger for 1000 years, and every civ on the map to start on it and drag it on and on. Halting the cascade was the other reason I suggested Atlanta when I did. (It helped a lot having played this sort of game and run into the kinds of problems we might face).


Lots of stuff to do in games like this. Even ten turns, there was a ton to write about. The turns are going to start taking longer soon. :)

- Sirian

Oh by the way... Carbon, your ten turns went by quickly because you only took five turns. Heh. I was looking at the math and realized that something was odd, as ten turns ought to end at 50AD, then 250AD, and then 10 years per game turn taking it to 350AD. I look back, add up the numbers, and see that you shortchanged yourself a bit there.

If I had realized before I played, I'd have sent it back to you for the other five, but too late now. If you like, you can play 15 next time you're up, or just go with it and write it off. :)

- Sirian

Not really sorry I ended when I did, I definitely would have flubbed up Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Especially Baltimore, whenever I play as the Americans, I always seem to have trouble when the city names get around to Baltimore, they always meet with ignominious ends during the medieval or ancient periods. The mere fact that sometimes I will have several Baltimores during my reign speaks volumes for the trouble that town inevitably experiences whenever I (re)build it.

During my turn, I wasn't taking notes like I usually do, and just assumed that the years counted by ten. There were at least three turns of anarchy before Monarchy kicked in, but I am pretty sure I played more than two turns after that. I'm almost positive I did, because Washington was 24 turns away from the Hanging Gardens after I micromanaged, and 17 turns away when I left. 3 turns of Anarchy + 7 turns off the Gardens should equal 10, unless Washington grew during my reign and the extra laborer shaved off a big block of turns.

At least the Romans had the courtesy to build Syracuse on King Roosevelt's turquoise dot. But those silly Indians didn't follow the plan! New Bombay needs to be one space to the south :mad:!

I should mention that I believe France's GL will go obsolete when THEY get Education, not when YOU get it. I believe this is how it works for any wonder that goes obsolete.

In this case it probably won't make much difference since they can't get Education until a second civ researches it, so it won't affect your expected tech lead.

No, wonders definitely go obsolete when any civ researches the applicable tech. It's always been that way, and if it weren't, then what? You could milk some of these wonders for much longer. The Great Library would be a guaranteed dozen techs, just delay researching Education. Some of these civs, in love with the Oracle, could avoid Theology forever and reap the benefits. No, it doesn't work that way. The poor French are destined for disappointment and heartbreak, as our education system dwarfs their piddly little library thingie. :satan:

- Sirian

It might work that way, anyhow...and holding off on researching education wouldn't necessarily help, since all it takes is 2 people to discover Education before the GL holder would get it, and therefore obsolete itself (and I know that people have reported receiving Education from the GL before).

Wow! I didn't need a donut for breakfast, that report was enough sustenance. :goodjob: :goodjob:

I'm up next if I have the order correct:

Sirian
Charis
Carbon
Schnarrd

Some questions and comments for the loquacious...

The first came when the Roman archer slipped past us, when Charis opted to found at Atlanta instead of Buffalo. That archer is why the Romans got to tech parity.

:eek: Ponders.... yes, that's correct. (To soothe, I remind self that they would get parity almost instantly whenever they happened to contact other civs, which is a certainty once they get their first ship going down south. Unless of course the archer got them map making...)

I'm seeing now, in other games, that denying others is as important (or more) than choosing "prime" locations. (eg fending off hordes of indian settlers in rbd5), and sealing a border to a landlocked backward civ is "up there" in priority. As I recall, my fear was that the Romans would declare war if I told them to "get out" -- I plan to replay that turn and see :P I was ready to let them walk 100 miles and meet other people if it meant we could play an expansion and building game instead of yet another early-despot-fight-your-neighbor game. *HAD* we gone to war with Rome, we would have won, and had all North, but India would have expanded almost up to Philly unchecked. Would be a very different game. Chicken? Perhaps ;p Thanks for pointing that out as the "source" of Rome catching up. Such hundred-year-later cause-and-effect post-analyses are very good. ("Ah!! That's why...")

