RB7 - Winter Wonderland

Difficulty: Prince
Map Script: Ice Age (Random)
Map Size: Standard
Game Speed: Normal
Civ: Mali (Mansa Musa)

Variant Rules: None
Victory: Any
Patch: We WILL move the version forward if a new patch comes out.


RB7 ROSTER

Sirian
Jaffa Tamarin
Griselda
Dwip

Alternate:
* afpunk (Pennsylvania in winter is certainly a wonderland!)

Jaffa will be out for a week around New Year, so we'll definitely need our Alternate to step in there. Maybe at other times, too. (Hopefully when we need him, he won't be feasting on the 18 other SGs he's playing. :lol: ;) Charis would be proud of the feasting, though! Speaking of which, I should drop him a line soon.)


OK, here we go.


- Sirian

We WILL move the version forward if a new patch comes out
Speak of the devil. Version 1.52 was released probably less than an hour ago. Will you be running some RBCiv Marathons now?

Speak of the devil. Version 1.52 was released probably less than an hour ago. Will you be running some RBCiv Marathons now?

Well... Hmm.

No comment, yet. I'm also going to postpone reporting my first round, here, too.

(Sorry guys!)


- Sirian

Hey, Sirian, would it be possible for me to join in on this SG?

Any chance of uploading the initial position, so the kibbitzers can shadow?

I do love the Ice Age map. If you need an alternate or another player let me know. :)

Heh, just when I was about to ask Gris if/when she would be able to join us, she pops up in a new RB SG. :)

Charis would be proud of the feasting, though! Speaking of which, I should drop him a line soon.
Oooh, that would be nice, seeing the :hammer: more often. :lol: But then it might be better for him *not* to find out about and play CIV... ;) (*insert Kurgan voice* "It's better to burn out than to fade away!")

-Kylearan

OK, guys. Here's our starting situation.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-2.jpg

The dyes mean we're right at the equator! Heh, so much for "winter wonderland". :lol:

Notice all the plains tiles? A glaciated world is rather arid. Lots of water locked in the ice.
That's the biggest thing about Ice Age script.
Civil Service is magnified in urgency, and especially in the early game, farming dominates over cottages.

Two Clams is a big help! Ivory, too. (Mmm, Jumbos.)

I seriously considered moving one plot to the east, to get on the Fresh Water plot.
Tough call, but I decided to stay put.


4000BC: Timbuktu founded. Start research on Fishing.


3960BC: Our warrior pops a hut and we learn Hunting.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-1.jpg

I swap production from warrior to Scout.


3840BC: Woops. Obstacles blocking further movement to the north!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-3.jpg

Some dry-looking lands up there, but should be good post-CivilService.
Silks spotted beyond the mountains.


3800BC: Borders pop at the capital, revealing a Fish in a most nasty location.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-4.jpg

Even if I had moved on the first turn, it wouldn't have helped!
The capital would have had to be placed north or east of the blue barrier, to allow settling on the blue X.

Oh well. :(


3680BC: After our Scout is produced, I swap to Spain-on-a-Lake(TM) style research!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-5.jpg

Mali is a Financial civ, so any plot with two commerce gets a freebie.
We have FOUR :eek: such plots! (Lake, Dyes, two Clams!)

Despite pit stops for Fishing and Mysticism (Spain starts with both!) I am going to chase the Hydra.

I will run max commerce unless and until we are beaten to a religion we are chasing.


3600BC: We scout the "eastern dogleg" and find Corn across the channel.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-6.jpg

It appears that we have drawn the "Narrow Continents" landmass option.
That's a good one! Will be unlike any typical map. Wait until you see it!


3440BC: We scout the "southwestern dogleg" and find GOLD and INCENSE. Also another Fish.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-7.jpg

Our Scout mops up those Lions between turns.

3240BC: Om... :worship: Om...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-8.jpg

Some of our wise men have found Enlightenment.


3160BC: Our warriors find Gems, sacred Cows, and more GOLD!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-9.jpg

Also, there may be more land up there. (Could be a lot more.)


2920BC: Behold the two-headed Hydra, BuDuIsm the Great!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-10.jpg

I halt the "max commerce" research plan and begin researching Archery (for our UU!)

Also to get the Work Boat finished sooner.


OH NO! Our Scouts got eaten by Lions! :eek:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-11.jpg

Dangit. I hate when that happens. It's my fault, too.
I was moving with Right Click and clicked on the hill.
If I had moved one plot at a time, I'd have seen the Lions after moving part way, and not chanced it.

Sorry guys. :(

There are LOTS of resources in range.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-12.jpg

However, outside the capital, only two reachable seafood visible yet.
We are going to be in a food crunch.
Ice Age script tip: Settle the FOOD first.


DotMaps(R):

Ooh, Pink Dot(TM) makes its appearance. :cool:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-13.jpg

Gems, sacred Cows, one Jungle to turn in to Cottage, and a canal across the peninsula.
We probably can't afford to wait for worker+bronze to chop that forest.
So it would be OK, in this case I think, to waste it. Just settle there!

Yellow Dot region needs more explanation. We must settle on the coast, though.
That may be where to go for third city, even though it's far away.
If there is significant land beyond where our Scouts died, we need to move toward it.

Blue dots are the only viable sites to grab that Fish.
Which of the two Dots is better may depend on what we find farther north.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-14.jpg

Orange Dot is a crappy Fishing and Mining village. It should wait! (Maybe for quite a while).

White Dot gets Incense and a Fish.
I think I prefer the one closer to our capital, but we could stand to do some naval exploring.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-15.jpg

Green Dot is an urgent thing, especially if there is an AI on that other landmass.

We first need Sailing and a Galley to get over there.
Sailing should be a high priority anyway, though. (Lighthouses! Easy Trade routes.)

There is technically a Green Dot location on our landmass...
...but the Corn can ONLY be collected if it goes through a city port on that other landmass.
Probably better just to settle over there.
(That city will be simply a-maize-ing!) ;)

Black Dot is akin to Black Dot from RB1: maybe in the late game!


OK, so I played my thirty. Next player plays twenty, to 2000BC.
Then it's fifteen to 1400BC, then ten apiece after that.


RB7 ROSTER

Sirian
Jaffa Tamarin --- UP NOW!
Griselda ------- On Deck.
Dwip

Alternate:
* afpunk


I played this opening in v1.09.

However, I see no reason not to move to the patch, so go ahead and do that.


- Sirian

Wololo, wololo...

Checking in.

About my first thought is "Well, at least come railroads, our workers won't be railroading forever." Too much RB3.

Boy are we set. 4 different happiness/health resources? All that water? Plains for at least a few shields? Ka-ching!

I am, however, caught in a delimma. If Mansa is on my kill list, but I AM Mansa, what then? Do I have to kill myself? Leap in front of a lion? I guess I could sacrifice some clams to the gods, or something, for guidance, but which ones? We have so many... It's all very confusing...

:worship: :jesus: :crazyeye:

/me points to his first reply to this thread :groucho:

Reporting in ready to take some turns when requested :) . I'm liking this map script quite a bit. I think I only rolled up one before and I'm sure I didn't finish it (It happens sometimes ;) ). I like the extreme rarity of jungles, as opposed to RB Epic 1, which I also didn't finish (It happens sometimes ;) ;) ). I'll be watching closely, just tell me when you need me.

/me points to his first reply to this thread :groucho:

Sorry. The roster was set at launch. I appreciate your interest in this game, and a typical roster has five players, but running with four can make for a more cozy game. I do that from time to time. (And the Cuban game has the rare "two man" roster.)

Getting in to a specific game can be tough. Griselda was in that same boat: missing her chance to get in on games because they filled up so fast. That happens to everybody! So what can you do? Start another one. :) That's what we did here.

Maybe we'll cross paths in a future game.


- Sirian

Reporting in ready to take some turns when requested :) . I'm liking this map script quite a bit. I think I only rolled up one before and I'm sure I didn't finish it (It happens sometimes ;) ). I like the extreme rarity of jungles, as opposed to RB Epic 1, which I also didn't finish (It happens sometimes ;) ;) ). I'll be watching closely, just tell me when you need me.

It does indeed happen sometimes. But is it happening from loss of interest? Or lack of time? (If the latter, maybe in general slow down a hair or two on the feasting mode? If the former, then what do you think is causing it?)

This one is my best map script (in my opinion). I just love it. :)


Merry Christmas. :xmas:


- Sirian

It does indeed happen sometimes. But is it happening from loss of interest? Or lack of time? (If the latter, maybe in general slow down a hair or two on the feasting mode? If the former, then what do you think is causing it?)

- Sirian

Its neither really. Most of my completed games are in 1 session. Now, this session could be open for a day or so, and stepped away from, but as long as a game stays open, I'll finish it. What normally happens is I save a game, and then when I load up Civ I say to myself, "Hmm, I feel like giving Monarch OCC a try today" or something like that, and then the next time its like "Hmm, let's try a team game with the AI, and see how that works out." And then when I realize I have a game unfinished, I load it up, realize I'm completely lost as to where I was going with it, and then say something like "Hmm, I've really been meaning to try that highlands script." Really, there's just too much to try out yet. Even though I complete probably 70% of my games, there's just too much experimenting I want to do. :) It'll settle down soon enough, I just love the amount of options, and need to try everything out. :D

I just love the amount of options, and need to try everything out. :D

Ah! Well I can relate to that. My love of options is, in part, responsible for how many options there are. :D

I guess I'm in a bit less of a hurry, though. I want to taste each flavor and savor it before moving on to the next one. Since there are more than 31 flavors, it could take a while to get around to Marshmallow Pistachio Walnut. :lol:


- Sirian

I see it, busy today, should be able to play it tomorrow.

Game is patched. Is every patch going to reset all my option selections back to default!

Let loose the monkeys! In festive hats! :king:

One city, one defensive troop, not a lot to do here ..

2) 2720BC

Research: Archery -> umm .. ancient texts suggest a plan to head for Monotheism to offer our populace a third religion. More recent actions by the previous ruler do not fall in line with that plan. The monkeys scratch their heads in confusion. (That's Confusion, not Confucianism. In keeping with the spirit of the hydra, the monkeys do not officially endorse any specific religion.)

Sailing selected. The monkeys have visions of lazy days of peaceful sailing on the Timbuktu sea.

3) 2680BC

Timbuktu: work boat -> scout.

5) 2600BC - clam fishing begins at a second site south of Timbuktu.

6) 2560BC

Timbuktu grows to size 4.

7) 2520BC

Timbuktu: scout -> skirmisher.

8) 2480BC - MM Timbuktu for growth and commerce, sailing in 2 turns.

9) 2440BC

Research: Sailing -> Masonry.

10) 2400BC - Timbuktu starts on galley, postponing skirmisher.

11) 2360BC

Timbuktu grows to size 5.