I think your "Wonder" plan will help us prevent having to write a "Oh, you do realize we lost Sistine because..." post many years from now. Would you please clarify the details behind this thinking:


On the inherited turn, I established our last embassy, with the Greeks, and saw that they were just starting on the Great Wall. With just Currency to go until the Middle Ages, I realized that we had better build the Great Wall ourselves, or else the cascade is going to cost us Sistine Chapel. ... ... The Lighthouse is going to be built by the French. No one else is even attempting it. It's good that the French are building it in a strong city, and not some colony which would allow endless cascade effect to linger for 1000 years, and every civ on the map to start on it and drag it on and on. Halting the cascade was the other reason I suggested Atlanta when I did.

:confused: I know about the "Cascade" and can see some, but maybe the coffee isn't kicking in yet. How do you know when/how a cascade will end? Here, why the need for the Great Wall?

Good explanation on the Currency-Mono-Theology maneuver! :goodjob:


I'll bet a dollar to a donut that there's either rubber or coal over there, as they passed plenty of good jungle before landing where they did. The AI is KNOWN to beeline right to future sites of resources. (Ain't that just too convenient? Heh).

Didn't know that... that explains alot, why for example a disproportionate number of jungle resources I mystically find UNDER foreign cities. Nice of them to locate that for us ;p Syracuse is ours one day, with certainty. Hmm... I wonder if New Bombay is future home to resource too.

Baltimore founded! Yes! VICTORY! This has to be one of my greatest Civ3 accomplishments ever. (I kid you not). I felt like I'd been put through a torturous eye-popping brain-fuzing chess problem.

Woo, no doubt! I expected that site to be unattainable or very tricky to get. I'll have to replay first few years to see. I had a taste of this in rbd5, where I maneuvered India off Marseilles's future home, and was just thrilled to see their ship finally "turn south." Same principles but Baltimore looks even harder. :love:

> Denver has some overlap, but that's the best I could do.
Definitely a needed city in that spot. Did I mention how nice of a "hub" our FP site is now?! :)

> Not really sorry I ended when I did, I definitely would have flubbed up Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

Another excellent "Sleepy Gambit" ??

I'll play the game this eve... looking forward to it.
Charis

PS Hopefully I'll be :king: not :smoke:

Well, in an OCC game, I definately kept the GL until I got Education from it, and I also had the Hanging Gardens obsolete when *I* researched Steam Power, and I was not the tech leader at the time. It's theoretically possible that I might have researched it first, since I didn't check my opponents to see if they already had it, but I sincerely doubt it, as I had 2 scientific civs with dozens of cities going up against my one city for beakers, and they already got Nationalism for free and had shown themselves to be more than capable of out-researching me on previous techs.

In previous Civ games the tech leader spoiled the wonders, as you suggest. I'm not at all certain that that's how it works this time around, nor am I certain that this is necessarily a bad thing. So you can milk wonders longer if you choose -- what are you giving up in exchange? You restrict your own development by limiting your research options to avoid paths that will obsolete your wonder(s), and this may cause you to fall behind in the tech/production race relative to where you might have been with unrestricted research options. Not research Steam Power so you can hang on to the Hanging Gardens a little longer? I don't think so...

The only "game breaking" wonder that you generally really care when it goes obsolete is the GL, as you usually have alternatives by the time the others expire, and the GL (a) expires on its own anyway due to AI researching Education so you can't really avoid it, (b) you're giving up Universities and Banks, and access to Democracy plus a whole whack of other wonders if you delay researching Education, and (c) if you have the tech lead what do you need the GL for anyway? The only other one that springs to mind as valuable beyond the Middle Ages is the Colossus, and it expires near the end of the Industrial Age anyway, so you can't really delay it much.

I'll see if I can do another test and confirm that wonders expire when you research the relevant tech in Civ3, not when anybody researches it.

Zed: I look forward to your test results. :) If I'm mistaken about the way wonders go obsolete, I'll be happy to have that corrected. I can't recall any games I've played where I was both behind significantly in tech AND had ancient wonders that could go obsolete before I could reach the fore in the tech race. If I was that far behind, I couldn't get the wonders anyway. If I had the resources to get a wonder, I wouldn't be that far behind. Chicken and egg deal. :)

As for the plan I laid out, though, in this case it wouldn't matter. Our objective is scoring, and so we want to secure the happiness wonders ASAP, which means beelining to Music Theory. Even if the GL doesn't go obsolete, the fact of the lowered costs once other civs have the tech means they all stay in a clump anyway, just that France saves a little cash.

Charis: I'll answer your many questions here in a bit. :)

- Sirian

:eek: That's a lot of posting in what? Less than 12 hours?

Hmm. Interesting (and quite long!) post by Sirian. :goodjob: I'd never paid a whole lot of attention to the wonder cascade thing, but then I'm usually not in the position to get more than one ancient wonder in my Monarch games (by the time I'm out of the ancient age, I'm usually rolling over my enemies with huge stacks of knights, so no need for any wonders besides Sun Tzu :D ).

I think part of the reason that we were so slow building cities in the south was that I concentrated way too much on infrastructure my turn (no new settlers built, one started). :( I might be totally off base in saying that, but then again I might not, as expansion after the initial land grab tends to be a problem for me. That's probably why most of my games include early warfare - I'm out-expanded early and need more space.

For all that, looks like it all worked out (great job, Sirian, on the blockade tactics - with our weak military, I'm quite surprised no one has declared war, or at least demanded tribute).

Sometimes infrastructure can be the most important. Witness my turn in the Emperor game, in which I didn't build a single unit other than a settler. There has to be balance to win, at least to some degree, just that sometimes it's not best to keep perfect balance as you go, but to gambit toward some extreme for a while and rebalance later. Well, maybe your turn was the "later" in that regard, Schnarrd. :)

OK, on now to the bevy of quail (aka, Charis Questions).


(To soothe, I remind self that they would get parity almost instantly whenever they happened to contact other civs, which is a certainty once they get their first ship going down south. Unless of course the archer got them map making...)

To unsoothe, I remind that I brokered contact to the Russians for a tech and their World Map, probably worth 200ish gold, and found them on the doorstep of Japan. Another one to three turns delay would have meant us losing that trade benefit, and Japan getting it. Such a move is not a make or break, ever, but a collection of such moves can be important over time. Who's to say what might have been, but certainly even after the archer was past us, we could track the turns (at one move apiece) to guess how soon contact could be made, and then be sure to jump in there ahead. I know that's subtle, and it might be mishandled trying to stretch out the delay, but it could have been done.

How much we could have gotten is questionable, since most of the civs are riding fairly close to broke most of the time. Now THAT, you can use for soothing purposes. :p


I know about the "Cascade" and can see some, but maybe the coffee isn't kicking in yet. How do you know when/how a cascade will end? Here, why the need for the Great Wall?

Cascade is the rollover effect when the collective breakthrough speed outachieves the collective wonder-building speed, such that new techs with new wonders come available while earlier ones are still under construction by all. The AI's never prebuild with placeholders, but they get the same effect with cascade, as they all "prebuild" the Pyramids, one of them gets it, then they roll to others, etc. The worst cascade can come in the middle ages and eat every wonder right up to Newton/Smith. Unless you the player take steps to break the chain.

Sometimes pace of research means the Great Wall is built before middle ages arrive, sometimes not. By our civ breaking through early on the Monarchy line, and with all the goody hut tech we found (and others may have found), the ancient tech just went by really quickly here, and the cascade would have gone on forever if we hadn't set to building so many of the ancient wonders. That's easier to do in larger maps, though. Smaller maps, tech comes even faster, and there are fewer cities and less land, and less space between rivals, less safety, and we DID benefit somewhat from no barbarians, too.

I could see at the start of my turn that the middle ages would be reached SOON, yet only one civ on the Great Wall and they just started. That's a landlocked wonder any city can build. If we didn't grab it NOW, and in a hurry, it would not yet be built when Feusalism came online, and every civ on the planet would cascade to the 600 shield SunTzu and we'd lose control.

The Great Library, ironically, is the best way (especially on large maps) to SLOW the pace of research, since you can sit on zero tech, let the AI's research breakthroughs at first-civ cost, which takes them longer, and broker it to others at second-civ cost, which costs them more (or if no one can afford that, then more time spent while another researches same tech at second-civ cost). With all that time passing, wonders get built, cascade ends. Without prebuilding available to the AI's, advantage then conveys back to the player even though he needs more shields on Monarch+ for the same wonder. Then even once they all do start on SunTzu, they are behind, and if the player can build one or more wonders further up the tree before AI's get there, the cascade that might happen doesn't, as someone builds SunTzu, someone else gets Leo and Sistine, then it breaks again, leaving the player in control, especially if they have moved into the tech lead.

Now on Deity its another story entirely, but I haven't played much of that yet. (I have tried a bit, just to "see" -- pretty rough stuff).