12) 2320BC - the monkeys decide that getting a second city founded is more important than decorating the royal yacht. Galley dropped in favor of settler.

We have somehow managed to contact Kublai Khan. Hmmm, how did that happen? Aha! I see some Mongolian cultural boundaries in the sea to the northeast.

http://dailyanimals.net/images/c07.jpg

13) 2280BC - our scout moves, and spies Mongolian scouts on our land mass. Hmmmm.

http://dailyanimals.net/images/c08.jpg

14) 2240BC

Research: Masonry -> Monotheism.

15) 2200BC - our scouts discover that we aren't going anywhere further in that direction.

http://dailyanimals.net/images/c09.jpg

16) 2160BC

Kublai Khan converts to Hinduism.

20) 2000BC - scouts fortify on pink dot site.

We are safe from land invasion. I imagine we want to settle pink dot first, then build a couple of workers before another settler in Timbuktu, and have the pink dot city build us some military.

Wow. Three separate choke points blocked by Peaks. I don't recall ever playing something quite like that! We definitely want to take to the waters sooner rather than later, see what's out there, etc.

We might also want to switch to Hinduism, since Kubs is liking that one. We could be pals. :)


Griselda gets to take her first Civ4 SG turn. To 1400AD!

Merry Civving and Happy Hydra Hunting. :xmas: :queen:


- Sirian

I see it and can play tomorrow (Monday). :)

Eagerly awaiting the first Griselda action. :clap:

(Any resemblance to :whipped: :hammer: the PROD, real or imagined, is entirely coincidental and incidental. No actual prods were used during the making of this post. Any allusions to the PROD were unintended. We are all very sure that this will indeed be a PROD-ductive round. Thank you and have a nice evening.) :D

:cooool:

It's good to be back in the saddle again, right? ... Right? :lol:

:xmas:


- Sirian

(0) 2000 BC
Immediate Goals-
-Complete third head for hydra
-Settle pink dot
-Get a worker going and ivory hooked up (we're at happy limit in Timbuktu)
-Return to working on that galley (can we get to that corn?)

Longer term?
-Establish fog busting units. If we don't have to worry about land invasion, let's not waste that by having barb cities pop up.
-Buld more cities!

Even though Kublai is cautious and we're spiritual, I don't think it's worth switching religions just yet. We don't need him to like us that much *right now*, and we wouldn't get the additional benefits of organized religion until we have monotheism anyway. For now, there's no religion like no state religion!

Between turns- Machiavelli says that we're last in his list of the largest civilizations of the world. Kublai Khan is third, fwiw.

(1) 1960 BC - :sleep:

BT - Settler completes. Start Skirmisher. I don't know what the barb situation is outside the fog. We may still be better off with cheaper warriors, but wanted to have at least one skirmisher on hand now, just in case. We can let the food box fill for now, since it won't grow before skirmisher finishes, and I want a worker.

(2) 1920 BC - Settler heads off towards pink dot.

(3) 1880 BC - Movin' right along.

BT - Monotheism comes in. Behold the wonders on BudHindaism! Set research to argiculture. We're going to want to be able to get that cow online at some point.

(4) 1840 BC - Still decide to stay at no state religion. I don't even switch to organized religion. For now, we can save that extra 1gpt. We will want to switch before we build any sort of structure.

(5) 1800 BC -
Settler moves onto pink dot.

BT - Skirmisher completes. Start worker.

(6) 1760 BC - Djenne founded on pink dot. Start obelisk. Scout on pink dot moves NW to check fog.

(7) 1720 BC - NW fog looks OK for now. Skirmisher moves down to SW. I hesitate because he won't be near home if we need him, but we're most likely to need him down there.

BT - Kublai asks us to change religions. Now we have a reason to do so, so I convert. That gives us +2 with him, still cautious.

(8) 1680 BC - I really don't think we're going to get that corn without going to war. Kublai's capitol is just 5 tiles from there. He has his ivory hooked up and a ton of roads, including one heading south, so he may have already settled in the corn neighborhood. Their capitol is size 4, and doesn't appear to be working the camp. He's working 2 forests that I can see, and maybe two other tiles that are in the fog? He's got two archers for defense.

Our scout fortifies on a hill NW of Djenne. I think that's more important than being *in* town at the moment, to prevent barb formation.
We will, of course, want to get a defender in there soon.

BT - Agriculture in. I want animal husbandry and bronze working. The worker is still 3 turns away, and will go to ivory first. I choose bronze. We'll need to go all the way to iron working to hook up the gems anyway.

(9) 1640 BC - :sleep:

(10) 1600 BC - Timbuktu is now refined. We're now +3 with Kublai because of our years of peace. The badly placed fish are in our borders now, because of the hydra. We couldn't get the tile yield, but we could get the health. Then again, I think we will be settling the fish up north before too long.

(11) 1560 BC - :sleep:

BT - Worker completes, start warrior. We can emphasize food and grow in 3, and complete the worker in 4. Then we can start another settler or something. We're going to have to go to 90% science for a bit, though. There's more things in life than commerce, right? Even if we're financial? We are still working the clams, of course.

(12) 1520 BC - Worker starts on a camp.

(13) 1480 BC - Skirmisher confirms that SW is still clear of barbs. He's going to hang out down there for a while.

(14) 1440 BC - The wrong religion, at least for now, spreads in Djenne. It's got Buddhism. I stay with Hinduism for our state religion for now.

(15) 1400 BC - Timbuktu grows to size 6. We can emphasize commerce for this turn, and still get the warrior done in 1, then swap to a better settler-building setup (or whatever the next leader feels is more urgent).

Sirian -------- ON DECK!
Jaffa Tamarin
Griselda
Dwip ---------- UP NOW!

I just saw the PROD, now that I've posted. :whipped: Yes, I had the thread open while I was playing, but I never went to page two. :lol:

It is odd having to shift gears so that my actions as a player affect other people again. I haven't played a SG in a while. So, I waited until I could give the round COMPLETE ATTENTION, then fussed over every little thing. Luckily I can still do that in 1400 BC without too much trouble. :P Hopefully I didn't overlook something obvious with all that fussing. :crazyeye:

Here's to being back in the swing of things. :beer: Cheers!

The fog-busting plan is most excellent. Next up is Dwip the Clown (meant only in the most positive way, of course. ... Wait for it. You'll see! :lol: )


- Sirian

Send in the clowns, as it were.

:bounce:

Got it.

[0] 1961 AD - So, here we are. Damn Mansa and his evil ways, anyway. We'll show him a thing or two...

Fire zee missiles!

http://dwip.alsherok.net/images/civ4/salaindin/TimbuktuNuke.jpg

Take that!

http://dwip.alsherok.net/images/civ4/salaindin/NianiNuke.jpg

And that!

And then we'll follow up with the stealth bombers, and the modern armor, and...

Oh wait. Wrong game.

...

[0] 1400 BC - Now then. Here we are. We have two cities, with about 4-5 more scheduled. Tech's coming soon. There's part of me that badly wants to build Stonehenge or something just so we can start spamming Great Prophets for the Hydra, but I'd like another settler first.

...I love the early game, and the amount of "I need this, but I need THAT, too!" juggling it has. I really do.

[1] 1360 BC - Timbuktu Warrior->Settler. Stonehenge would take 30 at this point in time.

We are at happiness AND health limit in Timbuktu. Turn on avoid growth. Can't do much about the health part right now, but the phants come online in 2.

[2] 1320 BC - Bronze Working comes in, and I go for Animal Husbandry. Swap to slavery because we can.

Do not attempt to find the copper, for that is impossible. Instead, try only to realize the truth: There is no copper.

[3] 1280 BC - Ivory hooks up.

[4] 1240 BC - Djenne Obelisk->Worker (I like my cities to do workers about size 2 or so).

[5] 1200 BC - Our warrior gets into position in the north. NOT the eventual site of Blue Dot, but I couldn't put the warrior on Blue Dot and still see everything, so.

[6] 1160 BC - Animal Husbandry comes in, and I swing us by Priesthood real quicklike.

Horses? What horses? What ARE horses?

We shall ride elephants and cows into battle instead, it seems.

[7] 1120 BC - Workers begin on the cows.

[8] 1080 BC - Priesthood comes in, hit up Iron Working, mainly because I'd like to know if we have iron anywhere. Thought about Writing and Pottery, then decided they could wait some.

[9] 1040 BC - Workin' on the cow.

[10] 1000 BC - That thar pasture sure is big. Yessiree, it is.

A few ponderances, before we leave.

Firstly, On the Care, Feeding, and Founding of Yellow Dot Cities:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7-dwip-yellowdot.jpg

Red indicates eventual borders with Djenne.

Yellow Dot is Sirian's Yellow Dot city.

Blue Dot decreases overlap with Djenne by a lot, snags the fish, and gives us a northern port, but hits 3 mountains instead of 1. Still my favorite of the spots, I think.

Green Dot is primarily of interest because it can hit all four of those resources. Probably not the best choice, but it'll be rich.

I like Blue Dot, personally, but ultimately Sirian will get to call it (Settler in 4).

As far as post-settler, I'd really like to go for either Stonehenge or Oracle next, for the Prophet points. We have a forest hill at Timbuktu we can chop and mine as well to speed things up. Current speed on Stonehenge is ~30, Oracle ~38. Less if we lumberjack it, less when Timbuktu grows post-cow hookup/settler (remember the avoid growth!). If it turned out that we had iron there, well, that would just work out, now wouldn't it? Certainly we need SOME resources on this rock.

Sirian - UP
Jaffa Tamarin - ON DECK
Griselda
Dwip

Note: I'll be skipping at least the next round, won't be able to play again before Jan 4th.

It's going to be Blue Dot. That stretch of land has NO FRESH WATER and never will, so we are looking at having to get that Fish going quickly, and needing a port up there, over all other concerns.

Jaffa, have a Happy New Year. :)

afpunk is On Deck and will get to play a round, maybe two.

Good work so far, guys. Finding out that we are sans Copper and Horses is certainly interesting! We may want to prioritize Construction and build a bunch of Jumbos and Catapults.


Got it!


- Sirian

IT (Inherited Turn) 1000BC: Our scouts do not have to leave a tile in fog (and should not, under these circumstances!) I wake them, move them, discover barbarian city borders across the mountains.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-16.jpg

I check F7, find that Buddhism has a high percentage of coverage.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-17.jpg

I convert to Buddhism to do some "religious scouting". Only one new city is scouted (Kub's second) but that's not bad.

I change research to Pottery. (Dwip's plan of the Oracle sounds like a winner, and despite our religious lean to this point with the Hydra, the only logical choice for Oracle on THIS map is Metal Casting, early forges (double happy for Gold, Gems), and Colossus! Pottery is prereq to Metal Casting, plus it allows Granaries and Cottages, plus will only take four turns.


975BC: I DO NOT ROAD THE COWS. I move the worker toward Yellow Dot and start to build roads in that direction. You'll see why shortly.

925BC: Train Worker in Djenne, start Worker. Train Settler in Timbuktu, start Lighthouse. (Uh... I momentarily forgot that we were supposed to switch to Oracle next. :smoke: Sorry! If we miss it by one turn, blame me! BLAME ME IT'S ALL MY FAULT! :eek: )

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-18.jpg

I also decide to send the settler north to Light Blue Dot, because we HAVE NO ROADS to the west, and I was not liking the idea of spending six or seven turns, instead of three, moving over there. Plus we needed to chop the forest there first, to avoid wasting it.

900BC: Discover Pottery, start Writing. I come to my senses, put away the foolish mind-altering substances I was temporarily seduced by, and swap Timbuktu to Oracle.

875BC: We are allowed to change religion again. I note that we are not on Organized Religion Civic either, but we should be! Should have been two turns ago, actually. Better late than never, though. :smoke: I also change back our state religion to match Mongolia's. Not used to doing quite this much civic-and-religion hopping. :crazyeye:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-19.jpg

We were never in the running for that Corn.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-20.jpg

850BC: Buddhism spreads to our newest city, and Kubs converts to it.
(One turn after we switched back to Hinduism! :crazyeye: Sheesh.)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-21.jpg

800BC: Forest Chop at Yellow Dot speeds our third worker.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-22.jpg

That is definitely the site for a city, up there with a port to the north.


775BC: Discover Writing, return research to Iron Working.

750BC: Convert back to Buddhism (probably for a LONG time, if not for keeps.)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-23.jpg

Our three workers are roading. I gave two of them extra orders. (Next player: IF YOU DON'T LIKE THAT, cancel them before you end the first turn.)

Pink Worker is set to move down to the Gems and build a road there (speeding progress toward eventual hook up of that resource), and then can also move to the Cows and build a road there, without "wasting" any worker turns. Yellow Worker is set to move to the tile east of Djenne and road that. Green Worker is already building a road, but should continue to move toward the capital.

Also, this MAY BE VITAL. If we are trailing anybody in the Oracle race, a forest chop may save our bacon! White Dot is the spot to chop (and replace it with a Mine afterward!) If the cards are handled correctly, the chop should come in time to matter. Green Worker would have to finish his road, then move to White Dot and start chopping. Yellow Worker builds his road, then also moves to White Dot (wasting one worker turn), then helps to finish the chop a turn earlier, then both combine to build a road, then go from there.

This is just one possible way of doing things, of course.


Having Buddhism in all three of our cities, plus Organized Religion, gives us production boosts that at the moment may be very important.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-24.jpg

Certainly the help on the Oracle is a big deal! Also nice that Kubs swapped to Buddhism.
Sadly, our bonus for "You Switched to Our State Religion" has already faded away.

DOT MAP:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-25.jpg

Yellow Dot is primed, although there is a possiblity that we could let it wait even a bit longer. If we build a Galley out of Kumbi Saleh after the Work Boat (and higher food output), we could pick up our Scout and move him to the area with the Question marks. Maybe it would be good to settle up there next, especially if we can get a Canal City(TM) opening water access through that inland sea to both north and south!

That galley could then later move through Djenne Canal and out to the south west, and help explore out there. (We should consider sending galleys, before too awfully long, on a Sail Around The Earth(TM). That might SATE our need for faster shipping! :lol:

It's something to ponder, at least.


Green Dots in the far south appear to be able to redeem the Useless Fish after all?

We need to get a road going toward the southwest, and get a worker down there and chop that forest at Pink Circle before we settle there. Preferably.

Black Dot remains a distant future prospect.


VITAL: Remember that we want to take Metal Casting if we succeed in building the Oracle. (Don't be tempted to grab Christianity. Colossus and early Forges will do more for us!)


ROSTER:

Sirian
Jaffa Tamarin (Away)
Griselda -------------- ON DECK AGAIN ALREADY!
Dwip

ALTERNATE
* afpunk ----------- UP NOW!!!

Good luck and godspeed. :hammer:


- Sirian

Well, it's over 24 hours, and I see that afpunk has been on, but hasn't posted here. Afpunk, I'm not sure whether you've "got it" or not, but I have time to play now, so I'm going to grab it. Perhaps you could fit in a turn after me?

Nice and uneventful round. :) I follow Sirian's Worker Plan (TM), although none of the orders other than the yellow worker moving onto the correct tile seem to have survived intact.

I see some barbs next to Kub's city Beshbalik, and a couple of turns later he sends out a settler pair. Let's hope they get eaten.

650 BC - Kumbi Saleh completes work boat and starts on a lighthouse.

625 BC - Oracle! http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7-Oracle.jpg

We take metal casting. I decide to keep going with the lighthouse in Timbuktu before the forge and Colossus. It's only 3 turns, and my hope is that we can make up time by working another tile faster- fish are hooked up this turn for health.

With the mine complete by Timbuktu and the cow roaded, the workers need new jobs. One starts work farming and roading toards Kumbi. Another starts a road to the SW. Another arrives at the gems tile the turn iron working comes in, and starts a mine.

575 BC - Qin Shi Huang of the Chinese introduces himself (sorry, must have screwed up the screenshot somwhow), although I don't see any units or borders. He's cautious. We sign open borders.

Djenne completes its granary, and I put a few turns in towards a lighthouse so that it can grow to 3 before starting a settler. I swapped to a settler on turn 10, and queued the lighthouse.

ROSTER:

Sirian
Jaffa Tamarin (Away)
Griselda
Dwip

ALTERNATE
* afpunk

afpunk, do you have the time (and interest) to play a round?

Wow, I must have missed the e-mail for an update on this thread previously. :blush: I can take a turn whenever you need me to, sorry. Last time I saw the thread it was before Dwip's turn. :eek:

I think you're up if you want to be. :)

I'll take it then, playing rather soon. :)

So after the alternate swap turns triple salchow, it looks like a nice, uneventful turn ahead. The research will carry over into next turn, as well as 2 of the 3 city builds, and the one that will finish is planned to go for the Colossus. Looks like lots of worker manipulation is in my future! [pimp]

500BC

I'm very tempted to make a small change and have Djenne build itself a skirmisher for protection. However, with no fog and a shared religion with our closest neighbors, I suppose it will be safe. You people are crazy though, I might add. ;)

375BC

The forge in Timbuktu is completed, and work begins on the Colossus. It will take a mere 12 turns to complete. Four commerce coastal tiles here we come! Also in this turn the pyramids are built by the Germans, who we have yet to come across.

350BC

Thucydides must have heard about the defense situation at Djenne. ;)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7power.JPG

Ah, there he is, riding in a workboat coming from the south.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7fred.JPG

And he adopts universal suffrage--For all the towns he has in 350BC. :goodjob:

300BC

Buddhism spreads to Beijing. Another ally coming right up! :D

250BC

Kumbi Saleh finishes its lighthouse and is starting on a galley, but that is very vetoable.

The current empire:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7250bc.JPG

One of the workers has been building a road to the pink dot. One has been building a road and farms between Timbuktu and Kumbi Saleh, and the final one has been mining the gems by Djenne, and getting rid of that last jungle.

We should cruise to the Colossus--just 7 turns left there. Keep in mind Timbuktu is at max happiness and adjust as necessary. Mathematics will be here in 2, and so will the settler. The next player gets all the fun decisions. :)

And so ends my first RB succession game turns! :D

Now you're assimilated! :borg: My turns didn't involve a lot of decision making, either, but I guess I at least got to finish the Oracle.

I usually run *way* more military than this (I'm not that crazy!), but it seems like making the most of the cards we were dealt map-wise involved taking advantage of the chance to run low military at the beginning. It's not too often that you have NO worries about land invasion at the start! :D Now that the AI have taken to the seas, and we know more of them, we probably won't be able to get away with that for much longer.

Roster:
Sirian ---------------- ON DECK!
Jaffa Tamarin (Away)
Griselda
Dwip -------------- UP AGAIN ALREADY!

ALTERNATE
* afpunk

I like the pace of a 4-person rotation combined with the early game. :)

See it. Will have something back by tonight, I think.

Wherein, having clicked preview, I am redirected to one of those black screens with ads, which coincidentally obliterates my post and messes up my attachment. I am annoyed by this. But not as annoyed as I would be if I didn't obsessively use Wordpad.

Anyway.

[0] 250 BC - Well, our military situation looks ok to me, but then, I'm that guy who runs city defense with warriors until longbows or infantry, or mech infantry, in a couple cases.

We are Mansa the Resourceless. Considering the vast cheater swathes of land AI Mansa always gets in my games, this is actually more amusing than distressing. We'll see what our galley finds for us.

[1] 225 BC - Turn avoid growth back on at Timbuktu until we can get an aqueduct or something going.

[2] 200 BC - Math comes in, and I start on Code of Laws, pretty much because it's right there and I felt like it. I was also very tempted by Compass and Currency. Choices. Choices. Settler completes in Djenne, and I send it up for Yellow Dot.

[3] 175 BC - Gao is founded on Yellow Dot, and starts a Skirm. Founding Gao lets us see that the barbs have archers (duh), and over that NE mountain is a pretty nice city site that's probably going to be Mongol.

[4] 150 BC - The new song "I've Been Workin' On the Road" becomes a smash hit throughout Mali.

[5] 125 BC - Exhausted by partying like it's 129 BC, everyone does a lot of nothing.

[6] 100 BC - Minin' and farmin' and slavin' our lives away.

[7] 75 BC - I sure do miss Civ 2's Colossus movie. And I know you're all tired of hearing that. Timbuktu starts a Granary, with the idea of finishing it, turning growth back on, and rushing for the Lighthouse because we can. Djenne goes Lighthouse->Settler.

[8] 50 BC - Kumbi Galley->Granary.

Thar's gold in them thar hills! (Which is pretty appropriate for us as a civ, I suppose).

[9] 25 BC - I'd rather be sailing.

IBT - Parthenon is FIDAL.

[10] 1 AD - Timbuktu Granary->Lighthouse in 9, grows in 1.

Our galley finds this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7-dwip-1AD.jpg

My internet was out for a day, so I'm running a little behind.

Should have my turn up by late tonight though.


- Sirian

My internet was out for a day, so I'm running a little behind.



Now that is a pain I can understand. My current access for the most part is via Wifi that has become witry a couple of times.
I know one day I missed some threads...

Don't worry if you have other plans for the night, though. :) There's other things we can do with the extra one second we get today.

:xmascheers: :newyear:

My internet was out for a day, so I'm running a little behind.

Should have my turn up by late tonight though.