Since the pace of research is often out of the hands of the player, the thing he can better control is going for more of the wonders. Make sure they get built by somebody before the tech rolls on. This can mean breaking cascade from the very outset by going for the Pyramids, or it can mean taking control at Great Wall/Gardens, which is less total shields and split among two cities compared to the mideival wonders at 600 per.

On Monarch, I have fairly well mastered this. On Emperor, the AI's are stronger, research goes faster for them and its tougher to break in. I DID do it in my very first Emperor game (still need to write that report) but post patch I am having a harder time getting into the tech lead earlyish. A lot depends on the map, too. Pangaea, or pangaea-ish maps of other sorts, puts the AIs in contact with one another, which GREATLY speeds the total research rate. Maps where contact is delayed into the middle ages for some civs see a slower rate of progress (look at Infantry game).

Besides, the Great Wall is barely more expensive than a Cathedral, DOES help with military matters in a scattered game of this sort (especially without horses, arrgh), and ancient wonders are often the backbone of the AI culture push. Depriving them invariably puts the player way ahead in culture, which matters even in a game where culture isn't a victory condition. It affects flips, AI attitudes toward the player, and more. (Might be interesting to try a low-culture or no-culture variant someday).

Walls generally do suck, but like artillery, I've found situations where they can be of great benefit (considering their cost is low and no maintenance). The AI civs DO think twice about attacking the civ who owns the Great Wall. It invariably means more losses, until the wall has been made obsolete.

It may even be possible for us to get not only Sistine and Bach, but also either Sun Tzu or Leo, and guess where: AT CHICAGO. Once the FP comes online, that place is going to be a powerhouse, and we could do any number of things with it. One option might be more wonders, while surrounding cities do the military and expansion tasks, and we postpone infrastructure a bit. The land, the cattle, hills, grass, flood plains, and on a river with a luxury... I spotted that as a great FP site the moment I laid eyes on it. :)


- Sirian

[This was emailed to Carbon before posting, when forums down...]


The people were wild with expansionist frenzy, and the masses had demanded
the building of a great "forbidden palace" in Chicago. The right wing party
came to power and Deacon Charis III ruled the nation. He had a nightmare in
which he saw Pittsburgh dissolve and New Bombay in its spot, and he was
thankful that Acolyte Yan had the wisdom to found Pittsburgh and that the
people responded with a call for a temple immediately. He notes that the
great nation of America had expanded and expanded well. Deacon sought to
finish the job, bring home several wonders, and overall... not screw up ;p

50 BC (0) - Deacon was pleased as punch that we were studying theology! He
was also glad to see a temple in place or in production in every last city!
The worker distribution within cities was checked and found impeccable.
Deacon thought he could retire, but his party reminded him to investigate
this so-called "Forbidden" Palace...

30 BC (1) - Deacon is very displeased at the Romans waltzing through the
Promised land, and he sends a prophet to tell them of his displeasure
(emboldened in part by admonitions to "take no guff" from the Romans)
Hanging Gardens finish, and Washington starts (what else) a Cathedral.
NY turns to a settler, as does Philly and St.Louis. San Fran finished
courthouse and starts a Barracks (a strong desire for all of Deacon's
frontline cities). Miami, finishing its Rax, starts a Swordsman. Buffalo
considers staying on a culture drive after its temple with a library, but
goes to slip in a settler first. The Hanging Gardens let us cut back luxury
a notch (and science up one, for a turn less.)

Starting FIVE Settlers on your first turn Deacon? I thought our expansion
drive was over. "No!! We must not let people who bask in darkness go
without the benefit of an American Temple at their doorstep! Go, go go!"
Indians and Japan start a Great Wall campaign, and the Russians the Colossus
(which is due in Atlanta at end of our reign.) With that he rushes the
Seattle settler, and a Swordsman in Houston.

What is your city strat, anyway, Deacon? All he would mumble was something
like "Green, Yellow, White, Red", which makes no sense. He also said
something like "Washington needs fresh fish!"

"The Romans are IN AWE of our culture." Deacon presses this advantage
while they are polite to, oh so politely, tell them to GET THEIR DANG
SETTLERS OUT OF OUR LAND OR FACE THE WRATH OF THE AGENTS OF THE ALMIGHTY,
if they so please. Caesar acknoledges his generals sometimes get out of
hand and he is simply delighted to withdraw them back to Hispalis.
Woo! They'll come back, but this time, not just the scout, but some friends
will block progress, until the colored dot settlers are in posit