- Sirian


Trying to be the first post of 2006? :lol:

IMO Sirian was the first to post in 2006. Although it might just be wacky NZ time messing me up. :crazyeye:

IT 1AD: One of the most interesting things about Civ4 is that while you can go in almost any direction, you cannot go in every direction. Reading the reports of things we've accomplished over the last few rounds was very exciting. However, when I opened the save and see all the things we haven't done... The picture looked a lot less rosy.

Certainly, we might be able to get the Great Lighthouse, as Dwip suggested, and coast to the finish line with (more or less) a 5CC empire. That really isn't what I had in mind for this game, though.

The Lighthouse probably would be a good choice here anyway, but I set it aside in the hope that it was not too late to expand our territory.


75AD: We were never in the circumnavigation race. ... WTF happened here?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-26.jpg

A couple of turns later, I saw the explanation. The Mongol WORK BOAT came sailing past us on its return trip home. Arrgh! I hoped that we would eventually get to a place (in Civ4) where barbarians would pose enough threat to scouting work boats to more or less prevent this, but NOT to shut down Galley-based exploration. Unfortunately, to do that, we would have needed another unit type, a ship that posed little threat to a Galley but would take out unescorted fishing boats. ... Or storms, or Sharks, or something! Something, anything, to find that sweet middle ground between needing Caravels to scout the map and being able to do with Work Boats. :rolleyes:

Anyway... Khan's got the movement bonus, which is... not good! :crazyeye:

In fact, it's very very bad.

125AD: You are looking at a major strategic setback.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-27.jpg

"What can wait should wait."
I didn't mean to imply that we should go for the Colossus immediately!
My fault.
Part of me just thought it went without saying that we needed to expand a bit more.

I thought we'd have a little more cushion than this, though.
Khan is taking to the seas while he still has unsettled (good!) land on his main continent.

I tried to shut him down by closing our borders, but it was no help.
There was another way around!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-28.jpg

There's his circumnavigating work boat!


175AD: In the north, we find Crabs, Furs and IRON. Which Khan is ignoring for the moment.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-29.jpg

200AD: There's Copper and Whales in the south:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-30.jpg

225AD: Unfortunately, we wont' be touching that Copper.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-31.jpg

Khan planted his flag in the absolute middle of the island!
HE CLAIMED THE WHOLE BLOODY THING WITH ONE SETTLER!

You can't plant your flag willy-nilly next to a Creative civ.

It's not like we can attack, either.
Their cities get more cultural defense.
They have Keshiks, we have bubkis.

WE cannot plant our flag wherever and expect the AI to honor it, but...
...for Khan, wherever he plants his flag, we more or less have to accept it.
It would cost us too much to dispute it at the moment.

There are other opportunities out there, though. Here's hoping we take advantage.


250AD: We pop a Prophet. I could have built a shrine, but decided to grab Theology, giving us our fifth religion.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-32.jpg

We now also have access to Theocracy civic. Use as useful. (We are spiritual!)
Please note any Civics changes prominently, however.


DOTMAPS

The situation in the north:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-33.jpg

Red Dot would secure the Iron and the Fur. It's a crappy city site, but a good resource colony site.
Thus it may be available for a while, if the Mongols are not hungry for that Iron.

Green Dot would get the extra Clams and Gold without clashing too much with Khan's borders.
Would also give us a Canal to the North, which may be very useful.

Yellow Dot would get the Furs and Crabs but is too close to Khan.
Orange is also too close, and would clash with Green Dot.

My hope would be that would could get Green and later Red Dots.
We'd have to get moving on it, though!

The Capital is the only good settler builder!
Kumbi Saleh now has barracks and could train the units.
Djenne needs to grow, a lot. And catch up on infrastructure.


Down south, you can see how Creative Khan is dominating that island.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-34.jpg

White Dot might still get us the Whale, though. Especially if more seafood in range of it.

Dark Gray Dot is a possibility as a fishing village.

We do not want to plant on Khan's island, though. (The other dots).


Out West, I have a settler party heading for (probably) Pink Dot.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-35.jpg

You may have to adjust the plan, depending on what you find over there.

There's a Fish at blue circle, which can only be used by one city or the other.
The pairing there is probably Orange + SouthBlue, or Yellow+NorthBlue.
Or we may not end up settling on that small island at all.
We need to explore more!

We could stand to own another couple of galleys by the time my turn comes around again.


Anyway, losing that island was a blow, but there are other opportunities.

Lots of interesting choices to make in the next few rounds.

I got Granary and Barracks done in Kumbi Saleh, so it's good for training troops.


Jaffa is out, so afpunk is up for another round if he can play in the next 48 hours.
Griselda is on deck.


- Sirian

I've got it. I just did turns on BGZ02 and CTIV-2, and have turns for LK112 pending as well (Before this one). I can play these turns tomorrow at some point and definitely get them posted by tomorrow night. However, if Griselda would prefer to go before this, and can, I would have no problem being skipped or swapped. I'll check back before I play to see what is decided. :)

250&275AD

Zzzzzz...

300AD

I come to a point where I have to make a big decision regarding the settler. I move the skirmisher to the SE plains hill to see the most surrounding terrain, and I encounter iron. Since this is one of the most vital resources, and in a better location then the far red dot of Sirians post. I decide to make this city on the spot the game suggests. Its off the fresh water, but for the iron, I think its worth it.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7newsouthdots.JPG

325AD

Timbuktu finishes its settler. I decide to put it on a library. It'll take just 5 turns, and have an instant yield of 5 beakers a turn. Kumbi Saleh finishes its skirmisher and I move it onto a forge.

350AD

I found Walata on the previously mentioned space and start it on an immediate obelisk. We want to secure the iron as soon as reasonable. Also, I will see what I can do as to getting a worker over here.

375AD

We have met Peter, it appears by having his Axeman enter the radius of the Chinese Buddhist city.
A settler pair is loaded on a galley, ready to head for the green dot. I got moving on it, so hopefully we'll get it.

400AD

UGH! Spoke too soon. IBT looks like Khan plopped a city right between the clams and crabs.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7beattogreendot.JPG

With no better place on the horizon, I drop the pair off to follow the road down to the last spot on our mainland.

Currency comes in. I decide to head for alphabet. As it stands, we have a couple of allies, and tech trading could be very handy.

425AD

Zzzzzzzz...

450AD

We meet Caesar.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7caesar.JPG

:lol: :lol:

Peter asks us to cancel our deals with the Germans. I consider, but decline. Timbuktu finishes its library. I want to start on another settler, but notice the Great Lighthouse will only take 9 turns. Given that all of our cities are coastal cities, and this wonder will likely be built soon, I start production on it.
Gao finishes its Granary, and starts on a workboat.

475AD

Peter comes asking for Open Borders, I grant them.
Khan switches to Judaism. This leaves an interesting situation. We should probably convert as well with that AI penetration.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7Khanconverts.JPG


500AD

The Great Lighthouse is built in a distant land. This is unfortunate for us, but even if I started it directly after the settler, we still wouldn't have gotten it. I temporarily set the production in Timbuktu to a Jewish Missionary. If we decide to go with the switch, we'll need someone else who can make missionaries besides our best settler town.


Recommendations for the next player:

Continue scouting for a good place for another city. We have a galley near the southeast island and the German border. Our other galley is transporting a worker with a skirmisher guard down to Walate, chop/mine it up.

Check over the religion situation. If you believe there to be more benefits than setbacks to converting to Judaism, do so.

Don't research Calender until Walata manages its first border expansion.

Have fun and good luck! :)

I see it, but I'll play better if it's tomorrow night and not tonight. :)

RB7 - from 500 AD

Priority- scouting! We've built right to the edge of the fog, and with AI borders visible on all sides, there are probably only a few good spots left! I can't see well enough even to know what spots to prioritize for settlers. Priorities for scouting seem to be west and SW, plus there might be something useful where the galley is in the SE. I also wonder what might be past Apache in the NW.

With Buddhism, we are getting organized religion bonus in Timbuktu, Kumbi, and Djenne. Judaism has 16% of the world compared to Buddhism's 15%. I see both in Kublai's lands, plus his capitol is Hindu. Is it possible that Kublai just switched on an AI's request and is likely to switch back? I don't think it's in our best interest to follow (yet). If anything, we should build Buddhist missionaries and send them to Mongolia. Of course, that would leave Rome and Germany upset with us. I don't know that we have the resources to build Missionaries of any kind at the moment.

IT - 500AD
- With Djenne and Kumbi working on forges and us low on galleys, I don't swap Timbuktu to a settler, although it's tempting. Since we're at negative health, I figure that an Aqueduct would help us build settlers faster when we're ready, so I start that. I swap tiles to grow in 5, aqueduct in 6, so that we can be size 10, with -1 health, when we start settlers (as opposed to current size 9, -2). That also allows us to put another coastal tile into play, and since we're paying for the Colossus, we might as well get use out of it!

We should be in full scouting-and-settler-factory mode by the end of my round. I just hope that's fast enough!

I set Gao to grow. It only adds one turn to the workboat, but will net +2 food each turn while we're working.

BT - Kumbi completes forge, starts galley, due in 3. We get 60 gold from our Great Lighthouse partial build.

(1) 520 AD - Find more iron and some fish down by Fred's land. It's awfully close to Frankfurt, though. Send Skirmisher to Nagini, thinking that will be the next pickup point.

With another galley due in 3, I unload the skirmisher and worker and convert the current galley to exploration. The new galley can be our ferry.

BT- Before we even get the Alphabet complete popup, Fred and Khan call us up wanting to give us Calendar. But, you see sirs, we're working on our last Obelisk. Care to wait? None of the AI has Compass, so I try researching that any maybe trading for calendar after we have the iron in sight.

(2) 540 AD Scouting

(3) 560 AD

BT - Kumbi galley - skirmisher. Walata obelisk - lighthouse. Buddhism spreads to Cologne.

(4) 580 AD - Second Skirmisher by iron city decides to explore on foot. Will come back and cover worker if needed.

BT - Djenne forge - aqueduct. Kumbi Skirmisher - galley, although they also need a 'duct. Gao work boat - lighthouse

(5) 600 AD - Souting Mongolia now. That site to the far south I mentioned earlier can grab marble, clams, and iron. I bet it won't be around for long!

We meet Elizabeth, by sailing into her borders to the west! It looks like she's not friends with Khan. We sign open borders so we can keep sailing.

BT - Timbuktu aqueduct - settler

(6) 620 AD - Trade extra fish to Elizabeth for wheat. With the extra health we can grow in Djenne sooner, and so put the duct on hold for a rax.

BT - Kumbi galley - skirmisher

(7) 640 AD I'm really at a loss for worker moves here. It seems like we're getting a good amount of commerce from the coast, there's not much we can do about the food situation, we can use the forest shields and health, and won't be able to build plantations for 7 more turns. Am I missing something obvious here?

There are crabs in the tundra south of Walata.

BT - Rome calls and asks for Open borders. I accept. Germany wants silk for gold, and I also accept. Niani gets Christianity.

(8) 660 AD

BT - Germany wants us to take Judaism, and I turn him down. Compass in - we can probably also trade for Monarchy, so I go for machinery. Kumbi skirmisher - duct. Walata becomes Confucian.

(9) 680 AD - Might as well trade for Monarchy, even if we're waiting on calendar. All the AI have calendar for trade, all but Fred and Peter also have Monarchy.

China needs monotheism, code of laws, metal casting, and compass.

Khan needs code of laws, theology, currency, metal casting, and compass.


Caesar needs code of laws, theology, metal casting, and compass.

Elizabeth is in the same boad as Khan. She also has drama, but won't trade it. China has construction, in red.

I decide that we need to be buddies with Khan. I consider offering code of laws, since it's the closest in beakers, but some of the AI have currency, so I see what I can work out. He won't give us gold in addition unless I throw in code of laws, which I'm unwilling to do, and he is dying to give us calendar, which I don't want, so I take a straight monarchy-currency trade. Maybe he will like us now.

I adopt Hereditary Rule.

BT - Timbuktu settler - settler. Khan sails a galley right up to our coast. He also sends a Keshik south of Samarquand, but of course he can't reach us from there.

(10) 700 AD - I'm kind of thinking that the prime space for our settler is to the SE, by Sirian's dark grey dot that could pull in two fish and get us closer to the marble/iron/clams. This is a fairly recent discovery, and all of the units are geared towards a city to the west, on the two-tile island that would fit our borders nicely, but not bring us any closer to anything but Rome.

Since where we decide to settle will affect this, the settler is in Timbuktu unmoved. You can send him towards Niani if you want to settle west, or pick up a skirmisher (the galley is right there, ready) and head east, grabbing the settler on the way somewhere. There's another galley that just came through Djenne canal that you can use, too. I kind of think we should send two SE, then settle that island (southblue on Sirian's map) with the third. I don't know if that's realistic, though, and I would hate to lose an island that close to home. We might try for one of the SE sites plus the close site, but that pretty much guarantees we won't get both SE spots if we don't act quickly.

Another galley of ours is just to the west of the fog in Rome's borders. I'd like to see what's up past Apache with it. You may have other ideas, though.

Anyway, good luck to you!

Lurker comment:
I hoped that we would eventually get to a place (in Civ4) where barbarians would pose enough threat to scouting work boats to more or less prevent this, but NOT to shut down Galley-based exploration. Unfortunately, to do that, we would have needed another unit type, a ship that posed little threat to a Galley but would take out unescorted fishing boats. ... Or storms, or Sharks, or something! Something, anything, to find that sweet middle ground between needing Caravels to scout the map and being able to do with Work Boats. :rolleyes:
Why not have made it so that Work Boats cannot leave their civ's cultural boundaries? They are only fishermen types anyway, they would be too scared to go sailing far from home, and their purpose is to grab resources within cultural boundaries.

Lurker comment:

Why not have made it so that Work Boats cannot leave their civ's cultural boundaries? They are only fishermen types anyway, they would be too scared to go sailing far from home, and their purpose is to grab resources within cultural boundaries.

Being able to produce work boats in one city and sail them around to a nearby city is an intended part of the design. That would mostly be lost if the ships could not leave their borders.

I'm not even opposed to the work boats scouting. However, we have threats out there on the land, and they are well balanced: animals (early), barbarian soldiers of increasing ferocity (later). We need something like that at sea, in my view, but it needs to do its job.

Barbarian galleys were not the answer, either. They turn your Galley exploration in to a dice roll, with too much riding on one throw of the dice. On land, there are terrain features that you can use to keep your scouting units alive. At sea, there are no such features, no gameplay there (yet?) to give players something to do to better their odds.


Dwip, you're up now. :)


Gris: Obtaining Calendar will not cancel existing Obelisk builds. They will still finish! You can't start new ones, though, or mess with the build queue too much (because if you remove it from the queue, you can't get it back.) Also, BE CAREFUL with signing Open Borders with everybody. We don't want to be signing deals with the "worst enemy" of civs we want to be pals with, as they will only come and ask us to cancel those agreements, and then if we do we have worsened relations and cost ourselves some opportunities. I would have considered switching to Judaism from the German request. (We could switch back in five turns, and without any major loss of "we love our brothers in the faith", as that would mostly restore when we switched back.) And it would have been useful to get the religion scouting, as well as the relations boost. We've got some interesting choices to make in regard to religion and trying to set up the diplomacy to our advantage.


- Sirian

See it. Will have it back tonight or (more likely) tomorrow night.

Do the obelisks still provide culture, though, if you build them after calendar?

Do the obelisks still provide culture, though, if you build them after calendar?

Yes.

However, they cost 30s for 1cpt, while Theaters cost 50s for 3cpt. If running Slavery, it's often no big deal to whip out a Theater immediately. Even if not running slavery, it's a better deal for first build. Obelisks just tide you over. The only time I'd still build one when I had Theater access is at a city that will be in a long border war over disputable tiles. Every point helps!


- Sirian

Being able to produce work boats in one city and sail them around to a nearby city is an intended part of the design. That would mostly be lost if the ships could not leave their borders.

I'm not even opposed to the work boats scouting. However, we have threats out there on the land, and they are well balanced: animals (early), barbarian soldiers of increasing ferocity (later). We need something like that at sea, in my view, but it needs to do its job.

Barbarian galleys were not the answer, either. They turn your Galley exploration in to a dice roll, with too much riding on one throw of the dice. On land, there are terrain features that you can use to keep your scouting units alive. At sea, there are no such features, no gameplay there (yet?) to give players something to do to better their odds.

Well this is my first post (and its as a lurker)!

I thought I give my suggestion for boats - what about "trade lanes" that initially only exist along the coast between your own cities, but have to be researched, built, or negotiated later between continents (over oceans) or between civs. Of course any boat can leave the trade lane but fishing boats would be more prone to disaster. Add to this techs that allow for safe passage and/or barbarians (pirates really) that can hijack lanes. Regular ships could get bonuses for open waters to prevent impossible exploration.

A very unrefined idea but I'm sure someone can run with it. Sorry about the lurker comment but I couldn't pass it up :)

Well this is my first post (and its as a lurker)!

I thought I give my suggestion for boats - what about "trade lanes" that initially only exist along the coast between your own cities, but have to be researched, built, or negotiated later between continents (over oceans) or between civs. Of course any boat can leave the trade lane but fishing boats would be more prone to disaster. Add to this techs that allow for safe passage and/or barbarians (pirates really) that can hijack lanes. Regular ships could get bonuses for open waters to prevent impossible exploration.

A very unrefined idea but I'm sure someone can run with it. Sorry about the lurker comment but I couldn't pass it up :)

Well, these trade lanes were part of Civilization - Call to Power, which I've been playing long time after switching to Civ IV (best choice I've ever made on gaming :D ). These trade lanes were always annoying to me 'cause they could get pillaged so easily, especially when they reached over sea. You just needed a crappy galley and could do serious harm to your opponents economy. Pirates were doing it anyway and all the time. You had no defense against that, you just could limit to trade lanes on your continent. So I think that's not the right solution to this worker boat circumnavigation stuff. Maybe one should implement a new unit as strong or a little weaker than a galley for that purpose (Pirates ?). Galleys should then get a 25% bonus against the Pirate and therefore succeed most of the time, whereas Pirates get a 25% bonus against work boats. That would suffice...

Greetings,

Lord Timon

IMHO the answer is having a sea animal unit like you have lions and bears on land. But too make it possible to safely travel in galley it could be it sea equivilent of a Wolf. With 1 strength it's not gonna kill a galley but you can't outrun with a work boat. And it wouldn't come within your cultural borders so you can be safe about your non-scouting workboats. That would effectively stop workboat circumnavigation but would endanger your stay-at-home workboats.

That's just my view on things. There might be something this would really stuff up.

IMHO the answer is having a sea animal unit like you have lions and bears on land. But too make it possible to safely travel in galley it could be it sea equivilent of a Wolf.

Sea serpents, which go away once you are advanced enough to stop believing in them.

Or you could go with the historically accurate sea squalls that actually did impede exploration. Use a little storm cloud for the icon.

See it. Will have it back tonight or (more likely) tomorrow night.

Third night's the charm? :lol:

(Don't mind me. I have an itchy :whipped: finger.)

Sea serpents, which go away once you are advanced enough to stop believing in them.

No need for anything that off-the-wall. Just add pirates!

And note that historically, pirates weren't always the swashbuckling kinda guys you saw in the Pirates! game. Early ones were just poor guys from "uncivilized" areas in small boats who figured that an unarmed merchant ship carried more wealth than they'd see in a lifetime in any other career.

So, adding a simple 1-strength naval unit that can't enter cultural borders makes perfect sense, which means coding it as an "animal". A single one wouldn't be enough to take down a galley, but you wouldn't be able to explore very far before you ran into another one and died, and it'd rule out work boat exploration entirely.

No need for anything that off-the-wall. Just add pirates!

And note that historically, pirates weren't always the swashbuckling kinda guys you saw in the Pirates! game. Early ones were just poor guys from "uncivilized" areas in small boats who figured that an unarmed merchant ship carried more wealth than they'd see in a lifetime in any other career.

So, adding a simple 1-strength naval unit that can't enter cultural borders makes perfect sense, which means coding it as an "animal". A single one wouldn't be enough to take down a galley, but you wouldn't be able to explore very far before you ran into another one and died, and it'd rule out work boat exploration entirely.


That sounds pretty good. It's about what I had in mind, but would have required its own art assets, unit designations, XML entries, AI code, etc. I hope we can persuade the powers that be that such a thing is worth doing for the expansion. :)


- Sirian

Apologies for being late, here. 10 hour shifts at work kind of did me in. We'll make sure that doesn't happen anymore, one way or the other.

[0] 700 AD - Two priorities. Founding more cities, and making money. We have good spots in the SE and perhaps to the SW. I think Khan or Fred will beat us to the SE spots, but we can at least try. We have a better chance at the SW spots. We'll see about markets when we get there.

Assorted units can be moved, so I do so.

[1] 720 AD - Walata Lighthouse->Confucian Temple.

Suddenly, I realize that I'm trying to load our guys into Khan's galley. :crazyeyes:

[2] 740 AD - Galleys sure aren't the Cutty Sark, here.

IBT - Great Library is FIDAL.

[3] 760 AD - Djenne Rax->'duct.

I sure am enjoying running our scout around Fred's base, here.

[4] 780 AD - We sure are running out of stuff for our workers to do, here.

[5] 800 AD - Timbuktu Settler->Settler, Kumbi Aqueduct->Harbor.

It would appear that Fred, Qin, and Pete are all on some kind of super continent.

IBT - Thucydides tells us that we are the 4th most advanced civ in the world, following Beth, Pete, and Khan, but ahead of Fred, Qin, and JC.

Presumably this triggers JC wanting to trade us Calander + 50 gold for Theology, which I decline. I do note that he has Fuedalism, though. We'll come back to that in a second.

[6] 820 AD - Gao Lighthouse->Forge.

Now, about that tech thing: (* = won't trade)

Qin: Up Calander/Construction/Fuedalism*, Down Monotheism(!)/Code of Laws/Compass
Khan: Up Literature/Calander/HBR/Construction, Down Theology/Compass
JC: Up Fuedalism/Calander, Down Code of Laws/Theology/Metal Casting/Compass
Pete: Up Lit/Calander/HBR/Construction, Down CoL/Theology
Beth: Up Lit/Calander/HBR/Construction/Drama*, Down Theology/Compass
Fred: Up Lit/Calander/Construction, Down CoL/Theology/Currency/Compass

We have a Theology monopoly on the world, and CoL on most of the world.

Well, let's see what we can do with this.

Dial up Fred. Currency won't get us Construction, and I'm not giving him money besides.

Dial up Qin. CoL for Construction? He's down.

Dial up JC. When did he get Construction? Argh. Metal Casting + CoL won't get us Fuedalism? Oi. Gotta think about this. I COULD break our Theology monopoly, or I could break our Compass almost monopoly. Is Fuedalism worth that? It gets us to Civil Service, and we do need that sooner rather than later. There's not a whole lot JC can trade it for, either.

It's all irrelevant, because Metal Casting, Compass, and 30 gold isn't enough. Oh well.

I hate it when I try to be reasonable, and compy isn't having any of it.

[7] 840 AD - Walata Confucian Temple->Granary.

IBT - Taoism is FIDAL.

[8] 860 AD - Our galleys close in.

[9] 880 AD - Timbuktu Settler->Jewish Monastary, Kumbi Harbor->Market.

Awdaghost founded on SW Island. Starts a lighthouse.

[10] 900 AD - Timbuktu Jewish Monastary->Buddhist Monastary, Niani Lighthouse->Granary.

Tadmekka founded in the far SE, giving us access to Clams, Marble, and Iron. Starts a Lighthouse.


And some pretty pictures:

Us in 900 AD -

http://civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7-dwip-Mali900AD.jpg

SW Isle. Note the location of the skirm where we might put a city -

http://civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7-dwip-SW900AD.jpg

And Tadmekka in the SE. If we want, there's that fishing island there, too -

http://civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB7-dwip-Tadmekka.jpg

My Redskins play tomorrow, and I have RB6 turn to report. Could be Sunday before I'm back with the results for this one. Seems to be "steady as she goes", though. (We have colonies!) :)


- Sirian

We got that site to the SE? :dance:

That sounds pretty good. It's about what I had in mind,

Cough cough. Simple answer: Allow barbarian fishing boats to spawn (work boats). Additionally, but not as necessary, allow fishing boats strength of 1 to attack and possibly gain xp for promotions. They are already in the game, and have a strength of one. You could create a 'combat' fishing boat by giving it a different unit script, and set it uniquely to spawn for barbs. How difficult would it be to simply clone fishing boats for barbarians, give the cloned boat an attack script, and add it to the barb spawn list? I cannot recall offhand if civ fishing boats are currently allowed to attack, but if they are... all the better. If they cannot be allowed to enter combat, they still provide a roadblock to civ fishing boats (but not galleys) in medium sea to high sea levels when coasts are one space wide.

This way, you need no new assets, and you accomplish the same goals. All fear the barbarian mer-pirates! They want your fish booty!

I can do most of this within 2 minutes manually in the world builder, except giving workboats 1 strength--I thought workboats already had that. Barbarian workboats still blockade civ workboats and can be assigned the UNITAI_ATTACK_SEA script.

I played the round. Some satisfying results, overall, but won't have the report up until probably tomorrow.

- Sirian

Winter Wonderland (http://dailyanimals.net/images/wonderland.jpg) :D

The monkeys are back, when it gets round to my turn again.

Thanks for the pic, Jaffa, and welcome back. :)

My Redskins play tomorrow, and I have RB6 turn to report. Could be Sunday before I'm back with the results for this one. Seems to be "steady as she goes", though. (We have colonies!) :)


- Sirian
Haaaail to the Redskins!
Haaaail vic-to-ry!
Braaaaves on the warpath!
FIGHT for old DC!

Seattle better watch out, 'cause they got some Redskins coming to town! :D

Winter Wonderland (http://dailyanimals.net/images/wonderland.jpg) :D

Wow, that's gorgeous. I thought we were getting the better end of the deal, getting to play Civ4 while you were away, but now I think you probably had even more fun. :xmas:

Happy New Year!


- Sirian

IT 900BC: Wow, lot of tech trades on the table.

We no longer have any exclusive monopolies left, either.
First order of business, assess the diplomatic blocs.

OK, so we're sitting in Buddhism but only three of our cities have that faith.
Three AIs have Judaism, only one has Buddhism.

REVOLUTION. :eek: Shalom! We are the sons of Abraham, returning to our roots in the faith. :worship:

OK, so we can trade away Code of Laws and Currency on the cheap to Germany?
That will be the first move.
Before I pull the trigger, I set us up with Obelisk projects in all new colonies.
Also going to build a Lisk at Kumbi, since it is in a border fight with Khan's second city.
Plus I need to build a Jewish Missionary out of the capital and convert Kumbi, to get the Theocracy XP bonus.
So that seemed like a good fit to slip that Lisk in there.

OK, here we go.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-36.jpg

I avoided trading both of our newer techs to Julius. This deal seemed like a good one:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-37.jpg

This was a cleanup opportunity:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-38.jpg

The main reason for all the trading was that different AIs had broken our monopolies.
I feared they might start to engage some trading, and cut us out of the loop.
We advanced ourselves quite a bit without greatly enriching any particular neighbor.


REVOLUTION. I swapped our Civics, adopting Vassalage and Theocracy.

This means only Judaism will spread to our cities who have no religion.
That's a mixed bag. However, the main reason for switching is MILITARY.
We still have cardboard cutouts. I'm going to focus on beefing our military.

Since we are Spiritual, we should swap around as suits our emphasis.

Run Vassalage and Theocracy when focusing on military. (Great for shipbuilding, too!)
Run Bureaucracy when building a wonder in the capital, or when focusing on buildings.
Once we get to it, run PACIFISM for the low maintenance cost.
Once we get Judaism spread around widely enough (to our cities) Organized Religion may pay off.

Clearly Judaism and Buddhism will be our first two "Hydra Heads".
Hinduism would be the third but is lagging badly.
We need to get some Prophets going before like 1900AD, too.
Might need to build some temples in the capital, build National Epic there, and run two or three Priests for a while.


OK there really wasn't much to do during the round.

* Explore. (Did that.)
* Use the settler I inherited. (Did that.)
* Beef our Military (Working on that. Barracks in some towns, units in capital and Kumbi).
* Set up Jaffa to attack the Barbarians. (Did that.)
* Grab a second site in the southeast. (Did that.)

Russia adopted Judaism (which is really good news. Hope we can keep them in the loop!)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-39.jpg

England founded Taoism at the end of Dwip's round and adopted it here.
Rome founded Islam and adopted that.
Germany (a Jewish state) asked us to cancel deals with China and I did.

So if we can hold the four Jewish states together, it's the Jews vs Everybody Else:

Us
Khan
Fred
Peter

vs

Lizzie
Caesar
Qinky


Ideally, we could get some more Jewish missionaries to Russia to solidify them.
Realisticly, we have only two Jewish cities ourselves!
... and that's after I built a Missionary from Tim and converted Kumbi!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-44.jpg

We badly need to spread Judaism through our core by the end of Griselda's round.
Religious Civics don't help out in cities without the state religion!

I did -not- get our military to a "safe" level, but I did get us out of the critical range.

We should probably stay in Vassalage and Theocracy for most of Jaffa's round.
Continue to build constant military out of Kumbi and Tim.
Then when Civil Service comes in, switch to Bureaucracy and Organized Religion and go on a mad Missionary push?

Other needs may press, and the enemy gets a vote, but those are my thoughts.


I believe we should do some intense forest preservation from here forward.

In the southwest, all red-dots are forest I believe we should NOT CHOP.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-40.jpg

Awdaghost was a brilliant settlement, by the way. I love that site! :D
(I'm a crabby kind of guy, you know!) :lol:

OK, so green arrows are the irrigation paths. Need Civil Service but that is coming!
Yellow dots for windmills. Watermill at orange dot. Green dot should become a farm!

Absolutely DO NOT CHOP the two forests on the plains hills at Walata.
That is a poor food site that will be limping along until Biology.
It would also make an ideal Forbidden Palace location, in my view.

Tekedda I settled on my round.
Initially I did not like the site as a low-food, no-resource site...
...but the chance for irrigated farms changed my mind.



With the help of two forest chops, I built a settler out of the capital.
I settled the fishing village of Awlil, completing our settlements in the south.
I don't think we'll be able to reach much farther than this.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-43.jpg

Tadmekka needs to whip its Obelisk next turn! Don't forget the whip!

We could also stand to build some Fishing Boats for these towns.
Maybe out of the capital? Try and slip them in there between missionaries?
After training more military first, pre-Bureaucracy?

Arrgh. So many needs, so few production centers!


The only two remaining sites that are definitely worth getting are these:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-41.jpg

Not sure when we should go for them. Lots of other stuff we need to do.
(Who built the mine on the orange dot? :smoke: and WHY?)

We need to get that Incense hooked up and soon.
Red dots are forests we should preserve.
Green Arrow is an irrigation line (and two forest chops) we can make.


I set Jaffa up to take down Apache first thing.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-45.jpg

Rome is now Annoyed with us, though, and cancelled open borders.
I'm not sure if Apache is worth keeping!
Recommend to scout past it first, then decide before attacking.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-42.jpg

If there are no food bonuses in range of it, might be best just to 532 the cruddy thing. :devil:

If we do burn it, I wonder if a site a couple of tiles north of that would be good?
I leave all of this to the capable hands of my teammates.


Finally... we've got a couple of LOVE BIRDS making out behind the Colossus!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb7-sirian-46.jpg

(Somebody needs to tell them that not even the Colossus is big enough to mask their amorous adventures!)


Sirian
Jaffa --- UP NOW!
Griselda - On Deck
Dwip

* afpunk (Thanks for filling in! Stay tuned, may still need an alternate at some point.)


- Sirian

okay, I see it.

0) 1050AD the monkeys return!

IT: Timbuktu: Longbowman -> hmmm .. military? We don't need no stinkin' military! (Well, actually we do, but ..) the monkeys want to build the Hanging Gardens.

1) 1060AD switch to Organized Religion for the production boost, Hanging Gardens in 11. Or in 10, after I put Timbuktu on a starvation diet. Switching to a commerce emphasis in a couple of other cities gives us +ve cashflow, and Civil Service in 5 turns.

Tadmekka whips Obelisk, as per instructions handed down from previous ruler.

IT: Gao: Barracks -> Longbowman.
Tadmekka: Obelisk -> Lighthouse.
Kumbi: Longbowman -> there was a Market in queue, but I cancel this and start another Longbowman instead.

2) 1070AD our troops land beside the barbarian city of Apache.

IT: Great Merchant Hanno is born in Timbuktu! We could use him to discover Paper .. but I think I'll park him and we can use him to start a Golden Age later.

3) 1080AD at Apache our troops find spices.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/c12.jpg

Forest chop at completes at Timbuktu, Hanging Gardens in 7.

IT: nada.

4) 1090AD The Battle of Apache!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/c13.jpg

We capture a worker! (Barbarians have workers?!!) The monkeys decide to keep the city rather than waiting on building a settler somewhere (and risking losing the area to the Romans).

IT: Awdaghost: Obelisk -> Granary (already in queue).

5) 1100AD another forest chopped at Timbuktu, Hanging Gardens in 3.

I note our income has dropped to -2/turn. Maybe because we now have an extra city?

IT: Research: Civil Service -> Guilds (looking at going for Banking, seeing all our high-commerce tiles).
Kumbi: Longbowman -> War Elephant.
Walata: Barracks -> Longbowman.

Confucianism has spread in Apache.

6) 1110AD Revolution! The monkeys construct a byzantine Bureaucracy!

IT: Gao: Longbowman -> Longbowman.
Apache: (nothing) -> Theatre.

Islam has spread in Tekedda.

7) 1120AD time passes.

IT: Rome offers Open Borders, we accept.

Timbuktu completes Hanging Gardens! [party] Starts Jewish Missionary.

8) 1130AD all the extra citizens that turned up to celebrate the building of the Hanging Gardens are put to work in the fields instead :whipped: The party in the Gardens is a private party for monkeys only. Sorry!

Look at the score :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/c14.jpg

IT: Djenne: Harbor -> Longbowman.
Kumbi: War Elephant -> War Elephant.

9) 1140AD time passes.

IT: Timbuktu: Jewish Missionary -> Jewish Missionary.

10) 1150AD first Missionary dispatched towards Apache.

Apache should whip theatre as soon as possible. How much construction does a whipping generate?

Each pop point whipped is worth 30s, affected by game speed and applicable production modifiers. Cities with multiple food bonuses should try to whip multiple pop points at a time, since the happiness penalty is flat rate without regard to how many died. Also, regrowth of pop points costs LESS when the city size is smaller, so you pretty much want to be whipping as many pop points at a time as you are allowed to do, UNLESS the city is low food, in which case you shouldn't whip at all.

Nice job on the wonder! :hammer:


Griselda is UP NOW! :whipped:


- Sirian

Each pop point whipped is worth 30s, affected by game speed and applicable production modifiers. Cities with multiple food bonuses should try to whip multiple pop points at a time, since the happiness penalty is flat rate without regard to how many died. Also, regrowth of pop points costs LESS when the city size is smaller, so you pretty much want to be whipping as many pop points at a time as you are allowed to do, UNLESS the city is low food, in which case you shouldn't whip at all.

- Sirian

Just on this subject, is there a Civ-3 like cost modifier for whipping a project from start to finish in 1 turn? My experience of whipping in Civ 4 is limited, but I think I've noticed it seems to cost more to try to whip something in full, eg, if you try to whip an archer from start to finish it costs 2 pop, but if you wait a turn for shields to be invested, it then just costs 1 pop. Is this correct?

Just on this subject, is there a Civ-3 like cost modifier for whipping a project from start to finish in 1 turn?

I wish it wasn't there, since it's a pain in the butt, but yes, it's there. So except in emergencies, you need to let an item get a turn of production under its belt first. (Even one shield is enough). Sound gamey? It is, but that's the best way to work with it.


- Sirian

I see it. I'm home sick tomorrow, so if I'm coherent, I'll play.

The cool thing about having had you in my Civ3 Training Day game is that I feel no inhibitions about using the PROD. :whipped: That's awful, I know, but you signed the (invisible) contract, along with poor TBC, Rowain, ChrTh, and Zot. The provisions of that relationship have no sunset clauses, meaning that you are in for the direct treatment from here to eternity. :eek: :lol:

I'm sorry that you're not feeling well, of course. Etc etc. So... now is your opportunity to gather what coherence you have and press onward. :D

If you can't be productive at work... :mischief:


- Sirian

Plus, I'm the only PROD player who couldn't say I didn't know what I was getting into, since I came in late.

I played most of the way through, but have to stop now. Will finish and post tonight.

I can blame any :smoke: in this round on incoherence, right? :lol:

IT - We have a ton more cities than we had last time, plus a new religion. Focus for this round is going to have to be on getting those cities up to speed, plus spreading Judaism. I also have the suspicion that the world is small enough that peace won't last for long.

Make a note to whip Apache in 3. That requires running lower food than I'd like, but culture is more important there at the moment, and at least we have some in the box.

I'd like to see some more galleys and fishing boats. Especially if we are light on military, then we need to be able to move units quickly.

BT- Tekedda Theatre-granary (queued). Awlil gets Buddhism. :(

(1) 1160 AD - It seems like we would want a lighthouse before a granary in stagnant Tekedda, so I swap it. I'm keeping the granary first in Awdag, though, because they will have food coming online with the border expansion.

Workers arrive on incense tile. I have to chop an extra forst in Timbuktu's radius to bring irrigation down, since the tile 1W of Timbuktu is chopped already. Other worker starts on irrigation line.

Julius is heading up north of Apache with a settler. I wonder what's up there?

My worker on Walata Isle can't bring irrigation to Tekedda until its borders expand. I move to another tile that will eventually be the LOI to the south, but will swap back to the Tekedda line after expansion.

Peter has Civil Service, and Liz has drama. However, he doesn't have anything that anyone wants except for Fred, who doesn't have anything he wants. I think. I'll keep an eye on it- I hate to give up civil service for optics straight up, and theology isn't worth enough.

BT - Timbuktu Jewish Missionary- Jewish Missionary. I wonder if we should go for something else with chops, but Sistine seems too costly with marble not close to being hooked up. Speeding missionary builds isn't the worst thing in the world, either, even if they are cheap. Gao longbow - work boat. Need infra but will wait for Judaism. Awlil theatre - lighthouse.

(2) 1170 AD New longbow towards SE colonies. Missionary towards Djenne.

BT - Qinky wants Civil Service for Optics and 20 gold. Sorry, I was just hesitating to make that deal with my good buddy Khan!

Khan wants us to cancel our open borders and fish-wheat deal with Liz. I agree, although we will really miss the health.

Kumbi War elephant - library. Judaism spreads in Tadmekka. [party]

(3) 1180 AD Convert Djenne to Judaism. Offer Khan the same deal that Liz wanted (optics for civil service and 20, and get it). I have to fire an engineer in Timbuktu because of the health. We can slip a harbor in, though. Those crabs become a major priority! Whip theatre in Apache.

BT - Timbuktu Jewish Missionary - harbor. Walata longbowman - galley. Apache theatre - jewish temple (well, we will start this on the new turn after conversion).

(4) 1190 AD - Convert Apache and start temple.

BT - Deny open borders to Qin. Gao work boat - galley. Awdawg and Tekedda expand.

(5) 1200 AD Work boat heads towards crabs. It will take awhile, though! In hindsight, this was probably a dumb place to build the workboat from. :blush:

BT - Guilds - banking (considered Philsophy, but Liz has it). Djenne longbow - missionary. Awili expands.

(6) 1210 AD Convert Gao

BT - Peter wants us to gift him Guilds, which afaik is a monopoly tech of ours. He's behind in score, and I might have given him something else, but this is too much to ask, I think.

Niani granary - library. Apache's borders expand. At least its own tile is now 96% Malinese instead of 50%. :lol:

(7) 1220 AD We are finally scouting Russia. I unload a couple of units by Tadmekka. Peter has engineering now and will even trade it. We are only up drama and guilds, and guilds is a monopoly. He has 100 gold, though. Maybe our best bet is to see what things look like once we have banking, though.

BT - Timbuktu harbor - Jewish missionary. Kumbu library - Jewish missionary. I will spread these around any maybe alternate infra.

Peter adopts Bureaucracy and Theocracy. Julius adops Bureaucracy. Djenne loves its Monarch.

(8) 1230 AD I misclicked and gave Tadmekka's longbow drill 1 instead of city garrison 1. I decided not to reload, and just used its other promotion for city garrison. Hopefully this won't make a difference in some critical battle down the road, or it's :spank: for Gris. Start improving spices.

BT - Peter calls up and offers Engineering and 110 gold for Guilds. Now, we have a monopoly on Guilds, but we've had it for a while, plus Peter is the least "solid" of our Jewish friends, plus the techs are equal in beakers. I accept.

Gao galley - harbor.

(9) 1240 AD - A misclick sends our fishing boat backwards a tile. That *is* worth a reload, so I reload from autosave. Timbuktu chop completes.

BT - Timbuktu Missionary - work boat. Maybe for the SE? Walata galley - work boat.

(10) 1250 AD - Mongolia gets Zoroaster. Walata's galley steps off shore to be a bridge for the war elephant to walk over. SE galley drops off a longbowman in Awili. We badly need a worker or two down there. We could self build, or ferry one, I guess. Missionary heads SW towards Niani or Walata.

We could whip the temple in Apache if we wanted. It's only one culture, so it might not be worth it, though.

We badly need infrastructure and improvements, and also some more military. Clearly, we can have the civics to do one or the other (but not both) well at a time, but luckily Judaism is spread around enough that we cab build infra at a reasonable pace. Getting grocers going with our spices, and getting those crabs with Walata's work boat will be a huge help. Plus, we'll need courthouses, libraries, markets, and banks. Egads! Let's just hope the AI don't pick on us for being on top in the next little while. :cringe: Oh, and we could stand to settle Sirian's dots, too.

See it. Prolly closer to tomorrow than today.

[0] 1250 AD - Well, here we are. We are relatively vast. Banking in 2. We could use lots of things, and we'll see what we can do about them.

[1] 1260 AD - Timbuktu Work Boat->Market, Kumbi Missionary->Market.

Move some stuff around.

[2] 1270 AD - Banking comes in, start on Paper. Djenne Missionary->Bank, Tadmekka Lighthouse->Worker.

Move some more stuff around.

[3] 1280 AD - Tekedda Lighthouse->Granary.

Stuff, as is custom, gets moved.

[4] 1290 AD - Walata Work Boat->Work Boat.

Various things of a work boatable nature are work boated, in a work boatlike fashion.

I'm not sure that work boatlike actually...works, shall we say, as a word/phrase/whatever, but that's ok. When one's empire is run by squirrel aliens, one can do these things.

Also, I moved stuff.

IBT - Fred gets Sistine.

[5] 1300 AD - Move some stuff. Things were feeling left out by all this stuff moving, so I moved some things, too, to make them feel better.

[6] 1310 AD - Paper comes in, start on Education.

Timbuktu Market->Bank, Gao Harbor->Bank, Apache Jewish Temple->Confucian Temple.

Is it bad that whenever I think of Apache, I think of it as "Fort" Apache?

Can't quite afford it (-7 gpt) yet, but I nudge science back to 60%.

[7] 1320 AD - Kumbi Market->Bank, Awlil Lighthouse->Granary.

Work Boat the crabs, for great healthfulness. Timbuktu and Kumbi get Avoid Growth turned on to avoid random plagues.

IBT - Qin comes demanding Drama. Uh...no.

[8] 1330 AD - Walata Work Boat->Temple.

A nice 90 shield lumberjacking of a random forest tile SW of Timbuktu that it can't work will let us finish Timbuktu's bank next turn.

I know you won't believe this, but I moved some stuff. I know. It defies belief. But I did.

IBT - Fred comes wanting to trade Music for Paper and 70 gold. I decline.

[9] 1340 AD - Timbuktu Bank->Grocer. If we could then start rushing out those monastaries, Timbuktu would be really really nice.

In a stunning reversal from the norm, I move stuff.

IBT - Qin urges us to convert to Buddhism, which, while highly amusing, isn't happening. We're racking up a pretty good list of negatives with our boy, here.

[10] 1350 AD - And then, to be different, we lumberjack ourselves halfway to Timbuktu's Grocer.

In the end, stuff was moved, and moving stuff was the end.

Hmm, wasn't the plan to save most of Timbuktu's forests, only building a line of irrigation out to the SW?

Hmm, wasn't the plan to save most of Timbuktu's forests, only building a line of irrigation out to the SW?

Apparently that's not the plan any more. :crazyeye:

Various pigskin-slinging contests are slated to consume the bulk of my attention in the short term. This particularly includes the rain-soaked left coast affair that kicks things off. ETA on my Snow Flakes results is "not today". :lol:


- Sirian

So how is it that you always manage to be up on the weekends, which would be better for most people, but isn't so good for you? :P

Playing these short roster games, the turns come around more often. I may get two in in a week, or three in two weeks. I don't think I've had a disproportionate number of weekend games. I certainly haven't had weekends where the WHOLE THING was taken up by football. But, it's the Playoffs now! Only two weeks out of the whole year when there are four games on over two days that I'm interested in watching. That just happened to be last week and this week. Next week, it's back down to one day.


- Sirian

Hey, I am not complaining about how long it takes you to play. The last thing I need is to PROD the PRODDER :whipped:. Plus, I may need some leeway come basketball playoff time (ONLY FIVE MONTHS AWAY!!!111). ;)

I was just talking about how Murphy divides up weekend vs. weekday timeslots in the game.

Wherein, the whole time I was playing, said repeatedly to myself "So what really important thing am I doing wrong? Because there's gotta be something."

Whoops. Not sure how I missed the thing about the trees, but I did. :|

IT 1350AD: I looked around our cities to start, and found lots of :smoke:

There were cities working regular coastal plots instead of Netted Fishes. :smoke:

There were cities working on some projects that made me go Hmm.

We have paper but have not acquired anybody's maps.

I think Dwip a little TOO bored by moving ships around and lulled himself to sleep. :lol:

The main thing I was very pleased with is our military situation. It's solid. :thumbsup:
Also cranking is our religion. It has been spread all over. And we are building half-cost banks. :hammer:

So I try to keep in mind that we have met many of our recent goals.
Plus Jaffa went for a wonder, which is big in that we got it and they didn't.
The wonder was worth two forest chops. Heck, the health from it replaced the lost forests!
Some of those extra chops, though... [pimp] We only have two high shield cities! :eek:
Blunting one of those... I dunno. Could make things interesting.

Anyway, with Banks being built in the core, and the colonies struggling...
...this will be a round without many noteworthy highlights.

Please don't chop any of these forests!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/rb7-sirian-48.jpg

You're looking at our Ironworks city, I believe.
(The capital needs to run National Epic and probably Wall Street.)

As shown in the above pic, we've reached the Health limit...
...so I MMed the city to max shields and halt growth.


Colonies with seafood are major :whipped: candidates!
Having gone 20 and 30 turns without whipping up a Work Boat is nothing short of :smoke:

The basics of a Fishing Village are:
1. Culture (to pull in all seafood and resources).
2. Granary. (Granary before Lighthouse in all cases, because of Slavery!)
3. Lighthouse.
4. Forge. (Forges increase slavery production as well as normal production).
5. If running Organized Religion civic, the state religion. (Increases slavery on buildings).

Then you can crack the whip on bigger projects for multiple pop points.
It's really the only way to make shieldless Fishing Villages(TM) productive.

Cities with literally no high food tiles need to AVOID the whip at almost all costs.
You have no choice but to let them crawl along. Whipping actually hurts them.

Dwip: I would recommend that you reduce your usage of Avoid Growth.
If you want a city to avoid growth, turn off the governor and MM it.
The Avoid Growth button is generally for situations where the city won't EVER grow again.
Anything less than that and you're better off MMing, as Avoid Growth is not set to run things efficiently.

I think a lot of the head-scratching [pimp] issues with city tiles are leftovers from Avoid Growth.
That one item where a fish was not being worked was just amazing!

I really am pleased with our religious and military situations, though.
I'm going to lean on straightening out these colonies while the core builds up.
Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure on this round!


1350AD: I trade maps with Frederick, then buy any pieces of maps from our other friends.
Most of the world lights up:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/rb7-sirian-49.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/rb7-sirian-50.jpg

If you've never seen Ice Age map before, it's shortened by larger ice caps.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/rb7-sirian-51.jpg

So at full width but shortened height, plus lower sea levels, makes for a unique experience.
Combine that with the arid and chilly lands, and it can be a real adventure!
Cottages are harder to come by because grasslands are in shorter supply.


Early: Our two good shield cities finish banks. Start Settler in Tim, culture in Kumbi.

Middle: Trade Guilds to Caesar for Music and some pennies.
Got our remaining seafoods hooked up.
Got our colonies focusing on The Basics. Forges especially are on order.

Late: Trade Banking to Germany for Philosophy. This puts the Merchant at Economics at risk.
However, I'd rather lose that than to lose the Free Tech from Liberalism.
I'm really gambling that we can get both.
If Economics still says First To Discover gets a Free Great Merchant then take that with the Liberalism freebie.
Get both freebies in one swoop, and deny them to our rivals.

We discovered Education, started on Liberalism.
Banks completed in our other cities. I pushed our tech rate, started Universities.
Settled Light Blue Dot.

Negotiated for Copper. (Trading Incense and Crabs for it.)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/rb7-sirian-47.jpg

We already had Iron, so the Copper is just for half-cost stuff we might build.
Not sure if we will need it, but we didn't need what we're trading away either. *shrug*

I got our colonies cranking along much better. This one still lacks both Forge and Religion though:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/rb7-sirian-52.jpg

If we had both there, Slavery cost would drop by a third!


THIS city looks like a good one for training lots of Missionaries for us:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/rb7-sirian-53.jpg

It should at least be able to train Jewish missionaries for our cities who lack.

With Forge and Organized Religion in place, each forest is worth 3spt on buildings!
So this is not a place to whip any more. Work all the forests, and grow at 2fpt.
OrgRel bonus won't apply to missionaries, but at 11spt they will only take 4 turns apiece and not tie up core cities.

Now here is the most amazing thing. We've got a HEADLESS HYDRA! :eek:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/rb7-sirian-54.jpg

No shrines built? How did we get to 1450AD without a shrine! :crazyeye:

That is probably at least partly my fault. I did spend a prophet on Christianity.
Still, no prophets since then? :eek:

We may have to set up one of our two-seafood fishing villages with four religions and four temples...
...then run four Priest specialists for a long time, to get some Prophets!
Or we might get lucky and pop some from low-pecentage odds...
...but I'd not suggest that we rely on THAT as our only hope. :nono:

If we don't get at least two shrines before the modern age, man, that is going to be sad!

As you can see above, since our forests are gone at the capital, I put up extra cottages.
They are thin now, but if we invest in them and run UniSuff later, they will be sweet again!


I mentioned the Liberalism possibility. Not sure if we will, but would be nice to get both freebies.

We need a Forbidden Palace in Walata!
Would be nice if we got that started before my turn comes around again. :whipped:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/rb7-sirian-55.jpg

I built nary a military unit, no missionaries. One settler, lots of buildings.
I think I gave our colonies a good kick in the pants.
Lots more whipping still available for some of them, though.


Jaffa's up now.


- Sirian

The basics of a Fishing Village are:
1. Culture (to pull in all seafood and resources).
2. Granary. (Granary before Lighthouse in all cases, because of Slavery!)
3. Lighthouse.
4. Forge. (Forges increase slavery production as well as normal production).
5. If running Organized Religion civic, the state religion. (Increases slavery on buildings).


Well isn't that (#4,#5) handy.

With #5, you are suggesting that the village build it's own missionary, rather than having one bussed in?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/rb7-sirian-54.jpg


As you can see above, since our forests are gone at the capital, I put up extra cottages.

They are thin now, but if we invest in them and run UniSuff later, they will be sweet again!- Sirian

Lurker's comment: You cut your irrigation line with the cottage on the river.

Is there any point in still trying to settle the hill SW of Timbuktu? It would be a canal and work wasted tiles, but I'm not sure that's reason enough. Thoughts?

Lurker's comment: You cut your irrigation line with the cottage on the river.

Woops, you're right. I was thinking that the city was on the lake. :smoke:

The thing to do here is to put the farm back on the Plains tile NW of the city center. That will reopen the irrigation line. (The cottage along the river is more mature and more valuable).


Gris: I still think that city is worth doing. Post-biology, with two farm plots, it can work the gold mine and still grow at 2fpt. Until then it will limp along a bit, but being financial adds value to all water plots worked.


- Sirian

Not sure I understand how you broke your irrigation line. There are farms all over. What is it you need a fresh-water-to-city line for?

I see it.

I'm wondering about the irrigation thing too.

Irrigation must chain through adjacent plots, starting at a fresh water plot. This chain MAY pass through a city center that is on irrigable flatlands.

We had two sources of irrigation chain passing through the city and I cut them both. :smoke: One has to be reconnected, since unirrigated farms lose a food apiece! :eek: Reconnecting through the Plains plot NW of city center looks better to me.

Make sense?


- Sirian

0) 1450AD - It s